As he ends his years of service at the Department of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), Iñaki Ábalos has given a Walter Gropius Lecture, customary for departing chairs.

Entitled “Architecture for the Search for Knowledge,” the lecture is named for Ábalos’ mantra by the same words, which is an aphorism written by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Throughout the event, Ábalos delved into various mixed-use typologies, each of which is in some way related to the basic typology of the medieval monastery.

Highlights of the lecture include:

• 10:30 – 14:45 Ábalos introduces the theme of the relationship between education, research, and professional practice, as well as the overall typology of mixed-use projects, through the example of the medieval monastery.
• 14:45 – 17:30 Ábalos delves into the architectural typology of the medieval monastery, noting their “open ecosystems,” varying “circles of privacy,” and mixed uses.
• 17:30 – 22:20 Ábalos explains his dedication to the study of mixed-use projects in modernist and contemporary architecture, as well as subsystems of skyscrapers. 
• 22:20 – 31:00 The namesake aphorism of the lecture is explored, in addition to its and Nietzsche’s relationship to monasteries. The background is additionally given on the basic elements of monasteries.
• 31:00 – 38:45 Ábalos discusses the history and evolution of the monastery, as well as the typical use of stone in monasteries.
• 38:45 – 46:05 After giving background on the monastery typology, Ábalos explores various monastic lifestyles, and how they affected their respective architectures, as well as how monasteries created the monastery palace typology.
• 46:05 – 53:40 Ábalos compares the two “monastery circles” of the revolutionary period, based on contributions from Thomas Jefferson and Charles Fourier, and their work in universities and phalansteries, respectively.
• 53:40 – 1:00:30 Ábalos shifts to more modern interpretations of the monastery typology, namely those of the 20^th century in Europe and America.
• 1:00:30 – 1:04:10 Ábalos recounts his time as a professor and chair at the GSD, noting his teachings concerning mixed-use projects and various aspects of thermodynamics, and closes the lecture by tying together each of the various mixed-use typologies he has discussed.
• 1:05:10 – 1:29:00 Ábalos answers questions concerning the lecture.

News via: the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD).

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© Tõnu Tunnel

• Architects: Kavakava
• Location: Tallinn, Estonia
• Architects In Charge: Siiri Vallner, Indrek Peil
• Area: 11200.0 m2
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Tõnu Tunnel, Kaupo Kikkas , Kaupo Kalda

• Project Team: Tarmo Piirmets, Raul Tiitus (Pink), Katrin Koov, Ragnar Põllukivi Kadri Klementi, Andro Mänd, Sten-Mark Mändmaa, Triin Maripuu, Ivan Sergejev, Elen Paddar, Martin J. Navarro Gonzalez (Kavakava)

© Kaupo Kalda

From the architect. Kultuurikatel is a former power plant, located in Tallinn between the Old Town and the sea. The project focuses on simple principles of spatial organization to meet the needs of creative users. The key of the project is openness.

Diagram

Original complex was built in the 19th century with various additions in the 20th century.  Buildings are listed as heritage monuments and are owned by the city of Tallinn. After renovation it has different halls for performing and rehearsal, club spaces, studios, offices, integrated with a continuous common space enabling all kinds of possibilities.

© Tõnu Tunnel

Despite its alternative look, building is selected as a main venue for 2017, when Estonia holds presidency of the Council of the EU.

© Tõnu Tunnel

Floor Plan

© Kaupo Kikkas

Strategy and Design Concept

The project focuses on simple principles of spatial organization to meet the needs of creative users. The tight budget is a challenge – any intervention has to be precise and to the point. The key of the project is openness – it should enable later additions and unplanned developments. To integrate external impulses, workshops and users‘ input has been used. Communication with various parties was an essential part of the project. The design concept developed alongside the concept of the Cauldron itself. The project is built in stages, many spaces will be equipped with the barest minimum and to be finished by the user.

Diagram

Construction

It is renovation project and materials are used according to the initial architecture. Replacements and new additions are done in a sensitive way and surfaces are left unpolished as it was in original state (exposed concrete, steel, brick).

© Tõnu Tunnel

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This episode of Monocle 24’s On Design podcast, which briefly surveys the state of Indian architecture and suggests a blueprint for a 21st Century vernacular, was written and recorded by ArchDaily’s European Editor at Large, James Taylor-Foster.

In the first half of 2016 an exhibition was opened in Mumbai. The State of Architecture, as it was known, sought to put contemporary Indian building in the spotlight in order to map trends post-independence and, more importantly, provoke a conversation both historical and in relation to where things are heading.

India, of course, is a unique and complex place of inequalities, overcrowding, issues of sanitation—to name a few—which give Indian architects more to think about than simply changing skylines. A nation of 29 states that stretch from the Himalayan peaks to the coastline of the Indian Ocean, it has magnificently diverse range of cultures, languages and architectural styles. Yet, as India experiences the processes of rapid urbanisation in its largest metropoli—such as New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and beyond—an odd phenomenon is arising. You could say that the “wrong” sort of architecture is being built – and discourse about the reality of Indian architecture today is, on the whole, lacking.

So what do I mean by the “wrong” sort of architecture? In the words of Rahul Mehrotra, a practising architect and Professor of Urban Design and Planning at Harvard, “architects [in India] are pandering to Capital in unprecedented ways – creating what we could call the ‘Architecture of Impatient Capital’.” In other words, as money flows into certain people’s pockets it is manifested, foe example, in shiny glass towers – all built in the blink of an eye.

Vast air-conditioned skyscrapers, while representing only half the story, are both absurd and inefficient in the sorts of diverse sub-tropical climates that India enjoys. When Le Corbusier designed the government compound at Chandigarh, the capital of the northern territories of Haryana and Punjab in the early 1960s, he understood the importance of designing specifically for the city’s sun-soaked summers. A European import simply wouldn’t do.

One of modern India’s giants was the late Charles Correa. He had a finely tuned sensibility that found its aesthetic home in the lyrical qualities of light and shade. It was the quiet progressiveness of the Gandhi Ahsram, completed in 1963, that put his ideas on the map: an interconnected collection of modular huts—on the site of Mahatma Gandhi’s home—that together create a meandering pathway, and a memorial to his legacy. These huts provide shelter from the sun as necessary but are also open to the skies and, most importantly, the breeze. It is one of the truest example of what contemporary Indian architecture could and should be, if only progress would allow.

Across the border in Bangladesh (in Dhaka), these ideas are being practised today. Marina Tabassum, who won an Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016 for a mosque in Dhaka, also recognises the power of contemporary vernacularism. Built on a sliver of land donated by her grandmother and with funds raised by the local community, the building is both simple and elegant. Perforated brick walls speckle the prayer room with light, and also allow the building to breathe. It is, in other words, a perfect fit for its home.

India can be the testing ground for raising the quality of life in the built environment for the many – but it must galvanise together in order to really make a difference.

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© Steve Lancefield

• Architects: David Nossiter Architects
• Location: Suffolk, CO10, United Kingdom
• Structural Engineer: AFP Consult Ltd
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Steve Lancefield

© Steve Lancefield

From the architect. The site, situated on the Essex/Suffolk borders within the landscape immortalised by Constable was originally the home farm of the nearby estate, destroyed by fire in the 1950s. It consists of a collection of farm buildings forming a courtyard. The centrepiece of the site with views over the rural landscape is a large barn of cathedral-like proportions. 

© Steve Lancefield

Cruciform in plan with a collection of smaller spaces surrounding it, the arrangement sought to provide shelter for different farming activities under a single roof. The barn complex is the legacy of the model farm movement. 

© Steve Lancefield

The clients purchased the buildings in dilapidated condition. Having sold their own property in nearby Colchester they decided to reside in a caravan on the site during the build. David had worked on a previous project and was the natural choice of architect. 

Floor Plan

The barn is a Listed structure and the contemporary refurbishment required lengthy agreements with the local planning authorities. 

© Steve Lancefield

A large component of the renovations consisted of the refurbishment of the roof. Roofing slates and timber materials were salvaged from the other agricultural structures on the site that were too decayed to be usefully renovated. In order to allow the existing structure to be viewed internally but still conform to modern standards of thermal performance, the roof is a ‘warm roof construction’ meaning that all of the insulation is located on the exterior of the roof above a new timber deck. 

Sections

The external walls were insulated with sheep’s wool and clad with larch timber, which has been left to weather naturally. The original openings have been simply fenestrated with glazing set back from the external wall line. Oversized bespoke glazed sliding doors fill the hipped gable porches, allowing views from the courtyard towards open fields. Two three- metre square roof lights allow day light deep into the interior of the eight-metre tall central spaces. 

© Steve Lancefield

It was decided early on during the design process to keep the spaces as open plan as possible. Where necessary partitions and screens are designed as over scaled freestanding furniture. Constructed from birch faced plywood sheets, they organise the spaces, providing privacy for bathrooms and sleeping areas. 

© Steve Lancefield

A reminder of the barn’s agricultural past, lighting is operated using existing switch boxes and concealed within the existing structure, existing metal grilles and new joinery. 

© Steve Lancefield

Polished concrete flooring flows throughout with 10mm floor joints aligning with the spatial demarcation. A biomass boiler is assisted by a mechanical ventilation and heat recovery system that recirculates warm air stacking in the taller spaces. 

© Steve Lancefield

Landscaping and planting reflects the internal spaces and is kept simple with wildflower planting and brick paving salvaged from the existing barn complex. 

© Steve Lancefield

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© Simone Bossi

• Architects: KAAN Architecten
• Location: Boompjes 255, 3011 XZ Rotterdam, The Netherlands
• Architect In Charge: Kees Kaan, Vincent Panhuysen, Dikkie Scipio
• Area: 1400.0 m2
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Simone Bossi

• Project Team: Beatrice Bagnara, Dennis Bruijn, Marten Dashorst, Luuk Dietz, Giuseppe Mazzaglia
• Contractor: Pleijsier Bouw
• Construction Advisor: Pieters Bouwtechniek
• Water + Electrical Installations: Van Panhuis

© Simone Bossi

From the architect. KAAN Architecten has moved to a new office, marking a page-turn for the expanding architectural practice. The new location is in the heart of Rotterdam, situated along the Maas river, just a few meters from the iconic Erasmus bridge and the firm’s award- winning project Education Center at Erasmus Medical Center University. The project has transformed 1.400 sqm of the former premises of De Nederlandsche Bank into KAAN’s new open-space headquarters, which encompasses more than 80 workspaces.

Floor Plan

KAAN’s new De Bank office is housed in the piano nobile of a quintessential historical building originally designed by Prof. Henri Timo Zwiers in 1950-1955, on the grounds of a former synagogue, which was destroyed during the WWII bombings. The brick façade on Boompjes Street stands out against the river skyline and is characterized by an entrance hall enriched by the mosaic of Dutch artist Louis van Roode, who decorated several public spaces in Rotterdam during the post-war period.

© Simone Bossi

“The notion of sharing of knowledge is at the core of the division of spaces and the interior design of the new office. This rough space has the special gift of an industrial yet monumental aesthetic, a beauty that we decided to exalt through a solid balance between two simple materials wood and concrete.”

© Simone Bossi

Dikkie Scipio

The building’s striking character and its wide, bright spaces offered the perfect base for KAAN Architecten to design their new office. The beating heart of the project is an extensive working area dedicated to architects. This space is blessed by intense daylight on both sides and offers a unique view of the surrounding water-front. The rectangular floor plan, with its clear proportions, is designed to effectively connect working, meeting and leisure spaces through several long monumental corridors and passages, enhancing fluid interactions between employees, visitors and partners.

© Simone Bossi

Spatial rhythm is generated by the finely restored industrial concrete structure. The rough essence of the material is balanced by a counterpoint of elegant dark walnut wood, which constitutes the main component of the interiors. The harmonious interaction between the warm comfort of the wood and the pre-existing concrete structure, envelopes the atmosphere in a graceful yet monumental feeling. KAAN Architecten has successfully designed a new working space that genuinely represents the philosophy of the office: functionalism with added value. Raw and refined at once, the project revitalizes and reveals the inherent beauty of a building that has, for many years been sleeping while its city dreams.

© Simone Bossi

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