AE#10: Porous Masonry Walls

While masonry is often perceived as impenetrable, a suitable material for keeping out wind and rain, it is actually by nature porous, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the specific material and its treatment. Cavity walls, for example, are designed to shed any water that may weep its way through the outer brick and mortar facade. Brick is seen as a veneer that keeps out most air and water, but it is not the sole means of doing such.

Some architects exploit this inherent porosity of masonry -- be it brick, stone or concrete -- by designing walls that allow light, air and water to penetrate. The most famous examples are surely Frank Lloyd Wright's four Textile Block Houses in sunny California. Wright used horizontal and vertical steel reinforcing bars and concrete grout (instead of standard mortar) to create three-dimensional compositions of flat and textured custom blocks, the latter either open or with glass inserts. The 1923 Freeman House shows the wonderful effects of Wright's experimentation, namely making the "gutter-rat" (the architect's term for standard concrete blocks) appear lighter than it really was, ironically aided by the invisible strength and weight of steel.


[Frank Lloyd Wright's Freeman House photographed by Julius Schulman | image source]

A recent example that achieves a similar lightness is Peter Zumthor's Kolumba Diocesan Museum in Cologne, Germany, which opened in 2007. A band in the "brick coat" of the new building -- located directly over ruins of a gothic church -- illuminates this in-between space, what the architect calls a "memory landscape." The "filter walls" create beautiful lighting effects inside the space that is not burdened by requirements for conditioned air.


[Peter Zumthor's Kolumba | image source]

Another project without concerns for keeping out the elements is the Nazarí Wall Intervention in Granada, Spain. Antonio Jiménez Torrecillas's intervention fills a gap in the Nazarí Wall, caused by a 19th-century earthquake. The wall allows passage between its two layers, in which light dapples through the random openings in the stacking of granite blocks.


[Antonio Jiménez Torrecillas's Nazarí Wall Intervention | image source]

Kengo Kuma's earlier Stone Museum from 2000 in Nasu, Japan creates a series of pavilions created from stacked stones, quarried from the same stone as the existing buildings on the site. Unlike the wall in Granada, here the openings are composed in regular patterns. Glass infill in portions gives a colored glow to the narrow slots during the day and at night.


[Kengo Kuma's Stone Museum | image source]

Last is the award-winning design for the offices for Dehli, India's South Asian Human Rights Documentation Centre (SAHRDC) by Anagram Architects. While this is the only image I've encountered for the project, it tells volumes. Openings in the brick wall are achieved not be leaving gaps in the wall (like the three projects before) but by the rotation of the bricks in plan. As the brick moves past a certain angle, the gap between it and its neighbor becomes too large for mortar, and it therefore becomes an opening; the bricks above and below span the opposite direction to make the maneuver structurally sound. Regular rectangular-sized openings are created by the architects' handling of the brick, but the variable coursing of the brick up the wall means the texture of the wall appears undulating, as if the wall is billowing as it rises. It's a beautiful example of what can occur when the architect allows the brick to lead the way, letting the simple form of the modular unit be a guide for more complex patterns, textures and openings.


[Anagram Architects' South Asian Human Rights Documentation Centre | image source]

AE#9: Undulating Brick Walls

A brick is a modular masonry unit, something that wouldn't appear to "want to be" composed into undulating surfaces. Of course this doesn't stop architects from trying, from using limitations as inspiration and opportunities for doing something new. The idea of creating curves from orthogonal materials is not new. Modern examples of undulating brick walls include such mid-century designs as Eero Saarinen's 1955 MIT Chapel, where fairly regular ins-and-outs create an embracing space for worship.


[MIT Chapel by Eero Saarinen | image source]

Similar forms were created by Uruguay's Eladio Dieste, an engineer who exploited a technique of reinforcing brick walls, an innovation that could be considered his own. The Church of Christ the Worker is a stunning examples of how Dieste engineering prowess led to sensually appealing forms, undulating in plan but also leaning in section, following the roof also undulating overhead. The image below shows how he revealed the thickness of these walls, showing how the bricks supported themselves in relatively thin sections, unlike the thick load-bearing masonry walls of the Monadnock Building and the like.


[Church of Christ the Worker by Eladio Dieste | image source]

Thanks to engineers like Dieste, and advances in computer drafting and manufacturing, architects are trying similar forms, but less regular and repetitious. An unbuilt 1999 project in Green Bay, Wisconsin by Office dA -- a firm that thrives on the unconventional composition of materials -- is a good example of this trend. Gaps in a rectangular shell give the impression of carvings in a brick mass. Up close the "truth" is revealed, that the wall is but a wrapper that is manipulated for effect.


[Witte Arts Building by Office dA | image source]

Erick van Egeraat's design for an art gallery in Cork, Ireland is a masonry execution of "blob" architecture, achieved via a thin-joint mortar system, in which bricks are glued together on a backing, more akin to precast systems than the conventional on-site stacking of bricks. Egeraat uses this technique as a sort of flourish in the Crawford Art Gallery's facade, a one-off design not dependent on structure like the earlier examples above. The subsequent implementation of undulating brick walls is more in keeping with Dieste's techniques than Egeraat's.


[Cork Gallery of Art by Erick van Egeraat | image source]

ROTO Architecture's design for a building at Prairie View A&M University in Texas recalls Dieste's expression of the wall's thickness, as well as SITE's series of 1970's Best Product showrooms which treated the brick facade like a thin veneer shed by the big box behind it. Prairie View's brick facade peels away to allow access to, and light to enter, the interior. This playful maneuver activates a long elevation otherwise punctuated by small, apparently random windows.


[Architecture and Art Building by ROTO Architects | image source]

Last is 290 Mulberry, a condo building now under construction in New York City. Designed by SHoP Architects, the facades are covered in a patterned brick that appears at once undulating and folded. The vertical joints in the rendering below make me believe that the construction is more akin to the precast Crawford Art Gallery than the other examples here. In design it recalls the mid-century designs of Saarinen and Dieste, where repetition is key; it is evident here, but in a more complex and decorative form. It creates a pattern, a texture that unfortunately recalls architecture's past, not its future.


[290 Mulberry by SHoP Architects | image source]

AE18: Urban Rust

Walking around the Lower East Side last week, this Orchard Street residential development designed by Ogawa/Depardon Architects struck my fancy, mainly for its bold use of Cor-ten steel on the party wall facades.


[Orchard Street project by Ogawa/Depardon | photo by archidose]

Thinking of the use of Cor-ten steel -- weathered steel alloy with a protective layer of rust -- in architecture, what comes to mind more often than not are single-family houses and other buildings in desert and other rural locations. (This excellent post by BUILD attests to these qualities.) What does not come to mind are urban structures like the Orchard Street project or Matthew Baird's Town House (part of the BUILD post), though there are examples to be found.


[Orchard Street project by Ogawa/Depardon | photo by archidose | inset rendering by architects]

Ogawa/Depardon's design is an excellent place to start some sort of investigation on "urban rust." Here its use in the nearly completed building is relegated to the primarily solid sides that follow the property lines, shared with the neighbors to the north and south. It's interesting to note how the initial design (inset) not only featured openings projecting over the adjacent building (via air rights, I'm guessing) but also covered more faces with the Cor-ten steel. An almost homogenous wrapper became two parallel planes that strongly demarcate the zoning profile. Nevertheless this material is a big improvement over similarly scaled "pencil" buildings in the area that use less inspiring materials.


[Kavel 37 by Heren 5 architecten, 2000 | screenshot from architect's web page]

Heren 5's Kavel 37 (Plot 37, above) in Borneo, Amsterdam is an infill building that composes the whole front face in Cor-ten steel. But where the Orchard Street project is less than subtle, the perforated sheets here give a lightness to a material that typically feels heavy, especially when one thinks of Richard Serra's thick-walled sculptures. These sheets allow light to filter inside, and the operable facade allows the material do disappear in some areas.


[CaixaForum by Herzog & de Meuron, 2008 | photo by m_granados]

Herzog & de Meuron's design for CaixaForum in Madrid, Spain can be seen as a melding of the above two projects. The use of Cor-ten steel is both monumental and perforated, heavy and light, wrapping multiple sides to become a counter-intuitive gesture: a steel box (apparently solid the way it is carved) sitting on an existing building that appears to float above the ground. Its contrast with the Patric Blanc wall is also worth noting, given that most photos present this plaza view as the image of the building. Where the first two pieces of architecture are buildings, this design comes across as monumental sculpture, though I'd be surprised if Serra appreciated it.

To find urban buildings clad in Cor-ten steel, not surprisingly one of the best sources is flickr, particularly COR-TEN Steel pool. Many artworks populate the now 1,700 photos, and a few buildings are featured repeatedly, such as CaixaForum and Steven Holl's 2006 School of Art & Art History at the University of Iowa. Many new-found gems are to be found, like CUBO's extension of Odense Universitet beautifully shot by cphark. The buildings that follow were discovered via the COR-TEN Steel pool.


[Gazzano House by Amin Taha Architects | image source]

Amin Taha -- who apparently really likes Cor-ten, according to recent news -- designed the award-winning Gazzano House for a Conservation Area with warehouses and offices in London's Farringdon area. The six-story building takes advantage of its corner location, wrapping these two faces in a Cor-ten rainscreen facade that is punctuated by random vertical and horizontal openings.


[Parkway Gate by Ian Simpson Architects, 2008 | image source]

Also in England, in Manchester, is Parkway Gate by Ian Simpson Architects. Three towers for student housing exhibit similar forms and facade patterns, but each uses different materials in the solid areas to create a unique identity for each and for variety on the skyline. Not surprisingly the Cor-ten-clad tower exudes a particularly strong presence, especially when it is reflected in the glass of the other towers.


[Performers House Folk High School by Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, 2007 | photo by martin8th | image source]

Finally, the Performers House Folk High School in Silkeborg, Denmark by Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects benefits from an urban site open on all sides. Located in the town's historic and revitalized Paper Mill industrial area, allusions to warehouses, single-room schoolhouses and other typological buildings abound in the gable form rendered in perforated Cor-ten panels. At night, light ekes out through the holes in panels covering windows as well as, of course, any open windows.

Examining the buildings above, a few qualities about the use of Cor-ten steel in urban settings come to the fore: the material does not influence the form of the architecture; treatment of the material is limited to the orthogonal, sometimes cut for access of light and air; monolithic appearances prevail; the material is popular with the trend of random opening compositions; and the consistent finish is what binds these otherwise dissimilar buildings. Ultimately, I think the use of Cor-ten -- popular for a little while in corporate architecture in the late 1960s -- is seeing a resurgence because of Richard Serra sculptures (and maybe other artists producing works in Cor-ten, none I know about) and the desire of architects to align themselves with art, if unspoken or unconscious. I'm drawn to these buildings because they allude to an insusceptibility to the urban condition, to the dirt, wear and violence of the city that is more extreme than weather, to which the material is already protected from.

AE17: Rampscape

In honor of today's start of the 2009 ASLA Annual Meeting & Expo in Chicago, here's a discovered "architectural element" that skillfully combines an access ramp and landscape elements, what I'm calling a rampscape.



The rampscape is located at the Tenth Avenue entrance to the Desmond Tutu Center at The General Theological Seminary in Chelsea, which I noticed on the same excursion as when I saw the Sales Tin. The landscape architect is Quennell Rothschild & Partners. The rampscape is perpendicular to the path of travel to the entrance via stairs. A slope of less than or equal to 1:20 means the ramp does not require handrails. A bench and plantings are located on the equivalent of the landing, corten steel defines the outer edges, and plantings and a stone wall sit between the two runs of ramp.



A surprise element is the fountain running down the middle of the center planting bed. It reminds me of the garden at the Querini Stampalia Foundation in Venice designed by Carlo Scarpa, though Rothschild's design and detailing pales in comparison. Even something as small as matching the mortar to the stone would have helped a great deal here; the off-white color calls attention to the sloppy crafstmanship (I cropped the worst part, the drain and uplight in the fountain's basin). Nevertheless this makes me realize I'd love to see more treatments of ramps as more than ADA requirements and with landscaping integrated into them.

AE8: Angled Bays

It seems like New York firms have a thing for bay windows, but not the usual symmetrical bays prevalent in residential architecture. I'm talking about angled bays that project from facades asymmetrically to orient views and jazz up building exteriors.

The most well known recent example of this architectural element is the Switch Building in Manhattan's Lower East Side. The design by nARCHITECTS alternates these angled bays to give the building its name. A small building that would have most likely been overshadowed by Blue next door, the maneuver holds its own, while offering its occupants captured views up or down Suffolk Street. Bays typically provide seating space for residents, and these are no different. The projections give a public face to an intimate space of the domestic realm.


[photographs of Switch Building by Frank Oudeman | image source]

Further uptown, near Madison Square Park is M127 in NYC by SHoP Architects. The condo project is a renovation of seven floors of an existing building, with five floors added on top. Steel bay windows project from the brick facade on Madison Avenue, creating a distinction between old and new.


[M127 | image source]

As the developer's website points out, "The boxes pop from the street, and communicate from the inside, where a two-foot-deep ledge offers room to sit, look out, and engage the street."


[M127 | image source]

The below view clearly illustrates the benefits of the angled bay: the integral seating space created and the captured view down the street.


[M127 | image source]

Located far from New York but designed by local architects LOT-EK is Sanlitun North in Beijing, China. Working within a predetermined massing from the project's mixed-use masterplan (by Kengo Kuma), the architects were given a 3-meter (10-foot) zone of extension at the front and back of the mass, from which they extended "duct-like metal extrusions with glass fronts...functioning as entrance and display windows for the hi-end retail stores at the lower floors and as large bay windows for the offices located on the upper floors."


[Sanlitun North by LOT-EK | image source]

Set off against the blue metal mesh wrap, these angled bays are an extreme example of the architectural element. Their composition across the facade makes the bays appear abritrary, as if the relationship between outside expression and inside function does not jibe like the other two examples above. But with much more generous depth and height, these bays become literal rooms or room extensions, something completely different.


[photography by Shuhe Architectural Photography Studio | image source]

AE7: Folded Glass Facades

Glass in modernism was theorized as a material whose transparency dissolved the separation between inside and outside. In effect it was a material that disappeared by allowing light to pass through while blocking air, bugs, and most projectiles. Today glass is seen less simply. Instead its presence is explored via a number of procedures, from casting and bending to silkscreening and other surface enhancements. One aspect of this is the transformation of curtain walls from two-dimensional surfaces to three-dimensional, vertical terrains.


[Trutec Building in Seoul, Korea by Barkow Leibinger Architects | image source]

As the production of both architectural designs and construction elements (materials, systems, etc.) has evolved with computers, more complex and varied designs are possible. One example are folded glass facades, which take once-modular components of glass and steel and make them appear more malleable. Barkow Leibinger Architects' Trutec Building in Seoul, Korea synthesizes the modular and the folded by taking a regular rectangular grid and infilling the cells with a prismatic pattern of triangular and trapezoidal glass panes.


[Trutec Building in Seoul, Korea by Barkow Leibinger Architects | image source]

This combination of regular grid and prismatic cells comes across most clearly in the top image, with the highly reflective glass giving the alternating images of sky and built context. It creates an irregular but relatively consistent pattern across the main facade.


[Trutec Building in Seoul, Korea by Barkow Leibinger Architects | image source (PDF link)]

Unlike the Trutec's building "folds in miniature", Krueck + Sexton's design for the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago is a folded glass facade of the macro kind. These large-scale pleats also create difference in how the building is "read": where the Trutec's glass box in effect has a 3d pattern on its facade, the Spertus 's folds create the form of the building. Simply, these are extensions of the decorated shed and the duck, respectively, but within the language of contemporary glass facades.


[Spertus Institute in Chicago, Illinois by Krueck + Sexton Architects | image source]

The Spertus likewise uses a grid to regularize the facade, but this grid in its entirety is warped by the folds. Here the grid relates to the Michigan Avenue streetwall context, and then it consciously eschews it in favor of a contemporary take on what its neighbors are in essence: draped skins on structural frames. Where the masonry buildings nearby have depth from the materials, the Spertus folds its 2d surface into a depth the earlier buildings could not achieve.


[Spertus Institute in Chicago, Illinois by Krueck + Sexton Architects | image source]

Many more examples of folded glass facades can be found, but these two buildings illustrate two strands of that approach to curtain wall design, the micro and the macro.

AE6: Undulating Roof/Column

Undulating roofs are fairly common in contemporary architecture these days, at least for commissions with a budget that can accommodate one. But undulating roofs that incorporate the column structure into the undulations are less common, though certainly more interesting. The blurring of the boundaries between the two functions (protection from the elements and keeping the building standing), stemming from the continuity of the construction (if not the actual structural system), make for very appealing spatial wrappers.


[Nicolas G. Heyak Center in Tokyo, Japan by Shigeru Ban]

The top floor of Shigeru Ban's Nicolas G. Heyak Center (the home of Swatch Group Japan) in Tokyo's Ginza district features a woven lattice roof that foreshadows his Centre Pompidou Metz set to open next year. This smaller-scale version is less integral with the rest of the building than the European museum branch, but the complexity of the structure and the compelling space it creates make the trip to the top rewarding. The reflective flooring helps to emphasize the roof-column relationship, mirroring its appearance as a tree and its canopy or a twister dropping from a cloudy sky.


[Funeral Hall in Kagamigahara, Japan by Toyo Ito | image source]

Also in Japan (and both featured in issue 027 of The Plan) is Toyo Ito's Municipal Funeral Hall in Kakamigahara, Gifu. The remarkably thin layer of sprayed-on concrete covers the funerary functions behind a highly transparent wall that overlooks a pond. The slender columns, some falling within the buildings and others outside, blend into the smooth, white continuous surfaces above. Roof drains are incorporated into some of the columns, (secretly) illustrating the potential in such a design gesture.


[BMW Welt in Munich, Germany by Coop Himmelb(l)au | image source]

Not as subtle as the two examples above, and technically not an undulating roof/column synthesis, per se, is Coop Himmelb(l)au's much-published design for BMW Welt, the carmaker's delivery building in Munich. A super-scaled "column" appears to support the massive, solar-panelled roof, like all of its energy collected into one swirling point. The glass- and metal-clad "double cone" is an exhibition and event space, the "architectural and communicational origin of the building." This last snippet from BMW seems appropriate in the context of this post, as the architecture makes a statement by fusing roof and support, horizontal and vertical. It attests to the power of such a maneuver, and foreshadows more to come.

AE16: Imitation Wood Grain Panels

When I hear the phrase "imitation wood grain panels" I immediately think of station wagons from the 1970s, particularly my family's Ford Pinto wagon, similar to the one below. The phrase connotes that time period, when plastic started to replace just about every other material, yet people still grasped for the look of "real" materials. And nothing says class like wood panels on the side of a car.


[1977 Ford Pinto station wagon | image source]

The use of wood in architecture is typically of two broad categories: solid and veneer. The former is prevalent where trees are, such as Scandinavia and countries in tropical climates. The latter requires industrial processes and is used for flooring and other applications in the United States and elsewhere. One big difference between these two is that veneer is focused solely on the surface and its appearance, since the ultra-thin wood ply is adhered to a plywood, MDF or other base. Veneer exudes the warmth of wood without the depth, cost and durability of solid woods.


[House of Sweden by Gert Wingårdh | photo by archidose]

A third variation, one in tune with the focus on surface of veneer, is imitation wood grain panels, used primarily for façades and usually in combination with other materials. The House of Sweden in Washington, D.C. by Gert Wingårdh and Tomas Hansen, completed in 2006, incorporates a number of materials on its exterior, including blond wood. But it also uses a laminated glass printed with a wood grain pattern:


[House of Sweden by Gert Wingårdh | photo by archidose]

This pattern (the middle horizontal bands in the top photo) reads as more of a wood caricature than the actual blond wood band (bottom band in same photo), with the former's strong grain contrast. The difference between the vertical face and the soffit in the photo above also illustrates this effect.


[Hudson Hill Condominium by FXFOWLE | photo by archidose]

It's been a couple years since seeing the House of Sweden in person, and I don't think I've seen a similar façade of wood panels since, until coming across FXFOWLE's Hudson Hill Condominium last week. From a distance (above) the façade looks like it is composed of aluminum panels powder-coated a brick or terra-cotta color. A closer look reveals a variation in color:


[Hudson Hill Condominium by FXFOWLE | photo by archidose]

And an even closer look reveals a wood grain:


[Hudson Hill Condominium by FXFOWLE | photo by archidose]

Looking at both the architect's and the building's websites, the exterior skin is described respectively as a "wood-paneled façade" and "a warm natural dark wood appearance." The first says, "this wood is real" while the second says the opposite. The condo web page reveals that the material is Trespa, most likely the Meteon panels, a rainscreen which "consists of thermosetting resins, homogeneously reinforced with up to 70% wood based fibers." These panels utilize wood in their make-up, but the aesthetic affect is completely artificial, given that metallics, "naturals" and plain colors are also available. It's like Pinto in building form, though more appealing in appearance.

AE15: Polycarbonate Panels

Within the span of one week I came across two buildings, storage sheds, that each use polycarbonate panels, a cladding material not uncommon today. A quick flip through the chapter on plastics in Victoria Ballard Bell and Patrick Rand's Materials for Design reveals eight structures that use polycarbonate, be it a bus shelter, church, gallery or residence. Nevertheless it was quite a coincidence to see such similar types of buildings receive such similar treatment.

The Storage Barn in Washington, Connecticut is by Gray Organschi Architecture and is featured at Archinect. The small structure accommodates materials on palettes for the client, a builder. At first it reminds me of SPF:architects' Somis Hay Barn (featured in AE12), another storage shed whose appearance is constantly modified by the amount and configuration of materials stored. In that case it's hay, in this case it's wood and stone. The polycarbonate panels sit behind the materials stored under a shallow eave; they line the interior space and allow light to pass between the materials outside.


[Storage Barn by Gray Organschi Architecture | image source]

In Munich, Germany, 03 München has created a building for Firma Kraft Baustoffe, found at german-architects via their eMagazin. While on a much larger scale than the project above, and incorporating other functions besides material storage, the high shelf (empty in the photo below and full at bottom right) is basically the same parti as the Connecticut storage barn; materials sit in front of the polycarbonate wall lining the interior space. The main differences here are the scale of the storage, the extent of the roof covering the materials and the access road underneath.


[Baustoffhandel Kraft by 03 München | image source]

Neither project really expands on the use of polycarbonate panels, as exhibited in Materials for Design, for example. The translucent corrugated sheets are prized for admitting light, being lightweight and their resiliency to varying weather conditions. The material's use in these two projects is also due to its impact resistance, greater than glass. Therefore it is suitable in an area where palettes and their materials may inadvertently collide with the wall, all the while admitting the necessary light inside. The use of polycarbonate panels elevates what are basically functional sheds into glowing boxes with ever-changing appearances.

AE14: Earth Berms, 21st-Century Style

The term "earth berm" -- preceding building, house or architecture -- conjures up images of 1970's shelters by the likes of Malcolm Wells (author of the seminal Earth-Sheltered House) and others. The recent green architecture trend had to overcome associations with houses built during the decade's oil shortage, buildings rooted in hippie dreams of communing with nature and making the house part of the land. Now the spate of sustainable architecture exhibits a hi-tech appearance, in line with the projects featured by Paul Buchanan in his Ten Shades of Green. But a good deal of architecture -- green or not -- integrates earth as an architectural element, used not only for its thermal insulation but also for metaphorical linking of building and landscape and for capturing more space for use.


[Pachacamac House by Longhi Architects | image source]

The hillside residence in Pachacamac, Peru by Longhi Architects, found over at Arch Daily, is as formally removed from 1970's earth architecture as could be. It harks back even further to ancient stone dwellings in Peru and other American countries. This project makes one realize that earth berm does not equal green or grass; it is whatever is local to the site, in this case basically rocks and dirt.


[Pachacamac House by Longhi Architects | image source]

The section and view above illustrates how the house for a retired philosopher utilizes the hill into which it is buried. From up high the house disappears, while from below it is a combination of stone and glass, with the latter providing selective views for the occupant. The interior reflects the overall parti, as spaces are carved and openings are slots like in a bunker.


[Cooper Point House by Mickey Muenning | image source]

A project that would be at home in Aaron Betsky's 2002 book Landscrapers is the Cooper Point House in California by Mickey Muenning. It is reminiscent of the 222 House in Wales by Future Systems included in that book, a project that melds tradition with advances in structural engineering to create a slender oculus fronting an open plan. But where the house in Britain only opens itself on one side, Muenning's house is basically mirrored, with openings on both sides. This gesture makes the green strip rising over the house act like a bridge, and the house can be said to be fitted underneath this structure.


[Cooper Point House by Mickey Muenning | image source]

But rather than focus exclusively on earth berms in residential architecture, the type that finds close ties with the 1970's green movement, the use of this architectural element in public buildings says more about the its exploitation and potential.


[Torre-Pacheco Library by Martín Lejarraga | image source]

The Torre-Pacheco Library in Murcia, Spain by Martín Lejarraga (featured in a+t's The Public Chance) illustrates a way of blending the building with the surrounding landscape -- artificial or natural -- to create usable roofscapes. The U-shape building is a continuous piece of the larger terrain that is folded into different triangular areas, per the plan above. From the park area the presence of the library is highlighted by skylights poking through the ground plane and palm trees rising from the internal courtyard.


[Torre-Pacheco Library by Martín Lejarraga | image source]

The various spaces focused on the courtyard feature generous glazing and therefore sunlight. These spaces, minus their sloped ceilings in parts, convey little of the fact one is underneath a park. In addition to the library functions are an outdoor reading patio, night study area, lecture halls, conference rooms, exhibition halls, and the park itself, catering to the nearby public schools as well as the growing population in this area borne of sprawl.


[Becton Dickinson Campus Center by RMJM | image source]

Arch Daily also highlights RMJM's design for Becton Dickinson's Campus Center in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. A similar parti to the library in Spain is used, namely locating functions under roofscapes, with lower open spaces created in between (Dominique Perrault's Ewha Women's University Campus Center is an extreme example of this parti). RMJM connects the Campus Center underground to two adjacent buildings. Where the two halves of their design meet at pinch points, terraces are created. Potential uses for the grass roof is not clear in these photos, but it should be allowed, lest a great opportunity be missed.


[Becton Dickinson Campus Center by RMJM | image source]

These few examples show not only that earth berms in architecture are alive and well, but how their use is social as well as environmental. The earth's mass is beneficial for tempering inside spaces -- and therefore reducing the need for energy-hogging mechanical equipment -- exactly why earth berms became popular at a time of limited energy supplies. These sort of projects tend to cost more than above-grade solutions, due to the cost of cutting and filling, but that cost can be offset when taking the savings of energy costs over a long period into account. In many cases the berms need to be combined with other elements, such as facades with solar devices to regulate heat gain.

The Torre-Pacheco Library illustrates the greatest potential for the social utilization of the shared roof/ground surface. It helps that the project is situated in a larger park, so the library can then be "folded" into it, an extension of the various park uses. Like the house in Peru, the library seems a far cry from what we think of as earth berm architecture, but if the earth is topped with green or hardscape is not the issues; it's the reclamation of the roof for other functions. This recalls Le Corbusier's Five Points, but instead of locating the roof out of reach of the public, these projects show the potential in bringing the roof down to a level of universal access.