WOMEN WHO BUILD, UTRECHT, (Netherlands) Six thousand people from diverse nationalties and backgrounds have visited this exhibition WOMEN WHO BUILD UTRECHT 2007. On the 15th of August, 2007 the “ Exhibition Building from the Inside” in the "Aulagebouw" of the Utrecht Cathedral and Aorta Centre for Architecture. On the 19^th of July the exhibition was inaugurated by the Embassador of Spain in Netherlands, Director of Cervantes Insititute in Utrecht and the Director for the Centre of Architecture ( AORTA). Sixty projects by women architects from Spain, Holland, Italy and Lebanon were presented.
EXHIBITION WOMEN WHO BUILD - UTRECHT 2007  FLYERS                                          EXHIBITION  PHOTOS

NEW PROJECTS BY DUTCH FEMALE ARCHITECTS

 Joke Vos    

(THE HOUSE)

PERISCOPE HOUSES

Nesselande, Rotterdam, 2006

The final concept has evolved out of an exclusive competition asking for the design of twelve large water residences. The houses were to be expressive and appealing, yet allow for a high standard of living. The project should mark the Waterwijk in Rotterdam/ Nesselande, an area where all the other housing is built without aesthetic regulations. The periscope houses show a compact and expressive design and are surrounded by water on three sides. Within each cluster three houses are brought together to form a solid three level centre. Soft shining volumes slice through this cube. Like periscopes the houses look in different directions, thereby ensuring the privacy of the individual balconies.

The living areas are distributed among ground and first floor, each with a terrace bordering the sunny waterside. The large water room on the ground floor adjoins a spacious wooden terrace with reed and yellow flag all around. On a second lower platform small boats can moor and children can work on their fishing skills.

Arranged within a zoning of wider and smaller naves the floor plans slide into each other like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, allowing for many different subdivisions. The houses evidently belong to the same family, yet show characteristic differences in i.e.  the situation of the entrance, the width of the loggia and the form of the aluminium volumes. The materials applied are durable and low in maintenance. For the main volume a solid dark metallic brick is used. Light and elegant aluminium panels enclose the periscopes. In contrast a warm hardwood is used where the interior extends into the exterior. Apart from the choice in materials and the flexible floor plans sustainability is further sought in extra isolation and energy saving mechanisms.

 Belinda van Buiten

(DREAMS)

Virika Hospital, Tanzania (Africa)

New hope for a better life

The Mountains of the Moon were known in the antique world as hiding the source of the Nile. Today, these mysterious mountains, wrapped in dense forest and fogs are the house of the last free gorillas and a bunch of revolutionaries harassing the borders of neighbouring countries. The sleepy town of Fort Portal, on the foothills of the mountains, was built by the British to guard the frontier of Uganda, their Pearl of Africa.

It was in Fort Portal that missionaries built an hospital, which, under the name of Virika Hospital, would become a referral hospital for the western region.

The Hospital was heavily damaged in the devastating 1994 earthquake, and nearly all buildings still standing were subsequently condemned. The hospital had to be moved to emergency makeshift buildings.

The Bishop of Fort Portal pleaded for help and obtained funds from Cordaid, Misereor and the European Union to rebuild the hospital. However, the funds - a mere $2 million for a 150-bed hospital - proved far short to reconstruct the complex in conventional contractor-built method, let alone in sophisticated earthquake resistant building technology.

Thence, we decided to look for locally available materials, technology and labour to realize the project. In cooperation with the tutors and pupils of St-Joseph’s Vocational Training Centre affordable earthquake resistant building system was developed.

                                 Jeanne Dekkers    

                                     (LIVING TOGETHER)

PUBLIC SERVICES CENTRE, OOSTERHOUT.

The heart forms the outside from the inside

Public services in Oosterhout are situated in the centre of a new housing estate.

The services include a primary school, day care and community centre, sport facilities and a youth club, all of which have been incorporated in a single building complex.

The various public services are grouped around a central atrium that rises over three floors to create a spacious public meeting area. Skylights above light up the atrium accentuating a visually complex mixture of clean concrete walling and elevated walkways that join the various activities within the building.

The use of vibrant colours on each level and light from above combine to give the central atrium a striking appearance.

Eveline Merks  

( MEMORY)  

Maastrich LIBRARY

In 2005, the Boekhandels Groep Nederland Company decided joining together the Bergmans and Academische libraries into an unique commercial establishment to be placed in a Dominique unsacred Church dated in 1796. Merkx + Girod office faced the challenge of conditioning more than 1.200 m2 into a commercial space, although they just had 750 m2. The office denied the client´ s original idea of building a second floor with bridges crossing it from one extreme to the other, arguing this solution would spoil the space richness. What they hoped to achieve was in fact to stick out its height and the peculiar architecture of the building.

Finally, they chose a monumental black shelve with several floors located asymmetrically between the central nave an the right one. The public can go into it. To invite the clients going up this steel books building´ s upper floor, the ascent has become all an experience. You go up among books and once you reach the top, the colossal temple dimensions show in all its hugeness. In fact, the church is what pushes the visitors upstairs. This makes a particular exchange between the ancient architecture and the contemporary inside of the building in which the library and the temple ´s space reinforce mutually. The library appears as a majestic gesture, as a round affirmation according with the Church monumentality, giving an additional dimension to the space. The library acquires a trivial and transparent character thanks to the galleries, the openings and the perforated steel application, in spite of its huge size. The object does not invade the space and is not either out of tune with the Church´ s architecture, but intensifies the sensation produced to the visitor. They has  deliberately searched the contrast between the temple yellow and matt loam and the trivial aspect of the brilliant and modern steel.

Maastrich commercial establishment is the third of Selxyz Company new libraries series, with La Haya and Almere ones.

Marianne Loof  (Loof & van Stigt)

(THE PLACE)  

YOUTH INTERNAMENT CENTRE, Doggershoek 

With its large dimensions and heavy security, Doggershoek is a new phenomenon in the field of youth detention. It was a paradoxical task: a closed youth facility with maximum security, and at the same time an environment which enables optimum treatment of 120 young detainees. The challenge was to create a ‘normal’ living environment for the detainees and 270 staff members.

The facility continues the heritage of the old port city of Den Helder – as the fourth walled fortress besides the three existing historical forts. The structure lacks a relationship between inside and outside. The reference to the fort was thus ideal for the complex, in which the wall is transformed from necessary evil to determining visual element: the wall is the building, the building is the wall. Seen from the outside the complex is completely closed. From the inside however, the architects achieved to create an open environment for the inhabitants. An entire town has been developed. During their stay the young detainees are continuously exposed to light and open air, which reduces the feeling of entrapment.

The design consists of diverse elements arranged along an oval circuit. This roofed street is based on the reference of the covered court passage in a cloister and gives access to all the important functions. The twelve residential units - consisting of two residential wings, a living room and a courtyard - are situated on the outer side of the street. The public functions consisting of a school, an activities building and an entrance building are situated on the inner side. The complex is surrounded by a stone wall, five metres in height. In 2005 is the complex expanded with a unit providing room for 24 more detainees.

Korteknie Stulmacher   

(JOYFULNESS)

CULTURAL CENTRE ‘De Kamers’ Vathorst

Since the early 90s many large low-rise mono-functional suburbs have been built in the Netherlands. These new towns usually have hardly any cultural or social infrastructure. The same applies to Vathorst, the new suburb near Amersfoort. The initiators of the project de Kamers (the rooms), a vicar and an artist, regard the pioneering years of Vathorst as a challenging social task.

De Kamers is a private initiative to create a place for ‘sociability, inspiration and expression’. The building and its activities are meant to grow with its growing surroundings to offer space for various cultural activities and events such as theatre, film, and creative education. Its heart is the huiskamer, a public ‘living room’, meant to be a hospitable space for anyone.

The design consists of simple wooden cubes – the ‘rooms’– with varying dimensions, loosely put together as a casual, almost improvised composition enabling multifunctional use and future changes. Special attention has been paid to the spatial character of each of the rooms, their proportion, materiality and use of daylight.

The extremely tight budget – the building is privately funded – led to the architectural decision to give clear priority to the interior rather than to the exterior. The use of sophisticated timber building systems, imported from Germany and Switzerland, guarantees a clear, simple and sustainable structure with high quality finishes and good spatial and acoustic properties without additional linings. Walls, floors and roofs of all ‘rooms’ will be constructed in timber, which offers the means to build a characteristic, flexible and adaptable structure in a very short time.

The exterior is clad with stained heat-treated timber boards, a new procedure to make European softwood more durable. The plinth is designed as an advertising, ever-changing band of hand-decorated panels covered with artwork, graffiti, posters and texts made by the users of the building themselves.

The composition of cubes implies the semi-enclosure of outdoor spaces. These garden-rooms’ are regarded as being just as important as the indoor spaces and are used as outdoor auditoriums, gardens and terraces. Here the colourfully-painted plinth turns into a lining of self-made wallpaper. The large sliding doors emphasize the direct relationship between indoors and outdoors and the inviting and open character of the project as a whole.

Liesbeth van der Pool

(THE SCHOOL)  

SCHOOL, ÁMSTERDAM 

The two primary schools, a day-care centre and an area health authority share a new green complex: a Community School. The goal is to encourage interaction between the groups. The design allows each individual part of the building to function at its best. Each classroom, for example, has a 'block' containing a cloakroom, toilets, kitchen, (computer) work stations and a mezzanine.

The whole complex surrounds two inner 'courtyards' in the form of a communal assembly hall and winter garden. This forms the basis for the placing of two playgrounds. One, for the youngest children, is safely fenced off, the other, for the older and local children has a large platform.

The whole supporting section of the building is made of wood, making it light in terms of weight and in its overall effect. Wood is also a tactile, soft, colourful and varied material, this makes the whole building much more welcoming.  

Annette Mark  (Mark & Steketee)

 (SILENCE)

 VUGT DOOR CLOISTER, THE MONASTRY  

For almost a century now, the Steenwijk Estate (‘Landgoed Steenwijk’) with its monastery and outbuildings has been in the possession of the Fraters van Tilburg (Brothers CMM). The monastery has recently been renovated and extended for a new purpose: a modern retreat centre, under the guidance of the ZIN Foundation. As well as 40 individual guest rooms, the Monastery offers work areas for groups and a study centre with multimedia library. In the extension, there is an auditorium that can accommodate conferences of up to 100 persons. Moreover, there is a newly constructed community building with meditation area for eight brothers. The former gardener’s cottage has been transformed into a studio for visiting artists. The realization of this complex project is based on a vision developed by Marx & Steketee, in which the setting of old and new architecture amidst the landscape of the estate is connected with the experience of modern monastic living. Connections have come about at various levels, on the basis of four parameters: visual lines, sensory compositions, the phenomenon of camping, and recycling. The placement of the buildings is designed to take full advantage of magnificent views over the landscape. Both the estate and the old monastery buildings have been stripped of their introverted catholic and institutional structure. The materials used for the buildings were chosen with a view to ‘sustainable architecture’. Old roof tiles were re-used and new materials applied, such as untreated pine, cane and bamboo, while discarded door panels are now being used for wainscoting. Energy is used sparingly, due to a low-temperature heating system and the installation of solar panels, while waste water is treated on-site by means of a helophyte filter before being infiltrated into the ground. Authentic flora and natural biotopes are being developed according to a plan designed by DS (landscape architects).

interior of het klooster (the monastery)

In the same way as for the architecture of Het Klooster (The Monastery), the concepts of recycling and camping also formed the starting point for the interior. This interior was developed in consultation with client and users, with a selection of designers being charged with the development of special furnishings.

The characteristic labyrinthine interior of Het Klooster/The Monastery has been opened up and given an informal appearance, so that a stroll through the buildings results in a surprising series of new spatial experiences. This spatial adaptation is supported by the bamboo flooring in the corridors and on the staircases, and is enhanced by the styling of various objects created by the participating designers. The living room is furnished with recycled furniture (by Wendi Bakker) combined with a memory cabinet (by Ola Dele Kuku), the opening and closing of the doors of which is a true journey of discovery. Between the reception room and the mailroom, a wall/cupboard (Kapkar) made of used timber and materials found on the building site adds an almost archaic element. The same designer has built an accommodation unit from recycled timber in the atelier for visiting artists. The refectory is furnished with authentic monastery furniture and a chandelier by Richard Hutten, and each of the individual guest rooms has an elementary en-suite bathroom and work area finished in one of four different bright colours (Ubik). The monumental sofa in the welcoming reception hall is another creation by this designer. The work and group areas are furnished with modern design furniture by Vitra, combined with old refectory tables taken from former monasteries belonging to the Brothers. Some fifty works of art from the NOG collection, hailing from 22 young artists, are an extra source of reflection and surprise during the tour of the interior.

 Vera Yanovshtchinsky

(THE PLACE)     

Just before the end of the Second World War the centre of the town of Nijmegen was completely destroyed in an air raid, leaving a gaping wound in the heart of the city that refused to heal, even with the passage of time. In 1993 a firm of architects by the name of Soeters drew up a master plan for the area, which provided for the restructuring of the streets and open spaces in a way that would be compatible with the sphere of that part of town. Vera Yanovshtchinsky designed the “concave side” of the curved street-cum-shopping arcade that forms the central feature of this plan. The street is pedestrian-only and lined by two levels of shops, topped by dwellings that are accessed via courtyards. The street has been implemented by Vera Yanovshtchinsky in the form of an arc, stretched between Burchtstraat and Mariënburgplein. These end-points are given architectural emphasis through their color and height, and by the use of bay windows. The curvature of the street is accentuated by the use of an interesting optical effect. Starting in the middle and working outwards in both directions, each building in the row is slanted forward one degree more that the previous one. This not only augments the perspective of the curve but also increases the intimacy of the space. The design of the shop frontage on the lower level is in the form of pre-cast concrete wall panels in a dark grey colour, with brickwork. The shop-fronts on the upper level are similar in size, form and materials to the lower level and act as the foundation layer for the houses and apartments above. The sturdy construction of the lower part of the façade gives it something of the nature of a harbour wall.

“Architectural showcase” “Mariënburg has totally transformed the centre of the town of Nijmegen. This development project has halted the decline in the number of visitors and shoppers. The revitalized town centre is back in favour with the shoppers in and around Nijmegen.” Quotation from magazine Bouw #8 2001 (currently entitled Architectuur NL).

Evelien van Veen    (Drost & Van Veen) 

(DAILY LIFE)  

DE KLEINE KIKKER (THE SMALL FROG)  

The small frog. A day-care centre at the edge of the university grounds the “Uithof  Utrecht”.

The new building is a playful design, gay and with a lot of colour. It overlooks the grazing sheep in the meadow. Next    to the building, to the left, stands a characteristic old farm, a monument with a thatch roof, on the right, a wooden cowshed.

The new building is conceived as a contemporary type of farm, in form, material and construction (steel structure). The coloured facade and the aluminium roof contrast the rustic environment. The silhouette of the pointed roof refers to the existing farm building. Towards the back of the building, it transforms into a modernistic flat roof. The back of the building looks like a modern functional building instead of a farm.

The new extension contains four groups of children, at the age of 0-4. The organization of the spaces is simple and logical, yet provide many surprising views from one room to the next that makes it a perfect environment for children and their mentors.

The building is symmetrical and is two stories high. The organisation of the day-care is mirrored across the building’s central axis. It is clearly divided in three zones. The front is reserved for the employees, the middle zone is used as playground and entrance, while the zone at the back contains the children’s groups. The big balcony at the back of this zone creates the outdoor space for the children on the first floor and also functions as a sun canopy against direct sunlight for the ground floor.

De kleine Kikker’s recognizable shape refers to that of its surrounding buildings, while it surprises through its distinguishing shape and its use of material and colour.  

Francine Houben (Mecanoo)

(KNOWLEDGE)

DELFT TECHINCHAL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Books

The library of Delft Technical University is the central library of the Netherlands, but also the technical library of the Netherlands, linked by the latest electronic devices to libraries all over the world. The university library not only offers space to books, it also offers space for knowledge and research. It is a meeting place where ideas are exchanged. The program allows a thousand study places.

Grass and glass

The faculty buildings of the TU Delft stand to attention, they do not converse with one another. The aula by Van den Broek and Bakema breaks up the strict axis of the Mekelweg. It is a brutal, concrete building on a concrete surface. The shape of the building resembles a frog. And this frog needs grass. The library is a building that does not really want to be a building, but a landscape. The frog is placed on a big lawn. Like a sheet of paper the lawn is lifted on one side, columns are placed beneath it and the walls are filled with glass: a building of grass and glass. It is a landscape, with gently curving shapes; only the ends are sharp. You can literally walk over the library. A large volume is called for to contrast with the landscape: a cone that gives shape to the round, introverted reading rooms. They hang from the apex of the cone, giving the hall a large space free of columns. The cone as a symbol of technology, but also of calm and contemplation. Like a drawing pin, it pins down the ‘endless form of the landscape’.

Light and warmth

Space, light and relaxing acoustics are lasting values for the design of a library. You must automatically fall silent when you enter it, like in a cathedral. You can also feel the landscape inside. The metal ceiling runs through all the rooms without interruption and is gently lit from the columns. The columns support, illuminate and heat the hall.  

Eleen Van Loon (OMA)

(DREAMS)

CÓRDOBA CONGRESS PALACE  

In 2002 OMA won the competition to design a new congress centre located on the Miraflores Peninsula, facing the historic city centre of Cordoba, Spain. Wishing to improve on the possibilities of the original building site, OMA proposed a new and unexpected location on the peninsula.

Taking full advantage of the urban qualities of the Miraflores Peninsula, the new Cordoba Congress Center (CCC) is positioned on a narrow East-West strip. A floating beam, the Centre acts as a buffer between the Miraflores and the planned Fluvial Park, and organises the now disparate elements of the Miraflores Peninsula, the river, and historic centre (UNESCO World Heritage Site) into a coherent urban grouping, extending the benefits of Cordoba’s old town to the rest of the city.

The continuous open-air promenade - located at the mid-section, running the full length of the building - establishes the congress centre as a linear viewing platform, looking out over the park, the river, and the historic centre beyond. Views on the Mask in the old town centre will be impressive from the roof terrace, which accommodates a swimming pool and a pebble garden.

The building functions as a programmatic beam - hollowed out to accommodate public facilities; separated to accommodate auditoria; re-converging to define the hotel lobby; sliced to allow the San Fernando route to continue through from the old city, and suddenly cantilevering to mark the formal entrance to the Congress Centre. Bridging the east and west banks of the river along its length, the building establishes a route, moving visitors in and out of the city’s historic centre. A series of ramps, escalators, and stairs channel the public seamlessly through the building, absorbing all circulation into a sequence of congress areas, conference halls, an outdoor auditorium, café, hotel facilities, and shops. 

 For the façade, standard U-plank glass has been modified into a green, bubbled material breaking the sharp southern sunlight to provide the interiors with a more diffuse atmosphere.

NEW PROJECTS BY SPANISH FEMALE ARQUITECTS

Colectivo Darías

(MEMORY)

WOMEN HOUSE, DAJLA SAHARA

Fuensanta Nieto        

(LIVING TOGETHER)

CONGRESS PALACE,  Mérida (Badajoz)

Dolores Palacios

(JOYFULNESS)

EUSKALDUNA  PALACE, BILBAO, Opera and Congress Centre in Bilbao (Spain)

The Congress and Music Centre will stand out like the remains of a gigantic ghost‑ship built long ago at the Euskalduna shipyard, abandoned and now half buried in the muddy bottom of the river. Indeed its shape and construction are reminiscent of the lines of a ship.

Its plates and rivets appear rusty. we shall merely clean up the inside and set up, as if in the hold of a ship, the rooms and large areas required for its use. We shall transform this rusting hulk which we have shored up as if in dry dock into a music centre with a double inner skin to insulate it and provide the ideal acoustics for each of its three halls. Plates and slabs will be laid down in each empty hold, platforms and rigging will be hung: part of it for seating and part as false ceilings to aid the acoustics. The rest of the "ship" will house the workshops, scenarios, stores and large indoor spaces required in a theatre building.

We intend to build two inter‑linked foyers which come together in common spaces, with platforms at different levels (one for congresses and the other for music) to provide access to the different halls. This will allow platforms to be used simultaneously by people leaving through one set of doors and foyers and by others entering through another set, with the two groups never meeting. Across the common areas the two audiences would see each other, while the metal wall of the hall would preside over the empty spaces. 

María Luisa López Sardá

(SILENCE) 

Úmbraculo de la Ciudadela, Cercedilla, Madrid 

Guadalupe Piñera

(DREAMS)  

PONTEVEDRA CAMPUS, FACULTY  OF EDUCATION SCIENCES, VIGO

In the planning of the Campus of Pontevedra and the buildings of the faculty of education sciences and the CATRI (Transference of investigation results support centre), those geometries shaping "local traces" and a nature still with potential, super put on the intention of creating an atmosphere that results from the permeability and presence of the environmental peculiarities, added to the decision  to make the diverse activities of the university life take part among them, through two mechanisms: visual continuities in horizontal and vertical section, and conversion of circulation spaces in relation areas. Thus we obtain multiple scales and environmental sensations.

It leads to taking the most of re-live the river as organizer of the city, to deal and to propose the campus as community space of culture and leisure, and to recover the area of the campus and the river as park and as defined “ecozone.”

The central area of the campus is pedestrian and creates a central covered main square covered as a place that holds different events, which "sows" the buildings today isolated.

The landscape treatment joins the values of the natural space with the cultural place, coming together an “ecozone” of bank with a constructed garden, and the campus joins across entail with the river in the net bank path network that connect with the city.

Working with the woodland density so that without losing the physical consistency of the bank, makes this one visible and accessible in the campus central zone, while there is kept the density of ferns and woodland that makes it leafy and withdrawal in others.

A landscape of diverse type of trees of the central meadow, is promoted by season plants in a dialogue between everlasting and seasonally areas of the campus.

Lucía Cano

(JOYFULNESS)  

congress PALACE, BADAJOZ 

The base on which we work is rather unrepeatable, strange: the old bullring of the city, circular, inserted in a pentagonal bastion of the Vauban XVII century wall. In the contest final report we have always excused ourselves for using a quote from Leopardi as our headword: “The last stage of knowledge is recognizing that all we were looking for was always in front of our eyes”. With this quote we summarized the process of how the initial difficulty involved in acting in such a conditioned place became resolved when we realized that what we were looking for already existed.

The bullring was created for the city of Badajoz in the specific enclave of the Baluard of San Roque over the remains of the old bullrings that have existed there throughout the centuries. We consider of great importance the palimpsestic process of all the previous bullrings and their evolutions, not only the last one we encounter in that site.  We are not concerned with the physical echo of what is no longer there, but rather with the condition created previously, in the XVIII century, by the decision of emptying a circle in a massive pentagonal bastion, distorting the whole defensive concept and turning it around to make it receptive to public access and public events, either a bullfight, a concert or a conference. Therefore our decision from the beginning was to maintain this condition of a public empty space, of a space taken from the city. In order to maintain it, we “limited” ourselves to covering the whole existing field, filling it in completely. The difficulty in applying this procedure to fill a plot of land is due to the fact that it is a circular void on a bastion and so it must remain.

The complexity of placing a Conference Centre in an empty space and maintaining it empty is resolved by means of a simple trick, a magic trick, consisting of inverting the spectator area and taking it to the ring, to the centre, and taking the empty central area to the spectators, to where the old stands used to be. Then we dress the cylinder that is produced in the centre with light, projected upon the outer polyester rings that mark the uncertain limits of a void. Of course, the trick is prepared by placing underground and under the bastion the greatest possible number of elements of the program, placed in a radial position projecting towards the centre.

From the outside we might think that the shelter of the main entrance is the only existing construction or crank that appears, represents and opens, down the staircase it covers, the whole building.

From the inside, the main room corresponds to the same exterior idea of the cylinder with luminous walls of the same acrylic material, translucid ceiling in the shape of a grid on which the shadow of the óculo moves, and a floor of the same dark colour as the plaza and the external patio. From the outside, this work, almost finished, has been creating, overall, a great unrest: the more we work on it, instead of appearing, it disappears. Diluted in that inevitable heritage.

Belinda Tatoo

(THE PLACE)

ECOBULEVARD, MADRID  

Ohiane Ruiz Méndez

(MEMORY)

WOMEN HOME, SMARA SÁHARA 

House for  women, Smara, Sáhara 

The Smara women house is a project which goes beyond architecture.

It is a house located in a “no place” (in a no country), a space where women from Sahara, women refugees in Tinduf (Algeria) camps, organize themselves, discuss, work, get trained and share experiences with jointly shared people  who arrive to this inhospitable desert as the Argelian Jamada is. The construction of the house is included in the U.N.M.S. (Women from Sahara National Union) strengthening project, where five City Councils of the Basque Country have been networking.                                                                                                         

This house is a reflection of women fight for their own rights, included in the global fight for saharawian people self-determination rights. The program, plans, distributions and building materials have been made in consensus with a Smara women group. The direction of the work was made in collaboration with Djawaya -the U.N.M.S. responsible- who was in charge of making photographs when the woman architect was not in site.

All the negotiation process and the signature of agreements have been made with the support and participation of U.N.M.S. Smara women. In the construction of the house, a group of women, solar panels´ installers, have taken part too, women who belong to Dajla camp, “women of the sun”.

This is their house, which they have dreamt, thought, drawn, inspected, visited while built, have been using it before its opening, and finally opened it among songs and tea. And amongst all, they have made it theirs with enthusiasm and joyfulness. When the professional contribution converges on the fight for justice and freedom, one perceives a small prickly feeling inside which impulses dreaming an other shared possible world.

Zaha Hadid 

(DREAMS)

BRIDGE PAVILLION, EXPO ZARAGOZA 2008

The Bridge Pavilion is organized around 4 main objects, or “pods” that perform both as structural elements and as spatial enclosures. Floors inside them are located at the Expo principal levels.

The inception of our design for the bridge pavilion stems from the examination of the potential of a diamond-shaped section. The DIAMOND SECTION works out perfectly on several levels.

As employed in the case of space-frame structures, it represents a rational way if distributing forces along a surface.

Underneath this floor plate, a resulting triangular pocket space can be used to run utilities.

The diamond section has been extruded along a slightly CURVED PATH.

The extrusion of this rhombus section along different paths generated four different “PODS”.

The STACKING and INTERLOCKING of these truss elements, or “pods” has two specific reasons: it optimises the structural system and allows for a natural differentiation of the pavilion interiors, where each pod corresponds to a specific exhibition space.

Trusses/pods intersect bracing each other and loads are distributed across the four of them instead of a singular main element, with the result of reducing the size of load-bearing members.

The pods are stacked according to precise criteria, aimed at reducing the section of the bridge as much as possible where the span is longer (approximately 185 m from river island to right bank), and enlarging it where the bridge needs to span less (85 m from river island to Expo side). One long pod spans from the right riverbank to the island, where the other three are grafted in it, spanning from island to left bank.

he interlocking has had unforeseen but extremely interesting effects on our design. Interiors become exciting complex spaces, where visitors move from pod to pod though small in-between spaces that act as filters or buffer zones, tuning-down sound and visuals from one exhibition space to the next, therefore allowing for a clearer understanding of the art installation content. The identity of each pod remains thoroughly readable inside the pavilion, almost performing as a three-dimensional orientation device.

Spatial concern is one of the main drives of this project: each zone within the building is endeavoured of its own spatial identity, their nature varies from sheer interiors focused on art-work or open spaces with strong visual connection to the Ebro river and the Expo.

Natural surfaces have been investigated when designing the Pavilion’s SKIN.

Shark scales are fascinating paradigms both for their visual appearance and for their performance. Their pattern can easily wrap around complex curvatures with a simple system of rectilinear ridges. On a building scale, this proves to be performative, visually appealing and economically convenient.

The building’s envelope plays an essential role in defining its relation to the surrounding environment and its atmospheric variation. The project has been designed imagining that its interior could be thoroughly enlivened by the effect of atmospheric agents, such as the Tramontana wind blowing along the Ebro and Zaragoza’s sun. At Expo stage, a single weathering layer that protects it from rain will enclose the building. This skin will be generated by a complex pattern of simple overlapping shingles.

Some shingles can rotate around a pivot, allowing for temporary opening or closing of part of the façade. Levels of light range from rays through tiny punctual apertures to wide full size openings, via several degrees of aperture due to the way shingles overlap within each pattern. Large apertures are located on the lower level, in correspondence with either end of the bridge, allowing for full visual contact with Ebro and the Expo.

 Return to Encounters