Current Work: Grafton Architects: Work in Progress

hello and welcome i see participants still shine uh showing up but i think we should get going welcome welcome uh it is a true pleasure uh to introduce shelley mcnamara and yvonne farrell the co-founders of grafton architects i'm paul lewis uh president of the architectural league and partner at ltl architects and first i need to thank our funders which include all of the league members in this virtual audience and this program is supported in part by public funds from the new york city department of cultural affairs in partnership with the city council and the new york state council on the arts and also thanks go out to the irwin s shannon school of architecture at the cooper union for co-hosting the current work lecture series with the league it is wonderful to be able to hear from yvonne and shelley this afternoon as this is a a pivotal period within grafton architects in 2018 they were the co-curators of the international venice biennial with a manifesto free space advocating for the generosity of architecture in addition this year they have received some of the most prestigious acclaims in the architectural discipline the 2020 pritzker prize and the riba royal gold medal just to mention two but based on the work that they will present today one could argue that some of their most substantial work is in process and yet to be built so this is in a sense this is truly a lecture that could not have occurred at any other time and it is precisely the moment that you want to hear from architects of such importance grafton was founded in 1978 and although their work is fundamentally connected to dublin and to ireland where for the first 25 years of the practice all of their buildings were located most of the work they will present today is in other countries in other cultures and other geographies for architects who named their firm not based on their personal identities but for an urban place grafton street in london the challenges of working globally in very different locales raises fascinating questions yet because they argue for the importance of each place this range of locations allows for an array of diverse and unique buildings yet it is a totally coherent body of work so it's it's very very difficult to capture the richness subtlety complexity rigor and pleasures of grafton's work in a short introduction and i will keep this short it is profound work not just because of their their planned stitched together urban fabric into porous thicknesses that intensify social life not just because their sections are both carved into the ground and are animated by sculpting the sky providing spaces for movement delight and intimacy and unprecedented articulation of what could be called the free section not just because they ingeniously deploy structures to convey gravity and lightness simultaneously but because their work is based on the cultural ethics of building and speaks optimistically about human existence and our future it is an optimism which is much needed and an optimism which is embedded in the craft of how grafton in their words and i quote adds to the crust of this fragile planet please join me in welcoming shelly mcnamara and yvonne farrell hello we would like to thank the architectural league of new york for inviting us to present our work in towards a critical regionalism six points for an architecture of resistance kenneth frampton recalls two of the french philosopher jean-paul recurs questions one how to become modern and return to sources and two how to revive an old dormant civilization and take part in universal civilization critical regionalism is an encouragement to adopt modern architecture critically for its universal progressive qualities but at the same time reminding us that value should be placed on the geographical context of a building according to frampton and i quote the specific culture of the region of the region becomes inscribed into the form and realization of the work this inscription which arises out of the inlaying the building into the site has many levels of significance for it has a capacity to embody in built form the pre-history of the place its archaeological past and its subsequent civilization and transformation across time end of quote we sometimes say that architecture is a silent language that speaks the choreography of spaces needs to be actually experienced to fully understand it reading plans and section does not convey the complexity of volumes the impact of the changing light throughout the day the human interaction in space one of the many impacts of covert as we all work remotely and apart is that we miss experiencing the variety of enclosures that architecture gives us in experiencing life and in the human encounters with others lena bobardi said until a person enters a building climbs its steps and seizes the space in a human adventure that unfolds in time architecture does not exist in the absence of buildings we speak today about a number of our projects under the title work in progress we'll discuss the layers that we try to unpeel inventing and transforming the needs of clients to give each new project the possibility of celebrating place climate culture materiality trying to heighten the awareness of each individual on this precious globe where we are so work in progress is really the work that we have done and what we have learned in the thousand offices for bocconi university in milan italy it's a series of open-air courtyards hoisted high up into the sky forming light wells raised gardens so opening windows can be in each office in the section you see the study model you see these courtyard which are light filters which protect the spaces below from the sky but also in this section you see the the uh the offices which are hung from these beams at roof level that all of these offices have courtyards that allow for all the officers to have opening windows and balconies to these spaces also on the right hand side you see the three periscopes these natural light scoops into the grand hall for a thousand people and architecturally what this 66 foot cantilever of the aola hovering over this space below which is uh 15 feet down below the city level allows the relationship between the the life of the city and the life of the university itself when we did a competition in lima in peru it was for a new university in a site close the pacific ocean near the 120-foot high cliffs that form the edge of the city of lima and we asked the question could we harness the specific climate of that city to invent a new vertical campus with circulation outside shaded from the sun inter weaving landscape into this section so that we had a vertical campus where everything in terms of circulation that could be outside is and that the wind from the pacific would irrigate this space and keep this vertical campus cool so here we have the landscape intertwined the circulation outside and in terms of the times we live in it's interesting that outside space and breeze from the pacific ocean is a definite advantage in terms of the life we are we are leading just outside paris in a place called sac clay it's about three quarters of an hour drive from uh from paris in the southwest this was a competition that we did in a new area which is a plateau where a number of university complexes were being relocated and for us what was interesting was that this was a type of silicon valley on the plateau if that's not a kind of a contradiction in terms but essentially this was agricultural land that was being transformed into a new campus and for us going to the site for the first time what was really important was to to find this little this little stone which fits in in your hand trying to find something of the soil and the stone of that place to bring with us as a type of talisman as we move forward in terms of the the design development and on the right hand side are a number of references that in terms of scale where we're trying to develop a sense of measure and a sense of judgment on the lowest the lowest image is the beautiful plan of the palais royale in paris itself the space formed by this thin band of accommodation the next one up is hospitali maggiore this incredible building started in the 14th century in the city of milan with its series of courtyards which means that it it it survives it survives so just going back it survives from the 1400s into the 21st century and still induced today in terms of sustainability that's pretty good going above that is the beautiful image of uh the uh um the university uh here in our city of dublin it's the uh trinity college uh campus with the long room with the thin band of rooms forming this enclosed garden in the heart of our city here in in dublin and on the top is our competition at response to this institute mean telecom where it was moving with research with offices with teaching spaces and so for us the issue of arrival into this into this complex was really that we would make a series of of course five external courtyards and one internal knuckle and looking on this side here this beautiful image uh by the spanish uh sculpture really describing light from the inside because in our image above here where we've chosen to use a series of vertical contours that light um from the south would filter through the north facade as you enter from the main space of the uh of the of the uh of the area so this plan describes arriving from the north into the first main space you come through the gates you pass the cafe at this point you're able to view through into the the garden which has real trees planted as part of the master planning strategy you move to the entrance to the long haul to this beautiful space which is the knuckle the pinwheel of the this uh institution and at this point the major um lecture theaters uh a pinwheel this is a view of the uh the north facade where you're really looking at the repetition of the 1.35 vertical contours so that each of each of the many offices and have access to the outside have a balcony have a way of relating either to the outside campus or within itself to to the to the courtyards and the choice of the precast concrete color is really in reference to that piece of ground that that we had as a talisman so here you are entering from the uh the main university um plateau you arrive into this space passing the cafe you view at this point in under the central bar to the to the main space with its a hundred trees and you arrive to the main entrance and at this level is the position of the of the library which acts like a bridge here we have a view of the main uh space which is enclosed by the uh the by the new um courtyard organization and this image which we love is the section showing the uh the trees in real ground the car parking below the entrance you see arrival you come to this main space you have a ramp which brings you up to the library which is positioned between the main if you like social organization of this new university and views down into this uh absolutely essential outdoor uh courtyard and the the image the photograph is describing the outside space the arrival the arrival to this point here the moving up the staircase in a natural type organization you this is the ramp that leads you to the distance for the position of the library and that that is the ramp you're seeing in the distance and the library is positioned at this pivotal point between socializing and the outdoor space in following on uh under the banner of work in progress and following our deep interest relating to sustainability we entered a competition for a new university building in fayettesville in arkansas it was the anthony timberland center for design and materials innovation this is the place this area in arkansas of faye jones the architect of that wonderful porn crown chapel which is this beautiful image of small pieces of timber transformed in in a woodland setting and on the left hand side are these amazing no-nonsense kind of industrial buildings in the united states which are responding directly to need we found this an absolutely inspirational reference we also wanted to respond to the local climate particularly the weather in this part of arkansas with its heavy bursts of rain and the brief was really very uh obviously central to the to responding to this to this project and we worked with the functional requirements by it had this it has this fabrication shop and we placed it at the lowest level where it could be easily serviced and students in the general public would be able to see what is happening and if you're a member of the public that you could also enjoy the the view into the fabrication shop from the sidewalk so in this these are our study models where we're really coming to terms with what is required uh for this building and educational building which was at the training and making um of uh of of timber as an essential material this in terms of plan is showing our relationship with the city block we place this is the sidewalk the major road the fabrication shop which is uh at a lower level than the uh then the sidewalk and that the service yard is here but this becomes the the focus the main fabrication and open yard become the place where students not only of this building but also of the artistic block which is part of the university is positioned and functionally what we found was that the the layering and the educational connection between this what we call the the section as educational connector that we would have this fabrication shop but it will also have a relationship in section with the other required pieces of the of these this brief so the layering is entrance auditorium classroom laboratories design studios right up to the library and residence for visiting professors but essentially what we wanted to celebrate was the wonderful versatility of timber and that that timber would be used both as the uh as the bones of the uh of the structure and also the enclosing skin and that we would that the building itself would be a storybook of timber and that we we chose our model to describe the the main moves on the right hand side which is here that taking the amazing outbursts of of of rain in this in this part of arkansas that we would embed these these drawings that we would embed these if you like they're um responding to the to the rain that we would have these glue lamb essentially like canoes that would take the the water and deal with them as part of the the architectural idea of of this of this project so for us i suppose it's important to to state that daylight is a free resource this is a view on the interior where you have the main fabrication level you have the level of the sidewalk with the general public up here a beautiful uh possibility of a of a sculpture on exhibition for the general public the general public also being able to see into this uh amazing hall by virtue of uh transparency and that here hung in a in a structure of a queen pose truss that you have the uh a great ability of timber to perform larger scale structure these are these huge uh um the main structure holding these glulam water courses up above are these one meter square ook main structure as well as the tiny pieces that form the uh the the sense of the the rippling and cascading roof and here on the right hand side is a is an image from the the side street looking into this student research building showing the like the cascading roof and the the climate of of this particular part of arkansas and our are building in terms of the the the uh vertical uh position on this intersection of a busy road and a side road is really if you like wanting to have a desired public and urban character on the end of this block that they the feijoan school would have presence and identity within fayettesville and that would be a beacon or a lighthouse prominent on the corner acknowledging the the donors family and happily we won this competition and we're moving forward with it in the university and we're working with the local architects modis to to complete this project another project that we did as a competition it's a a new special school uh national university in the republic of korea this is a competition for a new boarding school it's integrated into an existing university campus and we wonder together with the local firm of space group and we interpreted the client's vision of being able to to make a school what they describe of discovery of safety and belonging they requested making a community it's making a boarding school it's a home for three years for teenagers with various disabilities and with all the necessary social and academic backup to develop their skills and also they wish of the clients to make a place that would act as a center for surrounding communities and we loved this stated ambition and because it was and i could they quoting they want a village where you can learn about life itself and this their intention was to bring all the diverse worlds together of art and agriculture and manufacturing and learning digital studies and play and physical activities together so for us what really struck us was that here was a place that teenagers a group of teenagers would live for three years in the development of their of their skills here we have the the the uh the busy motorway a road we have the site of the university existing buildings we have the the site for the for the competition so you're looking at this roadway and you're looking at the part of the campus here and we have embedded what we did was we had um just in terms of place and climate what we did was look at first of all i suppose uh not knowing very much about uh korea that this drawing is really uh from our point of view looking not only at the culture but also the physical description of the climate and there are four very distinct climates in this part of of korea we also looked at historical building types in korea and in particular we analyzed three one was a mountain fortress the san sao the next one was the academies which were called the ceiling one and then the hanoks which were the traditional courtyard houses so what is very beautiful about this here the uh the academic the academies is that they are really what's very interesting about them i suppose is that they create worlds unto themselves but they also form a an interface between the the public realm and the private realm so there's a there's a level of sectional overlap which we found very beautiful and wanted to to merge within our uh our thoughts for this this project on the top of this image here is our shadow study because the site for this school was not only on the campus as part of the campus university but also embedded close into a hillside and we were very aware that uh this this wonderful as the mountain uh is it also casts shadows so the the brief was really for uh dormitories for the for these students to live for three years at teaching facilities and also sports and and cinema with it within their um within their new uh school i won't go into the plans in detail here but essentially we positioned the uh the the the dormitories uh facing east out to the uh to the surrounding countryside we we made a space uh bringing the mountain through and in as the main space and positioned then the the other the classrooms as bridges so the classrooms are forming at bridges connecting the the sports sports section of this uh building complex to the to to the living and in terms of our historical uh studies that the hanak what was very beautiful about the traditional home was that it was essentially a series of small spaces around outdoor spaces that connected to the landscape so for us this was a way of instead of thinking of dormitories as these long rooms where students would um uh uh would would feel like they're in an institution that we would take the 26 satellites of these uh dormitories and and make this house so this this is really trying to take from from the history of of korea to translate into these small groups of six uh five five students and one carer living together in these uh smaller hanukk so we positioned the hanukks so here is a an image describing the um the the layer of the uh of the excuse me layer of the uh the hanukks which they themselves are positioned along east here with their own gardens facing out to the community that it's over a colonnade which allows the general public to pass and enjoy and connect to this building that that the landscape of of the location means that the mountain moves in under these spaces and these four bridge connections provide essentially three roof lights which bring nature into this space so this space underneath here becomes the the community space linking the existing campus of the university in through this space into here and bringing the landscape and the landscape becomes modified to becoming the major room of the school so here we have if you like the overheads the bridges what we call the bridges of learning overhead and nature meanders through the new school flowing in under the learning bridges and uniting the campus with the with the mountain so the biggest room of this school is if you like nature invited in sheltered by these bridges and that the central garden is the legible social heart of the school so for us the the school of welcoming edges is really not only welcoming the the the beautiful surrounding nature but also the the communities the existing communities that they would feel uh welcomed into the campus of the university and that they the hanukks forming this colonnade become if you like the elements of colonnade that invite their local community to be part of this new complex and we're working i don't know whether i mentioned it but that working together with local architectural firm uh space group this project is is now moving uh moving on and we very much look forward to building uh a building for these particular clients in korea um this is shelley here and um i just want to pick up from what devon has been speaking about but maybe to start with dublin and with ireland because before we worked anywhere outside of ireland we practiced here for 25 years and we love this um quote from raphael mineo which was in the common ground david chipperfield biennale where he says the city that accompanies you the city you travel in and with so dublin is the city which we have learned from so much and also we wanted to use this image which is a painting of a dublin corner by painter michael kane because it reminds us of something that manuel de solo morales always says which is that especially in his book a matter of things he talks about architects needing to somehow transmit both to themselves and to others the sensation of cities and not simply the let's say the scientific analysis of cities and he makes a case for this thing of how we communicate sensation especially in thinking about what one calls master plans and this project is a competition we won in dublin which we're really delighted about which is a new city library and it's buried behind a beautiful red brick terrace of houses and again this this image reminds us of a fantastic description by uh the writer elizabeth bowen uh who described once uh she described the dublin and the bricks of dublin that the streets seem to seal up the light like an unopened orange seals up the juice and that's what's really interesting about working in your own place you have to discover and rediscover each time the qualities and the sensations of living in your own place in order to make a new response a new intervention so this library overlooks what was traditionally a very important square in dublin called parnell square on high ground overlooking the city it was originally a pleasure garden and in the section you see that we make a new uh civic space embedded in the block a kind of secret place that you come through the wall or the crust to the city which overlooks the the parnell square and faces south and you come into this uh this genital light which is the public room of the library and because this garden was once a pleasure garden it no longer really functions totally as a pleasure garden we wanted to reinstate this idea and to weave a sense of landscape up in and through the library and we love the program of library we feel that it's the one democratic institution left in contemporary society and all these different colours show all of the different uses that this library is to accommodate the there's five houses on to the public space and each of those is entered as a kind of separate suite and then there's a big yellow lending library and mezzanine and above there's incredible variety of uses which makes this this very important urban mix and what's wonderful working on is beside a wonderful gallery which was the house of hugh lane uh and is now the municipal gallery and what's wonderful about um the library is that it's a place of what le bruce when he was designing his libraries in paris talked about it being a place of um universal ties and the the that architecture he discovered through this project which was to do with regeneration of that parts of the city that he was building he talked about the healing power of architecture especially through the library and through the suggestive force of the atmosphere of the library and this sense of universal ties what's also wonderful about it is the librarians because they want to share their knowledge and access to knowledge unconditionally where people can uh can either just sit and read or can on the right-hand image there is um collective spaces which are at the upper level for performance or conference and on the left-hand side is the zenfone reading room and because of this idea of the pleasure garden which we want to start thinking about in terms of this whole quarter and the regeneration of this quarter we started in the library by weaving gardens and landscape right up through the building in in our work we go back to this plan so often uh the wonderful plan of single uh 19th century uh drawing and what's beautiful about it first of all is it as a drawing but also the way it describes a world and the monastic model is something that we keep referring back to we van spoke about the building outside of paris which is like a contemporary monastery but the monastic model is also interesting because it was a carrier and protector of culture and learning it wasn't just a religious institution for instance and what's what's what what we love about this plan is that it shows when you look at it in detail it shows churches houses stables kitchens workshops breweries infirmary there's this wonderful mix of of of elements brought together in one place and we particularly enjoyed this when we were looking at sorry um at this building in kingston um slight technical glitches here this building in kingston which is a university which we call a warehouse of ideas where kingston university wanted to make this new town house an open house and they have this wonderful idea of bringing together unexpected uh types of uses for instance urban dance to together with a quiet library and we looked at woodson's um showroom in copenhagen and we loved this idea of of making a kind of warehouse which would feel in some way a bit like um woodson's sense of uh this warehouse also feeling like a kind of woodland with the trees above and so we made this very open structure uh which as i say we called a warehouse of ideas and we we made this logia which surrounds it on three sides and and in a sense it varies comes away from much of the work that we've been doing which is very much about walls and mass and so we wanted to make a very porous edge where this building is almost inside out that you would circulate around the edges overlooking the thames in the distance and a very busy road facing west and that this would allow the building to open outwards and also to invite the community in and the diagram of the structure because we used the term structure in space in relation to the single plan but the diagram of the structure and and this image show us what we were looking for which is a very loose weave and we really like this this this kind of loose fish um idea that not not every square meter has to be accounted for in terms of program but that somehow that that that a building can expand and contract or if the life of a building can expand and contract within this uh loose warehouse type structure the other thing we've spent a lot of time looking at was the how we could make a heart to this building which houses noisy and quiet active and passive places to be alone as well as places to be together and we thought about the uh lecture theater as being a courtyard space that it would be like the bull uterian of greece where the councils used to gather in these very tight intimate spaces and we tried to make this space feel like a democratic space and uh that it would feel external even though it's internal and again that it has this loose fish feeling because students can sit in it and or lie in it or learn in it depending on what's happening and that it's a place that people can wander through and then you can close when there's an event happening and we turned it you could say back to front where the stage or the performance of the speaker is also facing the foyer and the entrance hall so that the whole space can open up and the events can be enjoyed by everybody and this is the nature of this space where you can see dancers perhaps moving between their dance studios on the upper level on the first floor level and that the seating would connect to the first floor level with the ground level and that the quiet libraries up above see those windows that the library and the librarians and the students using the library can enjoy the silence of the space but at the same time view into this courtyard and see what happens and again the porous edge uh which is this idea of not making walls of making uh this edge which allows students to circulate to sit in the sun makes places for people to stand waiting for the bus and we've planted vines on this facade reminiscent of some of the famous vines in hampton court the other building that we're doing in london which is under construction at the moment is the london school of economics which is a very different um story let's say uh and the the the this is in a very dense urban site and so we looked at how much free space we could leave in terms of how the citizen or the city could enjoy access to the university or where the students and the university could come together and we loved the undercroft space the bottom image on the left which is the undercroft of lincoln's in chapel and what's wonderful about that space is that uh it's completely open there's no door and there is a chapel up above but there's a staircase a discrete staircase to the chapel and the door to the chapel happens on the upper level so was there something of um delaying the point of control or the point of entry in terms of structure it goes from a huge sports hall at the basement level to tiny offices up above so the diagram the structure in diagram of the green and the red and the black is a series of rotating and interlocking changes of structure like the way that a forest grows with um with the the branches getting smaller and smaller as you go up and also with the sense of rotation as well as axis and this leads to this kind of space where you're actually inhabiting the the transition structure the what what we would call the transfer structure instead of transfer structure being a kind of boring thing hidden within the depth of the floor what we felt was that we should inhabit that point of transfer from the large too small so you feel these weighty columns and beams supporting all of the research and teaching offices and lecture spaces up above and that this space would feel like a great hall with a big staircase in the distance taking you up to the point of most control but that somehow the space would be open to the city and a huge challenge for us to deal with 55 meter frontage onto lincolns in fields our building is on the right hand side of this um piece of london where we're trying to capture the atmosphere of london and directly across the way is the song museum which is very sobering to be addressing the same civic space as a piece of work by uh john sohn and this wonderful museum which we love and just some construction photos of this grand stairs and the two tree structures and what they're starting to look like and this elegant stair which will deal with large groups of people winding their way up to the more private spaces up above and this sense of the forest of beams and columns which is the transfer structure between large and small spaces and this is our study model our competition model showing the scale of the building and how it relates to lincoln's in fields and the the one of the projects that we finished recently as well as the kingston project is this school of economics in toulouse which is a very similar program to the bocconi building but in a completely different city wonderful brick city of toulouse with this huge river and beautiful key walls and raised pieces of landscape and our building is the little one peeping through the gap in the trees overlooking this kind of heroic river and what was what was important for us about this project was how we would deal with the very particular nature of the site where we're occupying a breach in the medieval wall and we made a kind of collage of the elements that we found in toulouse of buttresses and cloisters and colonnades and made this this this this choreographed [Music] series of spaces which make these big window openings and frame views of decisions from the world within um it's it's interesting having just finished this building in in november and going back and looking at the plans and when you're very familiar with the building you forget where you started and what we really liked going back and really looking at these plans is that if you look at them it morphs from a kind of perimeter scheme to a free series of free forms at the top floor the basement lower ground is on the left and then it's a wall space and then some elements start to come free and those big rooms which form gaps which make views of the city and then it becomes much more free and open at the top and you can see this in the section as well and we were really delighted to hear that the builders when they used to see these plans up in the site office they called this the butterfly which is also interesting because there is it takes that thing of morphing from one element into another and this was very highly worked project in terms of how we would deal with the climate uh we we use the fire stairs to make these six feet which anchors the building into the ground and we connected these um buttress towers uh with colonnades we pleated and folded walls all done differently and modulated by our um environmental designers so that they the wall facing south is different to the one facing east and facing west and and so they're doing a job as well as giving us the mass and the scale and the richness that we wanted and i suppose the most important thing ivan mentioned in lima is is is how you make a building which really connects with its city and the the climate in toulouse allowed us to make this open interior protected from wind and rain but also to make these big windows which bring the city right into the building and i love that image of the two students standing having a very quiet conversation and they can overlook their city and the sky cloister which is that element which forms the kind of gateway to the city where professors and students and teachers can move from one building to the next next and moving outdoors but protected from the elements and again in terms of the current climate let's say and the current problem of of covert that thing of of that sense of well-being and being connected to fresh air and connected to the sky and connected to your place is something we've always felt even before and way before this um this current crisis is that the again going back to the monastery the the idea of the cloister and the monks being able to move around uh a courtyard with the sky as their ceiling uh protected from the rain and the wind outside but also protected and this is like a kind of a vertical weave of cloisters and courtyards that it moves up in sections starts on the lower level and reappears at the upper level so it's like this thread of of of social space weaving its way through the project um and then going back just to looking at it in its context again besides the media canal and they see the sky cloister which we call the sky cloister uh and the lower cloisters and and colonnades and they have this very civilized thing where they talked about having cocktail terraces between luxury spaces which we thought was really impressive and i'm just going to finish with um again because we're talking about work in progress um yvonne always says that one thing leads to another and we've touched on this idea of structuring uh space and we've touched on the idea of the arkansas project which is made in wood and this was an earlier study uh competition for a school of architecture and we became very involved almost one could say obsessed with this idea of a reciprocal structure which is um we were at the same time doing a competition which i will also show you for um an irish embassy in uh tokyo and we discovered that um when we were looking up the uh reciprocal structure which is a ancient chinese and japanese way of using wood where you have these interlocking three-dimensional grid which works both as a match and as um as a series of columns and beams but the interconnection and interdependence we really loved and what's fantastic about it because it's a rotating structure it has an axis if you want it to have an axis or it can work diagonally it has little grids which become big grids it was perfect for making roof lights so that you could get this um filter of light between the pieces of wood it was also perfect for making bigger spans or the the beams could become deeper to um to contain a review space or an exhibition space so it was a wonderful um study and and exploration for us this project simply in terms of how that structure might work and then we looked at that in relation to a vertical reciprocal structure for ireland house in tokyo which is the embassy in tokyo and we liked the just like kingston townhouse the using the word house the term house is very important because it gives a sense of this idea of intimacy as well as perhaps the monumental or the uh the totality but that there would always be this kind of sense of the intimate within which whatever project we do that the two really need to go together the monumental and the intimate the heroic and the internet and the vertical reciprocal um structure for this project uh was was a development perhaps one could stay and you could say a precursor of the arkansas project where we were thinking about how tall can you build in wood which is not so easy in tokyo because it's seismic as there's also challenges in um in arkansas in relation to that but um we were also fascinated by the the katsura palace and because we were looking at japan we were looking at joints we were looking at structure this is the plan of the way the reciprocal structure works we were looking at um our engineer asked four of us to put our hands together and to support a heavy person in the office and how easy it is when four people work together and symbolically there's something very beautiful about about that about the interlocking of small elements to make something bigger so the plan on the right is our ireland house and the plan on the left is uh katsura and i suppose that says something about also about uh tradition and um uh thinking yes so this this is our ireland house uh courtyard the domestic space a welcoming space with an ancient tree and again using the the thing of uh the the challenge of of using wood in a in a country where they are probably the most skilled in the world in japan and also in china and other ancient and contemporary cultures where much more so than in ireland and it's something that we're really learning from but i just wanted to end with this image because um it it somehow describes when we talk about work in progress you always think well where are we going and what are we doing and ivan and i have had a number of interviews on discussions on um zoom or skype or whatever or watched certain lectures and there was one about two weeks ago um given by uh helen thomas who's an architect and a writer and a teacher and she talked about the mysteries encountered when finding reality and the the the discussion that that we had afterwards well what what is we what is the reality we are looking for and we carried that conversation on with uh an italian wonderful writer fulvio iraqi and we were talking about how he was asking us about digital tools as against hand tools and we were talking about the the the difference between um an image and reality when you see the image of a painting uh how perfect it looks in your favorite books with the colors all perfect and you then you see the reality and it's a it's a raw canvas and there's splunges and splashes of paint and you're kind of almost shocked by the crudeness of the reality of the of the canvas and uh fulvio iraqi was talking about the first time he went to see champion in rome by bramante how disappointed he was almost and he he in the way that italians can do uh talked about a building being a sum of imperfections and that perhaps beauty is like a cloud but it's continually changing but what's wonderful about architecture is that by its nature it's optimistic and always looking forward and that's something that we find is continually renewing that you're looking you're looking for the perfection or you're looking for the next world let's say and something about this image that makes us feel uh that we're looking to the future looking to make a new world so i'd like to end on a note of optimism and just say ivan and i were listening at lunchtime today on our irish news to a woman whose birthday today is she was 107 years old and she was on radio saying keep courage keep up your spirits you know this will pass and there will be good times in the future and this will seem like just a a small speck in your memory and uh so we we we feel that the current situation offers enormous challenges but also fantastic opportunities for us to recalibrate our values so thank you thank you yvonne thank you shelly uh it's fantastic to see the work it's such rich work um can be looked at through so many different lenses um so many facets i know i want to talk about your um your approach this section uh uh your approach to plan to enclosure and materials but i want to first start by uh kind of picking up on what shelly you just mentioned about the optimism and using this time to re recalibrate values and you allude to the fact that open air and the role of bringing the exteriors into the building is something that's now an even greater demand but i'm uh i wanted to have you continue to kind of talk about the question of recalibrating values what what values do you feel have have to shift or what kind of recalibration needs to happen and shelly if you could could pick up on that well maybe it refers back a little bit to our free space manifesto because we have to think about all those things when we were um asked by the president of the biennale to make a biennale which represented our values and that was a tall order uh to actually think about how to articulate that because architecture is such a complex discipline let's say but one of the things we we felt was so important was the the humanism the humanistic component of architecture that it's about well-being and it's to frame people's lives and to serve let's say there's a really interesting story kevin roach um in an interview uh he was speaking about um the ford foundation and how he felt that the role of architecture was to really deal with this to deal with well-being and that building is fantastic building for us to continually go back and look at but he tells this funny story of being interviewed for a job in um in manhattan somewhere and the the client who is very rich person said you're irish and he said yes and she said um i love the irish they make very good servants and he said rather than becoming offended he thought well that's what architecture is we're here to serve and there was something very um true about that that it's uh you know the one is happiest when one makes a space that people respond to and they may not even notice it but they love it so um i think in in terms of values in a sense if you think about the first principles of architecture they're the most challenging values to um to live up to because it's to do with the manipulation of light the the manipulation of our environment the control of our environment the lifting of the spirit function how to make a building work uh and i'm not sure that when i talk about recalibrating values it's actually going i don't like using the term going back to first principles because i actually think it's going forward to first principles because first principles are the most inspirational things to actually keep reminding ourselves about what are we trying to do what is this space going to be what is our what is the role of architecture in this context actually that was one of the interesting things about the events biennale um was the different ways that different architects interpreted the role of architecture in different conditions for instance marina tabasm from bangladesh spoke about architecture becoming more invisible in order to be more present and that one can go from that let's say invisible presence to making something which represents and excites and is very present physically so it has an enormous range and and i think what's what's wonderful about it is that you know it's it has it has immeasurable depths if one can just try and reach them i i i mean i i think one of the i mean you're the way in which you you use and have developed um section does not kind of um see first principles of somehow a regression i mean these are extraordinary sections i mean these are advanced they're they're complex they're they're anything but familiar in some sense because they're so unusual and i wonder yvonne if you could kind of talk more specifically about you know how you theorize section how you how you produce section and its connection to these issues these kind of first uh first principles uh that shelly mentioned what what's amazing about architecture is that it is an art form and part of business but it's commissioned so when when we are approached and each project begins it has a kind of a it has something in it that is unique to its uh its future reality and what we try to do is we work on it from a number of uh directions uh obviously there's where is it and what's its place and what size is it and section take take for instance what i began with today the bikoni section that that essentially there was a thousand offices uh in the city of milan it needed a big room for a thousand people and then the number of very large rooms and the issue of how do you deal with that kind of complexity and how do you find a simplicity that makes a new dna how do you find it how do you find the story of each project so it's really in terms of the section it's also to do with containment say within city positions that that section we have said that you know the plan is kind of the rational thinking and that the section is the emotional component because it is that line between uh ground and sky that that in the bocconi project that the matrix of the offices above you know satisfies the thousand offices but it also is a filter a light filter from from uh from the hot melanie sun and then the carving into the ground the kind of scoops is really that you that that that a building is contained within a city structure and bringing the light in i mean bringing for us it was an amazing thing of the section when when we were doing that project which is many years ago now moving the the the auto mania to that corner the most symbolic corner and having the are delaying the entrance from a busy corner giving a time so you drop down and you enter 15 feet below ground level are kind of practical considerations of of human movement but then provide a section that is uh um is connecting back to city so there's a the process of of architecture is at one level based on on on the practicalities of requirements like in say in in in in lima where we had a very tight site we it was long like a boomerang it had big laboratories smaller laboratories smaller rooms more like russian dolls so we we use the roof of the bigger ones down below to become the the gardens that were a bit like machu picchu so we were trying to weave in history and section and also you're 12 degrees down from the equator and the sun is really hot okay we have a fog that comes in or a cold current but and it's always in 20 degrees each celsius and has a breeze but we were trying to invent a way of being have a section that was one like a carved mountain another was was protecting from the sun another it was a vertical campus and we could because we were building uh our first project in south america in it we're looking at mendes to russia's and other wonderful architects in south america they were able to use the the sense of openness in the section for social overlap so we're interested in light and we're interested like shelley has referred to that we're interested in something functioning we're interested also invention so yes we have a foot in adoring the kind of ancient past because there are proofs of buildings you know that they have been successful like the one we showed for uh hospitality maggiore from the 1400s and is still working as a build as a building and the section of that is held by these courtyards and beautiful outdoor staircases on pivotal moments so the the section the section begins uh with the overlay on the plan and an invention about controlling light and air and delight and and it really seems to be a section that moves in two different directions for almost kind of different magical reasons right like kind of carving into the ground and the carving of the sky and kind of positions this super interesting space that is both kind of ethereal and you know and weighted at the same time right it's moving in multiple directions it's it's there are extraordinary spaces that you produce i'm curious you know in part because so much of you know design often takes place in in in the discipline nowadays with three-dimensional modeling how do do you still hold do you still work with the plan and the section as autonomous tools given the way in which your plan is so different than your sections and in the in what they do i'm curious how you work relative to those two-dimensional representations maybe shelley you can uh can can address this yeah um well we're pencil people so we we sketch all the time um i'm not sure i always agree with yvonne in relation to the section being emotional and the plan being rational um but that's one of those um nice conversations we have regularly uh but it's uh it's it's i i yeah we work in planet section we work in elevation we work in diagrams we work in cartoons we we work in anything that will help us to go from a to b because i'm just thinking as you're speaking about sections i mean some of these they don't come easy i remember to lose was extraordinarily difficult because the geometry of the site the the wish to bring big things up among the offices which were the small things the the wish to uh to make something which had some some solidity to the city and at the same time felt open to the city so it was full of stress let's say full of storm and drying i mean that that that that project to get to the point where it could um start at the at ground level in the way that it needed to occupy its site and then at the same time have that kind of openness that was necessary and of course it's not just ivan and myself in the office you know we have a fantastic team of people and we have fantastic directors and partners and people much more talented than we are and much more fluent and and able to make wonderful models and make fantastic images and so we're surrounded with that kind of support which is and that kind of inspiration which is one of the things we we miss right now because you could see me struggling with my power point for god's sake you know it's uh it's it's that kind of basic but it's it's um yeah uh the the pencil there's nothing like a sketch from our point of view and actually we were just speaking today but working remotely from each other even with architects that we know very well words don't explain what you mean you have to make a sketch there's nothing like a sketch to or a drawing to communicate that's the way we communicate through through drawing through models uh so it's it's the tool of our trade but i didn't think that when we're thinking even if we're thinking in plan inception it's not that it's two-dimensional you know we because we were educated like that we're imagining the space even if it looks like a two-dimensional thing that's like it's like um the score of music you know it's it's a language it's our hieroglyphic yeah no i i didn't mean that they were two-dimensional but um in in a pejorative sense but more in the sense that in the act of being able to distinguish what they are in their agency you've been able to develop a way in which the plan operates in a kind of a sickness the relationship between the city and the building and ultimately between a kind of plan and into the space that the section then starts to unfold internally in a really extraordinary way um but i was it seems to me that the fact that you think about the plan and section of having different agencies and maybe i'm i find it fascinated that you you have slight disagreements about the argument of you know the one being emotional and one being uh kind of logical uh but the fact that you could even kind of articulate their difference in a world where rafale and you know developing everything three-dimensionally simultaneously at all times uh i think super interesting um i wanna um i wanna shift a little bit there's been some questions in the chat talking about materiality questions about how you work with uh work with materials and so i want to kind of ask a little bit about the the role of of mass timber in the arkansas project and in part because so much of your work has made incredibly effective use of the kind of contrast between concrete as an expressive structure verse an inlay of wood as a kind of tactile kind of articulation at the human scale what how has the arkansas project presented different uh you know challenges to you because you're working largely with one material mass timber and then uh then other filigrees of wood internally um uh yvonne can you kind of talk a little bit about your your foray into mass timber and and your relationship to uh you know uh uh kind of reinforced concrete and some of the questions uh related to those there's a beautiful building not far from here in dublin by dean and woodward and it presents a huge selection of the stones of ireland and when you enter into that building you can see at the range that that ireland has to offer and when we did this uh project uh for the competition in fayettesville what really excites us about doing this project is that we feel in the same way as the dean and woodward building is about samples of stone that that we hope that the building in fayettesville will be a place where that that the range of of tim what timber can do will be that the building will be an exhibition that it won't be just the building that has the the the main floor and the and the various rooms but the building itself will be uh what we call it like a storybook of timber but also that it there's this as you say the kind of smell and tactility of timber is is really enjoyed that that what what does interest us is that we have finished a building which shelley described in in kingston in in london and what's interesting about it being a concrete frame and being quite a lean a concrete precast concrete building um and in terms of its uh embodied carbon it has as has a has its own song and we're looking at this timber building it from from the if you like from from the beginning of its own story that it's not that uh that timber is picking up where the concrete industry is kind of taken off the the concrete industry in in its mass production is one direction what we don't want to do i suppose is to look at timber like a kind of a flat pack version of of concrete a kind of a thinner concrete we would like to explore that the essence of of timber in its own strengths that's what's really beautiful about faye jones's work is that and in the same way like the amazing image of the rietveld red chair the red and blue chair where they kind of simple you know that there's an image where rietveld has laid out all the various elements of the red and blue chair with very simple ordinary materials all in a line and then it's transformed into the poetic red blue chair with the red and blue plywood with the soft the black and the yellow so it's an abstraction it's a piece of sculpture it's a chair and it's really transformed simple materials and i think that that's what what we are aiming for in the in in the anton timberland center in fayettesville that that we look at the uh possibilities of timber within arkansas within the united states and that it's not really a kind of a a brown version of concrete that it actually has its own character and that what when you think of say the cathedral in salisbury and and you have oaks from the 1300s that is there a 21st century equivalent of making this beautiful ship in fayettesville that has all the the the good things that that timber can bring because people respond to timber in a completely different way than they than they do to a concrete let's say there's some emotional component going back to that word again but there's some sensual component in timber uh which we would like to uh tap into and understand and work with uh and work with craftsmanship i mean it's it's i suppose it's a bit like basket weaving or the craft you know there's a there's a fantastic tradition uh in in the making and crafting and it would be it's really the to try and keep the level of craft uh in buildings whether it's concrete or whatever but in this particular case um our research and our working uh with the university and and with modus and and the whole team that we make a building that celebrates the possibilities of timber not not that you get it in a in a in a kind of a kit and you put it together but that it is crafted yeah well and um within that project it seems like you're pushing mass timber to a kind of almost an expressive end where i mean the canoes the good that sketch was amazing about somebody standing within the thickness of mass timber as a kind of gutter and then immediately adjacent to it the kind of fine filigree of the of the trusses that are cascading down almost like kind of liquid wood if you will um is quite extraordinary so um uh we we have uh there's a question i want to shift to because it moves to questions of of of facades and elevations and so the question comes in i've noticed a consistent interest in vertical elements in your facade design be it slender thinner stone sheets or broad strokes that run vertically through the facade and how is this related to your notions of place making and maybe shelley uh well yeah um bocconi is solid mass wall so yeah but i suppose in it's at a very simple level um some buildings need to let a lot of light in and are about repetition and repetition is really hard to deal with and windows are really hard to deal with and it's much easier to make walls than to make windows i know that sounds very simplistic but especially say in the uh paris project in saclay where we had a two meter 200 meter long facade all with offices all needing windows and nothing of repetition and rhythm was crucial and we thought about music we thought about um [Music] rasmussen's piece about rhythm in in his book experiencing architecture and we tried to find a way of using rhythm and repetition which would deal with for instance a north-facing facade but the deep fins or deep elements could capture the light coming from the south so that the facade didn't feel cold but would feel warm so that we were thinking about them as being light light catching elements as well as enclosing elements and also the idea of something being able to change from being open and porous i suppose like a constantino or you don't have constituents probably but a melodion uh an accordion that it can open and close depending on the light and depending on the on the orientation depending on the need for for um security all of those things so i think when we're doing projects like that we have to simplify themselves for ourselves because again they're so complex and we in the the satellite project the paris project we talked about vertical contours that we thought about the vertical strata being about contours and again we've looked a lot at italian architects because we were steeped in that when we were going to um italy a lot and the italian rationalists are not afraid of big long walls of repeated rhythms you know they can just make douche they could just make either competition projects or build projects just make these amazing uh walls which just had a sense of authority and grace uh pagano that we looked at in in in milan and uh many many others so uh yeah um in in in toulouse then it was difficult but different because um we had all these buttresses on solid brick walls and at the same time we had a couple of hundred offices and so we used we felt we had we needed some balance between repetition and surface and mass in order to anchor the building in lincoln's in fields again a lot of um compartmentalized space as well as large spaces overlooking the uh the the fields and so that was very much about um proportion and composition and uh i suppose trying to make something trying to make a surface which has a sense of um presence and depth and doesn't depend on aluminium let's say but it's not just dependent on curtain walls and aluminium that it goes beyond that and yvonne was talking about craft and when you look at again going back to the first principles in architecture about light and shade and mass and rhythm and window reveals and reflecting light and and materials which which people can connect with emotionally physically like the touch of uh i mean what's what's really interesting now in in in terms of the research into material we discover that stone is the most um sustainable material to use both in terms of how it's quarried and in terms of how it's made because it's geology that makes the miracle of stone and in turn in terms of new ways of how it can be used in in in in ways which strip things back but also make the use of stone maybe much more uh sophisticated in the future that it's not just something that's sewn down and hung as a piece of decoration on a building facade so there are all those things that are conflicting things that are coming out of us particularly now because we all have a responsibility as architects to really think about how we use resources but we you know every every move we make is challenged because of the the crisis and um that's a good thing that that we we know our materials better we know where they come from what what what damage they do uh how can you um make up for that how can you balance that i mean it's it's it's a it's a very interesting time to to and very challenging just thinking about that whole thing of how we use resources yeah um i i want to end on a ques another question that's come in which i think um is uh kind of goes to some of the the the um uh that kind of heart of what you've presented so uh you've worked for many years in ireland your home country building an incredible portfolio projects and more recently i've been building around the world has your way of working in particular you're building on local and the specific shifted or changed as you now practice in places where you spend less time and that's not your home okay so vaughn um i think that we are citizens of the earth and just following on and what shelley has been saying about materials and their where they come from i think what we have become more and more um a aware of is as architects that since 2008 more than half of the people of the world live in cities so what we what we build is is affecting the crust of the earth and that i suppose from our point of view um each place demands uh the highest if you like physical response to its place and that architecture has the ability to heighten your awareness of where you are like if you think of when shell described the the building in toulouse when you are standing on one of those uh terraces you and you're in the building and you're looking at the city but what is really palpable is that that you are more aware of the city of toulouse because of a contemporary building than if you just made any building and just sealed it up and didn't have that experience or in in lima that that you that you are aware hopefully that in the distance is the ande mountain range and in the other distances there is the pacific ocean i think that awareness of where you are on the war on the earth is uh not just a coordinate on on a globe it's a cultural um kind of acupuncture so what we like to do we are building here we are building in our own country but it's an island in the atlantic and it's five million people and um it's it's small but we are and we hope to build more here and it's wonderful to have the opportunity and very um it's it's an incredible honor to try and land ideas in particular places on this earth and the earth is a very beautiful um element in in the universe and we're very honored to be architects so i think that okay we might be building down the road although we actually are we there's other projects we haven't presented you today we are building here in our own country and it's a it's an honor to do so but i do think there is a there's a choice within the architectural spectrum you can either you know build as a kind of a homogenous thing that can be anywhere on the globe or as a as a as a discipline we can say what is the particular characteristic and functional cultural uniqueness of this particular place on the earth in terms of its shadow its light its season its seasonality all those things uh are they are the palette of of our discipline so i think we are always honored to get a new project and wherever on the on the globe that that it touches we we truly try to to excavate cultural and uh phenomenal an ordinary thing that where the sun shines where the wind blows as well and that you can open a window and enjoy the very constant thing of how the sun animates or how the season animates thank you that's uh a fantastic way to conclude it's as a been a real pleasure speaking with you both um thank you yvonne thank you shelley it was extraordinary work and we are honored that you were uh you took the time to to walk us through it and to provide uh us some clarity to uh to to uh to to it um it's uh it's been wonderful uh so thank you both thank you ann riezelbach and katarina flaxman of the league for making this happen um and uh thank you all for for attending uh this uh this this extraordinary lecture uh have a fantastic day so thank you again thank you paul for your generous comments which are very encouraging for us it's wonderful it's wonderful to see the work and to hear about it in more detail i wish this this could go on longer but uh we will till next time thank you very much

Channel: The Architectural League

Views: 1,561

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: architecture, Grafton, Shelley McNamara, Yvonne Farrell

Id: pTCyK3S2nAg

Length: 92min 4sec (5524 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 04 2020