Design and architecture at Pakhus48

Forårsevent - Designzone Pakhus48
Invited speakers Ole Gustavsen and Alfredo Häberli

Pakhus48 is situated in Frihavnen, in the north harbour of Copenhagen. It lies in a rough industrial-looking context with immediate views on the waters of Øresundet. Pakhus48 shelters design firms such as Montana, Luce Plan, Fritz Hansen, Kvadrat, Jørgensen, Vola. They stand for some of the finest interior designs and solutions and have been collaborating with great names from the designer world in order to produce and promote esthetic lines and functional products.The Spring Event I attended yesterday was as fine and glamourous as the products exposed there. But most of all, I had the chance to assist presentations by Ole Gustavsen, architect from Snöhetta and Alfredo Häberli, Swiss designer. They represent different scales of the design world but with the same attention for use, clear logic and high quality.

Ole showed us some of the architecture projects Snöhetta did/is doing in the Muslim world. It was amazingly interesting : the excitment but also the challenge it must be to produce a shelter for a community, citizens of a culture where heat and shade, climate, religion, topography, traditions and habits are so different from what we are used to in Europe. By the way, it seems that Scandinavian architects are quite often acting in the southern architectural world and are quite good at it - often those buildings are landmarks to the country and references to the architectural world. Take for instance, Jørn Utzon's National assembly in Kowait city, Henning Larsen's work in Saudi Arabia, Snöhetta's library of Alexandria.

Huge projects. Huge work. Impressive presentation skills. I would give anything to get into that team...

Alfredo started by expressing that he felt as a student to present his work after those projects of several hundred thousands square meters. He showed us his work and inspirations in a very humble and humoristic way. Humor, th key to great design? Well, as long as the final product shows line cleverness, material sensibility, quality awareness and good understanding of the use we make of our environment. That is at least what Alfredo reveals. Fascinating and great.

The rest of the evening was just agreable: beautiful lines, forms, colours, simple and clean solutions...A joy to the eye and the hand. The whole thing in wonderful warehouse settings. In some way it had the same atmosphere as NDS in Amsterdam - the difference is that here we are exhibiting the production of artistic and creative disciplines.

Overlooking the visual or the paradigm of designers

Overlooking the visual - Demystifying the art of design
a book from Kathryn Moore, professor at the Birgmingham Institute of Art and Design

Jakob Kamp (head of Danish Landscape architects association and co-founder of 1:1 landskab) introduced Kathryn's conference and book as the expression of the link between teaching, theory and practice in landscape architecture. But furthermore, Kathryn's book concerns anyone working with design process and creative disciplines.

It is about expressing in words what people from the profession use to express with drawings and to develop by sketching. With those words Jakob expressed the hope of a better understanding of what we are doing as designers and also, and mainly, the hope of getting people "out there" to understand "our role in the society".

This first statement is quite interesting regarding the split of understanding growing between architects - or designers to use the general noun Kathryn uses - and the users of our productions. It seems that since the modernism designers have been acting in the name of a better world or living qualities, in the name of users that did not understand them and that probably they did not understand neither. Pathetic, isn't it? Especially after the speach of Eva De Klerk (cf. comment on her conference on the 04.05.10 at DAC) that got that far as claiming that users don't actually need all the fancy drawing and designs architects and planners want to make...

But getting back on todays matter, Kathryn develops: this book and the questions it arises are of a philosophical matter: philosophical questions regarding all kinds of design and investigating the meaning of design. In order to do so, she looks into the understanding of design and designers.

The first gap appears between scientific disciplines, accurate, rational, where thinking and decision making requires a certain knowledge. On the contrary, the designer or artist moves in a much less accurate field of expertise, more visual, where answers are found by doing, doing and re-doing, sketching, building, tearing down and building again. Because of that process, it appears to be a field where feelings matters more, if not most, no prerequisits are expected in order to do qualified work, no knowledge to appreciate it. Here is the first lack of understanding or even misunderstanding which awakes a lot of questionning on the scientific side concerning the justification of the designer's work, the time and money spent on it and on the teaching of such a profession.

She carries on with particuliar attention to some keys or elements which can help the understanding process. These seem to come from within, from the designers themselves who should express and define their profession. Kathryn talks about the quality of design and of experiences in a designed space, the focus reset on ideas and design through writting, the use and importance of materiality, how perception and language will help us in defining our field of expertise. All those elements should contribute to create an awarness about the visual and spatial aspects of our profession and how we use them in our processes and projects.

The topic is most interesting and probably touches one of the most historical weakness of the creative discipline. I would be curious to read more about it and find out how far she goes or how close she gets to an answer...

Food for thought.

foto - source: www.arch.virginia.edu

Learning from Amsterdam

Learning from Amsterdam - a debat on creative city development
Speaker Eva De Klerk, project booster

Eva explained the main aspects of her experience in the Development of NDSM as a cultural and artistic cluster, a starting point for the redevelopment of the old -and historical - industrial harbour site, north of the Ij.

A kind of trend existed already among artists and people, in need of a production space for their craft, to squat old warehouses, silos etc. From 1993 and on, the city of Amsterdam had a vision about redevelopping the waterfront. The old buildings were torn down and new fancy areas with high-tech buildings and upper class housings popped/pops up. This leads to a time of reflexion on how to (re)develop a city and renovate it. Opposition movements take action against the loss of great infrastructures, which are both images of a past history, identity to some people/users and good basis for functional renewal.

Eva De Klerk refers to the manifest De stad als casco = "The city as framework"

In that context, NDSM is the aiming place of several artists gathered under the name of Kinetisch Noord, for whom Eva stands as head representant. She explained all the ideas and principles they went trough when entering the competition for a 5 years occupation of the site - which turned out to a 10 years after a feasability plan.

Mainly it is about investing the users money and interests into the city and the project so that the return is more direct, the commitment and responsability are stronger, initiatives are facilitated. Thereby the project is "doable" with less means - cheaper for the state - and sustainable - based on an existing infrastructure. The lot is managed and organised by the collectivity, by the users, for the users. The city part is (re)built from what they have with their own means and money.

This method is not a planned one. It is the hard way of bottom-up, activated by the existence of a need and users willing to do something to answer their need. No fancy drawings or planning as the well known method top-down, used by planners and developpers.

Very inspiring conference...is all I have to add.

foto - source: www.cphx.dk

Design and architecture at Pakhus48

the 6 May : designer Alfredo Häberli from Zurich and architect Ole Gustavsen from Snöhetta, Oslo, will be making a presentation on methodology, inspiration sources and architecture in the muslim world. I am looking forward to that!

Where and when? Pakhus48, Frihavnen, at 16:30
Read more on www.pakhus48.dk

Hopenhagen ?...

I would celebrate Copenhagen i many ways but of course there are the less shiny sides too... Like here after the 1st May events in Fælledparken.

Where were the environmental-minded and responsible Danes then? Is that the consequences of the welfare state? Let the cleaning be done by the people hired to do the job? What about all the energy used for that cleaning...talking about Hopenhagen, this wouldn't be a good publicity for the city.

Rum og bevægelse 2

Statens Museum for Kunst
Location: København centrum, Georg Brandes Plads, ved Kongens have (Nørreport station)
Tegnet af Vilhelm Dahlerup og C.F. Møller
Opført efter Christiansborg branden i 1884, udvidet i 1998 efter en arkitektkonkurrence

I anledning til Dansens dage var jeg på SMK for at se en "dans-musik-happening" forstilling :

Superhands på Dansens dage

Jeg forstår ikke altid så meget alt det bag dans og koreografi men synes det er en fascinerende verden for de rumelig aspekter og den kropselig og sanselig opmærksomhed det kræver. Det kan siges at det var en spændende erfaring til som kunne opleves på scenen i SMK.
Stedet egner sig også til særlige rumelig oplevelser! Et af mine favoriter i Kbh: det er et af de få steder hvor man kan stå helt fysisk i overgangen mellem en historisk bygning og sin moderne udvidelse. Man står i lyset, i et rum mellem udendørs og indendørs, et teater til parken hvor scenen - som særlig kulturel mødepunkt - byder på udsigt og indsigt.

SMK har en fantastisk samling af kunst og nogle rigtig interessante udstillinger men erfare det transitions rum - skulpturgaden - har altid haft en vis effekt på mig, allerede ved mit første besøg som barn - naiv og uvidende mht det uddannet arkitekt blik. En fornemmelse at stå hvor det sker. Det er nemlig ikke en overflade som er i kontakt med den gamle bygning, det er et rum: det er en stor forskel!
Selv udvidelsen er selvføldig smuk med vinduer og rammer til både omgivelserne, udstillingsrummene, caféen, den gamle facade. Og overfladen og detajlerne - ja, fordi et rum har trods alt en side som er i kontakt med det gamle - er vel udarbejdet.

Men kom selv og erfare skulpturgaden og scenen, rummene og deres indhold.

http://www.smk.dk/besoeg-museet/aktiviteter/paa-scenen/

Foråret mellem rækkerne

Lægeforeningens boliger - Brumleby
Location: Østerbrogade 57, mellem Trianglen, Parken og svømmehallen
Tegnet af arkitekt Michael Gottlieb Bindesbøll (1. del i 1853-57)
og af arkitekt Vilhelm Klein (2. del i 1866-72)
Opfordret af lægen Emil Hornemann

Foråret er kommet til København. Og torsdag forførde den mig til Brumleby.
- bare navnet er fuldt af forårs flagrende vinger og brummende bier! -

I 1853 slog koleraen hårdt til i København. I samme linje som de engelske hygienister fra slutningen af 19.århundred og som Ebenezer Howard og sin utopi om en lille "have-by", tog lægen Emil Hornemann "initiativet til at bygge lægeforeningens boliger som de første social arbejderboliger opført i det åbne land uden for voldene". Det nye og innoverende var bl.a. fællesanlæggene som børnehave, badeanstalt, mødesal og brugsforening.

Idéer med at rive det hele ned til gavn for større og højere nybyggeri var dukked op i 1930'erne og igen i 1950'erne. Det fik som konsekvens at beboernee lod det forfalde eller forlod stedet. I 1960'erne flytted unge og studerende der ind; dermed deltog de i kampen med at bevare Brumleby.

Bebyggelsen bliv fredet i 1959. Byfornyelse og restaurering bidrog til at modernisere stedet og gøre det til et trendy kvarter.

"Såvel kulturhistorisk som arkitekturhistorisk er Brumleby noget ganske enestående [...]" står der på indgangs skitet.Det var i den behagelig og særpræget coulisse at det Københavnske forår kunne nydes i torsdags, midt i byen og stadig uden for hverdagens hektisk rytme.

*****

Brumleby est la version danoise de notre cité-jardin de Boitsfort. Il s'agit des premiers logements sociaux pour la classe ouvrière construits sous l'initiative du médecin Emil Hornemann, suite à l'épidémie de choléra qui frappa Copenhague en 1853. Leur grande innovation réside dans les installations et facilités collectives: crèche, bains, salle de réunion, ainsi que la toute première association d'usagers à Copenhague.

L'ensemble est situé à l'extérieur des bastions urbains et en cela répond aux considérations des hygiénistes anglais de la fin du 19 siècle et suit le mouvement des cités-jardins de Ebenezer Howard.Dans les années 1930 et 1950, la spéculation foncière jette son dévolu sur Brumleby et beaucoup de discussions s'en suivent. Celles-ci ont pour conséquence une incertitude quant à l'avenir du quartier qui est, de fait, négligé et mal entretenu par ses habitants. La classe ouvrière abandonne les lieux en faveur de jeunes et d'étudiants. La mobilisation pour conserver le quartier aboutit à une inscription à la liste de protection du patrimoine en 1959. Actuellement, les plans de restauration et la rénovation urbaine entamée en 1986 en ont fait un lieu prisé.

L'écriteau à l'entrée indique aussi : "Tant culturellement qu'architecturalement, Brumleby représente quelque chose d'assez unique"Et c'est au sein de ce havre de paix, dans ces coulisses idylliques que le printemps était au rendez-vous ce jeudi. Pour quelques moments volés à un quotidien fortement rythmé...