H ARQUITECTES, “Where the Invisible Becomes Visible”

hello good afternoon i would like to welcome you to the gsd's virtual public event a lecture by the catalan office h architects or architectures titled where the invisible becomes visible my name is mark lee and for audience audience members that may have a low vision i would like to describe myself in my setting i'm seated in front of a blank white wall i'm wearing a blue jacket a pair of black framed glasses and my hair is a black and silver pompadour ok mainly silver a quick reminder about some of the features you see in this webinar uh roj tudor of heart detectors will respond to questions from the audience after he has finished his lecture and please feel free to submit questions into the queue at any time by using the q a button at the bottom of your zoom window we also have live captioning available for this event so please click the closed caption button at the bottom of your window to turn them on before we begin i'd like to invite you to join us for an upcoming gsd public program next tuesday april 20th at 7 30 we'll welcome chilean architect cecilia puga to give a presentation on the history of a practice and her current work all lectures will happen on zoom and required registration more information about these events as well as how to register is available on gsd's website i'd also like to acknowledge that i'm joining in from los angeles the occupied land of the chumash and tongva nations and i'm an invited guest on this land and want to recognize those who have stewarded it past and present as we are all calling from different lands i would encourage you to take a moment to acknowledge those lands you're on before the program starts you can use the links provided in the chat to learn more about the land acknowledgements and learn whose land you occupy if you do not already know furthermore today's lecture is supported by the margaret mccurry leadership and design a fund established to honor margaret mccurry and her long-standing service to the gst this fund enables uh world-class design practitioners to come to gst and engage in lectures symposia and other kinds of intellectual engagements during the academic year a native chicagoan margaret is the principal of the design firm tigerman mccurry architects and an alumna of the gsd thank you margaret and now i'm delighted to introduce architectures an architectural studio based in sabahdel right north of barcelona founded in the year 2000 by david laurent joseph richard chavia rose and rojay tudo over the last two decades architectures have created a remarkable body of work that responded beautifully to the very geographies of catalonia ranging from density centers to sprawling suburbs and villages the work from the past decade was recently featured in a monographic issue of alcokey's title learning to live in a different way including many houses as well as the student project housing project at vaes school of architecture the moss jelly winery the new the new barcelona central archives a research center on the campus of uab a social housing projects in gava and the rehabilitations of projects of multiple scales on one hand the work of architectures belong to the grand spanish tradition of architecture and on the other hand what particularly impresses me is that some of the most compelling and mature work was done on the heels of the spanish financial crisis between 2008 and 2014. while many architects retreated or struggled to adapt the work to the challenges posed by the scarcity of resources and opportunities architectures took the restraints and urgencies head-on as opportunities and cultivated an authentic architecture of their own founded on the primacy of construction and environment and contributing an important chapter to this history of spanish architecture their works have received several national and national awards including the european award for architectural heritage intervention the google revolta award for social housing public prize for fostering art and design the fritz herger prize for bric architecture the secure innovation award the mypay sustainable building award and they were just awarded as the winner of the berlin art prize of architecture in 2021 by the academy de koons on behalf of the state of berlin besides the exemplar professional activities they're also teaching in the etsof in valles and edsop in barcelona and this semester they are teaching an option studio here at the gsd as the john portman design critics in architecture so welcome rojay it is a pleasure to have you and here's the floor thank you mark thank you thank you very much for these beautiful words we are very happy to be here we we are very happy to be teaching here in the gst too as as you said the organization asked me to to make a description a personal description for the people for low vision so i am roger i'm a white man i'm waiting i'm wearing a black sweater behind me there is a shelf system full of books i'm wearing brown glasses and my hair is still quite black but not my beard so this is me and and i'm going to to start sharing the presentation so so i would like to to start uh showing sorry it's not working okay i'd like to start uh with these words from peter brooke the theater director when he was writing the empty space this wonderful book he was trying to describe how difficult is to create to create a and a convincing play of theater so how difficult it's to to make possible that actors and actresses that are the material that the director of theater is using are able to to express something special how difficult is that this performance is becoming something alive or so how difficult is that there is a connection between the actors and the audience so he's also defining very well a very mysterious message that we really like that it's explaining that when this is happening it's always related with uh some kind of uh magic moment where the something invisible it's it's appearing it's it's emerging from from another level and it's becoming visible so so the lecture is a little bit about this but trying to explain the same feelings but in architecture as our as a as an architect and as an office we we are absolutely interested in this magic moments that we can find in in in the in the good buildings moments or places sometimes these magic moments where the invisible it's becoming visible it's it's only for a few seconds sometimes it's something a little bit more stabilized but um as architects we we know that that we are very maybe too much focus on the visible part of architecture but all of us we know that there is something behind the visible one there's a big part of the architecture that we cannot see without and this and this part it's something that it's been increasingly very interesting for us um this part is can be considered a lot of invisible matter that we are using like the air that it's surrounding me right now or sometimes the the sun radiation that sometimes it's invisible or maybe also kind of uh emotional dimensions that are around buildings so so we are really convinced that uh it's important to to find a way to to to connect with this kind of uh hidden layer of the invisible things that are not easy they are not easy to to touch it's the access to this invisible part it's not easy but we are very interested on that and we are convinced that by establishing these connections between buildings users environment and all the things that are connecting visible and invisible by doing this possible then making this when this is happening there is a kind of a real feeling and a transformation of the meaning of the space there's a kind of kind of uh awaking of the emotional dimension something that suddenly is something that it it seems to be just matter something that it looks like inert that it's dead it's becoming to start a little bit alive so this kind of connections and this kind of um latin energy of the invisible that every project has it's what i will try to explain today with some examples so the first approach to this idea of the the invisible or this kind of flattened energy behind it's it's when we we start a project trying to trying to find the simplest version of that so try to to make it very necessary go to the necessary things try to reduce everything just using elemental things that it's something that we really like we write we like very much to to use the typical things on architecture like walls doors roofs windows things very simple things that just combining them and going to the the real necessary things when they are just exposed to reality and and they are absolutely necessary then they are becoming fundamental they are usually having an extra functionality instead of doing one function when you are reducing everything to a few pieces of matter then this matter needs to to be more multifunctional and it's starting to to go to the primordials and to the fundamental things so this is a house a very cheap house that we built a long time ago right now and it's a very radical house it's it's in a triangular plot it's a very strange plot the house is just following the shape of the plot so that's the reason the main reason why the [Music] the house it's with this shape there is also other reasons like the the good relation with the the direction of the wind and how it's producing a kind of aventary effect with his geometry but the the basic reason it's a very elemental reason and necessary reason to reduce price we were asking for a very simple construction so simple construction can be sometimes easier if it's only with one floor so we make the the maximum footprint that it was legally possible and inside that this very simple decision to just structural walls because the family was expecting some room so instead of making removable walls we decided to make structural walls this was not very use usual in spain in those moments but we were very interesting on the definition of that the space when the space is defined by the structure so we we found that with this system all the walls they were going to be necessary sometimes to to stand the slabs sometimes to stabilize the others but all these walls are making a structural contribution and they are defining the the space and and then there is this other layer of information that because of the budget reduction we we went to this quite radical solution using the cheapest structural brick in the market and the cheapest beams and instead of using a finishing material we will leave it naked or mostly naked it's just with a white painting so in this moment we discovered that there is some kind of information on these walls that are starting to explain something else than the space obviously the definition of the space it's important but it's some there is some something else here that's a kind of invisible element that is just starting to appear just a little bit in this case but but the the presence of the bricks that on those moments was quite difficult to explain to a client that maybe the bricks are going to be naked like that so that they were starting to explain the behavior of the building that that is a real world this is just a real structural wall and it's starting to be convincing so when you are visiting this building everything it's convincing because it's it has the the feeling of that it's necessary so from outside there's a very simple double facade a ventilation system with the same brick twisted and with this uh specific triangular corners very simple detail and and this is the the radicality of this house that it's becoming becoming something convincing because of the the clarity and uh and the connection with the real needs of the client and there is this other approach that it's also helping us to connect with these invisible conditions it's the redefinition of what is really valuable in in architecture sometimes we we are always affected by by a lot of publications a lot of references a lot of things that are changing our perspective of things but we are always trying to to make a kind of a step a step back and try to to redefine what is really important and and sometimes the answer every time is different because each size and each project is different but sometimes the answer is so simple as to produce a pleasant space like that are the the things that are and somehow um fixing again the direction of what is important so this is a house in sankhyuk it's a small village next to barcelona it's a quite nice plot the house was also quite big but even the plot it's a big plot it's it has this problem of producing a quite big footprint so it was going to produce this strange division between a good a good south garden and something more strange on the north so so the strategy of the house is to produce these very clear three volumes and kind of in between spaces that are connecting both sides of the garden so inside the boxes there is something similar and it's built with the same materiality than the previous house even this house it has not the same budget problems but but it's done with the same materiality the same structural logic the spaces are defined by the structure so and all these volumes are occupated by the most domestic spaces in the middle there is the kitchen some kind of bedrooms and studios so the most domestic conditions are in closed in these boxes surrounded by walls with a smaller windows producing a kind of a [Music] protection to the body and on the other hand there is this big openings here this kind of big glasses that can be open 100 percent in summer and in winter they are closer and they are catching the sun radiation so they can be perfectly open and the garden is connecting one from one side to the other so this is finally the effect of this house this is the primordial house of this house the important spy the space where the with the important things are happening probably also in the kitchen but this is a very emotional space it can be open and it's producing this kind of connected porch to the garden and this is the kind of important things that we we like to to redefine this con this pleasant condition that probably everybody can feel comfortable here it's not it's not a strange architecture it's probably connecting with vernaculars moments that we can recognize but finally the feeling of being protected just by a roof and with some plants and the breeze and the and the thermal conditions that are happening here it's what is important and on the other hand there is this other dimension more domestic built with this very cheap materiality but with this white painting and these wood windows are becoming comfortable this is the kitchen a little bit higher a little bit more communal but still a domestic space and you can realize that it's happening something here with these bricks that are not painting and the quality of this light and this transition it's it's coming to this space again and here it's where this feeling of the invisible things are starting to to be stronger and our understanding of that is it's that this is happening because there is a strong connection with the outside so when you are living here you you have the the feeling of being closer to the real things to the wild condition of of real weather instead of being closed inside a kind of hermetic box so this strong connection and the material the naked materiality like you were exposed as as your body the body of the architecture is exposed to them to the exterior and it's producing this this kind of uh awaking of some emotional dimension that for us it's reducing the feeling of an object this is not an object anymore this is not only about how it's built it's it's something else it's what is happening here and it's connecting with this invisible dimension and it's creating something convincing that a lot of people can understand that it's providing quality and pleasant moments for living so this is the house from outside so another approach always related to the previous one it's the feeling of the behavior so it's a little bit what i was trying to say now that usually as architects we are very focused on these visual parts we understand things like objects but there is a big part of the architecture that it's not exactly about the object it's about the behavior the things that are happening there's a lot of things happening in the building and and in this case this this research center it's a it's a building that for us was a great experience to discover the potential of this of the behaviors of the building and when we were working in this competition together with data we we decide that this this research building for this uh environmental institute where they are researching on sustainability they were really interested on that so the challenge was quite important in terms of sustainability but we didn't want to to design an efficient building where you don't realize that this efficiency or this sustainability is happening so we we start to to work on the on the idea that this behavior the the sustainability should be understood as an experience in the space so in a way that the users are able to to understand at least some of this efficiency some of this exchange with the environment some of these behaviors that are happening in this building so the idea of the building this building is full of strategies but the main strategy is this facade that can be open and close it's a kind of a transparent skin that in winter it's close and in summer it's open and can be open 100 so it's a very porous skin sometimes and sometimes it's a normatic one so it's producing this this kind of behaviors but this is just a drawing and and usually architects we are designing maybe too much in drawings but in this case what it's happening here it's it's more or less what it's really happening the building it's uh it's closed on winter so this is catching sun radiation and it's producing a kind of uh in between air a kind of a kind of a bioclimatic soap that it's surrounding the places where the people is working so this amount of air that it's the 50 percent of the building it's more or less 10 degrees better than outside so it's producing a kind of a forever spring so a really good weather with no active systems just passive bioclimatics and in summer everything is opening and because of the extra floor and this kind of a chimney effect on on the roof it's producing a lot of vertical ventilation and cross ventilation on the working areas and there is also a kind of exchanging process with the with the soil but finally what is important here is that the building in fact it's behaving like that so it's a very simple system it's the the blue line the dark blue it's the exterior temperature the the red one it's the the office's temperature inside the isolation boxes and this the in-between space is this orange red line and what is interesting here is the vertical blue lines that are defining when the green house is open so it's the most of the the half of the year it's summer period it's open and in winter it's closed it's a very simple system maybe in between there is something else but but the building it's just a consequence of that so the the plant the experience of the space it's it's about that it's a kind of uh structure a little bit as a monastery this is a research center so each each researcher has a an individual or sometimes a collective room like monks producing knowledge around some patios with some sharing areas in between with the tables and some corners this is changing in each plant and there is all this air in between that it's including the patios and this kind of meeting areas in between that it's the special moment of this project so that the project is again behaving like that there is a compact building in winter and a very open and exchanging building in in summer so in summer everything is open the air is crossing and all the boxes are dissipating in in winter everything it's more compact so in between there is this moment the beautiful moment where the invisible is coming visible probably because there is a fantastic perception of that that you are outside because in summer when the facades are open the breeze is crossing the building and there is a strong feeling that this is a an exterior and this feeling of being inside but outside is a very strong sensation and also the the quality of the light i always explain that once i saw a butterfly crossing this the building because the building is really open and this is the the powerful movement of this project this is the the roof and and this patch is that organizing everything so a kind of a primordial spaces connecting everything moving air from down to top and surrounding these working areas kind of wood boxes where people is having his own place and in between all these kind of natural conditions very affected by the exterior conditions so so the building it's very very sensible to what is happening so when when there is a lot of light the the natural light in the building it's amazing when it's a rainy day it's it seems worse inside so it's a very very connected building with the weather conditions and and these are some laps and some offices so people is working inside and the building it's absolutely exchanging and absolutely starting a dialogue and a behavior with the weather so the idea of of this exchange with the exterior conditions it's it's also sometimes extended so some other kind of natural phenomena not only climatic there's other dimensions and other natural phenomena that sometimes could be like gravity or sometimes could be also some uh sound effects or some [Music] some radiation sun radiation so so when the buildings are connecting with this big natural phenomena it's when there is the chance there is the possibility that this invisible conditions that are hidden behind all our christianity of of architecture can emerge and when when this kind of invisible is emerging the the interesting the most exciting moments and potentials of architectures are happening so this is a house in another another city it's it's uh it's in the city of the center so it's uh it's in the center of the city and it's a very dense area uh this is a typical plot a long plot connecting to two narrow streets and the plot it's quite large and it's a quite nice plot also so so the building is organized by by a kind of sequence of spaces that are trying to take advantage of this uh luxury of having two two entries so there is a pedestrian entry in one side and there is the cars entry a kind of a garage here so in between there is a long sequence of different spaces with different characters with different conditions dimensions and proportions sometimes indoor spaces sometimes exterior sometimes in between and this is a little bit more clear in section where the the spaces are starting to to look for these interactions with this natural phenomena natural light sun radiation so that this entry species are like patios catching sun radiation here and here there is some other conditions like uh underground patios a kind of porch and exterior room and in the indoor spaces so it's a large sequence of different qualities and the second is something like that there is a an existing facade that it was supposed to be maintained we maintain it and when you across this facade you you arrive to this very important space for this house it's it's the it's the whole the entry of the house but at the same time is where you can have breakfast dinner it's beside the kitchen it's a bioclematic space that can be open or closed with a retractable roof so it's making a thermal contribution to the house but at the same time it's in summer it's producing all these advantages from mediterranean weathers where patios are really fresh areas that are helping to to to create a nice ventilation inside the house so so here in this image we can start to understand a little bit with this this idea of the interaction with not big natural phenomenas so the way that this space is built the proportion and and the way that each brick is one beside the other it's starting to to help us to to make visible the invisible because the natural light for example that it's going down through these walls it's specifically shown by the way that these bricks and these textures are organized so the proportion and everything it's trying to explain that there is something in another scale that it's starting to establish a dialogue with the building and the user so there's a a kind of uh three three-dimensional exchange between something quite bigger which is natural light and something matches more that it's the the perception of the user and in between the building exchanging with both but at the same time this this wall is also connected with the idea of uh another big phenomena that it's gravity so the organization of this bridge is following a kind of degree organization a degree of density so the the wall is organized by a kind of um structural behavior so that the more dense bricks are on the bottom and the la the the less dense the light lightest rigs are on the top so by this organization the feeling the feeling of gravity it's it's uh appearing here in this space so something that usually it's not there it's becoming visible and this is also obviously making a contribution on the quality that you have inside the quality of the light the quality and the temperature of the air that it's coming inside and the color of the landscape that it's producing through the window so this is the sequence and and here we start to see again this this kind of brick organization that in detail you can understand that on the bottom there is the massive bricks thinnest ones with a lot of mortar in between and on the top there is the the lightest one with holes in between and much higher so there is less mortar so there is a degree of of weight and a degree of resistance so this is combined by a kind of uh in situ beams made with bricks so kind of a postense beams made with bricks and this kind of screws that are postensing the beams and all that is organizing this quality of of matter organization where the behavior the structural behavior it's appearing here again gravity and and some stresses of the facet are explain it and it's producing something it's changing it's transforming the the condition of the brick something there is a very artificial it's starting to become specific in the site it's starting to to behave it's starting to be alive and something very inert like play it's starting to to reburn and to to have an opportunity to become something experience specific something that it has a certain character so that the sequence of the space producing this portion and finally on the on the garage that it's again a bioclimatic space and this is the entry from the other side so some sometimes the approach to the invisible it's it's quite different sometimes the the potential of showing something invisible or hidden it's it's by using the the introduction of time time it's uh it's a kind of a fourth dimension that it's very useful in producing this magical moment so a lot of these magical moments that we can realize in some buildings it's they are just happening because there is a strong moment of presence strong moment of being living a real moment real experience in the present so the the the notion of time it's very important but at the same time there is an important notion for us about the capacity of the buildings of including time inside of of them this time sometimes it's just showing the process of the construction so the way that it's been built like in the previous house it's including time to the building it's explaining what was happening during the construction instead of hiding the process of the construction showing what is happening it's sometimes introducing times and extending the connection to something invisible that it's not still there because the the moment when the building was built it was it's not already happening again but you have a connection an invisible connection to this to this moment by understanding how it's been built and this is also happening sometimes this kind of uh trans-historical dimension that it's understanding buildings of something that is happening through the history this is especially happening when we are used we are working on existing buildings like in this case this is a civic center in barcelona it used to be a corporate workers cooperative we want the competition the the building was in a very bad conditions inside but the facade was a little bit in good condition so we just made a few transformations on the facade but from inside the building was absolutely [Music] transformed by different activities during the years the building was on those moments uh having a absolutely complete footprint of the plot because of different extensions and our main purpose of this of this building was to create good conditions for the building because on those moments and that the building was absolutely close and and with no natural ventilation or even a natural not enough natural light but at the same time it was a kind of a human urban proposal to produce an extension of the urban space inside so we did something like that with the make a demolition select a strategic demolition to produce a kind of a street inside of the building and this demolition that was destroying the the more the less interesting parts of the building was finally covered by a new roof and producing again a kind of a bioclimatic condition where this street is not an exterior street it's a some something inside but passive bioclimatic protected but still a wild condition and this very bad picture it's from the beginning of the construction that was the original condition of the building and our transformation was something like that we we destroy some parts to provide natural light to make this amazing conditions of of the environment coming inside the building so then because the demolition was not regular you can see the with color the different the different dimension geometries of this kind of uh corridor or or indoor street so finally the image is something like that it's this the main space of the building it's the the demolition the the empty produced by the demolition we just add a kind of a circulation system inside but trying trying to understand this building as a trans-historical condition so so all the all the things that were useful in the building we keep it we just destroy what is what it was necessary to destroy to provide this quality and at the same time then the building it's instead of understanding the building of and clearly an extension we understand it as a continuity so we start to add new materials in a way that it was not very clear if these materials were existing or new materials so it's a kind of a combination where we we are trying to give value to the to the existing and we are trying to add new things with the sensibility of being or working in dialogue with existing so then there is a kind of a dialogue between different architectural periods everything together and sometimes we can realize that these new columns are new and the existing wallets all but for the users of this building this is still a continuity of the existing building inside there is obviously more standard spaces where the the main activities are done but the main space is this primordial space where there's again this connection with the the most big natural phenomena like natural light and thermodynamics how the the heat is going up and all that and this combination of what is new and what is existing that sometimes you don't realize for example in this picture this is a new beam and this is an existing beam obviously this is a new column but this this is very confusing and it's producing this idea of the trans-historical that in a certain way it's using all the information and all the invisible connections that are uh that we are using from the original building so so in this case the the the waking of the invisible it's trying to take advantage of all these fabulous textures and memory of the of the building um the idea of belonging it's uh something that is also very interesting for us because um as i was saying at the beginning the all the projects has this kind of uh potentials this kind of latent energy that should be solved in a certain way and especially the sites the different plots and sites have these conditions so for us it's very important to to design something that it will belong to the to the existing site so usually the the most important thing in in the design processes just to discover what was already there instead of in adding a lot of things or creating uh new strategies where it's where it's not known necessary so in this case this is a house that uh it's it seems to be an existing an existing wall but this is a completely new wall it's a contemporary house it's a it's a construction a new construction but the the story of this wall it's a little bit more complex it's a very beautiful village um this village it has this this very narrow street and all the center of the villages built with this stone system sometimes it's a house sometimes it's a fence but it's always the continuity with all the streets it's defined by these stones and and that that wall was the the ones that was enclosing our plot inside it was just some trees but that was what we found it was really beautiful but the problem was that the for the urban planning we we need to to make a bigger street which is quite stupid because the most beautiful thing in this in this village is this very narrow street but they were asking to make a a bigger street so so the existing wall should be demolition so we demolition but we keep we keep all the stones and we try to reuse it so this is the the existing wall and this is the new house there are the new houses it's just uh affected by this context affected of the idea of the existing wall and and all the surroundings and it's trying to become the wall that it used to be and the house is trying to to be a kind of a wall so the house is becoming very large and closing the patio it's working very well because the patio is facing south so it's we with this strategy of working on the edge we are producing a very big patio inside and and um and the the wall it's very it's very dense next to the street with the small windows and it's very open to the to the garden so there is a structural system that it's working in a you system and then there is a long sequence again where the radical condition of having this large house it's starting to produce some exciting problems we have a main entrance here there is a living area here with the kitchen dining room and and all that and then if you want to go to your room you have to across this exterior porch it's protected from rain but it's open and then you across several rooms depending on which is your room and and this is working with this uh very radical version of a corridor it's a kind of gallery with no doors in between the beds and these corridors but they are very huge they are very generous they are catching sun radiation it's a very wonderful space that can be open 100 and becoming a big porch and then the position of the bathrooms and everything it's um improving this idea idea of the density of the wall so this wall it's built with the existing walls and and this kind of kind of mix with the local materials like earth and some instead of cement we were using lime it's a traditional cement and also some recycled glass that it was working as isolation so finally we produced this kind of mortar that it has a very very light condition it's uh it's full of air because these bubbles of recycled glass are working as a isolation so the wall is a combination of this mortar and the recycled stones built in a technique like rameter with a with different layers of 20 centimeters with a typical framework as in concrete but built in layers and then the all the houses it's adapted to the to the real thermal and behavior of the house so sometimes the the wall it's just mortar so it has a very good isolation condition sometimes when we are facing the street we are putting the stones next to the to the street and finally we will destroy the surface in order to to visualize what is happening inside and when we are in inside the building when we don't need isolation but we want this thermal mass we want this heat capacity to stretch the heat so we are filling the walls with a lot of stones in fact you don't realize except from outside the we broke the surface of this concrete you can see here how around the windows there is still the original texture of the framework but the rest of the facet it's broken it's suddenly destroying just in the surface and then appears the existing stones producing something that it links with the context but inside is the opposite condition there is a very open structure and a very open system of of windows that you can open 100 and again the quality and the pleasant conditions of living and the idea of learning to live in a different way it's starting to make sense here and there is a quality and a density in this species because of the the weight of and the texture of these walls and also this movement of air and all that that it's producing a really nice quality so this is the the the kind of uh material that it's made in between concrete and earth and lime and it's uh producing a sequence of rooms with this kind of gallery this is a fantastic moment when we were invited by the clients some people of the office here testing if the house it's working well or not and it's really working and and this is this corridor that it belongs to each room but at the same time it's a corridor so this is a very radical functionality but the client is really happy with that this is working as a weekend house right now so that's why we we did this kind of a double bed system and one family can be living here as guests but it could be also used by the by the the sons and the daughters of the clients so again this this very convincing condition and atmosphere that it's produced by the density of these walls this kind of cave and the the quality of light and and the movement of air and all these all these qualities that are awaking this emotional dimension of architecture because of this strange condition of the invisible that is starting to become visible this is the main bedroom and from outside again this texture that finally it's really becoming convincing it's something that even it's a contemporary wall that even it's it has a good isolation it's still connected with the existing walls and right now it's a little bit white because it's with lime the same as this existing one but the difference is that these ones are a little bit more dirty by the past of the years so in a few years i imagine that everything will be very similar this idea is another another way of of trying to connect with the invisible this is something that it's worry us a lot it's the idea of that buildings are every time more artificial they are more they are providing comfort uh because of artificial machines mechanical systems that are producing the illusion that we are in a good place in a good space but in fact it's a horrible design usually and it's only working because of the machines so we we are always trying to avoid mechanical systems as much as possible so in this building um it's a again an existing building the finally it was only the facade who was protected by the heritage so it's it's a triangular plot again and inside there is a kind of a school for adults it's a very conventional distribution somehow it's a corridor and some rooms but then there is other things that are not so conventional there is a kind of patio here and kind of patio on the other side and this this building was was built understanding that it was very important to reuse the existing wall to reuse it um in a way that it makes sense so to use it as a structural wall as it used to be and all the new walls are made and following and growing with the same logic so this is the one of the new walls in this case we were also using these glass bricks because the existing the original factory that was uh that used to be a factory of glass production so we did this kind of small detail that it's not really important but it's introducing a little bit of glass in between bricks but what is important in this building is the things that are happening here in the roof and also what is happening under the roof under the roof there is a very massive building very very massive building and on the top there is this kind of chimneys that i'm going to explain later so this is the relation between the existing facet and the new facade everything working together as a structural system and with this scan of same degrees of bricks that we've been using in other projects so this this project it's much more easy to understand the reasons of this project in this section so that this is an adult school full of small rooms with a lot of people inside these people is producing a lot of internal heat and also it's breathing and it's producing pollution so so the main problem of this building has a lot of buildings it's to create a renovation of the the quality of the air so so we need ventilation and also in summer we need dissipation we need to dissipate all this internal heat produced by people so that was the idea of this chimneys this is this chimneys appears in order to trying to avoid the the typical mechanical systems to move air for for dissipation or for renovation of the quality of the air and and this solar chimneys it's a kind of uh thing for the ones that you maybe don't know what is a sore chimney it's a it's working with a very basic principles it's a transparent layer the sun radiation is coming inside then inside there is a black layer because it's black the temperature is increasing a lot between 50 and 80 degrees some in in the in the top of the the the summer and this air because it's very hot wants to go up because the air is always going the warm air is going up so this is sucking the air that is inside so so this this is producing a kind of um a kind of a natural engine instead of using a mechanical engine we are using a natural engine with the with the energy of the sun and this is able to move 10 times the volume of the building in one hour in the top of the build of the of the summer so then the the air is coming from the bottom of the building it's a little bit refreshed going it's going to them to this kind of uh in between the space this in winter this is catching sun radiation so it's a little bit improving the temperature and then goes inside the rooms and it's sucked by the chimney so producing something like that and and then the building is working with this double facade so these are the patios the in-between spaces where the the sun radiation is catched at the same time the air is flowing so in fact this is a big tube a big tube where the classrooms are connecting and the clusters are living in front of this existing facade and in the other side there is the same situation with the the entry patio that it's this one this is the party when when you enter in the in the building and on the top there are the chimneys and you can see here the transparent layer the black layer and how the air can go up and on the top there is also this kind of uh battery effect because at night it's producing a kind of night free cooling this is being obviously designed by a simulation that it's defining what is the perfect geometry in fact this is not exactly the perfect this is the possible geometry and what is happening here that it's really amazing is that the the the geometry of these chimneys are following the quantity of air that we want to move during the year so in in summer when the sun is really strong and vertical the geometry is catching a lot of energy and it's moving a lot of air the rest of the year it's a kind of a degree and transformation in order to reduce the volume and to to get to the to the to the lowest moment on on winter when we just want to to create to to to exchange the minimum air to to have the enough quality of the air so so finally this this chimneys are a little bit what i was telling at the beginning it's um it's an elemental thing that it's a roof that it's protecting from rain but at the same time it's something else it's it's the way that the building is breathing so the building it's absolutely connected with another bigger phenomena it's using the sun as a natural engine and it's becoming something that it it seems to be alive and without mechanical systems and the the last project it's this about this idea of the invisible scale because all the projects has some skills that we don't realize sometimes because they are very small there's a lot of things happening in a in a non-visible scale but sometimes also in some other much bigger scales this is a project that we finished one year ago it's a winery in a very small village in catalonia this winery is just something strange because it's in the center of the village instead of being in the countryside it's just beside the church so it was a very strong condition that was reducing some possibilities of the project so usually sailors are and wineries are underground because they they want to use the temperature of the floor but in this case that was not possible or at least not not a lot because the the church it's very close and it's very heavy construction and so so we decided to to make this straight basic strategy this is the maximum footprint of the plot this is the on the on the ground floor this is the maximum that you can build on the first and second floor so we decide to make a kind of two qualities of the space there is a the black area it's the the wine production so the this moment where we need a very controlled thermal control conditions and the white area it's a area that it's that can be mostly exterior it's it's a place for logistics and a place for the visits and and the and all the tastings and and all that so this is a strong division between a very very um thermodynamic moment in in in the big volume and then something that is a kind of a street again that it's around the building and the neighbors so the the the building already have a small underground area for the barrels which is the most delicate movement so this is in connection with the with the soil and with the temperature underground but but over that the main challenge of this project is to produce the same quality that we have usually underground but in in this in this condition so trying to don't use mechanical systems this is this was the big challenge of this project so this is the underground with the barrels and the storage system underground and on the street level it's uh it's producing this extension of the street so from this part the you can entry and you have a kind of continuity of the street having this space for logistics and to to visitors from this point of view they can see what's happening inside and there is a kind of different levels with the stairs that you can use and you can have tasting areas and there is also some indoor rooms that are surrounding the delicate moment of of the tanks that should be very protected from this very warm weather that it's in gretelyops and you can see here that there is a very amazing huge walls that are protecting that and the experience of the building it's something like that it's a building that it's in a in a very vernacular village so we try to to establish again a dialogue with existing so even this is a very contemporary construction it's still trying to establish this dialogue with existing and this is the main volume the church so i'm just finishing this is the entry this is this kind of street producing these in between conditions this is protected from rain but absolutely open but it's producing the kind of fresh conditions necessary for the reception of the harvest inside you can see the the tanks so in between there is these levels where you can start to have testings and access you have the access to the indoor rooms so this is protected by roofs and it's attached to the neighbors so these these are the kind of uh qualities that are happening here it's a nice place for summer where the weather most of the visitors are coming so this different layers are connecting neighbors and a big volume and it's producing this kind of sun protection and this fresh condition for the green roofs and this final patio that has different levels and it has also this kind of a small auditorium where they they are making explanations so from from outside the volume it's uh it's it has this contextual relation with existing and inside the the big box there's the the important challenge and the things that are happening there is these big walls this is a seven layers wall with with some air in between there is also this kind of a strange roof made with bricks again and this is working like that when when the conditions of the street are enough fresh the air it's coming through the these walls and this is this fresh air it's uh keep it in the in the bricks so so then the building it's uh it's keeping a little bit more fresh but sometimes this is not possible and and the strategy of the the big quantity of inertia and the active activation of this inertia by natural ventilation it's not possible so when this is happening the ceiling is starting to improve another strategy this kind of beams made with bricks it's a kind of a radiator that it's connected with these layers of of walls in the facade so the air can move like that but but on the top of that there is a two two layers of of a roof it's a this roof is working as a as a kind of a very flat uh swimming pool uh 10 centimeters of water that at night it's refreshed by the radiation of the of the sky and during the day it's going down by gravity inside the isolation so it's in contact in direct contact with the all these bricks so all these bricks are refreshed by this process that it's running every day in summer so at night it's dissipating during the day it's refreshing so this is moving it's a it's producing activation of the air that it's uh expanding the fresh of this of the water and the sky to the walls and finally it's refreshing the tank so the tanks are refreshed by this radiator that is refreshed by this swimming pool that it's refreshed by the universe thank you thank you thank you rojay for a wonderful lecture and a and a great cross-section of the work that you have done in uh um with the office well i think maybe we can start with uh some of the questions that have been raised by the audience um i will start with uh one by julian uh reference seder uh firstly thank you for the for the great lecture inspiring work and and he said he'll be interested in how you deal with the invisible qualities during the design process and especially in the early stages of design how do you visualize them for yourself and and how for the others do you make design decisions in an evident evidence-based way along some rules of thumb so that this is depending and it's also changing with the age so it's been some moments in the office that we've been experimenting a little bit more with some kind of softwares we are still doing that and we are we are checking sometimes in a kind of a scientific approach what is happening and how the invisible can be maybe visible but uh on the other hand there is also this this very obvious approach that it's coming from the experience the experience of being in certain buildings visiting good buildings and and trying to to to discover things there so so i think that by the time the the idea of the experience and the memory of some of those experiences getting more importance and obviously every time we have we have a little bit more skills on on on that on especially on trying to understand thermodynamic approaches and but there is other things that sometimes it's difficult to explain in a lecture but this emotional dimension of architecture it's sometimes we will also discover in in our own buildings after designing them when they are already built sometimes visiting our buildings we are discovering things so it's i think that visiting buildings it's very important for for uh having to starting to increase the knowledge of what is happening in buildings thank you roger and there's another question that is um the two questions but related but also related to visiting one is from natalya pakova who said could you say a few words about your relationship to the construction process do you follow your own construction sites does this continue to inform your design work and then another question by rashida data i hope i pronounce the name right is how how hard is it to find construction workers to use mixed techniques if you will and use materials such as earth and stone and bricks do you train them or do you work closely with them okay now we are not uh i think that we are not in this kind of countries where you still have the possibility of finding really traditional builders we are we are building in in europe but it's true that it's probably spain it's uh something in between there is still a little bit of uh tradition on missionary and and brick stone construction but every time it's more difficult to find people that it's prepared to to do this kind of things when we are doing this kind of things we are selecting a lot the kind of construction company um and we are producing a lot of drawings to to make that possible to make it very easy for for the company so each brick is drawn in absolutely each one so it's a an amount of work to and a very precise work where then the the the following of the construction site it's made by us and by some of our collaborators and and every time it needs to be more intense so so at the beginning we were a lot on the on the construction side we also learn a lot from that by the time and when the office is starting to get bigger we we are just combining a little bit but we are still a lot compared to probably a lot of the bigger firms i think that we are a lot on the construction side thank you this is a question from bradley farish who asks you often refer to the idea of a building or an element being convincing can you elaborate on that idea of convincing that what does convincing mean to you and why is that important to you well very difficult it's what i've been trying to explain during all the lecture but convincing it's uh something that uh when you when you are there it's uh it's uh explaining you a kind of a kind of a true we know that it's there is no there is no realities and and truths but but finally all of us sometimes we have the feeling of something honest or something that it's real or it's very difficult to define because obviously all these words are are not correct because in reality it's much more complex than that but uh when something is convincing it's it's because there is no tricky behind it's the things that are there are real are honest are exposed so for us it's something like that i mean yeah it's like i understand it's like one of these questions like how do you know when you fall in love right you can't uh but i think it's interesting when you also talked about visiting other buildings you know so when you divorce yourself from your own labor of work and what are the moments of other buildings that are convincing to you whether it be historical or contemporary buildings it's a little bit also like the idea of the character of things that it's what is interesting of this definition of character is that cannot be defined so what is beautiful of of this kind of approaches is that there are a kind of understandings that cannot be understood only as in a rational way so the character of something it's uh it's something that we cannot define but it's there well you know i'd like to have a question regarding um center versus periphery you know i think uh uh at least in this country you know a lot of spanish architects we know of were either from etsab or ezam like in the central in barcelona or or from madrid and and somehow you always have that idea that being in sabotel being near the center but not quite the center we're teaching at vale vayesh and i'm curious of this because in the past we had this conversation with architects like um peso von elekhauser they talked about the advantage of being in concepcion and not santiago or rcr being away from the center do you how do you feel your relationship like being close to and having your own own space and room probably this is not a very a very important thing but but but it's i don't know probably it's it so in our case at the beginning it was an advantage maybe because leaving not in the center i think it was a little bit easy to start to get the first commissions this this very moment difficult moment at the beginning of the offices i think that that was an advantage right now i'm not sure if it's if there is any difference between us and any other architect in barcelona or madrid but uh but it's true that um our maybe maybe our understanding of what is a city what is a construction maybe a little bit a few connections with vernaculars i don't know maybe there is something but i i'm not sure i'm interested because i think also for a lot of our students you know i think there's a benefit of starting being not necessarily in the limelight on the spotlight and you have time to mature you know and slowly graduate towards the center but i think we have time for one more question i like to uh this is one by jack lin and said have you given thought to applying your approach to exposing the interior of buildings to the local climate in more humid tropical or subtropical areas outside of the mediterranean any such projects on the boards because i'm also curious and adding on to jack's question as your projects begin to change in scale have you also begin to think about changing in terms of locale and climates and such uh we are mostly working next to barcelona but it's true that right now we are starting a few projects not far away from barcelona we are now we are doing a competition in bordeaux and and we are also starting to to negotiate some other possibilities abroad but uh we know that it's quite um difficult to to to have this very intense control of construction sites if we go abroad so so we just want to do it when the conditions are the proper conditions for that but we are not close and and we are very interested to to work in a different weather condition because then the challenge it's fantastic well well you know i think as we all remember the famous story that emmanuel kant uh never left his hometown of konigsberg more than 100 kilometers in his entire life so maybe that's not a bad thing for architects but on that note thank you rojay it's a real pleasure for to have you here the gsd this term and thank you for a fantastic lecture thank you okay thank you everyone for coming take care

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Length: 84min 57sec (5097 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 13 2021