Designing for Earthquakes

Rebuilding Christchurch, NZ in the aftermath of 'the big one' - just published by the New Zealand Ministry of Culture.
Phoenix, Christchurch, New Zealand

See a video of the project at: Project Phoenix

The Greenwich Foot Tunnel

            The Greenwich foot tunnel is one of London's great social engineering projects, and yet since the tube line extension created a direct link to the centre of Greenwich, it has in recent years become less used. Tourists occasionally wander through it to see the view that Canaletto made famous from Island Gardens and there has been renovation of the lifts, but this cannot sweep away the feeling that the structure could close to public use at any time.

               This structure was one of the great engineering feats of it's time. There had been tunnels through rock, but this was a tunnel through wet mud, with dangerous methane pockets (they tunneled by candle light), under London’s great water way. The Council surveyor for the tunnel informed me that the tunnel moves with the tide, “achieving a banana like shape when the tide is fully out”.

           

             The attached sketches/watercolors/part hand measured drawings were done as part of a historic study to describe the building in a style similar to the way it would have been presented when first created.

Alex King is an architect and his design 'Santiago Townhouse' won the British Homes Awards in 2011 - Alex King Design / Designalexable, examples of his latest work can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yGQhlRz8mc

Look after your staircase... It may be the only diagonal you've got (2)

    

              In look after your staircase... It may be the only diagonal you've got (1) I was in raptures over the Nelson Stair in the Courthold Institute, Somerset House, and rather flippantly bemoaned that it is rare to see such flamboyant design in modern buildings. Of course, there are many modern flamboyant stairs and I thought that I would share a few that I like in the hope that they might inspire. 

Alex King is an architect and his design 'Santiago Townhouse' won the British Homes Awards in 2011 - Alex King Design / Designalexable, examples of his latest work can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yGQhlRz8mc

My Kinda Town

In the 1880s, the city elders of Valencia decided to prevent periodic flooding by redirecting the river away from the city. This was a project that would be similar in scale to re-directing the Thames so that it no longer flowed through London. With the river redirected, the people of Valencia had created a submerged route that cut through all parts of the city. This could have become a transport route or the most lucrative parts sold to development – but in an enlightened civic gesture that demonstrates the true value of Planning as a visionary act, Valencia's leaders decided to turn what had been the river into a park. Today it is called the 'Rio de Cultura' (river of culture) and this most memorable of urban spaces elegantly stitches the city together with green space where residents can walk and cycle to work, play sports, listen to music or just relax on the grass in the dappled shade of a grove of orange trees.

Valencia's excellent metro system travels under sections of this to appear in the park at stations such as Alameda Metro by Santiago Calatrava.  The metro station is here because this is more than just a garden – each section between the bridges is a different type of garden: There is a sport section with tennis courts and full size football pitches, a section of fountains that contains the 'palace of music', there is a section for children, as well as the spectacular opera house and science park with an Imax screen submerged like a dragonfly landing on a pool of water. Close to the coast the garden contains the biggest aquarium in Europe with parabolic structures by Felix Candala and a glass tunnel that passes through tanks with sharks and strange fish. But the 'river of culture' is more than a sequence of events, this continuous garden has a great civilizing effect creating a city where it is a joy to walk and cycle – so everyone does.

view of 'rio de cultura' from top of old city gates

Walking along what was once a river bed, looking up at the ancient stone embankment walls, catching glimpses of the old fortification gates above that lead to the intimacy of the historic core, you may be tempted to walk up a ramp and explore: From the Baroque cathedral and the spaces that surround it, look through the pool of water with its glass floor in front of the archaeological museum to see the ruins of the ancient city below, then on to the Lonja de la Seda (Silk market) or the sugary confection of the ceramica museum and the original University buildings close by, everywhere it is 'firmness and delight'. Walk on through the 'Belle Epoch' business district, remembering to stop at the Mercado Central then on to the wonderful Estacio del Nord that influenced Mackintosh and the bohemian Barrio Ruzca beyond. There are buildings by Foster, Calatrava, Felix Candala, Renzo Piano and David Chipperfield's Americas cup building. You will need to book a week in advance for the tour of 'The Museum of Philosophy' to be guided by Trappist monks, if you forget, treat yourself with a stroll around the modern art exhibited on the original 11^th Century Islamic walls under Plaza del Tossal. As you walk along the surrounding streets, bits of that 13^th Century wall will appear in modern shops, or whatever it passes through. The wall may be old but the stylish design that is likely to surround it shows an enlightened approach to conservation. However, the real delight is at night: after 10pm, the city pulls back the shutters, on what in the daytime looked like nothing, to reveal hip modern bars and restaurants. Tables spill out onto the streets under illuminated trees as you walk through a maze of streets that suddenly feel like Montmartre; people, music, local wine and tapas, life in every corner.

      In 2011 I was lucky enough to be invited to Calatrava's office with The Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects. Professor Malek from Valencia University guided us around the city and impressed us with his knowledge and passion for architecture. Now, with all the economic problems it is relatively cheap to travel to Spain. So, go on, treat yourself, live a little, visit Valencia and enjoy.

Valencia Tennis Court by Santiago Calatrava

 

Steps by Rio de Cultura, Valencia

Entrance to the ceramic museum

 

The 'Belle Epoch' business district

Building in Barrio Ruzca (Russian Sector)

A video of the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects architects trip to Valencia can be seen at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39uVOWSeE5g&playnext=1&list=PL013C9401457CFD1A&feature=results_main

To join the WCCA – http://architects-livery-company.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Alex King is an architect and his design 'Santiago Townhouse' won the British Homes Awards in 2011 - Alex King Design / Designalexable, examples of his latest work can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yGQhlRz8mc

A Home of your own

It has been known for a long time that countries can kick start their economies through building, it therefore came as no surprise that the budget offers a stimulus package to encourage 'housebuilding'. Along the river Thames, huge residential developments are being built in places such as Vauxhall and Battersea, however these are for the most part bought as speculative investments by overseas buyers. That helps the economy, even if these developments are empty most of the year. Therefore, there is not a lack of accommodation, but rather a lack of financially accessible accommodation.

The problems in the housing sector are not new, even the concerns about space standards have been around a long time.

A 1932 cartoon by Heath Robinson

   Previous affordable housing solutions include Buckminster Fullers' Dymaxion house, designed as mass-produced aluminum housing units, in an attempt at industrializing housing production in the same way that Henry Ford had industrialized car production. Some forms of prefab housing are a descendant of this form of approach.

    In the UK, Walter Segal proposed self-build timber-frame housing in Lewisham, South East London. Segal’s method allowed inexperienced self-builders to build their own homes quickly and efficiently and Segal is often cited as the first architect to practice a truly participatory approach – in an era before public participation and user collaboration were accepted as viable or even thought possible. The early success of this development was helped by the physical act of self-building, as the self-builders developed friendships, helped each other and built a strong and lasting community. The methods and ideals of Walter Segal’s approach continue to be promoted today by the Walter Segal Self-Build Trust.

Walter Segal self-build housing, Lewisham, London.

 English timber frame houses from 1250 onwards were essentially prefab kit buildings, assembled by two people and if you examine the beams at the junctions you will find that these are numbered for easy assembly.

 

       Television programs such as 'Grand Designs' have made the concept of self-build more acceptable in recent years and in a time of economic uncertainty, maybe we need to seek to transform the nature of economic and civic participation by changing the way affordable housing is produced.

   Self-build could provide an opportunity to house those people with the most difficulty starting out on the housing ladder – with less financial risk. However, it would be daunting to embark on a self-build project if you had never built anything before, so what is built and how it goes together is very important – although if a kit house from 1250 can change hands for 600K today, then it is not difficult to see the potential benefits. As with the original timber frame house, the building would need to be easy to assemble, adaptable and subject to continual improvement, rather than conceived as a finished design.

 

 Lustron prefab housing. Ohio 1949

       At a time when many architects have 'less work', I would like to encourage the RIBA to promote a policy interventionist social approach to architecture that seeks to invigorate practice with solutions for affordable housing. This might take the form of a competition to design a self-build kit house with a selection of winning entries for variety. I would suggest that the judges include one or two prefab panel manufacturers – who could promote their products via the competition. The National Self-Build Association (NASBA) should be represented and if possible someone from Government encouraged to participate. If the 'competition was run in two stages, the winning entries could be determined by public vote – helping to engage the public with the Institute. The winning entries could be exhibited at the RIBA, published in the RIBA Journal (who can run an article on Walter Segal's housing – then and now) and be introduced to the prefab panel manufacturers to see if they can bring their designs to the market.

I am sure there will be people who will dismiss this proposal as whimsical – and yet such a proposal holds at it's heart that change is possible and if things can change for the worse, then why not for the better? Design is a way of making things happen and in the end it might not even be about the success of such a proposal, but of finding new ways to practice and to provoking change within the field of architecture.

Future Proof

'Science fiction has a funny habit of becoming science fact'¹ - William S. Burroughs

'Hi-Tech' would by it's nature soon become out-of-date as technology moved with the times, so as an 'architectural style', could only ever be a fad or short term solution. At the same time any building that contains the latest components could be termed 'Hi-Tech'. Hardwick Hall - 'more glass than wall', would have been Hi-Tech in 576-97.  The pursuit of technology in building is nothing new - it is the terminology to promote ideas that is new.

Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, England by Robert Smythson

      With the 'intrinsic flight into the future' ², it is now common to hear architects claim that their buildings are 'future-proof'³ – although, as we have very little idea about what the mirage of the future will bring, it is a slightly odd claim. It might be 'characteristic of the development of ideas that they do not appear as memories pointing to something that is past, but as expectations directed towards the future'⁴, but how could the design of an office be 'future proof' if in the future everyone worked from home? We simply don't know what will happen. A school may claim to be a future proof design and yet in the future all teaching may be via a computer terminal at home: It would make good economic sense for both government and individual families: The value of buildings would also no longer be inflated by their proximity to the 'best schools'; It would relieve traffic congestion, lower emissions, slow the spread of infections, stop class disruption, bullying and student shootings – it could also possibly improve education as the best teachers could reach the maximum amount of pupils via a medium that is known to engage their interest. Under such a future scenario the building would become redundant and what might be needed in its place would be more green space on which to socialize and play games. The claim that a building is 'future proof' rests on the fact that nobody knows what will happen.

What could be said of many modern buildings is that they have become less 'future proof', designed more as stand alone 'art objects', they tend to be less adaptable: When some large office blocks on Canary Wharf (London) remained empty at the end of the 1980s, one building owner complained, “a Nash terrace in Nottinghill Gate could be designed as a house, converted to offices, then to flats, it moves with the market – but what can I do with an acre of open plan office space when no one wants it?”

Oddly, what might in reality be the most 'future proof' of building types could be the timber frame buildings that were constructed in 1250 and are still here in 2013. These buildings might not look futuristic, but they were the original pre-fab kit houses and have withstood the test of time and are still sought after centuries after their creation. All that the architects of today mean by the term 'future proof', is that access can be gained so that the 'short-life parts of the building can be changed and its total lifespan can be extended'⁵. Changing a few wires does not make a building 'future proof' – especially if everything goes wireless. As Winston Churchill said, “It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see'⁶.

Futurist pre-fab housing circa 1250 AD

Alex King is an architect and his design 'Santiago Townhouse' won the British Homes Awards in 2011 - Alex King Design / Designalexable, examples of his latest work can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yGQhlRz8mc

1 'The adding machine & other essays'. William S. Burroughs 1985 ISBN 0-7145-4073-0.

2 'intrinsic flight to the future' – Hegel's technological concept of history suggests that 'progress' has become mixed up with both technical progress and Darwinian evolution. This 'history underpins a technological bias of practice, often at the expense of architecture and making places for “life and action” - 'Architecture Re-assembled'. Trevor Garnham. 2013. Routledge.

3 The term 'future-proof' was mentioned by Norman Foster in his German TED Talks Lecture, it appears in Richard Rogers 'Architecture – a modern view' and has recently made an appearance in the RIBA Journal and other architectural publications. For architects the idea of the future has a long history - 'But in human beings the awareness of the future undergoes the same characteristic change of meaning which we have noted with regard to ideas of the past. The future is not only an image; it becomes an “ideal”... This belongs to the realm of prudence, not to that of wisdom. The term “prudence” (prudentia) is etymologically connected to “providence” (providentia). It means the ability to forsee future events and to prepare for future needs' ('An essay on man'. Ernst Cassirer. P54-55. 1944. Yale University Press). This is a theoretical idea of the future, a symbolic future, more akin to expectation.

4 'An essay on man'. Ernst Cassirer. P53 1944. Yale University Press. Original quote: William Stern.

5 'Architecture - a Modern View'. Richard Rogers. P53 1991 ISBN 0-500-27651-x

6 'The wicked wit of Winston Churchill'. Dominique Enright. P146. 2001. ISBN 978-1-85479-529-8.

The Naked Architect

Look after your staircase... It may be the only diagonal you've got

     What a joy to walk up and down the Nelson Stair in the Somerset House, and what a shame that it is so rare to see such flamboyant design in modern buildings. This is a staircase as an event. Visit it if you get the chance....