decq dubbeldam hadid jiricna pinos semin tagliabue

Transcription

REFLECTIONS ON “TRANSFORMING TOMORROW”
WOMEN, STEEL AND ARCHITECTURE
I.P.
ODILE
DECQ
WINKA
DUBBELDAM
ZAHA
HADID
EVA
JIRICNA
CARME
PINOS
RENATA
SEMIN
BENEDETTA
TAGLIABUE
ELISABETTA
www.constructalia.com
TERRAGNI
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transforming
tomorrow
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BCS is the link between the steel industry and the construction industry professionals.
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REFLECTIONS ON
“TRANSFORMING TOMORROW”
WOMEN,
STEEL AND
ARCHITECTURE
Cover photo:
“Opus” Office Tower
Dubai, UAE
Zaha Hadid
Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects
editorial
The world saved by women? The Plan and Andrea Pontiggia stop short of this
in their volume fully dedicated to women architects - intellectual provocation though it is; nor do they posit any redeeming function by female creativity against the Italian (not only Italian) backdrop crying out for a transfusion of
architectural competence, of whatever gender. But it is a pleasing thought
that the female contribution, no less creative than men’s but perhaps borne
on a different sensibility and sense of politics (more service than power),
might here bring forth the true value of architecture. In its broadest sense
that means competence drawing support from creativity and creativity fed
chiefly by competence - two inseparable ingredients alike needed if we are
to attain the desired result: enhancement of our urban warp and woof by
conservative renovation of past beauty and, above all, qualified invention
of something new.
An old commonplace - old but still relevant - describes Italy as a disfigured
country gutted by surveyors. That category may include shining examples of
professionalism and public spirit, but it here stands for all that is ugly, defacing our towns and, probably more important, our countryside. In the light of
such stereotypes it becomes highly symbolic that the international architecture congress is taking place in Turin: never before have so many Italian
towns - Milan, of course, but also Rome, Naples, Turin itself, Bologna, Genoa
and many others - been on the receiving end of ongoing renovation plans
that have the potential to upgrade the whole townscape.
It is essential we seize this opportunity for the enormous social, even more
than economic, promise it holds.
For that to happen the planning must adhere to the strictest canons of architecture (as both science and art). Best practices demand that we proceed
by international competitions, that every operation be thrown open to the
broadest resources of the profession. The important thing is that - amid the
inevitable aesthetic controversy surrounding any project - the results should
be inspired by architectural quality; that we should avoid complacent shortcuts, half-measures or makeshift solutions. Unfortunately that is not always
or everywhere guaranteed. There have been many warning signs of a
return to old methods, the deplorable subordination of quality to misguided
“raison d’état” - often not even making economic sense. Though not alone
of its kind, the example of the new Milan Fair at Rho-Pero - designed by
Massimiliano Fuksas - confirms authoritatively that such a doughty work of
international import must draw on ‘different’ expertise from what tends to be
offered by the otherwise excellent building scene in Milan, or the rest of Italy.
A transfusion of know-how from respectful, broad-ranging, aware employment of our professional architect resources.
With all the civil, and of course aesthetic, ambition that such an approach
entails.
Milan, with the wealth of projects surrounding Expo 2015, will be Italy’s first
and foremost testing ground for the new approach. What we must ensure is a
new method of managing the major works of town development, on the part
of local authorities, central state authorities, and of course private enterprise.
The contribution of leading worldwide women stars of architecture could be
of enormous help in ushering in such a new method. May it prove so. It will be
the crowning achievement of this editorial venture.
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Sergio Luciano
Editor in Chief, Economy*
* Economy represents today the most important weekly economic magazine in Italy
For some years now the “female factor” has been a central feature of our society and politics. No
government or parliament, at least in Europe, can ignore the question of internal balance between
men and women. The same goes for industry and all walks of life, including the armed forces, once a
purely male preserve. When Mike Nichols directed the film “Career Woman” in 1988 - one of the great
Harrison Ford parts - and catapulted Melanie Griffith to the Olympus of Hollywood, the context was
a different one and the film far from obvious. It was entertainment, of course, but committed enough
on women and women’s careers. One smiles to watch it now: our society has moved on and the
fact that Griffith goes from humble secretary to manager is no longer anything out of the ordinary.
“The devil dresses Prada” (to stay with the cinema) directed by David Frankel in 2006, and starring an
extraordinary Meryl Streep, tells of a change of equilibrium taken to extremes: women in power, men
virtually eclipsed.
There are many famous examples, from German chancellor Angela Merkel, head of a historically
chauvinist country, to our own Emma Marcegaglia, a welcome breath of fresh air as neo-President of
Italian entrepreneurs. The world of architecture is no stranger to such developments in our civilization
and many architects of world calibre are women. This prompted the idea (hatched in liaison with
creative journalist Andrea Pontiggia who devised the questions) of giving women the floor in an unusual and in some respects provocative interview going beyond the classic subjects of architecture to
touch on the more intimate aspects of an architect’s ego.
The questions aim not so much to probe as to open up points for discussion, instant viewpoints for
free-wheeling development. We hope to provide an open spread of impressions, together forming a
broad, if not complete, body of opinion. That is also why the idea prompting the layout of the pocket
edition of The Plan was simply to pool the answers and not collect the interviews one by one. Each
question is followed by the answer or reaction of each architect. The whole picture is more complete
than an individual approach; it forms a transversal critique. The women architects enlisted were
chosen on reputation, but also to extend the geographical panorama as wide as possible, with room
alongside the big stars for lesser known talents of future renown. The mix of countries, cultures, generations and widely divergent approaches to the world of architecture gives food for thought about the
reality of being an architect and woman in full career amid today’s world of work - a revealing glimpse
of what our society is really like.
Being in the vanguard of contemporary architecture means creating, experimenting and researching. The worlds of design, art, graphics and fashion interweave more and more with architecture,
while innovations in materials and technology are opening up new and possibly endless scope for
creativity. That is one more reason why an architect’s job nowadays is inseparable from industry and
manufacturing. In order to innovate at this point in time, an architect must be backed by the companies that produce the materials or building systems. This makes ArcelorMittal doubly welcome as the
sponsor of our publishing venture. Side by side with answers from nine women architects, we have a
tenth ‘voice-over’: a world leader in steel manufacturing presenting its products as a credible and
real response to important demands. Steel is a never-ending source of amazement with incredible
potential for structural projects or avant-garde roofing and cladding.
Another welcome partnership of minds is with Economy, “hosting” The Plan as in 2007, and thereby
recognizing architecture as a major turbine of the economy. Architecture means production, culture,
tourism; it comes to mean urban renaissance. Enjoy!
Nicola Leonardi
Editor in Chief, The Plan
www.theplan.it
003
THE PLAN, issued bimonthly,
is one of the most authoritative
international architecture journals.
Available in quality bookstores
and newsstands
004
editorial
Steel in the city
An aspiration to lightness and elegance sums up the creative vision of our
contemporary urban architecture. Slimmed down structures, see-through
surfaces, complex geometry shells, an immaterial sensation. Steel is the
building technology that best translates this idea into reality: steel for the
structure, the surface cladding and the match with other materials. At one
and the same time it affords freedom of composition, flexible handling of
space, and speed of construction.
The world’s first steel manufacturer, ArcelorMittal, has been keeping a close
eye on the experimental new uses architecture is making of steel. In synergy
with all other actors in the building chain, it has been researching into solutions by which to exploit material potential or generate innovation.
As promoters of this special issue of The Plan devoted to architecture in the
feminine, including interviews with the world’s leading women architects, we
are pleased to present the viewpoint of some ArcelorMittal women. With its
320,000 staff and more, spread over 60 countries, the world of ArcelorMittal
contains some rather “different” figures from the normal metalworker image:
women architects liaising daily with design units to provide technical back
up and pool steel know-how as gained by a worldwide group. This is something of a challenge: it is not always easy to put across all the advantages
of using steel in building. But the challenge is a gripping one whether in
Belgium, with its long metal-working tradition, or in an emerging country
like Brazil. Two of our women architects, Christine Etzenbach, until now at
the Liège centre developing new solutions to the architectural shell, and
Silvia Scalzo, in charge of the Brazilian design support unit, both agree that
steel affords unique opportunities for building shells. The variety of surface
appearance - high gloss, mirror, patina - not to mention processing, textural
and colour differences, provide a wealth of sensations and insights.
But can one actually ‘decline’ architecture in the feminine? Youthful architect Lara Cappello, engaged in the business development side in Italy, thinks
that architecture calls for pronounced sensitivity and often this a quality of
women’s. Sensitivity means being able to perceive space, think it out afresh
and give it form. Harnessed to technical knowledge of the materials, it can
bring extraordinary results in architecture.
But apart from the aesthetic and technical sides there is another consideration, as Polish architect Marta Dziarnowska points out. On behalf of
ArcelorMittal Marta coordinates the European organizations promoting
steel. “Buildings must be thought out as sustainable objects; that is a duty
and a mission, whether in choosing materials or containing their energy consumption. Steel definitely offers many advantages and responds to environmental concerns at all stages of a building’s life: beginning with the concept
phase, steel’s high ratio of weight/mechanical resistance enables one to
design broad spans and reduce structural encumbrance. This gains accommodation space or building height, and optimizes site exploitation. At the
hands-on stage on site this means a saving in water and energy. Finally, at
the end of its cycle a steel construction can be deconstructed, its materials
recouped: steel is a recyclable material and in fact the steel being used for
building today is already a recycled material, largely produced from scrap.
Nowadays we must think and act with an eye on the future generations and
their needs.”
005
Patrick Le Pense
Tommaso Tirelli
ArcelorMittal
Building & Construction Support
CHARACTERS
006
iabue Odile Decq Eva Jiricna Zaha Hadid
a Jiricna Winka Dubbeldam Benedetta Tag
min Elisabetta Terragni Carme Pinós Winka
Pinós Renata Semin Elisabetta Terragni W
Decq Zaha Hadid Carme Pinós Renata Se
007
Carme Pinós Renata Semin Elisabetta Ter
gliabue Carme Pinós Zaha Hadid Renata
a Dubbeldam Eva Jiricna Odile Decq Rena
Winka Dubbeldam Benedetta Tagliabue C
emin Elisabetta Terragni Winka Dubbeldam
characters
ODILE
DECQ
French architect, designer, town planner, Odile Decq studied
at UP6 and IEP in Paris. She has taught internationally
at architectural schools including The Bartlett in London
and the Columbia University in New York. She is currently
professor and head of the Architecture Department at ESA,
Paris. Member of the French Academy of Architecture and
Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters. Founded ODBC
in 1985 together with Benoît Cornette. Their work is a
dynamic vision of space based on the concept of Sensual
Hyper-Tension. ODBC won the DuPont Benedictus Award® in
1995 for the Banque Populaire de l’Ouest, and again in 1999
for two university buildings in Nantes. In 1996, they received
the Golden Lion Award at the Architectural Biennial in Venice
for their overall achievements. Completed works include the
A14 highway viaduct at Nanterre, the urban plan for Port de
Gennevilliers, and the covered tribune for a rugby stadium
in Orléans, all in France. Recent projects include the MACRO
extension in Rome, a housing and commercial facilities
building commissioned by Novoli Immobiliare, Florence, Italy;
the Liaunig Museum in Neuhaus, Austria; the FRAC Bretagne
in Rennes, France.
008
WINKA
DUBBELDAM
Winka Dubbeldam, dutch architect, is a graduate of the Academy of Architecture in
Rotterdam (1990) and went on to take a Master at Columbia University, New York. She
is director of the Post-Professional Program at the Architecture School of the University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. In 1994 she founded Archi-Tectonics NY. Since then she has
exhibited at various venues including “The Unprivate House” and “Young Architects” at the
MoMA (1999-2001) and at the Archi-Lab in Orléans (France, 2001). She took part in the
project exhibition for the New York WTC area, curated by Max Protetch and presented at the
Venice Biennale 2002. She was named the “Emerging Voice” by the Architectural League
NYC in 2001, while Archi-Tectonics won the 2006
IIDA/Metropolis Smart Environments Award. In 2007 she published AT-INdex, a conceptual
monograph on the work of Archi-Tectonics. Projects pending include: a condominium at
Anguilla, Villa’s In the Sky, a residential building in New York; Q Tower and Unknot Tower at
Philadelphia, and also various projects for private houses and shops in New York.
ZAHA
HADID
Eva Jiricna was born in Zlin, Czechoslovakia. She has lived and worked for more than 30
years in London ; her architectural experience began in 1968 at the Greater London Council,
and with her impressive dedication and talent she was able to form her own practice by
1985, now also with an office in Prague. Jiricna has received many awards - Royal Designer
for Industry, Royal Academician, C.B.E - as well as international recognition for her work
and teaching. Her holistic design approach has resulted in the stunningly successful Hotel
Josef in Prague, and a new University building due to open in Zlin.. In the UK she has
compiled a large body of work, both in private and commercial sectors, recently completing
several prestigious commissions for top jewellers Boodles, Harrods, and the Victoria &
Albert Museum, including the just completed Jewellery Gallery featuring another of her
elegantly engineered glass and steel staircases. The practice also excels in exhibition design
- currently the acclaimed ‘Skin & Bones’ in London. EJAL has completed many projects on
heritage sites both in the UK and abroad, including her first building in Prague, the Orangery
in Prague Castle.
Carme Pinós, spanish, graduated at the Escuela Técnica
Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona in 1979. On 1982 she
formed a partnership with Enric Miralles, ending in 1991. Their
work received many awards as the City of Barcelona Prize for
the Archery Range Buildings for the 1992 Olympic Games. In
1991 she set up her own studio. One of her main projects is
the Cube Tower in Guadalajara (Mexico) and its model has
become a permanent part of the MoMA collection. Currently
she is working in many projects as the Novoli housing complex
in Florence, the Catalan Government Headquarters in Tortosa,
and the design of the Gardunya Square in Barcelona. She
has combined her architect’s activity with teaching, working
as a guest professor, amongst the most prestigious University
in the USA (Harvard, Columbia, etc…) and Europe (ETSAB
- Barcelona, Kunstakademie - Dusseldorf, etc...). Many
prizes were received by Carme Pinós as the National Prize
of Architecture of the Consejo Superior de los Arquitectos
de Espana in 1995, the 1st Prize of the Biennial of Spanish
Architecture in 2007 (the Cube Tower), etc…
CARME
PINÓS
009
EVA
JIRICNA
British architect, designer and teacher, of Iraqi birth. She
studied at the Architectural Association, London, from 1972 to
1977 and then joined the Office for Metropolitan Architecture
founded by Rem Koolhaas, one of her teachers; there she
worked on the Dutch Parliament Building extension (1978),
The Hague. In 1980 she opened her own practice in London,
designing a flat in Eaton Place that won a gold medal from
Architectural Design in 1982. She also began teaching at the
Architectural Association (1980-87). During the 1980s she
entered several architectural competitions, winning those for
the Hong Kong Peak (1983), the Kurfürstendamm (1986),
Berlin, and for an art and media centre in Düsseldorf (1989).
Her first significant constructed work was the Vitra fire station
(1989-93) at Weil am Rhein, Germany. Hadid continues
to teach in universities around the world, including Harvard
University, Cambridge, MA, where she held the Kenzo Tange
Chair at the Graduate School of Design. In 2004 she won the
Pritzker Architecture Prize.
characters
RENATA
SEMIN
Renata Semin, brazilian, graduated in 1982 at the Faculty of
Architecture and Urbanism at São Paulo University/ Brazil. In
1984 she founded Piratininga Arquitetos Associados with the
partnership of 7 young architects.
The responsibility of many projects developed by the firm
during the 80’s and 90’s in Brazil is remarkable to define
the professional profile: urban projects, new buildings,
remodeling and restoration of historical sites, social housing,
space planning and interior design for companies, having the
government as a client or a family, or a corporation. Some of
the projects are: an urban action for social and economical
development in the South Zone of São Paulo metropolis; a
plan for rehabilitation of Fortaleza central area, the libraries
-both in Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of University
of São Paulo, the restoration and modernization of Sao
Paulo central library - Mário de Andrade. Some others were
developed in collaboration with the architect Paulo Mendes
da Rocha for the São Paulo University (museums and other
institutions) and for private clients.
010
BENEDETTA
TAGLIABUE
Benedetta Tagliabue was born in Milan and graduated from
the University of Venice in 1989. In 1991 she joined Enric
Miralles’ studio where she became a partner. Her work with
Miralles, whom she married, includes a number of high
profile buildings and projects in Barcelona: Parque Diagonal
Mar (1997-2002), Head Office Gas Natural (1999-2007)
and the Market and quarter Santa Caterina (1996-2005),
as well as projects across Europe, including the School of
Music in Hamburg (1997-2000) and the City Hall in Utrecht
(1996-2000).
In 1998, the partnership won the competition to design the
new Scottish Parliament building. More recently, she won the
competition for Pavilion of Spain in the Universal Exhibition
Shanghai 2010, (2007) and, also she is working in Public
Spaces of Hafencity Harbor in Hamburg, Germany, Naples
subway train station and Retail Redevelopment in Leeds, UK
among others.
Further she received the Honorary Doctor of Arts degree from
Napier University (2004), The RIBA Stirling Prize 2005, the
Centenary Medal from Edinburgh Architectural Association
and the 2005 Spanish National Architecture Prize ‘Manuel de
la Dehesa’, for the Scottish Parliament building.
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ELISABETTA
TERRAGNI
Elisabetta Terragni, italian, since graduating from the Milan Polytechnic, has taught in
several overseas programmes, at the ETH in Zurich and as Visiting Distinguished Professor at
the New York Institute of Technology. She now teaches regularly at City College of New York.
Private houses, apartments, a loft and a greenhouse were designed and built in Italy where
She also created temporary installations for trade fairs and museum exhibitions, such as the
Palladio Center in Vicenza and Castelvecchio in Verona.
In 2003 she won the competition for a major public school building in the town of Altavilla
Vicentina (Vicenza). The structural solution for the roof was evolved in collaboration with the
Swiss engineer Juerg Conzett (Chur), allowing for a tensioned slab of 90 meters in length.
The building embraces patios and recreational areas within a continuous perimeter of glass
and sliding screens.
THE INTERVIEW
12 3 45678 9 10
1 THE INFLUENCE OF INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY ON ARCHITECTURE
2 NEW OPPORTUNITIES: THE CONTEMPORARY HORIZONS OF ARCHITECTURE
3 THE LAWS OF PHYSICS: WHAT ARE THE NEW CONFINES OF THE “FEASIBLE”?
4 IS ARCHITECTURE FREEDOM?
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5 THE ERA OF NON-STANDARDISATION
6 THE EXPRESSION OF A CHANGING SOCIETY
7 SUSTAINABILITY: A LABEL, A MUST OR A MISSION?
8 CITIES WITHIN THE MEGACITY
9 THE ARCHITECT’S EGO IN A WORLD OF GENIUSES
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10 WHY THE FUTURE NEEDS ME?
The influence of innovation and
technology on architecture
Winka Dubbeldam - The generation of performative modulations and
surfaces is facilitated by the use of generative software, such as Maya
and Catia. FTF, file to factory manufacturing facilitates the actual building of these modulations.
Prefabrication itself is changing as well, where before it would be
described as the industrial manufacturing of the same element over
and over again, now these units are a series of varying elements,
defined by an analysis of their performance, rather than their form or
shape. This is worked out in our proposal for the Q tower.
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2
Odile Decq - Architects are always concerned by innovation and technology. Just as there is
no architecture without the technology of materials, of structure and all techniques, so architects have always focused on innovation.
But, innovation is not only a technological question. Innovation relates directly with the state of
evolution and development of society. As Hans Hollein expressed it at the Venice Biennale in
its title “Sensing the future. Architects as seismograph”, architects try to capture and reflect by
their project what happens and what will happen. It seems today that architects are more and
more interested in innovation in technology but I do think that innovation is more than that and
concerns social, cultural and human issues as well as technology. If, as architects, we organize
a place for humans to live in, every innovation or transformation in the living process and its
surrounds is also our concern.
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3
Zaha Hadid - Our ambitions towards creating fluid, dynamic and therefore complex structures
have been aided by technological innovations. 3D modelling on the computer has served a
definite purpose during our design processes, facilitating the application of complex double
curved surfaces. We like to work a lot with curvilinearity because we believe it visually simplifies
the configuration, and you can then cope with more complexity without crowding or cluttering
the visual scene. Our designs demand continual progress in the development of construction
technology, and industry continues to respond by providing ever more sophisticated tools.
When those tools are developed, our designs in turn become more ambitious as we see the
new possibilities created by technology.
Although computers have simplified things, at the same time they have made it possible to
achieve a greater degree of complexity in our digital work. There is an evenness to design now.
But what I miss from the period before computation is all the cultural material. Physical models
offered something different from the perspective of drawing, which was different again from
the plan or the painting. Now there is a sameness and far fewer surprises - you don’t get layers
of discovery.
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4
Carme Pinós - To speak of technology in architecture means speaking
of lots of things at once: the tools for drawing or calculating, the technology altering the sense perceptions by which we perceive space - by
light, sound, climate factors, etc.. Technology is also changing how we
process materials and then manipulate them. Which is to say that technology actually comes into the whole architecture process and the use
we make of it later. When we talk of technology applied to drawing
or calculating, we should remember that it is giving us opportunities
today that past times never imagined. But we can get to a point when
so much freedom gets us down.
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Eva Jiricna - Needless to say, historically the problems associated
with construction led to inventions and new technologies which gave
opportunities to those who were willing to explore them to create better results. It is not surprising that the monumental and most remarkable
examples of historic buildings show technology stretched to its limits
and subsequently creating miracles based on new possibilities and new
solutions. If we look at our options today - compared with our predecessors - we have got a much larger range of choices and we are consequently more and more selective about how we use them. For some
of us it is very tempting and challenging to follow the latest discoveries
and the latest inventions and accept the risk associated with such a
route; but there are others who use their creativity within the limits of
well known and well established methods and achieve excellence by
other means. I am personally always looking for new means and new
technical solutions. I find this exciting, challenging and satisfying (it’s
not always the same for the clients who inevitably have to share the risk
and financial implications…)
Renata Semin - The architectural conception is understood as a knowledge issue dependent on a commission demand and an architectural
opportunity. The project and its articulations within the industrial and
technological world tie up and search for innovative systems. Designing
architecture is part of a continuously innovative process.
Benedetta Tagliabue - It is always very important.
I think that today technology gives the possibility to achieve a higher
complexity. And this is very beautiful because technology is giving
architects and builders a lot of new possibilities.
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Elisabetta Terragni - I’m reminded of Cedric Price’s pun: “Technology
is the answer. What was the question?” No doubt architecture always
needs technological innovation, but it also needs to resist technological dictates. Some of the worst practices result from an acceptance of
certain products that seem economically attractive (at the time) but
may have nothing else to recommend them. Remember silicone rubber
and aluminium windows? The former has killed precision, the inventor of
the latter was sent to the lower circles of hell by Woody Allen.
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4
WINKA DUBBELDAM - UNKNOT TOWER
PROGETTo IN CORSO, PHILADELPHIA, USA
Courtesy Archi-tectonics
ZAHA HADID
DUBAI BUSINESS BAY
SIGNATURE TOWERS
PROGETTo IN CORSO, Dubai, UAE
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eva jiricna
Canada Water Bus Station
LONDRA, UK, 1999
© Richard Bryant
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BENEDETTA TAGLIABUE - centennial pavilion
in commemoration of the 100th anniversary
of the city of esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg, 2006
© Pierre Engel
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Elisabetta TerragnI
Casa Bianchi, SERRA
Cernobbio, ITALIA 2002
© Brigitte Desrochers
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1/2 ODILE DECQ - Edificio per residenze
e spazi commerciali
PROGETTo IN CORSO, Firenze
Courtesy ODBC architectes urbanistes
New opportunities: the contemporary
horizons of architecture
Zaha Hadid - The current state of architecture requires extensive collaboration and an investigative attitude. There is a strong reciprocal relationship whereby our more avant-garde architectural visions
encourage the continuing development of new digital technologies
and manufacturing techniques required to make those visions a constructed reality, and those new developments in turn inspire us to push
the design envelope ever further. Great things can come out of this
method of working.
020
1
Carme Pinós - When we do architecture it would be absurd not to
reckon with the innovation in materials that technology affords.
Architecture must meet the demands of every moment and and hence
to be opened to everything the contemporary world offers us. It is
another matter when one manipulates the real perception of space
into mere stage scenery. Technology gives us a huge range of possibilities; the reverse side is getting cut off from the tangible and sensual in
essential, elementary terms of expression. That seems to me another
danger.
021
2
Odile Decq - Paul Virilio told me once that today architects are facing
a challenge that is much more complex than ever: the question of the
desire or pleasure factor.
The horizon is by its very nature unreachable. You always travel towards
it and in crossing the sea you negotiate with the elements. Facing the
challenge expressed by Virilio, the new horizon lines of architecture are
diverse and often contradictory: urban context desire versus city density, growth of rich people versus social issue of poverty, people’s mobility and constructional lightness/versus energy saving; space transparency and fluidity versus frontiers and security; fast communication and
exchanges versus local flesh- and eye-contact.
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Renata Semin - The target is better conditions for urban life and a sustainable situation for our cities. One contemporary attitude towards
urban design is to promote democratic access to relevant and up to
date information about the urban space - services, territory, occupation, environment, health, education, security, planning.
Winka Dubbeldam - Our research, as it has evolved over the last 10 years,
is focused on re-thinking, re-searching and re-evaluating the question
asked, and the generation of performative models. Performance in the
traditional sense; maintenance of free skins, low energy use and ‘green’
structures, but even more the creation of challenging environments,
where the boundary is blurred between industrial design intelligence
and architecture.
The attempt is to minimize the influence of bias or prejudice in the
experimenter when testing a hypothesis or a theory, in order to get to
some level of invention. The focus is not on form but on the performative, not on aesthetics but on intelligence. Our Greenwich building
changes the way the city relates to domestic space and vice versa.
4
Benedetta Tagliabue - Travel and communication without limitations
of distance. This is revolutionary compared to being an architect only
20 years ago and I think that this is the greatest change we have been
given.
023
Elisabetta Terragni - Many opportunities beckon: new materials, new
fabrication processes, new sensibilities. The latter are more important
to me than the former. As we gain a better understanding of how we
react and interact, we will become more selective and more sensitive
to our surroundings.
3
5
024
Eva Jiricna - Through computer technology globalisation has become
a fact of life. Not only is the creative process drawing on collective
knowledge on a truly global scale but the end-users are equally well
informed and require architects to stretch their abilities beyond the territorial image of the counties of their origin. We are now living in a world
without boundaries in which the rules can change at any time. The new
technologies allow us to stretch our imagination beyond the “possible”
and explore the “forbidden”, giving us a chance to realise our dreams.
On the other hand we are giving ourselves new tasks and new limits
related to our responsibilities to the planet and the human race. There
is nothing to stop the creative process but we have to bear in mind that
living means letting others live too.
6
1
ZAHA HADID - Maxxi: National Museum
of XXI Century Arts
Work in progress, Rome, Italy
2
CARME PINóS - CUBE TOWER
Guadalajara, Mexico, 2005
5
ZAHA HADID - London Aquatic Centre
Work in progress, London, UK
eva jiricna - Boodles, New Bond Street
LONDRA, UK, 2007
© Richard Bryant
6
ELISABETTA TERRAGNI - Kindergarden and
Elementary School: Community Theater
Altavilla Vicentina, Italy, 2008
© Mike Dolinski
025
3/4
Courtesy Estudio Carme Pinós
The laws of physics: what are the
new confines of the “feasible”?
Eva Jiricna - The laws of physics do not change, only our interpretation might be different due
to the increase of relevant knowledge. Through our understanding of science we can find a
way of stretching the limits of the feasible and allow ourselves to increase the area within which
we oscillate.
1
Zaha Hadid - Our architectural language is driven by new digital design and manufacturing
tools which allow for fluid and organic forms instead of the repetition of separate mechanical
parts. The recent ability of structural engineers to calculate complex geometries and mixed
structural systems is also a factor pushing this exciting new modern architecture forward.
026
Renata Semin - Architectural design counts on these laws for collaboration. Take the Library
project presented in this case. Suspended steel joists (truss beam) - 3.75 metres high by 71 meters
long - hang the lower floors of bookshelves. The engineering challenge aimed at and achieved
technical, economical and constructive feasibility.
Odile Decq - Physics and its laws remain the same but it is true that
the feasible has reached new limits. Peter Rice explained to me once
how calculation tools give engineering new fields of exploration. What
was easy to design and conceive was not so easy to calculate before
the emergence of strong calculators. Today, we can build extreme
cantilevers, fluid structures and forms, destabilized volumes, floating
disassociated objects, etc. This technical evolution gives engineers and
architects new responsibilities in their interactive relationship.
I always dream I will live until “teleportation” is invented! More seriously,
I am every day interested in new developments in physics, astrophysics
and the biological sciences. So, who knows?
2
027
Elisabetta Terragni - It depends on the physics you invoke: More is
feasible than we have figured out how to use. Light materials instead
of heavy ones; the familiar treated in inventive ways. Most of all, we
need to find the right ideas and match them with the right materials.
Synthetic textiles and new coatings guarantee lightness and durability
where a certain heaviness and costly efforts used to be necessary. But
because something is possible, it doesn’t mean it actually needs to be
done. The limits I recognize are as much limits of our senses (and limits
of what makes sense) as they are limits of performance.
3
028
Benedetta Tagliabue - The realm of physics nowadays is handling a
much more detailed and complex level.
I have been invited to roundtables of physics, interested in understanding, for example, the elaboration of a project like designing a building.
Understanding our complexity and being able to have a science capable of describing it is a wonderful possibility.
2
ZAHA HADID - “OPUS” OFFICE TOWER
Work in progress, Dubai, UAE
3
BENEDETTA TAGLIABUE
Santa Caterina Market renovation
barcelona, spain, 2005
Courtesy EMBT Arquitectos
odile decq - Maritime Terminal
Work in progress, Tanger, Morocco
029
1
Is architecture freedom?
Carme Pinós - In answer to the question whether architecture is free, I
would say the whole process must be free if it grasps its own responsibility. In that sense architecture also meets another requirement: we need
everyone’s ego if we shoulder our own responsibility; which means
awareness of the repercussions of our actions.
1
030
Benedetta Tagliabue - No, architecture is not freedom. Architecture is
about limits and about knowing how to calibrate the limits you are working with and how to make them coexist with each other and yourself.
Renata Semin - Practice is freedom. Fifty percent of my life has been dedicated to professional
practice with a team of talented partners and decisive collaborators. Recently our firm has promoted innovative partnerships. This wider range team is focused on special urban approaches
like sustainability, pavement design, restoration of public spaces and buildings. Freedom is
recognition of and emphasis on the architectural values of each project.
2
3
031
Elisabetta Terragni - To many of us architecture is above all a necessity. If I say I seek freedom
in architecture, I must agree to work under the conditions that obtain. They do vary greatly from
culture to culture, from place to place. When everything is said and done, architecture appears
to yield only limited freedom.
On the other hand, I can rethink every job I’m asked to do and try every time to propose another
solution than a client may expect. I can invent another way of hanging my windows and lighting
my spaces, I can choose colours and surfaces, create an atmosphere and propose an experience that could not be achieved in another way. If architecture is freedom, it depends on our
capacity to invest that freedom in our buildings.
4
Odile Decq - Architecture is becoming more and more free and the
limits of its freedom are the demands of society, the reality of people’s
and client’s needs, respect for a budget and first of all the architect’s
own ethics.
032
Winka Dubbeldam - Yes, within restrictions, if one sees restrictions as a
design challenge, as we do, it feels free.
5
033
Eva Jiricna - Architecture is not freedom and it would be no fun were this
the case. There are restrictions in life as much as in architecture and we
have to define our own limits. The trick is to sail through all those obstacles without making a compromise. I would like to quote Charles Eames
who said in his last lecture in London, having been asked how many
compromises had he been forced to make during his lifetime,
“I have never accepted a compromise since I always understood constraints”.
6
034
Zaha Hadid - Architecture can be a vehicle in which I think you can
address certain very important social issues evident in the complexity
of people’s lives in the 21st century.
1/2 BENEDETTA TAGLIABUE - Spanish Pavillion
for Expo Shanghai 2010
Work in progress, Shanghai, ChiNA
Courtesy EMBT Arquitectos
4
winka dubbeldam - GREENWICH STREET PROJECT
NEW YORK, USA, 2004
ODILE DECQ - MACRO
Museum of Contemporary Art
eva jiricna - Fine Jewellery
Room Renovation, Harrods
London, UK, 2006
© Richard Bryant
6
ZAHA HADID
Abu Dhabi Performing Arts Centre
Work in progress
Abu Dhabi, UAE
035
3
5
The era of non-standardisation
Renata Semin - Standardization or non standardization is not the question. The decisions that have to be taken along a design process lead to
the appropriate solution or specification for each issue. The possibility of
reproduction on a large scale is welcome in situations like constructing
components and products to achieve more accurate constructional
performance, employing qualified workers and getting better services.
In Brazil this is an issue to be carefully handled and discussed because
of our great housing shortage.
1
2
Winka Dubbeldam - Standardisation will be replaced by custom manufacturing, we are working on the Cibani residence with a car designer,
to have the façade made as a prototype!!!!
036
Odile Decq - In this freedom there has emerged the idea of the “nonstandard”, helped by new industrial machines driven by specific computer programs for construction and material optimization. This is true
for some one-off projects but others are more difficult, such as housing
as long as human beings keep living on the horizontal. The Oblique
Function world has not yet arrived everywhere!
Zaha Hadid - The architecture of repetition that marks out the 20 th
Century has been superseded by buildings that are adaptable, as well
as encouraging diversity. The traditional architecture of crisp platonic
blocks and crystalline grids is antithetical to these new demands for
variation and intensive integration of contemporary life patterns.
3
037
Carme Pinós - It’s not a question of doing whatever is now possible, but
of knowing what we want, what we are asking of architecture and,
above all, what model town corresponds to our own existential wishes
and needs. That is to say, what architectural space - inside or outside
- do we want to live in and relate to? In a society where the structures
are constantly changing and individualism is to the fore, it is hard to find
models for coexistence except for those dictated by the market with its
clear penchant for abstraction, tending to turn us all into statistics and
numbers. No stable, lasting model interests a society like ours based on
production and consumption; it is change that fuels this, not stability.
We’re in danger of believing that anything goes, and making research
serve that end.
4
038
Benedetta Tagliabue - Nowadays we have technical possibilities which
are dealing with complexity. A lot of disciplines, including physics, are
now dealing with it.
Standardisation is a kind of forcing which was relevant when technology had more limits. Now technology, giving more ways of handling
complexity, makes us nearer to the craftsman’s way of working.
Using all these possibilities properly is, I think, one of the great challenges for the future.
039
Elisabetta Terragni - Modern architecture played the card of standardization and economy until the game was over. It may have left us
anaemic and disillusioned. Non-standard geometries suggest another
idea about the world and how it works. It is certainly much more in tune
with our sensibilities.
5
040
Eva Jiricna - Since we live in much greater luxury - those who have got money to spend or
invest want something special, a ‘one-off’ piece. That is only one side of the coin. The other
happens to be the fact that in the building industry we have never found a real answer to nonstandardisation. To standardise means to produce a repetitive product and use it as such. Even
though there have been many attempts to standardise various buildings units (windows, doors,
ceiling panels, lighting etc) the process of putting them together is usually one-off. One of the
reasons for non-standardisation is a lack of flexibility and high costs, sometimes only related to
the cost of manufacturing and limited lifespan. There are problems with replacements and,
above all, we do not like uniformity. Various dictatorships have tried and failed. The entire world
is aiming at more freedom.
P.S. It is always dangerous to make these sweeping comments. Standard housing units in underdeveloped countries would be a blessing and standard tents or hospitals etc. would help to
resolve the immediate problems in disaster areas. More common sense and less ego might be
a help in certain situations.
6
1/2 winka dubbeldam - Q TOWER
and cibani residential unit
Work in progress, USA
3
ZAHA HADID - NURAGIC AND
CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM
2006, CAGLIARI, ITALY
4
BENEDETTA TAGLIABUE - centennial pavilion
in commemoration of the 100th anniversary
of the city of esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg, 2006
© Pierre Engel
eva jiricna - private residence
LONDON, UK, 2004
5
© Richard Bryant
6
© Hélène Binet
041
ZAHA HADID - BERGISEL SKI JUMP
INNSBRUCK, AUSTRIA, 2002
The expression of a changing society
Elisabetta Terragni - Our society changes more than our architecture
does. As a matter of fact, our architecture has changed very little, we
still hear the customary complaints from our grandfathers whenever
something happens outside their frame of mind. Italy seems a country
where modernism and its kitsch have survived amazingly well. Does this
mean that our society is also slow to change?
1
042
Odile Decq - How far is it the instability of the world, more than changes
in society, that keeps questioning architecture in terms of forms and
urban development and in terms of new social and political relationships that can influence our vision of architectural space?
I often ask myself each of these questions. I can’t give even one answer.
Nothing is definitive, every solution, every proposal is transitory.
Eva Jiricna - Society is changing for political, economic, cultural and many various, complex
reasons. Architects can respond to the changes and help to prevent some of the undesirable
effects occurring. There have been various utopian ideas to solve the future, there have been
various despotic mega-projects proposed during distant, and less distant, history. We have
examples of famous architects designing cities (Louis Kahn, Le Corbusier, Oscar Niemeyer, etc.),
and we have the developers of “ Canary Wharfs” and Prince Charles villages. Cities have to
grow naturally through ever changing requirements and mutual understanding of all parts of
societies. There is a long way to go.
2
043
Zaha Hadid - One of the great challenges of 21st century contemporary architecture is the fundamental restructuring away from the “Fordist” concept of repetitive blocks typical of industrial
mass society (large, square factories containing long assembly lines of similar workstations with
staff each repeating the same task hour by hour, and the square repetitive blocks of traditional
homes, offices and skyscrapers of the 20 th Century), towards a “post-Fordist” society of flexible
specialization, with its new order of diversity of work and life processes and a new level of fluidity and dynamism in careers, institutions and corporate organizations. The more complex lives
we lead in the 21st century overlap and integrate rather than separate the life aspects of work,
education, entertainment and habitation. The modern principle of functional zoning in regular
grids has been superseded by agendas of layering in mixed-use developments.
Winka Dubbeldam - Society is now purely global with traces of the
local, as described by Saskia Sassen! We are building the Un-Knot
tower, a GHM hotel & residences which are mostly occupied by permanent travellers. Service is crucial and of a very high international level.
Benedetta Tagliabue - Architecture always expresses the situation
and the needs of a society in a certain moment and place. It was so
in the past and will be so in the future. This is what makes architecture
so interesting, that it is always evolving together with people, users,
society, time and so on.
5
044
Renata Semin - The range of this expression leads me to place side by
side extreme and at other times contrasting situations that are now juxtaposed as never before: worldwide access, regional culture, local traditions, nanotechnology, robotics, handicrafts, high industrial performance, natural lifestyles, restoration, destruction, memory, “dismemory”.
Our project team, as a professional attitude, has been successful in
designing for wide-ranging issues such as social housing, space planning for corporations, chemical laboratories, countryside construction,
technological sites, libraries, buildings for health care, urban planning,
public spaces and every subject related to our existence.
6
1/2 ZAHA HADID - Maxxi: National
Museum of XXI Century Arts
5
BEnEDETTA TAGLIABUE - vigo university
classrooms and connecting bridge
Vigo, spain, 2003
Courtesy EMBT
3
Renata semin - Campinas catholic
university central library
campinas, brazil
6
eva jiricna - Fine Jewellery
Room Renovation - Harrods
London, UK, 2006
© Richard Bryant
Courtesy Piratininga
045
4
ELISABETTA TERRAGNI - Kindergarden
and Elementary School: corridor
Courtesy Elisabetta Terragni
Sustainability: a label,
a must or a mission?
Odile Decq - Is the sustainability debate a new question or just another
function to be resolved? Is it a new definition of our way of living or a
fundamental re-definition of architecture?
For my part, educated as I was in architecture during the seventies, the
tail end of the hippies and during the first oil crack, solar, bioclimatic
architecture and the self-sufficient environment were nourishing fundamental questions and debates at school. So I consider that subject
with its consequent responsibilities as an evident basic constraint for a
project, never a “mission” (I hate that word: it seems religious!). If, today,
it is used as a label it gives people more consciousness of it.
046
1
Renata Semin - An assertive mission, a statement.
Using the library as an example for the moment: the design brief was
natural ventilation and lighting, low energy consumption, universal
design for accessibility, rational construction process, adequate performance of infrastructural systems and low cost maintenance. Such a
starting point emphasizes quality in architecture.
2
047
Benedetta Tagliabue - Sustainability is a name, a word.
Sometimes I just try to understand what really lies beyond this word,
other than being a word that makes everything you do acceptable.
I think its meaning is about living well in a place, in harmony with people
and with the environment, and that’s something not new to us. We have
always tried to achieve this: to make architecture attentive to the site,
attentive to the people using it or looking at it. Attentive to durability or
to its existence in time. Most of the time traditional architecture is very
sustainable. It is useful to be aware of that.
Eva Jiricna - Sustainability is a condition of human survival on this
planet. In the same way as people accepted using toilets as a good
thing, they will have to willingly accept sustainability as something
which is in their favour.
Winka Dubbeldam - This Mission is a must.
3
048
Zaha Hadid - There are many architects that use sophisticated airconditioning and interior design methods to improve the ecological
balance of a building - whereas I am concerned with adjusting new
materials and manufacturing methods that are relative to a whole new
paradigm of space articulation and space making. In the end, these
different clusters of development - sustainability and the applicability
of the materials - will come together again, bringing solutions to a great
many problems.
Elisabetta Terragni - Sustainability is a slogan. There are reasons for this,
and some of them are important but far from new. Remember that most
houses had two sets of windows, one was removed during summertime
and mounted when it got cold? Remember that we had several sets of
clothes before air-conditioning and heating created an artificial indoor
climate? And why should we splurge all that light over every interior?
Reasonable choices, tested for centuries, went a fair way toward sustainability. Using heat-pumps, better insulation, voltaic cells, aeolian
power and the like is not only reasonable but necessary.
4
Elisabetta TerragnI - Casa Bianchi
Greenhouse
Cernobbio, Italy, 2002
© Brigitte Desrochers
2
Renata semin - Campinas catholic
university central library
campinas, brazil
Courtesy Piratiningaa
3
eva jiricna - hotel josef
Prague, Czech Republic, 2002
© Ivan Nemec, Berlino, Praga
Elisabetta TerragnI
Apartment in Engadine
Samedan, Switzerland, 2005
4
© Vaclav Sedy
5
ELISABETTA TERRAGNI
Kindergarden and
Elementary School: Corridor
Courtesy Elisabetta Terragni
049
1
5
Cities within the megacity
Benedetta Tagliabue - Its not easy to answer shortly on such a broad
topic. I think that the Megacity is the great contemporary theme; it is for
example the theme of the future expo 2010 in Shanghai, where we are
going to build the Spanish pavilion. “How to live well in the big city”: the
architecture of our Spanish pavilion is an answer to this question.
1
Winka Dubbeldam - New York is one of the examples, yes. Niche cultures as described by Alvin Toffler in the Sixties are getting to be a really
strong force in the city and on the internet.
050
Eva Jiricna - Too much intellectual argument with very little practical
implication.
Odile Decq - Mega-cities is where more than half of the world population lives. I don’t understand that difference between city and megacity. Mega-city is a city. If the question refers to cities as the historical
ones, they are just a few areas where a small part of the world live within
privileged urban conditions. If this question refers to areas within megacities that we could call cities, it means the question of the neighbourhood. Again, as in the second question, this is a social issue in urban
development. It could be developed as a network of local urban cores,
whatever they are - horizontal or vertical.
2
051
Elisabetta Terragni - Megacities are an abstraction. Nobody “lives” in a
megacity, everyone lives in surroundings of rather limited dimensions.
What makes large cities often so interesting is the fact that they harbour
small ones. When I think of the East Village in New York, it reminds me
of Porta Ticinese in Milan. With the difference that its mix of stores and
opportunities is far denser and much more complex and variegated.
Renata Semin - São Paulo, where I live, has turned into one of the world megacities. This prefix is
a value and a problem to deal with. Spreading out through the territory, overcoming the natural
ground irregularities, coping with unplanned occupation, the construction of street networks
and the never-enough infrastructure, the constant appeals of urban life, all this require new
policies to face spatial, social, economic and cultural issues. Multidisciplinary investigations
conducted at University level, practitioners, civil society and the government must urgently
converge their action and intervention in order to discuss democratically, create a platform of
policies and struggle to apply them each with their own respective responsibilities in this global
megacity. The example of São Paulo may easily be reproduced in other megacity case studies
such as Mexico City, Mumbai, Johannesburg. I mean, not so much for its privileges but for its
challenges.
052
3
Zaha Hadid - Human civilization has always relied on architectural structures and their arrangement into towns/cities to build up and stabilize a social order. Cities have been building up ever
more complex infrastructure and developments, and superimposing layer upon layer, as well
as growing ever larger. Only in this way was it possible to structure a society with sufficiently
complex and robust life processes and institutions.
The modern era has created a new set of infrastructure systems that complement, compete
with, and extend beyond traditional architecture. These systems include mechanical systems
of transportation (i.e. trains, automobiles, aviation) and various systems of telecommunication
(printing, broadcasting, telephone, and internet).
The social order and complex social functioning of contemporary society In the 21st century
depends upon these technical systems of communication as much as they depend upon the
patterns of built-up environments.
4
2
WINKA DUBBELDAM - UNKNOT TOWER
Work in progress, PHILADELPHIA, USA
odile decq - Maritime Terminal
Work in progress, Tanger, Morocco
Carme Pinós - gardunya square project
Work in progress, Barcelona, spain
3
© Estudio Carme Pinós
4
odile decq - Archipel
Work in progress, lyon, france
053
1
The architect’s ego
in a world of geniuses
Winka Dubbeldam - That is so un-interesting.
Eva Jiricna - Unnecessary, surplus.
Odile Decq - No comment to this question. Not interesting.
Renata Semin - This statement is the opposite of the architectural process I believe in. Responsibility and an integrated team of skillful interdisciplinary professionals are the components behind design.
054
1
Elisabetta Terragni - In a recent interview, Dan Graham observed with
more than a tinge of irony that “architects want to be artists, and artists
want to be architects. I think I started that.” Let’s not forget though that
what made Renaissance architecture so rich and inventive was the fact
that its greatest figures, from Brunelleschi to Giulio Romano, by way of
Alberti and Michelangelo, were not architects in any professional sense.
I feel that an artistic sensibility or a scientific bent have every reason to
be protagonists in current architecture.
Zaha Hadid - Everything requires more diligence, but I think architects,
generally, really have a hard time. Every architect you can talk to, no
matter how successful they are, even the “top” guys, have it very, very
difficult.
055
2
3
056
Benedetta Tagliabue - Ego is a problem for every human being! And it is
present for sure in every profession. Now in architecture we have a need
for visibility, given by the fact that we have to work in a very extended
world. In this extended network of communications, I think it is very
important to use our image and our visibility correctly.
It’s important to try to maintain our ego within a limit, just as every other
human being has to do.
4
5
1/2 ZAHA HADID - PHAENO SCIENCE CENTER WOLFSBURG, GERMANy, 2005
© Werner Huthmacher
3/4 BENEDETTA TAGLIABUE - Gas Natural’s New Headquarters
barcelona, spain, 2008
© Romain Piro
ODILE DECQ - Greenland Furniture Centre
Shangai, China, 2007
057
5
Why the future
needs me?
1
Odile Decq - You will tell me!
Eva Jiricna - Does it? I wonder. Since I don’t know I’ll go on doing my
best and run the risk that it might all be wasted.
Zaha Hadid - Because I think through our architecture we can give
people a glimpse of another world, enthuse them and make them
excited about ideas.
058
2
3
Renata Semin - As part of a project team dedicated to research,
design, developing and applying our knowledge to achieve better
conditions in our cities. The attention must focus on a virtuous and ethical process.
059
Benedetta Tagliabue - The future never needs any of us, that is for sure.
Life is cruel. But I very much enjoy dealing with the present. The present
gives me a lot of plans with which to look towards the future. Plans
which I hope will help bring happiness to many many people.
4
Winka Dubbeldam - It probably doesn’t.
060
Elisabetta Terragni - Whether the future needs me or not, I’m working on
it. I’m honing my sensibility and my feeling for the issues we are facing.
And I’m teaching future architects. After a long period when architecture seemed above all harsh, unforgiving and even brutal, I’m trying to
handle it with a more delicate touch. It matters to me (and obviously
to my clients) whether my work elicits an emotional response, suggests
nuance, opens areas of quiet and room for balance. I’m happiest when
I can make architecture with as little “stuff” as possible. I hope to offer
as ephemeral and enjoyable an experience as I can manage in a world
of speed, simulation, and angst.
5
ODILE DECQ - MACRO, Museum of Contemporary Art
1
2
BEnEDETTA TAGLIABUE
vigo university sport building
Vigo, spain, 2003
Courtesy Benedetta Tagliabue
4/5/7 winka dubbeldam - GREENWICH STREET PROJECT
NEW YORK, USA, 2004
6
eva jiricna - Canada Water Bus Station
LONDRA, UK,1999
© Richard Bryant
061
3
renata semin - mario de andreade library
sÃo paulo, brazil, 2006
Courtesy Piratininga
062
6
063
7
THE INFLUENCE OF INNOVATION AND
TECHNOLOGY ON ARCHITECTURE
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064
Courtesy Vasconi Architects
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065
Courtesy ArcelorMittal
THE LAWS OF PHYSICS: WHAT ARE THE NEW
CONFINES OF THE “FEASIBLE”?
structures
Everyday we move boundaries of the feasible a little further
HISTAR ® BEAMS
Histar ® structural steels were chosen for the Gas Natural Tower (Fig. 1) by Benedetta Tagliabue.
They are a low-alloy hot-rolled steel with high yield stress and enhanced welding properties.
Produced by an innovative “in-line” heat treatment (QST or Quenching and Self Tempering), their
mechanical properties make them ideal for multi-storey projects. Since they are more resistant than
conventional building steels, for a given load one can reduce the weight and cost of the structure
and simplify welding and assembly operations (given their low carbon content, they generally need
no pre-heating). They perform splendidly if used in composite steel/concrete constructions, as highcompression pillars, in seismic zones and on offshore rigs. Histar steels S355 and S460 are available for
HE sections with h ≥ 260mm, and for IPE sections with h ≥ 500mm.
Courtesy EMBT
1
2
066
COMPOSITE CONSTRUCTION: STRUCTURES
As used in the Phaeno Science Center (Fig. 3) by Zaha Hadid and in the Macro Museum (Fig. 2) by
Odile Decq, this is an excellent choice for a complex building. The hot-rolled steel section beams that
form the structure are connected to the slab (profiled steel sheet and bonded concrete pad) by connectors welded to the beam flanges, so as to make the whole structure bind together in all its parts,
which also gives a better performance in earthquake conditions. The concrete pad is hence not just
a mere horizontal division, but a compressed part of the composite section. This building technique
has considerable advantages: it increases resistance and rigidity, lessens sag and cuts down floor
depth. The composite steel/concrete solution applied to pillars (steel column with reinforced concrete
between the flanges) has a further advantage in terms of resistance and fire-proofing, as well as taking up less room than a traditional pillar in reinforced concrete.
In constructing a metal framework one may use a range of hot-laminated sections, from the traditional H and I shapes to the latest innovations.
Composite construction: steel Fibres
ArcelorMittal offers a full range of steel fibres for concrete reinforcement. Steel fibres provide an alternative to traditional concrete reinforcement.
Concrete reinforced with steel fibres becomes a composite material with specific properties and
advantages that enables considerable cost- and time-savings in many applications. There are numerous applications: industrial flooring with and without joints, slabs on piles, fibre-reinforced concrete
floors composite floors, shotcrete for road and railway tunnels. Made from high tensile steel wires, steel
fibres are available in various lengths from 20 mm up to 40 mm, with optimized length-diameter ratio
and specific shapes, assuring an improved anchorage into concrete.
© Pierre Engel © Hélène Binet
3
067
Composite construction: floor systems
Arval, ArcelorMittal Group, offers a wide range of floor systems made up of galvanised decks or
galvanised-precoated decks. These profiles, carefully combined with materials such as concrete,
thermal- and acoustic-insulation, plaster, and wood, form advanced construction systems intended
for all types of structures. All systems combine mechanical strength, ease of installation, safety, and
compatibility with the structures and networks; once in place, they present an underside with a finished, clean, sealed appearance which can be left uncovered.
• Cofraplus ® and Cofrastra ® : these are composite floors, i.e. the concrete slab and the embossed steel
decks are interdependent and work together to produce the composite resistance of the floor. The
deck is manufactured from 0.75mm gauge steel and is designed for spans up to 4.50m without props
over 2 continuous bays, and slab thicknesses of 10 to 28 cm.
• Cofradal ® : This is a prefabricated composite floor system ready to be laid that incorporates a special
steel section, acoustic and thermal insulation material, a welded mesh and a concrete slab. The elements are 1.20 m wide with lengths up to 7 m, and combine lightness with acoustic and thermal performance, and fire resistance. This system is the ideal solution for rapid installation without propping.
envelopes - interior design
Involucri
THE EXPRESSION OF
A CHANGING SOCIETY
Innovation never an end in itself
STAINLESS STEEL: NEW SKIN FOR CONSTRUCTIONS
Stainless steel offers the architect products and systems especially designed for building shells and
interior design solutions. Within the steel family the architectural choice is increasingly falling on stainless steel.
With its high chrome content (min. 10.5%) this reacts with oxygen to form a fine self-protective surface
coating, an excellent defence against corrosion. It is extremely ductile, has high mechanical properties and is environmentally friendly in being non-pollutant and, like all steels, 100% recyclable.
KARA® : INNOVATIVE ARCHITECTONIC SOLUTIONS
KARA® is a new series of ferritic stainless steel products by ArcelorMittal. The alloy of this family of
ferritic steels has a high chromium content guaranteeing its corrosion resistance, but it is nickel-free.
This feature restores the steel’s magnetic properties without impairing the self-protection process and
hence the product’s durability.
068
© Pawlowicz - courtesy ArcelorMittal
KARA® is part of the market range of highly corrosion resistant products offering high performance
technical characteristics at an extremely competitive price made stable by the fact that the alloy is
not subject to nickel-related price fluctuations.
For external cladding in architecture exposed to the average aggressive environmental conditions
typical of new industrial installations, the KARA® range offers the K36, a steel corresponding to AISI
international standard 436: suitable for profiling and transformation, and easily welded by traditional
techniques. The excellent mechanical features of the K36 allow the thickness of the resistant section
to be reduced thereby decreasing the weight of the entire façade or roof.
Thanks to the different finishings available (matte, mirror, etc.) KARA® guarantees high architectonic
impact flanked by a flexibility allowing totally free spatial expression with virtually no maintenance
costs. Depending on the type of product, KARA® is available in thicknesses ranging from 0.4 mm al 3
mm with a maximum width of 1500 mm.
ArcelorMittal’s advisors and technical experts can offer designers guidance on the best choice of
steel to satisfy specific needs.
069
© Pawlowicz - courtesy ArcelorMittal
NEW OPPORTUNITIES: THE CONTEMPORARY
HORIZONS OF ARCHITECTURE
envelopes
Involucri
Because every challenge is an opportunity and every solution has its best form
ARVAL® SOLUTIONS
Arval is an ArcelorMittal group company specialising in complete systems
for façades, roofs, floors, ceilings and inside cladding. Arval solutions are the
outcome of new technical and aesthetic research. The architect is guided
throughout the whole process from the design phase until the shell is mounted.
Arval solutions may be personalised as to materials (stainless steel, prepainted, galvanised, etc.) or choice of façade system (sandwich panels,
coffered, shingles, slatted, brise-soleil, etc.). With their modular basis and
ease of assembly, Arval solutions answer all the designer’s needs within a
© Paul Robin - courtesy ArcelorMittal
070
single system: look, fire resistance, water-proofing, heat and noise comfort.
Caïman ® is a shingle façade system (the shingle size can be chosen)
suitable for buildings with an organic form. It dialogues with the surrounding
environment by vibrant light effects that seem to bring the building to life.
Mascaret ®, a perforated cross-wave section, and ST Lumiere 300 ®, an
embossed round/oblong hole section, are used for fly roofs and façade
sun-breakers. They can be mounted horizontal or vertical. With their dynamic
look they give the building transparency or filter the sunlight. The coffer
systems ST Evolution® are suitable for façade cladding in new or refurbishing
operations. Quick and easy to mount and exceptionally flat, they come
in units of various shapes to meet the widest range of circumstances. The
Insulated Panel Systems comprise two coated profiled steel sheets enclosing
a polyurethane or a rock wool insulation. The lightweight and simple to fix
insulated panel is a leading product in the cladding and roofing market
and provides a comprehensive, practical and economical solution for the
renovation or construction of steel buildings. To suit a variety of building
applications, Arval offers a wide choice of colours and finishes.
THE OXYGEN ® SYSTEM
The Oxygen ® system is ArcelorMittal’s latest façade cladding release: 10/10
thick interlocking embossed stainless steel panels with varying size convex
and concave motifs that anchor to a mullion and transom structural frame.
Easy to install, the Oxygen® panels help speed up the whole façade cladding process. Maintenance is also extremely easy: the action of rain ensures
normal cleaning, leaving only periodical intervention necessary to eliminate organic growth and prevent corrosion due to external factors. The 3-D
© Ch. Wood - courtesy ArcelorMittal
© Eric Avenel - courtesy ArcelorMittal
071
aspect of these micro-perforated panels gives the façade a de-structured
appearance that shimmers in the light, enhancing the sense of depth. The
result is a truly aesthetic architectural façade.
Oxygen ® modules are made from 10/10 thickness 4301 micro-perforated,
coated stainless steel. Each panel has 15 convex and 8 concave spheres,
12 concave semi-spheres along the edges and 4 quarter-spheres at the
corners. This ensures continuity of the embossed pattern across the interlocking panels. In addition to the alternation of concave and convex hollows,
upturned edges and horizontal reinforcement bars increase the transverse
inertia of the façade compared to a single, non-undulated surface. This
provides maximum stability to the whole system.
Oxygen ® modules are available in the size 82 cm x 134 cm approx. Horizontal
and vertical joint-width space is 7 mm. Installation should be carried out by
qualified ArcelorMittal people.
IS ARCHITECTURE FREEDOM?
structures
Freedom as an expression of light and light as an expression of freedom
ARCELORMITTAL CELLULAR BEAMS (ACB ® )
ACB beams are a lightweight solution to roofing and floors, saving space and ensuring practicality,
a fine appearance, flexibility, monetary saving and, being prefabricated, speed of instalment. The
process begins with a basic hot-rolled H or I section which is cut down the shaft by a patented technique to obtain two T pieces that are then welded together again. The result is a girder with circular
perforations and a greater height and inertia/weight ratio than at the outset. Depending on the
design need, one may produce a host of shapes (varying the diameter and spacing of the holes, cur-
072
vature, etc.), with the hole diameter up to 80% of the final beam height. The spans possible vary with
the task required: for roofing, from 10 to 45 m; for floor girders, from 8 to 25 m. Cellular beams enable
the final height of a floor structure to be reduced by 25-40 cm, since wiring and other circuits can pass
through the beam perforations. There is also a weight-saving of 25-30% over traditional hot-rolled steel
sections, which produces an economic saving and greater ease of transportation and assembly.
073
THE ERA OF NON-STANDARDISATION
envelopes
Technology at the service of aesthetics
Arceo: Technological and Aesthetical Innovation
Arceo is an industrial prototype for a vacuum plasma steel coating line, a breakthrough technology developed as a world first by ArcelorMittal’s Research and Development, that enables to coat
steel sheet with extremely fine particles - nanoparticles - and launch new products with innovative
properties. With this process steel can be a sensor, a reflector, a source of light, an anti-bacterial or
self-cleaning surface, or just simply more aesthetic or endowned with better anti-corrosive properties. Available in a new exclusive range of attractive finishes and colours like gold or champagne,
074
these products are suited for interior decoration in ceilings, doors, interior walls (Ambient®), in lighting
applications in industrial and office buildings (Luminance ®) or in building applications like façades
and accessories (Duraclean).
The vacuum plasma process is respectful of the environment. Arceo does not use solvents or chemical
preparations; neither does it generate effluents or gases that require treatment, simply because in a
vacuum coating process, all the particles are deposited on the steel.
075
CITIES WITHIN THE MEGACITY
envelopes
Safety, durability and protection; a presence for the present and the future
SOLANO ®
Solano ® 30 is a range of organic coated steels specially designed for roof
and wall cladding applications in demanding situations, including industrial
and coastal environments. They marry solid steel with a protective thermoplastic coating to create products with longer life and high resistance to the
elements. They feature enhanced UV protection, greater corrosion resistance - even on cut edges, and an extended range of guarantees, up to
© Emiel Verhasselt - courtesy ArcelorMittal
© Emiel Verhasselt - courtesy ArcelorMittal
076
30 years. Solano ® is available in a wide range of modern colours and comes
in a choice of up to seven different emboss patterns: smooth, leathergrain,
grained, medium striped, fine striped, woodgrain, and the distinctive new
Solano® logo emboss. To ensure quality of life for end users, all paints on the
colour palette are phthalate-free. The size availability is 0.3 to 1.8 mm thick
and 600x1550 mm large.
PRE-PAINTED STEEL
As used in the pavilion in commemoration of the 100 th anniversary of the
city of Esch-Sur-Alzette (Fig.1, 2) by Benedetta Tagliabue, pre-painted steel
is a technological, ecological, low-cost product. The galvanised steel support is given two coats of paint: a primer and a top coat. Manufacturing is
continuous so that production can be controlled and a high quality of final
product achieved in terms of look and economic saving. All these steel lay-
© Pierre Engel
2
© Pierre Engel
ers compete in excellence of mechanical properties and resistance to corrosion, as well as being resistant to scoring and fire, elastic, malleable and
workable. Such steels are used in the building trade for lining inside surfaces
(false ceilings, doors, etc.) or for outside jobs (like sandwich panels, façade
cladding, etc.). The pre-painted steels manufactured by the ArcelorMittal
group come in a range of paint coatings varying according to use (final
sheet thickness from 0.17 to 3 mm), and are available in sheet or strip form,
from 600 to 1 850 mm wide.
077
1
WHY THE FUTURE NEEDS ME?
roofings
Respect for the environment requires efficiency and energy saving
ARSOLAR ® : INNOVATIVE HIGH EFFICIENCY ROOFING
Arsolar ® is a high performance modular panel system devised by ArcelorMittal for integrated ventilated photovoltaic roofing. The Arsolar ® system has the dual function of metallic roofing for buildings,
and generating electricity directly from solar radiation.
The pollution-free plentiful supply of sun-produced energy on the earth varies in relation to latitude.
Seven insolation areas have been identified in Europe with the surface and slope features required
for the installation of photovoltaic panels. The ideal working conditions for the Arsolar ® system require
the panels to be assembled on a surface with at least 10% slope, bearing in mind that the optimal
slope angle is around 60° or 30°. A 25mq surface of Arsolar ® roofing (3000 Wc) will avoid atmospheric
078
emissions of 30 tons of CO2, corresponding to the pollution produced by a car running a distance of
160,000 Km.
To maximize the potential of Arsolar ® and ensure the success of the photovoltaic project ArcelorMittal
offers targeted support to planners, construction firms, building workers and end users, guaranteeing
an energy production over 25 years equal to 80% of the nominal power, with the metallic roofing support covered by a 20 year guarantee. As a combined photovoltaic roofing system Arsolar® comes
under the government-funded incentives for the production of clean electricity.
ArcelorMittal offers a full range of parts and accessories to guarantee a full dry-bonded multilayer
roofing system including heat insulation. The Arsolar ® modules can be supported by corrugated or
sheet steel boxes fixed to purlins between which a layer of vapour-proof rock wool fibre insulation is
inserted. Alternatively, Traditherm ® 120 mm thick load-bearing insulated steel sandwich panels can
be used. In both cases the Arsolar ® modules will rest on special bored omega spacers on the sup-
port designed to ensure mechanical strength and ventilation. An 8 cm thick air space is required to
ensure electricity generation (which would subside with the rise in temperature if the roof were not
ventilated), with fixture points in the gutter and outlet on the ridge of the roof.
Arsolar ® is manufactured in galvanized laminated corrugated steel panels available in three standard
colours: white, blue and anthracite. The panel surface taken up by the crystalline silicon photovoltaic
cells is 1050x1495 mm for single modules and 1050x2990 mm for double modules and the nominal
power per mq is between 65 and 75 Wc.
079
ALUZINC ®
A steel sheet coated in aluminium and zinc bonding in almost equal parts, and used for roofing
and façade shells. The steel provides mechanical resistance, the metal coating both enhances the
surface with a bright silvery starred effect and affords excellent resistance to atmospheric corrosion
thanks to the combined protective action of aluminium and zinc. Guaranteed for 20 years against
holing through corrosion, Aluzinc® preserves its natural colour and brightness. It provides a building
with a thermal shield, thanks to its high capacity to reflect heat and light, and is also excellent value
for money.
Aluzinc® is a carbon steel sheet (EN 10215) coated with an alloy of aluminium (55%), zinc (43.4%) and
silicon (1.6%), manufactured by AlcorMittal. It is used in thicknesses of 0.5 - 0.7 mm for roofing and
0.7 - 0.8 for façades. It comes in 700 - 1500 mm wide sheets. Besides the qualities mentioned, it is also
abrasion and fire resistant, elastic, malleable, workable and eco-friendly.
Editor in Chief
NICOLA LEONARDI
Art Director and Editorial Co-ordinator
CARLOTTA ZUCCHINI
The Plan thanks Locomia
Comunicazione Integrata
for providing the concept
of this volume
Senior Editors
MARCO LEONARDI
GERARDO DALL’OCCA DELL’ORSO
GIULIANO RE
Managing Editor
ADRIANA DALL’OCCA DELL’ORSO
Creative Director
RICCARDO PIETRANTONIO
Special Contributors
LUCY BULLIVANT
CRISTINA MOROZZI
ALESSANDRA ORLANDONI
LUIGI PRESTINENZA PUGLISI
RAYMUND RYAN
Correspondents
CARLO VITTORIO MATILDI, GREAT BRITAIN
GRAHAM FORD, NEW ZELAND
UGO CAVALLARI, SPAIN
FELIX FREY, SWITZERLAND
SERGIO GHETTI, USA
EMILIANO GANDOLFI, THE NETHERLANDS
Special Contributors
ArcelorMittal BCS
LARA CAPPELLO
CHRISTINE ETZENBACH
MARTA DZIARNOWSKA
SILVIA SCALZO
Graphic & Editing
GIANFRANCO CESARI
GIANLUCA RAIMONDO
Editorial Staff
LAURA COCURULLO
ANGELA MACCHI
ELISABETTA MADRIGALI
FEDERICO MASTRORILLI
ILARIA MAZZANTI
SILVIA MONTI
ALICE POLI
Text Editors
MADDALENA DALLA MURA - Italian
FRANCESCO PAGLIARI - Italian
STEVIE JOHNSON - English
RALPH NISBET - English
Translators
Maria Sole Checcoli
Maria Rosa Cirillo
Catherine de Coataudon
Rossella Fresu Ratzinger
Christopher John Turner
Johannes Rösing
Advertising and Editorial Coordinator
COSTANZA DALL’OCCA DELL’ORSO
Distribution Manager
GUGLIELMO BOZZI BONI
Administration
SERENA PRETI
Subscriptions
ILARIA ROSSI
Promotion
FEDERICA ANDREINI
Printer for this issue
Mondadori Printing
Publisher
THE PLAN
Art & Architecture Editions
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Edizioni Scientifiche
Via del Pratello, 8
40122 Bologna - Italy
Tel.+39. 051.227634
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decq dubbeldam hadid jiricna pinos semin tagliabue

Transcription

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