Digital
Hadid, Patrik
Schumacher
91 000 characters (with spaces) 101 images (13 projects) Contents
I. The prehistory of the new digitally based architecture
The quest for new design media
Zaha Hadid in her own words
Graphic Space
Post-modernism, Deconstructivism, Folding
Mechanisms of Invention
II. Current work Ð towards a new digitally based architectural
language Organic Interarticulation
Centre for Contemporary Art, Rome
Art Centre, Graz
Quebec National Library, Montreal
One North Masterplan, Singapore
BMW Central Building, Leipzig
Ice-storm, Lounging Environment
Z-Scape, Lounging Furniture
BBC Music Centre, London
Fine Arts Centre, University of Connecticut
Fast Train Station, Florence
Fast Train Station, Naples
Temporary Guggenheim Museum, Tokyo
Guggenheim Museum, Taichung
Further Reading
Project Credits
IntroductionDigital Hadid will explore the contribution of Zaha Hadid and of Zaha Hadid
Architects to the development of the new architectural language and
paradigm that is fast becoming hegemonic within avant-garde architecture
today. There is an unmistakable new style manifest within avant-garde
architecture today. Its most striking characteristic is its complex
and dynamic curvelinearity. Beyond this obvious surface feature one
can identify a series of new concepts and methods that are so different
from the repertoire of both traditional and modern architecture that
one might speak of the emergence of a new paradigm for architecture.
It seems difficult to give a unified name to this new paradigm that
succinctly captures the essence of the current trend. One difficulty
lies in the question whether such a defining term should refer to the
formal features, the guiding concepts or the methods/techniques that
characterize this new paradigm. Contenders are Blob-architecture, Folding
, Deformation, Parametric Architecture, Digital Architecture. This new language (or style) of architecture seems to be based
upon the adoption of a new generation of 3D modeling tools. Indeed
a lot of commentators tend to construe a direct causal link from this
new paradigm back to the IT revolution that has transformed the discipline
in last 10 years.
Indeed the choice of a representational/design medium has
a huge impact on the character of the design results. The medium is
never neutral and external to the work. It constitutes and limits the
design issues treated and the universe of possibilities for effective
design speculation. Design thinking is bound to the representational
medium and its scope can be expanded by the expansion offered by the
new digital design tools. The reflection upon Òdesign worldsÓ (Mitchell
1990), and their embeddedness in the Òdiscursive formationsÓ (Foucault
1972) of the discipline, is a necessary component of taking a progressive
stance towards the possibilities of design research.
However, I shall argue and demonstrate that such a simple reduction of
the new type of work to the availability of computing in architecture
would be a fallacy. While it is undeniably true that the arrival of
the new tools (3ds max a.o.) had a huge impact and that these tools
have been able to monopolize the production of contemporary work -
without these tools nothing goes - I will argue that the adoption of animation tools was not
at all inevitable, but rather had to be prepared by certain conceptual
and methodological advances that preceded the arrival of these tools.
To uncover and explicate this pre-digital pedigree of the current digital
architecture will be the task of the first part of the book. In this
prehistory one can locate Zaha HadidÕs most original and path-breaking
contributions to the development of contemporary architecture. In this
era Ð the 1980s - Hadid
was one of the key protagonists in a field of radical conceptual and
formal architectural research, and her pre-eminent reputation was established
on the basis of pictorial research without the completion of a single
building during this first decade of her career. During this period
the computer was absent from HadidÕs design studio. However, the innovation
of certain analog design media deployed was crucial in the formation
of her work. The second part of the book will focus on the development of the work since the introduction of the computer in 1990. Here I will introduce a series of key projects and key concepts that have been important with respect to the development of the current flourishing of Òdigital architectureÓ both within and beyond HadidÕs practice. This period in also the period in which HadidÕs architecture has made the transition from concept to material realization without compromising its innovative thrust. The involvement of the 3D modeling tools in this process of realization will be explained. Finally, I will present and discuss the most recent work of Zaha Hadid Architects which is marked by the fact that a new level of structural complexity, tectonic fluidity and plastic articulation has been mastered with precision and confidence.
While the book presents two parts representing two phases
in the development of HadidÕs oevre pre-digital
and (post)digital - I
think the work has a strong continuity overall. The computer was introduced in the late
eighties, early nineties, when we started with simple forms of 3D-modelling
with Model-shop and later FormZ. That was a process parallel to hand
drafting and painting. They were quick three-dimensional sketches.
The computer was used because it was helpful for what was already established
as an architectural language. The computer programs that work with
splines and smoothly deformable meshes were introduced much later,
in the second half of the nineties. The 2D computer-drafting, for the
plans and sections, started in the mid-nineties. That was a big shift,
because it meant not just working in layers, which you can also do
on transparent paper, but it meant that we could work on all plans
simultaneously. The latest shift is the introduction of 3D modeling
and complex curvelinearity. That made more complex compositions possible.
But the desire for complex form was always building upon the formal
and conceptual innovations achieved previously. The tools came in as
soon as they were available, keenly taken up to support the ambitious
design manoevers already under way. It was a dialectic amplification,
in which the new work spurned the search for new tools and the introduction
of new tools facilitated the work further, pushing the most ambitious
tendencies to new extremes. This process was an evolution of many smaller
steps, not of a few singular breaks.
I. The prehistory of the new digitally based architecture
The quest for new design media
One of the most significant and momentous features of architectural
avant-garde of the last 20 years is the proliferation of representational
media and design processes. In the early eighties Zaha Hadid burst onto the architectural
scene with a series of spectacular designs embodied by even more spectacular
drawings and paintings. The idiosyncrasies of these drawings made it
difficult to read them as straightforward architectural descriptions. This initial openness of interpretation might have led some
commentators to suspect Ômere graphicsÓ here. There is an obvious parallel here with the skepticism which
confronted the early, abstract experiments in computer surface modeling
in the mid-nineties. However, these unusual modes of representation played a fundamental
role in the development of a series of highly original and influential
expansions of the formal and conceptual repertoire of architecture.
Modes of representation in architecture are at the same time modes
of generation. The creative process to a large extent resides in these
modes and means. The creativity and information processing capacity
of the ÒimaginationÓ or Óinner eyeÓ is rather limited and itself dependent
upon being trained and developed in conjunction with the development
of the media. That is why ÒDigital HadidÓ is part of a significant
series of investigations.
Computer technology,
i.e. the new digital design tools have had an important and increasing
influence on the work of Zaha Hadid Architects over the last 10 years.
This concerns primarily the handling of increasingly complex geometries
within the designs. However, the desire for such tools to be imported
from the animation industry originated in the fact that the tendency
towards complexity and fluidity was already manifest in the work before
those tools were available. HadidÕs early elaborate techniques of projective
distortion - deployed as a cohering device to gather a multitude of
elements into one geometric force-field - were already setting the
precedence of the current computerbased techniques of deformation and
the modeling of fields by means of pseudo-gravitational forces. Hadid used axonometric and perspective projection in a new way to dynamize the implied space. Initially such projections were deployed according to their proper function as means of representation. However, it soon became apparent
that there was a Òself-servingÓ fascination with the extreme distortion
of spaces and objects that emerged from the ruthless application of
perspective construction Ð no0t unlike the anamorphic projectionsone
can find in certain 17th Century paintings. Hadid built
up pictorial spaces within which multiple perspective constructions
were fused into a seamless dynamic texture. One way to understand these
images is as attempts to emulate the experience of moving through an
architectural composition revealing a succession of rather different
points of view. Another, more radical way of reading these canvasses
is to abstract from the implied views and to read the swarms of distorted
forms as a peculiar architectural world in its own right with its own
characteristic forms, compositional laws and spatial effects. One of
the striking features of these large canvasses is there strong sense
of coherence despite the richness and diversity of forms contained
within them. There is never the order of monotonous repetition, but
the field continuously changes its grain of articulation. Gradient
transitions mediate large quiet areas with very dense and intense zones.
Usually these compositions are poly-central and multi-directional.
All these features are the result of the use of multiple, interpenetrating
perspective projections. Often the dynamic intensity of the overall
field is increased by using curved instead of straight projection lines.
The projective geometry allows to bring an arbitrarily large and divers
set of elements under its cohering law of diminuation and distortion.
The resultant graphic space very much anticipates the later (and still
very much current) concepts of field and swarm. The effect achieved is very much like the effects
currently pursuit with curve-linear mesh-deformations and digitally
simulated Ògravitational fieldsÓ that grip, align, orient and thus
cohere a set of elements or particles within the digital model. A second prevalent
feature of HadidÕs large paintings is the technique of layering and
the concomitant technique of rendering elements as transparent to reveal
the depth of the composition. This transparent superposition of the
elements of a drawing anticipates the literal spatial interpenetration
of geometric figures in order to create more complex organizations. A third characteristic
of HadidÕs early work that anticipates a pervasive preoccupation of
the recent avant-garde is
the idea of manipulating the ground plane by means of cutting and warping.
(Tomigaya, Al Whada, Duesseldorf) This elaboration of the ground as
manipulated/moulded surface anticipates the current use of digital
surface modelers and the attendant idea of architectural articulation
by means of surface foldings implying the concept of the building as
a single continuous surface.
Zaha Hadid in her
own words:
Here is what Zaha Hadid had to say about the role of design
media in general and digital media in particular in an interview with
the Chairman of the Architectural Association School of Architecture
Mohsen Mostafavi (El
Croquis 103):
MM: You touched on the question of mechanisms
or means of representation. How do you think your approach has changed in
the last 5 or 10 years? What is the tension between your own drawings/conceptualisations and the way in
which in your own office computers are playing such a central role ?
ZH: I still think that even in our later projects,
where the computer was already involved, like for instance the IIT project, the 2-dimensional plan drawings are still
seminal. I still think the plan is critical. The computer shows what
you might see from various selected viewpoints. But I think this doesn't
give you enough transparency; it's much too opaque. Also, I think it is much nicer on the screen than
when it is printed on to paper, because the screen gives you luminosity
and the paper does not unless you do it through a painting. Further I think if you compare computer renderings
with rendering by hand I must say that you can improvise much more
with hand drawing and painting. As you go along, there is another layer
of operation, while you're working on the drawing which is somehow
missing in the computer rendering. Some people still have this raw
talent. Some people can do drawings and plans (by hand or by computer).
They can manipulate them so much. Somebody like Patrik can do plans
like nobody else. Some people have an incredible way of dealing with
3-dimensional modelling in the computer; but they don't have the same
value. You can achieve certain things through technology. But you can't
abstract in the same way. When drawing a perspective by hand you can
decide that you want to show and edit out some other things. It's not
about wire-framing. Rather you can decide to focus on the thing you
want study at the time as you're doing the drawing. It focuses you
more on certain critical issues. However, because I'm sitting there with 15 or
20 computer screens in front of me and I can see them all at the same
time, it gives me yet another repertoire. You can see at the same time
the section, the plan and several moving 3-D views, and
in your mind you can see
them in yet a different way. So I'm not sure if it weakens or strengthens
your view. I just think it's a different way. And we still do physical
models all the time, and I still do the sketches.
MM: With your drawings you were often dealing
with a certain notion of distortion, which allowed certain conventions
to be looked at again.
ZH: Yes, but what is interesting is that these
ideas, at the time we did these drawings, allowed us to see a project
from every possible and impossible perspective. May be you can do that
now with the kind of animated fly-over. You can. But the nice thing
about the elaborate drawing is that, because they take such a long
time to construct, they give you the time to add many layers. With
physical models it is the peculiar nature of the material which affords
design opportunities. Because I am always doing the contouring of the
site in plexi we began to see a similarity between liquid space and
rock. Such ÒdiscoveriesÓ can be productive. By the sheer use of the
model, almost by total accident, you begin to look at things in different
ways. So I'm saying that the presentation began to inform the work
and it gives you ideas. In the case of the Tomigaya project in Tokyo
we did these every difficult drawings where we saw everything simultaneously
in 3-D. This coincided at the time with the appearance of the plexi
model, about 15 years ago. What does it mean to see in a transparent
way through a building? One of the implications for us was the realisation
that we do not have to have the vertical circulation operate like an
extrusion or vertical core but rather allow the vertical path to shift
from one level to the next. This was discovered because we had the
different plans overlaid with each other, to construct a way to connect
the levels in a new way. I think that in a way one can say that these very
elaborate, complicated drawings Ð without saying that they are definitely
finished - did their job at the time. At the time I could not present
the work in a normative way. The work could not be done just through
a simple set of plans and sections only. There was an element of shock,
really, which was to shock or challenge normal conventions. But
it's not enough to just, say, do anything formally different. I think
that 20 years ago, when my formal repertoire has developed over a number
of years, in every project, the idea of the project was first challenged,
and then it was worked on formally. We never set out explicitely with
the intention of formal discovery, through a drawing with the prediction
that we would discover something. All these drawings which were quite
elaborate needed a scenario. These drawings were
developed over a considerable
length of time. Therefore I
would say, the formal repertoire that emerged was not completely accidental, perhaps a bit of accident
at the beginning may be, prior to the development of the project. But
then those accidental discoveries have been worked out through very
precise drawings.
Graphic Space
The predicament to start (and ultimately stay) with drawings,
i.e. with objects lacking the third dimension, has been architectureÕs predicament ever
since its inception as a discipline distinguished from construction.
As Robin Evans pointed out so bluntly: architects do not build, they
draw. Therefore the translation from drawing to building is always
problematic Ð at least under conditions of innovation. Architecture as a design discipline that is distinguished
from the physical act of building constitutes itself on the basis of
drawing. The discipline of architecture emerges and separates from
the craft of construction through the differentiation of the drawing
as tool and domain of expertise outside (and in advance) of the material
process of construction. The first effect of drawing (in ancient Greek architecture) seems to be
an increased capacity of standardization, precision and regularized
reproduction on a fairly high level of complexity and across a rather
wide territory. Roman architecture could benefit from this but also
shows hints towards the exploitation of the capacity of invention that
the medium of drawing affords. Without drawing the typological proliferation
of Roman architecture is inconceivable. Since the Renaissance (via
Manerism and Baroque) this speculative moment of the drawing has been
gathering momentum. But only 1920s modernism really discovers the full
power and potential of the drawing as a highly economic trial-error
mechanism and an effortless plane of invention - in fact inspired by the compositional
liberation achieved by abstract art in the 1st decade of
the 20th Century. Drawing accelerates the evolution of architecture.
In this respect modern architecture depends upon the revolution within
the visual arts that finally shook off the burden of representation.
Modern architecture was able to build upon the
legacy of modern abstract art as the conquest of a previously unimaginable
realm of constructive freedom. Hitherto art was understood as mimesis
and the reiteration of given sujets, i.e. re-presentation rather than
creation. Architecture was the re-presentation of a fixed set of minutely
determined typologies and complete tectonic systems. Against this backdrop
abstraction meant the possibility and challenge of free creation. The
canvas became the field of an original construction. A monumental break-through
with enormous consequences for the whole of modern civilisation. Through
figures such as Malevitsch and vanguard groups such as the DeStijl
movement this exhilarating historical moment was captured and exploited
for the world of experimental architecture.
My thesis here is that the withdrawal into the two-dimensional
surface, i.e. the refusal to interpret everything immediately as a
spatial representation, is a condition for the full exploitation of
the medium of drawing as a medium on invention. Only on this basis,
as explicitly graphic manoevers, do the design manoevers gain enough
fluidity and freedom to play. They have to be set loose, shake off
the burden to always already mean something determinate. Obviously,
this stage of play and proliferation has to be followed by a tenacious
work of selection and interpretation. At some stage architectural work
leads to building. But not in every ÒprojectÓ. Some architectural projects
remain Òpaper projectsÓ which are ÒtranslatedÓ later, by other projects.
The discipline of architecture has learned to allow for this. Major
contributions to the history of architecture have been made on this
basis. Today we see architectural experiments and manifestos proliferating
within the virtual space afforded by the computer. Although the working
interface (computer screen) as well as the various output media (printing,
video-projection) remain strictly two-dimensional, the virtual three-dimensionality
afforded by 3D modeling software offers a new way of working that combines
the intuitive possibilities of physical model making with the precision
and immateriality of drawing. Further, as will discussed in more depth
below, certain 3D modeling and animation tools introduce whole new
series of ÒprimitivesÓ and manipulative operations which are highly
suggestive with respect to new architectural morphologies and the conceptual
build up of an architectural composition. However, these new compositional
techniques still share some of the productive under-determination of
the experimental drawing. 3D modeling can be equally abstract and ambiguous
with respect to the final translation into physical constructs.
One of Hadid's most audacious moves was to translate the dynamism
and fluidity of her calligraphic hand directly into equally fluid tectonic
systems. Another incredible move was the move from isometric and perspective
projection to literal distortions of space and from the exploded axonometry
to the literal explosion of space into fragments, from the superimposition
of various fisheye perspectives to the literal bending and melt down
of space etc. All these
moves initially appear rampantly illogical, akin to the operations
of the surrealists.
The level of experimentation reached a point where the distinction between
form and content within these drawings and paintings, was no longer
fixed. The question which features of the graphic manipulation pertain
to the mode of representation rather than to the object of representation
was left unanswered. Was
the architecture itself twisting, bending, fragmenting and interpenetrating
or were theses features just aspects of the multi-view-point fish-eye
perspectives? The answer is that over an extended process and a long
chain of projects the graphic features slowly transfigured into realizable
spatial features. The initial openness in this respect might have led
some commentators to suspect Ômere graphicsÓ here. Within
Zaha HadidÕs studio this uncertainty was productively engaged through
a slow process of interpretation via further drawings, projects and
finally buildings.
These strange moves which seemed so alien and ÒcrazyÓ - once taken seriously within the context
of developing an architectural project - turn out to
be powerful compositional options when faced with the task of articulating
complex programmes. The dynamic streams of movements within a complex
structure can now be made legible as the most fluid regions within
the structure; overall trapezoidal distortions offer one more way to
respond to non-orthogonal sites; perspective distortions allow the
orientation of elements to various functional focal points etc. What
once was an outrageous violation of logic has become part of a strategically
deployed repertoire of nuanced spatial organisation and articulation. Painterly techniques like colour modulations, gradients of
dark to light or pointillist techniques of dissolving objects into
their background assume significance in terms of the articulation of
new design concepts like morphing or new spatial concepts like smooth
thresholds, Òfield-spaceÓ and the Òspace of becomingÓ(Eisenman). These
concepts came to full fruition only with the latest digital 3D modeling
and animation software. Jeff Kipnis deserves recognition here as someone
who has theorised such possibilities of Ògraphic spaceÓ. But it was
Zaha Hadid who went first and furthest in exploring this way of innovating
architecture Ð without as well as with support of advanced software.
Zaha Hadid has been a persistent radical in the field of architectural
experimentation for the last 20 years. The importance of her contribution to the culture of architecture
lies primarily in a series of momentous expansions - as influential
as radical - in the repertoire
of spatial articulation available to architects today. These conquests
for the design resources of the discipline include representational
devices, graphic manipulations, compositional manoeuvres, spatial concepts,
typological inventions and (beyond the supposed remit of the discipline
proper) the suggestion of new modes or patterns of inhabitation. This
list of contributions describes a causal chain that significantly moves
from the superficial to the substantial and thus reverses the order
of ends vs. means assumed in normative models of rationality. The project
starts as a shot into the dark, spreading its trajectories, and assuming
its target in midcourse. The point of departure is the assumption of
a new representational media (x-ray layering, multi perspective projection)
which allow for certain graphic operations (multiple, over-determining
distortions) which then are made operative as compositional transformations
(fragmentation and deformation). These techniques lead to a new concept of space (magnetic
field space, particle space, continuously distorted space) which suggests
a new orientation, navigation and inhabitation of space. The inhabitant
of such spaces no longer
orients by means of prominent figures, axis, edges and clearly bounded
realms. Instead the distribution of densities, directional bias, scalar
grains and gradient vectors of transformation constitute the new ontology
defining what it means to be somewhere. These innovations have been (and continue to be) produced within an international
collective/competitive milieu of experimenters. The totality of discoveries
emerging within this milieux is immediately appropriated - and rightly so - by each and every
contributor.
This assessment of Hadid's oeuvre in terms of the expansion
of architectural methods and formal resources is independent of the
success and merit the various built and unbuilt projects with respect
to the particular tasks they are addressed to solve. Rather than fulfilling
only their immediate purpose as a state of the art delivery of a particular
use-value - e.g. a fire station or an exhibition venue - the
significance and ambition of these projects is that they might be seen
as manifestos of a new type of space. As such their defining context
is the historical progression of such manifestos rather than their
concrete spatial and institutional location. The defining ancestry
of e.g. the Vitra Firestation or the Millennium Mind Zone includes
the legacy of modern architecture and abstract art as the conquest
of a previously unimaginable realm of constructive freedom. A key example
for such a manifesto building is Rietveld's House Schroeder. The value
and justification of this building does not only depend on the particular
suitability to the Schroeder's family interests. It operates as an
inspiring manifesto about new compositional possibilities which much
later are further extended in the Vitra Firestation - Hadid's first
built manifesto to be understood within Zaha Hadid's oeuvre at large.
Both these manifesto buildings radically violate the typological and
tectonic norms of their time and dare to suggest compositional moves
hitherto unknown to the discipline of architecture. Hadid's oeuvre
in turn can be defined as an attempt to push ahead with "the incomplete
project of modernism". This is the most general account Zaha Hadid
has - on many occasions
- given of her work. The "incomplete
project of modernism" as Hadid understands it is more tilted towards
Russian Constructivism rather than German Functionalism giving greater
prominence to formal innovation than to scientific rationalisation.
But this opposition is one of degree rather than principle. For all
shades of the modern movement the historical intersection of abstract
art, industrial technology and the social revolutions succeeding in
the aftermath of the 1st world war have been the indispensable ingredients.
The introduction of categories such as "manifesto", "the
discipline of architecture " and "oeuvre" suspends but
does not cancel or deny concerns of utility. These categories are not
set absolute, autonomous and forever aloof from the functional concerns
of society. Rather the concrete uses and users are bracketed for the
sake of experimenting with new, potentially generalisable principles
of spatial organisation and articulation with respect to emerging social
demands and use patterns. Functional optimality according to well corroborated
criteria is thus renunciated for the experimental advancement of social
practises of potentially higher functionality. The very nature of the
kind of iconoclastic research of "the
avant garde" is that it thrusts itself into the unknown and offers
its challenging proposals to the collective process of experimentation
in a raw state rather than waiting until the full cycle of experimentation,
variation, selection, optimisation and refinement is complete to present
secure and polished results. Despite the often precarious status of its partial and preliminary
results I will argue that this radicalism constitutes a form of research;
an unorthodox research in as much as it's methods include intuitive
groping, randomisation and automatic formal processes, i.e. the temporary
relaxation and even suspension of rational criteria.
Post-modernism, Deconstructivism, Folding
Hegel grasped that the New in artistic and intellectual history
is always consuming its immediate precursor as its defining opposite,
maintaining and carrying it along like a shadow. And this shadow carries
a further shadow etc., so that a cultural innovation can only be identified
and appreciated by those who are able to place it within the whole
historical evolution. Such appreciation therefore becomes a relative,
graded and ultimately infinite act. (And it is essential for the culture
of architecture to insist that a new architectural position can not
be reduced to an isolated form or gesture, but -
like a scientific idea - involves
a whole network of historically cumulative assumptions and ambitions.) This process, which Hegel called sublation, is borne out by
the fact that the definition of the New, e.g. of deconstructivism or
folding in architecture, stretches across hundreds of magazine and
book pages, broadly retracing architectural history, referencing classic
as well as modernist tropes.
But - and this
is beyond the grasp of hegelian dialectic - each time the sequence is traversed it is twisted and retro-actively
realigned by current contingencies and emerging agendas. The history
of (architectural) history reveals how distinctions and relative newness
are redistributed, emerge and collapse under the force of current innovations
and concerns, a force that thus works to a large extend against the
arrow of time and this has bewitching consequences: A thought might
no longer speak the language of its own beginning. As Derrida puts
it "... all is not to be thought at
one go ... " and
"The necessity of passing through that erased determination,
the necessity of that trick of writing is
irreducible".(Derrida 1974) However easy and natural the latest innovations (layerings, deformations)
might seem to us now, they did constitute radical violations of the
implicit rules of architectural order and for the mainstream audience
this oppositional character still dominates their perceived meaning.
The innovative architect has no choice but to reckon and work with
this dialectic determination by opposition or contrast. It will take
time for the differences internal to the new language to emerge from
the shadow of the stark difference of new vs old. One argument here is that while the current avant-garde language
of architecture - with its incredible surge of creative
energy and power, fuelled by the ongoing IT revolution, is conceptually
still working out the ramifications of a series of dialectical reversals
first launched by ÒdeconstructivismÓ. Further we should not forget
that the follow on movement of ÒfoldingÓ too was initially elaborated
with pen and paper before it soaked up the new digital possibilities.
Folding was counterposed to deconstructivism by a series of further
reversals and oppositions Ð defined within the framework established
by deconstructivism.
The rapid succession of these three movements within avant-garde
architecture (1970s to 1990s) created the conceptual and formal resources
from which the current digitally liberated work took off in the second
half of the nineties. VenturiÕs Complexity and Contradiction, and Colin RoweÕs Literal and Phenomenal
Transparency offered
seminal conceptual innovations that can still guide ambitious design
agendas today. Peter EisemanÕs method of transformational series, whereby
he was working with series of successive over-determinations of an
initial platonic primitive, anticipates the method the CAD-systems
use in modeling 3D solids via the Boolean operations of addition, subtraction
and intersection. EisenmanÕs process is explicating his complex compositions
as the end result of an explicit and retrievable series of such operations.
This is mirrored in the ability of the CAD-system to keep a retrievable
record of the history of object construction. The designer is enabled
to retrace his steps and intervene in the recorded history of design
steps, and depending upon the combinatoric dependencies between operations,
he can make alternative choices at any point in the sequence of over-determination.
Eisenman was also the first Ð inspired by Colin Rowes insightful
analysis of cubism - to
employ the method of superposition of incongruent geometric organizations.
The resulting accidental clashes and interferences were cherished as
interesting new compositional effects. It was TschumiÕs contribution
to foreground and radicalize this method most effectively in his seminal
project for the Parc de La Vilette in Paris. (The competition drawings
were much more striking and influential than the built project which
took many years to complete.) This project stated the principle of
layering in crystal clear radicality. Multiple, divers spatial reference
systems were occupying the same site. However, at this stage in the
development of a new language of spatial complexity the layered spatial
reference systems Ð point-grid, meandering line, system of platonic
figures - were indifferent
to each other. The layers are breaking through each other without registration
of each other. There is no mutual inflection, adaptation or any attempt
at integration. This was first achieved by Zaha Hadid who realized
a seamless coherence in her complex and deep pictorial textures. Even
her contribution to the competition for La Vilette already displays
the seeds of these characteristics. The interarticulation of various
spatial layers went hand in hand with the curvelinear distortion and
dynamization of the complex spatial arrangements. It was Jeff KipnisÕ and Greg LynnÕs contribution to elaborate
the theoretical terms that allow us to focus our attention on these
most advanced formal characteristics. Concepts like smooth vs striated
space (taken from Deleuze & GuattariÕs Thousand Plateaus), deformation
as registration of programmatic and contextual information, multiple
affiliation, and intensive coherence were offered as poignant descriptions
and worthy ambitions. Greg Lynn soon moved ahead with the strategic
deployment of brand new animation software tools to explore effective
design techniques that could help to deliver the spatial qualities
described in those concepts: meta-balls (=blobs), nurb meshes, inverses
kinematic skeletons etc.
Zaha Hadid Architects was quick to upgrade their digital toolkit
to continue and intensify their exploration of dynamic and organically
integrated complexity. In fact, even before these new software systems
were brought in Zaha Hadid Architects were already using the Xerox
machine to partly mechanise some of the most pertinent design moves:
smearing drawings across the xeroxmachine following a curved or s-curved
trajectory produced the desired dynamisation and smoothing effects.
While it is important to reveal the genealogy of the formal
and conceptual apparatus of the current architectural avant-garde (which
includes Hadid as one of its practitioners and precursors), such a
genealogy is not written in a spirit that wants to reduce what is going
on now to what has been, or foreclose the current and future potential
for developing the repertoire in new directions. That can not be the
purpose of ÒDigital HadidÓ. We nearly reached the point in our argument where we have
to pose the question Ð given this genealogy - what is fundamentally new now and what points towards further
radical mutations of architecture in terms of its methods, concepts
and forms. The best way to approach this question might be via a review
of the most recent series of projects coming from Zaha Hadid Architects.
However, before we do this we should make yet another short excursion
into the methods and mechanisms of invention that have been prevalent
in HadidÕs previous work:
Mechanisms of invention
Re- combination: Collage and Hybridisation
A key mechanism that has to be mentioned here is the dialectic
of re-combination and hybridisation. The important reminder here is
that the result of combination is rarely just a predictable compromise.
Synenergies might be harnessed: Unpredictable operational effects might
emerge and, on the side of meaning, affects are engendered as the whole
taxonomy of differences is forced into an unpredictable realignment.
The new combination re-contextualises and reinterprets its ingredients
as well as its surroundings. Currently it is the various morphing tools
that afford the most sophisticated form of formal hybridization resulting
in hybrids that appear as seamless wholes, leaving no trace of any
conflicting figures in their origin. Kolatan & Macdonald focused
attention on this form of hybridization, introducing the suggestive
term chimera to denote the resultant effect.
Abstraction
Abstraction implies the avoidance of familiar, ready-made
typologies. Instead of taking for granted things like houses, rooms,
windows, roofs etc. Hadid reconstitutes the functions of territorialisation,
enclosure and interfacing etc. by means of boundaries, fields, planes,
volumes, cuts, ribbons etc. The creative freedom of this approach is
due to the open-endedness of the compositional configurations as well
as the open-endedness of the list of abstract entities that enter into
the composition. To maintain the liberating spirit of abstraction in
the final building a defamiliarising, "minimalist" detailing
is preventing that volumes immediately denote rooms and cuts turn into
windows again. This minimalism withdraws the familiar items that otherwise
would allow the inhabitants to fall into habitual patterns of behavior.
Instead they confronted with an abstract composition that needs to
be discovered and made sense of in a new way. Instead of points, lines,
and planes we now work with control points, splines, nurb surfaces,
and force-fields etc.
Analogies
Analogies are fantastic engines of invention with respect
to organisational diagrammes, formal languages and tectonic systems.
They have nothing to do with allegory or semantics in general. Hadid's
preferred source of analogical transference is the inexhaustible realm
of landscape formations: forests, canyons, river deltas, dunes, glaciers/moraines,
faulted geological strata, lava flows etc. Beyond such specific formations
abstract formal characteristics of landscape in general are brought
into the ambit of architectural articulation. The notion of an artificial
landscape has been a pervasive working hypothesis within Hadid's oeuvre
from the Hong Kong Peak onwards. Artificial landscapes are coherent
spatial systems. They reject platonic exactitude but they are not just
any "freeform". They have their peculiar lawfulness. They
operate via gradients rather than hard edge delineation. They proliferate
infinite variations rather than operating via the repetition of discrete
types. They are indeterminate and leave room for active interpretation
on the part of the inhabitants. Ultimately anything could serve as analogical inspiration.
Often such analogies become to be considered as the concept of the
project: The Cardiff Opera House as an inverted necklace, the Copenhagen
Concert Hall as a block of terrazzo, the Victoria and Albert Museum
extension as 3D TV, i.e. a three-dimensional pixelation
etc. Most recently Zaha Hadid Architects are exploring the possibility
to exploit analogies with organic systems.
Surrealist mechanisms
Hadid's audacious move to translate the dynamism and fluidity
of her calligraphic hand directly into equally fluid tectonic systems,
her incredible move from isometric and perspective projection to literal
distortions of space, from the exploded axonometry to the literal explosion
of space into fragments, from the superimposition of various fisheye
perspectives to the literal bending and melt down of space etc. - all
these moves resemble the illogical operations of the surrealists. The initially "mindless" sketching of graphic textures
(see Vitra sketches) in endless iterations operates like an "abstract
machine" proliferating difference to select from. Once a strange
texture or figure is selected and confronted with a programmatic agenda
a peculiar form-content dialectic is engendered. An active figure-reading
mind will find the desired conditions but equally new desires and functions
are inspired by the encounter with the strange configuration. The radically
irrational and arbitrary detour ends up hitting a target.
This "miracle" can be explained by recognising that all functionality
is relative, that all well articulated organisms have once been monstrous
aberrations and might later seem crude and deficient - relative to
other "higher" and
more "beautiful" organisations. Before we dismiss arbitrary
formalisms we need to realise that all our time-tested typologies themselves
adhere dogmatically to the arbitrary formalism of orthogonality and
platonic simplicity derived from the constraints of measuring, making
and stabilising structures handed down to us from a rather primitive
stage of our civilisation. To remain locked in within these figures
at this time and age would be more than arbitrary. The only way out
is radical proliferation and testing of other options. All points of
departure are equally arbitrary until tested against presumed criteria.
There is no absolute optimality. Every measure starts with a finite
array of arbitrary options to compare, select from, adapt and thus
working away from absolute arbitrariness. It is significant in this
respect that the logic of evolutionary innovation starts with mutation:
mutation, selection and reproduction. Hadid has been a vital engine
of mutation with respect to the culture of architecture.
II. Current work Ð towards a new digitally based architectural
language
The work presented and discussed here is a selection of projects of the
last five years which demonstrate the increasing impact of the new
3D modeling and animation software on the development of a new language
for architecture. Starting with the seminal winning competition for
the Italien Contemporary Art Centre in Rome Ð now on site Ð and ending
with the design for a new Guggenheim museum in Taichung, Taiwan. This
string of projects is a quest for an increasingly organic approach
to the articulation of architectural space and form. The projects selected
are those projects within Zaha Hadid Architects which strongly manifest
this ambition towards a new organic language. The author of this book
is also the co-designer of the string of projects featured here.
Organic Interarticulation
The analogy of building and organism is as old as the self-conscious discipline
of architecture itself. Traditionally the analogy focused on key ordering
principles like symmetry and proportion. These principles were seen as integrating the various parts
into a whole by means of setting those parts into definite relations.
In this conception the organism is approximating an ideal type which
implies strict rules of arrangement and proportion for all parts. It
also assumes a state of completeness and perfection. The organism is
a closed form: nothing can be added or substracted. The Palladian Villa
is perhaps the best example in of this idea of the organism as ideal
of perfect order. Our projects remain incomplete compositions, more akin to the Deleuzian
notion of assemblage than to the classical conception of the organism.
Our concept of organic integration does not rely on such fixed ideal
types. Neither does it presuppose any proportional system, nor does
it privilege symmetry. Instead integration is achieved via various
modes of spatial interlocking, by formulating soft transitions at the
boundaries between parts and by means of morphological affiliation.
The parts or subsystems that are brought together to form a larger
organic whole do not remain pure and indifferent to each other, but
are mutually adapting to each other. The extreme example of organic
fusion is perhaps our design for the lounging environment Ice-storm.
Here a series of previously discreet elements are interarticulated
by means of morphing them into a larger encompassing structure. In
this fashion everything becomes literally continuous Ð a seamless form
that is modulated and transformed to join the exact sectional profile
of the embedded furniture pieces or to establish something akin to
key to key-hole relations. Another example is our design for a new Guggenheim Museum in Taichung.
Here the two gallery wings are mediated by letting both meld into the
central communication space which itself is made continuous with the
surrounding park-scape. All transitions are made smooth. Changes in
surface material never coincide (reinforce) changes in geometry. There
are no add-on parts that could easily be separated out of the overall
composition. The ramps and paths are cuts and folds molded into the
ground-surface as well as into the envelope of the building. The lattice
of the roof bridging across the central public space between the two
gallery wings is not a neutral grid but an irregular triangulation
that is adapted to the wedge-shaped gap between the two wings. Those
structural beams are formally affiliated to the pedestrian bridges
that cross this canyon-space below. The glass-mullions of the roof
glazing are continuing this game of triangulation on a smaller scale.
The openings within the building envelope are not punched out as arbitrary
shapes. Instead the surface is spliced along its lines of least curvature
to create louvered openings akin to gills that are respecting the integrity
of the surface. In the case of the project for a new Music Centre for the BBC in London
the openings are created like worm-holes by means of turning the surface
inside out so that the most inner surface of the very deep wall fuses
with the most outer envelope. In the case of the Florence Train station the openings are as three-dimensional
and curvelinear as the overall body of the building itself - and not the imposition of plantonic figures on an otherwise
organic form. These various treatments of the problem of articulating openings within an envelope are examples of our concept of organic interarticulation. In each case the attempt is made to avoid an arbitrary interference or interruption of the envelope. Instead the quest is to integrate the openings into the structural and tectonic system of the envelope. In a similar way all compositions are seen as tasks for creative organic interarticulation. A refined organic architecture resists easy decomposition Ð a measure of its complexity.
Centre for Contemporary Art, Rome
The Centre for Contemporary Arts addresses the question of
its urban context not by means of stylistic pastiche but by an assimilation
in terms of urban geometry. The project appears like an Ôurban graftÕ, a second skin to the site.
The initial design move was to flood the site with streams of parallel
walls. Those walls variously converge and dissect, thus generating
a pattern of interior and exterior spaces. The next step was to differentiate
those walls into those bounding major linear spaces and those inbetween
which were lifted to become ribs structuring the roofs and ceilings
of the major spaces. The result offers
a quasi-urban field, a ãworldÓ to dive into rather than a building as signature object.The
Campus is organised and navigated on the basis of directional drifts
and the distribution of densities rather than key points. This is indicative of the character of the Centre as a whole:
porous, immersive, a field space. An inferred mass is subverted by
vectors of circulation. The external as well as internal circulation
follows the overall drift of the geometry. Vertical and oblique circulation
elements are located at areas of confluence, interference and turbulence.
The premise of the architectural design promotes a disinheriting of the
ÔobjectÕ orientated gallery space. Instead, the notion of a ÔdriftÕ
takes on an embodied form. The drifting emerges, therefore, as both
architectural motif, and also as a way to navigate experientially through
the museum. The ÔsignatureÕ aspect of an institution
of this calibre is sublimated into a more pliable and porous organism
that promotes several forms of identification at once. In architectural terms, this is most virulently executed by
the figure of the ÔwallÕ. Against the traditional coding of the ÔwallÕ
in the museum as the privileged and immutable vertical armature for
the display of paintings, or delineating discrete spaces to construct
ÔorderÕ and linear ÔnarrativeÕ, we propose a critique of it through
its emancipation The ÔwallÕ becomes the versatile engine for the staging
of exhibition effects. In its various guises - solid wall, projection
screen, canvas, window to the city - the
exhibition wall is the primary space-making device. By running extensively
across the site, cursively and gesturally, the lines traverse inside
and out. Urban space is coincidental with gallery space, exchanging
pavilion and court in a continuous oscillation under the same operation.
And further deviations from the Classical composition of the wall emerge
as incidents where the walls become floor, or twist to become ceiling,
or are voided to become a large window looking out. By constantly changing
dimension and geometry, they adapt themselves to whatever curatorial
role is needed. .By setting within the gallery spaces a series of potential
partitions that hang from the ceiling ribs, a versatile exhibition
system is created. Organisational and spatial invention are thus dealt
with simultaneously amidst a rhythm found in the echo of the walls
to the structural ribs in the ceiling that also
filter the light in varying intensities. It is important to note that the whole project was initially composed
of 2D splines and the crucially lifted into 3D (in 3dsmax) where the
integration between the primary levels was elaborated by means of voids,
terracing galleries and ramps.
Art Centre, Graz
The determining factor for the proposal
was the desire to project and cantilever the building high over the
street towards the riverbank. These considerations lead to the concept
of a large canopy (raised 12m over the ground) that covers a tall volume
of flexible space and acts as a large public room, transparent and
inviting.
Arising from a forest of mushrooms
the canopy has a depth (height) varying between 3 to 6 metres. The
underside is perhaps the stongest feature where the various structural
stems bleed into the surface of the cantilevering volume. The composition was build up from
contour lines and has been developed by a game of symmetry and deformation
Ð creating figures of distorted symmetry.
Its morphology is on the one hand
derived from the urban context- as it was projecting forward the profile
of existing fabric on the back of the site Ð and on the other it has
developed from the structural logic of the tapering mushroom columns.
The art centre is entered below the strongest cantilever. The main
vertical circulation through the building moves through the hollow
stem of the large mushroom. The volume below the canopy is a clear,
open spatial expanse, which offers the lobby, commercial spaces and
an exhibition area on the ground floor as well as the flexible exhibition
area on a flat level above ground. In
contrast the space within the canopy is enclosed, even compressed and
highly articulated. It
provides for those spaces, which require intimacy, acoustic enclosure
and darkness such as lectures and performances, the media centre and
the photography forum.
The structure comprises inverted Òtrumpet formsÓ and cores
organised to act as primary ÒinhabitedÓ vertical supports. These forms
are of reinforced concrete construction with doubly curved surfaces
to prevent deformation. The effect of splaying the fans out at the top allows large
hoop tensions at the upper levels of the form giving way to hop compression
at the bottom. The splays also assist in reducing the spans of the
horizontal plates. The upper floors are interconnected with walls to allow the
formation of a three dimensional
ÒvierendeelÓ structure with the horizontal plates acting as flanges.
Cantilevers over the existing building and road are then made possible.
The rigid horizontal form merges into the vertical fans with a seamless junction transferring
vertical loads down to the ground.
Quebec National Library, Montreal
The overall massing proposed fills the urban block while leaving
a well sized urban plaza on the corner. The structuring of this mass
emphasizes the pattern of public circulation through and within the
building. A deep visual penetration of this mass is offered by means
of deep cuts and crevices articulating access points as well as internal
movements revealing the manifold choreography of public events within
the thick skin of the building. The two bulk heads of the site are articulated as public entrance rooms, piercing deep
into the building. The main architectural concept is based on the articulation
of a continuous navigation space that sequentially unfolds the various
bodies of human knowledge contained in the different collections of
the library. This navigation space follows the branching logic of successive
disciplinary differentiation - the tree of knowledge. The navigation
space is architecturally expressed as the veins eroding the solid mass
of the building. The actual circulation through the buiding traces
these voids and crevices allowing for diagonal vistas and good orientation
across levels. The mass that is
withstanding the erosion are the collection spaces filled with books
and the reading rooms. The overall formation of this mass is undercut
like an overhangig cliff exposed to view at the main entrance. This
way a main public void is created at the front of the buiding offering
the visitor revealing glimpses of the successive strata of the library.
The view can follow the branching veins upwards before choosing his
or her trajectory to the collections and reading rooms. The major collections
are shaped like terrassed valleys lined with books on the perimeter
and the reading areas in the middle. The terrassing offers differentiation as
well as overall orientation. The reading rooms at the top of the building
are taking advantage of the possibility of filtered daylight from above.
The predominant interior material here is wood providing intimacy and
quietude. Atmosherically these rooms
are conceived in analogy with the canopy level of trees. The overall spatial organisation is treated as a threedimensional
information design utilizing the ramifying pattern of the classification
tree as circulation diagram. The system of paths thus successively
bifurcates according to the branches of human knowledge. This is also
the path from the general to the particular. The more general information like the news library and encyclopedias
are followed by the major division of human knowledge into the humanities
and arts on the one hand and the hard sciences on the other hand. Each
has its own root and trunk on the groundfloor and ramifies upwards
into the building like two intertwining trees. The humanities bifurcate
into the arts (incl. music and litterature) on the one hand and history
and the social sciences on the other hand. The hard sciences branch
into natural science vs applied science or technology. The natural
scieces are further differentiated into life sciences vs physics ect.
But this linear system of ramification is only the most basic backbone
and point of departure for a whole series of overlaps, cross-overs
and lateral connections - e.g. economics is an important field of conversion and intersection
between the humanities and hard sciences. The system becomes a network
of multiple path which allows for explorative browsing while the primary
distinctions give an orienting armature to the increasingly complex
labrinth.
The structure should underline the organisational logic of
the library and reinforce the oblique trajectories through the building.
Therefore we suggest to utilize the necessary division walls as primary
structural elements. These primary elements also orient the flows through
the building. The structure is primarily constituted from interlocking structural
walls. These walls do not need to line up vertically but rather act
as transfer beams, criss cross and brace each other forming a stiff
three-dimensional lattice. This allows for the major spans which give
the building its sense of generosity. The structural walls are selectively
constructed in concrete or steel as approriate. Concrete dominates
in the lower part of the building while steel is introduced as cantelivering
increases towards the top. There is a transition from the heavy base to a lighter top,
gaining the benefit of strength to weight ratio offered by steel construction. The top floor is very light in atmosphere. Here the larger
cantelivers project across the crevices and the roof plane should be
porous to allow natural light to filter through.
One North Masterplan, Singapore
The possibility of an urban architecture that exploits the spatial repertoire and morphology of natural landscape formations has been a consistent theme within the creative career of Zaha Hadid Architects for nearly 20 years. Indeed our first moment of international recognition was already informed by a productive analogy with landscape conditions, here with geological form: The wining competition entry for the Hong Kong Peak in 1982. Our proposal
for the Vista masterplan Ð for the first time Ð applies the concept
of artificial landscape formation to the articulation of a whole urban
quarter. The advantages of such a bold move are striking: Our scheme offers an original urban skyline and identifiable panorama visible from without as well as from the park in the heart of the new urban quarter. The rich diversity of squares and alleys engenders a unique sense of place within the various micro-environments. The concept of the gently undulating, dune-like urban mega-form gives a sense of spatial coherence that has become rare in the modern metropolis. The regulation of the building heights is normal planning procedure and easily instituted. The powerful aesthetic potential that lies dormant in this ordinary planning tool has never been exploited before. An unusual degree of aesthetic cohesion and unity is achieved by allowing the roof surfaces to join in the creation of softly modulated surface. At the same time a huge variety of built volumes Ð tall, low, wide, small - is brought under the spell of two unifying forces: the soft grid and the undulating roofscape. The softly swaying pattern of lines that defines the streets, paths as well as the built fabric allows the mediation and integration of the various heterogenous urban grids of the adjacent areas. The curvelinear pattern is able to absorb and harmonize all the divergent contextual orientations. It is also a machine to produce a huge diversity of building footprints without giving up on alignment from building to building. The morphological system allows for infinite variation within the bounds of a strong formal coherence and lawfulness. This is the great advantage of working with a ÒnaturalÓ geometry rather than with a strict platonic geometry. The form is ÒfreeÓ and therefore malleable at any stage of its development while platonic figures (squares, circles, strict axes etc.) are too exacting and therefore vulnerable to corruption and degradation by later adaptations. The morphology is no less lawful and cohesive than the platonic system; but it is much more pliant and resilient, always able to absorb adaptations into its characterisic and recognisable form Ð always maintaining its coherence and character.
The idea of an artificial landscape formation occurs not only on the level of the overall urban form. Not only the mega-form but also some of the micro-environments could benefit from the landscape analogy. In particular we are thinking about the hub areas. One of the possibilities of developing the hub areas could be to introduce a raised plaza level about 5 meter above the street level. These raised grounds will be connected to the ground proper through the interiors of the buildings as well as by means of broad staircaises and shallow ramps on the exterior.
Within the ouvre of Zaha Hadid Architects there is a long series of urban schemes which explore various artificial landscapes as a means to sculpt public space and to impregnate it with public programme. These schemes manipulate and multiply the ground surface by means of sloping, warping, peeling or terracing the ground. Important advantages may be achieved by such manipulation: The visual orientation within the public realm is enhanced by means of tilting the plane into view and allowing for vistas overlooking the scene from above. By means of a gentle differentiation of slopes, ridges, terraces etc. the ground plane can be used to choreograph and channel movements across the plane in an unobtrusive and suggestive manner. The landscaped surface is rich with latent places. Articulations like shallow valleys or hills might give a foothold to gatherings and become receptacles for outdoor events without otherwise predetermining or obstructing the field.
BMW Plant - Central Building, Leipzig
The Central Building is the active nerve- centre or brain
of the whole factory complex.
All threads of the buildingÕs activities gather together and
branch out again from here. This planning strategy applies to the cycles and trajectories
of people - workers (arriving in the morning and
returning for lunch) and visitors - as
well as for the cycle and progress of the production line which traverses
this central point - departing and returning again. This dynamic focal point of the enterprise is made visually
evident in the proposed dynamic spatial system that encompasses the
whole northern front of the factory and articulates the central building
as the point of confluence and culmination of the various converging
flows. It seems as if the whole expanse of this side of the factory
is oriented and animated by a force field emanating from the central
building. All movement converging on the site is funneled through this
compression chamber squeezed between the three main segments of production:
Body in White, Paint Shop and Assembly. The primary organising strategy is the scissor-section that
connects groundfloor and first floor into a continuous field. Two sequences
of terraced plates - like
giant staircases Ð step up from north to south and from south to north.
One commences close to the public lobby passing by/overlooking the
forum to reach the first floor in the middle of the building. The other
cascade starts with the cafeteria at the south end moving up to meet
the first cascade then moving all the way up to the space projecting
over the entrance. The two cascading sequences capture a long connective
void between them. At the bottom of this void is the auditing area
as a central focus of everybodyÕs attention. Above the void the half-finished
cars are moving along their tracks between the various surrounding
production units open to view. The cascading floor plates are large enough to allow for flexible
occupation patterns. The advantage lies in the articulation of recognisable
domains within an overall field. Also the global field is opened up
to visual communication much more than would be possible on a single
flat floorplate. The close integration of all workers is facilitated by the
overall transparency of the internal organisation. The mixing of functions
avoids the traditional segregation into status groups that is no longer
conducive for a modern workplace. A whole series of engineering and administrative functions
is located within the trajectory of the manual workforce coming in
to work or moving in and out of their lunch break. White collar functions
are located both on ground and first floor. Equally some of the Blue
Collar spaces (lockers and social spaces) are located on the first
floor. This way the establishment of exclusive domain is prevented. The potential problem of placing a large car- park in front
of the building had to be turned into an integral architectural feature
that carries the scheme by turning it into a dynamic spectacle in its
own right. The inherent dynamism of vehicle movement and the ÔlivelyÕ
field of the car bodies is revealed by giving the arrangement of parking
lots a twist that lets the whole field move, colour and sparkle. The
swooping trajectories across the field culminate within the building.
The architecture we are developing is no longer the architecture
of repetition and pre- conceived forms. Rather, it is an organic architecture that is able to adapt
and mould itself to the peculiarities of the terrain, to orient itself
to the various directions of access and to synthesise a complex series
of concerns into a seamless and integrated whole. This is made possible
by the curvilinear morphology that can incorporate a multitude of forms
and directions without fragmentation. New numerically controlled manufacturing techniques make this
quasi-natural process
of formal variation possible and affordable. The result is aiming to
come closer to the compelling beauty of living organisms.
Ice-storm, Lounging EnvironmentIce-storm is an installation that was conceived and
created for the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna. It is a built
manifesto towards the potential for a new domestic language of architecture,
driven by the new digital design and manufacturing capabilities. The
installation is suggestive of new types of living/lounging environments.
In this respect it is a latent rather than manifest environment. Neither
familiar typologies nor any codes of conduct are yet associated with
its morphology. The installation collects and fuses a series of previously
designed furniture elements and installations: Glacier, Moraine, Stalagtite,
Stalagmite, Ice-berg, Z-Play and Domestic Wave including Ice-flow.
These diverse elements are drawn into a dynamic vortex.
In addition, two new hard sofas have been designed to be integrated into the installation. The semi-abstract, molded surface might be read as an apartment that has
been carved from a single continuous mass. The rhythym of folds, niches,
recesses and protrusions follows a willful formal logic. This formal
dynamic has been triggert by a series of semi-functional insertions
which hint towards the potential for sofas, day-bed, desk, tables etc. The design language explored here emphasizes complex curvelinearity,
seamlessness and the smooth transition between otherwise disparate
elements. This formal integration of divers forms has been achieved
by the technique of ÒmorphingÓ. Via this morphing operation the preexisting
furniture pieces are embedded within the overall fluid mass of the
ensemble and become integrated organs of the overall organism. Those
elements which are not contiguous with the overall figure -
the Z-Play pieces - are
nevertheless morphologically affiliated and appear like loose fragments
that drift around the scene at random. The installation asks the visitors to occupy the structure
and to explore for themselves this new open aesthetic which invites
us to reinvent ourselves in terms of posture, demeanor and life-style.
Z-Scape, Lounging Furniture
Z-scape is a compact ensemble of lounging furnitures for public
and private living rooms. The formal concept is derived from dynamic landscape formations like glaciers and erosions. The different pieces are constituted as fragments determined by the overall mass and its diagonal veins. Along these veins the block splits offering large splinters for further erosive sculpting. Four pieces emerged so far: Stalactite, stalagmite, glacier, moraine. Others are yet to be unearthed.
The pieces thus derived are then further shaped - if rather loosely - by typological,
functional and ergonomic considerations. But these further determinations
remain secondary and precariously dependent on the overriding formal
language. We do not want
to offer optimized and thus predetermined use-patterns. A margin of
strangeness and indeterminancy is desired. Stimulation emerges between
abstraction and metaphor.
BBC
Music Centre and Offices, London
The
design task is the creation of a powerful landmark building acting
as iconic gateway into the BBC White City Campus. The key challenge
we face as designers in this respect is the fact that this landmark
is to be composed of two separate components with rather different
functions: The BBC Music Centre on the one side and an office building - that
might or might not be occupied by the BBC itself - on
the other side. A further difficulty is that the two components may
not be constructed at the same time. Therefore independent successive
construction needs to be possible. Given
that the office component is the larger of the two components we think
that it needs to participate in the creation of the landmark. We feel
that the music centre alone could not fulfil this role against the
backdrop of the massive buildings on site. Therefore
we are trying to create a monumental composition whereby the office
building frames the music centre enhancing it like a gem in its setting.
The office tower projects one floor out over the volume of the music
centre. This floor extends further as a large cantilevering canopy.
The result is a composition that serves as a single iconic figure. The
large canopy flying over the music centre stretches across the internal
street to cover the stage of the outdoor performance space. This canopy
also articulates a soft threshold between urban corner and campus.
The
concept for the music centre is the idea of nesting volumes, and an
onion-like layering of skins. The overall volume of the music centre
contains 4 volumes of similar shape but different size: Studio 1 (for
the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Symphony Chorus), Studio 2 (for
the BBC Concert Orchestra and the BBC Singers), the cinema and the
rehearsal room. Each of these volumes in turn has an inner rectilinear
volume and an outer, more curve-linear shell. The space between inner
and outer shell is utilised by the belts of ancillary spaces. Deep
openings cut through these shells to allow for natural light and views
to penetrate the studio spaces. The
arrangement of the studio spaces allows for a clear and convenient
separation of the public access from the internal circulation of musicians
and technicians while maintaining an overall didactic transparency
of the spatial composition. The Foyer space wraps the studio volumes and provides reception, cafŽ and exhibition. The tall lobby offers a dramatic view onto the composition of volumes. The cinema-volume projects into this space from above Studio 2. A mezzanine level stretches between the volumes affording access to the balcony level of
Studio 1.
The
office building is a tower with central access and service core. The
footprint of the tower is 1,400 sqm. On level 5 the floorplate projects
out to create a larger floorplate more than double the size. On level
6 the floorplate projects out further and bridges over the music centre.
Here we are able to offer a fantastic floorplate of over 6000 sqm.
The space is brightly lit by sky-lights and lightwells and affords
views down to the urban plaza and across West London. The oblique openings
allow glimpses into the studio spaces.
Fine Arts Centre, University
of Connecticut
The
building we are proposing is a sensation that speaks to all the senses. While
all the functionally dedicated spaces required by the brief are laid
out and organised in a strictly functional and economic manner, we
are using all the lobby and circulation spaces as a fluid mass that
flows around and between the function spaces like a stream of lava.
The exterior envelope follows the same curve-linear logic, suggestive
of the urban, exterior flows that surround and animate the building
within its context. It is especially the large performance spaces which
define the main body of the building by being wrapped by this fluid
film or skin. The small existing theatre is encircled by the fluid
forms of the new building like a rock placed into a stream. In this
fashion an obstacle has been turned into an architectural event. The
expressive-organic language of architecture gives this new Fine Art
Center an unmistakable character. However, this language is neither
arbitrary nor idiosyncratic. Rather it represents the fulfilment of
a longstanding dream of architecture to gain the fluidity, pliancy
and adaptability of natural systems. The
aesthetic proposed here portends the future in as much as this new
language of architecture projects the full potential of the new, state
of the art digital design and manufacturing capabilities.
Fast
Train Station, Florence
The key challenges of the architectural
project is to create an urban event space and communication hub which
is initiated by a train that is buried 25m under the ground. The task
is to give expression to this hidden life-line and to bring this underground
event to the urban surface. This primary task is the point of
departure for our concept: To split the ground and reveal the deep
interior of the station. The slit is articulated as a tectonic
fault-line along which one side lifts up while the other side bulges
slightly under the pressure from below. This tectonic shift is our way of
mediating the existing bank of elevated railway lines on the eastern
boundary of the site with the lower urban level on the western side
(ex Macelli area). Between the two sides a deep canyon opens up, nearly
along the full length of the station, connecting the two main entrances.
The play with large tectonic gestures also allows for the smooth and
natural mediation of the considerable level differences between the
northern and southern entrance to the site. The device of the fault-line/canyon
means that all overground structures naturally lead down-wards into
the heart of the station, unfolding a dramatic Òpromenade architecturaleÓ.
At the same time the canyon offers a spectacular point of arrival for
those who arrive in Florence by the new train. Direct glimpses of the
sky are offered right as the passenger steps off the train. Also: In
both directions the canyon offers an infallible means of orientation
Ð in itself not a trivial matter in a station that measures 450 meter. The two sides of the canyon lean inwards
and - at precise moments
- connect. This way no
further structure is required to support this grand space. The digital Design process (account
by Maurizio Meossi) In other words, it is possible
to describe the entire creative process of the project describing the
evolution of the digital model and the techniques used for its realization. Differently to what was happening
in other project developed by the office in the same period, the digital
model had in fact an its own development in the formal definition of
the Station, almost autonomously from its programmatic definition;
therefore the digital model has not been merely a three-dimensional
tool to verify Òbi-dimensionalÓ intuitions, but it has been the main
instrument of formal exploration. This relative independence made possible to enact a dialectical relationship of continuous input and output between the digital model on one side and plans-sections (bi-dimensional drawings, ÒtraditionalÓ media of the architectural representation) on the other; this reciprocal interaction has gone on till the layout of the final drawings, allowing to push the formal research till the very last minute. From a strictly technical point of view the modelling
has been an application of the Òcross-sections\surfaceÓ technique,
a method that (through the subsequent application of two 3dsMax commands),
allows to define a complex surface (mesh) starting with at least two
curves (splines) that characterize its main geometry. The software
generates the surface through a process of interpolation, leaving the
geometrical control on the starting curves, whose vertices become sort
of ÒgripsÓ through which it is possible to ÒsculptÓ and ÒshapeÓ the
resulting surface. This peculiar property of the solid modelling tools
of the new generation (3dsMax as well as Maya or Rhyno) is due to two
basic features: first they operate in a parametric way, meaning that
it is possible to control each single operation through numeric values
(corresponding for example to coordinates of points movements in space,
or height of extrusion of a shape, or function degree used by the geometric
interpolation algorithm, etc.) constantly modifiable; second, the software
maintains an Òhistorical memoryÓ of the operations made on each single
object, so that it is possible to go back and modify the ÒprimitiveÓ
geometrical entity (in our case the generative curves) in each moment
of the process. Trying to resume the entire
process in its key steps we have:
1-
starting
curves definition, in this case horizontal slices of the ÒcanyonÓ (image
1),
traced on the basis of a preliminary study with physical models; the
sequential application of the commands Òcross-sectionsÓ and ÒsurfaceÓ
generates the complex surface that represents the
first digital study model (images 2-3);
2-
digital
manipulation of the obtained surface: acting on the vertices of the generative
curves it is possible to control accurately the overall geometry, emphasizing
the formal aspect of the research ( images 4-5 );
3-
cross
sections (in our case at least 10) are extracted from the digital model;
the sections become the basis for the structural and programmatic development,
with consequent modifications in the horizontal sections (that we can
now start to call Òproto-plansÓ);
4-
an
updated model is built according to the new horizontal sections, giving
the start to a reiterative process of the points from 2 to 4, with the
aim to obtain simultaneously functional optimisation and satisfying formal
results. Experimentation on the digital
model has been of great importance also for the ÒmatericÓ study of
the Station wrapping: passages from opaque to transparent surfaces
are made with ÒcarvingÓ operations on the same complex surface; change
of material does not mean geometrical discontinuity (images 6-7). From representation technique
to active designing tool, able to modify the way we think the architectural
project: this is the main step represented by the digital modelling.
( account by Maurizio Meossi)
Fast Train Station, Naples
The key challenge of the architectural
project is to create a well organized transport interchange that can simultaneously serve as a new
landmark that announces the approach to Naples Ð a new gateway to the
city. This is the first reason why we chose to conceive the new station
as a bridge above the tracks. The task is to give expression to
the imposition of a new through-station that can also act as the nucleus
of a new business park that will link the various surrounding towns.
This is the second reason why we conceived the station as a bridge
that provides an urbanized public link across the tracks. In fact the station is to be approached
from two sides. There is no justification in privileging one of these
two sides. Therefore the station might have two entrances Ð one of
either side of the tracks. By implication the central functions and
the main visible body of the station should ideally be placed in the
center above the tracks, thus equally addressing both sides. This is
the third and perhaps most compelling reason why we think that the
station should be designed as bridge. The architectural language proposed
is geared towards the articulation of movement and allows for the smooth
integration of all the flows and traffic lines that intersect in this
new transport interchange. It ties in naturally with the bundle of
railway lines, and access roads which characterize this artificial
terrain. This open and dynamic quality of the
architectural figure is pursuit further within the interior of the
building where the trajectrories of the travellers determines the geometry
of the space. The facilitation of obvious and easy access, as well
as the smooth guidance of all movements within, is the fundamental
ethos of our design.
The Temporary
Guggenheim, Tokyo
Odasiba Island seems a perfect place to establish a
site of cultural experimentation. Here emerges a very dynamic urban
space, built upon synthetic land and animated by the entrepreneurial
spirit of rapid development. In this context the 10 year intervention
of the temporary Guggenheim will be an instant cultural hotspot and
a catalyst for related activities. With respect to the architectural iconography the structure
should signify the creative employment of state of the art science
and technology. As a visitor experience the object has to excite curiosity
and desire. A considerable degree of strangeness is indispensable.
The project - like any true object of desire - will at first appear mysterious, an unknown
territory waiting to be discovered and explored. In line with the temporary nature of the structure we
are opting for a light weight envelope. A strong signature figure is
created as two folded planes Ð like sheets of paper - lean against each other and encapsulate a generous space.
This image of an elegant light weight wrapping seems an appropriate
response here were a space for changing exhibitions needs to be receptive
to constant internal redefinition. However the empty space itself is
already its own attraction. Although the spatial concept is extremely
simple Ð in effect the parallel extrusion of three simple sections
- the size, level of abstraction and dynamic profile of the
folded planes insures an exhiliarating spatial sensation. The diagonal
cleft at the top excerts a dramatic sense of vertigo as the light washes
down the tilted plane. At both ends the three extrusion are cut off at different
angles. This simple move effectively articulates the ends and allows
us to emphasizes the entrance zone with a dramatic gesture. A further aspect to be noted is the quality of the skin.
We are proposing a snakeskin-like pixellation that allows the formally
coherent integration of various surface performances. The primary cladding
material would be large scale ceramic tiles (offering smooth surfaces
and brilliant colours). These would be interspersed by light-boxes
which allow further daylight to penetrate the space as well as acting
as artificial lightsource at night. Further panels would be photo-voltaic
elements. Finally we are proposing to embed a large media screen Ð
in the form of honey-comb based Òsmart slabsÓ. The media screen would
nearly be camouflaged into the overall animation of the skin. Internally the skin operates according to the same concept
but is aesthetically much more muted. Here light, ventilation and heating
is incorporated within the pixel logic.
Guggenheim Museum, Taichung
The design proposal is based on the
concept of the museum as an ever-changing event space. To emphasise the aspect of transformability
of the space we would like to explore the possibility to equip the
new museum with something like a Òstage-machineryÓ. We devised a series
of large-scale kinetic elements that offer the option to radically
transform the arrangement of the gallery spaces. We would also like
to make this dramatic transformation of the space itself a spectacle,
visible even on the outside appearance of the building. Thus the internal
reconfiguration of the exhibition spaces creates a public sensation
within the urban scenery. The site is tied into a masterplan
of two crossing axes that give an organising structure to the ensemble
of 4 new landmark buildings that shall comprise the Guggenheim Museum,
the new town hall, the city assembly and the national opera. This arrangement
implies that the museum will be approached from two main sides. This
double orientation leads to the idea of a large lobby space that can
be approached from two opposing ends and thus cuts a public path through
the museum. Much of the internal organisation of the museum follows
from this initial move, motivated by the urban configuration.
The building gradually emerges from a soft landscape
formation. The formal language and architectural articulation is premised
on the idea that the building bleeds into the open public space of
the urban axis. The overall dynamism and fluidity of the elongated
form suggests an emphasis of movement through and around the building. Both
the public flow through the building as well as the internal circulation
through the exhibition spaces is expressed by means of swooping ramps.
Although the building can be approached from both ends, these two ends
are articulated rather differently. On Taichungkang Road the building
offers its urban edge with a severe cantilevering volume which projects
towards the Taichungkang Road like a huge canopy. The opposing end
facing the future park-scape of the new urban ensemble is characterised
by curved ramps merging into the building.
Further
Reading
William J. Mitchell, Design Worlds, Chapter 3 in:
The Logic of Architecture, M.I.T. Press 1990
Michel
Faucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, 1969, 1972 Michel, Foucault,
The Order of Things, London 1970, French org. 1966, (Capters 2, 5)
Michael Benedict,
Cyberspace, New York 1992
Colin Rowe & Robert
Slutzky, 'Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal', in: The Mathematics
of the Ideal Villa and other Essays, M.I.T. Press 1976
Jeffrey Kipnis,
P-Tr's Progress, in: Peter Eisenman 1990-1997, El Croquis 83, Madrid
1997
Steven R. Holtzman,
Digital Mantras - The Languages of Abstract and Virtual
Worlds, chapter 6 Postwar Serialism, chapter 7 Chomsky, chapter 8 Coda
Brian Massumi,
Sensing the Virtual, Building the Insensible, in AD: Hypersurface Architecture,
London 1998
John Rajchman,
The Virtual House, Any Magazine No. 19/20, 1997
John Frazer, Introduction
to 'An Evolutionary Architecture', Architectural Association 1995
El Croquis 103,
Zaha Hadid 1996-2001 - Landscape as a Plan
LATENT UTOPIAS
- Experiments within Contemporary Architecture, Ed. Zaha Hadid & Patrik
Schumacher, Springer Verlag, Wien/New York 2002
Mechanisms
of Radical Innovation in:
Catalog of Exhibition Zaha Hadid Architektur, Museum
of Applied Arts, Vienna Editor: Peter Noever, Publisher: Hatje Cantz Verlag
Project Credits
Centre
for Contemporary Art, Rome Client:
Italien Ministry of Culture & Ministry of Public Works Design: Zaha
Hadid with Patrik Schumacher Project Architect Gianluca
Racana Production team: Ana
M.Cajao, Fabio Ceci, Matteo Grimaldi, Paolo Matteuzzi, Mario Mattia,
Maurizio Meossi, Luca Peralta, Barbara Pfenningstorff, Gianluca Ruggeri
, Luca Segarelli, Anja Simons, Maria Velceva, Paolo Zilli Design Team: Gianluca
Racana, Dillon Lin, Christos Passas, Oliver Domeisen, Shumon Bazar,
Ali Mangera, Barbara Pfenningstorff, Ana M.Cajao, Sonia Villaseca,
Jee-Eun Lee, James Lim, Sara Klomps, Bergendy Cooke, Jorge OrtegaÕ,
Woody Yao, Graham Modlen, Markus Dochantschi, Ana Sotrel, Heverin,
Hemendra Kothari, Zahira El Nazel Associated Architect ABT, David
Sabatello, Piercarlo Rampini, Paolo Olivi, Marco Valerio Faggiani,
Paolo Bisogni Structure Anthony
Hunt Associates - Les
Postawa, Dave Weale
OK Design Group - Simone Di Cintio,
Marco Barone
M&E Max
Fordham and Partners - Henry Luker, Neil Smith
OK Design Group - Carlo Rossi, Pete
Fanelli, Domenico Raponi Lighting Equation
Lighting - Mark Hensman, Paolo
Giovane
Acoustic Paul
Gilleron Acustic - Paul Gilleron
Art Centre,
Graz Ð Competition Design: Zaha
Hadid with Patrik Schumacher Project
Team: Gianluca
Racana, David Gerber, Sonia Villaseca, Paola Catterin
Quebec National
Library, Montreal Design: Zaha
Hadid with Patrik Schumacher Project Team: Stephane
Hof, Dillon Lin, Lida Charsouli, Sonia Villaseca, Chris Dopheide, Djordje
Stojanovic, Garin OÕAivazian
One North Masterplan,
Singapore Client: JVC, Singapore Design: Zaha
Hadid with Patrik Schumacher Project
Architects David
Gerber, Dillon Lin, Gunther Koppelhuber, Markus Dochantschi Project Team Silvia
Forlati, Kim Thornton, Rodrigo OÕMalley, David Mah, Yael Brosilovski,
Hon Kong Chee, Fernando Perez Vera Urban Strategy Lawrence
Barth Competition Team David
Gerber, Edgar Gonzalez, Chris Dopheide, David Salazar, Tiago Correia,
Ken Bostock, Paola Cattarin, Dillon Lin, Barbara Kuit, Woody K.T. Yao Infrastructural Engineers Arup: Simon Hancock, Ian Carradice, David Johnston Transport Engineers MVA:
Paul Williams, Tim Booth Landscape Architects Cicada Private Limited Lighting Planners LPA:
Karou Mende Planning Tool B
consultants: Tom Barker, Graeme Jennings
BMW Central
Building, Leipzig Client: BMW Design: Zaha
Hadid with Patrik Schumacher Project
architects: Jim
Heverin, Lars Teichmann Project
team: Matthias
Frei, Jan Huebener, Annette Bresinsky, Manuela Gatto, Fabian Hecker, Cornelius Schlotthauer, Wolfgang Sunder, Anneka
Wegener, Markus Planteu, Robert Neumayr Competition Team: Lars
Teichmann, Stephane Hof, Eva Pfannes, Manuela Gatto, Tina Gegoric,
Cesare Griffa, Filippo Innocenti, Maurizio Meossi, Debora Laub, Zetta
Kotsioni, Yasha Grobmann, Liam Young, Niki Neerpasch, Keneth Bostok,
Djordje Stojanovic, Leyre Villoria, Christiane Fashek, Eric Tong Landscape
Architects: Gross.
Max (Edinburgh, U.K.) Structural
Engineer: Anthony
Hunts Assoc., (London, U.K.) Cost: IFB
Dr. Braschel AG, (Berlin, Germany) Light
design: Equation
Lighting, London
Ice-storm,
Lounging Environment Client: Museum
for Applied Arts, Vienna Design: Zaha Hadid & Patrik
Schumacher Project Architects:
Thomas Vietzke, Woody Yao
Z-Scape, Lounging
Furniture Manufacturer:
Sawaya-Moroni, Milan Project Architects:
Carolin Voet, Patrik Schumacher
Fine Arts Centre, University
of Connecticut Client: University of Connecticut Design Zaha
Hadid with Patrick Schumacher Competition Team Juan
I. Aranguren, Simon Kim, Karim Muallem, Elena Perez Guembe, Theodore
Spyropoulos Structure Bob
Lang, Ove Arup Services Nigel
Tonks, Ove Arup Acoustics Richard
Cowell, Ove Arup Theatre Projects David
Staples Cost
Consultant Sam
Mackenzie, Davis Langdon & Everest BBC Music Centre, London Client: BBC Design: Zaha
Hadid & Patrik Schumacher Project Team: Steven Hatzellis, Graham Modlen, Ergian
Alberg, Karim Muellem, Ram Ahronov, Adriano De Gioannis, Simon Kim, Yansong
Ma Structure Bob
Lang, Ove Arup Services Nigel
Tonks, Ove Arup Acoustics Richard
Cowell, Ove Arup Theater Consultant: Anne
Minors Cost Consultant: Sam
Mackenzie, Davis Langdon & Everest
New Fast Train Station, Florence Client: TAV Design: Zaha
Hadid with Patrik Schumacher Project Leader: Filippo
Innocenti Project Team: Fernando
Perez Vera, Maurizio Meossi, Lorenzo Grifantini, Cedric Libert, Barbara
Pfenningstorff, Matthias Frei, Brent Crittenden, Achim Gergen, Tamar
Jacobs, Cornelius Schotthauer, Anneka Wegener, Thomas Vietzke Structural Engineer Adams
Kara Taylor, Hanif Kara Service Engineer : Hoare
Lea, Phil Dow, Andrew Bullmore, Miller Hannah Lighting Consultant: Hoare
Lea, Dominic Meyrick Consultants: Abt
srl, David Sabatello, Ares srl, Roberto Righini, Immo Consultant, Alessandra Albani
New Fast Train
Station, Naples Client: TAV Design: Zaha
Hadid & Patrik Schumacher Project architect / managing: Filippo Innocenti, Paola
Cattarin Design
team: Fernando
Perez Vera, Ergian Alberg, Hon Kong Chee, Cesare Griffa, Karim Muallem,
Steven Hatzellis Competition team: Thomas
Vietzke, Jens Borstelmann, Robert Neumayr,Elena Perez, Adriano De Gioannis,
Simon Kim, Selim Mimita Structural engineering: AKTÐ
Hanif Kara Environmental engineering: Max Fordham Ð Henry Luker Landscape design: GROSS
MAX Ð Eelco Hooftman Local
team: Interplan 2 srl Ð Alessandro Gubitosi
Temporary Guggenheim
Museum, Tokyo Client: Guggenheim Museum, NY Design: Zaha
Hadid with Patrik Schumacher Design Team Gianluca Racana, Kenneth Bostock, Vivek
V. Shankar Structural
engineering: AKTÐ
Hanif Kara Service
Engineer : Hoare
Lea Lighting
Consultant: Hoare
Lea Materials
Engineer: Tom
Barker
Guggenheim
Museum, Taichung Client: Guggenheim Museum, NY Design: Zaha
Hadid with Patrik Schumacher Project Architect: Dillon
Lin Design
Team: Jens
Borstelmann, Thomas Vietzke, Yosuke Hayano Production Team: Adriano
De Gioannis, Selim Mimita, Juan-Ignacio Aranguren, Ken Bostock, Elena
Perez, Ergian Alberg, Rocio Paz, Markus Planteu Structural Engineer: Adams-Kara-Taylor:
Hanif Kara, Andrew Murray,Sebastian Khourain, Reuben Brambleby, Stefano
Strazzullo Services
Consultant: IDOM,
Bilbao Cost Consultant: IDOM UK, IDOM Bilbao
End. |