Well-known architects are easy to admire or dismiss from afar, but up close, oddly humanizing habits often come to light. However, while we all have our quirks, most people’s humanizing habits don’t give an insight into how they became one of the most notable figures in their field of work. The following habits of several top architects reveal parts of their creative process, how they relax, or simply parts of their identity. Some are inspiring and some are surprising, but all give a small insight into the mental qualities that are required to be reach the peak of the architectural profession—from an exceptional work drive to an embrace of eccentricity (and a few more interesting qualities besides).

1. Playing With the Same Toy All Day (The Eameses)

© Eames Office

Charles and Ray Eames were prolific in their work, producing over 900 multidisciplinary designs. The Musical Tower was one of these, a 5-meter high rearrangeable xylophone tower. For new staff members, the entire first day would be spent playing with this one toy. This creative initiation was important for the Eameses, who believed that spending a day listening to and observing someone’s musical experiments provided valuable insight to their personality.

2. Drinking a Lot of Alcohol (Alvar Aalto)

Image <a href='http://ift.tt/2dJqDqK Wikimedia</a> (public domain)

“Architectural art cannot be created in an office-like environment”, Alvar Aalto once said. Taking this to extremes, Aalto was known to have “drank like a fish,” and boozing in the office was common—aiming, of course, for an artistic bohemian air rather than unproductive drunkenness. [1]

3. Never Ever Getting a Good Night’s Sleep (Leonardo da Vinci, Buckminster Fuller, Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Kahn)

Image credits, clockwise from top left: Public Domain <a href='http://ift.tt/2e7BTjh Wikimedia</a>; Public Domain photographer Al Ravenna <a href='http://ift.tt/2dJpIXc Wikimedia</a>; <a href='http://ift.tt/2e7BFsl user Steve Yelvington</a> licensed under <a href='http://ift.tt/2az3KSe BY-SA 4.0</a>; Robert C Lautman

Architects have long been associated with unusual sleep patterns, with some more unusual than others. Leonardo da Vinci, Buckminster Fuller and Frank Lloyd Wright were all polyphasic sleepers, taking short naps every three or four hours instead of a long night’s sleep, while Louis Kahn would spend his daylight hours teaching, napping until 10:30pm, and then beginning a “day” of work at his office. [2]

4. Climbing A Mythical Norwegian Mountain Every Year (Snøhetta)

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Climbing a Norwegian mountain may be considered an odd team building exercise for architectural firms, unless your firm is Snøhetta. For Snøhetta, whose founding inspiration and namesake is a mountain said to house Norse gods, an annual trip to climb that very mountain makes a lot more sense. The purpose of the trip has changed as the firm has grown: “We use the time to talk about what we’re doing and where we want to go,” says co-founder Craig Dykers. “We used to go just for the sake of climbing but now it’s got to have more meaning.”

5. Really Loving Yourself (Zaha Hadid)

© Brigitte Lacombe

There are many stories of Zaha Hadid that suggest the most important person in her life was herself. Examples include being several hours late for a Vogue photoshoot in her own home or only furnishing her apartment with objects she designed herself. While many of those in her inner circle have attested to her kind heart, this attitude of self-love was also also the heart of her headstrong philosophy; in her own words, “I never took no for an answer. I never sat back and said ‘walk all over me, it’s OK.’”

6. Really Loving Others (Eileen Gray)

Image <a href='http://ift.tt/2dJqYcV Wikimedia</a> (public domain)

The inspirations behind Eileen Gray’s designs were often people she loved. The hallmark of this was perhaps the ill-fated E.1027, built originally for her then-lover Jean Badovici. Even the name itself was “code for an affair of the heart.” E stood for Eileen, while the numbers corresponded to letters in the alphabet for J,  B and G, signifying Jean, Badovici and Gray—her name “holding his.”

7. Having Sex Several Times a Day, Even if You’re Eighty (Frank Lloyd Wright)

Image <a href='http://ift.tt/2dJpIXc Wikimedia</a> (public domain, photographer Al Ravenna)

Frank Lloyd Wright was said to have an “inexhaustible supply of creative energy” that allowed him to maintain a habit of only beginning drawings for clients a few hours before they were due to present. His wife also reported a similar inexhaustible supply, but one of sexual energy. She claimed that even at eighty-five, he could go at it twice or thrice a day. She even sought medical advice and was offered potassium nitrate, thought to decrease a man’s sex drive, but decided against it in the end. [2]

8. Creeping on Your Building Users (Denise Scott Brown)

© Robert Venturi

When asked what part of her work brought her joy, Denise Scott Brown admitted to essentially creeping on people using her building. Visiting the Perelman Quadrangle at the University of Pennsylvania, she observed thirty or so students sitting on the rising steps “like bees in a hive,” just as she had envisioned. Taking her to be some “old lady in a skirt” who they did not know, they simply looked puzzled and could not understand why she was grinning broadly at them. [3]

9. Lying Quietly in the Dark, Deep in Thought (I.M. Pei)

via http://blog.newx.com/

I.M. Pei has noted how over his long career he has come to rely less on drawing on paper, and more on drawing in his mind. For Pei, much of his best thinking is done in bed at night with the lights out, sometimes with a trip to the bathroom to scribble ideas down. If it didn’t look as good on paper as in his mind, it would be back to bed to think some more. This nocturnal process meant that even for him it was hard to distinguish the sources of his ideas, which came to be increasingly dream-like.

10. Eating Monochromatic Meals (Luis Barragán)

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You are what you eat, or so they say. So for an architect who championed color, it’s perhaps not surprising that Luis Barragán was known to order entirely pink-colored meals, such as sherry-drizzled melon halves.

11. Taking Your Porsche out for a Spin (Ricardo Scofidio)

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We all have preferred ways to blow off steam and for Ricardo Scofidio, of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, that includes a 1963 vanilla Porsche. Having also owned a Saab 96, Alfa Romeo 2000 GTV and Jaguar XK150, Scofidio is a clear car enthusiast but also creatively credits the mind-clearing abilities of pure speed.

Additional Citations:

1. Schildt, Göran. Alvar Aalto: his life. Jyväskylä : Alvar Aalto Museum, 2007.
2. Currey, Mason. Daily Rituals – How Artists Work. New York: Random House, Inc., 2013.
3. Tuite, Colleen. “Being Denise Scott Brown.” Lobby 4 (2016): 23-30.

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Courtesy of KANVA

The City of Montreal has selected KANVA’s IMAGO as the winner of Vivre le Chantier Sainte-Cath, a competition seeking to maintain access to and usage of St. Catherine Street, downtown Montreal’s primary commercial artery, as it undergoes a four-year construction period. The construction includes infrastructure developments—enhancements to underground infrastructure, new public transit systems, and increased pedestrian access—and while segments of the street will be closed to car traffic, pedestrian paths and all businesses will remain open during construction. 

Courtesy of KANVA

To mitigate the negative impact of construction on the street, the competition sought to alter perceptions of the construction, minimize disruptions of routine city operations, and inform users about this and future developments. In stark visual contrast to its surroundings and the adjacent construction work, IMAGO’s bold design reinforces St. Catherine Street as a destination in Montreal.

Courtesy of KANVA

The project is composed of a series of modular catenary arches formed by biomorphic inflatable structures anchored to concrete construction fences. Designed to reflect the growth of an organism beginning from an embryo, the structures shelter, animate, and integrate with the construction site. The intervention can adapt to the work being performed on each section of the site, serving as the liaison between pedestrians and the road, sidewalk, or underground construction.

Courtesy of KANVA

IMAGO’s design is evocative of the anatomy of a butterfly wing, a robust but flexible composite of many delicate parts. Diagonal members form diamond-shaped voids, some of which depict the transformation of St. Catherine Street with historical images, while the rest ventilate the installation. Due to IMAGO’s modularity, the final installation can be modified according to its budget by adjusting the number of components, while the inflatable modules can be easily handled and stored.  

• Architects: KANVA
• Experts On Montreal History: Paul-André Linteau, Susan Bronson, Gabrielle Mathieu
• Client: City of Montreal
• Structural Engineering: Blackwell
• Civil Engineering: Alta Construction
• Branding: Bruce Mau Design
• Lighting Consultant: Lightfactor
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Courtesy of KANVA

News via: KANVA

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In this edition of Section D, Monocle 24’s weekly review of design, architecture and craft, the show explores how wood is being used creatively at every scale by designers and architects today. From the “timber terrazzo” of London-based designer Conor Taylor, to the four protected (yet threatened) wooden escalators at Sydney’s Wynyard Railway Station, the episode questions how innovative designers are, or need to be, with this age-old tried and tested material. Finally, the show visits Folkhem in Sweden – a construction company who believe wood “to be superior to conventional alternatives in almost every respect, from construction time to acoustic properties.”

Tham & Videgård's proposal for the former transport harbor of Loudden. Image Courtesy of Tham & Videgård Arkitekter

Find out more about Monocle 24’s Section D here.

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© Nick Frank

• Architects: MIND Architects Collective
• Location: Mainz-Laubenheim, 55130 Mainz, Germany
• Architects In Charge: Julia Buschlinger, Jan Dechow
• Area: 233.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Nick Frank

• Structural Engineer And Distributor Of Klh In Germany : ABA Holz van Kempen GmbH

© Nick Frank

From the architect. Bischofsheim is a community of around 12,000 located in a central suburban area between Mainz, Wiesbaden and Frankfurt.

© Nick Frank

An ecological new solid wood structure (cross-laminated timber manufactured by KLH Austria) with flexible usage was to be built on a small plot with two old garages in a densely built up town centre.

© Nick Frank

The dream of the client was also to move his office back to where he lived and to nevertheless take advantage of all the urban possibilities of modern, contemporary work (co-working) in a small space and in a small village. In addition, the new structure was expected to offer cost security, also with a view to a potential later sale or a reduction in the size of the office. Sustainability was to be a key consideration in all areas.

© Nick Frank

The first step was to outline and discuss in detail the complex requirements of the client, as well as to meet the urban development and building code regulations and to make use of their potential.

Section

One requirement was that the new structure be built on the right boundary directly beside the neighbouring building in line with the housing row. To the rear, approval from the neighbours would have been required for the development on the boundaries.

© Nick Frank

The new structure had to be built directly on the street, while access to the building had to be set back from the road.

© Nick Frank

The guiding principle for the design was flexibility and spatial relations both inside and out within a small space.

The building itself was to have the appearance of unobtrusive but carefully thought-out modern simplicity and a reduction of materials, allowing a versatile and flexible appearance. A form that is not abstract and that does not fight for attention, but meshes into the urban context.

© Nick Frank

The building was designed in such a way that public and private rooms were created. The heart of the building with its bookshelves filling a wall across three stories fulfilled building code regulations and provided a direct connection to the neighbouring building.

© Nick Frank

The building jumps back and creates a private, protected inner courtyard, which opens up the view when entering the building through the transparency of the floor-to-ceiling windows on the ground floor and offers unexpected sight lines.

© Nick Frank

The ground floor with its open areas, which can be divided with curtains, is used as a common area for meetings, a kitchen and workshops.

Ground Floor Plan

The first and second floors, on the other hand, offer the individual open offices a sense of intimacy and focus. The intermediate areas are used as communication areas, with the heart of the building with its communal storage area forming the central link.

© Nick Frank

From a long-term perspective, the interior with its separate cores is designed in such a way that the house could be easily transformed into a pure or partial residential building at any time.

1st Floor Plan

The deliberately exclusive use of wood as a construction, insulating and aesthetic material both inside and out was intended to meet the guiding principles of sustainability and simplicity.


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© Jannes Linders

• Architects: Benthem Crouwel Architects
• Location: Ringweg Zuid, Amsterdam,The Netherlands
• Area: 28265.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Jannes Linders

• Team: Mels Crouwel, Heymen Westerveld, Noortje ter Heege, Willem Jan van der Gugten, Pepijn van der Kroft, Volker Krenz, Jerome Latteux
• Design And Build Constructor: Aan de Stegge Twello
• Length: 73.45 m
• Width: 47.55 m
• Height: 31.629 m

© Jannes Linders

RAI Amsterdam Exhibition and Convention Centre has a new, multifunctional car park. The building is 30 metres high and its eight floors offer parking space for about 1.000 cars. The car park is situated on the ring road A10 and the Zuidas, Amsterdam’s business district. What makes the building remarkable is the fact that the first floor is not just for parking cars, but can also be used as a flexible space for conventions and exhibitions. When the RAI does not need the car park, the building can function as a public parking space. Benthem Crouwel Architects has been supervisor of the entire RAI complex since 1989. After conference buildings Amtrium and Elicium, this car park is the third building Benthem Crouwel Architects has designed for the RAI. 

Site Plan

Helixes

The building is characterized by a simple, rectangular shape. On the south side of the building, two remarkable helix-shaped towers spiral upwards: one gives access to the car park moving up, the other one is used by cars leaving the building going down. By separating the traffic flows, parking at this building is fast and efficient, which is very important to Amsterdam RAI. The towers consist of prefab concrete elements. Placed on top of each other, they form the driveways to enter or leave the parking floors. The iconic concrete helix-shaped towers are highly visible from the ring road A10, even more so at night when blue LED lights emphasize the elegant structures.

© Jannes Linders

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© Jannes Linders

Flexible space

The car park is a stand-alone parking facility, and also a multifunctional building. The first floor is twice as high (7.2 meters) as the other parking levels, creating a large and spacious hall that can be used as an extra space for conventions and exhibitions. The hall measures about 2.800 m2 and has as few columns as possible, therefore it can be arranged in many different ways. The column structure stands on a grid of 7.5 meters. The building consists of three naves with a span of fifteen meters. The extension hall can be used independently for various events, but can also be connected – using sliding doors – to the main exhibition halls of the RAI. The uppermost parking level, the roof of the building, can also be exploited for all kinds of activities. 

© Jannes Linders

Plan 0

© Jannes Linders

RAI lamellae

The parking floors are framed by vertical lamellae, used in many of the RAI buildings – thus pointing out the connection between the various buildings of the complex. The aluminium lamellae of the car park are spaced and therefore give the building an appearance that is both transparent and private. The RAI wanted a car park without mechanical ventilation; the spacing allows air to flow through. Because of the orientation of the lamellae, they also protect against rain. 

Plan 4

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Twenty years as supervising architect

Originally founded in 1893 as a society for bicycle manufacturers, RAI Amsterdam has grown into one of the largest and busiest convention and exhibition centres of the world. Since RAI opened at its current location, in 1961, over a hundred million people visited the complex.  Alexander Bodon was the supervising architect of the RAI from 1961 to 1989. As of 1989, Benthem Crouwel Architects is proud to have this honourable task. The past twenty years, Benthem Crouwel Architects has designed (among other projects) both the buildings Amtrium and Elicium for the RAI. The multifunctional car park is the latest addition to the RAI-complex. 

© Jannes Linders

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