Bernard Tschumi

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Project Details:
Project: Bridge
Location: La Roche-sur-Yon, France
Commission: 2007 – Completion: 2010
COST: $5,500,000
CLIENT: City of La Roche-sur-Yon, SNCF
PHOTOGRAPHY: BTA, Christian Richters
TEAM: Lead Designers: Bernard Tschumi and Hugh Dutton (HDA).
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“The extension of the TGV train to La Roche-sur-Yon and nearby towns bordering the Atlantic marks not only an important moment for the modernization of the European and French train network, but also an occasion to initiate civic improvements. Linking the historic city founded by Napoleon (“the Pentagon”) with new neighborhoods, this pedestrian bridge crosses above high-speed railway tracks, providing an important urban connection for the town.

Conceived through joint collaboration between the fields of architecture and engineering, the bridge was designed by Bernard Tschumi and Hugh Dutton, with their respective teams in Paris and New York. The teams developed the design for La Roche-sur-Yon as both a utilitarian vector of movement and a symbol of contemporary urban relationships. The intention of the designers was to demonstrate an integration of an original structural system with an architectural concept developed from urban scale research of neighborhood identity and carried through the expression of the minutest details.

It has been said that there is no architecture without movement. A pedestrian bridge is not just a static object, but represents a dynamic vector in both its usage and urban perception. The designers have sought to express this dynamic characteristic as much through the structural system as through finishing materials. Interlaced polycarbonate surfaces protect passengers from weather conditions, while lighting follows the rhythm of the structure. Even the bright red-orange color was chosen to emphasize the urban significance of the bridge as a pedestrian vector.” Bernard Tschumi Architects
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b720 Architects

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“The new Aeroport Lleida-Alguaire, 15km from the Catalonian town of Lleida, and just a stone’s throw from the Spanish Pyrenees, is a site-focused contemporary take on old-world airport buildings, designed as the chief piece of an accommodating modular system. “
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text courtesy of Wallpaper
photos courtesy of Aeroport Lleida-Alguaire
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“The brainchild of Barcelona-based Fermin Vazquez – b720 arquitectos, the terminal, control tower and garages are gathered into one single construction – typical of airports of yesteryear. The purpose of this single construction is as a sizable volume that works well with the surrounding flat and stratified agricultural landscape and can be extended according to future needs.

The outer walls of the control tower are the defining element of the construction. They curve to become the undulated roofs of the terminal and the garages. Each wall is made up of two adjacent and levelled strips of differing width, that break tandem to ripple in different points over the terminal – allowing natural light in – and finally wrap up at unequal distances off the end of the lower body of the building.

The organic lines of the walls soften the clash between the construction and the surrounding landscape, while the patchwork of lacquered metal, timber and maintenance-free sedum plants on the outer surface of the walls mimics the colours and textures of the nearby plantations.

New modules can be added to the airport either lengthwise, in a Lego-esque fit with the jagged ends of the existing strips, or widthwise with extra strips.”
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World Architecture News

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Project Details:
Client: IT-Fornebu Eiendom
Architect: a-lab
Interior design: a-lab
Landscape design: Asplan Viak
Structural engineer: Rambøll Norge AS (competition phase: Arup)
M&E services: Electro : Føyn Consult / Ventilation : Norconsult
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“Transformation is complete at the Fornebu site – the location of Oslo’s Airport until 1998 when it took retirement at 60. Its vacant cavernous Terminal building opened up a world of opportunities, quickly grasped by Norwegian IT company IT Fornebu AS Group, and a new business park now dominates the site.

The IT-Fornebu Portal building as it is known was developed by the IT-Fornebu Eiendom and designed by A-lab architects after winning a competition in 2004.

“In the design A-lab prioritised people,” said the architects. “The design criteria’s were to reduce volume and waste, provide an effective, efficient and healthy workplace, enhance communications and give a flexible layout. We believe that successful organizations are made of people who are connected and inspired, who learn through collaboration, share ideas and are motivated towards excellence. We imagined a place where people are present and engaged in mind and body.

“The building supports the development and transmission of knowledge, skills, values and ideas, as well as the opportunity for companies to express their own identity.”
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Or identify with a new identity as may be the case may be with this vibrant development. Approximately 28,000 sq m are provided at the site which has been constructed in preparation for a predicted surge in development, making the project the heart of a new business destination for the city. Four 6-storey office blocks flank a dramatic ‘mandarin red’ cantilevered public Hub whose fully glazed front affords panoramic views from the building over the entrance. An innovative exoskeleton system creates interest for each of the 3,750 sq m blocks. Diagonal steel beams surround each block, attached every 4.8 meters with a steel joint through the façade to the floor beams creating a diamond lattice.”

Source: World Architecture News
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Project Details:
Location: Tokamashi, Japan
Architect: R&Sie(n)… Paris
Creative team: François Roche, Stéphanie Lavaux, Jean Navarro, Pascal Bertholio
Key dimensions: 300 m2
Client: City of Tokamashi, Art Front Gallery
Cost: 0,7 million USD
Text: Creation of an outdoor exhibition space inside a car park
Program: 20 parking places, 300 m2 exhibition room, public facilities
Scenario:
1) Asphalt Drop on the site
2) Twisting the black surface of the car park to integrate indoor/outdoor rooms (cellar and facilities)
3) Visitors are tempted to drive or walk up the slope as a way to handle their own disequilibrium.
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http://www.vimeo.com/5051409

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Project: High Line Public Park project
The High Line design is led by James Corner Field Operations, with diller scofidio + renfro
Location: New York – USA
Photos by: Iwan Baan
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Project Description:

“The high line, in collaboration with field operations, is a new 1.5-mile long public park built on an abandoned elevated railroad stretching from the meatpacking district to the hudson rail yards in manhattan.
Inspired by the melancholic, unruly beauty of this postindustrial ruin, where nature has reclaimed a once vital piece of urban infrastructure, the new park interprets its inheritance. It translates the biodiversity that took root after it fell into ruin in a string of site-specific urban microclimates along the stretch of railway that include sunny, shady, wet, dry, windy, and sheltered spaces.
Through a strategy of agri-tecture, part agriculture, part architecture- the high line surface is digitized into discrete units of paving and panting which are assembled along the 1.5 miles into a variety of gradients from 100% paving to 100% soft, richly vegetated biotopes. the paving system consists of individual pre-cast concrete planks with open joints to encourage emergent growth like wild grass through cracks in the sidewalk. the long paving units have tapered ends that comb into planting beds creating a textured, ‘pathless’ landscape where the public can meander in unscripted ways. the park accommodates the wild, the cultivated, the intimates, and the social. Access points are durational experiences designed to prolong the transition from the frenetic pace of city streets to the slow otherworldly landscape above. ”
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