[0:14]Hello, hello. Thank you very much, Amelia Rodrigo, thank you for inviting us and also
[0:25]thank you for what you're doing. This is quite amazing to gather all these amazing, intelligent people from all over the world to to this place. It's electric, really nice.
[0:42]My name is Johan Arav, and with me in sitting position is Henrik Frick.
[0:51]And I can also maybe welcome you to this a little bit Scandinavian morning. Uh, first us and then Denmark.
[1:03]We even managed to arrange some clouds and rain outside for today.
[1:12]We call this Arctic notes, and that's because we like to write down notes or words, uh as a part of the daily work.
[1:21]We don't have a really clear idea about how to deal with architecture or, you know, these kind of things.
[1:30]So the notes are important for us in the sense of defining, you know, problems or ambitions.
[1:37]We selected a few today that might frame some IDs.
[1:42]We have always worked a lot analog by hand. Uh, from the beginning, me and Henrik, it's very quick and intuitive and it helps us to, you know, avoid the computer a bit.
[1:54]And in the beginning, we didn't use the words or sketches at all for presentation, it was just internal and personal uh to discover some potential in situations a quite open way.
[2:08]We produced a lot of them all the time, 40, 50, 60 in every project and throw away everything. Uh, this one we found inserted in a book when we moved our office a couple of years ago. Uh, otherwise we it's it's not there anymore.
[2:27]Uh me and Henrik, we did the last two years in school together and this time I think was quite special for us.
[2:35]KTH in Stockholm was quite traditional and conventional at that time. Uh, we had a professor Anna Betancourt that had a quite special way of teaching.
[2:49]Some music.
[2:53]Keep it going. Uh, we did not draw any buildings, uh, only analyzing different parts of, you know, society, political aspects, economical systems, environmental issues.
[3:06]Sometimes we did small inventions to adapt theory into practice, like this device creating light from movement energy.
[3:15]We often started with the components and kind of adapted them where they were really needed for like adding light to dark places for instance.
[3:26]And all those kind of investigations and devices were tested as case studies like here for instance, we did a project at at that time abandoned high line in New York. It was like before they made it into a park.
[3:39]to make it public and active completely from existing conditions. So we spent some time here mapping, developing a public space using what was already existing, heat emissions, prevailing winds, collecting and cleaning rainwater.
[3:55]Uh, I mean, for for us, these two years were uh really hard. It was like entering a black hole more or less.
[4:03]We it was not, you know, a program and then a building, no beginning or end. Uh, so it was really struggling at that time for us, I remember, but now, uh, I mean, this kind of thinking is still very central in our process to try to always figure out what is working or not.
[4:22]If something is already working, why do something new? Uh, how think about how situations could be improved?
[4:31]It's to understand the conditions of every project. So we like buildings or structures that you don't really notice.
[4:40]These are some very old photos, I think even before school. Uh, I have a lot, a lot of those. Uh, the buildings are kind of secondary to his program, dealing with, you know, relation between building and open space and where different activities can take place within.
[5:01]And the central question that we discuss, I mean, we don't discuss so much in office actually, architecture.
[5:08]It's uh, we we have been friends since we were 15, so it's a lot more about other stuff, but one one thing that we do talk about is always the purpose of architecture. Do we add something? Do we provide for better qualities?
[5:23]We like to ask questions all the time, how and why. We always ask this. Um, and um, uh, regarding that, we also we took a walk yesterday morning, me and Henrik and went by Casa de Musica.
[5:43]And uh, and then we said to each other that uh, uh, well, this is beyond how and why.
[5:51]It it was uh sometimes you see some projects that are just dependent on like under the radar.
[6:00]We often start our projects of imagining how a place could be, you know, give him possibilities to be activated, not following a fixed program,
[6:11]but rather small IDs about how multiple programs could work together. We always start from existing situation.
[6:20]In this case, a park in Dessau, where we did a proposal for the new museum for the Bos collection.
[6:27]Today the collection is spread out on three different places around the city, basically in storage. And the aim was to collect the purpose of the competition was to collect all these objects into one space.
[6:40]And of course we started to discover quite amazing pieces. And uh, basically we thought the museum was already there just by gathering those pieces.
[6:53]So what we did was to propose instead of three, uh existing sheds, we proposed one new larger shed to protect it from the weather conditions and also give it a certain amount of security, of course.
[7:05]So one open hall, except for two zones with closed functions, as well as areas with a demand of higher security.
[7:15]We do one interior project, uh, it's only one.
[7:18]Uh, it's for a clothing brand called Our Legacy and uh, we've been collaborating with them since we started because they started same time.
[7:28]They are, uh, close friends. And uh, here we often leave or remove all the layers on the floor, ceilings and walls as they were from the beginning.
[7:40]We do objects, only objects we don't touch the space at all, uh, except for removing the layers.
[7:48]I think we have made like maybe 200 objects now, lights, tables, racks, some are good and some are not very good, but then we throw them away and do another one.
[8:01]Um, we always work together with A Moriyama, she's an amazing architect and artist for the fabrics.
[8:10]And uh, together we explore, you know, very fundamental IDs about light transparent transparency and uh, yeah, sometimes color.
[8:21]The component becomes the building. It's to understand, you know, economies is is very central for us.
[8:29]Economy in terms of material, of doing the most of the budget, economy of energy consumption.
[8:37]We don't prefer to design something that everyone should fight for to solve.
[8:43]We want to design something that is very simple to put together. And this is uh going back to our very first study trip actually in the first year in school, architecture school.
[8:55]We were traveling through France, we looked at all these kind of amazing pieces by the masters Corbusier and some contemporary Jall and all those things.
[9:05]But this Latapie house by Lacaton and Vassal was a very strong and special experience.
[9:14]And I remember by then it was not so much about uh how they kind of managed to create this extra space.
[9:22]Uh but rather that the structure and the components felt perfectly balanced according to the loads. A beam was not larger than it needed to be.
[9:34]Nothing except the very necessary was kind of present in the house, a house made of components.
[9:39]So up on this hill, up on the rock there, uh, is the position of a small house we did a few years ago. And since the budget was really tight, I think that's the common thing here with all the studios.
[9:55]I mean, you start and then you build really low budget houses. I mean, you cannot do anything else.
[10:04]Um, here everything needed to be very effective, of course. So the first decision was to do a house that could be made of parts in a factory and transported to the site on, you know, one take on one, uh, what's it called? From, uh, this big boat.
[10:19]Not so big but quite big. The second was that the client decided to carry all the material himself with a friend from the drop up area, so by the water obviously up to this hill there.
[10:32]So it led us to a solution to use glulam timber in manageable sizes and weight.
[10:38]There are a few standard dimensions that almost all timber factories have in storage. So we developed a structural scheme consisting of post and beams.
[10:48]All components dimension as minimal as possible for the purpose, just enough to make the structure stable.
[10:56]And this was the structure of the house, but also worked as a scaffolding for the carpenter, so he can have erected the structure in I think three days.
[11:06]And then it became a platform for him to work with, work on. So all parts are connected to each other with bolts going through all the main beams.
[11:17]The windows are divided in parts to be able to carry for, yeah, one person.
[11:23]So our internal process is a lot about those very simple questions about the prefab components, why choose uh one system or beam or slab or pillar in front of another?
[11:37]At the moment we are proposing not only one solution, but rather like several options of how to add six free spanning platforms for cultural building in a small town in Sweden.
[11:46]We're presenting multiple options at the same time, both for the client, but also for the city regarding possibilities, economy, installations, like sketches like this.
[12:00]In a house we call Six Walls House, the client already had a builder.
[12:06]They bought the site that is really beautiful, but it was very expensive, unfortunately, so the budget was kind of finished when we started.
[12:18]Uh, they already had a builder actually, uh, that was, uh, not the best builder, but, uh, not very expensive, so it was this kind of starting point.
[12:29]He also didn't know very well how to build in wood because in this area everything is built in wood, but he knew and had experience in building with this light concrete blocks, so it kind of became the only option.
[12:41]So we looked into catalogs on the material and its qualities, capacity, and uh, how you do it, basically three types of blocks.
[12:51]Like one insulated, one without, one corner block, one solution for opening in walls as uh adding a beam.
[13:00]So we started to develop develop IDs about simple geometries that could kind of not be made wrong, regardless of builder.
[13:10]So six walls, straight walls, defining the rooms as well as becoming the structure of the house became the solution.
[13:19]So the inside spaces were almost a little bit randomly developed and the arrangement of the house was a lot about how to achieve the minimal amount of cutting of the blocks.
[13:30]So kind of the block became the measurement of the whole house, the size of the block, as well as create as spacious house as possible.
[13:42]So a house developed from a light concrete block. There are a few really good examples of extremely cost effective houses in Sweden.
[13:54]This is called Typhus A124 by Eric Friberger.
[14:00]And it was made in the 30s, I think, and it was one of the first single houses made for prefabrication.
[14:07]And in this case, everything was really simplified. The volume was even actually completely flat. I mean the roof, so no angle.
[14:17]Uh, so instead the whole volume is kind of tilted a few degrees for water drainage, so if you drop a like a ball there, it it will go to one corner.
[14:31]It was lifted on columns for simple adaption to topography, but also to be gentle to the existing nature below.
[14:40]And this is Veda. It's a large island like one hour north of Stockholm.
[14:46]And at the moment we are developing IDs about how to develop the kind of primitive weekend house in this area.
[14:54]And if you look at the local market here, I mean it's not by the sea there, it's more in the forest. Uh, so it doesn't have this kind of exclusive uh pricing.
[15:05]Uh, so if you look at the prices as, I mean Swedish prices, you get around maybe 50 square meter for the budget.
[15:15]We never like these standard answers, calculating standard prices per square meter.
[15:20]We think you can get more if you really know how to, you know, work with the building parts capacity and those kind of things.
[15:28]So together with a wooden factory, we have now established established a very essential components. So the post and beams from the catalog, uh, the floor, uh, roof, closed facade, they come in elements made on the factory.
[15:46]And all the sizes are according to trucks and maximum use of material and also to be able to carry them because we don't want to take down any trees or anything, uh, for, you know, tracks and transportation of the, um, building parts.
[16:00]And if you don't have a closed wall, like up left, you need this kind of diagonal beam for stabilization. I mean, this is the house more or less.
[16:12]So we want to learn this profession quite slow. We we don't have a problem with that. We like it like this.
[16:20]Uh, and maybe in the sense of understanding what we are doing and what we are proposing to handle economy as a kind of sustainable approach.
[16:31]We like to see this a little bit as a craftsmanship. It's all also like the basics of planning. I mean, we didn't learn this in school, but it it has become quite important for us.
[16:43]It's it's very simple. It's not rocket science and may sound a little bit silly, but you know, in our opinion, you need to know the basics before proposing options.
[16:53]We Googled some new developments in Sweden before and I mean, you then you you see all these kind of basic mistakes like sitting, having a dinner and, uh, someone opens the toilet door. Uh, yeah.
[17:11]So often the most simple and primitive decisions are the most important ones to get kind of a rationality in the projects, where you can where you can build without blasting or removing any trees for instance.
[17:28]Like this initial sketch for Six Walls House, uh, where we found this place that was kind of the only place that you could do this thing without, uh, touching the ground.
[17:42]So we always kind of choose to focus on just a few things, like, uh, very, very basic. And when we know all there is to know about these, we take the next step.
[17:53]Basic knowledge are where the material comes from, the parts that you can get from a tree for instance.
[18:01]The core and the other layers, how to use them in the best possible way.
[18:07]25 trees was the title of a small research project we did for Venice in uh the Biennale in 2016, I think.
[18:18]Uh, where we looked at methods for achieving the maximum amount of built space using a minimal amount of material.
[18:26]So the result was this kind of pure space frame.
[18:31]A little bit like a trust like structure, uh, dependent on the stable triangle 45 degrees and because of this geometry, all, uh, elements transfer all the loads tensile compressive with no additional need of stabilization.
[18:50]So it became a scenario of uh, I think around 2,000 cubic meters out of 25 trees.
[18:57]And this, uh, this is the workshop we're doing now a little bit from it.
[19:03]And it's it's not about new architectural IDs, you know. It's, uh, it's more about maybe taking a step back.
[19:10]Uh, starting to think about how to manage resources to understand what you're doing, to understand building components and optimize structures, as well as economy.
[19:22]And kind of to understand consequences of, uh, a decision and not saying that one decision is good and one is bad, but more to understand what you're doing and proposing.
[19:35]So at the same time we draw IDs like this, uh, we develop prefab systems often with a on a skypline to the factories, often in the Baltic countries, more or less on a daily basis. We have a, uh, person at office, uh, he's like, uh, is, uh, constantly on on Skype, on his screen just talking to the factories.
[20:04]So we are not so interested in, you know, perfection in details, but rather how to put the components together in the very most simple way.
[20:12]So we work a lot with just simplifying the connections of the elements as well as reducing the number of elements to be transported on a site.
[20:20]I mean, it's not our, uh, IDs. It's, uh, you know, the producers. It's a team. We do it together.
[20:30]Uh, we like a lot in larger project to work with sandwich walls, partly because most of the builders like that. You know, in Sweden, it's quite cold, so you need, uh, the walls are like 400 or something.
[20:44]Uh, you build one floor and finished the floor, and then you move on to the next one. It's very simple. And you can clean the floor when it's done, so it's it's really easy to to kind of manage.
[20:58]So in this case it was the structure as well as finished facade as well as frames for manageable window sizes in one of the projects in Hamar Board that we have been done.
[21:10]So we often make the joints also with a little bit of extra margin because basically it saves a lot of time to to kind of avoid this super precision.
[21:20]So we never do a building that everyone, consultants, builders, you know, needs to struggle a lot to manage.
[21:29]We we like to I mean, we don't see our solution as the final or the optimal.
[21:37]We instead we kind of prefer to take decisions together. We like to work with the builder, not against him. It's a lot of discussions and complains all the time that, I mean, no build, you don't you know, they don't understand anything and you know, this kind of things, but I mean, they they just it they just have their kind of language. And I think it's just to to start to understand how every person work and how every kind of profession work and start to talk a little bit the same language.
[22:03]I think it helps. So yeah, for us, I mean, if it's somehow helps to add a column to carry a balcony, we just add it.
[22:15]It's no problem. If we don't, we, we don't add it. We like to use prefabricated bathrooms. I think we are, uh, yeah, we've done it so much so we are really experts in this.
[22:30]Uh, the cultural building I mentioned before will be built in a it's a really small town in Sweden, in Southern parts of Sweden. It's a has around I think 8,000 inhabitants.
[22:42]So our client there, he owns this block in the central parts of the town. And uh, he didn't actually had a clear idea about what to do, but so he asked us.
[22:54]He had a few loose IDs maybe integrating a cinema, library and small concert hall or, you know, just a room for concerts integrating with the existing buildings.
[23:06]So the moment we started this project, we kind of realized that the project was all about creating a good foundation for a realistic economy.
[23:17]I mean co-working. So the first thing we proposed was to actually add a few extra programs.
[23:24]For instance, it's a lack of a music school in relation, uh, so we put it in relation to the concert hall. The city as well as concert hall needs a restaurant. So it became this kind of first sketch about just programs and and kind of analyzing the uh, the town and also the context because the town is one thing, but then it's the context around.
[23:50]So we aim to always kind of respect and learn from every specific site. to learn about the qualities and start from there, making kind of the site or the context as one of the components.
[24:03]In Vigsa, uh, the client had grown up at the site and knew every piece of of the site, you know, every rock, every tree, every piece of vegetation.
[24:16]So we spent I think, I mean, not permanently two years, but we were there for some sometimes during two years and just looking at the site and uh we decided finally on a part of the plot that could be built and suit for this house. It's marked there by a rope.
[24:36]You see it a little bit in the in the bottom of the image. So we more or less had a possible size to build on.
[24:45]Uh to not touch any trees or anything. We had the glulam components I showed you before.
[24:51]So we made a house elevated from the ground, leaving the nature intact. So as much as possible, we want to make the buildings not interfering with nature.
[25:03]Like you could more or less one day de mount the structure and put the nature back to where it was.
[25:09]The weekend house project at Vedda that I talked about before, uh, we're working with pillars and beams and wood assembled with bolts, and it's all made to get as few points touching the ground as possible.
[25:27]The Bow House project is quite light and generic structure placed on top of the park, not kind of integrated.
[25:35]It's possible to rearrange or even remove. And in the urban fabric, we see some clear problems. I think that we are also I mean, this is it's it's not so many things that we talk about, but this is also one thing.
[25:50]It's a big problem. It's uh, this is an image from, uh, yeah, kind of one of the suburbs in Sweden. And, uh, they're building a lot now, a lot of housings.
[26:00]But one clear thing is that the size of the blocks tends to become bigger and bigger per single developer. So it creates this completely cut off relation between building and street.
[26:14]And, uh, at the best they put like this, you know, real estate agent in one of the corners or something like that. So a few years ago, we did we were invited to do a competition and we're dealing with similar issues.
[26:28]It's a part of a development area at Årsta fältet. It's called just north of the city. It's this green area in the middle there.
[26:39]So today this area has become developed as kind of an extension of the city. And one of the major food companies in Sweden, called ICA owned most of the site for the competition and they were also the clients.
[26:52]So in developing the proposal our focus was only the lower part. How to achieve, you know, possibilities for this really huge ground floor to become a natural part of the urban life.
[27:06]So for the upper part, mainly consisting of housing, uh, we in the competition, we just proposed to uh to to provide some kind of structure that could be developed further with not only us, but maybe more offices.
[27:23]Uh, in the ground floor, we placed this major food hall in the center. And then around the kind of perimeter, we added smaller programs.
[27:35]We put that didn't need to have this kind of ceiling height of 6.5 meters. And that created this extra level above, uh that we instead of digging in the ground for parking, because parking is is always the question of developments in Sweden.
[27:54]You need to provide a lot of parking spaces. And, you know, you don't really know what will happen with the cars. So we proposed this extra kind of mezzaning floor to in the beginning at least, become parking for cars, but also bicycles.
[28:09]But then maybe in the future it can be transformed into housing or offices or something like that. So in the ground floor, we placed this major food hall in the center.
