Blog: Week 5 | Material Expression

up915094
Mar 10, 2022
3 min read

Updated: Aug 4, 2022

ANALYSE | Elaborating Detail

Key words: Seamless, organic, bright

"Details, when they are successful, are not mere decoration. They do not distract or entertain. They lead to an understanding of the whole of which they are an inherent part." - Peter Zumthor

This week, we were tasked with exploring examples of details in order to help us understand the way in which materials were combined and arranged.

I chose to investigate George's Restaurant, as the way they created complete structures with their own roofs, walls and entrances within an already structurally complete interior is similar to my IMP project. I am creating multiple treehouse-like structures within the Knight and Lee building, which act as their own separate spaces with bright interiors and differing atmospheres to the space in its entirety. I thought it would be interesting to explore different ways that this has been done in reality.

George's, Paris (2000)

The George's restaurant is located in Paris's Pompidou Centre, which was originally built in 1977. it is a multi-storey building in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, designed in the style of high-tech architecture by architects Gianfranco Franchini, Renzo Piano, Su Rogers and Richard Rogers.

The design of the restaurant, built in 2000, continues with this futuristic scheme, due to its sleek materiality and modernist approach. The colours of the interior structures were inspired by the ducting and cabling overhead, rendered softer and silkier by the material. This vibrant exposed piping adds to the modern effect. Metal, used for the "Pockets in Space", as the architects call them, is a material which connotes modernism and is complimented by a clean, white and silver interior.

The interior composition of the restaurant design.

The Pockets in Space within the George Restaurant.

The Design

The design began with reflection of the basic grid structure of the Centre's architecture, which was present in the floor panels of the terrace that were continued for the interior. The original flooring was only 140mm thick, which created a limitation on weight. To solve this issue a floating floor was added. This consists of light cement with a peripheral steel channel, supported on the edges of the concrete slab by sprung feet. This was covered by 4m square panels of aluminium, which are thin, light, reflective and malleable. The four free standing structures were difficult to design when it came to practicalities, and the vision was eventually fabricated by a boat builder. Once finalised, the four organic forms were then modelled using design technology on the computer.

Materials and Drawings

The interior consists of aluminium within the flooring and four freestanding forms. These are supported by internal aluminium supports, with 4mm aluminium sheeting for the structural outer shell cladding. The interior of these forms are lined with rubber of varying bold colours. I have illustrated these colours in the drawings below.

This is a plan of the restaurant that I added a colour coded legend to. This relates to the drawings that I did of the detail below.

North-south long section of restaurant - primary source.

East-west cross section - primary source.

The load-bearing substructure is a aluminium skeleton, horizontally reinforced by aluminium sections. Aluminium sheeting is used to clad the pre-formed bodies and stabilise. The coloured rubber lining is not self-supporting, thus necessitating a substructure of fibre-reinforced plasterboard. In this way it became possible to create a seamless transition from ceiling to walls and on to the floor.

These are some detail drawings that I did of the rubber membrane to steel connection.

A photo of the aluminium structure from the exterior of the restaurant.

These photos portray the effect that these organic aluminium forms add to the interior. The curved flooring at the entrance invites you into this space, which feels like a different world to the rest of the restaurant. This is something that I am interested in exploring further within my IMP. These structures create a building within a building, which adds a sense of privacy and exclusivity to those sitting within this particular space. I can imagine the structure used for seating functioning on its own independently, as inside it resembles that of smaller interiors you may find run by smaller businesses. It is also interesting how they chose to have lighting on the flooring, as this has a beautiful effect of reflecting against the vibrancy of the interior and highlighting its strong colour.

This photo illustrates the texture of the aluminium cladding.

Reflections for IMP

The bright colours within the interior of the freestanding forms is something that I found inspiring. I like the effect of further solidifying the separation of space with the use of playful colours that provide further depth to the design. I was also inspired by how these structures can be used to influence circulation within the space. This is something that I will be exploring further in my IMP, as I will need to express my own freestanding structures in a way that clearly guides the user around the structure.

I am interested in exploring recycled rubber for the coloured treehouse-like forms within my IMP, as this would successfully create the effect that I want, whilst also being sustainable and safe for the user.