I was quite taken with 100 untitled works in mill aluminum, 1982-1986, Judd’s boxes in the artillery sheds at the Chinati. All 100 boxes have the same exact outer dimensions (41 x 51 x 72 inches), each with a unique interior. (You really have to look inside!). The Lippincott Company, a fine arts metal shop out of Connecticut, which has crafted large-scale sculptures and other pieces for the likes of Karel Appel, Keith Haring, Ellsworth Kelley, Sol LeWitt and Roy Lichtenstein, fabricated the works using Judd’s sketches.
My experience of Judd’s art, which he called “empiricism,” was, indeed, fully immersive and sensory, like when I’m in the throes of a good writing session. Wandering and imagining have led me to the nugget, the story, and the heightened moment is all there is. Walking through the boxes in the artillery sheds, peering into them, I become an actor in a three dimensional canvas of my own imagination — the perfect space of the shed, expansive yet contained, the sunlight from the windows warming and illuminating the aluminum boxes, my skin, the landscape and sky: all is one. I’m in the art.
The simple lines and geometries, the repetition and modularity, the seeming lack of content, the materials and craft, the light and shadow, the scale — they pull me in like good modern architecture, the Salk Institute, for instance, inviting me to imprint, to be imprinted. I stare into the boxes. Like the concrete boxes outside, there’s something elemental and haptic about them, first-building-blocks or primary structure, shelter, foundation, home. Their sameness and difference (like homes, people, sensations, feelings?) is compelling. There’s a beautiful chaos at the micro scale; my reflection is in there, moving, warped, multivalent. The landscape and the sky are in the boxes too. I am brought home to those streets whose names I never learned for lack of need — the eucalyptus, the oaks, those bends in the road and the dirt around them, and the sky framed just so, marking place and direction. I know every inch, my toes in the dirt, the canyons, hot and winding, they’re in those aluminum Judd boxes, memory from contour.
Art as Life
I can’t leave this piece without touching upon Judd’s living quarters, which revealed the pure doing that was his life and art. If permanent installation was what he wanted for his art, he took the notion a step further by living in a canvas of his own fabrication. La Mansana de Chinati, or “The Block,” is a full city block, former army buildings that Judd restored for studios, a library and his home, and which he surrounded with an adobe wall that shields the place from the immediacy of the interstate and railroad on either side. I had run my hands along the opaque wall while walking from the hotel into town, not knowing what it was but sensing something mysterious. Walking through the gate and into the interior courtyard, landscaped with pebbles, Judd’s sparse, rectilinear furniture, cacti and a pool he designed, I felt an overwhelming sense of quiet and calm, and that feeling, again, of having landed on another planet. Everything was symmetrical, the interiors (concrete, adobe, brick) sparse to the point of asceticism, the ornamentation and detail presumably derived from the life itself.
During our tour, the docent paused to let a train pass. We would not have been able to hear him otherwise. He said that the sound of trains in Marfa has always told the story of the American economy: loud with rail meant we were doing well, silence was an eerie telltale. The compound was filled with art, history, silence, rail, light, and shadow. I was staring into the pure form of a Judd box in a beautiful industrial space lit up by the large Texan sky, a train rumbling past. I felt wonder and curiosity, an impulse to make something. Staring into the pure form of a Judd box in an industrial building lit up from a ribbon window sun, a train rumbling past, I felt myself at some intersection of history and vision, in this place that is wild west, industry, war, art and fabrication, a unique combination distinctly Marfan.
Read “Art Mecca Step 1: Wander,” here
Read “Art Mecca Step 2: Imagine,” here
First, why did you become an architect?
My father was a business owner in the hospitality industry and frequently worked with a Japanese architect who would make beautiful models and hand-sketched renderings. I had always loved art, so the profession intrigued me, but seeing the model of a double-height atrium of a restaurant was really the seed that implanted this career path into my head as a child. By the time I got to high school, I was already looking into the Doctorate program at University of Hawaii.
Your doctorate in architecture is still fairly new and rare in the industry—what made you want to further your studies?
I was one of the first classes to graduate with a Doctor of Architecture from the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UH). The 7-year program offered practicum with local and international firms, which I completed in Tokyo and London while working on my thesis. As a local girl who wanted to work in Hawaii, it was the ideal opportunity to attend the local university and build my foundation at home while still getting overseas exposure. Between practicum, I started working part time at a local firm, and after graduating I ended up working there for the next eight years, focusing on retail and restaurant designs with Japanese clientele.
The architecture industry here is quite small and interconnected as you can imagine, but Hawaii is also a global business hub in the Asian Pacific. The UH School of Architecture Doctorate program gave me both a door to the community and the opportunity for me to form strong international relationships and connections.
What are you excited about in the Hawaiian retail/hospitality world right now?
Hawaii’s architecture/interior design scene has changed drastically over the past several decades with a focus on design that transcends vernacular or Hawaii-themed architecture. While cultural sensibility will always be a key tenet of design, we’re looking for different ways to evoke our culture and history through the fundamentals of functionality, proportion, quality of light and space, and raw, honest materials. The Hawaii Regionalism and Tropical Modernism aesthetic that has consistently been at the forefront of our residential and commercial designs is now shifting to make more room for designer originality.
On the other hand, with a wide range of design ideas becoming much more accessible due to globalization and social media, clients often have more of a set vision in mind. The challenge in this comes from creating a cohesive design language from the collage of images they hand us—one that is authentic to both our practice and the mission of our client. All said, I’m excited for WRNS Hawaii to help usher in this new era of Hawaiian design!
What does a “successful” project mean to you?
Hawaii commercial projects are typically fast-tracked (with project duration of less than a year) due to exorbitant building costs and rents. Many projects end up sacrificing something—whether it’s budget, sustainability, time, or design. A successful project means figuring out the right equation to balance all these factors; we can’t always spend $500+/sf, but we also don’t want budget constraints to limit our design opportunities. I spend a lot of time with each client to make sure our visions are aligned so I can design to their best interests. For example, commercial clients usually want the most “bang for your buck” so it’s important to prioritize areas and create spatial features that draw customers. Building that trust is extremely rewarding, especially when the project initiates a long-term client relationship and we become their go-to designers.
What made you want to join WRNS?
A mutual friend introduced me to Adam Woltag, one of the partners leading the Hawaii office, who then introduced me to Jeff Warner, one of the founding partners. Their passion and vision towards the future of Hawaii’s architecture was refreshing, and their energy was contagious. The firm had great work nationally and was starting to make its mark in Hawaii, with WRNS Hawaii already engaged in prominent projects in the public sector. I thought I could help grow the private sector work with my experience and established clientele. Expanding the project types with something tangible to the general public and essential to the local economy seemed like a practical next step to further strengthen the firm’s Hawaii presence.
Other than my experience in Tokyo and London, I’ve always worked at small firms. The thought of joining a larger firm was a bit overwhelming at first, but I soon realized the magnitude of the benefits to Hawaii having access to the great leadership and resources on the mainland. The strong collaborative teamwork and supportive energy was also something I hadn’t seen in other offices, and I was excited to become a part of it.
How do you incorporate WRNS Studio’s core tenets of beauty, sustainability, and the public realm into your projects?
It’s much more difficult to convince clients to spend the extra dollar to be sustainable, especially in retail and hospitality projects. Thankfully, things are changing—people are taking the concept of Mālama ʻĀina more seriously, which roughly translates “to take care of the land so it can take care of you.” Local architectural products and materials are sparse, but people in Hawaii are becoming more conscious with salvaging/recycling materials, upgrading building efficiency, and implementing renewable energy. Although there is still a lot of new development, the majority of the commercial projects in Hawaii are tenant improvement/renovation projects, with adaptive reuse becoming more popular in historical sites such as Chinatown. I think there is a great opportunity for WRNS Hawaii to showcase our skills and talent to create something beautiful and significant while maintaining our historical assets.
What are your inspirations outside of architecture?
I don’t think I have a definitive answer because it’s always different! It can be a form and scale from nature to something as trendy as digital art or fashion to pick up a color palette. In terms of materiality, I get a lot of inspiration from simply researching both new and traditional finishes in the market and envisioning every possible use for them. Most importantly, I think moments of silence are good for me (as I work best after hours alone in the office) so I can connect all the little inspirations that come and go daily.
Lightweight, Green, Efficient
Residing somewhere between stucco and French limestone there’s Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete (GFRC), a building material typically associated with suburban office parks, less with distinguished architectural design. Yet, working with GFRC on several projects in recent years has helped us innovate, using common panelized materials while still addressing issues of scale, texture, rhythm, and even transparency and solar exposure. Produced with far less concrete than cast-in-place, or even pre-cast panels, GFRC is lightweight, cost-effective, and green.
UCSF Mission Hall Global Health Sciences Building
This 266,000 square foot project was initially a design competition requiring an early team commitment of Architects, Engineering Consultants, Contractor and sub-contractors to collaborate from day one to evolve the highest value solution, which was then delivered as a Guaranteed Maximum Price offering to the client. Working together, our team adopted construction strategies and committed to particular forms, materials, and fabrication techniques, inventing the production process alongside the design. Thanks to the early involvement of the builders and manufacturers, technological exploration and innovation became integral to the design vision.
Wanting to avoid a static or gridlocked aesthetic, we adopted a shifting-panel strategy likened to industrial metal mesh. Mission Hall’s skin required a variety of aperture densities and relationships, but it couldn’t be too complex given budget constraints and the need to limit panel types. Given our overall budget goals, we knew we would need large, repeating panel shapes and that the lightness of GFRC would be the most practical way to get there.
Past experience at smaller scales had shown that a material as prosaic as GFRC could be transformed into a cost-effective yet poetic signature feature; however, we had not yet found a way to dematerialize its basic wall-like nature. At UCSF, we wanted to re-invent GFRC as a trabeated wall assembly (column and lintel), not as a masonry wall with punched openings. Our partners, Walters & Wolf, helped us achieve this with a window-box truss system incorporating metal spandrel panels, allowing us to imply a much more open mesh framework than a strictly budget-driven panel wall would have allowed.
Panelization requirements led to a long truss (32” x 30 ft), which accommodated all four curtain wall versions, and streamlined both fabrication and erection. Built off-site, these panels amounted to significant savings for the client. The solution creates interest along the facades while still allowing for flexible and myriad programmatic options within. Because the South and West sides of the building experience stronger sunlight, we tightened the apertures to reduce heat gain, while the North side opened up more to admit diffused light and provide views toward Downtown San Francisco.
How We Got There
Specific patterns, textures, and materials were sampled, developed, and tested in mock-up form to nurture and test our ideas both before and during the production process. Darker Precast Concrete at the building base level along with typical off-white GFRC wall material mockups are shown above.
GFRC pilasters were presented in smooth and wash-board-shadow, and the proportions of specific wall fragments and adjacent window voids were adjusted for solar exposure, spatial and technical reasons, as well as façade-making.
Well ahead of production, we were making careful studies of texture and scale, guided by practical input from the designated panel manufacturers, to confirm we had it right prior to mock-up and production. The resulting panels vary between smooth and wash-board texture to provide shadow, scale, and variability. The light color of the GRFC also provides a contrast to the darker concrete at the base level. The GRFC appears as though it is a framework floating above the darker glass and metal elements underneath, creating the building’s outer “mesh” expression.
Working within parameters of efficient glass size, pushing limits of texture and relief, we arrived at a highly animated open-weave expression, completely free of panelized punched-wall expression with a limited amount of actual panel variation. Compositionally, every effort was made to view simple things in complex ways, to produce more visual interest through proportion, offsets of panels, mirror-reversals local adjacencies, and interrelationship of basic elements. Our tools were limited, but by careful composition, the solution rejects the grid-locked and static pitfalls typical of GFRC panel walls.
Where We’re Coming From
A core tenet of our approach is to tease the poetry out of the practical: to find ways to make an office building (or even a parking garage) beautiful and simple; elegant and functional; practical yet fresh, while improving our everyday experiences. Even the most seemingly mundane materials can be reinterpreted and optimized to provide an articulate and coherent architectural expression. We see something like GFRC not so much as a “budget material” but as the lighter side of concrete.
This year marks the 125th anniversary of the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. A recent event in Honolulu commemorating this anniversary was attended by thousands of people, marching from the Hawaiʻian Royal Mausoleum (Mauna Ala) to the Iolani Palace, where Queen Liliʻuokalani — the Hawaiʻian Kingdom’s last reigning monarch — was forcibly removed from the throne.
Most Americans know Hawaiʻi as one of the planet’s great vacation spots, for its surfing, volcanoes, and Pearl Harbor. I can speak from personal experience that, at least via my own public school education, the version of Hawaiʻi’s history that I received was highly romanticized and biased, and as you can imagine, not in favor of native Hawaiʻians. I can vaguely remember back to 1959 when Hawaiʻi was admitted as our country’s 50th state. For many Americans it was cause for celebration and a statement of progress and great national optimism. But for others, not so much. There has lately been a concerted nationwide effort to revisit our history (not revise), to seek and recognize unbiased and unfiltered truth and in Hawaiʻi, this recognition has never been more evident.
Current anthropology points to the original settlement of the Hawaiʻian Islands by Polynesians from the South Pacific’s Marquesas Islands between 300 and 500 AD. A second wave of settlement followed between 900 and 1000 AD, this time from the Tahitian islands. Using their knowledge of the sea and the stars, the Tahitians navigated their double-hulled canoes some 3,500 miles north, landing first on the Big Island (the island of Hawaiʻi). These settlers came in waves, bringing most everything necessary for survival, including food crops and livestock — none of which were native to the Islands.
This community grew and flourished and by the time Europeans first made contact, the population was estimated between 800,000 to 1,000,000. Hawaiʻi was a completely self-sustaining, ecologically balanced community and by some accounts, one that enjoyed the highest standard of living of any human settlement on the planet. All of that began to change when the British Captain James Cook ran into the Islands during his third voyage to the Pacific. Commanding his sailing ships Resolution and Discovery, Cook first sighted the islands of Oʻahu, then Kauaʻi and Niʻihau and on January 20, 1778, landed in Waimea on the island of Kauaʻi. There are many accounts of ‘post-contact’ Hawaiʻian history, but I found Julia Flynn Siler’s book, Lost Kingdom, to be very clear, informative and most importantly, truthful.
Unlike many of its predecessors, Siler's book eschews the bias and historical perspective of Christian missionaries and their imperial counterparts to focus on the experience of native Hawaiʻians. Siting over 275 sources, Siler explores the degradation of Hawaiʻi's people, culture, and land, culminating in the forced abdication of Queen Liliʻuokalani's throne. For a good review / synopsis of the book, please find it here.
Queen Lili'uokalani
Formal annexation of sovereign territory happens and is internationally recognized through treaty, most often as a result of cessation of conflict (mostly armed). Not that all treaties are fair or are they honored — just look to many of those executed between Native American tribes and the US government — but a treaty between nations still represents an internationally recognized form of agreement and due-process. No such treaty was ever executed between Queen Liliʻuokalani, the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi and the United States Government and thus, the status of Hawaiʻi is not entirely clear. A ruling coming out of an arbitrated case in the Hague’s International Court of Justice and its Permanent Court of explicitly recognizes the Hawaiʻian Kingdom as a State and the acting Government (the current State Government) as its representative, which is also recognition that the Hawaiʻian Kingdom was never formally annexed by the United States, but rather illegally occupied since the Spanish-American War in 1898. So what does this all mean? Well, according to this ruling and the legal minds associated with it, Hawaiʻi is an occupied territory and not really part of the United States.
The overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani and all that has transpired in Hawaiʻi since has, over time, precipitated many groups and movements that have advocated for a wide range of outcomes, from varying levels of Hawaiʻian sovereignty to outright succession from the Union. One of the current and very significant sovereignty movements is the Aloha ʻAina Party. This political party is working to assure social, economic, and environmental justice for the peoples of Hawaiʻi. Their foundational principles are expressed as follows and note, I’ve condensed and summarized:
Aloha ke Akua: acknowledgment of the existence of a higher, spiritual power, and the freedom for all to worship and seek guidance as their conscience moves them;
Aloha Kānaka: love for all the people, regardless of race, color, creed, or national origin;
Mālama ʻĀina: respect for the land and recognition that the relationship between the well-being of the land and the well-being of the people are inextricably linked;
Government Accountability and Transparency: strong belief that the government must truly be of the People, by the People, and for the People and must be transparent and accountable;
Hoʻoponopono: To make right what is wrong, specifically as related to the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi in 1893 – something that must be addressed and rectified.
The principle of Mālama ʻĀina is perhaps the one that most resonates with those of us at WRNS as we celebrate our five year anniversary in the State. One would think that by virtue of its geography, cultural history, and unique physical environment, Hawaiʻi would still — as it once was — be on the forefront when it comes to creating an environmentally sustainable community. Nothing, unfortunately, could be further from the truth.
Located almost in the center of the Pacific Ocean, Hawaiʻi is one of the most geographically isolated places on earth. Within 30 miles on the big island of Hawaiʻi alone, ecosystems range from marine coral reefs to snow-capped mountains. The world's wettest spot, Mt. Waialeale on the island of Kauai, receives over 430 inches of rain per year. Hundreds of different soil types are spread across the islands’ 6,400 square miles and the islands possess a combined 750-mile coastline — one almost as long as that of California. While this isolation has supported the evolution of diverse environments for flora and fauna found nowhere else on earth, it has also enabled a multitude of serious local environmental issues.
The most critical of these concern Hawaiʻi's unique biodiversity and the associated threats caused by introduced, invasive species. While Miconia weed, the coqui frog, and dengue fever spread by mosquitoes have received publicity most recently (and btw, mosquitos are not native to Hawaiʻi), they represent just a few of the thousands of species of animals, insects, plants, and organisms that have been introduced on the islands — many of which have turned invasive, wreaking environmental havoc. Unchecked and poorly planned development has caused the contamination of ground water with organic chemicals, and pollution of coastal waters with sediments and pathogens from both urban and agricultural runoff. The presence of numerous chemicals in active and former military sites represent an additional set of serious environmental challenges. The result of all this is Hawaiʻi’s dubious title as the "extinction capital of the world", with almost 40% of the endangered species in the United States being Hawai`ian species and nearly 75% of all U.S. extinctions occurring in Hawaiʻi. It is within this context that the Aloha ‘Aina Party is advancing the principle of Mālama ʻĀina as one of its key tenets. Mālama ʻĀina — respect for the land — has encouraged a wave of new thinking and activism as related to conservation, energy generation, energy consumption, waste and water management, and agricultural practice. All of it inspired by native Hawaiʻian tradition.
As WRNS celebrates our fifth year in Hawaiʻi, we draw inspiration from Mālama ʻĀina. One of the catalysts for opening a practice here, in addition to personal histories and connections, was our understanding of the State’s critical need for a higher level of sustainability-driven planning and design. We have witnessed in many of Hawaiʻi's residents, both native and local, a great desire to help redirect the state from a continued trajectory that could result, once again, in peril. Of course architecture is only one piece of the puzzle, but crafting buildings and environments that help solve contemporary problems — in ways that are respectful and authentic to the islands’ environment and cultural history — is fundamental to our approach. And we’ve found great need for more of it.
We arrived on-island at an interesting time, as the political will of the people and institutions were beginning to mount a serious campaign to create a place that can be an inspiration and example to the rest of the world. By virtue of its unique geography and cultural history, Hawaiʻi is, in a sense, the ‘canary in the coal mine’ as it relates to the rest of the planet (that is, how Hawaiʻi goes, so goes the planet). Based on our relationships, our point-of-view and our experience, Hawaiʻi represented a natural opportunity in which to participate in the discussions shaping Hawaiʻi's future.
We have been honored to be a part of the following projects:
Planning for cultural gardens at Kamehameha Schools;
Sustainability Advisors to the State Department of Education (DOE);
Development of an Infrastructure Master Plan for the University of Hawaiʻi’s Manoa Campus (a framework to meet net-zero energy and water goals and a plan for resiliency);
Designers for the conversion of a historic UH Manoa gymnasium into one of the campus’ first net-zero buildings;
Developing a master plan for the Kuhio Park public housing community (creating a place of dignity for Pacific Islanders displaced by the US Governments atomic testing in Micronesia);
Designers for a green, high-rise urban school (Pohukaina) that will help create community in a new high-density urban development;
Designers for a high-rise, senior housing and community center project to help fill the acute need for affordable housing for a poorly served population.
In various ways, these projects strive to support the precepts of Mālama ʻĀina as well as Hoʻoponopono — to help right what is wrong. We didn’t come to Hawaiʻi to design buildings that could be anywhere. We came to apply the best of our thinking to help right the ways in which Hawai’I has been wronged — at least as related to planning and design. While the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi represented the end of what was — at one time — a self-sufficient, self-reliant, sustainable community, the event’s 125th anniversary represents somewhat of a re-birth of the notion that Hawaiʻi can and should get back on the path leading to what it once was. WRNS, by virtue of our point-of-view, experience, and deep relationship with Hawaiʻi, hopes to humbly assist.
As Hawaiʻi goes, so goes the Earth: The Hawaiʻian islands as seen from the International Space Station on January 18, 2014; source.
Please refer to the link http://www.hsso.org/kd/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Hawaii-Invasive-Species-Official-List-%E2%80%93-2017-rev2.pdf for a list of Official Hawaiʻi Invasive Species. Note that there is a distinction between "introduced" and "invasive." There are many more species than listed here that have been "introduced" in Hawaiʻi (e.g. the pineapple), but left to their own devices they won't become environmentally "invasive." That is, they cannot exist untended in the wild and thus, present minimum environmental risk. However — and specifically in the case of the pineapple — it could be argued that its introduction as a major agricultural crop was highly invasive and destructive from an environmental, social, and cultural perspective.
“FREESPACE encourages reviewing ways of thinking, new ways of seeing the world, of inventing solutions where architecture provides for the well-being and dignity of each citizen of this fragile planet.” – Biennale Architettura 2018
This past July, I spent three days exploring the Venice Biennale, or La Biennale Architettura as it is officially called. For nearly six months, 63 participating countries and over 70 individual architects from around the world come together for perhaps one of the most important platforms for dialog between architects and between architects and the public. With their prompt of “Freespace,” the curators of the 2018 exhibition Yvonne Farrell and Shelly McNamara, founding directors of Grafton Architects based in Dublin Ireland, have chosen design content which “celebrates architecture’s capacity to find unexpected generosity in each project.” They have highlighted projects with an almost primal focus on the quality of space itself. The exhibition emphasizes the “free” gifts of light, air, gravity and materials masterfully put into play in the commercially restrictive environment in which architecture is often created.
Map of La Biennale di Venezia
The exhibition expands beyond the boundaries of any single venue to create the feeling of being coterminous with the city of Venice. Installations are sprinkled across the city; often encountered by surprise as guerilla pop-ups of architectural delight. The individual entries, likewise, broaden the definition of an exhibit to include much more than just content on display. As a point of entry into the comprehensive nature of the Biennale, it is worth pointing out some of the creative and unexpected approaches to each aspect of an exhibit: the venue housing a particular exhibit, the manifesto describing the intent, the techniques used to create the display, and of course the actual content on display. Let me explain with some memorable examples.
“Island” at the British Pavilion
VENUE
It is a special case when a participant can critique or even provide an alternative to the site they are given for their entry into the exhibition. The British Pavilion took this route with one of several early 20th century buildings purpose-built for Biennale events in the Giardini. The entire building interior was left intentionally empty—completely untouched with even some visible residue from previous British exhibitions. Instead, a massive scaffolding wraps around and over the roof, containing a stair and elevator to direct visitors up to the roof. The installation called “Island” is designed by architecture firm Caruso St. John and Marcus Taylor to provide a place of both refuge and exile, inspired in no small way by Brexit and the impending exit from the European Union. The wooden platform viscerally connects with the city of Venice providing nearly 360-degree views. The platform also doubled as an event space, holding various performances, lectures, and events.
The Pavilion of the Holy See
Another radical take on venue was the Vatican, whose inaugural and ambitious entry commissioned 10 world-renowned architects (including two Pritzker Prize winners) each to design a unique chapel in a wooded forest on San Giorgio Maggiore Island, across the lagoon from Piazza San Marco. The number 10 came from the ten commandments, while the architectural brief was to create a new interpretation of Gunnar Asplund’s 1920 Woodland Chapel design. Exploring this single entry became a small journey in itself, first to find the somewhat hidden forest and then to follow the route through the forest to visit each structure.
“Free Space: The Value of What’s Not Built” by ELEMENTAL
MANIFESTO
Far from letting an installation speak for itself, many participants provided some sort of written document to explain or propagandize their purpose. These documents varied widely throughout the exhibition from whimsical newspapers and postcards, to posters glued on walls, reminiscent of rock concert or political advertisements. Several followed a more traditional brochure format, but there is nearly as much to read as there was to see. Pritzker Prize winner Alejandro Aravena’s manifesto stood apart as a concise and witty explanation of his approach to engaging communities into the architectural process, and why it benefits our profession overall.
“Unbuilding Walls” at the German Pavillion
DISPLAY
The Biennale’s theme of “Freespace” encouraged each participant to approach their entry as a one-stop exhibition unto itself. For the German Pavilion, human rights activist Marianne Birthler led a curatorial and design team to create “Unbuilding Walls,” a stark, black wall viewed straight-on upon entry into their pavilion. However when stepping to either side, the viewer realizes it isn’t an impenetrable surface but rather an optical illusion of multiple vertical panels offset from each other executed with perspectival accuracy to cleverly conceal individual exhibits on the opposite side.
Display by Paredes Pedrosa Arquitectos
The Spanish firm Paredes Pedrosa Arquitectos crafted layered section models as the pedestals to display a selection of physical models of public buildings. The voids carved out of the solid boards aimed to demonstrate a type of “convex” space, viewed from the outside as defined by light and air.
Weaving Architecture by Benedetta Tagliabue
Benedetta Tagliabue, another Spanish architect, playfully displayed their architectural ideas on fabric pillows casually strewn across the floor. Meanwhile, VTN Architects from Vietnam built a stunning bamboo shade structure midway between exhibits in the Arsenale. Refreshingly placed along a calm lagoon in the center of the former 12th century naval shipyard, the shade provided a pleasant respite to recharge before the next segment of the exhibition.
The Arsenale
CONTENT
As I explored the distinct zones of the Biennale, the brackets of conceptual thought were set wider apart than anything I had experienced. Perhaps this was the intent of “Freespace” as a prompt: to encourage an open and unconfined exploration of architectural thought. Also, the Biennale did not group the exhibits by anything other than the participating country or participating architect’s name. But I did notice some recurring themes and trends that can be drawn out of the massive installation. Some of the most memorable and well-executed entries fell into the categories of transportation, urban futures, sustainability, experiential/immersive displays, explorations of craft, and of course individual building types.
“Station Russia” at the Russian Pavillion
TRANSPORTATION: The Russian Pavilion considered the possibilities of how space might be freed up at the center of cities if railway stations are no longer needed. A series of plaster cast models of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kaliningrad show dramatic voids where the main railway station has been removed creating literal “freespace” for new architectural possibilities on the empty lots.
Virgin hyperloop one by BIG, Part of “Possible Spaces – Sustainable Development Through Collaborative Innovations” at the Danish Pavilion
The Danish Pavilion included one exhibit by BIG partnered with Virgin to explain the Hyperloop One concept. Taking Elon Musk’s idea of a passenger pod pushed by pressurized air in a sealed tube, BIG conceptualized a new global transportation network, including ideas for stations, and the transport pods themselves. Virgin began testing the concept in 2016 in the Nevada desert. Virgin and BIG pointed out the serial disruptions of the transportation industry of centuries past, alluding to the hyperloop as the next imminent transportation revolution. Maybe.
“The City of Radical Shift” at the Korean Pavilion
URBAN FUTURES: Many participating architects and countries took on the question of what becomes of our cities in the near future. The Korean Pavilion held a competition to reconsider the 1960’s Sewoon Sangga complex, a shopping, residential, and industrial mega structure at the heart of Seoul. It has been called the first mixed-use building in Korea. The winning entry by Sungwoo Kim of N.E.E.D Architecture acknowledged the value of the cluster of resources and infrastructure in a city center, while reconceptualizing the complex to add more visual openness, public space, and connections to the landscape. The thesis of the design is to strike a better balance between public and private development interests while maintaining the vitality of downtown areas which have often succumbed to overbuilding by private sector companies. The series of models, drawings, and diagrams made a compelling case.
The entry by Saudi Arabia, designed by local firm Bricklab, offered a simplified, but equally compelling case to think about our urban future through a series of time-lapse-animated line drawings. Each drawing showed an abstracted street map of a different Saudi city, starting from the earliest record of developed roads and extending year-by-year to the present day. The illustration of massive urban growth and the different models of urban organization, even within a single country, was powerfully clear.
“Repair” at the Australian Pavilion
SUSTAINABILITY: The Australian Pavilion, titled “Repair,” focused on the critical role of architecture to utilize and deploy ecological systems. Taking the focus away from architecture as object and replacing it with operational context, Australian artist Linda Tegg partnered with Baracco+Wright Architects to install a living grassland within the pavilion building. While the sensory impact of walking into this room—especially the refreshing smells of nature—are hard to translate into words, the message was clear: architecture has an important role in the environmental, social, and cultural repair of the places it is a part of.
“Archipelago Italia” at the Italian Pavilion
The Italian Pavilion, curated by Mario Cucinella Architects, is titled “Archipelago Italia.” It focused on the spaces in between its urban areas as its most important cultural resource and its differentiating feature as a nation. The comprehensive survey of the Italian landscape encompassed several rooms within the Arsenale. (Apparently the host country gets a little extra space to work with) The idea that landscape becomes its own island in between the cities was illustrated with gradated maps of each territory. While public / private boundaries in cities are often rigid, the exhibition called out the natural features and moments in the countryside when the public and private boundaries are blurred or entirely absent.
“Another Generosity” at the Nordic Pavilion
EXPERIENTIAL/IMMERSIVE: While many pavilions provided evocative content to look at, some went even further to provide an experience that visitors could literally step into and through. The Nordic Pavilion, representing Norway, Sweden, and Finland, also focused on the concept of sustainability but executed their ideas with a group of inflatable structures large enough to walk into. Juulia Kaste, the director of the Finnish Museum of Architecture led a design team including Lunden Architecture Company, Buro Happold Engineering, and Pneumocell Fabrication. They illustrate the connection between air and water, the two elements which mediate between the natural and built environment. As the temperature and humidity change inside and outside of each cellular structure the structure itself expands and relaxes in a constantly changing balance. The effect felt like a living organism “breathing” all around you. The intent was to show how architecture can facilitate a symbiotic relationship between nature and the built environment.
“Cloud Pergola” at the Croatian Pavilion
The Croatian Pavilion combined visual, aural, and experiential elements with their “Cloud Pergola.” The installation had three interwoven parts. Alisa Andrašek, in collaboration with Bruno Juričić, created a “spatial drawing” of thousands of 3D-printed segments forming a cloud-shaped structure resting on three expansive legs. Under the pergola, Vlatka Horvat utilizes bare feet on paper to develop an abstract commentary on the idea of movement and journey. At the same time a sound installation by Maja Kuzmanović creates the ambiance of convivial gatherings under a pergola. In all the installation was an impressive multi-sensory experience.
“House Tour” at the Swiss Pavilion
The Swiss Pavilion was conceived by a design team including Alessandro Bosshard, Li Tavor, Matthew van der Ploeg and Ani Vihervaara. In a playful surprise, they created a house tour where all elements found in the typical swiss home (beautifully minimalist is de rigeur) were dramatically enlarged in scale. Even the door handles.
L-R: “Unveil the Hidden” by Maruša Zorec of Arrea Architecture; “Z33 House for Contemporary Art” by Francesca Torzo Architetto; Chile Pavilion curated by Alejandra Celedon
EXPLORATIONS OF CRAFT: Walking through the Arsenale, many of the entries by individual architects and participating nations showcased exquisite craft through different media and techniques used to create the architectural models on display. Maruša Zorec of Arrea Architecture in Slovenia built a brick screen leading into a series of vertical panels where the floor plans of her selected buildings were executed in plaster bas relief. Francesca Torzo Architetto of Italy fused her passion for materiality and model-making with a physical model of a house for contemporary art in Belgium. In the model, the walls are woven from different colored yarn allowing the entire composition to read as a cohesive whole. Her intent was a choreography of spatial sequences moving through the building. The pavilion of Chile included a concrete cast of their national stadium filled with the layouts of shantytowns instead of bleachers. The intent was to tell a double story through a single medium. The stadium was the location of a 1979 operation where ownership was provided to tens of thousands of city dwellers living in fear of constant relocation. The event provided more stability to these city dwellers while acknowledging the close proximity and dissimilar conditions that often coexist in cities. In the medium of architectural model making, the two ideas come together.
“Together and Apart: 100 Years of Living” at the Latvian Pavilion
BUILDING TYPOLOGIES: One final theme which appeared in several forms throughout the Biennale was building type studies. Libraries, stadiums, train stations and other building types were explored by different participants throughout the exhibition. The Latvia pavilion, curated by Matiss Groskaufmanis, stood apart with a comprehensive commentary on apartment building design and policy in their country since its independence from the USSR in the 90’s. Two-thirds of the Latvian population resides in apartments, making it the highest ratio in Europe and also a way of life for much of the country. The exhibition examined the political, architectural and technical aspects of different housing solutions that have been tested and deployed over the years. Diagrams illustrated the sometimes convoluted design/construction process and the dire statistics of failed mortgages in recent years while evocative physical models illustrated more technical issues such as maintaining warmth in an often cold country.
In summary, the Biennale was an inspiring roller-coaster ride of architectural possibilities at all scales. The emphasis on holistic thinking is something I connected with personally and have participated in frequently while at WRNS Studio. No matter what the project requirements, schedule, budget, and program demand of us we always take time to investigate deeper and question the spatial problems to reveal the embodied power of architecture and make a visceral connection to a place. The architects’ work on display demonstrate a masterful facility to explain complicated ideas in an original medium. I am proud to be a part of this rich and inventive discipline called architecture.
Q: How did you get involved with Boeddeker Park?
Jennifer: The Trust for Public Land’s mission is to create places that support healthy, livable communities for generations to come. In the Bay Area, our Parks for People program is working in underserved urban neighborhoods to help give everyone a vibrant, quality park within walking distance of their home. Boeddeker Park has been on our radar since about 2006. Over fifty thousand people live within a half-mile radius of the park, and over 10,000 of those are living below the poverty line. The need in the Tenderloin was so great, and the park had such potential to thrive.
We frequently partner with the Recreation and Parks Department, which manages over 4,000 acres of land, 34 recreation centers, nine swimming pools and is the City’s largest provider of the Trust for Public Land’s services. In 2007, we began a San Francisco initiative to rebuild three parks in high-need areas, catalyzed by the generosity of five lead donors: Banana Republic, Levi Strauss Foundation, McKesson, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and Wells Fargo. Working with the City, we leveraged their initial $5 million into $16.5 million of public and private funding. That money enabled us to work with Recreation and Parks to completely redesign and re-build three parks: Hayes Valley Playground (also with WRNS), Balboa Park, and Boeddeker Park. We knew from the start that Boeddeker would be the most complex.
Brian: As for WRNS, we had signed up with Public Architecture’s 1% pro bono program to provide design assistance to nonprofit organizations. The Trust for Public Land contacted us about helping with the design of Hayes Valley Playground. We donated a couple of phases of work, and then for the rest of that project, as was the case with Boeddeker Park, we essentially provided all of our work at cost, donating our overhead and profit.
Q: What were your impressions the first time you visited Boeddeker Park?
Brian: In the old park, you would walk down a main walkway, and it would feel like you were cut off from all the programmatic activities. There were raised benches and low walls on either side of that walkway that divided the green space, the basketball court, the playground. You had to walk around these walls to get into many of the spaces. So it took a lot of effort to participate in the park. And because the entry to the park was a good distance from the clubhouse, it was difficult for the recreation director to watch what was going on while running programs from the building. The building itself had a nice, voluminous space. But its walls had a sawtooth configuration that alternated solid walls with glass, cutting off sight lines, and the main level of the building was 4 feet underground, which further separated it from the park.
Previous Site Condition
Q: What was the community process for redesigning Boeddeker like?
Jennifer: We conducted extensive community outreach, holding public meetings and forums where everyone could come together to join in what we call ‘participatory design’. We invited people to the site and we also had focus groups at various places—youth centers, senior centers, churches—wherever local people were likely to come. Residents from the Tenderloin participated, as well as representatives of service organizations like the YMCA, Boys & Girls Club, Youth with a Mission, and City Academy. Key decisions were made at those community forums.
Brian: There is a lot of housing for seniors in the neighborhood. And the Tenderloin population has one of the highest percentages of children in San Francisco. But the kids and the families and the seniors weren’t using the park very much. We needed to create a space where adults could enjoy the park on their own or with children, while also making room for kids with their families or in groups. The park had to allow people of all ages to coexist at the same time, while also providing a safe space. This is the kind of issue that came out at the community meetings and informed our design response.
Q: What surprised you the most about what the community wanted?
Brian: The northern end in the existing park was a beautiful, quiet space in the middle of a busy urban area. I was surprised at the great reception from the community for nurturing that and keeping it as a quiet area for community gardening, senior activities, and adult fitness.
Jennifer: At one of the first meetings, a hand shot up and a participant asked, “Can we have solar panels on the roof? Can we be off the grid? Can we have a community garden?” I hadn’t expected that the principles of sustainability would have been such a priority.
Q: This was one of the first projects in the Sustainable SITES Initiative, is that correct?
Jennifer: That’s right. The park has pervious concrete and bioswales and a stormwater infiltration system under the lawn. The plant palette has a lot of California natives, which we’re excited about, because the Tenderloin has a lot of new immigrants to California. So the park gives them a little taste of California.
Brian: A signage program throughout the park indicates sustainable elements, and a key map at the front door to the clubhouse explains each element. The clubhouse is completely heated by a geothermal system—it’s one of the first public projects in San Francisco to implement geothermal. About eight cores under the basketball court go down about 200 feet, and they extract heat from the earth and transfer that into heating which feeds radiant tubing in the concrete slabs. The main spaces in the building have no air conditioning. The cathedral-like space in the main recreation room makes use of the stack effect to bring air through and up, so there’s no need for ceiling fans in that space. In the meeting room, we didn’t quite have that volume, but there are operable windows all around and a ceiling fan. Only a couple of offices have air conditioning.
Q: How did you address security concerns?
Brian: Security was a big issue. The community appreciated the idea of creating safety through transparency rather than through gates and enclosures and walls. Now, once you enter the park, you can access lots of different places from one point. You don’t have to go through a playground to get to the lawn, for example.
Jennifer: During a meeting with the Boys & Girls Club, we asked what would make the kids feel comfortable in the park, and one teenage boy said, “I want to know that I am seen by an adult when I come into the park.” We shifted the entry so that everyone has to walk right past the new clubhouse.
Brian: The old clubhouse was sunk four feet below grade, so rec directors couldn’t see from the building to the park. The new one is raised, and it’s all glass, so when people walk in, the recreation director is going to notice them. Elevating the clubhouse enables building program activities to be visible from the street, which promotes this as a safe center of the community. Also, we took down heavy, wrought iron fences and put in new, visually lighter fencing around the park. It’s still secure, but you can see through it.
Jennifer: From the very beginning of the project, we told the community, “Design is only going to be part of the solution.” The other part is going to be working together with the Recreation and Parks Department, with the police department, and with all of the different user groups to make sure that the operations, maintenance, stewardship, and programming are working together well. This park is going to be opening at a time in which the social fabric around it is a lot stronger and more cohesive than when we started design. Boeddeker is a place where different groups can unite. The park will have a lot more programming than it used to.
Brian: This kind of project doesn’t come up very often in historic urban neighborhoods that have a great need for open space. It is just a wonderful opportunity to make something better.
1. Marine Way Office Building 2. Bayshore Office Building 3 & 4 Parking Garages
High visibility atria in the office buildings were key to creating a more vibrant, functional campus for Intuit. These centrally located all-hands spaces had to do many things: reinforce and lend definition to campus patterns, welcome up to 500+ people at a time, and serve different events with varying light, sound, and capacity needs. As the lead corporate campus architect, WRNS Studio had proposed vast clerestory windows in the atria that filled the low, wide floor plates (up to 60,000 sq ft) with natural light and a connection to the sky — key to the experience of beauty and delight favored by the design team. When it came time to execute the design for the first new Marine Way office building on the campus, however, it took a deep dive into Design Development to uncover a viable technical solution for the clerestory windows.
Challenges
Suspended four floors above the deck, with a 60-foot span, the atrium clerestory windows presented no shortage of challenges: We wanted the atrium to be an uplifting, light-filled space, with the clerestories lending texture to scale down its capaciousness. The long span condition, an aesthetic and experiential imperative, could not be broken up by structure; the clerestory windows had to support themselves. In addition to pulling daylight into the interior, the clerestories needed to be controllable, allowing the atrium to darken for presentations, and to transition back easily, supporting supplemental artificial lighting. Likewise, the clerestories needed to integrate with the building’s other systems, helping to balance sound (large atria can get loud), embed fire sprinklers, and act as a passive smoke exhaust system. A strategy for cleaning the windows and general maintenance was required. Then there was constructability: How could we avoid installing a ton of expensive scaffolding?
Certainly not a first for WRNS — initial sketches to solve this head-scratcher happened late at night over wine, progressing to a solution that is at once detailed and expansive.
Pre-cast to the Rescue
After many iterations, we landed on a pre-cast clerestory beam system. The advantages were many: pre-cast beams would allow for the integration of vertical clerestory glazing, which would be much easier to maintain and present fewer waterproofing concerns compared with skylights. We knew the beams could span structurally (we’d designed them in parking structures), and they’d arrive on the site with a finished surface crafted at the shop, good for schedule and quality control. The pre-cast solution would allow us to create a custom shape to meet our objectives for drama and texture of light, sound absorption, and views of the sky.
But could we actually do it? The span was long (60 feet!). The beams would have to be deep and heavy. Thankfully, Willis Construction was on the job. Of the many advantages to using a pre-cast system, we could work with our fabricator in real time to prototype and test ideas for shaping the beam, carving, and bending light to our needs.
Collaborate, Iterate
The pre-cast clerestory beam in Willis Construction Yard
The pre-cast clerestory beam solution was a true collaboration with Willis Construction: design aesthetic meets engineering, structural analysis, and physical testing. Development of the beam’s shape and geometry was a lengthy and detailed dialogue: Willis conducted full-size, 6’ x 8’ mockups at their yard, which we reviewed together for shape and finish. These mockups complemented WRNS’ in-house computer model. We also sent a model of the pre-cast system to our acoustical consultant, who did a thorough analysis looking at ways that the beams’ shape and surface treatment might mitigate sound reflection within the large space.
Panoramic rendering iterations
In all, eight iterations were explored, each investigating the beam’s specific shape, density, and rotation. The different versions were illustrated as interactive panoramic renderings and presented to Intuit as part of a holistic analysis focused largely on the qualities of light in the atrium. The selected solution was further studied in a virtual reality simulation and presented to Intuit.
Detail Diagram
Detail
This section of the pre-cast beam illustrates its form, structure, and integration with the building’s MEP systems — optimizing the shape to address every aspect, from structure to acoustics, to address specific needs. Intuit wanted their new workplace to be raw and informal, robust and monumental. As an integral part of the structure, the pre-cast beams allowed for a consistent and strong, but elegant surface. The beams were hoisted high above the roof, and slowly lowered between the cast-in-place concrete girder walls, then telescoping steel tubes were extended to take the primary gravity loads. Initial discussions focused on access and the ability for maintenance staff to walk across and service the roof & glazing safely, and we shaped the beams accordingly. Electrochromic glass used for the vertical clerestory glazing allows for easy dimming or darkening via controls. An acoustic plaster fascia panel on the inside face of each beam houses sprinklers and attachment points for multiple pendant tube-lamp fixtures.
Light and shadow
In early iterations, the clerestory windows were facing north, until our resident building technologies sage Moses Vaughan, got involved. We were about to ask our client to invest heavily in an engineering feat — integrating these large, heavy beams into the overall systems approach to the atrium — when it was brought to our attention that the light we’d be pulling in from the north would be beautiful, but soft. Based on observation of similar clerestory windows we had researched, it became apparent we were missing an opportunity to capture the kind of strong direct sunlight that would make for dynamic shadow play traversing daily across the all-hands space. Moving through the space, the beams might appear to “unfold” as they bend light inward. By reversing the orientation of the clerestory lights from north to south-facing, we maximized the spatial drama through light, shadow, and texture.
Constructability
The pre-cast, clerestory beam portion of the project was technically a design-build effort, anticipating not only the design and engineering but also how we were going to fabricate, transport, and insert the beams into the structure. Significant engineering went into just the installation process itself. Given the individual beam weight (each at 88,000 lbs) we needed a heavy-duty crane with serious capacity. One of two cranes on the west coast rated for 80 tons was rented, pushing us to an even bigger “100-ton crane.” This added power brought its own structural and safety challenges, as the only site on campus that made sense for locating the crane was directly atop an existing culvert. This culvert services all of the Mountain View greenbelts, so the operation was understandably sensitive. We shored up the foundation around the culvert to ensure the crane’s weight was distributed on either side of the tunnel, ensuring it wouldn’t fall through.
The weight of one beam is equivalent to that of an adult humpback whale or railway boxcar.
Tectonics + Identity
The atrium is the ultimate connector: building to campus (as a mid-block crossing), interior to exterior, ground to sky, and people to one another. With the beams installed, it became immediately apparent that the pre-cast clerestory beams would indeed conjure the kind of airy texture — light and shadow drifting down from above and playing off of the atrium’s surfaces throughout the day — that would endow the space with that timeless, inspirational quality we recognize in really good buildings. If place marks and reflects identity, then the spaces in which we come together as a community have the opportunity to put a fine point on aspiration. As the atrium advances coherence and vibrancy at the campus scale, so do its tectonics — and specifically, the innovative approach to pre-cast clerestory beams — make possible the atrium’s success on the programmatic scale as a multi-use, all-hands community space that reflects Intuit’s identity and aspiration.
“Today, history represents neither an oppressive past that modernism tried to discard nor a retrograde mind-set against unbridled progress. Instead, at a time when there is too much information and not enough attention — when a general collective amnesia perpetuates a state of eternal presentness — understanding the channels through which history moves and is shaped by architecture is more important than ever.” –Chicago Biennial
Last fall I spent three days in Chicago, taking in the Chicago Architecture Biennial. Make New History was the theme and participants — 140 architects and artists from around the globe — contributed a range of exhibits, from dioramas to live performances, to explore how history can be invoked to inform new ideas and forms in architecture. The Biennial was held in the Chicago Cultural Center (a grand former library built in 1897 and host to the world’s largest Tiffany stained-glass dome), with associated events throughout the city, and it took place from September, 2017 through January, 2018.
“Vertical City,” 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial: Make New History
Of the many thought-provoking exibits, I was most taken with “Vertical City,” a contemporary take on the 1922 Chicago Tribune Tower Competition. With the charge by the Tribune’s publisher Colonel Robert R. McCormick to make “the most beautiful and distinctive office building in the world,” the original competition attracted entries from over 260 architects, including Walter Gropius, Adolf Loos, and Eliel Saarinen (who took second). The wildly contrasting ideas influenced generations of architects to come. Resurrected in 1980 by Stanley Tigerman under the guise of “Late Entries,” the Tribune Tower competition (it was actually an invited submittal for a publication) once again attracted some of architecture’s biggest thinkers — Frank Gehry, Tadao Ando, Bernard Tschumi, and Tod Williams and Billie Tsien.
If the 1922 competition made evident a pivot point in architecture toward modernism, and the “Late Entries,” of 1980 turned largely on postmodernist metaphor, fun and sarcasm, how might we understand the “Vertical City” of 2017?
The architects practicing today revealed delightfully varied ideas, represented as scaled models that reimagine the landmark tower. The Cultural Center’s Yates Hall, a large expanse of a room with floor to ceiling windows that pull the city into the space, was given over to the exhibition, fusing the experience with meta. Wandering amid the towers, I felt myself inside a diorama of alternative histories of a building and of a city in which I could, in real time, hear the taxis honking below and feel the glare of the sun moving across the glaze of adjacent buildings.
Of the 16 entries, I found myself sparked by the ones that directly addressed core drivers of the innovation economy: work / life integration, community, connection to the public realm, and non-hierarchy.
Big Bang Tower by Ensamble Studio (far right) and Biennial Project by Kéré Architecture (second from right)
Big Bang Tower: A Column of Columns for the Chicago Tribune by Ensamble Studio
Noting that “an office can be a cubicle and also an open co-working area, a cafe, a lounge, a lab, a multipurpose room, virtual substance in the cloud, a room in your house, and much more,” Ensamble Studio imagined “A Column of Columns” tied together with horizontal structures that vary their positions, heights and areas to frame the city and connect interior spaces. With cores pulled to the sides and located within the envelope (atypical in a traditional high rise) and the asymmetric columns resolving both vertical structure and infrastructure, the floor plates are open to receive a diverse and evolving program. The structure is one in which knowledge workers, who expect work / life integration, might just as easily take in a film as write a creative brief.
“In alignment with current trends, the design forecasts that people will value a balanced work and life ratio while retaining real and meaningful connections with each other and with the places that they live.” Inspired by the Tower of Babel metaphor of a community working together in shared aspiration, Kéré Architecture’s proposal anticipates a mix of housing, workplace, commerce, and recreation in one building. To free up the interior for a variety of amenities and opportunities to connect with community, the cores are pulled outward. Segmented blocks with central voids allow for more private functions, like housing, to be consolidated and located higher up, with more communal activities happening on the ground floor to support integration with the public realm. The proposal offers a microcosm of a neighborhood or a city, a one-stop live/work shop in a tower of the future.
“If the primary source of derivation for modern architecture is classicism, what would an architecture that is derived from a non-Western historical tradition be?” With its design inspired by ancient Chinese architecture’s central organizing concept of the pavilion, and with pavilions stacked vertically to form a pagoda, this proposal offers a structure freed from hierarchical organization, with spaces defined in relation to one another. “The spaces of this new vertical city are attuned to the nature of the knowledge economy and the contemporary media environment where performance dominates, flexibility sets value, and well-being is the ultimate cause. Pavilions frame theaters, meeting zones, restful landscapes, and hedonistic gardens: the true productive spaces for today’s media workers. This is architecture with a language not rooted in Western thought and with a history outside of the narratives of modernism.”
This was the model to which I returned, walking around it, staring into its corners, wanting to step inside and make myself at home.
Does the “Vertical City” — this third festival of ideas centered on iconic American skyscraper — offer a touchpoint, some indication of where urban architecture is going in response to changes in how we work to propel the innovation economy? If so, I’d take note of the Ensamble, Kéré, and Serie entries.
Since our founding in 2005, WRNS Studio has cultivated a design-forward practice amidst continued, sometimes rapid growth—and 2017 was no different. Last year, our staff grew from 132 to 172, our net revenue went up 19%, and we opened a fourth office, expanding from San Francisco, New York, and Honolulu to Seattle. To guide us through this growth, we identified three ideals to which WRNS Studio strives in every project: beauty, sustainability, and a positive contribution to the public realm. It is the relentless pursuit of these ideals, carried out over a diversity of project types, scales, and contexts, that accounts in large part for our success.
As we consider our performance in the calendar year 2017, we look to the five stand-out projects included in our Design Portfolio: 1) A workplace campus inspired by the beauty and honesty drawn from a focus on functionality, proportion, quality of light and space, and raw, honest materials. 2) One of the nation's handful of collegiate recreation/aquatic centers tracking for LEED Platinum in a project type that historically consumes large amounts of energy and water. 3) A high school "guild and commons" that celebrates the symbiotic nature of human, environmental, and economic health. This project, a 2018 AIA COTE Top Ten Award winner and model of holistic sustainable design, is seeking LEED Platinum, ZNE, WELL Education Pilot, and LBC Petal certification. 4) A small screening room located off San Francisco's bustling Market Street that respectfully and delightfully threads brand with urban design to activate the public realm, and 5) an innovation lab designed to harness the vision for Cornell Tech's new campus on Roosevelt Island: "to spur the commercialization of new products and technologies by bringing together the best in academia and industry." These projects illustrate the myriad ways we translate beauty, sustainability, and a positive contribution to the public realm into site-sensitive, identity-rich design.
Sonoma Academy Janet Durgin Guild & Commons
San Francisco State University Mashouf Wellness Center
Collision Lab at Cornell Tech
Dolby Headquarters Screening Room
While our ideals guide us, it is our people that truly make WRNS Studio excellent. We've learned from working with some of the world's most transformative organizations that the most important thing we can do, as a business whose process and product is about innovation and creativity, is to attract, cultivate, and nurture talented people who share our values. At all experience levels, our people are leading the critical discourse—teaching, writing, advocating for equity, and advancing sustainable practice, to name a few. Likewise, the culture at WRNS is strong and distinct, with interests focused on craft, technology, education, and pro-bono work. We have a thriving scholarship program that promotes inspiration and critical thinking in design and architecture, with topics ranging from rammed earth construction to Robert Irwin's explorations of light and space. An informal mentorship program complements our scholarship program with construction site visits, technology workshops, and licensure advising. With several careerlong educators at the helm, our work is bracketed by a vigorous culture of education, linking academia with practice to advance architectural excellence.
WRNS Studio, San Francisco
In closing, we truly "walk the talk." WRNS Studio was the first architecture firm with headquarters in California, and is one of less than 26 architecture firms nationwide, to achieve the International Living Futures Institute's JUST Label. This "nutrition label" encourages companies to disclose their commitments to a range of equity indicators including diversity, equity, safety, worker benefit, local benefit, and stewardship. Our decision to pursue the JUST Label is part of WRNS Studio's broader effort to do our part to promote equity, transparency, and holistic sustainability. It complements our commitment to the 2030 challenge, our pursuit of the WELL Building certificate for our firm, and initiatives like the Health Product Declaration, LEED, and the Living Building Challenge. We are currently pursuing Living Building Challenge Petal Certification for expansions and tenant improvements to our San Francisco, Honolulu, and Seattle offices, as well as WELL Building certification for our New York office.
WRNS defines its work as being about beauty, sustainability, and the public realm. What do these concepts mean to you?
Daniel Johnson: In my opinion, architecture is useless without people, and for me, architecture that extends its experience to the public realm is probably one of the most exciting potential offerings of architecture. Buildings that are primarily private almost seem like giant rocks in a stream redirecting the flow of water, whereas publicly infused architecture is more akin to bridge, and I would prefer to build bridges versus dams. Metaphors aside, some of my favorite works of architecture have incredible public experiences – the modern entry plaza to the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid by Jean Nouvel had a profound impact on my understanding of the power of architecture and the public realm. Not only did the architecture create an interesting relationship to the historical building it was attached to but the way Nouvel created drama from the sky to the plaza was a magical experience that opened my eyes to how architecture not only shelters and defines space, but creates phenomenal connections between earth and sky. When you mix in a flowing stream of people into an experience like architectural value becomes truly evident.
Emily Jones: Beauty, to me, is a moment (usually fleeting) that is prompted by an experience of place. As an observer and a designer, I seek to both experience and create beauty; however, I have found that, in attempting to create beauty through architecture, it is essential to acknowledge and utilize the beauty found in nature. Therefore, for me, architectural beauty is a deliberate and skillful composition of natural elements of beauty translated through design that, when successful, evokes a visceral experience of place. Consequently, for me, beauty and sustainability are inextricably linked as sustainable design strives to preserve what, to me, is an essential element of beautiful design – nature.
Ben Mickus: While all buildings occupy a space necessarily, it is the interaction of a building with the surrounding space that transforms into place. This is what excites me about architecture: a building and the space around it fusing into something more than any of the constituent parts, and becoming a piece of the ever-changing public realm. While the public realm as an abstract concept is fluid, dynamic and buzzing with energy, it is architecture in the public realm that somehow channels that energy, allowing it to be experienced through the creation of views, moments, sequences, tactile interactions, and relations to context. We create a unique experience of a place.
What do you think makes a good leader?
Dan Sakai: I have a toddler who likes to lead me around. Her inclinations rarely coincide with the rest of the family’s, but she enjoys a song called Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes – you may know it – which provides a useful mnemonic for leadership in grown-up organizations.
Head: Clear thinking leads to insight and level headed decisions.
Shoulders: Sharing the load inspires and builds team cohesion.
Knees and toes: Dynamism requires nimble responses and flexibility to address changing markets and individual project and team needs.
The verse repeats and the children touch the different body parts as they sing along. Then there is a bridge including:
Eyes: Vision requires a long view and hawk-eyes for shortcomings and opportunities.
Ears and Mouth: A strong communicator is both articulate and a good listener.
Nose: Integrity is crucial; when something fails the smell test, action is taken.
I am not suggesting adults need to be able to touch their toes, but leadership touchstones are central to effective, inspirational organizations. Getting my daughter pointed in the right direction is another matter.
What drew you to WRNS when you first came? What made you want to stay?
Daniel Johnson: It sounds obvious, but the work is what drew me to WRNS. There was a clear point of view – architecture that was tuned to its context, composed thoughtfully, and used materials in ways that were modern and sophisticated. Additionally I was very impressed and intrigued by the fact that WRNS grew the practice through a terrible recession, and some great work came out of that period of time, which to me signaled that this was a company that knew how to run a successful business, a trait I was very interested in learning. What makes me stay is all of the above but with an added layer, the staff and leadership is incredible. I feel like I can be myself here, and I am surrounded by a bunch of really smart, creative, interesting and idiosyncratic people who have given so much to my professional and personal life. As much as they are my colleagues they are (for better or worse) becoming my family.
Lily Weeks: The work at WRNS is what drew me first. I wanted to be a part of the growing interior design practice in an architecture firm, after all, my education is in architecture and my experience in interior design – it was a great fit for me. What made me stay was the studio environment that I can only describe as a rigorous creative hive with some of the most talented people you will meet, what else could I ask for?
What are you excited about in architecture right now?
Hattie Stroud: The way in which social responsibility is becoming an important part of practice is really great. I’m a big fan of offices like MASS Design Group that really champion the ways design can be beautiful but also smart, sustainable, and supportive of its community. This isn’t about community process dictating a design – it’s about architecture that is responsive to its context.
Where do you see WRNS in the next five years? How do you want to see us grow?
Ben Mickus: As WRNS grows, the design profile of the firm–as defined by the caliber of projects we pursue–should grow with it. The diversity of projects in the office has been so strong since the inception of WRNS, and I hope it will continue to be a defining strength, as we deepen our experience across so many practice areas.
What are your inspirations outside of architecture?
Dan Sakai: Autonomous vehicles are super-exciting. As economies of scale incentivise ride-sharing over personal vehicle ownership, tremendous amounts of land currently used to store empty cars may become available in places we care about: along our streets, on the ground immediately surrounding many destinations, and in robust structures in high land-value areas. Extensive use of ride-shared autonomous vehicles may actually align incentives for congestion pricing, change commute patterns and public transit paradigms and radically shift development and planning patterns (for better or worse). There is a lot at stake for urban communities and the environment.
Lily Weeks: Art & fashion. Every morning I walk to work, 30 minutes downhill – I walk past the merchandise displays of Prada, Valentino, Dior & Britex Fabrics. These brief but constant glimpses of human centered design, textiles, and pattern play give me my first creative jump start to the day. In moments of creative daze I have taken a short respite to SFMOMA, just a few blocks from the office, to visit a favorite piece, wander a new exhibit or sit & reflect on a balcony.
Melinda in the boxes. Photo by Molly Thomas.
As Hawai
Sonoma Academy Janet Durgin Guild & Commons
San Francisco State University Mashouf Wellness Center
Collision Lab at Cornell Tech
Dolby Headquarters Screening Room
WRNS Studio, San Francisco