Chris Bosse

Beijing National Aquatics Centre (WaterCube)

WONDERLANCE: Chris, we know you are quite busy attending, together with your fellow LAVA directors, the Milan Fair this week, so double thanks for taking the time to respond to our questions. You are one of the Creative Directors to the Laboratory for Visionary Architecture so it might be safe to assume that you had an early inclination towards the arts and the visual concept, or was engineering that captured your imagination the most as a child?

CHRIS BOSSE: Yes LAVA won a Well Tech Award for sustainability for our Masdar city centre project in UAE and our Phillips Evolution lamp was on display at the Wallpaper Handmade exhibition.

My early years? My kindergarten in Stuttgart Vaihingen was 500m away from one of the most creative think tanks of the 1970s, the Institute for Lightweight Structures founded by Frei Otto, the architect of the Munich Olympic roof. It was conceived as a prototype for the Montréal Expo pavilion and resembles a futuristic tent. As a child I thought it felt like a pirate ship. In a twist of fate it was this institute that has changed my life and career. The other neighbors on the campus were the Fraunhofer Institute and experimental student housing by Atelier 5. So yes I had early exposure to some great design.

WONDERLANCE: One of your awarded and famous accomplishments was your involvement with the Watercube swimming centre in Beijing for the Olympic Games. It’d be great if you could tell us a bit about your inspiration for this stunning structure…

CHRIS BOSSE: Yes, whilst Associate Architect at PTW Architects, I was a key design member for the Watercube, which won the Atmosphere Award at the 9th Venice Architecture Biennale. The Watercube associates water as a structural and thematical “leitmotiv” with the square, the primal shape of the house in Chinese tradition and mythology. The entire structure is based on a unique lightweight construction, developed by PTW and CSCEC with ARUP, and derived from the structure of water.

The aquatic centre is based on the geometrical arrangement of soap bubbles, the most efficient way of filling space with structure. The skin weighs 1/15 of the weight of glass. A strict geometry can be found in natural systems like crystals, cells and molecular structures. By applying this technology the transparency and apparent randomness of bubbles is transposed into the inner and outer skins of ETFE cushions. Unlike traditional stadium structures with gigantic columns and beams, to which a façade system is applied, the space, structure and façade are one and the same element.

WONDERLANCE: Nature and its symbiotic processes do indeed figure strongly in your vision of the architecture of the future. Chris, who’s been your strongest points of reference in this direction? Is it possible to start building sustainable buildings at a grand scale, using the very same energy that is abundant in nature, or might finite and polluting resources be necessary regardless of any stage in construction? What’s the scope of your vision?

Aereal view of Masdar Plaza Project - Daytime

Aereal view of Masdar Plaza Project - Nightime

CHRIS BOSSE: I don’t think we have another alternative, unless we are aiming at the exhaustion and ultimately destruction of the planet.
Nature holds all the answers. Think of a tree, that filters the air, filters water, produces oxygen, and is self-generating. Carries leaves and fruit, a multiple of its own structural weight. Think of a coral reef where thousands of species thrive in coexistence with each other and the elements, air, water and sun. Yes, nature does inspire me most. As do German architect Frei Otto`s soapbubble experiments for the Munich Olympic Stadium in the early seventies. The potential for naturally evolving systems, such as bubbles, spider webs and corals, to create new building typologies and structures continues to inform my work. Computation allows you to simulate natural behaviour such as growth and adaptation of species. It is often misunderstood as superficial mimicry, but the potential is in understanding the principles behind nature, not only the appearance.

We must build sustainable structures using the very same energy that is abundant in nature. We believe that combining digital workflow, nature’s principles and the latest digital fabrication technologies will result in achieving MORE WITH LESS: more (architecture) with less (material/ energy/ time/ cost). My vision is to have opportunities to demonstrate how sustainable design is beautiful, efficient and contemporary. The ‘Future Home’ we are building in Beijing later this year will merge our ideas about nature and technology into a futuristic experience. We love the contrast and synergies of mankind, nature and technology that we try to fuse in all our projects.

WONDERLANCE: You’ve designed and worked for major projects not only in China and Sydney where you’re now based, but also in Europe, Japan, Vietnam and the Middle-East. It is in the Middle-East, specifically in Abu Dhabi, that a project of LAVA has especially captured our interest and that is Masdar Plaza, which would be located in Masdar City, a planned city designed by the British Foster & Partners and that will rely entirely on solar energy and other renewable energy sources, with a sustainable, zero-carbon, zero-waste ecology. Please, tell us a bit about your inspiration for this “The Oasis of the Future” and those giant high-tech flower-shaped shading poles that make it so unique.

CHRIS BOSSE: Masdar City, the sustainable city being built in Abu Dhabi combines the best of Paris, New York, Rome and Istanbul in a carbon neutral, car free, solar powered environment. For us Masdar is so interesting because it is trying to re-think the city from scratch. It is the 21st Century answer to the city, post oil urbanism in a new world. It’s as visionary as it comes with driverless pods cruising around and personal media devices updating your carbon footprint.

LAVA won the international competition to design the centre of the 50,000-person city, which opened last year. We have designed a hotel, shopping centre, cinema complex and a conference centre to form the plaza of the 21st century. Our solar powered sunflower umbrellas create the first mediated outdoor plaza in the Middle East, inhabitable throughout the year. They shade the space moving with the sun, store heat and release it at night. We hope that ‘one day all cities will be like this’.

China is building new cities for the equivalent of the entire Australian population every year, and this is where it really matters and every step towards sustainability multiplies thousand fold.

Masdar Plaza

Tobias Wallisser

WONDERLANCE: Tobias, it’s a real pleasure to count with your expertise too, many thanks for taking this interview. Did you and Chris meet at the University of Stuttgart? How do you come up with the idea of forming LAVA, what was the main reason/vision that brought you all together?

TOBIAS WALLISSER: Chris and I met at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2004 where both of the projects we were designing at that time were exhibited (the Mercedes-Benz Museum and the Watercube). We exchanged a lot of experiences and became close friends. In 2007, we set up LAVA with Alexander Rieck, our third partner, as a network of creative minds with a research and design focus. Our aim was to facilitate architectural and urban design outcomes inaccessible through traditional methodologies. We want to continually define new boundaries in the creation of architectural visions and city space.

Using the latest advances in computing and building technology we want to reposition the role of man in the natural environment, taking our cues from technology, nature and mankind. Our projects unify the concepts of structure, space and architectural expression to create a unique experience.

WONDERLANCE: You studied at the Columbia University of New York; were you in New York during the terrible events that took place in September the 11th? Were you called upon to present your own proposal for the redevelopment of Ground Zero?

TOBIAS WALLISSER: Not me personally, but while working at UNStudio, we teamed up with other architects, some of whom were my teachers at Columbia, to participate in the World Trade Center competition. It was a very exciting time. Every office sent people to New York to form a temporary office there. The team proposed a new hybrid type of skyscraper with a public street located high up in the air connecting all buildings at a higher level.

WONDERLANCE: Tobias, you’ve worked in a myriad of projects that range from sports resorts to commercial and business buildings and even a full City Master plan concept for a new sustainable city that would house 200,000 inhabitants in Fuxin, China. Which of these has been the project you’ve enjoyed envisioning the most and what is your ‘impossible-made-possible’ vision for the future of architecture?

LAVA | From left to right: Tobias Wallisser, Alexander Rieck, Chris Bosse

Mercedes-Benz Museum

TOBIAS WALLISSER: Envisioning the structure of the Mercedes-Benz Museum was very exciting. It’s based on a trefoil; both in its internal organization and in its outward expression the geometry responds to the car-driven context of the museum. It embodies those values we associate with Mercedes-Benz: technological advancement, intelligence, and elegance. Two spiraling ramps take visitors to two types of exhibitions over three ‘leaves’, and are connected to a central ‘stem’ in the form of an atrium. The two spiralling trajectories cross each other continuously, mimicking the interweaving strands of a DNA helix. Walking down these ramps, surrounded by cars of different ages and types, you are reminded of driving down the highway. When we participated in the competition, the date of the opening was already fixed. Nobody knew whether the structure could be built and we had to prove it whilst working towards the deadline. We had to invent the process and started exploring the possibilities of parametric design for the project. Working in a large dedicated team, we could achieve a fantastic result in terms of quality and especially spatial composition within the framework of both cost and time.

My dream is to revisit some of Alberti’s dogmas and to design the cathedral of the future where structure, space and ornament are one coherent system incorporating material properties and the full range of CNC manufacturing processes. Aspects seen as dialectic opposites can all be combined.

WONDERLANCE: Japan has sadly endured one of the most terrible natural disasters of recent years. Do you believe that, as well as sustainability, a new approach to safety and resistance in architecture must be developed in light of the frequency or the impact that major nature forces are having in highly populated areas? Do we already have access to the technology and overall knowledge that would help us to ensure solidity?

TOBIAS WALLISSER: We ultimately have to turn to nature to learn. The vision should be how to achieve more with less? Adaptive new structures which will not only be based on efficiency but allow for a certain responsiveness in order to withstand more unpredictable events. We should design and live in harmony with nature rather than feeling superior. New technology does not mean we have to take unpredictable risks. Rethinking constructions that are inspired by nature will help to make the necessary steps forwards towards a more socially and environmentally sustainable future.

WONDERLANCE: Again, many thanks to you both; we’ll certainly keep an eye on LAVA’s future developments!