Constructs Yale Architecture Spring 2008 Constructs Spring 2008 Table of Contents 02 Chris Sharples 03 Thomas Heatherwick 04 Richard Meier 05 “Writing on Architecture” by Emmanuel Petit Architecture Events at the Whitney Humanities Center 06 Yale in China: Alan Plattus and Leslie Lu 07 Eastward Drift by Jason Carlow MAD in China review by Kai-Uwe Bergmann 08 A Field Guide to Sprawl review by Andrew Friedman “Photography and the Built Environment” symposium 09 Energy. Design. Synergy review by Anna Dyson 10 “Constructing the Ineffable” review by Gilbert Sunghera 12 Building Experience by Ted Whitten 13 Blow Me a House by Richard Hayes 16 Book Reviews: Yale’s Re_Urbanism, Perspecta 39; Nina Rappaport’s Support and Resist; Felicity Scott’s Architecture and Techno- Utopia; Archis’s Al Manakh. 18 Spring events: Symposia: “Unprecedented Collaborations”; “Building the Future, The University as Architectural Patron”; and “Mobile Anxieties” MED Symposium Exhibitions: Painting the Glass House and Hawaii Modern 19 Books from the School of Architecture 20 Fall 2007 Lectures 22 Advanced Studios, a snapshot 23 Green at Yale 24 Faculty News Build in Uncertainty by Brad Walters 26 Alumni News Yale Women in Architecture 02 CONSTRUCTS YALE ARCHITECTURE SPRING 2008 INTERVIEW: CHRIS SHARPLES Chris Sharples is the Spring 2008 Chris Sharples Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professor and will teach an advanced studio and offer a seminar, Design Space. Sharples is a partner in the firm, SHoP, Series of based in New York, renderings where he discussed by SHoP the firm’s work Architects and the process of showing the fabrica- making architecture tion and with Nina Rappaport construc- for Constructs. He tion process for a will give a lecture, residential “In Practice,” on building on Monday, April 7. Houston Street, New York, 2007. Nina Rappaport How differentiated in terms of interests are the five partners in your firm? Have your individual roles become more defined now that you have 70 staff members? Chris Sharples We are all interested in the whole process of making, not just the creative act of design, but how one defines a problem and evolves the design criteria. Often this process begins by asking a series of questions that often leads to very unexpected opportunities. Louis Kahn loved “beginnings.” NR This aspect of how to begin a project is fascinating. Often the point of difference or identity between architectural and design by engaging every level of a The precast molds were a large part of the are designing aircraft, you are operating firms is their initial approach to a problem. project—is this rare? cost, while the form liners used to locate the within a specific performance envelope. Even Do you think it is even more diverse between CS We came into the field when brick units in the concrete were relatively though there is variety of forms and programs those who use new fabrication technologies it was still very compartmentalized, in that inexpensive to fabricate. Utilizing a series that different aircraft designs address, the and those who don’t? people crafted their architectural practice of plugs for a single mold, we were able to only common requirement they all must CS The desire to execute what you based on a specialized way of working in achieve a high degree of variability without fulfill is their ability to fly. I never thought our design requires a much better understanding order to limit risk. As a result, many young having to customize each pane. We also passion for aircraft design would eventually of the building industry, and particular skill designers faced a defined path of fixed learned working with the fabricator that we inform the work. We are now dealing with sets need to be brought into the process experience, which may not have directly could project our brick units four inches out fluid environments and sustainability, and earlier. What excites us at SHoP is how taken advantage of their personal strengths. of plane with the adjacent masonry unit. This often the form of the building is a direct we can be more proactive in making the What we are seeing with many recent allowed us to produce multiple versions of correlation of these effects. You can visualize construction process integral to design. graduates is the diverse number of software curving brick panels. There are a number of and model them; you realize that buildings I think that understanding the process packages they have mastered while in historic precedents where the techniques are living environments. I never thought that holistically is a strategy, not just in terms of school. They may know very little about used to manage complex form influenced a building—which doesn’t move—could be developing criteria, but also by bringing in putting an actual building together, but they the way architects could reveal a material’s just as, if not more, complex than an aircraft. industry experience to the table, such as have the capacity and confidence to navigate qualities through the effects of fabrication. NR How does the integration of subcontractors, cost estimators, and CMs. a complex process with these new tools. You Rudolph Steiner’s Goetheneum and Gaudi’s design and all the elements that go into NR How do you develop a model match these new skill sets with an architect Casa Mila are two good examples. making a building or urban-design project for thinking creatively about design while with five to ten years of design experience NR The more you understand the relate to your Design Space seminar at Yale? planning all the organizational aspects and you have a fabulous combination. From technology, the better you can manipulate CS Locating a project’s design and staying within the parameters of the day one, young graduates and interns have the effects… space is all about understanding the forces client’s budget so that design is not value- the potential to be directly involved in the CS Absolutely. For Battery Park that inform the design criteria—real estate engineered out at the end of a project? design process. With urban design it is a bit City we designed a permanent bridge using models, planning models, public-agency CS In some cases you might know different. What we try and expose to the staff shipbuilding technology and ETFE cladding. impact, constructability—all of which have enough about the parameters to make is how important it is to draw city agencies We produced the CD drawings and will different scales of importance. The more yourself dangerous, and that is something and communities into the design process work with a boat manufacturer to build forces you bring to the table, the better you that architects in general are not used to in order to build the design criteria from the larger sections and then barge them in. We are at fashioning a specific problem to get grappling with. People think the process feedback before one actually even begins hope to do it in a matter of weeks, rather the right answer, which takes a lot of creative of building is getting complicated with the process of design. This approach asks than months, without shutting down the 9A input. You are trying to define a working new technologies, but it has always been the architect to be more proactive about the highway. envelope and the effects of all the conditions a complex negotiation—it’s just that the process of public engagement. NR You have always referred to the that define that, and, if it is done right, it profession over the years has abdicated NR How are the new technologies prowess of automotive and aviation industry will be the best envelope to manage those much of its involvement in the process of changing what is being produced? How technologies. Why do you think architecture criteria—and that is what makes up your construction because of the concern over do you take all the information and use it to has missed out on that kind of mass customi- design space. I just want to add that Steve liability. In fact, I think construction is becom- make a significant place? zation, and is it possible to build buildings Van Dyke [’04] and Steve Sanderson, both ing a more transparent process. Utilizing 3-D CS In Beijing we wanted to use that way? SHoPpers, will be teaching this seminar with modeling packages like Revit, Digital Project, wood and brick, but marry these traditional CS The difference between the me in the spring. and Generative Components allows the materials with twenty-first-century fabrication aviation and automotive industries and archi- NR What will be the theme and team to coordinate and fix problems before techniques, which is what the Porter House, tecture is that they are designing a repeatable program for your studio? they occur on the job site. And even if a in New York and the Hangil Book House, in object that will be copied, but in architecture CS We will be looking at the project is stopped, you have a virtually Korea sought to do. We are interested in how there are a limited number of opportunities potential for the airport of the future. Airports complete model of the building. You can we can craft traditional materials using new that could utilize such an approach. How can were a direct result of new technology. As really say that you have constructed or technologies and methods of fabrication to design manage a level of changeability? this technology flourished, the experience of assembled a building, even if you haven’t. fashion them in a way that would be reflec- NR Every building could be fabricat- flying became more vivid.