THIS IS CONCRETE

CONCRETE ConCrete QUARTERLY Quarterly SPRING 2016 | ISSUE NUMBER 255 ConCrete spring 2013 | cool concrete | issUe nUMBer 243 Quarterly CONCRETE

CONCRETE QUARTERLYQUARTERLY WINTER 2009 Winter 2012 | public buildings | issue nuMber 242 ISSUE NUMBER 230 AUTUMN 2015 | ISSUE NUMBER 253

Maxxi Museum Visual display Raising standards Zaha Hadid Architects’ Terry Pawson Architects’ Rivington Street Studio’s oscar celebration secret service surrealism by the sea new art museum in Rome new arts centre in Carlow Tomlinson Centre makes the Remembering the genius of Concrete goes undercover to play a Is it a plant? Is it a cheesecake? appeals with swooping curves uses concrete and glass most of concrete’s flexibility in Niemeyer – the man who made vital role at the Co-op’s new HQ – Strange goings-on in the south and lots of natural light to express a quiet confidence adapting to its surroundings CONCRETE concrete cool a BREEAM ‘outstanding’ office of France … QUARTERLY 01 CQ Cover_v2.indd 1 19/02/2013 14:31

ISSUE NUMBER 249 WHAT’SNUMBER IN THEISSUE | BOX? 2014 STILLAUTUMN SWINGING MAKING A SPLASH A windowless white atrium Essex University’s brutalist 1960s The essential rules for building intrigues art lovers at a southern campus gets its groove back with the perfect reinforced-concrete French gallery Patel Taylor’s concrete student hub swimming pool

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1947 - 2017

CELEBRATING SEVEN DECADES OF CONCRETE ARCHITECTURE AND ENGINEERING BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL OXFORD FIRST WAVE OF VEGETATION Stunning visual concrete leaves its Zaha Hadid adds some snaking The new Paris sustainability mark everywhere from the Stirling curves to the city of spires and research centre with a rolling shortlist to the Shanghai docks quadrangles meadow for a roof LONDON COOLING LONDON NIL NEWTON ONE, HADID CENTER TRADE WORLD THE AT How a new generation of city city of generation new a How an with gravity defies ZHA western the in tower tallest The offices is finding innovative ways ways innovative finding is offices cantilever concrete astonishing super-strong the and hemisphere to cut the air-con the cut to Beirut in possible it made that structure

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zaha in montpellier in the shadow of giants what lies beneath Has there ever been a council The Northern Irish visitor centre First-century Roman remains building quite as spectacular as that follows in some famously meet 21st-century structural Hadid’s Pierresvives? large footsteps engineering in Chichester

01 CQ Cover v4_NJ_NW.indd 1 26/11/2012 11:29 CONCRETE QUARTERLY

WINTER 2013 | ISSUE NUMBER 246: CONCRETE LIVING

EXCLUSIVE AND RECLUSIVE FOSTER IN ARGENTINA AND ON THE SEVENTH DAY … Exposed concrete brings simplicity Can the architect persuade How Adrian James built an and style to luxury retreats in the fashionable Buenos Aires of the award-winning home from precast wilds of India and Australia beauty of fair-faced finishes? concrete panels in less than a week

001 CQ Winter13_Cover_v2 - Copy ([email protected]).indd 1 22/11/2013 08:50 WELCOME CONTENTS

I think my colleagues were rather sceptical when I joined The Concrete From the Pantheon to the Moon ���������4 Centre in 2003. If having a marketing background wasn’t bad enough, I had no prior experience of the construction sector at all. I’d worked in Concrete’s glorious past and exciting future the creative industries and in technology, but it seemed that it was going Second coming ��������������������������������������������6 to take some time to earn my stripes among those who had dedicated Why architects can’t resist visual concrete much of their lives to architecture and engineering. The low point in those early days was probably when I admitted that I didn’t know who Stand-out moments ������������������������������� 12 Le Corbusier was. Memorable structures from CQ’s archive Fourteen years on, Concrete Quarterly has a lot to answer for. I went from Exhibition guide ��������������������������������������� 16 proofing the pages to actually reading them, to doing more research about the projects, to asking questions about the finer details of the Lasting Impressions 2087 ��������������������� 20 concrete. Soon I was pinning images of Santiago Calatrava’s Turning Torso Which recent buildings will be icons in 70 years? tower (below) on my desk partition – I was particularly struck by how, as CQ wrote, he was able to “remove any boundaries between engineering, sculpture and architecture”. It seemed that my initiation was complete – it had taken only a year.

In its long history, Concrete Quarterly has covered many of the great masters of architecture and engineering. I may now know their names, and be able to hold my head up high in conversation with colleagues, but it’s the work of current practitioners that has most captured my imagination and respect. During my time helping to steer this magazine, there are a The Concrete Centre provides guidance, seminars, courses, online few projects that stand out as personal favourites: the MAXXI museum and resources and industry research for the design community. Our vision is to make concrete the material of choice, and to enable all those London 2012 Aquatics Centre by Zaha Hadid, Persistence Works studio and involved in building design, construction and maintenance to realise gallery by Feilden Clegg Bradley, David Chipperfield’s Neues Museum and its full potential. the Angel Building by AHMM, and of course the Turning Torso. The Concrete Centre is supported by industry to inform, educate and It’s a privilege to be the current publisher of Concrete Quarterly, and inspire. Our members are Aggregate Industries, Allen Newport, British we hope that the 70th anniversary celebrations planned by The Concrete Precast, Breedon Group, Brett Group, Britannia Aggregates, Cemex, Cormac, Deme Building Materials, FM Conway, Gallagher Aggregates, Centre will do credit to the magazine’s illustrious legacy, as well as helping Grundon, Hanson, Harleyford Aggregates, HH & HE Drew, Hills Quarry all those involved in shaping the built environment to feel inspired, Products, J & J Franks, J Clubb, JJ Prior, Marshalls Group, Moorhouse reinvigorated and proud of the positive contribution that concrete makes Sand & Gravel, Moreton C Cullimore, Morris & Perry, Myers Group, to our lives, by making possible such feats of architecture and engineering. Rotherham Sand & Gravel, Salop Sand & Gravel, Sea Aggregates, Smith & Sons, Springfield Farm, Tarmac, Trefigin, Tudor Griffiths, Volker With Artifice books on architecture, Dredging and Wildmoor. we are publishing a retrospective, The The Concrete Centre is part of the Mineral Products Association, World Recast: 70 buildings from 70 the trade association for the aggregates, asphalt, cement, concrete, years of Concrete Quarterly. Browsing its dimension stone, lime, mortar and silica sand industries. pages, it becomes clear how significant a part concrete has played in our www.concretecentre.com @concretecentre social, economic and environmental development since the postwar period. This is Concrete shares interesting facts about The influence of the material and its concrete and showcases amazing projects via evolution will no doubt continue – our website, blogs, twitter feed and our project whatever lies ahead, it is my hope that and fact adverts. Our mission is to engage the design community and share the endless Concrete Quarterly will continue to possibilities of concrete. capture it. www.thisisconcrete.co.uk @thisisconcrete Claire Ackerman, head of marketing and communications, The Concrete Centre Edited and produced by Wordmule www.wordmule.co.uk Design by Nick Watts Design www.nickwattsdesign.co.uk 4 THIS IS CONCRETE

WHEREFROM THE HAVE years is but a blink in the history of mankind, and 70 even in the life of PANTHEONWE COME FROM, concrete architecture. Concrete has existed in some form since time immemorial, though it is WHERE ARE only in the last 150 years, since TO THE MOON the invention of reinforced concrete, that it has become the most used manmade material WE GOING? on earth, the second most used overall, only exceeded by water. Concrete has a rich and surprisingly long As early as 8000 years ago, a collation of materials including history, says Guy Thompson, but the best naturally occurring cementitious may be yet to come … binders was used for a range of building types from organic earth shelters to major cultural complexes. But it was the Romans who first invented what we call hydraulic cement-based concrete. They built numerous concrete structures, including the Pantheon in Rome, one of the finest examples of Roman architecture, which has a 42m-diameter dome made of poured concrete. In the concrete we pour today, Portland cement is the most commonly used kind, and the process to produce it was invented in England in 1824 by Joseph Aspdin. The name “Portland” may have been originally chosen to encourage a favourable comparison to the popular building stone, or it may merely have been the location from which the product was quarried. As with most English inventions, early development took place abroad, in Germany, Italy, the US and France. In 1867, a French gardener named Joseph Monier decided to add iron mesh – and reinforced concrete was born. Its importance was immense: combining the two materials offered both tensile PAST AND FUTURE 5

Over the next 70 years, CQ was to reflect the rise, fall and more recent renaissance of concrete architecture. One style above all others encapsulates this trajectory: Brutalism. Loved and loathed in equal measure, Brutalism perhaps best encapsulates concrete architecture’s contradictions and its challenges. Today, many iconic exemplars have been lost but many have been retained, reused and listed, having become much loved and an intrinsic part of our towns and cities. As for the future direction of concrete architecture, there are plenty of exciting developments in

ABOVE NASA is developing technologies that use local resources to construct lunar and martian infrastructure. In this research project, at the the pipeline – technologies such University of Southern California, robots would print building, landing pads and roads with concrete made from lunar rocks as digitalisation and 3D printing, for example, and advances and compressive strength, and collapse under wind loads or even CONCRETE WILL in the material itself, such as made possible a whole new set its own weight. The building is still SURELY CONTINUE high-strength concrete, carbon- of architectural forms. Monier took standing today. free cement and new forms of his invention to the 1897 Paris In 1921, another pioneering TO EVOLVE TO reinforcement. All of these will play Exposition and patented it. Frenchman, engineer Eugène BETTER REFLECT THE a part in meeting the challenges In 1903, architect Auguste Perret Freyssinet, unveiled two gigantic NATURAL AND LOCAL of climate change and population built an apartment building in Paris parabolic-arched airship hangars at growth. No doubt the drive for using clearly visible steel-reinforced Orly Airport in Paris. His patent for MATERIALS FROM material efficiency and weight concrete for the columns, beams prestressed concrete was granted WHICH IT IS MADE reduction will shape our buildings, and floor slabs. The walls of the in 1928. Reinforced concrete came and concrete will continue to residence on the Rue Franklin were to further public attention in the This was the world that Concrete evolve to better reflect the natural non-load bearing, but its elegant shell constructions of Heinz Isler Quarterly was established to and local materials from which it tiled facade was much admired. and the bridges of Robert Maillart, document. It was first published is made. Though anchored in the People began to view concrete as both Swiss building engineers. in 1947, some 80 years after the UK, CQ has always cast an eye to a potential architectural material, as From the end of the first world invention of reinforced concrete. the global scene. Perhaps in future well as a structural one, and Perret’s war to the second, concrete In those early years, its content we will look even further: NASA is design would go on to influence became a key material for was informed as much by the already researching the potential many subsequent reinforced- defensive structures. Concrete preceding war years as it was for 3D printing with indigenous concrete buildings. provided shelter in the form of inspired by a brave new hope materials on the moon and Mars. There was another major leap bunkers, and played an important for the post-war future. Then, But the fundamental attributes in the public acceptance of strategic role as floating harbours, concrete was predominantly as a of the material – and its appeal to concrete the following year, when motorways, bridges and tunnels. construction material for buildings designers – will remain unchanged: the 16-storey Ingalls Building At the same, leading architects and infrastructure, although durability, resistance to fire and in Cincinnati, Ohio became the and engineers such as Le Corbusier, throughout this period it was also flood, energy efficiency, flexibility world’s first reinforced concrete Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, used for a range of small-scale of form and function. All of these skyscraper. It took architects Elzner Frank Lloyd Wright and Pier Luigi structures and household objects will continue to provide the & Anderson and engineer Henry Nervi were turning to concrete and decoration, from sheds, architect not only with inspiration N Hooper two years to convince to enhance civilian life, designing garages and fences to tables, but technical responses to their the city authorities that it wouldn’t mass housing, offices and factories. worktops and polished floors. clients’ most challenging briefs. Crafting Contour NIAC Fotolia, Photos: 6 THIS IS CONCRETE VISUAL CONCRETE 7

SECOND COMING

Rough, smooth or intricately detailed, exposed concrete is back in vogue for new buildings of every kind. So why have architects fallen back in love with the concrete aesthetic, asks Elaine Toogood

t a recent panel This trend is clearly visible in the Williams’ Sainsbury Laboratory, the wider picture, but it does give discussion, I was winners of the Stirling Prize. Over Haworth Tompkins’ Everyman an indication of where value or asked to explain last 20 years, at least half have Theatre and Allford Hall Monaghan architectural merit is currently A the resurgence featured a significant amount of Morris’ Burntwood School. perceived to lie. in popularity of concrete exposed concrete. This rises to In each of these buildings, a So what’s behind the renewed architecture in the UK. But the seven out of 10 of the most recent cast concrete structure is exposed popularity of concrete, and the truth is that it never really went winners: David Chipperfield’s internally and five of them also choice to leave it exposed? In away. It is the overt expression Museum of Modern Literature, have concrete facades. Significant conversations with architects and of concrete that has come back: Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners’ numbers of buildings on the within Concrete Quarterly’s own we are simply seeing more of Maggie’s Centre, the MAXXI Centre shortlist for these years also include coverage, some common themes what might previously have and the Evelyn Grace Academy visual concrete. The Stirling Prize start to emerge… been hidden. by Zaha Hadid Architects, Stanton is not necessarily a reflection of 1. It wins awards It is clear that good architecture leads by example and that celebrated, aspirational design influences new work. A string of great concrete projects is arguably bound to inspire more. Architects often refer to other buildings as a source of inspiration. The Kunstmuseum in Liechtenstein by Morger Degelo Kerez was cited by Chipperfield as one inspiration for the concrete of the Hepworth Gallery, for example. Aesthetics plays a big role, but there is also the confidence factor: prior examples

GOOD DESIGN LEADS BY EXAMPLE – A STRING OF GREAT CONCRETE PROJECTS IS ARGUABLY BOUND

TO INSPIRE MORE + Partners Young/Foster Nigel Soar, Timothy Photos:

ABOVE The Aleph apartment building in Buenos Aires by Foster + Partners LEFT Burntwood School in London by AHMM 8 THIS IS CONCRETE

demonstrate that a high-quality The benefits of leaving a penetration without increasing headquarters, the practice’s earliest result is achievable, practically as heavyweight concrete structure floor-to-floor heights, as recently test bed completed in 1994, the well as economically. exposed so as to tap into its noted by Rab Bennetts in his coffered concrete ceilings were thermal mass are much more Five Insights publication. The actually painted white. 2. It’s a good source of widely understood than they essence of this strategy can be thermal mass were 20 years ago. This is found in each of the award- 3. It lasts and lasts Of course, the creation of arguably the most influential winning projects listed above, Thermal mass was a factor in the architecture exists within a broad factor in the trend for internal as well as numerous other choice of exposed concrete for the context of building legislation, visual concrete. contemporary examples. For Greenwich School of Architecture, finance, climate, local environment, Combined with the right example, in CQ 247 (Spring but according to Heneghan Peng’s construction techniques, ventilation strategy, revealing 2014), Hopkins described the Roisin Heneghan it wasn’t the innovation and knowledge. One the underside of a concrete use of exposed concrete at Brent main reason. “Primarily we wanted aspect that has significantly structural floor creates a concrete Civic Centre as “essential to the a robust and durable interior with changed the way that buildings are soffit. This provides an excellent environmental strategy”. an exposed frame to allow us to constructed is the much greater source of passive radiant cooling In many ways, the research and make use of every inch of space importance of energy efficiency, for the space below. It is also a evidence published by Bennetts available,” she said in CQ 250 and the ambition, backed by great way to avoid the monotony Associates has played a key (Winter 2014). subsequent regulation, to reduce of endless suspended ceiling role in the contemporary use of A similar approach was adopted reliance on air conditioning and tiles, and to offer “a sense of exposed concrete for its thermal by Nicholas Hare Architects for improve thermal performance. generosity” and greater daylight mass – although at the Powergen St Paul’s School CQ 245 (Autumn VISUAL CONCRETE 9

2013), where it used concrete CONCRETE HAS A ‘‘to create a tough, hardwearing SOLIDITY THAT FLIES environment that needs no IN THE FACE OF painting”. Robustness and durability emerge repeatedly as attractive OUR INCREASINGLY benefits of exposed concrete, DISPOSABLE especially for schools and public MODERN WORLD buildings, a rationale described succinctly by Paul Monaghan in CQ 256 (Summer 2016). Westminster Academy, he said, “looks the same as it did 10 years ago. If the walls had been painted it would look knackered.” This enduring quality is not just practical, but poetic. “The CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Powergen Headquarters in Coventry by Bennetts wonderful thing about concrete Associates; Everyman Theatre in Liverpool is that it has a solidity which flies by Haworth Tompkins; The Hiscox Building in York by Make; St Paul’s School science in the face of our increasingly building, west London, by Nicholas Hare disposable modern world,” Architects Photos: Peter Cook, Philip Vile, Make Architects, Alan Williams Make Alan Architects, Vile, Cook, Philip Peter Photos: 10 THIS IS CONCRETE

STRUCTURAL explained Hugh Broughton in CQ and insulation. Concrete columns, construction does have an EXPRESSION AND 255 (Spring 2016). “It is reassuring beams and floorplates were enduring attraction, which ‘HONESTY’ IN both in its monumentality and in expressed externally, along with extends beyond the architectural the certitude that it’s going to be “raw” concrete facades. community. Foster + Partners, for CONSTRUCTION there for a really long time.” At this time, modern construction example, convinced the client DOES HAVE was exemplified by exposed for The Aleph apartments in AN ENDURING 4. It has integrity reinforced concrete, a material Argentina to expose the concrete The concepts of structural capable of mass production, and with the argument that “the purer ATTRACTION expression and authenticity therefore essential to solving architectural expression of the reoccur throughout architectural the post-war housing crisis and building structure was to leave history. They were much in delivering the social reforms of the concrete visible”, (CQ 246, evidence in the UK in the 1950s, the time. Perhaps the current Winter 2013). At Hiscox’s HQ in 60s and 70s. Concrete buildings appeal of visual concrete is in York, architect Make said that celebrated the industrialisation part a nostalgia for the idealism the expression of the concrete of their making process, of that period? structure of the building in the unencumbered by today’s Whatever the reason, structural large entrance space was adopted requirements for thermal bridging expression and “honesty” in “as a means to express their brand VISUAL CONCRETE 11

values [of] integrity and honesty” (Summer 2013), but that each (CQ 256, Summer 2016). part of the surface is unique. Concrete is, after all, made from 5. It has many faces natural materials, and its surface Concrete is an inexpensive and expresses these natural variations widely available building material and how the constituents have associated with the most basic come together. The “naturalness” agricultural buildings or utilitarian of concrete is a contemporary spaces such as storage and plant architectural aspiration. It can rooms. But specified carefully and be illustrated by the exposed executed correctly, it can create aggregate of Mole Architects’ beautiful, luxurious surfaces – so Houseboat like a weathered sea far from an “industrial” aesthetic wall (CQ 260, Summer 2017) that it is barely recognisable as and the strata-like layers of Peter concrete. This versatility is another Zumthor’s Bruder Klaus Field often quoted advantage of visual Chapel. At the Everyman Theatre, concrete, as contributors to Haworth Tompkins used concrete CQ’s regular Lasting Impression as part of a palette of “natural and column have noted, including self-finishing materials … to Stanton Williams’ Alan Stanton keep it informal and friendly” (CQ 248, Summer 2014) and Euan (CQ 248, Summer 2014). As ZHA’s Macdonald of Hawkins Brown Johannes Hoffman said when (CQ 259, Spring 2017). describing the practice’s extension Concrete has sculptural potential, to St Antony’s College in Oxford: and the ability to form both vertical “We really like concrete because it and horizontal planes. The best has this natural quality, it can expression of the craft of concrete be crafted and it ages gracefully.” is perhaps architectural precast (CQ 253, Autumn 2015). concrete cladding, often created What of the future? Innovations using advanced factory techniques. in concrete itself and new forms Intricate textures and patterns can of the material will no doubt also be realised with elaborate further broaden the opportunities moulds, such as Níall McLaughlin’s of visual concrete – such as light- facades for the 2012 Olympic transmitting structural walls or Athletes Village based on the Elgin photo-luminescent structures. Marbles (CQ 237, Autumn 2011), Extraordinary lattice-like structures or ACME’s Victoria Gate scheme in ultra-high-performance in Leeds (CQ 259, Spring 2017), concrete (UHPC) are already both bespoke, unique concrete challenging preconceptions of creations. Other early examples what is achievable. Simon Allford include the work of Bill Mitchell or of AHMM summed it up nicely the organic facade of Christchurch in his Lasting Impression column and Upton Chapel in Lambeth from in CQ 251 (Spring 2015): “The the early 1960s. magic of concrete is its history. Perhaps it is this potential for It’s an ancient material, invented individuality that is at the heart essentially by the Romans, but it’s of concrete’s visual appeal. Not almost as if every era rediscovers it just the opportunity for creativity and refines its use.” or its ability “to be moulded into almost any shape”, as described by Jonathan Parr, Foster + Partners’ CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT The Houseboat, Poole by Mole Architects; Victoria Gate project architect for Queen Alia shopping centre in Leeds by ACME; MuCEM

Airport in Jordan in CQ 244 in Marseille by Rudy Ricciotti BY-SA Revest/CC Florent Jack Hobhouse, RoryPhotos: Gardiner, 12 THIS IS CONCRETE

STAND-OUT MOMENTS

Jenny Burridge’s trip through the Concrete Quarterly archive brings back memories of a beautiful Scottish bridge and the British engineer who worked out how to build a ‘tower without ends’ in Paris

oncrete Quarterly may have styled itself as an architecture magazine, but it was Calways at least as much about structural engineering – after all, these subjects can no more be separated editorially than they can in real life. In its earliest issues, CQ was preoccupied with postwar rebuilding and the creation of giant structures such as power stations, factories, roads and bridges: all the vital infrastructure that urgently needed to be rebuilt to restore a battered Europe to prosperity. As that prosperity did return, the emphasis shifted from necessity to more ambitious feats of engineering. Designers were free to let their imaginations run wild, and concrete was more often than not the material to which they turned – even if the vagaries of the economy meant that it didn’t always work out. Going through the CQ archive, I came across a project I recognised because I had worked on it. In Spring 1992 (CQ 172), the late, great, lamented engineer Tony Fitzpatrick, who I worked with at Arup, talked about the design of a tower in Paris, la Tour Sans Fins (“the tower without ends”). This was intended for Paris’ La Défense area, though it was never built. STRUCTURES 13

OPPOSITE CQ’s 1992 feature by Tony Fitzpatrick on the Tour Sans Fins

RIGHT How the 426m-high tower compared with the tallest buildings in the world in 1992

BELOW RIGHT Two sections showing the reducing thickness of the concrete tube (left) and the atrium spaces (right)

BOTTOM RIGHT A model of the tower alongside the recently completed Grande Arche and Bernard Zehrfuss and Jean Prouvé’s 1958 CNIT exhibition hall; and a wind tunnel test

Initially the concept was for a that at the top the structure would Tony described this as “an 500m-tall, 30m-diameter circular look and be much slimmer. Its inherently elegant approach” tower, but this was considered name was intended to suggest as it uses the tower’s own unachievable as the slenderness that the tower just got lighter and momentum to control its (height-to-width ratio) for such lighter until it disappeared, looking movement. The proposed tuned a tower would be 16.7. For like there was no real end to it. The mass damper was to be a large comparison, buildings can be tower was also set into the ground mass set on a pendulum near considered “tall” with a height- in a way that would look as if it the top of the tower, a relatively to-width ratio of about 7, which disappeared below the earth. inexpensive solution. is where the building will start Tony’s article went through the The tower was never built. When to react dynamically to the wind. stages from concept to detailed recession hit in the early 1990s, After some discussion with the design, including the wind tunnel the client decided it was too building’s architect, Jean Nouvel, tests that were done at the CSTB risky a project and they put the the height was reduced to 426m research laboratory in Nantes. design away, hoping to bring it and the diameter increased to 43m, These were done in two stages. out later. That never happened. a slenderness ratio of 10. A set of more simple tests on 13 But when the Millennium Bridge The solution for the stability of models gave information and data in London started to wobble on the tower was to produce a pierced that could be plugged into the its first day, Tony was the engineer concrete tube as an exoskeleton, analysis programme. These then responsible for resolving the with two sections of cross-bracing informed the final design and a problem. He used dampers to solve on opposite sides of the building. larger, more precise model, which it, and he thought back to the The rest of the elevation was was also tested in the wind tunnel. Tour Sans Fins when he came up a punched frame around the The results of the wind tunnel with the solution. windows. The windows could be testing showed that the design Concrete buildings have taken larger higher up the building so was still fairly dynamic in its on ever more elaborate and response and might cause structurally ambitious forms, and the occupants to start to feel concrete towers have become ITS NAME WAS queasy, a common effect from even higher, even more slender. INTENDED TO the lateral movements at the Nearly a quarter of a century after SUGGEST THAT top of a tall tower. The response the Tour Sans Fins, in Summer could have been to further 2015 (CQ 252), we featured a THE TOWER JUST stiffen the tower’s structure, but tower with a concrete exoskeleton GOT LIGHTER AND instead the decision was made to and not one but two tuned mass LIGHTER UNTIL incorporate a tuned mass damper dampers: 432 Park Avenue in at the top of the tower. This would New York. Designed by Rafael IT DISAPPEARED, reduce the oscillations of the tower Viñoly Architects and structural LOOKING LIKE THERE and bring the movement within engineer WSP, it’s also a very WAS NO REAL END acceptable limits. slender tower, 432m tall and just 14 THIS IS CONCRETE

buildings, where the inherent acoustic and fire separation that concrete provides becomes even more important. Aside from towers, for a structural engineer, bridges are one of the most exciting kinds of project. One of my favourites is the Kylesku Bridge in the north-west of Scotland, covered in Winter 1984 (CQ 143). I normally try not to inflict my love of structures on my poor husband, but we drove up the coast from where we were holidaying in Ullapool to see this bridge. “We’ve driven all this way just to see a bridge?” “But it’s beautiful!” The bridge replaced a ferry, which could only run in daylight hours and in reasonable weather conditions. The alternative was an 80-mile detour. So as part of the Highland Regional Council’s

28.5m wide at the base. This gives more stiff than just the concrete concrete tower construction in a height-to-width ratio of 14.9, exoskeleton, which is important cities around the world. Concrete is almost as slim as the original because residential towers cannot overwhelmingly the construction proposal for the Tour Sans Fins. simply be evacuated in high winds material of choice for tall buildings, The difference between the two as commercial ones can. The for its strength, mass and durability buildings is that 432 Park Avenue Tour Sans Fins was envisaged as – qualities that are enabling is a residential building and has an office building and therefore skyscrapers to reach ever greater a concrete core at its centre and needed much longer spans for the heights and achieve ever more a punched concrete tube as its floors and a more open structure. impressive technical feats. This is exoskeleton. This is inherently Right now, there is a boom in particularly the case for residential STRUCTURES 15

THE WIDTH OF THE improvement of the road up to was precast on site and lifted by WATERWAY IS 130M Cape Wrath and round to Thurso, jacks into place from a barge. this bridge was commissioned The bridge was designed AND THE CHANNEL IS and the design undertaken by Ove to be as maintenance-free as VERY DEEP. SO THERE Arup and Partners. It was built by possible, which is one of the WAS NO POSSIBILITY Morrison Construction. reasons concrete was used for the The width of the waterway is structure. There are no bearings OF PUTTING A 130m and the channel is very or joints along its length, but only CENTRAL SUPPORT deep. So there was no possibility at the two abutments where they of putting a central support in are easily accessible. The use of either the permanent or temporary integral bridges is now common, case. The design used V-frames of but was much less so in the 1980s. reinforced concrete hollow-box This reduces maintenance by sections to give a much reduced eliminating one of the elements central span and to add extra that need frequent inspection and lateral stability to the bridge. The replacement. wind loading for the structure is I recommend going to see this probably the highest for any road bridge – the scenery is spectacular bridge in Britain. and the bridge enhances rather The structure was prestressed than detracts from the view. My OPPOSITE 432 Park Avenues uses two tuned mass dampers and has a height-to- concrete, with the outer spans and husband now remembers the width ratio of 14.9 part of the main span cast in situ drive from Ullapool taking all day, BELOW The main span of the Kylesku Bridge on a travelling gantry. The 40m but according to Google maps, it was precast on site and lifted by jacks into central section of the main span should only be an hour. place from a barge Photos: CIM Group and Macklowe Geni/GFDL CC-BY-SA CIM Group Properties, Photos: 16 THIS IS CONCRETE Photo: Nigel Young/Foster + Partners Young/Foster NigelPhoto: 70 YEARS OF CONCRETE QUARTERLY

A new exhibition at the Building Centre explores the social and architectural history of concrete structures over seven decades, and the magazine that was founded to document it

he first issue of engineering that have taken place Concrete Quarterly since the postwar period, and was published by the influenced debates on important Cement and Concrete social issues such as new towns, Association T in July 1947, priced high-rise living and sustainability. one shilling. Over 70 years and And of course, it has told the 260 issues, it has documented the stories behind some of the world’s many advances in architecture and greatest buildings, from the Royal TOP TO BOTTOM American Air Museum, Cambridgeshire by Foster + Partners; the Royal Festival Hall by Robert Matthew; and Sydney Opera House by Jørn Utzon EXHIBITION 17

Festival Hall to Sydney Opera House to the Shard. EXHIBITION PARTNERS This rich history is the subject of an exhibition at the Building Centre in London, which runs from 7 August until 30 October. The Concrete Centre provides guidance, seminars, courses, online Organised by the publisher of CQ, resources and industry research for The Concrete Centre, in partnership the design community with the Built Environment Trust www.concretecentre.com and supported by Aggregate Industries and Graphic Relief, it presents highlights from CQ’s archive as well as showcasing The Concrete Centre’s work. Built Environment Trust provides support for educational, research Seven decades and cultural activities to explore Like the magazine, the exhibition and encourage innovation in the aims to inspire and inform. Led built environment by photography from the archive, www.buildingcentre.co.uk it looks back at the last 70 years of concrete architecture and engineering, with a decade-by- decade review of trends in design Aggregate Industries quarries, through key projects and voices. manufactures and supplies a wide range of heavy building materials Lasting Impression ABOVE Skelton Grange Power Station in Leeds featured in Issue 7, Winter 1949 to the construction industry Inspired by one of CQ’s most www.aggregate.com popular regular features, the WITH PEACE CAME CONCRETE: Lasting Impression video THE ORIGINS OF CQ installation invites leading Graphic Relief creates stunning designers to talk about their recent surfaces using a variety of textures, work and the projects that have After 1945, swaths of Europe world. While timber and steel were patterns and effects most influenced them. faced reconstruction on an both under ration, concrete was graphicrelief.co.uk unprecedented scale – in Britain cheap and relatively plentiful. It CQ Focus more than 450,000 houses had was also undeniably modern, and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Focus installation reflects CQ’s been destroyed or rendered had benefited from the single- 70 Years of Concrete Quarterly: The role as a provider of best-practice uninhabitable by bombing raids. minded inventiveness of wartime. Exhibition is presented The Concrete guidance with a changing exhibit But it wasn’t simply a case of The new technique of prestressing Centre in partnership with the Built on the latest developments rebuilding what had been: this was was quickly employed on railway Environment Trust, and supported by Aggregate Industries and Graphic in concrete products and a chance to create a new society. viaducts, aircraft hangars and Relief. The images in this exhibition are construction techniques. To It was a period of relentless factory roofs, as well as the long- reproduced from the Concrete Quarterly complement the exhibition, The activity as architects and engineers span bridges that made the new archive, except where otherwise stated. Concrete Centre is also organising led the charge into the future, motorways feasible. Housebuilders The Concrete Centre wishes to thank the a programme of events throughout designing schools, hospitals, such as Wimpey and Wates, which Concrete Society and its library, which the autumn (see overleaf). factories, new towns, indeed had built the concrete pontoons holds the CQ archive, as well as Artifice For more details, go to entirely new ways of living. People for the Mulberry harbours at the books on architecture for providing concretecentre.com/CQ70 would travel by motorways, some D-Day landing beaches, were now additional scanning. would live in towers, all would have turning methods such as factory Curation: Nick Jones and Guy Thompson 70 Years of Concrete Quarterly: access to electricity and decent building and mechanised lifting to Focus curation: Elaine Toogood Design: Nick Watts Design and The Exhibition takes place sanitation. There would be new address the housing emergency. The Opcyon Design Company from 7 August until 30 October power plants, sewage works, state- This was the modern world rising Project management: Claire Ackerman, in Gallery 2 at The Building of-the-art collieries. from the rubble in 1947 – the Jenny Watt and Katie Puckett Centre, Store Street, London Concrete was the obvious world that Concrete Quarterly was WC1E 7BT material with which to shape this founded to record. 18 THIS IS CONCRETE

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The Concrete Centre is organising TUESDAY 3 OCTOBER events throughout the autumn 09.00 – 16.00 to accompany the exhibition. All Cafe Concrete @ Store Street take place at The Building Centre in A full day of free, back-to-back CPD London. Events are free to attend sessions alongside the exhibition, but booking is recommended at providing guidance and insight concretecentre.com related to visual and innovative concrete, following on from last THURSDAY 14 year’s highly popular Cafe Concrete SEPTEMBER @ Coin Street pop-up event. 18.00 – 20.00 Delegates may stay for as many Building High, Digging Deep sessions as they like – the space This evening seminar will cover and programme will be formatted some of the practical design and to enable visitors to drop in or stay construction considerations for tall for a while. Last years’ event was buildings, including the stability attended by over 200 architects, of tall structures and the design of engineers and members of the deep raft for the foundations. The wider supply chain. winners of the Structural Concrete 2017 student competition, MONDAY 30 OCTOBER sponsored by Laing O’Rourke, will 09.30 – 16.00 also be announced at this event. 2017 Housing Conference A one-day conference focusing WEDNESDAY 20 on the design and delivery of SEPTEMBER long-lasting, high-performance 18.00 – 20.30 homes, presented by The Concrete The Concrete Quarterly lecture: Centre and the Modern Masonry the workplace past and present, Alliance. This event aims to provide from Centre Point to White delegates with practical guidance Collar Factory on design considerations such as Rick Mather Architects presents fire performance, flood resilience, a preview of the remodelling noise, thermal comfort and thermal and refurbishment of Centre bridging, and health and wellbeing, Point tower, which has given this and an understanding of concrete concrete icon a new lease of life. and masonry solutions for housing. AHMM and AKT II will also discuss It will also present exemplar the design and collaboration projects and give delegates an behind the recently completed insight in the UK’s current and White Collar Factory on City Road future housing needs. ABOVE Cafe Concrete, 1970s style. Drinks at the National Theatre, Issue 112, Spring 1977 – a novel workplace environment concretecentre.com/cq70 EXHIBITION 19

READ THE BOOK

The Concrete Centre is publishing a book, The World Recast: 70 Buildings from 70 Years of Concrete Quarterly, written by Nick Jones with an introduction by Hugh Pearman. It will be published in September 2017 and distributed worldwide by Artifice books on architecture. Focusing on 70 key buildings from the magazine’s archive, The World Recast tells the story of concrete architecture and engineering since the postwar period with stunning photography and eyewitness testimony. It charts the genesis of some of the modern world’s greatest monuments and its boldest ideas, from the ethereal beauty of Ove Arup’s Brynmawr Rubber Factory to the sleek modernism of the Pirelli Tower, the structural ingenuity of Sydney Opera House and the digitally enhanced imagination of Zaha Hadid. To pre-order a copy, visit the Publications Library at: concretecentre.com

SIGN UP FOR CQ – IN HARD COPY

Concrete Quarterly is now available in hard copy through a new subscription service. For an annual payment of just £25 (excluding VAT), you will receive a hard copy of CQ each quarter. For more details, go to: concretecentre.com/cq

TWEET YOUR FAVOURITES ADMIRE OUR ARTWORK Can anything beat Mr Billings’ majestic dinosaur (and hat), as featured in Issue 118, Autumn 1978? The complete Concrete Quarterly archive is free to access Graphic Relief has created a set at concretecentre.com/archive. Tweet your personal of bespoke concrete tiles to highlights from the archive to @thisisconcrete #CQ70 mark Concrete Quarterly’s 70th anniversary, which will be on show at the exhibition at The Building TOP Trinity College Library, Dublin by Ahrends, Burton and Koralek, Centre. The fibreglass reinforced Issue 75, Winter 1967 concrete tiles are cast from a ABOVE Mr Billings’ dinosaur, Milton Keynes, Issue 118, Autumn 1978 ABOVE RIGHT Concrete & Cement Association garden party, Issue 46, polymer relief mould. Designed Autumn 1960 by CQ art director Nick Watts, each RIGHT A sandblasted artwork by Carl Nesjar and Pablo Picasso at the Government Building in Oslo, Issue 44, Spring 1960 represents a decade and features an iconic building or style. 20 THIS IS CONCRETE

In each issue, Concrete Quarterly asks architects which buildings of the past have influenced them the most. But which of today’s buildings will be tomorrow’s icons?

HEPWORTH WAKEFIELD, there’s a bit of me that thinks to the material, and that he was YORKSHIRE, UK concrete should rely on its aiming to produce a surface which by David Chipperfield (2011) aggregate and formwork to make would look interesting both at a Nominated by Catherine Croft, it look good, the greyish-purpley distance across the water and close Twentieth Century Society effect certainly suits the jostling up. I am surprised that I’ve chosen “I love the solidity of the Hepworth cluster of trapezoidal concrete such a smooth building, I’m a fan Gallery, its sense of robustness blocks on the edge of the fiercely of the craggiest Brutalism, but and permanence. It was the first swirling River Calder. Chipperfield this building has such assurance use of coloured self-compacting has said that he likes the way the and confidence, and a profound concrete in the UK, and although pigment gives an unfamiliarity rejection of superficial fuss.” TOMORROW’S ICONS 21

JEWISH MUSEUM, BERLIN, GERMANY by Daniel Libeskind (2001) Nominated by Chris Loyn, Loyn & Co “A building that really made a difference to me was Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin. The particularly fascinating thing was that it touched all the senses. He plays not only with sight, but with balance, by tipping things, with acoustics and with temperature. You enter a cell space, through these heavy doors that slam shut and it’s just a Fallen Leaves. There are thick vertical shaft of raw concrete that’s steel discs, and each one has the unheated. I was there in winter and features of a screaming face cut out it was very cold – you honestly felt in a childlike way. Quite terrifying! that you were in a cell. It was so You step on one and it echoes and dark that at first you couldn’t see resounds around this vast space. that there were any other people in You’re being observed, because there. They were just sitting on the there are windows from the linking floor absolutely spellbound, by the corridors looking down into the terrible reality of the Holocaust. space as you’re treading on the The museum is a sort of faces. I felt really shamed trying to promenade, a journey you go walk across it, I was tiptoeing. It through. At one point, you have to took 44 steps to walk across and I walk across an installation called said ‘sorry’ 44 times. For a building

LEFT Loyn’s own painting of the Jewish to be talking as directly as this was Museum in Berlin absolutely unbelievable.”

BMW CENTRAL BUILDING, LEIPZIG, GERMANY by Zaha Hadid (2005) Nominated by Paul Monaghan, AHMM “In the last ten years, I’d say Zaha Hadid has probably done the most to push concrete forward. She reinvigorated its use, going back to an approach where concrete is treated in a more plastic manner, a much more sculptural play of forms. When I saw her BMW headquarters in Leipzig, there were such big brushstrokes of architecture that you suddenly realised that she had moved to a different level and was able to create big architecture in a very innovative and unusual manner.” Photos: Jaap Oepkes, Torsten Seidel, Hélène Binet Seidel, Torsten Jaap Oepkes, Photos: 22 THIS IS CONCRETE

ROLEX LEARNING CENTRE, in time when the ideal of fluidity when they were building it and I of before. Then at the end of the LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND and technology came together. discovered that I could watch the presentation, she said, ‘But you by SANAA (2010) People had been drawing spaces interviews for all the architects want to know how I’m going to Nominated by Deborah Saunt, that flowed into each other in an who competed for the project, so build it’ and she did this brilliant DSDHA impossibly beautiful way – people I saw Zaha present, and Herzog & five-minute presentation all about “SANAA’s Learning Centre in like Oscar Niemeyer and even de Meuron, and SANAA. Kazuyo the concrete technology that she Switzerland is absolutely amazing, Zaha – but SANAA pushed the Sejima talked very poetically about had been testing on other projects. it blows your preconceptions of technology that little bit extra. I’d the ideal of this flowing landscape The building marries the best what is possible with concrete out never been to a building before that could house all of these parts of architecture and design of the water. It’s iconic because where you saw concrete behave in different functions seamlessly and – it’s amazingly strong visually it expresses not only the ideas a way that seemed impossible. unite public access and learning in but it also took a gear change in of the architect but a moment I was working in Lausanne a way that had never been dreamt technology to make it possible.”

IGLESIA DE IESU, SAN the roof, the plan is projected SEBASTIÁN, SPAIN upwards towards the sky, revealing by Rafael Moneo (2011) that the conventional form of Nominated by Rab Bennetts, aisle and crossing has an informal, Bennetts Associates mesmeric twist. This irregular “Rafael Moneo’s work, like that of main volume is contained within Louis Kahn, embodies many of a regular rectangle, with intimate the architectural values we hold side chapels completing the dear, combining powerful volumes enclosure. with an innate understanding of The substance of Moneo’s structure and materials. Among his approach to construction is recent buildings, the Iglesia de Iesu evident, but here its subservience has an external modesty that belies produces an emotional, a truly inspirational interior. It will contemplative response that surely be seen in years to come as upholds its religious purpose. The one of his great works. stark white walls and roof contrast Flooded with light from the with the simple oak furnishings, continuous gap between soaring but a richer materiality would have walls and the floating plane of diminished its clarity.” Photos: Francisco Berreteaga, EPFL-Alain Herzog EPFL-Alain Berreteaga, Francisco Photos: ConCrete Quarterly

autumn 2012 | Olympics special | issue numBeR 241

just add water super bowl homes of heroes Zaha Hadid’s aquatics centre scores How the Olympic stadium The concrete-clad housing at the a perfect 10 for use of concrete – designers used 12,000 tonnes of athletes’ village is set to begin from its tricky foundations to its concrete to create 80,000 of the its new life as London’s most six majestic diving boards best seats on Earth sustainable neighbourhood

01 CQ Cover v5_sp.indd 1 17/08/2012 20:07 The complete Concrete Quarterly archive is free to access at concretecentre.com/archive

Tweet your personal highlights from the archive to @thisisconcrete #CQ70

ABOVE Concrete paving in Kings Square, Gloucester – from Issue 101, Summer 1974