INCHIOSTRO - Skin Talks

Prefab house - 

mycc oficina de arquitectura

INCHIOSTRO

Skin Talks

Marco Atzori - Originally published in C3 n°314 1010

Over the last twenty years, architecture has rapidly increased its production of forms and languages. In this short time, new formal and technological experiments have ensued at a speed never seen before in the history of the discipline. The liberation of form, enabled in large part by the development of digital tools, has occasioned advances in the technological support necessary for the construction of buildings with regard to both construction techniques and the requisite expansion of the catalog of materials referenced.

When the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao  designed, as is well known, by Frank Gehry   was inaugurated, the use of titanium to achieve the finish of the building was immediately recognized as one of the most innovative aspects of the construction. Gehry had already applied similar solutions in other buildings constructed or planned, alternating metal and stone, as in the American Center in Paris and in the design of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, but in the Guggenheim, it became clear to many for the first time how great a level of technological development had been achieved in the use of materials and construction techniques by the end of the twentieth century.

The Guggenheim Museum became, then, the materialization of a technological leap: an advancement in progress made visible. From that moment, nothing would be the same, and there would be no turning back. In the recent past only the Beaubourg by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers had produced a similar effect, but in that case the focus was mainly on the wonders of technology rather than on the effect of construction materials, as was the case with Gehry's building.

This state of affairs might lead one to think that, in both cases, there had been a sudden and radical transformation of materials or techniques of the sort likely to cause a revolution in the architectural discipline: one type of material or a technique which put a halt to the business-as-usual methods which until then had governed design output. This is partly true, but, together with the technological progress evinced, we must acknowledge how the transformation was recorded in both moments, as a cultural change that profoundly changed the perception of technology by encouraging the adoption of innovative choices.

In other words, we can postulate that technological advancement has truly occurred when a society is able to understand the importance of cultural change.

The industrial revolution, for example, fundamentally altered the previously established balance in the rules of construction and adoption of materials. Architectural and construction practice at that point departed radically from localism, moving rapidly into the first set of global conditions linked to the market and specifically to the development of technologies related to the use of iron, thereby radically altering the design of the architectural plan. The intrusion of the modern movement into the history of architecture was the consequence of a cultural climate that led the International Style to define a clear line of demarcation with the past, abandoning traditional building techniques and morphologies in order to venture into experiments that then conditioned both constructive results and the durability of some of the epoch’s masterpieces.

In some ways, both Piano and Rogers' Beaubourg and Gehry's Guggenheim are indebted to the modern tradition. Both are the result of trials of complex technologies, and indeed, the very concept of "new materials" is inseparably linked to the concept of modernity¹.

But in a society now leaving the industrial age to enter the era of global communications and information technology, architecture has gradually shifted its attention to the capacity of buildings to communicate and themselves be icons of change. It is no longer of interest to demonstrate techniques for achieving change, as was the case with Beaubourg; attention and efforts now focus on the impacts that architecture has on the feelings and messages it conveys.

Thus, the technical possibilities offered by materials and technologies now having been taken for granted, a trial of new products has been launched onto the market, featuring unusual combinations of these, and reconsiderations of the possibilities and roles of materials formerly deemed unsuitable or impossible to use in construction in their original forms. The skin of a building has become the place of privilege in such experiments. We have thus witnessed a gradual shift in focus, from spaces to surfaces.

The spectacular visual and tactile effects which can be achieved in the external surfaces of architecture overlap the experience related to the discovery of the space of a building. The choices of materials and other innovations used in coatings have progressively enhanced the communicative nature of facades, so as to denote the unique identity of the buildings that they wrap.

Buildings such as the Selfridges & Co Department Store completed in 2003 by Future Systems in Birmingham; the “Water Cube” Olympic pool designed by PTW with Ove Arup and Partners for the Beijing Olympics of 2008; and the John Lewis Department Store and Cineplex in Leicester and Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication, both designed by Foreign Office Architects, all illustrate clearly the role of design in contemporary facades. The quality of technical and functional wall systems, capable of regulating climate, light and comfort settings in buildings, are subordinated to their “mise en scéne” and their effects, and ultimately to what they communicate. The technology, used at very high levels, exists, but is hidden, is imperceptible. However, what are manifest are the textures, geometric patterns and color effects of the artificial light, in other words, matters beyond function or tectonics, which can be defined as ornament.

If initially the introduction of increasingly sophisticated materials (polymers, glass, silk-screened high-strength fabrics and new types of ceramics) and new production technologies or systems for finishing materials (such as those derived from the introduction of the cam-aided techniques) made possible the staging of such an expressive vocabulary, today similar results are obtained even when choices are inclined in a low-tech direction, or when traditional materials such as concrete or wood are reinterpreted, or even when hybrid systems are used which take advantage of an interaction between natural and artificial materials.

Architects such as Jean Nuovel or Herzog & de Meuron make use of green walls, or "mur végétal," designed by Patrick Blanc, in some of their recent works, such as the Musée du Quay Branly in Paris, or the Caixa Forum in Madrid. Shigeru Ban and Kengo Kuma experiment with using compressed cardboard tubes and bamboo to build walls and structures. Kuma, in desigining the Bamboo House, points out that skins and outer surfaces are distinct concerns:“I believe that the structures and buildings should have a skin, not just an outer surface. This is because without it there would be no room for the soul of the structure. The skin is not only the outside of something; it is a living organ.” Finally, other examples, such as "rural lodgings," carried out in Jupilles (France) in 1996 by Edouard Francois and Duncan Lewis, reveal that low-tech hybrid systems can communicate with the same force as highly complex systems and technologies.

The buildings designed by Mycc Arquitectura, Heikkinen and Komonen, SV60 Architects, Pezo von Ellrichshausen Architects, Groves-Raines Architects and Benjamin Garcia Saxe are clear representations of the phenomena discussed thus far. It is clear that the sort of communication that makes the architecture about itself is as important as the causes for which we build, and that a balance between external representation and a consideration of the necessities of the space is one of the points on which the contemporary architect should reflect more carefully.

In fact, even a small-scale work of architecture such as Prefab House Mycc can be accessed through the layering of meanings described above. The house is first a valuable example of how architecture, through the use of hybrid construction techniques in which the possibilities offered by current systems of prefabrication join cam-aided technologies in producing finishing materials, can achieve non-standard items of highest quality in no time. The little vacation residence designed by the young Madrid office was, in fact, built in three months, and was assembled on-site in three days in full compliance with the constraints imposed by local building regulations. The choices of materials and construction systems, moreover, interpreted in an intelligent way the conditions suggested by the site, integrating the house with the built and natural landscape.

Then there is another level of reading, which is the plane on which we interpret the sort of architecture that communicates itself from the outside. Even at that level, the prefabricated house is exemplary. The form is iconic; one cannot help thinking that the object is not a home because of how it represents its archetypal image. Its stylization of pitched roofs and elementary geometry are implemented in a wood-cement mixture, the color of which recalls the eucalyptus trees in the area. The facades, however, made of Corten hollow steel, reproduce the stylization of the nearby forest through a refined drilling system carried out at various diameters. The architectural elevations are related in this way to the surrounding nature and emphasize with dramatic effect that they belong to that place. The front, moreover, through a system of openings, connects the interior with various external visual elements, thereby constructing an interesting visual continuity. The materials and techniques chosen for the construction are intended to create communication plans with the outside world that they materialize on the skin of the architecture. But we must note that the interior space is conceptually separate from the outside. It's another universe, perhaps more private, which does not maintain a continuity with what comes through via the skin of the building.

A similar train of thought can also be applied to the Hameenlinna Provincial Archive by Heikkinen and Komonen. The building has a matrix composition of obvious modern inspiration, in which two opposing blocks, differing in terms of the materials used, make clear up front their functional role. But if one block is treated with an industrial metallic coating, as if to indicate a more technical role, via the rear elevation, the other assumes a more public face and communicates the role of the store in the urban context through its façade, which is made using a special cement called "graphic concrete," decorated with graphic textures inspired by the texts the archive contains. The building expresses its identity, communicating from outside less via a system of signs and forms, as frequently happened in the postmodern, but more by using the facades as an interface, a layer of dialogue between the building itself and its context. The decorative graphics, also called a "decoration narrative," of the material become a communicative code immediately interpretable. In the contemporary world, in fact, messages can no longer be discerned through a use of interpretation keys, but must be clearly defined so as to be stored more easily, as happens on the screen of an iPhone or iPad. Heikkinen and Komonen abandon the modern matrix expressed, at least formally, in their project, because the front prevails over the space.

The front’s importance is such as to carry over to the graphic treatment of the concrete inside the building, so as to make it more prominent, even if the spatial experience linked to the development of the program should prevail. The front is then the common interface of the architecture.

The development of this same concept is also apparent in the project of the Ithaca Oficinas y Plata TV in Tomares. SV 60 Arquitectos, utilizing materials varying in nature, arrange for the building to communicate its functions from outside . The concrete facades fulfill the role of creating clear limits, protecting certain interior spaces from exterior noise. At the same time, they "illustrate" their task to the external environment. But the surface does not explain precisely what happens inside, such that the structure no longer adheres to the binomial form = function derived from the modern classic, because the interior space is not revealed by the skin. The facade clearly explains a concept, but it deepens, and limits the perception to the skin, which becomes the main focus of attention. This phenomenon becomes even clearer when one looks at the parts of the building that form the interior patio, in which the facade becomes a screen on which it is possible to project images. At that point the materials communicate the role of the building in the urban landscape, not by revealing an internal mechanism, but, directly and unequivocally, by building the image of itself that the object wants to project.

The possibilities offered by current technologies in rethinking well-established materials are also present in the work of Mauricio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen. The concrete, as observed in previous projects, proves to be a field of new textures and colors. It can be treated graphically as in Heikkinen and Komonen's Building or mixed with wood as in the Mycc Prefab house, or even colored, as in the work of SV60 Arquitectos, but the concrete in all cases is a far cry from the brutalism of the '50s and '60s, or from its use in pure and refined form as in the Tadao Ando from the 80s. The design for the Pael house in Concepcion, Chile, is conceived so as to lend the material the appearance of wood in characterizing the interiors. Concrete, chosen for the soundness intrinsically related to its nature, thus assures the house’s owners as to its eternal life, but does not manifest itself in terms of its function. It's processed, aged, so as to be perceived as being in continuity with the existing. The architects point out that during construction, a carpenter said, “Perhaps the only way to avoid aging is to be born old,” thus confirming the validity of the choice, and the effect that the material communicates. In the Pael House is evident the same search for archetypes discussed above with regard to the prefab house, but the Chilean architects lean more heavily on formal research in deriving their suggestion of a suspended block that creates a strong dynamic in the composition. In this way they point out the contemporary nature of the building. Thus arises a tension between forms and materials, which becomes one of the main points of attraction for the project, a sophisticated operation forging a continuity between contemporary research and typological stratification.

Experimentation with materials is not directed towards improving technical performance only, but also toward a creative reuse of the same. The Groves-Raines Architects project rethinks the steel bars which are normally used to reinforce concrete in the manner of braided rope, creating a surface of charming beauty. Like a huge basket, the structure supports a part of the garden which is inserted in a way that recalls the sculptures of Richard Serra.

It's interesting to observe how the perspective of architects has changed with regard to the novel use of materials. Experiments such as those carried out by Herzog & de Meuron for the Dominus Winery or by Shigeru Ban in his use of cardboard tubes have freed architects from many orthodoxies related to the function or consolidated use of materials and techniques in architecture, and have thus opened up the field to a multitude of uses and configurations that current technologies are able to test and improve. The steel used for the structure built by Groves-Raines Architects appears in a new form, hiding its enormous strength and demonstrating its great elasticity. The surface appears to be handmade, folded without apparent effort. The result creates a theatrical effect that leaves to one’s imagination the nominal use of the steel bars that form it.

Opportunities arising from the use of non-conventional materials have also been tested in a residence designed by Benjamin Garcia Saxe. The special conditions offered by the site allowed the architect to devise a facade system that, using bamboo trunks, modulates incoming light and controls the climate inside. The use of material and the shape of the house, centered around a courtyard which is overlooked by the public and private portions of the residence, creates a small system in equilibrium with the environment.

Benjamin Garcia Saxe shows how a low-tech approach can ensure a quality of life that is both comfortable and environmentally friendly. He builds on techniques derived from local traditions and the work of architects such as Glenn Murcutt, always attentive to the production of articles in which construction techniques and materials are in equilibrium with places. The walls, made of logs with a bamboo structure are able to control climatic comfort, but, at the same time, they look like a skin characterized by a particular geometric pattern that draws attention to itself, and creates a fragile and permeable atmosphere conveying an idea of continuity with the surrounding environment. The house is a place defined against, but one not clearly distinguishable from, the forest within which it lies.

At the beginning of the twentieth century Adolf Loos argued that ornament was a crime when it was unnecessary. Loos believed that the overall resolution of architecture should proceed from the inside out and that external ornamentation was inconceivable because of the necessity of bringing to light the nature and purity of the materials. Today, because of the role played by the skin in architecture, originating from the idea that the building is designed from outside to inside, how ought we now to view that judgment of Loos? Is it now possible to consider ornament a crime, in the era in which ornament has become communication?

1See Paolo Portoghesi's Editorial, pagg. 24-27 on Materia n.42 September-December 2003