Landscape is an eternal topic for artists. From the famous saying of the Italian architect Carlo Scarpa, "I want to cut a piece of the sky blue" (Volevo ritagliare l'azzurro del Cielo.), to the series of works by the land artist Christo and Jeanne-Claude, which establish a dialogue between the art of the land and the landscape, the artist's imagination is endless when facing the landscape. When a work leaves the high-density urban environment and enters nature, how to create its relationship with the landscape is a rather attractive but tricky problem.
The installation is an invention of modern art. As modern art became more and more closely integrated with modern architecture, avant-garde architects often also used installations as a medium for intervening in spatial practice. On the other hand, the potential mobility of the installation also gives it a more flexible design model than a traditional building. Young architect Guo Liaohui is currently in the early stages of independent practice, and several installations and architectural works he completed in the first year after the establishment of the firm are related to landscapes and landscapes. They attempt to answer the question of how the core thinking of architecture speaks to landscapes from several different dimensions.
In the second half of 2020, Guo Liaohui was invited by the OCAT Shanghai Pavilion to participate in the exhibition "Discipline of Space" with a piece of equipment. The proposition put forward by the curator is that the exhibitors need to take childhood memories as the starting point, and Guo Liaohui, who was born in the land of Jingchu, thinks of the Yangtze River embankment, which is closely related to the lives of the local people. In the Yichang section, the huge water level difference formed between the abundant and dry periods of the Yangtze River every year brings a daily spectacle, that is, the embankments that can be walked during the dry period will be completely submerged during the flood period.
"Discipline of Space" exhibition site.
The construction of modern embankments actually considers the relationship between the scale of components and people and landscapes with an engineering thinking. The architect's childhood memory of the embankment is the feeling of the feet of a person walking on it, and at the same time he found that the riverside was paved with hexagonal floor tiles. Using hexagons to spell out the pattern, especially suitable for slightly concave terrain, can better achieve the effect of full paving. The hexagonal elements were extracted as prototypes for the installation, which were supported under the hexagonal floor tiles by slender wooden members as a column of upwardly lifting diagonal lines to express the slope of the embankment.
Slender wooden poles under hexagonal floor tiles.
The installation occupies a linear space throughout the exhibition hall, with floor tiles neatly connected to form an oblique sequence. The floor has always been stepped on, but this time, the defamiliarization of the installation gives the piece a special meaning. Even though the architectural elements are ultimately more straightforward than the abstract art elements, this row of diagonal floor tiles rarely makes the viewer immediately realize that this is paving from the Yangtze River. And in fact, these floor tiles are simulated by river paving with concrete precast blocks, rather than directly transporting floor tiles for use.
At the exhibition site of "Discipline of Space", hexagonal concrete prefabricated modules simulate the paving of embankments, and are lifted one by one with wooden poles underneath.
On the front, the neat sequence of hexagonal formations suggests that this may be a different architectural composition from ordinary installations; from the back, the slender wooden components resemble thin legs, reminiscent of the Steilneset Memorial, which Guo Liaohui once studied and interned with the architect Peter Zumthor, who once built on the Norwegian seashore. The warm material of the wood and the alternating between the two coordinate axes give the whole installation an austere elegance.
Swipe to view the Riverwalk drawing.
This simple refinement is the Europa blood flowing through the works of architect Guo Liaohui. His studies at the Mendrisio Academy in Switzerland and his travels around Europe taught him how to behave in moderation. Modern Swiss architecture is undoubtedly the world's premier architectural school of precision and refinement, and the pursuit of this refinement is first expressed in materials and construction. Although in the early days of official opening, Guo Liaohui is still exploring how to express refinement through materials and construction in the limited small projects, but wood is actually an important material for him. During his internship at the Firm, he witnessed how carpenters who worked with Himto himself carved carpentry, so wood became an option for him to make a work in the projects that he opened after returning to China.
At the end of the same year, at the Yangshuo Sugar House in Guangxi, the architect was commissioned to build a lightweight fire pit. While traveling in the village of Northern Guizhou, Guo Liaohui saw the drum tower of Dongzhai and its central fire pond, as well as scenes of Dong families roasting fires and smoked meat in houses, which inspired him to create "entering the wooden fire pond". Strictly speaking, "entering the wooden fire pit" is also an installation, and it cannot be regarded as an architectural work. But architects advance design entirely with an attitude toward building nodes and construction practices. The way the wooden structures into the wooden fire pit are handed over is more complex than the previous installation, which was named "Riverside Walk". The plane projection of the wooden fire pit is square, and it can be assembled by relying on three components: wooden members, cloth curtains and cables.
The installation "Into the Wood Fire Pond" forms a dialogue with the landscape of Yangshuo Landscape Pattern.
The installation has three floors, each of which is made of four wooden poles, which has a modern simplified version of the original hut , and at the same time, with its taut dark cloth curtain between the wooden members, it simulates the eaves of the southwest house and naturally reminiscent of the drum tower shape. The brazier is suspended from the ground, on the one hand it provides a structural role as a damper for the entire fire, and on the other hand, the cable on top of it, once tightened, will in turn make the wooden poles underneath bite more tightly. Through multiple attempts from modeling to detail, "entering the wood fire pond" forms a dialogue with the landscape of Yangshuo landscape pattern.
The "into the wood fire pond" is assembled only by three components: members, cloth curtains and cables.
From a structural point of view, this installation is quite innovative. The structure of the wood members is selected as reciprocal structure, in which the four wooden members are spliced together by precise tenoning. How the wood components are cut in three dimensions is the key to determining the balance between artistry, economy and rapid construction of this installation.
The brazier in the "Into the Wood Fire Pond" hangs in the middle without touching the ground, which constitutes a dialogue with the landscape of Yangshuo Landscape.
Guo Liaohui's way of controlling the slotting of wooden component nodes is actually a kind of parametric modeling and construction drawing conversion under limited conditions. During the implementation of these projects, the team of architects directly docked with the carpenters, and did not involve the machining of machine tools in the factory. Because the installation uses an inter-bearing structure, its nodes are consistent on four adjacent wooden members, and they can be used on the upper and lower three layers of members. This brings great convenience to the work of the architect.
During the construction process, the wooden members are slotted and spliced.
Although the grooved surface of the tenon is oblique, which brings some difficulty to the craftsman to operate differently from the conventional node, because the architect controls all the tenons with a single node, the cost and time of the entire construction process are also controlled. From this project, Guo Liaohui's practice began to have more connection with nature and landscape, and his work began to gradually move towards architecture and architecture.
Swipe to view the "Into the Wood FirePool" drawing.
In 2021, in a construction experiment on the banks of Dianchi Lake in Kunming, the scale of the installation was expanded to a volume that could already accommodate the human body to walk inside, while the architect faced a more open landscape of Dianchi Lake and the surrounding mountains. If the volume of the longitudinal harvest of the "into the wood fire pond" is more in line with the karst landform around Yangshuo, then the lakeside flat pavilion (roof pavilion) responds to the Dianchi Lake and the distant mountains with a horizontally unfolded volume.
The lakeside roof pavilion responds to Dianchi Lake and the distant mountains in a horizontally unfolded volume.
Wood is still the structural material for the project, and the architect arranges it into a continuous rhythm. By introducing the 60-degree line, the positive triangular unit becomes the basic modulus that controls the entire building. In addition to the openings at both ends and in the middle, the building, which serves as a gallery, is cladded with sun panels on the outside of the wooden poles, which look like a white butterfly in the sunlight.
The lakeside pavilion under the sun panel cladding takes on a delicate luster in the light.
In addition to the light appearance of the "Lakeside Pavilion", its precise processing of wooden components and the design of the connection with the sun plate and steel sheet make this work add a lot of detail to the details.
Above: Cross-section of the lakeside flat pavilion.
Below: Visitors can walk and rest inside the flat pavilion and look out through the diamond-shaped window opening that is just left.
In the heat, visitors can enter the interior of the pavilion to walk and rest, and look out through the diamond-shaped window opening that has just been left. The triangular interior spaces and sunlight panels form a unique way for people to appreciate the landscape through the view.
Swipe to view the "Lakeside Pavilion" drawing.
If the lakeside pavilion is still a bit like a structural work with an approximate architectural scale, then the Guihai Life Experience Hall completed at the same time must be a real architectural work. Located on the outskirts of Guilin, between the uplifted mountains of the karst landscape, the building's white transverse volume responds to the landscape with a powerful horizontal line. This horizontal line is not straight, but slightly conforms to the gentle slope of the terrain, and gently supports the roof of the veranda part with extremely slender vertical supports.
The Guihai Life Experience Center responds to the landscape with a powerful horizontal line.
Walking in the veranda allows you to experience its swing and join, and the slender members are reminiscent of the German Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels Fair, designed by the German architects Egon Eiermann and Sep Ruf. It is also an extremely slender vertical member on the façade, which enhances the sophistication of the whole building. The delicate junction between the steel structure body of the building itself and the veranda gives people the freedom to easily appreciate the landscape on both sides when walking around.
Swipe to view the drawing of "Guihai Life Experience Hall".
These works start from the smallest scale of interior installations, and under various coincidences, they are gradually expanded into structures and buildings standing in the landscape. The current practice of the young architect Guo Liaohui is like the practice of his predecessors in the Ticino and Graubine mountaineering areas in Switzerland, pursuing the simplicity and refinement of a small work itself, and considering the work into the landscape scale. These works bear the imprint of his study in Switzerland, no exaggerated shapes, no noisy vocabulary, only node designs that emphasize the construction of feelings and material selection that strives to simplify. Perhaps in the near future, these installations and structures facing the landscape will evolve into more complex landscape architecture.
Above: Cross-sectional view of Guihai Life Experience Hall.
Medium and bottom: When walking in the veranda, you can easily admire the surrounding natural landscape.
Jiang Jiawei, assistant professor of the School of Architecture and Urban Planning of Tongji University, and Guo Liaohui were invited to have a dialogue, share the impact of their working methods and learning experience, and discuss the thinking behind the design.
Jiang Jiawei
Please tell us about your current design work mode, such as sketches, sketches, computer models, 1:1 mock-up, what are your common design tools?
I look at this issue from two perspectives. One is the "pointing to possibilities" tool, and early in the design I was still using more traditional tools — sketches and sketches — that were so open that I tended not to see the answer but to see the possibility. These tools allow you to explore the strategy, temperament, logic, and form of your design. The other is a tool for "pointing to precision," which could be a computer model, a technical drawing, or even a 1:1 mock-up. This process tends to pay more attention to function, scale, construction, materials, details, and can also try more targeted uncertain questions to find answers that balance various conditions. The boundaries between these two tools are blurred and are bound to intertwine and repeat themselves during the design process. In conditional projects, we will emphasize a consistent work model.
Guo Liaohui
I have observed that the three or four small works you have built so far are in some kind of specific natural environment. Combining your experiences, how should the relationship between natural landscapes and man-made structures look like?
During my studies in Switzerland, I learned that Ticino architects were highly involved in the design of infrastructure such as the route of the expressway and the tunnel entrances and exits in the canton of Tishino, which broadened my understanding of the existence of buildings or structures in the natural landscape. The feedback of architectural forms and postures on terrain and landscapes became one of the paths into the rational and powerful architecture of the Ticino School. The public swimming pool designed by the Ticino architect Aurelio Garfiti in Bellinzona had this power.
Aurelio Galfetti designed bellinzona public pool
Before entering Zumto's studio, he still paid more attention to the discussion of the construction, materials, and atmosphere in his works. After participating in the first perspective of the design, the position of the landscape and context in the design is clearer. Even churches of very small scale can reflect large-scale landscapes and light up the scenery. The Bruder Klaus Field Chapel combs through the cross-section of the relationship between the woods as a background, the sloped village fields, and the villages below, precisely placing the church.
Left: Klaus Brothers Field Church
Right: St. Benedict's Church
The two axes of Saint Benedict Chapel suggest a relationship between architecture and landscape: the east-west axis of the main geometry reflects abstract nature, distinguishing between the illuminated and backlit surfaces of the church, and with the help of church geometry the material is able to interpret sunlight. The axis of the entrance reveals a concrete landscape, connecting the icons pointing to the valley, reminiscent of his deep gaze over the valley as he led us up the mountain in the engadin valley in the early days of his career. These experiences reinforce and awaken reflection on the relationship between man-made architecture and the natural landscape. From design strategies to space to construction, these excellent precedents are worth pondering and learning.
In the "Discipline of Space" exhibition at OCAT Shanghai, more than a dozen architects recreate the space in their hometown. Instead of choosing an architectural space, I followed my intuition to interpret this proposition from a landscape scale. I took the opportunity to look back at about two decades of passive experience and observation, in the process of which my knowledge of the relationship between people and landscapes, cities and landscapes has accumulated. In the face of a cultural and geographical scale that is closely related to me, the energy level of nature is higher than that of the city, and it affects all aspects of people's lives.
Model of a riverside stroll
In the early days of practice, we came across a number of projects with a wide range of scales, most of which are in the natural environment. It also provides an opportunity to revisit a particular landscape. We look for opportunities at all levels of architectural design to enable architecture to reveal a landscape that people turn a blind eye to, not only a concrete natural landscape, but also a cultural landscape formed by long-term accumulation.
You studied architecture at the Mendrisio Institute in Switzerland, where do you think your current practice has been influenced by the school?
First, for the overall understanding of architecture, studying in the gate school does add some deficiencies. A well-developed education allows students to form a holistic understanding of architecture, which includes all aspects of architecture and how they interact with each other. The second is to recognize a simple and powerful quality, in some of the professor's topics, we will often emphasize the combination of different design conditions to form a simple but respond to many problems, thus leading to a rational and compact quality. This seems to be more popular in the teaching of architecture in Switzerland. It fosters a mechanism for examining design operations. If it doesn't make students more dogmatic in their design approach and design language, it allows students to find their own path on a solid foundation. The third is the influence of work style, in the school experience and in the practice of Europe, through continuous training, I gradually gained an effective way of working. This way of working is being adapted and improved in the process of practice according to specific conditions.
Your work currently exhibits a clear tendency to represent structures, such as the use of slender members, the emphasis on the precise handover of nodes, and the representation of them. What do you think? Will this be your first choice for further practice in the future?
I support the idea that construction is the ultimate form of architecture. Therefore, it is important to incorporate the relationship between structure and space, material and structure into the expression of architecture. I think architecture needs to reflect the wisdom of the architect, so there will be an emphasis on the weaving and integration of various levels in architectural design. Based on these two points, the accuracy of members and nodes must be very important in the architectural design of member language.
At present, the natural environment of the project and the traditional buildings in the region have obvious wood gene, forming a subtext of componentization. Depending on the conditions of the project, it is sometimes more temporary, which also leads to a more tendency to appear in the form of a framework. Perhaps on a deeper level, as an oriental cultural context, the architect has a sensitivity to the natural feelings and structural forms of wood. That's why I was impressed by the Italian architect Franco Albini's depiction of the façade of the building in Parma.
For me, the form and language of architecture is not a predetermined content, but the result of design. So we are willing to think about each project from the beginning like a complete journey, the form is unknown before the design takes shape, and hope that every building will eventually get a decent form.
How would you consider a building that is characterized by decoration, purely in pursuit of visual pleasure or some cultural significance, but not a real expressive structure? Are you receptive to architectural decoration?
The truth of the structure is not absolutely unshakable to me, and the structure, as part of the expression of architecture, can be more inclined to communicate with the communicator of the message. Some of the "structural" buildings that I have observed as a result of the deduction of construction are interesting. In our projects, we also consider "secondary deduction" based on the true expression of the structure, which can coordinate many design issues, such as the control of scale, experience, and expression. They don't have to be pure decoration, they may also have other factors to support their rationality, and the varied quality it brings will add color to the design and even strengthen the core idea. Under the premise of attaching importance to structure and design logic, perhaps decoration that serves the overall design may help architects go further.
You and the firewood collection team have studied modern Italian architects
Luigi Caccia Dominioni, Ignazio Gardella, Franco Albini and others, so what influenced you from your student days to your architectural design after opening was influenced by these Italian architects?
In the summer of '12, by going to my friend Logan Amont's house to read a book, such a group of architects came into my sights. During my studies at the gate school, I also learned more about the works of architects through study and visits. The study of collecting firewood is a job in which people turn long-established interests into action. My biggest takeaway was the experience of the deep reading program. The researcher's background brings the perspective of research, and the work of literature collection and background mining can restore the design in a three-dimensional context, and also have a certain understanding of the design conditions. At the same time, as a collective work of multi-background joints, various observations and discussions also enrich the perspective of all people.
Can you share with us the architectural works that have impressed you the most when you traveled in Europe and briefly explain why?
I gradually discovered that the buildings and spaces that impressed me the most were non-architects. The cities and infrastructure in those landscapes are often moving. People's continuous rework of the landscape has become the basis for new construction, and we need to maintain such patience and sensitivity to inherit and translate when designing. If there must be an architectural work in capital letters, it would probably have been designed by the Dutch monastic architect Hans van der Laan. Benedict's Abbey。 Aside from the proportional system of the plastic number, in other designs, it's hard to argue how skilled this architect is in design. It also constantly leads us to wonder if there is anything behind all the expressions and interpretations we do that are related to the craft.
St Benedict’s Abbey, Vaals
Author, Interview: Jiang Jiawei
Editors: Kim, Ruihan
Arrangement: Mu Yuebiao
Photography: Zhu Qingyan, Li Yinyin, Wang Haiyi, Wu Qingshan, part of the picture is from the Internet