For this project of sixteen social housing units, the Atelier Gemaile RECHAK offers intuitive thresholds which address all levels of perception as well as the urban, intimate and landscape levels of the site. Exploration.
The first threshold is the confrontation between a violent and noisy main road and a project which fulfils its urban function.
The establishment of the construction and the dimensions of the two facades visible from the road maintain the link between a network of small houses and (closer to the town centre) buildings of up to five storeys. The variations of full and empty are thus reminiscent of the universe of a house and garden, all the while connecting the different urban scales of the site, from individual to collective dwelling.
The assembly of this construction is part of the transformation of this urban network. As such, in opposition to the current austerity of the street, the wooden façade invites you warmly to come home, the woven effect of the faille material evoking an interior space just for the inhabitants. This is an affirmation of both the urbanity and the contemporaneity of the project, while also suggesting a protected space for the inhabitants, away from the street.
The gradual increase in level is expressed by a semi-private AND common area of free movement which continues the route between street and home. It is only when you have stepped through the doorway (the only entrance of the building) that this bright open-air path – neither a passageway nor a corridor –suddenly opens up several possible routes and just as many destinations.
In fact, this is not a building of sixteen housing units but rather sixteen units nestled in four small groups, each different, and each with its own identity and amenities. Unlike a regimented and overpowering building, these units look less like a block of flats and more like a project which is in-between social housing and private lodgement. The wide passageways and the common areas invite movement, reinforcing the intimate notion of arriving home. It is also significant that all the passageways have natural light, further emphasizing the aspect of perception on the route between the street and the apartment.
Plan
Interiority
At the centre of the block of buildings there is a further example of how space is handled. The project block plan reveals an urban profile of surprising diversity, ranging from five storeys to ground floor, from the street up to the back of the plot, and conversely. The units are all organized around a garden with a uniform layout while an awning located close to the vine of the adjoining plot opens towards a large landscape horizon. The inhabitants, with the urban hubbub at their back, have a near view of a calm and serene garden and far view of the wide landscape of the Montmorency valley.
Although the density was of course imposed by the programme, the project composition lines allowed for the conception of a great variety of housing units – there are, for example, two duplexes, some apartments with terraces at garden level, etc. Although this was not a regulatory requirement, all the units can be accessed by mobility impaired persons, and the wide passageways provide easy access to these homes. These homes are all south-west facing with a view of the garden and, for most of them, of the wide landscape.
This specific interiority helps the inhabitant to feel that the place belongs to him or her. In effect, if the passageways invite one to “go somewhere”, this sense of home offers the feeling of “being somewhere”. This is possibly the best example of the architect’s intention.
The wood cladding illustrates perfectly both the multiplicity of the diverse elements of the project and its overall uniqueness. In effect, it appears like a continuous crease, its horizontality leading to the horizontality of the garden and of the terrace before elegantly covering the car-park ramp. It then becomes vertical on the façade and finally turns around on the roof and reappears on the street-facing façade.
This feature thus becomes the element which constitutes a space which reinforces the intimacy of the unit while also opening it up to the exterior. Its very path from the far landscape, to the garden, to the public space of the street symbolizes the reassuring attention and specialist expertise applied to all the aspects of this site and of this subtle project.
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Its de ning feature is a carefully proportioned concrete framework facade, with expansive floor-to- ceiling windows that let daylight enter deep into the building.
Along Stolberggasse, the street-side volume contains 14 apartments on eight floors of roughly square shape. Its courtyard-side counterpart houses a total of 13 apartments on seven floors. Both are crowned by fully glazed and setback top floors, which form the upper levels of an array of maisonette apartments.
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In the yard between these two buildings, as well as behind the courtyard-side volume, gardens and playgrounds create a green archipelago in the urban fabric. Access is through a series of ground floor passageways, further articulating the transparent nature of the project.
From the architect. India has a glorious history of temple architecture. The desert state of Rajasthan, where the temple is located, has an equally diverse and refined heritage of buildings set in an unforgiving climatic zone. Given this legacy, to design a contemporary Hindu temple set in the sand dunes of Rajasthan has been an enormous challenge.
Lord Shiva, to whom this temple is dedicated, dwells in paradoxes and apparent dualities. In Hindu scriptures and mythology he manifests as both – the Preserver and the Destroyer. In unison with goddess Shakti, he transcends the duality of the masculine and feminine principle. Like other such perceived dualities, masculinity and femininity are often approached as a continuum rather than a binary in Indian philosophy and mythology. This symbolism needed to be translated into evocative spatial clues to deliver this project. The architecture of the temple combines the heavy materiality of the stone with the lightness of the form, where the solid looking stone exterior dissolves as the night dawns and transforms into a delicate lantern in the dunes. During the day, light filters into the sanctum of the temple. At night, light turns the temple inside-out, extending an invitation to those outside while rewarding those within. This gesture also subtly seeks to illuminate the need for inclusion in contemporary religious spaces, which still tend exclude based on old age biases of gender, class, caste or orientation.
The state of Rajasthan is known world over as the source of stone and stone craftsmanship. We sought to celebrate this heritage. The local Jaisalmer Yellow Sandstone was our choice of stone – its glowing surface reflects that golden desert sun that is strongly associated with Rajasthan. The yellow sandstone gives the temple an appearance of having risen from the surrounding sands. The pure compression structure is reveals through each course and component that forms the superstructure. The design – with its strong form, stark quality and play of light on warm stone – seeks to evoke visual and tactile senses of the worshiper. The stainless steel ‘shikhara’ or the peak atop the golden stone, catches the light during sunrise and sunset and also celebrates the legacy of the organization that commissioned this building. At different times of the day, from different directions, the temple is heavy and light, solid and translucent, valid and void, past and present.
The building is located on Puerto Vallarta’s “Malecón” (boardwalk); it is built above an existing commercial building, giving the project a great ocean view. The access to The Jazz Foundation is on Morelos Street (perpendicular to “Malecón”) through a large wooden door that leads to a staircase that is contained in a double-height space full of natural light coming through a glass dome.
The building façade is constructed with a concrete lattice that allows the flow of air and lets light in from the outside during the day, and works as a large light box at night. Openings are created in the façade to frame exterior views.
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The project is built with a light metal structure that holds the wooden roof, where the electrical and sound installations are visible, allowing the space to change and adapt to different events, performances and concerts.
The main space, with a capacity of up to a hundred seated guests, is conformed by three main elements: a large bar made with concrete and wood; a terrace whose access is through a large window that frames the ocean; and, in the middle, a stage which is made of wooden staves and can be seen from anywhere in the room.
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From the architect. The project is situated in the city center of the town of Le Pré Saint-Gervais, in the periphery of Paris. The parcel is already filled with 2 existing buildings of the City Hall: an historical building where J. Jaurès delivered a speech in 1913, and an extension from the 1980’s decade. The project deals with the refurbishment of the two main buildings, the construction of an extension mainly to receive the archives, and the creation of a landscape area and 5 parking places.
The new extension is located at the West edge of the historical building. It is composed of 4 levels, situated at the same level as the existing floors. The archives, the relaxing room for the staff, one of the meeting room and a local garbage are on the lowest floor. At the ground floor, there are an extension of the council room and a planted terrace. Above, in the upper levels, there are offices. The entire program in the new building relies on 332 square meters SHON. A cladding of metallic panels overlays the new extension, contrasting with the traditional materials of the existing buildings mainly in stone or in masonry with a light colored coating.
In the two existing buildings, the exterior façades are preserved. The refurbishment of the existing City Hall is based on a reorganization of the various rooms and an optimization of the circulations inside the building, through the creation of a new staircase. The new organization of the spaces includes a large council room, the marriage room, the municipality room, numerous offices and meeting room, and amenities (storage, toilets, etc). About the circulations, the new staircase is located at the junction between the historical building and its first extension, which allows linking the buildings and answering the standard fire reglementation (not up to standard before the project). The existing joineries are filed and replaced by new double glazed windows in timber, identical to the previous ones in terms of shape, composition and material. The colorful stained glass from the existing building are filed too and then re-integrated between the two faces of the new double glazed windows.
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This week, OMA has unveiled their latest project in London, Holland Green. Working alongside Allies & Morrison, the firm has created three new luxury residential buildings on a site of significant cultural importance: the former home of the Commonwealth Institute, designed by Sir Robert Matthew, one of the founding partners of RMJM. As a result, OMA and Allies & Morrison’s Holland Green project involved much more than just adding fuel to the fire of London’s booming luxury residential market—it also involved an extensive conversion to the original 1962 Commonwealth Institute exhibition hall, funded through the scheme’s profitable residential offering, to prepare the heritage building for its new tenants the Design Museum.
ArchDaily spoke with Reinier de Graaf, the partner in charge of the project at OMA, to discuss the development’s social aspirations, the challenges of the London context, and the story behind the project.
Rory Stott:How did the financing model—with luxury residential housing subsidizing needed renovations on a heritage building—come about? Who originally proposed it?
Reinier de Graaf: The building had been empty since 2002. There was a proposal to de-list the whole thing—of course the nature of the government attempt to de-list was to get rid of it so that the whole site could be redeveloped—that didn’t make it. However, it was also clear that in its current state the building would remain a ruin, so that wasn’t in anybody’s advantage.
When we came along it was interesting. The whole site was listed. The main exhibition hall was a Grade II* listed building, the service wing which intersected it was a Grade II* building as well, and the landscape around the building was a registered landscape designed by Sylvia Crowe. In the state in which we found it, it was a rather derelict car park, but nevertheless it had a heritage status as well. The whole site, and all buildings on it had a heritage status, and you couldn’t do anything.
The gamble the developer took was to say that we will keep part of the listed complex, namely the main exhibition hall with its particular roof, and we would demolish the service wing and the registered landscape. From the get go the whole idea was a combination of new buildings and the restoration of the old buildings, and that was always the financing model.
The details of that financing model changed during the course of the process. When we started there was no prospective user for the building, so to imagine new types of use was part of our commission. We made a number of scenarios for the building, imagined it as the headquarters of London’s Google operations, we imagined a Prada store in it, or a Prada exhibition at one point—a number of our existing clients as potential users. That was a lot of phantasmagoria, but while we were doing that, the word got out that we were working on it and the Design Museum came into play.
Now once a user was on board, it became a rather different ballgame. One can’t really call a building a refurbishment beyond a certain point, it really turned into a conversion. We had to do that because Avery Associates had done something earlier in the decade, a mild refurbishment but it was clear that a mild refurbishment simply wouldn’t bring the building back to life. Of course, interestingly, the best way to preserve a building is to give it a new use, an authentic new use—rather than simply maintaining it as a ruin.
Anyway, we went to work with the Design Museum and in the course of the process what started as a refurbishment became a conversion. It practically became designing a replica. Because with the exception of the roof and its supporting structure, practically every other element of the building has been made new: the building has new floors to accommodate a new layout with a bigger load-bearing capacity; the building has new facades to comply with contemporary technical and environmental standards; the facade has been opened, it used to be all block work and the only light in was from the top, now two of the facades allow light in as well. It’s essentially a completely different building that looks exactly like the old. And of course it became a replica with all these associated costs. The nature of the deal, whereby the cost for the preservation of a historic building—the whole financial picture changed in the course of the process. The London housing market did as well.
The principle was maintained and the way it was conceived from the start, although I think the associated sums changed in the course of the years.
RS:You wrote two texts about the project, one in 2009 and one in 2016, just recently. How was the local context of Kensington, and the context of London and even wider changed in the last 7 years?
RdG: Asking me about the London context is soliciting a very long answer. But I’ll try to be brief. My first ever job was in London, I lived in London in the 80s and the early 90s. I have a history with London, within OMA, that goes back as early as 2004 or 2003 I believe. And in my more recent experience as well, it’s a different London than I remember, the London I first went to. But even in the course of this project, the context has changed quite a lot.
Clearly this is a difficult project. A vast amount of people in Kensington and Chelsea would have liked to see nothing happen. They were quite happy to keep the park, they were quite happy to keep the ruin in the park—a lot of people in that borough had a lot of time to mingle and pay a lot of attention to the project, so it was by no means an easy project. I think it won by the narrowest possible majority of votes in the council to get planning permission. But strangely, 8 years on, the whole mood around the project has changed immensely. People now see that we’ve been quite respectful towards the old building, that the old building is coming to life, everybody is very excited about the Design Museum opening and a lot of its fierce opponents from years ago have now developed into staunch advocates of the project.
In a way, that is indicative for me of the planning context in London. As a European, you are used to working in a context where the rules are set from the outset. But in England the whole planning system is a form of negotiation. It’s based on negotiation with the private sector, where there are public authorities who have largely relinquished the initiative of development to private parties, such as was the case here, since it was a developer that brings a monument back to life. But in doing that, you get a very different process. The rules aren’t as clear from the outset. You go in and you design your way out of a problem; you negotiate the boundaries that you can cross. You build a bit more development but then you have to give something back for the council. You do residential blocks but then you have to restore a monument. Designing a project in England is as much a form of campaigning as it is a form of architecture.
If I personally think anything is great about this project, I think that that whole process has been conducted masterfully, like a game of chess that went on for 8 years with a good result.
RS: The new residential buildings fit, certainly in terms of their orientation and scale—they very much mesh with the existing building. But in terms of design language they are very different. Would you mind telling us about the idea behind that design language?
RdG: The buildings were meant to be neutral, orthogonal, rectangular, 90-degree corners only. And they were like that deliberately so that they would offer a contrast to the curvature of the roof. I always say they are the “graph paper” against which the amplitude of the curve registers. They’re deliberately designed as a setting for the old building. This is an ensemble of four buildings, one of which is old, is the largest and is the main piece. And the other three are setting and set pieces at the same time. That is the game we play. The language was designed to highlight the curvature of the roof. But the orientation of the cubes conformed to the orientation of the old building, so the old building would become part of the ensemble.
The scale of each new building varies because they are three cubes, all of a different size and it actually varies according to its position in the city so that, in terms of scale, it responds to the immediate surroundings—like the higher 60s Park Close buildings, the middle one is the mansion blocks in the front and the smallest building is clearly the building on the park.
RS:In the text you wrote most recently, at the beginning of it you allude to the rising price of living in London and the housing crisis that is happening there. While this is not a criticism of what you’ve done with the cultural building that is there, the residential buildings that you’ve included don’t focus on affordable housing.
RdG: Well, they are affordable to people with a lot of money (laughs). I can be blatantly clear about that. There was an affordable component in the beginning, but the complexity of the restoration of the monument was such that that quickly became the trade-off. That became the deal, and the amount of money that has gone into that in a way is larger than any profit concession would have been had we been forced to do affordable buildings. That was negotiated again with the council; the buildings had to be luxury development in order to pay for the restoration. That was simply part of the financial picture.
But having said that, I do think it’s interesting that for once, a luxury residential project serves a purpose beyond profit alone. And in a very directly visible way, on the site itself—not on some remote side of the borough—on the site itself there is evidence of what these profits have been spent on, and it’s something for everybody. I must say that I’ve written quite a lot in articles about London’s property market—not necessarily always favorable. But the fact that we managed to do the two things here, and for me the project is really residential and what the residential enabled in terms of cultural building and preservation. As a whole it makes the project, and also makes it interesting to me as a project. Without that cultural component, my conscience would probably trouble me a little bit more.
The Global Arts Affairs Foundation (GAA), in collaboration with PLANE—SITE, is releasing a series of video interviews with architects to be shown as part of the TIME SPACE EXISTENCE Exhibition at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale. At the start of Denise Scott Brown‘s interview, the architect declares,”I’ve fought to make buildings useful and beautiful, and in that order.” In her segment, Scott Brown elaborates on the need for architects to consult multiple precedents to be most effective, the view that photography has become a sub-discipline of architecture, and her position as a role model for young female architects. For her complete perspective, watch Scott Brown’s interview, and read on for a complete list of the other interviewees.
Denise Scott Brown (USA) calls upon young architects to grasp the present moment
The videos, each approximately five minutes, mix theoretical and philosophical concerns with personal trajectories of the architects, yielding discussions on where architecture has been and where it is going. According to the organizers, the interviews as a whole “[are meant to] offer a discursive response to Alejandro Aravena’s theme for the 2016 Architecture Biennale, Reporting from the Front.”
The project will be on view at the Palazzo Bembo and Palazzo Mora from May 28, 2016 through November 27, 2016. The interviews which have been released thus-far are available for viewing here and on the PLANE—SITE’s Vimeo channel.
Interview descriptions have been culled from the The Global Arts Affairs Foundation.
