Another Architecture N63 August September 2016

Adaptation
A Maer of Survival
EUR 19.95 GBP 14 CHF 30 CAD 29.50

Equals Designing a world without love

USD 19.95 JPY 3.990 KRW 40.000

Building in Ghana e beau of imperfection

Renovation e Japanese approach
REDUCED
With LS ZERO the design
achieved a new architectural
quality. The flush installation
creates a smooth transition
between the wall and switch.
CONSISTENT
Interior concepts obtain a
stringent design statement.
Realisable in the colours
of Le Corbusier and in white.
TIMELESS
Sublimity on the current
tastes regardless of trends.
LS ZERO follows
the design constants
of the classic LS 990.

JUNG.DE
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 Mark 63 August September 2016 005

Plan 034

014 Notice Board

030 Cross Section

032 ANMA Paris

034 Austigard Stavanger
036 Christ & Gantenbein Basel
039 Coldplay
040 Max Nez Zapallar
042 Infographic
044 Mamm Too
046 Mind Bischofsheim
048 Arkitektur + Development
Norrkping
Austigard Architektur
House in Stavanger
Photo Ivan Brodey
050 Pers ective
e Japanese Renovation
Movement
046
052 Introduction
054 Jo Nagasaka
Making a career out
of renovating houses.
064 403 Architecture Dajiba
Oering an alternative to
the raze-and-build mentali
thats popular in Japan.
074 Shingo Masuda +
Katsuhisa Otsubo
Looking for ways to improve
whats already there.
Mind Architects Collective
Oce Building in Bischofsheim
Photo Nick Frank
006 Mark 63 August September 2016

084 Lon Section

086 SelgasCanos temporary pavilion for

a museum in Denmark gained a second 096
life in Kenya as a school.
096 Gabriel Huerta designed a universi
building in Mexico that connects with
the communi.
104 On the occasion of the 15th International
Architecture Exhibition in Venice, Mark
talked to the people behind the scenes.
110 Patrick Berger adds a chapter to the
turbulent history of the Forum des
Halles in Paris.
120 Aires Mateuss EDP headquarters
in Lisbon is wrapped in a structure
of columns and beams that protects
the interior from the sun.
130 Yasser Elsheshtawy talks about the
glitzy, non-contextual and controversial
bubble development called Dubaization. Gabriel Huerta
Universi Building in Mexicali

136 Liu Jiakuns business complex in Photo Alexei Tylevich

Chengdu is somewhere between a

Chinese quadrangle and a European-
sle perimeter block. 136
146 Christ & Gantenbeins expressive
extension of the Landesmuseum in
Zurich responds to the picturesque
roof landscape of the existing building.
156 Tino Schaedler talks about the
ephemeral world of Equals.
164 Mario Cucinella based his oce building
in Accra on the idea of imperfection.
172 Malkit Shoshan is fascinated by the
way countries exercise their power.

176 Tools

Liu Jiakun Architects

192 Exit Business complex in Chengdu
Photo Archexist
008 Mark 63 August September 2016

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 I N D U ST R I A L
L A N DS CA P E
N o 5 - B LU R

Inspired by the streets of London and the gritty backdrops of railways,
tunnels of factories, workshops and warehouses. The surfaces cracked
paving stones and brick blocks make up the crumbling industrial land-
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new reflective glass towers start to dominate the skyline.
The new Industrial Landscape collection is a series of seven carpet
designs created by Tom Dixon in collaboration with ege carpets.
Available in tiles and broadloom transforming into different expres-
sions that reinterpret the rough, raw everyday surfaces that define the
London landscape.

London The Industrial Landscape. New carpet collection by Tom Dixon. Learn more at egecarpets.com
 Silvia Spitaleri, Polytechnic School - University of Palermo
(Industrial Design Laboratory III, Degree in Industrial Design)

BOLOGNA, 26 - 30 SEPTEMBER 2016

promoted by

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in collaboration with

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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
 Experience

21-24 September 2016

O LY M P I A L O N D O N

w w w.1 0 0 p e r c e n t d e s i g n . c o . u k

@designlondon
concrete skin
| 1,200 m cross-shaped facade panels
| sustainable glassfibre reinforced concrete fibreC
| natural and durable material, authentic appearance
| class A1 fire protection, non-combustible

www.rieder.cc
 014

Notice
Mark 63

Board
 Notice Board 015

I want eo le
of
Bri hton
and Hove
to
feel ride
of lace
Rich Bre of We Like Today on
Sea Lanes, a beachfront facili for
open water swimming, page 028
016 Mark 63 Notice Board

Rendering by MIR

2
 017

1 Hans Christian Andersen

Museum
Odense Denmark
Kengo Kuma and Associates,
Cornelius+Vge and MASU
planning
A 5,600-m2 museum featuring
a series of cylindrical volumes
Rendering by Alexander Schmitz (Ingenhoven Architects) with glass and laiced timber
5 faades and green roofs
Expected completion 2020
kkaa.co.jp
corneliusvoge.dk
masuplanning.com

2 Kaohsiung Station
Kaohsiung Taiwan
Mecanoo architecten
Central station with
landscaped canopy
Expected completion 2024
mecanoo.nl

3 Sahlgrenska Universi
Hospital
Gothenburg Sweden
Arkitema Architects
Two new buildings, totalling
90,000 m2, that connect the
existing hospital and universi
Expected completion undisclosed
arkitema.com

4 KJ Square

e Hague Netherlands
Powerhouse Company and Delva
Landscape
Two 90-m-high residential
towers with 350 apartments next
to
e Hague Central Station
Expected completion 2019
powerhouse-company.com
delva.la

5 Toranomon Project
Too Japan
Ingenhoven Architects
An oce tower (height 185
m) and a residential tower (220
m) on either side of the existing
Toranomon Hills Mori Tower
Expected completion 2019
ingenhovenarchitects.com
018 Mark 63 Notice Board

1 1 Masaryk Railway Station

Prague Czech Republic
Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA)
Regeneration of a browneld
urban site adjacent to the ci's
Masaryk Railway Station
Expected completion undisclosed
zaha-hadid.com

2 Oce of Lee & Son Leather

Bangkok ailand
ASWA (Architectural Studio of
Work-Aholic)
An oce building, leather
store and storage with private
apartment
Expected completion 2017
aswarchitect.com

3 Viking Age Museum

Oslo Norway
AART architects
Extension and renovation of
the existing museum, totalling
13,000 m2
Competition entry, 1st prize,
expected completion 2022
aart.dk

3
020 Mark 63 Notice Board

1 Antwerp Tower
Antwerp Belgium
Wiel Arets Architects
A 100-m-tall residential tower
with hotel, restaurant, retail and
wellness, reusing a 87-m-tall
existing building
Expected completion 2019
wielaretsarchitects.com

2 Unic
Renderings by Beau & e Bit
Paris France
3
MAD and Biecher Architectes
A 1,033-m2 apartment building
in Clichy-Batignolles, next to the
Martin Luther King Park
Competition entry, 1st prize,
expected completion 2018
i-mad.com
biecher.com

3 Wenzhou-Kean Universi
Library
Wenzhou China
Schmidt Hammer Lassen
Architects
A 25,000-m student centre
and library providing learning
and living space for 8,500
students
Competition entry, 1st prize,
expected completion undisclosed
shl.dk
 SENTIDO
SWITCH TO
YOUR INTERIOR

The Sentido switch equals simplicity, comfort and quality.

Lights, shades and even music can be controlled at the slightest touch.
The switch comes in a colourful palette that ranges from sleek aluminium to classic fer forg finishes.
Sentido is designed to work with KNX, the international standard for home automation. www.basalte.be
022 Mark 63 Notice Board

1 Marrakech Congress Centre

Marrakech Morocco
Tabanlioglu Architects (Murat
Tabanlioglu and Melkan Gursel)
A congress centre with a
natural stone faade, articulated
with perforations
Expected completion 2019
tabanlioglu.com

2 Alberni by Kuma
Vancouver Canada
Kengo Kuma
A 43-storey tower near the
entrance to Stanley Park for
proper developers Westbank
and Peterson
Expected completion undisclosed
kkaa.co.jp

2
3 Creative Industries and
Performing Arts Development
Hobart Tasmania Australia
Liminal Architecture, WOHA and
Arup
A 12,000-m2 cultural centre
with a music conservatorium,
recital hall, theatre and creative
exchange institute, incorporating
the existing eatre Royal
Expected completion 2018
liminalstudio.com.au
woha.net
arup.com

3
024 Mark 63 Notice Board

1 Swimming Pool
Chateaulin France
Agence Search
A 3,600-m2 public swimming
pool situated in a curve in the bank
of the Aulne River
Rendering by MIR
Expected completion 2018
agencesearch.com

3
2 House of Sustainabili
Campinas Brasil
Hiperstudio and Marcus Rosa
A 1.,00-m exhibition hall and
auditorium in Taquaral Park
Competition entry, 1st prize
hiperstudio.com.br

3 Sida vid sida

Skellee Sweden
White Arkitekter
A timber-framed cultural centre
including the coun theatre of
Vsterbo
en, the Anna Nordlander
Museum, Skellees art gallery, the
Ci Library and a hotel
Competition entry, 1st prize, expected
completion 2019
white.se

4 Karlatornet
Gothenburg Sweden
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
A 230-m-high apartment tower
on a 143,000-m2 site with retail,
food and beverage
Expected completion 2021
som.com
tmrw.se

Rendering by Tomorrow

4
026 Mark 63 Notice Board

2 Renderings by Beau & e Bit

1 e Opal
Copenhagen Denmark
Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter
A building for the Danish
Socie of Engineers, IDA, in the
Copenhagen harbour
3 Rendering by 2R Studio and Ethan Karimi
Expected completion summer 2018
dortemandrup.dk

2 New Amsterdam Courthouse

Amsterdam Netherlands
KAAN Architecten
A courthouse with public
square, foyer, 70 courtrooms,
oces, lobby, restaurant,
conference centre and library
Expected completion September
2020
kaanarchitecten.com

3 Mashhad Ci Complex

Mashhad Iran
AGi architects and Shi Process
Practice
A 10,000-m2 mall (lower
levels) and a 29,000-m2 hotel and
apartments (upper levels)
Competition entry, 2nd prize
agi-architects.com
shiprocesspractice.ir
 K I N I S A FA M I LY O F C A B I N E T S W I T H
E AC H M E M B E R I N A S P E C I F I C F O R M AT.
R EGAR DLESS OF THEIR FIELD OF
A P P L I C AT I O N T H E Y C R E AT E R O O M
F O R T H E T H I N G S T H AT M AT T E R .

K I N S T O R AG E S Y S T E M
BY M AT H I A S H A H N , 2 016

zeitraum-moebel.de
028 Mark 63 Notice Board

1 Sea Lanes
Brighton United Kingdom
We Like Today
A leisure destination on the
sea front that facilitates sea
swimming
Expected completion 2017
weliketoday.co.uk

2 rnsro Trstad
rebro Sweden
C.F. Mller Architects and
Landscape
A 18,000-m2 urban residential
quarter with solid timber-frame
structures
Competition entry, 1st prize
cfmoller.com

3 Urban Concert Hall

Chengdu China
Meinhard von Gerkan and
1
Stephan Schtz with Nicolas
Pomrnke
A new stage for the Sichuan
Conservatory of Music
Competition entry, 1st prize
gmp-architekten.de

2
3
Biennale INTERIEUR 2016
 030

Cross
Mark 63

Section
 Cross Section 031

Buildin
re ulations
in Norwa
are firm
embedded in
the modernist
view of
Tor Austigard on his latest
house in Stavanger, page 034

what is
ood livin
032 Mark 63 Cross Section

Into the Labyrinth

France's new Ministry of Defence is an impenetrable fortress.

rtive and
turistic double
Text Anna Sansom
Photo Arme de lAir
Hexagone Balard, the site of
France's Ministry of Defence in
western Paris, was inaugurated
by President Franois Hollande,
paradoxically, eight days before the
13 November 2015 aacks, which
killed 130 people. e decision
ANMA
to reunite the army, navy and air
force on one single site was taken
in 2007 by Hollande's predecessor,
Nicolas Sarkozy, for the sake of
eciency. Previously, the ministry
had been dispersed over 12 sites in
Paris and the nearby suburbs.
Paris France
e issue of securi was
paramount, followed by the desire
to have an innovative building
that would be modern, energetic
and technologically advanced.
What ensued was a public-private
partnership alloed in 2011 to
033
Bouygues Construction, which
teamed with three architecture
firms: ANMA Agence Nicolas
Michelin et Associs (master plan),
Agence Wilmoe & Associs
(four rented oce buildings) and
Ateliers 2/3/4 (renovation of
certain buildings). e project was
delivered four years later.
e site is a true bunker
that looks like a robust fortress
from the outside but one
discovers its qualities inside,
says Cyril Trtout, a partner at
ANMA, who, with the ministry's
press ocer, takes me on a tour
escorted by a soldier.
e building features a
vast, metallic solar roof spanning
5,600 m2 the largest in Paris.
Wrapping round the impenetrable
165,000 m2 site is a cli-inspired,
stratied faade, in varying
opacities and transparencies. It
is a
skin, says Trtout.
Inside the tightly guarded,
labyrinthine complex, the eect
bestowed by the architecture
appears user-friendly. e oces
are lied o the ground on stilts,
creating passageways underneath
that lead to grassy spaces, bicycle
ranks and benches for the 9,200
employees. e site contains
restaurants, a gym, a swimming
pool, three crches, a hairdresser's,
conference and media rooms.
e mosaic-like faades
in greens and blues are strategic.
e pixels of colour deconstruct
the rigid structure like a fresco so
we dont know whats happening
behind the faade, explains
Trtout. e building is fortied so
that, in an aack, damage would
be limited to a hole and not aect
the overall structure.
In the centre is a hexagonal,
white-clad space where the
highest-ranking ocials work
hence the name of the project,
also a reference to the shape of the
country. e only original building
is on Grande Place dArmes,
designed by Auguste Perret
(1854-1874). It is testament to the
ministry's objective to plan military
operations and protect France.
anma.fr
034 Mark 63 Cross Section

A Farewell to
Mowing Lawns
Tor Austigard updates the wooden
Nordic coastal townhouse.

+3

+2 08
Kjkken/stue
22,5 m

2. etasje 1:100

+1

People who want to live in the ci dont

necessarily require a big garden.
Photo Austigard Arkitektur
Austigard Architektur Stavanger Norway 035

Text Cathelijne Nuijsink

Photos Ivan Brodey

Architect Tor Austigard has

doubts about the current supply
and demand of the Norwegian
housing market. Building
regulations in Norway are firmly
embedded in the modernist view
of what is good living, demanding
huge plots for detached houses, he
says. People who want to live in
the ci dont necessarily require a
big garden. ey have beer things
to do than mow lawns.
e Oslo-based architect
used a small 3.6 8.9 m
undeveloped plot in the centre of
the coastal town of Stavanger to
prove his point about the potential
of inll projects in high-densi
areas as an alternative to the
house-with-garden or the current
run on standardized apartments
in large-scale collective housing
complexes. Tri ering an old
school friend-turned-real estate
developer to purchase the land
and have him design the house,
Austigard managed to convince
people of the potential of an urban
plot that few could imagine even
holding a proper dwelling.
e eect of the
intervention was unforeseen.
Amid a revision process of local
building regulations, the house
got entangled in a political
discussion about how the goals
of housing production could be
met through small-scale inll
projects and was consequently
published in local newspapers
and construction-related media
even before the interiors were
nished, Austigard says.
Being exempted from the
heavy regulations on preservation
in this central district allowed him
to propose a modern version of the
wooden Nordic coastal townhouse,
a high-densi project in its own
right. People want to live in the
ci but they also want their own
secluded space away from others.
I have tried to maximize small
spaces that oer a connection
to the ciscape outside while
keeping the bi er spaces more
private, the architect explains.
Siing in the big window you
are almost out in the ci, but
rther back into the room it is
more private. Standing on the roof
top terrace you can talk to your
neighbours, but rther back you
can only see the s and roofs.
austigard.no
036 Mark 63 Cross Section

Contemporary
Ruin

Christ & Gantenbein have given the extension

to the Kunstmuseum Basel an archaic look.
Text Juliee Soulez

Designed by Basel-based firm heart of the ci

, on a square in sort of contemporary ruin. e
. e articial lighting with
Christ & Gantenbein, the
extension to the Kunstmuseum
Basel, dedicated to art from 1950
to 1990, opened last April. e
historical main building across
the street, dating from 1936 and
recently renovated, had become
too small for its collection
of 300,000 objects covering
seven centuries, even with its
contemporary art department in
the neighbourhood.
e new 2,555-m2
extension has been built in the
ci
the middle of the trac, just
across a busy bridge. e location
needed a strong architectural
answer and an evident signal.
e irregular massive polygon
of the new structure imparts
a lively movement within its
surroundings, especially with its
inverted corner entrance turning
the intersection into its own
forecourt. e understated use of
grey brick refers to an archaic-
looking masonry, the architects
say, turning the building into a
frieze on the top announces the
exhibition programme thanks to a
special arrangement of LED lights
within the bricks, turning it into
a marquee.
Inside, the three oors
and two basements are connected
vertically by the central,
monumental staircase reminiscent
of the one in the historical building.
Load-bearing walls separate the
exhibition spaces there are no
movable partitions and the few
windows frame the view into the
standard light tubes has become
an integral part of the interior
architecture. Another distinctive
feature is the basement passage to
the historical building, designed as
a real exhibition space and a foyer.
e new massive extension
looks like an autonomous
structure, but its soberness
highlights the historical museum.
christgantenbein.com
 Christ & Gantenbein Basel Switzerland 037

+1

Photo Stefano Graziani / Kunstmuseum Basel

e frieze announces the

exhibition programme thanks
to a special arrangement of
LED lights within the bricks.
Photo Julian Salinas /
Kunstmuseum Basel

Long Section

Photo Stefano Graziani / Kunstmuseum Basel

 Coldplay Music Video 039

Utopia and dystopia

collide in Coldplays
Up and Up.

Surreal
Dreamscapes
Text Sofia Borges
Images Parlophone

Looking back at home movies
or family photos, a nostalgia for
what once was can flood the
senses. It can give rise to dreamy
recollections of the endless
summer days and the comfort
of seemingly simpler times.
Coldplays latest music video for
their song Up and Up, directed by
Vania Heymann and Gal Muia,
cuts and pastes this retro imagery
from bygone eras into arresting
scenes from today. Startling and
intoxicating, the videos surrealist
juxtapositions between man and
nature weave a quiet lullaby of
warning for the ture. Visions
of war and abstracted natural
disaster confront peacel scenes
of the metropolis reclaimed by
giant owers. A ship teeming
with regees and their makeshi
shelters comes to dock in a
Western bathtub lined with yellow
and white tiles. Over the course of
the four-minute video, utopia and
dystopia intertwine in a cosmic
universe of possibili.
e manmade and natural
landscape fade o again and again
throughout the video. A larger
than life buery lands on an
oil rig at dusk as monumental
manatees take over the skies of
Manhaan. Horizons bend and
distort to link deserts where
regees ee on foot with sandy
beaches doed with sun umbrellas
and beach blankets. While
dolphins leap out of the ocean into
a cloudscape of inverted favelas,
a Berlin-sle wall rises to cut
o the sand from the shore. is
poignantly subtle splicing of past
and present outlines the best and
worst of humani a testament
to everything we have built and a
haunting reminder of how much
we stand to lose.
040 Mark 63 Cross Section

Stepping Up the View

Max Nezs
beach house in
Zapallar is all
about stairs.

Text Izabela Anna

Photos Roland Halbe

e stairs steal the show. Starting
on the wide accessible roof that
runs parallel to the natural slope,
the steps oer alluring views
before elegantly dropping towards
the sea. You might expect the
concrete to form a harsh contrast
to the sereni of the natural
seing, but in the small coastal
town of Zapallar in Chile, where
many architects have inserted
their modern dreams into the
landscape, the opposite is the case.
On Beranda beach, the hues of
the grey and blue waves calmly
resonate with the man-made stone.
A second line of stairs runs
below the roof and ows straight
into the interior. Sandwiched
between these two tiered plateaus
of cement are four lighter volumes,
clad in wood. Inside, 15 concrete
columns support the living space.
All heterogeneous, they seem more
like sculptures than structural
elements. Adding to the sculptural
quali of the proper is a surreal
third stairway. Like a work of art,
this free-oating ight of stairs
can be looked at from the inside
through large window panels.
Despite the houses
minimalism, its atmosphere is
neither too cold nor emp. e
many ights of stairs add a hint of
magic, evoking the clean yet scenic
sets Adolphe Appia designed for
Richard Wagners operas. ey
would probably sound good in
Max Nezs lyrically brutalist
beach house, too.
maxnunez.cl
 Max Nez Arquitectos Zapallar Chile 041

Long Section

e house follows the natural slope of the landscape.

-1 0
042 Mark 63 Cross Section

Free Entry
Text and graphics eo Deutinger, Marilia
Kaisar, Liam Cooke and Stefanos Filippas

Lets imagine the earth as a labelled Afghanistan can only state, not even 100 years old.
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palace would be divided into rest of the rooms you have to the key to all of its rooms. Yet,
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Ceauescu, in comparison, has the size of Palace Earth depends meet at any time. In terms of
about 1,100 rooms. very much on the room you were nctions, these 15 rooms are
All 198 rooms of Palace born in. For people from the rich predestined to serve as meeting
Earth have dierent securi Western Wing of the Palace it is rooms. It is time for the United
systems. Which rooms you are the largest: they can visit up to Nations, an organization that
allowed to visit depends very 90 per cent of the rooms, while should represent all of the
much on the room you were people living in the poor Eastern inhabitants of Palace Earth, to
born in. If residing in the room or Southern Wing cannot even introduce an open-door policy,
labelled Germany, you can visit visit 15 per cent of the rooms. pack its bags and move into one Mexico: free entry to 139 countries

177 other rooms without even e key to all of the of these 15 rooms.
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044 Mark 63 Cross Section

e living room on the top oor

overlooks Komozawa Olympic Park. Long Section

+2

Caf in Waiting
+1
For a young
couple in Too,
Mamm designed
a house thats
punctured by a
small caf. + 0.5

Text Cathelijne Nuijsink

0
Photos Daici Ano

It was not until they found a plot
facing Toos Komozawa Park that
a young Japanese couple (a Sony
product designer and a universi
sta member) started to think
about running a small caf inside
their ture home. Mamm Design
happily gave shape to their wish
for a change of lifesle, puzzling
with the nctional requirements
of a public venue inside a private
residence without sacricing the
feel of the park for both.
e caf is designed as a
horizontal tube that pierces a larger
vertical space containing the
private residential areas. It hangs
slightly above street level, in order
to align with the park. Customers
can get a glimpse of the private
areas upon entering the building,
but otherwise the internal
circulation paths are separate.
ough planned as a lile coee
and ice cream take-out that would
be open in daytime and have a
maximum seating of ve, the caf
is at the time of writing not yet
in use. e situation drastically
changed by the birth of their rst
baby during the construction,
architect Akira Mada admits.
But that doesnt put the newly
envisioned lifesle completely on
hold. Baptized Ondo a reference
to a kind of Japanese folk song
as well as the word temperature
this small urban house with
extensive park views has already
1
started to radiate a musical
atmosphere like the warm sounds
of bossa nova.
mamm-design.com
Mamm Design Too Japan 045
046
Friendly and Dutil
Text Izabela Anna
Photos Nick Frank
Is there something like a pical
German house? Having grown up
in Germany, but now living abroad,
Id like to think there is. Take for
example this timber structure
in Bischofsheim, designed by
architect collective Mind. It is
a rather sharp house, with big
windows and straight lines. e
simple rectangular shape seems
formal; it could be interpreted as
stiff, but the stiffness is ultimately
broken down by the warm colour
of the wood.
Mark 63
Purposely built to be a private
(co-)working space, it is
immaculately efficient. An entire
structure made of solid wood
ensures sustainabili and cost
securi. Following strict building
regulations, one wall directly
aaches to the neighbouring
house while another borders the
street. e space inside the urban
cluster remains uncompromised,
bright and airy.
e ground level is an
open plan meeting space with
Cross Section
kitchen and workshop. Curtains
can be used to separate the
rooms if seing boundaries is
required. With an interior design
so minimal it could be a casually
elegant version of no interior
design at all, the heart of the
building is the communal storage
space: wooden wall shelving
nestled around a square metal
staircase that faces the neighbours
wall. On the upper oors, spaces
are more reserved. Individual
oces oer intimacy and focus.
Most stereopes
tend to have a bad
connotation, but
not in this case.
Large windows and wooden hues
balance the geometrical lines.
e timber house could even be
interpreted as punctual. Timeless
and diplomatic choices have led to
a exible result, so that the oce
space can be used eortlessly as a
residential dwelling at any time.
Finally, the German house
is a good neighbour to have. It is
friendly, but reserved and perfectly
blends in without shaming nearby
residents by its opulence or an
unkempt appearance.
mind-ac.com
 Mind Architects Collective Bischofsheim Germany 047

0 +1 +2
048 Mark 63 Cross Section

Photo Laila Reppen

+1

M/ U

G
TS

TP

G
 Arkitektur + Development Norrkping Sweden
Post-industrial Chic
Arkitektur + Development exploits the
raw beau of abandoned factories.
Text Daniel Golling
Anyone used to the image culture
in contemporary architecture is
experienced enough to accurately
pinpoint what this project is
about: a former industrial area
with closed factories that is now
undergoing gentrification. It is
the familiar narrative about the
transition from the industrial age
into an era with the prefix post. At
a quick glance (which is what we
usually spare a building), this could
be Hamburg, Liverpool or Helsinki.
But this is Norrkping, Sweden.
So, is there anything
here that cannot be identified
at a glance? If ever there was a
rhetorical question that was it,
because Katscha (the Swedish
word for an old fishing tool)
is an apartment building. e
most common feature of the
contemporary Swedish apartment
block, the balconies, is absent
e apartment building is located
in a former industrial area that is
undergoing gentrication.
Photo Ingrid Reppen
here. Apart from the form of
the building, which follows the
Motala Strm River, and its
shimmering zinc aluminium
faades, the absence of balconies is
where the architects of Arkitektur
+ Development have really
parted ways with their Swedish
contemporaries.
at choice was made
in order to open up the 30
apartments in the building to the
water as much as possible. As a
consequence, the ceiling heights
have been increased on this side
and windows were enlarged.
Originally the idea was that they
could be opened completely, giving
residents the enviable feeling
of siing on a low balustrade
overlooking the water and the
unique 19th-century architecture
of the area. Quite a daring move,
considering that the Swedish
049
climate doesnt allow for such
Mediterranean fantasies to be
lived out that oen.
But, as rash as that
might seem, the architecture
follows the logic of the housing
market. e apartments range
from 70 to 170 m2 and although
they all have individual plans,
their organization is similar to
anything else built today. e
public areas of the apartments are
oriented towards the water and
dominated by the open kitchen
and living room. e private
spaces (bedrooms, bathrooms and
closets) face the street and have
a much lower (standard) ceiling
height than the rooms facing the
river, resulting in split-level oors
that make the spatial experience
of the apartments all the more
interesting.
aplusdevelopment.se
 050
Mark 63

Per-
spective
 Perspective 051

Renovation
comes with
limitations
that makes
the
desi n rocess
easier
Jo Nagasaka on his
preference for the reuse of
existing buildings, page 054
052 Mark 61 Perspective

A recent interest in renovation challenges

Japans standard raze-and-build system.

Text
Cathelijne Nuijsink

e Japanese
Renovation
Movement

Since the end of World War II, the government and industry
of Japan have supported the building of new houses, at first
to eliminate the huge housing shortage and later to continue
supporting the nations building industry. e number of
newly built detached houses in post-war Japan equals that
of North America. Sustained by the fact that the asset value
of residences in Japan is amortized in about 30 years, houses
are knocked down and replaced on a continual basis. e
result is a perpetual renewal of the existing housing stock,
which, to the delight of many architects, has allowed free
experimentation in the design of private dwellings. e
amount of newly built houses is said to have reached its
peak, however, and the countrys standard raze-and-build
system is starting to be challenged. A decline in households
and a greying population have le many houses unoccupied
and brought the number of vacant units in rental apartment
buildings to a record high. Combined with a slow-moving
economy, the purchase of a new house has become less and
 House Renovations Japan 053

less a reali, leaving fewer people who can aord even a tiny
Japanese house. Instead, there is a growing awareness of
possibilities such as restoration, preservation and renovation
with regard to the existing housing stock.
e so-called Japanese renovation movement is proting
from a growing fondness for older houses as opposed to the
previously common preference for all things new. It expresses
itself in the rise of intermediaries providing renovation
services, themed magazines that boost the condence of
inexperienced readers considering a DIY-sle remodelling of
their apartments, and websites oering rerbished-housing
options. Independent architects have started to join the
movement as well. Whereas many Japanese architects once
relied on house design as a way to launch their careers, and
others saw the eld as their main activi, such opportunities
are far rarer nowadays. Young architects in particular are
involved in renovation work, oen from necessi. at said,
they make the work into a serious design assignment that
acknowledges the importance of restoring older properties.
Renovation, in their work, is understood as another chance to
think about an ideal life, one more obtainable than a custom-
designed house these days.
In this issue, Mark features three architecture practices
that propose strategies for renovation that dier from the
methods more commonly understood. All three answer the
needs of clients who having had enough of ready-made
commercial apartments and houses want to discover
individualized options within the existing housing stock. Like
magazine publishers and other commercial companies, these
practices help to make their clients familiar with the idea
of designing personalized living environments, while still
making sure that the building process remains feasible. Its a
labour-intensive approach that more oen than not sees the
architects themselves working on site.
054 Mark 63 Perspective

Gradual Jo Nagasaka founded Schemata

Architects right aer graduating
from Too Universi of the Arts
in 1998. Located in the Aoyama
area of Too, his oce realizes

renewal is more projects of all sizes, from side

tables to buildings. Renovation
plays a key role in much of his
work, from rniture design to

interesting
large-scale architecture.
e
way he reuses existing buildings
has set an example for an entire
generation of younger architects.

ats not all there is to his

than pursuing
portfolio, however, as evidenced
by 63.02, a skinny new-build
structure in the Nakano area
of Too; completed in 2007, it
contains two apartments (Mark

instant
14, page 48). Another example is
Paco, a 3-x-3-x-3-m white cube
designed as a holiday house and
built in 2009 (Mark 20, page
212). During my recent visit,

perfection we focused on Schematas latest

renovation projects.

How do you dene renovation?

JO NAGASAKA: In order to see
existing architecture in a new
light, its important to keep
in mind the Japanese concept
of mitate, a literary term from
Jo Nagasaka has ancient Chinese poetry and

made a career out ancient Japanese waka poetry.

Mitate translates into something
of renovating houses. along the lines of regarding a
thing not as what it is supposed
to be but as something dierent
and, as a result, gaining something
Text new. Japanese tea master Sen no
Ri used mitate by utilizing
Cathelijne Nuijsink items not originally intended
as tea utensils and, in so doing,
generated a new worldview within
Photos the Japanese tea ceremony. Sen
no Ri consciously altered
Kenta Hase awa ordinary items for everyday use
rather than creating something
new. We oen deliberately misuse
existing conditions and objects
in our renovation projects. If you
success lly nd new possibilities
in an older building, the scenery
around it will improve to a certain
degree without drastic changes.

What does a renovated building

possess that a new building
doesnt?
New buildings oen stand out
from their surroundings. Older
buildings dier from new ones in
terms of form, structure, exterior
materials, pes of window frames
and doors and, of course, the
Jo Nagasaka. state of degradation. A renovated
Photo Yuriko Takagi building blends in beer with its

neighbours, because it has already
gone through an ageing process.
At the same time, this also makes
it more dicult for the architect
to take control over the design of a
renovation, because the character
of the building was established
years ago. We carelly study
that character and incorporate it
into our design, hoping that the
building will become more layered
over time.
Your rst big renovation project
was the Sayama Flat from 2008.
You stripped the apartments on
the inside and kept only the bare
necessities. Can you explain why
you used this approach?
e overall budget for the
renovation of Sayama Flat, a
30-year-old company apartment
building, was a mere 1,000,000
(8,000) per housing unit, which
made it impossible for us to do
what we normally would have
done. At rst we were stunned
by the ultra-low budget proposed
by the client, but eventually we
accepted the project with one
major condition: we would design
and implement the renovation,
but we would not produce any
drawings or obtain the clients
approval beforehand. We designed
the plan and did the construction
work on site, literally peeling
away layers of nishing materials
until the inner framework was
exposed. We le some badly
designed elements intact, such as
the kitchen counter and the sliding
partitions, which surprisingly
seemed to suit the new seing.
is project proved to be a
turning point in my career. We
experienced the joy and freedom
of constructing something based
on our own values and judgments,
and we found new possibilities
in ordinary things. It made me
realize that hones is the key
to encountering something
wonderl.
With regard to the renovation of the
House in Okusawa from 2009, you
talked about changing expression
in your reference to building
materials. What did you mean?
at project involved the
renovation of a classic European-
sle house with many fake
details, such as the proled side
boards of the roof and a light
armature. Some parts of the
house were so unaractive that
eliminating such details seemed
Schemata
unavoidable. Instead of removing
or hiding them, however, I le
those parts as they were and
aempted to change the way one
perceives and interprets them.
We opted for a sort of froage
technique by whitewashing the
walls, which brought out the
surface paern of the red-tiled
faade, though in a much lighter
and lacelike manner. By changing
the expression of the exterior in
this way, we freed the house from
the heaviness of its past.
Slowly stripping away layers of
building material seems like a
time-consuming and therefore
costly adventure . . .
It is hard to talk about costs, since
a renovation oers an advantage in
terms of time spent on both design
and execution. New construction
provides innite design choices
and makes it more dicult to
control the time element. But
renovation comes with certain
limitations, so its easier to design
and build within a short period.
Another advantage is that we can
communicate design intentions
to the client precisely because the
building is already there.
e House in Hatogaya is a more
recent project for the renovation
of a two-storey wooden house that
was built during a period of high
economic growth, allowing you to
provide each family member with a
private room. You later stated that
this concept is incongruent with
the contemporary Japanese family
and current lifesles. Why is that?
What people regard as ideal oor
plans during a period of high
economic growth and what they
want now is not so dierent, I
think. One of the major issues in
this renovation project, though,
was a decrease in the number of
inhabitants from ve to three. In
other words, we were given extra
space per person and thus an extra
opportuni to realize an ideal
spatial relationship. By punching
a void that extended through
the oor of the upper storey, we
not only rnished the living
environment with natural light
but also connected all rooms that
had been hitherto separated and
hidden behind closed doors.
What else did you improve?
e original design was not based
on one clear design intention but
on an accumulation of separate
Too Japan
ideas developed over time, such as
windows in various shapes and
sizes, randomly chosen oor and
wall nishes, split-level oors,
and rooms decorated to suit the
personal tastes of the dierent
occupants. e result was a house
with a strong feeling of disparate
design intentions. We rst reduced
the number of rooms, established
an appropriate material palee
and created a sense of uniformi.
As for the randomly shaped
windows, we detached them from
the overall spatial composition by
framing them like paintings on the
white walls of an art museum. To
be specic, we adjusted the details
so that window frames are hidden
behind the white wall and exterior
views appear like paintings when
seen from the inside.
e House in Tsutsujigaoka was
35 years old when you received
the commission which in Japan
means its lifespan was over and
it had no qualities that made it
stand out from an architectural
point of view. Why did the client
decide to renovate the house?
From the viewpoint of Japanese
proper values, the house was
already wrien o. However, the
value of the building was in its
oor area, which would have been
substantially reduced in the case
of a new-build project, thanks to
stricter setback regulations for that
site included in Japans Building
Standard Law. e wish to keep
the existing amount of oor area
contributed to the decision to
maintain the original house.
Did you have to convince your
clients of certain design decisions?
e House in Tsutsujigaoka had an
old-fashioned, cosy atmosphere,
which we tried to preserve while
improving its rather raed and
uninteresting exterior appearance
and its poor thermal insulation.
We had to reinforce the structure
as well. By modiing the exterior
and taking away the fences around
the house as much as possible,
we improved both the site and
its surroundings. Bold moves like
these are usually not acceptable
for clients, because it means
sacricing privacy to a certain
degree, but our clients agreed to
the proposal.
Apart from buildings, you have
also reused rniture. Flat Tables,
for instance, is a series of used
055
wooden tables that you gave a new
lease of life by pouring coloured
epoxy onto their uneven surfaces.
Do you regard your rniture
designs as a form of renovation
as well?
Yes. Furniture oers opportunities
to experiment and to express my
ideas. I dont have a strong desire
to manipulate forms in rniture
design, so when I want to focus on
texture, used rniture is easier to
handle and lets me communicate
my intentions beer than new
rniture. As you know, there are
many complications involved in
architecture and interior design,
but rniture is a rather simple
way to explore design ideas. Also,
we initiate our rniture projects;
they are not commissioned
by clients, which makes a big
dierence.
Japan has seen a recent upsurge
in renovation projects and far less
of the previously popular raze-
and-build method. Whats your
explanation for this?
I think its because Japanese
architects today like the notion
of sharing ideas and nding
new things together instead of
achieving something awless
on their own and showing it
o. Also, I think the pursuit
of instant perfection is not as
interesting as the process of
gradual renewal, and thats what
renovation is about. _
schemata.jp
056 Mark 63 Perspective

House in Hatogaya, 2015

Kawaguchi, Japan
e client took over this house from his father and commissioned
Schemata to work on the renovation. He lived in this house during
his primary-school days, aer which it was rented out. e design
was executed by an architect under his fathers direction, and his
fathers strong intentions were reected in many features of the
house. Rooms were done in dierent sles, in keeping with each
family members taste, and the house had uniquely shaped windows.
A limited budget caused the architects to leave the windows
unmodied, but they did hide the original window frames behind
new interior walls and created a void to connect all previously
separated rooms. e void recongures spatial relationships
throughout the house and nctions as a light well, distributing
natural light that enters through windows in the south wall.

In the custom-built kitchen,

plastic crates serve as drawers.

e original design included windows

in various shapes and sizes, all of which
were retained during the renovation.
 Schemata Too Japan 057

A split-level bedroom opens

into the living quarters.

Renovated
buildings blend
in beer with
their neighbours,
because they
have already
gone through an
ageing process
058 Mark 63 Perspective

e parquet oor on the

landing was retained.
 Schemata To o Japan 059

+ 1 (before renovation) + 1
01 Entrance
02 Kitchen and dining
09 03 Living room
04 Bedroom
08
05 Bathroom
06 Childrens room
06 07 07 Void
08 Landing
09 Storage room

0 (before renovation) 0 Section

01
05

04
A

03
02

Daylight floods the living areas, thanks

to the integration of a large void.
060 Mark 63 Perspective

e middle window on the ground

oor was closed off to stabilize the
original frame of the house.

+ 1 (before renovation)

House in Tsutsujigaoka, 2015

Cho, Too, Japan
is was a collaborative project with Kozo
Kadowaki, assistant professor at Meiji
Universis Department of Architecture.
Kadowaki was also the client. Strict setback
regulations that apply to new-build projects
0 (before renovation)
for this site made renovation with no loss
of oor area a beer choice. Although
Kadowaki had considered selling the proper
in its existing condition, he believed it would
be more protable to go for a low-budget
renovation of the house before selling it. An
unsound framework made the job ris. e
total area of openings on the south faade
necessitated structural reinforcement, which
was done by closing o the middle window at
ground-oor level. e architects removed the
wooden oor on the upper storey and replaced
it with a grating of expanded metal to allow
daylight to enter the living room.
 Schemata Too Japan 061

A Japanese-s
le room at the back of the
house was stripped, leaving a bare space
that can be used as an oce or a shop with
independent access from outside.

+1 e false ceiling above the landing was

removed, although certain elements of
the original house were retained.

01 Entrance
02 Kitchen
07 03 Living and dining room
04 Dirt oor
06 06 05 Bathroom
06 Bedroom
07 Landing

05

01
04
02 03
062 Mark 63 Perspective

A grating of expanded metal that

serves as both floor and ceiling
allows daylight to enter the interior.
Schemata Too Japan 063
064 Mark 63 Perspective

Architecture 403 Architectura Dajiba is a three-

man enterprise that started in 2011
as a spino of 403 Architecture.
Named aer the room they

isnt about
shared, 403 Architecture was an
informal group of six universi
friends that initially worked
mainly on temporary projects,
such as the design of exhibitions

assembling
and installations. When Toru
Yada, Takuma Tsuji and Takeshi
Hashimoto graduated and decided
to set up an oce together, they
added Dajiba to the name in order

factory-made to distinguish themselves from

their three former colleagues. e
addition is an acronym of (Ya)da,
(Tsu)ji and Ba(shi), Hashimotos

products
nickname. Over the past few
years, 403 Architectura Dajiba has
built up a series of consistently
executed projects, including many
renovations.

From le to right: Toru Yada,

Your collaboration dates back to
Takuma Tsuji, Takeshi Hashimoto.
your years at universi . What
did you take away from your
education aer you graduated?
TAKUMA TSUJI: We studied
architecture at Yokohama National
Universi , whose credo is to
create architecture is to create
the ture. Each of our mentors
Koh Kitayama, Ryue Nishizawa,
Riken Yamamoto and Yoshihiko
Iida, all pioneers of the Japanese
architecture scene taught us
his own philosophy about how
architecture should connect
to the ci and to socie . We
agree that an architect should
try to create the ture, but we
hesitate to accept their ideas of
architecture as something rather
stable and autonomous. We see it
as something in ux.

Architecture in ux? How should

we picture this?
TSUJI: For us, material refers not
only to building material but also
to people, information and the
history of the ci . We see the ux
of material as the way in which
403 Architecture Dajiba takes we are conscious of architecture
constantly changing and in how
advantage of discarded materials. materials move from here to there.
In some projects, we dismantle
building parts piece by piece
before collecting, measuring,
Text organizing and reusing them in

Cathelijne Nuijsink ooring, beams or columns, for

instance. is allows us to take
the materials originally assigned
to the components of one project
Photos and use them in a completely
dierent project. e Floor of
Kenta Hase awa Atsumi, for example, was a
 403 Architecture Dajiba
bedroom renovation in a Too
apartment. We realized a direct
relation between dismantling and
constructing by making the oor
from recycled timber that was
previously used in the ceiling of
the same room. By simply moving
the materials to another location,
we gave them a new meaning and
opened up the idea that ceilings
are potential oors. In e Base of
Kagiya, we rerbished a vintage
clothing store and added a sewing
workshop made from building
materials that can be purchased by
anyone from a DIY outlet. We used
standard timber sizes and concrete
blocks that can be easily reused.
In the case of e Depth of Yoyogi,
a house renovation, we saw the
history of the building pology as
the material in ux and imitated
the faade of the adjacent building.
And in e Stairs of Kagiya, a
of the concentration of people,
information and services. Were
thinking about a new concept of
richness for the smaller cities.
Can you elaborate on the term
richness?
TAKESHI HASHIMOTO:
We believe that if we step
back from the usual way of
assembling products made by
large companies, we will have
more choices in the design of
architecture. When we depend
too much on the conventional
system, we cannot construct. We
are looking for alternatives and
making the movement of materials
the subject of our design. For
example, we make use of scrap
wood and consider wooden
pallets a ll-edged building
material. We also nd richness in
poorly utilized spaces, such as an
Hamamatsu Japan
interiors to pieces. On-site work
enabled us to learn directly from
older buildings: lessons that
applied to the design of new
buildings and that showed us
why architecture is dierent from
construction. As we learned at
school, construction makes a past,
but architecture creates a ture.
Can we compare your way of
thinking to that of Japanese
architects active during the post-
war reconstruction period?
TSUJI: No, rather than thinking
in terms of the tabula rasa
planning that Kenzo Tange, Arata
Isozaki and the other Metabolists
did and instead of supporting
the popular raze-and-build
methodology emblematic of
modern Japanese construction
we want to work with what
is already there, to research and
065
30 projects weve realized since
starting ve years ago have been
published individually, but the
exhibition shows what they have
in common. Keywords on six
tags explain how we work; some
projects require multiple tags
that indicate, for instance, how
we take advantage of discarded
materials by using them in ways
that are not the same as the
original builder did or how we
utilize the characteristics of spaces
dierently.
Where do you see 403
Architecture Dajiba in ve
or ten years time?
TSUJI: We focus very much on
the present, so it feels strange to
say something about the ture.
We would enjoy designing public
buildings or overseas projects,
of course, but geing larger
small apartment with a lo bed, underoor or a deserted parking learn from current situations, commissions is probably not
the stairs served as our material in lot. Even if we design a brand- and to use restrictions to make going to stop our work on small
ux. By combining nctions such new project, we try to stretch something new. Tange, Isozaki local projects. _
as lo space, wardrobe and desk,
we moved the meaning of those
individual components into one
spatial object.
So the recycling of materials,
rather than renovation, is the
key to your portfolio?
TSUJI: For us, there is no
dierence between a renovation,
a brand-new project and a
dismantlement, since every
category is the same with regard
to our interpretation of the ux
of material. When we work on
a new-build project, we see it as
a renovation of the ci, and an
interior project is simply a new
project in an existing space.
You are three young ambitious
architects, but youre based
in the relatively small ci of
Hamamatsu. Why is that?
YADA: Hamamatsu is the ci
where Tsuji grew up. It is a pical
medium-sized Japanese ci with
problems that dier from those in
cities like Too or Yokohama, and
the context as far as possible to
encompass the history of the site,
its ambience and its social issues.
Your view of everyday life and its
realities is shared by other young
Japanese architects. In what sense
does your approach dier from
that of your peers?
HASHIMOTO: Half our projects
are located within a 1-km radius of
our oce. Managing Hamamatsus
local issues is a distinctive feature
of our practice. You could say our
work is an amalgam of practice
and research. We learn from
Hamamatsus past, and at the
same time the ci generates new
projects for us.
e year 2011 seems a rather
unfortunate moment to start
an oce though. Why did you
do it then?
TSUJI: Yes, it was the year that
the Tohoku area was hit by the
triple disaster of an earthquake,
a tsunami and the failure of a
nuclear power plant. When we
and their colleagues did what they 403architecture.com
had to do in order to continue
the history of architecture. We
respect them very much. But for
us building doesnt start from
scratch. By dismantling existing
buildings, we learn how the
previous builder used the material
we uncover. We have fewer
illusions about having our projects
last forever.
How does this aitude dier from
that of internationally famous
architects born, say, ten years
earlier than you, such as Junya
Ishigami, Akihisa Hirata, and Sou
Fujimoto?
HASHIMOTO: We were denitely
inuenced by them. However, I
feel that when they think about
architecture theyre too focused
on principles, and that limits
them. It is as if they are carelly
trained ballet dancers and their
architecture reects beau based
on sophisticated forms and rules.
Compared with them, we prefer
to dance on the same ground as
we believe that tackling problems
is the driving force behind todays
architecture. Current issues
plaguing mid-sized Japanese cities
are an ageing population and a low
birth rate; together with young
people leaving for bi
er cities, same impact on us that it had
these problems are responsible
for a drastic decline in population
and for deserted ci centres. Its
dicult for places like Hamamatsu
to catch up with big cities in terms
opened the oce, just aer the
catastrophe, we felt that Japanese
socie had entered a situation
in which every precondition
seemed to have been cancelled.
Although the disaster had the
what you do?
on everyone else, it allowed us to
think about architecture with an
open mind. It was a time when
many old buildings in Hamamatsu
were waiting for us to pull their
the audience, even if that means
a stage without spotlights or a
podium of muddy earth.
If principles are the heart of their
work, how would you describe
HASHIMOTO: We are currently
hosting an exhibition in Too
entitled Present State(ment),
which perhaps best summarizes
our approach to architecture. e
066 Mark 63 Perspective

e shop is on a pical post-war

street in the centre of Hamamatsu.

e workshop box at the middle of the

e Base of Kagiya, 2015 renovated premises leaves the walls open
for displaying merchandise.
HamamatsuJapan
Hamamatsu used to be known for its
textiles factories, which became obsolete
in the 1970s. Many of the suburban
textile factories have been converted into
shopping malls, which are responsible
for the decline of retail facilities and
consumers in the ci centre. With this
project, the architects reinstalled a small
sewing workshop into the heart of the ci,
hoping to increase the populari of small-
scale vintage stores at the expense of
chain stores in suburban shopping malls.
e workshop, housed in a box, faces
the street, with entrances to the store on
either side. e lower half of the workshop
is made of concrete blocks; the upper
half consists of a pical Japanese timber
frame (usually concealed) and glass. e
We hesitate to accept the
workshop, which has an unnished idea of architecture as
quali, corresponds well to the existing
50-year-old reinforced-concrete building.
something stable and
autonomous
 403 Architecture Dajiba Hamamatsu Japan 067

Plan Long Section

e sewing workshop faces the street.

068 Mark 63 Perspective

Le New sliding doors at

ground-oor level reference
those of the neighbours.

Opposite Plasterboard on
walls and ceilings was
removed to expose the
underlying structure.

Boom e kitchen remains

more or less unchanged.

e Depth of Yoyogi, 2015

TooJapan
e architects renovated a 21-year-old house with a timber frame for
a young couple who asked for a place to store bikes and a space open
to the street for use as a shop. ree sliding doors that now feature in
the ground-oor faade allow the occupants to open the front room
directly to the street, as requested an intervention that makes the
house more public. Inside, the team removed plasterboard from walls
and ceilings to expose underlying posts and beams. Walls and ceilings
are now painted in ve shades of grey: the deeper the surface,
the darker the shade.

+ 1 (before renovation)

0 (before renovation)
 403 Architecture Dajiba Hamamatsu Japan 069

+1 Long Section
04

05

03 01 Shop
01
02 02 Kitchen
03 Bathroom
04 Bedroom
05 Living room
070 Mark 63 Perspective

Plasterboard removed from the ceiling

enables occupants to experience the ll
height of the room.
403 Architecture Dajiba Hamamatsu Japan 071

e rst-oor room facing the street used to be a

tatami room, but the mats have been removed.
072 Mark 63 Perspective

e Stairs of Kagiya, 2015

HamamatsuJapan
A room in a 50-year-old building has been converted into a guest room for
travellers. A new wooden volume hanging from the ceiling houses a lo bed,
leaving 1.5 m of headroom for those below. e existing building erected just aer
World War II, during which air raids destroyed most of Hamamatsu was based
on a complicated form of shared ownership quite common at the time. e system
initiated then makes many of these buildings hard to renovate or rebuild, because
conversion requires the consent of all owners. In addition, a lesser demand for
such properties makes it necessary to think of new pes of occupation. is guest
room is rented out to foreigners through Airbnb. e room faces the old Tkaid
road; built in the Edo period, it connects To o to Kyoto. Hamamatsu, a ci at the
halfway point, was a ourishing post station during that 300-year era.
 403 Architecture Dajiba Hamamatsu Japan 073

Section

Elevation

Plan

Steps simultaneously serve as seating.

Visitors sleep in a lo bed.

074 Mark 63 Perspective

ere is Shingo Masuda and Katsuhisa

Otsubo rst met in cram school, a
pe of specialized education that
prepares Japanese students for
universi entrance exams. Masuda

enough stu was 20 and Otsubo 18, and together

they practised pencil drawing,
model making, and watercolour
painting, in order to be admied to

already
an art school. ey both wanted to
become architects but ended up at
dierent places: Masuda aended
Musashino Art Universi and
Otsobu went to To
o Universi of
the Arts. Five years aer they rst
Shingo Masuda (le) and Katsuhisa
Otsubo in front of their oce. met, their paths realigned when
they formed their eponymous
architecture oce in 2007.

What was the impetus for opening

an oce together?
SHINGO MASUDA: Aer
graduation, we both worked part
time at a windmill company,
making models for public
presentations. We werent thinking
of establishing an oce together,
but the director of the company
provided us with a commission for
the design of a small viewing tower
on a wind farm. e project, Lile
Hilltop with Wind View, received
a couple of awards, and weve been
going ever since. I dont know
whether I can call it an ambition
were just trying to develop
our own way of thinking about
architecture.

You belong to the youngest

generation of architects in Japan.
Are the conditions that aect you
and your colleagues dierent from
those of previous generations?
MASUDA: Our generation of
architects was born in the 1980s, a
time of high economic prosperi
in Japan. New pes of leisure,
luxury products, all kinds of
building sles everything was
available. You could say we are
a generation familiar with a life
Members of a generation raised in abundance, of abundance. Architects usually
look for new things, but we believe
Shingo Masuda and Katsuhisa Otsubo look for theres enough stu already.
Among this oversupply of things
ways to improve the existing situation. and information, our generational
theme is about nding value rather
than variation.

Text Did the recent upsurge in

Cathelijne Nuijsink renovation projects in Japan
inuence your practice?
KATSUHISA OTSUBO: We have
projects other than renovations,
Photos but it does seem that renovations
are commissioned more frequently
Shin o Masuda+Katsuhisa Otsubo Architects nowadays. I think renovation is
 Shingo Masuda+Katsuhisa Otsubo
connected to the idea that we have
enough possessions. Many people
see renovation as an alternative
option. Japanese people commonly
consult a housing company or
a contractor when they want a
new house. Only when they arent
satised with those possibilities
do they think about involving an
architect in the design of a new
house or a renovation that allows
them to customize an existing
space until it feels like its
their own.
What does renovation mean in
your vocabulary?
MASUDA: Renovation is not simply
about redecorating an interior to
make it suit recent family changes.
Todays clients are well informed
about interior s les. ey can read
and even draw oor plans. Using
books, Google and Instagram,
they nd interesting reference
images and gain basic knowledge
ll of greenery and an interior
about architecture. Our role in
this process is to create a sense of
l renovation of their
place. In Japan, we call it bashosei:
combining an articial object,
such as a building, and its natural
environment to make something
entirely new. Creating context
rather than just reading context
is what we focus on, in both
renovation and new-build projects.
er we lowered the oor 85 cm
Do you know where the idea
of a sense of place comes from?
OTSUBO: It goes all the way back
to the animism of ancient Japanese
nctions as a thermal
history. Before Chinese and other
foreigners arrived in Japan, there
were no man-made shrines here.
We believed in many gods, but
they existed inside natural things
like rocks, trees and mountains.
ink of a rock with a diameter
of many metres lying deep in the
forest prohibiting trees to grow.
Even so, rays of sunshine can
. At the same time, oor-to-
transform this hidden environment
the home of species not found
Too Japan 075
Can you select one of your projects
as an example?
MASUDA: A good example is
Boundary Window, the renovation
of a 30-year-old, two-storey
concrete building. Instead of
replacing individual window
frames, we designed one 14-x-9-m
steel-framed curtain wall, which
represents the idea of a rock
situated between the house and the
garden. e glazed wall aects the
existing space rather than dening
a completely new one. e site is
pical for Japans dense urban
areas, where houses are pushed
to the north side of a plot to make
space for a garden on the south
side. What happens, though, when
almost all houses are positioned
in this way, is that gardens lying
in shadows cast by neighbouring
buildings tend to be dark. Our Initiative Roof, Too, under construction.
clients garden was also on the
south side, but he wanted a garden
living area that would extend into
this outdoor area. Rather than We redesigned the interior and thought
redecorating the interior, we lled insulated the old buildings, of ordinary old house, coupled with
his dark garden with greenery and course, but we broadened our a new strategy for its foundations,
changed the connection between activities to what we felt was a dual plan that covered what was
the building and its surroundings. more important: redening the in their brief.
e intervening boundary the site and upgrading the outdoor
glazed faade became the basis environment. So what did you do?
of our intervention, and reections MASUDA: e foundation gained
on the glass panes brighten the So making a sense of place is about more prominence and visibili
garden. is explains how, in concentrating on things that have a
designing Boundary Window, been overlooked? into the ground. anks to poured
we integrated the house into its MASUDA: Usually, architects strive concrete, good insulation and
surroundings. to design a kind of visual uni , underoor heating, the foundation
a complete look, by following a now
How do you handle sense of place particular s le, but that isnt our structure that supports living and
in other projects? aim. We are more focused on the dining room, kitchen and atelier.
MASUDA: We designed Initiative fringes of an assignment. Instead Inside, the lowered eye level causes
Roof, for instance, for a recently of neglecting or overlooking occupants to look up naturally,
married couple who bought an disagreeable elements, wed rather where existing openings provide a
old house with a separate annexe, include them in our design, where view over the mountains instead
set in a garden. e plot was very they can add character to the of the horizontal view they rst
cheap because of its agpole shape project. suested. When it snows, you
and because houses older than 35 feel like youre inside a deep white
years, like this one, have no real- How did you interpret the clients dri
estate value in Japan. e clients requests in the renovation of the ceiling windows allow daylight to
liked it anyway, though, for its house in Yamagata Prefecture? penetrate the house, illuminating
in the rest of the forest into spacious garden, a rari in Too. OTSUBO: e main requests the interior. e oor at ground
something completely dierent, We thought the relation between for Living Pool were to improve level, which rests on wooden
making the place extraordinary. garden and house was not very the relationship between inside stilts, contains a bedroom and
People used to nd such places well designed. e site is relatively and outside, with its beauti
l bathroom. Continuous concrete
and use them for special occasions, spacious, but the two structures mountain scenery, and to skirting boards at the lower level
such as celebrations, prayers and main house and annexe produced brighten the interior with more elegantly connect both oors. In
gatherings. ey marked the spot a fragmented impression. We natural light. e clients proposed order to connect a building with
with a tiny shrine too small for designed a 5.3-m-high outdoor a slight that would frame a its surroundings in a conventional
human access. In architecture, we corridor to connect the divided view of the mountains, plus manner, architects o
en make a
look for a similar kind of natural areas, thus making the site whole either more or larger windows. rather transparent link intended
richness that can transform a again, similar to when it was still We pointed out that one-way to weaken the physical separation,
site. We want to design the rock emp . e height of the corridors solutions like theirs o
en cause but we make such boundaries more
rather than the shrine; its a more roof does not interfere with other problems, such as a lack of explicit. ats what we mean by

ndamental way of achieving a daylight entering the house, and the privacy, heat loss and overheating. creating a sense of place. _
sense of place. stairs have a structural
nction. Our counterproposal was a salad-net.jp
076 Mark 63 Perspective

Boundary Window, 2013

Funabashi, ChibaJapan
is 210-m2 reinforced-concrete
building features an interesting play
on scales. It was converted to a studio
for creative rm Soulplanet and is
also used by the owner as a weekend
house. Leaving the interior design
to their client, the architects covered
the existing faade with a new glass
curtain wall comprising a vast grid
of steel-framed windows. e curtain
wall spans three oors and is divided
in two horizontally; the top oor
is open to the elements. e design
allows for the rail on the rst oor to
be used as a balustrade.

Section over
south faade

A vast new glass faade faces south.

Shingo Masuda+Katsuhisa Otsubo Too Japan 077
078 Mark 63 Perspective
 Shingo Masuda+Katsuhisa Otsubo Too Japan 079

+2 Exploded view

05

+1

04

e house before renovation.

04
02

03

01

01 Entrance
02 Kitchen
03 Bathroom
04 Living space / studio
05 Roof terrace

Opposite Full-length curtains separate

the interior from the glazed faade.

Right Inside the building, original

wall openings determine the spatial
organization.
080 Mark 63 Perspective

Living Pool, 2014

Tendo, YamagataJapan
e owner of this 40-year-old
timber-framed bungalow was
smien by the location, a lush green
area surrounded by mountains, but
less impressed with the buildings
relatively dark interior. e architects
increased the height of the rooms
by removing the elevated ground
oor and lowering it 85 cm to make
it level with the site. e original
ground oor, now supported by stilts,
accommodates corridor, bathroom
and sleeping quarters; stairs here
descend to the living room and an
atelier. Newly installed windows
cover the ll height of the former e house is surrounded by beautil scenery.

living spaces.

e oor at ground level is nished with

wood and the lower oor with concrete.
 Shingo Masuda+Katsuhisa Otsubo Too Japan 081

Dierences in level allow for

informal seating arrangements.

Plan Exploded view

01

04

02
03

01 Entrance
06 02 Corridor
03 Kitchen and living room
05 04 Atelier
05 Bathroom
06 Bedroom

Section
082 Mark 63 Perspective

e oor at ground level sits on stilts.

Shingo Masuda+Katsuhisa Otsubo Too Japan 083
 084
Mark 63

Long
Section
 Long Section 085

One
of
the worst
thin s about
contem orar
architecture
is the fear
of
chan e
Jos Selgas on the Kibera
School in Nairobi, page 086
086 Mark 63 Long Section

Adaptation
SelgasCano HelloEverything Abdul Fatah Nairobi Kenya 087

SelgasCanos temporary pavilion for a museum in

Denmark gained a second life in Kenya as a school.

Text Photos
Jessica Collins Iwan Baan
088 Mark 63 Long Section

In
their own lile forest just outside of Madrid,
plastics of chameleonic colours, groovy 3M
lms and a collection of cheap materials that
we dont even know the name of surround
the contented employees that work at Spanish
studio SelgasCano.
Headed by Lucia Cano and Jos Selgas,
the architects share an airy, light-drenched
studio where crickets and colour watch over
their designs. We work with bugs, giles
associate Barbara Bardin. Turquoise, tangerine
and every variation of yellow you can imagine
make up the SeglasCano palee and all
e school building is located in Kibera, the
those unpretentious blocks of colours trier
largest slum in Kenyas capital Nairobi.
something profound: joy.
In 2014, as part of their exhibition titled
Africa: Architecture, Culture and Identi ,
the Louisiana Museum of Contemporary Art
in Humlebk, Denmark asked SelgasCano to Mogadishu. Before studying architecture at the of the intimate, critical issues they are facing.
replicate their Konokono Vaccination Centre Universi of Nairobi and interning at Herzog & When we arrived at Kibera Hamlets, students
a project the architects designed in collaboration de Meuron, Fatah spent much of his childhood were just geing ready for a performance. Kids
with HelloEverything the year before in Turkana growing up in and around the neighbourhood delivered speeches on youth-parenting-youth,
Coun , Kenya (Mark 54, page 114). of Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya. Kibera is the sexual and physical abuse, abortion, rape and
HelloEverything consists of MIT largest informal ci in Africa and one of the the AIDS epidemic.
Graduates Austin Smith, Julian Ocampo and biest in the world. Despite the deplorable state of the
Sixto Cordero. In a gesture of compassion Literally an urban jungle, from above school, it was the incredible way that the
and a hope to free the trio of alumni from Kibera appears to be this unfathomable forest communi of students and teachers used what
the oen-doomed ture of fresh grad life,
SelgasCano took the young architects under
their wings, where they have since formed
is resilience and ingenui planted
an interdependent, creative collaboration
where ideas are exchanged so freely, they oen
consider themselves one enti .
With Louisianas invitation, the architects
saw an opportuni to again collaborate.
is time a communi -based organization founded in
they would use the exhibition as a sort of vessel
e school today serves the country.
e architects brought along
to create a piece of architecture that wouldnt just
be thrown away aer the exhibition closed.
ey children from high-pover and high violence
felt they needed to feel the heat on their backs to
understand their design choices in Turkana. So
to replicate that vaccination centre in a breezy,
serene Danish garden didnt make much sense,
Jos Selgas tells me.
e fact the school started as a
Around the same time, photographer
Iwan Baan and myself just happened to be in
of interconnected slates of sunburned steel. lile resources they had to create a positive and
Derived from the Nubian language, kibera dedicated learning environment that caught our
literally means forest or jungle. Today it is a aention.
selement where ingenui and self-suciency the seed for the collaboration that was to come.
govern, making it potentially the most Knowing that SelgasCano and
entrepreneurial place on the planet. HelloEverything have this intrinsic admiration
Fatah brought us to Kibera Hamlets, for Kenya, Fatah and Baan encouraged them
both to visit the school on their next trip to
2004 by local youth.
more than 150 underprivileged adolescents and Rohan Silva and Sam Aldenton, co-founders
of the London-based workspace and cultural
backgrounds, 65 per cent of which are orphaned venue Second Home, who soon nd themselves
and 10 per cent of who are HIV positive. helping to nance the transportation and
Aside from the basic subjects, theatre, building of the school.
dance, acrobatics, music, spoken word and Julian Ocampo of HelloEverything
writing classes are taught to help the children explains:
nd their voice and self-condence. Oen on grassroots organization told us a lot about
school grounds, the children lead compelling what the communi needed. We basically
Kenya where we met with architect Abdul public performances and participatory stepped in to ll an architectural need for an
Fatah, founder of Studio14 in Nairobi and educational theatre where they share some organization that already existed and knew
SelgasCano HelloEverything Abdul Fatah Nairobi Kenya 089

At night the school lights up like a

beacon to create a safer environment.
090 Mark 63 Long Section

rough contributions and donations,

Kibera Hamlets administers a scholarship
program which covers school fees and
college tuition for young people from Kibera
who cannot afford the cost of an education.
SelgasCano HelloEverything Abdul Fatah Nairobi Kenya 091
092 Mark 63 Long Section

Diagram

You dont have to have everything

SelgasCano HelloEverything Abdul Fatah
resolved before you say go
what it wanted. Louisiana was sort of an
excuse to nd the resources to build the school.
Fast-forward a year later, the new
Kibera Hamlet had its rst life as a temporary
sculpture on the lawn of the Louisiana
Museum. Yet according to Selgas, despite its
place in the exhibition, it was never a work of
art or a pavilion. Selgas says: e shape, the
dimensions everything was created for the
plot of land in Kibera.
Its true, continues Ocampo, In available throughout Kibera, but they
Louisiana we couldve put up a sign that
said: On Loan from the Students of Kibera
Hamlets. Because now, the school is alive and
at home and its a part of a vital social system.
In Denmark we displayed the hardware, but
that was just a trace of the communi identi
and ownership that grew around the project. In
Kibera, the architectural object itself is almost
entirely backgrounded by the culture of the
people who live, work and study there.
Fatah, who worked as the local architect
and facilitator, described that the whole team
was completely embedded into the communi:
Once the construction started, there was this
deep interaction with the children, adults,
passers-by and local photographers all
engaging with the construction as it went on.
Everyone was asking questions, observing,
making comments and suestions, and what
they said truly made an impact.
Austin Smith of HelloEverything adds
that the school now inspires this luminous
Nairobi Kenya
e school was built of metal beams
and transparent polycarbonate.
beacon, one that stimulates awe, and operates
as a visible piece of social infrastructure. With
this power, the architecture can extend its
programme and scope of access to communi
members beyond the students. It enables the
architecture to be accessible to as many people
as possible. Power allows for a programmatic
hybrid: a reection of the cultural mishmash
inherent to the fabric of the area.
Resources like electrici are readily
even a maer of survival.
are unregulated and expensive and most
households are unable to aord them. Fatah
tells me: Some years back, oodlights were
installed at strategic locations to assist with
securi. e local name really captures the
essence of this nction: Mulika Mwizi,
which literally means illuminate the thief.
Bright lights have long since been associated
with securi, but the new bright structure we
made symbolizes another kind of brightness:
one that is more at a human scale.
While the vernacular is mud clad brick
walls with corrugated metal sheets, the school
is made mostly of transparent polycarbonate.
is material allows natural light to come
inside, while protecting from the sun. At the
same time, the transparent material allows you
to share your light with your neighbour. Now,
light has gone beyond the physical properties
and creates an identi, an address and a
neighbourhood in an environment that seems
to completely melt together.
093
Building without knowing was ndamental,
particularly to Ocampo and Smith who lived
in Kibera for the duration of the construction.
Ocampo recalls: Where is the water coming
from? Do we have access to sewage? We didnt
know the answers to most of our questions so
we just started building and decided to just
gure it all out as we went along. Our premise
was basically that you dont have to have
everything resolved before you say go. is
is one of the things we learned from Kibera.
You start building something and then you are
like Oh, wait a second . . . And then you start
hacking. You apply a bunch of lile xers. And
then it all works.
e term that scares Selgas and Lucia
the most is the notion of Freeze Design.
Nowadays, Selgas tells me, when you start
construction, many clients ask you for a freeze
design. Imagine. A Frozen Design! When you
arrive at a place, design has to be alive until
the very end. Most of our socie is completely
scared of change. During the process and
throughout construction, people are terried
of it. I think this is one of the worst things
about contemporary architecture. In Kibera,
there is no way to have a freeze design. Because
there you have a client that simply cant
understand how you could freeze your design.
Transformation, change, adaptation is crucial
Both Smith and Fatah commented
that: Architecture can counter exploitative
processes by designing platforms through
which people become active agents of the
design at a very local scope. e team that
worked on construction of the project
consisted of fathers and mothers that live
and work in the immediate vicini of the
school. We see these shared experiences and
the exchange of skills to be a huge part of
the sustainabili of the project.
Architecture is not just the object, says
Ocampo. It is also the process that brought it
into fruition. e success of Kibera Hamlets
is not only in the improved conditions for the
children, but also in the knowledge that each
one of us involved in the process gained and
how we will use these new skills in order to
improve our daily lives. _
selgascano.net
helloeverything.xyz
studio14.co.ke
094 Mark 63 Long Section

Aside from the basic subjects,

children in the school are taught
theatre, dance, acrobatics, music,
spoken word and writing classes.
SelgasCano HelloEverything Abdul Fatah Nairobi Kenya 095
096 Mark 63 Long Section
Studio Huerta Mexicali Mexico 097

Crossing
Borders

Not far from

the fence that
marks the border
between Mexico
and the United
States, Gabriel
Huerta designed
a universi
building that
connects with
the communi.

Text
Kaa Tylevich

Photos
Roland Halbe
098 Mark 63 Long Section

e entrance on the north-side offers

protection from the bright Mexican sun.

Aer
working a few years at Richard Meiers
oce in New York, Gabriel Huerta moved to
Madrid in 2010 to pursue a Masters degree
in Environmental Design. Two years into
his studies, he heard from acquaintances
about a private Mexican universi that was
restless for change and looking for a young
architect to design a new agship building for
their 50th anniversary. Huerta did not have a
practice at the time, nor experience with this
scope of project, but anyway, he entered the
private competition for the new Center for
Postgraduate Studies building at the CETYS
 Studio Huerta
er a securi guard waves us onto the
nctional buildings by way of a green
(Centro de Enseanza Tcnica y Superior)
Universidad in Mexicali.
It was actually quite audacious of
them to take that kind of risk on me, he says,
now that the project is realized. When he was
awarded the project, Huerta moved back to the
United States and set up shop.
l of an void zone is composed of wide steps that serve
e architect and I have just met for
the rst time in the parking lot of an In-n-Out
Burger in Calexico, California. Hes travelled
120 miles from San Diego, where Studio Huerta
has one of its oces (the other is in New York),
and Ive travelled 230 miles from Los Angeles.
Mexicali Mexico
Next to its neighbours,
the building looks
like the vanguard
of experimentation
I dump my Prius and jump into the architects
SUV complete with Mexican license plates
for our day-trip across the border and back.
As we cruise the rural desert landscapes
of Californias last miles of highway, Huerta
assures me that geing into Mexico is no
problem. e CETYS Universidad building,
which opened its doors to students at the
beginning of the year, sits only a ten-minute
drive from the border, but with the customs
process, Huerta says theres no telling how long
it will take us to get back into the United States.
Born in Mexico, and raised between
Madrid and various places across the United
States, including Southern California and
Tennessee, Huerta considers the idea of
foreignness a loose one or, at least, a learning
opportuni . His own experience of cultural
uidi readied him for the challenges of
working with the very set politics of both a
small town and a universi . In many ways,
I remained an outsider for the duration of this
project, he says. Our studio really had to ght
to have a voice in the process.
For one thing, the universi as a client
is a multi-headed enti . We could not make
our case to just one person, he says. Some
people didnt even want the new building
to exist. e bales Huerta waged were not
so much about aesthetics, even if the design
is markedly contemporary for the area, but
rather about the buildings performance. His
background and interest in environmental
design proved crucial to building in this
a pically harsh climate.
ere are eight months of summer here,
says Huerta. Energy demand is an enormous
issue in Mexicali, along with air quali and
pollution. Huerta is passionate that the built
environment should be innately acclimated
to its natural surroundings. He says that it is
wholly obsolete even an architectural faux
pas to be inecient in terms of energy use
or demand. He also had to be mind
active seismic zone. e new building sits atop
the ruins of a predecessor destroyed in a 7.2
magnitude earthquake in 2010.
And under the gaze of roadside video
surveillance, we have entered Mexico. e
scenery changes slightly. e neighbourhoods
099
we pass, which Huerta tells me are well-to-do,
are oset and barricaded from the central drag
by tall solid walls and gates. e large grass
patches between residences and road grow
more wild, and a stray dog crosses our path.
Mexicalis economy is driven by
manufacturing plants that export goods
to the United States. From my view in the
passengers seat, this part of town unites an
aesthetic of industry and beige strip-mall.
Visually, therefore, when I see the Postgraduate
Studies building from the road, it looks alien
to its surroundings a large, grey rectangular
structure, enveloped in metallic mesh (a
low-tech ventilation system that reduces
heat transfer from exterior to interior)
and asymmetrically punctuated by square
windows. Next to its neighbours, the building
looks like the vanguard of experimentation.
A
lot, Huerta walks me to the inner quad, where
his building connects to the old campus of
modest,
outdoor space one of those unprogrammed
zones for which the architect had to wage
bale. What Huerta argued, and ultimately
achieved, was a common ground where
students interact and socialize between the old
and new classrooms. Inside the new building,
the quad is also a consistent visual connection
to the outdoors through multiple windows, and
the rst of the buildings multiple tiers.
e quads grass moves up a slope
toward the entrance, where the interior
continues in the same upward direction.
Huertas system of air circulation, which pulls
hot air up and out of the building with the
aid of solar chimneys, works in congruence
with its human circulation. e programmed
spaces (classrooms, oces) wrap around open
social centres and pathways Huerta calls this
the void zone that simultaneously serve as
the buildings passive ventilation system. e
as platforms for spontaneous activities such
as student exhibitions, socializing and group
studies. Huerta compares the dierent depths
at which study nooks, meeting cubes and
undened rooms are positioned around the void
zone to stones thrown into a river moments
100 Mark 63 Long Section

ere are eight months

of summer here

Top e rest of the campus can be

glimpsed from the circular auditorium
at the boom of the building.

Boom e cafeteria on the ground oor.

Classrooms and oces wrap around

a void zone which doubles as the
buildings passive ventilation system.

of stillness within an active social current.

All private rooms and classrooms (which hold
between 20-35 students max), are largely
transparent, with windows looking across the
building and outside. e design reinforces
visual connection between all of its users at all
times; an antidote of sorts to students craning
their necks over smartphones and laptops.
Undened spaces, including the wide
steps and platforms, were considered excessive
in the early design process, but today they
prove to be the most popular among students
and other users. Several Mexicali companies
and government organizations have requested
to hold meetings in the building since its
completion. A surprise even to us, says Huerta,
 Studio Huerta
but a welcome one, since one of his goals
was to connect with the communi beyond
the campus and positively aect the cis
psychology. Huerta is glad that the building
has a presence in which people nd meaning
its physical composition, aer all, is also a
metaphor for transparency and social exchange.
In leaving the Center for Postgraduate
Studies we also leave that metaphor quite
bluntly. On the way back into the United States,
we drive alongside the Secure Fence erected
under the W. Bush Administration on portions
of the border between Mexico and the United
States not quite as big and beautil as the
wall of ture President Trump, but nonetheless
a physical and symbolic barrier.
Mexicali Mexico
As we slowly creep towards pass control in
Huertas car, he tells me that the best way to
potentially shave hours o of our border journey
is for me to take the pedestrian crossing while
he continues in his car with an individual
expedited pass. In a gridlock of waiting cars,
I open the passenger door, weave between
bumpers, and scale my own cement wall (albeit
a less dramatic one: this one comes up to just
below my waist), demarcating the separation
of wheels and feet. I join a few others on the
foot journey to American soil, where the officer
waves me through aer a few friendly questions
about smuling pharmaceutical drugs. A ten-
minute walk under open skies, and I see Huerta
circling around to meet me at a gas station.
101
On our drive back to the In-n-Out parking
lot, where dreams meet hamburgers, Huerta
and I continue talking about the Center for
Postgraduate Studies building, but really we
are talking about much more. An increasing
number of private endeavours end up
marginalizing spaces of public exchange
and spatial richness, says Huerta. So its
important to me that even though the CETYS
building is recognized as being part of a
private institution, it now exists as a social
space for Mexicali in the mind of the public.
By accommodating change and spatial agili,
architecture can transcend isolated ideas. _
studiohuerta.com
102 Mark 63 Long Section

Long Section +2

10
08

08

08

14

Cross Section
15

04 04

0 +1
01 Entrance
02 Cafeteria
03 Virtual learning room
04 Classroom
05 Auditorium
06 Conference room 09
07 Student creative hub 10
08 Facul oce
05
09 Administration oce
10 Directors office
11 Student research centre
12 Study carrel
13 Teachers lounge
14 Small meeting room 08
15 Group work room 04

06

07
11

04

01 12
02 04

03
Studio Huerta Mexicali Mexico 103

e lo above the stairway that cuts

through the building lengthwise is
the seing of myriad vistas.
104
e
Venetian
Front
On the occasion of the 15th International
Architecture Exhibition in Venice, which
takes place until November 27, Mark
talked to the people behind the scenes.
Text
Rafael Gmez-Moriana
Reporting From the Front addresses issues of
segregation, inequalities, peripheries, access to
sanitation, natural disasters, housing shortage,
migration, informali, crime, traffic, waste,
pollution and participation of communities,
according to its director, Chilean architect
Alejandro Aravena. Clearly, the commitment
here is to the growing number of problems our
planet is facing, and architectures possible role
in alleviating them. Of course, Venice, a ci
increasingly stressed by tourism, gentrication,
depopulation and rising sea levels, is not
without its own problems, so Sergio Pirrone
and I decided to look at how Venice is coping
as the Biennale gets underway.
eres no doubt: the 15th International
Architecture Exhibition amounts to ocial
recognition of a turn that has been occurring
in architecture; a turn from extravagance
and exclusivi towards common sense and
inclusivi. Except for the all-male panel
discussion on opening day, this years Biennale
is much more culturally diverse than previous
editions, including many regions of the world
that are normally ignored by the architectural
establishment. eres a visibly broader
spectrum of materials, techniques, forms and
colours than in previous Biennales. Several
Mark 63 Long Section
Photos
Ser io Pirrone
experiments involving vernacular building
techniques and materials are present, including
a droneport protope for Africa designed
by Norman Foster that uses Catalan vaults.
At this Biennale, the voices of construction
workers, building occupants, neighbours and
other stakeholders can be heard in addition
to the usual archispeak that prevails in these
sorts of events. In addition to form-making,
architectural practice at this Biennale is
broadened to include, for example, forensic
analysis of architecturally related evidence
from crimes against humani commied at sheets of plasterboard and 14 km of metal
Auschwitz or in Gaza, or the provision of beer studs, to be more precise. e installation really
emergency shelters for regees on Europes makes you wonder whether an ephemeral
doorstep. Overall, this is the Biennale of process discursive event that is so wastel is the
over product, evolution over revolution, and most appropriate way to address social and
place over space. Interestingly, at the Aravena- environmental problems. While reduction,
curated main exhibition, just about every label reuse and recycling are recurring themes
is sub-titled e Work of . . . in . . ., puing within many of the exhibitions at the Biennale,
place and authorship on an equal footing. almost everything on display there are a great
Upon entering Aravenas exhibition, many ll-scale constructions and protopes
we are greeted by thick walls made of artlly was shipped to Venice from all corners of
stacked plasterboard fragments and, at the the earth, which is also where most of the
Arsenale venue, thousands of bent metal studs visitors come from. Seemingly, the message of
hanging from the ceiling. Apparently, these sustainabili can only be transmied to an
100 tonnes of waste material came from the information-saturated socie by mounting the
dismantling of the previous Biennale; 10,000 greatest architecture show on earth.
Architecture Biennale Venice Italy 105

We have n here and we

meet foreign people but . . .
our feet are destroyed.
Its tiring and today is hot!
Laura and Susy are Italian. At the Biennale they work
outside the Arsenale, giving away free newspapers.
106 Mark 63 Long Section

During the Biennales we

have many more clients,
which means harder work
but much beer tips
Saam is a waiter, originally from Iran, at a ristorante pizzeria
facing the entrance to the Arsenale on Campiello Tana.
 Architecture Biennale Venice Italy 107

We are seasonal workers but,

even if it is temporary, we like
to be here. ere are so many
people from all over the world
Salvatore is an Italian from Sicily and he works with Jose, who is from Cuba. ey work
temporarily as handymen, transporting carts with magazines related to the Biennale.

at the greatest architecture show on earth
should take place in the fragile, over-touristied
ci of Venice is no small irony. While the
sinking of the ci has slowed signicantly ever
since groundwater extraction was halted in
the 1970s, now it is the rising sea-level (due to
climate change) that is damaging the ci. e
winter acqua alta oods complicate life greatly:
objects on or near the ground oor have to be
elevated, children have to be carried, hip-waders
ractions in Venice, e when the population decreased to below 60
have to be worn at times, and every step on a
fondamenta has to be taken with extreme care
since the edge of the deep end is less visible.
Although a public warning system using a
ood barrier, which has suered corruption
scandals. Venetians seem to take acqua alta in
stride, saying: e show must go on. ey refer,
of course, to their daily life, not La Biennale.
e bi est problem faced by Venice is
probably us, however. Venices native population
is being driven out of the ci by gentrication
caused by tourism, the cis only growing
economic sector, not to say industry. As one
of the bi est tourist a
Biennale arguably forms part of the problem,
even though it generates a lot of employment.
Since the 1950s, the population of Venice has
decreased by more than two-thirds. Meanwhile,
declining population of Venice by means of
a ticker mounted outside a pharmacy near
the Rialto Bridge, as well as on their website
venessia.com. At the time of writing, the ticker
indicates 55,777. Since its formation in 2000,
Venessia has been ghting gentrication and
the conversion of bakeries, butchers and other
local businesses into tourist traps. It does so
by staging elaborate public stunts: in 2009,
thousand, a public neral was held for the ci
during which a con was ceremoniously oated
along the Grand Canal. e following year it
mounted the mock opening of a Veniceland
scale of siren-like tones as well as mobile phone the ci oen absorbs as many as 60 thousand theme-park in a Disneyesque celebration that
messages informs citizens when higher tides tourists per day, outnumbering what remains included activists in rat costumes handing out
than normal are imminent, hope lies in the of the citizen population by several thousand. entrance tickets. Its always worrisome when
eventual completion of the ambitious MOSE e Venessia citizen movement displays the architecture becomes a theme-park theme.
108 Mark 63 Long Section

I have the impression that hardly

any architects buy from me; theyre
mostly normal tourists or locals
Udana is from Sri Lanka and sells hats, shawls, glasses and other tourist paraphernalia
in a stand at the intersection of Via Giuseppe Garibaldi and Viale Giuseppe Garibaldi,
which leads to Giardini entrance.

Of course, there are tourists and then there are who sleep and eat on board their vessels, of architectural creativi and bravura present
tourists. As a favourite cruise ship destination, contribute very lile to the local economy, so at this event is no dierent; just the politics. Of
the port of Venice has seen a rise in both the it is lile wonder that Biennale tourists are course, Venices particular problems tourism,
number and size of these behemoths.
e tolerated much more gladly by Venetians than the conservation of monuments and rising sea
problem is that their waves and even, it is cruise-ship passengers. Half a million people levels, among other things are highly specic
believed, vibrations from their engines damage mostly foreigners visited the last art biennale to its particular situation in time and space, as
fragile building foundations, while the less- while nearly 300,000 visited the previous problems usually are.
e Biennales exhibitions
rened diesel oil they are allowed to burn architecture Biennale (see Mark 51, p 118). may oer lile in the way of applicable
amounts to high levels of sulphur dioxide and With its timely social and environmental solutions to the very ci that is hosting this
particulates in the cis air.
e Comitate No bent, the latest Biennale portrays architecture event, perhaps not even to most visitors
Grandi Navi movement regularly organizes more as a problem-solving discipline. Ideas countries. Architectural problem-solving is
Greenpeace-like swarms of small-cra to
halt cruise ships passing through the lagoon,
while their anti-cruise ship protests at the
at way, we are
ports gates have resulted, at times, in violent
clashes with riot police. Cruise-ship tourists,
e level own particular problems. _
and solutions are oered for dealing with
everything from the current re gee crisis,
fair and sustainable construction, working
more meaning lly with existing buildings, to
participation with local communities.
never without its own problems. Good thing,
then, that the Biennale also happens to be
entertaining and n to visit.
at least oered a temporary escape from our
 Architecture Biennale Venice Italy 109

We are gondoliers 365 days a year and

our job doesn't change much during
that time. During Biennales, there are
more people dressed in black but thats
about all we can say about it'
Giovanni and Roberto are locals and they work as gondoliers.
110 Mark 63 Long Section

Custard or
Champagne
Patrick Berger & Jacques Anziui Architectes Paris France 111

e Forum des Halles, in Paris, has already

been the scene of major renovations a couple of
times. Patrick Berger adds a new chapter to its
turbulent history.
Text Photos
Anna Sansom Wade Zimmerman
112 Mark 63 Long Section

e colour of the steel construction

provokes a lot of comments. Does it
resemble champagne, or custard?

e
site of the Forum des Halles in Paris has a
chequered past, fraught with political ambition.
Iron, iron, nothing but iron, is what Baron
Haussmann, Prefect of the Seine, asked of
architect Victor Baltard regarding the 19th-
century commission for the original market
place. Vast umbrellas, nothing more, is what
he wanted. e resulting wrought-iron and
glass edice, called Halles Centrales and built
during the reign of emperor Napoleon III,
was called the belly of Paris by Emile Zola
in his 1873 novel of the same name. It was
demolished in the 1970s and the bulldozed
area was subsequently nicknamed le trou
des Halles (the hole of Les Halles). Baltards
structure was replaced with an inglorious
underground shopping centre named Forum
des Halles, designed by Claude Vasconi and
Georges Pencreach, onto which pavilions by
Jean Willerval were added in 1985. It was a
morti
ing eye-sore that became known for
pey crime and drug dealing and that many
Parisians sought to avoid.
In 2004, Bertrand Delano, then mayor
of Paris, launched an international competition
to overhaul the site. e four nalists included
French architects Jean Nouvel and David
Mangin, as well as Dutch rms OMA and
MVRDV. Mangins scheme was eventually
selected. He envisioned extending the area,
building a new metro entrance on Place
Marguerite de Navarre near Rue St Honor,
creating a park behind Les Halles next to St
Eustache church, and covering the Forum des
Halles with a large roof. However, Mangins
square, at roof was deemed unexciting. So in
2007, a second competition was held for a work
of art of the 21st century. Toyo Ito imagined
sailing masts rising out of the underground
shopping area while Massimiliano Fuksas came
up with a white, turistic design. But it was
Patrick Berger (partner of Patrick Berger &
Jacques Anziui Architectes) that triumphed
with La Canope an undulating, ribbed roof
spreading its yellowy-green wings over the
revamped Les Halles.
Patrick Berger & Jacques Anziui Architectes Paris France 113
114 Mark 63 Long Section

e covered square provides a monumental

route from east to west for this part of Paris.
Patrick Berger & Jacques Anziui Architectes Paris France 115

Some people
would like
the beams of
the canopy to
be repainted
soon

Right from the outset, Berger's project has

been mired in constraints and compromise.
e canopy had to be built on an occupied
site, as the warren of shops and Chtelet-les-
Halles metro station, which connects Paris
to the suburbs via its RER trains, remained
open throughout the construction period. Les
Halles has 750,000 people passing through it
every day, a level of activi that could not be
interrupted. erefore, unable to create new
pillars, Berger had to lean on existing ones.
To create his curvilinear design,
Berger drew incessantly, for months. He
made around 9,500 sketches, including ones
of sh, turbulent water ows and webbed
amorphous shapes, to nd what he believes
to be an organic shape. What evolved is a
central U-shaped beam, which Berger refers
to as a work of art structure, with wings on
either side, totalling 96 m in width. is 7,000
tonne framework has 15
nicular beams,
with 18,000 glass panels, that are twisted
by traction devices, allowing them to incline
and retract successively. Fire regulations
prohibited closing the roof entirely. e half-
open roof is meant to protect visitors from the
rain while allowing the space to breathe.
e canopy extends over an expanded
shopping concourse, boasting a Lego store,
a New Balance agship and one of Pariss
numerous Sephora beau shops. Also on the
ground level are 13,000 m2 of cultural spaces:
a conservatory and a multimedia centre with
spaces for hip hop dancing and rehearsal rooms
for theatre, dance and music. (For years, Les
Halles has seen young people practising their
hip hop moves in parts of the underground
maze. Current mayor Anne Hidalgo was keen
for an inclusive space to be integrated.)
Key to Berger's design was a desire to connect
the above with the below and to reorient Les
Halles on an east-west axis. is aligns the
Centre Pompidou at one end with the former
Bourse de Commerce on the other which art
collector Franois Pinault is turning into a
116 Mark 63 Long Section

museum for his collection (designed by Tadao

Ando). is urban conguration runs parallel to
the Seine and the Rue de Rivoli.
Inaugurated in April and costing 216
million, La Canope has already been ercely
debated in the media. A beetles shell, a ladybird,
a cockle, a glass mollusc, a manta ray, a tropical
leaf, a boomerang, a huge green dome these
are just a few of the descriptions ascribed to it
by the French press. ey gure among the 30
media descriptions featured in Berger's book
Animal?, the title interrogating whether or not
the canopy resembles something animalistic.
Visibly fatigued by the media's response
to his project, Berger is unwilling to speak on
the record when we meet in his oce on the
eighth oor of an Haussmannian building.
He agreed to the interview on the condition
that no quotes would be used. Material can be
li ed from his book and what he says can be
paraphrased. e architect also su
ests visiting
the fourth oor of the Centre Pompidou, where
a selection of his drawings for the canopy are
on display. e impression is that of a cautious
man. Yet, drawing is something that relaxes
him. During our half-hour conversation, he
takes a blue biro and makes a sketch of the
canopy to convey the development of his ideas,
highlighting some of the swirling lines in pink.
Berger is keen for the canopy to feel
open and enjoyable, an objective that is achieved
thanks to the greater uidi of the space.
e glass panels, he explains, are intended to
diuse a so light. Yet the garish colour, which
changes according to the light, means that the
eect is not as delicate as hoped. Rather, the
structure feels heavy, overcooked and contorted.
e metaphor of the canopy being a gigantic
umbrella is also misleading. Depending on the
wind, rain may fall in, obliging shoppers to
zigzag along to avoid ge ing wet.
To the mind of some Parisians, the
webbed network is loosely reminiscent of
the Eiel Tower. But the major sticking point
is the creamy-yellowy colour of the beams,
which some people would like to see repainted
soon. While a few commentators have likened
it to champagne, others have derided it as
looking jaundiced or custardy. Although
an improvement on the 1970s edice, La
Canope falls short of its ambition to be a
new landmark for Paris. One can understand
why Berger prefers drawing out his ideas to
verbalizing his thoughts. _
berger-anziui.com

Patrick Bergers design aempts to establish

continui between the ground oor and the
underground area, with its railway station
and shopping center.
Patrick Berger & Jacques Anziui Architectes Paris France 117
118 Mark 63 Long Section

Site

Long Section
Patrick Berger & Jacques Anziui Architectes Paris France 119

Exploded View
120 Mark 63 Long Section

System of
 Aires Mateus Lisbon Portugal 121

Shadows
Aires Mateuss EDP headquarters in Lisbon is
wrapped in a structure of columns and beams
that protects the interior from the sun.

Text Photos
Ana Martins Doublespace Photography
122 Mark 63 Long Section

By placing the two higher volumes perpendicular to the Tagus

River, sightlines from the hill to the river are maintained.

Lisbon,
2008. e end of the rst decade of the
21st century saw the laying out of urban
development plans that proposed to ood the
riverbanks of the Portuguese capital with
new life. In January 2008, EDP Energias de
Portugal signed a protocol with Ci Hall for the
sustainable development of Aterro da Boavista.
Four months later, a closed competition for
the design of the companys new headquarters
would be launched as the rst initiative
resulting from the agreement. EDP, whose
main goals were to rationalize its resources and
centralize its services (at the time, their Lisbon
sta of 1800 was sca ered between 16 buildings
throughout the ci), invited a select group of
internationally renowned Portuguese architects
to submit proposals for the design of the HQ, as
well as the urban planning of the surroundings.
Fast-forward eight years: a 46,222-m2
building rises delicately from the ground, while
establishing deep and strong roots on the site of
a former power station. e winning proposal
for the architectural design, recently completed,
belongs to brothers Manuel and Francisco Aires
Mateus, who consolidated the needs of the ci,
the demands of the programme, and the history
of the site, oering a deceivingly simple solution.
As the headquarters of a leading
company in the energy sector, the building had
to be an example of energetic sustainabili.
Instead of relying solely on technology, the
architects integrated this concept in the very
 Aires Mateus Lisbon Portugal 123

To prevent the building from seeming out of

sync with its surroundings, a large part of the
programme was placed underground.
124 Mark 63 Long Section

Between the two towers is a plaza that is

shaded from the sun during the day.
Aires Mateus Lisbon Portugal
form of the construction. In fact, the white
columns that envelop and animate its faade
serve both as a structural element and a
protective curtain.
In the meeting room of his studio in
Campo de Ourique, architect Manuel Aires
Mateus talks enthusiastically about the
, the surroundings. Aterro da Boavista is
14-storey building (eight storeys above and
six below ground) that sits assertively, but
of
unpretentiously, between Rua D. Lus I, a quiet
backstreet, and Av. 24 de Julho, a busy avenue
that runs along the Tagus River between
Alcntara and Cais Sodr.
You have described the design as a single
line that draws the entire building. What lies
behind this apparent eortlessness?
MANUEL AIRES MATEUS: e project
looks very simple, almost obvious, but it was
extremely complex from a technical point of
view. For example, since the oce oors had to
be exible, open spaces, we needed windows
of
everywhere. is meant building a transparent
building, which, under the Portuguese sun, has
to mean creating a system of shadows. ats
where the grid of columns separated by 1.20-m
comes from. e structure was calculated so that
each column holds on to dierent oors, and all
lock one another in a complex arrangement that
supports the edice.
en there was the visual composition
that gave shape to the building: the columns
are thinner on the lower oors and where the
balconies are located, so that more sunlight
reaches these spaces; and become more sturdy
in the areas that are most exposed to the
sun. But this grid posed a problem: How can
you digni the entrance to a building of this
kind with 1.20 m intervals? How can a car
enter? To solve this problem, we created two
symmetrical corridors that connect the ground
and rst oors. ese open up the access to the
square, where the entrance is located, as well
, use, sensation and
as the access to the parking oors. e building
is an enormous mathematical equation.
and river. en, there is a
We had to maintain the
relationship between
the hill and the river
125
In an interview in Pblico, you indicated that
in some projects the starting point for the
design lies in the place, the context, while in
others solving the programme comes rst.
What was the situation here?
e key element we had to answer to was the
ci
a very sensitive area. We had to understand
and make use of the history and reali
the site, of the gullies, and to maintain the
relationship between the hill and the river. Our
answer was based on a very clear strategy: we
concealed wide spaces that would interrupt
this relationship belowground, including the
parking garage, the foyer, large meeting rooms,
the cafeteria and an auditorium; and we kept
all elements that could be arranged in a tight
and delicate frame aboveground, within two
narrow towers.
In the same interview, you speak of the
knowledge gained from the liber
manipulating programmes in small-scale
housing projects. How did this manipulation
come to play in a project of this dimension?
ere are certain components of projects that
are very dictated, and in the case of the EDP
headquarters this was no exception. But we
cannot answer blindly to a programme, we must
interpret it in order to create added value at
every scale. For instance, when we decide that
the building will oer alternative, informal, open
workspaces through balconies that link directly
to the oce oors, this is a way of manipulating
and improving the use through the programme.
As is the decision to create a large public square,
which also serves as an additional connection
between two streets.
e concept of transparency seems to gure
in various dimensions of this project.
It is indeed a transversal theme in the building,
at the scale of the ci
nction. e rst dimension of transparency
is between ci
126
transparency in the very programme: the idea
that a company of this scale needs to be open
towards the citizens and the world. Finally,
there is a transparency that is dictated by the
exibili that the project needs to have, as I
explained earlier. For us there is still another
transparency, which is that of use: the building
is very easily traversed, not only by the people
who work there, but also by passers-by.
Construction work lasted nearly four
years. Were there any major impediments
throughout the process?
e buildings 90 60-m foundation and
belowground oors were built in a 30-m deep
hole. Diing works, which had to be put on hold
twice, rst to depollute the soil when residues
Mark 63
from the power station era were found, and then
when archaeological elements were discovered,
were one of the biest challenges, as was the
conception of the retaining wall. e construction
was slower on the way down than on the way up.
Until level 0, the oors are made of concrete, but
once we hit the ground the building is made up
of a steel structure with prefabricated elements in
GRC, so then it was up in a blink.
What is your perception of how the building
has been received by the ci?
Surprisingly, this was one of our best welcomed
projects. Its a gigantic building in the cis
frontline, so it was bound to generate a lot of
polemic, which didnt materialize. e reaction
was: Its huge, but very light.
Long Section
Le e columns are thinner where
there are balconies.
Opposite Two corners of the building are
elevated, creating access points to the
plaza where the entrance is located.
Since the
office floors
had to be
flexible,
we needed
windows
everywhere
What does this building represent for the
ture of the region?
e EDP headquarters is a potential accelerator
of an arising condition. is is one of the best
areas in the centre of Lisbon, and so it has
been under a lot of pressure from developers;
it is being increasingly renovated and re-
appropriated, and a project of this kind, which
creates public spaces and moves 750 sta
members to a previously derelict location, is
bound to accelerate the process by re-equating
the entire area. _
airesmateus.com
Aires Mateus Lisbon Portugal 127
128 Mark 63 Long Section

e building was completed with exible, open office spaces.

Cross Section Long Section

 Aires Mateus Lisbon Portugal 129

0 +3

01 Plaza
02 Commercial space
03 Meeting room
04 Cafeteria
05 Auditorium 02
06 Shop
07 Foyer
08 Oce space
09 Terrace
09
03

01 03 09

08
03

03 08

02

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130 Mark 63 Long Section

Everybody
wants to
be Dubai
Yasser El Sheshtawy Al Ain UAE 131

e Pearl in Doha is an articial island and

the rst land in Qatar to be available for
ownership by foreign nationals.

Glitzy, non-contextual and controversial,

Dubaization is the ultimate bubble development
that reses to die and its coming soon to
a ci near you, says Yasser Elsheshtawy.

Text Photos
Rahel Aima Jon Bowles
132 Mark 63 Long Section

West Bay in Doha includes some of

the tallest sscrapers in Qatar, such
as Burj Qatar by Jean Nouvel, which
boasts a light show at night.

Shiny
glass towers rising up from the emp desert
and spectacular sci--inspired architecture
that bears no relation to the surrounding
context we all know what Dubai looks like,
but what happens when its signature sle
travels abroad? In the early 2000s, Egyptian
architect Yasser Elsheshtawy began to notice
suspiciously Dubai-esque luxury developments
mushrooming in his home ci of Cairo, usually
built by Emerati rms. ey included the Ci
Centre malls, an Internet Ci-sle tech enclave
called Cairo Smart Ci and Uptown Cairo, a
luxury gated communi overlooking Cairos
largest slum. In 2004, he coined the term
Dubaization to describe this Dubai eect on
architecture and urban development. Since then,
he has been charting its unrelenting spread
worldwide in his blog, Dubaization. Mark met up
with him in Al Ain in Abu Dhabi, where he is
an associate professor of architecture at United
Arab Emirates Universi.

Dubaization how would you dene it?

YASSER ELSHESHTAWY: I began looking
at the way Dubai-based rms were making
incursions into Cairo and also at how people
 Yasser El Sheshtawy
were looking at Dubai as this sort of shining
model that they wanted to copy. ere is
a particular mode associated with Dubai
pically, luxurious developments that
proliferate rapidly and can be best described
as articial or non-contextual. You can see
Dubaization in action in Rabat in Morocco,
where a major development planned by
Dubai Properties would displace traditional
selements along the river. Its a pical
Dubai development in the sense that its very
luxurious, caters to the wealthy, and uproots
established communities. Dubai is not really
inventing anything, but the way its being
implemented here is on a much more intensied
scale than you would nd elsewhere. I think
that is what makes it unique to the ci.
Didnt the nancial crisis stop Dubaization in
its tracks?
e nancial crisis happened more than seven
years ago; a lot has changed since then. As in
any speculative environment, such ups and
downs in the market are to be expected. Today
in Cairo and many other cities, Dubai-inspired
projects are going ll steam ahead.
Al Ain UAE
Im curious about how Dubaization works on
dierent scales, from a building to an entire ci.
On the level of architecture, there is one
quali that is unique to Dubai: the notion of
representation where the building is evocative
of a certain image. e practice of picking up
visual references and making them explicit
in a building is really pronounced. e Burj al
Arab, and Khartoums Burj al Fateh, are based
on a sailboat, but on a greatly exaerated
scale. Aladdin Ci on the creek looks like the
magic lamp in the story, and Dubai Library
looks like a book. On the urban scale, just
think of something like the Palm.
Do you think this represents a translation
of the old local practice of placing sculptural
objects on roundabouts?
Socie here is so young in terms of
urbanization. Up until modernization, it was
basically Bedouin and, as such, semi-nomadic.
eres no strong architectural heritage that you
can hang on to. Using symbols on roundabouts
and in architectural projects perhaps reects
a desire to have some sort of cultural emblem
that you can relate to in some way. In Al Ain,
133
you have the coee pot and the incense burner.
I think its an indication that the socie is still
growing it hasnt yet reached the level where
it can begin to let go of these symbols and deal
with more universal concerns.
How does Dubaization dier when its a Dubai
rm doing it, versus a non-Emirati rm taking
up the model?
When Dubai developers are directly involved,
they make sure the result is very much like
what exists in the Emirates. In Cairo theres
a major a new development called Cairo
Festival Ci, by the same UAE rm that
does Egypts Ci Centre malls. Whats so
remarkable is that once you are in Festival
Ci, you feel like youve le Cairo behind; its
as if a piece of Dubai has landed here. Over
the years, projects like this one are usually
Egyptianized, but initially it feels very much
like a copy of the original. If something is
merely inspired by Dubai, on the other hand,
things become trickier. Dubai has its Shopping
Festival, and Cairo also tried to copy that. But
it never really took o Dubai is much more
centralized so things like the festival can
134
Dubai is a symbol
of aspiration for
developing countries
work, while Cairo is so fragmented and
chaotic that the festival made no sense there
whatsoever. So they ended up having to cancel
the Cairo version, and I remember a huge
headline in the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram
that read: Cairo is not Dubai.
What do you mean by Egyptianized?
Here in the Emirates, for example, the
supermarket Carrefour is very neat, clean
and organized, and you can go all the way up
to the fish section. But in Egypt, they have
had to place a barrier there, because people
were obviously geing too friendly with the
seafood. Its these lile things that make you
think, oh yeah, this is Egypt.
Is a similar process taking place in the UAE?
Yes, and that shows the limitations of the
term Dubaization. It indicates the initial
state of development, but what happens over
time is clearly independent of any grand
designs. International Ci in Dubai itself is
an excellent example of that, because it was
meant as medium-income housing, but now
its turning into a low-income area with gangs
taking over some parts, which are in really
bad shape. Its becoming almost an outlaw
area. Inevitably, inhabitants have the power
to claim spaces within cities, and to subvert
the overall narrative in a way that serves their
interests and dees the image that ocials
would like to project.
How about the local model of industry-specic
mini cities?
Its not a unique concept, but I think the way
its being implemented in Dubai makes it very
visible. When we talk about Silicon Valley or
even Malaysias Multimedia Super Corridor,
were talking about a vast area. In Dubai, such
areas are concentrated in a relatively small
space. I dont think that this is very healthy
for the ci overall, because you want beer
integration. Create these enclaves leads to
exclusion. I think they are beginning to realize
that this is the problem. Aer these things are
built theyre like: How do we connect them? that lack of and inabili to put down roots I
A big inuence must be the classic oil
company compound, where expat employees
live in a closed, hermetically sealed area.
Yes, thats the model development in the Gulf
in general, where you have areas for citizens
versus non-citizens. Separation is very much
Mark 63 Long Section
part of development here and I think there
are political reasons for that. When you
have clearly marked areas for very specic
uses, they are much easier to control. When
everything is mixed up, it can be problematic.
Some of the traditional local
neighbourhoods have a mix of dierent
cultures. ey are really good examples of
coexistence that I think could be of value
to other places in the world. But overall,
clearly the ci is being built to enable those
with higher incomes to live segregated lives.
Transport and mobili play a signicant role
in bringing various parts of a ci together.
And for the moment Dubais public transport
is not as good as it should be, so thats
obviously a factor.
In the past, cities like Beirut and Shanghai
would vie with each other to be crowned
the Paris of the East. Now they compete
to become the Dubai of Africa, or Dubai
on the Nile. Why?
ese cities are mostly in developing
countries so they look at Dubai as a model
thats more accessible. Dubai is a symbol of
something that everybody aspires to; it has
this imaginative power. Its living proof that
a success story can happen in this region
thats what makes it so seductive. ere are
historical trade routes to East Africa from
here, and another reason that African cities
look up to Dubai is because these links have
always existed.
Do you think that the Dubai model is
inuential outside architecture and urbanism
its post-citizenship ci-state model, for
example?
I think there is clearly a certain social agenda
in terms of segregation, exclusion and control.
When you have developments based on
real estate speculation and you cater to the
wealthy segments of socie, clearly thats not
something thats purely aesthetic, although the
aesthetic serves that particular purpose. Also
the sense of transience and anonymi, as well
think these things are becoming increasingly
pervasive in other parts of the world as well. _
dubaization.com
jonbowlesphotography.co.uk
Yasser El Sheshtawy Al Ain UAE 135

Villaio Mall is an Italian-themed shopping

mall in Doha, Qatar, boasting a 150-meter
long indoor canal with gondolas.
136 Mark 63 Long Section

Back to Basics
 Liu Jiakun Architects Chengdu China 137

Liu Jiakuns business complex in Chengdu is somewhere between

a Chinese quadrangle and a European-sle perimeter block.

Text Photos
Harry den Harto Archexist
138 Mark 63
e
ci of Chengdu, located in western China, is
known for its proximi to bamboo forests
with wild pandas. e Chengdu kitchen is also
well-known. Less famous is the architecture and
urbanism in this relatively green, comfortable
metropolis. In the last few years it has seen a
lot of construction, as much as in cities like
Shanghai and Beijing. Most of the construction
output is, as elsewhere in China, fairly mediocre
and denitely not innovative. is seems to
be changing with an interesting project by
locally based rm Jiakun Architects. e shape
of the building, known as West Village, is
somewhere between a Chinese quadrangle and
a perimeter block. Liu Jiakun himself calls it the
Long Section
e complex houses two interconnected
tracks: one on poles around the courard
and one on the roof.
services for sports and culture; the courard is
like a miniature ci. In both building pe and
use it contrasts with the surrounding large-
scale, mononctional residential buildings.
e multinctional complex is located
about 8 km northwest of the ci centre in a
region that, ten years ago, was largely rural. e
local government wanted to realize a creative
area here, referencing the East Village in New
York Ci. e conditions for the terrain were a
Floor Area Ratio (FAR) of 2.0, a maximal area
coverage of 40 per cent and a building height
of at most 24 m. Already located on the terrain
were a natatorium (swimming pool) and several
sports elds. ese were integrated in the new
new collective. e austerely craed building
looks unexpectedly rough and monumental,
strengthened by horizontal lines and a clearly
visible concrete structure.
West Village is an a
empt to offer a intended for basketball but have been ret to
spatial framework for a new pe of collectivi.
Liu Jiakun (known, among other things, for the
highly praised Luyeyan Stone Sculpture Art
Museum: Mark 51, page 84) chose a courard
model that strengthens the street nction on
the edge of the terrain and creates a trac-
calm, public urban space in the courard.
e programme consists of oces, shops and
programme, in which the natatorium building
was repurposed as a multinctional space.
ree sports elds are situated in
the new courard, they were originally
be multinctional, they are primarily used
for football now (one eld of 30 50 m and
two elds of 25 40 m; not quite up to FIFA
standards). ere is a cultural zone around
the sports elds. Outside spaces are shielded
by dierent kinds of bamboo and brick,
creating rooms that can be used as teahouses,
informal conference spaces, or a place to meet
 Liu Jiakun Architects
up with your friends. e biest space is
regularly used as an outdoor cinema.
e whole building is, in fact, a
continuous oor, accomplished by long sloped
walkways between dierent levels. With an
average width of 6 m, a 1.6-km-long track
connects all parts of the complex, from the
ground oor up to the roof. e track, which
can be used as a joing route, is more than an
architectural quirk and is, according to Jiakun,
meant as a recreational element to make office
life a more pleasant experience. Along the
track are a roof theatre, several pavilions and
other elements referring to classical Chinese
garden architecture.
With the sober and expedient spatial
structure and use of materials, Jiakun
Architects wants to contribute to collective
memories and conventional lifesles. e
complex is indeed a nod to the idealistic
socialism of commuting complexes from the
Mao era (the so-called Danweis), but adapted to
contemporary needs and urban lifesles.
Several energy-saving techniques
were integrated into the complex, such as
rainwater recycling and double glazing (very
unusual in China). Another interesting fact
is the abundant use of Jiakuns rebirth brick,
Chengdu China
which he presented in Venice in 2008. e
rst series of this brick was made from the
wreckage of the Wenchuan earthquake that
year. Jiakuns rebirth brick (Mark 23, page 184)
has since then been used in great amounts
all over China, especially in public buildings.
In West Village the hollow brick has been
applied in many dierent ways, varying from
a suspension system for presentation material
in the cultural zone to a ventilated enclosure
for air conditioning equipment. At various
places inside the complex, on both the walls
and roofs, the holes in the brick are used for
vegetation. Most of the roof is covered in
rebirth bricks lled with soil and is suitable
for urban agriculture.
By the use of, among other things, a
motif of locally craed bamboo formwork that
is visible in the concrete and simple, reusable
materials, like the broken roof tiles that were
used as pavement, Jiakun wants to provoke an
informal, rural atmosphere inside the complex.
Normally, six oors would t in the
allowed building height of 24 m, but Jiakun
chose to incorporate ve layers with diering
oor heights, in part to realize a classical
vertical trichotomy and partly to achieve
internal exibili. e ground and rst oors for advertising, by placing life-size Chinese
139
e vegetation in the courard consists
of various varieties of bamboo.
have extra height, 5.2 and 5.7 m respectively.
e second and third oors are both 3.7 m
high. e fourth, upper oor is 5.7 m high
like the rst oor, including construction.
Two underground layers are each 3.9 m high.
Because of this partitioning, users on the
ground oor and the rst and fourth oor
have the option of adding an extra oor, which
enhances exibili and spatial use. is lo-
like exibili in use and spatial partitioning
is reinforced by the choice of bare cassee
ooring and octagonal columns that allow
for adding or rearranging any inside walls in
dierent ways.
e faades, both on the street side
and in the courard, look transparent because
of the cantilevered oors that are mostly
accessible to the public as a kind of continuous
balcony. is allows activities in the building
to be visible from the street and courard,
according to Jiakun. e double-glazed
aluminium faade elements were designed
to be simple and basal for the purpose of
adjustabili and individual expressions by
users. e approximately 3-m-wide balconies,
located on both the street and courard sides,
are already being used by several entrepreneurs
140 Mark 63 Long Section
Liu Jiakun Architects Chengdu China 141

Bare cassee oors and octagonal

columns with a print of the bamboo
casing create a rough aesthetic.
142
e former swimming pool is now used as a
multinctional space for cultural activities.
neon symbols on them. Over time, this free
zone will probably be appropriated by the
users: several dividers are already visible. e
railings are made of hard bamboo. On the
underside of the cantilevers a black cast-iron
drainage system was applied in a Y-structure,
meant to be decorative, but also to save on
material costs: this way less piping is needed.
Because of the Corbusian open-oor
layout and basal, sometimes rough material
handling, the building almost looks like a
stripped existing structure, instead of being
newly built. When walking through the
complex it sometimes feels like its not yet
nished, due to its unpolished appearance. is
roughness and openness invites the users to
take over the building; users can appropriate
the building by adapting it over time. And
that is exactly what the architect wants. West
Village is more than an architectural sculpture
and is mainly intended as a nctional,
customizable space.
During the last few years of enormous
construction output a relatively small amount
of pological and nctional innovation has
taken place in China. is experimental and
sympathetic project seems promising. e
principle idea is basic and therefore robust
Mark 63
and exible. Due to the unconventional
combination of cheap construction materials
and methods, energy efficiency, flexibili and
adaptabili, this principle is not only applicable
in China but also elsewhere.
e concrete structure oers a exible
framework where, with the passing of time,
many nctions can take place aer simple
changes by the users. e dimensions and
scale guarantee a lively, mixed and urban
whole, so the creators of Jiakun Architects
promise. Inside the huge dimensions of the
building (237 178 m) it indeed seems possible
to eortlessly combine dierent nctions .
Although most local and online comments are
positive in nature, there are several critical
remarks. e viabili of some stores within
the complex seems small, though this is a
general trend in Chinese suburbs. Also, the roof
track does not always seem to be accessible to
the public, sometimes only against payment,
but this is a management issue and certainly
not a design aw. Only time will tell if the
neighbourhood will be able to appropriate this
new multinctional complex for the long run.
e signs are encouraging. e concept at least
seems to be suitable to, in a modied form,
be tested and developed in dierent regions,
Long Section
for example in densely populated areas and
eventually in smaller cities or villages. e new
economic environment calls for low-cost and
low-tech architecture.
Traditionally, perimeter blocks are a
rari in China. At the beginning of the last
century some forms of perimeter blocks were
applied in former concessions (areas that
were temporarily occupied by other countries
aer the Opium Wars). However, since the
1950s, the Chinese construction output has
consisted solely of southern-orientated row
housing and towers. e traditional courard
complexes are another form that can, with
a lile imagination, be seen as a perimeter
block, but with a strong hierarchy and xed
position of the individual components. Up to
a certain point, West Village is a mixture of
the Chinese courard model and the classic
European perimeter block. Jiakuns West Village
is actually much more than a mixed form. Its
a public framework, publicly owned, where
individual expression is possible. _
jiakun-architects.com
Liu Jiakun Architects Chengdu China 143

Long sloped walkways allow access to the roof.

144 Mark 63 Long Section

Wide galleries make appropriation of the

space around the front entrance possible.

Long Section

Cross Section
01 Entrance hall
02 Stilt entrance
03 Commercial space
04 Gallery
05 Chungii bamboo yard
06 Anis bamboo yard
07 Flavidorivens bamboo yard
08 Spoed bamboo yard
09 Multinctional space
10 Stage
11 Sports elds
12 Small bamboo space
13 Large bamboo space
14 Sunken courard
15 Commercial space and oces
16 Public space
17 Track
 Liu Jiakun Architects Chengdu China 145

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146 Mark 63 Long Section

Bridging
Designed by Christ
& Gantenbein, the
expressive extension
of the Landesmuseum

the Gap
in Zurich responds
to the picturesque
roof landscape of the
existing building.
 Christ & Gantenbein Zurich Switzerland 147

Text
Katharina Marchal

Photos
Michael Hierner
148 Mark 63
e
huge extension of the Landesmuseum (or
Swiss National Museum) in Zurich spans the
adjacent park and connects both wings of
the existing building. Park Platzspitz could
not have been more beautilly situated.
Like a peninsula, it sits at the conuence of
the two rivers Limmat and Sihl. e modern
zigzag shape of the extension contrasts with
the romantic, almost sensual nature of the
castlelike complex. But appearances are
deceiving. Or, as Emanuel Christ of Christ &
Gantenbein says: e new is neither hiding,
nor can it exist without the old. e sculptural
form of the new building is a continuation of
the existing complex. e expressive roof line
of the extension responds to the picturesque
roof landscape and the tower of the existing
building designed by Swiss architect Gustav
Gull and built in 1898. e jaed plan with
its many corners dovetails with the parks
old ginkgo trees and paths, says Christ.
e tu of the old walls also returns in
the new faade. Tu was added to the exposed
aregate concrete to ensure that the colours
of the old and the new buildings would be
in harmony. Extensive research preceded
the work in concrete. Achieving the right
consistency for the processing of the concrete
required determining the exact proportion
Long Section
Top e main entrance of the museum
has been relocated to the east side of
the building.
Below Added tuff ensures that the
colour of the new building corresponds
with that of the existing building.
Opposite e west side of the new
building connects to the rst oor
of the existing museum.
between tu addition and limestone powder
as well as between water and cement. Even
the origin of the cement played a decisive role.
Both the seamless concrete walls and the use of
only a single material underline the monolithic
plastici of the building volume.
e angular extension changed the
U-shape of the plan of the existing complex back
into an O-shape, creating the possibili of a
circuit. e interaction is clearly visible in the
interior, says Christ. A huge staircase covers a
height of almost 10 m and continues to widen
upward, where the exhibition spaces are located
below the sloping roof. According to Christ, the
staircase is the counterpart of the Hall of Fame
located in the existing part of the museum. In
the ture, historically themed exhibitions can
be organized in this dynamically ascending and
descending space. A few very precisely placed
porthole-s le windows overlook the parkland
and the cour ard between the two wings. Its
deep days are a consequence of the high thermal
demands the building had to meet in the course
of the planning process.
e idiosyncratic shape is also reected
in the interior. Concrete walls rise to form
high galleries and then narrow into cramped
corridors. Christ talks about large-scale wall
surfaces, referring to the fact that the owing
 Christ & Gantenbein Zurich Switzerland 149

e zigzag shape of the extension

contrasts with the romantic
nature of the castlelike complex
150
spaces have evolved from a classic museum
format into a single spatial continuum. e
total oor space amounts to 6,100 m2, the new
building oers 2,200 m2 of exible layout
exhibition space. Rough concrete walls create
a skeleton for temporary interiors. Together
with the technical elements strategically
placed in the ceilings, the concrete creates
a modern, almost industrial atmosphere:
solid and spacious open to various forms
of staging and setup. Christ calls the new
galleries of the Landesmuseum museum
workshops that are used for both storage and
experiments. It is now up to the curators of
the Landesmuseum to show how the spaces
nction during the opening exhibition on 1
August, a Swiss national holiday. In addition
to the permanent exhibition Archaeology
in Switzerland, they are also working on a
temporary exhibition about Europe during
the Renaissance.
Before the new building was taken on,
the monumental station wing was renovated.
ese previous, intensive interventions in the
old building ensured that the new building
became a confrontation with, rather than a
correction of the existing complex. ere is no
Mark 63 Long Section
old one: the interior forms a spatial whole, the
exterior a sculptural ensemble.
It posed a challenge to make
the building meet the latest technical
requirements in terms of, among other things,
earthquake resistance, re safe and thermal
insulation. In addition, Christ & Gantenbein
found it important to return the existing
parts to their original state, but resisted the
temptation to reconstruct any lost parts. e
architects deliberately refrained from falling
back on the decorative elements that belonged
to the common architectural vocabulary of
Gull and his nineteenth-century colleagues.
Only the re doors, produced using computer-
controlled CNC cuing machines, are based
on the original oak panelled doors, though
they meet todays technical requirements. e
cut-out ornament bears a oral motif that is
the result of the digital processing of a photo
of a ower, rather than of manual carving.
e decision to not design the exhibition
spaces as white cubes also stems from the
characteristics of the existing complex. e
presence of windows, terrazzo oors and
columns repeatedly poses a challenge to
curators designing exhibitions. Yet to its
dramatic ri between the new part and the designers, the architectural quali of Gulls

0 +1
08

01

02

05

03
03

04

07

06
 Christ & Gantenbein Zurich Switzerland 151

01 New main entrance

+2 02
03
Former main entrance
Void under bridge
04 Permanent archaeology
exhibition
05 Library
06 West wing (historical
rniture and rooms)
Cross Section 07 Station wing (national
history)
08 Study centre (formerly
school of arts and cras)

Long Section
152 Mark 63 Long Section
Christ & Gantenbein Zurich Switzerland 153

A huge staircase has a height of almost 10 m.

154 Mark 63
e concrete creates
a modern, almost
industrial atmosphere
Site
old building lies in the fact that it meets a
basic human need: to nd oneself in a concrete
space, built of physical, tactile architecture
rather than in the abstract white shell of a
white cube. at is why the new spaces have
terrazzo oors, why the walls are not parallel
and why they oer so many possibilities for
ture exhibitions.
e relocation of the main entrance
to its original spot on the square opposite
Central Station creates more space for the
museum shop, a foyer and a restaurant. e
restaurants summery outdoor terraces and
the bar on the new museum square will surely
improve the experience of this centrally
located urban space e Landesmuseum now
also possesses a public study centre with a
library overlooking the Limmat.
The total renovation of the
Landesmuseum takes place in three phases.
Long Section
e interior of the new building is
executed in exposed concrete.
The first comprises the renovation of the
station wing, the second the new building
and the third the restoration of the wing
with the school of arts and crafts. That is,
the old west wing and the tower will be
renovated during the third phase, from 2017
to 2020. Once completed, a process that
lasted more than 20 years will have run its
course. As early as in 2002, the then young
firm of Christ & Gantenbein won its first
major open design competition with this
project. The realization of the extension and
renovation required several referendums,
which are mandatory in Switzerland in
cases such as these. In that sense, the
conclusion of the entire process will be a
historic moment for the Landesmuseum,
which seems to have been predestined for
this extension for a hundred years. _
christgantenbein.com
Christ & Gantenbein Zurich Switzerland 155
156 Mark 63 Long Section

Production designer Tino Schaedler talks

about the ephemeral world of Equals.

Text Images
Oliver Zeller A24 Films / Sco Free Productions

e scene was lmed in a tunnel

on the compound of I.M. Peis Miho
Museum near Kyoto, Japan.
Tino Schaedler Production Design Equals 157

Free from
Technology
158 Mark 63 Long Section

e exterior of the Atmos offices was filmed at

Saitama Universi, designed by Riken Yamamoto.

For
his latest romantic lm, director Drake
Doremus (Like Crazy) had a simple notion: to
create a love story in a world without love. In
this ture, emotion is genetically suppressed
for the beerment of socie, though some
become inicted with emotions: with
switched-on syndrome. Protagonists Silas
and Nia, played by Nicholas Hoult and Kristen
Stewart, begin to experience feelings and form
an intimate bond. e lm, in theatres since
15 July, premiered at the 2015 Venice Film
Festival. Varie declared: e architecture
is downright fantastic and Anne ompson
from ompson on Hollywood proclaimed: Its
one of the most beautilly designed lms Ive
seen in ages.
To fashion a world devoid of emotion,
the improvisational director working from
a screenplay by Nathan Parker (Moon) called
upon production designer Tino Schaedler. e
laer should be recognizable to long-time Mark
readers. A former contributor, he established
the publications coverage of architecture in
lm, and from issues 24 to 35, Schaedler and I
collaborated on Cross Section articles covering
lms from Where the Wild ings Are to Tree of
Life. I spoke with Tino about how he reconciled
a world bere of passion with characters
experiencing an emotional awakening.
From the opening scenes, the minimalism
of Silass apartment serves to create a sterile
emp state that transforms into a blank canvas
for emotion. How did that come about?
TINO SCHAEDLER: I remember the rst time
I read the script. What I really liked was the
possibili of creating a sterile, yet beautil
world that would serve as a backdrop for
the emotion to unfold. e apartment for me
embodies this notion, it seemed like a great
frame for the lm.
If you dont have emotions and
parents, you wont have photos or personal
items lying around, it becomes more of a hotel
room, impersonal and purely about nction.
e inclusion of pods that serve dierent
nctions is mainly inspired by the rotational
multinctional habitat designs, such as Living
Roof and Nano House, which we did with
architecture rm NAU, but in a more linear way.
Its about articulating the nctions of the day
and once the pods are in the wall, its just this
emp, neutral space deprived of any individual
aspects; as you said, a blank canvas.
 Tino Schaedler
As seen in the apartment and even the
film's movie poster, lighting clearly played
a significant role in the film's design.
e whole lighting scheme was my concept
to make the love story more readable. James
Turrell was a signicant inuence, as was
Mark Rothko, whose minimalist paintings
have a sensual quali just by the brushstroke
and the way he combined colours.
In the lm everything is clean, minimal
and seamlessly integrated and that includes the
lights, implemented as backlit panels. As their
love evolves, colour transitions from blue to red
and oranges: light embodies emotion.
In the lm there is no sexuali
between equals so the office bathroom is
unisex, which just so happens to coincide at
the moment with the transgender bathroom
discussion in the United States. Bathed in
blue light, the bathroom is actually one of my
favourite sets as interestingly and ironically it
is there that their love blossoms.
Light embodying emotion in the
film is also a connection to Tadao Ando. His
architecture is very minimal, but poetic in
its play of light and shadow, and this became
conceptual inspiration for how light would
play a sensual symbolic role against the very
minimal and stark architecture.
e single chairs are arranged in such a
way that people sit in opposite directions.
Production Design Equals 159
You prominently leverage the architecture
of Tadao Ando throughout the film.
We didnt have a lot of choice in where we
Tadao Ando
could scout, since as you know money and tax
breaks determine quite a lot [the budget was a
was my first
comparatively low $14 million], but I was very
happy when I heard that Japan was an option.
Tadao Ando was probably my rst hero when I
hero when
started studying architecture. e opportuni
to visit his buildings and then lm several,
I started
including the Awaji Yumebutai hotel and
conference centre, was super exciting and a studying
perfect match for what we were going for.
eres a beautil sereni when you visit an
Ando building and I aribute this, in part,
architecture
to the seings in which his architecture is
placed: his most impactl buildings are all
in nature. is connects to the world we
created for Equals, where park-like greenery How did you develop the urban plan in which
surrounds all this rened architecture; it was Equals takes place?
perfect for what we were doing. I nd it interesting how we can shape an
Andos use of water in his architecture urban environment to really reect a socie.
was also very appealing. For the Den [where e ideas I got from reading the script made
those stricken with end-stage switched-on me decide to let the visual research unfold
syndrome are ominously sent] we lmed at in an almost trance-like state, forming an
the Sayamaike Historical Museum, where intense, emotional connection to the material.
water cascades down the entrance. It provided Drake rther ltered this and it shaped
a perfect symbolism; a place where the sins of things in an interesting way that changed my
emotion are washed away. approach to design a lile.
160 Mark 63 Long Section

e interior of the Atmos offices was shot in the

restaurant at the Nagaoka Institute of Design.
Tino Schaedler Production Design Equals 161
162
Entrance to a residential sscraper. is scene
was lmed at the Reections at Keppel Bay
condominium in Singapore by Daniel Libeskind.
Assessing the sociocultural and political
implications of this socie added another layer
of ltering that went back to thought processes
I learnt from Alex McDowell and his work on
Minori Report [see Mark 60, page 154].
In the beginning we had vehicles, but
Mark 63
has a park on top of the roof. e landscape
worked itself into the architecture perfectly.
In one shot we pull out from Silass apartment
in a scene reminiscent of Jacques Tatis Playtime.
Its a striking image: a glimpse into several
Long Section
that looked like a computer or taking the
dematerialized direction of Minori Report,
I liked the idea of creating large touchscreen
draing tables [with interface graphics by MK12
based on initial pictograms by Tino Schaedler].
Its timeless, yet feels like the ture. When
one idea I had was to create this ideal ci where
everything is green, without streets, which also
solved a practical problem since we couldnt
paint it all out post-production. is is how
the idea arose to get rid of all cars, its all public
transport, an idealized communist pe socie.
So rather than imposing socie and
architecture on nature, it rises from nature . . .
Exactly. I wasnt necessarily interested in the
traditional landscaped garden, but instead
found dierent parks in Singapore that have
a lot of untamed topography with interesting
architectural infrastructure. In a normal
park, you walk on the ground. In Singapore
you have all of these amazing elevated spaces
walkways through the jungle tops that
gave you a li
le architecture, but not too from fashion to luxury goods, which is why
much, surrounded by wild jungle. To a certain
degree, Singapore really feels like the jungle
has been woven into the ci. Even the public
plaza we used as an entrance point into the
train system was a waterworks facili in
Singapore, a beautil curved structure that
lonely residences high in the s that epitomizes
the modernist box to its bare minimum.
Yes, that shot was Drakes idea to show the
isolation of all of these individuals living in this
socie; in their own cells. It expresses a socie
that doesnt have emotion. e socie cares for
ethics and health, which is why such a green ci
made sense to me, but they dont really care if
the architecture conveys sensuali.
Was it this sterili that led to a less
consumerist, more communist socie
where design and technology is integral
to the architecture?
In a socie without sex, consumerism and
retail isnt really as necessary. Sex and the desire
to feel good really drives our whole socie
ats an interesting set, because of the single
I compared it to an ideal communist socie.
We wanted to free everyone from
technology and integrate it seamlessly into
the surrounding surfaces. Train windows are
touchscreens. For the Atmos oces where Silas
and Nia work, instead of creating something
you design something like that; what does the
accompanying chair look like? Since we didnt
have the time or money to design and build
new chairs, I found it ideal to throw in Miesian-
inspired benches. You stand while working and
occasionally sit to ponder. Its a step away from
a traditional workspace, but doesnt completely
alienate us; we dont necessarily question it but
understand it. In an ideal communal socie,
people dont own individual items from laptops
to cell phones. Instead there are surfaces
everywhere that people share and are accessible
when you need them; that seemed like a more
interesting approach.
On the subject of seating, the cafeteria is quite
memorable.
chairs where one person sits in one direction
and the person next to them sits in the other
direction. It ts so perfectly with the concept,
this world of Equals. _
tinoschaedler.com
optimistdesign.com
 Tino Schaedler Production Design Equals 163

Mock-up of the apartment on set, used for lming.

e apartment as it appears in the movie.

164 Mark 63 Long Section
Mario Cucinella Architects Accra Ghana 165

Nature
Mario Cucinella based his
office building in Accra on
the idea of imperfection.

Class Text
Joana Lazarova

Photos
Julien Lanoo
166
Mario
Cucinellas One Airport Square is a new
landmark in the business district near Kotoka
International Airport in Accra, the capital of
l structure,
Ghana. e nine-storey office tower features
commercial spaces on its ground floor, as
well as a public plaza. Its beau lies in its
l.
irregular form, engendering a new urban
landscape. Moreover, One Airport Square has
distinguished itself as the rst certied green
commercial building in West Africa.
Based on the fact that Ghana is close to
the point where the equator and the Greenwich
Meridian meet, some claim that this makes the
country the centre of the world. Accra has been
the capital since 1887, and today it is one of the
cities with the highest level of urbanization.
According to UN-Habitat, the ci is expected to
l. that nature works much, much faster. is is
grow from approximately 2.5 million inhabitants
to 4.2 million in the next ten years. As physical
development evolves faster than planning, Accra
is a ci where order and chaos are inseparable.
Yet, one can nd a certain logic in the cis
rhythms and contractions, and it oen has to do
with the forces of the environment.
Mark 63
e main concept of One Airport Square
is to create a building that relates to the
environment. Cucinella: It is time to see
architecture and climate in a different way.
For centuries, architects and designers tried to
find the relationship with nature, with climate,
temperature, humidi, within the context, but
then technology came and we lost the knowledge
and capaci to understand the context. As a
result, there are now many identical buildings
everywhere. We have to reinvent the relationship
with nature. In the tropical climate of Ghana,
there is a potential to learn from the past and
develop buildings that produce energy.
e design of the building, the Italian
architect explains, was inspired by a palm tree:
e texture of the palm tree is really beauti
A similar triangular shape can be found in
everyday life in Ghana in traditional mud
buildings, in Ghanaian fabrics, in the graphics.
When I applied this shape in the design of the
building, it created intersections, and those
intersections determined the architectural
plan every oor has a different position, every
Long Section
wall has a different thickness. e concept is
based on the idea of imperfection. Nature itself
is irregular. A tree has a beauti
but it is very asymmetric. Sometimes, it is
the imperfection that makes something truly
beauti
Due to Accras proximi to the equator,
the rst thing to catch the eye is the strength
of the light. During the dry season, when the
Harmaan blows, the colours of the ci appear
shimmering and light, while during the wet
months of the monsoon season, the rain washes
them away, just so that they reappear again,
even brighter. In this tropical climate, Cucinella
says, nature is very strong. One can really feel
that architecture is weaker than nature and
a feeling that is deeply embedded in Ghanaian
culture, and also the reason that One Airport
Square manifests the idea that architecture is
not stronger than nature, or at least not in the
same way. I tried to connect to the idea of the
strength of the palm tree and create a dialogue
between architecture and nature.
 Mario Cucinella Architects Accra Ghana 167

Top e structure of the building was

inspired by a palm tree, yet it is also
reminiscent of the traditional Adrinka
symbols that play an important role in
Ghanaian culture.

Below Cantilevered terraces protect the

building from overheating.

Opposite e irregulari of the intersecting

columns expresses the idea that each
creation is a living system.

In this tropical climate,

nature works much
faster than architecture
168 Mark 63 Long Section

e oors of the office tower vary

slightly in size and shape, thus
contributing to a dynamic image.
Mario Cucinella Architects Accra Ghana 169
170 Mark 63 Long Section

e emphasis on sustainabili is particularly

+4 strong in the project. e reinforced concrete
structure features cantilevered terraces,
which prevent the building from overheating
and diuse the bright light. Dierent depths
are applied on each orientation to achieve
maximum protection from the suns radiation.
To bring in more light, the interior concept
was developed around a central atrium. is
meant it was possible to double the oce area.
e atrium features glass louvres that create
natural ventilation and reduce the need for air
conditioning during working hours by 40 per
cent. e energy concept includes two water
tanks in the basement that collect rainwater,
reducing water demand by 50 per cent. e
combination of these strategies creates a highly
environmental concept, which gained the
building four stars (Design Stage) by the Green
Building Council of South Africa.
When we won the competition in 2010,
Cucinella says, our aim was to design something
related to climate and something related to
culture. e building is not conventional; the
structure is complex and the challenge was
0 to enable a design with sophisticated tools
like parametric design in a country where
knowledge of construction is very traditional.
I call this a creative empathy, you need to
understand the place, make the right choice for
this place, do something that you are able to
explain and have the tools to build.
e business district of Accra is an
area through which many people drive on
their way to the airport from the downtown
area, and vice versa. It is an area that usually
goes unnoticed by those who drive through
it. e locals call it the place of sscrapers.
Nevertheless, One Airport Square seeks to
create an open space, not just for users but also
for passers-by. e main entrance opens up to
a plaza with shops and restaurants, and the
intersecting columns create informal seating.
Every building generates public space,
Cucinella says. In Accra, people spend a lot
of time outside on squares, on the streets,
on markets. It was important to create an
enclosed space, but at the same time an open
space a place for sharing. In Accra, there is
a lot of space for collective processes. But it is

Long Section undeniable that many buildings are objects,

enclosed, without relation to other buildings,
also in this part of the ci thats growing and
changing fast. Our project is one example of
how to build in a dierent way. _
mcarchitects.it

Opposite e atrium brings in light and plays a

crucial role in the ventilation of the building.
Mario Cucinella Architects Accra Ghana 171
172 Mark 63
For centuries,
maps have
been used as
tools of control
Malkit Shoshan
is fascinated by
the way countries
exercise their power.
Text Suspended between architectural theory and
praxis, a new form of design-driven activism
Gili Merin is rising, led by polemic architects who focus
their aention on the spatial ramications of
violence. One of the prominent gures in this
emerging eld is Israeli-born architect Malkit
Photo Shoshan, director and co-founder of FAST
the Foundation for Achieving Seamless
Ser io Pirrone Territory an architectural think-tank based
in Amsterdam.
Since 2005, FAST has been exploring
territorial dynamics and their implications
on human rights in countries such as
Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Georgia, Mali and
Israel-Palestine. Using the collected data of her
research, informative maps and interpretive
texts, Shoshan authored two award-winning
books and curated numerous exhibitions,
including the Dutch Pavilion at the current
International Architecture Biennale in Venice.
at is not to say Shoshan does not
architect per se: she uses her design skills
to solve architectural issues for communities
whose lives are aected by warfare and
political conicts. An example is her recent
Long Section
work with the United Nations, as she aids the
design process of the deployed peacekeeping
compounds in ird World countries in a way
that can be of value to the local communities
once they depart back to Europe, rather than
leaving behind a void of destruction and
mayhem. is seemingly simple solution
portrays the enormous potential found in
these study-driven actions, incepted at the
academy and spilling into the depths of the
construction site.
In your rst book you explored the intricate
Israeli-Palestinian conict through the creation
of an atlas. Can you describe the rationale
behind this particular literary decision?
MALKIT SHOSHAN: My initial intent for the
Atlas of the Conflict (2010) was to confront the
mere format of a national atlas by describing
two conicting nations, one next to the other.
is idea originated from an Israeli book
series called the Carta Atlas. For an Israeli
child, geography is an important lesson
from as early as rst grade; I could draw the
countrys map with my eyes closed. In our
Malkit Shoshan Bookmark 173

Malkit Shoshan.
174
homes we had bookshelves with biographies
of Israeli generals and leaders, and I clearly
remember next to them the series of the Carta
Atlas a book for every decade of the nations
history. Each volume that found its way to
our mailbox began with photographs of the
state leaders, and went on to describe national
legacies. e series, which told the story from
a Zionist-only point of view, aempted to
construct our understanding of our landscape:
it was all about us and our victorious generals
who defeated our enemies in order to
physically build our homeland.
ese books became a very important
source for my ture research and projects. I
and
think that somewhere in the late 1990s Israel
stopped producing these books, perhaps out of
fear of producing evidence of cleansing, but
was mostly controlled by the regime in topic that I am addressing. For example, to
my mother still had them. I picked them up
and could nd in them fascinating documents,
for instance the map of Plan D: the cleansing
of the Negev. All of a sudden I became aware
of those who
of the layer underneath the heroic baleeld;
I became aware of the villages that were
can be a place and extrapolated from that location
conscated and destroyed; I became aware of
their massive documentation. ese maps had
could look like.
a tremendous value: I was able to reconstruct
a few forgoen layers of built history from
the beginning of the 1950s to the end of the
1970s, using the same maps that were made
: means providing service to a client and
to document their erasure. It is then that the
idea for an atlas that juxtaposed these two
pologies and green and industrialized
contradicting stories was born.
e Atlas uses cartographic language, such as
maps and diagrams, to portray your in-depth
investigation of borders, selements, ecology
I am gratel to all the French
and Italian philosophers
who legitimized my research
Mark 63
and geopolitics. How would you describe the
importance and signicance of this recurring
relationship between the visual and the textual
in your work?
Cartography and visual territorial
representation are essential tools to
understand the relations between what
is on the ground and power structures. A
map can easily be used, and was used, for
centuries as a tool of control: from natural
resources to population, maps helped to form
the organization of the built environment.
To engage with architecture, one must
understand context, and this context can be
easily represented by or understood with
maps. Less than a couple of decades ago,
map making and the visual documentation of
reali
power, and by its institutions. Google Maps,
online and real-time mapping tools, changed,
for the best, our access to information or at
least to aerial photography and to the direct
representation of territory.
e Israeli-Palestinian reali
very good case study of the relations between
maps, territory and power. Since the end of the
19th century, the Zionist project and Israel were
very active in producing maps that visualized
the Jewish presence in Palestine. By 1948,
Israel was a well-documented national enti
it had land, localities formed in dierent
even just only designing buildings. My way
landscape. e Jewish National Fund produced
national atlases from the rst waves of Jewish
migrations to Palestine. On the other hand,
the documentation of the Palestinian presence
was always dependent on colonialist regimes
Long Section
(the Oomans, the British) they never did it
by themselves, which meant that they could
never ocially prove their physical presence
and therefore it was very dicult for them to
claim civic rights.
Do you see your background as an architect as
an essential component of your work? Are you
at all still interested in the traditional practice
of architecture, such as planning and design?
e tools of the architect or the formats we
use are broad and various. In that sense,
architecture is a fantastic profession because
it allows navigating between scales and
formats; present and ture; reali
ction; building and policy, and so on. With
my projects, I try to tailor the format to the
make visible the power of mapping and the
links between politics, ideology and territory,
I used a map or an atlas. To understand
beer how the daily reali
are not mapped look like, I zoomed into one
multiple narratives, and investigated what an
alternative reali
My practice emerged out of
my background; my way of practicing
architecture is not traditional if traditional
producing buildings according to a brief, or
of working is more critical; I like to ask the
questions myself and nd ways to answer
them. My projects engage with the built
environment and with the way people live.
Addressing urgencies and engaging with
 Malkit Shoshan Bookmark 175

Malkit Shoshan
Recommends
Henri Lefebvre, State, Space, World: Selected
Essays, Universi of Minnesota Press,
Minneapolis/London, 2009

Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York: A

complex environments is a necessary facet
of our profession.
We cannot afford, as a socie, to give
service and produce habitable environments
only for those who can afford it, or to a
selective group of people, like in the case of
Israel. It is not just nor sustainable, and it
is our responsibili to address these issues.
Moreover, if we look at present and ture
urgencies from climate change to militarized
conicts the scope of our design should
change. As professionals, we can pick up
this responsibili entirely, or partially. It is
an individual choice that requires sacrices,
added up into a seamless narrative of wonder
and invention that I nd beautil. Besides
its literary quali, e Invention of Nature is a
book I can refer to as a practitioner: reali is
always complex, consisting of multiple voices
and narratives. Perhaps it has something to
do with having grown up in Israel, where
governmental institutions did their utmost
to reduce complexi in order to control the
national narrative, constructing an ethos
that exposed us to a limited repertoire of
references that always felt odd to me.
In your work, you criticize the Israeli nation
Retroactive Manifesto for Manhaan,
Oxford Universi Press, 1978
Georges Perec, Species of Spaces and Other
Pieces, Penguin, London, 1997 (Espces
d'espaces, Galile, Paris, 1974)
Saskia Sassen Territory, Authori
and Rights: From Medieval to Global
Assemblages, Princeton Universi Press,
2006
Andrea Wulf, e Invention of Nature:
Alexander von Humboldt's New World,
Knopf, New York, 2015
Tom Segev, Elvis in Jerusalem: Post-Zionism
and the Americanization of Israel, Picador,
New York, 2003

like giving up stable income, or giving up
the fantasy of making iconic designs that
give tribute to wealth and power as we are
mostly instructed in architecture school.
Are there any gures living or dead that
your writing corresponds with? Who do you
to have teachers
like to read, or have you read recently?
Dropping names is easy. ere are so many;
I like the work of Henri Lefebvre because
his texts explain the relations between
infrastructure of power, economics, politics
and the built environment. It is a good
both as an insider and as an outsider. Several
others in the academic world have done the
same in the past years. Do you see yourself as
a part of this larger group of scholars?
I never position my work in this way; since
leaving Israel, I am very lile involved with the
local scene. I was very luc
that allowed me as a student in Israel to ask
dicult questions and gave me the space to
engage in research. Once you have the space to
freely explore rather than follow a given status
quo, or a syllabus, you discover that there are
other people who engage in similar research, or
foundation and vocabulary to have. I always
like reading the texts of Rem Koolhaas
because they take you on an unexpected trip
in space seeing everything as a paradox.
Delirious New York is an important book which
oen reminds me of Species of Spaces and
Other Pieces by Georges Perec. e two books,
which were wrien in the same period, tell
the stories of fragments in the ci that are
prescribed with their own storyline, as the
urban enti is deconstructed to elements and
then put together again.
Saskia Sassen, in for instance Territory,
Authori, Rights, does the same with her
analysis but differently: she links everything
to everything and creates narratives of global
(and economic) flows. By linking things to
each other she creates order in complexi. She
demonstrates through examples how land is
linked to power and power structure and how
borders are constantly in a state of ow because
systems of power are dynamic structures.
I am now reading a book by Andrea
that I was allowed to conduct these
Wulf, titled e Invention of Nature. It is
an excellent text that describes the life of
Alexander von Humboldt, a 19th-century
explorer who claimed that everything in
nature and the world is linked. He claimed
that the world was a single interconnected
organism and every action has direct
or indirect consequences. He realized it
while climbing a mountain in Ecuador. His
relationship, upbringing and fascinations all
ask comparable questions, and are struling
to understand. e Israeli-Palestinian space is
paradoxical; it is conicting in so many ways. It
is a fascinating context for architects who want
to understand how power is linked to territory, or
how a country exercises its power. In Israel the
landmarks of these powers are easily identiable.
ere are of course various schools
of thought in the theory of architecture
that you can follow, from the French one,
with Foucault, Virilio and Agamben, to the
Italian one, with people like Negri. If you take
these theories and apply them to the Israeli-
Palestinian space, you are in the business
of wonder, in a laboratory of possibilities.
But my desire to address the conict and the
discriminatory land regime of Israel came
from elsewhere. It was personal. I wanted to
understand what it means to be an architect
in Israel. In my second book, Village (2014),
I describe how I studied Israeli architecture
from the village Ein Hawd. I was again very
luc
populations in different regions in the world.
conversations and bring them back to my
architecture study. I am gratel that all the
French and Italian philosophers paved the
road and gave a theoretical framework to some
of the issues that I happen to research and
legitimized, directly or indirectly, my research.
Israel is also loaded with peculiar
complexities. One of my favourite writers is
Tom Segev. His book Elvis in Jerusalem unfolds
some of these daily oddities. For example,
he mentions the statue of eodor Herzl,
one of the fathers of modern Zionism, that
is placed on a hill at the entrance to the ci
that is named aer him Herzelia. When
the iron statue was in need of renovation,
it was replaced temporarily by a large sign
with the rerbishment contractors name
Mohammad Mahamid. ese description of
daily life observations are fascinating to me.
Village also describes a research-based
project that manifested into an activist
event, somewhat parallel to your current
collaboration with the Dutch Ministry
of Defence. Do you see your work as an
expansion of the architectural realm?
In my current project, I look at spaces
produced by the UN during peacekeeping
operations. ese spaces are linked to global
policy and to multiple interests, agencies,
nations, armies, aid organizations and local
e peacekeeping environment from scope,
to policy, and action, the alliances it requires
is fascinating. It is quite astonishing to
realize that no one ever studied the spatial
congurations of UN operations, and their
impact on the civic space. ese missions are
taking place in hundreds of cities throughout
the world and their footprint is enormous. It is
an urban project. It is not an expansion of the
architecture realm; it is the ci. _
176 Mark 62

Tools
 Tools 177

Architecture
needs Oke Hauser on

to the MINI Living

installation featured
at Milan Design
Week, page 184

become the
h sical
reference
to the trend
of
sharin
178 Mark 63 Tools

Lighting

Spotlights
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 Lighting 179

Modular system
Reiani
Inspired by the cellular eye structure of a dragony, Re
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180 Mark 63 Tools

Wall tile
Cooledge
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Saler
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Light fiings
RIBAG
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 Lighting 181

Active glass
AGC
e LEDs embedded inside Glassiled either
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Luminaires
Waldmann
Waldmann has introduced the luminaire family IDOO for
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182 Mark 63 Tools

Lighting range
Licht im Raum
White Moons reects a poetic simplici . A composition of
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the directional light that lters through two openings, allowing OLED
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Buschfeld
O-light can be applied with a standard low-
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Cableless wall armature

Nimbus
Based on the vision of cableless light, Rubert Kopp designed
the Winglet CL wall armature. e bend along the lighting
surface enables light emission on both sides through a so
diuser made of high-quali acrylic glass. Winglet CL
provides atmospheric lighting in living areas and corridors
and nctional and sucient brightness on staircases. e
luminaires can be deployed in areas where no power outlet
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 Lighting 183

Concrete armature
Simes
Designed by Marc Sadler, Ghost is a built-in lamp
armature for concrete walls. e polypropylene housing
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die-cast aluminium is anchored to the casing and remains
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Suspension lamps
Torremato
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inspired by pendant earrings; the simple forms and different materials used
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LED office luminaire

planlicht
Renowned Viennese product designer Kai
Stania developed the new oce luminaire
skai for planlicht. e resulting pendant
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184 Mark 63 Tools

MINI LIVING
Exploring new forms of urban dwelling

Possessions on ones shelves can be made available for

others to use. Kitchen units and other nctions are
integrated in fold-out modules.
Text Femke de Wild
Photos MINI
Cities are rapidly gaining in
populari. e number of people
living as singles or couples in
en for a Japanese partner, says
urban areas continues to rise
and, with it, the demand for
small-sized residential units,
which are not oered by the
real estate market resulting in
higher housing prices. With the
installation MINI Living featured
at Milan Design Week, MINI
oered a potential solution in the
form of a modern shared-living
concept. We need to look for
solutions that are based on a small
personal urban footprint, sharing
and time-based access to space,
says Oke Hauser, MINI Living
Creative Lead Architect. As we
are experiencing a current global
dynamic of sharing concepts
within communities on multiple
social and economic platforms,
architecture needs to become the
physical reference to this trend.
In a large industrial space
in Milan, MINI presented the
protope of a lly-equipped 30-m2
apartment sharing a conceptual
oorplan with three more housing
units. An innovative wall concept
of rotating shelves enables the
inhabitants to share nctions
of their private sphere into the
collaborative space nctional
synergies evolve - by sharing you
get more. Deep shelving units
in the walls can be closed for
the sake of privacy and opened
to share these cabinets with
neighbours. Do disturb in big
le ers was the message posted
on walls around the installation.
In the ci, people are o
anonymous and have to fend for
themselves, says Hauser. We want
to contribute to a socie where
everyone knows his neighbours.
If you share what you have with
others, you gain more space and
more amenities and you leave a
smaller footprint behind.
Hauser has worked as
an architect for, among others,
Herzog & de Meuron and OMA.
e notion of sharing was
embraced by architects quite some
time ago, he says. Le Corbusier
sought ways for people to live
together in the ci, and communal
spaces were his point of departure.
e Soviet constructivists saw a
building as a social condenser. A
big ocean liner can be considered
as another great example of
architecture that combines a
restricted space with social
cohesion and shared amenities.
Its time to think such concepts
rther and to adapt them to the
21st century.
Hauser and the team from
MINI developed the installation
concept for Milan and made
the basic design for a model
apartment. ey asked a Japanese
outt, On Design, to develop a
basic proposal for the materials
and rnishings and had engineers
from Arup make sure that all
mechanical components operated
eciently. In Japan, there is a
long tradition of space saving
architecture. ats why we looked
Hauser. On Design integrated as
many nctions as possible within
the small space and was also
responsible for the idea of movable
shelving units.
According to Hauser, the
role of mobili and architecture
is crucial to the liveabili of
a ci. We need to understand
the ci as an enti consisting
of both mobile and immobile
spaces, with characteristics and
spatial relations that have a great
inuence on how ci-dwellers
live, he says. We want to improve
the quali of life through creative
use of space, generating a small
urban footprint and a maximum
of experience in an inspiring
communi.
Milan Design Week
2016 may be over, but the MINI
Living project continues its
journey. During the London
Design Festival, MINI will
present its latest findings on
the subject of urban living,
in this case targeting third
spaces: transforming underused
public space into an accessible
extension of the personal
sphere with multifunctional
architectural installations.
Visitors to the London event
can get acquainted with MINIs
spaces between spaces at
various locations in the city.
mini.tumblr.com
186 Mark 63
Organic, Raffaello Galioo, Margraf.
Natural
Stone
Marmomacc, the most
important international
event dedicated to
natural stone, will be
held from 28 September
to 1 October in Verona.
Tools
is year, Veronaere will host
the 51st edition of Marmomacc,
a trade fair dedicated to natural
stone, technology, design and
training. Elena Amadini, sales
and marketing depu director
of Veronaere, explains the
importance of the fair to architects
and designers.
What parts of Marmomacc 2016
will be the most interesting for
architects and designers?
ELENA AMADINI: e
Marmomacc area of most interest
for architects and designers
is unquestionably e Italian
Stone eatre: a 3400-m2 hall
dedicated entirely to cultural and
experimental exhibitions with
materials and marble processing
technologies. ere are three main
shows this year: e Power of
Stone, an experimental exhibition
investigating the potential of new
digital technologies for processing
marble; New Marble Generation,
a design exhibition involving
international designers and Italian
companies characterized by
excellence; and 50 Years of Living
Marble, a historical exhibition of
the nest stone design products
of the last 50 years. Actually,
over and above the experimental
hall, the entire exhibition
centre is of huge interest given
the extraordinary qualities of
materials on show from all around
the world and the best processing
technologies.
What can you tell me about the
latest innovations in natural stone
processing technology?
New digital technologies are
revolutionizing this industry;
the extraordinary skills of the
masons and marble workers
will now be enhanced by these
 Marmomacc
new tools that allow material to
be processed in ways that were
never possible beforehand. is
is why Marmomacc has invested
a great deal in recent years to
promote the culture of stone and
stone processing. What remains
unchanged is the love and
knowledge of this extraordinary
natural material that is not only
part of human history, but also
interprets some of the most
sublime aspects.
What can you tell me about the
latest design possibilities with
natural stone?
Stone today can be worked into
very thin slabs and treated with
resin-based reinforcement systems
allowing delicate materials that
were previously disregarded to
now be marketed. Marble and
natural stone in general can be
used in various sectors where
weight issues originally precluded
their application. CNC machinery,
if correctly guided, can produce
particularly complex artefacts
with extreme precision and
minimal waste.
In architecture, ceramics are
oen favoured over natural stone
because of their predictable
material qualities, durabili and
price. Why should an architect use
natural stone in a building?
Ceramics are ne materials but
must not be consed with natural
stones and their distinctly different
values. Uniqueness, local area
identi, the symbolic value of a
material used since the earliest
times, and time itself. Time is
perhaps the most intangible aspect:
if we consider the difference
between walking on a material
thats 150 million years old and a
contemporary imitation, perhaps
187
Agave, Raffaello Galioo, Marmi Strada.
we might realize that the problem
is cultural and that a great deal
e Power
should be done to give this material
the value it deserves again.
of Stone
Marmomacc also has this mission.
is exhibition, curated
by Raaello Galioo,
What kind of natural stone
seeks to combine the
application in architecture inspires
age-old tradition of
you the most, personally?
stone processing with
e natural stone applications that
contemporary design.
inspire me most are those where
e exhibition comprises
stone is valued for what it is,
a sequence of installations
with the power of its naturalness,
developed using Italian
be it through the most elegant
technology and also
and luxurious aspects or the
aims to involve company
roughness of as-split stone. A
personnel to help dene
project developed by an architect
new artisans with the
who loves and understands
technological skills needed
stone is immediately identiable;
to use digital instruments
unfortunately, we are oen
in order to process marble.
content merely to create illusory
e exhibition will be
environments where imitation
part of the Italian Stone
comes to the fore for cost reasons
eatre in Hall 1.
but with very poor results.
marmomacc.com
188
bulthaup
Simplici redened
e basic principle for bulthaup
b1 is simplici. is is also the
response to people's present-day
lifesles and ever-changing living
congurations: plug and play a
simple module system that adapts
to the user. It is characterized
by a consistent, simple form
of language and a meticulous
focus on the essentials, while at
the same time giving the user
space to develop and grow. e
focal point is the b1 countertop
Mark 63
with freely selectable nctions,
providing a centre for cooking
and social interaction.
e simplici and
exibili of the elements open up
a multitude of possible uses. e
user decides. e b1 components
are easy to assemble and set up. But
just as easy to pack away and take
with you when your circumstances
change, for example if you move.
Pure and simple. A traditional
workbench features a countertop
Tools
mounted on a surface-nished
metal frame. e workbench is
supplemented by a component
containing the waste element and
also incorporates all necessary
water and power installations.
e countertop can be ed
with a number of dierent utilities:
induction cooktop, water point
with a sink made from hot-rolled
stainless steel, and food preparation
modules in various materials such
as wood, stone or stainless steel.
b1 kitchen island (le) and workbench (right).
e food preparation areas can be
moved into any position.
Free spaces are created
between the individual nctions
for storing personal tools and
work utensils such as pots and
pans. Other elements (for instance
for additional storage space)
can be placed under the metal
frame. e fronts in alpine white
mae lacquer provide an exciting
contrast.
bulthaup.com

Kaldewei
Washbasins made of
steel enamel
Kaldewei Puro built-in washbasin and
Kaldewei Scona floor level shower surface.
Kaldewei Puro wall-hung washbasin.
189
Washbasins made of Kaldewei
steel enamel represent the logical
expansion of the existing product
portfolio. Now, alongside new
design lines, matching washbasins
are also available to go with the
most successl Kaldewei model
lines. In this way Kaldewei
customers have the opportuni to
outt their bathrooms in a single
material, with a coherent design
vocabulary and coordinated
colours from shower area to
bathtub to washbasin. With this
expansion we are transferring
the superior qualities of the
material, Kaldewei steel enamel,
such as stabili, hygiene and
ease of cleaning, from the proven
Kaldewei shower surfaces and
bathtubs to washbasins. is is
not only logical but also lls
the o-expressed wish of leading
architects, proper decision-
makers and developers, explains
Franz Kaldewei.
Matching washbasins
made of Kaldewei steel enamel
are available now to go with the
important Kaldewei product
families, Puro, Cono and Centro.
e straight-lined, clean-cut
contours of the rectangular Puro
bathtub, for instance, have been
transferred to the design of the
corresponding Puro washbasin.
e Conoduo bathtub and its
companion, the Conoat oor-
level shower surface now also
form a single design family with
the matching Cono washbasin.
e minimalist lines and
rectangular, enamelled outow
cover are recurring elements of
the three components. A rther
washbasin series, the Centro,
is based on the design of the
successl Centro bathtub family.
e interior shape conforms to the
geometry of the circle, combining
this with the characteristically
clean-cut lines and round,
enamelled outow cover of the
Centro family.
kaldewei.com
190 Mark 63 Tools

Dornbracht
From bathroom to private spa

In a modern socie, where the

demands on individuals are
steadily increasing, health has
become one of the most important
human commodities. As a gauge
of personal capabili, good
health increasingly denes both
physical and spiritual wellbeing,
and permeates every area of
life. Water works positively,
and is deliberately used and
experienced in a varie of ways.
Ausions, washing, baths and
foot baths are all benecial to the
organism and can calm, relax or
stimulate, according to the pe
of application. Hydrotherapy is
a crucial component of Kneipps
tried and tested health philosophy.
Dornbrachts ausion
pipe is a simple, yet all the more
eective enhancement of the
private bathroom that allows
the user to perform Kneipp
ausions in the comfort of their
home at the washbasin or in
the shower. A valuable addition
to the faucet, it makes it easier
to apply invigorating arm or
facial ausions at the basin, or
a thigh ausion in the shower,
for instance. Used correctly,
ausions encourage blood ow
and stimulate the circulation,
metabolism and nervous
system. e facial ausion is
also called the beau ausion
in Kneipp therapy. It is a very
gentle and refreshing application
to pleasantly stimulate blood
ow and rm up facial skin.
Jochen Reisberger is the head of
physiotherapy at the Kneippianum
in Bad Wrishofen, the leading
Kneipp Centre in Germany, and he
explains the correct way to carry
out Kneipp ausions in a series of
videos produced in collaboration
with Dornbracht, available on the
companys website.
dornbracht.com/kneipp

An affusion pipe at the washbasin for arm

or facial affusions. e pipe can also be
installed in foot baths.

e airport of Doha, Qatar, boasts
two media screens of 264 m2 each.
GKD
Brilliant MEDIAMESH
display at airport
HOK Architects designed a
five-star hub in international air
transport in the form of Hamad
International Airport in Doha,
Qatar. It accommodates 50 million
passengers annually and stands
for Oriental luxury, moderni and
hospitali: high standards that
are reected by four transparent
media faades from GKD GEBR.
KUFFERATH AG.
In the du-free area,
two MEDIAMESH screens
measuring 264 m2 each underline
the exclusiveness of the location.
e transparent displays, which
are over 22 m long and almost
191
12 m tall, ank the sides of the
main hall. eir ligree stainless
steel mesh structure with
interwoven LED proles grants
the guests in the rst-class lounge
behind it an unobstructed view of
the airport hall.
Two additional
MEDIAMESH faades, each
measuring 220 m2, line the
arrivals corridor of gates C, D and
E. Over 380,000 pixels produce
the brilliant image quali and
make the shimmering metal mesh
a fascinating video platform for
advertising and culture.
gkd.de
192 Mark 63
Exit
Mark 64
Oct Nov 2016
Prefabricated Housing
Prefabrication in housing projects goes
back a long way, but until recently most
of it went no rther than the use of
at panels for ceilings, walls and oors:
components easily assembled and
installed on site. Completely equipped
containers that come from the factory
already outed with plumbing, wiring,
bathrooms, kitchens and cabinets and
that need only to be stacked and plued
in at the building site were reserved
for projects like hotels and student
housing. Seen from both an aesthetic and
a nctional point of view, large-scale
prefabrication in housing schemes oen
Exit
Prefabrication of housing units to be built at Mount
Carmel Place in New York Ci by nARCHITECTS.
proved less than satisfactory, but a number
of new projects show that it has become
an increasingly interesting option. Mark
examines the most remarkable examples.
Also
Proles of Gens, Patrick Seguin and
Spaceworkers
Extensions to Tate Modern in London
and the SFMOMA in San Francisco
And
Houses in Spain, the Netherlands
and Switzerland
L I K E L I F E I T S E L F,
OU R S T OR AGE
NEEDS ARE
M A R K E D BY
C O N S TA N T C H A N G E .

The concept of being able to find new uses for the

individual elements is as much part of the programme
as their ability to create new solutions.

K I N S T O R AG E S Y S T E M
D E S I G N BY M AT H I A S H A H N , 2 016

zeitraum-moebel.de