9 surface

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On Site review issue 9 2003 publisher

Transportable Environments call for papers

The Association for Non-Profit Architectural Fieldwork (Alberta)

guest editors Tonkao Panin Juan Manuel Heredia editor

Stephanie White assistant editor Tom Strickland contributors

In April 2004, Ryerson will host an international academic conference entitled Transportable Envi- ronments. This conference will be the third in a series of conferences on portable environments and is being organized and co-chaired by Filiz Klassen of Ryerson University and Dr. Robert Kronenburg from Liverpool University, School of Architecture, UK. Delegates from around the world will examine built and theoretical transportable environments where permanence is either not possible or desir- able. The conference will focus on a variety of topics ranging from portability, adaptability, deployability and the sustainability of built environments to material and technological inno- vations. The purpose of this conference is to search for new interpretations of existing and developing technologies to fulfill requirements that can not be met by the use of existing construction methods and materials. Examples of such environments can vary from refugee camps to high-tech space architecture. The main objective of the conference is to iden- tify and define possible directions for a body of interdisciplinary work connecting design, theory and practice in the conception and making of transportable environments in architecture, inte- riors, industrial design, fashion, urban design, highly engineered structural design, and aero- space engineering. A call for papers from local and international scholars, graduate students, designers and manu- facturers and a two day program along with a presenters’ list will be developed during summer and fall 2003. Full information is available at www.ryerson.ca/portable 2003 June 15: Call for abstracts

Jin Baek Philip Beesley Justin Cipriani Steve Const Alexander Eisenschmidt Lyndale George Hamilton Hadden Juan Manuel Heredia David Hernandez Quintela Ivan Hernandez Quintela Florian Jungen Açalya Kiyak Brian Lemond

Karl Loeffler Christine Maile Joylyn Marshall Tom Martin Federicao De Matteis Fernando Moreira Rafael Gomez-Moriana

Sheila Nadimi Peter Osborn Tonkao Panin Kerry Ross Aniket Shanane Caren Yglesias

design & production Black Dog Running printer Makeda Press, Calgary

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The first conference took place in 1997 at Liverpool Uni - versity School of Architecture; the second conference in 2001 was at the National University of Singapore, School of Architecture and Built Environment. Further informa- tion on conferences and publications can be obtained from www.liv.ac.uk/abe/portablearchitecture

T he use of any part of this publication reproduced , trans - mitted in any form or by any means , electronic , mechanical , photocopied , recorded or otherwise , or stored in a retrieval system without the prior consent of the publisher is an infringement of copyright law , C hapter C-30, R S C 1988.

A Note on Two Pieces Brian Lemond

Surface here is rendered in three distinct ways:

1. the limit of construction. Wood modules act in concert and in accordance with a consistent logic to build a rhythm, an expectation of sequence, in each piece.The sides and faces of the modules offer their signatures to the composite structure.

2. applied treatment. The treatment of these constructions, in these cases the addition of enamel or the burning of the wood itself, supplies a variable to the static equation of the configuration.The grid of elements alternately vanishes beneath the applied surface or is fundamentally and aggressively altered by the heat. 3. binding elements. The combination of these ingredients, the structural and the superficial, yields the third surface, the perceptual.The cold, white enamel edge lends the grid of endgrain an apparent thinness that counters our expectation of both material and form, while the induced splits and shifts in the scorched grid emphasize the fibrous nature and true depth of the wooden components. 

Brian Lemond is a sculptor working in Brooklyn NY, and is part of the Experimental Modern Arts Collective, www.xmac.org

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ivan hernandez quintela

florian jungen

hamilton hadden

Contents

city surfaces K atherine B ourke : Parking Surface I nese B irstins : Road Kill

david hernandez quintela

6 7 8

katherine bourke

T onkao P anin : In the City — how are we surfaced? A lexander E isenstadt : Stadbilder — memory, place, wall. R aphael G omez -M oriana and S heila N adimi : Out of Sight. Architecture as camouflage in everyday life. building surfaces K uth /R anieri : The Body in Repose. An installation at for Fabrications at SFMOMA. A calya K iyak : Rock and Liberty: Gehry’s Experience Music Project draped in Seattle. K erry R oss : Detail: snow/surface/water. The Bear Street project in Banff. K arl L oeffler : The Ice Hotel, Duchesnay Ecological Reserve. F ernando D inez M oreira : A Surface for Breathing. Lucio Costa and Parque Guinle, Brazil. F ederico de M atteis : The Post Office and the Telegraph Band — an architecture parlante . J uan M anuel H eredia : Transparence of an Opaque Surface. Juan O’Gorman’s Central Library at the University of Mexico. A niket S hahane : Letter from Barcelona. On the Surface. M arie R upert : Shiny Surfaces. An ICF wall on a zero-lot line. C aren Y glesias : Vague Places with Fine Edges. room surfaces J in B aek : Infinity and a Wooden Cross. Two churches by Tadao Ando. M anoo : Deep Skin. PS Offices, Cuernavaca, Mexico. J oylyn M arshall and P eter O sborne : Spectacular, Spectacular. West Edmonton Mall changes its skin. earth surfaces P hillip B eesley : Orgone Reef, an installation at the University of Manitoba. H amilton H adden : Elemental Surfaces, a water controlling geosynthetic surface. C hristine M aile : Smooth Diagrams on a Complex Earth

alexander eisenschmidt

caren yglesias

10 12

aniket shahane

joylyn marshal and peter osborne

brian lemond

philip beesley

rafael gomez-moriana sheila nadimi

fernando dinez moreira

kerry ross

35 40 42

41 43

inese birstins

tom martin

juan manuel heredia

christina maile

tonkao panin

material surfaces

elizabeth ranieri and byron kuth

B rian L emond : Two Surfaces E duardo A quino : Flatbox, an installation at Fort Whyte, Manitoba. F lorian J ungen : The Mi’kmaq Wigwam. T om M artin : Wet’swet’en Bridges, British Columbia. L yndale G eorge : Letter from Hagewelit

4 44

47 48 50

half the design and construction team of Emile Gilbert + associates

stephanie white

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from the series PARKING SPACE 3X3’ colour photograph 2002

The idea of path communicated through pho- tographs of this urban landscape recalls a pedestrian, or non-car, culture. Conversely, the photos of these parking lots possess a silence and stillness — a space for reflection. To realize space through an investigation into the everyday provides a vehicle by which to explore the human experience within and of landscape, while simultaneously exploring awareness of self through these meditative in- between spaces.  Katherine Bourke is a semi-nomadic visual artist and writer with a BFA & MFA in photography whose next locale is London, England to pursue graduate work in photography and urban cultures. www.citywalker.ws

n awareness of oneself, or how one belongs to and interacts with the world, is primarily realized through one’s experience of in-between spaces — an experience that is contingent on the flux of time, place, and identity. The in-between space found through walking generates a lucid mind and a displaced body. Urban landscape photographs — vacant of util- ity — are slices of space subverted from the familiar; ordinary landscapes are made extra- ordinary. Still photographs of intersections and commuter platforms paradoxically arrest and embrace vitality, movement, and passage.

Parking space Katherine Bourke

All photos are of the past, yet in them an instant of the past is arrested so that, unlike a lived past, it can never lead to the present. Between the moment photographed and the present there is an abyss.

John Berger, Another Way of Telling

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t he gloves were photographed and collected over a period of one year. They therefore encompass all the seasons, include male and female, child and adult, and reflect activity ranging from work to play. These items of apparel have been lost, not discarded. They retain the reference to the absent body and express the gesture. They speak eloquently of loss, separation, abandonment, but also of energy, activity and life force. The emotional tone evoked is mostly poignant, with shadings ranging from pain and distress to hilarity at the antic energy trapped within. Overall, there is a sense of deterioration, the ending of usefulness and the sadness inherent in the decline, though tempered often by a strong touch of humour. 

Inese Birstins Road kill

Inese Birstins was born in Latvia, grew up in Australia, became an artist in Canada, has exhibited in North America, Europe and Brazil.

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Architecture and Surface

I n the city one is surrounded by multiple layers of architectural surfaces which both serve our interests and sustain them. Perhaps it is inevitable that we are captured by the arresting surfaces in the city, those of the immaculate, the polished, and the jolly. Our impression of the city is often shaped by its constructed face, the manifold, inviting aspects of frontal façades. Yet, along with the smart and healthy surfaces, we also notice the extra-ordinary images of the seemingly accidental, sick, dumb, morose, and uninviting surfaces, often tucked behind, beside, beneath or beyond the immaculate façades. Though the city consists of aggregated bodies of architecture, it ialso includes the in-between where space is conditioned by what is unused, unoccupied and at times, unwanted. While the areas enclosed by frontal facades easily become glorified public spaces — a kind of beautiful display, the in-between spaces of the dismal surfaces can be seen as a special kind of setting, a different kind of exterior room. Within these hidden passages and the unreachable spaces, one discovers spatial and surface patterns without which the city fabric would be crippled. While the beautiful and carefully designed façades sustain the interests of the city spectators, the hidden surfaces of the areas in-between serve the interest of those who dwell within the city. Both the glossy and the gloomy surfaces should always be seen as integrated Their continuity, differences, moments of transformation and disruption, all represent more than skin-deep details. They represent the way the city is being used and occupied. Without the differences between the carefully-maintained frontal façades and the beaten-up surfaces, the city itself becomes inarticulate.

In the city. How are we surfaced? Tonkao Panin

It is the relationship between the ensembles of architectural surfaces that lend materiality to the city’s boundaries. 

Born: France Registered architect:Thailand

Current research: Architecture in Vienna: the dialectic between the concepts of space and surface.

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Alexander Eisenschmidt Stadtbilder — memory, place, wall

w e as architects are used to the glossy, beautiful images of buildings and houses that are supposedly representative of the discipline; and maybe it is true that architecture must define itself through these pictures that stand for something extraordinary, something that is particular and new. But there is also the other side of architecture, the already there, the not looked at, the avoided.These images are still part of our cities, but not of the architectural discourse. One might ask: is it possible that architecture overlooks the potential of these places and propagates, or at least facilitates, the smoothing-out of the discontinuities in the architectural ‘façade’?

Looking at places that have survived the acts of renovation and cleansing in our cities, one can detect moments that relate to a very different mood than the one which is usually presented to us. I am referring to scenes in which the building block spontaneously breaks off and reveals its interior, moments of rupture, and moments that give insight into the matter of the city. Could it be that the place reveals itself through these voids in the city- fabric, the so-called blind spots, with their dark brick walls and faded murals? These morbid surfaces that stand in contrast to the finished and smooth pictures of the cityscape can then be understood in terms of their distinct value of having a direct textural relation to the memory of the place. Here the relationship between void and wall-surface moves from a merely spatial to a historical condition..This open-ended character that conflicts with the, more or less, homogeneous cities invites the new through a dynamism that confronts stagnation.

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Former buildings, previous use and weathering have left their outlines and marks on walls that become fields of memory, which are both extremely rich and free from spatial elaboration. History is here read through the absence of the building, through traces on the surface that give anthropological references and hence make a very different visual approach possible. Here time and human action are seen in the depth of the wall through remnants of whatever was previously there.The ‘looking at’ becomes a ‘looking through’ — an act of seeing that no longer stops at the sur (the above) of the surface but that penetrates through it and so removes the superficiality of the common surface. Reading these walls as a palimpsest and as documentation of the ‘not anymore’ allows at the same time an association with the moments to come. Enriched with memory but spatially open, these incomplete moments in the city stand for continuation and oppose a final structuring of place.

Other media like film and photography already have discovered these territories and it is time for architecture to work not against these images, but to recognize them as potential fields of investigation and equal components of the city-fabric.These zones — the densely layered surfaces that are by character temporal and autonomous — are open for subjective and self-defined projects, which might assist a new way of looking at these areas and question our common definition of beauty. But, to begin with, we have to try to see more in these images than their negative connotations; indeed, we might as well accept the potentials that lie in ‘negativity.’ 

Alexander Eisenschmidt began his architec- tural education at HTWK in Leipzig, Ger- many. Later, he obtained a Masters of Architecture at Pratt Institute in New York City and is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Pennsylvania where his research investigates the relationship between architecture and ideology.

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i n nature, the resemblance between many animal species’ surface pat- terns and their habitat helps them avoid detection by their predators. This principle, camouflage, is similarly applied by humans in some situa - tions, the most common of which is warfare. In the normal, everyday life of the city, however, an architectural form of camouflage also exists that, as in nature or warfare, can serve as a stratagem for the avoidance of detection — not of prey or enemy forces, but of certain activities and building functions; and not necessarily by predators, but by ordinary citizens.This architectural type of camouflage is not very common, but it is nevertheless illustrative, demonstrating that, in addition to playing an aesthetic role, architectural appearance can also play a performative and strategic role in the city. It reminds us, moreover, of the diplomatic complexity of urban-architectural relations, while betraying the extent to which a mythical image of the city must sometimes be made to prevail over reality. The surface of a building always conceals from view the very thing it contains and shelters: its function or content. However, in order to navigate the complexity of the modern city, however, buildings need to be somewhat legible. Historically, urban legibility was achieved by means of ornament and typological form: an important public building would have a socle, a church a steeple, a store display windows. While interior

styles could vary eclectically to reflect private tastes, the façade usually was consistent with a building’s program and type. With the emergence of steel structural systems and glass cladding, content could be rendered significantly more visible, obviating the need for traditional forms of representation. There was still a moral obligation, on the part of architects, for a building to honestly express its function, whether through the symbolic transparency of ornament or the literal transpar- ency of glass. With the advent of postmodernism, a disjunction emerges between program and expression, with the dialectic between form and content giving way to a dichotomy. A common example is the heritage practice known as ‘façadism’ whereby entirely new building construction takes place behind historical façades that have been retained at great expense.This is itself a reversal of the 1960s practice of re-cladding ordinary turn-of-the-century buildings in North American downtowns with modern metal screens and signage, of which Manhattan’s Times Square provides an example. Here, the dichotomy results from horizon- tal historical layering. In contemporary façadism, however, a horizontal anti-historical layering takes place that is rendered significant, and highly questionable, by its very willfulness.

Out of Sight Architecture as Camouflage in Everyday Life

Rafael Gómez-Moriana and Sheila Nadimi

Ons’ Lieve Heer op Solder (Our Lord in the Attic) is a clandestine Catholic church in Amsterdam built by merchant Jan Hartman as part of his house in 1663. It has its own access stairs from a side alley and two gallery levels.The laws that made Amsterdam Protestant in 1578 forbade the public practice of Catholicism as well as any public display of Catholic symbols.

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Another application of architectural camouflage appeases public sensiti - ity to unsightly programs: urban infrastructural facilities —electric sub- stations for example— are usually situated at important locations within an urban network. The architectural surface then deceives to maintain a certain public image consistent with a prevailing notion of civic rectitude— to keep up appearances, as it were. A subway ventila- tion facility in Paris is essentially a very large chimney built behind a historic hotel façade ( above ), and a suburban Winnipeg bungalow ( see back cover ) contains a flood-pumping station: both examples of ‘unsightly’ infrastructure installations that are camouflaged in their unsuspecting surroundings. Camouflage can be applied directly over existing buildings that have a problematic history to literally cover up that history. The new surface layer deceives to promote a new public image. A World War II military hospital in Brigham City, Utah ( page 15 ), subsequently used as a residential school for Native Americans, has recently been renovated by a private developer into new-urbanist row housing, is an example of a transformative and paint-thin application of camouflage designed to sell a new public image. A ventilation flue for the Paris metro built in 1982 behind the retained historical façade of a small hotel that formerly occupied the site.There are no floors behind the windows, only maintenance catwalks.The flue extends several stories into the ground, and contains large fans that pump fresh air into the underworld of Paris. A series of louvres prevents birds and falling objects from getting caught in the fans.

New buildings with disjunctive elevations are just as disingenuous. Since the dichotomy here is planned from the outset, there is a suspicion that a surface is being used to mislead.A disjunctive façade could simply be a designer’s conceit, while camouflage entails that something is being deliberately hidden.The context of content—what is inside and its relationship to what is outside — is therefore a crucial factor in the identification of cases of architectural camouflage. The most common rationale for camouflage is the desire for privacy, particularly in the case of clandestine activity, in which case the architec- tural façade functions literally as its deceptive ‘front’.Two examples here are the seventeenth-century Catholic church of Our Lord in the Attic ( left ), which was built into a typical canal house in Amsterdam during the Calvinist rebellion against Catholicism, and a recently exposed mari- juana-growing operation in suburban Montreal that was concealed in dozens of new tract houses which, investigators believe, may have been specifically built for this purpose. Conversely, camouflage could also be used to avert crime, where the architectural surface deceives to prevent the contents and occupants of a building from being targeted by criminals.An example here is the residence of Hollywood actor, artist and collector Dennis Hopper in Venice, California ( see page 15 ), designed by Brian A. Murphy, and which urban theorist Mike Davis has termed a ‘stealth home’ for its resemblance to a shed.

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The Hilton Hotel in Barcelona, completed in 1990, was designed by two different architects: the client’s architect designed the building, while the elevations were required to be designed by a select firm approved by the city to handle building façades in important, highly vis- ible locations.The hotel is sited on the busiest thor- oughfare in Barcelona.

In each of the above cases, the predominant strategy for deceiving viewers is that of ‘blending’ into the immediate environment: camouflage as architectural contextualism.These buildings have not been designed as attention-seeking objects of aesthetic contemplation but, on the contrary, are therefore intentionally banal. In places where banality is undesirable, camouflage can provide a strat - egy for its concealment. In this case, an architectural surface-as-spectacle deceives by presenting a hollow monumentality. Such is a generic, com- mercial, open-plan office building in Richmond upon Thames, England, by Quinlan Terry that, on the exterior, resembles a Renaissance palace. Another example is a Barcelona Hilton hotel ( above ) where the munici- pality ruled that the façade had to be designed by a different, more vanguard architectural firm (Viaplana and Piñon) than the firm hired by the client to design the rest of the building (Mir, Coll, and Carmona). Although marginal in terms of occurrence, architectural camouflage is nevertheless insightful. It appears to exist mainly in technologically advanced urban societies, and to date mostly from the latter half of the twentieth century. It parallels other post-modern phenomena such as de-industrialization and the societal shift from material produc- tion to services. More precisely, it is an architectural stratagem that responds to particularly urban concerns, both practical—such as crime and privacy—as well as ideological, such as heritage and collective memory. Behind camouflage lurk private interests such as tourism, real estate and lifestyle marketing, as well as public interests such as the maintenance of public order.

Architectural camouflage reveals, in the end, the degree to which the city is a space of illusion; an illusion that is maintained, at times, by highly theatrical means.The fact that camouflage, which is by its very nature adversarial, exists in the artificial and purportedly civilized environment of the modern city says, perhaps, the most about the degree to which the city, as a concept, is shrouded in myth. 

Research was made possible by grants from the Graham Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Netherlands Foundation for Fine Arts, Design and Architecture, by the kind cooperation of the buildings’ owners, as well as by helpful tips received from colleagues and friends.

All photographs by Rafael Gómez-Moriana and Sheila Nadimi.

Rafael Gómez-Moriana is an independent researcher and instructor interested in mass- cultural aspects of architecture. He lives in Barcelona. Sheila Nadimi is a visual artist with a back- ground in environmental studies. She is cur- rently a lecturer of 3-D design at Utah State University in Logan, Utah.

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Eagle Village in Brigham City (Utah) is an affordable housing development incorporating the adaptive re-use of barracks orig- inally built during WWII as a military hospital and subse- quently converted into a residen- tial school for Native Americans. The façades of the barracks have been painted to correspond with their new internal organization and to present a new image to a blighted zone with a problematic history.

The Hopper residence in Venice, California, by Brian A. Murphy, which conspicuously lacks fen- estration on its main façade, contains a nota - ble contemporary art collection. At the time of its construction in 1986, Venice was considered an unsafe, gritty Los Angeles neighborhood.

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The Body in Repose An installation for ‘Fabrications’

at SFMOMA Kuth/Ranieri Architects San Francisco

r ecent trends in architectural methods of production have shifted architectural dis- course from form and typology to assembly and manufacturing. Fabrication in simplest terms is about building or constructing. Our parallel interest is the skillful construct of a specific story or reality. The Body in Repose , an installation at San Fran- cisco Museum of Modern Art, revolved around themes of body, material, and fabrication.The methods grew out of our commitment and interest in synthetic systems and the integrated confluence of surface and structure.The wall skin revealed a running subtext of psycho- logical associations of body made evident in how the singular and synthetic membrane is inscribed. the museum The whole idea of trying to present archi- tecture in a museum begs the question of context, physically and textually. We began by looking at the nature of Mario Botta’s design for SFMOMA, a masonry veneered monolith, and challenged the pastiche of his architectural narratives. Our first interest was to unveil the rep - resented fiction of an authentically crafted masonry exterior wall construction. Second, was to critique the museum’s internal narrative of surface, the so-called ‘white wall’, and the myth of its neutrality. We intervened with a new narrative, a surface that created alternative readings to what con- stituted specific moments of enclosure; re- writing the gallery wall, corner, window, and floor. We stripped off the gallery’s trim, sheet rock, plywood and insulation revealing a three foot deep hollow cavity of steel, mechanical, and electrical systems. By excavating the wall we exposed the backside of the exterior brick veneered panels of concrete, showing its crane anchors and assembly.

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repose Our response to the theme of repose was intimacy. If one considers clothing a degree of enclosure, then one could say that the gar- ment is the most intimate, physical condition of architecture.The project took the form of a fashioned tectonic garment. It was made from 800 lbs. of half-inch synthetic felt and one thousand C-clamps. The work re-scripted the joints, seams, and contours of what it veiled; wrapping and replacing the skin at the south side of the gallery; muffling the light at the window; and unveiling laminations at the corner of the gallery wall.

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t he choice of felt as a primary material for the installation opened up a variety of investigations. In recognizing the history of felt as a medium in the museum, we had interest in works that repre- sented intrinsic characteristics of the material; in compression, in tension, and one might say in psychological and metamythic states. Sculptural works of Robert Morris and Joseph Bueys exhibited ways that felt, as raw material, was at the service of portraying itself. Our research resulted in some intrinsic contradictions: transform- ing the felt from what was a naturally a fluid and unstable medium, to a rigid and structural matrix. The first step in fabrication was to provide the felt manufacturer with full-scale templates specifying pattern forms and dimensions for the garment.The factory responded with finished patterns from 2000 square feet of felt, trimmed, coded, shrink-wrapped, and truck delivered to the site. Students assembled the piece by fastening, folding, and clamping the individual panels. Programmatically, the installation responded to occupation. Benches introduced at the gallery wall and window provided an intimate retreat from the public realm; one could view from it, and in turn be partially viewed. A more studied aspect of the work however was its interiority, enmeshing the occupant, wall cavity, and blanket.The result was a new thick surface, an armature for modulating shadow and light. Intertwining voids formed torqued vistas penetrating the full length of the wall, illuminated by open hoppers along the top edge.

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The intimate territory of operations on the material was similar to what one encounters with regard to the body; a new skin that was connected and restrained through: dimpling, piercing, suturing — all familiar intrusions and deformations of body.The work for us became a geography of the uncanny, predi- cated on the conflict of comfort and dis - cipline: it was not the patient that was restrained, but the bench itself. Inherent paradoxes between tectonic/organic, rigid/ fluid, inviting/formidable were left unre - solved, and up to the user to navigate. 

Kuth/Ranieri is a multi-disciplinary architecture studio, whose work is informed by the discourse of politics, psychology and pop culture, and tempered by the pro- gressively standardized building industry. The work is inscribed with cultural and tectonic attitudes to anchor it to program, place and time.

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Speaking bluntly, there are not many differences between the construction of the Statue of Liberty and Frank Gehry’s recent buildings. m odern architects often compared clothing with architecture, and tailors, fashion designers and editors talk about the ‘construction’ of clothes, where flat patterns become three-dimensional through a series of operations — cutting, sewing, and stitching. Drapery, though, is a word rarely mentioned in architectural discourse. What exactly is a drapery? It is the simplest method of dressing: a piece of cloth hung on the body without cutting or sewing. Drapery has no form by itself — it moves freely with the body and it behaves according to the thickness of the cloth. liberty The draped body was traditionally associated with luxury, wealth and nobility, yet the render- ing of drapery in architecture is quite rare. One exception is the 151 foot tall and 225 tons of green copper drapery on the colossal Statue of Liberty, designed in 1880s by the French neoclassical sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, in direct imitation of antiquity. The Lady Liberty is habitable; unlike other stat- ues, its skin encloses an interior space. Her loose copper drapery is hung over armatures placed on an iron skeleton designed by Gustave Eiffel.The inner surface of Liberty’s copper skin and the iron skeleton are not intended to be visually connected — this uncanny conjunction is part of the visitor’s experience. Bartholdi conceived Liberty entirely in terms of its outer contours. After settling the final form in a clay model, it was enlarged to a full-scale set of plaster fragments in his Paris workshop. Following the contours of the plas- ter, massive wooden moulds were built and thin copper sheets (2.5mm thick) were ham- mered onto the moulds.The copper panels are fastened together, hung on the iron skeleton and present her rippling skin. rock and roll Experience Music Project (EMP) in Seattle, opened in June 2000, was the first large-scale Gehry building after Bilbao. EMP is a music museum dedicated to Seattle-born Jimi Hen- drix, thanks to the globally wealthy cofounder of Microsoft Paul Allen’s love of rock music and his $240 million. The museum’s webpages explain that EMP’s structure ‘symbolizes the energy and fluidity of music’, while an electric guitar is the source of inspiration. One can imagine Gehry, a classical music fan, going to a guitar store and buying several electric guitars. After taking them back to his office Gehry ends up being inspired only by their shiny finish. EMP shimmers in vivid red, purple, blue, gold and silver, dominating the Seattle convention area.

tailoring William Zahner is the head of a steel company in Kansas City and, equally, a tailor. Working directly from the digital model provided by Gehry, Zahner’s firm produced the nearly 4,000 panels that form the exterior skin of EMP. Each panel holds about seven shingles that have a unique shape and size, tailored to fit exactly in a specific location and stitched to other panels in situ. The building’s surface looks like a patterned drapery. Consider the time, energy, and amount of money spent in draping these metal shingles over EMP’s struc- ture. Given the materiality and weight of the building, the making of a drapery is not an easy task. under the surface One sees in EMPs drapery both the represen- tation of technology and, beneath the glossy surface, the unlimited budget of the client. It seems that drapery continues to suggest luxury and wealth as it did in art for centuries. Depicting drapery in Renaissance paintings, linked to the rise of rich merchant families, had no purpose other than ‘to take delight in the way it looks’. Tellingly, such over-draped fabrics were derided by reformers in the nineteenth century for representing ‘a millionaire’s notion of the pretty and nothing more’. Anne Hollander explains the concept of drap- ery as ‘something which, while it conceals, yet confers an extra ennobling or decorative dimension upon the essentially wretched and silly human form’. What is behind the drapery in EMP comes to mind. Drapery directs one’s attention to the presentation of the object underneath, but what happens if the drapery becomes the object itself? Unlike the Statue of Liberty, EMP is a museum — the structure is not its only material presence. The museum desperately tries to push the content forward: ‘If you think its wild on the outside, just wait until you get inside.There you will find interac - tive exhibits, rare artifacts and a one-of-a-kind ride!’ Having us pay $20 to get inside, rather than stopping at the exterior skin, is their aim. The many connotations of drapery, luxury, excess, concealment and display seem uninten- tionally appropriate for EMP. The surface is almost a fetish. Although it appears as a loose drape laid over the structure, it is uniquely tailored, an expensive, shiny, boozy dress ready for a rock concert. Versace for buildings.  1 Marvin Trachtenberg, The Statue of Liberty, New York:The Viking Press, Inc., 1976: 119-50. 2 Robin Evans, The Projective Cast: Architecture and Its Three Geometries. Cambridge, Mass.:The MIT Press, 1995: 120-1. 3 Anne Hollander,‘The Fabric of Vision:The Role of Drapery in Art’ Georgia Review 29, 1975: 431. 5 Gen Doy , Drapery: Classicism and Barbarism in Visual Culture. London; New York: I.B.Tauris, 2002: 11. 6 Anne Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes. New York:Viking Press, 1978: 15.

Rock and Liberty Experience Music Project by Frank Gehry

Açalya Kiyak

in the outside In the complete monograph of Gehry only one section and a few plan drawings of EMP appear. There is an obvious reason: try to imagine describing the building in conventional draw- ings — building EMP from orthogonal drawings would be nearly impossible. Robin Evans wrote that in Scharouns’s Philharmonie project, con- struction workers faced serious difficulties in setting out the foundations. Only after taking large-scale sections at very closely spaced intervals across the breadth of the building, could workers build it. To describe EMP one would need billions of thin slices. Instead of this burdensome task, Gehry’s office used a digital three-dimensional model as the single source of information for the entire project. Working with a wire frame model of the exte- rior surface of the building, EMP was conceived from outside in, not unlike the Statue of Liberty. Similar to Liberty, Gehry begins with a study model. Once he decides on the final form, the model is digitized and scaled to full-size in the computer environment. At this stage the building is constructed, virtually, in three-dimen- sions.The software allows the three-dimen- sional forms to be charted two-dimensionally. In a method similar to tailoring, cutting machines produce each shape from flat sheets of metal.

Açalya Kiyak is a PhD student at the Univesity of Pennsylvania.

O n S ite review

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O n S ite review

In the upper roofs of the Courtyard on Bear Street build- ing, like in many alpine precedents, the incline of the roofs balances the requirement to shed snow and rain with a need to provide as much useable space as possible beneath it. Its low slope allows snow to accumulate and provide an insulat- ing blanket against the winter chill.

u rban development in Canada is intrinsically associated with surviv- ing and adapting to winter. Banff,Alberta sits at an elevation of 1,384m above sea level, latitude is 52°N, it is surrounded by mountains and is subject to unexpected winter warming ; all of which mean it is both dry and cold, with heavy snow that can melt quickly on short days in a long winter. The Land-Use Bylaw of Banff and the Banff Design Guidelines dictate a material palette for roofing of cedar shakes, heavy asphalt shingles, concrete tiles or slate tiles. For the low slope roof on this project, our first choice of cementitious corrugated roof panels presented problems with jointing, torsion, drainage and ice-jamming due to the effect of freeze-thaw cycles on lapped material. We developed instead a composite system of cedar decking affixed to a layer of strapping above a full SBS roof membrane. Snow Sliding of snow occurs at the roof-snow interface. If snow stays on a roof, it either melts slowly because of building heat loss through the roof assembly, or rapidly because of high outside air temperatures, rain or sun. The cohesion and friction forces between snow and a roof surface also vary with the roughness of the roof itself. Normally, snow slides when heat loss through the roof causes the 0°C temperature line to move up into the insulating snow layer and melt the bottom surface of the snow, lubricating the roof surface and destroying cohesion and friction forces. An insulating layer of snow cover can allow significant melting at the roof surface, producing a layer of slush which allows the snow to slide. 1 Ice Melt water will freeze on roof eaves, forming icicles, ice on walkways below and ice dams where water from the melting snow freezes in the drains. 2 Detail: snow/surface/water Kerry Ross

The project here is a green, sustainable mixed use development in Banff, and the detail looked at here is a double roof skin, designed to deal with snow on roofs.

References: Taylor, D.A. ‘Danger: Falling Snow’. Construction Practice. Ottawa: National Research Council of Canada, 1990. Taylor, D.A. ‘Sliding Snow of Sloping Roofs’. Canadian Building Digest no. 228. Ottawa: Division of Building Research, National Research Council of Canada, 1983. Baker, M.C. ‘Ice on Roofs’. Canadian Building Digest no. 89 . Ottawa: Division of Building Research, National Research Council of Canada,1967. The roof system used on the Bear Street project allows melt water from snow accumulation to drain through gaps in a top surface of cedar decking. Like a cascading stream in a mountain crevasse, drain water is channeled by waterproof strapping to a roof valley and down to water basins where it is guided through piping inside wood columns to an underground cistern beneath the parking ramp. The snow remains dry above the cedar cladding, reducing the weight of the snow and preventing the formation of ice-jams.The low slope design combined with the ability to drain any melt water eliminates the need for snow fences. 

project: BEAR STREET PROJECT location: Banff Alberta client: Arctos & Bird Enterprises Ltd. date of completion: Oct. 2004

architects of record: Zeidler Carruthers & Associates Architects design architects: William McDonough + Partners specifications: Susan Morris Specifications structural engineers: Read Jones Christoffersen mechanical engineers: MechWave Engineering electrical engineers: Stebnicki Robertson & Associates landscape architects: Scatliff Miller Murray (roof)

VDMO Landscape Architects (courtyard)

energy consultant: GF Shymko & Associates builders: PCL Maxam Construction Management

O n S ite review

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The shapes and rhythm of the build- ing massing are borrowed from the folded jagged plates of the surround- ing Rocky Mountains and the snow- retaining roofs of traditional alpine architecture of Europe. A generous open courtyard at the centre of the project emulates the Bow Valley as a place of water collection and pro- vides a public amenity for gatherings and performances.

Kerry Ross is an architectural graduate from the Université de Montréal who is passionate about travel and sustainable design and currently the project architect for Bear Street with Zeidler Carruthers in Calgary.

Kerry Ross: William McDonough’s team, led by partner Allison Ewing, have been the design lead as well as the environmental lead on issues of building materials and specs. Bill McDonough himself helped the client establish guiding principles for the client (the Arctos & Bird Principles), based on the Hannover Principles which WMP developed for the 2000 Hannover Expo. Using these principles as a reference, he and the project team helped develop benchmarks and targets for the building project. From there,Allison, working directly with the client by phone, fax and in person, led us through the development of many schematic design solutions. As architect’s of record, we (Zeidler Carruthers Architects) are the local designers and construction drawing technical team. We have provided most of the design/development solutions as well as the final detailing O|S: What is the relationship between Zeidler Carruthers and William McDonough? What does architect of record mean? Putting projects in place

and coordinating of the construction documents. We executed the numerous DP prior-to-release conditions and have been the eyes and ears on the ground for the McDonough team to both communicate and negotiate variances with the Town of Banff. There was a lot of interaction with the Town and their Municipal Planning Committee which had a significant impact of the development of the design and, over the course of a year and a half resulted in the approval of the design by the Town of Banff Planning department, the Municipal Planning Committee and the Development Appeal Board. We worked from the start of the project with the complete team (and I mean everyone, including the contractor) at the kick-off meeting with Bill McDonough. It was felt that early participation by all consultants would be beneficial in developing this building. 

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Orgone reef An installation by Philip Beesley at the Architecture 2 Gallery University of Manitoba January 20-February 13, 2003

o rgone Reef is an extremely lightweight expanded mesh- work, a dense interlinking matrix made of thousands of pieces manufactured by a computer-controlled laser cutter. The project probes the possibilities of combining artificial and natural processes to form a hybrid ecology. Orgone Reef is a technical exercise in construction and fabrication. The project relates to geotextiles, a new class of materials used for reinforcing landscapes and buildings. A minimal amount of raw material is expanded to form a network forming a large, porous volume. This structure acts as an artificial reef that could support a turf-like surface of natural material. The elements of this construction have been fabricated using rapid-prototyping equipment. Current manufacturing associations are with Roylco, a plastic toy manufacturer in Waterloo assisting with engineering and production planning, and MIT’s Media Lab, the producer of ‘cricket’microprocessors for Lego. Individual elements can be produced at low cost and quick cycles of refinement, supporting

highly efficient industrial design. The small scale of production suggests the possibility of a cottage-industry based economy. The structure has active qualities that hover and vibrate in response to air currents.Visually, it dissolves into an oscillating field. Like Pitcher Plants and Venus Fly Traps, the details of this structure are designed to catch and hold the things that they contact, collecting and digesting material and, in effect, building themselves, without our interference. One can contextualize this work in the Romantic tradition of working with forces beyond human control. Nineteenth and twentieth-century poetic and religious writings often reveal uncanny mixtures of anxiety and hope that might come from intervening in nature.The project title Orgone Reef is derived from this tradition — orgone was coined by Wilhelm Reich, a psychologist working alongside Freud, to suggest a subtle life force encircling the world. Reich, whose work was tinged by mystic obsession, saw the world as an intelligent, evolving entity. From a historical perspective his visions offer a poignant alternative to the Modern version of progress. 

Philip Beesley is an artist and professor of architecture at the University of Waterloo. His geotextile sculptures combine natural environments and artificial technologies.

O n S ite review

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Elemental surfaces Hamilton Hadden

f reefall is an artificial surface designed to control runoff from strip mines. It is also a way to describe how rain descends to the earth’s surface from above it. It is the kinetic energy that a droplet possessed before it became a droplet; the potential existed in a different state. Vaporous water prefers the tumbling air currents to gravity’s singular, downward attraction. Any earthly surface, and in particular a roof, seeks to move the water that falls on it. Despite the static nature of many roof plans, the surface actively shapes the flow of water along, across and over it. In a rainstorm, the roof is not the only surface that manages these patterns; in its deluge water becomes another surface, covering the roof with a liquid coat. These surfaces together constitute the entire architectural surface. An analog to this relationship between roof surface and water surface is the mutually dependent relationship between our rib cage and our

lungs. The pleural wall is not a wall at all, it is rather the sheer, unbroken contact of two surfaces: the interior surface of our rib cage and the exterior surface of our lungs. Muscles expand our ribs and diaphragm outward from the body, and the vacuum that is the pleural wall draws air into the expanding lungs. The integrity of the wall’s sheerness delivers oxygen to our bloodstream. So when we allow for a break in contact between water surface and roof surface we should expect a vulnerability to emerge. As immoveable as an architectural surface may seem it is always in dynamic play with the elements pressed against it. Rain is perhaps the most antagonistic actor in this relationship, but it is by no means the only surface element. Sunlight, wind and earth all have a defining role to play with architectural surface; each of these becomes another surface and in this becoming each one defines the architectural surface with its coat. 

Hamilton Hadden studied in Vermont, worked in San Francisco and just finished a masters in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania.

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