Thirsty's 'MADE' update/January 25, 2020
Bobbie’s Made Journey Begins!!
(Now you know who thirsty is)
Bobbie begins her MADE scholarship journey from the Sydney Opera house scholarship journey. It is a Multidisciplinary Australian Danish Exchange supporting the knowledge and understanding of Danish architect Jørn Utzon, Utzon Design Principles and encouraging young professionals early in their career to work and think multidisciplinary. A great quote from one of the long involved sponsors of the program which illustrates why they are making such an investment “If everything was good in the world, there would be not point for MADE” - Dan Mackenzie, CEO Steen Varming.
Just like the guiding question on The Grand Section journey acting as a conceptual framework to keep our thinking on track, i too have 3 points of what i want to get out of MADE that i hope will guide my 6 weeks -
To understand Utzon’s approach and thinking around ‘landscape
To answer the question: “Can architecture make a place physically & environmentally healthier?”
To Learn about passive principles of Scandinavian Vernacular architecture
To answer the question: “What innovative passive strategies can i steal to achieve environmental comfort in such a cold place?”
To Learn about working in multidisciplinary collaborations and how to navigate, approach and accommodate them
To Answer the question: “How can one achieve the best project outcome for a place?”
A 6 week Copenhagen based program is in store for her, and she has hit the ground running! 6 weeks of Utzon thinking, architectural and multidisciplinary tid-bits coming at ya!
Abu Dhabi
First point of call was a few days stop over enroute in Abu Dhabi with the main intention of seeing some of the long list of examples of passive design in Arid climates. Using the great resource Cities Alive: rethinking cities in Arid environments and many others we have accumulated, what i experienced and learnt here will continue to inform our interest in designing passive buildings in the every increasing arid climate area of Australia.
Urban planing here is interesting, with the priority definitely not being the person. I can’t seem to grapple with five lane roads in the middle of the city being common place there, can you spot the person crossing the road below?
The Sheik Zayed Mosque
Built 2007 with a cost of approx. US$545 million. The place is a Mecca for the Emirati people and draws over 5 million visitors pa. Covering an area of 30 acres (mostly impervious), the minarets rise 107m into the air and seems to have lots of 'the world's largest' - the largest example of marble mosaic, world's largest carpet hand woven carpet, the 3rd largest Swarovski crystal chandelier, it goes on... The mosque asked for the whitest marble in the world to clad the entirely concrete structure underneath, with mosaics of precious stones from all around the globe, the precinct glistens and blinds in the sun. Built on a 9m platform above the ground, a visitor enters below ground far away from the mosque itself through what one could describe as a food court and mall retail shops before passing through security and walking a long tunnel with varying gradients.
It speaks of ideas around aspirational civic architecture tying people and places together which in so many other places is no longer invested in.
Qasr Al Hosn
Built around the 1790's is the oldest and most significant building in Abu Dhabi. The structure overlooked the coastal trade routes protecting the growing settlement established on the island, it comprises two major iconic buildings: the Inner Fort (originally constructed in 1795) and the Outer Palace (1939-45). . Check it out now 116 years later compared to its former context in the picture.
It certainly makes me wonder about constructing cities today in arid desert climates and bringing our thermal comfort expectations with us, It still ultimately means mechanical heating and cooling. Although these old buildings hold cues and lessons in their construction and constructed ventilation pathways through the building about how built responses can be more effective, the former context was clearly a very different place. How can you make these ideas sexy enough for be taken up by the building industry today?
Masdar City
One standout to see was Masdar City, "One of the world's most sustainable urban communities" it develops a 'greenprint' for sustainable cities of the future. It is a planned city project designed by Forster and Partners and applies real-world solutions in energy and water efficiency, mobility and the reduction of waste. A new 45m tall wind tower incorporates many of the techniques in traditional wind towers, capturing cool air from above the city and flushes it into the ground plane. To be honest though being constructed of a teflon tube that extends from the base of the tower to the top, standing under this it kind of felt like i was in a hot jumping castle.. or perhaps it just wasn’t turned ‘on’ (joke).
One building is clad with a second skin of undulating terra-cotta-like latticework based on traditional Arabic mashrabiya screens. It works like a fly roof of sorts, shading maximum amounts of the perimeter wall from the harsh sun yet allowing air to move across the surface to keep the heavy weight materials cool behind.
Bait Al Sahel 'The coast people's house'
What a sassy detail! Heritage village is a re-creation of an Emerati village and illustrates the traditional Bedouin lifestyle, This tid-bit from the Bait Al Sahel, 'The coast people's house' I think is an absolute cracker, oozing with lessons - a wind catcher in its most rudimentary form: fabric outstretched reaching high above the dwelling to catch the cooling coastal breeze and funnel it down to ground level, I'm sure they would have done something clever to mitigate the hot and sand filled winds when present.
It reminds me a lot of the dry stone cross shaped sheep shelter shown to us in the Adelaide hills by dry stone wall expert Bruce Munday. Working in reverse in a sense, bunkered into the ground it allows shelter from which ever direction driving wind or rain comes.
Mallorca
At the south of the limestone island of Mallorca near the town of Porto Petro sits one of Utzon’s masterpieces - Can Lis. It was designed as is summer house, seemingly rising out of the cliff top it sits on. The logic of the building was so clear, it seems you can never get lost in an Utzon building because of the intuitive way-finding he creates from regular patterns and rhythms with materials, structure and detailing guiding his decisions and dictating spacing and form. Yet there is an immense beauty brought to this logic and spaces through the changing qualities of light and sun throughout the course of the day, and what i can imagine seasons and years.
A week to get to know each other, almost feeling like a transition to slow one down from life in preparation for the program ahead. On trundle beds we slept in new rooms each night to experience the different qualities and how light and form changed space. The last night i slept on the roof, a comedy scene in trying to get up there with a mattress and sketch book. It was bloody freezing, a full moon, but pretty incredible to wake up to such a view and light on the horizon.
I spent the days looking through my binoculars at water and cliffs, measuring up the building and getting others to help where they liked in using the tape measure, calculating angles or drawing lines. A tool to begin to ‘see’ the thinking behind the place rather than just looking, what a valuable tool it was to do it together.
Copenhagen & the program
Week 01, Monday 13th January
An interesting city i look forward to getting to know. It has an interesting rhythm to it, and you feel it in the patterns that come with cycling. The whole city seems to move as one with intuition about how to navigate lanes, curbes, cars, each other and hand signals. Here cyclists are the priority, people, then cars.
A jam packed program oozing with incredible thinkers, trips and ideas! We started off meeting our host firm PLH Arkitekter, an interestingly democratically structured Danish architectural firm operating globally with a mission to improve the quality of life with architecture and an expertise in Worklife and Office buildings. A large multidisciplinary firm whose premises is in the award winning conversion of a converted former manufacturing warehouse of light switches.
They cleared out the material store for our work space for the next 6 weeks, introduced themselves (Paulette Christophersen (partner and proprietor) is an Aussie herself) and the brief and site visit, focus being the razor sharp nosed Aller Media Building on Sydhavnen and the future Worklife and offices of 2050.
A week of masterclasses and tours in various engineering, architecture, design firms and work spaces around the city -
Masterclass on Workplace Design by PLH
Masterclass on Sustainability, Climate & Environment, Indoor Environmental Quality by Steensen Varming,
Tour of BLOXHUB, co working office for organisations affiliated with sustainable urbanisation in building by OMA
Masterclass on Design for People in Future Scenarios (Human-centered design approaches) by Copenhagen Municipality
Masterclasses on Structural Design, Facade Design and Circular Economy by Arup
And a journey to Aarhus & Aalborg for more!!!
Tour and projects presentation C.F Moller Architects
Masterclasses with Aarhus University and tours of their phenomenal resources and making labs
Tour of Utzon Center and harbour with CEO Lasse Andersson
Masterclass on Utzon, Origins and Dwelling poetically with Line Erikesen
Behind the scenes tour and show of the Musikkens Hus by Coop Himmelblau (even inside the organ with 5650 pipes)
Tour of Kunsten Art gallery by Alvar Aalto
Lessons & Sketches from the Aarhus & Aalborg excursion
The lessons go much deeper than the brief words above, but stay tuned for more!!!
Cheers,
Cold Thirsty
