press pack symposium 2009

1 2009 – Third Edition 5 architects: Burkina Faso, France, Germany, India, Norway.

2009 timetable • Symposium in March in • Publication Sustainable Design (Birkhäuser) • Touring exhibition • Awards in September 2009 TV screening/projection of the portraits of the five nominated architects Announcement of the Collection winner

The Collection manifeste • Project n° 1 Hermann Kaufmann • Project n° 2 Carin Smuts

The founding partners The Scientific Committee

Appendix • Sheets from the book Sustainable Design, towards a new ethic in architecture and town planning to be published by Birkhäuser in June

CONTACTS • Cité de l’architecture & du Patrimoine Marie-Hélène Contal 1 place du Trocadero 75116 Paris Tél : +33 (0) 1 - 58515200 [email protected] - www.citechaillot.fr • EPAMSA Nicolas Samsoen 1 rue de Champagne 78200 Mantes-la-Jolie Tél : + 33 (0) 1 - 39292121 [email protected] - www.epamsa.fr • Conseil général des Yvelines Anne Weber Hôtel du département, 2 place A. Mignot, 78012 Versailles Tél : + 33 (0) 1 - 39077065 [email protected] - www.yvelines.fr • Jana Revedin, architecte PhD Willroiderstr. 13 - A 9500 Villach tél : +43 (0)4242 - 2418213 [email protected] - www.revedin.com

Press contacts • Global Award / Collection manifeste IPC - Dominique du Jonchay - tél:01 47 53 93 70 - [email protected] • Établissement public d’aménagement du Mantois Seine Aval (Epamsa) Véronique Drouet - tél: 01 39 29 21 25 - [email protected] • Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine Agostina Pinon - tél: 01 58 51 52 85 - [email protected]

webSite www.global-award.org

2 g lo b a l aw a r d f o r s u b s tainable archi t e c t u r e

The Global Award for Sustainable Architecture and the Collection Manifeste of Architecture in Seine Aval arose out of the fusion of two initiatives.

The Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine wanted to establish an international prize to sti- mulate debate on sustainable architecture, drawing on the concept proposed by the archi- tect and critic Jana Revedin. This Award goes not to buildings but to architects who share a sustainable development ethic and over the years have put together an approach that is both innovative and responsive to context, culture and diversity.

As part of the Seine Aval National Interest Operation, Conseil Général des Yvelines and EPAMSA (Mantois Seine-aval public development Establishment) wanted to establish a contemporary architecture collection that would stand as a record of the revival of this area. Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoy was built in 1928 in this loop of the Seine. Since then, the city and industry have expanded to the hills and this large area encompasses all that is best and most problematic in the modern urban legacy. Its revitalisation is emblematic of the challenges of sustainable urban development.

Out of these two aspirations emerged an initiative that is unique in its field, called the Glo- bal Award for Sustainable Architecture/ Collection Manifeste of 21st-Century Architecture in Seine Aval. Through the Award, the partners are seeking to instigate a large-scale public debate on the challenges of 21st-century architecture, and through the Collection – an exemplary focus of experiment in the architecture of the 21st century – to raise awareness of the need to build and live differently.

global award for substainable architecture The purpose of the Award is to create an international community of highly talented archi- tects, and to publicise their approach in order to stimulate an awareness of environmental issues around the world. Every year, an international scientific committee(2) chooses 5 architects for their commit- ment to and practice of sustainable architecture, in the West and in the emerging nations, in developed cities and on behalf of disadvantaged populations. The purpose of this commitment to diversity is to stimulate debate and discussion, by fo- cusing on approaches to development, a discovery of architectural productions that have something to contribute, a greater awareness of southern hemisphere countries, a diffu- sion of experience.

The principles applied by these architects are presented and highlighted each year. The main events are: • a symposium in spring at the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine in Paris, where the 5 nominated architects speak about their work, their motivation, their commitment, • the shooting of documentary films on each winner, broadcast on national television channels and on the Global Award website, • a sustained effort of debate and dissemination, through an international network of architecture centres. New in 2009: • the publication of a collection of monographs, • an annual touring exhibition.

3 The Collection Manifeste of 21st-century architecture The principle of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture/Collection Manifeste of 21st-Century Architecture in Seine Aval is to create an open-air museum of architecture through building each year a public project in one of the 51 partner communities of the Opération d’Intérêt national (National Interest Operation). The programmes are matched to the needs of the host communities and differ every year, but they are always small pu- blic buildings. The winner of the Collection is chosen in September by a jury made up of those personali- ties from the Yvelines department who will finance the project and make it live, advised by international experts.The first two projects are currently underway: • Hermann Kaufmann, Austrian, has designed a rural lodge in Chanteloup- les-Vignes, which is under construction, • Carin Smuts, South African, is working on a project for a municipal multi- service retail project in Follainville-Dennemont.

An international network In 2007, the nominated architects came from India, China, Germany, Austria and France; in 2008, from South Africa, Chile, Italy, the USA and Belgium. Fifteen architects in 2009, 255 in 2058 – an international network of architects from every continent is being created. They bear witness to the width and the complexity of the global ecological challenge through the diversity of their architecture that is anchored in territories, cultures, societies that sometimes are miles apart. However, they are united by their quest for an architecture that stands in the frontline of the new sustainable world, on its four pillars – social, economic, ecological and cultural. They have responded enthusiastically to the Prize’s partners’ initiative to testify, build, defend an ethic of architecture.

Seine Aval, an avant-garde area, in pursuit of excellence By 2058, the buildings erected in each of the 51 Seine Aval communities participating in this project will together form a Collection Manifeste, an open-air museum of sustainable projects for the first half of the 21st century.

Global Award for sustainable Architecture, third edition The 5 architects chosen by the scientific committee in 2009 are as diverse in origin as in the first two years, since they come from three continents – Africa, Asia and Europe.

After looking at the work of architects from around the world, the scientific committee has nominated: • Thomas Herzog - Germany • Sami Rintala – Norway • Diébédo Francis Kéré - Burkina Faso and Germany • Bijoy Jain, Studio Mumbaï - India • Patrick Bouchain et Loïc Julienne – France

4 thomas herzog, munich, Germany

Thomas Herzog works in Munich, where he was born in 1941. He is considered one of the founders of bioclimatic architecture, both as a practitioner and teacher, having spent a large part of his life on this task in Europe, in the US and more recently in China. This committed militant of solar energy is also an expert heavily involved in international action on behalf of ecological architecture.

Thomas Herzog studied architecture in Munich in the early 1960s. His quest for an alternative architecture began in the 70s, when he chose inflatable structures as the subject of his doctoral thesis. This was a subject that excited a whole post- 1968 or – if one prefers – pre-ecological generation, in with Archigram, in France with J.P. Jungmann and A. Stinco’s Utopie group, in Germany with Hans-Walter Müller. The essence of inflatable architecture is to be nomadic, temporary, light and easy to install: an early version of “don’t touch earth” … In 1976, Thomas Herzog published a manual of “pneumatic construction using membranes and air”,* which became a global model in the field, reflecting his vocation as a teacher and his taste for invention and technology.

Thomas Herzog founded his practice in 1971. He is one of the pioneers of the theory and application of solar energy, first with houses and then, in short order, with larger buildings, like the student residences in Windberg. He has designed numerous housing schemes in Germany and Austria. He has developed what amounts to a typology of collective solar housing, with comprehensive constructional systems and units designed to take maximum advantage of the sun and, more broadly, of climatic conditions.

Whilst he likes wood, and uses it masterfully, Thomas Herzog is an architect of steel and glass, which he uses to design architecture on a large scale, giving a different view of ecology than the typical alpine school image. Thomas Herzog’s bioclimatic design is the architecture of a big industrial nation. It is first of all profoundly urban: the eco-constructional solutions he proposes are appropriate for industrial or economic schemes, and therefore able to “come into the city”** and even the metropolis. The new pavilions of the Hanover Fair, built in 1996 and 2000, and the Wilkhahn factories, are examples of such integration. It is also founded on German industrial culture – R&D investment is constant and pre-eminent in the process. Thomas Herzog has always worked on a cluster model, in Germany with the laboratories of the Munich Technical University and the technical offices of companies, abroad in partnership with institutes. As an expert in his field, he also heads research and development programmes for the EU.

5 The Solar City project begun in Linz in 1992 for the new Pichling district is typical of this approach, involving the City Council, several developers and building firms in the development of a solar town for 25,000 people, with its own amenities and transport system. The operation was run by the READ (Renewable Energy in Architecture and Design) group, with the engineer N. Kayser and the architects N. Foster, T. Herzog and R. Rogers. The aim of the group was to create a combination of high density and maximum typological flexibility. The “solar city” project also entails active participation by the future inhabitants, who will develop their own neighbourhoods and certain public spaces. The big innovation is the energy supply. There is a shift of scale in solar energy production from the single building to the whole urban area. Solar power “comes into the city”, as an alternative to the traditional economic model of the power station. Joint energy production through “solar” facilities will make the district autonomous and even able to feed part of its energy surplus into the urban grid.

Marie-Hélène Contal

* Pneumatische Konstruktionen, Bauten aus Membranen und Luft – Handbuch für Architekten und Ingenieure - Hatje Verlag 1976 ** Hermann Kaufmann uses this expression in explaining that eco-construction in wood needs to be able to build more than 4 storeys in order to meet the requirements of standard urban schemes.

Thomas Herzog, architect and PhD, taught until 1986 at Munich Technical University; from 2000 to 2006, he was chairman of the Architecture Department. Since 2003, he has been Guest Professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, Graham Professor at the University of Pennsylvania (PENN) and since 2004 Guest Professor at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen. In 2006, he chaired the 4th European Conference in Architecture and Urban Planning. Amongst his numerous international distinctions, Thomas Herzog was awarded the Mies-van-der-Rohe Prize in 1981, the Auguste Perret Award in 1996; the European Prize for “SOLARES BAUEN” in 2000 and the International Architecture Award, Chicago Athenaeum, in 2007.

6 sami rintala (rintala & eggertson), oslo, Norway

The Scandinavian school of sustainable architecture is an acknowledged model, both for its aesthetics and for the degree to which eco-construction has developed. Sami Rintala is an actor who stands somewhat apart on this stage. He defines himself as an artist as much as an architect, and constructs his projects like manifestoes. Through his buildings, he tries to encourage Western society to reflect on its own concept of comfort. He believes that becoming aware of its ecological responsibilities will enable architecture to return to its primary role: providing protective shelters for human beings, building humanity’s relations with nature and history.

Born in Helsinki in 1969, Sami Rintala started working life as a construction worker before going back to college in 1990. His architectural studies read like a Scandinavian bildungsroman: first in Denmark, where he studied in Helsinki and in Århus, then in Finland in Reykjavik, before becoming an assistant in Trondheim and then Copenhagen, where he now teaches. He created his first practice in 1998 with Marco Casagrande. They built installations all around the world which express a critical analysis of the relations between society and nature and of the role of architecture. These performances, halfway between architecture and conceptual art, use light, space and materials as means of expression.

Sami Rintala questions, for example, the development of the house, in Scandinavian societies with a very high standard of living which have moved away from their original sobriety. “In the North all buildings have to be very carefully made in order to tolerate the contrasts in climate. Houses, which are heated for more than half the year, consume imported energy. Building smaller houses would therefore bring considerable ecological and economic benefits, given that the construction industry currently consumes a third of the world’s energy. This question should be a priority, especially in Scandinavia, where people are living in bigger and bigger houses, quite apart from their various summer residences. However, it seems that we have handed over the right to build them to uncontrollable corporations, whose only interest is profit. Is building a house such a difficult task that it has to be left to companies like this? Moreover, the combination of regulations and legal restrictions leads to the use of particular products and systems, which restricts the options for changing things and going back to the essential.” The “Boxhome”, which tries to remedy this situation, was installed in the summer of 2007 by the ROM Gallery for the Oslo Triennial. Sami Rintala built this minimal house himself, fitting the basic functions and four rooms into a cube with a footprint of 19 m².

7 The Kirkenes Hotel was built in 2005 by the Barents Sea, on the Norwegian coast, in 10 days, with the help of three students. Invited to produce a work of art by the Barents Triennial, Sami Rintala proposed producing a useful work by building a refuge for the fishermen and hunters – Russian, Norwegian, Finnish or Saami – who ply their trade across the Arctic. Nothing stands between this shelter and the ocean. Built of wood and brick, heated by a stove, it is minimalist in design and yet deeply anchored, materially and conceptually linked to the site’s physical, mental and poetic resources.

Sami Rintala devotes a great deal of time to teaching, primarily through workshops. He makes students look at the reality of material, asking them to build full-size spaces and “human environments” while drawing their resources from the site, whether on the shores of Scandinavian lakes or in cities.

En 2008, l’architecte crée une nouvelle agence avec l’architecte islandais Dagur Eggertsson. In 2008, he created a new partnership with the Icelandic architect Dagur Eggertsson. The recent projects look deeper into the relations with the history of civilisations and contemporary conceptual art and land art. He draws on these movements to create links with the landscape that are as authentic as the project materials, both in Scandinavia and further afield: Estonia, Italy, Japan, Alaska or South Korea, where he built the Element House in 2006. This house, constructed on the edge of the mega-city of Seoul, is perhaps his most achieved project in terms of a synthesis of art, architecture and nature.

Marie-Hélène Contal

Sami Rintala, graduate in architecture from the Helsinki University of Technology, is a Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim and at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. In 2008, he created the firm Rintala & Eggerston. In 1999, he won the Architecture Review’s Emerging Architecture Award, was awarded the Bauhaus Award in 2008 and the Mies van der Rohe Prize in 2009.

8 diÉBÉDO FRANCIS KÉRÉ , germany / GANDO, BURKINA FASO

Diébédo Francis Kéré was born in 1965 in Burkina Faso, the eldest son of the headman of the village of Gando. At the age of seven, he left his village to go to school in Tengodogo. He then trained as a carpenter and found work in Ouagadougou. From 1985, he was employed as an instructor by BMZ, a German NGO which funds technical training workshops in his country. This early contact with Germany gained him a scholarship to pursue a secondary education. In 1990, aged 25, he went to Berlin and took his baccalaureate. He then obtained a university grant and chose to study architecture at Technische Universität de Berlin (T.U.), graduating in 2004.

The African student at the T.U. did not wait to graduate before starting work. In 1998, he created the “Schulbausteine für Gando” Association,* which collects funds to build amenities in Burkina Faso “which help development and are suited to the climate”. His first building was a primary school in Gando. It offers a very interesting example of how the architecture transposes the ecological rationalism taught at the T.U. to conditions in Gando. As with any good climatic architecture, the school needs to be looked at in section. The transverse view reveals the respective roles of brick walls – which provide compactness and thermal regulation – and an awning roof, separated by a blade of air that cools the building mass. The longitudinal view reveals alternating classrooms and ventilated buffer-spaces, playgrounds, open-air courtyards or grassy areas. Over both of them, the overhanging roof provides shade from the sun and protection for the walls.

The linear volume of the school is maintained by a concrete chain structure. Walls and ceilings are made of clay brick. The architect uses little timber, which is in short supply and vulnerable to termites. The cladding and frame are therefore constructed of welded iron bars and sheet metal made by the village blacksmiths, as are the screens. Cool, well lit and clear in design, the school is an example of the quest for an appropriate solution for an African context. The skills of the bricklayers and metalworkers are employed. Materials found all over Africa are transformed into strong structures and noble shapes. Francis Kéré believes that the stakeholders must be involved in the development process to appreciate its benefits and drive it forward. “And that is equally true for architecture.” In 2004, the Gando school received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

9 Francis Kéré lives between Germany, where he teaches at the T.U., and Burkina Faso. In Berlin, he teaches his students to design urban projects, collective housing and obviously sustainable architecture ... As chairman of the Association, he continues his work of funding projects in Burkina Faso that are innovative both in their programme (training centres, health stations, women’s house) and in their architecture. The association’s biggest partner is the pharmaceutical firm Hevert Arzneimittel, which funded the extension to the Gando school and the library, currently under construction, and has promised financial support for F. Kéré’s African projects for the next 10 years. In Gando, Dano, Ouagadougou, the architect is building schools and amenities, always rational, economical and with a sobriety of line that reflects the reality of the process and of the resources. However, he finds it hard to persuade the authorities that such an endogenous architecture can offer something better than imported western models.

Francis Kéré also has projects in India, in Yemen, in Spain … Worldwide, there is recognition of the benefits of an approach that contributes to national development by an intelligent transposition of ecological rationalism. In Gando, his native village and the epicentre of his work, the school now educates 700 pupils in the much extended building. A boarding centre, a garden and classrooms have been added. These will be followed by teachers’ accommodation and a sports ground. For Francis Kéré, this founding project can be summed up as “a climatic concept that permits development whilst saving energy”.

Marie-Hélène Contal

* « Des pierres pour construire des écoles à Gando » * “Stones for building schools in Gando”

Diébédo Francis Kéré was born in 1965 in Gando (Burkina Faso). He graduated in architecture from Berlin Technical University (T.U.). His projects include: the Women’s House in Gando (2009), a research centre in Tenkodogo (2010) and a community centre in Ouagadougou, in Burkina Faso; a girls school in Dattigaon (India) and the development of a prototype school for Yemen. His work has been exhibited at the Frankfurt DAM (Updating Germany – 2009), in Saragossa (ZaragozaKyoto - Architectures for a sustainable Planet – 2008) and will be shown in 2009 at the MOMA in New York. Upcoming conferences: Alvar Aalto Architecture Symposium August 2009, Jyväskylä, Finland; “Step by Step, building schools in Africa” GSAPP, Columbia University, New York; Housing Workshop in Johannesburg November 2009, Johannesburg. In 2004, Francis Kéré received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

10 studio mumbai (bijoy et priya jain), bombay, india

If Balkrishna Doshi, Global Award winner 2007, embodies the architecture of modern India, from his youth with Le Corbusier to his break with the western model,* Bijoy Jain in his 40s reflects the debates at the heart of contemporary architecture in the BRIC era.**

Bijoy Jain is first of all an architect who is in phase with globalisation, in the sense that his dual western and Indian culture no longer creates the internal schism that marked Doshi and the architects of the postcolonial era. However, he also is in conflict with the forms that globalisation takes in India, a country he considers so absorbed in its growth that it sacrifices its resources – and its culture – to it. He is patiently assembling a body of work that is very clearly ecological and even more clearly contemporary.

Bijoy Jain was born in Bombay in 1965. He studied architecture at Washington University, in St. Louis, USA. He worked with in , travelled, then returned to his native city where he created Studio Mumbai in 2005. “The Studio uses the Indian landscape as a resource and creates spaces that are in tune with local climatic conditions, and with available materials and technologies.” Relatively consensual in Europe, this line of conduct is not so easy to follow in India.

When this brilliant product of the global village returned to Bombay after a 10 year absence, India had become an economic giant. This growth depended on speed of services and, as in China, speed has become a crucial parameter of the economy. The mega-city of Mumbai, with its 15 million inhabitants, is at the heart of this movement. Architects pay heavy tribute to the value of speed. Everywhere, overhasty construction takes no account of the difficult climatic conditions. As a result, both buildings and people are locked in a vain struggle against heat, the monsoon and urban asphyxia, in the absence of a sensible approach to the city’s development.

Slow build “In this country they give you a week to finish a project; ten days later they are already building it. This is a slight exaggeration of course, but I realized straight away that a fine set of drawings is not enough to obtain the quality which I consider to be indispensable.”

11

patrick bouchain et loïc julienne, paris, france

Fifteen years ago, describing Patrick Bouchain’s work as ecological would have caused much surprise in France. Since 1981, he has been better known as an orchestrator of cultural and theatrical action, as a political adviser, a designer of circuses and urban festivals. In the last 15 years, however, Patrick Bouchain has run a sequence of schemes that have become key- projects in the way that they reveal and handle ruptures in French society. Fortified by his belief that “architecture is political and must act in the public interest”, Patrick Bouchain is now recognised as the trailblazer for alternative development in France.

What is an orchestrator? The opposite of a soloist. Since he left the Beaux-Arts, Patrick Bouchain has enacted every role – developer, architect, site manager, performer, fundraiser – to bring life to unusual places in which cultural action revitalises neighbourhoods. With a reliable network of accomplices, he focuses on the essence of the project: finding the right place, building fast and cheap, generating freedom of use. These accomplices are as various as the botanist Liliana Motta, the architect Loïc Julienne, the painter Daniel Buren, or the Malian building labourers who brought their skills to the Lieu Unique site by fashioning the acoustic barriers out of oil barrels recovered from the port side and hammered into shape. Patrick Bouchain employs a minimum of intervention to transform industrial wastelands into spaces of life and culture: the LU factory into the Lieu Unique in Nantes, the Condition Publique warehouses in Roubaix. First he prunes unnecessary expenses – why redo the floor? A simple adjustment to the access routes allows the money to be used elsewhere – why leave the King’s Stable in Versailles empty? It could make a very good … stable, to house Bartabas and his Equestrian Academy. He manages to reveal these spaces through long experience of the circus and fairgrounds, where wonder is created out of little, and through real political skill in breaking down false barriers and regulatory or rhetorical rigidity.

These days, Patrick Bouchain’s focus is on building to meet other vital needs, such as human housing, useful amenities or hospitable public spaces. For him, the essence of architecture lies with the formulation of the programme. “These days, what interests me is to understand the need. I believe in explanation, in a collective vision of the problems and in individual decision (...) People express a need and the response they get is a standard programme. This programme does not meet the need, but it does comply with regulations and budget limits. And then fortunes are spent to build objects that do not fulfil the original need.” According to him, this dysfunction comes from the failure of decision-makers and Government to understand that a historic social and cultural rift occurred at the end of the 30 years of crisis that accompanied the end of a modern industrial cycle. An obsolete model of development continues to be applied everywhere. The amenities it produces have become inadequate. They do not improve day-to-day life, they victimise users and smash budgets, without in the end resolving the ever-growing problems.

In Tourcoing, he is starting the renovation of a small terrace of former miners’ housing. No grand renovation plan but groundwork done well in advance, listening to the needs of individuals and the community. As with all his projects, a visitor space is created on the site.

13 The Atelier électrique (Electric Workshop), project shopfront and restaurant, will open in 2009. His team will be in place to listen to the complaints of each inhabitant. The apartments will be repaired one by one, young people will be trained on site, as always budgets will be met to the last penny through the use of common materials.

So now it’s clear, Patrick Bouchain has always done sustainable development without realising it. Or without saying it. Now he is ready for it to be said. He has understood that, in France, this recognition will help him to explain his work and to “push the envelope” further, now that he is taking on the housing of the truly poor and the terrible rigidity of the system.

Marie-Hélène Contal

Patrick Bouchain a d’abord été professeur à l’école Camondo à Paris et à l’école des Patrick Bouchain was first a professor at the Camondo School in Paris and the Beaux- Arts school in Bourges. In 1981, he co-founded and taught at the Paris School of Industrial Design. In 1988, he became an adviser to Minister of Culture Jack Lang, following him to Blois in 1989 to create the town’s Public Architecture and Urban Design Workshop. His projects include: the Zingaro Theatre by the ring road in Aubervilliers, 1988; the Grande au Lac in Evian, an auditorium for Musical Encounters, 1994; the design of the Lieu Unique in Nantes, 1999; the refurbishment of the King’s Stable in Versailles for the Equestrian Show Academy, 2002; La Condition Publique in Roubaix, the conversion of wool warehouses into a space of cultural production and outreach, 2004.

14 2 0 0 9 t i m e ta b l e

Symposium in Paris on April 6

The Symposium at the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine on April 6 is the first of the 2009 events: • presentation of the 2nd project in the Collection Manifeste by Carin Smuts • announcement of the 5 winning architects, who will speak about their approach and their buildings.

june: Publication of Sustainable Design, towards a new ethic in architecture and town planning (Publisher Birkhaüser)

The Global Award celebrates its third year of existence with its first book, which presents the architects nominated in the first two years through 10 portraits, accompanied by descriptions of their main projects. The book’s authors are Jana Revedin, Curator and founder of the Award, and Marie-Hélène Contal, Deputy Director of the French Architecture Institute and coordinator of the Cité de l’Architecture Award. The book is published in English and French with numerous photos.

autumn: Exhibition

A touring exhibition is currently in preparation for autumn 2009. Light in format (150 m²) and upgradable, it is designed to go on tour in France and abroad, and will present each year monographs on the 5 Global Award prize winning architects and record the progress of the Manifesto Collection.

october: Prize awards

• TV presentation of the portraits of the five winning architects • Awards ceremony • Announcement of the 3rd project of the Collection Manifeste and announcement of the winner

15 T h e C o l l e c t i o n M a n i f e s t e

project n°1

True to form, Hermann Kaufmann designed Project No. 1 – a rural lodge in Chanteloup- les-Vignes – with an apparent simplicity that belies its rigour. He developed the project according to his own principles: to produce an ecological architecture that is affordable for all, by means of extensive prefabrication and overall simplicity.

Planning permission was received, contractors hired, but the timeframes were nevertheless quite long. The building method for “passive architecture”, with integral insulation and renewable energy capture systems, needs to be adapted for implementation in France. The contractors travelled to Vorarlberg to study these methods of adaptation with the architect and to meet contractors already skilled in the manufacture of passive architecture components. Genuine globalisation, transmission of know-how, this joint venture approach will produce rich interchanges between French and Austrian companies. It is also the purpose of the Global Award and of the Collection Manifeste to promote such interchanges.

project n°2

Carin Smuts, South African, is working on the design of the Follainvillle multi-service centre she was commissioned to build, by transposing the method she adopted in South Africa: consultation with users, children as well as adults, listening, analysis of needs implementation of the “do local: materials, details, labour”. She came to Follainville for a workshop with the children of the two local schools, the elected municipal officials, the inhabitants and the local partners - the chamber of commerce, the Parc Naturel du Vexin and the enterprises – so that the project would participate to the development of the area and make best use of its resources. Thus she was able to understand almost intimately the needs. The project (200 m2) will be built on a plot belonging to the village. The programme has been established at the end of all the workshops and the budget is set at 400 000€.

Biography Born in 1960 in Pretoria, Carin Smuts comes from a family of politicians and philosophers (her great-uncle Jan Christiaan Smuts was one of the thinkers who brought holistic principles back into the mainstream), who were unflinching in their opposition to apartheid. After early ambitions for a medical career, Carin chose to study architecture, in the belief that “it would enable her to make an even greater difference to society”.

Since 1989, Carin Smuts has worked in the townships, free of apartheid but still excluded from development elsewhere. Is the architecture she practices sustainable? She says it is, emphasising how: “a sense of economy, an intelligent use of materials, are the very ethics of architecture! But to build in the townships, people must first be able to express a need, formulate a programme, know how to put it into practice. My experience has taught me that this is impossible if people have not regained their own freedom. For me, architecture is simply the means for these people to take back their own lives. Our work is about people.”

With extremely small budgets, Carin Smuts builds amenities, housing, services, not only for but with the black communities. They work with her to establish the programme, and then build and manage it themselves. A Carin Smuts project generates more cultural energy than it uses materials. Just as the Bengali Muhammad Yunus invented micro-loans, Carin Smuts has invented sustainable micro-development, an approach that she sums up in a single phrase: “Do local: materials, details, labour.”**

16 The founding par t n e r s

Conseil général des yvelines places the Global Award for sustainable architecture/ Collection Manifeste of 21st-Century Architecture in Seine Aval at the heart of its regional development policy and is responsible for the institutional management of the project: • showcasing the Prize and the college of nominated architects in the region, • public relations operations to promote the project, • highlighting of the Manifesto Collection with key regional players and the public.

Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine is in charge of coordination and responsible for the scientific quality of the awards. The cultural promotion is headed by Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine in collaboration with a European and international network of architecture centres and experts. Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine organises an annual spring symposium to present the five nominees and their work. It promotes the Prize through a series of productions: • exhibitions on the nominated architects, • publications, • co-production of the TV documentary and DVD publications, • conferences.

The Seine Aval Public Development Establishment, EPAMSA is responsible for developing the Collection Manifeste of 21st-Century Architecture in Seine Aval. EPAMSA’s role is to: • establish with each municipality the detailed programme and provisional budget for the operation, as well as finding the locations for the buildings, • act as the client in the construction process.

Award and Collection Manifeste Curator The curator of the Global Award is Jana Revedin, architect, PhD, founder of the Award. The curator: • is involved in drawing up the development strategy and contributes, under the overall supervision of the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine, to the scientific quality of the general award process and of its developments, • heads every year the scientific committee that selects five contemporary architects who stand out for their innovative and distinctive approach to sustainable development and contemporary architecture, • is responsible for the scientific management of the documentary films on the nominated architects, • performs the role of scientific expert in the oversight of the Manifesto Col- lection of 21st-Century Architecture in Seine Aval.

17 The Scientific Committee

The Scientific Committee comprises the following institutions: • Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine, coordinator – Paris Scientific advisor, Marie-Hélène Contal, Deputy Director of the Institut français d’architecture • Centre International pour la Ville, l’Architecture et le Paysage – Bruxelles Scientific advisor Christophe Pourtois, Director • Deutsches Architektur Museum – Francfort Scientific advisor, Peter Cachola-Schmal, Director • Università IUAV Venezia – Venice Scientific advisor, Benno Albrecht, Professor, Head of the Archittetura sostenibile Department • Museum of Finnish Architecture – Helsinki Scientific advisor, Kristiina Nivari, Deputy-Director • Biennale of Contemporary Architecture – Ljubljana Scientific advisor, Spela Hudnik, Director.

18 Appendix Sheets from the book Sustainable Design to be published by Birkhäuser in June.

Marie-Hélène Contal; Jana Revedin Sustainable Design. Towards a New Ethic in Architecture and Town Planning 2009. 192 pp. 140 colour, 120 b/w illus. Hardcover approx. EUR 49.90 / CHF 89.90 GBP 45.99 / USD 67.37 ISBN 978-3-7643-9938-2 Available in June 2009

The concept of sustainability stands at the center of efforts to develop an architecture capable of meeting the challenges of the future. In urban structures as well as in design and the details of execution, sustainable architecture demands a value-preserving, resource-friendly approach to materials and construction. It was in large part in order to do justice to this development that in 2007, the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine and Jana Revedin created the international Global Award for Sustainable Architecture, which honors architects who have speci cally excelled in the area of sustainability.

This book documents the work of the prizewinners for 2007 and 2008. A  rst section introduces the work and thought of each architect, while a second takes an in-depth look at two or three projects that illustrate their distinctive approach. The 2007 prizewinners are Stefan Behnisch, Germany; Balkrishna Doshi, India; Françoise-Hélène Jourda, France; Hermann Kaufmann, Austria; and Wang Shu, China. For 2008, the honorees are Fabrizio Carola, Italy/Mali; Philippe Samyn, Belgium; Carin Smuts, South Africa; Andrew Freear and his Rural Studio, USA; and Alejandro Aravena for Elemental, Chile.

Name, Address: Please send the completed order form to [email protected] or fax to +41-61-2050792.

Date, Signature: www.birkhauser.ch MARIE-HÉLÈNE CONTAL JANA REVEDIN SUSTAINABLE DESIGN TOWARDS A NEW ETHIC IN ARCHITECTURE AND TOWN PLANNING TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword

From the Avant-garde to Sustainability by Jana Revedin

2007 Nominees of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2007

Stefan Behnisch, Stuttgart, Germany We try to establish modest comfort for work and living spaces — Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research (TDCCBR), Toronto, Canada — hArvard’s Allston Science Complex, , Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA — iBN—Institute for Forestry and Nature Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands

Balkrishna Doshi, Ahmedabad, India My architecture is human, but devised for a specific climate — Sangath, Offices for the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation and Studio Space for the Architect, Ahmedabad, India — Aranya, Program for Low-Income Housing, Madhya Pradesh, Indore, India — iNdian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India

Françoise-Hèlène Jourda, Paris, France Architects must stop building monuments! — Botanical Garden, Bordeaux, France — Creation of a Marketplace and Surrounding Spaces, Place du 8 mai 1945, Lyon, France

Hermann Kaufmann, Schwarzach, Austria We’re just at the beginning of a broad social and political responsibility­ — Ludesch Community Center, Vorarlberg, Austria — Olperer Shelter, Finkelberg in Tyrol, Austria — Allmeintalweg Residential Complex , Ludesch, Austria

Wang Shu, Hangzhou, China A stone wall is like a plant. It has to grow — China Academy of Art, Xiangshan Campus,Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China — Five Scattered Houses, Mingzhou Park, Ningbo, China 2008 Nominees of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2008

Fabrizio Carola, Naples, Italy Local materials and engineering define a new old ethic in architecture — hOTEL Kambary, Bandiagara, Mali — rEgional Center for Traditional Medicine, Bandagiara, Mali — Cultural and Social Center, Bandiagara, Mali

Elemental Team, Director: Alejandro Aravena, Santiago de Chile, Chile Democratic interaction produces more benefit by same investment — rESOrption of a Shantytown for 100 Families, Iquique, Chile — Lo Espejo, Avenida de Lo Espejo, Santiago de Chile, Chile — rENCA, Renca Neighborhood, Santiago de Chile, Chile

Rural Studio, Director: Andrew Freear, Newbern, Alabama, USA Ours is a simple sustainability born of necessity — Fire Station and Training Center, Newbern, Alabama, USA — Akron Boys and Girls Club, Akron, Alabama, USA — mASON’s Bend Community Center/Glass Chapel, Mason’s Bend, Hale County, Alabama, USA — Antioch Baptist Church, Perry County, Alabama, USA

Philippe Samyn, Samyn and Partners, Brussels, Belgium Structure is surprisingly poetic. At any latitude — rOOF Sheltering the Platforms of the Leuven Train Station, Leuven, Belgium — Seed Bank, Laboratories and Storerooms for the Wallonia Forest Region, Marche-en-Famenne, Wallonia, Belgium — Fire Station, Houten Business Park, Houten, The Netherlands

Carin Smuts, CS Studio Architects, Cape Town, South Africa Sustainability is about people — dAwid Klaaste Centre , Laingsburg, Karoo, South Africa — guga S’thebe, Arts, Culture, and Heritage Village, Langa, Cape Town, South Africa — wESTBANkPrimary School, Westbank, South Africa about the authors about the nominees

Illustration Credits “Modernity is revealed, as with Loos or Le Corbusier in its inti- mate connection to history, to culture (…) and in its relationship to the city, a relationship that dictates that every development, ­every invention must measure up to the built city.” 1

Bruno Taut, Glass Pavilion, Werkbund Exhibition, Cologne, 1914 From the Avant-garde to ­Sustainability by Jana Revedin

In view of the fact that a further two billion people will need to be housed hu- manely in the next 20 years, architecture is a profession with a promising future. And in view of the fact that new environmentally-harmful markets continue to ex- pand rapidly despite worldwide energy shortages, there is a need, as there was in the early 20th century, the heyday of reforms, for a holistic understanding of architecture and society that networks technical and social know-how with po- litical commitment. The architectural hype of the past decades has shown just how far removed the profession, as well as the paying public, has become from the notion of architecture as habitat. Buildings serve the purposes of commerce, event-tourism, market identities. They are visited and treated like backdrops, oc- casionally perhaps experienced and only rarely, given the enormous operating costs, invested with sustainable life

Alarming environmental figures, spiralling energy prices and the worldwide eco- nomic crisis brought on by irresponsible investment mean that architects be- come the coordinators of new paradigms. Every individual, every family, every elderly couple, every single mother will in future have to be prepared to invest more for a stable or a better habitat, a sustainable energy supply, clean wa- ter and ecological means of transport. We planners need to fundamentally “re- think” architecture. The hidden (embodied) energy costs of infrastructure, soil disposal, transport costs of non-locally-sourced materials, disposal, recycling, and limited floor plan flexibility are criteria that belong just as much in an energy pass as a building’s annual heating and air conditioning demand.

The re-densification of cities will become a central issue of the 21st century, alongside cultural integration and flexible living and working concepts that ad- dress the issues of global migration. At the same time we need to think back to our roots as craftsmen, as experts in the sparing and resourceful application of statics, proportion, structure, and integrative design. The geographic, tectonic, and climatic conditions of specific planning regions have been carefully studied in our thousand-year-old history of settlement. Traditional techniques for utilis- ing the energy of the sun and wind, the warming and cooling potential of geother- mal energy, gravity, water power, and the energy of light must once again find a natural place in the teaching and practice of architecture and be optimised using innovative approaches to fit local conditions.

1 Rosaldo Bonicalzi, Introduction to Aldo Rossi, Selected Writings, “Aldo Rossi: Scritti scelti sull´architettura e la città 1956–1972” (1975, 1983 in English) p. XX

6 Architect, born 1960

One could strike lucky and learn from the masters, who in the affluent society of the 1980ies, in the “made in…” design capitals of the world, saw themselves modest- ly as urban builders. “An architect is a builder who has learned Latin,” is how Adolf Loos defined his professional ethics. One gets to know places, materials, trades, to respect, even learn to love, the people who make a building and those who make it possible. One studied the tradition of one’s specific building culture, already then almost sacrilegious, the architecture of the European city 2 and sought social, so- ciological, and critical relationships. One trusted only the “proven” masters of the avant-garde 3. At that time, neither architecture nor Haute Couture needed glossy magazines. Yves Saint Laurent’s first designs were made for his Rive Gauche stu- dents to wear on the street while Aldo Rossi wrote “Architecture […] synthesises the whole civil and political scope of an epoch, when it is highly rational, comprehen- sive, and transmissible—in other words, when it can be seen as a style.” 4 Architec- ture was an act of political will, a risk, a declaration. “Who ultimately chooses the image of the city if not the city itself—and always and only through its political in- stitutions. (…) Athens, Rome, Paris are the form of their politics, the signs of their collective will.” 5

Those who experienced in the 1980ies the transition from the manageable markets of the industrial age to the global knowledge and consumer society learned that it was difficult and often costly to transfer certain techniques and material truths from one realm to the other. In Orlando, carefully selected Italian marble panels a mac- chia aperta (with sliced and matching grain) were laid with 2 cm wide cemented joins, destroying both their fit as well as their overall effect. On the other hand, tim- ber roof trusses for town houses in were being dimensioned with the sturdi- ness—and expense—of an army bridge.

A profession at the start of a new ­millennium

If the globe appears to have grown smaller and more comprehensible in the new mil- lennium thanks to new communication technology, it has in actual fact grown poor- er, more overcrowded and increasingly desperate. This is no longer about prosperity. It is about finite energy resources, minimum humanitarian standards for billions of

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Country House in Brick and Steel, homeless people, about epidemics, terror and natural disasters. In this day and age, 1924. Carin Smuts, Social Centre, Westbank Cape Town, who can afford not to advise their clients on appropriate use, construction, integra- 2008 tive approaches, and sustainability? Who is not already trying to make their build- ings energy zero, carbon zero, and for a low-cost economy?

Meanwhile, star architecture continues its dance with the devil, sweeping through new markets in triumphant vanity. Uneconomical temples of prestige that defy grav- ity and ignore the energy of the sun, wind, or ground dominate the test-tube archi- tecture of wildly sprawling cities in the economic boomtowns of the south and east. Irreplaceable natural habitats give way to designer resorts, the illusory worlds of blindly consuming globetrotters with time to kill.

2 Aldo Rossi’s The Architecture of the City (1966, 1982 in English) became an international bestseller. In it Rossi analyses the historic structure of the European city, introducing his notions of “Locus” and of “Ur- ban Ecology.” In his later selected writings, “Scritti scelti” (1975, 1983 in English), he details the thinking of the fathers of the avant-garde, Behrens, Mies van der Rohe, Loos, and Le Corbusier. 3 Jana Revedin, The modern concept of open space, Milan 1991, analyses the efforts of the avant-garde to improve the quality of life of the socially disadvantaged through economical, flexible, and hygienic spa- tial planning in the democratic urban green areas. Her later work Monument and the Modern: the ele- ments of construction of the New Town, Venice 2000 contrasts the “new city” of the age of reform with its typologies, materials, and proportions with the organic form of the natural landscape. 4 Aldo Rossi, “The Individuality of Urban Artifacts” in The Architecture of the City, MIT 1982, p. 116 5 Aldo Rossi, “The Politics of Choice” in The Architecture of the City, MIT 1982 , p. 162

7 As if inspiration and hope speak to us from the pages of the old familiar texts and buildings, as if the overwhelming problematic and responsibility of the profession of the architect draws from it new confidence, one thinks back to the reforms of a time of crisis in the not too distant past: only a century before and within a short space of time, a small group of avant-garde planners reformed the decadent Fin de Siècle figure of the architect as an artist with that of a restrained, economical, and socially-responsible craftsmen, urban builder, and industrial designer.

rETrospective: the urban planner and ­designer of the reformist age

The age of industrialisation brought with it new challenges, new programmes, and a new level of discourse. Materials were experimented with expectantly, Bru- no Taut’s Glass Pavilion 6, Mies van der Rohe’s Country House in steel and brick 7, Behrens’ and Gropius’ factory buildings and first industrially prefabricated hous- ing and settlements 8 and Mendelsohn’s Einstein Tower 9 were milestones of an avantgardistic school of new construction with its own formal language. “The challenge is through artistic means to find forms, that correspond to the machine 10 Walter Gropius, Törten Estate, Dessau, 1927. and to mass production,” wrote Behrens in 1907, and saw an analogy with the Alejandro Aravena, Renca 3, Santiago de Chile, world of technology in “serial repetition and a respect for the inner construction 2008 by drawing its enclosure close around it.” 11

Consequently, housing, urban set pieces, and industrial prefabrication became the epochal topics of the day. The Bauhaus and its fanatical young teachers lib- erated an exploited working class from its unhygienic tenements, created air and sun-filled garden cities, allotment gardens for self-sufficiency in leafy people’s parks, extendable ”growing houses” in prefabricated dry construction at cost price 12, public transport systems in structured green streets, colourful children’s nurseries, cinemas, schools, concert and festival halls.

Economy was the criteria, public spaces that are easy to care for and main- tain, short distances, locally-manufactured materials, self-sufficiency in the use of green space. And at the same time the buildings should please, engender a sense of identity, create an emotional bond. The German housing estates Heller-

6 The “Glass Pavilion”, built for the Werkbund Exhibition in 1914 in Cologne, expressively demonstrat- ed the surprising design and structural possibilities of new developments in the glass industry. 7 The design employed a grid of steel columns to enable a free plan arrangement that united func- tional flexibility with the use of locally-available durable materials, natural light, and strategically placed openings to the outdoor areas. 8 The AEG Turbine Hall, built in 1909, is regarded as a milestone in design history for its rational plan arrangement and use of material, and its maximisation of natural light. This economy of materials was developed further by his students Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer in their designs for the Fagus Factory in Alfeld (1911–1925) and the factory building for the 1914 Werkbund Exhibition in Cologne, which broke down Behrens “classicist” composition into additive elements for specific functions. Their social aim was to achieve a low-cost industrialised means of prefabrication for housing. 9 Erich Mendelsohn’s Einstein Tower in Potsdam (1917–1924), which planned as a revolutionary con- crete construction but then for safety’s sake built in brick, served as a laboratory for new spatial and structural programmes: Mendelsohn went on to build a series of department stores, cinemas, and hotels throughout Germany and later in Israel that profited from the flexible floor plan arrange- ments made possible by steel and glass. 10 Peter Behrens, “Kunst in der Technik” (“Art and Technology” in the English translation of Budden- sieg, p. 207-208), in: Berliner Tageblatt, 29/08/1907 11 Peter Behrens, “Über Ästhetik in der Industrie” in: AEG Zeitung, Year 11, no. 12, June 1909, p. 5-7, (“Behrens on Aesthetics in Industry” in the English translation of Buddensieg, p. 208-209) see also: see also Tilmann Buddensieg, Industriekultur: Peter Behrens and the AEG, 1907-1914. Cambridge, MIT Press, 1984 12 Under the patronage of the industrial union, a competition took place in Berlin in 1931/32 entitled the “The Growing House”. The list of submissions reads like a who’s who of the young avant-garde elite and includes Gropius, Taut, Mendelsohn, Migge, Olbrich, Scharoun, Häring, and the initiator of the competition, the municipal architect Martin Wagner. Industrially prefabricated prototypes were designed according to ecological and economic criteria using innovative materials and were con- ceived as a “kit of parts” with an extendable floor plan (from 25 m²). 8 au, Dammerstock, Onkel Toms Hütte, Hufeisensiedlung, Törten, Niddaaue, Weißen- hof, and the Werkbund were perhaps not always technically up-to-date but remain as popular as ever and are still much in demand with a low tenancy fluctuation rate. They discussed the how affordable, how small, and at what level of building quali- ty a minimum standard of living could be provided, they tested industrial process- es and developed proto-grey-energy concepts. Materials, production, employment situation, logistics, and capital were factored into a calculation of total expenditure. While Walter Gropius passionately pursued the “mechanisation of building produc- tion” in semi-dry and dry assembly techniques, such as used for his model buildings on the Weißenhof Estate—even in the face of “hut camp”-criticism from his own stu- dents—and along with Martin Wagner was of the opinion that mechanisation was only viable for large-scale housing schemes 13, Bruno Taut regarded the problem as a national economic issue and appealed to society and politics: “In 1926, as the small- est unit in Britz (47 m²) with a rent of 45 Reichsmark per month became available, we too believed, full of hope, that things were looking up. However, what went up more than anything else was the interest rate…” 14

Suppressed temporarily by the Nazis, these humane, sustainable, and economical principles experienced a euphoric renaissance in the 1950ies, only to become de- graded in the rush for regeneration or in the hands of new totalitarian powers to an “international style,” an increasingly superficial global phenomenon. The cheerful and colourful housing types, the multi-functional and restrained public buildings, and the urban set-pieces of modern democracy fell by the wayside in the fast-build of the post-war period and the economic boom that followed.

Architect. Today.

Demographic fluctuations and energy awareness, the creation of living and produc- tion environments within the existing urban structure, rationalisation of infrastruc- ture and the construction process, minimisation of global energy consumption and integrative design are issues that architects are now faced with, but they are not new. The previous primarily locally-active but nevertheless socially integrated build- ing lodges, schools, experimental groups, and municipal planning offices today op- erate on a global scale: in the form of international research teams with engineers, sociologists, and energy consultants. Not always so efficient, not always quite to scale and not always humane. As we enter the knowledge age a new definition of the profile of an architect is emerging.

The work, lives, and journeys of the ten colleagues shown in this book demonstrate that it is possible to solve the fundamental and worrying problems of our time in small, modest and yet very definite approaches. The elusive constellation of a light- weight construction with minimal primary energy expenditure, maximum durability, simplest upkeep and widest possible flexibility is a recipe that none are able to offer. A sustainable calculation of investment and amortisation of energy-conscious and locally-sensitive building methods over decades is on the other hand very possible.

The enormous north-south divide only becomes apparent when one compares the different living conditions and economic situations in contemporary Africa, China, Adolf Loos, Haus Möller, Vienna, 1930. Hermann Latin America or Central Europe. Where Scandinavians and the Northern European Kaufmann, House overlooking Dornbirn, 2007 countries were schooled by the likes of Adolf Loos, Alvar Aalto or Jean Prouvé that architecture and design should be true to materials, easy to use and durable, Med- iterranean countries are only hesitantly conceding that they also have cold winters and hot summers. The former colonial countries have first got to laboriously free themselves from the built legacy of their “cultural occupiers,” which paid little re-

13 Martin Wagner, “Groß-Siedlungen. Der Weg zur Rationalisierung des Wohnungsbaus” in: Wohnungs- wirtschaft, 1926, p. 81-114 14 Bruno Taut, “Gegen den Strom” in: Wohnungswirtschaft, 1930, p. 315-324

9 gard to climate or tradition, and find a way back to an architecture of their own that is modern, rooted and yet unfettered by the past.

iN the north …

“The thing is that we all need to work together towards mastering the future,” 15 explains Vorarlberg architect Hermann Kaufmann underlining his political sup- port for the mandatory introduction of strict regulations and eco-labelling, even in social housing. “The enforced introduction of these standards has mobilised construction firms to learn rapidly and develop their abilities so that they can ap- ply the new technologies.” Sustainability is therefore a way of life and has to do with self-imposed restriction. Here well-placed investment in durable materials and innovative technologies can give new definition to Adolf Loos’ Raumplan.

“We architects must finally stop wanting to build monuments,” 16 continues the French architect Françoise-Hélène Jourda, advocating a return to more modesty in professional ethics in France. Where populations are declining and cities are shrinking, less is perfectly adequate. Simple architectural archetypes made of Heinrich Tessenow, competition for a bathing primary, local materials are affordable for the municipalities and also age well. resort, Rügen, 1936. F.-H. Jourda, Market hall, Lyon 2005

… and in the south

The situation is very different in the world of exploding populations, chaotic in- frastructure, natural disasters, epidemics, drug wars, and mass unemployment. “Sustainability is about people. Architecture gives people the possibility of em- powerment to define their who they are, to develop consciously and independ- ently,” 17 says Carin Smuts after 25 years of working for and in South Africa’s black townships, after the completion of dozens of wash houses, market halls, schools, social centres, and art galleries, all developed in workshops and built by local residents which she schools in the use of local ecological building materials and the simplest building techniques.

For Alejandro Aravena in Chile, the settlement problems of the developing coun- tries (the provision of adequate housing for two billion people in the next 20 years) is a simple mathematical equation, to which a solution is needed: build a one million people city per week for the next 20 years with $10,000 dollars per family 18. His rational low-cost settlements invite people to leave their tin shacks and through a personal contribution to the building’s construction encourages them to take part in the overall creative and economic process as well as to as- sume personal and social responsibility.

And Wang Shu escapes the commercial building sector in China by relying on hand drawing to determine the proportions and by learning as much as possible from the building site, where he gives aging craftsmen a purpose in life: square kilometres of recycled second-hand bricks and stones are built as they were in the time of the Ming Dynasty. “A stone wall is like a plant. It has to grow.” 19

Wang Shu recycled tiles posed as in the Ming period. Xiangshan Campus, Hangzhou, 2008. 15 In: “Energiesparen und bauen: wer, wann, wo und wie?”, Discussion with Eva Guttmann, Zuschnitt, no. 30, 2008 16 Françoise-Hélène Jourda, Interview with Jana Revedin for France 5, Lyon, June 2007 17 Carin Smuts, Interview with Jana Revedin for France 5, Cape Town, April 2008 18 Alejandro Aravena in: Fulvio Irace, Casa per tutti. Abitare la città globale. Milan Triennial 2008, p. 18-21 19 Wang Shu, Interview with Jana Revedin for France 5, Hangzhou, May 2007

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