Steven Holl-Urbanisms - Working With Doubt-Princeton Architectural Press (2009)

Urbanisms
Steven Holl
Urbanisms
Working with Doubt
Princeton Architectural Press

New York
This book is dedicated to Astra Zarina (19292008), passionate teacher of urban phenomena.
New York City
USA
China
South Korea
Japan
The Netherlands
Finland
Italy
France
Lebanon
Turkey
Gymnasium Bridge 1977

Bridge of Houses 1979
Parallax Towers 1989
Storefront for Art & Architecture 1993
Pratt Institute Higgins Hall Insertion 19972005
World Trade Center Schemes 1 and 3 2002
Highline Hybrid Tower 2004
Hudson Yards 2007
Erie Canal Edge Rochester 1989
Stitch Plan Cleveland 1989
Spatial Retaining Bars Phoenix 1989
Spiroid Sectors Dallas-Fort Worth 1989
Chapel of St. Ignatius Seattle 19941997
UCSF Mission Bay San Francisco 1996
MIT Master Plan Cambridge 1999
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Kansas City 19992007
School of Art & Art History Iowa City 19992006
Green Urban Laboratory Nanning 2002
Museum of Art & Architecture Nanjing 20022009
Linked Hybrid Beijing 20032009
Xian New Town Xian 2005
Horizontal Skyscraper Shenzhen 20062009
Sliced Porosity Block Chengdu 20072012
Ningbo Fine Grain Ningbo 2008
World Design Park Complex Seoul 2007
Void Space/Hinged Space Fukuoka 19891991
Makuhari Bay New Town Chiba, Tokyo 19921996
Manifold Hybrid Amsterdam 1994
Sarphatistraat Offices Amsterdam 19962000
Toolenburg-Zuid Amsterdam 2002
Kiasma Helsinki 19921998
Meander Helsinki 2006
Porta-Vittoria Milan 1986
Lombardia Regional Government Center Milan 2004
Les Halles Paris 1979
le Seguin Paris 2001
Beirut Marina and Town Quay Beirut 20022010
Akbuk Peninsula Dense Pack Akbuk 20062010
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Foreword
Urbanisms: Working with Doubt
10
Geo-Spatial
Experiential Phenomena
Spatiality of Night
Urban Porosity
Sectional Cities
Enmeshed Experience: Partial Views
Psychological Space
Flux and the Ephemeral
Banalization versus Qualitative Power
Negative Capability
Fusion: Landscape/Urbanism/Architecture
14
Coda: Dilated Time

The Megaform and the Helix by Kenneth Frampton
Project Credits
Image Credits
Acknowledgments
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Foreword
Steven Holl
The United States

covers an area of
3,537,441 square miles
with a population of
304,686,000. With
3,696,100 square miles,
China covers a similar
area but its population
is 1,330,044,544.
Chisel off the

bolts of light
dusk has
the swimming word.
Paul Celan, Force of Light
Micro-Macro
This book is conceived as an accom
paniment to the book House: Black
Swan Theory (Princeton Architectural
Press, 2007). While the microscale of
the first book is juxtaposed with a vision
of the preservation of natural landscape,
this book focuses on the macroscale
of cities through the lens of architecture.
The exploration of strategies to
counter sprawl at the periphery of cities
and the formation of spaces rather than
objects were the primary aims of our
Edge of a City projects made between
1986 and 1990. Each of these visions
proposed living, working, recreational,
and cultural facilities juxtaposed in new
pedestrian sectors that might act as
social condensers for new communities.
Each site, each city requires a
unique architectural response. In China,
20032009, we have had the opportu-
nity to realize unprecedented projects
as that country undergoes one of the
greatest population migrations in human
history. 500 million people will be
transplanted from rural areas to urban
zones over the next few decades, the
environmental consequences of which
are categorically global. The ambition
of Asian clients to realize new urban
visions presents an urgency in contrast
to our former vision studies.
Our opportunities to work in China

have been focused on setting urban
and environmental examples at large
scales. While at the microscale,
we might aim at shaping space, light,
material and detail; at the macroscale
broader aims have been the challenge.
Rather than monofunction buildings
we have strived for new hybrid buildings
with rich programmatic juxtaposition.
Rather than iconic object buildings,
we have attempted to shape new types
of public space. Reshaping the large
programs of private development
to mold urban geometry for new public
metropolitan experience has been
a core aim.
The fusing of landscape, urbanism,
and architecture has become a new
ground for exploration. As our interiors
are often conceived as exteriors,
so the relation of building to grounds
might be reversed or integrated. The
potential to see landscape, urbanism,
and architecture as a continued
crisscrossing experience proposed
in 1993 for Helsinki's Kiasma was
fully realized in the intertwined land-
scape of the Nelson-Atkins Museum
of Art in Kansas City (2007) and
the Lake Whitney Water Treatment
Facility (2002). In 2007 this interlacing
aim took on a new scale in the World
Design Park Complex for South Korea.
How the large urban scale is turned
inside out to the microscale is central
to our Micro-Macro allegory.
11
Working with Doubt
In every serious philosophical

question uncertainty extends
to the very roots of the problem.
We must always be prepared
to learn something totally new.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1950
Today, working with doubt is unavoid-

able; the absolute is suspended by
the relative and the interactive. Instead
of stable systems we must work with
dynamic systems. Instead of simple and
clear programs we engage contingent
and diverse programs. Instead of
precision and perfection we work with
intermittent, crossbred systems, and
combined methods. Suspending disbelief
and adopting a global understanding
is today an a priori condition, a new
fundamental for creative work in science,
urbanism, and architecture. Working
with doubt becomes an open position
for concentrated intellectual work.
The research and preparation
required for any integrated urban success
is quite different from previous periods
that imposed classical styles or sought
to fulfill the absolute aim of modernist
functional clarity. We aim for a twenty-first
century architecture in contrast to the
empirical kitsch of the post-modern.
We aim for an architecture that is integral:
landscape/architecture/urbanism, an
architecture of deep connections to site,
culture, and climate, rather than an
applied signature style. Working with
openness and doubt at the outset of each
project can yield works engaged on levels
of both site and culture: many different
urbanisms, rather than a single urbanism.
opposite
Beijing: the Linked
Hybrid located just off
the second Ring Road.
13
1
Geo-spatial
above
In 1899, less than
10 percent of the
earths population
lived in cities. In 2008
the 3 billion urban
inhabitants continues
to grow.
opposite
Curtains of light;
electrons from the
solar wind rain down
along the Earths
magnetic field lines.
Their color depends
on the type of atom
or molecule struck by
the charged particles.
Today these northern
lightsthe aurora
borealis, historically
poetic and mythical
are full of new
meanings.
Reflection on the macroscale takes

us beyond the metropolitan present into
deep historical time on one scale and
outward into the solar system on another.
Archaeological and historical aspects
of a site and its former cultures might
span thousands, if not millions of years.
If we look at Earth from above
during the aurora borealis for example,
unlike our ancestors of northern cultures
who attached mythical and religious
significance to its appearancewe now
understand the phenomena as a collision
of charged particles which originate
from the sun arriving to Earth via the solar
wind. Yet, not all mysteries have been
resolvedgeomagnetic storms that
ignite auroral activity happen more often
during the months around the equinoxes
a phenomenon still unexplained.
Venus is Earths nearest planetary

neighbor and a close equivalent in size.
Its greenhouse-effect clouds are made of
water and COwhich maintain a surface
temperature of 860 degrees Farenheit.
Venus once had water but it is now steam.
Venus is in retrograde rotation; the sun
rises in the west and sets in the east.
It has no moon. My theory is that it once
had a moon just as it once had water,
both victims of greenhouse heat.
When looking back at Earth from
spacelike our Edge of a City projects
from 19891990every architectural
action can be seen in some way as urban.
Every constructive mark on Earths
crust, in relation to natural landscape,
should be scrutinized. There is nowhere
on the planet today that is not subject
to concentrated human forces.
14
2
Experiential phenomena
It is odd that few urban planners speak
of the important phenomenological
characteristics determining the qualities
of urban lifespatial energy and
mystery, qualities of light, color, sound,
and smell. The subjectivity of urban
experience must be held in equal impor
tance to the objective and practical.
The right and left halves of the brain
which balance pragmatic facts and
subjective art, respectively, should have
a parallel in the macroscale of urban
experiences. The music, art, and poetry
of urban experience should be given
more force in balance within the capitalistdriven climate of urban development.
Constructed in walls of glass, concrete,
or brick, the city is as much a subjective
experience as it is an objective reality.
This synthesis of subjective and objective
ought to be central to urban design
from the outset. Our focus is on the
immense richness full of contradictions
that is the urban experience. Just as
the brain is embedded within the body
and just as the city is embedded in
its surrounding environment, we should
work toward relational values.
Large, privately initiated urban
developments may have more
potential than master plans to shape
new public space in the city. Civic
master plans, endlessly debated and
politically positioned, move too slowly
to be effective and are, usually, either
altered beyond recognition or shelved.
Master plans should be conceived
with integrated elements of architecture
as their initial catalyst.
In 1950, the poet Charles Olsen

said, The central fact of America
is Space. Almost fifty years later, at
the close of the twentieth century, Harold
Bloom said, Our central fact is Time.
I propose that we are now at a turning
point. Just as we have now engaged deep
time, we must engage equivalent dimen
sions of space. A deep space of the urban
begins where interiors become exteriors
and vice versa. The crisscrossing laticelike
quality of new urban experiences open
up a new spatial sense of wonder.
The phenomenal qualities of the
light and air of particular cities are
part of the important characteristics
determining the quality of life. Perhaps
city officials should employ poets for
urban redevelopment projects in order
to bring the delicate phenomenal
properties of urban places into clear
focus. The rational, statistical point
of view is certainly not enough when
operating on a very complex body.
If modern medicine has finally acknow
ledged the power of the psyche as a
factor in physical health, perhaps urban
planners may realize that the experi-
ential and phenomenal power of cities
cannot be completely rationalized
and must be studied subjectively.
To think of the light and air in
cities at 34 latitude for example, is not
a completely scientific operation. The
altitude and bearing angle of the sun,
together with the number of rainy days
per year and the mean temperature,
cannot yield an accurate description
of the place. Think of moving in rapid
16
following spread
Barcelonas urban grid
and plastic shadows,
Ouro Preto, Brazil, 2007
succession during the first weeks

of summer from Rome to Barcelona
to Madrid to Lisbon. The astonishingly
unique qualities of place in each of
these cities is a wonder.
Rome in late June has a dry heat,
sometimes fanned with the breeze
of the Aviernos. The huge scale of the
Roman monuments packed into the
ochre walls shapes the sky in slices and
wedges in a way that alters the light.
Light defines the urban walls and facades
in a particular way found only in Rome.
Shiny black paving stones smoothly
join the bottom of each facade. After
a fresh rain, the streets of Rome have
a particular magic in their reflections.
The Roman summer heat can be
very still in a way that seems to reinforce
the slow movement of time. Time, light,
stone, history, and urban geometry
intermesh to form a unique impression.
The intermeshing of these phenomenal
aspects yields a visceral, intellectual,
and physical experience that demands
descriptive words such as amazement,
wonder, poetic revelation; words not
found in planning documents.
While Rome is known as the eternal
city, Barcelona turns rapidly in time.
The beveled blocks of the Cedra Grid
whirl like a clock. They turn and turn
again at corner crossings repeated over
and over across the main urban geo
metry of Barcelona. The old crookedstreet city is surrounded by this modern
whirling machine. Barcelona combines
the salt air of the sea and the slice of blue
Mediterranean across the distant horizon.
The polished pavement of the

Ramblas glows with reflections of
pedestrians walking past stands selling
house pets, cats, live snakes, roosters,
and parrots turning somersaults in
their cages. Barcelona has a sense of
surrealist humorvery particular and
irrational. Walking down the Portaferrisa
we see pads for shoulders, buttocks,
groins, hips, and breasts proudly displayed
on bright red felt backdrops. The way
these elements are grouped together
and shown in the shop window seems to
project a particular brand of dark humor
appropriate to Barcelona.
17
3
Spatiality of Night
above left
Touching blocks of light,
The Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art
above middle
Communicative light,
Simmons Hall, MIT
above right
Painting light, the canal
with Sarphatistraat
offices
opposite
Liquid Light, Times
Square
The luminosity of eighteenth- and

nineteenth-century cities was radically
altered in the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries. The shocking joy of vast
quantities of urban night light alters our
perceptions of the shape and form of
urban space. New Yorks Times Square
a crowded, dirty-grey intersection by
day, is an astonishing volume of glowing
light at night; space is defined by the
interrelationship of light, color, and
atmospheric conditions. In a slight mist
space is liquid. Dynamic color, reflected
in wet streets, blurs and multiplies the
exhilaration of this metropolitan space
to intense, cinematic levels. The extreme
contrast to this blast of urban color
is felt in the mystery of a rural valley
in winter, carpeted with a fresh powder
of snow and bathed in moonlight. The
spatiality here is quite different from
the urban and it depends on surrounding
darkness for its primary effect.
The spatiality of night transforms
the sculpture gardens between the glass
lenses of the Nelson-Atkins Museum
in Kansas City, Missouri. By day these
individual outdoor rooms for sculpture
offer a neutral white backdrop, formed
by the structural glass planks of the

lenses which bring light to the galleries
below. At night the spatiality is reversed;
the lenses become blocks of light that
dramatically backlight a sculpture by Tony
Cragg, changing its reading to silhouette.
In a transformation of weight to light,
a different spatiality is described: the
spatiality of night. At the Pratt Institute
School of Architecture in Brooklyn,
shadows of students moving about in
the drafting studio can be seen from
the glowing light of the entrance court.
The projection of light in this new
courtyard is a soft wash rather than the
regimented light of a streetlamp, a new
urban courtyard with a golden penumbra.
Urban space at night may have a veiled
charm and mystery.
A rural spatiality of night requires
restoring darkness. The suburban
light pollution that is rapidly erasing the
stars from our night skies negatively
affects animals and migrating birds.
An aim toward new urban space and its
metropolitan vitality has its complement
in clarified rural landscape and the resto
ration of the inspiring and mysterious
glow of the nighttime firmament.
21
4
urban porosity
above
The Linked Hybrid
in Beijing shapes
public space; twelve
buildings for living/
working/recreation/
education are porous
from every edge.
In Walter Benjamins Reflections there

is a description of the urban porosity
of the city of Naples. He observes porous
architecture in which building and
action interpenetrate in the courtyards,
arcades and stairways. ..to become a
theater of new unforeseen constellations. ..
Porosity is the inexhaustible law of the
life of this city, reappearing everywhere.
Rather than a preoccupation with solid,
independent object-like forms, it is
the experiential phenomena of spatial
sequences with, around, and between
which emotions are triggered. There
is a scale of distances walked and seen
and passages available in the area
around rue du Bac in Paris which offers
a gentle urban porosity of movement.
The pedestrian can change direction
in seconds; the pedestrian is not blocked
by large urban constructions without
entry or exit. This freedom of pedestrian
movement, championed by Jane Jacobs
as the ideal matrix, is based on the
case of Greenwich Village in Manhattan
and can be envisioned in different ways
for the twenty-first century.
For larger urban projects made up
of several buildings, porosity becomes
essential for the vitality of street life.
Especially in the city of Beijing where
the urban grid layout (inherited from
the Hutong blocks) tends toward
superblock dimensions, urban porosity
is crucial. Our Beijing Linked Hybrid,
a project of eight towers ranging from
twelve to twenty-one stories, linked
by bridges with public functions, is an
experiment in urban porosity. Passages
from all sides leading into the central

space are lined and activated with shops.
A diagonal spatial porosity animates this
city within a city connecting different
layers of public activity.
22
23
5
SECTIONAL Cities
(Toward New Urban VOLUMES)
top
Wolkenbugel, Moscow
El Lissitzky and Mart
Stam, 1925
middle
Spatial Retaining Bars,
Phoenix, 1989
bottom
Parallax Towers,
Manhattan, 1990
Instead of the nineteenth-century flatfooted figure-ground space, twenty-

first-century metropolitan space is
more active in section. We rise and fall
in elevators and escalators while our
points of view open and close in amazing
sequences. It is a change as dramatic
as the leap from horseback to automobile
to aviation. Now we can sweep through
our urban spaces birdlike from unprece
dented and exhilarating perspectives.
Invigorated urbanism of the twenty-first
century must move beyond the plani
metric, and take new forms in section.
This Z-dimension architecture yields
new experiences in space, light, and
perception. Increased spatial energy
directly related to a high degree of
sectional development allows for fresh
dimensions of urban living.
The X and Y dimensions, the
planimetric, were once the urban planners
basic realm. Today the Z dimension
of the development of buildings in section
has overtaken the planimetric. As urbanists
and architects we must think first of the
urban sections in our cities. The section
can be fifty times more consequential
than the plan, especially in metropolitan
centers such as Manhattan, Shanghai,
Tokyo, and Hong Kong.
The Beijing Linked Hybrid
inscribes layers of urban life in a loop
of eight bridges connecting at the
highest floors of eight skyscrapers. Our
experiments in the horizontally devel-
oped skyscraper began in projects like
the Bronx Gymnasium Bridge (1977) in
New York City and Spatial Retaining
Bars for Phoenix, Arizona (1989).

These projects offered new horizons of
experience not unlike Wolkenbgel (Cloud
Iron) designed by El Lissitzky and Mart
Stam in 1926. However, we wanted to
avoid isolated objects in favor of urban
space shaped by urban connections. With
the real pressures of rapid urbanization
in Beijing, a bridge-linked assemblage of
horizontally developed skyscrapers was
proposed and accepted in 2003. Hydraulic
lift construction technology permitted
a public circulation of various functions
including a cafe, bookstore, gallery,
spa, and swimming pool. A new layer of
urban experience, an active urban pattern,
is mixed with the enchantment of deep
urban views from the twenty-first floor.
Advanced structural technologies
and construction techniques open up the
imagination and potential for horizontal
skyscrapers and public function bridges
developing new dynamic experiences with
cinematic spatial sequences.
All architectural works are in some
way urban works; they either deny or
affirm the potential of the city. The metro
politan density of the twenty-first century
asks for a further spatial affirmation in
the vertical and the diagonal. A diagonal
rise by escalator through overlapping
spaces of a modern metro station yields
an open-ended spatial sensation. The
limited conditions of linear perspective
(from planimetric projections) disappear
as modern urban life presents multiple
horizons and vanishing points.
25
6
Enmeshed experience:
partial views
opposite
Kiasma Museum
of Contemporary Art
between the post
office and the Helsinki
Sanomat building,
Helsinki, Finland,
winter 2004
Our experience of a contemporary city

is one of partial views, fragmented
and incomplete. As we move through
these partial views and overlapping
perspectives our experiential qualities
are of enmeshed space; instead of distinct
objects, we understand distinct fields as
a new type of whole. For example, when
walking on West Twelfth Street toward
the Hudson River at sunset on an autumn
day, the last orange light reflected in
the high windows creates white streaks
in the orange clouds in the distance.
At a second glance, these white streaks
move as if giant chalk lines are being
drawn in the sky; a jet plane streams
over Newark Airport as the setting
sun becomes inextricably intertwined
with the urban perspective. The geometric frame of the buildings, the orange
light reflected in windows, the shine
of the cobblestones and the white chalk
lines in the sky become one enmeshed
experience.
Unlike a static view or an image,
the dynamic experience of our perception
develops from a series of overlapping
urban perspectives which unfold according
to angle and speed of movement. While
we might analyze our movement along
a specific path at a given speed, we
can never enumerate all possible views.
The partially described paths through
urban geometries remain in doubt,
always changing. A series of views from
a stationary position is constructed
between horizontal, diagonal, or vertical
axes of movement. No single view of a
building or urban space can be complete,
as the perception of a built object is

altered by its relationship to near and far,
solid and void, the sky and the street.
A fantastic spatial energy resides
not in the building as object in itself,
but in its relationships to the urban envi
ronment. The partial views through
the urban frame of adjacent buildings
to the curvilinear facade of the Kiasma
Museum of Contemporary Art in
Helsinki, Finland, for example, were
meant to be more inspiring than
that of a freestanding object. The
predominance of partial views is an
argument for urban integration and
the interrelation of urban space. Through
the phenomenological study of cities
we find new ways of incorporating this
aspect of perspectival space into our
vision and our fabrication of architecture.
A multiple perspectives approach to
planning is part of our aim to conceive
urban spaces by incorporating perceptual
principles. A revalued understanding
of the experiential dimensions of urban
design moves beyond the norms of
individual architectural intention, toward
the indefinite properties of urban assem
blage. Enmeshed experiences merge
foreground, middle ground, and distant
view through partial views.
26
7
psychological space
Our thoughts are the shadows
of our feelings.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Meanings after all are invisible.
Arthur Danto
above
House of Nothing,
Makuhari Bay New
Town, Chiba, Tokyo,
19921996
Franz Kafka told the
story of a nervous man
who was fishing in
a bathtub. Approached
by a psychiatrist who
had a certain treatment
in mind for him, he
was asked, Are they
biting? to which
he replied, Of course
not, you fool, this is
a bathtub!
As first-year students at the University

of Washington in Seattle in 1967, our
assignment was to design an 8' 8' 8'
cube of space to serve all aspects of daily
life; living, working, eating, sleeping. Most
tried to design a bed that could fold up
into a working desk, etc. I questioned
the premise altogether and drew a cube
with a dotted line to a curvilinear shape
indicating psychological space as a
necessity. The professors were offended,
but passed me.
On a macroscale, psychological
space expands to the psychological
field of urban space. The simultaneous
interactions of topography, program,
lines of urban movement, materials, and
light come together to manifest the spirit
of an urban place. The psychological
effects of sound must be considered as
well as other temporal fragmentations.
In this regard, architecture produces
desire. The exhilaration we find when
we walk into the space between or
inside certain buildings produces a kind
of psychological space. It can represent
an experience we never had before and
want to see more of. The recognition
of spatial and material phenomena meets
the imagination. The power of changing
light, the spatial energy of the route of
movement fuse together into something
totally new to us, a new desire. This

is a core aspect of psychological space.
We developed the idea of psycho
logical space as a dimension of our
1986 triennale of the Milan Porta Vittoria
plan from the project Phenomena of
Relations. The spatial energy of the
geometrically inspired urban ensemble
yields its vital energy as we move around,
through, and over its spaces. Circling
in unfolding perspectival spaces, we are
osmotically imbued with the joyous
freedom of new forms. The architectural
spaces and surprises make us smile.
The modern metropolitan soul is born.
29
8
flux AND the ephemeral
above
Fiber-optic undersea
cables for telephone and
internet traffic
opposite
Whether at the scale
of dense city fragments,
or the rural landscape
with the solitary
house, a deeper, more
comprehensive vision
of humans and the
Earth is an urgent issue.
A fundamental change
of attitude, a revisioning
of values must take place.
In a hyper-mobile population, the constant

flux of information, materials, and products
dissolve and disperse. This malleability
of life in the metropolis, while changeable
in its transient turbulence, need not
be so in an ephemeral architecture. Open
architecture which can adapt to change
like a rock canyon in which material and
eometry is eroded by the river flow
calls for an architecture of duration rather
than one of throwaway space.
Of the millions of tons of solid
waste produced by cities each day, more
than 50 percent is construction waste.
A culture of temporary, media-driven
consumerist angst propels architecture
toward impermanence. Architecture
well-proportioned for light, space, and

flow, and constructed of lasting materials,
is fundamental for a new ability to adapt
to the metropolitan flow and change. For
example, in order to persuade sponsors
to invest in an infrastructure of geothermal
wells to heat and cool architecture,
a minimum building lifespan of fifty years
should be assumed. Currently most
American universities construct 100-year
buildings for their campuses. A balance
of receptivity to metropolitan flux and
the creation of enduring architecture sets
a higher aim than assuaging arguments
for ephemeral constructions and junk
space debris.
30
9
Banalization Versus Qualitative Power
above
Hong Kong residential
congestion
opposite
Qualitative power
at Oscar Niemeyers
Copan Building,
So Paulo, 1953
The fact that explosive urban growth

yields banalization without architectural
quality is no surprise. What is surprising,
however, is the attempt of the current
generation of urban theorists to write
apologetically for this flattening banality,
as if we could be immunized to its
effects via charts and data.
Recently, rapidly constructed
developments in Asia have reached
nerve shattering proportions whose
lassitude yields brutal urban conditions.
Abrupt construction of back-to-backto-front high-rise apartments continues
regardless of intelligent critics in schools
of architecture advocating more density
with a specious smile. This different
sort of banalitythe banality of the
detached critical argumentdevelops
from a lack of firsthand observation.
Our aim is to realize at least
some constructions of exemplary quali
tative power; as urban constructions,
these are vehicles of transformation.
Constructed with a plurality of meanings,
an intense urban architecture of quality
can be an instrument of abstract thought:
unforeseen, resistant to banalization,
and capable of changing and shaping
urban life with phenomenal experiences.
As an example of large-scale
intensity consider a 1953 project by Oscar
Niemeyer: Copan in So Paulo, with
over 1,000 apartments. Treatises have
been written on the subject of how
people take pleasure in living there and
how the detail of the shopping center
underneath the building was carefully
worked out and still functions today.
The artist Jurgen Partenheimer writes

about his experiences from his apartment
on the 28th floor: Copan is a philosophy.
With thirty-two floors and more than
seventy apartments on each floor,
the building is a veritable town in itself
with five thousand inhabitants. ..The
extravagant sensuality of its undulating
form and its majestic elegance and
grandeur rubs off on the people who live
here and fills all who work with it, its
managers and caretakers, with pride.
Any student, urbanist, or architect visiting
So Paulo must visit the Copan Building
to see this dimension of qualitative power
on a massive scale.
33
10
negative capability
Time is dying on the moon
I hear the minutes limping
round and round.
Forgive me this minute;
the hours are creaking
past these midnite bones
Theodore Rothke,
Straw for the Fire
Several things dovetailed in
my mind, and at once it struck me,
what quality went to form a Man
of Achievement especially in
literature and which Shakespeare
possessed so enormously
I mean Negative Capability, that
is when man is capable of being
in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts
without any irritable reaching after
fact & reason.
John Keats in a letter
to George and Thomas Keats,
December 21, 1817
above
Beijing, March 2006
dust storms
opposite
Beijing traffic 2003;
one appointment per
day is the maximum
achievable due to
delays.
economies while waging unnecessary

wars. The first of these three issues can
be directly engaged with urban projects
of vision. Architecture and urbanism
might have a 5 position in the potential
to redirect and to shape the future. Urban
examples of change, even if modest
in scale, can lead to hopes and expec
tations. They can serve as a positive
catalyst. Working with doubt and open
ness is, in essence, a form of optimism.
Regardless of how unfortunate and difficult
elements accumulate in our daily lives,
as architects and urbanists it is important
to aim with optimism at a long-term view.
Negative capability is a positive capacity.

Negative capability is to be able to take
in all the problematic aspects of the
surrounding world, to see and acknowl
edge, to entertain uncertainty and
still be able to act: a modus operandi
for the twenty-first century. As an archi
tect you go to a site to study every angle
availableto feel in your body what
needs to be done; intuitively you create.
Past and ongoing failures in this
world include: the deterioration of natural
and built environments, discrepancies
of wealth and poverty, and the inability
of capitalist democracy to manage
34
11
Fusion: Landscape/
Urbanism/architecture
above and opposite

Weaving architecture,
landscape, and
urbanism in WPDC,
Korea, 2007
The fusion of architecture/urbanism/

landscape can be realized in city
fragments when all aspects are con
ceived integrally. This integration should
carry over into texture, material, color,
translucency, transparency, and reflection.
Landscape design ordered as an after
thought cannot effectively fuse with
architecture and urbanism.
The Zen gardens of Japan are
an inspiring example of the indefinite
boundary of architecture and gardens:
bodies of water, illusions of distance,
and edifices floating on their own reflec
tions are part of a tradition of slow
development. Japanese culture merged
the arts of gardening, painting, sculpture,
and architecture.
Todays context of speed, international
interconnection, and hypercontrol of
development requires rapid and flexible
design strategies. Too often an architect
is expected to present a concept for a
very large project with just a few weeks
to prepare, and must conceptually
coalesce landscape and architecture to
give direction to a public space. Fusing
landscape and public space in large
commercial urban developments requires
quick interdisciplinary conceptual work.
For the World Design Park Complex
(wdpc) project in Seoul, Korea, an
integrated weave of park and infrastruc
ture offers two layers of outdoor space
in this dense metropolis. The fusing
of urbanism, landscape, and architecture
in a woven structural morphology is
folded up to become a partial vertical
park, which contains avian and scientific
exhibits, including extinct Korean flora

and fauna. Here morphology and topog
raphy have merged with architecture.
The netlike, reticulated fusion of
the WDPC project is a convergence
of landscape and architecture in an
entirely new topology.
A more concentrated example
of fusing landscape/urbanism and archi
tecture can be experienced in our NelsonAtkins Museum of Art (19992007).
From the arrival into the 500-car garage
skylit by subaqueous moons in the
plaza pool, to the overlapping sequence
of museum spaces toplit by the iceberglike glass lenses; this is an architecture
of porosity where landscape and building
aim at a dynamic integration and a new
experiential dissolve.
37
New York City
Gymnasium Bridge
South Bronx, New York
1977
The Gymnasium Bridge is a hybrid

building synthesized as a special
strategy for generating positive
economic and physical effects. The
bridge condenses the activities of
meeting, physical recreation, and work
into one structure that simultaneously
forms a bridge from the community
to the park on Randalls Island.
Along the bridge, community
members participate in competitive
sports and physical activities organized
according to a normal work day with
wages. The bridge becomes a vehicle
from which destitute persons can
reenter society, become accustomed
to a normal workday, and help gain
strength to develop their individual
potential. The form of the architecture
is a series of bridges over bridges.
The small entrance bridges at each
end of the main span preserve the view
down Brook Street to the canal, and
from Randalls Island up Brook Street.
The main span is aligned with this axis
and is crossed by a fourth and highest
bridge. In water rather than over water,
this bridge acts as a structural pivot
from which the turnbridge portion of
the main span rotates to allow future
ship passage in the waterway.
opposite
Site plan of
Randalls Island
and South
Bronx, 1977
right
Beginning without
clients: 1977
projects for urban
transformation
41
Bridge of Houses
New York City, New York
The site and structural foundation

of the Bridge of Houses is the existing
superstructure of an abandoned elevated
rail link in the Chelsea area of New
York City. This steel structure is utilized
in its straight leg from West Nineteenth
Street to West Twenty-ninth Street
parallel to the Hudson River.
In 1977, West Chelsea began to
change from a warehouse district
to an art district. The Bridge of Houses
reflects the new character of the area
as a place of habitation. Reuse rather than
demolition of the existing bridge would
be a permanent contribution to the char
acter of the city.
This project offers a variety of housing
types for the Chelsea area, as well as
an elevated public promenade connecting
with the Convention Center on its north
end. The structural capacity and width
of the existing bridge determine the height
and width of the houses. Four houses have
been developed in detail, emphasizing
the intention to provide a collection of
housing blocks offering the widest possible
range of social-economic coexistence.
At one extreme are houses of single-roomoccupancy type, offered for the citys
homeless; each of these blocks contains
twenty studio rooms. At the other extreme
are houses of luxury apartments; each
of these blocks contains three or four flats.
Shops line the public promenade level
below the houses.
The new houses are built in an

alternating pattern with a series of 2,000square-foot courtyards (50 percent open
space). All new houses align with the
existing block front at the street walls,
right
Study model
in steel, copper,
and brass
1979
reinforcing the street pattern.

The ornamental portions of the rail
bridge that pass over the streets
remain open.
above right
Bridge of Houses
shapes a public
promenade, 1979
43
Sections
8'
opposite
West Twenty-first
Street toward
the Hudson River
44
Bridge of Houses
46
Parallax Towers
1989
In this proposal for Manhattan, the existing

Seventy-second Street train yards would
be transformed into a new city-edge park
in the spirit of Frederick Law Olmsted.
The existing dense development to the
east looks out over this new open park,
which extends to the Hudson Rivers edge.
On the river, ultrathin skyscrapers
bracket the view and create a new kind
of framed urban space over water.
Hybrid buildings with diverse functions,
the towers are linked by horizontal
underwater transit systems that connect
underwater parkside lobbies to high-
speed elevators serving upper transfer
lobbies. Occupants are within walking
distance of the Seventy-second Street
subway entrance or express ferries to
the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center,
Wall Street, and LaGuardia Airport.
In counterbalance to the ultrathin
towers, an ultrathick floating public space
is used as a concert stadium, large-
screen movie theater complex, or grand
festival hall.
right
A proposed extension
of Riverside Park.
The site, former
railyards, were
later developed by
Donald Trump.
above right
Model in collection
of Museum of
Modern Art
47
Parallax Towers
Storefront for Art

& Architecture
1993
The Storefront for Art and Architecture

(designed with Vito Acconci) is situ
ated on the corner of a block that
marks the intersection of three distinct
neighborhoods: Chinatown, Little Italy
and SoHo. The gallery itself is a limited,
narrow wedge with a triangulated
exhibition interior; the most dominant
is the buildings long facade.
Using a material comprised of
concrete mixed with recycled newspapers,
we inserted a series of hinged panels
arranged in a puzzle-like configuration.
When the panels are locked in their open
position, the facade dissolves and the
interior space of the gallery expands out
on to the sidewalk. If the function of a
facade is to create a division separating
the inside from the outside space, this
new facade, in the words of former
director Kyong Park, is No wall, no
barrier, no inside, no outside, no space,
no building, no place, no institution,
no art, no architecture, no Acconci, no
Holl, no Storefront.
In 2008 this project (temporary
in 1993) was restored to its original
condition.
opposite and this page

A triangular space
opening up to the city,
inside and outside
51
Pratt Institute Higgins

Hall Insertion
Brooklyn, New York
The new Higgins Hall Center Section

is an urban insertion which draws from
the sections of the two adjacent historic
land-marked buildings. Floor plates
of the north and south wings do not align.
By drawing this misalignment into the
new glass section to meet at the center,
a dissonant zone is created, which
marks the new entry to the school.
The two masonry buildings together
with the new glass insertion form an
H in plan. New courts facing east and
west are paved in the reused red brick
which was salvaged following the fire
that took place in 1996. The east facing
court overlooks the green yards of the
inner block, while the west court is shaped
as the main front on St. James Place.
Rising from this red brick plinth, the
glass center is supported on six precast
concrete columns that were fabricated
in Canada. Due to their precision, the
thick beams and columns form stone-like
bones, while the U-shaped structural glass
planks with translucent white insulation
form a thick glowing skin. The thick
skin is interrupted by clear glass at the
dissonant zone, which is aligned with
the internal ramps, turning the circulation
north and south for views out.
The misalignment in floors can be
seen in the dissonant zone which varies
increasingly as it moves vertically

in section; on the first floors, the misa
lignment is inch; on the second
floors it is 1 foot 8 inches, on the third
floors it is 4 feet 9 inches, and on the
fourth floors it is 6 feet 7 inches. Thus,
the dissonance moves from the detail
thickness of a finger to human scale.
Rebuilding the center allowed
a new arrangement of the School of
opposite and right

The dense fabric of
Brooklyn does not leave
much room for public
space. At Higgins
Hall we were able to
19972005
Architecture under the direction of

Dean Thomas Hanrahan. For the first
time the north and south wings are
functionally connected, and the School
of Architecture gained a single, clearly
oriented entrance and central entrance
court that becomes a meeting point
in the neighborhood.
create a small urban

alcove that is being
used by students as
well as the surrounding
neighborhood.
53
1 Skylight
2 Studio Beyond
3 Lobby Beyond
4 Gallery
5 Corridor
6 Lower Lobby
7 Lecture Hall
8 Public Outdoor Space
EastWest Section
10'
54
Pratt Institute Higgins Hall Insertion
55
First- and Second-Floor Plan

0
10
18'
N
20'
opposite
The red brick plinth
forms a warm entrance
court. At night the
building functions like
a lantern.
10
N
20'
56
Higgins Hall Insertion
World Trade Center

Schemes 1 and 3
As the World Trade Center tragedy took

many souls without bodies to bury,
this monumental new space floats with
the river water moving below. Strips of
sunlight animate the floors and walls from
light slots, which allow oblique views of
the Hudson River. In a memorial hall each
person lost has a photo portrait below
a candle.
The memorial ramps up to a new
bridge over West Street, connected
to a folded street which ascends over
the site. Along the ascending street
are a number of functions: galleries,
cinema spaces, cafes, restaurants, a hotel,
classrooms for a branch of New York
University. Sheathed in translucent glass
the truss construction allows for grand
public observation decks.
A new street level plan allows northsouth and east-west streets to go through
the site while accommodating auditorium
halls for concerts and events.
The footprints of the original towers
are formed into 212' 212' reflective ponds,
with thousands of glass lenses allowing
light to spaces below.
of what happened was felt far beyond

the immediate site, the design does not
attempt to contain or divide the site.
Rather it extends the site into the sur
rounding streets through a plan that
contains a series of fingers.
Instead of individual iconic buildings,
the creation of urban space in the spirit
of Rockefeller Center was our aim as
a team. The most visible signs of renewal
are the proposed hybrid buildings, rising
1,111 feet to restore the Manhattan skyline
with geometric clarity in glowing white
glass. The horizontal and vertical field of
buildings sustain activities from a hotel
and conference center to offices, cultural
spaces, and residences.
Comprised of five vertical sections
and interconnecting horizontal layers,
the two buildings represent a new typology
in skyscraper design. At ground level,
2002
these forms become ceremonial gateways

into the site. In their quiet abstraction
as solids and voids, the buildings appear
as screens, suggesting both presence
and absence, and encouraging reflection
and imagination. Their cantilevered ends
extend outward, like the fingers of the
ground plan, reaching toward the city
and each other.
Scheme 3
Our third proposal for the design of

the World Trade Center site was devel
oped with Richard Meier and Partners,
Eisenman Architects, and Gwathmey
Siegel. As a reminder that the magnitude
opposite
New folded street
on an open trapezoid
plan ascends to 1300'
59
above and right

Third Scheme
developed with Richard
Meier and Partners,
Eisenman Architects,
and Gwathmey Siegel
& Associates Architects
opposite
First scheme folded
streets over Manhattan
60
Highline Hybrid Tower
2004
Envisioned as the north terminus of the

Highline this tower begins with a bridge
link to the north end of the Highline.
The horizontality of the Highline Park here
turns upward into a Linear tower, with
multiple urban functions, marking the north
terminus of this new public space. Stores
along the bridges descending stepped
ramp and along the Tenth Avenue street
front are included as amenities for the new
inhabitants. The full service hotel occupies
several floors and shares its lobby with
the condominiums.
The structure is a combination
of tap root strong core with perimeter
columns. On the top floors a tuned
mass damper is of the liquid (sloshing)
type in the form of a skyline spa and
swimming pool. The spa also includes
a cafe with spectacular 360-degree
views. The towers connection to the
horizontal Highline orients pedestrians
in Chelseas new public spaces. The
aim is to make the greenest skyscraper
possible. It was calculated that two
30-inch-diameter pipes slung below the
north link of the Highline to the Hudson
River could provide all cooling for the
660,000-square-foot building.
opposite
The Tower and
the Highline tracks:
the needle at the end
of a thread of park
right
First scheme with
flare out sections
and vertical rail
elements
63
above
2007 scheme, 63 floors
right
Bridge to Highline
dissolves into multiple
awnings over lobbies
Site Plan
50'
64
1
1 Mechanical
2 Lobby
3 Restaurant/
Conference Center
4 Offices/G alleries
5 Hotel Amenities
6 Hotel
7 Residential
3
2
EastWest Section
20'
Hudson Yards
This last large, undeveloped Midtown

Manhattan site provides an unprece
dented opportunity to create a new urban
paradigm for the twenty-first century.
While offering a high mixed-use density
of 12 million square feet, the proposed
suspension-deck park design maximizes
public space and creates a porosity
and openness for the site from all sides
and approaches. It connects Midtown,
the Chelsea Arts District, and the
convention center with a grand public
park open to the Hudson River. This
proposal provides 5 acres of urgently
needed park space (two acres more
than competing proposals).
opposite
Hudson Yards: one
of the last possibilities
for a large park space
in Chelsea
2007
THIS
FLEXIBLE SPACE FOR LIRR WITH NO
INTERRUPTIONS AND LIGHTWEIGHT
CONSTRUCTION
NOT THIS
CONSTRAINED SPACE FOR RAILYARDS WITH LIMITED
FLEXIBILITY, MAX RAIL CLOSURE, LONG ASSEMBLY TIME,
RISKY CRANE LIFTING, HEAVY EXCESSIVE
CONSTRUCTION, THREAT RISKS WITH TRAINS BELOW
BUILDINGS
right
A cable-suspended
park saves millions
in unnecessary deck
construction.
69
Green Space and Circulation
right
The Hudson Yards
are a chance to
add much-needed
green space
to Manhattans
West Side.
70
Hudson Yards
1 Exit to Highline
2 Residential Tower
3 Residential Amenities
4 Retail Space
5 Sculpture & Arts Park
6 Green Roof
7 Cafe
8 Lobby
2
Cross Section
71
Water Recycling
1 Toilet Flushing
2 Landscape Irrigation
3 Roof Garden Irrigation
4 Pond Water Makeup
5 Storm Water
6 Retention Treatment
3
1
2
5
6
72
Hudson Yards
right
The entire 11.3 million
square feet of the
complex is geothermally
heated and cooled and
utilizes gray-water
recycling.
73
USA
Seattle
San Francisco
Phoenix
Dallas-Fort Worth
Cambridge
Rochester
Cleveland
Iowa City
Kansas City
Erie Canal Edge
Rochester, New York
The Erie Canal, a grand work that

secured the growth of New York and
of cities along its route, is now an
undistinguished trench to the south
of Rochester. This project is a crosssectional study which redefines
the canal and reinforces the city edge.
Canal houses rest on the top and
bottom of the embankment, like dogs at
the dinner table. On the north side of

the canal, the houses form a continuous
wall and an intermittent arcade; on
the south, they are misaligned and open
to the rural surrroundings.
The northern urban edge is
characterized by a workplace building,
which anticipates new programs not
requiring horizontal floors. Operation
1989
occurs via walkway beams analogous

to the former work-walks along the
Erie Canal.
Between the work building and
the canal houses are a series of social
and cultural facilities: a group of
cinemas, a music school, and housing
for the elderly, with a connecting
cultural gallery.
opposite
Urban densities
with strips of
clarified landscape
77
above
View from the canal
right
Model
opposite
Detail of 1989 model:
The northern urban
edge contains a
workplace building
that anticipates
new programs not
requiring horizontal
floors. Operation
occurs via walkway
beams analogous to
the former work-walks
along the Erie Canal.
78
79
Stitch Plan
Cleveland, Ohio
1989
Five Xs spaced along the inland edge

of Cleveland (the northern edge is formed
by Lake Erie) define precise crossover
points from new urban areas to a clarified
rural region. These newly created urban
spaces are girded by mixed-use buildings.
At one X the crossover is developed
into a dam with hybrid functions.
The urban section contains a number
of buildings including a hotel, a cinema,
and a gymnasium. The rural section
contains public programs related to
nature, including a fish hatchery,
an aquarium, and botanical gardens.
The artificial lake formed by the
dam provides a large recreational
area and extends the crossover point
into a boundary line. Taken together,
the Xs imply an urban edge, connected
by light rail transit.
opposite
Stitch Plan edge and
clarified landscapes
beyond
right
Model of Hybrid
dam and pedestrian
sector
81
above
Stitch plan with
multiple functions
as a dam, pedestrian
sector, and clarified
landscape.
right
A new pedestrian sector
with clarified rural
landscape (connected
by rail transit)
opposite
Stitch Plan aerial view
82
Stitch Plan
83
Spatial Retaining Bars
Phoenix, Arizona
1989
The most prominent aspect of the history

of Phoenix is the mysterious disap
pearance of the indigenous Hohokum
civilization after 1,000 years of continuous
cultivation of the valley with 250 miles
of 30-foot canals. Sited on the periphery
of Phoenix, a series of spatial retaining
bars infer an edge to the city, a beginning
to the desert. Each structure inscribes
a 180' space while rising to frame views
of the distant mountains and desert.
The loft-like living areas in the upper
arms hang in silent isolation forming a new
horizon with views of the desert sunrise
and sunset. Communal life is encouraged
by entrance and exit through courtyards
at grade. Work is conducted electronically
from loft-spaces adjoining dwellings.
Cultural facilities are suspended in open
frame structures.
The 30' by 30' building sections act
as reinforced concrete hollow beams.
Exteriors are of pigmented concrete with
the undersides of the arms polished to
a high gloss. In the morning and evening
these undersides are illuminated by
the red desert sun; a hanging apparition
of light once reflected by the water of
Hohokum canals.
opposite
Phoenix with retaining
bars (red) protecting
the desert at the
northwest, southeast,
and west.
right
Upward axonometrics
showing ground-level
courts and polished
undersides of upper
bars.
85
top left
Sectional
urbanism
above
Flexible cultural
building frame
top right
Retaining bars
at horizon and
reflecting sunlight
at sunrise
opposite
Protected desert
landscape beyond new
urban edge compared
to uncontrolled sprawl
86
Site Location
Spiroid Sectors
Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas
1989
Protected Texas prairie land is framed

by new sectors condensing living,
working, and recreation activities. Future
inhabitants are delivered auto-free by
high-speed Maglev transit from the DallasFort Worth Airport in minutes.
A new hierarchy of public spaces
is framed by the armatures which are
knotted in a continuous holding together
morphology. Various public passages
along the roof afford a shifting ground
plane, invigorating the interconnected
experience of the sectors spaces.
The looping armatures contain a
hybrid of macro programs; public transit
stations, health clubs, cinemas, and
galleries, with horizontal and vertical
interconnected transit. Micro-programs
of domestic activities are in smaller
adjacent structures. The smallest spiroids
form low-cost courtyard housing in experi
mental thin/thick wall construction.
Dallas-Fort Worth Airport
opposite
Clarified landscape
bracketed by spiroid
sector connects
to Dallas-Fort Worth
Airport to North Phase I
right
Maglev train connecting
four proposed spiroid
sectors and new
landscape between
Dallas and Fort Worth
89
right
Study models
opposite
Spiroid Sector:
With a high-speed rail
stop in each dense
cluster, suburban
sprawl is scraped
away for reconstituted
landscape.
90
Chapel of St. Ignatius
Within every being and every

event there is a progressive
expansion of a mysterious inner
clarity which transfigures them
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,
The Heart of the Matter
Elements of the city and the university, are
each embodied in the building scheme of
this chapel. The Seattle University campus
was planned on existing urban blocks.
We addressed the need for common green
space by siting the chapel in the center of
a former street and elongating the building
plan. New green campus quadrangles
were formed to the north, west, and south
and to the east (future).
left
Central urban location:
Seattle University
Campus
Seattle, Washington
A large reflecting pond was formed

directly to the South of the chapel. The
shallow water of this pond, the thinking
field joins with a lawn to the South to form
the forecourt for the chapel, providing
a new campus space. At night the pond
reflects a wash of light from the bell
tower and emphasizes the geometry of
the space. After nightfall, which is the time
when masses are offered in the chapel,
the light volumes become beacons shining
in all directions out across the university
campus. On certain occasions, these lights
shine throughout the entire night.
The elongated rectangular plan is
especially suited to defining campus space
as well as the processional and gathering
19941997
space within. The concept of the

seven bottles of light emerging from
a stone box are expressed in the
ground plan. A double entendre,
the concept refers to a gathering
of different lights in the over
sixty nationalities attending Seattle
University. The seven bottles of light
also refers to the liturgical elements
of the program; narthex, blessed
sacrament chapel, choir, processional
area, nave east/west, reconciliation
chapel and bell tower/reflection pool.
right
Concept:
Seven bottles of
light in a stone box
93
N
100ft
50
25
O
1
FF EL. 292.50
RO C K
SL O P
10
11
DN
DN
RO C K
SL O P
16
15
9
GARRAND
BUILDING
12
13
Site Plan
30'
14
1 Department of
Fine Arts
2 Student Union
Building
3 Lynn Nursing Building
4 Xavier Residence Hall
5 Culture Student
Housing
6 Campus Services
Building
7 Future Green
Quadrangle
8 Green Quadrangle
9 Pigott Building
10 Chapel of St. Ignatius
11 Administration Building
12 Garrand Building
13 Casey Building
14 Kannan Building
15 New Thinking Field
with Pool
16 Future Greenspace
94
Chapel of St. Ignatius
95
UCSF Mission Bay
San Francisco, California
1996
competition
The 2.65-million-square-foot program

for this competition included 1.2 million
square feet of laboratory space on
a vacant industrial site in the Mission
Bay district of San Francisco. Our
proposal for this UCSF Campus of
the Future aims at building social and
community relations on the scales
of student to student, student to faculty,
scientist to scientist, and the campus
population to its surrounding community.
The design is porous with interconnected
meeting places at several scales.
at a datum of 85'. These structures

are of regulated material and color to
form the basic spatial fabric. The second
type, public pavilion structures, are
of variety and lightweight expressions,
adding a dynamic life to the overall
campus space-forming buildings. With
the interaction of these two basic
architectures, unity is provided with
flexibility, balanced with free expression.
Campus Quadrangles
The interconnected open space

of the seven quadrangles provides
a strong definition of place for
interaction between faculty, students,
and community. These seven large
green spaces of public dimensions are
formed by the basic silent masses
of the campus buildings. The seven
quadrangles offer a variety of spatial
experiences, views, and landscape
gateways to the campus, complemented
by portals in the silent buildings that
open onto the spaces within.
The plan is made up of two basic
building types with numerous variations.
The main spaces of the campus are
formed with silent mass structures set
opposite
Quadrangles and grid of
San Francisco:
A new urban campus
right
The quadrangles
shape green chambers
on the campus
97
1 Laboratory Interaction
Lounges
Scientist to scientist
meetings are
catalyzed by these
intimate places
with outside terraces
that permeate
the research labora-
tory plans.
2 Campus Quadrangles
The interconnected
open space of
the 7 Quadrangles
provides a strong
definition of place
for interaction
between faculty,
students, and
community.

3 Programs of Meeting
& Free Architectural
Expression
To catalyze orien
tation and meetings,
such campus com
munity programs
as cafes, libraries,
day care centers,
and student services
are given heightened
definition within the
basic unity of the
campus quadrangles.
5 Wind, Water &

Sunlight
Controlled experi
ence of these
natural phenomena
characterizes
the urban and
architectural plan.
Quadrangles
open to the south
receive sunlight,
contributing to
microclimates within
the landscape.
4 Portals of Porosity
The basic quadran
gles of the campus
are formed by
buildings pierced
with numerous
open portals that
welcome the
community inside.
right and opposite

UCSF campus as
incubator for urban
development of the
Mission Bay area
98
99
MIT Master Plan
The site for the new dormitories at MIT

is a unique strip of land 90' wide and
over 2,100' long with a railroad at its
north side and Briggs Field and distant
river views at its south side. In 1903
Cambridge planned to divide the site
with four streets, and physically connect
the neighborhood to the river. The
Vassar Street Corridor master planning
process for the twenty-first century would
be an opportunity to realize these physical
and visual connections in conjunction
with the planned residential redevelopment
of Cambridge Port. However the new
master plan was based on a homogenous
seven-story brick structure all along
Vassar Street. Instead of a brick, urban
wall we envisioned this strip as a porous
membrane made up of four individual
buildings each with a different type
of permeability: vertical porosity, hori
zontal porosity, diagonal porosity,
and all-over porosity.
The light, materiality, and trans
parency of these buildings would loosen
them from the city fabric on both sides
and interconnect the city through them.
In a sense they are a living front for
the residential district to be built to
the north of them. As a front they should
be permeable. The urban planning of
the residential dormitories should support
above left
Concept sketch 1/12/99
above right
Simmons Hall
overlooking Briggs Field
along Vassar Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts
their maximum potential as inspirational

spaces in which to live and study. Each
of the dormitories would be an individual
house with a particular identity.
Social spaces are planned to bring
people together, to provoke interaction,
friendships, and dialogues. The perme
able openings between and within the four
buildings would be developed as meeting
places, terraces, lounges, and activated
passages. Porosity as a massing concept
might have programmatic potential for
the dormitory buildings. In the case
of the residence building, Simmons Hall,
individuation of the students room, indi
vidual character of the cluster or collective
portion, and individuation of the overall
residential building can contribute to the
vitality and identity of the residents.
The Sponge concept for the new
Undergraduate Residence Hall transforms
a porous building morphology via a
series of programmatic and bio-technical
functions. The overall building mass has
five large-scale openings. These roughly
correspond to main entrances, view
corridors, and the main outdoor activity
1999
terraces of the dormitory, connected

to programs such as the gymnasium.
The next scale of opening creates vertical
porosity within the section of the block.
A ruled-surface system freely connected
to sponge prints joins plan to section.
These large, dynamic openings (roughly
corresponding to the houses in the
dorm) are like lungs of the building,
bringing natural light down and moving
air up through the section.
The PerfCon structure is a
unique design, allowing for maximum
flexibility and interaction. Each of
the dormitorys single rooms has nine
operable windows over 2' 2' in size.
The 18-inch depth of the wall naturally
shades out the summer sun, while
allowing the low-angled winter sun
in to help heat the building. At night
the light from the 9-window rooms
is magical; the architecture glows with
a mysterious scale.
101
VE
RL
YS
EET
ST
.
CE
EE
TR
LIM
A NG
Site Plan
S
IE
S TR
ER
80'
102
250
W59
CARR INDO
NNIS FA IL Y
W53
N 2
NABISC
LAB RAT
NW22
STREET
EastWest Section
above left and middle

Student lounges
connect houses
on different floors
vertically.
20'
opposite
Master plan showing
different types of urban
porosity in four new
buildings
above right
Cafeteria activates
street
103
The Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art
Kansas City, Missouri
19992007
competition 1st place
The fusion of architecture, urbanism,

and landscape was an aim of our compe
tition entry for this project. The charge
to expand the 1933 museum offered the
chance to fundamentally transform
the museum toward an open relationship
with the city. During the competition
briefing we realized that the expansive
sculpture garden, open to the public
at all hours, could be the catalyst for
a new museum architecture, joined to the
original Temple of Art. The aim to fuse
architecture and landscape opened
up possibilities to shape interior space
in relation to landform rather than building
mass. The landscape is treated as a plane
extended over the galleries, a green
roof creased and pitched for continuity
with the adjacent grades. The landscape
grade to each side follows in and out of
sync with the floor levels, setting a varying
relation between interior and landscape;
one moves down into the landscape only
to unexpectedly arrive above it.
The new Bloch Building traverses
the sculpture garden with multiple entry
points. The gallery level opens to the
garden periodically as it steps down
into the landscape, the sculpture garden
in turn continues up over the galleries,
forming an indoor/outdoor museum open
to the surrounding cityscape.
An expanded field instead of an
object, the extent of the museum is
indeterminate from any single position.
Visitors can experience the museums

exterior spaces, between the lenses
and among the sculpture, at all hours.
At dusk the lenses are lit, transforming
from daylight-gathering vessels for
the galleries to glowing lanterns for the
sculpture garden.
As blocks of light, the lenses shape
space. They are instruments of light
filtering, diffusing, mixing, and intensifying
lights variation to the interior during the
day and glowing in the sculpture garden
at night.
At the Nelson-Atkins a visitors
experience begins by opening the car
door within pools of natural light from
above. Above ground, the granite-paved
plaza has a serene reflecting pool
and a sculpture by Walter de Maria,
One Sun and 34 Moons.
The interior of the building, linked
by stairways and ramps, encourages a
natural flow throughout the long structure,
allowing visitors to look from one level
to another, from inside to outside.

The meandering path in the sculpture
garden above has its complement in
open flow through the continuous level
of new galleries.
opposite
Nelson-Atkins
campus site
107
3
3
2
4 4
5
12
Lower level
30'
0
50
100
1 Upper Lobby
2 Lower Lobby
3 Contemporary Art
4 Photography
5 African Art
6 Featured Exhibitions
7 Noguchi Court
8 Museum Store
9 Library
10 Stacks
11 Multipurpose Room
12 Parking
13 Mechanical
14 Service Level
opposite bottom
Precast concrete
wave T is pierced by
the natural light from
underwater moons.
108
200
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
8
10
12
12
13
Cross Section: Lobby and Garage
25'
11
2
14
LONGITUDINAL SECTION
Longitudinal
Section
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
25'
3
14
14
50
100
Library
Upper Lobby
Event Room
Museum Store
Lower Lobby
Contemporary Art
Photography
African Art
FeaturedExhibitions
Noguchi Court
Art Service Level
Parking
Multipurpose Room
Executive Offices
Auditorium
Cafe
109
200
110
111
114
School of Art & Art History
Iowa City, Iowa
The University of Iowa campus merges

with the urban Grid of Iowa City, which
has the old State Capitol of 1842 as
its symbolic center. Projected across the
Iowa River, the grid becomes distorted
as it meets the topography of ravines
and hills descending to the rivers west
bank; there, a series of buildings for
the arts are aligned: the theater, museum,
and the original 1936 School of Art
building. At the outset of the project,
a flat green space immediately to
the west of the museum was believed
to be the best site. Our site engages and
reclaims the Quarry Pond, brings the
new building closer to the existing and
frees the proposed site for the future.
The buildings fuzzy edges create
new campus spaces, pathways, and
connections: a campus porosity. On the
west, a double height reading room marks
a new campus gateway and opens to
a sunny deck suspended over the water.
On the north, a serene urban wall of
channel glass is set against open campus
space. On Riverside Drive, situated in
relation to a major path from the main
campus, the buildings principal entrance
occurs under the curving overhang
of the auditorium. Internally, this path
continues as a public route. Through the
multiple access points, campus is drawn
into the building. The dispersion and

fuzziness of the edges is seen as a positive
way to embrace phenomena such as sun
light reflected from water on the lagoon
or the white light from freshly fallen snow.
As an analogy for a hybrid instrument,
Picassos 1912 Guitar sculpture provides
a planar open architectural language.
Two levels of the library are pushed out
into a cantilever keeping the building low
while engaging the pond.
19992006
opposite
The campus grid
dissolves at a limestone
bluff and pond at the
building site.
115
above and right

A deck that functions
both as a connecting
path and sunny place
to study
116
Section
12'
12'
Section
3
1
4
12'
Section
3
6
1 Library
2 Main Stair
3 Sculpture Studios
4 Classrooms
5 Auditorium
6 West Reading Room
Section
12'
117
8
7 7
1
2
3
4
Site Plan
25'
1 Entrance
2 Forum
3 Gallery
4 Administration
5 Cafe
6 Student Advisors
7 Art History Lecture Rooms
8 Office of Visual Material
opposite
A hybrid instrument
of weathering steel
118
119
China
Xian
CHENGDU
NANNING
Beijing
NANJING
NINGBO
SHENZHEN
Green Urban Laboratory
Nanning, China
2002
competition
Liusha Peninsula in Nanning was

once a beautiful rolling ridge of green,
which was likened to the tail of a
dragon whose head lay in Qingxiu
Mountain Park. The green dragon was
sliced by an aborted development
in the early 1990s leaving two muddy
flat plateaus. The overall shape of
the new town for this 1,865,000-squaremeter peninsula site results from
an organic link between idea and site.
A figure-8 plan takes its form from the
shape of the peninsula together with
the preservation of two large existing
green hills. The linear city loops back
over itself like natures cycles.
Two new central parks are contained
by the linear looped form. One offers
recreational and athletic activities;
the other has cultural elements such
as modern Chinese gardens, meditation
pavilions, cafes, and school playgrounds.
For this new town of approximately
27,000 residents and 9,000 units of
housing (of 120 square meters per unit
on average) are planned. The town will
also include schools, shops, hotel and
recreational facilities, as well as a Beiqiu
anthropology museum and the rebuilt
Tianning Buddhist Temple.
opposite
Liusha Peninsula
New Town: The design
began with clear
geometric relations
to the cut mountain
landscape of the
peninsula site.
The project is divided in two parts:

low-scale housing and buildings as
mountains. The main housing aims for
maximum porosity with natural ventilation
and shading. Precast concrete sections
with 50 percent wall and 50 percent
window are basic structural elements
forming porous architecture. Deep
set operable windows allow for natural
sun shading. Green roofs are hydro
ponic vegetable gardens accessible to
the residents. Within a strictly defined
building envelope, the aim of individuation
in housing is achieved through overlapping
spatial configurations.
On a higher scale, mountain buildings
of multiple stories (with a defined cubic
envelope of 60m 60m 60m) yield rich
urban experiences with multiple functions
and views over the garden city. The master
plan allows for the eventual construction
of seven of these hybrid buildings, which

could be constructed in phases.
A new light rail line is proposed to
connect the heart of Nanning with three
stops within the new town and continuing
to Qingxiu Mountain Park.
The red line is the

proposed new tram
to the city center.
right
Sketch for living above
street-front shops
123
FOLDED STRE
- THE STEPPE
SHOPS OF AL
HOTEL AND O
(TOURIST DES
EXHIBITION O
A Seven Mountains
B Dense Pack Town
C Urban Street
D Four Landscapes:
two existing hills
preserved two new
parks
CULTURAL M
- SCHOOLS
- BEIQIU ANTH
- MONASTIC C
ROCK MOUNT
(LOCAL ROUG
- RAIL STATIO
- OFFICES (TO
- COMMUNITY
- ROOFTOP O
KNOWLEDGE
- SCHOOLS / C
- AUDITORIUM
- FACULTY OF
- OTHER OFFI
IMPLOSION M
- MEDIA CENT
- CINEMAS
- DIGITAL HEA
- PARKING BE
SUBTRACTIO
- TRAIN STAT
- OFFICES, WO
- SCHOOLS AT
opposite and above

The proposed
mountains are
described in order
of construction.
124
GATE MOUN
- LUXURY APA
- HOTEL
- WORKSHOP
- SCHOOLS A
1 Folded Street
mountain
This mountain
provides space for
shops connected
by a stepped ramp,
a 100-room hotel,
and a public
observation roof
with cafe.
2 Cultural mountain
With a museum
for Bieqiu
anthropology,
schools, monastic
cells, and Tianning
Temple at top
3 Rock mountain
In local rough-cut
stone, this houses
bike and auto
garage, offices,
a community
meeting room,
and a rooftop
observation deck
4 Knowledge mountain
With schools,
auditoriums,
faculty offices,
workspaces,
reading rooms,
and a rooftop
library
5 Implosion mountain
With a media
center, cinemas,
health club,
and parking
6 Subtraction mountain
At ground level
schools adjoin
the playground;
this mountain
accommodates
a train station,
offices, work,
and studio space.
7 Gate mountain
Schools are
located at ground
level and the higher
levels are used
for workshops,
shops, luxury
apartments, and
a hotel.
8 Light Rail Train
9 New Chinese Garden
10 Cafe Pavilion
11 School Playground
12 Athletic Complex
13 Gymnasium and Pools
14 Tennis Courts
15 Basketball Courts
16 Rowing and Lap Pools
6
1
3
13
14 16
11
10
12
15
5
125
9 9
60
60
20
20
60
60
DENSE PACK ENVELOPE

10
10
15
STANDARD URBAN MODULE
1:1500
1515
6060
2020
60
6060
20
60
DENSE PACK ENVELOPE

DENSE PACK ENVELOPE
60
Standard Urban Module

1:1500
5205
1:1500
60
6060
1020
20
15
1:1500
1515
1010
6060
TYPICAL PLANS
Typical Plan
TYPE A: 1
TYPE B: 1
TYPE B: 1
TYPE C: 1
TYPE C: 1
TYPE D:
TYPE D:
TYPICAL PLANS
1:1500
TYPICAL
PLANS
OBLIQUE
VIEW
5
1020
20
60
205
5
60
6060
RETA
Geothermal cooling
from river
OBLIQUE VIEW
OBLIQUE VIEW
RESID
PARK
RETA
HARD
RETA
RESID
PARK
RESID
MAIN
SERVI
PARK
PARK
SECO
HARD
HARD
6060
Ground Floor Plan
1010
Ecosystem standards
of non-polluting
transportation: light rail
connection, electrical
hybrid cars, bike, and
pedestrian paths
STAIR
TYPECOR
C: 1
STAIR COR
TYPE D:
TYPE A: 1
1:1500
Natural ventilation
through natural passive
solar shading walls
boosted by solar
powered fans
Recycled water
system using the latest
treatment technologies
TYPE B: 1
15
Solar power by arrays

(30 percent more
efficient than current
silicon cells).
TYPE A: 1
GROUND FLOOR PLAN
1:1500
1515
The new city is to

be a model of the
underlying principles
that govern natural
cycles. The most
advanced ecological/
architectural systems
and techniques will
be employed. Some
aspects include:
STAIR COR
PARK
PARK
MAIN
MAIN
SERVI
SERVI
SECO
SECO
GROUND FLOOR PLAN

1:1500
GROUND FLOOR PLAN
1:1500
126
10
11
7
6
9
3
Sustainability Diagram
1 Green sod roof to

provide insulation and
stormwater retention
2 Maximum height
limit of four stories
eliminates elevators
3 Riverbed to allow
for energy efficient
evaporative cooling
4 Precast concrete
panels by local fly
ash concrete plants
5 Sunlight from high
and low angles
6 Photovoltaic panels
on roof
7 Hydroponic vegetable
gardens
8 Shading for
pedestrians
9 Gray-water recycling
system
10 Concrete structure
provides thermal mass
for natural radiant
cooling
11 Green roofs function
as terrace
127
CIPEA Site
visual link
to the city
Nanjing
Museum of Art
& Architecture
Nanjing, China
Perspective is the fundamental historic

difference between Western and Chinese
painting. After the thirteenth century,
Western painting developed vanishing
points in fixed perspective. Chinese
painters, although aware of perspective,
rejected the single-vanishing point
method, instead producing landscapes
with parallel perspectives in which
the viewer travels within the painting.
The new museum is sited at the
gateway to the Contemporary International
Practical Exhibition of Architecture in
the lush green landscape of the Pearl
Spring near Nanjing, China. The museum
explores the shifting viewpoints, layers
of space, and expanses of mist and water
that characterize the deep alternating
spatial mysteries of early Chinese
painting. The museum is formed by
a field of parallel perspective spaces
and garden walls in black bambooformed concrete over which a light
figure hovers. The straight passages
on the ground level gradually turn into
the winding passage of the figure above.
The upper gallery, suspended high in
the air, unwraps in a clockwise turning
sequence and culminates at in-position
viewing of the city of Nanjing in the
distance. The meaning of this rural site
becomes urban through this visual
axis to the great Ming Dynasty capital
city, Nanjing. The courtyard is paved
in recycled Old Hutong bricks from
the destroyed courtyards in the center
of Nanjing. Limiting the colors of the
museum to black and white connects
it to the ancient paintings, but also gives
a background to feature the colors and

textures of the artwork and architecture
to be exhibited within. Bamboo, previously
growing on the site, has been used in
bamboo-formed concrete, with a black
penetrating stain.
The Museum has geothermal cooling
and heating, and recycled storm water.
20022009
131
1 Museum of Art &

Architecture at site
entrance
2 Conference Centre,
Arata Isozaki
3 Recreation Centre,
Ettore Sottsass
4 Reception Centre,
Jiakun Liu
5 Circle of Interaction,
Kazuyo Sejima/Ryue
Nishizawa
6 A Construction for
One Thousand Hands,
Hrvoje Njiric

(Among several others)
1
2
above
Site for Contemporary
International
Practical Exhibition
of Architecture
Site Plan
10m
132
Museum of Art & Architecture
EastWest Section
3m
1 Main Entry
2 Exhibition
3 Model & Sculpture Gallery
4 Courtyard in recycled
brick
NorthSouth Section
3m
133
1 Main Entry
2 Exhibition
3 Model & Sculpture Gallery
4 Courtyard in recycled
brick
1
4
2
above
Looking from city back
to site, the museum
forms the entrance gate
to the site.
Ground-floor Plan
5m
134
right
Lower gallery under
construction
above and far right
Bamboo-formed
concrete
135
Linked Hybrid
Beijing, China
The 220,000 square-meter Linked

Hybrid complex, in Beijing, creates
a porous urban space, inviting and open
to the public from every side. As a
"city within a city" the new place has
a filmic urban experience of space;
around, over and through multifaceted
spatial layers. A three-dimensional public
urban space, the project has programs
that vary from commercial, residential,
and educational to recreational.
The ground level offers a number
of open passages for residents and
visitors to walk through. These passages
include micro-urbanisms of small-scale
shops which also activate the urban space
surrounding the large central reflecting
pond. On the intermediate level of the
lower buildings, public roof gardens offer
tranquil green spaces, and at the top
of the eight residential towers private roof
gardens are connected to the penthouses.
Public functions on the ground level
include restaurants, a hotel, Montessori
school, kindergarten, and cinematheque.
Elevators displace like a jump cut
to another series of passages on higher
levels. From the eighteenth floor
a multifunctional series of skybridges
with a swimming pool, a fitness room,
a cafe, a gallery, connects the eight
residential towers and the hotel
tower, and offers views over the city.
Programmatically this loop aspires to

be semi-lattice-like rather than simplis
tically linear. We hope the public sky-loop
and the base-loop will constantly generate
random relationships; functioning as
social condensers in a special experience
of city life to both residents and visitors.
Focused on the experience of passage
of the body through space, the towers
are organized to take movement, timing,
and sequence into consideration. The
point of view changes with a slight ramp
up, a slow right turn. The encircled
towers express a collective aspiration,
rather than towers as isolated objects
or private islands in an increasingly
privatized city. Our hope is for new Z
dimension urban sectors that aspire to
individuation in urban living while shaping
public space.
Geothermal wells (660 at 100
meters deep) provide Linked Hybrid with
cooling in summer and heating in winter.
The large urban space in the center
of the project is activated by a gray
water recycling pond with water lilies
and grasses. In the winter the pool
freezes to become an ice-skating rink.
The cinematheque is not only a gathering
venue but also a visual focus to the area.
The cinematheque architecture floats
on its reflection in the shallow pond,
and projections on its facades indicate
films playing within. The first floor of
the building, with views over the land
scape, is left open to the community.
The polychrome of Chinese Buddhist
architecture was used in chance
operations of the I Ching to color
top right
Four main passage
routes create a
thorough urban
porosity.
20032009
window jambs. The undersides of the

bridges and cantilevered portions are
colored membranes that glow with
projected nightlight.
All water in the project is recycled.
Gray water is piped into tanks with
ultraviolet filters, and then recirculated
into the large reflecting pond and used
to water the landscapes. Re-using the
earth excavated from the new construc
tion, five landscaped mounds to the
north support recreational functions.
The Mound of Childhood, integrated
with the kindergarten, has an entrance
portal through it. The Mound of
Adolescence holds a basketball court
and a rollerblade and skate board
area. In the Mound of Middle Age we
find a coffee and tea house (open to all),
a Tai Chi platform, and tennis courts.
The Mound of Old Age is occupied with
a wine tasting bar and the Mound of
Infinity is carved into a meditation space.
137
right
Beijing 1900 (1) shaped
by the ancient rule: that
new buildings could
not be tall enough to
look over the walls of
the Forbidden City.
Together with the giant
block size set in the
grid, this gave birth to
the hutong courtyard

typology. After 1980
Beijing grew vertically
and outward (2). With
isolated towers and
gated communities
(3) Horizontally con
nected and porous
buildings.
138
1 Cinematheque
2 Hotel
3 Pond (parking below)
4 Kindergarten/
Mound of Childhood
5 Mound of Adolesence
6 Mound of Middle Age
7 Mound of Old Age
8 Mound of Infinity
8
6
5
Site Plan
10m
opposite
Green public space on
three levels: the ground
level, on the roofs
of the lower buildings
for the cinema and
kindergarten, and
on top of the towers
140
15F
14F
16F
13F
12F
17F
16F:POOL
12F
18F
17F
CINEMA ROOF:
CHILDREN'S GARDEN
S8 ROOF: PUBLIC GARDEN
S3 ROOF: PUBLIC GARDEN
ESCALATOR
ESCALATOR
CINEMA
HOTEL
right
Three public circulation
loops: at ground level,
on top of the lower
buildings, and the loop
of skybridges
PEDESTRIAN CIRCULATION DIAGRAM
PUBLIC GARDEN ACCESS & CIRCULATION
Linked Hybrid
8
10
3
6
1
3
Floor Plans
1m
1 Entry
2 Bedroom
3 Master bedroom
4 Kitchen
5 Dining
6 Living
7 Multiuse space:
Study room/
Guest room
8 Bathroom
above top
Typical apartment with
diagonal views across
hinged space
above bottom
Typical apartment with
hinged space doors
right
Model apartment
143
Ground-floor Plan
10m
Typical Floor Plan
10m
144
Linked Hybrid
NorthSouth Section
EastWest Section
6m
6m
145
A variety of functions
in the semipublic bridge
loop connecting eight
towers via eight bridges
Linked Hybrid
DINING DECK
READING
ROOM
15F: DESIGN STORE
13F: ART GALLERY
13F: VIEWING PLATFORM
12F: EXHIBITION SPACE
12F: ART GALLERY
14F: ARCHITECTURE
GALLERY
ULTRA
LOUNGE
SCULPTURE /
ARCHITECTURE
GALLERY
14F: BOOK STORE

15F: COFFEE SHOP
12F: BAR / COCKTAIL

LOUNGE
CAFE
SEATING
BOOK EVENT
SPACE
SPORTS CLUB
LISTENING
LOUNGE
HEALTH SPA
TEA
SEATING
ENTRY POINT
16F: TEA STORE
COFFEE HOUSE / BAR
15F: GAMING SPACE
BOOK SHOP
EXHIBITIONS
VIEWING
PLATFORM
GROUP
EXCERCISE SPACE
17F: BRIDGE ENTRY LOUNGE

16F: HEALTH FOOD STORE
SUSPENDED
CATWALK
17F: HAIR / NAIL SALON
3 LANE
LAP POOL
18F: STRENGTH TRAINING
17F: FITNESS TRAINING
18F: PERSONAL TRAINER
17F: MEETING PLACE
17F: JUICE BAR /

BRIDGE ENTRY
18F: SPA / MASSAGE
17F: WOMEN'S LOCKER ROOM
18F: OFFICE / MEN'S

LOCKER ENTRY
18F: SPINNING ROOM

17F: MEN'S LOCKER ROOM
17F: MEN'S LOCKER

ROOM
16F: LAUNDRY / MECH
147
Linked Hybrid
right
Bridge interior
149
1
above
Public reflecting pool
utilizing recycled greywater. The project
has been awarded with
the AIA NY Sustainable
Design Award 2008 as
well as with a Popular
Science Engineering
Award for Largest
Geothermal Housing
Complex in 2006.
above right
660 geothermal wells,
100 meters deep
right
Gray-water system:
1 Roof garden irrigation
2 Toilet flushing
3 Landscape irrigation
4 Pond water makeup
5 Gray water from 650
apartments
3
4
150
Linked Hybrid
151
152
Linked Hybrid
NorthSouth Section Cinematheque
opposite
The cinematheque
architecture floats on
a shallow pond. Its
first floor is openly
constructed, leaving
space for the commu
nity. It houses three
cinemas, with 94, 118,
and 218 seats. The
roof is a public garden.
2m
Upper-level Plan
2m
153
right
Hotel plan
Typical Floor Plan
1m
154
Linked Hybrid
above and right

Five landscaped
mounds to the north
contain recreational
functions. The
Mound of Childhood,
integrated with the
kindergarten, has
a tunnel through
it. The Mound of
Adolescence holds
a basket ball court,
and a rollerblade and
skateboard area.
In the Mound of Middle
Age we find a coffee
and tea house open
to the public, a Tai Chi
platform, and tennis
courts. The Mound
of Old Age is occupied
by a wine tasting
bar, and the Mound
of Infinity forms
a meditation space.
155
North-South Section Kindergarten
Typical Floor Plan
1m
1m
156
Linked Hybrid
above
Construction:
skylights and courts in
the Montessori school
and kindergarten, which
will have a green roof.
Kindergarten Sections
1m
157
Unfolded Elevation
Section
The Mound of Infinity

forms a space of
reflection and medita
tion. The mound
is sliced with an infinity
diagram-like incision
with the north section
carved out in concrete
with a stone floor.
The large circular
opening for the main
entry is scaled to
match the disc-shaped
geometry of the Milky
Way galaxy 100,000
light years across,
10,000 light years thick.
The other elliptical
openings refer to the
many other galaxies.
In Chinese cosmology the square is
a symbol of the earth
and daily life, the circle
that of the heavens
and beyond.
Plan
2m
2m
2m
158
Linked Hybrid
159
Linked Hybrid
161
Xian New Town
Xian, China
2005
competition
The concept for Xian New Town is based

on a twenty-first century reading of the
ancient grid of Chang-An, the ancient
capitol and the beginning point of the Silk
Road. Chang-An, which means forever
peace, had a grid based on walking steps
with blocks proportioned in 100 strides
by 60 strides. This idealized grid became
the inspiration for plans of many later
cities such as Beijing and Kyoto.
In Xian New Town, a new grid
city, the dimensions are all related
to human measurements. Compared
to automobile-driven urbanism, which
segregates programs into zones,
our plan seeks to create an integrated
fabric serving the moderate and low
income residents of the city. No matter
the social status of the resident, housing
is always within walking distance to
shops, parks, schools, cultural programs,
and libraries.
Four quadrants of a low-scale
residential fabric are complemented by
a group of taller structures placed on the
north. Each quadrant is a self-sufficient
neighborhood. Park voids are cut
from this fabric employing the enlarged
calligraphy geometry from a poem
by Chang-Ans great ancient poet Tu Fu
(713770). Each one of the four quadrants
of the main town fabric can be built
separately; each contains a large green
park and recycled graywater pond
opposite
Ancient grid of
Chang-An
above right
Concept Sketch;
Calligraphic cuts
with water plants and wildlife. Aspects

of Feng Shui were followed for the
placement of buildings and landscaping.
The 24 story residential fabric
of Xian New Town for low-cost housing
is developed from prefabricated, airentrenched concrete elements which
set the geometry of the garden and
passage spaces. Within these frames,
individually developed floor plans, room
configurations, details, wall tile work,
finishes, and colors allow the house
owners individualized expression. The
prefabricated walls contain the structure,
insulation, wiring links, and rough
plumbing. All roofs will be covered with
sedum planting.
Whereas the town center houses
the largest public facilities, primary
and secondary schools will be located
in the residential quadrants. These
buildings will be designed individually
to add to the unique character of
the parks.
The towers in the town center are
conceived as a spatial group, bracketing
a public space for the new town with
a centrally located library, museum, and
cultural center. These towers are of
mixed use; some contain offices, some
hotels, some residences with splendid
views across the green roofs and gardens
of the new town.
Using permeable ground surfaces
(porous concrete, grass pavers, and
gravel) allows for greater ground water
retention and minimizes erosion. The gray
water ponds provide evaporative cooling in
summer months.
165
Site Plan
opposite
View from residential
area to CBD
166
168
Horizontal Skyscraper
(Vanke Center)
Shenzhen, China
20062009
Hovering over a public tropical garden,

this horizontal skyscraperas long
as the Empire State Building is tall
is a hybrid building including apartments,
a hotel, and offices for the headquarters
for Vanke Co. A conference center,
spa, and parking are located under the
large green, tropical landscape which
is characterized by mounds containing
restaurants and a 500-seat auditorium.
The building appears as if it were
once floating on a higher sea that has now
subsided; leaving the structure propped
up high on eight legs. The decision to
float one large structure right under the
35-meter height limit, instead of several
smaller structures each catering to a
specific program, generates the largest
possible green space open to the public
on the ground level.
The underside of the floating structure
becomes its main elevationthe sixth
elevationfrom which Shenzhen windows
offer 360-degree views over the lush
tropical landscape below. A public path
beginning at the dragons head connects
through the hotel, and the apartment
zones up to the office wings.
above
A horizontal skyscraper as long
as the Empire State
Building is tall
floats under the
35-meter height
limit, elevated
to allow a public
tropical landscape.
right
In twenty-seven
years, Shenzhen has
developed from a small
fishing village into
a modern city of over
10 million residents,
one of the most rapid
urbanizations in
world history.
As tropical strategy, the building

and the landscape integrate several
new sustainable aspects: A microclimate
is created by cooling ponds fed by
a gray water system. The building has
a green roof with solar panels and
uses local materials such as bamboo.
The glass facade of the building will
be protected against the sun and wind
by perforated louvers. The building
is a tsunami-proof hovering architecture
that creates a porous microclimate of
public open landscape.
Vanke Center
Shenzhen
Hong Kong
169
35m
height
limit
ocean view
this page and opposite

The decision to float
the structure under
the 35-meter height
limit, instead of
covering the ground
plane, generates
the largest possible
green space open
to the public on the
ground level, as
well as providing
views to the South
China Sea.
170
172
Hotel, residences, and

offices in one unified
building hovering over
a maximized public
landscape of tropical
gardens and cafes
173
2
16
14
15
4
3
17
13
12
7
11
9
10
Site Plan
10m
1 Truck Entrance
2 Car Exit
3 Vanke HQ Drop Off
4 SoHo Entry
5 Vanke Entry
6 Light Court
7 Shops
8 Vanke Entrance
9 Cafes
10 Bar with Kitchen
11 Condo Entrance
12 Hotel Pool
13 Pool Falls
14 Auditorium
5 Spa
1
16 Hotel Entrance
17 Restaurant
174
Sections
6m
Sections
6m
2
B
3
C
A Vanke Headquarters
B SoHo
C Apartments
D Hotel
1 Gym
2 Business Center
3 Vanke Cafe
175
opposite top
Auditorium mound
in construction
opposite bottom
A public path connects
through the hotel,
and the apartment
zones up to the Vanke
office wings.
1 Semipublic Interior
Path
2 Exterior Path
connects all entrances
1
177
SUN PROTECTED OUTDOOR SPACES
Shenzhen 360-degree
window: a suspended
panorama dropping
down from the 6th
facade; Public space
viewed from a new
angle
SEA BREEZE
178
179
above
The landscape,
inspired by Roberto
Burle Marxs gardens
in Brazil contains
restaurants and cafes
in vegetated mounds
bracketed with pools
and walkways. At night
a walk through this
landscape of flowering
tropical plants will mix
the smell of jasmine
with the colorful
SWAglow
PLAN
of the undersides of
the structure floating
above.
right
Previous master plans
(A) only had 28,000
square meters of
green space. The
SHA master plan (B)
adds 15,000 square
DESIGN
meters moreSHAS
than was
originally available
on the siteby adding
a green roof. The total
green space is now
75,000m2 open to
the public.
Landscape Plan
12m
SITE
VANKE CENTER
LANDSCAPE
SITE
VANKE CENTER
LANDSCAPE
60000 m
32000 m
+
60000 m
28000 m
=
75000
180
above
Earthquake model with
Chief Engineer Dr. Xiao
Congzhen, loaded with
forty tons and tested
to withstand maximum
earthquake forces
right and opposite
A new urban layer to
Shenzhen: Suspended
on eight cores, as
far as 50 meters
apart, this structure
is a combination
of cable-stay bridge
technology merged
with a high-strength
concrete frame.
182
183
top
Winning competition
model, July 2006
bottom
Construction view,
2008
185
Sliced Porosity Block
Chengdu, China
The Sliced Porosity Block is a hybrid

of different functions, like a giant chunk
of a metropolis. It will be located just
south of the intersection of the First Ring
Road and Ren Min Nan Road in Chengdu.
Its sun-sliced geometry results from
required minimum sunlight exposures
to the surrounding urban fabric, pre
scribed by code and calculated by the
precise geometry of sun angles.
The large public space framed
by the block is formed into three valleys,
inspired by a poem by Tu Fu. In some
of the porous openings chunks of different
buildings are inserted.
Our microurban strategy will

create a new terrain of public space;
an urban terrace on the metropolitan
scale of Rockefeller Center. This
new terrain is sculpted by stone steps
and ramps, with large pools that spill
into stepped fountains. Trees, plantings,
and benches are flanked with cafes,
and escalators soaring up to suspended
pavilions. Roof gardens are cultivated
through their individual connections
to condominiums or hotel cafes.
At the shop fronts there will
be luminous color, neon, backlit color
transparencylike the wash of color
opposite and right

Located in proximity
to the center of
Chengdu, one of the
oldest continuously
20072012
that suddenly appears in the great black

and white films of Andrei Tarkovsky.
The aim for the Sliced Porosity
Block is to form new public space and
to realize new levels of green construction
in Chengdu. The complex is heated
and cooled geothermally by four hundred
and eighty wells. The large podium
ponds harvest recycled rainwater with
natural grasses and lily pads creating
a cooling effect.
inhabited cities
in China (Chengdu
is over 2,000
years old)
187

Six design strategies:
1 Integral urban functions
shape public space
2 Porosity
3 Microurbanism
4 Super-green
architecture
5 Three valleys inner
gardens
6 Spatial geometry
lit via pond skylights
The three plaza ponds

are inspired by a poem
by Tu Fu (713770),
in which he writes:
This fugitive between
the earth and sky,
from the northeast
storm-tossed to
the southwest, time
has left stranded
in three valleys.
opposite
Sun angles precisely
slice the block to allow
the code-required
two hours minimum
of sunlight to the
adjacent residential
buildings.
188
189
2
1
Site Plan
12m
1 Office
2 Hotel
3 Serviced Apartments
190
above
Maximum porosity:
three of the six
different entries
to the public plaza
191
LE
Section through Hotels Looking West
6m
192
1 Office
2 Hotel
3 Serviced Apartments
4 SoHo Office/Residence
5 Retail
6 Circulation
3
1
4
1
SOHO
OFFICE / RES
Level 11 Floor Plan
10m
LEGEND
11
6
6
SOHO
OFFICE / RES
LEGEND
Level 2 Floor Plan
10m
193
A
18
B
18
4
7
18
20
18
8
18
8
1
8
11
10
13
3
5
14
15
15
5
6
12
16
7
E
19
17
Diagrammatic section showing public loop in red
A Office
B Hotel
C Serviced Apartments
D SoHo Apartments
E Retail
1 Site History Pavilion

2 High Tech Pavilion
by Lebbeus Woods
3 Tu Fu Pavillion
4 Event Space
5 Public Circulation
6 Restaurant
7 Fitness
8 Mechanical
9 Conference Center
10 Cinema
11 Gallery
12 Auditorium
13 Ceremonial Space
4 Business Center
1
15 Lounge
16 Ballroom
17 Basement/Parking
18 Roof Garden
19 Subway Connection
20 Swimming Pool
right
488 geothermal
wells now in place
under the first
basement level
opposite
View at main ramp
to public plaza
with shop fronts
along street
194
Ningbo Fine Grain
Ningbo, China
2008
competition
Our proposal for Ningbo consists

of a twenty-first century water town
based on five strategies:
1. Ecological Urbanism
Transportation by solar-powered
water taxis minimizes dependence
on automobile transportation. Parking
is located at perimeter areas with a
typical walking distance of 200 meters.
There is geothermal cooling and heating,
supplemented by solar panels at roof
garden terraces, and complemented
by green sedum roofs and a storm-water
and gray-water recycling system.
2. Integration of Functions
for 24-hour life
Live/work/shop/entertaining functions are

integrated across the site in a gentle mix.
via a computer program (www.random

.org). This allows for maximum variety
of spatial experience and variety
of new water-edge architecture.
The chance-based process allows for
maximum functional flexibility and
program adjustment within a fine grain.
and concert halls. Unique parks such

as the park of solar pergolas (powering
fountains) shape spaces inside the
overall fine grain.
4. Reflection Phenomena
We envisioned the architecture with the

reflection in the canal water from its
inception. Color and light in reflection
are a unique urban experience here.
5. Unique Parks and
Cultural Architecture
Marking the main north-south axis

connecting this new sector to the larger
master plan, we envision a unique
grouping of architecture housing cinemas
3. Fine Grain Morphology/

Water Edge Architecture
Aimed at close integration to the unique

water edge character of this new
Ningbo sector, a special fine grain urban
morphology is invented. Based on the
typical spacing in construction of
10 meter by 10 meter bays, the entire
site is gridded. A chance-based process
aimed at achieving the build out area
of 500,000 square meters is introduced
A Ningbo 2

New Exhibition Area,

Large Grain
B Ningbo 1

New 21st Century

Watertown Gateway,

Fine Grain
Gateway District
Old Ningbo
Eastern New Town
197
South Korea
Japan
SEOUL
FUKUOKA
Chiba, tokyo
World Design
Park Complex
Seoul, South Korea
2007
competition
The weave concept for this project

refers to four strategies: (1) a double
level and Vertical Park in the form
of a weave, (2) a relation to the old
historic morphology of Seouls Kangbuk
district with its intricate weave of
streets, historic structures and gardens,
(3) the new role of the surrounding
fashion district and textiles, and
(4) a 21st century aspiration to fuse
landscape, urbanism and architecture.
The sites historic trace of the
ancient castle wall is envisioned to be
reconstructed in cast glass blocks which
are the same size and dimensions of
the original stones. At night, these glass
blocks will glow and add a special
quality to the new landscape.
The basic morphology of the
macroscale weave is based on a triaxial fabric which yields six-sided voids.
These spaces take on various configu
rationsskylights, gardens, water ponds,
fountainsas the phase change of the
weave responds to variations over the
landscape. At the sites southwest corner,
the weave suddenly turns vertical,
forming an open porous framework for
the relocation of a vertical section of

the Park. The tri-axial structure is open
with an open-air carbon-fiber weave
curtain. On the upper level, elevators
serve a sky bar and cafe, public obser
vation deck and visitors information
centre, while a large below grade public
lobby joins all public circulation to
the subway stations and underground
shopping malls.
A Vertical Park
as landmark
B Convention and
Exhibition Centers
C Double layered
park as maximized
green space
D Castle wall as
historical root.
201
202
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
A Sky Bar & Park

Observatory
B Office
C Vertical Open Park
D Park Information
& Open Exhibition
E Education Center
F Design Information
Center
G Convention Hall
H Special Exhibition
I Exhibition
J Collection Storage
K Underground
Shopping Mall
L Underground Annex
203
Void Space/
Hinged Space
Fukuoka, Japan
19891991
From hinged space to the silence of void

space; four active north-facing voids
interlock with four quiet south-facing
voids to bring a sense of the sacred into
direct contact with everyday domestic
life. To ensure emptiness, the south voids
are flooded with water; the sun makes
flickering reflections across the ceilings
of the north courts and apartment interiors.
Interiors of the twenty-eight apart
ments revolve around the concept of
hinged space, a development of the
multiuse traditional Shoji and Fusuma
taken into an entirely modern dimension.
One type of hinging, diurnal, allows
an expansion of the living area during
the day, reclaimed for bedrooms at
night. Another type, episodic, reflects
the change in a family over time: rooms
can be added or subtracted to accomo
date grown-up children leaving the
family or elderly parents moving in.
An experiential sense of passage
through space is heightened in the
three types of access, which allow all
apartments to have exterior front doors.
On the lower passage, views across
the water court and through the north
voids activate the walk spatially from side
to side. Along the north passage one
has a sense of suspension with the park
in the distance. The top passage has
a sky view under direct sunlight.
The building, with its street-aligned
shops and intentionally simple facades,
is seen as part of a city in its effort to form
space rather than become an architecture
of object. Space is its medium, from urban
to private, hinged space.
205
1 Structure
Concrete bearing
walls with second
ary columns at
midslab. West
elevations of the
courts are infill
curtain walls, east
elevations are
concrete bearing
walls. To the
passerby headed
west, the compo
sition of the building
is planar; to the
one headed east
the building appears
volumetric.
2 Passage between
voids/public
walk-ways;
Each apartment
has an outside
front door. Each
of the three
passages develops
a different spatial
relation: inside,
above, or beside
the courts.
3 Spatial extension
4 Hinged space
The plan of
each unit can
be reconfigured
to accomdate
diurnal and
episodic changes.
opposite
Exploded axonometric
following spread
2007 view: project
happily inhabited
for fifteen years
206
Void Space/Hinged Space
207
Makuhari Bay New Town
Chiba, Japan
The new town of Makuhari is sited on

dredged fill at the northeast rim of Tokyo
Bay. The urban planners had set rules
for building height limits, tree-lined
streets, and areas for shops. Each city
block was to be designed by three or
four different architects.
We realized their strategy would
result in a poor spatial definition
(four different architect facades). We
proposed to shape the whole block
and let three other architects design
apartments within.
Our concept proposed the inter
relation of two distinct types: silent
heavyweight buildings and active light
weight structures. The silent buildings
shape the forms of urban space and
passage with apartments entered via
the inner garden courts. The concrete
bearing wall structures have thick
facades and a rhythmic repetition
of openings (with variation in window
or deck). Slightly inflected, by sun
angle calculations they gently bend
space and passage, interrelating
with movement and the lightweight
structures.
Miniature and natural phenomena
are celebrated in the lightweight activist
force of individual characters and
programs. These individuated sounds
invade the heavyweight silence of
the bracketing buildings.
Inspired by Bashos The Narrow Road

to the Deep North, the semipublic inner
gardens and the perspectival arrangement
of activist houses form an inner journey.
opposite
Site in the center of the
new town of Makuhari;
shaping public space
19921996
right
Sun inflection
diagram
211
2
1
3
4
above
Axonometric
diagram: silent and
activist buildings
212
Activist Buildings
1 East Gate: Sunlight
Reflecting House
2 North Gate: Color
Reflecting House
3 North Court: Water
Reflecting House
4 South Court: Public
Meeting Room/House
of Shadow
5 West Gate: House
of Fallen Persimmon
6 South Gate: House
of Nothing
213
Site Plan
1 East Gate: Sunlight

reflecting house
2 North Gate: Color
reflecting house
3 North Court: Water
reflecting house
4 South Court: House
of Shadow
3m
Section
3m
left
House of Shadow
215
The Netherlands
Finland
AMSTERDAM
HELSINKI
Manifold Hybrid
In mathematics, the way to get

a geometrical manifold is to take a
polyhedral chunk from a geometrical
space and identify its faces pair-wise
with each other.
George Francis, A Topological
Picture Book
Amsterdam,
The Netherlands
1994
adds a unique dimension to the

interiors. Just as the interior is a harbor
of the soul, the U-shaped building
is itself a harbor, with a section of a small
city surrounding it on three sides.
Situated on reused shipping quays

overlooking the water, this housing block
of 182 apartments is part of an urban
plan for housing that calls for three large
super blocks in a lower urban field
of garden row houses. The new eighteenstory block is envisioned as a section
of a new city with several functions:
offices, a small art gallery, a restaurant,
a boat house, a deli, and a health
club. Eleven different apartment types
are accessed by very different paths.
As a fifty-six-meter cube, the rotations
and translations of this manifold building
are seen from below as colored folds.
The heart of the block is a huge water
court that can accommodate visiting
houseboats in the Amsterdam tradition.
The penetrating stain on the concrete
is of black, blue, and yellow colors guiding
visitors on the multiple routes within.
The horizon view of Amsterdam is an
important asset to these apartments, and
the interlocking geometry of the sections
opposite
Manifold Hybrid in the
horizontally oriented
urban plan of BorneoSporenburg
219
220
Sarphatistraat Offices
Amsterdam,
The Netherlands
In Amsterdam, on the Singel Canal, this

renovated building is the former federal
medical supplies warehouse. The main
structure is a four-story brick U merging
internally with a new sponge pavilion
on the canal. Although the exterior expres
sion is one of complementary contrast
(existing brick adjacent to new perforated
copper), the interior strategy is one of
fusion.
The porous architecture of the
rectangular pavilion is inscribed with
a concept from the music of Morton
Feldmans Patterns in a Chromatic Field.
The ambition to achieve a space of
gossamer optic phenomena with chancelocated reflected color is especially
effective at night when the color patches
paint and reflect in the canal. The layers
of perforated materials, from copper
on the exterior to plywood on the interior,
contain all services such as lighting,
supply, and return air grilles. The
perforated screens developed in three
dimensions are analogous to the Menger
sponge principle of openings continuously
cut in planes approaching zero volume.
Chromatic Space is formed by light
bounced between the buildings layers.
At night, light trapped between screens
sometimes appears as thick floating
blocks of color. At other times the passing
sun creates a throbbing color wash or
moving moire patterns.
The complex is entered through

the original twentieth-century brick
courtyard. Passing through the interior
reveals gradually more porous spaces
until reaching the Menger sponge pavilion
overlooking the canal. While the major
portion of the 50,000 square-foot project
is workspace for the social housing
companys employees, the large sponge
space is open for all uses, from public
gatherings to performance events. Giving
back to the community, the immediate
canal edge has a new boardwalk.
opposite
1835 map with
site in red
19962000
above
Menger Sponge
221
8
9
Ground Floor Plan
3m
1 Main Entrance
2 Entrance
3 Main Lobby
4 Offices
5 Lobby/Exhibitions
6 Conference/
Restaurant
7 Outdoor Seating
Area
8 Boat Landing
9 Canal
222
above
The canal painted
at night
right
Morton Feldmans
score for Patterns
in a Chromatic Field
223
Toolenburg-Zuid
The competition-winning scheme for

Toolenburg-Zuid was based on three
principle planning concepts.
20 Percent Water
The polder is returned to 20 percent

water in the form of a large calligraphic
cut. The earth displaced for the water
calligraphy is used to create a topological
earth calligraphy.
Ascending Section
Like the distant ascending jets, an

ascending section moves across the site
at a 5 degree angle, reaching a total
height of 80 meters in the Cactus Towers,
which overlook the adjacent sites lake
recreation area. This sectional ascent,
with the bearing angle from north to south,
maximizes sunlight in all sections.
Six Housing Types for
Twenty-first Century Living
This series of six different building

types present a diversity of programs
on a large scale. The range of variables
in each basic type is digitally stretched
to the point of transforming (almost
morphing) into other types: Cactus
Towers, Polder Voids, Co-Housing Arms,
Floating Villas, Checkerboard Villas,
and House-Factories.
Amsterdam,
The Netherlands
Five Ideals for the
Twenty-First Century
1. Space-Time-Information
Toolenburg-Zuid is envisioned as a hybrid

zone oriented toward world citizens.
As a global site, home owners will be able
to remain virtually connected to their
homes across space and time.
2. Combinatory & Crossbred Living
Toolenburg-Zuid is designed as a site

for programmatic hybridization,
allowing for varied lifestyles and living
arrangements. The project provides towerlofts for the global commuter, courtyard
houses for the family commuter with
two children and a dog, and the house
factory for the young sculptor in need
of workspace. The variety of specialized
housing types, such as co-housing for
groups of single-parent families,
celebrate the vital and dynamic resi
dential community that results from
2002
the contemporary diversity of family

arrangements.
3. Live-Work-Leisure
The integration of working, living, and

recreation is an ideal.
4. Global Living without
Automobile Dependency
Minutes by train from Amsterdam Airport

Schiphol, the new housing is connected
by an inner tram loop, allowing for life free
of the automobile.
5. Ecology & Metonymy
Ecological goals of each part of the

project relate to the environment of
the whole, with each part designed to
optimize its particular design. Throughout
the project, maximum use is made of
passive solar, natural ventilation, and other
renewable forms of energy. Recycling and
composting facilities provide nutrients to
the landscape.
opposite
Toolenburg Zuid
at the intersection
of the global and
the local (Schiphol
landing patterns
in white)
225
1 Cactus Towers
2 House Factory
3 Polder Voids
4 Co-Housing
5 Floating Villas
6 Checkerboard
Garden Houses
4
3
5
6
Site Plan
Toolenburg-Zuid
228
Toolenburg-Zuid
229
Kiasma
Helsinki, Finland
19921998
The site for Kiasma lies in the heart of

Helsinki at the foot of the Parliament
building to the west, with Eliel Saarinens
Helsinki Station to the east, and Alvar
Aaltos Finlandia Hall to the north. The
challenging nature of this site stems from
the confluence of the various city grids,
from the proximity of the monuments, and
from the triangular shape that potentially
opens to Tl Bay in the distance. The
concept of Kiasma involves the buildings
mass intertwining with the geometry
of the city, landscape, and the northern
lights. An implicit cultural line links
the building to Finlandia Hall while it
also engages a natural line connecting
to the back landscape and Tl Bay.
The landscape was planned to extend
the bay up to the building in order
to provide an area for the future civic
development along this tapering body
of water. The horizontal light of northern
latitudes is enhanced by a waterscape
that would serve as an urban mirror,
thereby linking the museum to Helsinkis
Tl heart, which on a clear day,
in Aaltos words, extends to Lapland.
This water extension from Tl Bay
intertwines with and passes through the
museum. The gentle sound of moving
water can be heard when walking through
the cusp of the building section which
remains open for passage year-round.
opposite
1 Parliament
2 Finlandia Hall
3 Central Station
The ponds are not intended to be drained.

Instead, they are allowed to freeze in
winter according to a detail first devised
by Eliel Saarinen for the accommodation
of the expansion of water during freezing.
During the early evening hours of the
winter months, glowing light escaping
from the interior of the building along
the west facade invites the public inside.
Kiasma serves as an art forum, open
and flexible for staged events, dance
and music performances, and seminars.
Placing the cafe at ground levelopen
to both the garden and the lobbymakes
it adaptable to informal events. With
Kiasma, there is a hope to confirm that
architecture, art, and culture are not
separate disciplines but are all integral
parts of the city and landscape. Through
care in development of details and
materials, the museum provides a dynamic
yet subtle spatial form, extending the city
toward the south and the landscape to
the north. The geometry has an interior
mystery and an exterior horizon that,
like two hands clasping each other, form
the architectonic equivalent of a public

invitation. The interior refers to the
landscape and a line of movement through
the site that, in this special place and
circumstance, is a synthesis of building
and landscape. ..a kiasma.
above
The original concept
sketch: a fusion of
architecture, urbanism,
and landscape
231
Site Plan
8m
100
above
Kiasma in context:
crisscrossing urban
geometry.
opposite
Mannerheim statue
with cafe activated
public space
232
Kiasma
233
13
+11.82 0
11
+12.780
CORRIDOR
Section
2m
1 Info
2 Bookstore
3 Coat Check
4 Cafeteria
5 Bar
6 Auditorium Lobby
7 Auditorium
8 Mechanical Room
9 Lobby
10 Library
11 Permanent Galleries
12 Offices
13 Temporary Galleries
234
Kiasma
13
10
5
11
12
4
3
1
Floor Plans
6m
235
Meander
Helsinki, Finland
2006
This residential project is located in

Helsinkis cultural and historical district
Taka-Tl along the Taivallahti Bay.
The site is enclosed by the Taivallahti
Barracks, two apartment buildings, and
an office block. Out of the bounded inner
block the 8,886-square-meter Meander
rises in section toward the sea horizon,
providing breathing space to the historic
barracks, and maximizing views and
sunlight to the forty-nine apartments
in the new building.
The 180-meter-long concrete, wood,
and glass building, with a height varying
from two to seven floors, meanders across
the rectangular courtyard like a musical
score, shaping garden void spaces within
the block. Meander is carried by concrete
walls, and glazed with horizontally hinged
panels of intelligent glass to maximize
control of light and solar gain.
This glass skin of the building slightly
varies in shade from transparent to opaque
with thermal elements and functions
like chameleon skin. Among the public
spaces for residents is a rooftop sauna
with sea views.
opposite
New energy to an
enclosed Helsinki
perimeter block
237
Italy
France
PARIS
MILAN
Porta-Vittoria
Milan, Italy
The site for this project is a disused

freight rail yard, bordered by blocks of
housing of different types. The site fronts
onto Largo Marinai dItalia, a ragged
park on land reclaimed from a poultry
and vegetable market in the nineteenthcentury gridded portion of Milan, outside
the historical center. The conviction
behind this project is that an open work
an open futureis a source of human
freedom. To investigate the uncertain,
to bring out unexpected properties,
to define psychological space, to allow
the modern soul to emerge, and to
propose built configurations in the
face of major social and programmatic
uncertainty: this is the intention for
the continuation of a theoretical Milan.
From a dense center, Milan unfolds
in circles ringed by a patchwork grid
that finally sprawls raggedly into the
landscape. Against this centrifugal
urban sprawl (from dense core to light
periphery), a reversal is proposed:
light and fine-grained toward the center,
heavy and volumetric toward the peri
phery. This proposal projects a new ring
of density and intensity, adjoining the
rolling green of a reconstituted landscape.
A new strategy for urban morphology
is explored; instead of an a priori plan
projected later into perspectives, perspec
tive views of overlapping imagined urban
spaces are drawn and projected

backward into plan fragments. With
the help of a sectional correlation
chart these space fragments are
adjusted to form a whole city sector
where independently characteristics
of programs and building sections
are intensified. Diverse building sections
and program relations form a prepositional chart suggesting the intrinsic
intersection of programs as a bonding,
fastening, or disjunctive force. Of
these specific ideas, several might
be realized, and yet the overall strategy
and intention depends on none of them.
They serve only as examples for
the figure in the landscape of this city
for which the unknown is a source
1986
of optimism. To affirm the joy of the

present, to find lines of escape, to
subvert an overall urban plan from within
via architectureis part of projecting
an open future as a source of freedom.
opposite
Milans canals: past
and present with project
241
above
Porta Vittoria: light and
fine-grained toward
the center; heavy and
volumetric toward the
periphery
opposite
Urban correlation chart:
Beginning with the four
primary relations of
architectureunder
the ground, in the
ground, on the ground,
and over the ground,
a prepositional chart
of relations is developed
as a planning tool.
242
Porta-Vittoria
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
A Primary Relations
B Near
C Over
D Atop
E Under
F Within
G Against
H Between
I Through
J Across
K Beside
L From
1 Under within a within

(below)
2 Over within a within
(below)
3 Atop an under (below)
4 Atop a from (below)
5 Over a through (in)
6 Against an under (in)
7 Under a between (in)
8 Across (on) over
a through (under)
9 Atop a vertical through
(in)
10 Through a beside (in)
11 Across an atop beside
(on)
12 Atop an across (in)
13 Within a through (on)
14 Through a from (on)
5 Through atop (on)

1
16 Within atop (on)
17 From a within through
(on)
18 Atop a between (on)
19 Above near from
a within (on)
20 Within a from beside
(above)
21 Over an against (on)
22 Against an over
(above)
23 Across against a from
(above)
24 Under an across
(above)
243
Lombardia Regional
Government Center
Milan, Italy
The Lombardia Regional Government

Center forms a new Civic Piazza for
Milan: a twenty-first century urban space.
As opposed to conventional practice,
which tends to restrict public space to
ground level, a new public openness on
the part of the regional administration
will be expressed by placing major public
spaces in an upper frame with magnificent
views encompassing the city and the
Alps. While the new piazza has public
functions and cafes activating the ground
level, ceremonial functions such as press
conferences, exhibitions, and debates
will take place on the upper level with
a regional rather than a local backdrop.
The dual condition of the local (urban)
and regional (landscape) aspects of
the Lombardia center will be emphasized
by the new Civic Piazza and the upper
level alpine views.
Offices in the supporting towers
maximize functions in their openness
to air and light. Circulation is facilitated
by horizontal connections between
verticals at grade, midpoint, and upper
levels. The piazza paved in red Porfido
Lombardian stone has arcades with
shops and cafes with entrances on the
street side as well as the piazza side.
Water from the canal is filtered and utilized
in three Canals of Milan fountains,
located centrally in the piazza with glass
lenses on their bottoms, bringing light
to the parking below. The highest levels

of the complex are crowned by a public
observation deck and the presidents
offices. These mark the prow of the new
urban composition, aligned urbanistically
and geometrically with the Pirelli tower.
At night the special glowing walls of the
complex radiate the sunlight captured
2004
that day from the roofs photovoltaic cells,

yielding different qualities of light by night
depending on the previous days sun.
opposite
Public space defining
architecture of Milan
245
right
Public spaces
on the upper level
with dramatic
views over Milan
opposite
View from the Pirelli
Tower
Site Plan
15m
246
Lombardia Regional Government Center
247
Les Halles
Paris, France
In our scheme for the Les Halles compe

tition, 1980, a compressed account of
the sites history gives form to the grand
urban place. Marble slabs mark the
rectangles where the Les Halles pavilions
of Baltard once stood. Trees may be
planted in place of the iron columns.
The white marble slabs are inlaid with
stone patterns demarking streets and
buildings displaced by consecutive devel
opments on this ancient site. The new
place, of a volume on the order of the
Palais Royale, the Place des Vosges, and
the Place du Carrousel, has no aristocratic
program of palatial residences to form
its boundaries. Here instead is a chance
for a twentieth-century place. The walls
that surround it are lined with arcades
made entirely of sandblasted glass.
These translucent walls echo the events
of this site since the destruction of the
stone fortress of 1853 and the subsequent
creation of a new architecture of glass.
Houses of traditional color, with their
backs to the arcade, face the city outside.
The wall of housing is made up of two
alternating building types, individually
and vertically accessible, typical of the
houses in this quarter. Each building
contains approximately ten large apart
ments and has its own character of
fenestration, roof, and color. Sitting
on the opposite end of a new axis cut
though to Centre Pompidou, our proposal

is an international place. Bustling with
activity from the subterranean complex on
Place Beaubourg, this vast opening is,
at certain times, a place of crystalline
silence. At night, with the frosted arcades
glowing, the splendor of a great capitol
can be fully felt. The site has a memory
of its own.
opposite
Les Hallescreating
an urban space marking
the history of the site
1979
above
A night view with a
slice through to Centre
Pompidou
249
le Seguin
Paris, France
The transformation of the Renault Factory

site, which built out le Seguin would
have a social/public ideal equal to a new
proposed Art Foundations ideals. In
reflection of the great social history of
the site (factory workers labor history,
Paris 1968, etc.) the northeast majority
of the island is envisioned as a free
global university. Talented students from
any nation (especially those countries
presently working on various Renault car
elements) will win scholarships.
The morphological form of the
university is envisioned as a flipped
outline of the southwestern third
of the island. This hinge and flip form
produces a large park and sculpture
gardens along the southern and sunny
edge of the transformed le Seguin. Five
Thrown Voids connect its form to the
Foundations geometry.
The concept for the Pinault
Foundation on le Sequin, Paris is a
salute to Stephane Mallarmes epic poem
Un Coup De Des (A Throw of the Dice).
Simple rectangular galleries in a range
of sizes in fine proportions and light
are joined around five thrown armature
spaces. These shaped voids form a vast
internal spatial sequence. Around the
Foundation at the edge of le Seguin are
located cafes and terraces connected
by a continuous electric tram. The
activities of the sitting and moving

crowds loop the site and are near the
waters edge, while the heart of the
Foundation is a spiritual refuge, a place
of personal reflection, and a place
free of the noise and smell of automobiles.
Moving from the deep shaped voids
at the heart of the Foundation to the
2001
brackets of the simple galleries, the outer

edges wrap the foundation in spaces
that provide glowing facades reflected
in the Seine both day and night.
Concept sketches:
hinge and flip thrown
blocks and shaped
voids
251
17
1 Reception
2 Tram Station
3 Bookstore
4 Conveniences
5 Library
6 Television Station
7 Offices
8 Educational areas
9 Video Cafe
10 Management
11 Offices
12 Gallery and
breathing space
13 Ticketing
14 Childrens area
15 Library Salon
16 Bookstore
17 Salon Cafe
12
UPPER GALLERY PLAN

1 Gallery and Breathing Space
0
2 Salon Caf
16
20
5 10
40
3 Library Salon 1
12
13
14
15
1 Gallery and Breathing Space
LOWER GALLERY PLAN
2 Reception
3 Ticketing
10
20
40
4 Childrens' Salon 1
5 Library Salon 2
3
4
6 Library Salon 3
7 Bookstore + le Seguin Orientation
7
6
11
right
First, second,
and third floor plan
10
9
opposite
Building at night
and building section
Site Plan
15'
1
2
Reception
Tram Station
3
4
5
Bookstore/Boutique
Conveniences
Library
6
7
8
Television Station
Offices (Communications, Multimedia)
Educational Workshops
9
10
Video Cafe
Shared Services for Management
GROUND FLOOR PLAN
5 10
20
252
40
le Seguin
12
12
12
7
Section
5'
253
Upper Gallery Level
Lower Gallery Level
Plaza Level
Service Level
above right
Galleries shape
outdoor public space
topped by slices of
the sky
right
Passenger ferry stop
opposite
An urban vessel;
museum and free
universityfive
thrown voids join
thrown armature
spaces.
254
Lebanon
Turkey
AKBUK
BEIRUT
Beirut Marina
and Town Quay
Beirut, Lebanon
The Beirut Marina building takes its

shape from strata and layers in forking
vectors. Like the ancient beach that was
once the site, the planar lapping waves
of the sea inspires striated spaces in
horizontal layers. The horizontal and the
planar become a geometric force shaping
the new harbor spaces. The form allows
a striated organization of public and
private spaces which include restaurants
and shops, public facilities, harbormaster,
yacht club, and apartments above. The
apartment building bifurcates to create
a Y. The form produces a high amount
of exterior surface area offering a maxi
mum amount of views, and rises to form
a public observation roof to the sea.
The building is situated along a
new fabricated terrain that is extended
from Beiruts Corniche, the seaside
promenade, to create an urban beach
of public spaces overlooking the Marina.
Stairs and ramps are integrated to
provide access to the waterfront level.
The syncopated rhythm of platforms
is achieved by constructing the overall
curve of the Corniche in five angles
related to the five reflection pools.
Due to the variations in height along
the Corniche, the platform levels and
pools vary slightly in height, allowing quiet,
gravity-fed fountains to connect each
pool level.
Celebrating the sea horizon, the

terraces are sculpted in local stone. The
simple geometry of the upper platforms
is in contrast to the colorful activity of
restaurants below. The building roof forms
a public observation platform for the
sea horizon.
20022010
opposite and right

A new series of public
spaces along the
Corniche overlooking
the Marina
259
Third Floor Apartment Plan
opposite
A public viewing
platform overlooking
the sea
Site Plan
5m
15m
260
Akbuk Peninsula
Dense Pack
Akbuk, Turkey
Overlooking the Aegean Sea, a new

eco-reserve of small town fragments,
like islands in a preserved landscape
of cultivated natural vegetation, will
be characterized by advanced techno
logies in sustainability, while also
anchored in the poetic reverie of this
ancient site. The nearby ancient Greek
town of Miletus inspires a compact
gridded plan. Three dense-pack islands
are strategically located in relation
to the sites topography, maximizing the
natural landscape and minimizing roads,
surface parking, and infrastructure:
under the ground, a spa and townhouses
cut into the earth; in the ground;
courtyard villas with pools; and over
the ground, a dense pack precinct
with apartments around courtyards
on a platform over a parking and cistern
level below. This main urban island
has a special assembly space shaped by
three solstice spiral skylights. Courtyard
houses in two-story-high dense-pack
construction in white concrete (mixed
with local stone) have solar shades of
Turkish chestnut, prefabricated in North
Turkey by local craftsmen continuing
ancient woodworking traditions.
With optimized solar shading, natural
ventilation, thermal rock storage, and
thermal mass construction, a seawater
radiant-slab system supplies all heating

and cooling. Solar water heating and
gray- and storm-water recycling via
ponds and cisterns further minimize
the ecological footprint.
20062010
PRIENE
OLD SHORELINE
PRESENT SHORELINE
(LADE)
MILETOS
BAFA GOLU
SACRED WAY
PANORMOS
AKBUK
opposite
Miletusthe oldest
gridded city in western
civilization; twenty
minutes from the site
top right
Concept and sketch
right
Site map
AEGEAN SEA
DIDIM
APOLLON TEMPLE
AKBUK PENINSULA
DENSE PACK SITE
MILAS BODRUM
AIRPORT
263
right
Concept sketch
far right
Site mockup: white
concrete and Turkish
Chestnut sun-screen
264
Akbuk Peninsula Dense Pack
Site Plan
12m
1 Assembly Space
2 Hammam
3 Over the Ground
(apartments)
4 Under the Ground
(townhouses)
5 In the Ground (villas)
265
Precinct Section
5m
opposite top
Assembly space based
on Solstice Spirals
Precinct Plan
5m
266
Akbuk Peninsula Dense Pack
1 Summer Solstice
2 Equinox
3 Winter Solstice
3
267
Coda: Dilated Time
Steven Holl
Travelling at 600 miles per hour over

the North Pole at 37,000 feet en route
from Beijing to New York City, below
me the Earth is rotating east to my right
while we are orbiting around the Sun
at 67,000 miles per hour. Even if it is
micro-incremental, I am now occupying
the phenomenon of dilated time
an elastic, individual, relative time distinct
from absolute time. I have often looked
out midway on this trip to see large
cracks of open water. This year scientists
predicted the polar ice cap will melt
through for the first time in human history.
A feeling of flux and urgency combines
with curiosity and wonder.
Just as we can imagine degenerative
forces working on our atmosphere and
climate as a gigantic centrifugal force, like
the second law of thermodynamics, with
the result being entropy and degradation,
we can also imagine human inventiveness
as a centripetal force. Its anti-entropic
inventions have a counteracting potential,
unforeseen in a system where unpre
dictable events and phenomena reshape
evolution. The turning of certain aspects
of science, is overlaid with a counterrotation of invention powered by intuition
and energy of human imagination.
Theory, especially in regards to urban
issuesmust be constantly corrected
it should be governed by critical reflections
testing life experience and perception
while aiming for innovation. In the history
of doubt and theoretical inquiry, one of the
most forceful ruptures regarding science
and philosophy was Cartesian Doubt.
Georges Canguilhem writes: Cartesian
Doubt refused to comment on prior

claims to knowledge. It not only rejected
the legacy of ancient medieval physics,
but erected new forms of truth in place
of the old. Of course these ideas
have long been superseded by others,
which have critically corrected them.
If the many practical aspects of urbanisms
push it closer to science, perhaps
it should be subject to similar critical
scrutiny. Canguilhem continues, Only
contact with recent science can give
the historian a sense of historical rupture
and continuity. ..the history of science
is always in flux. It must correct itself
constantly. Today, the biosciences
experience accelerated developments
and yet there are no absolute causal
relations between effects and genetics.
Doubt and flux prevail. We cannot
completely predict all outcomes.
Arguments for adjustments to
urban strategies predicated on site and
circumstance are comparable to those
within molecular biology. Mistakes occur
when general theories are applied in the
wrong place or in wrong environmental
relationships. The trial and error variations
in situated biological science are analo
gous to site, climate, and cultural context
in urbanism. Working with doubtaccept
ance of error and acknowledgment of
necessary correction is not just a condition
of the processit is now fundamental.
We need new ways to yield the information
and the questioning fundamental to an
always in flux correction.
Rule-making in master planning
blocks correctability, especially over long
270
Coda: Dilated Time
intervals. Rather, the city is built up

of architectural urban interventions of
a consequential scale which can be lived
and experienced, tested in living context
and adjusted in phases. Certainly largescale plans for rapid transit across
cities must follow a larger plan and
visionas well as grand scale environ
mental works such as reclamations
and restorations. It is on the scale
of spatial and material experience that
we propose an urbanism of working
with doubt. Emphasizing experience and
new concepts of urban life, this strategy
could at once embrace the potentials
of twenty-first century developments
in many technologies and knowledge
without demanding a moralizing position.
Working with doubt on an urban scale
can allow for action, construction,
experimentation, and enable all involved
to think, experience, and rethink the
new problems and challenges.
Especially in rapidly urbanizing
cultures such as China, whole city
sectors containing everything needed
for living, working, recreation, and
education can be realized at once.
This multiple building construction is
something beyond architecturebut
not quite urban planningit is something
in between. Distinct from collaged
or intentionally fragmented design, these
new city fragments aim to be coherent
wholes, linked to larger urban circu
lation systems. The twenty-first century
metropolis shouldnt aspire to be
master-planned, rather it should be a
connected system of inspired fragments.
The potential to fuse architecture,

urbanism, and landscape architecture
together with the most advanced energy
and environmental techniques is given
unprecedented potential in such projects.
New types of twenty-first century density
can counter suburban sprawl. Rather than
spreading out, cities can build up and
simultaneously preserve open rural land,
thereby sustaining ecosystems.
Anticipation of a future in which
present polluting tendencies are reversed
should include a future aimed at the poor
and the rich, in an integrated humanity,
on a planet of renewed air and purified
water. Proceeding toward an international
civilization, landscapes should be refor
ested and restored while ultra-modern
urban constructions are realized. Macrofocused plans can fuse landscape and
architecture while simultaneously restoring
natural landscapes. Rather than becoming
categorical or moralistic, experimentation
and innovative action should accompany
exploration of unprecedented techniques.
Today we may be at a paradigm shift
in time; a time-dilation. Like Thomas
Kuhns concept of incommensurability
or discontinuities, the moment we
occupy can be seen without ideological
or positivist bias.
An echo from deep time of the
ancient past thrust out to the unknown
time of the distant future puts the
plane of the present in what Henri-Louis
Bergson termed duration. Bergsons
frame of reference was the temporal
not only the spatial sense of being.
As urbanists, architects, and landscape
architects this temporal philosophical

frame is as crucial to our plastic spatial
creations as it is to music, philosophy,
or any of the visual arts. The unforesee
able, the specter of doubt, sets us in
an inconclusive circle in regard to larger
durations. We have the charge to work
with doubt creatively and enthusiastically.
We need to put in question every crucial
aspect of our present: to question global
capitalism in reflective comparison of
unparalleled environmental degradation.
Discontinuities can be opportunities
for real innovation. The first decade
of the twenty-first century has presented
threats and chaotic unknowns. Denial
and condemnation of these discontinuities
are a predictable response. Possibilities
are not an a priori category. Possibilities
are something we create for ourselves.
Where there is a threat, a chaotic unknown,
we insert continuous creation; dislodging
ourselves from stasis and driving the
unknown limits of discovery and invention.
I remember reading in Jorge Luis
Borgess Garden of Forking Paths
(1941) that it is not space, but time which
forks. For all the rich urban schemes of
the past we cannot completely predict the
cities of the future. We can only imagine
architectures and urbanisms as a function
of becoming and with that becoming,
the unending need for innovative social
juxtaposition, explorations in new energy,
and new material concepts. Just as
environmental and social innovations are
introduced, so the spatial and material
sense of these new constructions may yield
unforeseen pleasure and experiential joy.
271
The Megaform and the Helix
Kenneth Frampton
While discriminating between a megaform

and a megastructure may border on
the pedantic, one may readily discern
the difference when one compares
the LIlla Block in Barcelona of 1992 to
the Centre Pompidou realized in Paris
some twenty years earlier. Where as the
former impacts the city at an anthrogeo
graphic scale, the latter puts a rhetorical
emphasis on the structure itself, in a
similar way as such eminent nineteenthcentury works as the Eiffel Tower and
the Brooklyn Bridge. Where a megaform
tends toward being a unifying gesture
at a large scale, a megastructure
is primarily a structural invention that
however much it may transform the
topography and contribute to the sense
of place, is still primarily a free-standing
object. One may witness the difference
between these paradigms from a slightly
different standpoint when one compares,
say Utzons Sydney Opera House to
the Sydney Harbor Bridge (1) as these
landmarks confront each other across
the mouth of the harbor.
The megaform first seems to rise
in the modern imagination with the
emergence of the tentacular city although
we may trace a germ of this concept in the
Palais Royale, built at the time of Louis
Philippe. It truly takes hold at a megascale with Henry Jules Bories Aerodomes
projected for Paris in 1865. In the next
century it comes to be adopted as a
normative paradigm in a series of urban
expansions during the first decade,
of above in such gargantuan megaforms
as Karl Ehns Karl Marx Hof (2), Vienna
of 1927, where it comes into being as

the result of a socialist policy to colonize
the suburbs with workers housing in
the form of blocks.
Steven Holl first broaches the
megaform in his serial Pamphlet
Architecture publications, featuring such
hypothetical mega-proposals as his
Gymnasium Bridge for the South Bronx
of 1977 or his Bridge of Houses of 1979
where the time-honored element of
a bridge comes to be fused, as in the
Ponte Vecchio, with a cellular form
designed for human habitation.
There was already an awareness,
however unconscious it may have been,
that when it came to the prospect of
significant urban intervention, conventional picturesque stratagems were
largely unable to constitute the basis
for effective remedial action. Although
we know that Holls Neo-Tendenza
proposals were extremely schematic,
they nonetheless led him to the bolder
and more realizable proposals that
he made for Les Halles, Paris in
1979 and for the Porto Vittoria area
of Milan seven years later, both of
which were subsets of the megaform
idea, conceptually related to the
perimeter block.
Three years later, in 1989, Holl
re-casts the megaform concept at the
heroic scale of the American Continent,
in a series of regionally inflected, geo
graphical proposals, initially projected
for the magazine, Design Quarterly.
Each of these self-generated projects
issued from the exuberance of his
272
imagination with a boldness that even

now is nothing less than startling:
the Spiroid Sectors, projected for DallasFort Worth; the Stitch Plan designed
for Cleveland, Ohio; the Erie Canal Edge
for Rochester, New York; the Spatial
Retaining Bars for Phoenix, Arizona;
and, finally, in 1990, the Parallax Towers
projected for the Hudson River Front
in Manhattan. It is more than likely that
El Lissitzkys audacious, anti-skyscraper
Wolkenbugel (3) project of 1924 was
the initial inspiration behind these
proposals; the idea of an aerial megaform
that was capable of bracketing the
wide-open American landscape, with
its boundless horizons. Proposals
at this scale recall the civic works of
the TVA in the New Deal period, although
today we are barely able to desire, let
alone to achieve, interventions at such
a breath-taking scale.
Holl would have to wait for the
booming architectural culture of the
Far East for his megaformal aspirations
to come to fruition. I have in mind his
Hinged Space Housing, Fukuoka and
his Makuhari Perimeter Block develop
ment, Chiba, both built in Japan between
1991 and 1996 and, more recently,
his largest megaform to date, his 780unit Linked Hybrid, comprising eight
high rise towers linked by aerial bridges
containing amenities of various kinds
from a swimming pool to a health club.
To this achievement we may now
add his horizontal mixed-use sky
scraper built for the Vanke Corporation
in Shenzhen, China, accommodating
residences, a hotel, and offices built

in the spring of 2009 and the spiraling
spheroid of his Museum for Art and
Architecture, completed in Nanjing, China
in 2009. It is somehow sobering to realize
that none of these privately financed
proposals could have been realized in
the so-called First World, which today
is being rapidly displaced from its former
economic and cultural supremacy.
Despite the limitations of the North
American scene, Holl has been able
to come up with buildings that are
essentially pitched at the scale of being
topographic megaforms, even if the
megalopolis as a whole is not directly
implicated. Within this genre we may
cite two recent works of the office where
this is the ultimate outcome if not the
driving force of the form; the Art and Art
History Building at the University of
Iowa, Iowa City of 2006, and the Nelson
Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Missouri
of 2007. In the first instance we are
confronted with a fractured, quasi-pin
wheeling complex, rendered in core-ten
steel, which, both within and without,
displays a markedly topographic character.
This is inserted into a largely man-made
landscape, comprising a park, a lake,
a nearby river, and a loosely charged
inner suburban street grid. In the second
instance, we are set before an extensively subterranean museological
megaform, which mostly makes itself
manifest in the form of large, irregular,
luminous glass prisms rising above
the undulating hump of its subterranean
galleries, connected underground to
273
the existing Neoclassical form of the

Nelson Atkins Museum. This extension
is a tour de force of earth, light, and
water, focused upon the sub-aqueous
moons of a foreground reflecting pool,
designed with Walter de Maria.
The other underlying impulse
informing Holls work from the end
of the 80s has been the concept
of intertwining, which would constitute
the title of the second of his illustrated
theoretical texts published in 1996.
However unconsciously it may have
been, one cannot help thinking that
the ultimate origin for this mythical/
topological concept in Holls imagination
remains the double helix of the genetic
code first formulated as a scientific
hypothesis by Crick and Watson in 1953.
This scientific model reworked archi
tecturally via the ramped circulation
of Le Corbusiers Villa Savoye of 1929,
resurfaces as an impulse in Holls work
in different introverted and extroverted
ways; introverted as in such works
as the Museum of Contemporary Art
in Helsinki (199398) and extroverted
as in his Spiroid Sector project of
1990 in which labyrinthic orthogonal
mass-forms lock over each other to
create that which Holl would characterize
as an integrated morphology that with
looping armatures containing hybrid
macro programs, public transit stations,
health clubs, cinemas, and galleries,
exactly the kinds of programs that will
occupy the rooftop aerial bridges of
his Hybrid building now near completion
in Beijing.
The idea of helical intertwining

also serves as a point of departure in
Holls project for the Museum of Modern
Art, New York of 1997 and for his Y-House,
completed in the Catskill Mountains,
New York, in 1999. It arises in a less
literal form, in the spiraling stairs at the
heart of the University of Iowa Art and
Art History Building finished in 2006.
In this instance the internal spatial energy
of the circulation, together with the
heuristic parti pris of Picassos Guitar
sculpture of 1912 engenders the plastic
cacophony energy of the overall mass.
The building assumes a highly topographic
character, which spread-eagles out across
the site to engage first one feature and
then another; running from the original
foundation building of the university to
the lake and its tree-lined park, to ricochet
off the eroding contours off an adjacent
limestone bluff and so on. This work
may be considered to be a megaform
in as much as it serves as an activating
and unifying catalyst for a whole series
of features, which hitherto had no
relationship to one another.
Holls anti-object concept of
a building fusing into a landform with
potentially civic connotations (as
set forth in his essay Fusion Landscape/
Urbanism/A
rchitecture) has perhaps
never been more dynamically formulated
than in his aforementioned Horizontal
Skyscraper, projected for Shenzhen, due
for completion in 2009. In addition to
the conceptual metaphor of a building
floating on a higher sea that has now
subsided, we might think of the overall
figure as a giant origami representation

of a helix that has now been partially
unfolded, its disengaged extremities
fanning out in such a way as to implicate
different contingent topographic features,
such as the oceanic views to the south,
while turning its back on alpine vistas
to the north. Raised in part on giant
occupied pilotis and in part on artificial
ground covering lecture halls etc., or
alternatively opening up within the site
to embrace courtyards, retaining ponds,
water gardens, and swimming pools,
etc. A similar, fragmented, megaform
exfoliated vertically, makes up the caco
phonic glacial void of a giant orthogonal
megablock in Chengdu (4), taking
its place within Holls ever-changing,
unprecedented urban syntax under
the somewhat outlandish title of sliced
porosity. In a subsequent proposal
for Ningbo (5) in China this obsession
with porosity is atomized into a multileveled matrix, alternating between builtform and voids. This ultra-rationalistic
gesture, both the megaform and the
helix are mutually vitiated and uncharac
teristically replaced by a layered grid
totally removed from the habitual
exuberance of Holls plastic vision.
274
275
Project Credits
Bronx Gymnasium Bridge

1977
location
Parallax Towers (Edge of a City)

19891990
location
Pratt Institute Higgins Hall Insertion

19972005
location
South Bronx, New York, USA
New York, New York, USA
Brooklyn, New York, USA
Bridge to Randalls Island
Alternative proposal for Manhattans

Seventy-second Street rail yards
including offices, apartment,
hotel rooms, and the extension of
Riverside Park
Lobby gallery, studios, auditorium,

digital resource center, review room,
gallery terrace, and workshops for
architecture school
program
design architect
Steven Holl
Bridge of Houses on Elevated Rail

19801982
location
program
Housing, elevated public promenade, and

convention center designed for
the abandoned elevated railroad
on Manhattans west side
Pratt Institute
project team
22,500 sf
Steven Holl
Peter Lynch, Romain Ruther
associate-in-charge
Storefront for Art and Architecture

19921993
location
design architect
Facade renovation for small

architecture gallery
project team
Mark Janson, Joseph Fenton,

Suzanne Powadiuk, James Rosen
design architect
Tim Bade
Steven Holl
size
Steven Holl
size
147,500 sf
client
design architect
program
program
program
project architect
Makram el Kadi
project team
Martin Cox, Annette Goderbauer,

Erik Langdalen
associate architect
Rogers Marvel Architects
structural engineer
design architects
Robert Silman Associates, P.C.
project team
Ove Arup & Partners
Steven Holl, Vito Acconci

Chris Otterbine
mechanical engineer
curtain wall consultant
R.A. Heintges & Associates
lighting consultant
Arc Light Design
construction manager
F.J. Sciame Construction Co., Inc.
276
Project Credits
World Trade Center Collaboration

2002 (competition)
associate-in-charge
Jay Siebenmorgen
project architect
Langan
project team
ICOR Associates
location
Marcus Carter
program
Justin Allen, Tim Bade, Lesley Chang,

Frank-Olivier Cottier, Rodolfo Dias,
Peter Englaender, Ayat Fadaifard, Nick
Gelpi, Rnar Halldrsson, Jongseo
Lee, Maki Matsubayashi, Ernest Ng,
Gyoung-Nam Kwon, Gabriela Pinto,
Dominik Sigg, Ebbie Wisecarver,
Noah Yaffe

mixed use tower with offices and retail
client
Lower Manhattan Development

Corporation
design architect
Steven Holl
project architect
Makram el Kadi
project team
Simone Giostra, Mohammed Ziad

Jamaleddine, Irene Vogt,
Christian Wassman
collaborators
Richard Meier & Associates,

Eisenman Architects, Gwathmey
Siegel & Associates Architects
Survey, traffic, geotech,

environmental & civil engineer
MEP engineer
site sustainability consultant
Transsolar
Erie Canal Houses (Edge of a City)

19891990
location
Rochester, New York, USA
program
Hudson Yards
2001
New urban sector at canal edge,

providing housing and retail
Steven Holl
Mixed use tower with offices
Bryan Bell, Pier Copat, Ben Frombgen
location
program
client
design architect
project team
Extell Development Company

2005
location
size
11,130,000 sf
design architect
Steven Holl, Chris McVoy
project architect
Stitch Plan (Edge of a City)

19891990
location
Nick Gelpi
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Mixed use tower with offices, hotel,

and condominiums
Sofie Holm Christensen, Ayat

Fadaifard, Rnar Halldrsson,
Rafael Ng, Ebbie Wisecarver,
Christina Yessios
Urban planning project providing living,

working, recreational, and cultural
facilities
program
size
746,000
design architect
Steven Holl
partner-in-charge
Chris McVoy
project team
program
design architect
landscape architect
Steven Holl
construction
Bryan Bell, Patricia Botsch, Pier Copat,

Janet Cross, Ben Frombgen, Peter Lynch
Olin Partnership
Bovis Lend Lease
project team
277
Spatial Retaining Bars (Edge of a City)

19891990
location
Chapel of St. Ignatius, Seattle University

19941997
location
MIT Campus Master Plan

1999
location
Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Seattle, Washington, USA
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Proposal for a new city edge, buildings

providing residential, office, and
cultural facilities
Jesuit chapel for Seattle University
Campus master plan
Seattle University
639,764 sf
Steven Holl
6,100 sf
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Pier Copat, Janet Cross, Ben Frombgen,

Peter Lynch
Steven Holl
Steven Holl
Tim Bade
Tim Bade
Jan Kinsbergen, Justin Korhammer,

Audra Tuskes
Mohammed Ziad Jamaleddine
program
design architect
project team
program
client
size
design architect
project architect
project team
Spiroid Sectors (Edge of a City)

19891990
location
Dallas, Texas, USA

program
Proposal for a hybrid building sited
in the partly settled area between Dallas
and Fort Worth
design architect
Steven Holl
project team
Laura Briggs, Janet Cross, Scott Enge,

Tod Fouser, Hal Goldstein, Peter Lynch,
Chris Otterbine
UCSF Mission Bay Master Plan

1996
program
size
client
design architect
associate-in-charge
project team

19992007
location
location
Kansas City, Missouri, USA
program
Museum addition and renovation
San Francisco, California, USA
program
client
Invited master plan competition

for new biomedical research campus
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
1,600,000 sf
165,000 sf
Steven Holl
Martin Cox
Chris McVoy
Pablo Castro-Estvez,
Annette Goderbauer, Katharina Hahnle
Martin Cox, Richard Tobias
size
design architect
project architect
project team
size
design architects
partner-in-charge
project architects
278
Project Credits
project team
Masao Akiyoshi, Gabriela BarmanKraemer, Matthias Blass, Molly Blieden,

Elissavet Chryssochoides, Robert
Edmonds, Simone Giostra, Annette
Goderbauer, Mimi Hoang, Makram
el Kadi, Edward Lalonde, Li Hu,
Justin Korhammer, Linda Lee, Fabian
Llonch, Stephen ODell, Irene Vogt,
Urs Vogt, Christian Wassman
School of Art & Art History,

University of Iowa
19992006
location
civil engineers
Shive-Hattery
general contractors
Larson Construction
Iowa City, Iowa, USA
program

2002 (competition)
BNIM Architects
Art and Art History Building

including facilities for sculpture,
painting, printmaking, graduate
studios, administrative offices,
gallery, and library
Guy Nordenson and Associates
University of Iowa
Structural Engineering Associates
size
9,000 residences, schools, shops, and an

anthropology museum
70,000 sf
design architects
6,118,766 sf
associate-in-charge
Guangxi Runhe estate Development

Co., Ltd
project architects
Steven Holl
project team
Li Hu, Ziad Jamaleddine, Makram el Kadi,

Anderson Lee
local architects
structural engineers
associate structural engineer

mechanical engineers
client
Ove Arup & Partners, W.L. Cassell

& Associates
Steven Holl, Chris McVoy,

Martin Cox
R.A. Heintges & Associates
Martin Cox
glass consultant
lighting consultant
Renfro Design Group
landscape architect
Gould Evans Goodman Associates
artist
Walter DeMaria
Li Hu, Gabriela Barman-Kramer

Arnault Biou, Regina Chow, Elsa
Chryssochoides, Hideki Hirahara,
Brian Melcher, Chris Otterbein,
Susi Sanchez, Irene Vogt, Urs Vogt
location
Nanning, China
program
size
client
design architect
project team
associate architects
Herbert Lewis Kruse Blunck

Architecture
Guy Nordenson and Associates
associate structural engineers
Structural Engineering Associates
mechanical engineers
Alvine and Associates
curtain wall consultants
WJ Higgins & Co.
279

20022008
location
Linked Hybrid
20032009
location
Nanjing, China
Beijing, China
Museum complex with galleries,

tea room, bookstore, and a curators
residence
689 apartment units totaling of 135,000

m2, cinematheque, kindergarten,
galleries, shops, gym, cafe, and 1,000-car
underground parking garage
program
size
30,000 sf
design architect
program
size
Mike Fung, M. Emran Hossain,

Gyoung-Nam Kwon, Jongseo Lee,
Eric Li, Tz-Li Lin, Maki Matsubayashi,
Giorgos Mitroulas, Daijiro Nakayama,
Olaf Schmidt, Judith Tse, Clark
Manning, Li Wang, Ariane Wiegner,
Lan Wu, Noah Yaffe, Liang Zhao
Beijing Capital Engineering Architecture

Design Co. Ltd.
structural engineer
221,462 m2
Site Area: 6.18 hectares
Guy Nordenson and Associates + China

Academy of Building Research
project architect
Modern Group Development Co., LTD.

Beijing, China
project team
Transsolar Energietechnik GmbH +

Cosentini Associates + Beijing Capital
Engineering Architecture Design Co. Ltd.
Steven Holl, Li Hu
Steven Holl, Li Hu
associate-in-charge
Hideki Hirahara
Clark Manning, Daijiro Nakayama

Joseph Kan, Jongseo Lee, Richard Liu,
Sarah Nichols
Architectural Design Institute,

Nanjing University
structural consultant
Guy Nordenson and Associates:

Matthias Beckh, Guy Nordenson,
Brett Schneider
lighting design
LObservatoire International
client
design architect
partner-in-charge
Li Hu
project architect
Hideki Hirahara
assistant project architect
mechanical engineer
landscape
Steven Holl Architects + EDAW Beijing

+ Beijing Top-Sense Landscape Design
Limited Co.
interior designer
Yenling Chen
Steven Holl Architects + China National

Decoration Co., LTD
Tim Bade, Chris McVoy
Gong Dong, Peter Enlaender,

Garrick Ambrose, Edward Lalonde,
James Macgillivray, Young Jang,
Richard Liu, Rodolfo Dias,
Guido Guscianna, Matthew Uselman
Jiang-He Curtain Wall Co., LTD + Front

Inc. + Xian Aircraft Industry Company
LTD + Yuanda
technical advisor
project designer
project team
lighting
curtain wall
general contractor
Beijing construction engineering group
Jason Anderson, Lei Bao,

Christian Beerli, Johnna Cressica
Brazier, Cosimo Caggiula, Kefei Cai,
Guanlan Cao, Yimei Chan, Shih-I
Chow, Sofie Holm Christensen,
Frank O. Cottier, Christiane Deptolla,
280
Project Credits
Xian New Town

2005
location
Xian, China
program
Urban planning project for a new town
of 50,000 inhabitants including housing,
cultural spaces, offices, public services,
school, and commercial spaces
size
7,742,782 sf
design architect
Steven Holl
project architects
Li Hu, James MacGillivray
project team
Garrick Ambrose, Nick Gelpi, Giorgos

Mitroulias, Lan Wu
Floating Horizontal Skyscraper

(Vanke Center)
20062009
project manager
Gong Dong, Yimei Chan
project architect
Chengdu, China
Eric Li
five towers with offices, serviced

apartments, retail, a hotel, cafes,
and restaurants
assistant project architect

project team
Jason Anderson, Guanlan Cao,

Clemence Eliard, Forrest Fulton, Nick
Gelpi, M. Emran Hossain, Seung Hyun
Kang, JongSeo Lee, Wan-Jen Lin,
Richard Liu, Jackie Luk, Enrique MoyaAngeler, Roberto Requejo, Jiangtao
Shen, Michael Rusch, Filipe Taboada
project team, competition phase
Steven Holl, Li Hu, Gong Dong, Justin

Allen, Garrick Ambrose, Johnna
Brazier, Kefei Cai, Yenling Chen, Hideki
Hirahara, Eric Li, Filipe Taboada
CCDI
climate engineers
Transsolar
structural engineer
CABR, CCDI
program
CCDI
mechanical engineer
landscape architect
Mixed-use building including hotel,

offices, and condominiums, public park
Steven Holl Architects, CCDI
863,266 sf
Yuanda Curtain-wall
Shenzhen Vanke Real Estate Co
size
client
design architect
Steven Holl, Li Hu
partner-in-charge
location
Garrick Ambrose, Maren Koehler,

Jay Siebenmorgen, Christopher Brokaw,
Rodolfo Dias
location
Shenzhen, China

20072010
curtain wall consultant

lighting consultant
program
size
3,000,000 sf
client
CapitaLand Development
design architects
Steven Holl, Li Hu
associate-in-charge
Roberto Bannura
project architect Beijing
Lan Wu
project architect New York
Haiko Cornelissen, JongSeo Lee
project designer
Christiane Deptolla, Inge Goudsmit,

Sarah Nichols, Maki Matsubayashi,
Martin Zimmerli
project team
Justin Allen, Jason Anderson, Francesco

Bartolozzi , Yimei Chan, Sofie Holm
Christensen, Esin Erez, Peter Englaender,
Ayat Fadaifard, Mingcheng Fu, Guanlan
Cao, Rnar Halldrsson, M. Emran
Hossain, Joseph Kan, Suping Li, Tz-Li
Lin, Jackie Luk, Daijiro Nakayama,Pietro
Peyron, Roberto Requejo, Elena RojasDanielsen, Ida Sze, Filipe Taboada, Ebbie
Wisecarver, Human Tieliu Wu, Jin-ling Yu
China Academy of Building Research
Li Hu
281
mep and fire engineer
Ove Arup & Partners
leed consultant
Ove Arup & Partners
World Design Park Complex

2007
location

19921996
location
structural engineer
Seoul, Korea
Chiba, Tokyo, Japan
quantity surveyor
Seoul Metropolitan Government
traffic consultant
design architect
190 units of housing, retail, and

public facilities
Steven Holl
associate-in-charge
27,601 sf
project architect
Mitsui Fudosan Group
project team
Steven Holl
China Academy of Building Research

Davis Langdon & Seah (DLS)
MVA Hong Kong Ltd
client
Noah Yaffe
JongSeo Lee
Ningbo Fine Grain
2008
location
Ningbo, China
program
Mixed-use development with retail,

entertainment, cultural, offices, hotels,
and residential
size
Ayat Fadaifard, Gyoung-Nam Kwon,

Chris McVoy, Woosik Min, Quang Truong
local architect
Samoo Architects & Engineers;

Jungyoun Choi, Inho Jeong, Insoo Kim,
Jungmin Lee
total area: 31 hectares; total floor area

above ground: 400,000 square meters
Void Space/Hinged Space

19891991
Ningbo Yaxin Investment Consultants

Co., Ltd.
Fukuoka, Japan
client
design architect
Steven Holl, Chris McVoy, Li Hu
location
program
client
design architect
project architect
Tomoaki Tanaka
project team, master plan
Mario Gooden, Tom Jenkinson,

Janet Cross, Terry Surjan
project team, design development/

construction
Anderson Lee, Sumito

Takashina, Sebastian Schulze,
Gundo Sohn, Justin Korhammer,
Bradford Kelley, Lisina Fingerhuth,
Anna Mller, Jay Kinsbergen,
Hideaki Ariizumi
Steven Holl
Hideaki Ariizumi, Pier Copat, Peter Lynch
Kajima Design
Mixed use complex with 28 residential

apartments
project team
14,000 sf
Nikole Bouchard, Sofie Holm

Christensen, M. Emran Hossain,
Joseph Kan, John Lam, Eric Li,
Gabriela Pinto, Clare Smith
size
Kajima Design (project team:

Toshio Enomoto, Masahiro Shimazaki,
Kazuhiko Funo, Akihito Morino,
Yashushi Ninomiya), K. Sone
& Environmental Design Associates
(principal: Konichi Sone; project
architect: Tomoko Watanabe;
project team: Yoshihiro Kanamaru,
Hisakazu Ishijima)
project architect
Human Tieliu Wu
program
size
client
Fukuoka-Jishu Co., Japan
design architect
project team
engineer
282
Project Credits
block design coordinator
Konichi Sone
block architect
Toshio Enomoto, Kajima Design
19962000
location
Toolenburg-Zuid
2001
location
landscape architect
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Schiphol, The Netherlands
lighting consultant
new headquarters for housing developer
size
planning competition for new residential

community
client
Steven Holl
design architect
Martin Cox
project architect
Gabriela Barman-Kramer, Martin Cox
project team
Molly Blieden, Makram el Kadi,

Jason Frantzen, Mathew Johnson,
Chris Otterbine
JUKA Garden and Architecture

program
3,500 sf (addition), 50,000 sf (renovation)

woningbouwvereniging Het Oosten
Manifold Hybrid
1994
Steven Holl
location
Justin Korhammer
program
size
Hideaki Arizumi, Martin Cox,

Annette Goderbauer, Yoh Hanaoka,
Heleen van Heel
design architect
Rappange & Partners Architecten b.v.
project architect
Ingenieursgroep Van Rossum
project team
Technical Management
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

182-unit housing block
254,351 sf
Steven Holl
Justin Korhammer
Martin Cox, Anderson Lee
program
design architect
associate-in-charge
project architects
project team
electrical & mechanical engineers
Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art

19921998
location
building services consultants
Helsinki, Finland
general contractors
Art museum including galleries, theater,

cafe, shop, and artist workshop
lighting consultants
130,000 sf
artists
Finnish Ministry of Public Building
Technical Management
VOF Van Eesteren, Koninklijke

Woudenberg
Matt Mullican (fencing), Maria Roosen
(sculpture forecourt)
program
size
client
design architect
Steven Holl
project architect
Vesa Honkonen
project team
Tim Bade, Molly Blieden,
283
Stephen Cassell, Pablo Castro-Estevez,

Janet Cross, Bradford Kelley, Justin
Korhammer, Lee Anderson, Chris McVoy,
Anna Mller, Justin Rssli, Tomoaki
Tanaka, Tapani Talo
Meander
2006
Helsinki, Finland
Milan, Italy
Juhani Pallasmaa Architects:

Juhani Pallasmaa, Time Kiukkola,
Seppo Mntyl, Heikki Mttnen, Timo
Ruusuvuori, Seppo Sivula, Merita Soini
Offices and mixed use: 49 apartments,

500 m2 rental space, garage, rooftop
sauna, and running track
Urban planning proposal including

park and botanical gardens
local architect
location
program
Jacob Allerdice, Laurie Beckerman,

Meta Brunzema, Stephen Cassel,
Gisue Hariri, Paola Iaccuci, Peter
Lynch, Ralph Nelson, Ron Peterson,
Darius Sollohub, Lynnette Widder
City of Helsinki & Senate Properties
electrical engineer
Steven Holl
mechanical & structural engineer
JongSeo Lee
lighting consultant
Vesa Honkonen
fire technical consultant
Anja Hmlinen, Mari Koskinen,

Tina Olli, Jaana Tiikkaja,
Erika de Martino
Ove Arup
Markku Kauriala Ltd.
glass consultant
Engineering Office Aulis Bertin, Ltd.
theatre technical consultant
Teatek
design architect
client
HVAC engineer
Tauno Nissinen OY Consulting Engineers
program
Steven Holl
29,146 sf
Insinritoimisto Olof Granlund OY
location
size
structural engineer
Insinritoimisto OY Matti Ollila & Co.
Porta Vittoria
1986
design architect
project architect
project team
local architect
project team
Lombardia Regional Government Center

2004
structural engineer
Milan, Italy
Tero Aaltonen, Matti Ollila & Co.,

Consulting Engineers Ltd.
location
program
Arkkitehtitoimisto Alpo Halme
Offices, public plaza, press conference

and exhibition and debate facilities,
cafes, and public observation deck
Seicon OY
1,076,391 sf
acoustical consultant
general contractor
size
design architect
Steven Holl
project architect
Martin Cox
project team
Garrick Ambrose, Guido Cuscianna,

Makram el Kadi, Gian Carlo
Floridi, Simone Giostra, Young Jang,
Ariane Weigner
284
Project Credits
Les Halles
1979 (competition)
location
mechanical engineer
Ove Arup & Partners
engineer
Jacobs Serete
Akbuk Dense Pack

2006
location
Paris, France
Akbuk, Turkey
competition for housing and

meeting place on the site of the
Les Halles pavilions
Mixed-use master plan including

apartments, townhouses, villas,
hammam, and assembly space
program
design architect
Steven Holl
project team
Stuart Diston, Joseph Fenton,

Ron Steiner
le Seguin
2001 (competition)
program
Beirut Marina and Town Quay

20022009
355,209 sf
program
Beirut, Lebanon
Apartments, restaurants, outdoor public
spaces with site specific art installations,
specialty stores, harbormaster, yacht
club, and public facilities
size
220,000 sf
client
location
Solidere
program
Steven Holl with LEFT
Paris, France
Invited competition for the
Foundation Franois Pinault
including galleries, university,
cafes, and public amenities
design architect
design architects
associate-in-charge
Olaf Schmidt
project team
Francesco Bartolozzi, Lesley Chang,

Esin Erez, Nick Gelpi, Gyoung-Nam
Kwon, Maki Matsubayashi, Ernest Ng,
Dominik Sigg, Ebbie Wisecarver,
Christina Yessios
associate in charge (design phase)
Tim Bade
project team
client
Masao Akiyoshi, Edward Lalonde,

Jongseo Lee, Brett Snyder
design architect
Nabil Gholam Architecture and Planning
Pinault Foundation
size
location
associate architect
Steven Holl
project architect
Annette Goderbauer
project team
Asako Akazawa, Jason Frantzen,

Li Hu, Matt Johnson, Chris McVoy,
Brian Melcher, Aislinn Weidele
structural engineer
Guy Nordenson & Associates
285
Image Credits
All images are the authors unless

otherwise indicated.
14, C. Mayhew & R. Simmon

(NASA/GSFC), NOAA/NGDC, DMSP
Digital Archive
15, World Perspectives/Taxi/
Getty Images
17 (bottom), Matthew Hintz
20, Mitchell Funk/Stone/Getty Images
21 (right), Paul Warchol
23, Carlo Bavagnoli/Time & Life
Pictures/Getty Images
25 (top), El Lissitzky
28, StockTrek/Photodisc/Getty Images
31, Stephen Wilkes/Stone/Getty Images
33, Sing Nian
34, Wang Zhan Guo
51, Paul Warchol
52, Leah Meisterlin
54 (top left & right), Andy Ryan
55, David Sundberg/Esto
56 (bottom), Andy Ryan
57, David Sundberg/Esto
62, Leah Meisterlin
93 (top), Paul Warchol
95, Paul Warchol
96, Leah Meisterlin
100
, Leah Meisterlin
101
, Michael Moran
103
(middle), Andy Ryan

104
, Andy Ryan
106
, Leah Meisterlin
107
(top & bottom), Andy Ryan

110
12, Andy Ryan

115
(bottom), Tom Jorgensen

116
(top & bottom), Eric Dean

118
(left), Christian Richters

119
, Christian Richters
132
(top), CIPEA
135
(top), Iwan Baan

141, Shu He
(left), Andy Ryan

(right), Paul Warchol
146, Iwan Baan
14851, Shu He
152 (left and bottom right), Shu He
154 (top left), Iwan Baan
155 (left), Shu He
157 (top), Iwan Baan
160, Iwan Baan
1626
3, Shu He
171, Fancheng Kong
181, Iwan Baan
183, Iwan Baan
184 (bottom), Iwan Baan
187, Iwan Baan
189, Iwan Baan
191, Iwan Baan
195, Iwan Baan
197 (bottom), Ningbo City Planning
Bureau/EDAW, Ningbo Eastern New
Town Master Plan and Core Area
Urban Design
208, Iwan Baan
2121
4, Paul Warchol
215 (left), Paul Warchol
221 (bottom), Paul Warchol
222 (right), Paul Warchol
223 (top right and left), Paul Warchol
231 (bottom), Paul Warchol
233, Paul Warchol
234 (left), Paul Warchol
273 (bottom), El Lissitzky
274, Iwan Baan
143
143
286
Acknowledgments
Architecture is the most fragile of

arts: These works depended on great
collaboration of all the energetic and
creative people listed with each of
the projects of this book, from clients,
and consultants to the architects in
our office.
Special thanks to: Solange Fabio,
Lei Bao, Michael Bell, Janine Biunno,
Molly Blieden, Tei Carpenter, Nikki
Chung, Margot Dirks, Kenneth Frampton,
Wendy Fuller, Nick Gelpi, Hideki Hirahara,
Yunsung Hong, Li Hu, Katarina Kristic,
Eric Li, Kevin C. Lippert, Chris McVoy,
Leah Meisterlin, Adam Michaels, Lauren
Nelson Packard, Alessandro Orsini, Larry
Rouch, Yehuda Safran, Julia van den Hout,
David van der Leer, Christina Yessios
287
Published by
37 East Seventh Street
New York, New York 10003
For a free catalog of books, call 1.800.722.6657.
Visit our web site at www.papress.com.
2009 Steven Holl and Princeton Architectural Press
All rights reserved
Printed and bound in China
12 11 10 09 1 2 3 4 First edition
No part of this book may be used or reproduced
in any manner without written permission from the
publisher, except in the context of reviews.
Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify
owners of copyright. Errors or omissions will be
corrected in subsequent editions.
Book design by Project Projects
For Princeton Architectural Press
Project editor: Lauren Nelson Packard
Production editor: Wendy Fuller
Special thanks to Nettie Aljian, Bree Anne Apperley,
Sara Bader, Nicola Bednarek, Janet Behning, Becca
Casbon, Carina Cha, Penny (Yuen Pik) Chu, Carolyn
Deuschle, Nancy Eklund Later, Russell Fernandez,
Pete Fitzpatrck, Jan Haux, Clare Jacobson, Aileen Kwun,
Linda Lee, Laurie Manfra, John Myers, Katharine Myers,
Dan Simon, Andrew Stepanian, Jennifer Thompson,
Paul Wagner, Joseph Weston, and Deb Wood of
Kevin C. Lippert, publisher
For Steven Holl Architects
Edited by Steven Holl, David van der Leer,
and Janine Biunno
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Holl, Steven.
Urbanisms : working with doubt / Steven Holl.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-56898-679-1 (alk. paper)
1. City planningPsychological aspects. I. Title.
NA9050.H66 2010
711'.4dc22
2009014423

Steven Holl-Urbanisms - Working With Doubt-Princeton Architectural Press (2009)

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Steven Holl-Urbanisms - Working With Doubt-Princeton Architectural Press (2009)

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Urbanisms

Princeton Architectural Press

New York City

Gymnasium Bridge 1977

Coda: Dilated Time

The United States

Chisel off the

Our opportunities to work in China

Working with Doubt

In every serious philosophical

Today, working with doubt is unavoid-

Reflection on the macroscale takes

Venus is Earths nearest planetary

In 1950, the poet Charles Olsen

succession during the first weeks

The polished pavement of the

The luminosity of eighteenth- and

by the structural glass planks of the

In Walter Benjamins Reflections there

from all sides leading into the central

Instead of the nineteenth-century flatfooted figure-ground space, twenty-

Bars for Phoenix, Arizona (1989).

Our experience of a contemporary city

as the perception of a built object is

As first-year students at the University

totally new to us, a new desire. This

In a hyper-mobile population, the constant

well-proportioned for light, space, and

The fact that explosive urban growth

The artist Jurgen Partenheimer writes

economies while waging unnecessary

Negative capability is a positive capacity.

above and opposite

The fusion of architecture/urbanism/

exhibits, including extinct Korean flora

New York City

South Bronx, New York

The Gymnasium Bridge is a hybrid

New York City, New York

The site and structural foundation

The new houses are built in an

reinforcing the street pattern.

New York City, New York

In this proposal for Manhattan, the existing

Storefront for Art

New York City, New York

The Storefront for Art and Architecture

opposite and this page

Pratt Institute Higgins

Brooklyn, New York

The new Higgins Hall Center Section

increasingly as it moves vertically

opposite and right

Architecture under the direction of

create a small urban

Pratt Institute Higgins Hall Insertion

First- and Second-Floor Plan

Higgins Hall Insertion

World Trade Center

New York City, New York

As the World Trade Center tragedy took

of what happened was felt far beyond

these forms become ceremonial gateways