Park life: this new district centre in a Zurich park is a compact, curvaceous pavilion in the landscape.Most architects are familiar with the experience of winning a competition, only to see their premiated design modified beyond recognition before (if ever) it gets built. Such was the case for the young Zurich-based practice of EM2N, but they successfully rose to the challenges of rejection by officialdom and swingeing swinge tr.v. swinged, swinge·ing also swing·ing, swing·es Archaic To punish with blows; thrash; beat. [Middle English swengen, to shake, dash budget cuts. The practice was placed first in an open competition for a new local centre that combined a cafe and spaces for communal activities in the Zurich district of Aussersihl. The site lies in a mature park on the western edge of the city centre. Based on a trapezoidal plan, EM2N's winning proposal was an elegant, five-storey crystalline Like a crystal. It implies a uniform structure of molecules in all dimensions. For example, phase change technology, widely used for rewritable optical discs, uses crystalline spots (bits) to reflect the laser beam. Amorphous, non-crystalline bits do not reflect light. pavilion, clad in a glass skin imprinted with images of foliage (a la Herzog & de Meuron) so that it would blend into its arboreal arboreal pertaining to trees, treelike, tree-dwelling. setting. For political and quite possibly architectural reasons, the project was subsequently rejected by the city authorities and its budget cut by 50 per cent. Reacting with typical Swiss sangfroid, EM2N produced a redesign based on what they describe as 'a strategy of radical cost optimization'. Formally and materially, the result is quite different, but it still follows the essential spirit of the original competition entry, with its small footprint and the way in which it retreats into the park. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Clad in thin vertical strips of black stained timber, the new centre is now only three storeys high and curved instead of crystalline, with a kidney-shaped plan. A cafe occupies the ground floor, with two floors of spaces for communal activities above. The ground floor is glazed glaze n. 1. A thin smooth shiny coating. 2. A thin glassy coating of ice. 3. a. A coating of colored, opaque, or transparent material applied to ceramics before firing. b. , so the upper floors appear to be hovering hov·er intr.v. hov·ered, hov·er·ing, hov·ers 1. To remain floating, suspended, or fluttering in the air: gulls hovering over the waves. 2. above the ground. At intervals coming or happening with intervals between; now and then. See also: Interval , the timber skin is perforated per·fo·ra·ted adj. Pierced with one or more holes. with small circular openings (rather like a cheese-grater) that filter light in the manner of a modern mashrabiyya. A roof terrace offers views of the park through the tree cops. Being Switzerland, even such a modest little structure is very thoughtfully and precisely made, triumphing over the adversity that surrounded its conception. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion