Another Architecture N65 December 2016January 2017

How to use cats

in architecture
Reinventing a
German village
Building high-
rises in wood
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 Mark 65 December 2016 January 2017 005

Plan
032

012 Notice Board

022 Cross Section

024 Diller Scodio + Renfro /

Gensler New York
026 Fujiwaramuro Hiroshima
028 Nio Prato
030 JDS Hangzhou
032 PLAYstudio / YES Vienna
034 V+ Ghlin
036 Idom Lima
038 SO-IL / Bohlin Cywinski
Jackson Davis
040 Infographic
042 Michael Sorkin Studio Xian
044 Studio Proto pe Wijchen PLAYstudio / YES
Housing in Vienna

046 Tomohiro Hata Otsu Photo Michael Hierner

048 DRAA Las Trancas

050 Martin Dubeau / Jonathan
Jacques-Bellette
052 Freelon Group / Adjaye 058
Associates / Davis Brody
Bond Washington, D.C.
054 Aranza de Ario San Pedro
Tututepec

056 Pers ective

Blaibach

058 Peter Haimerl never planned Peter Haimerl

to reinvent the village of Concert hall in Blaibach
Photo Edward Beierle
Blaibach. It happened
gradually. House by house.
006 Mark 65 December 2016 January 2017

082 Lon Section

084 Zaha Hadid Architects Port House reects

084
the ambitions of Antwerps harbour.
094 Keiichi Kiriyama builds houses like forests.
Interior trees help to connect the inhabitants
to nature.
108 Father and son duo Marcio and Gabriel
Kogan team up with architecture
photographer Pedro Kok and lmmaker
Lea Van Steen for a series of short lms
featuring some of the houses they designed
over the years.
116 Edouard Franois plants a nature-inclusive
tower in Paris.
124 Building high-rises in wood is becoming
increasingly widespread. In Stockholm, Zaha Hadid Architects

plans are being made for a 34-storey Oce building in Antwerp

Photo Tim Fisher

apartment building.
136 Fuhrimann Hchler built a house in
Olten that pays homage to Le Corbusiers
principles of modern architecture.
142 6as studio for fashion and art photographer 094
Juergen Teller lends itself for a varie of
photo shoots.
150 Students on the Universi of Colorado
Denvers design-build programme created a
series of huts in perfect harmony with their
forest location.
160 Amateur Architecture Studio designed
houses for the people of the Chinese village
of Wencun. ey dont like them, but tourists
are happy to stay there.
168 Joseph Giovannini talks about reading and
writing, eccentric architects and about the
Deep South, where people are still friendly.

172 Tools Airhouse

House in Ohno
Photo Toshiyuki Yano

192 Exit
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008 Mark 65 December 2016 January 2017

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Through the lens of creative spaces, photographer Paul Barbera
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Mark 65

Notice
Board
 Notice Board 013

e inter la
of movement,
li ht and
shadow
is enerated
b Tobias Wallisser on LAVAs design for an energy park
and energy storage building in Heidelberg, page 018

sun and wind

014 Mark 65 Notice Board

Banque Libano-Franaise
Norwegian architecture rm Snhea won the architecture
competition for the new headquarters of the Banque Libano-
Franaise in Beirut. e competition started in January 2016,
when eight architecture rms were selected to participate
in a closed competition. Aer reviewing the entries, the
jury, composed of Walid Raphal, Raya Raphal Nahas, Luca
Molinari, Hashim Sarkis, Jean-Christophe Fromantin and
Li Brian Zhang, could not determine a winner. It chose three
studios (Barozzi Veiga, BIG and Snhea) for a second round,
requesting them to rther develop their projects. Snhea
won the second round.

Nabil Gholam

Piuarch

Kengo Kuma & Associates

YTAA
 015

Barozzi Veiga

BIG Farshid Moussawi

Snhea
016 Mark 65 Notice Board

4
 017

1 Rising Ryde
Ryde Australia
Architensions
46,657-m2 civic centre
Competition entry, shortlisted
architensions.com

2 Soundport Headquarters
Copenhagen Denmark
Foster + Partners
39,000-m2 headquarters for
Ferring Pharmaceuticals in
Kastrup, on the strait of resund
Expected completion 2019
fosterandpartners.com

3 Foon House(s)
Leiden Netherlands
Froscen (Simon George and
Jrg Franken)
Adaptive reuse of a Second
World War telephone bunker,
topped by four sustainable
micro homes
Design proposal
froscen.com

4 Pudong Art Museum

Shanghai China
Open Architecture
36,486-m2 museum with art
galleries, auditorium, art library,
caf, restaurant, art storage
and oces
Competition entry
openarch.com

5 Administration Replacement
Building
Pomona CA USA
CO Architects
13,000-m2 administration
replacement building with an
undulating, standing-seam
aluminium roof
2
Expected completion August 2018
coarchitects.com

5
018 Mark 65 Notice Board

1 Xinhua Bookstore Group

Chongqing China
Aedas
153,980-m2 tower for the
Xinhua Bookstore Group with
cultural plaza, retail, apartments,
oces and a hotel in the
Jiefangbei Central Business
District
Expected completion 2020
aedas.com

2 Energy Storage Centre

Heidelberg Germany
Lava
56-m-high energy storage
centre with a faade consisting of
around 20,000 diamond-shaped
plates of thin stainless steel
Competition entry, 1st prize, ground
breaking 2017
l-a-v-a.net

3 Xili Sports and Cultural Centre

Shenzhen South China
MVRDV
105,000-m2 structure with
amphitheatre, basketball/
badminton arena, multinctional
arena and swimming pool
Expected completion undisclosed
mvrdv.com

4 Headquarters Booking.com 2
Amsterdam Netherlands
UNStudio
72,500-m2 building with public
venues, apartments and oces
for Booking.com
Expected completion 2020
unstudio.com
 019

4
020 Mark 65 Notice Board

1 3

4
 021

1 Science Ci
Cairo Egypt
Architects for Urbani
85,000-m2 building for the
Bibliotheca Alexandrina and UIA
with science park, exhibition
areas, HD theatre, observatory
tower, research facilities,
workshops, conference centre
and oces
Competition entry
architectsforurbani.com

2 Axel Springer Oces

Berlin Germany
OMA
Oce building for 3,500
employees featuring a 30-m-high
atrium and 3D faade elements
Expected completion undisclosed
oma.com

3 Innovation Port
Hamburg Germany
MVRDV and morePlatz (Johannes
Schele and Caro Baumann)
70,000-m2 master plan with
hotels, conference halls, oces,
5 laboratories, research facilities
and parking
Expected completion undisclosed
mvrdv.com
moreplatz.com

4 Droneport project
Rwanda
Foster + Partners
Droneport for the support
of humanitarian aid
Expected completion undisclosed
fosterandpartners.com

5 Rwanda Cricket Stadium

Foundation
Kigali Rwanda
Light Earth Designs
Multipurpose cricket pavilion
with thin shell vaults with spans
of up to 16 m
Crowdnding stage
homestrings.com
 022
Mark 65

Cross
Section
 Cross Section 023

Scarce
thou ht
oes into
how to eo Deutinger,
Liam Cooke and
Stefanos Filippas on
dismantling as a part
of the architecture
profession, page 040

et rid of
the stu
we build
024 Mark 65 Cross Section

Vagelos Education Center

seen from the south.
Diller Scodio + Renfro / Gensler
esting a ndamentally palee of materials and colours (a
New York NY USA
Vertical
Learning
e Vagelos
Education
Center by
Diller Scodio
+ Renfro and
Gensler features
a 14-storey
cascade for
informal study.
Text Reed Miller
Photo Iwan Baan
At 170th Street in Manhaan,
concrete slabs march up the Bard-
Haven Towers, three 30-storey
student residences overlooking
the Hudson River. e paern of
their familiar o-white silhouees
provided a theme for the bold
variations of their new neighbour,
the Vagelos Education Center.
Located at the northern
edge of the Columbia Universi of the high-rise a study cascade.
Medical Center, the project is
the latest realized work of local
architects Diller Scodio +
Renfro, designed in collaboration
with Gensler. On the north side
of the building, thin horizontal
panels of glass bre reinforced
concrete trace each oor plate; a
fried-glass curtain wall hangs
between them. e faade recalls
the plain horizontal stripes of the
residential towers to the west,
while su
dierent structure. Its this end
of the building that houses
specialized programmes requiring
uninterrupted oor space: labs,
classrooms, simulation suites, et
cetera. Follow the oor plates to
025
the south faade, though, and you
can see them bending, breaking
and even connecting to form
closed loops. As the oors and
ceilings transform on this side of
the building, they open and deect
from the horizontal, creating a less
conventional space for the facili s
more exible nctions.
e designers call this part
Its a single space, unbroken over
the ll 14-storey height of the
building and served by a circuitous
open stair that lends access to
various areas for informal study.
Students and facul just
beginning to occupy the building
will circulate, sele and ultimately
decide whether the cascade is
too unprogrammed for its own
good, but the vertical expanse of
shared air and a warm consistent
predominance of orange!) give the
impression of a coherent space,
even from outside.
dsrny.com
gensler.com
026 Mark 65 Cross Section

Text Cathelijne Nuijsink

O is Photos Toshiyuki Yano

Can you explain the reference to

the doma the traditional Japanese
gardening, wanted to preserve the
relationship between house and
owers will bloom in and around
the doma, and we hope that it will

for dirt oor?

SHINTARO FUJIWARA: e main
focus of the relationship between
nature. Although not one of their
initial requirements, the doma
contributes to the circulation
occasionally serve as a place where
our clients and their neighbours
communicate with one another.

Order
the doma and the architecture
itself is the interior space. We
extended the doma to the exterior
of the house, where it establishes
a relationship that goes beyond
its original nction. What
the two have in common is a
consciousness of outside.
Fujiwaramuro What made you think that
outside the house we envisioned
and forges a stronger link
between garden and house.
Why did you give the doma such a
prominent shape?
We did not want a dirt oor that
would only establish a connection
between inside and outside. We
wanted it to create a sense of order
Whats more, our clients are
planning to use the living room
as a lile store for sundries and
as a workshop for activities such
as dyeing and engraving. Passers-
by who stop for a chat while
admiring the doma may be drawn
farther into the house to see what
else there is to enjoy.
aplan.jp

used a circular this old solution would suit a

contemporary house?
walkway to tie e site used to have a vegetable
garden and owerbeds with
together a house several kinds of blooming
plants. e clients, a middle-
and its garden. aged couple whose hobby is
for the entire site. at explains
the symbolic shape.
Do you think the result inuences
connections among those who use
the house and garden?
Each season, dierent kinds of
 Fujiwaramuro Hiroshima Japan 027

Cross Section Plan

Long Section
028
New Wave
Text Monica Zerboni
Photo Lineashow
Although only a stones throw from
e designer calls
Florence, Prato is not Florence, and
its inhabitants do not like to be
compared with the neighbouring
Florentines. Proud of its industrial
heritage, for the past 30 years the
smaller ci has devoted its eorts
to becoming a rst-rate centre
for contemporary art. Centro
Pecci, which opened in 1988, was
established by local entrepreneur
Enrico Pecci in memory of his
son. Nearly three decades later, the
size of the museum has doubled,
thanks to nancial aid from the
European Cultural Foundation and
the contribution of Dutch architect
Maurice Nio, whose signature
e
marks the striking extension of the
original building.
Nios uid volume makes
a strong architectural impact and,
at the same time, forms a bold
contrast to the severe character of
the existing museum. Impossible
to miss, the extension stands out as
an a ention-grabbing object in an
otherwise anonymous industrial
Mark 65 Cross Section
Maurice Nio extended the
Pecci Museum with a bold
semicircular volume.
environment.
his work Sensing the Waves.
Its semicircular shape can be
interpreted in various ways: as a
ring, a disc, a spaceship, a lunar
sliver and its rising antenna
might be seen as a sensor capable
of intercepting and transmi ing
the creativi of the artists whose
pieces appear inside the building.
New interior spaces are
arranged on two levels within a
volume that embraces the original
building and joins it at both ends. Photo Nio Architecten
Ground-oor facilities include a
theatre, a cinema, a library and a
restaurant whose glazed faades
+1
provide views of the ci.
exterior surface of the upper level,
used for temporary exhibitions,
wears a warm, bronze-coloured
metal cladding. Inside the building,
transparency interacts with
opaci, concavi with convexi,
and lightness with heaviness.
Contrasts that make Pratos
splendid landmark worth a visit.
nio.nl
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030
Text Harry den Hartog
Photos Julien Lanoo
Hangzhou Xintiandi is a real
estate development that is meant
to turn a former industrial
area in the prosperous Chinese
metropolis of Hangzhou into a
luxury business district along
the ring road. To this end, several
characteristic industrial buildings
are being reused to house cultural
and public facilities and retail.
e majori of the adjacent new
buildings, however, are uniform
oce and hotel towers.
Designed by JDS
Architects, the sculptural
Mark 65
Hangzhou Gateway building
is a welcome exception to this
rule. ough the name suests
otherwise, the Gateway is not
a gate or connection between
two districts. It does, however,
nction as a landmark, nnelling
the crowds passing the ci street
into the new district by way of a
diagonal cut-out.
e entire building is used
as oce space for client Hakim
Information Technology, though
some ground-oor spaces are
reserved for small shops. e cut-
Cross Section
out that adorns the upper part of
the building is intended to allow
extra views and let in more light.
In addition, it creates a terrace
that is used to store rainwater for
reuse and cooling purposes. e
idea for a sunken, terrace-shaped
cut-out below the ground-
oor level had to be abandoned
because of complicated building
regulations.
is is the rst project
JDS Architects has completed
in China, with a second under
construction. When we asked
him about his experiences,
architect Julien De Smedt
answered: Working in China
has been an exciting and oen
contradictory experience of
opportunities and challenges,
technological limitations, cultural
compromises and cuing corners
during construction. In our
overall strategy for Asia, we try
to leverage our reputation in the
industry to avoid these pitfalls,
sometimes by literally cuing
corners.
jdsa.eu
 JDS Architects Hangzhou China 031

Cuing JDS provides a new

commercial center in
Corners Hangzhou with a showpiece.

+5 + 16

0 +9
032
Electried
Lemons
Spanish oces
PLAYstudio and YES
designed a housing
project for a residual
site in Vienna.
is Europan project was completed 13 years
aer the competition was won. e project
features 115 apartments, 14 oces, a caf
and retail space. Parking is underground.
Mark 65 Cross Section
Text and photos Michael Hierner
We ew over Vienna and saw
the colourl elds of fallow
land surrounding the ci. e
shapes and colours inspired us,
says architect Ivn Capdevila,
who cofounded YIC, the Spanish
oce that won the Europan 7
competition in 2003 and which
recently split into two practices:
PLAYstudio and YES.
eir social housing project
is located in the south of Vienna on
a dicult site wedged between an
elevated section of the metro and a
busy motorway. Spanning the site
is an overhead 110 kV power line.
A study showed that the electrici
transmied poses no danger to
residents of the project, but many
people harbour a psychological fear
of the high-voltage conductors.
e architects responded to their
anxie by tilting the schemes
four tower blocks away from the
cables, a strategy that resulted in
an unusual design with uncommon
characteristics.
e extroverted towers
are just one part of the concept,
however, which also includes
introverted patio houses
reminiscent of a Mediterranean
lifesle. Lower buildings along
the metro rails serve as noise
barriers. Other socially relevant
features are a communal roof
terrace and a large green park
with a playground.
Although the project has
enjoyed a very positive reception,
its bright yellow faades have
certainly caused a stir. e original
proposal indicated buildings with
white and silver exteriors, but the
developers felt those colours might
appear depressing in winter. e
sunny tint agreed upon intended
to cheer everyone up on cloudy
days also led to the projects
nickname: Yellow Lemons.
playstudio.es
y-e-s.es
PLAYstudio / YES Vienna Austria 033
034 Mark 65
e Wishing-Table
Text Izabela Anna
V+ endows Photo Maxime Delvaux
static utili In the UK, there is a saying
that goes: all good ideas start
with playl in the pub. e water tower in
movement. the Belgian village of Ghlin by
Brussels-based architecture studio
V+ relates distantly to this theory.
Although we know nothing about
the beer, there was certainly a
table involved in conceiving the
idea for Chateau dEau 113.
e challenge when
designing a water tower is how to
keep a huge amount of water very
high up in the air. It needs a strong
structure, explains Jrn Aram
Bihain of V+. e practice made
a simple drawing of a wooden
fold-out table, such as those oen
found in gardens, which was
Cross Section
then presented as a metaphorical
resume of the concept. Looking
at the water towers crossed legs,
the resemblance is unmistakable
even though the steel-enforced
concrete legs are asymmetric
for seismic reasons. From a
perceptional point of view, the
Mikado-like arrangement allows
for intriguing vistas on the
ground. A concrete plateau on
the top nctions as a gurative
table top. e actual water tank,
encircled by perforated metal
sheets, was constructed separately
and manhandled into place by
Europes bi est crane.
at industrial complexes
like water towers and power
Cross Section
Concept
plants have rare aesthetic appeal is
indisputable, at least since Bernd
and Hilla Bechers photographic
pologies. Unfortunately, most
of the structures that the couple
captured were torn down shortly
aer being photographed. In an
aempt to not to let history repeat
itself, Bihan and V+ have already
taken ture usages of the complex
into account. Once the water
tower becomes redundant, the
large platform can be transformed
and used for private dwellings, a
panoramic restaurant or bungee
jumping.
vplus.org
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036 Mark 65 Cross Section

Text Izabela Anna

Photos Antonio Sorrentino

With a population of nearly 10 but also allow for peeks into

Lounge of million, Lima is one of the biest

cities in the Americas. e Lima
Convention Centre, designed by
parts of the interior. The heart
of the project, so the architects
say, is an elevated outdoor area

the Nation Idom, caters to the urban business

Idoms convention
centre in Lima is a bold
brutalist statement.
population in both a nctional
and aesthetic sense. Situated in
a strategic location in proximi
to the National Museum, the
Ministry of Education and the
National Bank an area that is
locally referred to as the Cultural
Centre of the Nation the venues
appearance makes a point. It is
a bold brutalist statement in the
shape of a tough concrete cube,
at some points hollowed out, at
others clad in metal or glass. On
the inside, rectangles and squares
continue to dominate the dialogue
between built environment and
living beings. Cut-outs in the
concrete reveal panoramic vistas
of the ciscape, the mountains,
called Lima Lounge, generated
naturally by the disposition and
the difference in height of the
convention halls.
e geometrical layout is
brought to life with calculated
splashes of colour: on the terraces
the vivid views are accompanied
by bright red rnishings and
contrasting greenery grass
that lies on the manmade stone
like a so carpet. ere is social
potential in this massive space
that can hold up to 10,000 people
at a time in 18 multipurpose
convention halls. e programme
rther includes underground
parking space, restaurants,
cafeterias and other services.
idom.com
 Idom Lima Peru 037

Cross Section
038 Mark 65 Cross Section

Text Campbell McNeill

Photos Iwan Baan

e US ci of Davis, west of
Sacramento, hosts the Universi
of Californias new art museum.
e building, when viewed from
above, has a patchwork roof that
mimics the paerns from the
surrounding farmland. In 2013
a design-build competition was
won in a collaborative eort by
New York-based architects SO-IL,
the San Francisco oce of Bohlin
Cywinski Jackson and the Folsom
oce of construction company
Whiting-Turner.
e museum is used as an
exhibition space and education
platform for the Universi of
museum is spread across the site
and organized into ve distinct
areas: the gallery pavilion, the
education pavilion, the operations
pavilion, the lobby and courard
area, and the outdoor events plaza.
All of the spaces nction for the
reception of art in either a gallery
format, as classrooms and studios,
or performance and screening areas.
Bordered by roads and
carparks, the architects oriented
the pavilions inward to allow a
public and pedestrian realm to
emerge on the periphery of the
site, while providing a courard
in the centre. The design
down perceptions of indoor
and outdoor functionality,
opting not for one building
set within a landscape, but
for a few buildings that are
programmatically linked to
adjacent open-air spaces. The
complex comprises 4130 m2
of functional indoor and
outdoor space.
The sweeping metal
form connects areas by
delineating exterior rooms
with a canopy that continues to
act as a roof over the pavilions
containing interior functions.
The events plaza is dappled
feature roof, which filters
the light throughout the day.
The public space operates as
more than just an entrance
to the building; the intention
is that it will accommodate
interactive learning, open-air
exhibitions and performances.
Two of its walls are dedicated
to projecting digital works and
film, which activates the plaza
as a multipurpose space of
equal functional importance as
the remainder of the contained
spaces.
so-il.org
bcj.com

California. e programme for the strategy is focused on breaking by shadows formed by the
 SO-IL / Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Davis CA USA 039

Art Al Fresco
SO-IL and Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
have designed a complex sunshade
that spans a series of art spaces.

Plan

e Manei Shrem Museum

of Art has a canopy of
perforated aluminium
triangular beams, supported
by 40 steel columns.

Long Section
040 Mark 65 Cross Section

Total vacated
geotextile fabric
protection

vacated
properties

Demolition properties
geotextile fabric
protection
h
geotextile
fabric

Text and graphics eo Deutinger, Liam Cooke and Stefanos Filippas

n
sioon
Architects, structural engineers and manual demolition, machine 1 vacated
clients build for eterni. In the world demolition and deliberate collapse. o
of accountants, however, buildings Although the last is the most pl liti proper

Immo
explosions
start at the
are wrien o rather quickly. In spectacular and always good for a boom e
the United States, commercial crowd of spectators, it is dicult D
buildings have a nancial lifespan to separate the waste aerwards timber
hoardings
of 39 years, while in the Netherlands and is feasible only for high-rises public 2.5h
building for
and Germany their life expectancy surrounded by sucient space.
e evacuated
ranges from 30 to 50 years. Another Cut and Take Down Method is a residents
interesting statistic relates to the relatively recent, highly advanced
10,000+ apartments that are torn development: work starts at the geotextile fabric
protection
down annually in the Netherlands, boom by cuing one oor and
where buildings seem to be treated then lowering the entire building roadblock
no dierently than printers or on computer-controlled hydraulic 2
company cars.
e wrecking ball jacks. One oor a week is removed h
hangs as the proverbial sword of in this way, allowing all work to be roll-o Bu
Damocles over almost any building done safely at ground level. container lld
for debris
nowadays, with lile regard for even Dismantling seems to be oz
magnicent architecture. A good as much a part of the architecture er >h
example is OMAs stunning building profession as designing and building, H compacted
i water <15
for the Netherlands Dance
eatre in but except for temporary structures
Exgh- spray debris

e Hague, which was demolished and projects that take a cradle to 10

R
ca e max.
only 29 years aer its opening. cradle approach to design, scarce
bulldozer
va ac 10m
As sad as such cases might thought goes into how to get rid timber to h
hoardings r
be for the world of architecture, for of the stu we are building. It gets rubble is
those in charge of demolition, the even dodgier when you realize that cleared by
roadblock next morning
task is purely a maer of guring so much of todays extensively used oodlights
allow night
out the best and most ecient way insulation material will become the work
to break the building into pieces toxic waste of the ture. Its good 30m
plywood
small enough to be transported by to build with permanence in mind,
sheets
truck to a landll site. Generally but its also wise to consider the
6
ge n
speaking, there are three options: wrecking ball.
geotextile fabric r id sio
protection 25m B plo
Sources: protective element Im
hse.gov.uk / business.govt.nz / ctbuh.org / restricted access
johnunt.co.uk / bd.gov.hk / dds-demolition.co.uk / sand
eda-demolition.com / demolition-nfdc.com danger zone

quick coupling
system protection prevents cuing/wear
pulveriser crane
dynamite explosive concrete column diamond
saw
geotextile fabric concrete
deck
detonating cord chainlink wrap high-strength
steel wire

1 Implosion Demolition. Explosives detonated 2 High-Reach Excavator. Used for controlled 3 Cut and Li. Bridge is cut into sections and 4 Wire Rope Pulling. is pe of deliberate
on lower and upper oors create a controlled deconstruction of high rises or multistorey removed by crane. Cuing is done with collapse relies on wire ropes xed to key
collapse. Reduces cost, time and risk of danger structures. Boom lengths vary in size from diamond saws or high-pressure water jets. structural members and pulled by
when demolishing multistorey structures. 19 to over 50 m. excavator or winch.

scaold
110

thermic lance heavy-du

rock drill steel structure building
concrete shears aachment
bridge borehole for
mobile deck explosives
platform steel frame covered
li construction walkway
230

hoarding
50

5 ermic Lance. A thermochemical reaction 6 Bridge Implosion. Adaptabili and exibili 7 Mechanical Plant. Another common method 8 Top Down. Traditional progressive-demo-
generates intense temperatures in a tool that are key to a common method of bridge used for progressive demolition features lition method, oen chosen for
can cut through almost any material, demolition in which explosives placed in excavators with aachments such as shears, constricted sites, combines machine and
including steel, cast iron and concrete. boreholes cause a controlled collapse. pulverisers and grapples. manual dismantlement.
 Infographic 041

on-site waste
processing

M 5 thermic lance
e
& cha e
 n 7 op
er ica R
m lP
ic ire g
La lan 2m
W llin steel wire
nc t excavator Pu or chain
h max.
15m
e 4
debris collection
ke
1.5 h
Ta hydraulic
crane used for
liing heavy
t&
jacks machinery and 9

Cuwn
debris

o 13 arisings passed excavators

D debris collection through openings n
work in oors
owon
D
p liti
performed catch fan
2-layer protective
To mo
at ground
screen
level
8 e
D
timber protective screen
hoardings printed with
d image of facade covered
M
ine walkway
a
a timber
D nu
o nt hoardings
em al
C n roof removed
ol
e lf- owon presoaked to rst iti
S p-D iti reduce dust 11 on
l
To mo
e 3m
debris
D timber
hoardings
hand-sorted
on site

debris collection h forged-

steel ball
12 at, rm
diamond crane used for working
saw liing cut pieces ground

g
3 h+6m
kin
c
 h re
Li
timber debris collection
hoardings W ll
t& Ba
concrete broken

Cu up before removal

pontoon allows access

from below

remote control protected cabin

propping

9 Robotic Demolition. Powerl remote-controlled 10 Bulldozer. A machine for the demolition of

hydraulic excavator proves ideal when falling buildings no higher than two storeys, it
debris is a risk, because it eliminates the need knocks down the structure and clears debris
for a human operator in close proximi. from the site.
high-strength
pneumatic/ wire
hydraulic drag rope
hand tools sledgehammer

forged steel ball

up to 6 tonnes

11 Manual Demolition. In the case of a small
or delicate building, or one that needs to be
deconstructed and separated into its
component parts for reuse, dismantlement
by hand is a safe way to go.
12 Wrecking Ball. Progressive demolition used
for multistorey buildings with structural
damage is a job for the wrecking ball, whose
force can be applied from dierent
directions.
13 Cut and Take Down. Work starts at the
boom by cuing one oor a week; each
time, the entire building is lowered on
computer-controlled hydraulic jacks,
eliminating a great deal of noise and dust.
14 Self-Contained Top-Down Demolition. An
exoskeleton enclosing the top three oors is
aached to the building by a hydraulic
system and lowered as the structure is
progressively demolished from within.
042
Grounded Saucer
Michael Sorkin Studio designed a circular
oce building for the Xian Airport.
Text Gili Merin
Photos Wade Zimmerman
Ever since the completion of the
Athenian Propylaea, known for
its crucial role in framing a view
of the Parthenon, architects have
paid special aention to the way in
which their works are viewed for
the rst time, perhaps by visitors
light that allows daylight
approaching along a devotional
route, but even by motorists
catching a glimpse as they drive by
the location. An architect designs
a building not only for its direct
users, but also for everyone else
whos confronted with it, including
Mark 65
those who never go inside. Keeping
this thought in mind, American
architect Michael Sorkin designed
an oce building for the Xian
Airport that is best viewed from
the air. e turistic saucer-
shaped structure acts as a gateway
and customs personnel who use
to the ci of the same name, a
rapidly developing megalopolis in
the northwest of China.
Responding to a strict
master plan, the 70,000-m2
airport service center is anchored
within a vast orthogonal grid.
Cross Section
A series of curvilinear concrete
ribs lend form to the tilted torus,
which is clad in perforated-metal
panels and glass. e regulari
of the volume is disturbed
by two elements: an arched
s
to penetrate the interior, and
an east-west circulation axis
that slices through the main
building, connecting both sides
of the doughnut and leading to a
rectangular auxiliary structure on
the southern edge of the site.
Placed asymmetrically in the
footprint and highlighting the
project is a landscaped central
void: a secluded outdoor garden
for employees of the complex,
such as the airport authorities
it as a breakout area for lunch,
relaxation and conversation.
Oces immediately surrounding
the courard use their balconies
as semi-private outdoor spaces,
which provide exterior circulation
and cross ventilation, while
 Michael Sorkin Studio Xian China 043

also referring to vernacular

Chinese tolou housing. is Cross Section
regional tribute, along with the
aerodynamic aesthetic of the
building as a whole, establishes
the Xian Airport Service Center
as a fantastic combination of
tradition and innovation: exactly
what many of us expected from
famed architect, author, critic
and educator Michael Sorkin.
sorkinstudio.com
044 Mark 65 Cross Section

e roof surfaces are slightly twisted, which

contributes to the tent-like character of the building.

Toothpaste
Tent
Studio Protope designed a
sculpture for an orthodontic
practice in grey and white.

Plan

A small height dierence in the oor prevents

patients from taking a shortcut to the large
treatment room. ere is a separate route for them.
 Studio Protope Wijchen Netherlands 045

Text David Keuning

Photos Jeroen Musch

e young, Amsterdam-based
oce Studio Protope is building
a reputation as a designer of very
precisely detailed villas. A recent
en the clinical 14-m-wide panoramic view of
example is the house in Schoorl
(Mark 59, page 46). I like to make
people happy with a beauti l
home, says Jeroen Spee, who,
together with Jeroen Steenvoorden,
founded Studio Protope in
2008. Its nice to see and share the
enthusiasm of private clients.
Studio Protopes newest
project isnt a villa, but it did have
a private client: he designed a
practice for his childhood friend
Olivier van Vlijmen, who is now
an orthodontist in Wijchen, near
the place they both grew up.
As you would expect from
an orthodontist, the practice
is super white and clean, not
only on the inside, but on the
outside as well. e sculptural
volume was constructed on
a steel structure with a roof
made of anodized aluminium
sheets and white stucco walls.
Our rst thought was concrete
faade panels, but that was too
expensive, says Spee.
To so
and sterile character somewhat,
Spee and Steenvoorden designed
rniture made of birch veneer for
the interior. Even the structure
of the slight in the ridge of the
roof, which nearly runs the ll
length of the building, is clad
with it. In the large treatment
room the architects found a
dierent way to satis the
human need for reassurance:
patients lying on one of the
ve treatment chairs have a
the garden, designed by landscape
architect Andrew van Egmond.
Van Vlijmen is very happy with
his new practice: hes now asked
the architects to design his
new home in the nearby ci
of Nijmegen.
studioprotope.nl
046 Mark 65 Cross Section

Text Cathelijne Nuijsink

Making Photos Toshiyuki Yano

e site of Tomohiro Hatas

latest housing project is a pical
to su
est a bright ture for the
once-so-fashionable area. His

Room residue of the economic bubble

that aected Japan in the 1980s.
In response to a huge demand
for homeownership at that
time, a single developer made
a dramatic change to an idyllic
natural landscape, turning it
Tomohiro Hata into a monotonous gridded
neighbourhood lled with
manipulates nearly identical pitched-roofed
houses. When a couple in their
a monotonous 50s asked Hata to renovate their
highly symbolic my home, he
new town. considered various ways in which
renovation was profound. Aer
demolishing the existing 30-year-
old house the rst in the area to
be razed Hata built an updated
version of the same pology, but
now according to current building
regulations. e iconic pitched
roof, although very much a part
of his new design, allows daylight
to enter the interior and does
not block light from the gardens
and homes around it. Because
his clients had an oversupply of
rooms, he reduced the total oor
 Tomohiro Hata Otsu Japan 047

Reducing the total oor area

made way for a oating terrace.

0 +1 Cross Section

area inside the house to make

way for a large oating terrace.
He also corrected what he calls a
mistake in scale in the housing
estates master plan by sinking
the new house partially into
the ground, using the dwellings
original retaining walls. e
result a house with an austerely
shaped gabled roof and a large
terrace that connects interior and
exterior has encouraged other
residents to follow suit.
hata-archi.com
048 Mark 65 Cross Section

Learning from the Alps

DRAAs mountain retreat
oers peace, comfort and
beautil vistas.

Text Arthur Wortmann
Photos Nicols Saieh
In the remote Chilean mountain
village of Las Trancas, 500 km
south of the capital Santiago,
Nicolas del Rio of architecture
oce DRAA built a vacation
home for himself and his family.
La Dacha Mountain Retreat is
perched on the edge of a steep
slope in the wooded region part
of the house even juts out over the
slope, as if to separate it from its
surroundings. e extreme position
was obviously chosen on purpose:
to achieve the maximum benet
from the views. Nature has to be
experienced, not just by being
surrounded by it, but also by seeing
that youre surrounded by it.
DRAA Las Trancas Chile 049
+2
+1
e mezzanine, accessible
via a short ladder, is the - 1
play area for the children.
On the outside, the house is clad
in charred timber planks. Inside,
wood dominates as well, although
there is also a solid stone core
with an integrated brick heater
Long Section
and various agstone oors.
Del Rio explains: As Mark Twain
ironically unravelled in his Europe
and Elsewhere essay from 1923, its
rather surprising to realize that
some ecient heating techniques
were not transferred to cold places
in America, which is certainly
also the case in Southern Chile.
As such, this cabin in the Andes
has been given a core inspired by
chalets in the Alps.
draa.cl
050
e Soul
of the Ci
Martin Dubeau and Jonathan
Jacques-Bellette augment Prague.
Text Oliver Zeller
Images Eidos-Montral / Square Enix
e intersection of architecture
and games rst graced Marks
Cross Section in an article on Deus
Ex: Human Revolution (Mark 35,
page 36). Five years later, its near-
ture depiction of the birth of
transhumanism has given way to a
mechanical apartheid in Deus Ex:
Mankind Divided. Based in Prague
in 2029, the games narrative and
architecture represent a clash of
past and ture.
Yet Mankind Divided oers
a fascinating glimpse of how a
ci that evolves with progressive
architecture can still retain its
Mark 65
centuries-old soul. Its a movement
that already commenced in the
1990s with the Dancing House, a
deconstructivist building designed
by Vlado Miluni and Frank Gehry.
Rising from a riverfront site that
was bombed during the Second
World War and subsequently le
dormant, the contorted structure can
look oddly peculiar, even misplaced,
on photographs. In person, it adds
seamlessly to the fabric of Prague
and perhaps works so eectively
because of its sculptural contours.
No coincidence then,
that Deus Exs portrayal of
Cross Section
Prague is likewise adorned with
distinctive sculptures, such as
an enormous rock precariously
suspended above a plaza and a
massive cubist sign held alo
by an ancient tree. is pe of
brutalism extends guratively
to spatial advertising where
strands of suspended pills lead to
a gaping mouth that surrounds
a metro entrance. Curved
transparent billboards protrude
from buildings and unselingly
depict a falling businessman, an
advert for antidepressants that
recalls Mad Men.
e Palisade Blades are horizontal arms
that extend high above the Vltava River
and provide secure server space.
Like spatial advertising, entirely
modern buildings appear more
sparingly. e most striking are
the Palisade Blades, horizontal
arms that extend high above the
Vltava River and provide secure
server space thats longer than
several back-to-back soccer elds.
eyre a stark juxtaposition,
symbolically repressive but
with a remarkably minimal
elevation designed to avoid
obstructing views and to prevent
diminishment of Pragues sline.
Most of the new
architecture oen incorporating
Martin Dubeau / Jonathan Jacques-Bellette
triangular forms indicative of Deus
Exs signature cyber-renaissance
sle presents itself in a more
parasitic way, by augmenting
existing classical architecture.
Glass canopies bridge streets and
plazas in the same vein as those
included in Foster + Partners
Great Court at the British
Museum. At night, dynamic
screens surround select buildings
and create a second skin. Even
commonly dull stairwells are
retrot, introducing an interior
morphology where oors se into
walls, reminiscent of projects by
Game Design 051
Curved transparent billboards protrude from
buildings and depict a falling businessman
an advert for antidepressants.
Gra or Mad Architects. Elaborate
greebled extrusions and triangular
frosted-glass ceilings incorporate a
more modern form of ornament.
ere is a repressed yet
balanced conict in the architecture
of this ture Prague. Despite the
march of progressive architecture,
art director Martin Dubeau and
executive art director Jonathan
Jacques-Bellette suest that the
soul of a ci can be retained and
that past and ture need not
appear conspicuously divided.
052 Mark 65 Cross Section

Late Arrival Aer a century of planning, the

Museum of African American
History and Culture has been
completed on the National Mall
in Washington, D.C.
 Various Architects Washington DC USA
Text Evan Jehl
Photos Wade Zimmerman
e Smithsonian National Museum
of African American History
and Culture in Washington,
D.C., opened in September as
the product of over a century of
intense dialogue, commencing with
the eorts of African American
Civil War Union Army veterans
to receive just recognition for
their overlooked contribution to
the nations history. Although the
competition-winning design by
Freelon Group, Adjaye Associates
and Davis Brody Bond encountered
its own tribulations in the form
of extensive bureaucratic revisions
the nal product is a bold and
representative counterpoint
to the whitewashed classicism
and Western hegemony of the
Cross Section
Part of the exhibition space
is underground.
American capitols architectural
topography.
e ground oor of
the square building features
transparent glazing, and a bronze-
coated aluminium laice wraps
the glass walls of the storeys
above: three tiers whose inverted
slopes align with the angle of the
capstone on the neighbouring
Washington Monument. e
laice paern refers to the iron
crasmanship of slaves, and the
envelopes shape takes its cue from
Yoruban art. e pagoda-like form
regulates the ow of natural light
within and generates a gradual
shi in surface colour from a
resplendent bronze to a sombre
brown throughout the day.
053
Originally, the entire volume was
designed to rise from a rectangular
slab at ground level; ultimately,
however, over half the building
became three subterranean levels,
a change in plan in adherence with
government demands. A circular
void that punctures the centre of the
building culminates in a waterfall
and admits light into a triple-height
contemplative court, which serves
as a transition between the solemn
archives of the strule for civil
rights below and the rich cultural
oerings above.
freelon.com
adjaye.com
davisbrody.com
054 Mark 65 Cross Section

Mini Monumentali
 Aranza de Ario San Pedro Tututepec Mexico
Casa Tiny is a concrete
tribute to outdoor living. Text Campbell McNeill
Photos Edmund Sumner
A tiny house designed for a couple
on the Oaxacan coast, in San Pedro
Tututepec, Mexico, is one of young
architect Aranza de Arios rst
professional projects. e building
is a holiday home that supplies
minimal nctions, located 200 m
from the beach in an unpopulated
area. e context speaks of solitude
and the building conrms the
lands rhetoric, it seems to want to
push the inhabitants out into their
natural surroundings.
A winding footpath leads
through vegetation to a sort of
external entry lobby between the
outdoor swimming pool and the
house. Entering the house from
the concrete platform, the interior
is simple and direct. A double-
height space encloses a split-level
environment; a concrete staircase
with alternating treads ascends
from the entrance to a mezzanine
that hosts a bed the space opens
out to the rest of the house. Below
Long Section the mezzanine is a sunken slither
of a bathroom, just big enough
for the necessary amenities. e
remainder of the building is taken
Plan
055
up by a kitchen and a dining
space that breaches the envelope
to partly occupy a patio directly
outside of the building, as if to say:
you will live outdoors. If not for
some obvious features, this house
could almost be considered just a
concrete tent; the space is void of
any domestic extras. e minimal
aesthetic, nominal nctions and
lack of objects creates a somewhat
raw, abstract atmosphere.
e building has the
primal gable form of a house and
is completely cast in concrete, with
timber shuers. It could easily
be mistaken for one of Rachel
Whitereads sculptures made
habitable through reverting back
to its original nction. A selection
of Whitereads work can be read
as memorials to domestici,
containing years of residue from
use; represented as concrete casts
of voids le by household objects
or buildings themselves. Similar to
Whitereads approach, Ario has
designed a building that appears
to be a concrete memorial to
holiday escapism.
 056
Mark 65

Per-
spective
 Perspective 057

Peo le Peter Haimerl on Bavarias

tradition of outstanding
crasmanship, page 058

sim
couldnt
aord
oor uali
in the
old da s
058 Mark 65 Perspective

Reinvention
of a Village
Peter Haimerl Blaibach Germany 059

Peter Haimerl never planned to

reinvent the village of Blaibach.
It happened gradually. House by house.

Text Photos
Florian Heilmeyer Edward Beierle
060 Mark 65 Perspective

Local brass band Pfeer performs at the

opening ceremony for the new town hall.
 Peter Haimerl
Blaibach
is nestled deep in the Bavarian
Forest, about 20 km from the
border between Germany and
the Czech Republic. e Bavarian
Forest or Bayerwald is an area
of natural beau with rolling
mountains, dark forests and deep
lakes. Driving down the winding
country roads, people susceptible
to the charms of David Lynch
are constantly reminded of the
television series Twin Peaks.
Unfortunately, however, fewer and
fewer people travel these roads.
e young are leaving because
there are no jobs and the hikers
that used to roam the forests
singing cheerl wandering songs
are now few and far between.
Closed inns and hotels with
broken signs and yellowing
gardens sit by the roadsides.
Munich-based architect
Peter Haimerl was born in the
Bavarian Forest. He, too, le
when he was young. He trained in
Munich and started a family. He
went back home only occasionally,
to visit his parents in Viechtach.
One day they told him that the
old house on the edge of the
forest, where a farmer named Cilli
Sigl had lived until the day she
died, was to be torn down. ats
when he decided to rerbish
the place and use it as a weekend
coage (Mark 20, page 166). What
bothered him the most about his
native region was that the present
residents would rather tear down
and build anew than preserve
and repair the old, as had been
customary for centuries.
He wanted his intervention
to change the house as lile as
possible and to preserve its
patchwork character, because that
was precisely what epitomized
the regions ancient traditions
in building and cras: the
continuous adaptation of these
old, robust and very solid houses
that had broken down and been
repaired time aer time. We
wanted to preserve the house, but
it was beginning to decay and
we did not want that situation to
continue, Haimerl summarizes his
intentions. To both stabilize and
isolate the outer shell, he added a
new concrete interior structure to
create a nest of small, comfortable
spaces. at was in 2009.
e response to his
radically pragmatic approach took
Haimerl by surprise. e project
was published in more than 120
magazines and readers asked
him if the house was for rent and
whether he could recommend
other, similar houses. Together
with some fellow activists, he
therefore developed the idea of
Hauspaten (house siers, literally
house godparents), an open
organization that brings the
potential buyers of such houses in
the Bavarian Forest into contact
with municipalities, politicians,
home owners, architects and
crasmen. Haimerl regularly
visited the area for six months,
Blaibach Germany
2
driving around looking for suitable
properties, and without these runs
he might have never ended up in
Blaibach.
Even in an area as
thickly studded with unoccupied
properties as the Bavarian Forest,
Blaibachs uer desolation made
quite a deep impression on the
architect passing through it. Most
of the village centre was boarded
up, the open-air pool closed,
the primary school and the inn
opposite the church abandoned
and the old bakery vacated a long
time ago. It looked like a mining
town aer the gold rush, though
nothing like that had taken place.
e population had just dwindled,
even faster aer the fall of the iron
curtain than before. When Haimerl
arrived in Blaibach, the village had
less than 2,000 inhabitants and
hardly any of them wanted to live
in the village centre.
Here, too, the few young
families that actually want to
live in the area at all prefer new
prefab homes in green meadows
to properties that have been in
the family for ages. As a result,
cheap farm-like excrescences with
plastic casings and fake balconies
called Villa Tuscany or Alp View
House in the catalogue (depending
on the adornments slammed
onto their exteriors) pop up all
over the place. Haimerl always
compares these properties with
the outstanding crasmanship
of days long gone, which he
061
1
1 Town hall
2 Concert hall
3 Guesthouse
reckons was pical of Bavaria
until the late 1970s. Admiedly,
these were sober and pragmatic
houses, but unlike the cheap junk
being built today, they were also
solidly constructed and built to
last. People simply couldnt aord
poor quali in the old days, says
Haimerl. ats whats so crazy:
that today, people think they can
save money and prevent problems
by tearing down and building
anew. Like a modern-day Don
Quijote, he ghts the windmills
of the advertising industry that
touts the newest DIY-outlets and
turn-key prefab homes on huge
billboards.
In Blaibach, Haimerl
meets with representatives of
the town council and they talk
about this and that: about the
Bavarian Forest and the dwindling
numbers of residents and visitors,
about Blaibachs prospects and
especially about the village centre:
families are leaving, no one goes
to church anymore and everyone
prefers to shop at the superstores
along the approach roads. Even
the town hall has been moved to
the outskirts of the village, to be
closer to the people. At one time, it
seemed like the best thing to do.
Haimerl has heard of a
subsidy scheme for abandoned
village centres and they jointly
devise an approach. To encourage
investments, the communi must
set a good example and in 2012, it
uses the rst grant money to buy
062
the old, abandoned bakery and one
of the oldest houses in the village
centre: the Blue House. e bakery
cannot be preserved, but its
demolition allows the construction
of a new village square. e Blue
House is converted into a town
hall designed by Haimerl.
With its cellar of local
granite and unred masonry walls
topped by a heavy, solidly wooden
roof, the old house is a ne
example of the forgoen qualities
Haimerl loves to talk about. At
the same time, it urgently needs
restoring, like the house of farmer
Cilli Sigl. But unlike in Viechtach,
Haimerls work in Blaibach is
not supposed to look subtle or
introverted. Here, the new town
hall is meant to landmark a fresh
start: back to the village centre!
Haimerl once again uses
concrete to create a stabilizing and
insulating additional layer. But in
Blaibach he applies the concrete
to the exterior of the building,
simultaneously enlarging it to
make room for a new council
chamber and other nctions.
Clearly visible from the outside,
the thick wall sections and the
roof of the old building above
show that the house has been
converted. At the same time,
several windows and doors show
that many old materials have
been preserved and reused. Inside,
wood and stone refer to local
traditions and cras.
How did omas Bauer
become aware of Blaibach? He,
too, was born in the area. Hes
now a well-known baritone that
performs in the best opera houses
in the world some hundred nights
a year. He, too, has returned to his
native region once he realized
that given the proximi of
Munich Airport, a dwelling in the
Bavarian Forest was compatible
with his profession. Shortly
aer his return he and his wife,
pianist Uta Hielscher, establish the
Kulturwald, a festival for classical
concerts that take place in
churches, barns and farmhouses.
Having started out as private
entertainment in a haylo, it
draws no less than 8,000 visitors
Mark 65
to 29 concerts in 2012. ats when
they hear about Blaibach.
Apparently, these are the
necessary requirements for the
redevelopment of a village: a closed
communi with courageous
politicians, a headstrong architect
and a baritone. Soon, someone
comes up with the crazy idea to
build a concert hall in Blaibach: a
small Bilbao in the Bavarian Forest,
its architecture and programming
exciting enough to become famous
beyond the borders of the region
and even the country.
Theres an air of great
excitement in the village, which
increases as soon as Haimerl
presents his design during
a residents meeting: a huge
boulder dumped on a slope in
the village square, an entirely
closed concrete volume the idea
to have local volunteers apply
45,000 pieces of granite to its
surface by hand follows later. In
all respects, this has to become a
project that directly involves the
members of the community as
much as possible.
Nothing about the exterior
betrays that this is a concert hall.
eres no sign indicating the
unusual route to the entrance,
which leads visitors downward
through a kind of ditch. Below, they
nd themselves in a surprisingly
warm, larch-clad foyer facing
the even bier surprise waiting
beyond: a large, sloping hall that
seats 200. eres concrete in here
as well, but in this case Haimerl
has used it to decorate the hall as
a cave, with slits equipped with
built-in lights and corners and
edges for optimal acoustics.
e residents of Blaibach
complain. Some 440 of them
sign a petition against the
building, but the municipal
council unanimously approves
it nevertheless partly because
the municipali only has to
bear a third of the costs, the rest
being contributed by German
and European subsidy schemes.
Without them, the concert hall
cannot be built. Concerts have
been taking place in it for three
years now, including classical
Perspective
e village council poses in the new council chamber on the occasion
of the opening of the new town hall. Siing, from right to le:
Ludwig Baumgartner (former mayor of Blaibach) and Rudolf Frschl
(construction director of the government of Oberpfalz). Standing,
from right to le: Wolfgang Eckl (current mayor of Blaibach), eo
Zellner (director of the Bavarian Red Cross), Augustin Sperl (priest),
Franz Ler (coun commissioner), and the mayor of Blaibachs
partner town and his wife.
and klezmer with international on the other hand, he removes
guests as well as folk music by the ceiling to allow the addition
local bands, children's theatre and of a concrete structure to the
the annual Schaopf card game new space, its course, horizontal
tournament. e building is at the formwork seams creating an
disposal of the entire communi. impression of stacked boxes.
Still, is it enough to save Concrete stairs leading to the
Blaibach from extinction? Recently, bedroom and bathroom are a
Haimerl completed a third project new addition. ere are reused
in the village centre. He renovated materials everywhere: the kitchen
an adjacent sixteenth-century sink was formerly the stable
farmhouse for Bauer; more trough, the new table consists
evidence of the architecture of a of old pine. e granite window
bygone era. A modest house with casings as well as the old stable
thick walls and small windows, a doors have been reused.
low aic beneath a gently sloping e simple, old
roof, with a lean-to shed and an Waldlerhaus is now an inn
in-law apartment. Its the kind of catering to the artists that
house that tells the story of the perform in the concert hall. e
simple, hard life of the farmers in small in-law apartment on the
this region a story nobody seems other hand has been included in
to want to hear anymore, since this the house siers programme and
Waldlerhaus, too, had become more will shortly be on the market as
ruin than house. a holiday rental. ey are two
As in Viechtach, Haimerl building blocks that contribute
mainly intervenes in the interior, to the ongoing revitalization of
with hardly a trace of it visible Blaibach, that small village in
on the outside. Damaged parts the big, dark forest of which we
of the building are restored, the will perhaps someday be able to
living area is reconstructed using say that it reinvented itself by
local materials and traditional returning to its own centre.
techniques. In the former stable, peterhaimerl.com
Peter Haimerl Blaibach Germany 063

e inhabitants of Blaibach are gathered for

a pically Bavarian countryside wedding.
064 Mark 65 Perspective

1
Town Hall
2012
e former Blue House
has a basement built up
of granite blocks, unred
clay masonry exterior
walls and a wooden roof
construction. Demolition
would not only have
entailed high costs, but also
a waste of materials and
energy. e new exterior
envelope consists of heat-
insulating gravel-reinforced
foamed glass concrete
made of, among other
things, recycled boles.
e material has a lively
surface that complements
the existing, traditionally
built walls. In most of the
spaces, the new oor nish
consists of solid, 3-cm-
thick, 20 to 30-cm-wide
pine planks. e rniture
is also made of pine
plywood. e casings and
the new entrance door are
made of weather-resistant
larch, whose aging process
will change its red glow
to silver gray. Most of
the stucco is lime-based,
which is customary in the
Bavarian Forest.
Peter Haimerl Blaibach Germany 065

A new door in a modern design marks

the entrance to the town hall.
066 Mark 65 Perspective

A new concrete shell has been placed

around the existing house. e extension
is to the le.

Necessary for the

redevelopment of
a village: courageous
politicians, a headstrong
architect and a baritone
Peter Haimerl Blaibach Germany 067

e council chamber has large sliding

doors that can be used to regulate the
light. e energy-saving LED chandelier
is by Denise Hachinger Light.
068 Mark 65 Perspective

0 +1 Cross Sections

06
08 07
02 01

06

11
03 05 11

09

04 10

01 Tourist information
02 Cash register
03 Foyer
04 Citizens registration oce
05 Handicap toilet
06 Built-in cabinets
07 Management oce
08 Mayors room
09 Pantry
10 Council chamber
11 Toilets

e room with tourist information is

ed with a green-lit cabinet for leaets.
 Peter Haimerl Blaibach Germany 069

e sloping roof is visible from

Exploded View the foyer on the rst oor.

070 Mark 65 Perspective

e entrance to the concert hall

is located underground.
Peter Haimerl Blaibach Germany 071

2
Concert Hall
2014
e concert hall is a solitary
concrete object set on a
slope in the village centre.
Its granite faade links it to
the stone carver tradition
of Blaibach. Visitors can
access the monolithic, tilted
building by a staircase
leading down to the foyer
below the surface. e
foyer provides a wardrobe,
sanitary rooms and bar,
as well as access to the
auditorium. e building is
made of pre-cast concrete.
A highly intricately
constructed formwork
made the realization of the
dicult form possible. e
tilted surfaces of the concert
hall are based on acoustic
specications and include,
besides LED-lights, bass
absorbers in the light slits
as well as underneath the
steps for optimal acoustics.
e concrete in the hall
is untreated. Its lively
surfaces help to absorb the
medium-height tones. e
inclination of the building
based on the increase of the
slope corresponds to the
one of the auditorium. e
transparent seats, made of
metal framework, appear to
oat above the light slits.
072 Mark 65 Perspective

e foyer is nished in larch.

e lights are incorporated

in the folds of the walls.

e interior is constructed primarily

of concrete; its acoustic characteristics
have been optimized by placing the wall
surfaces at all kinds of dierent angles.
Peter Haimerl Blaibach Germany 073

Blaibach is a small Bilbao

in the Bavarian Forest
074 Mark 65 Perspective

e directors room is located

near the stage.
 Peter Haimerl Blaibach Germany 075

- 1

03

04
02 06 09 08

07
01
05

01 Entrance
02 Cloak room
03 Bar
04 Toilets
05 Artists foyer
06 Technical room
07 Directors room
08 Stage
09 Auditorium

Long Section
076 Mark 65 Perspective

ough substantially rerbished on

the inside, the Waldlerhaus has hardly
changed at all.
Peter Haimerl Blaibach Germany 077

3
Guesthouse
2016
e Waldlerhaus is a
pical example of the
rural architecture of the
Bavarian Forest, which is
chiey characterized by the
use of granite, wood, clay
and plaster. e exterior
walls of the living space
and the in-law apartment
are built of logs, the former
barn is stone masonry. e
longitudinal pitched roof
has a 20-degree slope. Both
client omas Bauer and
architect Peter Haimerl
wanted to preserve as much
of the old building volume
as possible. is is why
the existing construction
was reinforced by a
new concrete structure
that was placed in the
interior. It accommodates
a kitchen-diner on the
ground oor level and a
bedroom and bathroom
on the upper level. e
other rooms on the ground
oor level were provided
with a new foundation of
gravel-reinforced foamed
glass concrete, which is
moisture resistant and heat
insulating. e walls were
insulated conventionally
using straw mats covered
with clay plaster and a layer
of lime.
078 Mark 65 Perspective

In a few places, the new concrete

shell that was placed in the interior
is also visible in the exterior.

e kitchen sink is made

from and old trough.
Peter Haimerl Blaibach Germany 079

e houses tell the story

of the simple, hard life of
the farmers in this region

e new concrete structure is

clearly visible in the interior.
080 Mark 65 Perspective

e bedrooms main feature is

the old stone construction.

0 +1

04 01 03

06
02 02 05

05
02

01 Entrance
02 Bathroom
03 Kitchen and dining room
04 Living room
05 Bedroom
06 A ic
 Peter Haimerl Blaibach Germany 081

People simply couldnt aord

poor quali in the old days

Musicians that stay at the inn have

the use of a piano for rehearsals.

Long Section Cross Sections

 082
Mark 65

Long
Section
 Long Section 083

I behave
Architecture photographer
Pedro Kok, page 108 like
a cat
when
Im
documentin
architecture
084 Mark 65 Long Section

Topping
Out
Zaha Hadid Architects Antwerp Belgium 085

Zaha Hadid Architects Port

House reects the ambitions
of Antwerps harbour.

Text
Giovanna Dunmall

Photos
Tim Fisher
086
Zaha
Hadid Architects new Port House in the
Belgian town of Antwerp is one of a kind. It
combines an elongated, organic and articulated
glass volume with a classic rectilinear early-
20th-century building that was used as a re
station.
is is no polite, restrained blend of old
and new, its a bold gesture, a building that can
be seen from a great distance, an unmissable
shimmering beacon in the liminal area where
the ci ends and the northern Belgian towns
turistic structure on top of an old building
port begins. I think a quali of the building
is that it is hovering in the air and once inside
you feel that you are part of this massive port
landscape that stretches out for miles, says
Joris Pauwels, project director and a Senior
Associate at Zaha Hadid Architects.
When he says massive he isnt
exaerating; the port of Antwerp is in fact
best described in a series of superlatives. With
12 km of docks it is the second largest port in
Mark 65
Europe and the eleventh largest in the world. It
is almost eight times the size of Antwerp and
has the worlds biest lock. Its no surprise
then that the client, the Port Authori, wanted
a new HQ that could not only house its
500-member sta under one roof but, more
importantly, that could reect its ambitions as
one of the most advanced and technological
ports in the world.
ose who argue that constructing a
Less obvious, but more compelling, are
is a strange way of preserving it, seem to be
missing the point. Its a grand building but its
not very precious, says Pauwels, of the existing
building. e faades are listed and they were
kept intact, but the rest of the building was
in prey bad shape. e re brigade had put
up a number of sheds in the atrium, knocked
out walls or put in new columns on the upper
oors. Once the re department moved out
the port could have easily gued it. Our
Long Section
Above e extensions faceted triangular glass
panels reference the cis role as a centre for the
diamond trade, while its pronounced front leg
bring to mind the prow of a ship.
Opposite e new structure doesnt rest on the
existing building, but rather on two massive
sculptural concrete columns and two V-columns
that land in the atrium.
extension means it has been restored, but also
reinvigorated as part of a new ensemble that
will stand for the next 50 to 100 years at least.
So how does the building work with
its context? In more ways than is immediately
clear. e extensions faceted triangular glass
panels reference the cis role as a centre
for the diamond trade, while its pronounced
front leg bring to mind the prow of a ship and
Antwerps long-standing maritime industries.
some of the other ways it works with the locale.
e practice worked with Belgian heritage
consultant Origin, which did a detailed
analysis of the building and site and came up
with three important conclusions. One was
the fact that the Kaendijk dock on which the
building stands is also the main axis between
ci and port, so the building with its evident
nose connects and highlights these two anchor
points. Another was that the existing
087
088 Mark 65 Long Section

Inside, you feel that you are part

of this massive port landscape

e new headquarters brings together the ports

500 sta members, who previously worked in
separate buildings around the ci.
 Zaha Hadid Architects
e bridge links the front leg with the
central column, while also oering
panoramic views of the surroundings.
building, modelled on a 16th-century Hansa
House that existed in Antwerp for a while,
doesnt have a front and back. ere is no main
faade that is also the entrance to the building,
says Pauwels. e architects therefore chose to
li the extension swards instead of puing
a building next to it, since blocking one of the
faades would have created an inequali.
e third conclusion the heritage
consultant came to was that the building
featured the base of a tower that was never
completed. We thought the building could
do with some topping out, an element that
completed it as was the original intention, says
Pauwels. So we also see the new building as
a contemporary version of the original tower
that was never realized.
Did the topping out have to be quite
so dramatic? ats open to debate but its
the uncompromising nature of the new build
that is ultimately what makes it work. Most
Antwerp Belgium
of the other projects put forward during the
competition also put something on top of
the building, but they all used the footprint
of the existing building, explains Pauwels,
whereas we used the idea of the urban axis and
werent afraid of creating something that really
contrasted.
e buildings layering, the fact that we
worked with the existing fabric, didnt ignore it
or break it down but layered things on top, was
what Zaha especially liked about the project.
He pauses. Spatially she thought that was a
very interesting quali.
Spatially is indeed where the building
is at its best, the contrast between the brick,
decorative masonry and repetitive window
bays of the old building and the sparkling
in-out appearance of the new one creating
interesting views, glimpses and light eects.
Internal columns and the variously transparent
and opaque back-painted triangle glazed panels
089
of the hovering volume provide geometrically
framed views of the world below and create
dappled shapes on the walls and oors. From
the second and third oors (of the existing
building), there are views up through the
glazed atrium ceiling to the shimmering light
and dark grey panels of the new volume above,
while the seventh-oor auditorium oers drop-
down views through angled glass on to the
square and water below. e boardroom on the
other side oers wide port vistas.
If the interiors are where the building
is at its most alluring, structurally is where
it inspires awe. is is without a doubt the
most complex project we have worked on, says
Guy Mouton, founder of Studieburo Mouton,
structural engineers for the Port House,
we really had to push the limits of what is
possible. Remarkably, the new structure doesnt
rest on the existing building at all but rather on
two massive sculptural concrete columns
090 Mark 65 Long Section

Above e upper oors house open-plan oces,

meeting rooms, a restaurant and an auditorium.

Opposite e extension is clad in faceted triangular

panels, some transparent and others opaque.

Its as if the building is in motion

from the port towards the ci

(that act as cores and host lis and stairs) and is aesthetic as well as
nctional, providing Very Good BREEAM environmental rating, in
two V-columns that are connected to each outdoor space, views of the classic slate tile part thanks to a borehole energy system that
other and land in two locations in the atrium roof, dormer windows and brickwork of the pumps water to a depth of 80 m below grade in
giving the new structure lateral stabili. existing building and sensational 360-degree more than 100 locations around the building
Masonry buildings are very rigid vistas of the surroundings. e bridge links the to provide heating and cooling. e project
but not very strong, says Mouton of the front leg to the central column and takes the is undoubtedly ambitious and boundary-
20th-century structure. It would have been horizontal forces created by that slanted front pushing. In the ci centre it would have been
impossible to rest such a big building on the leg downwards, explains Mouton. lunacy, but in the vast and monumental yet
existing one, the total weight of the steel With that angled front leg, and its also somewhat anonymous industrial port
construction alone is 1,500 tonnes, and thats slightly asymmetrical positioning, the new landscape and sline, it shines, literally and
without the faades, oors and walls. Another volume looks as if it is passing through. e metaphorically. _
consideration was the wind, a considerable shape is about a sense of dynamism agrees zaha-hadid.com
preoccupation given the open port location
and the width of the Scheldt River. When the
wind is acting on the new building it can move
by up to 3 cm at the top, he says. e old re
station cant do that, it can only move by a few
millimetres. If you joined the two buildings
Pauwels. By creating a aer faade on the
side facing the ci and designing the skin as
ever-more cracked and angled on the north
side facing the port, its as if the building is in
motion from the port towards the ci.
e new Port House by Zaha Hadid
together they would both crack. has aracted as many detractors as fans.
Perhaps the most important structural Surprisingly, for a building with that much
element is the bridge on the h oor, which steel that is also partly listed, it has achieved a
Zaha Hadid Architects Antwerp Belgium 091
092 Mark 65 Long Section

+5

08

+2
07

07

0
01 Main entrance
02 Reception
03 Atrium
04 Central li 01
05 Service stairs 05
06 Archive
02
07 Oce
08 Deck 04
09 Restaurant 03
10 Auditorium
11 Meeting room

06 06
 Zaha Hadid Architects Antwerp Belgium 093

Long Section

+7

07
10 11
07

+6

09
094

Keiichi Kiriyama.
Photo Airhouse

Tree Huer
Keiichi Kiriyama builds houses like forests.
Interior trees help to connect the inhabitants to nature.

Text Photos
Cathelijne Nuijsink Toshiyuki Yano
 Airhouse
Born and raised in the Japanese ci of Ogaki,
Keiichi Kiriyama (37) decided his hometown
would be the perfect place to devote himself to
architecture. Fascinated by the way buildings
represent peoples lifesles, his house designs
involve architectural beau as much as usabili.
When did architecture rst catch your interest?
KEIICHI KIRIYAMA: When I was young I used
to read the interior magazine Shitsunai, which
my father subscribed to. It was the leading
magazine on woodwork, rniture and interior
at the time. e magazine published examples
of houses, the latest rniture and know-how
about renovation. I especially admired the
pictures of old interiors I encountered in that
magazine, which were very dierent from the
spaces I was used to. It made me realize that
life could be made richer by considering the
design of spaces.
So you decided to go to a school of architecture?
Actually, as a senior in high school I was
interested in music and was planning a career
in that direction. I did almost nothing but play
music and neglected my regular schoolwork.
However, aer assessing my talents, I
decided to study architecture. In Japan, if you
dont have a high level of general scholarly
abili, you cannot enter any of the famous
architecture schools. Its a li le embarrassing
to say, but as a result of the Japanese entrance
exam system, I was only able to enter my
backup choice, Meijo Universi in Nagoya,
rather than one of the more well-known
architecture schools. It was conveniently close
to my parents house, however.
In 2009, aer a short stint at Suppose Design
Oce, you decided to open your own oce in
Ogaki. What was the impetus for starting out
on your own?
e work of young architects like Junya
Ishigami formed a great motivation for me.
He proved that young people had a chance. At
the beginning of my independent career I felt
that I could express my architectural ideas in a
very abstract way, just like Ishigami does. But
gradually I came to understand that this only
works well in the realm of art. Architecture has
real clients. I then set out to produce a varie
of forms and spaces based on my individual
clients dierent ways of thinking.
Are you implying that designs by architects
like Ishigami are too abstract and not designed
with specic clients in mind?
Yes, I believe a concept should be based on a
profound sympathy with people. I like to give
a specic answer to the brief, while also trying
to nd the common denominator within the
various ways of life among my dierent clients.
Which is . . . ?
Basically, they all want a space that has the
feeling of good air.
Ogaki Gi Japan
A feeling of good air sounds like a very basic
requirement for a house. Is that all?
No, but its the most important prerequisite
that any living space should oer. Due to the
current Japanese economy the budgets for
house design are decreasing among young
people and consequently the demand for
renovation is increasing, as is the amount of
vacant houses.
Do you suest that we will see fewer
architect-designed houses in Japan from
now on?
I don't think whats called a house will
disappear, but its the du of the architect now
to oer a new sense of value. As a result of the
triple natural disaster that occurred in Japan
in 2011 earthquake, tsunami and power plant
failure our system of values has drastically
changed. Since then, an oen heard discussion
among architects is the question of what kind
of buildings should be built.
What is your opinion about that?
Aer the disaster, it was recognized that rst
and foremost architecture has to protect human
lives. Additionally, I think that architecture
must bring the user a feeling of happiness.
erefore, I carelly listen to my clients and
analyse their demands. Also, I think I can
enhance the relationship between architecture
and nature.
So, we can summarize your denition of a
good house as . . .
. . . a house that protects the people in it,
matches the clients lifesle, has a good
inuence on its surroundings, and allows it
inhabitants to make new discoveries.
Lets talk a bit about your houses and your
clients. In what way does House in Ohno
follow the clients requests?
e residents are a 36-year-old son of a
persimmon farmer and his 37-year-old wife.
ey own a 600-m2 site located in a eld with
persimmon trees. When they approached me
they had no idea how to build a house on it but
requested a big space, the feeling of openness
and pastel colours. Since they used to live in
a small apartment and the new site was large,
they wanted a high-ceilinged, open space. In
response to their requests, I positioned the
house among the persimmons, so that from
inside you have a view of the kaki trees. When
they open their windows, the inhabitants are
united with nature and at the same time their
life is enriched because they can communicate
with their parents working in the elds.
What gives this house a good relation with its
surroundings?
I tried to not interrupt the scenery. e
house feels like a tree standing among the
persimmons. Japanese and modernist at the
same time, I think it radiates a good inuence.
095
Whats the story behind the curves of House in
Ohguchi?
When the clients, a 38-year-old web designer
and his 33-year-old wife, approached me for
the rst time, all the rniture they owned
or planned to purchase had curves. I thought
that a oor plan with curves would match. In
addition, since the site faces roads on three
sides, and the building is located close to the
street, I wanted to give it a so impression.
Since I knew it would be a small house, I also
felt a need to delete the corners in the interior
to disguise the exact size of the space.
I noticed you completed the overall design with
matching details.
All the things you put in a house inuence
the feeling of air. In order to make the client
feel comfortable, I thought it was important
to erase any sense of discomfort. Part of that
is in the details. ats why I also designed the
remaining rniture, door handles and lighting
xtures.
So the curves are mainly designed for reasons
of beau?
No, even in this curved building I concentrated
on usabili. When designing the plan of the
house, I thought about the line of ow, the
storage space and technical facilities in order to
smoothly answer their requests.
What surprised you most during the design
process?
at making a house with a curved surface
takes a lot more eort to construct!
For House in Iwakura you came up with a
solution of individual rooms surrounding a
bright central space. How is this a translation
of the clients requests?
e clients, who both work in the design
industry, wanted a space where they can
always be aware of each other. It had to be
closed o from the neighbourhood, but still
have a feeling of spaciousness. Instead of
big windows, I installed a large slight in
such a way that it illuminates all the rooms
surrounding the central space.
What about the interior quali?
I worried about the distance between the
slight placed at such a high position and
the actual living room, but the high ceiling
unexpectedly turned out to be very comfortable
as the slight carries lots of light into the
interior.
So what about the name of your oce?
Airhouse has two meanings. First of all, it
refers to this feeling of good air. And secondly,
it refers to houses with healthy and clean air.
So its about good air in both a metaphorical
and literal sense. _
airhouse.jp
096 Mark 65 Long Section

e house is surrounded by persimmon trees.

House in Ohno
GiJapan2014
is house is set on a piece of land in a
Japanese persimmon (kaki fruit) orchard. A
structure composed of a large roof set on
top of seven thick columns was used. Private
areas are located inside the columns, while
the spaces between the columns are used for
the living room, dining room and kitchen.
Between the columns, the outside walls
are lly glazed. is composition gives
the house an open feeling while the kaki
trees provide a sense of privacy from the
outside world, all of which creates a relaxed
atmosphere in the interior areas.

e private rooms inside the trunks are tiny.

 Airhouse Ogaki Gi Japan 097

A tree is the centrepiece of the doma.

098 Mark 65 Long Section

Large windows oer a beauti l view of the orchard.

0 14 +1 14 14

01 Entrance
15 08 02 Shoe closet
07 03 Inner terrace
04 Storage
05 Cats room
09 11 12 13 06 Living room
17 13
07 Dining room
08 Kitchen
09 Walk-in closet
04 10 Guest room
06 11 Laundry 16
12 Pantry
10
13 Den
14 Childrens room
05 04
01 03 15 Bathroom

16 Bedroom
02 04 17 Library 04
 Airhouse Ogaki Gi Japan 099

Private rooms are in the trunks that carry the roof.

100 Mark 65 Long Section

House in Ohguchi
AichiJapan2016
is house is located on a narrow and long
lot with roads on three sides. e client
requested a home-cum-oce with an
open living-dining-kitchen space with a
high ceiling, which he would also use as
e master bedroom is
his web design oce. Also, he wanted to accessible through an
keep an appropriate distance between the intermediary space.

work zone and the daily living zone where

his wife does housework. e building
was positioned obliquely on the lot to
keep some distance from the street, and
its corners were rounded to alleviate an
oppressive impression. e interior space
oers a natural feeling and an embracing
atmosphere generated by the curved form
of the design.
 Airhouse Ogaki Gi Japan 101

Abstract forms only work

well in the realm of art
102 Mark 65 Long Section

Various pieces of rniture, such as

the low cupboards along the curved
wall, were designed by the architect
especially for this house.

Architecture should be based on

0
01 Entrance
02 Inner terrace
03 Storage
04 Dining room
05 Kitchen
06 Living room
07 Pantry
07 03 08 Bathroom
05 09 Atelier
10 Master bedroom
08 02
11 Childrens bedroom
01 12 Walk-in closet

04
06
 Airhouse Ogaki Gi Japan 103

e inhabitant runs a graphic

design oce from his house.

a profound sympathy with people

+1 Long Section

11
12

09
10
104 Mark 65 Long Section

Opposite e introverted space,

high ceiling and high-incidence
House in Iwakura daylight cause a cathedral-like
atmosphere in the living room.
AichiJapan2016
is house on the outskirts of Iwakurashi
is surrounded by other buildings on
three sides. e remaining front faade
is on the north side and faces the street.
erefore, the main source of natural
light is a large slight in the top of the
roof that illuminates the high living space
below it. Private rooms, such as bedrooms
and a study, have been placed in the four
corners of the living space. Because of its
high position, the slight provides ample
daylight, also illuminating the private
rooms. On the rst oor, those rooms are
connected by bridges.
 Airhouse Ogaki Gi Japan 105

Architecture must bring the

user a feeling of happiness
106
 Airhouse Ogaki Gi Japan 107

+1
01 Entrance 15
02 Shoe closet 12 13
03 Bathroom
04 Storage
05 Pantry
06 Kitchen
07 Dining room
08 Living room
09 Inner terrace
10 Childrens bedroom
11 Master bedroom
12 Sun room
13 Walk-in closet 14
11
14 Study
15 Bridge

10 09 10

08
06
07

05

03

04 04
01
02

Above A ladder provides access to

an entresol in the master bedroom.

Opposite Internal windows allow

for a view of the living room from
the study on the rst oor.

Long Section Cross Section

108 Mark 65 Long Section

Wheres the
humour in your
architecture?

Marcio Kogan.

Kamylo.
 Studio MK27 So Paulo Brazil 109

Mariana Simas.

Gabriel Kogan.

Father and son duo Marcio and

Gabriel Kogan team up with
architecture photographer Pedro
Kok and lmmaker Lea Van
Steen for a series of short lms
featuring some of the houses
they designed over the years.

Text
Soa Bor es

Photos
Romulo Fialdini Pedro Kok.
Photo Pedro Kok
110
Since
2012, Studio MK27 has been releasing
whimsical, arresting and idiosyncratic short
lms to upend the reading of their architecture.
Whether introducing a villa exclusively from
the point of a view of a cat or showing a
home as a haunting framework for a failed
marriage, these short lms thumb their
nose at expectation in favour of a refreshing
embrace of irony. Marcio Kogan, Gabriel
Kogan, architecture photographer Pedro Kok,
and MK27s communication director Mariana
Simas walk us through the importance of not
taking yourself too seriously.
I just visited your new house in Catuaba!
MARCIO KOGAN: Its the rst house in Brazil
to get Platinum Certication from the Green
Building Council.
Do you have a lm planned for the house?
GABRIEL KOGAN: Yes. Just waiting for
the landscaping. ats not quite ready yet.
PEDRO KOK: Its been two years since Gabriel
and I have collaborated on a lm for the
studio so its probably time.
How long do these lms take to make?
KOK: It really depends. Some take just a
few days for shooting and then a few days
of editing and nalizing. is Was Not My
Dream, about Redux House, took several
weeks to develop.
GABRIEL KOGAN: Maybe more . . . because
we wrote two scripts. Writing scripts takes
much longer than the productions themselves.
We worked on those for several months and
then spent two days on site and then maybe
a week on post-production.
KOK: For Redux House, we decided to do it
ourselves. We didnt hire a script writer. We
had to learn our way into writing it and
making it work for the camera later.
Do you already have a lm in mind for the
Catuaba House? Is that something you develop
as youre designing the architecture? Or does
the completed house dene the story?
KOK: We do have several scripts that havent
been lmed yet and could work for this house.
Or they could be completely changed because of
the house. So there are lms that can be placed
on any project but the project usually modies
the script.
So sometimes the scripts are just scripts
without a project aached until you nd
the right pairing?
Mark 65 Long Section
KOK: Sometimes. Its a mixture. I look at
how Studio MK27 works and the kind of
architecture it designs and that informs the
scripts. e scripts are about the architecture,
not about a specic site.
GABRIEL KOGAN: All of the lms weve
produced have been produced for a certain
work. For Redux House, I initially wanted to
make a horror lm. [Laughter]
But Pedro was not comfortable with
that. [More laughter]
He didnt think horror was the right t
for that house.
KOK: e site also modies the script. e way
things go on the day of lming changes things
too. I come from architectural photography,
where things happen that we cant control. Its
the same when we lm. We let a lot of things
inuence the work. If it rains on the day that
were lming, then it rained. I behave
Why would you create this perfect villa and
then transform it into the seing of a horror
like a cat
lm or something that is actually quite critical?
What does that do for the projects branding?
KOK: For me, it was an exercise in how to
when Im
make suspense work in just three minutes.
GABRIEL KOGAN: I dont really agree with
this question about branding. If it is branding,
documenting
its really bad branding! [Laughter]
MARCIO KOGAN: Every time I show the lm,
architecture
the rst thing I say to the audience is: is
is ction! is is not real life! Otherwise its
not so good to have the clients thinking about
murder or that theyll get divorced because of
the architecture. ats not so nice.
MARIANA SIMAS: People like when you can
laugh at yourself. You create empathy when
you dont treat yourself like a genius.
So what would make you want to align
the Redux House with a horror genre?
GABRIEL KOGAN: Its isolated. Its a huge
plot. You have a lot of reective elements.
at makes it suitable for a horror movie.
MARCIO KOGAN: It has never happened.
A horror lm in a contemporary modernist
house!
GABRIEL KOGAN: But the rules we have for
our lms didnt really t with a horror project.
We really care about light and its not easy to
take good pictures at night. We also use a static
cam, and horror lms demand more of a night
atmosphere and a hand-held camera . . .
MARCIO KOGAN: And also its not so easy to
show the architecture.
KOK: Our team is just the two of us
 Studio MK27 So Paulo Brazil 111

Cat
Casa TobleroneSo PauloBrazil
Emerging from a pile of stued animals, a uy Persian cat begins its
exploration of the tropical villa. e quir feline plays the protagonist
as the camera cuts between shots of the cat in action and others lmed
from the cats perspective. A playl soundtrack, reminiscent of score
from a retro television show, accompanies the pet on its journey.
e cat begins by tracing the outdoor perimeter of the homes
second level, accentuating the projects uid relationship to nature.
As the cat moves indoors, the animals low viewpoint enhances the
vast, open oor plan. Interacting with or casually observing the family
members sprinkled throughout the residence, the cat meanders through
the living spaces framed by oor-to-ceiling glass. e camera follows
closely as the cat continues to the upstairs bedrooms, through a second
oor terrace, and over the tops of bookshelves. e unconventional tour
culminates with the onset of twilight and a slow pass over the keys of QR code of Cat.
the family piano. vimeo.com/48121729
112
[points to Gabriel]. Sometimes there is an
assistant on site and maybe actors. But we
dont have a crew and we like to work that
way especially if youre occupying someone
elses space. We dont want to transform the
project into a stage for another story where
the architecture dissipates. e lms have
to be about the project and the particular
realities of that project. In the end its about the
architecture, as a background and as a motive.
Every composition has to be absolutely
perfect, like architectural photography. eres
no slanted camera. Its dierent than lms for
the cinema, which use dierent kinds of takes.
But we are rooted in this architectural way of
showing images.
MARCIO KOGAN: Vertical and parallel lines.
KOK: Absolutely. Everything is pristine. Its
an homage to the way that architecture has
always been presented photographically. We
Mark 65 Long Section
we have a problem, Marcio will have a look and
see how to move things forward.
What are the key dierences between the two
teams for you, Marcio?
MARCIO KOGAN: In my opinion, they [points
at Gabriel and Pedro] are beer than we are.
[Laughter]
I worked a lot in professional movies.
When I was an architecture student I began
to make short lms and did this for about ten
years. en I decided to make a long feature
lm. I needed to dedicate a lot of money to the
project. I had to completely stop working here
in the oce for six months. And in the end it
was a huge asco. [Laughter]
[Sighs] Really. I lost all the money.
I lost all my clients. Before that bad experience,
my career in short lms was very, very good.
I got a lot of awards and I felt safe to direct a
just extend that into lm.
GABRIEL KOGAN: Weve privileged
photography rather than acting or actors
the quiet of the image.
KOK: Very short movements. You never see
a continuous long take happening. But . . .
GABRIEL KOGAN: It can happen!
KOK: It can happen. If we feel that the
Catuaba House can be displayed in a new way
and we have a way to show it, I have absolutely
no problem with that.
GABRIEL KOGAN: e camera is very
sensitive to movement. If we are doing
long traveling takes then thats not very easy
to control.
KOK: Wed have to hire someone beer than
you to do it. [Laughter]
GABRIEL KOGAN: Or get much more
expensive equipment.
How did the three of you start working
together on these lms? How do you develop
your ideas as a team?
GABRIEL KOGAN: We have two dierent
teams. Marcio works with the video maker
Lea Van Steen. And I work with Pedro. We
went to architecture school together. We
werent really friends at the time. [Laughter]
I invited him to make a photo essay of House 6
in 2010. He had never used the video seings
on the camera. And I said OK, lets try! It was
by chance. We had never made a lm before.
It was just a short clip. During the following
three years we made three or four more lms.
ats how this started.
KOK: Marcio gives us a lot of freedom but we
are really grate
l when he modies a script. composer who designs a specic soundtrack
He oversees everything from a distance, but if
commercial lm. But aer this experience I was
completely traumatized. I decided to quit my
lmmaking career and focus on architecture.
en in 2012, we were invited to represent
Brazil in the Venice Biennale and I came back
to lm but related to architecture. So we
made an installation for that and I really liked
doing it. It was so dierent than working on
If these
a feature lm. So two months later I directed
that lm with the cat. We spent maybe two
weeks on it. en Gabriel and Pedro directed
lms are
the Casa Redux lm.
branding,
Who is your ideal audience for these lms?
GABRIEL KOGAN: Before I became an
architect, I was an architectural journalist.
theyre
All the things I produce related to docu-
mentation, text and images are intended for
really bad
a universal viewer. Everyone should be able
to understand them. Of course, architects
probably appreciate these things a lile more,
branding!
but theyre not meant for the architectural
environment, theyre for everyone.
KOK: is Was Not My Dream appeals to a really
dierent kind of audience. Weve had more than
100,000 views on that video, and Im prey
sure most of them are not architects. And Im
prey glad thats the case. Our main interest
with these lms is how to discuss architecture
with a broader audience.
Soundtrack and narrator seem like key aspects
of your visual storytelling. How do you pair
music and dialogue with your lms?
GABRIEL KOGAN: ere is a huge dierence
between the two teams. Lea works with a
for the movie. In our case, we use more
 Studio MK27 So Paulo Brazil 113

Modern Living
Casa PSo PauloBrazil
When Marcio Kogan came across the Bauhaus documentary Neues
Wohnen, a lm about a Marcel Breuer house, he adopted the same
narrative for one of his own homes. e lm tried to answer the
question: What is modernism? muses Kogan, but it was very, very naive.
It tried to explain a built-in closet or the connection between the kitchen
and a trashcan. So we copied it.
Kogans black-and-white short uses a campy narrator to walk
viewers through the most unremarkable yet technologically advanced
aspects of the house. An enthusiastic maid in ll uniform demonstrates
how to use the retractable outlets in the kitchen to hook up the toaster,
the hidden drying rack, a cork oor in the wine cellar that keeps the
boles from breaking when dropped, and a number of other mundane
details of high-end living. e home also weaves in a critique of the
urban metropolis, in which the house becomes a fortress of surveillance QR code of Modern Living.
for the ustered owner to retreat into. vimeo.com/75912265
114
ready-made soundtracks. Sometimes we
have to adjust the cut because of the original
soundtrack since we dont have a lot of room to
change it.
KOK: I bring in music before the editing. e
music sets the tone for the way that things
are then made. For the is Was Not My Dream
narration, we had two versions one in
. [Laughter] By the end of the rst day, we
Portuguese and one in English. e Portuguese
version was cut. It was recorded but never
shown. e Portuguese version lost all its
subtle. It just fell apart. ey were two very
dierent lms with the same script. It was just
a maer of translation and narration.
GABRIEL KOGAN: We sent the English
script to a music producer and he said: Can I
hire a very good actor for this? and we said:
Of course! And the actor he was in Saving
Private Ryan sent us an email asking to make
changes. When we received the recording we
were shocked. e quali of his voice was so
good. e success of this project . . . or at least
50 per cent of it [Laughter] had to do with him.
KOK: e narrative deconstructed the tectonics
of the image.
at lm is such an amazing parable about the
strules and dashed hopes involved in making
architecture in general and a home in particular.
Was this a true story or a cautionary tale?
KOK: Some parts are about remodelling my
apartment. [Laughter] I had a very dicult
relationship with my girlfriend, now wife, back
then. Part of that came into this story.
MARCIO KOGAN: You see that happen a lot in
the oce. But this is just ction.
GABRIEL KOGAN: It was inspired by many
stories that happened in the studio over the
past decades.
KOK: Lets build a house, and the house will
save our marriage . . .
SIMAS: Youre not just building a house,
youre building an identi. Its not who these
people actually are, but what they want to be.
Designing a house is a dicult exercise in
making your dreams compatible with what
you are.
GABRIEL KOGAN: We were really concerned
about whether the client would like this lm . . .
at was my next question.
GABRIEL KOGAN: And they loved it!
SIMAS: eir marriage is ne, thank you.
So they laugh and share in the irony with us.
MARCIO KOGAN: A
er the lm for Casa MARCIO KOGAN: And with very bad
Toblerone with the cat, the clients came to
us and said: anks for this. is was a good
moment in our life.
Mark 65 Long Section
What made you show Casa Toblerone with
a cat as protagonist? Whose cat was it?
MARCIO KOGAN: How would a cat see
modernist architecture? is was the point. In
this lm, the only professional actor was the
cat. e rst day it drove us completely crazy
because when we wanted it to go right, it went
le
didnt have a single shot we could use. e
second day he began to do everything correctly.
e third day, he didnt want to leave the house.
He had decided to live there. [Laughter]
So why a cat?
SIMAS: To change the perspective.
KOK: Cats explore space much more than
dogs. I got a cat aer the lm. [Laughter]
A dog normally sits in a place and has its
known movements, like people. I behave more
You create
like a cat when Im documenting architecture
because I have to be everywhere and see
everything from high and low viewpoints.
empathy
MARCIO KOGAN: e movement of a cat is
more cinematographic.
when you
Architects pically take themselves too
seriously. Your lms totally upend this aitude.
dont treat
Can you talk about the role that humour and
irony have in your work?
yourself like
GABRIEL KOGAN: ere are some interesting
historical examples, like Palazzo Te in Mantua.
ats a manifesto for mannerist architecture
a genius
that really relates to humour. But its from the
16th century. So really its not very common to
nd successl examples of this relationship
between architecture and humour in
contemporary architecture.
MARCIO KOGAN: I was at the Universi
of So Paulo once and a student asked me:
Wheres the humour in your architecture?
I spent about ve minutes thinking about
this question, completely silent. Absolutely
silent. And I didnt have the answer. eres no
humour in the architecture. Never, ever. And
I like humour, very much. So I think these
lms are a way to have this irony, this critique.
But sometimes its hard to nd humour in the
architecture. You can look, but you cant nd it.
Architecture is very, very serious.
GABRIEL KOGAN: Modernism has always
been very serious. And then post-modernism
created a dialogue related to the humour in
architecture because the results were really,
really bad.
architecture, we can laugh. _
studiomk27.com.br
 Studio MK27 So Paulo Brazil 115

is Was Not My Dream

Redux HouseBragana PaulistaBrazil
And who wants this kind of house? Cold, dull, without life . . .
begins the scorned narrator over crisp black-and-white pans of a
modernist villa. is stirring voice of the ex-husband systematically
dismantles the seductive shots of the immaculate home. His ex-
wife Susanna remains in the residence, devoted to a life of dull,
uncompromising order. As long as Susanna is enslaved by the
house, she will never be free, the narrator laments.
And still, he longs for the house and Susanna. He describes all
the things he wanted for their home velvet curtains, golden metals,
plaster mouldings as he redraws the villa with classical features
and stately ornaments. Within his scathing critique of the house and
the architects, an aching ardour remains for his lost Susanna and the
QR code of is Was Not
hope that she will abandon the metallic door frames and come back My Dream.
into my arms. vimeo.com/97215038
116 Mark 65 Long Section
 Maison Edouard Franois Paris France 117

Taking
the
Green
Faade
to the
Next
Level
Edouard Franois plants a
nature-inclusive tower in Paris.

Text
Piet Vollaard

Photos
Pierre LExcellent

e tower is part of a larger project, which

also includes three lower volumes. Besides
apartments, it houses a day-care centre, a
young workers hostel and retail facilities.
118 Mark 65 Long Section

Contrary
to the conviction of many (including quite
a few architects) that the ci is primarily a
biotope for humans, nature is in fact an integral
part of our urban condition. e biodiversi
of a European ci is much larger than that
of the surrounding countryside, which is
predominately agricultural. Many plants and
animals have chosen the ci as their rst and
only habitat. ese so-called ci-bound species
live in and around our buildings and deliver
usel ecosystem services. Plants and trees
lter the air and protect us from heat stress,
while insect-eating birds and bats keep down
the number of mosquitos.
e biotopes in the ci, however, are
vulnerable, consisting mostly of isolated areas
I urge
that are not always interconnected in a strong
ecological network. On the other hand, the
ci oers an abundance of food (in fact it is
young
one big snack bar for many animals), is oen
a bit warmer than the surrounding areas,
and has many diverse spaces and greenery
architects
in which to sele, roost, rest and hibernate.
ere is much to be said for strengthening
to step on
nature in our cities, if only because parts of
the world, like Northwest Europe have such a
high densi that they are transforming very
the urban
fast into one big urban alomeration. If we
wish to preserve nature and why would we
nature
not then the only option for these parts of the
world is to integrate nature in the ci.
Urban ecology, the science that studies
band-
nature in our cities, is relatively young; in
fact it only got going in the 1970s. So-called
nature-inclusive design, a design approach
wagon
that sees (urban) nature as an integral part
of architecture and urban design, has an
now,
even shorter history. It is, in fact, a pioneer
profession, not unlike sustainable design
was in the 1960s and 1970s (so I urge young
before
architects to get on the urban nature band-
wagon now, before its too late and everybody
everybody
does). Solutions are not self-evident and have
to be searched for; knowledge is scaered and
either hidden in boring scientic publications
does
or simplied in books and on websites meant
for the general public.
No wonder then, that there are very few
architects that manage to combine nature-
inclusive design with really good architecture.
Paris-based architect Edouard Franois is one
of them. For many years he has incorporated
nature in his designs, including the Building
that Grows (2000) in Montpellier, which was
featured in the very rst issue of Mark (Mark 1,
page 142), the Flower Tower (2004) and Eden Bio
(2009; Mark 19, page 56), both in Paris. Recently
he nished a new project, M6B2 Tower of
Biodiversi in Paris, which takes the so-called
green or living faade to the next level. seem to fail aer a couple of years.
e Tower of Biodiversi is an apartment
building located in a green corridor along the
railway tracks, close to the National Library
of France and the Seine River. It is part of an
ensemble of several lower building blocks, also
designed by Franois. An exception to the local
maximum building height of 37 m allowed it to
rise up to 50 m, but on the condition that the
tower would be green. Besides apartments, a
young workers hostel is included, as well as
some shops, a crche and a green space on the
ground oor between the blocks. But that is
not what makes this design so important. Its
main features are the faade and green rooop,
which are based on carel considerations
concerning the local biodiversi.
Asked how this came to be, Edouard
Franois replies: In Paris nobody likes high
buildings, but they are necessary because of
the high densi that allows for more open
space around the buildings. I was approached
for this commission by Anne Hidalgo, the
current mayor of Paris. She asked for a green
building specically. So my challenge was
to make the Parisians like this building by
making it green. I decided to think of the
tower as a natural hill that would be greener
the closer you get to the top, which would be
totally green.
When I was granted the commission in
2010, Franois continues, it was the European
year of Biodiversi, so I also decided to take
this maer seriously and not just stupidly put
some plants on the faade. A lot of research
went into the project before we knew how
to sensibly include biodiversi. For this
we collaborated with the Ecole de Breuil, a
Parisian school for horticulture. ey studied
the local ecosystem and collected seeds from
native plants. All the plants that we used in the
building, especially those on the rooop, are
chosen seed by seed from the forests in and
around Paris, so they are totally natural. ese
plants themselves, because of the height of the
building, will spread their seeds over time by
force of the wind around Paris and thus the
building will regenerate the local biodiversi.
Its not improbable that in the ture many
kilometres from the building you will nd a
local tree on your own balcony that came from
these seeds.
Green roofs have been around for some
time now and for the most part the technology
has been tested in practice enough for them
to work most of the time. at is not the case
with so-called green or living faades. Many
experiments for green faades have been
started, and just as many unless they are
totally articial and intensively taken care of
Maison Edouard Franois Paris France 119

e faade is green all over, even

in places where the plants are not
growing (yet): it is clad in green
titanium faade panels.
120 Mark 65 Long Section

One of the problems is that plants and trees

have a hard time surviving if their roots are
not in the ground. Pots with soil or articial
substrates, even if they are submied to
intensive care by use of expensive automatic
watering systems, dont seem to work. At least
the systems are not able to make the larger
trees grow signicantly (which is probably the
reason why Stefano Boeri put grown trees on
his Bosco Verticale).
In the Biodiversi Tower, trees are also
part of the faade. However, they are allowed
to grow from small sprigs to lly grown trees
over time, so they are beer able to cope with
their specic situation, and probably will be
stronger in the long run. Because this will
take a long time and the mayor wanted a green
tower immediately, Franois chose plants and
trees with three dierent growing speeds. ey
will all be planted immediately, but the slower
species will take over the faster ones in the end.
For a fast greening, climbers have been planted
that will cover large areas of the faade in a
couple of months. Besides that, relatively fast
growing trees will have a signicant height
within just a few years. And then there are
some oak trees. ey will take decades, but in
the end they will probably take over large parts
of the faade.
Besides this three-way, time-based
growing strategy, special pots are being used
that at rst glance hardly look capable of
supporting a small bush, leave alone a lly
grown oak tree. For the pots we were inspired
by trees that grow in narrow cavities on
mountainsides, the architect explains. ese
trees seemed particularly strong and it did not
look like they had diculties growing, despite
their tight spot. We decided to emulate this e green faade consists of plants and trees with three
condition and came up with a system of long dierent growing speeds. e fast growers will provide the
tower with a green exterior within a few months, but in the
and narrow steel tubes, instead of large wide
long term the slower species will take over the faster ones.
pots. At the Ecole de Breuil several sizes, both
in length and diameter, were tested with trees
for a couple of years. We found out that a
length of circa 3.5 m and a diameter of circa
35 cm gave the best results. We also tested
whether the fact that the roots in the tubes will the apartments, which are clad with green
heat up when they are placed along a sunny
faade would have an eect on the growth.
e plants titanium faade panels. So the building was
actually already lly green even before the
For this we placed the same tube with the
same trees both into the ground and in open
sunshine. Surprisingly, the trees that heated up
will spread faade was planted.
Asked how the extra costs of the green
faade were accounted for, Franois answers:
more had stronger roots and grew beer than
the ones that were put in the ground. So that
their seeds Sorry, but this is a question that makes no
sense to me. If you subtract the titanium panels
was another potential problem tackled. e
next step was to integrate these tubes into the
actual faade itself.
over time or the plants, the building looks like shit, so
they are an integral part of the architecture. We
had no trouble justiing the plants, but had
e plants and trees grow in natural
soil and are helped out by an automatic
watering system that uses collected rainwater.
by force of more problems justiing the titanium, which,
as you know, is a rare an expensive material.
I came up with the story that yes, titanium is
However necessary, watering is done sparingly
not more than once a week. A 1-m-long
the wind expensive and rare, but consider the building
as a repository for this rare material. When in
reservoir at the boom of the tubes will allow the ture the French aeronautical industry has
the trees to absorb water naturally. a need for titanium and the natural sources are
e green faade lly covers the exhausted, it can be mined from this building.
building and is supported by a stainless So, actually, the faade is cheap? Yes,
steel net. Behind the 1-m-deep green zone cheap and very sustainable. _
with a service balcony are balconies for edouardfrancois.com
121
122

e trees in the faade are rooted in

storey-high steel tubes a solution
inspired by trees that grow in narrow
cavities on mountainsides.
 Maison Edouard Franois Paris France 123

+ 15 Cross Section

In Paris
02
nobody
likes high
buildings
03

12

04
01

10

07
11 Detail
01 Stainless steel net
02 Watering system
03 Stainless steel tube
04 Soil
05 Water deuxion
06 Maintenance footbridge
05 08 09 07 Balustrade
08 Rainwater collection
06 09 Concrete balcony
10 Titanium coating
11 Metallic support
12 Insulation (mineral wool)
124 Mark 65 Long Section

Tall in
Timber
Building high-rises in wood is
becoming increasingly widespread.
In Stockholm, plans are being made
for a 34-storey apartment building.

Text
Giovanna Dunmall
Timber building 125

Dalston Lane apartments in London,

UK, by Waugh istleton.
Photo Daniel Shearing
126 Mark 65 Long Section

Timbers
time has come, at least in architecture. But
its not just growing as this centurys material
of choice for sustainabili- and innovation-
minded architects. Recent advances in
engineering have improved its strength and
stabili so much that designers and builders
are able to go bier and taller than ever before.
In the UK, CLT (cross laminated
timber) buildings are growing in number and
height, in part due to relatively liberal building
regulations but also thanks to a progressive
aitude towards timber, especially in the East
Wenlock Road Apartments in London, UK, by Hawkins Brown. London borough of Hackney where it was
Photos Jack Hobhouse former mayor Jules Pipes material of choice. In
fact the rst tall timber building of the modern
age and the tallest timber building in the world
 Timber building 127

Patch22 apartment building in

Amsterdam, the Netherlands,
by Tom Frantzen.
Photos Luuk Kramer

Housing
and
climate
change are
the two
issues of
our age

at the time was built in Hackney back in North England that will create 400 to 500 new of the pollution in London is from tarmac and
2008.
e nine-storey Stadthaus (aka Murray jobs and be the rst UK factory to manufacture res and as we are making bier and heavier
Grove) was designed by London-based CLT. It will go online in the early autumn. buildings now, and diing ever deeper or
practice Waugh
istleton and completed in A huge promoter of the virtues of CLT demolishing structures, theres more of it.
an astounding 49 weeks. in terms of not only sustainabili, but also A far less researched benet of timber
Andrew Waugh is a founding director speed of erection and the unusually quiet and buildings relates to well-being, however.
of the rm and one of CLTs most impassioned dust-free construction environment, Waughs Waugh lives in a timber building he designed
early adopters and pioneers. Currently, the enthusiasm is infectious. CLT building sites are in London and says that the hygroscopic
practice is completing the largest (by volume) happy, quiet and clean, he says. You dont have properties of the material (where moisture
CLT building on the planet, the ten-storey, the noise of jackhammers, grinders and cement is absorbed and released as humidi levels
121-apartment Dalston Lane, also located in mixers because essentially you are puing up change in the atmosphere) make it feel like a
Hackney, and even more excitingly, it recently prefabricated parts with cordless screwdrivers. more natural humane space than a concrete
started working with the new housing arm One of the most signicant environmental structure. Rot or ngi are not a problem as the
of British nancial services company Legal & advantages oered by CLT construction in wood has been kiln-dried to remove almost
General.
e laer has just opened an 800,000- Waughs view is the 80 per cent reduction in all water, but in places like Australia, where
m2 modular housing factory in Yorkshire in construction trac and trucks.
e majori insects and termites will eat anything, the
128
e Tree apartment tower in Bergen, Norway, by Artec.
Photos Treindustrien
timber can be painted with boron for the rst
couple of metres to prevent this.
Medical research on the health benets
of living and working in wooden structures
is also starting to emerge. A research project
carried out by the Austrian Sria regions
timber cluster (Holzcluster Steiermark) at
a school in Ennstal in central Austria, for
example, makes the health case for timber
strongly. Two classrooms were clad in timber
from oor to ceiling and lled with wooden
rniture. Pupils using the two rooms were
monitored for a year for heart rate and stress
levels alongside pupils of the same age and
grade following lessons in two standard
classroom environments. e tests showed that
Mark 65
the heart rates of the children in the all-timber
classrooms dropped by 10 beats a minute
(equivalent to two hours of cardiovascular
activi a day) compared to their standard
classroom counterparts and that their heart
rates continued to go down during the day.
Despite these many advantages, Waugh
acknowledges that building in timber presents
some serious challenges. Resistance of timber
buildings against wind is actually the most
important design factor. You are building a
structure that weighs a h of a concrete
building so the strength to resist wind load
is always an issue. e solution, he says, is to
design buildings that are robust in their plan.
So rather than a long, thin building facing the
Long Section
CLT
building
sites are
happy,
quiet and
clean
wind like a sail, you avoid that and look to the
plan to give you robustness.
For Dalston Lane, the practice is using
3,852 m3 of CLT for the buildings external,
par and core walls, oors and stairs, making
it what is called a pure CLT building. e
design is a C-shape with an internal courard
and li cores in each internal corner. ose
li cores give the building its rmness, they
act as the trunk, he says. But also making sure
the walls, cores and oor slabs act together
in unison to give a real stiness to the plan is
imperative.
Important concerns with any building
are re, water and structure, continues Waugh.
ese are the things you need to be aware
 129

Brock Commons student residence in Vancouver, Canada, by Acton Ostry.

Photos Acton Ostry Architects Inc. and Universi of British Columbia

of in terms of longevi. If water sits on top
of timber for a long time it generally only
penetrates the surface. With concrete you
would have to replace all the rebar or your steel
will go rus, with timber you just take out the
bit that has been damaged, paint it with resin
or boron, and replace it.
On paper re sounds like it would be a
huge issue for wood but it is much less so than
one would assume. Typical so
wood performs Associate at London-based practice Hawkins
well under re and chars at a rate of circa 0.7
mm per minute, says Waugh. So we put an
external layer, almost like a sacricial layer, on
the structure knowing that the rst 25 mm will
last at least 20 minutes. Other materials, such
as double layers of plasterboard, are also added
to increase re resistance, especially on re-
ghting cores.
For years now, Waugh istleton has
designed every project based on the assumption
that its going to be built in timber, but Waugh
admits that they are still learning. Its a brand
new material so we are trying to understand
how the material inuences the architecture.
is is a point also raised by Alex Smith, an
But it isnt just in the UK that
Brown and project architect for Wenlock
Road, aka e Cube, a 6,750-m2 scheme with
an alluring twisted cruciform plan that uses a
hybrid timber-steel structure.
Smith is clear that CLT has serious
sustainabili advantages but doesnt believe
one needs to be a purist. Architecture can
be driven by the limitations of the structural
proposal, but thats not the most exciting
way to design buildings because people dont
understand what those limitations are when
inhabiting these spaces, he says. I think hybrid
solutions represent a way of blending the two
together to allow ambitious architecture to
happen in a more sustainable way.
timber is on the rise in every sense. In
the Netherlands architect Tom Frantzen
says there is no strong wood tradition for
structural purposes anymore but his recently
completed seven-storey Patch 22 project
overlooking a canal in a former industrial
130 Mark 65 Long Section

HoHo oce tower in Vienna, Austria,

by RLP Rdiger Lainer + Partner

Haut apartment tower in Amsterdam, the

Netherlands, by Team V Architecture and Arup.

area of northern Amsterdam (which he
developed as well as designed) dees that
trend with a load-bearing structure made
almost entirely of pinewood CLT and
laminated pinewood. Its contemporary
chalet-meets-warehouse faades are clad in
Douglas r. We chose timber because it is
one of the few renewable building materials,
but there were other reasons too, he says.
Its exceptional to use wood in this way
in the Netherlands so we knew it would
aract a lot of aention. We wanted to oer
something dierent during the recession
since people had stopped buying. Frantzen
doubts wood will become the new concrete
in the Netherlands any time soon, but says it
will become a more accepted alternative to
concrete and popular with clients who like
the look, feel and smell of wood.
Elsewhere in the world some of the
most interesting timber projects include the
14-storey Tree in Bergen, Norway, which is the
worlds tallest timber building at this moment;
the 18-oor student residence in Vancouver by
Acton Ostry Architects, which will overtake it
aer its completion in 2017; the 22-oor Haut
tower in Amsterdam (2019); the 25-storey
HoHo in Vienna (2018); and then, if it goes
ahead, the 34-storey HSB Landmark project in
Stockholm, expected to be completed in 2023.
Is a super-tall timber building on the horizon
any time sooner? Waugh believes we can go to
about 20 storeys in pure CLT right now (and is
working with Cambridge Universis Centre
for Material Innovation to go even higher),
whereas Vancouver-based architect Michael
Green says higher is possible, yet with the use
of some steel. Back in 2011 his practice MGA
designed a 30-storey timber building that used
what Green calls mass timber (CLT and other
laminates) and steel beams. In a bid to advance
discussion and debate he made the design
available to all via a creative commons licence.
More recently, a 35-storey building
MGA proposed for a Paris project didnt make
it beyond the competition stage. Why? It was
deemed too tall for its site, says Green. e
challenge has always been one of perception

HSB apartment tower in Stockholm, Sweden, by C.F. Mller.
more than one of science or engineering; how
the public perceives what is possible is actually
my hardest job. It is about education and
inspiration.
Waugh is more reticent. e more tall
timber buildings are designed and not realized,
the less credibili timber architecture and
engineering has. And it becomes about sle or
individuals. What we need to do is eschew the
notion of sle and say that this is not about an
aesthetic, but about a ndamental sea change.
Both Waugh and Green do agree,
however, on the fact that the focus shouldnt
only be on height. In many respects we are not
advocates of building too high in any material,
says Green. ere is a point where buildings
Timber building
are treated as warehouses for people and create
strange social distancing that is not appropriate
for ci building. Waugh believes rthermore
that sscrapers arent necessarily the best
buildings for the 21st century. ey are terribly
inecient in terms of services and internal
usage and around their bases. If you build
lower you can build denser.
Given that concrete production
accounts for 5 per cent of the worlds
greenhouse gas emissions, wooden buildings
from responsibly harvested sources are, and
should be, rst and foremost about combating
climate change. Housing and climate change
are the two issues of our age, agrees Waugh.
As architects you need to be addressing these
131
things head on, not carrying on with a 20th-
century notion of architecture. Green is of the
same mind and believes Vancouver has been
a world leader in building in timber in North
America but that the United States is fast
catching up. When the United States gets into
any game it has the skill to become a leader,
he says. For this to happen though, one simple
ndamental thing needs to be acknowledged:
climate change is real and being impacted by
the actions of man. Changing the way we build
our cities, not just by choosing wood, is critical
to addressing climate. Choosing timber is a
prey good start. _
132 Mark 65 Long Section

Five Points
in the
Pampa

In the small town of Olten, Fuhrimann Hchler

built a house that pays homage to Le Corbusiers
principles of modern architecture.

Text Photos
Katharina Marchal Valentin Jeck
Fuhrimann Hchler Olten Switzerland 133

e space underneath the

residence nctions as a carport.
134 Mark 65
e
Swiss architecture rm Fuhrimann Hchler
in Zurich is best known for its designs for
renowned gallery owners and art collectors,
like the house in Vn, Graubnden, for gallery
owner Eva Presenhuber from Zurich (Mark 14,
page 144) and the architect and artists home
on etliberg near Zurich. ey are not only
friends with Swiss artists like Pipiloi Rist
and Peter Fischli & David Weiss, but also build
houses for clients who work in architecture
or construction companies and are looking
forward to something new. And so, during
a pleasant evening with the friendly Sulzer
couple, the idea of a house in the suburb of
Olten arose. An evening meal, during which
the wine owed abundantly and Cuban cigars
Long Section
e space underneath the house can be
closed o with a plastic curtain.
were smoked, led to the propers name: House
Cubana. And the result does exude a southern
ambience.
At the edge of the small ci of Olten
lies a new suburb with apartment buildings
and row houses along long streets. Detached
houses with two oors and an aic dot the
terrain on the mountainsides and the forest
edges. e clients managed to acquire two
adjacent plots for their new house. On the edge
of the buildable surface and at the highest
point of the plot, the corner location oers
an unrestricted view: of the woods on the
mountainside and of the ci on the side of the
valley. Staging the view, and the way we make
it visible in the building, is very important in
 Fuhrimann Hchler
e landing of the open staircase leads
to the front door on the rst oor.
our architecture, says Gabrielle Hchler. e
decision to realize the living and dining room
on the most beautil and highest viewpoint
led to the overall design of the house. We
turned convention around, says Hchler.
Living upstairs and sleeping downstairs is
more natural and logical. Moreover, in this way
the architects make the most of the building
regulations.
Eight rectangular, angled columns
and a li sha form the legs of a concrete
table construction. On top of that rests a
prefabricated timber frame construction with a
ll oor and an aic, which is not recognizable
as such because the faade of corrugated steel
envelops both oors like a raincoat. e shapes
Olten Switzerland
of the cubist building not only remind one of
Le Corbusiers ve points, but also of the family
house of Swiss architects Albert Frey and Fred
Kocher in Syosset, Long Island of 1932. Notable
are the parts that protrude from the building
volume. e staircase from the bedroom oor
to the living area hangs on the outside and is
covered with at plates of titanium zinc. e
same applies to the replace chimney, which
is recognizable from outside in the form of a
concrete slab. On the west and east side, box-
like windows protrude from the faade like
telescopes.
ese added elements provide the
strict box with a more playl character,
says Hchler. e spaciousness starts at the
135
entrance; the open staircase that leads up to
the front door is reminiscent of an entrance
to a science-ction spaceship. is project
needs a client who doesnt shun risk, says
Hchler. e client adds: ats only possible
if you work with people who understand their
profession. Manuela Sulzer, the owner, is an
interior designer; her husband Linus Sulzer is
an architect and owns the largest construction
management company in Switzerland:
Sulzer + Buzzi Baumanagement. From the
beginning, both were completely behind this
special home, known in the neighbourhood
as the architect house. Yet the volume
seamlessly joins the row of detached houses.
It is an exciting prelude to the conventional,
136 Mark 65 Long Section

e staircase from the rst to the second

oor protrudes from the side as an
independent volume. e chimney and the
drainpipe were also expressively designed.
Fuhrimann Hchler Olten Switzerland 137
138
restrained architecture of the neighbours.
Andreas Fuhrimann und Gabrielle
Hchler not only paid aention to the views of
the countryside and the surroundings in their
design; they also created a complex interior.
e outdoor area under the raised building
volume is not only used as a carport by the
clients, but also for parties. A curtain of plastic
makes it possible to partly close this 4-m-high
space. Videos can be projected on a white
surface on the inner side of the curtain. Next
to the wood-lined storage room and elevator
entrance landing, stairs lead upward. Because
the opening is in the middle of the building, the
interconnected rooms are strung together along
the faade. eir large dimensions allow for
exible use.
At this time, the entrance and
cloakroom are on the east side, the master
bedroom with bathroom, dressing room and
small study are on the north side, and a large
Mark 65
laundry room on the west side. All walls are
covered with sheets of untreated plywood.
On the upper oor beams of pinewood bring
articulation to the ceilings. e ooring is also
the same everywhere, linking the areas. e
beige wood cement ts well with the light
wood of the walls and ceilings. A mural by
Pipiloi Rist in the open bathroom nctions
as a landmark in the coherent design. When
the curtain in the lady of the houses adjacent
boudoir is open, you have an unimpeded view
of the forest from the freestanding tub. is
room, too, is multinctional; it can also be
used as guest room or library.
On the top oor it becomes clear that
the architects have kept their word. e view
is panoramic and reaches across the residential
area to the other side of the valley. When
neighbours come to visit, they are surprised
and lament: Why didnt we design our house
like this? e architects deliberately refrained
Long Section
Like the custom cupboard around the replace,
the kitchen was done in light-green wood.
from using glass everywhere on the top oor.
e view is centred on the town and the
forest. e west and east faades have hardly
any windows. e building regulations were
exploited by the architects, by extending the
maximum surface of the upper oor with a
loia-like roof terrace. With the storey-high
wooden panelling and oor boards this outside
room looks like a south-facing courard.
Again, windows focus the view to the north
and south. e view when looking upwards
is cut up and framed by two sharply angled
wooden beams. An awning that takes its
example from Spanish patios, made of canvas
stretched between multiple points, is in
preparation.
e decision to move to the outskirts
of a small town was quite a change for the
client, who comes from Basel. If were moving
to the Pampa anyway, I want to build with
Fuhrimann Hchler, she demanded of her
Fuhrimann Hchler Olten Switzerland 139

e living room on the second oor gives

access to a spacious roof terrace.

e added
elements
provide the
strict box
with a more
playl
character
140 Mark 65 Long Section

e bathroom in the guest room has a

mural designed by artist Pipiloi Rist.

e master bedroom on the rst oor

has an open connection to the bathroom.

husband. Hchler says emphatically: Were

proud that we were able to build in a suburb,
because Switzerland is densely built up and
urban sprawl looms. One advantage was
that the clients company supported the
project. Scheduling the building activities
precisely made it possible to turbo-charge the
undertaking. Planning began on 1 February
2014, and the house was constructed from June
2014 to September 2015. Swi decisions by the
clients also made the short construction time
possible. e good cooperation resulted in new
joint projects. Fuhrimann Hchler is working
with Sulzer + Buzzi on the construction of
shopping mall Slipark and senior homes and
oces in the centre of Olten. _
afgh.ch
 Fuhrimann Hchler Olten Switzerland 141

0 +1 +2

08 11

02 02 09 02

03 07

01
10 12
04

05 06

01 Carport
02 Elevator
03 Entrance hall
04 Study
05 Master bathroom
06 Master bedroom
07
08
Utili

Guest bedroom
Long Sections
09 Guest bathroom
10 Living room
11 Kitchen
12 Roof terrace

is project needs

a client who
doesnt shun risk

Cross Section
142 Mark 65 Long Section

Rough Cut

Juergen Tellers studio is squeezed between

two existing buildings on a residential
street not far from Portobello Road.
6a Architects London UK 143

Fashion and art

photographer
Juergen Tellers
new studio,
designed by 6a,
lends itself for
a varie of
photo shoots.

Text
Izabela Anna

Photos
Johan Dehlin
144
Architect
Tom Emerson is an enthusiastic storyteller. e
interview about photographer Juergen Tellers
new studio, which he designed, takes place in
this years Manifesta Biennale pavilion, e
Pavilion of Reections, which was built by
Emersons students at the ETH Zrich. Its a
Spe call on a Sunday, and Emersons narrative
is so rich in references that I have to break
down my notes into digestible paragraphs
summarizing the key points that played a role
in conceiving the studio. e conversation feels
like an expedition, which begins straight aer
we exchange formalities.
About ve years ago, Emerson, who
leads architecture oce 6a together with
Stephanie Macdonald, received a brief from
the fashion and art photographer that was
short and simple nothing like the long and
narrow patch of land that was designated as
the building site. Tellers sole requirements
were various spaces in three separate
buildings with double-height rooms. Most
importantly, the client wanted a photography
Mark 65
studio that would avoid clinical whiteness and
lend itself to be perceived as a more natural
on location seing. With few restrictions
and a lot of freedom on his hands, Emerson
regularly asked his client what he thought
about one idea or another questions door frames. Its the only area that gets light
that Teller generally answered rather
unphilosophically with youre the architect,
you tell me. e result shows many contrasts.
e bold, concrete faade incorporates elegant
wooden features, such as the front doors and
a tall window frame. e northern side wall
is made of warm, red brick instead of grey
concrete. e rudiment from the plots former
life has been le and kindly welcomed rather
than bulldozed in the pursuit of perfection.
Entering the studio through its
wooden doors, the visitor begins a journey
from business-like formali to private retreat.
e studio is laid out as a series of separate
compartments. e rst houses an oce, a
space for post-production and the archive
spread over two oors. e interior design
Long Section
Le e wide hallway in the oce
building leads to the rst courard.
Opposite e tall oce space on the rst
oor is the only room with a street view.
speaks the language of both aloofness and
sensitivi. e rooms are contained between
sand-coloured walls, balanced by the stale
greyness of cement ceilings and oors,
highlighted with shining white window and
from the street side owing to the narrowness
of the plot, which measures 60 7 m, most of
the other spaces in the building have slights
or overlook a courard.
Further inside the complex is the
main studio. A double-height ceiling with
slights and concrete beams spanning the
ll width makes the room airy yet intimate.
Its a space suitable for the execution of many
ideas: from shooting pictures to laying out
books or printing. It can be kept emp or lled
to the brim with props. e main studio is
simple, exible and practical. e pragmatism
doesnt lack poetry though. Tom Emerson
asks if I have been to Sir John Soanes house
in London, which is similarly lit by slights
only. I have indeed visited the former home
6a Architects London UK 145
146 Mark 65 Long Section

Two staircases lead to storage rooms on

either side of the main studio space.
 6a Architects London UK 147

e kitchen may also lend itself as a

location for a photo shoot.

Teller needs of the neoclassical architect. Its a labyrinth of

extravagant rooms, heavy wooden doors and
fascinatingly rich displays of art, curiosities
room without being intruding. Aer moving
in, Teller discovered the staircases as a location
for photoshoots right away. One of his talents

to cross the and other possessions. eres a similari to

Juergens studio, says Emerson. e horizon
cannot be seen and is therefore transferred to
lies in considering every inch of space as a
possibili to create his images.
Furthest away from the street entrance
elements the pictures and objects in the room. Everyone
whos visited the John Soane Museum has
is the most private part of the house. It
compromises a kitchen, dining room, sauna,

in order to experienced the feeling of the world being

sucked into one building. e Wunderkammer-
like museum and Tellers airy studio have
plant room and library. ey may seem like
decadent additions to an otherwise purely
professional space, but anyone who knows

go from one something in common: they seem to contain

an entire universe independently from the one
Tellers work also knows that he invests in
good times, in order to capture the most

part of the existing outside its walls.

Teller preferably shoots on location,
in natural situations and light conditions,
unconstrained moments. Such areas allow as
much for private pastime as they are another
location to shoot in. Slistically, there is no

building and therefore doesnt need any big technical

lights or other special installations. His studio
is emp, but not bare. Its design is the result
to another of much thought and many accidents, says
Emerson. ere are two storage spaces for
props and other stu high up in the studio, and
rays of light shine onto the walls underneath
them. It would have been too obvious to put a
piece of rniture there so we created two zig
zag staircases instead. ey add depth to the
dierence between oce space or studio, just
as there seems to be no separation between
Tellers work and his life. e dierent
shades of grey in the interior might appear
monochromatic at rst sight, but everything
has a texture, resulting in surfaces with
highlights and shadows.
e three parts of the building are
separated by two courards with abundant
greenery. Emerson explains that they are not
148 Mark 65 Long Section

Axonometric

e main studio
is simple, exible
and practical
 6a Architects London UK 149

Long Section

+1
06 06
08
05

07

02
03 04

01

01 Entrance hall
02 Archive
03 Studio
04 Library
05 Post-production
06 Storage
07 Study
08 Sauna

er the shoot, I mindlessly
e water bu is a plain metal barrel.
merely separators or eye candy, but that having
a connection to nature, even in this smallest
of ways, is important to Teller. He needs to
cross the elements in order to go from one
part of the building to another. Dan Pearson, a
landscape gardener specialized in naturalistic
perennial planting, designed the greenery to
grow naturally and spontaneously. Together, the
three men looked at a 70-year-old book, Londons
Natural History by R.S.R. Fier, to get inspired
and decide what the garden should be like. One
of the main questions was how to make it look
authentic. ats not that easy in such a small
space encircled by concrete, says Emerson. I
mean, how do you grow a jungle on 10 m2? In
the end, it was decided to make the greenery
look like it has grown out of the cis cracks,
says Emerson. Gravel has been made by casting
concrete sheets in situ, braking them into pieces
and giving them over to the elements.
e water bu in the corner of one
of the gardens, a plain metal barrel, reminds
me of the few times I helped out at Tellers
studio as a student. He was shooting a per me
ad for a large fashion house that had sent
multiple white plastic buckets of honey and
a big bouquet of owers to be incorporated
into the seing. A
repurposed one of the buckets as a vase, lled
with owers to the brim. Georg Rules, studio
director at the time, saw the arrangement and
interpreted it as being very Teller.
e water bu, just like the building
as a whole, lends itself for the same kind of
repurposing. Emerson can even see Teller taking
a bath in it. Juergen regularly tells me about
new corners of the building he has discovered,
says Emerson. He is brilliant at nding these
spots that were not anticipated and rnishes
the building with meaning through the way
he uses it. He used to send me text messages
saying that he doesnt ever want to go home
anymore. Creating this sense of togetherness is a
talent that Juergen has. It feels like you're doing
something extreme or conspiring together.
In the end its this kind of talent that lends
meaning to this beauti l building. _
6a.co.uk
150 Mark 65 Long Section

Cabins
in the
Woods
Students on the
Universi of Colorado
Denvers design-build
programme created
a series of huts in
perfect harmony with
their forest location.

Text
Jane Szita

Photos
Jesse Kuroiwa
Colorado Building Workshop Leadville CO USA 151
152
A they immerse their inhabitants in their
steep hillside in a dense lodgepole pine
forest is the wild and wonderful setting
for an imaginative series of woodland
micro-cabins built by architecture students
from the University of Colorado Denver
for Colorado Outward Bound School.
The cabins offer accommodation to those
taking part in or guiding Outward Bounds
exploratory educational courses in the
remote area around Leadville in the Rocky
Mountains. While providing essential shelter,
environment, thanks to their large windows,
outdoor spaces and sensitive use of the
location. Impressively the students, who were
taking part in the universitys postgraduate
design-build programme, not only designed
the 14 seasonal cabins and seven permanent
ones, but built them all from scratch over a
period of just two years.
e project was born, naturally
enough, in the great outdoors: namely, with
an encounter between a former student of
the design-build programme and Colorado
Outward Bounds executive director. e
two met on a hike, recounts the universis
Rick Sommereld, who leads the programme.
e executive director was talking about his
plans to buy some sheds from the hardware
store in order to use them for sleeping
accommodation, explains Sommereld. Our
former student told him that the design-build
programme could come up with something
much beer for about the same money. e
eventual cost of the cabins, around $10,000
(disregarding a lot of the donated labour and
materials) was not that wide of the mark.
Intrigued by the hiking encounter, the
Outward Bound chief invited the Universi
of Colorado design-build programme to
collaborate, initially on a group of 14 seasonal
huts to be used by young people aending
its courses in the summer months (May to
August). Sommereld and his 24 graduate
students approached the project by spending
three days camping at the site, interviewing
the clients and being impressed and inspired
by the ru ed beau all around them. All this
input was then used to esh out the projects
design parameters.
Its a unique site, says Sommereld.
Its very densely forested, with a 10-m-high
 Colorado Building Workshop Leadville CO USA 153

e students who worked on the project are Derek Ackley, Joshua Allen, Sidney Aulds, Becca Barenblat, Andrew Baur,
Brent Beicker, Devyn Bernal, Michael Black, Mahew Breen, Andrew Brown, Leigh Bryant, Je D'Addario, Craig Dunn, John
Giddens, Amanda Gonzales, Brandon Gossard, Aaron Gray, Anna Grith, Dane Hardy, Jerey Heger, James Hillard, Kyle
Hoehnen, Chad Holmes, Casandra Hu, Mark Hurni, Timo Jyrinki, Andrea Kelchlin, Rachel Koleski, Jesse Leddin, Kate Lucas,
Amie McDermo, Nathan Moore, Tanner Morrow, Nina Najmabadi, Ma Ollmann, Sam Palmer-Dwore, Aleka Pappas, Holly
Paris, Nathan Pepper, Kit Piane, Kyle Plantico, Christopher Powell, Ken Roberts, Louisa Sanford, Michael Schauble, Andrew
Schrag, Genevieve Sellers, Diana Souders, Henry Spiegel, Joe Stainbrook, Samantha Strang, Brandon Sweeney, Phil Stuen,
Amanda arp, Ellio Watenpaugh, Catrina Weissbeck, Tyler Whaley, Briany Wheeler and Ryan Wresch.

Custom CNCd millwork minimized

waste and on-site construction time.

Cabin 2 uses a rock as part

of its foundation.

Cabin 2
01 Bed
02 Desk / storage 01
03 Deck

02 03

02

01

Exploded axonometric showing the

prefabricated components of Cabin 2.
154
tree canopy, and its 10,000 feet [c. 3,000
m] above sea level, with an average daily
temperature thats around freezing.
Conditions are dicult for building it is
impossible to get a crane onto the site, for
example. is, plus the fact that the client
valued the direct connection with nature,
inuenced the decision to opt for micro
buildings, rather than aempting a larger
structure. While the students would work in
small groups on the individual cabins, it was
clear that we needed an overarching scheme,
says Sommereld.
is arrived in the form of our rst idea
for the big roof structure, which was based
on the tent ysheet. Able to cover the outside
porches and oering space to store plen particular view. We tried to cut down as few
of outdoor gear beneath it, while protecting
everything from snow, the big roof, supported
by a steel frame, also freed up the design
Site
C A
12
11
B 13
7
D 8
10 9
E
F
1 3
Mark 65 Long Section
possibilities of the box the actual cabin
below it. e roof for each cabin measures 12 X
x 24 feet [3.66 7.32 m] and that was non-
negotiable, says Sommereld. But the students
could do what they like beneath it. In order to
add a communal aspect, we decided to site the
buildings close to each other and provide them
with outdoor decks as a social area.
Each of the cabins is unique, varying
in its arrangement of deck, sleeping and living
space (there are no bathrooms, since a bathroom
block is located nearby) and in size (between
140 and 200 square feet or 13 and 19 m2).
Above all, each one reacts to its particular
location in the group. Elevated several feet from
the ground, every cabin is designed to frame a
trees as possible, says Sommereld. Instead,
we used the natural growth of the trees to form
approaches to the individual huts and frame
X
14
2
4
6 5 1
3
4 5
 Colorado Building Workshop Leadville CO USA 155

6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13

2
D

14 C E F
156 Mark 65 Long Section

Cabin A

01
02

03

03
02

01

Inside, the cabins feature

steel accents.
01 Deck
02 Bed with storage
03 Desk and built-ins

As the sta of the Outward Bound

School wanted more introversion, the
cedar-clad decks of the year-round
cabins have been given more privacy.
 157

Flat roofs in the year-round cabins

hold snow for additional insulation.

e steel structure remains

exposed inside the cabins.

Cabin B

05

04

02

03

03 04

01 02

01 Entry walkway
02 Bed with storage
03 Built-ins
04 Desk
05 Deck
158

Cabin Ds courard has an

operable steel accordion door.

Cabin D

07

06

04

02

05

04

03

01

01 Entry walkway
02 Indoor mud room
03 Bed
04 Built-in cabinets
05 Desk
06 Deck Exploded axonometric showing the
07 Accordion door prefabricated components of Cabin D.
 Colorado Building Workshop
An open roof courard connects
the cabins users to s views.
views, and we also made use of the boulders as
support one hut has no foundations at all, but
is built on rocks.
e materials palee is uniform to
ensure that all the houses read as a group,
he adds. Steel was chosen for its durabili
and low maintenance a choice that initially
shocked the client, who was probably
expecting a log cabin. ey were convinced
aer seeing a ll-scale mock-up though,
explains Sommereld. e hot rolling process
that produces the thicker gauge steel that we
used creates a vertical striation, which mimics
the verticali of the forest. e glass also
reects the trees, which helps the cabins to
blend into their seing.
Inside, steel accents are also used,
linking the indoor and exterior faces, although
the interior and rniture are largely made from
CNC birch plywood. e windows, made using
donated glass, were inserted using double-sided
3M VHB tape and then sealed with silicon.
is technique is oen used in sscrapers,
not very oen in residential buildings, says
Sommereld. You lose the frame of the window
it feels as though the glass is simply not there.
e bi est challenge of the project
was of course the construction phase on the
steep, wooded site. Prefab was essential, says
Sommereld. And because we couldnt use a
Leadville CO USA
crane, we needed to panellize everything. We
ended up with something like a giant Ikea at
pack. We shipped it at, and then the students
had to carry the parts up to the site and assemble
the huts by hand. We did that in just 30 days
about two days per cabin, including the interiors.
e students were phenomenal it was snowing
and cold, and they were sleeping in tents.
e hard work was rewarded when
a delighted client promptly requested seven
permanent cabins, in addition to the 14
seasonal ones. is time, the cabins would
need to be used for between nine and 12
months a year, and would house the Outward
Bound course guides. For these cabins, we
added insulation and basic electrici, says
Sommereld. We also found that the sta, an
older demographic than the course aendees,
wanted more introversion. We therefore
converted the decks into courards, carved
out of a larger box beneath a roof of the same
dimensions as the seasonal huts, and giving
views of the s.
Double glazing, rudimentary kitchens,
lighting and heating increase the home
comforts of the permanent cabins although
perhaps not so much: the heater is a tiny
1500-wa one, since each cabin has only one
single circuit. We expect that the insulation
will do the rest, says Sommereld. e snow
159
on the roof will contribute greatly to that. As
the cabins are only just completed, he concedes
that he is curious to see how they will perform
during the winter.
Again, each cabin is unique. Its mass
customization, says Sommereld. We were
able to use computer and CNC technology
to create 21 prefabricated units that are
unique and that each respond directly to their
environment, with their views and siting
taking ll advantage of the unique context.
From Henry David oreau and Walt
Whitman to contemporary horror lms, the
cabin in the woods is a staple of American
culture, loaded with meaning. e students
version for Outward Bound seems to capture
this signicance, endowing a simple, nctional
project with a touch of poetry.
Sommereld considers the bi est
achievement of the project to be llling the
clients needs. When we nished the cabins,
the longest serving Outward Bound guide
was given the rst choice of the seven, says
Sommereld. He said, is is a very dicult
decision, as any one of these cabins would be
beer than anything else Ive ever lived in. At
the end of the day, thats the bi est reward we
could have. _
coloradobuildingworkshop.com
160 Mark 65 Long Section

A Model
Village
without
Villagers
 Amateur Architecture Studio Wencun Zhejiang China 161

e people of Wencun, China, dont like the houses

Amateur Architecture Studio designed for them, but
tourists are happy to stay there.

Text Photos
Harry den Hartog Iwan Baan

Some of the existing rural villas,

which previously had tiled walls,
were renished in compressed clay.
162 Mark 65 Long Section

When
Mao was still in power, the Chinese
countryside was the basis of the national
economy. However, the massive wave of
urbanization that has been washing across the
country since the end of the last century has
had major eects, especially on rural China.
All over the world, young people are leaving
the villages they grew up in to pursue the
beer training, career opportunities and leisure
opportunities oered by big cities. In China,
the phenomenon is even more widespread
than elsewhere owing to the breath-taking
inequali in wealth between urban and rural
areas. In the majori of Chinese villages, the
population is aging rapidly and the buildings
are in bad need of repair.
Amateur Architecture Studio, the oce
Wang Shu set up with his wife Lu Wenyu (who,
say critics, should have been acknowledged
as co-winner of the Pritzker Prize he won in
2012), has conducted many studies of rural
China, o en together with students of the
China Art Academy, where both teach.
Because of the sharp focus on
urbanization, the Chinese countryside has
suered considerable neglect in many respects.

ese days, however, this seems to be gradually

changing. In 2012, the government in Beijing
launched its Beautil Liveable Village-policy
aimed at the restoration of 4,000 Chinese
villages. No less than 1,000 of these villages,
Wencun among them, have jointly been
designated as a pilot project, its deadline 2017,
so next year. Most of the pilot villages have
been assigned a thematic approach, including
some quite extreme ones such as an unmanned
aerial vehicle village (where you can learn to
y drones), a chocolate village (where you can
learn to make chocolate as well as have some),
and even a cosmetics village.
e plan is to
aract tourists and investments and create of the metropolis of Hangzhou, the ci that is demolition team to stop doing what they were
jobs, which will automatically bring back the also home to the famous China Art Academy doing at once. Local authorities asked Wang if
young people, or so it is hoped. designed by Wang Shu. Shortly a er Wang won he had any beer ideas, since what they had in
Wencun is well-situated in accordance the Pritzker Prize in 2012, the municipali mind was to aen a large part of the village
with Chinese Feng Shui principles at the of Fuyan commissioned him to create a local in the nearby ture. Impressed with the status
interface between the lowlands of the Fuchun cultural centre. A er negotiations, Wang of the international award Wang had recently
River and the foot of Wenbi Mountain. managed to also bring in the order for the received, the authorities subsequently gave
Consisting of some 80 households, the village regeneration for the nearby village of Wencun. Amateur Architecture Studio carte blanche to
straddles a small, distant branch of the Fuchun Rumour has it that Wang visited the develop a plan in collaboration with the local
River. Wencun is part of the municipali of village and saw a building from the Ming authorities, a local investor and the China
Fuyang, which is in turn an administrative part Dynas being torn down. He asked the Academy of Art. Approximately half the village
 Amateur Architecture Studio
consists of buildings going back to the Ming
and Qing dynasties. However, most properties
pes, most with small,
are in a deplorable state construction-wise and
ards. e ground oor level
some have already been replaced by hideous,
three-storey, ceramic-tiled rural villas.
e proposed programme, completed
by now, comprises 14 new buildings for a total
of 24 households clustered along a street, a
waterfront path with a new bridge, several
pavilions and a number of renovated properties
scaered across the old part of the village.
Wencun Zhejiang China
To provide the selement with a more
organic appearance, in harmony with
traditional landscaping ideals, ten of the
abovementioned renovated rural villas that
local farmers had already built over the last
two decades were stripped of their glazed
tiles and renished with compressed clay,
an ancient tradition no longer in use because
clay is considered a poor mans material and
nearly no-one remembers how to process
it anymore.
163
Wencun is on a small branch of the Luzhu River,
which is in turn a subsidiary of the Fuchun River.
e 14 new buildings completed in late 2015
come in eight dierent
10-m2 cour
is designed to be used as a workshop, as is
customary in the region. anks to the used
materials and particularly the scale and the
way the new buildings t into the existing
urban structure, the addition looks like an
organically grown continuation of the village.
However, rather than craed the traditional
way, the concrete support structures were
164 Mark 65 Long Section

Above e buildings are not in a straight

line, which reinforces the impression of an
organically grown selement.

Below Many of the construction activities

involve manual labour.

In China, Opposite Most dwellings have small courards

that measure approximately 10 m2.

many
ancient
cras and
techniques
have been
forgoen
 Amateur Architecture Studio
cast on site. e support structure of the
historical buildings in the village consists of a
mix of timber frame construction and masonry
supporting walls.
e work of Amateur Architecture
Studio is characterized by the reuse of building
materials taken from demolished properties,
as a response to passionate demolishing and,
according to Wang, soulless new buildings,
but also to create a poetic link to the past. e
architect says that he wants to echo or respond
to reali. He thinks demolished and recycled
materials have memory, a soul. Wangs design
processes start with the material.
In Wencun, however, he hardly reused
any materials at all. e work is mainly
executed using locally available materials such
as compressed clay for the non-supporting
walls in the new buildings and the plastered
walls of the rural villas. Rather than exterior
walls comprising the recycled black roof tile
and brick that are characteristic of the work of
Amateur Architecture Studio, brand-new grey
limestone from a nearby quarry was used here.
In China, many ancient cras and
techniques that were in use until well into the
last century are now forgoen. With regard to
the compressed clay, two French specialists
Marc Auzet and Juliee Goudy, both associated
Wencun Zhejiang China
with the China Art Academy were invited to
train local construction workers. ey tested
dierent mixtures including earth-sand-gravel
in combination with rice husk or straw and
improved ways to apply the plaster on the
existing concrete walls. Wang considers the
compressed clay technique, improved in terms
of its technical performance, a path to the
natural way.
Wang calls the urban construction
culture in China hopeless. at is why
his oce mainly focuses on rural projects
now, because they are the only projects
architects can make something of. Following
artists such as Ai Weiwei and Ou Ning, who
already turned their backs on the ci earlier,
architecture rms increasingly invest in the
countryside, realizing small renovations and
new construction projects. To Wang Shu and
Lu Wenyu, Wencun represented an excellent
opportuni to realize their vision for the
countryside and create a model project for rural
development and construction techniques. e
project includes many details that also featured
in earlier work by this oce, for example the
form and position of doors and windows as
well as the oor plans.
Wang and his wife claim to have put a
lot of time in consulting with the villagers: e
165
biest challenge of this project was and is to
change the farmers perception. e designs
were submied to the villagers several times
and adapted to their housing needs, varying
from the width of the road to the size of the
kitchen and the toilet. But aer completion, it
turned out that only seven of the 24 housing
units had villagers moving into them. People
said the houses were far too small and did not
have enough bedrooms in rural China, it is
customary to have a couple of extra rooms to
accommodate relatives during major holidays.
e project has received considerable
media aention in China because of Wang
Shus involvement and it seems that more than
300 provincial leaders and experts have visited
the village to get inspiration. Moreover, it
draws an increasing number of day trippers.
e idea is to release the properties no-one has
moved into so far for bed & breakfast purposes.
Also, an agricultural research lab has shown an
interest in opening an oce here. e question
is what this will mean to the traditional
lifesle of villagers that still hand-wash their
clothes in the river. For the time being, the
seemingly organically grown village has been
preserved, but rural traditions and lifesles are
likely to disappear here, too, despite the fairly
remote and inaccessible location. _
166 Mark 65 Long Section

Site
New houses
Renovated buildings inside the old village
New bridges
Amateur Architecture Studio Wencun Zhejiang China 167

Owing to the sharp focus on

urbanization, the Chinese countryside
has suered considerable neglect
168 Mark 65 Long Section

Joseph Giovannini.
Joseph Giovannini Bookmark 169

Im
interested
in the
crazies
Joseph Giovannini talks about reading
and writing, eccentric architects and
about the Deep South, where people
are still friendly.
Text and photo
Ana Martins
170
Born
and raised in Pasadena, California, New
York Ci-based architect and critic Joseph
Giovannini rst migrated from the West
to the East Coast to study English at Yale.
From then on, his academic and professional
career took him on a journey that traversed
this geographical frontier many times. More
important, however, is his disciplinary criss-
crossing between the practice of architecture
and architecture criticism. Today, with a
book and a design competition in the making,
the two-time Pulitzer nominee continues to
balance the two careers. In a quiet corner of the
majestic tea room of the Yale Club in New York,
we talked about each step of a journey that has
culminated in a quest for otherness.
Why did you decide to study English as an
undergraduate at Yale?
JOSEPH GIOVANNINI: Ive always done what
came naturally to me and Ive always loved,
even as a kid, to read. I loved to play tennis and
I loved to read. I was reading Russian novels in
Pasadena from an early age and I just continued
to read my way through undergraduate school,
where I discovered that I also love to travel.
As an undergraduate, I took language courses
in France and Italy during the summers, and
then I would spend the rest of my time there
Mark 65
I remember, when I was leaving Harvard,
somebody asked me: What do you want to
do? and I said I would like to journalize my
eld, but I didnt know quite how to go about
and do that, and I didnt have any denite
programme. I returned to California for
personal reasons; my mother was widowed
and she had a building that I had to help her
with. I was doing that and establishing myself
as an architect when I was sort of discovered
by the Herald Examiner. Before I knew it, I
became much beer known as a writer than an
architect. When youre in a publication every
week, the phone rings and youre answering
for articles, not buildings.
But you never stopped practicing.
I still think of myself as an architect, but
everybody knows me as a writer, so if I want
to practice, I have to hire myself, which I do.
I own and manage some family proper, and
my wife and I bought other proper in Los
Angeles, which Ive designed.
When we talked about your LA Los in 2013
(Mark 43, page 60), you said that writing
prompted you to build in order to test your
theories, and that it was an aempt at ll
disclosure of what you really think about
Long Section
but I put it away because I was too involved.
I brought it back o the shelf several years ago,
re-read it, and decided I should nish it. But a
lot has happened since then, so I had to update
it, and while I was doing that, my concept
for the book changed. I nally realized what
I am interested in is a history of alternative
architecture. Lets call it the crazies. Ive taken
it back to the architecture of the late 19th,
early 20th centuries. It has become a really big
volume on an alternative history, the eccentrics,
the people who dont think the usual thoughts.
In articles you wrote for the Los Angeles Review
of Books, youve made a compelling argument
in favour of Frank Gehrys involvement in the
revitalization of the LA River, and heavily
criticized Peter Zumthors design for the LA
Coun Museum of Art (LACMA). Do you nd
that this kind of a priori discussion is missing
from architecture criticism today?
Absolutely. Im trained as an architect and
this informs my criticism. I can look at a plan
and gure it out, whereas most critics cant.
Another thing is that, since I am technically
also a developer, I am very aware of the
potential of a piece of land. You can really
develop institutions through buildings, but
if you do it in the wrong way, youre killing
travelling. I enjoyed exploring cities and their architecture. is notion makes it look as if the institution. In LACMAs case, Zumthors
plans, looking at buildings. My father had your practice of architecture is secondary to scheme is exhausting their land and, for that
been a contractor, so I was always around the your writing. Is that true? very reason, wasting its ture.
structures he was working on. In some way, it
became part of what I look for.
At that time, were you thinking of teaching,
or writing?
ese two careers have always complemented
each other, but theyve also been in competition
with each other. It depends on when you ask
. . . In a year I will think of myself more as an
architect, because Ill be right in the middle of
Im assertive enough to challenge a
design. If I think I can do beer, Im certainly
going to criticize it, because it means the
design is not as good as it can be.
I was always interested in writing. I took a lot a project. Right now Im right in the middle ats not the pe of writing you did at
of courses in French, which is a great passion of a book, so I think of myself more as a writer. e New York Times.
of mine and eventually, aer Yale, I pursued a When I came to e Times, I was not hired as
degree in French language and literature at the What is the book about? a critic. Paul Goldberger was the critic, and he
Sorbonne. At some point, however, I realized Its something Ive been cultivating for years was very territorial. ere was a long period
I didnt really want to read to teach, so when now. In the 1980s I started a book that I called when I was writing about things that I was
I came back from Paris, I did a pre-medical e Deconstructivists. I had almost nished it, assigned that werent really my subject. I could
and pre-architecture year at Yale and I loved
the architecture part, so thats eventually what
I studied at Harvard.

When did you start writing about architecture?

I took several courses in architecture history
at Yale, including with Vincent Scully, who
was a very inspirational teacher. I wrote a lot
about architecture at the time. Nothing was
published, but I always gravitated to
the subject.
A fourth spatial dimension
 Joseph Giovannini
usually nd ideas, but it was dicult to pursue
them, because the paper wanted facts: Who,
what, when and where?
In the politics of e Times, as a reporter,
the only way to be smart was to devise a
technique that would carry the idea along with
the information. So I learned how to alternate
facts and ideas, like a sandwich, so that youre
always eating through several layers.
Do you nd books to be a more suitable
platform on which to develop ideas?
Completely, Ive done thousands of articles and,
at the end of the day, even I forget them. No
one is really interested in article collections, so
they get lost. Books have a much longer shelf
life. What is more, with the space of a book,
you can sustain a thought for a longer period of
time. Journalism has become so much shorter.
I enjoy writing for the Los Angeles Review of
Books because the digital format means that
I can write 7,000 words, whereas in the last
piece I wrote for e Times I had 1,700 words,
which by todays standards is quite long.
Fieen years ago that was very common.
ere was a time when you could easily do
1,700 words on a house. Houses are stories. If
someone is in control of his or her house, thats
a biography or an autobiography, so you can
read these houses in a lot of ways. But things
are so much shorter now. Many of the pieces
I do now are 800 words, because thats the
space the graphic designer gives you, whether
youre writing an epic story or a miniature
piece. Its weird. But I enjoy writing and I
cannot go without it, I feel lacking if I do.
Do you read as much now as you did as a kid
and a student?
Aer I started writing, there was a shi in
the balance. I write more than I read. I love
novels, but most of my reading at the moment
is related to book projects. Its research, not
pleasure reading.
My fantasy is to buy a li le shermans
co age out on the Croatian coast by the
Adriatic Sea and just read for whole months at
a time.
Which books would you take there?
Some of the Russians, again. Ive never read
War and Peace or Anna Karenina. But Id also
like to read more contemporary stu. Im
reading Allan Benne s Untold Stories now
and Ive read his Uncommon Reader, its a
would open people to otherness
Bookmark
fabulous book. He takes Queen Elizabeth
II, a most closed person, and pries her open
through literature. Ive also enjoyed Michael
Cunninghams e Hours. Hes so socially
perceptive, the way hes able to go from the
mentali of Virginia Woolfs period to our
days, its very soul-expanding.
In a piece you wrote for e New York Times in
1983 titled I Love New York and L.A. Too, you
said: Because Im trained as an architect and
have an interest in urban planning, Im perhaps
too ready to believe that the space around us
the physical organization of neighbourhoods,
roads, yards, houses and apartments sets up
living pa erns that condition our mentalities.
Im not sure what my next book is going to
be, but it may be something called e Short
History of Space. Dierent cultures that have
dierent concepts of space. Its such a pervasive
a subject, it aects everything we do.
A while back I went to Savannah,
Georgia, and I had to rent a car at an airport.
Im from California, my parents are European,
and I live in New York, so this was foreign
territory for me, the Deep South. Anyway,
I went and rented the car. e woman at the
counter was very nice, I signed the forms and
she was still nice, I thanked her, I got my keys
and went out to the car and as I exited the
parking lot I gave the contract to the woman
at the gate and she couldnt be more friendly.
When I got out I thought, what is wrong with
this picture that Im nding their friendliness
so strange? Oh, I know, they still live on
porches, and I live in a box . . . New York is so
crowded that youre constantly trying to avoid
everyone. Youre in your apartment, trying not
to run into your neighbours, in the subway,
on the platform or the street youre looking
straight ahead, trying to avoid eye contact, and
at the end of the day you go back to your box.
I had become a box, and they were still porches.
What books about space would you
recommend?
Well, the classic would be Bachelards e
Poetics of Space, but Id recommend Linda
Dalrymple Hendersons book titled e Fourth
Dimension and Non-Eucledian Geometry in
Modern Art from 1983. at cracked everything
open for me. Before Einstein came along, the
fourth dimension was considered a spatial
dimension, people were interested in what
a fourth dimension would be like aer the
171
third, and what a h and sixth would look
like aer that. Its hard to create a fourth
dimension, but you can create the perception
of it, which has been my goal, actually.
Would a fourth spatial dimension result in
new mentalities?
It would open people to otherness, it would be
mind-expanding, yes. Im doing a competition
for the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian
American Art Museum in Washington, DC,
where I have to design a large, tall room with
a domed ceiling. Im trying to create a one-
point perspective straight up to heaven, like
the one you nd in Giovanni Ba ista Gaullis
frescos for the Church of Jesus in Rome, but
in an abstract language. In order to do it, Im
busting out the corners with optical illusions
and taking these illusions all the way up. One
way of talking about the experience of this
space is that its like dropping LSD. Itll be
a bath of LSD. _
Joseph Giovanninis
reading list on space
Gaston Bachelard, e Poetics of Space,
Beacon Press, Boston, 1969 (La Potique de
lEspace, Presses Universitaires de
France, Paris, 1958)
Henri Lefebvre, e Production of Space,
Blackwell, Oxford, 1991 (La production
de lespace, Anthropos, Paris, 1974)
Linda Dalrymple Henderson, Fourth
Dimension and Non-Eucledian Geometry
in Modern Art, Princeton Universi
Press, Princeton, 1983
Selim O. Khan-Magomedov, Pioneers of
Soviet Architecture, Rizzoli, New York, 1987
172 Mark 65

Tools
 Tools 173

What
ha ens if
houses
are desi ned for
the ur ose
Joe Gebbia, co-founder
of Airbnb, on a guest
house designed by Go
Hasagawa, page 184
of
sharin ?
174 Mark 65 Tools

Doors and Windows

Photo Koen Van Damme

Aluminium frames koenvandamme.be

Allaert Aluminium
Since 1955, Valentin Allaert has produced aluminium constructions. Before that, he made
windows, doors and hardware in steel, copper and bronze. In 1980, Serge Allaert succeeded his
father. Serges son omas joined him recently. Hes the seventh consecutive generation in the
building and construction sector. is villa in Harelbeke, Belgium, was designed by Francisca
Hautekeete Architectuur. e architect used a combination of Reynaers and Otiima proles. e
Alinel wall cladding is also an accomplishment by Allaert Aluminium.
allaertaluminium.be

Window systems
Aluprof
Aluprofs MB-FERROLINE window
system is the perfect solution to
renovating monumental buildings. e
correct appearance of the windows is
preserved by imitating the steel joinery,
while exceptionally good technical
design parameters are insured at the
same time. Various pes of inward
opening, outward opening and xed
windows can be constructed that,
in addition to their perfect thermal
insulation, are characterized by their
very good sound insulation, wind and
water resistance and high durabili.
aluprof.eu
 Doors and Windows 175

Balcony windows
Fakro
Fakros Galeria balcony windows make it
possible to create a balcony in an aic space.
In sloped roofs without a knee wall, you
can glaze the entire roof with large balcony
windows that provide ample natural light and
a panoramic view. e FGH-V Galeria is an
innovative window that creates a balcony when
the sashes are opened. e upper sash opens
upward and has an innovative mechanism
that allows it to be le in any position, while
the lower sash can be tilted forward. When
the lower sash is closed, the balcony rails are
hidden inside the window and are not visible
above the roof surface, do not collect dirt or
spoil the aesthetics of the roof.
fakro.com

Sectional doors
Breda
Italian manufacturer Breda, which produces sectional doors for residential and industrial use,
has created the Multi Rib. e design is the result of a multiple combination of many small
waves. e optical eect on the panels is very original with a at coat. Multi Rib is available in
the colours White C21, Grey RAL 9006, Grey RAL 7016, Brown C17, Green RAL 6005 and Green
RAL 6009, for the most popular and appreciated Breda models. Another innovation by Breda is
Micacea, paint that combines acrylic resins with micaceous iron pigments. e result is a rened
metallic eect available in Black Smoke, Green Pine, Old Red, Red Scorched Earth, Silver Grey,
Metallic or Graphite that reproduces an antique wrought iron eect.
bredasys.com
176 Mark 65 Tools

Entrance doors
Oikos
Oikos Venezias wide range of bespoke entrance doors has
been extended with yet more quali. UL, the single most
accepted certication mark in the United States, has granted
Oikos the prestigious 2 hours UL10 B/C Mark for re
resistance for its Tekno and Synua doors, demonstrating the
International quali of the product and its compliance to
the strict requirements of safe in the USA, Canadian and
UAE markets. e UL mark is a guarantee of reliabili for
consumers, a safe symbol that obtains trust worldwide.
It also demonstrates the ongoing commitment that Oikos
Venezia has to ensuring the highest level of safe and quali
in its front doors.
oikos.it

Faade performance soware

FenestraPro
FenestraPro has released Version 3.0 of its innovative faade
performance soware, as an add-in to Autodesk Revit, which helps
architects design more energy-ecient buildings. Founded by specialist
architects David Palmer and Simon Whelan, FenestraPro Premium for
Revit Version 3.0 supports the use of the platform at any point in the
design process, starting from the conceptual massing tools through
to the detailed project environment. FenestraPro Premium for Revit
Version 3.0 looks at curtain walling, glazing and shading in more detail
than ever before by giving the user the abili to create and resize
windows via user input, or driven through FenestraPro Premiums
calculations. It reads dierent shading devices and provides dynamic
analysis on shading via the existing web service.
fenestrapro.com

Glass doors
Henry Glass
Henry Glass is specialized in the production of
tuovetro glass doors, which both slide and swing.
Twen years of research and experimentation
have led to a range of products with a wealth of
technical and aesthetic details. All Henry Glass
doors are custom-made and can be t into any
architectural situation using exclusive patents.
e Henry Glass collection of decorations, created
by famous Italian artists, oers a range of glass
accessories and nishes clear, frosted, coloured
and lacquered to create dramatic entrances in
commercial and domestic interiors. A perfect
balance between art and design, aesthetic and
quali, model and nction, that bridges the gap
between ancient handicra manufacturing and
high industrial technology.
henryglass.it
 Doors and Windows 177

Wooden doors and windows

Albertini windows
Since 1954, Albertini has produced exterior doors, windows and shu
ers with the highest
level of technical competence and professionalism. e frames can be produced in a wide
range of woods (Pine, Meranti, Hemlock, Oak, Plantation Teak, Mahogany, Alder) and nishes;
more than a thousand congurations satis and improve the aesthetic and the comfort
in every place and in every season. On request, the wooden frames can be covered with Flush interior
aluminium or bronze, combining the warmth and beau of the wood with the maintenance
facili and longevi oered by the aluminium or bronze. e external aluminium/bronze-
doors and
clad frames oer the very highest protection from weather inuences. skirtings
albertini.com
LINVISIBILE
LINVISIBILE extended its
product range with ORIZZONTE,
an innovative ush-to-wall
Boiserie System that oers
the possibili for walls to be
decorated in the same nishing
as doors. e exclusive skin
system allows walls of any
dimension to be coated, with
only 3 mm of thickness, in
perfect planari with doors, for
a continuous eect. e Boiserie
is available in several nishes:
stone, metal, wood, glass, lacquer
and leather. Another novel
is the ush-to-wall Skirting
System. A thin line embedded in
the wall hides great technology.
is baseboard can also be made
in a varie of materials: glass,
lacquer, metal, stone and wood,
to accompany and complete the
ush-to-wall eect of the door.
linvisibile.it
178 Mark 65 Tools

Sliding windows
Solarlux
Leading high-end bi-folding
door manufacturer Solarlux
has once again exceeded the
Velbert Test Institutes strict
safe requirements. Sliding
window Cero III was successlly
certied to the highest level
of protection (resistance class
RC3) by the institute. Cero III
exceeded expectations during the
rigorous testing process, deing
even the worst mistreatment,
subsequently being awarded the
highest classication for burglar
resistance. Rather than the glass
window itself, the runners oen
can be tampered with and present
a safe risk. Cero III ings and
runners are extremely robust and
the oor tracks are lly recessed,
complying with the standard for
barrier-free living spaces. e
incredibly resilient Cero III system
even withstood thorough testing
by the Velbert Industry with tools
such as crowbars.
Door handle
solarlux.co.uk Olivari
e Marilyn door handle, designed by Chinese architect Ma Yansong of Mad Architects,
transforms a design object into motion with a twist. e result is a handle ready to
ergonomically receive the hand that rests upon it. e design is a balanced, nely-tuned tension
between negative and positive space and subtle shadows. With its sinuous curves and nctional
allure, Marilyn embodies the marriage of architecture and industrial design. e so curves
allude to the innovative design of the Absolute Towers designed by Mad in Toronto, nicknamed
the Marilyn Monroe Towers by the locals. From urban scale to everyday objects the quest for
an organic, turistic, technologically cuing-edge language uses a contemporary vocabulary to
translate a sensitivi to the natural world oen found in Asian art.
olivari.it
 Doors and Windows 179

Crystal window
technology
Merck
Merck, a leading science and technology
company, is establishing a production unit
for liquid crystal window (LCW) modules.
Switchable windows and elements made from
intelligent glass change their translucency in
seconds at the touch of a buon and yet remain
transparent: they can be darkened to provide
sun protection or made opaque to provide
privacy. e manufacture of the switchable
glass modules is scheduled to begin at the end
of 2017. ere are already pilot applications of
LCWs: the faade on the west side of Mercks
Innovation Center in Darmstadt has been
ed with the new windows for over a year
and the new OLED production building under
construction in Darmstadt will also have
LCWs.
merckgroup.com

Enamelling system
Guardian Glass
A unique technology has been developed that improves the quali and reduces the time required for
edge enamelling of Guardian heat-treatable spuer-coated glass. Guardian System TEA (True Edge
Application) was developed by Guardian Glass in Europe, in cooperation with Ferro, one of the worlds
leading suppliers of glass enamel products. e technology is not only faster and more reliable than
conventional methods, but also more time-ecient. Guardian System TEA applied to the spuer-
coated glass substrate creates a strong, uniform surface that provides reliable adhesion in structural
glazing applications, including faades, all-glass corners, roof glazing (with a glass overlap), glass
louvre windows, top- and side-hung glass windows in lly-glazed faades, and glass ns.
guardianglasstec.com
180 Mark 65 Tools
 FAKRO Nowy Scz Poland
Light
More and more buildings with
at roofs are now found in
landscapes dominated by houses
with pitched roofs. is is thanks
under a to modern technology, which
allows constructors to build
weathertight, heat-insulated at
Flat Roof roofs. In addition to oering more
space inside buildings, at roofs
can be used as terraces, open-air
recreation spots or even small
gardens. ere is only one question:
How can the rooms under the at
roof be provided with sucient
natural light? e answer is
surprisingly simple: By employing
FAKRO windows for at roofs.
FAKROs new pe F and
pe C windows for at roofs
combine high nctionali and
perfect heat-insulating parameters.
FAKRO combines ey provide abundant natural
light and allow the rooms under
abundant light, energy at roofs to be aired. Now every
room of this pe can be warm and
saving, comfortable ll of natural light.
e specially designed
use and airtightness. shapes of the window sashes and
181
e DXW window is ush
with the roof surface.
frames guarantee that FAKRO
windows for at roofs have 16 per
cent more glazing compared with
competitive solutions. To put
it simply, by installing FAKRO
windows, more natural light is let
into the room.
Energy saving is another
vital aspect of windows for at
roofs. For example, pe F windows
achieve a heat transfer coecient
of U=0.64W/m2K, meaning that
they can be used in energy-saving
and energy-passive buildings. By
using such solutions energy needed
to heat the room on cold days is
saved. e aesthetic design of the
F pe window was given the Red
Dot Award, an international award
for innovative design.
Windows in the ceiling
pose another problem: they
are dicult to access. FAKRO
windows for at roofs, however,
were designed to ensure that every
client can nd what they need.
ere are stationary windows that
are used only for lighting
182 Mark 65
a room, windows that can be
'Energy saving opened manually (by means of
is another a rod) and windows that can be
operated electrically (this pe has
vital aspect a sensor that automatically shuts
the window when it starts to rain).
of windows Roller blinds can be installed on
the outside to protect inhabitants
for at roofs' from too bright light, and outside
shades protect the room from
overheating.
e windows come in a
wide range of standard dimensions.
F pe windows, with their unique,
innovative glazing package, can
be produced in any dimension
l space.
from 60 60 to 120 220 cm.
is solution makes it possible to
replace old, ineective windows
with new ones.
Windows o en restrict
the use of roof terraces, but that
is not the case with the special
Tools
DXW windows, which with their
increased carrying capaci and
anti-slip layer can be walked
on, providing free movement on
terraces or at roofs. Additional
space on the at roof expands our
living space. Each year there are
more and more enthusiasts of this
solution.
Buildings with at roofs
intended for public activi or
multifamily buildings can be
equipped with a de-smoking
window, used to release heat and
smoke in case of a re. In standard
conditions a de-smoking window is
used to light and air the rooms.
FAKRO also oers roof
hatches for at roofs. In the rst
version this is a window, whose
glazed sash can be li ed to provide
easy access to the at roof. e
second option is the DRL roof
A minimalist and perfect design
makes the D_F window stand out.
access door. e frame and the sash
have a heat-insulating structure,
with a set of seals that guarantees
airtightness and energy saving. e
hatch should be used along with
LML stairs, as this combination
ensures easy access to the at roof.
FAKRO windows for at
roofs meet all of the requirements
of investors who erect buildings
with at roofs: abundant light,
energy saving, comfortable use and
airtightness, while a wide range
of products ensures that a at
roof is no longer a nuisance, but a
newly-discovered and use
It should come as no surprise that
buildings with at roofs may soon
transform our landscape. _
fakro.com
FAKRO Nowy Scz Poland 183

e DSC window has hinges that

allow it to be opened horizontally.
184 Mark 65
Guest Performance
is years edition of the Japanese
House Vision fair included thirteen
experimental dwellings and
pavilions. Go Hasagawa designed
a guest house for Airbnb that
will also be used as a communi
centre. Aer being on show,
the building was transported to
the mountain village of Yoshino.
Yoshinosugi Cedar House
Airbnb with Go Hasegawa
Tools
An initiative of product designer
Kenya Hara, the Japanese House
Vision fair is a small-scaled and
extraordinary event that saw its
second edition this year. irteen
experimental dwellings and
pavilions specially designed for
the occasion by architects such
as Kengo Kuma, Sou Fujimoto
and Atelier Bow-Wow included
innovations in interior product
design by companies such as
Panasonic, Toyota and Nippon.
Installation company Lixil, for
example, introduced a folding
bathroom with bathtub in a house
designed by Shigeru Ban; logistical
company Yamato and industrial
designer Fumie Shibata jointly
presented a refrigerator accessible
from both the interior and the
exterior, facilitating the home
delivery of food and medicine.
Most of the buildings
were demolished once the
fair was over, but one single
specimen was carefully
dismantled and rebuilt in the
mountain village of Yoshino: a
guesthouse that had resulted
from a collaboration of Airbnb
and Go Hasegawa. It was also
the only project that involved
a Western company as a
collaborating party. The carefully
detailed wooden building is
the incarnation of the type of
hospitality the Californian tech
company is partial to: hospitality
as a reciprocal relationship
between host and guest. The
Yoshinosugi Cedar House
will therefore serve as both a
guest accommodation and as
a community building for the
villagers. Architect Go Hasegawa
and Airbnb co-founder Jo Gebbia
talk about their contributions to
the project.
GO HASEGAWA: Our
collaboration with Airbnb began
with a meeting in Karuizawa.
Rather than ending when the
e Yoshinosugi Cedar House was part
of the House Vision fair in Odaiba, Too
from 30 July to 28 August 2016.
 Yoshino Nara Japan 185

Cross Section

0 +1

01
12

11
02

03

04

06

10 05

03

07
12

09 08

exhibition ends, I wanted to residences, Shoinzukuri sle,

be able to relocate the house the samurai sat in a reception
to Yoshino and enable people room one step, 15 cm, higher than 01 Entrance
from around the world to stay his guests, creating a hierarchy. 02 Nursing room
03 Storage
there. e key concept is re- Another sle is Machiya, or
04 Shower
examining the house based on merchant house, from the Edo 05 WC
the relationship between host Period. ese buildings, combining 06 Deck
and guest. Two weeks later, there a residence with a business, had Above e rst oor is the exclusive 07 Machine room
domain of Airbnb guests. 08 Utilities
was a meeting in San Francisco an earthen oor, and there was
09 Kitchen
where discussions were held with a gradation in the relationship Below e ground oor space will be 10 Caf
people from Airbnb. e general between host and guest. en used as a communi
centre and caf that 11 Workshop space
framework was established at
that time.
We conceived of the theme
of the relationship between host
and guest in residential areas.
In Japanese architecture, this
relationship has changed over
time. Traditional pit houses, for
example, were placed in a circle
around an outdoor space. ey had
a centripetal relationship where
the hosts were on the edges and
the guests in the middle. Later, in
the Shindenzukuri sle, which
ourished in the Heian period,
the concept of the Kyakuden,
or reception hall, emerged. is
reception hall would be built in
the middle of the garden to read
poetry together. In this way,
the host and guest were in an
equal relationship. In samurai
theres post-war housing. ese is also open to Airbnb guests. e sunken 12 Bedroom
table can be used in both the Japanese
houses had no drawing room,
and the Western fashion.
so individuals created clubs and
had their guests come there.
Nowadays, people dont invite
guests to their homes as oen.
Houses in Too are super small
and have no space for entertaining.
Yoshino is renowned for
producing Yoshinosugi cedars,
which grow densely; sunlight
doesnt reach the ground. e
trees grow for around ve
generations. ey grow slowly, so
the rings are very dense, creating
beautil, high-quali cedar
wood. Yoshino is a lovely town,
but the population is decreasing
and I discussed with the people of
Yoshino what could be done about
the increasing number of emp
houses. Its a n town where
186
tourists can enjoy the forestry
industry. Most tourists only stay
a day and do not stay the night.
ats why I wanted to make a
place where people can gather
and stay. e Yoshino municipal
government provided a vacant
lot. I was struck by the fact that
the site is an important place in
Yoshinos history because this
is where Yoshinosugi cedar was
shipped from.
Cedar trees were
taken from Mount Yoshino
and processed, with Yoshino
craftsmen building the house at
House Vision, then dismantling
it and taking it to Yoshino,
enabling guests to experience it
through Airbnb. The house can
be transported on seven trucks.
I think its good for hosts and
Rental Space Tower
Daito Trust Construction with Sou Fujimoto
Mark 65 Tools
guests to create a community.
The entire ground floor is like a
veranda, offering a view of the
river. The ground floor is cedar
and the first floor has a different
fragrance of Hinoki cypress. It
was dismantled in September
and will be completed in Yoshino
in December.
JOE GEBBIA: Airbnbs involvement
with the project began when
Kenya Hara contacted me last
year. Houses of the ture are a
great responsibili, and Airbnb
acknowledges that responsibili.
At present, we have 2.5 million
listings in 191 countries. I had
already begun thinking about
ture housing, the relationship
between host and guest, and
how architecture deepens that
e Rental Space Tower is an experimental
collective residential facili for single people
with relatively small private rooms and generous
communal facilities including a kitchen-diner,
bathroom, library and outdoor spaces.
A stairway and a ramp connect both halves
of the residential building.
 Yoshino Nara Japan
Inside-out Furniture Room
Toto and YKK AP with Jun Igarashi and Taiji Fujimori
De Inside-out Furniture Room is a fan-
shaped dwelling in which ve nctions
(sleeping, siing, eating, studying and
bathing) are accommodated by as many
pieces of residential rniture.
All residential rniture is accessed
from a central space.
relationship. I dont think anyone
had thought about sharing houses
like they do now ten years ago.
Guests stay in over a million homes
worldwide every day. So what
happens if houses are designed for
the purpose of sharing?
We found Yoshino through
the Nara Prefectural Government,
which was a sponsor of House
Vision. Yoshino historically has
excellent timber and crasmen,
including forest managers, loers,
builders and carpenters. Yoshino
is facing a declining population.
Japans population is decreasing
and aging, while regional areas
suer from depopulation.
Initiatives like this could bring
life to these areas. Yoshino Cedar
187
House is a new model. e living
room, dining room and kitchen
used by guests also serve as a
communi centre. e communi
itself is the host. ere is an
economic model that is created
from this. Money from guests
that stay in the Yoshinosugi
Cedar House ows into Yoshino.
Guests will also use things in the
town. e materials, rniture and
techniques are all from Yoshino.
Many Airbnb guests want a local
experience, and the realization of
this project creates connections
with local people. It means that
guests help the communi. _
ghaa.co.jp
airbnb.com
188 Mark 65 Tools

Behind the Faades

Rieder, manufacturer of glassbre-reinforced concrete elements,
has recently completed landmark projects in London and Boston
that both boast vertical ns.

e CitizenM Tower of London
Hotel was completed earlier
this year to a design by British
architecture rm Sheppard Robson.
e 370-bedroom agship hotel
is located in a prominent location
next to a Unesco World Heritage
site, oering its guests superb
views out across the capital.
e faade of the building
is characterized by the use of
Portland Stone, a material that is in
keeping with the adjacent Trini
Square. e frame is animated by
vertical concrete ns intersected by
horizontal aluminium projections,
the lightness of which acts as a
counterpoint to the robustness
of the stone. e vertical array of
ns has been care lly placed to
provide shading and contribute
to the buildings sustainabili
credentials. e vertical black
ns, 570 in total, have U-shaped
sections and are made of glassbre-
reinforced concrete (GRC) that
is only 13 mm thick. e ultra-
light folded concrete panels
were manufactured by Austrian
company Rieder, which specializes
in 3D concrete faade elements.
In Boston, Massachuses,
an even more recently completed
building that Rieder contributed
to is the Center for Integrated Life
Sciences and Engineering (CILSE),
designed by American rm Payee.
On the two sides where CILSE
abuts public space, the combination
of vertical ns and reective glass
has a particularly dynamic eect.
From a distance, where there is
lile or no visible gap between
each pair of ns, the wall appears
entirely solid. As the building is
approached, however, these gaps
progressively increase until the
ns all but disappear, momentarily
rendering the skin almost entirely
reective, before the phenomenon
reverses and the buildings earthly
materiali reasserts itself. e
resulting visual eect is highly
unusual. A singular building
volume manifests simultaneously
as both immaterially crystalline

and impassively opaque.
e copper and light
tan coloured high-performance
concrete panels harken back to the
materials of the original campus
architecture. At the same time,
however, the pure geometries and
extensive use of glass allow the
building to stand on its own. e
project constitutes Rieders rst
major 3D job in North America.
In this case, Rieder produced
700 formparts as well as 550
wall panels, all with U sections.
Rieder
Michael Haslinger, project
manager at Rieder, talks about the
challenges and achievements of
both projects.
What were the main challenges
of the CitizenM hotel, from a
technical point of view?
MICHAEL HASLINGER: First of
all, we had to design a substructure
that would allow dimensional
adjustment of the GRC elements
in all directions, especially
sidewards during installation. Also,
Maishofen Austria
the vertical elements had to be
placed between two preinstalled
horizontal elements without any
space for vertical adjustment. A
complicating factor was the fact
that Rieder hopped into the project
at a late stage, when the design
of the building, substructure and
elements was far advanced. is
didnt make it easy to develop
the abovementioned solution. In
general, its our ambition to enter
into a project at the earliest possible
point in the design process.
189
Opposite e CitizenM Tower of London
Hotel was designed by Sheppard Robson.
Photos Ditz Fejer
Below e black ns have a sparkle eect,
caused by adding micaceous iron oxide to
the concrete.
How is your solution dierent
from the techniques that are
normally used?
Usually, this kind of faade element
is hung in a xed position, so
the formed parts are aached
to the building. In this project,
the elements are fastened onto a
boom bracket, so that the load is
transferred to these substructure
brackets below. e sideward
adjustment was ensured by using
a special kind of set screws inside
the elements.
190
Did the architects at Sheppard
Robson have any special requests
regarding the ns?
They wanted the concrete
surface to have a sparkle. We
developed a special and new
type of concrete mixture to
achieve this effect. We called it
luce, the Italian word for light.
What causes the sparkle?
Its a kind of micaceous iron oxide.
Small particles of this are mixed
into the wet concrete before it is
extruded.
e faade of the CILSE also
boasts a lot of formparts. How did
you go about designing those?
The architect was stretched to
his limits when he designed
the substructure. Rieder joined
the project during the sales
process and the challenge for
us was to design a substructure
with which to attach the
elements to the building.
Rieder obtained the contract
Mark 65 Tools
Above e Center for Integrated Life Sciences
and Engineering in Boston, Massachuses,
was designed by Payee.
by developing a special system
between concrete and inlying Below e ns were pre-assembled before
substructure. For technical, shipping from Europe to the USA.
geometrical reasons, the
connection between the concrete
fins and the substructure
could not be achieved with
usual fastening systems such
as undercut anchors or glue.
Affixing the preassembled fin
and substructure units to the
glass elements of the building
was a big challenge. Owing to
the fact that the concrete fins
are structurally stiffer than the
vertical mullions of the glass
elements, the design of the
connection detail of the fin units
to the glass elements had to take
into consideration that a stiffer
element was being connected to exible in only a vertical, or only What is the substructure made of?
a weaker structural element. a horizontal, direction according e ns and faade panels are
to constructional and structural made of Rieders breC material,
So how does this fastening system requirements. Also, we created a produced in special moulds to
actually work? solution that allows the elements achieve the forms. e inlying
e solution was to design the to stand on a boom bracket, substructure, which was
xing points in ways that they which transfers the load to the preassembled before shipping, is
are either completely rigid, or substructure brackets below. made of aluminium and stainless

steel. e visible components are
partially coated in a colour that
matches that of the concrete.
Rieder is based in Austria and the
building is in Boston. How did
that work logistically?
e concrete elements were
manufactured in Rieders plant in
Kolbermoor, Germany. e assembly
of the concrete elements and the
substructure took place in Rieders
plant in Maishofen, Austria. e
formed elements were then packed
in specially designed wooden crates
and shipped in 12-meter containers
via boat to Boston. All elements
were boxed according to the
installation sequence, provided by
the construction company. As they
installed the ns from the boom
up and the wall panels from west
to east, they saved a lot of space,
time and money because of this
optimized logistics concept.
What were the main concerns of
the architects at Payee in regard
Rieder Maishofen Austria 191
to Rieders faade elements?
e architects were concerned with
the optical appearance. ey didnt
want the substructure to be visible.
In order to meet their expectations,
we provided concrete samples
in the correct colour and surface
nish. Also, they wanted the radius
of the U-shaped panels edges to
have a rather rounded appearance,
with a small tolerance so that all
elements would have a similar
radius. Especially for this project,
Rieder improved its production
process and mould technology to
achieve the architects requirements
regarding the edge radius. _
rieder.cc
Above From a diagonal
viewing angle, the faade
appears opaque.
Right A u-shaped panel is
hoisted to be mounted.
192 Mark 65 Exit

Exit
Mark 66
Feb Mar 2017

Photo Kentaro Kurihara

Studio Veloci Also

Miho Iwatsuki and Kentaro Coop Himmelb(l)aus Museum
Kurihara of Japanese oce Studio of Contemporary Art & Planning
Veloci are masters in realizing Exhibition in Shenzhen
totally unexpected and yet modest
houses, oen situated in Aichi Toyo Itos National Taichung eatre
Prefecture. ey break up a house
into a large amount of separate
rooms, split it into two parts
And
An interview with Dutch
joined by footbridges, give it four
architect Roberto Meyer of MVSA
gardens, or even four staircases:
anything goes. Cathelijne Nuijsink
interviewed the architects and
visited three of their latest projects.
In the beginning there were columns.
And to this day they are a classic staple of architecture. We dont use them.
They clutter up the work environment. So we kick them out of the way to
make room for space. Useful space without visual noise. Optimum space way
up to the ceiling. So bid those classics goodbye. Because once you design
with our advanced construction system, you can have your space. All of it.

g e o m e t r i c a . c o m / a rc h i t e c t u r a l
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new reflective glass towers start to dominate the skyline.
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