OUR MANUAL ACTIVITY IS ALSO A PART OF OUR HUMAN
INTELLIGENCE
Mrs Tagliabue has a fascination with handmade objects and
incorporated that in her project for the Spanish Pavilion at Expo
Shanghai 2010, which were made of wicker. Her idea was to create a
literally handmade building that could transform the tools people
usually use in the countryside into something that creates a space:
a natural environment created by hands. She regards the hand as an
incredible tool of communication. When her team from Spain
encountered a language barrier in China, the language of hands was
always the same. For Tagliabue it is so ancient it will certainly
be important for the future. However hands are also thinking tools,
they make people think in a physical way. Tagliabue concludes that
if we want to change the way we work we have to remember that our
manual activity is also a part of our human intelligence.
(SLIDE)
THE ARCHITECT’S CONTRIBUTION TO SUSTAINABILITY
Certainly, another important aspect of today’s architecture is the
matter of sustainability. Bendetta Tagliabue takes Dutch star
architect Rem Koolhaas’ TV Tower in Beijing as an example, using it
to explain that it is always the architect who takes the blame. If
Rem Koolhaas designs something like that, then inevitably someone
will want it. However there is a collective responsibility. She
thinks that it is important to be conscious and attentive and to
try to generate an architecture that is sensible. For example, the
2016 Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Alejandro Aravena has
spoken about how to make affordable houses that can be partly
self-built by their users. Another example would be the Catalan
trio RCR Arquitectes. Tagliabue explains that they are so local
that they didn’t want to move from their home-town studio, in Olot,
Catalonia, a choice which enabled them to become universal.
A BROAD HORIZONTAL, SPRAWLING NETWORK
Brian Girard, Design Principal at Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates in
New York, London and Shanghai, currently works on the master plan
for London’s Covent Garden Estate. In this conservation area
gaslights are actually being restored. Girard draws an analogy
between Covent Garden and future cities. Both consist or will
consist of a broad horizontal, sprawling network, open to interpre-
tation and a space where people feel connected and empowered by
connectivity. His idea for Covent Garden was to collapse the
distance between private and public, to have a great civic space in
close proximity to people living there. Mr Girard notes that this
is how the traditional city worked and that there is no better
typology to influence the design of the future cities.
The district had London’s first square surrounded by houses in the
18th century. The contrast between the fantasy life of the theatre
and the everyday working life of the market was one of its
characteristic features, a contrast of rough and glamour, an
entertainment place. In the 1970s the market moved out and was
replaced by retail and restaurants. It became one of the major
tourist destinations in Europe. During the time of the market, most
of the buildings in Covent Garden were used as storage for fruit
and vegetables. Now design and tech firms occupy these buildings.
Today the KPF offices are located in a converted pineapple
warehouse.
BLURRING THE BOUNDARIES BETWEEN DIFFERENT USES
Covent Garden is a thoroughly evolved mixed-use district with
retail, entertainment, residential and office use all in one place.
It is a great prototype for the city of the future because the
boundaries are being blurred between different uses. KPF’s concept
was to identify two hubs of blocks that could serve to regenerate
the area. Although successful as a tourist destination, the
surrounding areas were relatively dead. As an example, Mr Girard
presents Kings Court, a mixed-use residential scheme. Their
strategy was to integrate new and old architecture around a
courtyard that was carved out in the middle of the block. Girard
used three strategies to develop the scheme consisting of a total
of ten buildings.
WEAVING A LANDSCAPE BETWEEN NEW AND OLD
The elevations are a weave of historic wall types and buildings and
new facades all converted to residential buildings. For example, a
carriage workshop turned into an offi building. Now Girard and his
team are converting it into a small department store. He explains
that the contemporary insertion here is a glazed roof, engineered
to be as minimal as possible to underline the historic
architecture. It was important that the architecture wasn’t
apparent. Girard thinks that this is a progressive idea: “In the
future architecture we will frame spaces and environments and not
necessarily be the dominant thing people will be looking at.”
»Blurring and breaking down the boundaries between inside and
outside will be become more important in the future.« Brian
Girard
An important aspect of the scheme was to open the courtyard to the
surrounding street to become part of a network of passages
throughout the district. Girard and his team planned the routes
through the blocks, passing through a series of environments. With
this permeable concept they were able to open up the retail fronts
of a previously completely closed block. Girard states that
blurring and breaking down the boundaries between inside and
outside will be become more important in the future. It has much
potential in terms of eroding where the edge of public and private
is.
Lastly they were building from within in the middle of the block by
using the structure of the original properties and the grain of the
place, allowing the architecture to emerge, as opposed to imposing
the architecture on the context. The contemporary and the old
buildings work together as an assemblage: an idea consistent with
the modern concept of collaboration that makes cities so exciting.