7 Cool Architects

7 Cool Architects

2015

Republic of Fritz Hansen

7 COOL ARCHITECTS

7 COOL ARCHITECTS 60 years ago Arne Jacobsen designed the Series 7™.

Very unlike his other designs he did not design the chair for one specific project – like he did with the Ant chair to the canteen of Novo Nordisk or the Oxford chair to St. Cathrine’s College in Oxford. This gives the Series 7™ the quality to be interpreted and adapted to very different contexts.

Fritz Hansen is very pleased that 7 cool architects has accepted the invitation to give their architectural and personal take on the Series 7™.

The architects are Bjarke Ingels Group, Carlos Ott & Carlos Ponce de León, Jean Nouvel Design, Jun Igarashi, Neri & Hu, Snøhetta and Zaha Hadid Design.

The projects will travel around the world from London to Tokyo.

At Clerkenwell Design Week you can see 5 out of the 7 projects.

Enjoy the experience

Yours sincerely

TOGETHER WITH

7 Cool Architects

2015

Carlos Ott Architects in association with Carlos Ponce de LĂŠon Architects

Carlos Ott Architects in association with Carlos Ponce de LeĂłn Architects, is a leading design architectural firm. Based at Zonamerica Business & Technology Park, Uruguay, South America, our firm has designed and directed large and mid-scale urban and architectural projects, as well as interior and furniture design, always looking for the best quality. More than 45 years of outstanding experience in the design and construction of iconic buildings, infrastructure, master planned communities, free trade zones and industrial parks, supports our professional background. The design of each process takes place under the direction of the design board, chaired by Carlos Ott and Carlos Ponce de LeĂłn, to ensure consistency and encourage a shared knowledge base.

7 Cool Architects

2015

Carlos Ott Architects in association with Carlos Ponce de Léon Architects

INSPIRATION & IDEA

Celebra was conceived and built to be the flagship building of Zonamerica, the technological campus that commissioned the project. It appeals to customers with the highest levels of demands: Design and state of the art technology in every area of the project, with an emphasis in attaining LEED certification.

The building, designed by Ott & Ponce de León, combines an extraordinary shape with the flexibility required in every office building, thus

making Celebra a “one of a kind”.

It takes pride in the perfectionism, design, craftsmanship and the attention to every single detail: A modern building that will remain a classic forever. The seven storeys incorporate in the basement a huge restaurant, as well as private dining areas, conference rooms and an auditorium, all of them surrounded by an easful vertical garden of 250m2 designed by Spanish landscape designer Ignacio Solano Cabello.

7 Cool Architects

2015

Carlos Ott Architects in association with Carlos Ponce de Léon Architects

THE FINAL DESIGN

Series 7™ chairs are as unique in their shape as Celebra is, so we decided that, for them to merge seamlessly with the restaurant where they will be situated, they should be intervened the same way the vertical garden grows organically up the wall in the open-roof basement: The upholstery climbs and settles peacefully on the shell of the chair. The curved lines which compose the foundation of the different areas in the garden are mimicked and adapted to the

anatomy of the chair, substituting Soleirolia, Liriope and so on with Divina, Remix, Milano and Hallingdal fabrics. Different tones of green merge alongside the limits of their areas, back grounded by the - also earthly, wood tone of the chairs. We aimed not at a direct representation in Series 7™ of what Celebra is, but at an allegory of what we think these two iconic elements of design are: A statement of beauty, not only for the human eye, but for nature itself.

7 Cool Architects

2015

Jean Nouvel Design

Jean Nouvel Design is a multidisciplinary team working in the fields of furniture design, interior design, scenography and visual communications. “I’m not a designer”, says Jean Nouvel. “I’m an architect who makes design.” Jean Nouvel’s œuvre follows the tradition of philosopher architects who design whole worlds of all dimensions. Jean Nouvel is also a designer because he rejects labels: “I see no difference between when I design a chair and when I imagine a building. I see every project as a complete design program in itself. For every challenge posed, I seek the ‘elementary’ object whose finished form corresponds to an idea. It’s always a fitting and unique answer that bears witness, culturally and technically, to our times and to our civilization.”Since its inception in 1995, Jean Nouvel Design has developed and edited over a hundred objects and pieces of furniture.

7 Cool Architects

2015

Jean Nouvel Design

INSPIRATION & IDEA

7 Cool Architects

2015

Jean Nouvel Design

THE FINAL DESIGN

7 Cool Architects

2015

Neri&Hu Design & Research Office

Founded in 2004 by partners Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu, Neri&Hu Design and Research Office is an inter-disciplinary architectural design practice based in Shanghai, China with an additional office in London, UK. Neri&Hu works internationally providing architecture, interior, master planning, graphic and product design services. Currently working on projects in many countries, Neri&Hu is composed of multi-cultural staff who speak over 30 different languages. The diversity of the team reinforces a core vision for the practice: To respond to a global worldview incorporating overlapping design disciplines for a new paradigm in architecture.

Neri&Hu’s location is purposeful. With Shanghai considered a new global frontier, Neri&Hu is in the center of this contemporary chaos. The city’s cultural, urban and historic contexts function as a point of departure for the architectural explorations involved in every project.

7 Cool Architects

2015

Neri&Hu Design & Research Office

INSPIRATION & IDEA

Located by the new Cool Docks development on the South Bund District of Shanghai, the Waterhouse is a four-story, 19-room boutique hotel built into an existing threestory Japanese Army headquarters building from the 1930’s. The boutique hotel fronts the Huangpu River and looks across at the gleaming Pudong skyline. The architectural concept behind Neri&Hu’s renovation rests on a clear contrast of what is old and new.

The original concrete building has been restored while new additions built over the existing structure were made using Cor-Ten steel, reflecting the industrial past of this working dock by the Huangpu River.

Neri&Hu’s structural addition, on the fourth floor, resonates with the industrial nature of the ships which pass through the river, providing an analogous contextual link to both history and local culture. Neri&Hu was also responsible for the design

of the hotel’s interior, which is expressed through both a blurring and inversion of the interior and exterior, as well as between the public and private realms, creating a disorienting yet refreshing spatial experience for the hotel guest who longs for an unique five-star hospitality experience.

The public spaces allow one to peek into private rooms while the private spaces invite one to look out at the public arenas, such as the large vertical room window above the reception desk and the corridor windows overlooking the dining room. These visual connections of unexpected spaces not only bring an element of surprise, but also force the hotel guests to confront the local Shanghai urban condition where visual corridors and adjacencies in tight nong-tang’s define the unique spatial flavor of the city.

7 Cool Architects

2015

Neri&Hu Design & Research Office

THE FINAL DESIGN

The idea of a replica, a double, a variation, a re-edition hinges on the duality between the original and the re-design. Our take on this project is to embrace this exact idea of duality and create an actual “double”. The doubling of two original seats facing each other becomes the new version: The singular chair multiplied as the individual becomes a community.

The double as one set is an emphasis

on the communal aspect of sitting, responding to the recent explosive media culture of sharism and openness, and through it Neri&Hu and Fritz Hansen gives back to the society a renewed notion of “together”, where we engage in not just ourselves but someone else.

Reminding us that we are never alone, but always together.

7 Cool Architects

2015

Snøhetta

Formed in 1989, Snøhetta is an award winning international architecture, landscape architecture, interior architecture and brand design firm. The practice is centered on atrans-disciplinary approach where multiple professions work together to explore differing perspectives on the conditions for each project. A respect for diverse backgrounds and culturesv is a key feature of the practice; reflecting this value, Snøhetta is composed of designers and professionals from around the world. Snøhetta is working method practicesa simultaneous exploration of traditional handicraft and cutting edge digital technology – a serendipitous relationship that drives our creative process. At the core of the design studio is a state-of-the-art modeling workshop equipped with 3D rapid prototyping capabilities and a large, programmable manufacturing robot. Alongside traditional woodworking machines, these tools enable rapid prototyping to become an integral part of the design processes, and allow ideas to move seamlessly between analogue and digital worlds and back again.

7 Cool Architects

2015

Snøhetta

INSPIRATION & IDEA

An idea without legs: How can a chair be a social tool?

How can a design project be a remedy for human interaction and social innovation?

We tend to ask ourselves these questions when we start any new project. Could the Series 7™ chair be subject to auxiliary socialization?

What happens if we strip the Series 7™ from its legs?

What happens if we withdraw the hard - more specifically the metal, from the chair?

Rauland Mountain Church: Since we set the chair free, we felt that the chair could be used for a large number of our projects. We try to maintain a good link to the outdoors through out our work and that’s why a outdoor chair is perfect for our projects.

Rauland Mountain Church is placed on a slope on a balance point. The chair and the church have similar qualities. We envisioned that the chair would be fixed to its legs inside, and with the church being located on a ski slope you could click off the shell and bring it onto the slopes for an outdoor service.

7 Cool Architects

2015

Snøhetta

THE FINAL DESIGN

Emphasizing the softness We nurture differences. When opposites meets, they conjure an interesting dialog. When nature meets the cultivated, when humans interact with architecture, when soft and hard co-exist, interesting things happen. Maybe the Series 7™ chair with its metal legs and wooden seat acknowledges this juxtaposition. We wanted to explore the soft side of chair.

Soft Seven The wood is a representation of softness in contrast to metal. A legless construction is free and indeterminate. It is versatile and simple. And maybe it can be a symbol for social interaction and playfulness? If we add even more softness to it we might be able to create a new user experience – additional functionality. We want it to be a multifunction social tool in both singular and plural context. You can sit in any formation dictated by any social scene you are in. It can be a singular, free soft chair or a plural one in a fixed social situation.

7 Cool Architects

2015

Zaha Hadid Design

Zaha Hadid, founder of Zaha Hadid Architects, was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize (considered to be the Nobel prize of architecture) in 2004 and is internationally known for both her theoretical and academic work. As an architect and designer, Zaha Hadid continues to redefine the limits of each discipline with works that defy categorization. Her designs explore spatial concepts at all scales, from the city to individual product, interior and furniture commissions. Internationally renowned for seminal buildings – her projects have won the Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize in two consecutive years – she is also engaged in experimental research, leading an architectural practice and teaching. She was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 2004, becoming the first woman to receive architecture’s highest honor, and her Aquatics Centre was the centerpiece of the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

7 Cool Architects

2015

Zaha Hadid Design

INSPIRATION & IDEA

Natural and fluid forms, expressive of innate structural forces, informed the design for this bespoke chair. Similar to how other projects designed by Zaha Hadid Architects address and mediate between an existing context and a new formulation of space, the provision for this chair was to create a harmonic transition from the existing shell and how it can effortlessly touch down on the ground.

7 Cool Architects

2015

Zaha Hadid Design

THE FINAL DESIGN

This (Zaha Hadid’s) special edition formalises the Series 7 chair as a dynamic and seamless expression of structure and support. Formed from two continuous steel rods, the sculptural base sweeps down to the ground and reaches up to embrace the undulating shape of the iconic plywood seat.

7 Cool Architects

2015

Arne Jacobsen

ARNE JACOBSEN 1902 -1971

Arne Jacobsen was a Danish architect, designer and professor.

Educated at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen, Denmark. As a designer and architect, Jacobsen created world famous architecture, furniture, textiles, wallpaper and silverware.

Examples of his famous works are: The Danish National Bank, The SAS Royal Hotel, St. Cathrine’s College, the Ant™ chair, Series 7™, the Egg™ chair, the Oxford™ chair and the Swan™ chair.

7 Cool Architects

2015

Arne Jacobsen

ST CATHERINE’S COLLEGE A MASTERPIECE BY ARNE JACOBSEN

Case St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford Category Education Location Oxford, United Kingdom Project completed 1962 Architect Arne Jacobsen Areas Dining Hall, Lecture theatres, Classrooms, Library Products Swan™, Oxford™, Table series, Series 7™

The idea behind St Catherine’s College was to balance innovative and traditional elements on Oxford University’s campus. In 1957, the university’s newest and largest college was to create a unifying building that would set a new standard for college buildings in Oxford and the rest of the world.

The architect Arne Jacobsen was given this task. Today, the result remains as an understated landmark in the history of architecture. “It’s all done with restraint, the minimum number of elements and materials, with everything beautifully executed.

It’s extraordinarily refined. Jacobsen showed you don’t need to show off to get recognition,” says Rab Bennetts from Bennetts Architects, one of the UK’s largest architectural firms.

The buildings follow a strict module of squares and repetitions that follow the tradition of British universities.

There is the danger that this might be boring, but it is not the case at all. One of the buildings is clad all the way down, another is open with a brise-soleil, and a third is closed with brick. It draws much inspiration from Mies van der Rohe but with a Scandinavian sensibility.

The buildings and interior have not changed much since it opened in 1963, and the whole area has received a Grade I listing, the UK’s highest protection level. ”A lot of contemporary architecture is at its best on completion and then progressively loses its sheen over time, while buildings like this mature,” says Rab Bennetts. And thus, Jacobsen managed to set the new modern standard for university buildings.

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