Foreign Office Architects

John Lewis Department

Store

foa

Th e fi rm was set up in 1995 by Spaniard Alejandro Zaera-Polo and his Irani-an-born wife Farshid Moussavi, who met while both were working at Kool-haas’s Offi ce for Metropolitan Architec-ture.

In the 14 years since, the company, based in the Shoreditch area of London, has gone on to win a number of RIBA prizes and the 2004 Venice Architecture Biennale Award.

Th e project that put the fi rm on the map was the Yokohama International Port Terminal in Japan which was complet-ed in 2002 and won the Enric Miralles Prize for architecture in

Alejandro Zaera- Polo Farshid Moussavi

Architect: foarchitects Ltd. (foreign offi ce architects)Client: Shires GP Ltd.Main Contractor: Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd.Completion: 2008Facade Planner: seele sustria GmbH & Co. KGStructural Calculation: seele austria GmbH & Co. KG

In the competition for the design of the new John Lewis department store, ForeignOffi ce Architects (FOA), London, won out with a fresh and radical proposal: ashimmering, reticulate curtain ? at night backlit in 256 changing colours ?surrounding this 25,000 -m2 major new development. With the idea of giving thebuilding a transparent, fi nely patterned all-glass façade, they delivered an unusualarchitectural response to Leicester?s multicultural urban environment. At the sametime, they gave John Lewis a showcase for the origins of this venerable company:the global trade in goods. Th e highly refl ective ornament with an orientalappearance is based on materials from the 18th century that had been carefullypreserved in archives. Th is ornamental design has an order of its own, but nevertheless possesses asomewhat confusing aspect. It comprises a double-skinned façade whose twolayers are nearly 80 centimetres apart. Both are imprinted with the ornament, andat fi rst glance are the same; but diff erent printing techniques were used. Th epattern applied to the exterior façade using the sputtering technique is highlyrefl ective, off ering protection from the sun and privacy. Superfi cially the same butin enamel paint, the ornament rests on the inner layer of insulating glazing.Depending on the viewing angle and distance, the two layered patterns present aconfusing spectacle of colour, or provide precisely framed views from inside tooutside and vice versa.Th e use of nearly 3,000 printed glass panels, each diff erentin size and pattern, posed an enormous logistical challenge. Timely delivery anderror-free mapping were the crucial parameters. Starting from the roof level, thefaçade rises slightly upwards and quickly gives way to a view of the sky at thehorizontally glazed crown. It was assembled in virtually the same order. Startingfrom the top, the panels were fastened to steel fl ats spanned verticallydownwards, with point mounting and jointed horizontally with structural silicone.

“ society needs a good image of it self.

that’s is the job of the architect”

[ Walter Gropius]

We are the future of architecture. How will we create the Image of architecture in our existance?

.How will the future of architecture change the way we live?