LAVA Laboratory for Visionary Architecture

Laboratory for Visionary Architecture

What BaselBirkhäuserif

Interview: John Bezold and Lucie Ulrich conversation with Leonie Woidt-Wallisser Georg Vrachliotis conversation with Giovanna Carnevali

Interview: Riya Patel in conversation with Tobias Wallisser and Alexander Rieck

Essay: Gilles Retsin Article: Josh Plough Essay: Caia Hagel Article: Josh Plough Article: Josh Plough

Interview: John Bezold in conversation with Wolfgang Kessling, Matthias Rudolph and Tobias Wallisser

Feature: Riya Patel

Interview: Uwe Hasenfuss in conversation with Wilhelm Interview:BauerRiyaPatel in conver sation with Alexander Rieck

Elli Stühler ASKING

What if research, science, and architecture merged? The belief in the overarching relevance of these fields and their interdisciplinary, science-driven, and forward-looking implementation in architecture has characterized LAVA’s work since its founding. One question led to another and that to another. This book is the result of poking holes in what we know as architects, with a view to expanding the practice and what it means in our changing world to create an enhanced reality by continuously asking “what

Fifty years ago, German architect Frei Otto was calling for change. Different forms and methods of building, and a bolder approach to architecture itself. His vision for how architecture could straddle nature and technology was prescient in the sixties, and continues to be crucial today.

The German Pavilion

In the desert city of Dubai, the German Pavilion at the Expo 2020 Dubai picks up where Frei Otto left off. A series of suspended cubes are topped by a roof that appears to float above a forestlike structure of steel poles. Designed by LAVA, the Laboratory for Visionary Architecture, the exposition asked questions along a series of themes. Technology was at the forefront of how visi tors interacted with the exhibition, while nature played a crucial role in the building’s planet-focused construction—95% of the temporary structure was dismantled and recycled. It asked questions around how we can come together to create change, notably in the Graduation Hall, where visitors were invited to climb onto a swing set and swing in unison. The message: we can achieve great change as long as we act together. The subtext: architecture can play a powerful role in bringing people together, which speaks to Expo 2020 Dubai’s overarching theme: Connecting Minds.

Asking “What If?”

The great spectacle of a world exposition is less about providing answers than it is about revealing new questions. That’s exactly what this book sets out to do. This book doesn’t try to be anything it’s not. It doesn’t try to be an archive of LAVA’s work. It doesn’t try to be a retrospective. But what it does try to do is look to the future by asking speculative, thought-provoking questions.

This is central to the mindset of the global architecture practice LAVA, which was established in 2007 by Chris Bosse, Alexander Rieck, and Tobias Wallisser, who share a common vision of contemporary architecture. It can be summed up in the following words by co-founder Tobias Wallisser: “One must first set up a room of possibilities and say ‘What if? Couldn’t it look like this?’ Through this, dreams are created which perhaps could also be realized in reality. It is not about promising things that don’t work. It is about creating a necessary design freedom and encouraging reflection on diverse topics.“ 1

Every LAVA project in this book starts with a ”what if” ques tion to shape the main ideas that drive the project. Asking “what if?” opens the mind, it triggers curiosity and it embodies LAVA’s visionary DNA.

By doing so, this book isn’t about presenting the LAVA view, but rather, the view of many: journalists like Amy Frearson, John Bezold, and Riya Patel, academics like Raoul Bunschoten, Marjan Colletti, and Georg Vrachliotis, current or former employees, project partners and collaborators like Cityplot, the Fraunhofer Institute, and Transsolar. We hope to establish a platform for new thinking and new ideas. Above all, we hope to start a series of conversations that explore the book’s central themes and what they mean to architecture and to the future of life on earth.

Quote1 first published in 2012 on friendsoffriends.com.

Six Themes

The ideas that weave together the stories in this book are clus tered through the lens of six themes which mirror the challenges and questions society and architecture alike are currently grap pling with on a global scale. Designed to Connect expands on the theme of the Expo 2020 Dubai, while Future Cities, Planning with Nature and Energy Transition expand on the three core themes of the German Pavilion. The other two, Digitizing the Process and Creativity at Work delve into two topics that are too pressing to be ignored.

Designed to Connect (→ page 26–61 ), a play on the Connecting Minds theme of the Expo 2020 Dubai, asks: What if architecture can enhance a new togetherness of social interaction, lifelong learning, and meaningful debate?

Future Cities (→ page 62–95) asks: what if we could condition the desert? What if planetary challenges like the climate crisis and the co-evolution of different forms of intelligence required new concepts and methods for the architectural profession?

Planning with Nature (→ page 96–127 ) explores biodiversity, and asks: what if a single building can be akin to a forest with a highly balanced indoor microbiome to support all species? What if an entire city could function, and look like, a rainforest?

Digitizing the Process (→ page 128–153 ) delves into archi tecture’s evolving relationship with technology, and asks: What if architecture could gain new relevance by harnessing automa tion to fight today’s housing crisis? Could machines help buildings respond to rapid changes in climate and human need?

Energy Transition (→ page 154–173 ) asks: what if architecture could communicate the abstract nature of energy, while also being a symbol for a greener future? What if a sleepy industrial park could pave the way for brave new sustainable developments?

Creativity at Work (→ page 174–205) unravels a topic that’s become increasingly pressing for architects and employers since the COVID-19 pandemic: our changing relationship with the office. What if work could be life-improving: making us feel connected, inspired, smarter, and more productive?

How it all Comes Together

These sections are treated less like a book and more like a magazine. A series of self-contained texts that flow from idea to idea. Each section begins with a provocative statement by interna tional thought leaders. From there, the sections bring together explorations of key LAVA projects, along with interviews, features, articles, and essays to extend the thinking behind LAVA’s work, as well as the six main themes. These texts provide an undercur rent of “flowing lava”: revealing how continually changing human needs, when presented within the larger shifts in global society, trigger, challenge, and transform the work of an architect.

The book ends not with a question, but a series of visions: statements from LAVA’s founders and some of their employees that leave us with an uplifting perspective of what it means to be an architect: how it’s changed since Frei Otto first started calling out to embolden the profession and how we will uphold these ideas for generations to come.

“Everything man is doing in architecture is to try to go against nature. Of course we have to understand nature to know how far we have to go against nature. The secret, I think, of the future is not doing too much. All architects have the tendency to do too much.” Frei Otto, Architect

Future Cities

Our cities are constantly evolving. While the majority of growth is taking place in emerging cities in Africa and Asia, western cities are also on the precipice of significant change. Populations are plummeting in some regions and skyrocketing in others. While the issues our cities face will vary from place to place, there are a few questions—around climate change, access to housing, resources and safety—that apply the world over.

Addressing some of these questions, this section looks at four of LAVA’s key urban projects through the lens of the stories they tell. We look at the Masdar city project in Abu Dhabi, which ponders how humans can be better suited to living in the desert (part of the answer

is to be the first emission-free city in the world). Georg Vrachliotis, who wrote this book’s opening essay about Frei Otto, interviews Giovanna Carnevali about the Saudi Arabian city of NEOM, asking, what is the feasibility of building a city entirely from scratch? What is lost in that process, and on the flipside, what is gained? Raoul Bunschoten weaves together ideas around the smart city, the metaspace and planetary changes and asks, how does it all come together?

How can the cities of the future move beyond the over-optimized smart city and become more integrated with nature? Given the breakneck speed of change in cities around the globe, how can architects keep up?

WhatMASDARifwecould condition the desert?

Masdar, an ideal city, conceived as the first CO2 emission-free city in the world and master planned by Foster and Partners, was an opportunity to visit this question. At the development peak of Dubai, LAVA was invited to participate in a competition to design the center of Masdar.Feature:

Tobias Wallisser

The competition brief asked for a new iconic building to comprise a conference center, a five star hotel, housing, and a shopping area: the same components found in many masterplans under development in the UAE. The question for us was how we could push the qualities of the architecture beyond formal exuberance. What if by installing a sustainable smart outdoor climate regu lation, our design could overcome the lack of public space, and instead establish a vivid open air space in a hot city center?

No Public Space

The Emirates don’t have a long tradition of formal urban development. Dubai, a prime example of an urban model without outdoor public spaces, began as a fishing village on a creek. It was transformed in the 1960s by mainly English engineers according to the ideas of modernist urbanism at the time. They built highways, interchanges, and the first high-rise buildings—with late modernist façades that responded remarkably to the climate. Within thirty years, the modern city of Dubai was planned and erected. The most prominent urban elements are inaccessibly lined up as objects along the central highway or projected out into the

↑ An iconic public space instead of an iconic building constitutes the new center of Masdar.

↗ Large umbrellas with different sizes shade the plaza during the day and allow for ventilation and sky views at nighttime.

→ 46 umbrellas of different sizes cover a free-form plaza between 5 buildings and the City Hall.

sea as artificial islands. The only public spaces are the huge multi story shopping malls with adjacent ski slopes or integrated ice rinks. The outdoors only exists in wintertime—or on the finely mani cured greens of golf courses along the creek, which are regulated by precise protocols.

Modern Abu Dhabi was built using a grid typology imported from US cities. The city blocks are narrow, forcing houses to protrude over the pedestrian walkways, and the streets are too wide in relation to the height of the buildings. Along

the coastal road, called Corniche, a couple of pleasant green spaces can be found, which are frequented in the evenings and during the winter. While they are remote from shopping malls or other attractions, these spaces form an intimate public promenade and offer urban quality, although without the contribution of any significant buildings or urban fabric.

Innovative ToDevelopmentsUrbanusasarchitects,the most inter esting of these developments was the Masdar initiative, an urban

The Masdar project formed an urban exception in the Emirates, conceived as it was as a fully func tioning modern city that emulated the best of traditional Arab city designs and architecture, including wind towers, narrow streets, shaded courtyards, and a compact walled city design with contemporary amenities. Energy-efficient building design, renewable energy genera tion, recycled waste, and fossil-fuel free transport were all meant to

ensure carbon neutrality. The envi ronmental performance of Masdar City was one of the key design principles, but it was important to the creators that it also provided an enviable quality of life. Masdar could be described as the first attempt to create a CO2-emission-free city whose inhabitants don’t only work

toward the transition of the UAE to a post-oil society, but also live it. Its inhabitants would have been a mixture of Western and Eastern researchers and business people fusing their respective traditions with a new hybrid lifestyle centered on the vision of renewable energy.

At the end of 2008, LAVA was invited to participate, in a field of 17 international architecture firms, in a competition for the Masdar Hotel and Conference Center (MHCC). The brief called for an iconic design for a hotel and a conference center facility located at the center of Masdar City. Masdar provided the possibility to actually experiment with public space, due to its dense urban environment and clear boundary, with an inside and an outside. We decided to design a public space as the heart of the city rather than the usual iconic building trying to compete with numerous similar develop ments in the Emirates.

All great historical cities contain iconic urban spaces—Athens, Rome, Constantinople, Florence. We recognized the desire on the part of the government to use Masdar to promote and build outstanding modern architecture throughout this city of the future. Yet, we understood that it is always the successful combina tion of imaginatively designed and actively utilized public open areas that complement this symbolic

→ An outer shell of carbon fiber panels with integrated PV form the upper part of the umbrellas. A hydraulic system adopted from large cranes is located within the lower part.

The shaded plaza during daytime. The plaza landscape is formed to create air lakes to increase outdoor comfort.

architecture, which creates unfor gettable urban developments.

We chose to integrate the Arab significance of the oasis with the Western notion of a civic forum. Our design was inspired by nature, with humankind at the center of the development. The new center, which we called The Plaza, was designed with the specific purpose of uniting people from different cultures and backgrounds. Our Oasis of the Future was a new type of civic center—generating and guiding human interaction through natural flow, by exercising control of ambient temperatures, the use of light, heat, and cooling, and the control of water, to name a few elements.

In addition, we incorporated the topographical features of the wadi, the local word for a dry riverbed or valley, into the interiors of the hotel and conference facilities, and we also used fabrics to resonate with the Bedouin ancestry and history of the local people and the city. Our vision for the Masdar Plaza was for it to be the Oasis of the Future, that formed a link between the ancient past and the contemporary era. It was envisioned as a community and commercial epicenter in one of the world’s most modern cities. It would also achieve global recognition as a beacon for the dawn of a new

age, one where ecology had prece dence over waste.

The indoor qualities were echoed by a specific design of the adjacent outdoor spaces, where inside extended to outside, blurring the space boundaries along the edge of the plaza. We positioned areas for slow activities, character ized by their long duration, around the edges of the plaza, while leaving the central part as a transitory space. Despite the extensive size of the plaza, which was as big as St. Peter’s square in Rome, the differ entiation of activities and surface treatment would always relate to a human scale and to human activity. The plaza was designed for largescale gatherings as well as for more private meetings. Being the true center of the city, this space would become the reference point for any visitor as well as the new landmark for its inhabitants. We intended it to be a true icon, in the sense of a public achievement at the founda tion of an urban society.

Climate Challenge

The extreme local climate was a key factor. In the past, Western architects have reacted to this challenge by abandoning the creation of public space in favor of an indoor city. Yet in regional approaches, those of the Saudi Arabians, for example, have

found ad-hoc solutions to the heat by controlling the climate of outdoor environments used for public functions by using evaporative cooling, spraying mist, and shallow water ponds to reduce the ambient temperature.

In comparison, Western contemporary cities have a history of conditioning outdoor climates, mostly through heating rather than cooling. This is usually not employed as a way to condition public urban space. For the production of public space in the contemporary Arab city, outdoor climate conditioning seems a totally appropriate strategy— given it can be powered with regenerative energy. In our case, this adhered to the Masdar guidelines requiring that all energy must be locally produced, which once fulfilled, meant there was no further limitation to designing the quality of life of Masdar inhabitants.

Social sustainability is measured by the activities that occur in public spaces. To make these activi ties possible, the criteria of human comfort needs to be fulfilled, espe cially in hot climate zones. For Masdar Plaza this would have only been possible between October and April without actively acclima tizing the outdoor space. During the hot and humid summer months, we would have needed additional means for shading and cooling.

“Our understanding of design in the built environment is undergoing a seismic shift; from an extrinsic approach outwardly expressing status and identity, towards an intrinsic approach that works as a medium for improving health and well-being, by enhancing functionality and reducing negative issues.

This is being played out across our cities, neighborhoods, buildings, and interior spaces. Our relationship with nature is fundamental to delivering this shift, and we are seeing biophilic design becoming a driving force behind developing our anthropocentric view of the world toward a more deeply interconnected approach, where we understand our place in the wider natural system.

In doing so we can realize many deep and rewarding benefits; moving beyond traditional notions of sustainability and striving for a regenerative approach—one that seeks to restore both people and planet. We need to see these connections with nature for what they are; not just a luxury, but an essential part in creating happier, healthier spaces, nurturing and restoring all living organisms and ecological Oliversystems.”Heath,Architectural and Interior Designer

2. It doesn’t need to be a large-scale, city

planning project like Forest City. Biodiversity can be applied in small ways too, like at the Life Hamburg learning Space. This section will explore both. Marjan Colletti looks at these two projects through the lens of a new definition of biophilia in the context of databiocentrism. Permaculture expert Leonie Woidt-Wallisser looks beyond the green wall by asking how we can apply permaculture holistically to the built environment. LAVA co-founder Chris Bosse asks, how can future cities function more like rainforests? And Maria Aiolova wonders what if a single building can be a forest-like indoor microbiome to support all species?

In the following pages we ask: How can architecture be better at learning from nature? And by doing so, will we be better equipped to live alongside it? And what are the conse quences if we don’t?

FOREST CITY

What if an entire city could function, and look like, a rainforest? What if a garden city could be made vertical? What would the lifestyle and the implications be for that city’s inhabitants?

Interview: John Bezold in conversation with Chris Bosse

Chris Bosse heads the Asia-Pacific outpost of LAVA’s studio in Sydney, Australia. From small-scale to largescale, his projects range from exhibition designs to towers that climb over 300 meters towards the sky. Deeply interested in research and nature, his work seeks to expand on how these two subjects can combine to impart through architecture, experiences and atmospheres more often found in the spaces below a forest canopy, than in urban areas.

We discussed his take on the inclusion of the natural world in architecture concerning scale; how architects can better communicate the importance of such features in their projects for those who will inhabit them; and the merging of Western design traditions with architecture in the modern East. A certain sensitivity toward the natural world—which borrows philosophies incorporated from the ancient school of Taoism—serves as one of his main sources of inspiration. Forest City, LAVA’s nature-inspired design for an entirely new urban area in Malaysia, served to anchor our talk.

John Bezold (JB): Mr. Bosse, how do you define nature, in relation to your work at LAVA? How is it that you relay its properties into your design thinking? How do you apply that to your work?

Chris Bosse (CB): Simply put, nature can be a tree or a rock. Though it’s also air, or sunlight. Nature is different from technology, however. Energy is nature; it’s not manmade. Nature is everything around us that we can’t control but still attempt to harness. In the end, architects create environments where nature and technology seamlessly blend into one another. But nature for me isn’t some romantic ideal or bucolic place. Nature is not: I work fields so I’m at one with the land, denying any modern progress. Describing what nature is, also entails thinking and looking forward in relation to how humans interact with energy. When we view nature this way, we as architects are better able to integrate biodiversity into our work. So, I integrate nature literally, but also through my thoughts, and the way that I think about projects in an incredibly holistic manner.

JB So, you’re saying that nature is energy, though not necessarily energy in terms of making a lightbulb turn on. But that nature, to you, is an energy—a vibration, wavelength, or flow?

CB Yes.

JB What geopolitical opportunities does the Asia-Pacific region you work within offer, which are not present in the West, regarding building scale? How can biodiversity successfully be implemented into projects on a huge scale, such as those produced by LAVA’s studio in Sydney?

CB Coming from a German background— as Alexander, one of my partners at LAVA explained to me the other day; in Germany, architects are responsible for the entirety of a building. I mean everything. All in one go, from start to finish. This has changed over the years, though this is German thinking for you, in the sense of having to dictate the entire process and see that as one of the main tasks of an architect. This, of course, has its limitations. There can sometimes be, because of that, too much

Interview

Chris Bosse

control exerted over the creative process. Whereas in Asia if you design an entire city or highrise, you’re mostly only involved at the front end, in the creative conceptual phase.

I once presented a project to a developer in China, and afterward, I was excited and stated that I hoped we would get to work together on it. They were confused because they had 4,000 in-house architects to arrange the details. Their attitude was: thanks for the lecture but we will now take your design, go ahead and figure out the details ourselves and start building it.

Here, people want your ideas, but don’t need you so much for the implementation. I have had to learn to let go of controlling the process. I push as hard as I can in the front stages and put as much effort as possible into the design approach. That way even if not every detail is translated into the built result from the design process, the outcome always remains strong.

JB That’s the whole point of the Tao Te Ching, which I’d like to speak with you about later in regard to LAVA’s project Forest City. That’s a nice example of biodiversity in architecture from the office. Back to the work method you just described: it is often the reverse in Europe. Here, studi os first try to dazzle clients in the presentation with slick renderings, and once the project is commissioned, figure out the details as they go along to make that vision a reality.

CB Size counts more in this sense, in Asia. With that, I mean a project’s scale. A friend of mine worked in Switzerland on a staircase for two years. Beautiful. But it took two years!

JB I’d like to zoom in on the Forest City project you designed at the stu dio there in Sydney. It’s enormous in scale; coming in at 20 square kilome ters, with 700,000 inhabitants. It also incorporates many elements that lend the project form that actively seeks to reduce the resemblance to a twen ty-first century skyline, as that of Manhattan, full of skyscrapers.

Thus, the project is at once an icon, while actively seeking to rethink the

↑ Forest City forms a man-made landscape integrating water and landscape into a three-dimensional spatial concept.

Planning with Nature

notion of what constitutes a modern architectural landmark. Why create such a tension between these two concepts? How is it resolved through biodiverse interventions? Can you describe the project?

CB Forest City is a huge project in Malaysia, near Singapore. It has many interesting issues, politically as well as geopolitically because of its location. Essentially you could live there and be in Singapore within half an hour, commuting each day. It’s artificial nature in the midst of the ocean. The developer invited us for the competition, to create an iconic skyline, which we sometimes encounter from developers here. It’s a bit of a 1990s way of working, though we embraced the opportunity to rethink what an icon is. What is an icon? A shape? Height? Or a size? Or look? Or is it an iconic destination? That’s the approach we took to make the project an iconic location; not because it’s so tall but because it’s iconic as a place. Out of that, we started working with a building program that’s high-density and ambitious.

In projects such as Forest City, at least in this part of the world, it’s a rubber stamp floor plan of apartments stacked up on top of one another. We always try to think beyond that in our work.

LAVA approached the challenge by designing architecture from the inside out, and thinking of it as a living organism. It was always called Forest City by the developer, and we interpreted that as a rainforest city. A forest being a world. Rainforests are unbelievable ecosystems composed of millions of species existing in symbiosis, and they all have different tasks and challenges. Rainforests exist in different strata; the undergrowth, the mid-level …

JB The canopy …

CB Yes. Each layer has its own inhabitants and they each have their own role to play.

JB Could you explain the three-dimen sional ecosystem of Forest City and its layered structure?

CB Each of these strata has their own component. They all create their own energy, food, waste, and water, etc. When you analyze them, you realize that parts die off, feed the other parts and so on. It’s a true self-sustaining system. It was the approach that buildings are not designed to stand alone. When looking at the section of Forest City; it’s the most telling of the drawings from this project. It seems like a section cut through a natural organism. A series of

JB I’ve been to Singapore, and what you’re describing reminds me of new er architecture there, there with all kinds of outdoor spaces in one building linked by terraces and staircases. You’re not quite sure where you can go but you know you can go anywhere and everywhere all at once. Could you talk about how this works there, in relation to Forest City, but also the other projects of the LAVA Sydney studio, as opposed to a context situated within Europe?

CB For starters, in Europe buildings are often very high security, so it’s not even possible to get beyond the lobby. Once one is in a high-rise tower people go to one floor and that’s about it. Maybe there’s a central common area or lobby, but even visitors are shuffled up the tower and only go to one certain part. Not any others. Like what you just described about Singapore; there are no dead ends in situations like those, like Forest City. There’s a million ways you can walk around such a project, but you’ll always end up on a different level. It’s a 3D network of relationships between spaces. Like in Venice; you can walk so many ways through it, but anyone visiting Venice will always end up back at the Piazza San Marco.

JB One of the things I found capti vating about the context of the project in relation to being sited in Malaysia and Asia, is Taoism. It concerns fire, earth, metal, wood, and water. Could you speak about why you would draw upon that for this particular project?

Planning with Nature

CB Taoism in the context of Forest City has to do with the relationship between East and West, in terms of philosophy and looking at the world from our internal perspectives. In the West we have a very scientific view of the world, right? We explain everything and there’s always a reason for things to be done. We know that the moon, the sun, the earth; they all rotate at a given speed, etc. Though in Eastern views of the world, everything has to do with the forces of nature that are generally described as yin and yang. Opposing sources and forces of day and light; fire and water; male and female, etc. So, these five elements are fundamentals that surround all of us each and every day, and help us to explain interactions of the universe. At LAVA, and especially in the Sydney studio, we tap into these philosophies for our new projects to relate to our clientele in this part of the world. But we also believe in these modes of thinking as well. There is a scientific side to everyone’s mind of course. We can all explain everything in measurements, or we could explain it as air, fire, earth, and energy and so on.

JB Exactly; the left hemisphere of the brain thinks rigidly, linearly, and focuses on details, and more details about those details. Whereas the right hemisphere is connected to literally everything in the universe, as is your left, though in a more abstract way; without those same details being the central focus. I understand precisely what you mean with this.

CB When it comes to master planning, with this philosophy, we always have to find ways to create context-specific spaces. Themes always help with this task. Sometimes theming can become very artificial, such as at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. Developers always try to theme everything, and very often themes are artificial and aren’t so attractive, such as a “Euromall”. Rather than brand

Daan Roosegaarde, Artist

“True beauty is not a Louis Vuitton bag or a Ferrari, but clean air and clean energy.”

Energy and Future Storage facility in Heidelberg, which inte grates an exhibition space to invite the public to participate and learn more about energy tran sitions. This powerful symbol of the city’s move towards renewables not only stores energy,

it also gives future generations the tools they need to keep up the momentum. We also look at the LAVA-designed Synergy Park in Lingen, a design that includes recyclable materials, rainwater harvesting, and effi cient energy supply from renewable sources. It asks, what if the often overlooked business park could redefine its image by blending sustainable design with features that are desirable to its users?Tobias Wallisser of LAVA joins forces with his longtime collaborators, Wolfgang Kessling and Matthias Rudolph from Transsolar, to discuss several what ifs: What if architects treated energy as an unlimited resource? What would happen if climate engineers and architects arrived at better ways to work together to create architecture that performs better? And how can we ensure we address the problem, before it’s too late?

Article: Josh Plough

What if architecture could communicate the abstract nature of energy, while also being a symbol for the greener future?

Heidelberg,Location:

By 2050, the south-west German city of Heidelberg aims to become the first European city to provide all its private households with CO2-neutral energy from renewable sources, while also cutting their emissions by 95%. Such grand ambitions require grand infrastructure, and green energy storage is one of the key technologies required for the Energiewende1 to work.

When redesigning the exterior, it was essential for this subtle yet consistent move ment to be taken into account. The architects approached this task aesthetically and via engineering, their main design drivers were functionality, user experience, structural performance, and the environment. “The guiding principle for our design is the energy cycle. We wanted to show the kinetic aspect of this piece of industrial infrastructure by commu nicating the building‘s movement, flexibility, and adaptability as a visual language. That’s how we arrived at the playful idea of referring to hula hoop rings, called ‘energy loops’, that we wrapped around the tank,” says Tschersich. These energy loops add a dynamism to the facade so that it references its potential to release both energy and knowledge. These spiraling exterior loops then meet the ground where they form walkways that ripple out into the landscape and invite visitors, and the city itself, to enter. The energy loop that traces its way around the tank doubles as the tower’s visual identity as well as a free-hanging spiral AND FUTURE CENTER

LAVA was commissioned to supply the innovation for this project and address the social and practical roles of this new form of infrastructure. The result, a luminous otherworldly-looking tower with a diameter of 26 m and a height of 56 m, will be the tallest building in the area, and when finished aims to be the city’s symbol of its sustainability commitments. Built in an industrial park on the site of a 1950s cylindrical gas tower, this new structure, although similar in design, is the antithesis of last century‘s extractive way of thinking. Instead of drawing energy from finite resources, the Energy and Future Storage center trailblazes into the future with a tank that stores water heated to 115 degrees by solar and wind energy that is then sold back to the grid.

LAVA created an architecture and informa tion beacon by “skinning” the existing structure and building a restaurant and exhibition space on top of it. This may sound simple but as Christian Tschersich explains, “The construc tion of the tower is the most daring, most challenging thing we have ever done.” The daringness lies in the structural DNA where its 18 mm thick steel walls wrapped in 50 cm of insulation constantly expand and contract as water is pumped in and out, and stored, as needed.2

staircase that takes visitors up to the viewing platform, bistro, and education center. This trio of attractions, which forms the ‘crown’3 of the tower, straddles the top of a floating steel gril lage that can’t be permanently attached due to the tank’s constant expansion and contraction. As Tschersich explains, “The whole structure is flexible and continues Frei Otto’s approach to lightweight materials and architecture. Instead of withstanding the forces of nature, the construction moves with it.”

Suspended from the staircase is a diagrid cable net that creates rhomboid shapes filled with 11,000 thin stainless steel shingles, which represents the number of homes that will have access to the green energy stored in the tank. The Energiewende motif becomes a metaphor that nods to what Tschersich reminds us, “will take all of us acting together as a collective to become greener, more sustainable, and more conscious of our energy consumption.”

The shingles are connected to steel cables with elastic ties so they flutter in the wind

↑ The Energy and Future Storage center replaces a gas tank, which in the 1950s was a symbol of energy policy. It will be a strong symbol of the transition towards renewable energy resources. → A restaurant and a roof top terrace are placed above the water storage.

Maria Aiolova

Maria Aiolova is an innovator, architect, urban designer, educator, and community builder in New York City. Her work is focused on environmental design, sustainable development, and resilience for cities. In 2021, she joined AECOM as the Global Principal of iLAB, an Integrated Research Development and Inno-vation Initiative pioneering the future of Net Zero Carbon within the Buildings and Places Global Multidisciplinary Practice. Her role is to lead research and innovation initiatives across market sectors and practices and execute strategic initiatives that support the devel opment of the culture of innovation. Maria co-founded Terreform ONE, a non-profit architecture and urban design research-based group to combat the extinction of all planetary species through pioneering acts of design. She is an inventor, holding 18 technology patents. Maria has won many honors, including: “Woman of the Decade in Science and Design Leadership” at the Women Economic Forum 2020 in Cairo, Egypt.

Wilhelm Bauer

As Executive Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO, Stuttgart, Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Bauer is leading a research organization with about 650 employees. He is in charge of research and implementation projects in the fields of innovation research, technology management, living and working in the future and smarter cities. As a member of various committees, he advises government and industry. He is a member of the High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence of the European Commission and a Co-Head of the Working Group Future of Work and Human-Machine Interaction of the Plattform Lernende Systeme—Germany’s Platform for Artificial Intelligence. As an author, he has over 400 scientific and technical publications to his name. He is an associate lecturer at the Universities of Stuttgart and Hannover. In 2012, he received the honor of the State of Baden-Württemberg as a “Day after Tomorrow Maker”.

John Bezold

John Bezold is an Amsterdam-based American-Dutch editor, researcher, writer, and journalist. His work expands the value and visibility of organizations through the creation of digital media, print publications, and editorial communications. After writing design and architecture

journalism at Frame and Mark maga zines, John then produced media for museums and visual artists; now, he’s active in the design, art, tech, and publishing fields—with servant leadership as his operational foun dation. John holds both a master’s and a research master’s in art history from the University of Amsterdam, and a bachelor’s in architecture from the University of Cincinnati. He also trained with Clodagh in Manhattan, in designers’ studios in San Francisco and Dusseldorf—and studied Scandinavian art, design, and architecture in Copenhagen.

Chris EducatedBosseinGermany at the FH Cologne and University of Stuttgart as well as the EPFL Lausanne and Accademia Mendrisio in Switzerland, Chris Bosse leads LAVA’s offices in Asia Pacific, Sydney, Australia, and Hanoi/Minh City, Vietnam. He bases his work on the comput erized study of organic structures and resulting spatial conceptions. His design projects have garnered Bosse an international reputation as an architect who works at the boundaries of traditional struc tures and digital and experimental form-finding. Whilst Associate Architect at PTW in Sydney, Bosse was a key designer of the Beijing Olympics Watercube, winner of the Atmosphere Award at the 9th Venice Architecture Biennale and the AIA Jorn Utzon Award for International Architecture. The following year he received the Emer-ging Architect RIBA award, in 2012 Perspective‘s 40 Under 40 for Asia’s rising archi tects. He was also the recipient of an Australian Design Honor in 2015. Alongside his architectural practice, Bosse is Adjunct Professor at the University of Technology, Sydney and lectures worldwide, where, along with think tanks and competitions, he practices his passion to raise a new generation of architects at the interface between the analog and the digital worlds. He believes that the future of architecture includes continuously redefining the roles of nature and technology in our lives.

Raoul Bunschoten

Prof. Raoul Bunschoten is Professor for Sustainable Urban Planning and Urban Design and heads the CHORA Conscious City Chair in Berlin, Germany. He received his Diploma of Architecture at the ETH Zurich in 1980, and an MA Arch. Degree at Cranbrook Academy of Arts in the USA with Daniel Libeskind in 1983. He has taught at the Architectural Association, London Metropolitan

University, and the Berlage Institute of Architecture and Columbia University. He is the founder of the CHORA group. CHORA won the joint first prize for the development of the Tempelhof district in Berlin, in 2009, and has won other urban planning competitions in Europe and China. He developed the BrainBox, an inter active control space for intelligent city systems and the Conscious City Lab. Together with Fraunhofer IPK he leads the Bauhuette 4.0 Wood to City innovation project, Tech Republic in Tegel, Berlin. He is a leading researcher on planetary urbanism in the context of climate change.

Giovanna Carnevali

As the Executive Director of Urban Planning and the Architecture Department at NEOM, Giovanna Carnevali leads the development and implementation of NEOM’s core urban development plan. She has more than 20 years of experi ence in the fields of urban design and architecture. Carnevali has worked in Europe and the Middle East across all stages of the design process, from concept through to detailed design, leading large multi disciplinary teams on projects of varying sizes and building typologies. Prior to joining NEOM, Carnevali was Director of International Projects at Strelka KB, a think tank in the urban design space in Russia. Carnevali has also held numerous senior management and director roles, including at the Mies van der Rohe Foundation, and as co-founder of her own consultancy, Self Arquitectura SLP. She is an architecture consultant at the European Commission, and has been lecturing around the world. Carnevali holds a Ph.D. in Urban Development and Planning from the Universitá degli Studi di Genova, a Master’s in Architectural Projects from ETSAB, Barcelona Polytechnic, and a dual Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from both universities.

Marjan Colletti

Architect Prof. Dr. Marjan Colletti is Tenured Professor of Architecture, Building Technology and Postdigital Practice. Academic achievements include co-directing the Architecture MArch, the professionally accredited postgraduate program at The Bartlett UCL London; founding REX|LAB, the robotic experimentation lab at the Institute for Experimental Architecture, which he has chaired since 2013 at the University of Innsbruck; guest professorships in Los Angeles, California and Arlington, Texas in the USA and in Vienna, Austria. As an architectural designer and advocate

of the openness, transdisciplinarity and hybridity of architecture, he acts as scientific reviewer for several major funding bodies and scientific consortia in the European Union, United Kingdom, U.S.A., United Arab Emirates, Australia, Canada, Russia, Switzerland etc. He has frequently exhibited in international venues and lectures regularly on the contempo rary paradigms of design-research and research-led education. Major published books include the 80th anniversary issue of AD Exuberance (Wiley), the authored Digital Poetics (Routledge) and Interfaces|Intrafaces (Springer), and the edited Meeting Nature Halfway (iup).

Amy Frearson

Amy Frearson is a London-based journalist and editor specializing in architecture and design. Her first book, All Together Now: The Co-living and Co-Working Revolution, is published by RIBA Publishing. Amy is editor-at-large for Dezeen, having previously served as editor from 2016 to 2019. She is a regular contributor to magazines including Elle Decoration, Grand Designs, Icon, and Design Anthology, and was previously the editor of the exhibition catalog for The Garden of Privatised Delights, the British Pavilion’s partic ipation in the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2021. Before moving into journalism, Amy worked in architec tural practice. She holds a masters in architectural history from The Bartlett and a degree in architecture from Kingston University.

Caia Hagel

Caia Hagel is co-author of Girl Positive, a groundbreaking treatise on how the leaders of tomorrow are shaping a new world, and co-founding editor-in-chief of SOFA, a youth culture magazine & talk series that uses the art of the chatroom to bring culture and caring together in cyberspace. Caia designed SOFA’s recent #GirlGames partnership with the Goethe Institut Sao Paulo, a first ever code-a-thon featuring girl video gamers from across Latin America creating games that reflect their authentic realities and visions for change. #GirlGames set a new precedent in game storytelling as a cultural influence on the future. Caia is also a speaker on innovation, pop culture, the internet, and the zeitgeist. Her presentation on Selfies at Forum D’Avignon Paris contributed to a Bill of Digital Human Rights. Her articles and interviews appear in various media from Art Papers to VICE and Vogue.

Wolfgang Kessling

Dr. Wolfgang Kessling holds a doctorate in physics and is a partner at Transsolar Energietechnik. The focus of his work is the development of innovative comfort concepts for both indoor and outdoor spaces. With his expertise in climate-friendly building design he is developing innovative solutions with architects and design teams worldwide in diverse climatic environments. In addition to his long-time collabora tion with LAVA he has managed high profile projects realizing a sustain able design vision which resulted in award-winning architecture as well as adaptive comfort projects with a focus on context-sensitive solutions. He lectures regularly at universities and international conferences on sustainable design, thermal comfort, and zero-energy projects.

Riya Patel

Riya Patel is an independent writer and curator, working in architecture and design. She was curator of The Aram Gallery in London from 2015 to 2020, an independent gallery space dedicated to new and experimental design. Riya contributes regularly to FRAME magazine, providing insights on the topic of the future workplace. She has written for several publications including Disegno, Dwell, Wallpaper*, and The Independent. Her previous roles include senior editor at Icon, and editor at FRAME magazine. She holds a Master of Architecture degree from Cardiff University, UK. She began her journalism career in 2010 at the Archi-tects‘ Journal and The Architectural Review.

Josh Plough

Josh Plough is a writer, editor, and curator. His areas of intrigue include the sordid world of design and its position in the webs of folklore, iden tity, and futures. He received his MA in Design Curating and Writing from the Design Academy Eindhoven, and cut his teeth at the independent publishers and exhibition space Onomatopee Projects, where he worked for three years as an editor and city curator. Currently based in Warsaw, he founded the NGO and bookshop Ziemniaki i, which researches the relevance of myth and folklore by placing them in the context of poli tics, belief, and digital technologies. Josh is the recipient of the 2022 Fondazione Fitzcarraldo scholar ship for the Certificate of Advanced Studies in Cultural Policies at Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana. He is also a contributing writer to publi cations including DAMN Magazine, Revista-ARTA, and The Future of.

Gilles OriginallyRetsinfromBelgium,

Gilles Retsin

is an architect and designer living in London. He studied architecture in Belgium, Chile, and the UK, where he graduated from the Architectural Association. His design work and critical discourse have been interna tionally recognized through awards, lectures, and exhibitions at major cultural institutions such as the Museum of Art and Design in New York, the Royal Academy in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. He recently edited an issue of Architectural Design (AD) on the discrete and has co-edited Robotic Building: Architecture in the Age of Automation, with Detail Verlag. Gilles Retsin is Programme Director of the M.Arch Architectural Design at UCL, the Bartlett School of Architecture. He is co-founder of UCL AUAR Labs, which conducts high-profile research into new design and fabri cation technologies and its spin-off company AUAR ltd, a start-up working towards an automated platform for affordable housing.

Alexander Rieck

Architect and scientist Dr. Alexander Rieck manages LAVA’s Stuttgart office and has been conducting research at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering since 1997, with a special interest in the Virtual Reality Laboratory and the optimization of digital planning methods. Rieck studied architecture in Stuttgart and Arizona, and has been involved in a number of inno vative projects exploring the future of work (Office 21), buildings (Fucon), hospitality (Future Hotel) and cities (Morgenstadt). He completed his doctorate in 2010 with a disserta tion on well-being in the work envi ronment. Currently, his research is focused on digital design and manu facturing, as well as the city of the future. Rieck taught at the University of Zurich in the field of Workplace Management. As an expert in digital building, he is a member of the advisory boards of the BadenWürttemberg Chamber of Architects and the German Federal Chamber of Architects. He is also a member of the DIN standardization committee on BIM and sits on the advisory board of the newly founded University of Digital Science in Berlin.

Matthias Rudolph

Prof. Matthias Rudolph is KlimaEngineer at KlimaEngineeringTranssolar.isintegrated design supported by climate-respon sive strategies, taking advantage of the specific local site and climate

Laboratory for Visionary Architecture

to maximize user comfort whilst minimizing environmental impact.

In interdisciplinary work with renowned architects, within Transsolar Matthias develops strategies for climate-neutral buildings and urban developments. Since 2012 he has been a professor and holds the chair of building technology and climate responsive design at the Stuttgart Academy of Art and Design, Germany. The focus of his academic research work is on the study of the interac tion between ecology, site, space, and form-finding as well as on the microclimate adaptation of urban environments. He is also a frequent lecturer at international conferences and industry events. Since 2017 he has been a member of the exec utive board of the DGNB (German Sustainable Building Council).

Elli Stühler

Elli Stühler is a freelance writer and editor based in Berlin. Her writing career began in her teens inter viewing local bands and reviewing concerts, though it’s shifted consid erably since then into the design and architecture space. She studied journalism, but not design, which explains her approach to writing about architecture: it should be simple, accessible and enjoyable to all, not just those with a degree in it. Her design writing has taken her to the foothills of the Alps, the forests outside Rio de Janeiro and the publishing houses of Berlin, where she edited books about multigenera tional design, new Chinese archi tecture, the architecture of libraries, and digital architecture. Notably, Elli Stühler was the co-editor of The Ideal City, a collaboration with innovation and design lab Space 10 about the future of cities, a topic that Elli, who has lived in Vancouver, Toronto, London and now Berlin, is especially passionate about.

Christian Tschersich

Christian Tschersich is a computa tional designer and architect with a degree from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and is associate partner at LAVA. He was the lead architect for the German Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai. Tschersich holds teaching positions at KIT, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, CIEE Global University, Berlin, and the University of Applied Sciences, Kaiserslautern. He has lectured in Germany, Europe, China, and the Middle East, and his work has been internationally published, exhibited, and acclaimed. In his design approach, he often employs generative modeling and scripting

techniques to develop adaptive and fully parametric models, which integrate the various requirements by user, functionality, and context. Tschersich also uses advanced tools to link complexity of form with the evolving design documentation and manufacturing processes to enable a seamless exchange of information between the design team and the Geofabricators.rgVrachliotisProf.Dr.GeorgVrachliotis

is Full Professor and Head of the Theory of Architecture and Digital Culture Group at Delft University of Technology. From 2016, he was Dean of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the Faculty of Architecture and Chair of Architecture Theory (2014–2020). He conducted research at ETH Zürich prior to this. Georg is the author of numerous books, most recently The New Technological Condition. Architecture and Design in the Age of Cybernetics (2022), and curator of the exhibitions Fritz Haller. Architect and Researcher at the S AM Swiss Architecture Museum (2014), Frei Otto. Thinking by Modeling at the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe (2016/17), and Sleeping Beauty. Reinventing Frei Otto’s Multihalle at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, in 2018. Most recently, he curated the exhibition Models, Media and Methods. Frei Otto’s Architectural Research at the School of Architecture at Yale University (2020).

Tobias Wallisser

Prof. Tobias Wallisser heads LAVA’s Berlin office. He regards design as a strategic activity, from assem bling expert teams to redefining the context for each project. This approach enables the holistic development of building concepts, expanding the notion of existing typologies and spatial experiences integrating technical, social, and architectural issues. His knowledge of the digital production chain allows him to ensure the buildability of these designs. He is tenured Professor of Innovative Construction and Spatial Concepts at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart. Since 2011, he has acted as a vicerector for International Affairs and Campus Development. Wallisser lectures worldwide and is a frequent member of academic selection committees. He served as external examiner at Bartlett/UCL and is a member of the Schelling Preis committee. As Creative Director at UNStudio in Amsterdam for ten

years, he was responsible for the development of new design methods, concepts, and projects, including the Mercedes-Benz Museum and the Arnhem Interchange. Previously he worked with Asymptote Architecture on the Virtual New York Stock Exchange. After receiving an architec tural degree in Berlin and Stuttgart, he completed a postgraduate in advanced architectural design at Columbia University in New York.

André Wilkens

André Wilkens is Director of the European Cultural Foundation in Amsterdam. He is the co-founder of the Initiative Offene Gesellschaft, Board Chair of Tactical Tech and founding member of the European Council on Foreign Relations. He worked for the EU, UNHCR and philanthropic foundations. André Wilkens is the author of books on Europe (Der Diskrete Charme der Bürokratie, S.Fischer Verlag 2017) and Digitalization (Analog ist das neue Bio, Metrolit 2015). In 2018 André Wilkens and Tobias Wallisser initiated a public debate about the lost Bürgerforum in Berlin (→ page 46) and the need for its revival.

Leonie Woidt-Wallisser

Leonie Woidt-Wallisser has a background in architecture, fine art, and permaculture. Her studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam prompted her to launch Cityplot in 2007, a collective foun dation based in Amsterdam, Berlin, and Barcelona, which advocates and educates on permaculture, and its restorative practices concerning landscape ecology. Her independent work, as well as in collaboration with LAVA, expands the conscious connection humans have with their surroundings. Leonie Woidt-Wallisser has many years of experience teaching and consulting in multiple facets of permaculture: food growing systems; community building, and social systems; architecture, urban, and landscape planning; natural building and construction with upcy cled materials; nature connection and sacred ecology; holistic and regenerative practices on all levels; and beyond. She currently co-coordinates the workshop program, training and gardens in Berlin and Brandenburg and strongly believes that there is no problem that cannot be solved by tapping into the heart beat of the earth.

TobiasEditors:Wallisser, Alexander Rieck (LAVA, Laboratory for Visionary Architecture)

Contributing Writers: John Bezold, Amy Frearson, Josh Plough, Riya Patel, Elli Stühler

ChrisContributors:Bosse,Maria Aiolova, Wilhelm Bauer, Raoul Bunschoten, Giovanna Carnevali, Marjan Colletti, Caia Hagel, Uwe Hasenfuss, Wolfgang Kessling, Gilles Retsin, Alexander Rieck, Matthias Rudolph, Christian Tschersich, Georg Vrachliotis, André Wilkens, Leonie Woidt-Wallisser, Tobias

Concept:WallisserUweHasenfuss, Lucie Ulrich, Tobias

AcquisitionsLucieManagingWallisserEditors:Ulrich,UweHasenfussEditor:DavidMarold,BirkhäuserVerlag, A-Vienna

Content & Production Editor: Bettina R. Algieri, Birkhäuser Verlag, A-Vienna

Translation and Proofreading: Entre Les Lignes

Copy Editing: Entre Les Lignes, Caia Hagel, Josh Plough

NODEDesign:Berlin Oslo (Serge Rompza, Kristin Rosch)

Image max-colorEditing:Gmbh & Co. KG, D-Berlin Prints Professional, D-Berlin

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