Waterflux / R&Sie(n)
Architects: R&Sie(n)
Location: Évolène, Switzerland
Creative Team: François Roche, Stéphanie Lavaux, Jean Navarro
Engineer: Guscetti & Tournier, Geneva
Interior Design: R&Sie(n) + Mathieu Lehanneur (furnitures)
Museum design concept and apparatus: Mathieu Lehanneur
Key dimensions: 1,000 sqm
Client: Maison des Alpes, Public Foundation
Photographs: ©François Roche/R&Sie(n)
“Mais voilà qu’en travers de notre route se dressa une silhouette voilée, de proportions beaucoup plus vaste que celles d’aucun habitant de la terre. Et la couleur de la peau de la silhouette était de la blancheur parfaite de la neige… ”
E. A. Poe, les Aventures de Gordon Pym, traduction C. Baudelaire.
Design of a building for an art museum/alpine ice research station Scenario:
1) Digitization of the envelope of a traditional habitat.
2) Scooping out hollows within this volume as if it were an ice cavity, but in full wood by a 5 axes drill machine.
3) Water states and flows vary according to the seasons: The ice flows and freezes; the ice façades freeze and melt, forming a pond in front of the building.
4) Exacerbation of the winter climate by artificial snow (500 m3)
5) Construction by CNC machine processing, 5 axes, in full wood (2000m3-1000 trees) and reassembling the manufactured 180 pieces on site.
6) Reactivation of local economy
You can see a video about the installation here:
Amorphous mutations that suddenly get the form of an art museum that will be finished in 2009, it seems that R&Sie architecture evaluates architecture’s degree of reality transforming pieces taken out of a plastic dimension to convert them in high quality architecture.
The museum, designed with the most organics forms that we can find in nature, clearly represents the team philosophy of “Making with…”, that is their way of describing their research into a critical experience of architecture through a mutation of contextual parameters.
As François says in their web-site, scenarios of hybridization, grafting, cloning, morphing give rise to perpetual transformation of architecture which strives to break down the antinomies of object/subject or object/territory.
R&Sie(n) is an architectural office set up in 1989 and lead by François Roche (1961, France), Stéphanie Lavaux (1966, France), based in Paris. The organic, oppositional architectural projects of their practice is concerned with the bond between building, context and human relations. Roche explains his concept of ‘’spoiled climate” chameleon architecture, which links and hybrids the human body to the body of architecture by a re-scenarization on the rules of all the natures, even artificial. They use speculations and fictions as process to dis-alienate the post-capitalism subjectivities, in the pursuit of Toni Negri. R&Sie(n) consider architectural identity as an unstable concept, defined through temporary forms in which the vegetal and biological become a dynamic element.
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64 comments »
looks like the stomach lining of a cow… sorry but would be nice to have some sort of plan or organisation diagram for those of us who are not fluent in bullshit
what is this….
alright, who took a crap in the model shop???
I feel like all the crazy technology required to build this could be applied to something much more beautiful. And I’m not sure I understand the mesh cube around it either.
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http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com
Are they proposing cutting down 1000 trees to biuld this crap ? I hope it’s a joke.
Renderings remind me of the early 3d cartoons.
The model looks better but still the ecological impact is to big.
another project that takes influence fromnature and tries to pass it for an ecological building. Architecture is fast becoming the battle on who can bullshit the most and get away with it. To be honest it is a wonderfully sculpted form but for future reference, dont tell us its ecological.
balls.
WTF!? Претензия на гениальность? И сколько же труда на кучу какашек угрохали!
what a load a crap hading behind eco-green …
Must be fun to create the maxscript. But beyond that, don’t try to pass this off as anything (new) or (environmental). I’ve seen loads of (unbuilt) projects like this, I’ve even been a part of creating a few. I’ve been impressed by the technical process behind the form generation, and the creation of study models.
But all that crap about water and ice is totally unproven in their process – I’d argue they are just trying to reverse engineer a randomly generated form. Ultimately, its just used to guise the fact that this is a death trap as soon as ice forms and starts falling on people.
Glad it got built though. A friend of mine designed something startlingly similar to this in his 2nd year of architecture school.
If nothing else, at least they have money to burn?
I hate it when designers incorporate their narrow scientific understanding into architectural propositions.
This is blobitecture at its worst; who wants to inhabit a pile of shit?
Great research, many previous comments in this blog are very traditional in a pure conservatism way. It s incredible how architect are jalous about something they dont understand, and how they spread their bitterness when they are confronted to unpublishing, unedited production.
R&Sie(n) are clearly one of the top ten group of research about bio-machine, bio-processes, ecosophical protocols but never in the moralistic ecological way, for naive and childly attitude….. check the works on http://www.new-territories.com, even their last project http://www.new-territories.com/lostinparis.htm >>>>>>>>>between freaks and knowledge / georges from Atlanta
hi,
yes, you are right my friend. Architects are so slave about their practices, and afraid to discover and be confronted to unknown that they prefer mimicking by copism and replicate shapes from the others they have previoulsy consumed.
Many comments are here just scary little children speeches, ”they have to come back to Daddy protection”… the Chris one is a typical example of cowardice. He is afraid of something he don t understand, to protect his own selffishnesspride, he has first to disqualify the unknow. I hate this kind of people. The word is deeply corrupted because of them, they use moralism as the criminals…some years before, this type of guy was torturing the others, as inquisition period, just to force them to be slave. I m deeply interrested by the works of R&Sie(n) and also their teaching course (Google – (n)certainties- columbia) b
Francois Roche is showing us same renders since ten years, whatever the program is, whatever the context is.
PLEASE stop saying there is a concept behind these. I’m ok with progress but burning a thousand trees in that bullshit will never re-invent architecture.
Anyway, he’ll never build it, as the hundred ones he designed before… At this point, it should be called stupidity AND masochism
ben you’re a sycophant, grow up.
yOU SHOULD GO ON THE SITE (not so far from Sion)
THE BUILDING IS GOING TO BE CONSTRUCTED
I M FROM the Valais, and i could say that the trees are coming from the management of the forest, on four years, not from the erasing of the mountain, and the economy of the village is becoming to grow because of this project / from forest management to wood manufacturing in the valley to back to the mountain…by reassembling 3d axes pieces.
I saw the prototype in Basel, of 3×2x2 meters, and my friend it was not an illusion
I m not the lawyer of RsieFroche, but do you think that building with Dust in Thailand, or wood in the forest, or cow in countryside, or hydroponic in a courtyard garden…etc are the same project !!! are you stupid or blind or the both ?
Im sure you are boxy addicted, some kind of children between the ridiculous Diener and Diener or the tricky PRahm …doing boxy climate from the Alps mountain / Switzerland talks to switzerland.
Just jalous architects, as many and many
b
just to add
Ecology is something about anthroposophy. as a system in loop / not to protect a forest which is coming from human industry ? you confuse natures and your personnal teddy bear ! b
Waooo
Macho versus macho, Its become hard and violent talking here in this forum.
Who is the WWCHA ”worst white caucasian heterosexual architect” talkings ?
Chris Yes for sure, Frix in training period, and Ben for futur generation…
Take care that the bitterness doesnt strangle you, and be cool.
Of course this project is a freak, but Tod Browning, Antonin Artaud, Bataille, and Rabelais was manipulating this kind of borderline notion
Why architecture has to stay elegant, bourgeois (as you), and cannot provok repulsion … as a political meaning in the world of today. Do you think architects has to stay in a ghetto of beauty, with the modulor in the back pocket ? and I agree with Ben, with the boxy version of modulor in the back pocket ?
love and be sweet, amelie
Go Ben, Go, hit him hard!!!
Chris, go back to your autocad light and keep on hatching toilet blocks !!!
Forums in general have become sewage pipe for opinions. The WWW, seriously is not a proof of democracy, but more a statement for how a community can turn into a dictatorship of opinions. We have recreated a Babel of billions people, hypnotize into a collective hallucination, an illusion of community. We transformed a good willing utopia into a nightmare. The work of R&Sie knows this ambiguity, this paradox, these bad dreams, and they use them to re-create a strange kind of beauty, in the Real world, locally.
Too many weirdos are convinced that their comments have any critical value, when they obviously are devoid of any intellectual ground.
Yes Ben and Amelie, you are right, people are scared. The more we are heading towards the unknown and the unpredictable, the more people are nostalgic. But their fear is grappling on a corpse of theories that they don’t even remember and understand….Scared people holding on principles… They are post-modern cretins.
I am confused as to how my dislike of this one meritless project has come to me being “scared” and “conservative”.
you people don’t know my tastes, or interests. This project is simply rhetorical, as with most this architect’s work, in the likeness of eisenman, and todd williams & billie tsien. He’s had a couple of good projects and he does something different, however, in execution this project is aweful.
if the internet is a sewage pipe, your shit swirls right around with mine.
First thing to keep a forum “democratic” should be people to stay polite and avoid direct judgements on users…
Thinking Francois Roche is going the wrong way doing this kind of autonom objects doesnt make me a “boxy addicted” or a swiss lover. I think his work doesnt belong to “Real world” as Kim says but rather to society of spectacle. I willingly admit that it doesnt miss of any intellingence, neither of any habilety in the presentation meaning. But it just stinks emptiness.
Just dont agree with the idea of making architecture with this cynical look on reality. This is not a lack of “intellectual ground” as you said kim, or a nostalgic position.
ah, ah
use Guy Debord as an alibi !! you are a mess, a catastroph , a lier, or just a wasp my friend Frix.
Do you know metabolism, constant, fluxus… of course not.. do have you red ”la societe du spectacle” of course not. How architect use references just to diqualify what they don t know… your society is the inquisition because yu are scared…, ben is right, stay where you are, become bitter, and never try to capture life,the intensity of life with its complexity, you are a dead man wrapped by jalousy, bitter and cowardeness… shame on you… rsie are exactly at you opposite, courageous, inovative… ils n aboient pas avec la meute (in french)and take the risk of their own practice…without copism… it s a model of integrity and intelligence for many young architects…
From a girly one who hate what you represent. A
Wow, looks like Rsie gets you in a sentimental mood Amelie…
Of course I didnt read La sté du spectacle, Deleuze, Constant. Of course i dont know what situationism is. I have to confess it: i have never read a single book of my whole life except autocad’s user guide. Thank you for telling me the true truth, long life to architectural innovations, let Francois Roche improve human being with his great work, i should be sent to goulag and burn in hell, keep hating me, i deserve it, im such a freak.
Desole Amelie, mais ce n’est pas en insultant les gens que l’on se fait mieux comprendre. J’approuve le travail de Francois Roche, mais le but n’est pas de recreer encore une fois une nouvelle tribu, avec ses codes et ses fanatismes, comme les hommes et femmes en noir de Jean Nouvel ou la masse de jeunes gens en colere autour de Breton ou Debord. Il faut admettre la resistance quand elle est intelligente, c’est juste une forme de respect pour tous, surtout au sein d’un meme corps de metier, nous avons tous a apprendre de chacun. Il ne faut jamais oublie que contrairement aux artistes traditionnels, nous architectes, ne creeons jamais seul, mais par un dialogue constant avec l’Autre.
Frix, you have to admit that the text following this design, presented here is not sufficient to explain the political and architectural implications of R&Sie’s work. If you are not interested it’s fine, but if you are interested I would recommend you to go on their website.
R&Sie are maybe the only one office in the Avant-garde to offer a different angle to the whole ecological, biomorph trend. They are definitely not formal, like Z.Hadid or Un-Studio, or Edouard Francois, Jacob & Mac Farlane, and they are as well starting to build.
My favorite work of them is Spidernetwood, with a very interesting text by Bruce Sterling.
http://www.new-territories.com/spidernet2.htm
They definitely deserve some reading…
http://www.new-territories.com/waterflux08.htm
Je me suis cogné l’intégralité du site de rsie avant de poster mon premier message. Certes, c’est parfois drôle, c’est habile dans la représentation, les textes et l’univers peuvent être séduisants au premier abord mais c est tout. Que ce mec là me cite à longueur de temps des références situationistes et avec une telle assurance me laisse littéralement coi; le situationisme, enfin ce que j’en retiens moi, après tout le monde en retient ce qu’il veut, c’est exactement l’inverse du point de départ commun aux travaux de François Roche, à savoir le cynisme. Kim, libre a toi de penser qu’il s’agit d’un avant gardiste, j’ose pour ma part espérer que l’avant garde na pas a ce point renoncer à l’architecture
”Renoncer a l’ architecture”, voila qui en dit long sur ta petite vie de criminel, abjecte et vil…
rien a dire de plus, j ai honte de t avoir meme regardé et parlé / il n’y a que les cons qui ose tout, et c est a cela qu on les reconnait (audiar) / / pauvre petit mec / A
Thanks for unmasking them, dear Amelie
This plateform is only driven by typical and ridiculous ”Male architects” . Why little boy are so coward, both in love and architecture ? because they prefer their own reflect in the miror, and by this way deal with politician / Frix, I m sure you are the both. In your miror check what is behind your glory, your certitude, your lying and fake appareance, if you do this effort, and only in this case, you will perceive what means works similar as RSie, if not, pass your life as you are slave little boy…
Non, non. N’ assimile pas tous les garcons a Frix. SVP. C est un con et ca se voit, d’ accord. Mais a quoi cela sert de parler avec ce genre de frenchy etriqué et abimé par 5 ans d’ abrutissement ideologique dans une UP francaise. J en sors a peine et peut te dire qu elle effort il faut pour resister a la betise et a sa domination. Ce Frix, c’est juste une victime… laisse le tranquille…
Aw, don’t start speaking French, I was enjoying the creative English.
I have no professional relationship to architecture whatsoever, so I have the advantage of no baggage regarding ideological camps and the advantage of little credibility. That said, I think the key problems with this project individually (I can’t speak to the firm’s body of work in general) isn’t only about its sense of the world or its attitude. I think it’s very aesthetically unpleasant. It’s been made to look like a sort of monster of the swamp, but it just ends up feeling like a cartoon of architecture, rather than a serious investigation. It is not ugly because it’s too wild, too new, or too far from convention. It’s just ugly because the colors look like feces and the form looks like feces, and the resulting gestalt is ugliness.
Also, something I do know a good deal about is art and art museums, and this is inappropriate beyond belief for such a space. First of all, an interior of this shape will be totally unrelated to conventional exhibition interiors (convention here is important, even if it isn’t in architecture). What that means is that artists will have to develop new work just for this one obscure project, otherwise their work will be out of place. Art is made in relation to a fuzzy conception of conventional exhibition space. Some deviation is OK. But no flat walls means that you can’t show a painting here, so everything becomes some kind of new-media installation and the quality of the work in practice will always go down. Bilbao was controversial mostly because the facade might have distracted from the art inside. Here, the facade is not only overbearing, but the interior is as well. Good sewage plant, bad art museum.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. I’m not a conservative in the least, especially not when it comes to aesthetics. And from the perspective of someone outside of these arguments, those of Frix and Chris and company tend to be much clearer and soundly reasoned, and their opponents tend to call a lot of names and get flustered. That evidences to me that in the larger world, the sewage team might be feeling defensive, which would imply that they are losing many of these arguments.
I think R&Sie(n) accomplished what they wanted with this discussion. They go way further and propose something totally out of the box, in some way as a shock therapy for us…
I attended a Patrick Schumacher (Zaha Hadid Architects) lecture a month ago, and he was very into a “new social order through architecture” speech, and their work has the same effect among people: a very divided opinion.
I think that´s what this building is, a discourse itself to make us revolve and either open to new forms or embrace what we already know.
And no side is wrong. They are just opposite. And that makes architecture evolve as a chaotic tree, instead of a straight path.
Je suis atterré par les commentaires d’Amélie et Alain. Je trouve regrettable que vous ne sachiez rester courtois, cela pourrait au moins excuser la faiblesse de vos propos qui se résument à “tu as tort, tu es con”; qu’avez vous à dire de réellement conséquent pour expliquer ce qui vous transporte chez le travail de François Roche?; Amélie je t’en prie explique moi en quoi ce musée s’inscrit dans une pensée situationiste comme le revendique fièrement son auteur, tu as l’air très calée sur le sujet.
I agree with you David, and I think this is what Chris meant when he called the project “rhetorical.” Promoting conversations like these is meaningful and beneficial. But promoting discourse still allows for criticism of the actual building. Unlike art, there is a practical and functional component to architecture in addition to the drive for promoting discourse.
A good conversation!
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http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com
this projetct is wonderfull, incredible.
I like very much…
I from Chile
well
reponse a Frix,
le travail sur le grotesque, la repulsion, l indetermination des concepts, voir la mise a distance du mot meme concept, l’ illisibilte de la nature de la chose, sorte skyzophrenie des apparences, le ni l un ni l autre, ni arbre ni grotte, et les deux a la fois, mais en meme temps je (re)pere quatre possibles et non deux, branchages qui accentue l’ ennneigement et produise l hiver le fantome morphologique d un habitat tradit de savoie-alpes suise qui apparait a la fonte eviscerer de sa ”chair”, cette meme fonte des glaces qui genere l’indoor, et le contexte peripherique qui genere ces branchages avortés… cette confusion est par nature situ, mais pas seulement…elle n est pas lineaire et ne peut etre reduite a un simple montage ”esthetique”, transparent… ca resite a la lecture… et a la tienne d autant plus…mais aussi…Le local anthroposophique, boucle de recyclage transformation, matiere premiere vers manufacturation et reassemblage, la societe du spectacle n’ oeuvre pas sur ce genre de Monades…la societe du spectacle est top down, on est ici bottom up (la situation fabrique la transformation de la situation, et la rend visible, mais avec des procedures qui elles meme (fraisage 5 axes) sont ambigus par leur monolitisme… je les ai entendu dire… corps sans organe… pas une structuration structuraliste…mais un corps bois qui ne laisse pas lire comme un l assemblage de partie, de composants mais un truc fait de flux, de bifurcation et d intensite…
…. je pourrais continuer sur trois pages…. mais frix tes trop con et un argumentaire n’y changera rien
Ton missel d ecologie en poche, c est comme les staliniens sur lesquels Debord vomissait… de koi ta peur, hein ?
Answer to Contemporary Art:
You said it
“this is inappropriate beyond belief for such a space. First of all, an interior of this shape will be totally unrelated to conventional exhibition interiors (convention here is important, even if it isn’t in architecture). What that means is that artists will have to develop new work just for this one obscure project, otherwise their work will be out of place.”
Sounds like a compliment !!!
This is why this space is controversial and interesting. It twist the relation between art and architecture, it gives an organic body to the museum, ingesting and digesting art, yes we are talking about body fluids, contemporary art and shit, that’s something to be meditate on, no (especially for someone who red the latest Virilio (“Art as Far as the Eye Can See”, “Art and Fear”). We are talking here about Radical architecture, and not the bourgeois, conventional white box art space. Francois Roche, if you know his body of built work, has mainly constructed for contemporary artists. I would even say that his usual clients are contemporary artists and not museographers.
Have a look here, you will see mainly pictures unpublished officially of his work “the Snake”, because they show how one interior has been re-appropriate by the user (an artist collector):
http://www.architecturedecollection.fr/bien.asp?REF=0000025
Reponse a Frix: Mais qu’est ce qui vous dit que l’Architecture c’est justement continuer les formules constructives du BTP ? Qu’est ce qui nous prouve qu’en renoncant justement a ce que l’on nomme communement l’Architecture; qui est plutot une maniere un peu plus marketee et conventionelle de faire des metre carres habitables, et en reinventant son rapport a la construction, on ne touche pas a une defninition plus juste de l’Architecture ? Qu’est ce qui nous prouve justement que Francois Roche et son equipe ne font pas, eux vraiement de l’Architecture, parcequ’ils la font renaitre a chaque questionnement, a chaque projet ? Dans ce sens je met ensemble Loos, Lautner, Utzon, Gaudi, Frei Otto, Siza, Piano et Roche, car chacun ont ce desire de renouveller sans cesse non seulement le discour, mais aussi la maniere constructive.
Effectivement il y a une part de cynisme venimeux dans la discour de Francois Roche. Il faut comprendre que c’est, non seulement une attitude adoptee depuis le debut de sa carriere d’architecte, a l’epoque de “L’Ombre du cameleon” avec Edouard Francois et Duncan Lewis, mais c’est aussi devenu une defense assez efficace contre le petit milieu de l’architecture en France, d’ou le fanatisme de la horde de fans qui l’accompagne sur chaque forum, conference et autre manifestation publique. Il cite Parent et Friedman, ce n’est pas pour rien, puisque ceux ci on ete mis a l’ecart par les mandarins de droite affilies au BTP, comme les architectes hipppies gauchistes des 60, 70s. Quand on veut pretendre a la radicalite on doit se permettre la plus grande severite envers soi-meme et ne pas tomber dans l’auto-indulgence, d’ou aussi cette aggressivite, cet ascetisme de la plume. Je ne crois pas que cela soit une situation enviable, qui a autant le courage d’etre Contre et Autre? Cette agence a ete et reste boycottee par le milieu architectural franco-francais, et ce n’est que recement qu’ils ont pu emerger en construisant de plus en plus.
Tant mieux si leur travail suscite encore plus de controverses, il faut que les gens se reveillent !!!
>>>I see that architecture can be sometimes, somewhere a place of ” arguments ”, in the sense of the arguments of XVIII / I am not sure about quality of contradictors, but it’s the game of anonymat to shoot as snipers… For information : We are doing the next opus of ”Ive heard about” / http://www.new-territories.com/I%27veheardabout.htm / next may in LeLaboratoire-Paris / come have a look on this hypothesis of machinist-self organised protocols / best FRoche-R&Sie(n)
Quelle tartufferie.
Frix+Bimbamboum+Chris=the dream team
Forms never follows function, but silly little boy could work together, yes yes , it s their deep nature. I officially comission you the boxy house of mister Gargamel of the blue Smurf… ah ah ah…
“Les cons ça ose tout. C’est même à ça qu’on les r’connaît !”
De L. Ventura, alias Fernand Naudin dans les Tontons flingueurs !! dialogue de M. Audiard
Cher Alain,
Quand je parlais de tartufferie, je parlais moins du projet de Roche que de ta manière de l’évoquer. T’es drôlement fier de ta petite personne, pas vrai ?
C’est bien ! Maintenant, coucouche panier.
Grosses bises.
Suis sur qu’on aurait pu s entendre, non pas sur Roche&co, ce serait mal les utiliser que de les prendre pour entremeteurs, mackerel de rapprochements amoureux, ils engagent plutot au plaisir animal, eros et thanathos comme i disent, mais nous, nous les petit frenchy desabusé, generation a 700 euros, avec notre ultime fierte, cache sex et cache misere, …je te renvoi au texte de l IS de 66 ”De la misère en milieu étudiant: considérée sous ses aspects économique, politique, psychologique, sexuel et notamment intellectuel et de quelques moyens pour y remédier”… sur ces points nous pourrions nous entendre.
http://library.nothingness.org/authors.php3?id=6 (french & english)
now i see where Yoda lives
hi
the two project ”Lowtech” and ”r&sie” seems very opposite.
In appearence, for the both, just Stacking of elements, but ……the first is post-industrial and the other seems post-human, the first is using components in their integrity with a kind of modernism religiosity (with a perfection of know how) but with a kind of conventionnal articulation, the second hide the components through a body without organs, without structuralism dependencies, producing confusion between parts and the whole entity.
The first is brandy, minimal and easy readable, consummable for mister NIKE-Prada as ”the easy listening”, the second is repuslsive, vomitable agressive, spiky and vaginal.
One is unfolding intelligence as a spectacle, the other is an anomaly, a toxic dynausaure, as a fragment of the unknow …
But the main question is which one is the ”mas macho” one Laurie Anderson) ? and Where is the wrong darwinism branchees, the bad mutant or the ideal elegancy.
a
great debate,,,,i liked a lot the french part with all the litterature references…anyway, Roche got what he wanted on this page
UUUAAA, that is the ugliest house I ever saw, can you acctualy live in it? I think that even Doctor G woud’t like to live here. O god
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