NATIONAL CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ARTS BY TOM WISCOMBE DESIGN

“This proposal is a continuation of a body of work we refer to as ‘objects wrapped in objects’, which deals with discrete, chunky objects gathered and squished together in a sack.

This strategy creates complex interstitial spaces and deferred interiority, making the contemporary museum a space of surprises and discrete experiences rather than an endless continuum of paths. Tristan Garcia, the object-oriented philosopher, talks about the infinite regress of things inside of things inside of things, except the world, which everything is inside of and therefore cannot itself be inside of something else.

For him, the concept of a ‘sack’, literally, is a diagram of the conundrum of how things can simultaneously be autonomous from one another but also contain other things. This conundrum is the core of our proposal, in that the building should appear simultaneously as multiple autonomous objects but also as a larger, emergent object with its own properties.

The vibration between these two ways of existing creates a visual indeterminacy that is alluring and durable. On the south side facing the Park, the sack is sliced open to reveal a public space nestled inside. An inner liner delaminates from the sack surface creating space for permanent and temporary gallery spaces in between.

The building is re-enclosed with a glass membrane which is not coincident with the sack silhouette, creating an indeterminacy of enclosure and interiority. Black jack-like objects squish out into the sack from the inside or push into it from the outside. They are therefore either tucked between sack and liner, entirely outside the sack, or partially covered by the sack.

One internal jack disappears altogether, opening up vast interior spaces between sack and liner. Interstitial spaces between discrete objects become the primary circulation of the building. The jacks house various support functions such as theaters, research area, library, and offices.

The sack is articulated with architectural tattoos that subvert subdivision logics in favor of the freeform figuration allowed by composite construction. Tattoos are executed in such a way as to blur the edge between discrete objects and visually re-establish the larger object, as if qualities from the black objects begin to loosen and drift onto the sack.

Finally, the building is squished into a ‘ground object’ which is in turn squished into the land. The looseness between building and ground object allows for passage underneath the building. The looseness between ground object and land emphasizes the object-hood of the building complex. This move contrasts with exhausted ideas of buildings becoming landscape or otherwise disappearing into context.” Description from Tom Wiscombe Design.

Location: Moscow, Russia

Architect: Tom Wiscombe Design

Year: 2013

Status:Competition
Client: Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation

COLLIDER ACTIVITY CENTER BY TOM WISCOMBE DESIGN

This design aspires to make Walltopia into a 21st brand center as well as a destination for sports and recreation. Our belief is that this cannot be achieved without re-thinking the status of building as a neutral container of active furnishings in favor of building as active and distinct. Successful contemporary brand centers create a new and unexpected world, something that exceeds a collection of wares. 

 

Our proposal is to take the idea of ‘boulders’ produced by Walltopia and re-interpret them as architectural objects. These objects are squished and nested into a multi-layered enclosure, creating three-dimensional external and internal climbing surfaces with both hard and soft features. The inner liner surface is articulated with computational tattoos, implying systems of climbing holds and routes. The result is a space which is abstract and alien, but also discernable as a contemporary climber’s paradise. 

Objects in Objects

The design of the project is based on the formal and organizational model of objects in objects. This model is in direct opposition to architecture as single-skin hull or container, but also in opposition to architectural heirarchies of enclosure and internal subdivision through walls and corridors. The object in object model puts outer and inner objects on a horizontal plane and deals with them as discreet but affiliated. The inner objects are crystal forms, aggregated into a tense constellation; they enclose building programs that support the Climbing Hall.

The outer object gathers these objects into a whole at a different scale, creating a vast internal space to be used as the Climbing Hall. By pushing and squishing into architectural skins, the inner objects become legible (more or less) rather than simply contained. Ultimately this design approach forces the simultaneous consideration of silhouette, mass, skin, and interiority in architecture. It also introduces the idea that strong shape may be a productive architectural feature at other scales than the scale of an entire building . As in an aquarium, internal figures are always read simultaneously with the figuration of their outer enclosure. 

Multilayer Skins and Slicing

The sack has three layers- outer skin, sub-skin, and liner. These delaminating skins, as in the Baroque architecture of Borromini, allow for the separate handling of exterior and interior worlds. Each layer is articulated differently and has a different material quality. The outer skin is an ultra-matte white composite construction featuring a fine-grained network of white-on-white tattoos and super-joints.

The sub-skin is a gloss carbon fiber shell with black-on-black meta-seams, and the interior liner is a soft, tactile, high-contrast surface articulated by tattooed relief based on hybrid line and dot patterns. These three skins sometimes track one another and other times delaminate significantly, providing poche space to house building circulation and potentially other functions. From these in-between spaces, visitors can view down into the Climbing Hall as voyeurs.

By slicing into this multi-layered sack to different depths, a patchy architectural effect is acheived. This approach produces a happy alternative to the architecture of the single, seamless surface which has dominated digital architecture for too long. Some slices are minor or glancing, cutting only joints or seams into skins, while others cut deeply through all layers creating massive apertures and views into the internal world. This system of cutting to create seam-to-aperture transformations is one of the important inventions of the project.

The Ground (Object) and the Land

Building on the concept of objects in objects, this project introduces the idea of objectifying the ground, peeling it up from the land. We are now in the realm of objects in objects on objects. The theory of the ground as object is that architecture does not equal landscape, and that each is better dealth with as things-in-themselves. Again, this is in opposition to the single surface project where a building mass fuses with the earth to become one. The payoff of this approach is that difference and specificity of both the architectural object and the nature-object (a.k.a. the land) are maintained. The ground object in this case is packed with building functions, and provides a precisely delineated public space on its ‘roof‘. 

Technology and Construction

The structure of the project will be reinforced concrete core and slab construction with concrete perimeter walls and an economical column grid on the interior of the ground object. Upper levels will be concrete core and slab construction. The skins of the main building will be constructed from lightweight composite materials with embedded honeycomb core, utilizing the natural shell shapes of the project to enable long spans and column-free interiors. We propose M1, an advanced water-based polymer resin for this project. Developed by the aerospace industry, M1 is the first available ‚green‘ composite material of its kind. It is non-toxic and fireproof. 

The multilayer skin system, like wearing multiple thin layers of clothing on the body for warmth, will provide a buffer zone between outside and inside environments. It will create stability in temperature on the interior in summer and winter, and will entirely avoid the problems of conduction and thermal breaks. Finally, the solar-thermal system suggested in the competition brief will be embedded into the outer skin as a figural pattern of thermal coils. This heat-exchange system will provide hot water for the needs of the building as well as the swimming pools.

 

 

Location: Sophia, Bulgaria 

Architect: Tom Wiscombe Design 

Year: 2013 

Client: Walltopia Ltd.