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12/2/2002

Architecture + Water

Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh

Architecture + Water at Carnegie Museum of Art?s Heinz Architectural Center

Concerned that contemporary waterfront projects tend to lack compelling design, Van Alen Institute, New York, initiated Architecture + Water. This exhibition brings together five architectural projects that are not merely eye-catching structures that happen to be situated by the water, but that also embody a rethinking of the character and form of the surrounding landscape. Models, drawings, and additional media convey the response of these design firms to the new programs and new expectations of the 21st-century waterfront city.

Pittsburgh, PA - An exhibition of five recent international architectural projects that integrate water with design is on view at Carnegie Museum of Art?s Heinz Architectural Center, February 9 through May 12, 2002.
Architecture + Water explores the challenges encountered when designing buildings on or near water a critical issue in Pittsburgh and other cities where waterfront architecture and development are increasingly linked with economic progress and quality-of-life concerns.

The projects showcased in the exhibition (all of them built or under construction) demonstrate that incorporating water, by nature kinetic and invasive, with architectural design is not only possible, but desirable. Furthermore, Architecture + Water shows that in some cases, the successful marriage of water with architecture yields more than exceptional building designs; it can produce innovative types of buildings as well.

For example, Blur Building , designed by MacArthur "Genius" award-winners Diller + Scofidio as a temporary structure for the 2002 Swiss EXPO, appears to be a cloud floating above Lake Neuchâtel in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, just north of Lake Geneva. A striking feature of this design is an artificial nimbus created by atomizing lake water under high pressure through 12,500 nozzles arranged on a framework (300 ft. wide x 195 ft. deep x 60 ft. high) of steel cables and rods.The nozzles are computer-controlled to respond to temperature, wind, and humidity in order to provide a constant, but changing, cloud around the building. At night the cloud of mist becomes a screen for projected images.

The mist-obscured entrance to the structure remains undetected by visitors until they approach closely, and the interior presents an array of unique sights, sounds, and smells. Special raincoats can be programmed to record the wearers? preferences and opinions, and the proximity of two similarly programmed braincoats causes them to change colors, one of several ways that the building design mingles digital and actual realities.

The Yokohama International Port Terminal was the winning design in a 1995 competition that attracted more than 700 entries. Designed by Foreign Office Architects, the terminal building is scheduled to be completed this year on the eight-acre Osanbashi pier in Yokahama, Japan. It sits between a pair of public parks near a sports stadium and will accommodate the functions of a busy seaport terminal and provide an extension of the surrounding public space.

Central to the building?s innovative design is its structural framework, which does not use conventional horizontal and vertical support beams, but instead relies on a series of interlocking steel plates that are formed and joined in ways that permit a more natural internal flow of people and freight. This organic framing design makes possible the departure from a conventional linear shape and integrates the building?s use with its structure and appearance, one of the architects? primary goals. The external contours of the terminal harmonize nicely with Yokohama Bay?s shoreline and cityscape.

Architect Stephen Holl and landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh teamed up to design a water treatment plant situated on a twelve-acre public park. Their Lake Whitney Water Treatment Plant in Hamden, Connecticut, goes beyond simply placing the plant within the borders of a public park. The buildings as well as the multi-use landscape design draw inspiration from the stages of the water purification process, and the park itself acts as a natural filtration system.

The central design feature of the main building a hallway in the form of a long stainless steel tube that resembles an extruded water droplet establishes a visual metaphor for the facility?s function. The park design has areas reserved for quiet activities, such as reading and walking, as well as space for more active pursuits. The Lake Whitney Water Treatment Plant is scheduled to be completed in 2004.

The Dutch firm MVRDV created its prototype Quattro Villa in Ypenburg, The Netherlands, as a response to the rapid proliferation of private dwellings along the shores of lakes in the Netherlands. Typically, one lakefront house would rest on four stilts, and the houses would sit alongside one another, threatening public access to the water.

Quattro Villa eliminates the shoreline-crowding practice by placing four adjoining but individual villas on large, raised concrete cores that enclose plumbing, electrical wiring, and entryways. Because Quattro Villa is raised forty feet above the reclaimed marsh, or polder, on which it is built, the view of the water from inland vantage points is not obstructed. Each multi-level villa has a sundeck and patio, along with semi-public areas for parking and recreation at lake level.

Blackfriars Station is a plan for improving an existing train station on a bridge spanning the Thames River. The designer is Alsop Architects, a London-based firm, winner in 2000 of the United Kingdom?s most prestigious architectural competition, the Stirling Prize. Their design integrates a new train station onto the existing 19th-century bridge piers and places the arrival and departure platforms in the center of the span, over the water.

Blackfriars Station has an innovative roof design comprised of angled aluminum and carbon fiber panels, interspersed with glass openings, that run the length of the bridge. This station will play a critical role in improving service to South Bank, a neighborhood of once-blighted Victorian warehouses and docks.

The curators of the exhibition are Paul Lewis, David Lewis, and Marc Tsurumaki of Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis, an award-winning architectural firm that was selected to participate in the 2000 National Design Triennial at Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and was named one of ten vanguard firms in 2000 by Architectural Record. Architecture + Water was previously on view at Van Alen Intstitute, a non-profit, New York City-based organization devoted to improving design in the public realm.

Image: Foreign Office Architects, Yokohama International Ferry Terminal, 1995. Courtesy of the architects

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Mondays: Closed
Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday: 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
Thursdays: 10:00 a.m.-9:00 p.m.
Sunday: noon-5:00 p.m.

Carnegie Museum of Art
4400 Forbes Avenue, PA 15213-4080
Pittsburgh
Tel: 412 6223131

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