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Michael Hensel

TYPE? WHAT TYPE?

FURTHER REFLECTIONS ON THE EXTENDED THRESHOLD

Michael Hensel draws a parallel between the present and a moment in the early 1990s when typology seemed poised to come to the fore. He highlights how despite a promising start this interest slipped away and was supplanted by an obsession with topography and highly complex surfaces, leading to a primacy of the individual built form over the urban.

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This issue of 2 offers an opportunity to revisit a critical yet overlooked juncture in the early 1990s, a time of economic downturn during which swift and signifi cant changes in architectural theory and experimentation occurred. The consequences of these changes continue to greatly affect practice and the built environment today and relate to questions of discrete form and typology in architecture. The aim of this article is to re-examine this juncture and its ongoing repercussions, as well as bringing to attention an immense, yet missed, opportunity for a fundamental revision of the product of architectural and urban design practice.

The account brings together a more general discussion as well as personal experiences and realisations over two decades. It commences with the decision in 1992 to join the then newly established graduate design programme at the Architectural Association (AA) in London directed by Jeffrey Kipnis and Don Bates. The programme introduced a series of radical ideas and design experiments, the theoretical basis of which is rooted in Kipnis’ seminal article ‘Towards a New Architecture’ published in 1 Folding in Architecture in 1993.1 Here, Kipnis launched a fundamental critique of Postmodern practice, which contained an elaboration of fi ve points or principles aimed at overcoming collage as the then prevailing mode of design (in direct response to an analogous attempt by Roberto Mangabeira Unger during the ANYONE conference in 1990).2 Alongside this was his discussion of two differing modes of actualising the principles: DeFormation, with an emphasis on the articulation of monolithic built form, and InFormation, with an emphasis on questions of programme while de-emphasising form. In rejecting Postmodern collage, Kipnis offered a detailed account of proposed design concepts and methods that would result in designs with entirely new characteristics or, to use his own expression, new architectural ‘effects’.3

As graduate students we were as astounded as we were intrigued by the raw potential of this discourse. Naturally we wished to examine the projects cited in Kipnis’ article. While it was clear that the DeFormationist schemes were poised entirely outside of the canon of established architectural typologies, they were as unbuilt as they were underpublished, and their material articulation, the relation of the built volume to the ground and the context were diffi cult to grasp. In the context of the new graduate design programme we aimed to tackle this problem, yet with the added aim of the eventual ultimate dissolution of built form into a tectonic landscape that would no longer be based on a traditional process of subdividing the site, allocating plots and fl oor-area ratios in order then to allocate typologies and extrude discrete volumes. A technique termed ‘grafting’4 was used to concurrently derive multiple organisational layers for an urban and architectural design from a heterogeneous graphic space.

The underlying interest derived from Kipnis’ fascination with the American artist Jasper Johns’ ‘crosshatch’ paintings that defi ed any attempt at traditional decomposition into fore-, middle- and background. Instead the paintings constituted, in Kipnis’ view, the elaboration of a new and deep middle-ground. If an analogous architecture were possible, this would entail that built form no longer be extruded into a fi gure-ground relation but, instead, built mass and landscape surface would engage in the formation of a heterogeneous and

Johan Bettum, Michael Hensel, Chul Kong and Nopadol Limwatankul, A Thousand Grounds: Tectonic Landscape – Spreebogen, A New Governmental Centre for Berlin Urban Design Study, Graduate Design Programme (tutors: Jeffrey Kipnis and Don Bates), Architectural Association, London, 1992–3opposite: Conceptual model indicating the folding of landscape and built mass into one another. below: Programme and event map showing all systems that organise the site and its potential for use over time. below: Axonometric indicating spatial transitions and degrees of interiority in conjunction with landscape surfaces and other spatial elements such as plantation fi elds and densities.

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coherent amalgam that would no longer be decomposable. Although it was clear that developing an architectural analogue to Johns’ ‘new middle-ground’ was not possible in a singular project, let alone a graduate design thesis, my colleagues Johan Bettum, Chul Kong and Nopadol Limwatankul and I nevertheless embarked on this attempt under the keen supervision of Kipnis and Bates.

The international Spreebogen competition for a new governmental centre in Berlin was chosen as the context for the project as it offered the opportunity to concurrently pursue an urban, landscape and architectural design project. Based on a ‘graft’ developed by our colleague Amna Emir and the design approach elaborated by Kipnis, several key items were produced to describe the project intentions: 1) a programme and event map that contained information about (planned and unplanned) activities, circulation, landscape items and surfaces for programme and public appropriation, assembly fi elds, time-specifi c plantation schemes and lighting systems, river regulation and fl ooding areas – in short all systems that organise the site and its potential for use over time;5 2) an axonometric that elaborated spatial transitions and degrees of interiority in conjunction with landscape surfaces that make up the tectonic landscape together with other spatial elements such as plantation fi elds and densities; and 3) a conceptual model that indicated the folding of landscape and built mass into one another, using colour-coding for the various surface systems that make up the tectonic landscape. Eventually, however, we did not succeed in defi ning the actual tectonic of the intended tectonic landscape, though the foundation for a new series of experimentations towards this aim had been laid.

The signifi cance of the experiment is not in its apparent proximity to what has come to be termed ‘landscape urbanism’, but instead in its organisation of the various items and systems that would eventually culminate in an urban and architectural project that redefi nes a heterogeneous spatial scheme based on extended spatial transitions and the ultimate extension and fi ne dissolution of the material threshold which had previously resulted in the dichotomous division of the fi gure from the ground and the inside from the outside – in short the ushering in of the end of type. In this might lie perhaps one of the greatest potentials with regard to Kipnis’ heralded emergence of new institutional ‘form’ and social formations. It only dawned on us much more recently that there would have been some rather interesting precursors to this to be found throughout architectural history, which might have served to inform an initial approach towards articulating a material resolution for

If an analogous architecture were possible, this would entail that built form no longer be extruded into a fi gure-ground relation but, instead, built mass and landscape surface would engage in the formation of a heterogeneous and coherent amalgam that would no longer be decomposable.

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AA Graduate Design Group, Changliu Grouing Area Masterplan, Haikou, Hanian Island, China, Graduate Design Programme (tutors: Jeffrey Kipnis, Bahram Shirdel and Michael Hensel), Architectural Association, London, 1993–4opposite top: 1/5,000 model of the masterplan for a new city for 600,000 inhabitants at 70 per cent of the fi nal density. The model indicates building volumes and densities, road and harbour infrastructure, green and reserved areas, and in the centre (in blue) the Central Business District.opposite bottom: 1/ 20,000 masterplan showing single-, mixed-, multiple- and differential-use areas, road, rail and harbour infrastructure, parks and landscape elements, 40 integrated farmer’s and fi shermen’s villages, and reserved land for future development.

below left: Various plan diagrams elaborating different combinations of buildings and hard and soft landscape. The diagrams indicate potentials for folding buildings and landscape into one another. The left and right perimeters are characterised by standard piloti buildings raised from the ground, while the landscaped area along the central axis shows an increasing degree of a more complex relationship between landscape and buildings.below right: Sectional sequence elaborating the transition from the standard piloti building typology to the areas where buildings and landscape fold into one another.

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Chris Lee, Gallery Project for Spitalfi elds Market, London, AA Diploma Unit 4 (tutors: Ben van Berkel and Michael Hensel), Architectural Association, London, 1995–6below Left: 1/100 model showing the partly burrowed spatial organisation of the gallery scheme inspired by Greg Lynn’s theoretical elaborations on differential gravities. The spatial scheme is based on relinquishing the dichotomous division between fi gure and ground, which become indivisible and non-decomposable. Right: Plan organisation of the gallery project showing the various inclined circulation surfaces inspired by Paul Virilio’s and Claude Parent’s notion of oblique space.

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the scheme.6 With this project the best we could achieve was to help make more specifi c the questions regarding the articulation of a tectonic landscape. What was to follow, however, was the swift and ultimate shift away from what had just come into our grasp.

Numerous infl uences and developments concurred in time with our efforts described above. Various publications, symposia, teaching programmes and projects of this and the directly following period attest to a shift in interest away from typology towards both topography and topology. While the former might suggest a relationship to the above, the latter swiftly shifted back towards the articulation of exotic yet discrete built form. In the wake of this shift, in the following year’s AA’s graduate design programme, then co-directed by Kipnis and Bahram Shirdel, the emphasis also shifted. The possibility of working on a life project of a masterplan for a new city in China enforced a faster pace of experimentation and production. In tandem with this development, Kipnis and Shirdel developed a new interest in the group form or fi eld condition of fl ocks and swarms, in particular schools of fi sh.

While this constitutes a weak form with smooth edges, the fi gure nevertheless consists of discrete elements that are all similar yet individual; in other words coherent yet varied.7 The masterplan for the new city in China that was developed by the AA’s graduate design group in 1993–4 shows then a clear return to buildings as fi gures set fi rmly against the ground. Again the scheme was developed from a grafted graphic space, yet, while the heterogeneous articulation and use of the datum prevails, the landscaped surface and the built volumes are in general clearly separated. While some surfaces were designed to be continuous from exterior to interior or from envelope to landscape, these occasions remained largely gestural and the discreteness of the volumes was left intact. This characteristic can also be identifi ed in some of the key projects of the time, for instance FOA’s Yokohama Ferry Terminal (1994), which constitutes a variation of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye diagram (1928–9) with a more articulated roof garden surface that continues as a circulation surface and connects to the ground of the city, though, alas, the terminal constitutes a discrete form.

On a larger scale it is interesting to observe that the swarm or school of fi sh actually prevailed in the form of current discourses of so-called parametric urbanism. If one examines, for instance, Zaha Hadid’s prize-winning masterplan for Kartal in Istanbul (2006) it is clear that a specifi c block typology was computationally (parametrically)

Nasrin Kalbasi and Dimitrios Tsigos, Copenhagen Playhouse Competition, Copenhagen, Denmark, AA Diploma Unit 4 (tutors: Michael Hensel and Ludo Grooteman), Architectural Association, London, 2001–02below: Two views of the digital model showing the transitions from closed surfaces to the striated organisation of the envelope and the semi-burrowed multiple ground confi guration engendered by the continuous surface. opposite, bottom left: Geometric study of striation density, orientation and curvature and the resultant viewpoint-dependent visual transparency of the envelope. opposite, bottom right: Study of gradual size transitions of the striated envelope and its smooth transformation into furniture-scale and ergonomics-related requirements. In this scheme the rotation of the elements along their longitudinal axis occurs in the areas of size transitions to accommodate the furnishing of space on a human scale. In doing so the design diverges from the striation projects of Bahram Shirdel and the sculptural works of Raimo Utriainen which are characterised by parallel and straight elements.

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varied so as to constitute a group of discrete buildings that are similar yet individually different. Such projects invariably follow a traditional process of urban planning: a (deformed) grid serves to defi ne roads and plots, the fl oor-area ratio and required fl oor areas are established together with the building typology (for example, the courtyard block), and the building forms are defi ned through some computational manipulation. However, one signifi cant difference emerges: since the interior organisation needs to fulfi l developer expectations, the architectural project becomes one of a total exterior necessarily articulated by one practice in order to maintain a coherent appearance to fulfi l the criteria of similarity and variation.

In order to elaborate the latter it is necessary to trace back to a second important shift in interest. This is best exemplifi ed through another key moment in Kipnis’ seminal writings, which focuses on the works of Herzog & de Meuron.8 Here Kipnis revised his former position vis-à-vis Herzog & de Meuron’s work on the example of their Signal Box (Basel, 1995) project, highlighting the effects emanating from the copper-strip skin laid over the actual climate envelope of the building. Kipnis then distinguished ornamentation from cosmetics, characterising the former as discrete aesthetic entities and the latter as fi elds and as atmospheric. His praise was nothing short of a striking foresight of what was to follow: the parametrically varied pattern that today characterises the parametric buildings of parametric urbanism, schools of fi sh with similar yet varied scales that ‘populate’ similar yet varied bodies, the ultimate exercise in superfi ciality that claims the thinness of the exterior skin as the sole architectural project.

Meanwhile, those of us who were puzzled enough to stay behind the fast pace of fashion and try to tackle the questions that had arisen from the thoughts and experiments of the early 1990s also got sidetracked. In attempting to address the question of the extended and dissolved material threshold of the tectonic landscape, attention was drawn to material organisations on increasingly smaller scales, leading eventually to the detailed elaboration of material systems and their interaction with the environment.9 In this context the question of spatial transitions and extended threshold shifted from material to environmental or energetic gradients. For example, a strong interest in Shirdel’s concept of striation,10 a monolithic form articulated as sets of parallel bars, led to a series of student projects that examined the possibility of articulating the built volume, the adjacent landscape surfaces and the furnishing of the public spaces from the same, yet scaled, set of parallel bars to projects that eventually deployed strips of material in a much more articulated manner to defi ne spaces and microclimatic conditions.

Having arrived here it is very interesting indeed to reconnect the project of the extended environmental threshold with the project of the tectonic landscape. Both offer a heterogeneous space based on gradient conditions over a variety of scales. The tectonic landscape enables a versatile distribution of all elements and systems that are different in

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Dimitrios Tsigos and Hani Fallaha, Temporal Housing Study, The Netherlands, AA Diploma Unit 4 (tutors: Michael Hensel and Ludo Grooteman), London, Architectural Association, 2002–03below left: Four samples of an extensive catalogue of geometric manipulations of the material strips and the resulting arrays based on preceding material experiments.below right: Longitudinal section and two planar sections displaying the striated tectonic scheme of the project. Due to the small scale of the housing unit, the material strips that make up the surface always relate to the scale of the human body. Rotation of the strips along their longitudinal axis therefore occurs throughout the scheme.

Daniel Coll i Capdevila, Strip-Morphologies, AA Diploma Unit 4 (tutors: Michael Hensel and Achim Menges), Architectural Association, London, 2004–05opposite top: The controlled deformation of strips made from different materials delivers the limits to the manipulation of an associative model. The top row shows a component made from three strips and their relationship to an environmental input; that is, light or sound. The middle row shows the same for a larger arrangement of strips. The bottom row shows the subdivision of the large arrangement into smaller areas that can each be articulated in a coherent and interrelated manner in response to a variety of environmental stimuli. In this way the material threshold can become extensive rather then remaining a hard division between inside and outside. opposite bottom: This sample assembly with synclastic and anticlastic surface curvature shows a complex arrangement of bent and twisted strips.

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Defne Sunguroglu Hensel with Øyvind Andreassen and Emma MM Wingstedt, Extended Theshold Research, Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO) and the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), Kjeller, Norway, 2010Threshold articulation and environmental performance analysis of the Baghdad kiosk (Bagdad Köskü) (1638–39) at the Forth Courtyard (Sofa-I Hümâyûn: The Imperial Sofa) of Topkapı Palace in Istanbul, Turkey. Left: Vertical and horizontal sectional sequences indicating the intricate articulation and variation of the combined spatial and material deep threshold of the kiosk. Right: Computational fl uid dynamics (CFD) analysis of airfl ow velocities, pressure zones and turbulent kinetic energy indicating the environmental effects and interaction of the kiosk. This approach extends the question of the spatial and material organisation of the building threshold to its exchange with the local environment.

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kind into a coherent organisation, freed from the dictate of strict conformity and phasing based on extrinsic organisational devices such as the grid. In doing so it ultimately differs from parametric urbanism, which is characterised solely by variation and differences in degree. The microclimatic differentiation of the extended environmental threshold enables greater heterogeneity in the choice of conditions for activities of a lesser a-priori programmed scheme. All this does not deny the production of new effects, but instead strives for it, for the sake of the possibility of an architecture that engenders new social formations and a space that is equally articulated by both tectonics and environment. This might then result in an architecture that would either leave the current notion of type behind or forge an entirely different one, perhaps one of different types of extended spatial and environmental threshold conditions as discussed above.11 To not miss this opportunity requires the stamina to abide by the strenuously slow pace of dedicated research, the will to look both backwards and forwards to construct a rich discourse, to resist the empty lure of current trends and, in so doing, to extend potentials and missed opportunities of the distant and recent past with the complex design problems of today and tomorrow.

Cases of missed opportunities exist in part due to the retreat of leading history and theory programmes around the world into self-imposed solipsism. Moreover, the heydays of the early 2000s turbo-capitalism saw the self-declared avant-garde follow suit and drop valid discourse in favour of cooking up funny-shaped buildings in Dubai, China or wherever else everything goes. Together these developments have led to fragmentary pseudo-discourses and the marginalisation of architectural debate and practice. However, given that the beginning of the approaches and agendas described here was located at a time of strong economic downturn, it may seem that we are just now in the middle of another opportunity. Will we miss it again? 1

Notes1. J Kipnis, ‘Towards a New Architecture’, 1 Folding in Architecture, April 2003, pp 40–9.2. RM Unger, ‘The Better Futures of Architecture’, Anyone, Rizzoli (New York), 1991, pp 30–6.3. To elaborate all these interesting aspects in detail is not possible in the context of this short article. The interested reader may refer to the quoted literature.4. Owing to Jeffrey Kipnis, Peter Eisenman and Bahram Shirdel.5. Owing to Bernard Tschumi, Rem Koolhaas and infl uential aspects of French landscape design of the early 1990s.6. M Hensel and D Sunguroglu Hensel, ‘The Extended Threshold I: Nomadism, Settlements and the Defi ance of Figure-Ground’, 1 Turkey: At the Threshold, Jan/Feb 2010, pp 14–19.7. For a succinct theoretical elaboration see S Allen, ‘From Object to Field: Field Conditions in Architecture and Urbanism’, 1 Architecture after Geometry, 1997, pp 24–31.8. J Kipnis, ‘The Cunning of Cosmetics: A Personal Refl ection on the Architecture of Herzog and de Meuron’, El Croquis, Vol 84, 1997.9. See, for instance: M Hensel and A Menges, ‘The Heterogeneous Space of Morpho-Ecologies’. Space Reader: Heterogeneous Space in Architecture, John Wiley & Sons (London), 2009, pp 195–215.10. Shirdel’s interest originated from the detailed study of the artworks and installations of the Finnish sculptor Raimo Utriainen.11. For a detailed discussion see, for instance: M Hensel and D Sunguroglu Hensel, ‘The Extended Threshold I, op cit; ‘The Extended Threshold II: The Articulated Threshold’, 1 Turkey: At the Threshold, Jan/Feb 2010, pp 20–5; ‘The Extended Threshold III: Auxiliary Architectures’, 1 Turkey: At the Threshold, Jan/Feb 2010, pp 76–83.

Text © 2011 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 56-59 © Michael Hensel, AAGDG; p 60(t) © Christopher CM Lee; pp 60(b), 61 © Dimitri Tsigos and Nasrin Kalbasi; p 62 © Daniel Coll I Capdevila; p 63 © Dmitri Tsigos and Hani Fallaha; p 64 © Defne Sunguroglu Hensel and Michael Hensel

The microclimatic differentiation of the extended environmental threshold enables greater heterogeneity in the choice of conditions for activities of a lesser a-priori programmed scheme.