Three young
London practices – Ocean UK, UFO and Plasma Studio are at the forefront
of digital practice in this country, using advanced processes to create
architectural structures that previously would not have been possible.
Kieran Long
assesses the similarities and differences in their work and working methods
Plasma
Studio is seen as being in the vanguard of digital practice, despite its still
small size. Its approach to architecture depends on a highly politicised and
inflected interpretation and use of computer technology.
While its
buildings would also be inconceivable without computer technology, it is
striking that Plasma still works heavily in physical models, and talks about
relatively conventional architectural concerns when describing its work, and is
perhaps less couched in jargon than some of its contemporaries.
Plasma is
also more willing to admit that its approach is a physical and aesthetic
attempt to discuss critically the boundaries between spatial and political
realms. It talks about its work as avoiding hierarchies of organisation,
allowing for public space and creating non-didactic spaces conducive to
inhabitation.
Its
approach is often about the sectional relationship of the building, the surrounding
landscape and the city at large. Partner Eva Castro, who previously worked at
Ocean UK, says: "The section has been quite neglected in traditional
architecture in the last decade. The floorplan approach tends to lead to and
encourage [vertical] extrusion. A sectional approach allows you to think about
movement and time."
Technology,
says Holger Kehne, forces a new approach to design. "With these geometries
there is not a lot of constraint, which means you have to find your own."
This willingness to find the edges of what is appropriate seems a long way from
the formal pyrotechnics that most people see as the result of computer aided
design at its most technologically sophisticated.
Plasma's
entry into the competition for the Ocean Museum on Germany's Baltic coast shows
these concerns. The practice was shortlisted for the project against such big
names as Sn0hetta, Gunter Behnisch, Zvi Hecker and Nicholas Grimshaw, with a
scheme that brought the public into its heart, while preserving a direct,
formal relationship with its site on the spectacular north coast of Germany.
The
building is conceived as a series of folded plates, completely without columns,
with a void at its heart which serves as a covered public square. Plasma's
interest in threshold and topography defined the project. "We didn't want
it as a blob, we thought it should have some definition," says Castro. The
building is intended to suggest an underwater world, but without explicit
symbolism, rather "taking away normal referents such as columns".
Perhaps
what is most exciting about Plasma's work is that despite the intimate
relationship of computer technology to its work, it is not afraid to see itself
in relation to more conventional architectural themes and practioners. Kehne
says: "We see ourselves in a tradition - with people like Haring and
Scharoun. Like any other kind of architecture, it is part of development."
Its project
for the Mozarteum music conservatoire in Salzburg (placed third in the
international competition) shows a Scharoun-like concern with topography and
hierarchy, creating a folding plane at ground floor entrance level that
encourages a wide range of activities. There are places in which to linger,
places to view the space, and also a central area which slowly guides the
visitor up and into the building.
This very
public space also has an urban function, creating a route through the building
from the city to some historic baroque gardens beyond - a change of level of
6m. These public spaces are tempered by the creation of very individual areas
for the various departments of the Mozarteum, given identity through the use of
colour, but also specific shifting geometries which allow easy navigation
through the building.
Plasma's
latest projects are both hotels. One is a spectacular interior for a boutique
hotel in Madrid; the other a new build hotel in the Alps of northern Italy. The
Madrid interior is a radical reworking of the conventional hotel corridor,
making a cave-like space with an exuberant fractal geometry. It is a staggeringly
complex geometry, and the amount of physical models littering Plasma's office
suggest that there is some way to go before the final version is arrived at.
This
perhaps has echoes of a recently completed exhibition design in Munster,
Germany, where Kehne teaches. Plasma designed a sinuous form of timber and
white geo-textile, on to which was projected pictures of the work of various
architectural practices. The installation forces visitors around the space in a
strictly defined route, and the width and height of the fabric tunnel changes
constantly, making the visitor always aware of his or her own proportions.
All of
Plasma's work is eminently buildable, and although it is highly experimental,
its projects are conceived with this in mind.
Copyright
2003 Kieran Long/ Building Design