Megaform and the grid : Barcelona
L’Illa
Diagonal, Barcelona, Rafael Moneo
The concept of megaform as per Kenneth Frampton is understood through a set of characteristics that distinguish certain projects from being portrayed as megastructures. He also says that our capacity to imagine megaform may well have originated with our first experiences of the world as seen from the air.1 In addition to perceiving the size of buildings from the air, another element that is easily understood and analyzed from air is the grid of cities, the surrounding topography and landscape, layers of land seen from up above which sometimes merge with certain buildings giving them a characteristic of being a megaform. Grids act as perfect multidirectional systems that sometimes, through their irregularities, hierarchy and differentiation give meaning to the city while searching for a balance
The core argument comes down to the concept of size against its integration in the urban grid and grain. The question of how do megaforms function and establish a relationship with a preexisting grid can be looked at through Moneo’s L’Illa Diagonal, a project with a complex urban program sitting on a wide trapezoidal site, in Barcelona, on Cerda’s urban grid. So how does the concept of megaform respond to the dense urban grid of Barcelona? Horizontality, as one of the distinctive characteristics of a megaform, arises in the works of Frampton, along with the densification of the urban fabric.2
This is evident form the strategy employed by the architects which aimed at using the architecture to contribute to the city-building, through exploiting the Diagonal’s potential. Hence, the site was re-interpreted as fullness, as a fully constructed surface, instead of being treated as an empty site to be filled with a whole series of isolated towers and other built spaces. The project in its entirety is understood to be just another piece of the city’s grid because of the strange perimeter of the block. While the proposal’s dominating horizontality, with 300m length facing the street gives it a character of being a megaform, it also guarantees the continuity of the urban fabric through being built along the Diagonal Through the reversing the concept of ‘fullness of plot’, the proposal is instead perceived against emptiness The fullness is conceptually fulfilled through the continuity of pedestrian movement through the block. The void is interpreted and accepted as an element of the urban public realm. The image of the building is reflected in its empty space which reinforces and enhances its public status. The attention given to its proportion, measurements and construction through the manipulation of rhythm, distances and scales is evident in its architecture. In order to avoid the horizontality and scale of the block from being perceived as an undifferentiated mass, the architects used the notion of fragmentation and segmentation in dealing with the floorplan and the profile.3
1Frampton, K 1999
2Ibid.
3https://rafaelmoneo.com/en/projects/lilla-diagonal-2/
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i. (Top) Aerial View- L’Illa Diagonal ii. (Bottom) Urban grid & the block
The building is attentive to what is unique and specific, thus disregards the concepts of symmetry and regularity by fully embracing the nature of the grid. The way it can be read from the street, from the broad sidewalks underlines the vital role of tangential perspectives. The building portrays the power of horizontality in regional identity while creating a sense of topography through its staggered façade The large size of the megaform allows us not only to accommodate various programmes under one roof, but also to generate their anticipatory nature which in its turn allows for them to be future-proof and gain the ability to change over time through housing varied functions. The 300,000sqm project encompasses various functions such as Shopping center, Convention center, Hotel and Offices, creating an interior urbanity that is similar to the concept of ‘a city within a city’, that liberates architecture from belonging to one architect, one actor and finds new ways to accommodate the collective. This also leads to the making and reshaping of urban public spaces, that are civic in character, which belong to everyone and yet nobody in particular.4
The staggered treatment of the façade creates a texture along the length of the block, subtly breaking the monotony while creating hierarchy and layering of planes iv This shows us how the notion of a megaform can be looked at in dense urban conditions, where the form does not fight against the pre-existing grid of the city but becomes an integral part of, juxtaposing itself in such a way that it establishes a strong relationship between the idea of size and integration.
Image credits: http://www.tag-am.net/10-lilla-diagonal-en
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iii. (Top) Plan
iv. (middle) Staggered horizontality of façade v. (bottom) elevation
4 Rowe, P. Civic Realism 1997
Orientation, grid, bigness and geography
Baker House Dormitory, Alvar Aalto, Cambridge, MA
The question of how this concept of integration works at different scale, with the theory of horizontality, of bigness that extends itself in a regular grid, along the shoreline can be analyzed through looking at the Baker House Dormitory, designed by Alvar Aalto Aalto’s pre-occupation of re-defining the place of the individual in modern society in the face of industrialization and urbanization through re-defining the modern notion of mass housing was reflected in his proposal for the dormitory built in 1946, facing the Charles River waterfront. In an attempt to maximize the view of the river for every student, the building imitates the way a curving snake slithers, while following a formal strategy. Some of the early sketches by Aalto show clusters of rooms facing south and, because a simple single-sided slab would not contain sufficient rooms, several ways of increasing the density: by parallel blocks in echelon, by fan-shaped ends, and by the "giant gentle polygon" resolving itself into a sinuous curve, that was finally adopted.5 The building's undulating form does not restrict the views of the rooms to be oriented at right angles towards the busy street The form of the building establishes a wide variety of room shapes, creating a wide variety of 43 rooms and 22 different room shapes per floor A composite curve with a single-loaded corridor, there was a lot of importance given to the orientation of the rooms in order to achieve the best view of the river, due to which the rooms on the western end were enlarged and created into large double and triple rooms, which had a dual orientation, receiving both the northern and western light.
The power of the morphology to address the landscape while having typology and the function as its mode of interrogation, the Baker House dormitory embodies the idea of bigness As per Frampton notion, it can be perceived as a complex form that cannot be necessarily articulated into a series of structural or mechanical subsets. It also inflects the existing urban landscape as it creates a sequence of spaces that address and establish a relationship with the landscape, the street as well as the waterfront. The building follows the “head and tail” pattern, a recognized device in Aalto’s buildings. The ‘head’ contains the principal space and the tail contains the subsidiary spaces.6At Baker House, the tail is much larger than the head which houses the rectangular dining and meeting area, yet the relationship is still apparent due to the use of more refined materials in the head compared with the brick-clad backdrop of the tail. This can be illustrated by a quote from Rossi that Colquhoun also mentioned in the ‘Superblock’ essay: ‘What is specific about a building is less its exclusive adaptation to particular functions than its capacity for representing ideas’ 7 It can be argued that the Baker House has more of a representative character that is more expressive, thus shifting functionalism away from the technical sphere and into that of humanism and psychology. The creative spatial expression is rooted into an economic rigour, where the wave in Aalto’s compositions symbolizes the functional heart of the building and the regularised spaces of the service areas.
7 Colquhoun (1981)
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5 Antony Radford & Tarkko Oksala (2007)
6 Sarah Menin (2003)
vi. (Top) Arieal view – Baker House vii. (middle) sequencing along the waterfront viii. Floorplan – Rooms facing the River
Image credits: Google Earth
The issue of relating form with the function is addressed through the notion of ‘flexiblestandardization’, in which a unit of space may expand towards the light, rooted in a rectilinear, pedal, base
The inspiration lying at the heart of nature, biology offers a luxury of forms that are constructed with the same tissues, where the same cellular structures can produce millions of combinations.8 The abstract nature of this concept brings us back to its representational quality as a residential typology.
In an attempt at articulating his search for an elastic system for orchestrating growth, the spatial cells of which the Baker House is comprised of, are determined by the smallest unit required in the design brief, being the single, double and triple study bedrooms. These units are allowed to flex in a serpentine form. The distinctive fan-shaped form lead to variations of the undulating surface expression of sinuosity, and often, there is an underlying organizing geometry behind the undulating curve It has been argued in the past that his work has a sense of discontinuity and incompletion which echoes the essential nature of the human condition, also becoming the appeal of Aalto’s work.9(Antony Radford & Tarkko Oksala) But these recurring patterns of discontinuity span along the length of the block in such a way that ends up intensifying the urban fabric through its form.
Giedion establishes a relationship of the early modernist’s ambitions with the dormitory by observing that the “bedrooms and workrooms were as small as possible without destroying the vitality of the atmosphere.”10 The form of the building establishes extension by establishing new kind of continuities which adds to its character of a mega-structure where one could argue that it can be perceived as a large frame in which ‘all the functions of a city or a part of a city are housed' combined with the notion of 'citiesin-miniature’11
8Sarah Menin (2003)
9Antony Radford & Tarkko Oksala
10Giedion, S (1941)
11 Frampton (1999)
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viii. (Top) Aalto’s early sketches for Baker House ix. (Bottom) Interior views of the rooms
Image credits: Sarah Menin (2003)
Investigating the relationship between form, function, typology
One North, Singapore, Zaha Hadid
Maki’s theory of megaform as ‘a man-made feature of the landscape like the great hill on which the Italian towns were built’ can be reinterpreted through questioning the necessity of it being a singular structure. Can a group of buildings set close to one another in a dense urban masterplan qualify as a megaform? The characteristics that define the traditional notion of megaform includes the idea of it to add to the densification of the urban fabric, while also being a continuation of the surrounding topography. The masterplan of the One North Project in Singapore, designed by Zaha Hadid, derives its guiding lines from the pre-existing urban grid of the central city, portraying some of the traits of a megaform The one common root of ‘Large’ in our cities today, is the enormous reserves of capital that exist in the modern economy < > enable ,to gain control over, and make profit from, ever larger areas of urban land.12 The objectives behind the conception of One North project follow a similar ideology.
The planning and development marked a point of departure from the typical science parks characterised by sanitised and isolated environments. Instead it aimed at composing closely built buildings on permeable blocks that would guarantee continuous circulation. Aimed at capturing the street life of the central city living in Singapore, a lot of importance was given to the street environment through consciously treating the ground level as an element of negotiation. Streets as a method and tool of urban continuity is employed while perceiving it as a place of negotiation between the mobility demands and fostering efficient pedestrian movement.
The Design Competition of the masterplan aimed at obtaining design proposals based on the premise that One North should look physically different from the rest of Singapore The JTC (Jurong Town Corporation) created a brief that envisioned the district to be non-conventional in its approach while being ground-breaking and hotbed of science and technology.13 The design brief highlighted the term “convivial” in order to reinforce the need of interaction amongst the users. The shortlisted entries were judged based on their ability of being implementable while also being visionary. Zaha Hadid’s proposal met the demands of the vision and captured the essence of modernity. The fundamental ethos of the way European cities were constructed influenced the planning principles. 12
The project was planned as a dynamic sector on the fringe of the city centre, to act as the focal point of the technology corridor stretching from Buona Vista to the NTU. The motive was that the technology-research ecosystem that would be generated could then extend outwards, beyond one-north’s physical confines and tap the resources of the surrounding institutions, creating a potential to support the entrepreneurial ventures.
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x. (Top) Masterplan – Zones xi. (Bottom) Aerial view of Biopolis
Colquhoun 13https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/projects/biopolis-biomedical-research-hub/
Using the concept of the flow of energy in spaces, Zaha described how human energy would flow based on the natural topography of the site. This particular trait take us back to the theories by Frampton, where the megaform insinuates itself as a continuation of the surrounding topography. He also defines the megaform as ‘an urban nexus set within the space-endlessness of the megalopolis ’ This brings us back to the argument of the megaform being able to be read as a collection of buildings that, as a whole share the its character.One of the driving factors that lead to this understanding is the way the masterplan deploys a mix of low-rise and highrise developments, the undulating pattern created through the heights of different buildings, controlled to create a feeling of a gentle rhythm. The masterplan aimed at creating coherence at a larger urban scale through the continuous roof carpet which would bring together the various building typologies.
The starting points of the masterplan were based on the pre-existing features in the landscape. The bending of the grid and the orientation character were aligned to existing pieces of the city-gird. The argument was about how to have closely built structures on permeable blocks, in a fine, dense grid with continuous circulatory environment. The three main clusters that were designed as a part of the masterplan were - Biopolis, Fusionopolis and the Mediapolis.
The undulating high-density, low-to-mid-rise urban ‘envelope’ called the ‘ground form’ in the proposal theorised that the real ‘energy’ of a development lies at the street level. Analogous to the older parts of Paris, where the buildings are built to the street edge, the plan aimed at creating a similar street condition by weaving a series of curvilinear roads through the site, carving out blocks of varying sizes and creating streets and spaces of different shapes and openness, which would lend themselves to host street level activities.
The idea of group form can be explained through the notion of an urban order based on a collection of elements. This collection of elements is not random but of buildings that have reasons to be together.14 The parcels of land in the masterplan of One North come close to this concept of a group form but fail to portray a sense of unity in typology due to the gap between the planning and the implementation. The intended integrating heterogeneity only works when looked at without considering the typological needs of the building blocks. Instead when looked at as a whole, the masterplan can be read as a single large megaform through the formation of an artificial urban landscape that merges in with the topography and integrates with the built mass as well. It also follows the idea of densification of the urban fabric and can be indirectly termed as a Megaform.
Image credits: https://www.zaha-hadid.com/
8 14Maki, F 2008
xii. (Top) Conceptual sketch 1 – fabric plan xiii. (Bottom) Conceptual sketch – lines plan
Typically, in Singapore, a ‘white’ site is a plot where a number of uses are allowed, although very ofte, a minimum component of a specific use is stipulated to meet its planning objectives. Instead of being innovation-driven, it is driven by real estate values. In contrast, the one-north Development Group wanted to champion a different approach to ‘white use’ This meant giving the master developer the ability to change the mix of the ‘work’ and ‘live’ components. After several rounds of negotiation, it was decided that while a mixeduse proportion was allocated to each land parcel, the overall mixed-use proportion within the entire one-north district could be adjusted. In the official master plan, the land use zoning for one-north would be indicated as ‘reserved use’. This zoning made the proportions of different land uses to be adjusted at different phases according to demand.15
The Biopolis campus is dedicated to providing space for biomedical research and development activities and promoting peer-review and collaboration among the private and public scientific community. Biopolis is one the key projects that supports the biomedical industry as Singapore's engine of economic growth Spanning over an area of around 200ha of land, it aimed at anchoring the entire value-chain of life-sciences In order to promote collaboration between private companies and the public, scientific or educational bodies, the project holds is of key value by accounting for 6% of Singapore’s gross domestic product (GDP) This takes us back to the idea of accumulation and generation of capital that leads to the formation of megaforms.
The economic value of the project adds to the responsibility of the project to outdo the expectations and is also at a higher risk of failure when the infrastructure does not support the typological needs of the industry. The merit of the plan was the street environment it created and fostered Pedestrian activity in central city Singaporean life given prime importance Blocks were thought of being permeable Instead of building distant views, it aimed at creating a more local sense of belonging and engagement. This was accomplished through targeting immediate views that were built due to the framing of the foreground, middle ground and the background.
So why exactly was the One North masterplan a failure?
The masterplan of One North, despite having a strong conceptual base, ended up facing issues due to two major reasons. The parceling of the blocks in different zones did not take into consideration the typology of the buildings. The supporting services and the required facilities could not be accommodated in the land parcels, leaving them at a loss of typological intelligence. When it was crucial for the plan to evolve as per the typology, it failed to function as per the necessary parameters of the particular industry Secondly, there was a huge gap between the planning and implementation of the projects, which created a massive change in the outcome of the overall masterplan as it did not follow the sequence of the development proposed by the architects. Due to this, it created disjunction and an incoherence between the different phases and zones in the plan, hence it could not be read along the same lines as it was intended to.
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15Urban systems studies, Centre for Livable Cities
Conclusion
The investigation of the megaforms based on their response to the urban fabric and the existing grid of the city helps us look at the size and scope of modern day projects in more than one way. It is vital to understand the effect of ‘bigness’ in the city while certain areas are dominated by increasing accumulation of capital that results in large compositions of buildings that are of singular use or do not hold the anticipatory nature required to evolve over time and thus lead to the deterioration. Vast amount of land resources are taken up corporations that focus more on their representational character and not enough of the quality of spatial experience. In the process of creating interactive street environments as a part of a cluster of buildings, is it essential for the futuristic design themes to accommodate and function based on the typology of the building. The architectural abstract concept that focuses more on the form of the megaform can easily create a rift between the form, purpose and value of the building, if the typology is not taken into consideration and given thought based on the future needs of the industry. The idea of large structures and groups of buildings involve multiple actors that need to co-ordinate and in a cohesive, harmonious manner, only then the scale of these projects can be used for the benefit of the larger urban area. A gap of planning and implementation can lead to vast areas of land to face redundancy of spaces and might even have to go under the threat of demolition, thereby wasting a large amount of materials, resources and capital. The relationship of the three elements- the grid, geography and size are closely interlinked in a way that influences the growth of the city while creating a unique combination of morphological character and the typology of the built mass The juxtaposition of the megaform on the grid can sometimes become an instrument of city-building while addressing patterns of integrated street environment, pedestrian movement and accommodation of anticipatory functions that create interesting crossovers in the building. Thus, the notion of ‘Bigness’ described by Rem Koolhaas and its relation to context is not so much related to the opposition of big buildings to the context and order but can be used as a tool for the urban development. The complexity involved in the regime of Bigness can be effectively handled if the intelligence of architecture is in synergy with the other related fields with which it operates in unison, to mobilize the bold visions into reality.
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Bibliography
Trencher, M. (2000). The individual and mass housing: The delicate balance. Architectural Research Quarterly, 4(3), 247-256. doi:10.1017/S1359135500000270
Antony Radford & Tarkko Oksala (2007) Alvar Aalto and the expression of discontinuity, Journal of Architecture, 12:3, 257-280, DOI: 10.1080/13602360701469986
Sarah Menin (2003) The profound logos: creative parallels in the lives and work of Aalto and Sibelius, The Journal of Architecture, 8:1, 131-148, DOI: 10.1080/1360236032000068442
Aalto, ‘Rationalism and Man’ (1935), reprinted in Schildt, Sketches, op. cit., p. 47.
Colquhoun, A. “The Superblock” in Essays in Architectural Criticism 1981
Frampton, K. Megaform as Urban Landscape 1999
Meyer, H. City and Port: Transformation of Port Cities London, Barcelona, New York, Rotterdam 1999
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Giedion, S. Space, Time and Architecture
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Bibliography
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Interview -
Lawrence Barth – 3/5/2022
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