Before I visited japan for the first time, I went to an exhibition on Japanese architecture where I saw a model of Fumihiko Maki’s Spiral building. In the design Maki had to accomodate a complex programme including a bar-cafe, a theatre, exhibition and music space under one roof. When I visited the building 3 months later I noticed that the programme was well defined. The name too, Spiral, was very clear: the elements spiral upwards almost effortlessly upwards throughout the building. But the exterior, the elements that I saw on the top of the model were only visibleif I had a bird-eye view, like I had with the model. Architecture, here I felt, was reduced to the creation of models, models that in the end (in its built form) would be nothing more than useless shapes wrapped around a programme. Did I witness the end of architecture, here in this prime example of bubble architecture? Was this inside-out architecture that still wanted some of the old glory: outside-in and wrap it together?
It is a well-known fact that during the Japanese real estate bubble in the mid 1980’s the cost of land was far greater than the construction cost of the building. Thus buildings such as Philippe Starck’s La Flame D’or a building of which the flame-like element on top seems to have cost more than the rest of the building. Due to the astronomical land prices, the cost of construction was marginal and in a way did not seem to matter. Philippe Starck is a designer, well-known for his furniture and the building has object-like qualities. The building reduced to a sign, in a city of signs, the end of architecture?

We worked on a proposal in Hong Kong in the Bank of China building, a typical example of outside-in architecture: in one of the building’s corners a column breaks through the floorplate cutting diagonal through the space. Spectacular! Yes, but not from a real estate point of view. Hey! I know, the last thing I want to do is put numbers (HK dollar$) on each and every square cm… That is not my point here, no, the question is how architects look at the creation of space; ie the void or the vessel. Does architecture start from the inside or from the outside?

An excellent document on PBS on visionary art made by people who do not call themselves artists, called off the map

Some of these “backyard paradises” are well known such as the Palais Ideal by le Facteur Cheval or the Watts Towers in LA. Others such as the Bottle Village are new to me.

One of my favourite books is called Architecture without architects by Bernard Rudolfsky on vernacular architecture. A book that looks at buildings embedded in their context. Another excellent book on building on indigeneous buildings is Shelter by Bob Easton and Lloyd Kahn.
I used to work for the Japanese architect Hiroshi Hara on the Kyoto Station and the Umeda Sky Building. Hara is a professor at Tokyo University and during the late 70’s early 80’s he and his team travelled around to world catalogue-ing the vernacular architecture and urban design of houses and villages in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin and South America. Hara identified 100 elements which he would use as the design elements in his buildings. Often he would  use all the 100 elements in some way or another, which explains for the complexity of most of his buildings. Eventhough the approach itself is very interesting, I could never get the feeling that he really succeeded in implementing these elements in the way Hara had seen them in their context around the world. It all looks too artificial to  me. The difference being that vernacular architecture or the art created by the artists above is being implemented on an (I lack vocabulary here) “unconscious” level.
As trained professionals, will we ever be able to reach this level? This might sound very pessimistic, but I am sceptical about the “unlearning” element that an architect would need to go through to reach the level that vernacular architecture demands.
To be continued.

Twenty four thousand one hundred and forty seven skyscrapers drawn to scale. WOW!

“Legalise Chaos, Style is for the Insecure”

Is printed on the inside of a Marcel Wanders T-shirt that I am wearing today.

We have finished ValueCommerce’s office this weekend. Here some photographs of the new office.

Entrance corridor

Table football and picnic bench

One of the team spaces

A variety of seating areas are scattered around the office including these low tables

Sliding doors create privacy for meeting areas

Meeting area

A glimpse into the client’s meeting room from the reception corridor

The “transparent meeting room”, one of many themes we used for the meeting rooms.

I was in the Netherlands last week and visited Interpolis’ head office in Tilburg. Inside a non-descript building various Ducth designers have transformed a home-like workspace or a work environment that feels like home. The basis for the design is a concept that Interpolis developed with Veldhoen + company. Interpolis’ work environment is based on a concept called Helder Werken (to work in a clear and transparant way) and is not limited to the workspace only but also incorporates the way the staff communicate among themselves as well as with their clients.

The whole office is completly free address, for the 2600 employees only 1600 workplaces have been installed. The reasoning being that most of the staff anyway spend considerabe time away from their desks anyway either in meetings, at their clients offices or working from home. A number of employees spend a few days working from home. Being a completely free address office, the staff decide to work wherever they feel the space can support their working needs for the day. This could be a brain storming environment, a more formal meeting area, a group or team space or a more isolated “cockpit” , a tiny private office to do some concentrated work. The project started in 1995 and in 2003 a new element called Tivoli was added. Interestingly the various themes of the recent addition, although radically different in design outlook, all follow the same principles as the rest of the office. The brief asked to create spaces that would be very different in look and feel so that the staff could select to work in their favourite environment. Marcel Wanders, Atelier van Lieshout, Piet Hein Eek, Jurgen Bey, Irene Fortuyn, Mark Warning, Ellen Sanders and Bas van der Tol all created very atmospheric and radically differrent environments loosely scattered around a long narrow space on the 2nd floor of one of the office wings. It seems that Kick van der Pol, Interpolis’ CEO likes to work in Marcel Wanders’ Stone House, a collection of organically shaped rooms. My ambassador, one of Interpolis’ staff who volunteered to show me around, preferred to work in Atelier van Lieshout’s Garden House. The very different design means that there is something for everyone and every occasion. Some meeting rooms are more for interviews (dimmed light, comfy chairs) while other are more intimidating. However there are also spaces that are not popular such as the one created by Piet Hein Eek which has been redesigned recently and will be open soon. Following the logic of Veldhoen + company that space should be used in the economic way possible: space wasted is money wasted. Interpolis shows that office design and alternative space use are a process rather than a final product.

While working on a project, at a certain moment, I “see” it. The project unfolds in my head. All of a sudden it is there. And if not, I am in a panic. It means that I still have to understand the scope and spend more time on this.
A teacher at an architecture university, where I learned everything about how not to do architecture, exclaimed at the beginning of the first year that being an architect is unlike being an artist. “Architects”, this stout, bearded man would proclaim, “can never, ever make the excuse that artist use: that today is not a good day. Inspiration is not what drives architects. Architecture is hard work.” How wrong he was. (not about hard work but about inspiration).
I once read that Jan Cremer, the Dutch writer, after having finished his “field work”, retreats and surrounds himself with certain East European pencils, special paper before he starts working on a new book.
Inspiration comes from doing the right amount of preparation and creating the right mood to let the creative juices flow. It is like going on a date: the dinner, the clothes, the wine, the music, the light are all as important as knowing how to please your partner’s various body parts. As we have learned from Casanova all of which is hard work.