Arch Daily |
- West Terminal 2 / PES-Architects
- The H Cube House / Studio Lagom
- Outside House / FLOAT Architectural Research and Design
- Australia's Sunshine Coast Plans for New $900 Million Mixed-Use Development
- Syncline House / Omar Gandhi Architect
- Oslo Architecture Triennale Curator Shortlist Announced
- Tatiana Bilbao: Creating Spaces with Relevance Means "Enhancing Someone's Life"
- DBP House / Vertentes Arquitetura
- Why Freddy Mamani is Leading A New Andean Architecture
| West Terminal 2 / PES-Architects Posted: 25 Nov 2017 09:00 PM PST  © Marc Goodwin
 © Kari Palsila Text description provided by the architects. PES-Architects' West Terminal 2 (Länsiterminaali 2), completed in February 2017, is situated in Helsinki's West Harbour on a narrow plot of reclaimed land at the southern tip of the new Jätkäsaari neighborhood, a former freight port area. The new terminal was built to meet the needs of the growing ferry traffic on the Helsinki-Tallinn route. The goal was to enable faster embarkation and disembarkation of passengers and reduce the turnaround times of ferries in port to just one hour. The terminal will serve the majority of the 6-7 million passengers traveling between Helsinki and Tallinn via West Harbour each year.  © Marc Goodwin The terminal building is located between two quays to make the most of the relatively small plot. As most of the dock area is required for the vehicles queuing to board the ferries, the ground level was designed to be as compact as possible. The second-level departure lounge was raised 10 meters off the ground, allowing traffic to flow smoothly under the building. The central, raised location of the lounge also minimises passengers' walking distances along the corridors and bridges to the ships on either side of the terminal. The ground floor is mainly a pass-through area with separate exit and entrance lobbies. Passengers enter the terminal through a check-in area with glass walls 15 meters high and then quickly progress to the departure lounge on escalators and lifts.  © Kari Palsila The departure lounge is a spacious, hangar-like space with a restaurant, café, and seating. High glass walls open to a sweeping view of the sea and incoming and departing ships. The view can be enjoyed from the oak counter running along the full width of the window wall or, in summer, from the seaside terrace. The expansive wooden ceiling, made from heat-treated pine slats, rises up to a height of nine meters. Lighting, ventilation, and sprinklers are integrated discretely into the ceiling. From the middle, the ceiling slopes down towards the sides, directing passengers to the boarding bridges. Glass surfaces and lighting solutions play an important role in keeping the passenger route clear and safe. The departing and arriving passenger flows are separated, with arriving passengers being guided directly onto escalators and out of the terminal through customs on the ground floor.  Axonometric The geometry of the terminal frame is complex, particularly the roof that curves bi-directionally from the ridge. This was implemented with a steel frame structure. In addition to the requirement for efficiency, the design aimed at a high standard of elegance, quality, and comfort. The terminal is a significant public building in the developing urban environment of Jätkäsaari. Materials were chosen for wear resistance so as to retain their attractiveness throughout the lifespan of the building, at least for the next hundred years. From outside, the sleek, flowing lines of the building resemble a sea creature washed ashore, with glass, concrete and sea aluminum facades that gleam in the sun. Near the main entrance, the pine boards of the facade commemorate the time when ships were still made of wood.  © Kari Palsila  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The H Cube House / Studio Lagom Posted: 25 Nov 2017 06:00 PM PST  Courtesy of Studio Lagom
 © Photographix | Sebastian + Ira Text description provided by the architects. The H-Cube House in Surat strikes a contemporary and modern note in a nondescript urban milieu. Bagged with the help of positive word of mouth, this assignment came almost immediately on the heels of a larger villa project that was more than 10 times the scale of the present project. And that was precisely what was attractive and challenging: its compact size. The site was a 35' x 35' corner property in a densely populated community of urban Surat. The square dimension meant the absence of a long axis that could have otherwise been used as a base for spatial articulation. The exercise thus became centered around as much creating a good space as proving to ourselves that we had the capability of surmounting the challenges posed by a small scale and its detailing.  © Photographix | Sebastian + Ira The footprint of the house, after leaving out regulation setbacks, was approximately 25' x 25'. Within this square was a set up a grid that finally yielded three rectangular blocks: two of 10' x 25' and one of 5' x 25', with the smaller block allotted to circulation, services and storage. The house can be accessed via a discreet, tunnel-like and narrow staircase nestled between the wall of an elevated garden block and that of the structure, a deliberate attempt to move away from the open-to-public-view staircases seen otherwise, with little or no thought behind their design.  © Photographix | Sebastian + Ira Architecturally, the form is derived by cutting up the structure (specifically, the levels that house the living spaces) into four cubes, and shifting one quarter (on the upper level) out, to create a cantilevered block. A shift in material (concrete as opposed to white paint) distinguishes this volume further. Within it, is housed the master bedroom. The elevation also strikes an equilibrium between solidity and lightness; opacity and transparency. Below the cantilevered concrete block of the master bedroom, for instance, is a long L-shaped puncture spanning the two walls of the living room.  First Floor Plan The internal zonal articulation is also as simple, with a distinct horizontal delineation of semi-private and private zones. The semi-private zone (living room, kitchen and dining) is housed on lower level, with two bedrooms being situated on top. The street level is devoted to a car park. The constituent spaces of the semi-private zone are arranged in a C, with the dining forming the connecting element between the other two. The living room and the kitchen are separated by a large storage block which can be accessed from all four sides. On the level above lie two bedrooms on either side of a landing.  © Photographix | Sebastian + Ira The living room of the H-Cube House is essentially an open space brightened with a slit-like L-shaped window. A cordon of green outside filters the urban chaos and endeavours to create a feeling of serene seclusion. The dining area brims with earthy warmth, thanks to wooden furniture set on rough Kadappa stone. The exposed concrete ceiling prevents the space from slipping into the clinical. The sense of calmness on the lower level is further heightened by an internal waterbody complete with a cascade and tiny island replete with plants, that has been created in one corner of the living room. A hichko, a staple of every Gujarati household popularly seen on verandahs or patios, makes an appearance in this internal version of a verandah. This triple-storey courtyard is actually part of a strategy to establish visual linkages and connections, to avoid a feeling of being hemmed in and isolated. This light- and air-well connects both the levels, invites natural light into the space via a skylight, and, at its base, functions as a water court that imbues the space with serenity. With the staircase abutting the triple-height volume, this space is faintly reminiscent of the step-wells of yore. One level up, the master bedroom, which faces the main road, also opens into this void, establishing important sight-lines to the lower level.  Section 03 Aligned to the client brief, the colour scheme is neutral and the material palette, minimal. Exposed concrete, white plaster, black limestone and teakwood are the mainstays of the unobtrusive shell, which is then overlaid with bright (but not overly so) soft furnishings and accessories. The materials have been deliberately left bare, bereft of any cosmetic additions, to let their purity shine through.  © Photographix | Sebastian + Ira Given its location, the house necessarily became an introvert one. The connections to the outside became discreet, shielded… which meant that ventilation had to be carefully resolved. Louvered windows in the south-west corner (on both levels) allow cool breeze in, while the warm air escapes through the vents of the skylight and windows along the eastern face. Additionally, the master bedroom has been given a slit-like skylight just above the bed, which creates a living artwork on the exposed concrete wall, with the sciagraphy that plays through the day, and indeed, across seasons… Given these daylighting strategies, the dependence on artificial light is minimal, and mainly achieved through exposed and recessed spotlights. Creating H-Cube House, to us, has reinforced many beliefs: that size doesn't matter; that there are always solutions; and that God is in the details…  Courtesy of Studio Lagom  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Outside House / FLOAT Architectural Research and Design Posted: 25 Nov 2017 12:00 PM PST  © Olivier Koning
 © Olivier Koning Text description provided by the architects. The Outside House is a place to live outside. Two small pavilions shape the basics of daily life and structure an intentional relationship with the land. The Outside House is built as a point of connection between the client and the land she stewards in upcountry Maui. Inspired by FLOAT's Watershed writing studio (Dwell, Feb 2009), the client asked for a building that would reinforce her connection with the place. In response, FLOAT designed two facing pavilions that straddle a three-hundred year old lava flow.  © Olivier Koning The enclosed pavilion is called the Mauka after the Hawaiian word for "inland toward the mountains." This pavilion is a tiny detached bedroom oriented to look up the lava flow and catch the first light of sunrise over cinder cones. After that brief morning sunlight, the room is in cool shade for daytime reading and napping.  Floor Plan The outdoor pavilion is named the Makai after the Hawaiian word for "seaward." This pavilion is a roofed platform that shelters a deck, outdoor kitchen, and hidden outdoor shower that are all open to views of the Pacific and the island of Kahoolawe. The center of the Outside House is the uneven, ever-changing ground between the pavilions. The unbuilt areas of the Outside House—lichen on the lava, a curved rock wall, a growing endemic mamane tree – are the essence of daily living in this place and what the client values most. In keeping with the client's stewardship of the land, the pavilions are designed to be minimally connected to the ground and to be demountable. The Makai pavilion is a prefabricated, galvanized steel structure that was hand-carried, assembled by hand, and anchored to the ground with four threaded rods. The designer wove the shade panel and the shower enclosure with marine rope. The decking and cladding are milled from juniper, a tree that is harvested to protect ground water and habitat in the Pacific Northwest.  © Olivier Koning The Mauka is light wood-frame construction, resting above the ground on four concrete piers. The Mauka is clad in reflective film on the north and south sides and with western red cedar on the east and west. Screened vents along the base of the north and south walls allow a comfortable amount of air movement and indirect light in the single room. Polycarbonate sheathing protects the roof and vents from the regular island rains. The client is a hospice social worker and land conservationist who uses the higher-elevation Outside House as a cool-temperature retreat from work in town. She and her family started visiting this land in the 1960s. Her earliest memories of the place are of crawling through lava tubes near the now-endangered wiliwilis, Hawaiian trees historically used for canoe floats.  © Olivier Koning The Outside House is intended to demonstrate the client's eco-centric worldview, a perspective that is rooted the Hawaiian concept of aloha aina--love of the land. Designer Erin Moore is an architect and principal of FLOAT architectural research and design and Associate Professor in the Architecture Department and in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Oregon. Moore uses her teaching, research, and design practice to explore ways that architecture reflects and reinforces ideas of nature.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Australia's Sunshine Coast Plans for New $900 Million Mixed-Use Development Posted: 25 Nov 2017 06:00 AM PST  Courtesy of Sekisui House The Sunshine Coast of Australia's Yaroomba Beach is about to get a $900 million upgrade. The integrated, mixed-use development will be the first 5-star resort developed on the Sunshine Coast in 30 years. HASSELL has been awarded the work as master planners, architects, and landscape architects for the massive project, focusing on sustainable and ecological goals to 'touch the ground lightly.'  Courtesy of Sekisui House The site is surrounded by dunes and vegetation, so it became important to respond to the landscape and interweave it throughout the project. Architecturally, HASSELL's proposal takes inspiration from the nearby Mount Coolum, rising abruptly from the lush coastal plain with steep cliff walls and densely vegetated on top. Similar to Mount Coolum, the buildings show a clear distinction between the landscaped base and the green overlay at the top.  Courtesy of Sekisui House
 Courtesy of Sekisui House Sekisui House Australia's development will include the Westin Coolum Spa and Resort in which the community will be able to take advantage of the richly programmed landscape. The facilities provided will bring large-scale conference/convention facilities to the Sunshine Coast, thereby attracting large-scale events to put Yaroomba on the map. News via: HASSELL.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Syncline House / Omar Gandhi Architect Posted: 25 Nov 2017 05:00 AM PST  © Ema Peter
 © Ema Peter Text description provided by the architects. Syncline ˈ(\ˈsin-ˌklīn\): a fold in stratified rock with younger layers closer to the center of the structure. The home sits on the lone syncline that runs through peninsular Halifax.  © Ema Peter Located in the south end of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Syncline was designed for California-based Geoff and his husband, Nova Scotia-based James – the quiet, masculine modern form sits adjacent to Point Pleasant Park and overlooks the North-West Arm.  © Ema Peter Sitting atop a concrete base which seemingly extends the rocky foundation, the home is composed of twin volumes clad in a textured, white Fibre C - a German-made fibre cement panel composed of raw materials including glass fibre, sand, and cement. The volumes vary in proportion as well as location, with one lunging forward slightly ahead of the other. The taller volume houses the public program including the gym, living room and kitchen, while the lower features the home's sleeping and office amenities. At the forefront of both are walk-out decks facing the western ocean view, one from the living room and the other from the master bedroom. Wood-decked patios overlooking the city's primary forested park in one direction and the open ocean waters in the other sit high atop the two primary volumes.  © Ema Peter A central core between the two is fully glazed in black-framed windows and topped with a razor thin canopy, encasing a porous, wood-lined steel staircase which winds its way up through the home. Flanking the taller volume is a tall, wood-clad structure which includes a residential scale elevator and back-of-house spaces including a high-end audio control room. The wood cladding is scorched, locally-sourced clear spruce with a clear coat finish. Wood scorching introduces flame to surface, intentionally charring it before it is brushed to remove any loose carbon, providing both decay and flame resistance through the process.  © Ema Peter The interior material palette is composed wide white oak flooring, an all-white wall treatment and header-less doors which span from floor to ceiling. Natural light is drawn into the primary social spaces through the double height atrium and great room spaces.  © Ema Peter The home utilizes geothermal heat pumps as the primary source for heating and cooling. Energy requirements are supplemented by a rooftop field of photovoltaic panels. The entirety of the glazing utilized for the home is triple pane for both energy conservation and acoustic requirements. Automated blinds and recessed windows on the south west façade help to passively cool the house.  © Ema Peter  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Oslo Architecture Triennale Curator Shortlist Announced Posted: 25 Nov 2017 04:00 AM PST  Courtesy of Kartverket / NIBO / Statens Vegvesen This fall, the Oslo Architecture Triennale had an open call for its 2019 curator. Now, they have announced the five proposals which have been shortlisted for 2017. Upon reading their bios below, you will quickly see the amount of multidisciplinary work each of the shortlisted teams is composed of, including architects, curators, writers, and various other thought-leaders.  OAT2016 | New World Embassy / Rojava. Image Courtesy of Kartverket / NIBO / Statens Vegvesen "Many of the proposals deal with the most important issues of our time, issues which cannot be ignored in a relevant discussion about architecture's role today and in the future" states the jury, comprised of Nina Berre, Anne Beate Hovind, Pero Gadanho, Marianne Skjulhaug and Kjetil Traedal Thorsen. Adrian Currie, Andre Dekker, Christiane Bürklein, Dominique Couchani, Herbert Wright, and Zuzanna Skalka Adrian Currie creates architectural, landscape and seascape artwork using watercolor, pen&ink, and digital techniques. Andre Dekker is also an artist and writer, focusing on public art and art philosophies relating to the public realm. Christiane Burklein specializes in subjects concerning social and environmental sustainability, landscaping and urban design with a knack for social media marketing. Herbert Wright is a writer in London, discussing architecture, urbanism, and art. Anna Bokov and Nina Edwards Anker Anna Bokov is recognized for her skills as an architect, urban designer, and theoretician. Nina Edwards Anker, founder of NEA Studio, focuses its work on architecture, interiors, landscape planning, furniture and product design with an emphasis on sustainable design based in New York.  OAT2016 | OnResidence. Image Courtesy of Kartverket / NIBO / Statens Vegvesen Brendan Cormier, FIG projects (Fabrizio Gallanti and Francisca Insulza), and Mabel O. Wilson Brendan Cormier is a writer, curator, researcher and urban designer. FIG Projects from Santiago de Chile, founded in 2003, is an interdisciplinary firm blurring the boundaries of architecture, urban research, and visual arts. FIG Projects' partner, Fabrizio Gallanti has a background in hybridizing architectural design and visual arts, which he focused on from 1998-2004 as a founding member of Gruppo A12. Mabel O. Wilson specializes in the practice of architecture, art, and cultural history involving the production of multimedia installations and built projects. Together, Brendan Cormier, FIG Projects, and Mabel O. Wilson came together to make a proposal for the 2019 Oslo Architecture Triennale Curator.  OAT2016 | InResidence. Image Courtesy of Kartverket / NIBO / Statens Vegvesen Dehlia Hannah, James Graham, and Nadim Samman Dehlia is a Copenhagen based researcher, philosopher, and curator, currently working on a 'transdisciplinary thought experiment about climate change conducted on the bicentennial of the Tambora climate crisis of 1815-18'. James Graham brings to this group his experience in planning and preservation, along with extensive writings. Nadim Samman is a curator, whose portfolio includes the curation of the 14th Venice Biennale of Architecture. Interrobang Architecture & Engineering Interrobang is a multidisciplinary architecture and engineering practice that blends 'bright thinking with technical rigor to realize artful and inventive structural designs' based out of London. It is through their interconnected relationship between architecture and engineering that they can challenge the status quo and construct visionary solutions. New via: Oslo Architecture Triennale.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Tatiana Bilbao: Creating Spaces with Relevance Means "Enhancing Someone's Life" Posted: 25 Nov 2017 01:30 AM PST In the second film from this year's series of PLANE—SITE's Time-Space-Existence videos, Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao shares her philosophy of how architecture should be designed with the user's experience in mind, rather than for standalone aesthetic qualities. In the video she discusses how architects should to some extent let go of their artistic intentions for a more practical approach to serve the needs of people, discussing how architecture has become detached from its key purpose over the last fifty years due to the influence of capitalism.  © Jaime Navarro  © Jaime Navarro Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO strives to return to the principals of architecture. As Bilbao describes, it is about "making places and spaces, by people, for people," enhancing how a building is lived in and leaving a trace of those who built it. The practice maintains the ethos of labor-intensive, handmade buildings, providing much-needed jobs in Mexico by trying not to replace people with machines—and ultimately giving the final result a raw energy.  Courtesy of PLANE — SITE After recent projects in collaboration with the artists Ai Weiwei and Gabriel Orozco, her practice has risen to become one of the most distinguished architecture firms in Mexico. Last year, Bilbao was also put forward for the Architectural Review (AR) 2016 Woman Architect of the Year, alongside other renowned names including Charlotte Skene Catling, Jeanne Gang and Kazuyo Sejima. This interview with Tatiana Bilbao is one of many commissioned by the GAA Foundation to highlight the voices and opinions of prominent architects in the lead up to the Time-Space-Existence exhibition due to open at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale this May.  © Jaime Navarro News via: PLANE — SITE  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| DBP House / Vertentes Arquitetura Posted: 25 Nov 2017 01:00 AM PST  © Leo Giantomasi
 © Leo Giantomasi Text description provided by the architects. In recent years, a residential typology knew as "condo standard" has become commonplace in Brazilian interior cities. Restrictive internal codes of construction regarding setbacks, pavement numbers, and construction techniques, force the adoption of similar design concepts, which is reflected inhomogeneity that sometimes is poor of lines and styles. In this residence, located in the city of Piracicaba (160 km from São Paulo), the initial scenario was similar: narrow terrain, need for wide backs in all directions, impossibility to enjoy the rooftop as a visitable terrace, obligatory lateral walls, among other rules. Initial dialogues with clients (a newly married couple) pointed to a house following more practical than extravagant architecture. They idealized, above all, a comfortable, well-ventilated and illuminated house, with a good distribution of rooms, favoring the integration of spaces.  © Leo Giantomasi Designing a house that respected these initial parameters, observing all the norms of subdivision regulations, without succumbing to an extreme aesthetic or to non-orthodox constructive solutions was the challenge of this project. How to equalize these guidelines without falling, at the same time, into a common ditch in terms of architecture and constructive solutions? Basically, this project was given a sense of movement. Something able to counteract the rigidity of the obligatory setbacks and the orthogonal lines of the neighboring constructions, giving natural personality to the house. On the ground floor, where the living and leisure rooms are located, the most relevant masonry sets were rotated at 45 angle-degree, avoiding overtaking the projection of the upper pavement or to disengage from the structural (orthogonal) mesh.  Ground Floor Plan  Upper Floor Plan This allowed creating a dynamic sense for the facades while generating interesting situations regarding the distribution and communication among internal spaces. The second floor, where the sleeping area is located, constitutes a block of perpendicular lines built on the threshold of the lateral and frontal limits of the terrain, incorporating the roof of the garage. The rigidity of the straight lines, in this case, was intentional, facilitating the distribution of the upper rooms and also the progress of the construction work, seeking a geometric contrast with the ground floor. The concept of movement for the second floor was incorporated through the movable slatted panels, installed on the balconies, facing external masonry.  © Leo Giantomasi Made of aluminum, they allow light and privacy control, as well as giving the facades prominence in terms of movement and color. To fulfill the clients' wish for a light and airy house, large window, and door spans were designed, as well as a rectangular skylight over the staircase. These resources allow the house to be well supplied with natural light and ventilation the whole year. If a clean aesthetic characterizes the house exterior, without adornments, and marked by the strength of the geometric volumes, the internal aesthetic was a result of an active collaboration from the clients during the specification phases. Defined in common agreement, materials and color tones followed the clients' personal tastes, bringing the project closer to the construction initially desired by the owners.  © Leo Giantomasi  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Why Freddy Mamani is Leading A New Andean Architecture Posted: 25 Nov 2017 12:00 AM PST  © Alfredo Zeballos The media outbreak for architect Elisabetta Andreoli and artist Ligia D'Andrea’s book "Andean Architecture of Bolivia", which focuses on the work of Freddy Mamani - ex-bricklayer turned engineer and constructor- has become the excuse to talk about everything else related to the highland country of Bolivia. Such as the shortcomings and luxuries of the rapid urban expansion dispersed in El Alto, the youngest city in Bolivia; the birth of a new Aymara bourgeoisie in the shadow of the white elites; and the birth of a contemporary architectural identity that bothers purists and makes Aymaras proud, but is rejected by local architecture schools. Below, you can find out more about this new type of architecture together with photos by Alfredo Zeballos.  © Alfredo Zeballos It was an achievement for everyone; one for Elisabetta and Ligia, another for Mamani. The presentation of the book "Andean Architecture of Bolivia: the work of Freddy Mamani Silvestre" at the National Museum of Art in La Paz last March, marked a moment where Elisabetta and Ligia had managed to take a new step in the serious documentation of Bolivian architecture, without stereotypes or it being disregarded as a tourist guide, such was the case with the first publication of Elisabetta: "Contemporary Bolivia" (2012). "There was not a single book that did not deal with landscape and tourism," says the Italian architect. During the ceremony, the prolific career of Mamani, having completed more than 60 projects in a decade, was also validated before the cultural establishment of La Paz. His work has been curiously shaped in El Alto, an old poor neighborhood of the Bolivian capital. In the last fifty years, it has taken on its own life with a population of nearly one million inhabitants. It took center stage in the so-called "Gas War" that in 2003 made President Sánchez de Lozada fall, and then rallied around Evo Morales in the 2005 elections, in a symbolic transition Bolivia went from 'Gringo' to 'Cholo', and the pride of being indigenous came with that. Of course, Freddy Mamani is not an architect. Born in a small Aymara community called Catavi, he started working twenty years ago as a bricklayer assistant. But his dreams pushed him to study at the Technological Faculty of Civil Constructions at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (1986), and later to pursue a degree in Civil Engineering at the UBI. All of this despite, as he explained in a recent article, that his family urged him to give up: "do not study an expensive career, it's a race for the rich." At the same time, in the city of El Alto -the receptor for decades of thousands of indigenous peasants coming from La Paz, Oruro, and Potosí- a new Aymara bourgeoisie was formed that found in Mamani's office one of their own. He was a guy without academic apprehensions, who embarked on the idea of finding an Aymara architectural identity. "I seek to give identity to my city by recovering elements of our original culture," says Freddy in "Andean Architecture of Bolivia ..."  © Alfredo Zeballos  © Alfredo Zeballos As Nathalie Iriarte points out in 'Transforming Architecture', the first assignment that Francisco Mamani took on was a commercial cell phone importer. He "had a plot of 300m² and wanted to build a property, but did not know what kind". Then Freddy Mamani suggested an "elegant building, with Andean forms, colorful and with a large hall for events, something that until then had not existed in the city." That's where it all began. Nowadays six-story buildings dominate the views of the Altiplano city. Large glazed panels are framed in facades with plastic compositions of plaster moldings and bathed in complementary colors like orange/green and blue/yellow. It can be considered an aggressive chromatic palette for traditional architecture, but irresistible for a city built in bare brick, behind a monochromatic, cold and dry highland landscape.  © Alfredo Zeballos These facades, designed by Mamani, began to be called 'transformer', or contemptuously 'cholas'. The concept of 'cholets' emerged, a play on words between chalet and cholo, and the Bolivian press effusively presented Freddy as the creator of an independent and unique style, which owes nothing to anyone, without references or tributes. Mamani had wanted to make “an architecture that spoke an Andean language since what is taught in universities has nothing to do with it", commented Elisabetta Andreoli from Italy in conversation with Plataforma Arquitectura. "Some of the forms have been taken out of Andean art. The Tiwanacotas used a language of civilization in their forms: textiles, ceramics, and architectural ruins. Mamani uses the Andean cross, the diagonal juxtaposition of the planes, the duplicity, the repetition, the circle, which makes all this a stylisation theme, that is its source."  © Alfredo Zeballos The plastic composition of these facades has eclipsed the programmatic qualities originally proposed by the Aymara builder, whose main attraction is the dance halls, built on a second level over the ten commercial premises designed on the first floor. As described by Andreoli, "the Aymara culture usually celebrates the great events of life, there is always a reason to give" and when the indigenous communities migrate to the cities, they find in the dance halls the opportunity to maintain their traditions, but until now, they were not designed for the activities of the Aymara community. Nobody thought and designed them as Mamani: spacious and double-height spaces, with bars, tables to eat and drink beer, dance floors and platforms for the two or three bands that play live. Generously sized rooms in mirrors that bounce the hundreds of little lights embedded in the walls and ceilings, as well as from the hanging tear lamps brought from China. The corridors are sheltered by embroidered columns and balustrades with different tones and styles. Robust colorful curves weave compositions to the heavens.  © Alfredo Zeballos Above the dance halls, apartments are designed to lease, or alternatively, for the children of the owners, with special emphasis on common spaces. Then above these apartments and crowning the building, is "the owner's house, a form and design that breaks with the rest of the building” says the Italian architect. The owner’s houses respect the chromatic palette of the rest of the work, but with a distinct roofing style. The houses boast a high front yard and a privileged view of the city, giving the building two unique attractions. In the book "Andean Architecture in Bolivia ...", they document how the locals in La Paz believed that this would be "a replica of the peasant house with its space around". Others argue that according to the Andean conception, having the housing at height allows it to be closer to the Alaqpacha (upper world), above the Akapacha (world terrain). However, "unlike the commercial building, which occupies the entire plot, the owner's house can be smaller and more autonomous, so it heats the rooms better in the heat of the day and can protect themselves from the cold of the highlands", explains Elisabetta.  © Alfredo Zeballos Despite the success and enthusiasm of the press, Manami’s work aroused animosity in the academic realm. "We did a talk at a university. There were teachers who did not even listen to us, some left and few understood that this could be part of a Bolivian identity” confesses Andreoli. Mamani also points this out in the book: "in the technical faculty we felt our culture underestimated, but now with President Evo, the original culture is revalued. I went to Tiwanaco and I was impressed with its forms and I studied the books. I have given my design a decomposition and stylisation of the Andean forms." According to Elisabetta, ”the architecture faculties are very envious. They must think: 'we who study the race have not been able to invent a contemporary language that is Bolivian and this guy comes along who is a bricklayer and finds it before us'. And of course, the Bolivian schools are carrying the cross to formulate a brand of their own, but that is not this, but in line with the rest of the West. "Mamani also does not work with the aesthetics of the Bolivian elite and that's why they consider it picturesque and not very serious. It could be understood as classism and racism." Faced with media coverage, criticism, discrimination and new projects that are adding all the time, Mamani does not forget his training as a bricklayer: here there are no plans or computers or orders. However, once the heavy work is finished, each morning he hands out the instructions directly to his team and to explain some detail, he writes it down on a piece of paper, or sometimes, he just needs to put the pencil on a wall to say: "in the moment I will explain." For more information on the book "Andean Architecture of Bolivia", by the authors Elisabetta Andreoli and Ligia d'Andrea, contact elisand@aol.com An exhibition was also made by the Cultural Foundation of the Central Bank of Bolivia at the National Museum of Art, La Paz. This exhibition will be presented from July in other cities of the country: Sucre, Potosí, Santa Cruz and Cochabamaba.  © Alfredo Zeballos  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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