In a recent interview presented in collaboration with PLANE—SITE, architect Christian Kerez and curator Sandra Oehy speak about Incidental Space, their exhibition for the Swiss Pavilion in the Giardini at the 2016 Venice Biennale.

Kerez explains, “what we tried to do for this year’s Swiss Pavilion at the Venice Biennale is to really make a building, actually—to build a space, to offer an experience of architecture. Basically, a space at the Biennale doesn’t have to be very functional. You don’t have to live there; you don’t have to work there. It’s really about experience. This is also about the question, how much can you imagine? How can you create a space with the utmost architectonical complexity?”

Throughout the interview, Kerez and Oehy delve into the ideas behind the exhibition, and how a process of experimentation was used to create it. Learn more by watching the interview, above.

News via PLANE—SITE. 

http://ift.tt/29NX0jr

© Dylan Perrenoud

• Architects: ALICE Studio Architects
• Location: Lausanne, Switzerland
• Area: 121.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Dylan Perrenoud, ALICE EPFL, Alessandra Ortelli, Aloys Mutzenberg

• Team: 1st year students (2016), Dieter Dietz, Daniel Zamarbide, Raffael Baur, Edouard Cabay, Laurent Chassot, Nicolas Durr, Margherita Del Grosso, Alexa den Hartog Stéphane Grandgirard, Patricia Guaita, Agathe Mignon, Andrea Pellacani, Laura Perez Lupi, Anne-Chantal Rufer, Wynd van der Woude with Thibaud Smith
• Lead Engineer Timber Construction: Rémy Meylan, architect & wood engineer Whood x Mug
• Sponsors: Marti Construction SA / Getaz Miauton, Debrunner Acifer Roth échafaudages / E.S. Echafaudages Services SA

© Aloys Mutzenberg

HOUSE 1 is an architectural installation based on an experimental format for collaborative design and construction by ALICE (Atelier de la Conception de l’Espace) – an international group of young architects and researchers, scientists, and doctoral candidates from the EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), led by the Director Dieter Dietz. 

© Dylan Perrenoud

Built initially as proto-structure (primary construction) during a 5-day workshop in April, HOUSE 1 is a 11m x 11m x 11m balloon-frame timber construct holding the ‘genetic code’ for future developments. The project involved over 200 students, who worked in groups under the close guidance of 12 studio directors and the wood engineer Rémy Meylan. 

© Dylan Perrenoud

In succession, each team was asked to design and realize a ROOM (a space intended for HABITATION), or a TRANSITIONAL SPACE providing CONNECTIVITY (porch, stairs, doorway). 

© Dylan Perrenoud

Detail

© Dylan Perrenoud

The boundaries that divide studio projects are blurry zones of negotiation over space, culture, and ideas. Accordingly, each project is strongly influenced by the others as it enters a multilayered discourse with its surroundings. The spatial experience of HOUSE 1 is therefore not that of a homogenous architecture; rather, it is an unfolding evolution of a space that invokes questions, contains possibilities, and is open for interpretation. 

Elevation

Alexa den Hartog, one of the 12 studio directors responsible for making HOUSE 1 a feasible project, characterizes the proto-structure and its process of inhabitation as a “restricted physical and temporal – ever changing – landscape that only slowly solidified”. To quote Dieter Dietz, HOUSE 1 reveals its final form “not as something that is done from the top down but something we share.” 

© Dylan Perrenoud

After four months of frenetic work and strong engagement, the project has been recently completed and is now open to visitors on the EPFL campus next to the Rolex Learning Center.

© ALICE EPFL

http://ift.tt/29NPOUE

Courtesy of Wikimedia user Claude Truong-Ngoc

Concealed behind an 18th century Baroque façade in Strasbourg’s Place Kléber, the Café L’Aubette is a dazzlingly incongruous expression of the 1920s De Stijl movement. Designed by Theo van Doesburg, one of the movement’s founders and leading lights, the Aubette’s minimalist, geometric aesthetic was heavily influenced by the work of contemporary artists such as Piet Mondrian. In designing the café’s interiors, Van Doesburg sought to do more than simply place viewers before a painting; he wanted to envelop them in it.

Courtesy of Wikimedia user Claude Truong-Ngoc

The De Stijl movement began in the Netherlands in 1917 by an association of painters, sculptors, decorative artists, and architects. Rejecting the ornamental and spatial dogma of the Beaux-Arts school that had dominated Western design in the 19th century, members of the movement instead advocated for the relative purity of abstraction. Cubism provided a significant inspiration for the movement, which came to be characterized by bold, orthogonal minimalism. The paintings of Mondrian, composed purely of rectangles and straight lines at right angles, gradually abandoned symbolic representations of reality in favor of their own abstract visual rhythm. This rectilinear style lent itself toward translation into three-dimensional form – a task that would be undertaken by one of Mondrian’s contemporaries, a painter and architect named Theo van Doesburg.[1]

Courtesy of Wikimedia user Claude Truong-Ngoc

Born in Utrecht, Netherlands in 1883, Van Doesburg (originally named Christian Emil Marie Küpper) was a self-educated artist and architect.[2] It was Van Doesburg who would, in 1917, begin publishing the journal entitled De Stijl, featuring contributions from many of the artists and designers who had influenced him during his career.[3] He is additionally known for his 1923 manifesto entitled “Tot een constructieve dichtkunst” (“Toward a constructive poetry”) in the Dadaist journal Mécano, in which he expressed beliefs in line with what would become Surrealism.[4] His own design work was focused on the use of color as a means of activating space. This, he believed, helped viewers to better appreciate abstract form. Van Doesburg often worked in collaboration with other artists, rejecting the egocentrism of individual artistry. It therefore followed that when he was tasked with designing several new interiors for the Café l’Aubette in central Strasbourg, he did so in tandem with artist Jean Arp and his wife, Sophie Täuber.[5]

Exterior of the Aubette as seen from the Place Kléber. ImageCourtesy of Wikimedia user Claude Truong-Ngoc

The Aubette was built in 1767 by the architect François Blondel. Commissioned by the French government to construct a building that would reflect the latest style of the time, Blondel created a Baroque structure with a straight façade along the entire northern edge of the Place Kléber. The building’s original use as a military facility gave it the name Aubette, as orders were issued at aube, or dawn. A café was opened in the building in 1845, and in 1867, the Aubette became home to Strasbourg’s School of Music. In 1911, the city government called together 46 architects to redesign both the Aubette and the entirety of the Place Kléber; however, the outbreak of the First World War forestalled the project, which was abandoned by the 1920s.[6]

Axonometric diagram of the Café-Brasserie. ImageTheo van Doesburg

Van Doesburg’s involvement with the Aubette began in September of 1926. Convinced by his clients to set up an office on the Place Kléber itself, he began drawing up plans that would correspond with the new functions of the space. Included in the required program were a café, tea room, two bars, telephone booths, billiard rooms, two banquet halls with an adjoining foyer, kitchens, various offices, and staff quarters.[7] Although Van Doesburg, Arp, and Täuber ostensibly worked as a team, their actual design process was surprisingly disjointed; rooms were designed by different artists with little in the way of organized collaboration, allowing their personal styles to shape the individual spaces of the building.[8]

Procedural painting for the Ciné-Dancing Hall. ImageTheo van Doesburg

While the Arps’ work reflected their former involvement in the Dada movement, Van Doesburg instead saw the opportunity to implement his own theories of Elementarism.[9] Much like Mondrian, he designed in a purely rectilinear, orthogonal manner; the walls were covered in large grids of brightly colored rectangles. However, Van Doesburg did not rigorously bind himself to the principles of De Stijl when it did not suit him; he would break them in the interest of creating more expressive, dynamic spaces.[10]

Courtesy of Wikimedia user Claude Truong-Ngoc

This approach is perhaps best reflected in what he called the “Ciné-Dancing” hall – a space designed to function as both a film theater and a ballroom or cabaret. Here, the characteristic De Stijl rectangles are tilted at a 45-degree angle to the ground, creating a visual tension with the orientation of the doors, windows, and seating cubicles they envelop.[11] Van Doesburg also employed relief to add emphasis and interest to the walls and ceilings; where color would not satisfactorily activate a surface, the slight extrusion of the rectangular panel would compensate.[12] Van Doesburg may have played a large part in codifying the tenets of De Stijl, but in all aspects of his design—from choosing finish materials to creating a new typeface for signage—he worked as much in response to the particular environment of the Aubette as he did within the very guidelines he had helped to create.[13]

Courtesy of Wikimedia user Claude Truong-Ngoc

The radical interiors of the Café l’Aubette, while now lauded as a masterpiece of De Stijl architecture, were not met with great acclaim by the café’s patrons.[14] After less than a decade, the interior style was altered once again; it was not until the 1960s that restoration of Van Doesburg’s design was even considered. The ciné-dancing hall was restored between 1985 and 1994 based on period photographs and architectural drawings; the rest of the interior followed later, with the emphasis being on conservation of the original materials wherever possible. Meticulous care was taken to reproduce exactly the colors chosen by Van Doesburg and the Arps, and by 2006, the Aubette was restored to its 1920s appearance.[15] Now designated a historic landmark, the Café l’Aubette remains a monument to the marriage of graphic design and architecture facilitated by De Stijl’s principles of bold geometry.

References
[1] Curtis, William J. R. Modern Architecture since 1900. London: Phaidon, 1996. p151-153.
[2] Poulin, Richard. Graphic Design Architecture a 20th Century History: A Guide to Type, Image, Symbol, and Visual Storytelling in the Modern World. Beverly: Rockport Publishers, 2012. p79.
[3] Raizman, David Seth. History of Modern Design. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2004. P184-187.
[4] “Mécano.” DADA and Modernist Magazines. Accessed July 16, 2016. [access].
[5] Raizman, p184-187.
[6] Jaffé, Hans Ludwig C. De Stijl. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1971. p232.
[7] Jaffé, p233-324.
[8] Raizman, p187.
[9] Raizman, p187.
[10] Poulin, p79.
[11] Raizman, p187.
[12] Poulin, p79.
[13] Jaffé, p235-237.
[14] Poulin, p79.
[15] “Restoration.” Musées De La Ville De Strasbourg. Accessed July 06, 2016. [access].

• Architects: Theo van Doesburg
• Location: 31 Place Kléber, 67000 Strasbourg, France
• Architect In Charge: Theo van Doesburg
• Design Team: Sophie Täuber
• Project Year: 1926
• Photographs: Courtesy of Wikimedia user Claude Truong-Ngoc, via Wikimedia

http://ift.tt/29ZyBem

© Felix Gerlach

• Architects: Tengbom
• Location: Helsingborg, Sweden
• Architect In Charge: Tengbom
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Felix Gerlach

• General Contractor: NCC
• Team: Patrik Ekenhill, Fajer Wennerberg

© Felix Gerlach

From the architect. The Municipality of Helsingborg has witnessed a sharp increase in traffic to and from the city. Looking forward to 2020, it is estimated that daily visitors will increase from the current figure of 22,000 to 32,000. This is a pressure that Knutpunkten – which was designed by Ivar Krepp in 1984–1991 – could not handle in its current state, which is why the decision was made to create a new exit and approach at the root of the track’s southern extension. Furthermore, the southern entrances were in a worse condition than the northern ones, which affected the flow of pedestrian traffic. Knutpunkten is currently undergoing a transformation and renovation, yet another task that fell on us.

© Felix Gerlach

“The new entrance is in a way a natural result of the long platforms underground. An important aspect of the project is to reinforce Knutpunkten’s connection with the southern part of the city, with the campus and the future H+ area. The new traffic flows, more activity and vibrancy in the area will hopefully contribute to reduced segregation in the town”, says the architect in charge Patrik Ekenhill.

© Felix Gerlach

A competition that was won

In 2013, the Municipality of Helsingborg arranged a competition for architects relating to the new entrance, a pre-qualification with tenders. Tengbom Helsingborg won the tender in collaboration with Tyréns, an urban planning consultancy company. We were general consultants during the entire project phase, with all other consultants working under us.

© Felix Gerlach

“We designed the building as a sculptural element to stand out in an area where so many people head south every day”, says Patrik Ekenhill.

© Felix Gerlach

Below is one extract from the competition entry:

We regard the area as a transition point between various ways of travel and movement in the city, but also as a transition between different parts and rooms of the city. It will be a dramatic change from today’s dominating and yet anonymous multi-storey car park to an attractive component in the cityscape that contributes to increased activity and pulse.

© Felix Gerlach

The backside became the front

In other words, the new entrance transformed an anonymous backside of the station into another front entrance. This has also contributed to increased traffic safety, as pedestrians walking to the campus area previously had to cross the bus terminal, which has been avoided with the new flow of traffic. A new pedestrian crossing over Järnvägsgatan, which leads onto Bollebrogatan, also adds to a more direct link to the local Stadsparken park and the south district of the city. A further aim is to promote cycling in the city. A total of 450 bicycle spaces have been created between the entrance steps and freely on an open platform. There are also other facilities such as a pump, a repair station and lockers.

© Felix Gerlach

A prominent landmark

In addition to solving many of the problems the city was experiencing, the entrance has become the landmark that we proposed and were hoping for.

Floor Plan

“Our architectural main idea of a collective roof is based on a concept of creating a sequence between the top and the bottom. The characteristic roof has a neutral and square plan shape, which is carefully modified in each section. The combination of a vaulted bottom and a curved top in the direction of the tracks creates associations with both motion and the softly undulating topography of the City Park”, says Patrik Ekenhill.

© Felix Gerlach

The sculptural timber roof is on two slate-clad wall plates that seem to grow up from the track area. Simple glass panels have been used as extra protection against the elements. Even the lighting design has been influential to the project, where the primary light source for the roof of the bike rack is indirect and hidden. Two existing emergency stairways were torn down and the shafts transformed into circular drop of daylight onto the platforms, with benches at ground level.

Section

A metaphor for travelling

Just like the act of travelling, the new entrance is very much about transitions, both physically and architecturally, as well as metaphorically. Physically, it’s about understanding the flow of traffic and people. Architecturally, we are talking about open encounters – heavy meets light and geometry meeting organic forms. Metaphorically, you might say that the South entrance is a symbol for the transition to a new travel area, ready for the future.

© Felix Gerlach

“This is fantastic architecture on a small scale. We are incredibly proud that a relatively small project can make such a great impression”, says Patrik Ekenhill.

http://ift.tt/29L1UCA