Compact House Series

These two houses are the first in a series of compact 'apartment' houses designed by Tom Locke in Waimate North. 

Up north, Tom observed, once people buy a piece of land, they will often chuck up a quick shed or park a caravan on the site, before gradually building up around it.  

The first building the owners put on the site won’t be positioned to face the best view, but the following buildings, a long drop, a workshop, a sleep-out, slowly build towards one location the owners have identified that will frame the ultimate view.

These two Waimate houses use this observation to develop the sites. The houses represent that first placing of the ‘caravan’ on the site, the initial utilitarian building, a minimum requirement to enable the owner to function.

This initial building anchors an outdoor communal setting, a courtyard or garden, that future buildings can congregate around.

Tom proposes this fascination with the view parallels the culmination of the journey of life. One works and struggles through the phases of life, building slowly towards the view. When you get to that point and the activity finishes, you can finally sit back in front of that picture window, watch the change of seasons, contemplate, rest.

The Waimate houses are essentially ‘flash caravans’ with the wheels taken off, a simple and efficient form.

The exterior is inspired by woolsheds - such as the sliding barn door above, which is painted with a motif from Le Corbusier's nunnery at Ronchamp. The interior embodies the spatial economy of apartment living.

Kitchen & dining, the offset windows from within.

Headboard of concrete block and plywood with wardrobe behind. 

Clear corrugated panels over windows create a lantern effect at night.

In the second Waimate house, the 'flash caravan' prototype is modified to accommodate changes in site levels, orientation and materiality.

Clerestories in the bedroom, from the bed one can watch the moon travel from one opening to another.

The Waimate site strategy is a metaphor for a living process, a slow accretion of material and geometric forms, a time-based building process that parallels life's growth and struggle, towards a final framing of the horizon.

Sketches show site development, the shaded area is the 'caravan'. The strategy allows the client time to pause and consider what future building is necessary, these decisions can change when the client is inhabiting the site.

Houses are one bedroom, 90 sq m including garage. 

Anna's Mandala Barbeque

This concrete crop circle enclosing a rotating barbeque is located in a suburban sliver of green named Harry Dansey park, the semi-private backyard of our resident archivist Anna.

The pure geometrical forms revealed in plan suggest a higher destiny for the ubiquitous barbeque, the design invokes the ancient Egyptian symbol of the sun, Aztec zodiacs and ancient Chinese coins.

Architecture and Puppetry

A Conversation with Oliver Smart, Puppeteer

An established puppeteer, Oliver Smart is ever inventive and surprising. I visited Oliver while he was rehearsing for ‘Life Still’, a ‘science fiction in wartime’, which recently premiered in Paris.

Oliver lives in a converted warehouse that is immediately theatrical, a large concreted open area under tall rooflights, with ropes hanging from the ceiling, stage lighting on rigs, black curtains framing the ‘stage’, stairs running up into high loft spaces.

A bedroom constructed in the triangular rooflight opens onto an inclined plane of corrugated iron covered in a growth of mosses, which as Oliver notes is like a forest of kanuka, if you squint. There’s a small timber deck, floor to ceiling fire-glass insulated with bubble wrap - altogether an interesting bricolage of found materials.

As Oliver introduces me to his puppets, he describes his art using a language familiar to architecture, ‘every object has textures which describe the whole object, movement-texture, sound-texture, light-texture’. To my mind these words describe a spatial experience, and the changes in sound and light when moving through the space.

Oliver talks about the parallel between puppeteers and architects. Both ‘orchestrate’ an event – a performance or an architecture, which ‘lives’ or operates independently of the designer. There is an effacement of the presence of the puppeteer / architect once the event begins.

Both choreograph puppets, objects or materials, structures, forms and space, whilst also being controlled by other forces beyond their remit. Both attempt to express an experience beyond the materiality of the object, and use a similar techniques: suspension of belief, illusion, assemblage and detailing, transformation of found object, found materials, found stories, meanings and memory.

Oliver’s puppets start their formation from found objects. The objects arrive with a history, memories, and associations. Over time, Oliver says, their ‘personality’ emerges.

The above photo is of the ‘chicken’, created from down pillows with leather mechanisms and two stick-like legs. Through minimal intervention and precise detailing Oliver plays with the illusion of ‘giving life’ to this inanimate object. The viewer’s mind recognises the movements and shape of the pillow as a chicken, yet without obvious anthropomorphic cues such as eyes or a beak, ‘there is still some pillow in the chicken’.

Oliver creates spatial conditions on stage using the puppets, for example the choreography between the ‘tank’ (above) and ‘moth’. The tank is an assemblage of found objects, a Super 16 film projector mounted on a deckchair on a piano trolley. It projects a rectangle of white light that attracts a ‘moth’, made from an old umbrella.

An ever-changing, flickering space is created on stage as the tank follows the moth and in turn the moth follows the projected light from the tank.

Another puppet based on Hieronymus Bosch is a piece of fabric and two pegs which unpack from a small set of wooden drawers. The puppet continues to unpack haberdashery objects from the drawers onto his workspace on top of the cabinet. He assembles a church, which gets destroyed, a city scape, which also gets destroyed by a Victorian plant waterer slowly squirting feathers. Oliver plays with the quality of the objects and their function, ‘You can’t be violent with feathers, they absorb all violence’.

Oliver describes puppets as having a complete connection to the puppeteer. The action to move the puppet becomes automatic and the puppet an extension of the puppeteers mind. This description reminds me of the system created between a person drawing and the drawing, how one can become immersed in a drawing so that progression into the drawing is like moving through ones mind, controlling the drawing yet allowing the process to be led by the drawing. The drawing emerges like the puppets are slowly infused with life and their qualities emerge.

As a collection, or collective, the puppets have a museum-like quality, found objects with a history and memory. In the curative hands of the puppeteer a new narrative emerges.

The puppeteer sets up a magical alter-reality, and as the audience starts to believe in this strange emergence of life, as all the ‘dead things’ are finding their identity, the puppeteer’s ego dissolves.

I find it inspiring to consider architecture through the puppeteers language, an architecture that can suspend belief. Transformation of space is alchemical, everyday objects transformed in unexpected ways into strange and beautiful scenes. Architecture of magic realism, where we start to believe that the inanimate can become alive, can ‘remember’, and can express ideas about the human condition.

For clips from the Paris show check out:

www.foldedfeather.com

Tank makes itself useful when not working - it also plays Felix the Cat movies.

Alvar Aalto (1898 – 1976)

On the side of the road on Muuratsalo Island, Finland, we wait for a tour to start at Finnish architect Alvar Aalto’s Experimental House. At precisely 1.30, a lithe elfin-like creature emerges from the forest to lead us down the path to the lake. The forest is autumnal and quiet, the path meanders past the boat shed, the sauna, and eventually to the summer house.

During the tour she mentions that one question she is often asked is why Aalto designed one of the external courtyard walls with a large window-like opening in the middle of it. Her answer is that Aalto designed the wall as if it were a ruin. I found this answer intriguing and in this following post have sought to identify other aspects of this idea of constructing a ruin in Aalto’s work.

The idea of the ruin has been raised by George Baird (1970) who argues that all Alvar Aalto’s ‘buildings after Paimo give the impression of having been aged in advance’. (p.12)

The buildings can be viewed as ‘metaphors of ruins’ in three ways; Aalto’s selection and assemblage of materials, his philosophy towards nature, and design of architectural form. These techniques will be investigated in three buildings visited in September 2010.

Aalto chose building materials that weathered predictably into an aesthetic ruin. He preferred copper, brick and timber, over concrete, steel and vast amounts of glazing, at a time where the latter materials were increasingly used as a Modernist aesthetic. Additionally, materials were selected and assembled to encourage plant and moss growth to gradually overtake the building. Over time surfaces and crevices become impregnated with new life.

A symbiotic relationship between the synthetic artifice and ‘nature’ was part of Aalto’s utopian philosophy. Ray (2005) notes: ‘he believed that architecture needed to be conceived in harmony with nature, and that landscape design should in turn aim to reconcile the artificial with the natural’. (Ray, 2005: p.150) Whilst acknowledging that nature is not untouched by humans, Aalto advocated humans would be happiest in a building that works in harmony with laws of nature and biology.

The profoundest property of architecture is a variety and growth reminiscent of natural organic life (Aalto, 1938 lecture, Ruusuvuori, 1978: p.34)

Consideration of both growth and decay extended to Aalto’s treatment of form, which tended towards fragmentation, or a distortion of a geometric ideal. Monolithic walls are often designed as if in a state of dissolution, such as the aforementioned courtyard wall at the Experimental House; as though it has eroded away and continues to, thus recognising the time-bound nature of architecture. Baird (1970) writes ‘it is as though the final victory of nature over the vulnerable creations of mankind, had already been conceded in Aalto’s works at their inception.’ (p.13)

Interestingly enough, by acknowledging the vulnerability of these ‘creations of mankind’, the pervading impression of Aalto’s buildings is a carefully considered humanist architecture.

Chapter One:

Photo Credits: Nina Morris, Tom Locke

Aalto’s home and office is located in a suburb west of central Helsinki in Munkkiniemi. One enters through the front guest door into a small vestibule, buys a ticket for the tour, and ascends a few steps into the office space.

On the back of the ticket is printed a quote by Aalto, ‘but if you want my blessing for your home, it should have one further characteristic: you must give yourself away in some little detail. Your home should purposely show up some weakness of yours. This may seem to be a field in which the architect’s authority ceases, but no architectural creation is complete without some such trait: it will not be alive.’

This intriguing quote prompts us to search for this detail in Aalto’s own home, we’ll make a suggestion on later – to keep the poor reader engaged in this long blog post.

But firstly; on the construction of a ruin.

The front elevation shows the material palette of a dark timber cladding, a lighter timber for doors, and whitewashed brick walls. The timber is a material which weathers visibly by changing hue over the seasons. There is a plant growth leaping over the wall that separates the formal entrance from the private family one.

At the rear of the house rods run up the face of the walls to encourage plant growth to overtake the facades. Paving is of irregular form and laid loosely to allow grass to grow through.

The application of whitewash over the brick walls allows the texture of the brick to emerge through the paint, giving emphasis to the rich materiality of the wall, and revealing the craft of the bricklayer. The wall is presented as an organic construction, as opposed to the ‘house as a machine’ aesthetic.

On the roof deck wildflowers grow in organically shaped planters, and grass sprouts between pavers.

In the living and dining rooms plants in timber boxes alongside the large windows visually connect with the external foliage surrounding the windows.

Upstairs, wood slats are used to delineate space to shield the bathroom door from the central living area, an example of the ‘dissolution’ of the courtyard wall used on a larger scale at the Experimental House.

Returning to the characteristic detail in which Aalto suggests ‘you must give yourself away in’, is this the small ladder that runs from Aalto’s private office up to the family roof deck?

One can imagine the architect excusing himself to his office, pulling the dividing curtain, and scaling the ladder straight up to the roof deck with his employees none the wiser. Aalto designed-in to the house from its inception a means of escape without needing to explain his withdrawal to his office staff.

Chapter Two:

Muuratsalo Experimental House (1952-54), on Muuratsalo Island in Säynätsalo, was built to be Elissa and Alvar Aalto´s summer house.

The house was designed to experiment with materials, craft and construction methods. Aalto, returning over subsequent summers, was able to observe the gradual ‘ruin’ of the house. The simultaneous re-growth of living things and decay of the building was an intentional design strategy. Aalto created architectural conditions to allow nature to advance and impregnate the building.

The house is arranged in an L shape around a courtyard. The courtyard is like a large external room: it contains the hearth of the house, the firepit, the central feature and the heart of the house. The external walls of the courtyard are taller then necessary to simply enclose an external space, as they extend the pitched line of the roof, and are also capped in roof tiles, to continue the roofing material.

This courtyard can be read like a story. In this imaginary narrative this courtyard that was once a grand internal room, that has been externalised by the weather, the roof to this room has collapsed and part of the largest wall has fallen away, leaving long vertical slats in the gaping window.

This ‘dissolution’ of a monumental building form is used here again to design a ruin in advance. Nature advances: a large vine grows up the inside of the slats, and the tall forest trees leaning into the opening.

The firepit is a square form, reminiscent of carved stones from the ruins of Angkor Wat, an ancient geometrically ideal form, symmetrical, centred, an organisational principle that anchors the volumes of the house.

The construction drawings for the courtyard elevations and paving plan show how the planes were divided into sections of different types of bricks and methods of assembly. The ways in which mosses grow over the various protruding surfaces could therefore be compared.

Chapter Three:

For me “the rising town” has become a religion, a disease, a madness, call it what you will: the city of hills, that curving, living, unpredictable

line which runs in dimensions unknown to mathematicians, is for me the incarnation of everything that forms a contrast in the modern world between brutal mechanicalness and religious beauty in life. (Aalto, 1926, quoted in Schilt, 1986: p.12)

Aalto refers to the hill towns of Tuscany, which he visited and sketched early in his career. The hill towns represent a synthesis of urban and ‘natural’ conditions, and a reconciliation of public and private political realms, the combination of which form a vision of human happiness through harmony with nature and a balance of power.

Saynatsalo Town Hall embodies this utopian vision. The visitor approaches the Town Hall – the urban condition - through a forested site.

it is implied that to establish unequivocal urban space of any real

intensity would pose far too provocative a challenge to the ravages of

time. Instead, the buildings are always set in natural contexts in such a way as to ensure a distinct, albeit ironic, dematerialization of any urban space that might tend to crystallize there.’ (Baird, 1970: p.13)

Stairs of granite gently ascend through an opening in the building mass, leading the visitor upwards onto an external grassy courtyard. Like an Italian piazza, this courtyard is a public forum, a ‘symbol of public power’. (Baird, 1970: p.20) Located in the courtyard is a symbolic ‘water source’, a rectangular pool with a small fountain.

The plan of Saynatsalo Town Hall is roughly a square layout of various functions gathered around the courtyard. Ray (2005) describes the plan as based on the ‘ideal geometry’ of the square, which is then ‘subjected to distortion’. (p.117) The symmetrical form of the square is ‘eroded’ through setbacks and cantilevers, to produce a variety of forms, a ‘fragmentation of volumetric integrity of building.’ (Baird, 1970: p14)

This dissolution of form is further emphasised by the small strips of recessed brick above the window head (which coincide with timber trusses within), and the use of timber and metal louvers over windows. These details fragment the monumentality of the building mass whilst maintaining a balance between solidity of form and erosion of form.

On the opposite side of the courtyard to the granite stairs are stairs to the west, which Ray notes, ‘is not really a staircase at all, but is formed of planted earth retained by strips of timber, and seems to flow like a river over a series of weirs down from the court’ (Ray, 2005: p.112)

This ‘stair’ clearly reinforces the idea of the ruin, a stair that is designed from the outset as if it has deteriorated, where grasses and pine trees have found a footing, and it gradually has become part of the hill again.

Plants are encouraged to creep up over the exterior of the building, by the way of rods installed between glazed windows and overhead pergolas.

In the courtyard various paving layouts have been chosen to allow mosses and grass to grow in the gaps.

The gallery has timber planter boxes nourished by a south facing glazed wall, warmed by the thermal mass of the brick benches.

After entering the main doors to the Town Hall, the ascent up the ‘hill town’ continues, culminating in the council chamber, the private political forum.

The council chamber emerges as the highest volume of the building mass, granted a symbolic place of authority, yet balanced by the courtyard / public forum, which remains the central organising principle.

Baird (1970) has critiqued Aalto’s stairways as ‘potent’ enclosures, the stair at Saynatsalo a ‘promontory’. The stairs rise slowly ‘as the earth itself might.’ (Baird, 1970: p.16)

Contrasting to the slow ‘timebound’ erosion of form suggested by the metaphor of the ruin, the stairs involve another time-based experience. The moments where the body comes in contact with the architecture, to grasp the handrail, and extended duration when the hand holds and moves along a balustrade are dealt with sensitively. The section of the handrail traces the human hand. The handrails ‘extend far beyond their function as related to stairs’ and ‘form elaborate networks of touch.’ (Baird, 1970)

In the ascent to the council chamber both natural and artificial light comes from high windows, so one has the feeling of moving towards the light. Aalto is careful to follow his principle of shielding and diffusing the direct glare from a tungsten light, using fine timber slats.

The council chamber is constructed of brick and timber, materials that lend a pleasant scent to the room. In the high ceilings are two fan-like timber trusses, which have been likened to natural forms, to branches spreading. Thus within the inward-looking, austere council chamber one discovers a reminder of nature.

Aalto has long been considered a ‘humanist’ architect, and upon visiting his architecture one can experience how this humanism in architecture is manifested. Certainly humanism relates to the idea of constructing a ruin, a building designed to recognise the ‘inescapably timebound character of built-form.’ (Baird, 1970: p.11)

The 'ruin' connects architecture to the distortion of form, weathering of materials, and the advance of nature over the artifice. The ‘ruin’ imbues architecture with a sense of memory and history. The ‘ruin’ embodies a utopian ideal; Aalto believed ‘people will be happier if their environment is designed in harmony with nature.’ (Ray, 2005: p.156)

The relevance of Aalto today is obvious when we consider that the ‘humanising of modernism’ and the relationship between ecology and building are still pertinent issues of this post-digital age. Architects continue to envision future utopias, be it motivated by a sustainable, technological or humanist force.

In a recent lecture at the Bartlett, Dawn Ades (2009) quoted Georg Simmel:

the ruins of a construction mean that, in the vanished and destroyed parts of the work of art, other forces and forms, those of nature, have grown back and thus, from whatever art still lives in it and the nature already

living in it again, a new whole, a characteristic unity, has arisen.’

This ‘new whole’ is Aalto’s utopian vision, he unifies technology and humanism, cultural memory and internationalism, the synthetic artifice and biological growth. Aalto is a heroic figure for architects, his buildings continue to be imbued with a deep sense of life and humanism.

Bibliography:

Ades, Dawn (2009) Surrealism and the Ruin, Lecture at Bartlett, UCL, London

Baird, George (1970) Alvar Aalto; introduction and notes by George Baird, with photography by Yukio Futagawa, Thames and Hudson, London

Ray, Nicholas (2005) Alvar Aalto; Yale University Press New Haven and London

Ruusuvuori, Aarno, ed (1978) Alvar Aalto 1898 – 1976; The Museum of Finnish Architecture

Schilt, Goran (1986) Alvar Aalto, The Decisive Years; Rizzoli New York

Photos of Experimental House sourced from internet