Following the news last week that the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art will abandon plans for their Chicago location, OMA has released images of their proposal for the museum, which had been beaten out in the original competition by MAD Architects‘ Volcano-like entry. OMA’s design attempts to preserve as much of the lakefront park space as possible, lifting the majority of gallery and educational spaces into the air and capping them with a sky garden enclosed within an ETFE envelope. The plan would have offered up to 8 times more public space than the footprint it occupies.
Courtesy of OMA New York
Courtesy of OMA New York
OMA’s proposal was inspired by its site’s history of sky-reaching structures. During the 1933 World Exposition, it was home to Skyride, an aerial tramway supported by two 628 foot (191 meter) tall towers. Drawing from the ambition of the towers, OMA’s Lucas Museum features cables extending from the building’s peak to the edges and key points within the gallery plate, suspending it in mid-air. The entire structure has been rotated 45 degrees to provide direct lake and downtown views and create clear entries from surrounding pathways.
Courtesy of OMA New York
The core of the museum has been filled with vertical gallery spaces that support the elevated horizontal gallery plate, kept as open as possible for maximum flexibility. On top of the horizontal gallery, the ETFE-enveloped sky garden provides display space for artifacts and serves as a social space that is freely accessible to the public.
The ETFE membrane is fritted so it can be used as a screen for projections from both inside and outside the structure. This allows the building skin to become an interactive part of the museum experience from within, and serve as an outdoor cinema for the park. Theater and lecture halls are included in the tower’s base, allowing for separate entrances to the museum and sky park. The park and gallery levels are accessible by a series of escalators, with an event space and observation deck connected by a elevator bank.
Courtesy of OMA New York
The surrounding park space is designed to be as flexible as possible, which would allow the area to continue serving as a tailgating area for Chicago Bears games at the adjacent Soldier Field. The park could have also become the setting for a range of new public events and activities, framing the building as the backdrop for the city’s cultural loop.
Courtesy of OMA New York
The Lucas Museum is currently searching for sites in California.
International architecture non-profit Shelter Global has announced the winners of its second annual Dencity Competition, which highlights innovative solutions to improve living conditions for slum dwellers worldwide.
With over one billion people living in slums today, and this number expected to reach two billion by 2030, the Dencity Competition called architects and planners to “consider how design can empower communities and allow for a self-sufficient future.” Thus, the competition is a way to foster new ideas about how growing density in unplanned cities can be addressed.
The winners of the second annual Dencity Competition are:
First Place: Jai Bhadgaonkar and Ketaki Tare; Mumbai
First Place: Jai Bhadgaonkar and Ketaki Tare; Mumbai. Image Courtesy of Shelter Global
First Place: Jai Bhadgaonkar and Ketaki Tare; Mumbai. Image Courtesy of Shelter Global
First place was awarded to Jai Bhadgaonkar and Ketaki Tare from Mumbai. Their project, Versova Koliwada, aims to address critical issues relevant to the design of the Koliwada community. They propose incorporating floatation devices that would positively impact the mangroves and coral in that area. The base of a floating island can be created by tying the bottles into plastic nets and attaching them to wooden boards. Jury member, Katie Crepeau, states that “the proposal has a deep understanding of the not only the local community but it’s wider connection to the city of Mumbai in social, economic and political contexts.”
Second Place: Lauren Brosius; Philadelpia University
Second Place: Lauren Brosius; Philadelpia University. Image Courtesy of Shelter Global
Second Place: Lauren Brosius; Philadelpia University. Image Courtesy of Shelter Global
Second place was awarded to Lauren Brosius, a recent graduate of Philadelphia University. Her project, Incremental Alex, focuses on the Alexandra Township in Johannesburg which is one of the poorest urban areas in the country. Her proposal revolves around the idea of refocusing RPD funding toward improving the infrastructure rather than just building homes. By providing residents with basic infrastructure it allows them a way out of the poverty cycle as well as brings growth and formality to a very informal situation. Jury member, Julia King believes the project was a “very good analysis of a deprived and peripheral neighborhood combined with a sound proposal for how to incrementally develop housing.”
Third Place: Amira Abdel-Rahman, Gabriel Muñoz Moreno, Santiago Serna Gonzalez; Harvard University
Third Place: Amira Abdel-Rahman, Gabriel Muñoz Moreno, Santiago Serna Gonzalez; Harvard University. Image Courtesy of Shelter Global
Third Place: Amira Abdel-Rahman, Gabriel Muñoz Moreno, Santiago Serna Gonzalez; Harvard University. Image Courtesy of Shelter Global
Third place was awarded to the team of Amira Abdel-Rahman, Gabriel Muñoz Moreno, Santiago Serna Gonzalez from Harvard. Their entry chooses to address the ventilation of slums. They focus on retrofitting existing slums and improving their thermal performance through a passively powered space conditioning system. Peter William’s from Archive Global notices that this project is “tackling one of the most pressing issues in informal settlements, offering a radical solution.”
Learn more about the winners, as well as six special mentions, here.
Lava Team: Alexander Rieck, Tobias Wallisser, Chris Bosse
Project Architects: Nuno Galvao, Matthijs la Roi, Stephan Markus Albrecht, Sebastian Schott, Mariusz Polski
Design Team: Marvin Bratke, Mircea Mogan, Barbora Srpkova, Miroslav Strigac, Diana Schlebe, Rashmi Katkar, Roxelane Güllmeister, Paolo Alborghetti, Ruis Dervishi, Aida Ramirez, Julian Wengzinek, Benjamin Hitscherich, Simone Tchonova, Erik Didar, Jeroen van Lith, David Stieler
From the architect. Golden light shines through a canopy of leaves to create a unique gathering space in the atrium of the new Philips Lighting headquarters in Eindhoven.
Intelligent lights in the parametric designed ‘tree’ generate different scenarios, boosting communication, interchange and wellbeing for staff and visitors.
LAVA, with partners INBO and JHK, designed the adaptation of the mid 20th century building for the new headquarters. The aim was to design public and work spaces that embrace the innovative, people-centric values of lighting technology company Philips.
“The atrium, originally the central courtyard of the 1950s building, was designed as a place of welcome, way finding, branding and staff interaction, and therefore had to be strong spatially,” said LAVA director Alexander Rieck.
The atrium also brings people together by congregating core activities such as exhibitions, meeting rooms, coffee bar, public talks and staff meetings, and is also the entrance to the new Philips Lighting Application Centre.
Staff and visitors are greeted in the central atrium by LAVA’s huge parametrically designed interactive light ‘tree’ comprised of 1500 ‘leaves’, hanging pyramidal panels suspended from the ceiling. The concept is of light filtering through trees.
Diagram
Covering the whole atrium ceiling the sculpture demonstrates the behaviour of light, both natural and artificial: reflection, diffusion and emission.
“Light was obviously the main driver but LAVA’s design goes beyond just showcasing technical solutions – it explores a deeper understanding of the nature of light. Light is only visible to the human eye when it reflects on something, so the sculpture gives shape and visibility to light,” added Rieck.
Section
“Light is used for information, visualization, emotion and enabling – our tool to create a volume of space.” Mr Rieck explained: “The sun gives our sense of time. Working in an office means people miss the subtle light changes during the day. So LAVA programmed the panels using low-level artificial intelligence to create daily light scenarios in an organic and non-repetitive way for the whole calendar year. Scenarios respond to different seasons, times of the day and the architectural layout of the atrium space and are used to activate or relax the users throughout the day.”
“It’s a bit like an ecosystem, with light effects turning golden, for example, as an energy boost in the morning.” A reflective surface on the back of each panel creates a play of light and shadow. It also filters and reflects natural light from the atrium side windows and skylights.
Five hundred panels use self-emitting Philips Ecophon Soundlight – an integral product that consists of comfortable LED lighting with sound absorption in an integrated light and acoustic ceiling system. “We know from Fraunhofer Institute research that generating different lighting effects is a cost effective way to bring variety and productivity to the lives of workers who quickly become oblivious to their surroundings, no matter how attractive.”
“The iconic design not only gives visitors an amazing experience and a transition from the entrance to offices and the LAC, but also reflects this innovative and forward-thinking company,” he added. The offices were designed to foster creativity with a more flexible and efficient use of space. Spaces were designed to encourage informal ‘accidental’ interactions, known to be a key enhancer of success in R&D businesses.
Special environments were created for different work situations – from concentration to communication, activation to relaxation. Other factors such as variable visual fields, perceived security, acoustics, smell, lighting, materials and textures contribute to an effective and harmonious work environment, which meets the highest standards of the innovative workspace layout WPI (work place innovation).
Plan
Plan
The design was developed using the latest workspace research and Philip’s experience with recent fit-out experiments plus an intensive cycle of interviews and design meetings involving the end users and building management.
The Ganges River is India’s largest and most densely populated water basin. A lifeline to millions of people and carrying enormous celestial significance, the river is also severely polluted and suffers from dramatic droughts and floods. Vere van Gool spoke with Anthony Acciavatti to discuss the decade he spent navigating the Ganges and the new reading he was able to construct of this sacred river.
Vere van Gool:How did your journey begin?
Anthony Acciavatti: I’ve always been interested in the relationship between rivers and cities. It’s something of a romance really. I grew up not far from the Mississippi river and after doing some mappings of the Tiber river in relationship to the city of Rome, I came back to the States and finished my undergraduate thesis where I was looking at the Atchafalaya basin of south New Orleans, designing from the scale of mosquito habitats to the regional hydrodynamics of the Mississippi. While working on my thesis, I became very interested in looking into a large river system and noticed that the Ganges hadn’t been mapped in about fifty years. All I could find were statistics attesting to its unprecedented levels of human density, agricultural production, and annual rainfall. So I wrote a Fulbright proposal in 2004, saying: if you give me a year, I will walk the land and create what I called a dynamic atlas of how the monsoon radically transforms this area every year.
VvG:What happened when you started the project, when you arrived in India?
AA: I was hoping that I would find maps at universities or from the Survey of India, at least maps that were more recent than the 1960s. But I couldn’t find any, and when I would ask, a lot of times I would be questioned as to whether or not I was CIA. Stunned, I assured them I wasn’t but I never got to see any maps. So I had to really do what I proposed, to ‘walk the land’ and start developing guerilla tactics of mapping how cities and farms in this river basin change with the monsoon.
VvG: ‘Walk the land’?
AA: I’ve literally walked or boated two-thirds of the length of the Ganges river with just a handheld GPS and digital camera. So I was photographing and developing panoramas of these areas that I was walking, using a GPS to locate those areas in perspective then redrawing plans and sections from photographs. Before I left for India, my grandmother told me: “Just remember, you only walk this way once.” That was something that really stuck in my mind. I really only had one shot to do this and fill each day with as much as I could.
VvG: What was the larger goal of this research?
AA: The larger goal was to map the choreography of water, soil, and settlement in relationship to the rhythms of the monsoons. By creating measured drawings I was hoping that other people would use this dynamic atlas to hallucinate alternative futures for this area, so it was always about creating a set of dynamics representation that could form the basis for design and engineering projects. I also started this work just as Katrina happened in New Orleans. There is so much we can learn from the Ganges in terms of living with dynamic rivers so that we don’t have a kind of repeat of what happened in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Mississippi. The Ganges basin undergoes dramatic droughts and floods, sometimes both in the same year. Many people there are very used to having to deal with capricious rainfall patterns. So I think there’s a lot that we can learn about how people negotiate and live in a terrain like that, for other parts of the world as well.
VvG: How did technology influence your methodology?
AA: One of the reasons I proposed to go out and undertake all this fieldwork was that when I wrote the Fulbright proposal, Google Earth was just launched and it was still extremely low resolution for India. There’s a long history in India of maps being highly contested, which has continued with satellite imagery, too. I think we need to think about how we develop a technique of mapping that is more attuned to the social and environmental conditions that permeate this monsoonal landscape.
VvG:Most people know the Ganges through photos depicting either religious rituals or filth. Yet you used abstract tools such as line-drawings to represent the Ganges in your research. How does drawing allow one to see different things than photographs?
AA: There are lots of private moments that happen on the river, and I’m not interested in being a voyeur. There are actually a lot of people portrayed in my book undertaking various activities over the course of a day, month, or year: from animal husbandry, mining sand from the riverbed, building temporary cities, performing pujas (acts of worship), farming, and boating. I tried to show the mixed use that is happening throughout the Ganges basin and represent the conflicts and the convergences of land and water.
There is certainly a distinct visual profile that I construct of the Ganges, but within that there is plenty of space for people to create their own narratives. Maybe not everyone has gotten that, but some have. I felt it was important for readers to have their own visual experience with the river, rather than me just telling them about mine.
AA: The drawings that I made show two types of time: how the basin has developed over the last two hundred years (historical time) and how the basin changes annually with the monsoons (cyclical time). Cartographic drawing is one way to go about documenting change; not just how a riverbed expands and contracts in plan and section due to the monsoons, but also how tanks, lakes, and groundwater are also tied to the rhythms of the monsoon. All of these drawings are measured in relationship to a single solar cycle, so I use the equinoxes and solstices to mark time and register spatial, political, and social changes. I map these changes photographically as well, so one can see not just how the river changes over the course of a single year, but how people in cities and farms adapt to these changes and incorporate them into their daily lives.
So for example, at the city of Allahabad, I’ve spent nearly a decade drawing and photographing how the Triveni Sangam, the site where the ‘largest gathering of humanity’ takes places every twelve years – the Kumbh Mela – goes from a densely populated gridded tent city to agricultural fields and pastures. Every year during the month of Magh (January-February) Allahabad hosts Magh Mela and erects a temporary city for millions of people to bathe at the confluence of the Ganges, Jamuna, and Saraswati rivers. Streets are laid out in a grid, pontoon bridges connect the banks of the Ganges with sandbars, and plumbing is laid to supply water for millions of pilgrims. Once the festival is over and the tents are gone, the grid of the city remains tattooed into the land. Farmers repurpose the grid to plant and harvest crops. When the monsoon comes in June-July though, everything is washed away. The following year the process repeats. This is a microcosm of the kind of cyclical changes that happen all throughout the Ganges basin every year.
Calendar Art depicting sacred bathing, 2005. Author: Unknown
VvG:A river changes so much during even just its daily cycle, not to mention seasonally. Could you expand upon how drawings of a dynamic river that continuously changes shape can be factual like an atlas?
AA: On one level, the approach I took is very empirical in terms of documenting the landscape. I chose specific sites either because of their geographic position, density of settlement, or agriculture. I routinely went back to document these same sites, so I was able to see, photograph, and then map out in plan and section how they transformed with the rhythms of the monsoons. But I also developed my own instruments to map and compare soil structures; you can tell just by the size of the grain of soil how that river is moving and what it was carrying.
VvG: What sorts of instruments did you make?
AA: One of the instruments I created I call the ‘surface accumulation sleeve’, which is where I unroll packing tape along the ground for one kilometer perpendicular to the river’s edge. Soil, but also petrified human shit, hair, flowers, and other debris adhere to the tape, creating an index of the interrelation between the ground and cultural conditions in the area. I then scan that kilometer-long strip, disaggregate the soil sizes in Photoshop, and finally map out their distribution so as to know how that river expands and contracts over the course of the year.
VvG:In this process of inventing your own tools, and obviously mapping the unmapped, has there been any room for fiction?
AA: I wouldn’t say these tools I developed are fictive, but they certainly test the subjectivity of measurement. Usually when I talk about this work I show Marcel Duchamp’s 3 Standard Stoppages and how he was able to construct an infinite number of meters just by dropping three different pieces of string that were each one meter long, and then carving each shape into a meter stick, which are all different, and yet all technically one meter in length. I took the making of a dynamic atlas as an opportunity to explore how one goes about measuring and being very playful with it as much as trying to develop highly measured drawings that can be useful to architects, landscape architects, historians, and policymakers.
VvG: When you were doing this research, did you keep your own kind of fictional travel log?
AA: I kept a journal, but I had so many crazy things happen to me I didn’t feel the need to create fiction. Once, very early on in my research, I was mapping a canal; as I’m getting ready to make a panorama, three women approach me and from just a few meters away pull out machine guns. The first thing that comes out of my mouth in Hindi is: “आपका देश बहुत सुंदर है”, which means “your country is very beautiful”. I really had no idea why I said that – I must have just learned it in Hindi class. They looked at each other, then back at me, and just started laughing. Naxal fighters, or what the government refers to as Maoist rebels, controlled portions of the areas that I was exploring back in 2005 and 2006, and a large percentage of the fighting force is female. I have no idea if these women were Naxal fighters, but I very quickly had a sense of how contested some of the areas were that I was mapping.
VvG: In terms of territorial control and water management, who actually owns the Ganges River?
AA: Well, there are a number of ministries that oversee it; different branches of the government own it, you could say. But many people would say that ownership is contingent upon what one defines as a river, which is a very difficult thing to settle with the Ganges. Where does the river begin and where does it end? Rivers aren’t just water, but the entire riverbed ecology and beyond. The Ganges moves more silt than just about any river on earth, so land in many areas is transient. And then there’s the relationship between groundwater and the river, which really extends and challenges what is commonly thought to constitute a river. So part of my research in the dynamic atlas is an investigation into groundwater infrastructure like tube-wells, where I try to rethink the river not just as a surface body of water replenished by the monsoon, but as an underground condition as well.
VvG: In today’s neoliberal age, with a lot of private companies wanting to ‘help’, how do you see the ownership of the river changing?
AA: In the context of India, much like in all of the Commonwealth countries, landowners own rights to the water beneath their land, which limits the police powers of the state. So this has, on the one hand, led to more people managing their groundwater resources, but on the other hand a harsh socio-economic dynamic has arisen between those who have the means to pump water and those that don’t; many small family farms can’t afford to buy a tube-well. So technologies like the tube-well have assisted some in providing drinking water and irrigation, and yet it also remains out of reach for many people. As I write about in the book and elsewhere, the unregulated proliferation and decentralization of groundwater extraction can lead to devastating environmental effects in terms of rapid groundwater depletion, arsenic, salinization, etc.
VvG: Has this lack of legislation led to a quid pro quo?
AA: Even without neoliberal policies, non-existent oversight has led to a state of anarchy. Because the government does not keep records or monitor tube-wells or most pump infrastructure, if you have the means to buy and sink a tube-well, then you simply can do so – even if it causes serious environmental problems. This is why the government and NGOs have no idea how many millions of tube-wells actually exist or where they are located in India. People don’t openly show where or how many tube-wells they have, but you can hear the sound of diesel powered pumps in the morning and evening in cities like New Delhi and Varanasi, as well as in small towns and villages.
VvG: Have there been many conflicts?
AA: People are depleting their own water as well as the water underneath their neighbors land. Especially in the state of Punjab and the western regions of Uttar Pradesh there are ‘tube-well wars’ emerging where people sink deeper and deeper because the water level keeps dropping. This of course makes it more difficult for people who have limited means to access water and also creates all kinds of environmental changes to the area. Some of these ‘wars’ go to court, but in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where over 200 million people live in an area the size of Great Britain, the courts are so epically backlogged that it’s estimated to take 200 years of full-time work for the court to process all of the current cases. There are lots of reasons for this backlog, but, suffice it to say, taking legal action does not guarantee a timely outcome.
VvG: The World Bank is coming into the region with aid, and Israel is making efforts to clean up the Ganges. What is your take on these sorts of initiatives?
AA: I think they are already facing great challenges. A lot of areas in northern India don’t have electricity for more than eight hours per day, so building sewerage treatment plants to treat wastewater around the clock is not going to work. Typical hard infrastructures used for storm management will not prove feasible either because there are thousands of nalahs (drains), where most wastewater enters the river. I’ve looked at how to create soft infrastructures that could be more effective, like paying farmers with lands along these nalahs above the price they would normally get for their agriculture to maintain bioswales and wetlands. The thing is, this takes a lot of time, and in a political cycle politicians tend to favor building technological monuments like sewerage treatment plants rather than bioswales and wetlands.
VvG:Have there been examples of interventions that have worked successfully?
AA: There are some examples, like in Kolkata, where wetlands and bioswales have been put in place. These have proven successful in large part but they are always thought of as mono-functional infrastructures. Such myopic thinking is a huge problem in a densely populated context like India, and I think the Ganges river basin could be a fantastic laboratory to test and build more environmentally and socially attuned physical and social infrastructures. Transforming areas into bioswales and wetlands requires building economies, as well as starting to imagine, visualize and give measure to the dynamism of the basin. In Kolkata, you have a lot of people building homes in the wetlands and bioswales. So, again, maintaining these soft infrastructures are as important as building them.
VvG:How do you see water as a contested space or material connected to technological innovations?
AA: I’m not a technological determinist so I don’t think technology necessarily drives society and culture, but certain technologies do allow people and institutions to make changes at many scales. Things always come at a price; the Ganges canal was constructed in the first place to mitigate famine in northern India, but it also artificially raised water table levels, which is often pointed to as the cause of malaria outbreaks, as well as served as a mechanism of territorial subdivision and colonial control. Testing and developing new modes of visualizing space and environmental change can help us gain new insights into spatial and political contestation, but they certainly cannot replace judgment.
With its upcoming double symposium KotorAPSS further establishes a small Montenegrin town as an international hot spot for architectural thinking and advances the debate on decaying places of the recent past and their possible futures.
Boka Kotorska Bay cuts the Adriatic Montenegrin coast like a Norwegian Fjord. Once a hideout for pirates and smugglers it also was an important commercial trade hub and naval base.
The region once belonged to the Illyrian Kingdom, the Roman Empire and later to the Byzantine Empire. The Venetians ruled until the late 18th century, followed by the Austrians, and troops of Napoleon. From here Mediterranean cultures spread into the Balkan. Especially since UNESCO declared the natural and culture-historical region Kotor a world heritage site in 1979 the city and the bay have become an increasingly popular daytrip location for cruise ship tourism along the Adriatic coast.
While the distant past is embodied in the old town behind the thick city walls there is also a younger history that has left its traces, the recent past that manifests itself outside the historic center: Industrial developments from the first half of 20th century that have lost their uses and the empty shells of grand architectural projects built during the 1960s and 1970s in Ex-Yugoslavia when the Adriatic coast was a popular celebrity hot spot. While in Kotor local authorities sticking to the preservation of the past to further develop the cultural heritage as a consumption good for tourists that anchor in high-rise-like cruise ships in front of the city everyday. A lack of planning legislations in the past has enabled developers to scatter the landscape with their luxury look-alike all inclusive resorts.
This is the point of departure for KotorAPSS, The Architecture Prison Summer School, that seeks to redefine the approach on urban planning and design in the region. But how can the planning culture in Montenegro be positively influenced? “The simple answer is: You need to have decent architectural scene. And the most important step towards this is education,” states initiator and Montenegrin architect Dijana Vucinic. Since 2012 KotorAPSS has attracted thinkers and architecture scholars from all over the world and involved them not only in educating future architects of the Balkan region but also in forcing communication and public discussions with the intention to spark change on many levels.
KotorAPSS itself started off reactivating a massive abandoned structure at the center of the World Heritage Site that up until today resists a touristic appropriation: The former Austrian Hungarian prison from the 19th century is reflected in the summer school‘s name. Its thick cooling walls provide a unique location for focused working experience during hot Balkan summers.
Originating from the academic framework of APSS, in 2014 a curatorial team with Bostjan Vuga (Sadar+Vuga, Llubiljana), Simon Hartmann (HHF, Basel), Dijana Vucinic (DVARP, Podgorica) and German publishers Ilka and Andreas Ruby (Ruby Press, Berlin) initiated the exhibition in the Montenegrin Pavillon at the 14th Architecture Biennale di Venezia. The “Treasures in Disguise“-exhibition provided a spatial experience of the derelict ruins of the recent past, presenting them de-contextualized from their various socio-historical connotations. The Dom Revolucje (Home of Revolution) in Niksic – an oversized cultural palace originally designed in the late 1970ties but never completed – was part of the exhibition in the Palazzo Malpieri. In early 2016 the collaboration of Swiss architects HHF and Slovenian office Sadar+Vuga culminated in the winning proposal for the adaptation and reconstruction of the 22.000 square meter building as an urban landscape, suggesting a partial appropriation and re-integration into everyday life as an experimental approach to the reuse and preservation of post-modernistic socialist ruin.
The current show of this year’s Montenegrin pavilion at Venice Biennale, under the patronage of the Ministry of sustainable development and tourism and Government of Montenegro, takes up the objective to further establish and broaden the debate on decaying places of the recent past and their possible futures. With “Project Solana” commissioned by Dijana Vucinic architectural scholars Bart Lootsma and Katharina Weinberger are hosting four projects outlining different sustainable futures for the Solana Ulcinj, with a surface of 14.9 square kilometers one of the largest plants for salt production in the Mediterranean region. Lootsma and Weinberger describe the largest post-industrial landscape as “a completely artificial, man-made biotope which has taken on almost global importance as a crucial node in the migratory patterns of birds. As such, the Solana Ulcinj is the front line of all kinds of conflicts: between nature and culture; the local and the global; economy and environmental awareness.” ecoLogicStudio (London), LOLA (Rotterdam), LAAC (Innsbruck), and Marko Stjepčević and Nemanja Milićević from Podgorica developed four visionary future approaches to the site especially for the Biennale.
All four practices and the curators will participate in this year’s KotorAPSS Forum in Kotor between July 20 and 24. The double symposium „Re-Use“ and „The Debate“ continue to explore, discuss and conceptualize the reuse of abandoned and derelict buildings and places.
The discussion will be preceded by the RE-USE symposium on the 23rd of July. Participants include urbanist and researcher Haris Piplas of Urban-Think Tank, architecture offices HHF (Basel) and Sadar+Vuga (Llubiljana), architecture critic Maroje Mrduljaš, and KOSMOS architects, the “virtual office” of four Russian partners – each working for different architecture offices in Basel, New York and Moscow. With their urban make-over of an old factory site in central Moscow in summer 2015 KOSMOS demonstrated how USSR-era Moscow architecture could be creatively and cheaply revitalized. Also present is Ian Anderson of famous design practice The Designers Republic and the talk will be moderated by Luise Rellensmann, an architecture critic with a special interest in the heritage and conservation of the contemporary past and Miloš Kosec a theorist specializing in re-use approach.
THE DEBATE taking place on the 24th of July is the last of three symposiums accompanying the “Project Solana”. It will present and discuss the results of Project Solana Ulcinj for the national and international audience of KotorAPSS. THE DEBATE will be moderated by Siniša Vuković, a conflict management specialist researching various forms of international conflict resolution, negotiation and mediation.
Vuković gave an intro on the upcoming debate:
“Although it may seem counterintuitive, conflicts represent one of the most fundamental social dynamics. Based in a perception of incompatible interests, conflicts inspire social change, cultural formation, and psychological development. However, conflicts are often solely associated with a state of perplexity, due to the fact that they tend to represent volatile, unpredictable and often very destructive state of affairs. Yet, at a closer look, we can see that such circumstances are all but a rule to the norm. In fact, our everyday lives are actually a complex network of regulated conflicts. From traffic rules, to political elections, from sporting events, to urban planning, we see competing goals regulated through mutually acceptable means of communication. The source of all conflicts is a lack of information. Resulting from inability of unwillingness to acquire knowledge, the scarcity of understanding leads to a state of suspicion, mistrust and apprehension. The only remedy to such pernicious relations is open communication that can bring clarity, foster trust, and reduce uncertainty. The exchange of information will bridge the gap between those that entered the talks convinced that they are destined to be at odds. Talking will help them gain clarity about each others’ intentions, and help them realize that they have much more in common than what they initially thought. And most importantly, it will help them establish guidelines that will regulate their seemingly incompatible interests in a predictable manner. The present debate aims to provide a unique platform of communication for all societal agents interested in the future of Solana.
Solana represents an exceptional landscape, deserving a careful and meticulous consideration. Prior to the APSS debate, numerous important steps have been taken, which have raised awareness among numerous facets of society about Solana’s relevance. Architects, urban planners, landscape designers, ornithologists, members of civil society, decision-makers, and many others have emphasized unique features of Solana, in a way that often resembled mutual exclusivity. For this reason, the APSS debate will catalyze an in depth exchange of ideas how to best deal with such a complex issue as is the future of Solana. The debate will begin with the presentation of four proposals that were presented at the 15th International Exhibition of Architecture – La Biennale di Venezia, as part of the Montenegrin Pavilion. These four proposals will offer new ideas and visions on how to placate a variety of societal needs. While their scope may be very comprehensive, they will not shy away from constructive critique, in the hope of fostering sophisticated improvement and deeper sensitivity of social realities. As a result, in the second part of the debate, the four proposal will be contrasted with opinions and views coming from non-architectural spheres of life: from local communities, to wildlife preservationists, from social scientist to salt fields entrepreneurs. The variety of opinions and views, while seemingly incompatible at first, will be geared toward concrete suggestions and guidelines for future actions that will promote long-term sustainability: actions that will be inclusive of everyone’s needs, and sensitive to everyone’s expectations.”
Title: RE-USE and THE DEBATE: 3rd Symposium on Project Solana Ulcinj
From the architect. Sandy Rendel Architects has completed 142 South Street, a new house within the scenic South Downs National Park on the banks of the River Ouse in Lewes, East Sussex.
Replacing a derelict workshop on a brownfield site that historically functioned as a wharf for the old quarry and cement works behind, the house occupies a prominent position at the entrance to the town. The local planning authority aspired for a ’landmark’ building to mark the entrance to the town and stipulated a bold design. As the first building you see, it is highly visible from the approach on the A26, as well as across the river and from above on Cliffe Hill.
Ground Floor Plan
Sitting on a long and narrow strip of the riverbank overlooking the Railway Land Nature Reserve, the Corten steel clad house is set against the dramatic backdrop of white cliffs. Built off the roughcast concrete river wall, the five-bedroom home enjoys expansive views to the south and west over the river and low-lying flood plain. The chalk face of Cliffe Hill rises steeply to the east providing an imposing backdrop.
The main body of the house features a simple two-storey asymmetrical pitched roof structure whose ridge is carved away to break down its scale and reflect the contours of the cliff face behind. The simple plan arrangement has been subtly distorted at each end to draw in key views and also to provide a covered terrace at the southern end and a sheltered courtyard at the entrance, buffering the sound of the adjacent road.
Emphasising the building’s form, a simple palette of self-finished materials has been carefully selected to be robust and weather naturally, developing a character that reflects the qualities of the site and surrounding area. On the ground floor on the riverside the exposed frame is constructed of board-marked concrete echoing the tone and texture of the rugged in-situ concrete river wall below. In contrast, the street elevation features walls of handmade ash-glazed Sussex brickwork traditional to the town, which gives a softer texture and more intimate scale to the street.
Section
The roof and external first floor walls are wrapped in a continuous skin of Corten steel expanded mesh that articulates the form of the upper volume. The homogenous appearance of the surface conceals gutters, eaves and other traditional architectural elements resulting in clean, crisp detailing. Contrasting with the muted tones of the masonry base below, the decorative
Corten rainscreen weathers naturally to a striking red ochre colour with a subtle variety of tone and texture. The mesh echoes the colour of the local soft red clay brickwork and tiles, whilst still remaining distinct, alluding to the industrial heritage of the area.
Detail
The 257m2 house is entered through a small courtyard followed by an enclosed and dramatic hallway lined with blackened sawn oak boards. From here the interior opens out as you move further into the house, and walls of floor-to-ceiling frameless glass windows reveal expansive views of the river and nature reserve beyond. Developed in close collaboration with Jeremy Pitts Design, the oak wall lining and joinery continue into the open plan living space. Exploiting different treatments further emphasises the material qualities and allows for the development of patina with use over time. Complementing the oak interior, mid-grey terrazzo tiling flows throughout the ground floor and connects through the glazing to the skirt of external paving around the building.
The layout is flexible to accommodate changes as the young family grows up. The three interlinked central first floor rooms will allow different configurations over time, without physical changes to the building being required.
142 South Street is a sustainable, contemporary family home that maximises dramatic and extensive views up the river towards the centre of the town and out over the river floodplain. The distinct form and profile of the house makes a positive contribution to its surroundings and adds to the rich architectural heritage of the town.
From the architect. In the heart of the landmarked park of the Maison d’Education de la Légion d’Honneur, aligned with the former canal now filled in, the project takes the form of a bayonet grafted onto the gable awaiting an unfinished building. This composition makes it possible for each wing to have a particular relation with the site. The East wing signals the presence of the building in the perspective of the park while the West wing is turned toward the world outside.
The Maison d’Education de la Légion d’Honneur, founded on the site of the former abbey is located at the center of Saint-Denis, direct neighbor of the cathedral basilica. In this protected setting, the land allocated to the operation is located on the Cour Bayard. Its landscape compose of undergrowth differs significantly from classic treatment of the rest of the park. There is a building dating from the 1950’s with its back to the city and standing at a distance. However, this in-between is the southern edge of the Croult, a river now covered over and the public entrance to the park in the summer months. In this context, the site layout serves to reveal the different landscaped sequences that it organizes into a whole. Conceived as an architectural promenade in a belvedere over the park, the central gallery contains vertical circulations and shared services. It leads to the wings where each room enjoys a unique view and an easterly or westerly orientation. At the front end is the educational center extending from the ground floor like a sort of advanced post in the perspective of the former canal.
Not seeking a rivalry with the monumental architecture of the buildings by Robert de Cotte, Jacques Gabriel, Charles Bonhomme and Charles De Wailly, here the use of wood adds a bit of warmth to the whole. The composition of the façades reinterprets classic codes by proposing a regular rhyme comprised of alternating voids and solids. The dimension of the openings echoes those of the infirmary building and their design is matched with those implemented by Roland Simounet on the other side of the enclosing wall. Outside any labeling program, the project is conceived as an experiment within the framework of low carbon process of construction.
From the architect. In 2008, Bhutan has been the first country in the world applying the GNH rate (Gross National Happiness) instead of GDP. To celebrate this, The Bhutan Royal and Government have decided to build a center for happiness, where everyone can visit and share their experiences and philosophy about happiness living through meditation, and learn how to be happy and independent from materials.
Two in the four main GNH rates are environment protection and preserving culture and identity. Therefore the Bhutan Government has required the GHN center to be environmental friendly and representing local contemporary and traditional cultural identity through design.
The project includes a 100 seat convention house, a meditation hall for 250 people, administration, kitchen and dining room, and 5 accommodation houses. The cluster locates on the high mountain close to the river of Bumthang, northeast Bhutan.
Plan / Section
The design principles are the harmonies among different natural materials: soil – stone – wood; between indoor and outdoor spaces; between technology and traditional vernacular experiences. The half meter wall made of stone and soil ensure keeping the heat in cold winter. The concrete and wooden beam structure; solar energy and water through a natural filter system have helped save energy and increase the connection between human and nature. Existing pine trees were used to build the administration and accommodation centers. With the ecologically sensitive approach, the buildings are part of the natural system.
The main meditation hall is inspired from the harmonies and Asian symbols of the earth and heaven with the first storey in round shape and the second in square shape. The idea is to create a balance life for human in which people do not dominate but live peacefully with nature and support each other to create a sustainable universe.
Details
The convention house with the eclipse shape is inspired from the Buddha tree together with the use of typical vernacular decoration details in a contemporary context.
The entire site slightly locates within the beautiful pine forest, becoming an integral part of it. The opening ceremony took place in October 2015 with the attendance of the Princess and Royal of Bhutan. The Bhutan Center of Happiness is now well operated and welcome by the people of Bhutan as well as international tourists.
From the architect. Elegantly placed on a bush hammered granite is a slightly tilted yellow white Frangipani tree which welcomes the visitors with its intoxicating fragrance and beautiful flowers . I tried to tell the stories about the relationship of the indoors to the outdoors , of the body with nature and that of our traditional connection with the roots of interlayered aesthetic history with transparent and rhythmical legibility through the contemporary interpretation of architecture. It is a transformation project of my house that was built 14 years ago perched at the foothills of the commercial capital of Goa, Margao.
We like to entertain a lot of people in the house, so one major brief was to modify the layout of the house in such a way that it keeps in mind the tradition. There are many areas that are positioned throughout the house so as to cater to various sizes and type of social gathering.
The main concept of the house was to blur the line between indoors and outdoors. The spaces in the house blend into each other creating a free flowing plan that connects the front lawn to the green backyard interlaid with elements from the Goan – Portuguese history.
We cannot overlook the fact that Goa was ruled by Portuguese for nearly 400 years, but the architecture that sprung up from this era was developed by Goans keeping the tropical climate of Goa in mind inspirited by the Portuguese architecture context.
Ground Floor Plan
Inspired by the concept of Architect Le Corbusier, the planning of the house is choreographed around framing of views and scenes that alternate between controlled views of the nature and wide panoramas that create a variety of different atmosphere and experience throughout the house
The house is never revealed at once. The circulation is planned in such a way that the spaces are slowly unfolded to the visitors in an experiential and spatial journey throughout the house.
A teak wood door with a ‘janger dancer’ sculptural face placed on the lintel, an industrial cage light adorned with a tube shaped filament bulb and the red IPS (Indian Patented stone) finished bench with Azulezos or Goan painted tiles embedded in it define the entrance porch or balçao. Adding to the charm is the floor finished with the bush hammered black granite. Clean architectural elements combined with pure geometrical volumes create a well balanced, almost minimalistic composition at the entrance.
From the architect. Following on from the POOL aoyama, THE PARK・ING GINZA is a conceptually constructed store created under the direction of Hiroshi Fujiwara.
When Fujiwara opened the POOL aoyama, he had plans to create a total of three pools: the pool in Aoyama, a pool bar at Isetan in Shinjuku, and a motor pool in an undetermined parking lot.
As the project proceeded, he was given the opportunity to realize the last pool at the Sony Building, which faces Sukiyabashi Crossing in Ginza.
Floor Plan
The new space is situated on the third and fourth basement floors of the Sony Building. One notable feature of the space is that it shares the third basement floor with Nishi-Ginza Parking Lot, enabling drivers to park and enter on foot, or even drive into the space itself.
This unique location allowed Fujiwara to realize his plans for a third pool.
Nishi-Ginza Parking Lot is a distinctive structure in its own right. The parking lot runs beneath Sotobori Street, from Sukiyabashi Crossing to Shimbashi Station. It has a capacity of 800 vehicles and has tenants including a rent-a-car station, restaurants and a rest area. As a result, it has an atmosphere that differs from ordinary parking lots in Tokyo.
With an appreciation for the distinct form and atmosphere of the parking lot, we designed the space to function as a store while remaining in harmony with its surroundings.
The store consists of a cafe, retail space and gallery, with no clear boundaries between them. Each section has been designed to be flexible and can host events independently, such as garage sales. The store encapsulates a sense of transience – one of the charms of a metropolis like Tokyo – and constantly provides visitors with surprises.
In order to accommodate the flexible nature of the space, temporary construction materials have been used throughout the interior. These materials resonate with the materials present in Nishi-Ginza Parking Lot. The result is that upon entering the store, visitors get a feel for the parking lot, with its atmosphere and materiality extend into the shop.
Floor Plan
While THE PARK・ING GINZA embodies the transient nature of the metropolis, it also presents itself as a distinctively unique space within the chaos of Tokyo.
Sig Nordal 