A South London Poser?

TNG Youth & Community Centre

London

RCKa  2013

  

Unusual without being wilful, this south London community building poses questions about how we build and how architecture engages with those that use it.   The project won an RIBA National Award this year for RCKa, who were also named RIBA London Emerging Architect of the Year. 

 

With a quicksilver surface and simple rectangular volume, TNG Youth and Community Centre is a bold yet enigmatic newcomer among the post-war residential blocks of the Wells Park Estate in South East London.  Clear polycarbonate cladding reveals wall construction of timber framing and silver foil insulation, provoking curiosity and slight professional unease:  questions are asked in this project and the answers refreshingly uninhibited by convention.  The building is located at right angles to the sloping main road, its entrance facing the lower end of Wells Park and separated from the neighbouring pub to the rear by a netted ball court. As you pass from the external concrete ramp and steps through the deeply recessed entrance, the interior space unexpectedly expands: you are met with tall ceilings and dramatic multi-height spaces on three levels, interlinked by an informal stair and surprising vistas that constantly shift and re-form as you move around the building.  Designed with a care and discipline that communicates respect for those using it, the building is a safe haven, providing a calm and relaxed environment, rich with casually theatrical spaces. In contrast to the cool, silvery exterior, internal spaces are imbued with the warmth of lightly stained engineered timber panels. Entering TNG inspires a sense of freedom:  this is an institution which offers choices and possibilities.  The reception desk is discreetly located to one side, inviting the visitor to make their own assessment of what is on offer. 

Architects RCKa, working closely with Lewisham Council, were instrumental in the initiation of this £3.5M project, which attracted funding from the government's Myplace scheme. They have demonstrated great skill in integrating the views of over 30 stakeholders; including Millwall Football Club youth outreach programme, church groups, local youth theatres, and the Centrepoint homeless charity.  A steering group of local young people, actively engaged in the design process, came up with the title 'The New Generation' (TNG). The brief that developed out of this process brings together diverse spaces: a hall, climbing wall, recording studio, youth forum, health clinic, training kitchen, cafe, winter garden and outdoor ball court.  Despite the tight brief, the building retains a flexible un-programmed quality.  The architects had the sense to design a building using an engineered timber system resistant to value engineering. Without the application of these political skills there would not be a building to discuss in any terms, let alone one that touches on the essence of what makes socially engaged and yet aesthetically refined architecture.

A didactic note sets the tone for the construction: a preoccupation with materials and construction underpins the aesthetic, creating an effect that is sometimes more ‘interesting’ than ‘beautiful’.  Large irregularly distributed windows punctuate the facade, while an opening onto a small terrace overlooking the park hints at the interlocking volumes of the interior. The winter garden, a dramatic slot of space, lines the entire 3-storey rear facade.  Robustly detailed in sawn timber framing with clear polycarbonate cladding and a paving slab floor, this versatile space has been earmarked to grow vegetables, but works equally well as a break-out space or exhibition gallery. 

  

TNG feels like a building that has been thought through from first principles. A simple box like volume clad in sinusoidal profile corrugated panels; the exterior encompasses a curious amalgam of the fragile and the robust: translucent polycarbonate sheet, at high level and in protected areas to the rear and polymer-reinforced Ductal concrete panels cast to the same profile elsewhere. With the delicacy of porcelain, the smooth white surface of the concrete challenges any sense of defensive construction.  At high level you can see the sky through parapets walls clad on both sides in polycarbonate.  The appearance of the corrugated profile constantly transmutes in response to the changing light, whether shadow cast across or beneath the surface; reflection off foil-backed insulation, or the absorption of ambient light and colour. Further refinement is added by the carefully considered junction between adjacent panels:  butt-joints with a compressible foam packer and slim aluminium cover strip instead of the usual laps. 

Of course RCKa are by no means the first architects to adopt a polemical attitude to construction or social engagement.  Lubetkin and Tecton, made an attempt, albeit unsuccessful, to remove the ubiquitous reception desk from Finsbury HealthCentre (1938), an institutional building which, like TNG, is easily understood by users.  Innovative articulation of walls in Otto Wager's 1904 Vienna Post Office includes the expression of rusticated masonry as thin stone panels bolted to an underlying substrate.  RCKa’s inversion of conventional expectations is subtly disconcerting:  the Ductal concrete cladding panels form a plinth that is also clearly hung from the structure.  Above this floats the polycarbonate, an insubstantial echo of the concrete. Visual frisson is achieved not through wilful effect, but by a logical exposition of construction.  At TNG, an ‘unfinished’ quality evokes Frank Gehry’s early work, using cheap products like plywood, chain link and corrugated metal sheet in projects, such as his own house in Santa Monica (1971).  Facing Wells Park, the entrance elevation of TNG, with lateral steps and a doorway framed by a stepped composition of contrasting materials recalls Aalto's library for the Polytechnic at Otaniemi (1969).  Like Aalto, RCKa enjoy materiality in construction and a willingness to use this to make patterns; they deploy the natural warmth of timber to create a sympathetic environment for human occupation.

Instability of identity is an unusual and intriguing quality in architecture, but one which seems to define TNG. It is a building that balances different and ostensibly contradictory readings: monumentality and informality; solidity and transparency; tradition and novelty; the fixed and the provisional. This ambiguity is the outcome of careful judgement and empowers individuals to interact with the building in a way that suits them.  Empathy and respect for the users of TNG tempers RCKa’s professional preoccupation with tectonics.  If the architects pose questions, they also provide answers.  

 

 

 All photos above courtesy RCKa 

Genesis of an Icon

Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art 
Oslo 2012
Renzo Piano Building Studio with Narud-Stokk-Wiig (Oslo)

Renzo sipped his digestivo ruminatively. It had been another good lunch. Smoothing his napkin, he outlined the concept for the new Astrup Fearnley Museum with a few expressive strokes of his pen. Another signature design for an institution in search of an icon. When he got back to the office he would pass it to his team of assistants drawn from the best Swiss and German universities...

Prominently located on the former shipyard site of Tjuvholmen and overlooking Oslo Fjord, Renzo Piano's Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art is a striking design, but one that raises more questions than answers. A grandly curved roof profile unifies the composition, which is bisected by a narrow pedestrian street and canal, lending it a distinctive identity, particularly when seen from the water. The street is an extension of the adjacent waterfront promenade and connected to it by a bridge across a canal. It terminates in framed views across the fjord. To one side, a wide flight of steps leads up to a picturesque jumble of timber houses strung out along steep and narrow streets. A scrap of grass separates the other side of the museum from the water. A small, newly created, swimming beach provided with showers is one of the best features of the project, although its scale and character feel curiously inadequate in the context of the city, fjord and large museum.

From a range of anything less than 200m, this project appears even more riven by misjudgements. The big roof is the defining feature of the building, but its asymmetrical form suggests uncertainty: it neither belongs to the orthogonal forms of the city backdrop or contrasts with it in any satisfying way; the curved roof covers a series of smaller spaces, creating awkward volumes in the meanly proportioned galleries; the divisions of the block create a visual weakness where the roof straddles these. The separation of the temporary and permanent exhibition spaces by the street makes no sense whatsoever, merely introducing another dislocation in the already fragmented experience of the museum.

The permanent exhibition gallery is awkwardly arranged half a level down from the entrance, so that passing pedestrians and cyclists create a distracting visual disturbance above the art display. Although Jeff Koons sculptures and ranks of Damien Hirst vitrines could probably hold their own in any environment, the distracting reflection off the glass on a magnificent Francis Bacon triptych, poorly placed next to a large window, make it difficult to enjoy the painting. And all of this in a building over half of which appears to have been dedicated to commercial development.

Gol Stave Church

Gol Stave Church  1212
Norwegian Museum of Cultural History, Oslo

Norway's medieval stave churches connect us with primordial qualities of architecture

A deeply satisfying scent of timber with a hint of tar greets you when you enter the 800 year old Gol Stave Church relocated to the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History. Smell is not a sense often associated with architecture although, for anyone who spends time on building sites, excavation, concrete, timber and plaster all have distinctive odours, redolent of the different stages of construction. On completion these may be replaced with the quickly fading smell of carpet and fresh paint, making the persistent scent of the stave church after nearly a thousand years all the more extraordinary. These elemental enclosures have a well-tempered physical ambience.

The Museum of Cultural History in Oslo consists of a remarkable collection of reconstructed buildings, the most interesting of which, for me, were those built in timber. Even today, human settlement in Norway feels as though it has been hacked out of the forest. The abundance of timber encouraged the development of remarkable carpentry skills, expressed most eloquently in the sophisticated Viking craft built in the 8-11th centuries and in the medieval period by a few hundred stave churches. The word stave derives from the Old Norse 'stafr', meaning post, and the stave churches are built exclusively in timber suspended above the ground on boulder footings.

Joints have evolved so that vulnerable grain is protected by a the next layer of construction. Building with just one material, timber, invests the buildings with a powerfully unified aesthetic. The construction logic of these ritual shelters generates compelling form and scale, which is adorned with dragon roof finials and some relief carving on structural elements. Curiously, the circular section free-standing timber posts have a slightly self-conscious architectural quality, perhaps alluding to stone columns in churches seen outside Norway.

The principle source of daylight is from door openings, and strong side-light penetrating the interior gloom creates a dramatic chiaroscuro effect rare in western architecture. Details are lost in the shadows of its warmly hued interior. Darkness and the absence of light can be as powerful as metaphors for our spiritual or existential condition as brilliant illumination.

Sadly a few of the surviving stave churches, were lost to an arson campaign in the 1980's by black metal music devotees, who objected to the occupation of pagan sacred sites by Christian edifices. As a result, the church at Fantoft, near Bergen, reconstructed in 1992 following destruction by an arsonist is now surrounded by a wire security fence, which protects the building but wrecks its setting. Like the church in the Folk museum, it was moved from its original rural site at the end of the 19th century, demonstrating another advantage of timber: its capacity for re-cycling.

Nordic Drama

Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, Oslo

Snohetta 2000-2008

In the spirit of Greek theatre, Snohetta's Opera House gives expression to the relationship between nature and society

It is rare for a building to exert an appeal as compelling as that of Snohetta Architect's competition-winning Oslo Opera House. An inclined white marble pavement forms the roof, tilting spectacularly down to the water of Oslo Fjord. The glazed box-like enclosure of the foyer projects through the roof planes, asserting the presence of the internal volumes. Within this glacially cool exterior, the drum-shaped auditorium is clad in a textured arrangement of oak slats that generates an inviting sense of warmth.

An expansive open-air promenade connects fjord and street level with the roof-top, creating an exciting urban topography that encourages casual use, whether to enjoy the spectacle of everyday life and the city, or for occasional performances of dance or music. Snohetta manage this without 'burying' the Opera House: although its canted roof can be enjoyed without reference to the elite cultural activity of the interior, the primary function of the building is not suppressed. A strength of the layout is the clear definition of a single public entrance facing the city across a small bridge. Once inside, the lofty cubic volume of the foyer encloses the drum shape of the auditorium. Opposite the entrance is a cafe opening onto a terrace flanking the fjord. The privileged urban arena above the Opera House acts as an extension to the public realm of the city into its natural setting, mediating between orthogonal forms and organic ones, an invocation of the mythic Norwegian landscape of fjord and glacier.

More surprises fill the interior: like the raking, asymmetrically placed columns and filigree backlit screens enclosing toilets, but these always function within a coherent whole. The screens are designed by Olafur Eliasson, a commission won in competition, and one of several collaborations with artists that have been successfully integrated into the architecture. The rich colour and texture of the auditorium's rounded form at the heart of the building contrast with the surrounding cool white surfaces of the foyer.

The Opera House is a consummate achievement, negotiating a balance between comprehensible form and finely wrought abstract details: it is accessible without being condescending; the public space of this man-made glacier has an unforced theatricality, connecting the city with its topography.

 

See May 2012 post on the Millennium Centre, home of Welsh National Opera