From the architect. A new state-of-the-art high school designed by Cuningham Group Architecture, Inc. (Cuningham Group ®) is providing students with an interactive and personalized learning experience and exposure to future career opportunities. Pathways Innovation Center offers junior and seniors in the Natrona County School System in Casper, Wyoming, an interactive and personalized education through four academies focused on multiple disciplines, including engineering and design.
“The goal is to inspire kids who are not necessarily planning to move on to four-year colleges,” says Scott Krenner, the project’s Design Lead and Associate at Cuningham Group. “Rather than follow a traditional vocational approach, this high school presents new pathways to success; a way to shine that may not be found in standardized tests. Here, their inventive thinking and new skills are much more visible.”
Cuningham Group worked with a local partner, MOA Architecture, to design a 38-acre campus, which also includes the new Roosevelt High School. The Pathways program is open to all juniors and seniors in the school district.
1st Floor Plan
2nd Floor Plan
At the center of Pathways Innovation Center is “Fabrication Hall,” a 5,000-square-foot, two-story common space surrounded by labs equipped with cutting-edge technology, and is meant to encourage teams from all academies to collaborate on projects. The architects’ innovative design concept for Fabrication Hall was inspired by private sector facilities, including Boeing in Washington state, where engineering and design teams work under one roof.
“This is a unique space that you don’t see at other schools,” Krenner says. “It is fully sun-filled and large enough to build homes and solar-powered airplanes.” The hall has 16-feet-high, custom-fabricated glass bay doors that fully open to the outside. On the inside, the hall is viewed from glass-walled design spaces, including a “floating blue box” overlooking the hall for informal learning.
“This approach creates a conversation between academic disciplines, including construction, woodworking, metals, welding, robotics, arts and furniture making,” he says. “It’s an incubator for prototyping. Ideas are generated and then connect with the different academies at the school. As the Fabrication Hall, the transparent design stimulates synergy and is a celebration of student achievement.”
Sinan Günay and Nurhayat Oz of Superspace have won second prize in the MetsäWood competition, The City Above the City, which called for architects to design wooden extensions to city centers. With their project, Colliding Lines and Lives, the team designed a series wooden housing modules to be appended to a fourth-century Roman aqueduct archway in Istanbul.
Built by the Roman emperor Valens, the archway was an important water supply for the Romans and Ottomans but later lost its significance and functionality with technological and infrastructural advancements, leaving it an unutilized landmark in the city.
Courtesy of Sinan Gunay
Courtesy of Sinan Gunay
In the district of Fatih, 921 meters of this archway remains, which becomes the foundation for the Colliding Lines and Lives proposal.
Courtesy of Sinan Gunay
Courtesy of Sinan Gunay
A [grid] structure, located above the archway, referencing the openings of the arches, serving as a vertical but linear underlay for the wooden housing modules shot with the pattern of the surrounding, is exposed to and separated from the archway to create a promenade with overlapping the fabric of wood and stone, [old and new], history and future, hard and soft, day and night, heavy and light, and ultimately generating an alternative elevated life, keeping tabs of the city, instead of just being watched, explained the architects in a recent press release.
A couple of years ago, I took a position in corporate marketing. At first, I thought I made a mistake accepting—it had a nice salary bump, so I convinced myself that it was good for my career. But the more I pondered upon it, the more it appeared to me that I made a rather hasty decision, and the job was a bad fit for my personality—as an introvert, I don’t exactly have a penchant for being outspoken and bubbly all day long.
However, almost a year into it, I was grateful for the opportunity. More importantly, I trust that what I learned on the job has helped me tremendously in many ways. I was able to “go out of my shell” and become less shy; coworkers who often passed me by as if I was invisible suddenly greeted me by name; my boss was finally able to see “how my contribution to the job aligned with the corporate goals.” I was in a good place, it seemed.
Of course, it all came at a price. It took me a long time to mentally prime myself every morning; I made the washroom my favorite hideout place to seek solitude and peace; it felt wearing to talk to more than a couple of people during the day as I was used to. I was so drenched of mental energy every night, that all I can do after work was to cuddle on the couch with my son’s teddy bear for comfort.
But it seems like wisdom can come from the most unexpected sources (even if it’s painful at first).
What I learned from the world of marketing has been more than just how to become chattier and perhaps more socially adaptable. I learned how to enhance the brand, called “Me.” It’s an incessant exercise in self-feedback and self-improvement. It’s effortful—true—but the advantages are real.
Of course, marketing gurus have been preaching about the benefits of personal branding for a long time. And the ideas and approaches, I have discovered from my time on the job, are no different than in corporate advertising. Similar tricks and tips that can make a company climb up to stardom (backed up by a good product or service, naturally) can bump up our personal and professional stock.
So, what are some of the lessons I learned? Some are perhaps not revolutionary but, nevertheless, will be good reminders for many, I hope.
1. The Human Factor
Probably the easiest way to make others like us and bend to our decisions and opinions is to glorify them a bit and make them feel special in some way. People-reading skills are quite important here since everyone has different soft spots. For one, it may be the way they dress, for others- their cute kids, and for another – their achievements. Whatever the “igniting factor,” you have to try to find it and make a connection. The most effective marketing messages strike a personal note with a group of people. Thus, even the toughest boss can be won over once you appeal to their human side.
2. Make People Laugh
Clever or subtle humour always works in marketing. If done properly, people will remember it and the message that goes with it. Humour is not only the best medicine but also the best ice-breaker. It’s no secret that if a decision-maker or your boss likes your jokes, you can quickly become part of the “in-circle.” Everyone looks favourably on people that make them feel better. Don’t overdo it, though— remember that court jesters were not respected for their brains. The art of telling a smart joke lies in intelligence. Hence, read a lot, keep yourself updated and never miss a chance to accentuate your work-related skills after a good anecdote.
3. Social Chameleon-ism
Social chameleons don’t deserve all the bad publicity and criticism they receive. The term is not equal to a hypocrite. It simply means that, in order to succeed personally and professionally, we need to learn to adapt to other people. We don’t have to change who we are. Rather, just show different parts of our personality depending on the audience, so we can better relate to others.
For instance, you wouldn’t talk to your boss about pets if you know they don’t own one. Exactly as you would never target retired people for the latest iPhone, or advertise retirement homes in Costa Rica to teenagers. “One size fits all” never works well in marketing. Therefore, always know your end goal, your target audience and adjust accordingly.
4. Look the Look
The best marketing messages always have some memorable element—bright colours, something that stands out in the grey mass. We live in a very material world and that’s barely a secret to anyone. Life is busy, people’s attention spans are getting shorter, snap judgements are becoming more prevalent.
If you want to be remembered, make sure you have something to remember you for. Research shows that it takes few seconds for others to form an opinion of us, and it also comes from the way we dress and carry ourselves. It’s worth it to spare few extra minutes in the morning to make yourself look neat and composed. Never underestimate the influence looks can have on a materialistic mind.
5. Details, Details, Details
A small neglected detail or a typo will often ruin the whole effect of a carefully planned marketing endeavour. Details on all levels are very important. For instance, remembering specifics about co-workers and showing genuine interest in them on a personal level can go a long way. Don’t ignore people based on their importance in the corporate hierarchy. Lower-ranking employees give feedback to superiors too, and can influence negatively your reputation. Word-of-mouth is not a minor detail to overlook.
6. Plan in advance, if possible
Always have certain go-to words and phrases to use at work. Never say the first thing that comes to your mind. The more important the impact we want to make is, the greater the need to prepare. Even the best public speakers practice in advance. It will help you appear more confident and in control, and anticipate tough questions. Write your speech (or the main points) beforehand, consider any weak points in your arguments and think of ways to address them if asked. After all, success comes down to how well we can tell our story and sell our brand to the world. And this takes preparation.
7. Honesty and feedback
Criticism is often needed and should be welcomed but some people get offended when you tell them the whole truth straight-up. Be gentle and avoid being brutally honest, unless highly necessary. Remember that there are at least a hundred ways to communicate a message. Chose less hurtful words—for instance, in corporate marketing we will rarely say “we won’t extend our contract because you are a cheap client and we don’t like you,” but rather “we respect your business but we believe that another partner may be able to meet your needs in a more efficient way.” Makes all the difference.
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In the end, I consider that knowing a thing or two about marketing tools (and using them) can advance us plenty in our careers. After all, we live in the heyday of (self) promotion. In fact, as some wise men tell us, today, marketing does rule the world.
What’s more—it all strikes a personal note with many, I believe. Without letting ourselves known to others—as many of us perhaps have grasped already— the chances of being discovered for the great person that we are, are, at best, slim.
It’s like shooting darts in the dark and hoping we will hit the bull’s eye by a stroke of luck. The better strategy, of course, is to be proactive and give our good fortune a hand.
And the best part? It’s really not that effortful as it all sounds, with the right motivation.
Or as Tom Peters tells us: “It’s this simple: You are a brand. You are in charge of your brand. There is no single path to success. And there is no one right way to create the brand called You. Except this: Start today. Or else.”
Evelyn Marinoff is a Canadian, currently living in Dublin, Ireland. She is a blogger, a social introvert, an MBA, a passionate reader and a writer in the making. She spends her free time reading, writing and researching new and intriguing ideas in psychology, leadership, well-being and self-improvement. You can also find her on Twitter at @Evelyn_Marinoff, or read her blog at mind-chatters.com
Looking for a last-minute adventure? We’re waiving the entrance fees for all national parks, wildlife refuges and other public lands on Monday, January 16, in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We hope to see you out there! Photo of Turret Arch Framed by North Window at Utah’s Arches National Park courtesy of Jacob W. Frank.
The “living memories” of Los Angeles are seen and sensed in the way that space is occupied in the city; the traces left behind by what has been. “Lost Hills,” a short documentary by LA-based television station KCET, is a snapshot of LA’s lost neighborhood, Bunker Hill, that in 1955 was approved for “slum clearance.” As a result, the entire area was removed almost without a trace – Angels Flight, a funicular railway that transported residents from Bunker Hill to the city center, is the only remaining structure after reopening half a block away from its original location in 1996.
Bunker Hill was originally an area inhabited by upper-middle class people, but that changed in the 20th Century when those people began to move away. This made it somewhat easier for LA to erase the history of the Hill in order to make way for functionality, following late 20th Century modernist thinking. Illustrating how space is so strongly tied to memory and emotion, the video depicts what one interviewee calls an “absence [that] makes a presence”; the city is the materialization of memory, partial and partly erased.
The apartment of Carole and Robin is located on the ground floor of a mansion of the XVIIth arrondissement in Paris. Taking advantage of a private garden with terrace, when the family grew, Carole and Robin preferred to buy the apartment on the 1st floor to accommodate the children’s room rather than move.
The main challenge of this renovation was to find the place of a staircase as discreet as possible. The work was delivered as a screw-in kit. This technique allowed us to produce in the workshop a
thermolacquered paint, much more resistant than a painting done on the spot. The use of metal offered a light writing to the work with whose thickness does not exceed 25mm!
The partnership architect / artisan / engineer allowed to realize a technical feat by suspending the staircase to the upper floor! As often in Paris, space is precious. Although they are appreciable, the storage spaces cause loss of habitable surface. We imagined a large piece of furniture. 7 meters long for 60 cm deep, and suspended at 2.10 meters from the ground. It thus occupies no square meter!
In the child’s room, the distinction of two spaces allows the two brothers to define their respective territories. This old bourgeois building is composed of architectural elements: solid wood doors, enamelled handles, moldings, rails, rosettes. We have tried through our project to conserve and magnify these elements. For example, the blue partition in the children’s room is not continuous up to the ceiling. It ensures the separation between the rooms and the staircase. It houses a glass floor that allows daylight on the steps. It allows to preserve and to stage the old molding making the turn of the piece!
In June last year, PARTISANS published Rise and Sprawl: The Condominiumization of Toronto with architecture historian and critic Hans Ibelings. An effort to contextualize the role of the condo in Toronto’s unprecedented and intense growth over the past ten years, this thoughtful, if provocative, work offers a scathing criticism of the architecture (or lack thereof) deployed in much of the recent residential constructions in the city. It is a formal demand that the city be built more thoughtfully.
Alex Josephson is a founding partner of PARTISANS, one of Toronto’s youngest and more innovative architecture practices. Only in its fifth year, PARTISANS has already earned accolades and awards from the American Institute of Architecture, the Ontario Association of Architects, Architect Magazine, Interior Design Magazine, and the World Architecture Festival (WAF).
Randy Gladman, Vice President of Development at Toronto-based Triovest Realty Advisors, sat down with Alex in his Yorkville apartment, which overlooks some of Toronto’s architectural masterpieces—Hariri Pontarini’s McKinsey & Company Headquarters, Robert Stern’s One St. Thomas, Mies van der Rohe’s Toronto-Dominion Centre, and the University of Toronto’s MacDonald Block—to probe some of the criticisms offered in Rise and Sprawl and explore why PARTISANS felt the need to publish a work sure to infuriate precisely the developers they desire as clients and the city planners they need for project approvals.
Courtesy of PARTISANS Projects
This interview with Alex Josephson has been conducted by Randy Gladman. It has been edited by Nicola Spunt and abridged for publication by ArchDaily.
Randy Gladman: Rise and Sprawl bills itself as “a call to action for how we can become better city builders.” Generally speaking, I agree with the underlying thesis, namely that condo tower development in Toronto can, should, and must be done better than it has been until now. The book criticizes the “sheer ubiquity and relative uniformity of towers—from their glass facades and anemic colour schemes, dominated by grays, greens and beiges, to their rectangular volumetrics and rigid floor plans.” But is this unique to Toronto?
Alex Josephson: You’re right, it’s not unique to Toronto. Similar condominiumization crazes have struck other cities, like Vancouver and Hong Kong. The tower shaped in the form of a question mark on the cover of the book is something we call the “WTF Tower.” It’s a rhetorical gesture: What the fuck are we doing to our skylines? It absolutely applies to other cities; we just happened to be getting PARTISANS off the ground during a moment in history when it was happening to Toronto, so it made sense to adopt our city as a lens through which to explore the phenomenon. The main difference is that the quality of the condos we’re building here is inferior, from an aesthetic and performance perspective, compared to those being built elsewhere. Take SHoP’s proposed design for Brooklyn’s first supertall skyscraper. It’s gorgeous. Nothing we’ve done here even comes close to that kind of beauty and rigor.
RG: Can you elaborate on what you mean by “performance”?
AJ: We have to stop building towers that are the equivalent of radiators in the sky. We do not create proper thermal breaks between our balconies and the actual floor plates of buildings, so our condos gush heat. We’re using window wall systems that have an 18-year shelf life—less than the average lifespan of a condo’s mortgage amortization—after which they will start to fail. Even the buildings that are being marketed to the one-percenters—ostensibly the developments that could afford to set a higher bar—aren’t well-proportioned or made from durable materials. Why aren’t we demanding better? I always think of the Athenian Oath. If you were a citizen of Athens 2000 years ago, you had to pledge to leave the city more beautiful than when you arrived. The city came first. The collective good came first. This ethos drives the work we try to do at PARTISANS.
Courtesy of PARTISANS Projects
RG: I’m still trying to understand if this is a Canadian phenomenon, though. The book describes Canadians as people who like to play it safe, which “stym[ies] our appetite for innovation.” Is a desire for safety and safe thinking necessarily at odds with forward-thinking design? Aren’t the Nordic European countries, which are known for their more ambitious architectural thinking and design, also known for their risk aversion?
AJ: This idea of risk management and safety as distinctly part of the Canadian brand isn’t entirely new, but I think it’s become more prominent since 2008. After the global economy collapsed, we patted ourselves on the back and said, “Ha, look at us, we didn’t allow subprime.” The rest of the world thought our rules were the epitome of conservative stability. When it comes to the Scandinavian countries, the main difference is that they have design economies. Look at Denmark, Holland, Norway, Japan… not only do they value design, they export their talent. Denmark has a significant design GDP and takes its design history very seriously.
We absolutely don’t see that in Canada. Case in point: The Province of Ontario recently released a new Culture Strategy that initially didn’t even mention architecture and design whatsoever. When enough people made a fuss, they were finally included at the eleventh hour. It’s sad because when it comes to architecture, you’re fundamentally talking about real estate, one of the most important enablers of growth. As a country, we simply have not yet embraced architecture or design as important drivers of culture and economy.
Courtesy of PARTISANS Projects
RG: The book describes condo towers as “spreadsheets in the sky,” the “material manifestation of the developer’s profit margin.” But surely this is not just a Toronto phenomenon. Aren’t the majority of cities developed with a close eye on profit?
AJ: It isn’t just a Toronto phenomenon, agreed. Again, we’re using the city as a lens because we’re seeing firsthand the extent to which we’re abusing the sky and the streets here at home. But the answer comes back to density. The cost of building increases with every storey you don’t give to a developer. Anything above twenty stories is inconsequential from street level. So whether it’s twenty or a hundred storeys, I’m mostly indifferent. We are so obsessed in Toronto with height. But height equals money. If we can figure out a way to allow for more height in exchange for better design, we’ll end up with better buildings. But that kind of logic is just not embraced by the city planning culture here.
RG: So you’re suggesting that the City should allow developers to go nuts on height as long as they use the extra revenue from that height to improve the design? Isn’t the city already doing that through 1% for Art and Section 37, which allow developers to negotiate extra height in exchange for paying back into infrastructure, public art, parks, and affordable housing to improve urban culture?
AJ: I would ask this: Why are the projects themselves not the site of culture? Architecture itself should perform as public art. These municipal strategies have become an apology for offensive architecture that doesn’t give back, for podiums that don’t provide a fine-grain pedestrian experience. Everyone—the City officials, the developers, and the community members—should be thinking more dynamically. We can’t just use one speed. We need more subtlety, more thoughtfulness.
Courtesy of PARTISANS Projects
RG: But apart from the rare vanity project or institutional edifice, how are these things to be funded if not by some form of profit motive?
AJ: The profit motive will always drive the project, there’s no question. But let’s be honest here for a second. It’s a known fact that Canadian architects get paid less than anywhere else. A respected architect just told me that after Mexico City, Toronto pays its architects less than any other OECD country in the world. It’s not a joke. We’re in a race to the bottom of the fee barrel here in Ontario. To make architecture fees as much as 25% higher would amount to a rounding error on the proforma of most of these bigger condo projects. Buildings don’t get better because of a huge increase in capital expenditure. They get better because an architect has time to work the design out and is paid properly to do so. I mean what do you think? Do architects get paid enough to do what they do?
RG: As a developer managing large and small projects, that’s tough for me to answer because I only see the landlord side of the equation. We are incentivised to build high-quality products on a reasonable, market-driven budget. So yes, on the one hand, part of me feels that architects are paid enough to do what they do because their rates are determined by market forces and I believe in market efficiency. When proposals and invoices come in from the architects on our projects sometimes we’re surprised at how high they are. For example, my team may request what would seem to be a pretty simple change order and the next thing we know we’re being billed for 40 hours of design time. Did someone really spend an entire week making this change? But on the other hand, as someone who pours a lot of professional and personal time into trying to make Toronto a better city, I do wonder if buildings could be better if architects had more time and resources to think through their designs. But that’s a tough sell for developers.
Courtesy of PARTISANS Projects
AJ: One of the arguments we make in the book is that it’s a mistake to believe beauty and profit are mutually exclusive. What do you think about that proposition? How can we work out the math so that it supports more beautiful, higher performing condo design?
RG: I think it’s up to the architect to delineate the value proposition. I interpreted Rise and Sprawl as your attempt to educate developers (and others) about how our buildings are failing in comparison to the achievements seen internationally. So maybe it’s not a math issue but rather a requirement to clarify the value of the design ethos to which you refer. But I don’t think it’s entirely fair to lay it all at the heels of developers. You write about how the “[d]evelopers, architects, city officials, and community groups alike are engaged in a broken process that simply isn’t promoting innovative or notable urban design.” Can you talk about how you see the process as broken?
AJ: One of the big problems in Toronto, among other things, is that we have architecture without architects. The difference between a mediocre building and a great one is not as stark as some believe it to be. It’s about thoughtfulness. Fundamentally, the reason these buildings look the same is because they’re being repeated and recycled. The same window wall systems, the same curtain wall manufacturers, the same balcony designs. It’s also partly due to a kind of stalemate among the key players. The perception is that the city planners are overwhelmed, the developers want height, height, height, but don’t really care about design, and the communities are angry and always poised to say no. So you have this general misalignment even though we are all fundamentally trying to build a city together. The problem is we’re doing it on a site-by-site basis. What’s the bigger vision for the city? Rise and Sprawl puts all these projects side by side, including their marketing slogans and elevation designs; it is quite fascinating what results. They are practically identical! Things need to change.
Courtesy of PARTISANS Projects
RG: “The advent—and virulence—of the condo tower has enabled the vertical urbanization, and arguably, suburbanization, of city centres.” As a native Torontonian, I see a direct correspondence between what you guys call “condominiumization” and major improvements to the city’s urban and cultural fabric. How is intensification “suburban”? Does culture not follow from density?
AJ: There’s a subtle but critical distinction I think some people are missing about the book: We are not criticizing condominiumization; we are criticizing condo architecture. We support density and we support condos. Toronto has become a much more vibrant city as a result of the condo boom. But the values that are driving the designs are suburban. The virulent spread of homogeneous design? That’s practically the definition of suburban. The radiator balconies I mentioned? They’re the result of a hard-wired fantasy that, as Canadians, we all have some kind of God-given right to an outdoor space, namely a back or front yard. And parking lots. Why do we still own and drive cars in the downtown core? This is a serious problem totally born out of a suburban driving mentality.
Then there are the pools, which, in our climate, are barely open four months out of the year. Pools are a suburban luxury. It also bears remembering that between the passing of the Greenbelt legislation and changes to planning laws, which started to encourage taller buildings, developers who once made their fortunes on low-density suburban tract housing rebranded and became players in the downtown core. But they’re essentially doing the same thing they did before: producing low-quality, fast and dirty extrusions that obey the same logic as a horizontal series of streets that sprawl. But like we say in the book, they’ve turned the sprawl on its side and shot it vertically into the air. The retailing logic is also similar to the ways they negotiate leases and designs for suburban shopping malls. They make covenants with anchor retailers like Shoppers Drug Mart or Loblaw, and we end up with curtain or window walls that bear no resemblance to the rest of facades and fine-grain retail on the rest of the street. All of this is what we mean by suburbanization.
Rise and Sprawl. Image Courtesy of PARTISANS Projects
RG: “The proliferation of insipid towers is essentially the mass production of vertical housing that, with the help of patent brand strategies and faux fancy amenities, masquerades as an aspirational lifestyle choice. Marketing materials target and then attempt to seduce very specific demographics. Ultimately, condos are like any other commodity—mass produced, financially ratified products that preempt choice and manufacture desire in the same turn.” I find some of the language you guys use sometimes borders on snobbish elitism. Many of the amenities actually are “fancy.” Contemporary art in the hallways, heated indoor pools, well-appointed skydecks—these are luxury amenities that many Canadians aspire to have. I grew up with and work with many people who are very proud of living or owning in these kinds of buildings. They feel like they own a piece of the Canadian dream. Are you sure these buildings are masquerading or are they truly aspirational?
AJ: From a Canadian perspective, yes, some of these buildings might be wonderful. But we have to judge ourselves by the standards of great architecture in the rest of the world. I have to go back to performance. If you are driving a 1975 Volvo because you’ve never seen a 2016 Audi A6, and then you learn about the Audi and discover you’ve paid the same amount, how would you feel? You’d be pissed. I can understand that our perspective may come across as snobbish, but the conclusions are informed by experience and research from around the world. We are trying to tell Canadians they are not living the dream. It’s bullshit. The finishes are cheap and the buildings are not going to last; the architecture isn’t going to prove to be timeless. We are not assailing the Canadian dream. We are just trying to encourage everyone to look around! In Scandinavian countries they are already building 20-storey towers made of wood. We can’t build that in Canada. There’s a 17-storey condo being constructed of wood in lower Manhattan right now. In Norway and Denmark there are 20-storey wood towers going up. We are one of the most prosperous forest-based economies in the world and what are we allowed to build out of wood? Six storeys. It makes no sense. We’re not living in high-performance buildings on ANY level. It may seem like we are, but that’s only because we’re not used to seeing the alternatives here. You’re buying a 1975 Volvo for the price of a new Audi A6 when you could have had a fucking A6. I guess, at least, a 1975 Volvo is cool.
Courtesy of PARTISANS Projects
RG: Beyond a brief list of 11 recommendations, the book doesn’t really offer a sustained discussion about how things can be done better. “Building density is critical, but doing so in responsible, diverse, and beautiful ways using sustainable materials needs to be the rule, not the exception.” Great! What are those ways? What are the long-term cultural and economic benefits of design and how should they be implemented into high-density residential development going forward?
AJ: There was a big internal debate at PARTISANS about how the book should be structured. We were faced with a conundrum: either we could make distilled, point-form recommendations, as we did, or we could go long-form and really dive deep into the details. Ultimately, we decided that the latter would have made for a more boring book, and we wanted Rise and Sprawl to spur a conversation. The eleven points at the end have clear ramifications; they don’t pull any punches. They may seem cute, but if you think about them deeply, we believe they are hugely meaningful.
RG: My larger critique of the book is that it seems like it’s really just the first chapter of a much larger investigation that you need to write.
AJ: Yes, agreed. The whole point was to write something that would get people talking. I mean look, you and I are discussing it right now! Books are incredibly important, but they can become static and irrelevant unless you continue to find ways to keep the story alive. This is precisely the way we see the conversation continuing to unfold—through dialogues with different people in different formats. Maybe it’s super idealistic but, hopefully, some real change can come out of that. We’ve already started working on another book on the relationships between architecture, time, culture, and politics. It will take another couple of years before that’s complete. But Rise and Sprawl is part of a much bigger project that our studio will remain interested in: how we can build better cities and culture through better architecture and design.
From the architect. It is a 16th century Palace in which different architectural stages and building overlaps are distinguished to the present day. The building is cataloged according to the PGOU of the locality with in the Catalog of Protected buildings, elements and urban groups of interest.
Site Plan
The Palacio Portocarrero, together with its Spanish-Mudéjar style botanical gardens surrounded by Almohade walls from the 11th-12th centuries, forms a spectacular complex that is located in the heart of Andalusia, between Cordoba and Seville. It is an architectural jewel that was hidden and in ruins and after years of careful restoration it shines again.
A beautiful architectural monument cataloged BIC (Well of Cultural Interest) that owns a very rich history millenary mixture of civilizations that goes back to year 105 d.C. In Roman times. The Palace Portocarrero offers its Roman legend, archaeological remains both Roman and Arab and a building with areas of the fifteenth and sixteenth century mainly.
Elevations – Sections
First Floor Plan
Touring the palace and strolling through its gardens, we are surrounded by its grand and magical atmosphere, an exclusive look at the Spanish culture and an aristocratic way of life through the centuries. A walk through time. Today, regained its former splendor, is available to organize any type of event.
For 25 years now, the owners, Moreno de la Cova-Ibarra, dedicate their efforts to the restoration of the palace, devastated during the civil war, to achieve the reality that today we can contemplate and enjoy.
Throughout these years, projects, formalizations, actions and interventions have been carried out, which have been collected with their corresponding projects.
Sig Nordal 