Design Roulette: Architects Set Loose in the World

With tall buildings screaming for attention, the skylines of fast-growing cities can seem the same.

A discussion of design and geography at the Architectural Association in London this spring turned into an examination of difference and uniformity in the work of architects practicing globally. Presented by Asia Design Forum (ADF), a nonprofit think tank, the event was the sixth in a series of Design Roulettes held in different cities since 2010 and the first one outside of Asia. So many buildings in Asia today are designed in places like London or New York that we thought it made sense to bring this on-going conversation to the U.K., said Ken Yeang, a director of ADF.

Image courtesy Emily So

Many of the fastest growing cities in the world are also in places with high seismic activity.

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Christopher Lee, a principal at Serie Architects, which has offices in London, Mumbai, and Beijing, noted that the drive to create buildings that stand out has, ironically, made many cities around the world feel the same. Look at the skylines of fast-growing cities and youll find tall buildings screaming for attention but still getting lost in the crowd. Thats because many architects try to create difference out of novelty, using extreme forms to establish identity, said Lee. Globalization, though, is not new, he stated, showing a photograph of one of Le Corbusiers buildings in Chandigarh. Examining Corbs work in Chandigarh, Lee described it as both ancient and modern, both universal and specific.

Responding to Lee, Paul Finch, program director of the World Architecture Festival and deputy chairman of the UK Design Council, asked, Why does global capital demand novelty rather than innovation? Lee answered that most big clients just want buildings that look different and dont want to spend the time or money on design that goes beyond the superficial.

Emily So, a civil engineer and lecturer at the department of architecture at the University of Cambridge, offered a different perspective on design and geographypresenting a map of the world with cities at risk of earthquakes. A satellite photo of Earth at night showed that many cities in high seismic areas are also some of the biggest and fastest growing. We have a fatal attraction with building in dangerous seismic zones, noted So. As a result, architects and engineers in these areas have a responsibility to design new buildings and retrofit old ones in ways that accommodate the severe stresses of earthquakes. Culture and politics, though, can make this more difficult, especially when it comes to writing and enforcing building codes and providing funding for seismic upgrades.

Global architecture is about exporting ideas and creating brand names, stated Mustafa Chehabeddine, a design principal in the London office of Kohn Pedersen Fox. But at the same time, architects need to respond to local culture and conditions. For example, at a new 40-million-passenger terminal complex at Abu Dhabi International Airport, Chehabeddines team at KPF is using the texture and grain of the buildingits materials and surfacesto connect it to its particular context.

Melissa Woolford, who runs a consultancy firm called Nous Collaborative and is setting up the Museum of Architecture in London, challenged attendees to rethink the way they practice architecture. Instead of using only a fee-for-service model, can architects learn from businesses such as McDonalds and Netflix and adopt aspects of the franchise or subscription models? For example, subscription businesses establish on-going relationships with their clients or customers, something that might help architects during periods of weak economic activity.

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Design Roulette: Architects Set Loose in the World