Research on BIG and Utzon

Jørn Utzon (deceased Architect)

Utzon had a Nordic sense of concern for nature which, in his design, emphasized the synthesis of form, material and function for social values. His fascination with the architectural legacies of the ancient Mayas, the Islamic world, China and Japan enhanced his vision. This developed into what Utzon later referred to as Additive Architecture, comparing his approach to the growth patterns of nature. A design can grow like a tree, he explained: "If it grows naturally, the architecture will look after itself.

à This also embodies the concept of ‘modules/nature organic’ where patterns are formed and ‘added’ onto one another. I am planning to incorporate this concept into my monument by adding ‘units’ or ‘modules’ onto one another.

As i was researching i came across a quote by Utzon said of the Design Principles, "My job is to articulate the overall vision and detailed design principles for the site, and for the form of the building and its interior". This quote allowed me to understand Utzon's way of thinking when it comes to designing, and also reminded me of the concept of 'Modules-nature/organic'.

Additive Architecture

Additive Architecture is an approach used by Danish architect Jørn Utzon to describe his development of architectural projects on the basis of growth patterns in nature.

Mogens Prip-Buus, one of Utzon's closest colleagues, reports that the term was coined in 1965 in Utzon's Sydney office when, after a discussion of the social structures in Britain and Denmark, Utzon suddenly jumped up and wrote "Additive Architecture" on the wall. He saw it as part of an additive world where both natural and cultural forms contributed to additive systems and hierarchies. He realized that his own architecture reflected the same principle, just as the transitions in primitive societies between family, village and the surrounding world have visible links revealing differences, relations and distances.

Utzon observed the additive approach in Chinese temples whose stacked timber structures are basically identical, differing only with the size of the building. In his "Additive Architecture" manifesto in 1970, he tells us how he saw the phenomenon reflected in a group of deer at the edge of a forest or in the pebbles on a beach, convincing him that buildings should be designed more freely rather than in identical box shapes. Earlier, in 1948, he had expressed the same ideas in an essay titled "The Innermost Being of Architecture" stating: "Something of the naturalness found in the growth principle in nature ought to be a fundamental idea in works of architecture."

The application of the additive approach can be seen in many of Utzon's works including the courtyard housing schemes which began with the tiling of the Sydney Opera House and his designs for a sports complex in Jeddah. Utzon's early competition project for a crematorium in 1945 also exemplifies his approach. The building's free-standing walls could be extended over time, a new brick being added for each cremation.

BIG (Living Architect)

Bjarke Ingels (born 2 October 1974) is a Danish architect. He heads the architectural practice Bjarke Ingels Group which he founded in 2006. In 2009 he co-founded the design consultancy KiBiSi. In his designs, Bjarke Ingels often tries to achieve a balance between playful and practical approaches to architecture.

With BIG, Bjarke Ingels has continued the ideology from PLOT and has several major projects under construction or development both in Denmark and abroad. These include 8 House in Ørestad and the new Danish national Maritime museum in Elsinore, hotel projects in Norway, a highrise designed in the shape of the Chinese character for 'people' for Shanghai, a masterplan for the redevelopment of a former naval base and oil industry wasteland into a zero-emission resort and entertainment city off the coast of Baku, Azerbaijan,^]shaped as the seven mountains of the country, and a museum overlooking Mexico City.

Under the BIG Banner Bjarke recently published "Yes is more - an archcomic on architectural evolution".

On 24 July 2009, he spoke at the prestigious TED event in Oxford, UK.^[4]

He presented the case study “Hedonistic sustainability” in the workshop Manage complexity - With integral solutions to an economy of means at the 3rd International Holcim Forum 2010 in Mexico City and shall be a member of the Holcim Awards regional jury for Europe in 2011.^[5]

Design Philosophy

Explaining his design ideas, Bjarke Ingels states:

“

Historically the field of architecture has been dominated by two opposing extremes. On one side an avant-garde full of crazy ideas. Originating from philosophy,mysticism or a fascination of the formal potential of computer visualizations they are often so detached from reality that they fail to become something other than eccentric curiosities. On the other side there are well organized corporate consultants that build predictable and boring boxes of high standard. Architecture seems to be entrenched in two equally unfertile fronts: either naively utopian or petrifyingly pragmatic. We believe that there is a third way wedged in the nomansland between the diametrical opposites. Or in the small but very fertile overlap between the two. A pragmatic utopian architecture that takes on the creation of socially, economically and environmentally perfect places as a practical objective.”

-This embodies the concept of his pragmatic approach to architecture. Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice.

Overall

I enjoy BIG's architectural works much more than Utzons as i value the theory of "YES IS MORE" over 'LESS is more' and the concept models on BIGs website are extraordinary - i will post a few examples of the works i enjoy.