Inflight Magazine of Brussels Airlines

Design of the times

The first World Architecture Festival takes place in Barcelona this month, providing a platform for some of the freshest design talent in Europe. Beatrice Galilee lines up the ones to watch

There was a time when Barcelona’s architectural tourists would head straight to Antoni Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, the spectacular cathedral whose four spires tower above a building that has yet to be completed. Then they’d move on to the remarkable curved façade of his Casa Battló apartment blocks, or any one of his spectacular art nouveau masterpieces. But things are changing with the recent opening of prize-winning Swiss architect Herzog & de Meuron’s Forum Building in the city. This month, Barcelona hosts the first World Architecture Festival (22-24 October) at the Centro de Convenciones Internacionales de Barcelona, exhibiting the work of more than 700 architects from 63 countries. It seems contemporary design is finally at the forefront of Catalonian minds.

Snøhetta Oslo

As architect of the Oslo Opera House, Snøhetta has been credited with bringing contemporary design to one of the most architecturally humble regions in Scandinavia. Until the middle of the 20th century, much of the architecture in Norway was vernacular (made with locally available resources) and even now many of their achievements, like their bridges and oil rigs, are more spectacular feats of engineering than anything else.

However, Snøhetta (friends Kjetil Thorsen and Craig Dykers) has set about changing things. Initially, it was the scale of their ambition outside of Norway that made their name – a huge circular library in Alexandria put them on the map in 2002, and after that local commissions started flooding in, and they were invited to produce the Serpentine Pavilion in London’s Hyde Park in 2007 together with popular artist Olafur Elliasson. They are perhaps more internationally famous for winning the competition to build a cultural centre at the site of Ground Zero in New York. The design is typically about angles, light and form but it was also praised highly for the consideration and care given to the highly sensitive context. They were nominated not for any of their high-profile projects, but instead for the exquisite Petter Dass project – a museum literally carved into a rock face on the Norwegian coast .www.snoarc.no

Art & Build Brussels

One of the most critical issues for architects today is sustainability. Amongst a clutch of practices fighting to stand out in a saturated market is the Belgian-based office, Art & Build. Their newly finished office tower, known as Covent Garden, has been nominated as one of the World Architecture Festival’s schemes of the year. The key to the project is a vast central island made up of gardens, terraces and public parks which link two gently curved glass-clad 26-storey tower blocks. These predominately day-lit offices are the first to be equipped with a biological purification system, the ‘Eco Machine’, which allows water to be recycled in bathrooms and building maintenance, even generating water to irrigate the gardens.

Their latest project is the Council of Europe office building in Strasbourg, the Palais, a light, elegant structure on the edge of the Rhine canal. It’s been highly praised for its simple, flexible construction as well as the fact that its modular elements were shipped along the canal on a barge, instead of being delivered in a petrol-guzzling lorry. So much so, that the building picked up an industry MIPIM award for its ability to provide functional (and crucially, financially viable) green solutions. www.artbuild.com

Tham & Videgård Hansson

Stockholm

TVH’s philosophy is somewhat Scandinavian. “It’s about the simple things,” says partner Martin Videgård Hansson. Despite this, they enjoy the playfulness of contrasting expectations with really generous and busy interiors, and made their name with a number of elegantly designed summer houses including the zig-zaggy seaside house Archipelago and the Villa Pa Tido Lindo, which looks something like a cross between a shed and a shipping container.

Now the four-storey Kalmar Museum of Art, a lovely piece of design clad in black panels based in a medieval village outside Stockholm, has made a striking addition to an already highly thought-of portfolio.www..tvh.se

Bjarke Ingels Group Copenhagen

His Mountain Dwellings apartment building (designed with JDS Architects) in Copenhagen is shortlisted for one of the five major prizes at the World Festival of Architecture; he has a winning entry for the Danish pavilion at the Singapore World Expo in 2010; has built multi-million dollar apartment blocks in forms never seen before. Most architects would love to achieve all this in their lifetime, but Bjarke Ingels is still just 33 years old. But the Dane’s quite used to success. After graduating at 25, he won three open competitions in a row, and opened his Copenhagen office, Plot, in 2001. The practice went on to captivate the architectural public in Europe, winning competitions and awards by the armful and wowing an otherwise stale scene, while its Copenhagen Baths have changed the public face of Denmark, placing it at the vanguard of contemporary architecture. In 2006, Plot split and Ingels founded BIG, with a brief to provide smart, money-saving solutions for clients. His young office has since become a focus for architects with a passion for solving problems. The touring show of his work, that has taken replicas of his buildings made entirely out of Lego, has travelled from New York to London, and is open no www.big.dk

FAT London

There have only been a few London-based practices that have made an impression on European architecture with a new kind of approach, and very few of them from this century. Having been on the periphery of the art world since the 90s, FAT (Fashion, Architecture and Taste) has a clear architectural manifesto. “It’s about communication,” says co-founder Sam Jacob. “We want to make architecture that’s engaged as a cultural activity – we’re not interested in form-making or exploiting technology.” Their buildings include bicycle sheds and one-off houses in London’s East End (including the Blue House, called ‘the most memorable new house in London’) a school building in Antwerp and the Manchester housing project New Islington, which earned them the nomination for the World Architecture Festival. fat.co.uk

FR Design des temps nouveaux

Le premier festival mondial d’Architecture se déroulera ce mois-ci à Barcelone (22-24 octobre), offrant une plate-forme à une sélection des derniers grands talents du design en Europe. Beatrice Galilee a passé en revue les artistes à suivre

Le Groupe Bjarke Ingels Copenhague La plupart des architectes voudraient bien avoir réalisé dans toute une vie ce que Bjarke Ingels a accompli à l’âge de 33 ans. Il a ouvert son propre bureau, Plot, en 2001 et ses Bains Publics de Copenhague ont changé la face de l’architecture danoise. En 2006, les partenaires de Plot se sont séparés et Ingels a fondé BIG. Son exposition itinérante a voyagé de New York à Londres, et elle est visible à l’heure actuelle

Art & Build Bruxelles L’un des enjeux les plus cruciaux pour les architectes aujourd’hui est la dimension durable. Le nouveau bâtiment de Covent Garden, conçu par le bureau belge Art & Build a été nominé parmi les meilleurs projets de l’année lors du WAF (World architecture festival) et il a été couronné par l’industrie au MIPIM. Ces distinctions sont dues notamment à son système de purification biologique et au fait qu’une grosse partie de ses matériaux ont été transportés par bateau, sur un canal.

Tham & Videgaard Hansson Stockholm

Après s’être forgé un nom grâce à la conception contemporaine de leurs résidences d’été, dont la maison Archipelago en forme de zigzag, dans l’archipel de Stockholm, et la Villa Pa Tido Lindo, les architectes de TVH ont ajouté à leur palmarès le fabuleux Musée Kalmar de quatre étages, juste en dehors de Stockholm.

FAT Londres FAT (Fashion, Architecture and Taste) propose un manifeste architectural clair : “Nous voulons faire de l’architecture engagée comme une activité culturelle” explique le co-fondateur Sam Jacob. Parmi leurs réalisations, on citera les abris pour vélos, des maisons uniques dans le quartier East End de Londres, une école à Anvers et de l’habitat dans le projet New Islington à Manchester.

Snøhetta Oslo

Snøhetta, ces architectes de l’Opéra d’Oslo, sont reconnus comme les pionniers du design contemporain en Norvège. Leur grande bibliothèque circulaire à Alexandrie les a placés en orbite en 2002, mais ils sont particulièrement célèbres pour avoir remporté le concours de construction d’un centre culturel sur le site de Ground Zero à New York.

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