“Artists have always been fascinated by the world of display”


to people. We have just completed a smart house that operates on this level. The idea of intelligent buildings also relates to the design process. At this stage we can create buildings that are as effi cient and intel- ligent as possible, and we consequently save money. We make more exciting architecture by using new design techniques. Intelligent buildings can be highly fl exible.


We’ve designed an offi ce building for example – the UNStudio Tower in Amsterdam – that can be transformed into a residential building. By incorporating maximum fl exibility into the design, the future use of the building can be changed without any structural alteration.


How do you predict building design will change in the future? I believe the idea of comfort will change. Comfort will be much more connected with health, so buildings will be healthier. We’ll be much happier to walk around buildings and use staircases because we know it’s better for us. We’ve also been using a technique used in hospitals, where the air is extracted vertically from the room instead of fl owing from one person to the next. Making buildings healthier is defi nitely the future.


What has been the greatest change to the architecture profession since you started your career? The widespread use of computers and new technology. I was brought up with hand drawing and the drawing board, and I do still sketch, but the computer gave me new insights and a belief that new design tech- niques can stimulate our imagination. Computers are knowledge machines that can help us achieve smart, interactive,


CLADmag 2015 ISSUE 1


Van Berkel brought ideas from museum design to the Galleria Centercity in Cheonan


innovative buildings. They also help us deal with the many building codes and require- ments that have been introduced to the profession over the years. In the past, architecture was segmented and fragmented – you had the column, the ceiling, the fl oor. Now, with computational techniques you can hybridise these ideas; a ceiling can turn into a column, for example.


Which UNStudio leisure building are you most proud of and why? Sometimes quite unusual projects become the most fascinating ones for me. We designed a shopping centre in Cheonan in South Korea called Galleria Centercity [completed in 2010]. The project came straight after a run of museums and theatres, which meant I approached it in a totally cultural manner. I asked the client why we couldn’t see the objects that people buy in this building as the


art, why we couldn’t use the lighting effects we use in museums, why we couldn’t make a fantastic atrium and a lobby space and make everything white. I approached it from a totally different standpoint than I had before. It’s a fascinating building. I always notice


when people stand in the atrium and look up, they can’t work out if the building is 20 metres high or 60 metres high – it’s full of illusions. What’s fascinating about this typology is how and where we see commerce and culture overlap. What is their relationship? Sometimes friends ask me how I can work on a department store. Yet half of my work is cultural, and I like what I learn from the cultural typology so much that I want to translate it into my other work. Andy Warhol was an incredible shopper.


He believed that when we die we go to Bloomingdales. Artists have always been fascinated by the world of display, and I’ve


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PHOTO: ©CHRISTIAN RICHTERS


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