[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="560" caption="Inga Powilleit"] [/caption] As a practice that prides itself on impacting on, but also extending beyond, architecture, the Dutch practice UNStudio has long had a resolute approach to the architectural discipline that stressed the importance of research and testing. What started as an art historian-architect collaboration between Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos 24 years ago has eloquently morphed into a practice that relies on its self-imposed ‘platforms’.  While many themes radiate – a fascination with such notions as inbetween, objectivity and design models – the ideological understanding of the architect’s role fluctuates from the craftsmanship of arts-driven persuasions to the methodological principles of science. When referencing projects in UNStudio’s practical portfolio – be it the Möbius House (1993), with its soothing angular form, large-span glazing and provocative cantilever; the VilLA NM (2000), which exemplifies a gradual progression towards more fluid forms and subtle facade twists; the New Amsterdam Plein & Pavilion (2011), where the biomorphic folds contort the full formal gestures of the building; or Raffles City (scheduled completion 2014), an implausibly large, mixed-use development project with sweeping geometric forms that emphasise a computational facade treatment – what becomes palpable is that an aesthetic sensibility continues conjunction to a recurring theoretical position. UNStudio’s ideological framework remains in refreshing flux. When talking to van Berkel, what becomes apparent is that the practice functions as a research-based entity. The studio operates under four specific research platforms that feed into its built work. They are categorised as ASP (architectural sustainability platform), IOP (innovative organisations olatform), SPP (smart parameters platform) and IMP (inventive materials platform). Such research categorisations have made UNStudio one of the forerunners in technological advancement in architecture. Indeed, van Berkel was recently invited to become part of Gehry Technologies, an alliance founded by Frank Gehry that strives to apply innovative solutions to current or continuing architectural problems. The group represents a new type of professional organisation that heroically attempts to empower design. In UNStudio, van Berkel alludes to the analogy that the office is spatially arranged and formatted akin to a science lab, whereby its built projects are the result of much research and testing from inside the ‘lab’. ‘We see these platforms as communities,’ says van Berkel. ‘When someone joins the office you are not a draftsman anymore – in the space of a year you can find out for yourself which platform you would like to belong to. It is all about how you gain knowledge and how you share it; the practice is used in order to educate yourself, so we educate ourselves continually through these platforms. Every two weeks, for example,  we have an external consultant come in and give a lecture. This experiment came out of my own interest in science after I studied how science labs operate.’

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="560" caption="Christian Richters "] [/caption]

Where research impinges on the architectural production is most notable in the studio’s recurring association with the pavilion, a typology that seems to hold great importance, oscillating through the lifespan offering a regular juncture for experimentation: ‘I’ve enjoyed the pavilions work,’ enthuses van Berkel. ‘They were an extension of earlier work on the diagrams in essays with Caroline [Bos] on the phenomenon of the “design models”. This is where they [begin to] work as a model of thinking, not as a pavilion.’ At the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale, UNStudio exhibited The Changing Room, a pavilion that seems to emblemise the ‘design models’ concept where they combine the ideology of their new type of practice into a real-life model.

‘Early on, I would visit a client and they would be alone or with one other person. Now with projects of €30m or €40m, the client has so many specialists around the table that we had to rethink the way of working with whole linear strategies being introduced,’ says van Berkel. ‘So, I liked the idea that we should redesign ourselves, reviewing the role of the architect. For instance, how could we cross-fertilise information, operating more as scientists; maybe more specific, more experimental, and far more rational to stretch this side of the profession. I wanted to explore this side of things. Where before the role was called “functional”, now it is thought of as more utilitarian, complex and specialist, with more knowledge needed.’

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="560" caption="Christian Richters"] [/caption]

The pavilion as a typology allows UNStudio to begin to morph its theoretical musings into practice. The Changing Room (2008) at the Venice Biennale offered the opportunity  for visitors to become voyeuristic, offering a multiplicity of views simultaneously. Similarly, at the Burnham Pavilion, Chicago (2009), the contortion of rigid geometry at specific locations created a multidirectional space that continually oriented itself to the city providing myriad urban vistas. It offered a different perspective of the city, under the premise of objectivity, allowing for continual urban transformation.

‘I like the idea that machines are creating a new kind of insight into the way that we can observe,’ says van Berkel. ‘This is only possible when you play with the way of observing. What I discovered is that you can intensify the meaning of what you are trying to portray by effecting the way you could perceive it. These kinds of intimacies in double meanings or double readings in architecture are not so easy.’

Van Berkel has become quite adept at such doubles in the practical work, ensuring that theoretical concept or diagram follows through to the architectural project: ‘I was interested in how the idea of hybridisation could be brought in to the concept of interpretation of a program. Like at this strange, new department store we designed in Korea [Galleria Centercity, 2008], it was fully designed on the idea of a museum. The client was sceptical at first and didn’t like it, but when I gave them all my ideas and what I learned from museums they became very excited.'

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="560" caption="Christian Richters"] [/caption]

‘Like I said before, we had this simple duality between functionality and aesthetics, which is now stretching itself out. I like the idea that you can learn from the way scientists speculate. It is a sort of mechanical system that develops itself; a game between the subjective and the objective. But in this there is always the influence of translating techniques, how you transform, translate, discover and innovate. For me this is key.

‘For example, the urge to invent in medical sciences is much stronger [than in architecture] because of certain needs  – the need to find new techniques. In architecture we forget that responsibility. The formal sense is almost as important as how much you enjoy the concept of the building. I am interested in these – some would call them banal – where we are responsible and should take them into consideration.’

As the role of architect changes, so does the importance of architecture as a discipline. In the West, the practice of architecture is perilous, which is due in large part to the on-going financial crises, but conversely, the profession seems to be experiencing a boom in the East. UNStudio has three significant projects in Asia, a feat only bettered by the four projects under construction in its native Netherlands. In response to this burgeoning appreciation for UNStudio’s work in Asia, it has recently opened an office in Shanghai to monitor and coordinate the construction phases for the various projects, most notably Raffles City (2008–2014) in Hangzhou, China. It is the sixth Raffles City urban-scale project in Asia by developer CapitaLand, all of them involving different architects.

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UNStudio’s design integrates mixed-use retail, office and hospitality facilities in an urban context. The design of the towers – in relation to the urban element – strives to act as a landscape component that incorporates and consolidates apparently separate elements through one formal gesture. With plans due to be realised this year, the project represents a significant moment for UNStudio on a global scale.

Similarly, the Scotts Tower, a high-end residential project in Singapore, is a further example of UNStudio’s continuing success in winning notable large-scale urban projects. The project is billed in a comparable way to Raffles City and, interestingly, to the studio’s pavilion projects: a reaction to, and interaction with, the urban context. Where Raffles City aims to incorporate the urban context visually much like the earlier pavilions in, say, Chicago, the Scotts Tower is intended to contort the norms of city living. As opposed to conventional, planar city planning, UNStudio postulates that its design creates a vertical city with individual zones, enabling distinct identities for a project that is in close proximity to a luxury shopping district and the panoramic cityscape of Singapore.

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China has recently offered UNStudio the opportunity to develop its research-based production on a grand scale, facilitating and cultivating architectural discourse as opposed to merely Western simulacra: ‘I noticed that in China there is a will to set up a dialogue from which they can learn, not purely through copying anymore,’ says van Berkel. ‘The bigger brands are now much more celebrated in China, maybe because the population is becoming more wealthy and they can accept such change, but also there is a new interest in gaining or being able to participate in exchange models.

‘Our Raffles City project is so dense and complex in its program it almost becomes a city in itself. It is 500,000 sq m and, as I said in a recent talk, you can almost stay a week, self-contained with programmed cultural, commercial and leisure space. It’s a kind of model developed by the client but I’ve noticed that this one is different to the other Raffles Cities. You have to make sure that you are critical towards that model and that you reinterpret it, otherwise you become the enemy of that model.’

UNStudio’s self-propelling escalation continues apace, adding scientific research methods to its seasoned conceptual strategies in a way that could be described as the execution of practical theory. Investigative research and an inquisitive eye ensure that the studio is directed in such a way as to not only challenge the user but also the contemporary profession, in an attempt to revitalise the innovative possibilities it inherently holds.