Shaken Office / Zerodegree Architecture

© Jim Ernst

Architect: Yushi Uehara / Zerodegree Architecture
Location: Rosenburglaan 15, Groningen,
Commissioner: DBZ Planontwikkeling, Groningen
Commissioner user: Rregus
Owner: OKinvest, Groningen
Construction Engineer: Ingenieursbureau Wassenaar, Haren
Contractor: Jorritsma Bouw Groningen
Project start: 2001
Completion: 2010
Photographs: Jim Ernst

“Form Follows Function (Louis Sullivan 1896)”. “Ornament is a crime (Adolf Loos 1906)” If these credo’s that marked the functionalism are still alive, why is the functionalist’s architecture now become so unpopular?

We think that ‘experience’ is the key to the next generation architecture. We are aiming architecture that messaging energetic actions! This way we want to involve users in our architectural projects.

ground floor plan
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The brief demanded ‘impressive architecture with limited resources’. A pair of building is to be used as office and as scientific lab. This condition reduces architecture into one floor principle for diverse programs; one case fits all that was what the brief demanded. That means architecture of “One form fits all” like blue Jeans does to anyone.

© Jim Ernst

The travelers on the highways see no building detail but the monolith, two similarly proportioned sculptural volumes with large cantilevered floors. The complex is a steel building that uses minimum material. In answering the demand we produced minimal floor plans. We think that in 20th century functionalist architecture space to express mode of users is missing,; we call this the space of experience. Therefore we aim to rejuvenate functionalist architecture with energetic form and façade that is not definitive. We call this architecture as superunctionalism.

© Jim Ernst

The concept of stacked up boxes obviously brought us diverse office space dimensions. ‘Subtle differences between the two buildings’ are the key to express user’s presence. Minimalistic floor plan is also the principle of the construction system. Façade panels are perforated steel panels which covers 50% of glass surfaces.

Monolith with sensual translucency.

The light body; lightness makes heavy impression, that is the rhetoric.

* Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.
Cite: "Shaken Office / Zerodegree Architecture" 22 Apr 2010. ArchDaily. Accessed 18 Jun 2013. <http://www.archdaily.com/57014>

21 comments

  5. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    Real functionalism is real estate. Why this need for making a pamphlet for a simple yet powerful building ?
    Basing the project of the need for the office sizes needed right now is very short-sighted. What about next 10 years when the offices will have evolved or be different? If you want to push this functionalist discourse, what are they doing ? Do they all need the same light quality, the same windows ?

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    • Thumb up Thumb down 0

      Very interesting statement: Real functionalism is real estate.
      Very anagramatic though. Real estate projects are often decorated shed, in a way add-on defines the cost of lessee. Functionalist on the other hands, aimed to remove any ornamentation from architecture.

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  10. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    Agree!Almost same but I would say that even starchitect also go for copy-modified-paste approach. So I’m not really surprise if we can find any ‘twins’ building in this world.

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    • Thumb up Thumb down 0

      The building referred by Tom is not the same as this building. The world is big and most do not know what is on the other side so.

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  11. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    This argument about it beeing about the experience, why is it not shown in the representation of the architecture ? The appearance of the bodies is not powerful to me, it is half-way in some sense, not heavy, not light, not stacked, not one body and so forth. I also wonder what the inside is like, I expect it to be very ordinary, and the subtle differences not be overshadowed by moving further up in the building (the context supplies the difference).

    Next, I se very little of a scenario going on in the project, there seems to be no room for any kind of stories in the images. There is an empty parking lot, there is some buildings in a grass field and so on. It seems to me, that it is a very simple and basic project out in some business park, and that there are few if any situations that are memorable.

    I also miss the quality or experience provided by the stacking method, since it is not completed all the way around. The axsis viana hotel at least offers some change in experience as one walks around it, -in this example the straight(non shuffled) facade only makes the building dead, and the architectural body heavy.

    I really like the text of this project, to touch on the simplicity and “core quality” possible in functionalism, but I don’t see it in the project. The project looks first of all too small to be two buildings, and secondly, it has a very non-functional appearance once you go beyond the square windows.

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    • Thumb up Thumb down 0

      Mr. Cheap,it seems you have very specific expectation to design. Are you projecting your desire to design onto this project? Would you only accept what is in your mind? Most have different approaches to what is said in words, so some time it is just better try to listen to what is there.

      just my 2 cents worth.

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    • Thumb up Thumb down 0

      dont know what to say but the perspective looks really like my hotel design last term by the way Im just a normal junior in a normal school……

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  15. Thumb up Thumb down 0

    Loos never, ever claimed that “Ornament is a crime.” The essay was about, and was titled, “Ornament and Crime.”

    This is not a functionalist project. The architects are not preoccupied with use or function. The ambition of the project far exceeds the errant claims of the author of the project text.

    Reply

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