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This article is part of our new “Material Focus” series, which asks architects to elaborate on the thought process behind their material choices and sheds light on the steps required to get buildings actually built.
In the Catalan countryside, on the outskirts of the small town of Alforja, sits an incongruous sight: among the scattered stone masia houses is a structure of steel and glass, a resolutely rectilinear box among the traditional housing forms. But once inside the OE House, designed by Fake Industries Architectural Agonism and Aixopluc, one realizes that the building is not so different to its neighbors after all: on the upper floor, the roof incorporates a system of ceramic vaults taken almost directly from traditional vernacular design. This feature then combines with plywood and OSB to create a truly eclectic material pallette. We spoke with the design’s architects, David Tapias of Aixopluc and Cristina Goberna and Urtzi Grau of Fake Industries Architectural Agonism, to find out what lay behind these unusual material choices.
What were the principal materials used in the project?
As the OEs initial demand was to build two houses—one for summer, one for winter—one on top of the other, it was clear from the start that we would need a totally different material scope in both environments. In the summer house we used really cheap materials, such as OSB and polycarbonate, so we could save money for the winter abodes, where catalan ceramic vaults and okume plywood boards define the intimacy necessary for the colder season. However, the main material for the summer house is air current. For the winter floor, it was the heat of the sun.
In terms of materials, what were your biggest sources of inspiration and influence when selecting what the project would ultimately be made of?
For this particular project the influences were both totally off site—the weight and roughness of the Maison Jaoul and the lightness and openess of the first Case Study Houses—and totally on site—the surroundings and masias, ceramic bricks made by hand in a nearby furnace, and upcycling soil from the excavation for the green roof—at the same time.
Describe how material decisions factored into concept design.
The big economic crisis in Spain was paradoxically an opportunity to expand material options, as you must always have at least two “A plans” for each construction solution, in order to accept accidents and unforeseen events. If material A1 is not available, we use material A2. If the company that was going to build system A3 has shut down, we will use system A4. This has allowed the house not only to survive the slow and sometimes hard construction process, but actually to improve during these uncertain times.
What were the advantages that these materials offered in the construction of the project?
First of all, again, availability. Using standard materials has been key during the economic crisis when stock shortage is an issue. Second, proximity. We chose nearby non-standard or handmade materials sources, so we could be part of the production process.
Did you consider any other possible materials for the project, and if so how would that have changed the design?
At the early stages, each concept has an associated material system. At some point we were thinking about building the winter and summer houses with two independent structure systems, exploring an impossible continuity between them. As the project moved on, some of them were discarded, and we developed thin steel frames that contained both opposing environments.
How did you research and select providers or contractors for the materials used in your project?
Our materials, providers and contractors search was simultaneous. We started from the local ones, and if they were not available, we moved further until we found the right one.
OE House / Fake Industries Architectural Agonism + Aixopluc
See the project in full on ArchDaily.
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From the architect. The basic materials for this home are those used in traditional simple rectangular cottages with gable roofs found on the region’s mountain roads. The design of wooden structures on top of plinths is another of marvel in the region. This combination was rarely used in traditional buildings. The upper structure rests casually on the stone plinth. In this home the upper wooden structure is cantilevered over the stone plinth as if an avalanche had moved it.
The plot of land has its aspect to the West affording a panoramic view of the valley. A local road provides access to the parking area near the house on the northwestern border of the plot.
The entire plot of land is quite rocky and there is a prominent rock formation in the southwest corner that provides a beautiful view of the entire region. There are several small boulders “scattered” here and there.
The requisite covered vestibule on the ground floor provides protection from bad weather. Next to the vestibule there is an unheated storage area, hall, toilet, small kitchen and a living room that can be configured in various ways connected to a covered terrace. The terrace features large shutters for comfort in the winter.
There is a utility staircase leading from the main living space to the basement workroom and the attic, where there are three bedrooms and a bathroom.
The facade of the house is made of interlaced vertical larch planks that were left to weather naturally. The window frames, shades, and metal roof are coal gray. Local stones decorate the outside of the plinth. The white shutters lined with cement planks are decorative. We used this color in keeping with traditional wooden homes in the area so the home would blend in with the surroundings.
Timber in a variety of forms and finishes is used extensively in the interior. The large sliding and solid walls are made of spruce. The floor in the main living space is made of brushed oak planks. Under the panoramic window in the interior there is a long bench leading all the way to the covered terrace. The fireplace at the center of the home and main living room heats the ground floor as well as the attic.
The belief that a building can both blend in and stand out at the same time is embodied by the Lois and Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art (CAC), located in Cincinnati. Though it’s heavy volumetric massing makes it appear as an independent and impenetrable sculptural element, the Rosenthal Center is in fact designed to pull the city in – past its walls and up, toward the sky. This inherent dynamism is well-suited to a gallery which does not hold a permanent collection, and is situated at the heart of a thriving Midwestern city.
The center, founded in 1939, was one of the first institutions of contemporary visual art in the United States.[1] Since the 1960s, the CAC’s galleries were housed in the second floor of a commercial development in downtown Cincinnati. This was exceptional in a time when most contemporary art facilities were situated on the outskirts of the American city; unfortunately, despite its central location, the CAC was virtually invisible from the street. Discussions about a new, dedicated building for the center began in the late 1980s, ultimately leading to a design competition in 1997.[2]
From an initial 97 submissions, the CAC narrowed their choices to 12 semi-finalists, and eventually to three finalists: Daniel Libeskind, Bernard Tschumi, and Zaha Hadid. Each finalist was asked to produce a concept booklet showing not a physical design, but the conceptual approach that they would take. Hadid proposed organizing the museum into a number of independent gallery volumes, all suspended from a warped concrete plane. These functional elements would inform not only the massing of the new museum, but its exterior appearance as well. The proposal was intriguing enough that on March 4, 1998, the CAC formally declared Zaha Hadid victorious.[3]
The site chosen by the CAC was a busy street corner at the heart of downtown Cincinnati. It lay along a pedestrian route running from the nearby Fountain Square to the Aronoff Center for the Arts across the street, ensuring a constant flow of people. It was this pedestrian dynamism that encouraged Hadid to develop the “Urban Carpet,” one of the Rosenthal Center’s two defining design gestures.[4]
The “Urban Carpet” is Hadid’s method of bringing the fabric of the city within the museum’s walls. The ground level lobby is fully glazed and open to public egress, inviting pedestrians to treat the space as an enclosed public square; this serves to situate the Rosenthal Center in the existing network of public spaces and paths, allowing it to operate as a vital urban node and effectively solving the issue of visibility faced by the former gallery facility. The concrete floor of the lobby is connected to the rear wall of the museum by an upward curve, transforming the two into a continuous surface that conceptually draws the urban fabric up from the lobby and into the gallery spaces suspended above.[5]
While the “Urban Carpet” concept informed the design of the ground level, the gallery spaces were driven by another idea: the “Jigsaw Puzzle.” Hadid used the term to illustrate the complex arrangement of differently-sized concrete volumes that house the gallery spaces of the center; the variegated intersections between the volumes and the voids between them could be viewed as a three-dimensional puzzle. The logic behind this massing strategy was simple: as contemporary art can take a variety of forms and sizes, contemporary art galleries must be equally as varied. Therefore, Hadid designed the gallery volumes to vary considerably in length, height, and lighting conditions – an architectural solution for virtually any artistic contingency.[6]
As visually distinct as the “Urban Carpet” and the “Jigsaw Puzzle” are, the circulation connecting the two had to be equally dramatic. The primary means of vertical egress is a series of stair-ramps running back and forth along the rear wall of the museum; the zigzag path of the stairs runs all the way from the ground floor to the uppermost level of the building.[7] Each flight of stairs, wrought of steel and painted black, weighs 15 tons – the maximum weight the cranes used for construction could lift. The entire stair space is lit by skylights on the roof, the light filtering all the way down to the ground level.[8]
Hadid chose not to hide her design strategies within a simplified shell, but to display them openly. The result is two distinct façades, each of which reveals a different aspect of the center’s interior. The south façade, comprising the longer faces of the gallery volumes, expresses the building program through three material choices: glazing, concrete, and black metal panel. The east façade relies not on material, but on massing, with its topography of concrete faces revealing the complex arrangement of gallery volumes within the center.[9]
When the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art opened its doors to the public in 2003, it was more than just a new exhibition space for the Contemporary Arts Center. With the center’s opening, Zaha Hadid became the first woman to ever design an American art museum.[10] The Rosenthal Center itself was, and remains, one of the largest and most dynamic contemporary art galleries in the United States – a fitting home for one of the country’s most distinguished institutions in the field.
References
[1] “Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art.” Zaha Hadid Architects. Accessed May 3, 2016. [access]
[2] Desmarais, Charles. “Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati.” In Zaha Hadid Space for Art, edited by Markus Dochantschi, 21-31. Baden: Lars Müller Publishers, 2004. p22-23.
[3] Desmarais, p24-26.
[4] Noever, Peter, ed. Zaha Hadid Architektur. Vienna: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2003. p125-126.
[5] Noever, p126.
[6] Dochantschi, Markus, ed. Zaha Hadid Space for Art. Baden: Lars Müller Publishers, 2004. p46.
[7] Dochantschi, p54.
[8] Jodidio, Philip. Zaha Hadid: Hadid: Complete Works 1979-2009. Köln: Taschen, 2009. p167.
[9] Noever, p127.
[10] Jodidio, p167.
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From the architect. MegaMind – an architectural interpretation of the brain. Tekniska Museet was awarded Swedish museum of the year 2016.
Our vision for the architecture of MegaMind is based on an interpretation of our human brain. From the entrance, the visitor passes through an ear into a grid-patterned intermediate space, a communication hub where digital impulses flow and information is sent and received.
In the main hall, two imposing volumes rise ten meters up toward the ceiling – one taut and stiff, the other soft and undulating. They are connected by bridges across which people flow back and forth. The visitor is hit by a “wow” feeling and is drawn into an enticing and imaginative world that inspires a desire and a curiosity to learn, explore and create.
“Form-wise, we were inspired by the appearance and features of the brain, but as regards the content, we’ve tried to remain freer. For example, we have not divided the stations up according to the right and left hemispheres of the brain”, explains Albert France-Lanord. “Our total solution is based on desire, intuition and interactivity. We mix high-tech with low-fi experiments, bodily experiences with logistical challenges – everything to give the visitor an experience that’s as pleasurable and enriching as possible.”
MegaMind’s two spatial volumes are split across two levels and connected by stairs, corridors and a lift (with a space travel theme). Dynamism and variation are generated by larger, open surfaces interspersed with smaller enclosed rooms to create a boundary-crossing whole. A shared space between the volumes gives an overview of the entire room’s width and depth.
The two monumental, organically shaped walls that greet the visitor at the entrance to MegaMind are one of the science centre’s architectural hallmarks. These were a key part of our vision, but they proved technically challenging to implement.
“After a lot of research, we found the boat builder Thore Berntsson in Kungälv who built the walls of the element out of fibreglass. They were later transported here where they were joined together”, says Albert France-Lanord.
We have also been deeply involved as architects in the artistic content and design of MegaMind’s 43 stations.
“For the stations we chose a playful, slightly retro-futuristic expression using strong, bright colours and genuine, honest, hard-wearing materials.”
A key concept expressed in the architectural competition brief issued by the National Museum of Science and Technology for MegaMind was “accessibility” – in all senses of the word. MegaMind has been designed and meticulously conceived down to the minutest detail in order to maximise accessibility and convenience for all our visitors – both large and small, and with varying degrees of functionality. The facility has also been designed to be able to withstand heavy wear and tear from what will undoubtedly be high visitor numbers.
“It was a very exciting and interesting brief and we’ve learned an enormous amount along the way, working together with the Museum”, says France-Lanord. “We started the work by conducting a large number of interviews with different groups of people and visitors. Another difficult challenge was that the centre had to appeal to such a broad audience – children aged three to fifteen. This sociological entry into architecture has interested me a lot ever since my school days.”
“I also want to stress how successful our cooperation with the Museum has been and how close to the original vision the end result is”, he adds. “This hardly ever happens in an industry where we often have to compromise a whole lot. Here, we’ve succeeded in going all the way thanks to the strength of the Museum’s vision and their commitment.”
In the MegaMind project, we at Albert France-Lanord Architects initially worked with two external partners. Astrid Linnér, set designer and soon to become a fully qualified architect, worked as a consultant, mostly on the stations, while Alex Olwal, Ph.D. and researcher within interaction at MIT, KTH and now Google X, collaborated with us on the technical solutions at the various stations.
MegaMind is the Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology’s biggest- ever investment and one of the largest in Swedish museum history. The total budget for the project is SEK 80 million.
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