Editorial

Shelter, comfort and privacy

If local, regional and national traditions make themselves felt anywhere in architecture, it is in the home. Domestic architecture is heavily influenced by specific social and cultural conventions. These, in combination with climate, give rise to considerable architectural differences between North and South Europe, but also between neighbouring countries and even between north and south in a single country. Yet climate and conventions seem to play no more than a secondary role when it comes to the special category of architect-designed houses and villas, a selection of which can be found in this issue of A10. While these houses may exhibit a certain kinship with local traditions in their appearance and materialization, in programme and use they reflect a universal character.

That universal character has little to do with the archetypical function of the house as the fulfilment of the basic human need for shelter. For the majority of people in today’s preponderantly prosperous and well-organized European societies, the urgency of this need is largely dormant. For the better-off occupants of the architecturally superior houses and villas featured in these pages, the physical need for shelter is a thing of the past; at most the houses they commission contain a derivative of this basic need, in the form of a desire for the psychological security of privacy and the physical pleasure of comfort.

Despite this desire for metaphorical shelter, such custom-made houses usually proclaim a conspicuous lifestyle, to use a variant of the well-known concept of conspicuous consumption introduced by Thorsten Veblen in his famous 1899 book The Theory of the Leisure Class. The private swimming pool, which as this issue shows is as likely to crop up in Gothenburg as in Seville, is one of the traditional symbols of this lifestyle. Most striking, however, is the fact that – at the moment when the photographer dropped by, at any rate – there appears to be an inverse relationship between the number of cubic metres of living space and the quantity of visible worldly goods. The homeopathic dilution of possessions is an even better indicator of affluence than the size of the swimming pool. For while most people struggle in vain against an overwhelming quantity of furniture, appliances, clothes, toys, old newspapers and gadgets around the home, the occupants of these houses can allow themselves what Gerrit Rietveld called the „austere luxury“ of not being constantly surrounded by their possessions. (Hans Ibelings)

Inhalt

On the Spot
News and observations:
• Having previously furnished both the Reichstag in Berlin and the British Museum in London with a new roof, Foster & Partners has now done the same for Dresden’s railway terminal (DE)
• Vienna's MuseumsQuartier has been taken over by 114 Styrofoam blocks, designed by PPAG, which can be arranged in countless ways forming igloos, seats, stages, catwalks, sculptures and mountain • climbing landscapes
• Moscow’s 171st metro station connects the centre to the future financial district of Moscow-City
• Four years of research, two years of repeated announcements from different publishers, recurring discussions about the results – the three-volume book „Switzerland, An Urban Portrait“ had a turbulent life behind it by the time it finally saw the light of day
• The Sea Organ in Zadar (HR) is a system of organ pipes activated by the kinetic energy of the waves breaking against the shore, producing an ever-changing composition
• Reality check: Aurland's viewing platform (NO)
• Update: Torino 2006. For the Winter Olympics, Turin has built new premises, revamped old buildings and upgraded entire districts
• and more...

Start
New projects:
• Siiri Vallner, Indrek Peil and Katrin Koov's competition-winning college building evokes the baroque past of Narva (EE)
• Gudmundur Jonsson designed a cultural centre in Brogarnes (IS), inspired by the Icelandic saga „Egill the Strong“
• With a new gate to Malta, Architecture Project fuses history with renewed urban activity in the harbour of Valletta (MT)
• ARCHTEAM’s new entrance to a municipal building in Hradec (CZ) pays tribute to modernist architect Josef Gocar
• Archea insist that their building „4 ever green“ in Tirana (AL) should be categorized as an „urban tower“, not a skyscraper
• With their designs for a tea pavilion and a forest tower, architectural firms na-ma and SeARCH won an invited competition for the redevelopment of „the most beautiful arboretum in the Netherlands“
• Ex-Archigram member Peter Cook designed a housing project in Madris (ES) with his new practice CRAB

Interview
Urs Primas and the dark side of architecture:
Axel Simon talks to Urs Primas about Switzerland and the future. Primas: „Reflecting sceptically upon the future, addressing undesirable or dangerous plots is necessary. Especially in urban design we should not be operating only with promises of growth but also considering shrinkage or even breakdown scenarios.“

Ready
New buildings:
• Hans Moor's bridges in Rotterdam (NL) have been conceived by means of a design process based on Darwin’s theories
• With his design for a private house in Sigulda (LV), Andris Kronbergs was awarded the best architectural design in Latvia, beating heavyweight rivals
• Lydia Haack, John Hoepfner and Richard Horden have developed „micro compact homes“ which are being tested this year by students in Munich (DE)
• Golden Nugget in Graz (AT) exemplifies INNOCAD’s all-encompassing approach: development, design and sale
• That Belgian social housing doesn't have to be stereotypical and impersonal, is shown by TEEMA with their project in Merksplas (BE)
• Two villas by Wingårdhs: VillAnn in Kungsbacka and Villa Astrid in Gothenburg (SE)
• Ubaldo & Marisol Garcia Torrente created an urban loft in the heart of Seville (ES)
• JKMM Architects designed a timber church building in Helsinki (FI) with an interior that is both minimalist and invitingly warm
• A remarkably innovative school in Hadsund (DK) by JJW Arkitekter and bjerg arkitektur
• With their design for a private house in Dublin (DE), Boyd Cody Architects prove that a house can be a private refuge and a part of its neighbourhood at the same time
• Allmann Sattler Wappner have converted a listed factory building in München (DE) – mainly for their own use
• In Norfolk (UK), Hudson Architects have built Cedar House – the modern barn par excellence
• Zerozero transformed the greyscale monotony of a housing estate in Presov (SK) with a powerful geometric concept
• Macken & Macken has added a new complex to the Warande Cultural Centre in Turnhout (BE), countering the brutalism of the existing building
• For a double house in Athens (GR), Nikos Ktenas reinterpreted the traditional Greek „katoikia“

Section
Analysing specific aspects of contemporary architecture:
A new feature focusing on specific aspects of contemporary architecture. In this first instalment, a cross-section of changes in the area of the facade.

Eurovision
Focusing on European countries, cities and regions:
• Recent years have seen the emergence of network practices. Jorrin ten Have interviewed three of them: Ocean D, UFO and a-Graft. Pedro Gadanho signals a quiet revolution of „open-source architecture“.
• The dubious proceedings surrounding large-scale urban transformations in Istanbul.
• A10’s Slovenian correspondents take you on a guided tour of the best architecture in Ljubljana

Instant History
Buildings that already get their share of media attention:
According to Ursula Baus, Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg is further confirmation of what has been emerging in Zaha Hadid’s recent projects worldwide: rather than producing over-intellectualized buildings, she is becoming increasingly sensitive to the situation at each specific location, offering tailor-made urban and landscape repair.

Private house, Sigulda

The interaction between architect Andris Kronbergs, the clients and the natural surroundings is woven into this design.

Would it be important to you to have a visible house? For most of the people the answer would be „yes“. Not in this case, however. Largely invis-ible from the street, this private house received an award for the best architectural design in Latvia for 2004, beating all the heavyweight rivals and becoming a place of pilgrimage for both architects and the general public.

Picturesque and powerful landscapes were what sprang to the client’s mind when thinking of the primeval Gauja River valley, designated a National Park three decades ago. When he acquired a sloping site just inside the park’s borders and surrounded by traditional steep-gabled villas, his main desire was to respect the existing landscape as much as possible. It was his friend, artist Ja¯nis Borgs, who first came up with the idea of a building protruding from the hillside. He also suggested contacting architect Andris Kronbergs, who heads the ARHIS design office. Kronbergs saw the task as a great opportunity to express his own deep sensitivity for nature and passion for reticent and sincere design, both shared by the client.

The hillside on which the building sits was first excavated and then filled in again once the house was completed. The plot was strongly landscaped in bands of simple „mater-ials“: a rye field skirting the street, a grassy lane on the valley side, gravel for the cour d’honneur, and pebbles for the tourist trail that passes through the yard and across the roof of the building, which is accessible from the rye field. An open-work fence is all that separates the plot from the street, while a pebble-paved path marks the valley-facing boundary, leaving it up to architectural means rather than physical obstacles to determine the borderline between public and private space.

Add golden leaves in autumn, bird-cherry tree blossoms in spring and a mantle of white in winter for the complete shell for the building itself. A new design element was a pond filled by a natural spring that came to light during earth-moving operations.

The building is an elongated, linear structure. Orthogonal geometry provides a backbone for the skewed volumetric composition and spatial layout. Slanting, protruding and naturally uneven elements create a genuine sense of nature inside the house. A combination of rough, massive surfaces and smooth, light elements meanders through the house. Nonetheless, the details are more functional than decorative. The main sculptural accents in the interior – massive, irregularly slanting concrete columns – also play a vital structural role as counterforts for the weight of the hill resting on the long, reinforced concrete wall. At the same time, they separate the public and private areas of the house. The windows in the kitchen and living room project outwards to capture the best of the morning sun and the evening light. The architectural composition also determines the linear direction of the interior and exterior lighting.

The rooms are arranged in a linear sequence, too. A utility room at the north end of the building is followed by the car parking, entrance hall, office and dining room. Here the levels split – a few steps lead down to the living room, TV corner and sauna, while a long flight of stairs leads up to the bedrooms. All the bathrooms and utility rooms are located in a parallel sequence, between the outer hillside wall and the columns.

One of the most important features of the building is its tactility. Rough, offcut timber finish for the exterior walls makes a powerful contrast with the large windows. Waxed, but robust reinforced concrete walls, polished spruce-wood floors, felt curtains and ceiling finish in the TV corner (by interior consultant Barbara Ãbele) serve as a background for natural timber furniture and soft pillows that add to the restrained elegance and warmth of the interior. The only colour accents in this light grey interior are in the bathrooms.

In a way, the building is a contemporary interpretation of ancient Baltic traditions, a holistic and integrated residential complex ensuring the peace of the inward-orientated life of a family and sensitive interactions between man and nature. It is the slow pace of nature, like listening to grass growing, that the family is experiencing. But not for an eternity: Sigulda is a major ski resort, and the same client has commissioned a small-scale ski centre to the north of the house.

A10, So., 2006.01.08

08. Januar 2006 Anita Antenišķe


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Privat House

„CMYK“ housing, Presov

Zerozero transformed the greyscale monotony of a housing estate with its powerful geometric concept.

The housing estates of Central and Eastern Europe are one of the many paradoxes of the „new“ European physical environment. Still inhabited by a large proportion of the population, they are often in a distressingly poor state of repair.

In the Slovakian capital Bratislava, no comprehensive makeover concept has so far been brought to bear on this problem. Instead, partial and unsustainable interventions provide superficial fast-track solutions usually amounting to no more than plastering and painting the prefabricated facades or attaching a superstructure to the body of the prefabricated building.

Far away from the capital in eastern Slovakia, a smart conceptual proposal for the overall transformation of the living environment has recently been successfully applied in the city of Presov. The housing blocks in question were constructed in the 1950s, when the state started to build housing estates for the growing post-war urban population. The construction of these urban structures in the centre and on the outskirts of every town and city became an instrument of state housing policy. In most cases, urban planning and functional zoning provided these residential districts with a controlled urban environment. So too in this relatively small housing estate whose location next to the city’s football stadium served to inscribe it in local people’s consciousness. The simple architectural form of the ten blocks of low-cost apartments, repeated in series, was derived from traditional tent roofs.

Over time, a process of physical and social deterioration took place in what had started out as an oasis of new healthy living. Designed as an open plan neighbourhood, the district became an urban island occupied mainly by low-income or unemployed people. At that time, the interest of the local officials was minimal and the quality of life gradually deteriorated even further and it shared the fate of many other places in Slovakia: densely inhabited by Roma people and abandoned by officialdom.

A drastic rethinking of the place itself and of the potential of social housing in contemporary Slovak society was necessary if the neighbourhood was to be saved. In 2001, the City of Presov duly held an open, anonymous competition for the revitalization of this problematic housing estate.

That ideas competition was won by the newly founded architectural practice zerozero which was subsequently commissioned to redesign the old housing blocks, providing 190 new rental apartments and new infrastructure. Construction started in 2002, with the first apartment blocks being delivered in 2004; the second and final phase is currently taking place.

The simple geometry of the existing estate and the proportional scale of the surrounding buildings formed the basis of the new project. In order to introduce some much-needed social heterogeneity, a mixture of apartments – differing in size and standard – was proposed. „Change of image – the design of a new urban icon“ was the radical notion behind the project. The spatial enlargement of the old housing blocks was achieved by remodelling the traditional pitched roof buildings into a composition of abstract figures. The new flat-roofed, two-storey extensions to the former three-storey blocks add a necessary degree of volumetric animation and provide for easy spatial orientation in the new neighbourhood.

Although the strong CMYK colours initially proposed for the front facades of the cantilevered prisms ended up a pale mixture of blue and white, the strong geometrical profile of the original architectural proposal remains. The fact that the project was recently awarded the local ARCH magazine 2005 prize shows that this is powerful enough.

A10, So., 2006.01.08

08. Januar 2006 Maria Topolcanska


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CMYK

Bridges, Rotterdam

Hans Moor Architects make innovative designs based on Darwin’s theories.

Hans Moor compares the evolution of architecture to that of a plant or animal species, which is driven by mutations in genetic material. His own design method is based on Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest. It consists of testing and combining design variants on different levels of scale, using three-dimensional computer programs, in order to come up with the most suitable solution both from the point of view of architecture and with respect to the economical use of material, energy, money and time. Moor’s method may seem theoretical and prescribed, but his buildings are fortunately not; he always proceeds from the spatial experience he wants to create for the user.

The „Absence of light“ bridges are part of a larger commission in the Rotterdam suburb of Nesselande which will eventually contain 4500 dwellings. Half a kilometre away is another bridge that Moor built in 2003: the „Bridge of wind and water“. A water and wind installation (windmill) coupled to this pedestrian/cyclist bridge and a steel grid in the centre of the deck are intended to raise users’ awareness of their surroundings. In due course it will be joined by a „Bridge of horizon and difference“ that incorporates a covered section from which pedestrians can look out over the horizon of Lake Zevenhuizen. Moor also designed the recently completed „De Hapering“ metro station that is part of the Nesselande „transport island“.

Access to this transport island is provided by the „Absence of light“, a family of seven bridges that splits the different traffic flows into separate bridge decks for cars, cyclists and pedestrians. At the head of the family are two large bridges for vehicular traffic, on the west side of the island. The lighting of these bridges is integrated with the structure: in the evenings and at night the bridge is a trail of light that illuminates the road deck and the surrounding area. The concrete structure is perforated with a pattern of dots of varying diameter. The round holes are filled with specially developed glass light fittings containing blue LED lighting. The perforations also make the area below the bridge lighter by day and by night. The substructure is likewise designed to appear as light as possible; the slanting concrete columns all tend inwards, accentuating the horizontality of the bridge which appears to float on the water. The balustrades with their slender diagonal rails are of powder-coated steel.

The cyclist section of the bridge for slow traffic, which is next to the two car bridges, is structured and illuminated in the same way. The pedestrian section is designed as a separate zone. The deck consists of perforated aluminium sheets, interrupted every three metres by a glazed strip with integrated lighting. The other five bridges for non-motorized traffic are simpler versions of the big bridges but without the integrated lighting.

Moor’s architectural interpretation of evolutionary theory extends beyond technical innovation and economical designs. The horizontality, the everyday materials and grey and blue palette of concrete, steel and glass gives this substantial piece of infrastructure a distinct, coherent presence that is naturally embedded in the Dutch landscape.

A10, So., 2006.01.08

08. Januar 2006 Kirsten Hannema


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Bridge Nesselande

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