turning the tables on high rise hell

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Turning the Tables on High Rise

Hell

Daniel Townsend

June 18, 2008

1



I have a new set of architectural heroes. I say new,

but what I really mean is first. Of course there are ar-

chitects whom I like, but it seems like a default choice.

A better word is admire. I admire their technical

achievements, their visual dialogue, and their larger

than life personas. But they aren’t my heroes.In fact, there are probably more architectural vil-

lains than there are heroes. Think of all of the atroc-

ities committed in the name of Modernism. In some

cases it’s not even necessary to think; just look out of

the window!

So what do my architectural heroes do? Firstly

they have to be the antithesis of the villain. Secondly,they have to be thoroughly modern, without espousing

Modernism, and hankering to modernist ideals. They

also need a cool name, and preferably a sidekick or

two, and a whole truck load of spandex suits. Well my

heroes fit the bill, and whilst the spandex suits are still

just a kinky past time, I’m told that if the architectural

hero thing takes off, then a designer range could soon

hit store shelves.

Perhaps I’ve hyped them too much, and they can’t

possibly live up to expectations. If you’d rather not

know who they are, then you have permission to stop



reading, and tear this document into a million pieces,

and scatter it to the winds. Or if you’re on a com-

puter, just press delete. But rest assured, keen devo-

tees, there will still be plenty of zany action, and grav-

ity defying feats.

“Ok, enough already!” I hear you screaming. “Whothe hell are they?”

The members of this architectural crime fighting

force have had to conceal their true names for reasons

unknown, though I have been told that to hear the

merest utterance of it is truly terrible, and it carries

with it a mysterious curse. Either that or their names

are just too damned hard to say. And so, they go bythe collective acronym MVRDV...not quite as good as

COBRA, but we’ll let them off. Now let’s see what

they do.



More than any other architects that I’ve yet en-

countered, MVRDV consider the context which their

buildings are in. Afterwards, the cityscape almost al-

ways looks more interesting, and if I may loose such a

loose term of phrase, ‘better’. Sure, they make a state-

ment, but not in the machismo ‘look at me’ way thatmost towering glass and concrete buildings do. Rather,

instead of asserting their dominance over the surround-

ings, they reflect its best parts in a bizarre abstraction

which incorporates the rhythms, structures, and even

fauna, of the more traditional surrounding buildings.

If you like, they wear the cityscape as a cloak. It’s this

sort of integrative, off-beat, eco-friendly architecturewhich will form the basis of this discussion.

When you first look at a MVRDV building its easy

to get distracted by all of the strange appendages, and

whirring gizmos, but be warned, this is a trap! Looking

beyond all that, what you’ll see is a building which acts

as a remarkably good blank canvas, upon which these

oddities have been attached.

Most areas, certainly in Britain, are subject to

stringent planning laws, where changes to the fabric of

a building are greatly frowned upon, or even forbidden.

A person will likely have a fight on their hands if they



want to attach a Sky dish, or even install PVC win-

dows in some cases. Consider the ruckus that someone

would cause if they attached several windmills to the

roof, and had a clutch of trees dangling over the road

below. They’d be ostracised, and possibly committed

to a lunatic’s asylum.But why is this sort of practice so frowned upon?

I think it’s largely because we adhere so much to tra-

dition. Our buildings are so embedded in out daily

lives, that anything that goes against convention and

wakes us up from our architectural stupor is perceived

as bad.

This poses the question of ownership. The owner of a house can quite rightfully change the interior of their

house any which way they want. But the street face

doesn’t seem to be the property of the owner at all,

but of the community. This isolation of the exterior

fabric of the house from its interior, it can be argued,

is a great injustice, and it holds back innovation in an

area of architecture which could result in greater func-

tionality, whilst actually improving the surroundings.

Let’s consider some everyday problems, and then

we’ll try and solve them with architecture. For in-

stance, what if my house is using too much energy



for lighting and heating? What could the building

do? Well, it’s quite conceivable that the building could

walk, so that it’s in the shade when it’s hot or in the

open when it’s cold. But this would consume too much

energy, so we’ll dismiss it. Alternatively, the building

could change shape. This way, it could let more orless light in as required, and also increase or decrease

its surface area to aid convective heat transfer. Now

is this totally unrealistic? No, we’re starting to tread

the realms of the everyday. How else could be sat-

isfy our energy and heating requirements? Well we

could generate our own energy. The most common

ways to ‘freely’ generate electricity in a domestic con-text is through a micro wind turbine or through photo-

voltaic cells. But sadly both of these solutions require

a change to the exterior of the building.

We can see that the need for architectural inter-

vention can be the result of a quite sensible need. In

the future, if energy distribution is to be decentralised,

and an increasing emphasis made on the domestic gen-

eration of electricity, then clearly the buildings have to

be more adaptive.

This is what MVRDV does. The word ‘modular’

has been a big buzz word amongst the design commu-



nity for a long time now. But what is modular in the

context of architecture? Is it the ability to add on ex-

tra rooms willy-nilly? This is unlikely. A well thought

out space can adapt to the needs of its inhabitants.

And if more space is needed, then people will buy a

shed, or put their things into storage, or evict theirkids, or even move house. This seems to suggest that

while people are flexible, architecture fundamentally

isn’t. But architecture could be more flexible too.

Let’s consider a house, which is little more than a

box. It’s likely that all of the interior will be occupied,

so this leaves us with the roof and exterior walls. A

roof is the ultimate in flexible space. You could havea roof garden growing vegetables, or grass growing to

provide insulation, or a work area, or a games area,

or a turbine. The list is endless really. But beyond

the planning concerns, the reason that people don’t

do these things is because their houses were never de-

signed for such interventions. What is required is a

different approach to building design which makes it-

self open to change. In this way, the building will likely

have a longer life span, because where’s the incentive

to tear a building down if it’s eminently flexible?

In my eyes, this is what MVRDV are proponents of.



The concept becomes particularly powerful when you

go beyond the street level, and start considering the

wider landscape. Gone would be the endless monotony

of uniformly arranged houses, and towering grey slabs.

It would become personal again, and interesting. This

would mean the embracement of a pragmatic architec-tural philosophy that didn’t prescribe a single solution,

but tended to the needs of complex human beings in

a time of great change.

Many of us will start looking to our homes for

more than mere shelter. It’s quite conceivable that

we will be growing our own food, and generating our

own energy in the coming years. What’s needed isa way to achieve this whilst avoiding environmental

degradation. I believe that the opposite could be true,

whereby these interventions could improve the envi-

ronment, and foster a greater sense of community. If

MVRDV were to initiate such a paradigm shift, then

they would certainly be the architectural heroes of our

time.



References

1. Mark Oberholzer. (2005). Dutch Expo PavilionMVRDV. Available: http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/arch316/2005 MVRDV%20Keithley.pdf. Last

accessed 17/06/08.

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