Neutelings Riedijk Architects: At Work

Sculpture
Buildings are sculptures in the city. Each has its own character, they may be grumpy, happy, dull or serious. They may be short and slight or broad-shouldered. They have a torso, a back, a head or a tail. Accordingly, we work like sculptors: a building needs to be carved slowly, wrested from the polystyrene blocks in our model room. We imagine our buildings in the first instance as solids. Volume is solid after all. The volume takes shape gradually with one tryout after another, first a bulge to the left, then a recess to the right and lastly an incision at the top. Our buildings are never compilations of walls that enclose empty space, they are pure mass, weight. Architecture is the expression of great weight using sculpture as a tool. How a volume is filled in is of secondary relevance, for functions change over time. The building volume will stand unchanged in time, persistently defying the changes in society over the years...

Choose a Platonic body. Take a block of polystyrene foam, plaster of paris or clay, a cutting machine, chisels and knives. Cut out the basic shape. Then refine the composition of this volume as you hack and carve. Look for conspicuous compositional patterns in the programme, section, plan or context. Try to translate these patterns into the volume. Compare the different interventions and variations until you find what your intuition tells you is the most attractive composition.

Context
Buildings always land somewhere on earth. They have to settle on site, at a location. Sometimes buildings have to narrow when there is little space, or stretch when the view is fine. They may have to be introverted in response to aggressive surroundings, or extroverted at a public place. Sometimes they have to clash with their surroundings, and sometimes rhyme with them. A context before anything else is an interpretation by the architect that can take on many appearances and meet many responses. A context is not just a physical entity, such as an old town centre, an urban periphery, a village or an industrial site. There is also a cultural, historical or political context. Our buildings always respond to their context, but these responses never profess to a general validity. Context after all is a mental construct that can steer a project in a particular direction, but no more than that...

Collect the greatest number of maps, aerial photographs, books and statistics to do with the surroundings of a new project. Examine an area much larger than just the site, try to gain an understanding of the entire city and region. Whatever you do, don't visit the place first, as your attention will be taken up with unimportant issues. Instead, analyse the above documentation and use it to make the first design concept at a scale of 1:1000. Next, check on site whether this interpretation fits in with what you see there and establish whether the initial concept was correct. Then go home and adjust it where necessary. Beware of contextual traps.

System
Buildings are solutions to a qualitative problem. In the first instance, therefore, designing is searching for an algorithm able to generate a stereometric order. The quality of an ordering system lies in its self-regulating mechanism. It has to be an automatic machine that sets things down in the right place. Designing is ordering, and the algorithm must be capable of defining arrangement, hierarchy and sequence. It must steer the positions of key building elements such as cores, circulation and column structures. The system also oversees the relationships among spaces and rooms. Our search for an ordering system is a repeating process in which the parameters get more and more precisely defined. A strong algorithm produces elegance without being tedious, brings surprises without being chaotic. Exceptions to this system become high-powered design
Interventions as they step outside the regular order and thus keep the attention focused on themselves...

Establish a ratio for the x, y and z directions of the building. Using the computer, draw a repeating structure on the basis of this ratio and deploy it to further fill in the design. Place walls, columns, floors and facades on the grid lines organized by this system. Use a calculator to find the lowest common multiple and the greatest common denominator in the system. Design all the building's storeys at the same time on a single A3 sheet so that the whole is developed from the system and not from the exception.

Pattern
Buildings are born naked and therefore need clothing. In today's constructional technology, a facade is a thin mantle draped over the skeleton of the building, even if that facade is of stone. As buildings by their very nature are sited in public open space, their cladding inevitably expresses something of public significance. So it is crucial that they have the right cladding. This cladding has seams, buttons and hems, is pleated or composed of bands, sheets and lengths. These material qualities create rhythmic patterns that alter the geometry of the facade. In our atelier we work like coupeurs cutting made-to-measure suits for our buildings. We cut the clothing from the decorative patterns that emerge as we work. We try the patterned garments on the building to see if they look right. We invite philosophers, writers, artists and graphic designers to help us assemble and interpret the patterns. A pattern, after all, is taste but also technique, fashion but also meaning, scale but also depth, composition but also representation...

Begin by making a volumetric model of the building. Use the computer to produce various patterns to scale; print them and glue them successively to the model. Look for set patterns in the facade as dictated by window openings, joints, materials and architectural details. See to it that the patterns can turn the corner effectively. Study the aesthetic impact of the facade patterns on the volume. Study the patterns' cultural significance for the building. Compare different variations until you find the facade pattern that fits best.

Cavity
Buildings need Counter-space if they are to be understood, an internal void where one can step back a pace. This is why we give our buildings cavities; a patio, a courtyard, a cave, a place one can visit without really being inside the building. Emptiness serves nothing, compels nothing yet yields much. Emptiness is luxury. And as nothing is compulsory in emptiness, anything can happen there. The cavities in our buildings are free zones for the unplanned, public places without a defined function. Cavities in a building bring quiet; they are expansion rooms where the pressures of daily human activity can escape. Cavities also act as retorts and beakers in the chemistry of a building, places where solar heat can be buffered, air can cool or water circulate. We open up cavities in run-down buildings to breathe new life into them. We leave cavities in new buildings as an unrequested `oversize' for the people who use them. The freedom of the cavity complements the determinacy of the solid...

Analyse the programme for the building. Look for a simple arrangement in which the principal functions relate logically. Take sketching paper and a thick felt pen and try to draw this concept in a simple diagram, without dividing it up further. Include in the diagram empty, functionless space as areas of white, surrounded by the black areas of the programme. Try to find a spatial organization that expresses specific functions to a minimum and is more a functionless scheme of empty and full. Ink over the diagram time and again so that it keeps getting stronger.

Stacking
Buildings are stacked programmes. In a world where Space is scarce, the stacking of programmes is a necessity. But stacking is more than the pursuit of density. It can provide new meanings too. A building that is a tangle of programmatic juxtapositions horizontally, gains new horizons when arranged vertically. Layering programmes leads to another coherence, to a new routeing, hierarchy or identity. From stacks of history, education or culture we make new building types. We develop the stacks in section. The section is the architect's most important tool, but also the most underrated. It is closest to human perception, as it shows the building in an upright perspective, unlike the floor plan. Again as opposed to the two-dimensional floor plan the section is, if anything, three-dimensional, showing height as well as length and width. It defines the elevation, defines the volume, the facade, the construction, it defines the nature of the stacking...

Analyse the programme for the building. Make it a vertical arrangement where the stacking is logical. Make a cutaway sectional model of solid material, for instance wood, polystyrene foam or coloured slices of plasticine. Study various stacking possibilities by shifting storeys around, rotating them, creating voids, and so forth. Examine any patterns emerging from the vertical routeing and logistics, from the direction of light and views, or from the storey height. Keep going until a useful vertical concept emerges.

Position
Buildings are pieces on the chessboard of the city. They have strategic positions, they command squares in a grid, they suggest directions. They incite fear or inspire confidence. A city is a game of chess with constantly changing power relationships and unlimited playing time. Pieces disappear from the board, others arrive in their stead. The question is how buildings should be positioned in relationship to each other. And, unlike on a chessboard, the most important concern is the nature of the space between the pieces. Designing emptiness by anticipating the counter form of future volumes is a difficult task, certainly if it is unclear how the volumes will behave over time. A site layout is ready when its strategy is in place, even if there are no buildings as yet, in the same way that professional chess players never finish a match because they already know the end-game. Plots get filled in during the natural course of events; that infill can change over time, but the structure has coherence and meaning from day one...

Develop a masterplan starting in the middle. Don't try to explore the edges or borders, they'll come later. Look for a size for the smallest built unit. Use it to make an omni-directional configuration. Assess the necessary degrees of infrastructures, streets and elevations and how these relate. Design the proportions of the space between the blocks and fix them in profile. Determine the borders separating the public and private domains and design the physical transitions between them.

Arrangement
Housing blocks need arranging with the greatest care. The traditional trinity of the housing brief - location, budget and programme - determines how the dwelling units are to be arranged. Within these restrictions there is plenty of variety to be had; you live above or below, at the front or at the back, in the sun or in the shade, looking out or looking in. The arrangement of living spaces gives direction to your life and quality to your home. Housing commissions usually come in units of 20 to 100 dwellings at a time. Like judokas we try to bend this quantitative impulse into a qualitative strength. First we disbalance the task to then bring location, budget and programme into a new equilibrium with an arrangement that is unexpected but effective. The critical mass makes these transformations of existing typologies possible. We make narrow houses twice as broad to give them a decent view out, broad houses we make narrow to grant them their own garden and front door; each arrangement responds to the idiosyncrasies of the brief...

Think of a handy bay width for the houses. Roll it out across the site and calculate how many bays fit into it. Then determine the qualities brought by the programme and the location. Organize the residential programme in such a way that those inherent qualities can be achieved within the system of bays. To do so, make transformations from existing models by rearranging the access, vertical circulation or property lines of the houses. Restrict yourself to the block plan and the section, scale 1:200.

Scenario
Buildings are the backdrop against which life is enacted. Designing interiors is like writing a scenario, and the instruments of the scenarist can serve the architect equally well. We might, for instance, make up a story that is to take place in every room of the building. Or we give each room an archetypical character and develop the interiors from there. This establishes a frame of mind for the design. Spaces in a building relate to each other like scenes in a theatrical performance. Materials and colours, composition and light create atmosphere and identity. Arranging a series of spaces is like assembling a sequence of images. On the stage that is architecture, users of the building become players in the choreographed space. The stage entrance, lighting, foreground and background, resonance and echo may be fixed but the players are born improvisers. All kinds of stories unfold in the fabricated spaces, stories with different layers of meaning...

Try to forget the design that is already there. Think up forms of use that could give it new meanings. Develop a range of associations that enrich (or contradict) the design. Compose a storyboard or write scenarios for possible scenes and situations. Make models at a doll's-house scale of 1:50. Use all these attributes as a leitmotif for developing interiors and choosing the materials and colours. Work from large to small, always taking care that the different scenes remain in balance.

Ensemble
Buildings occur in groups. We call a connected, cohesive group an ensemble. Each of the buildings has its own part to play, but together they add up to a single composition. Convents, castles, farms and factories are established forms of ensembles, buildings of varying nature that together constitute a unitary whole. An ensemble is before anything else a composition of volumes and not the result of programmes. This makes an ensemble ideal for addressing issues of growth and shrinkage. The key to accommodating future square metres is all too often sought in architectural indeterminacy, resulting in meaningless buildings. The ensemble however opposes this idea by being a total composition from the start. Within this overall composition the spatial diversity, neutral supporting structure and ample proportions of the ensemble give architectural shape to future potentialities. The ensemble is an architectural figure we readily resort to, as it allows us to accommodate time in the design without affecting its character...

Consider how the given programme might behave over time. Choose an omni-sided, neutral column grid with a regular access system. Design within this grid spatial zones that can be developed independently of one another. Place the zones in such a way that meaningful juxtapositions or overlaps can ensue at a later date. Do this research at the scale of the entire block, in plan, section and model, scale 1:500, so that volumes and zoning sit well together.

Senses
Buildings must be perceived with all the senses. One should be able to hear them, smell them, feel them, taste them. Nor should this sensory experience be limited to a single constant temperature and humidity or a single level of damped sound or tempered light. A building should roar, whisper, steam, creak, smoke, be draughty. One must be able to feel the change of the seasons inside. Evoking sensory experiences means composing and arranging the building in other ways. It also means that the architect should regard the building itself as a climate-machine and design it that way instead of relying on accessories to do the job. For this we often fall back on the tricks of old-fashioned household remedies. Foot stools, wall-hangings, rain drains, conservatories, parasols and fireplaces work on simple physical principles that we can transpose at another scale into a contemporary version. This opens up new architectural possibilities and enriches the building with unexpected meanings and sensory qualities...

Determine the nature of the sensory experiences the building must evoke, such as resonance, humidity or light level. Establish how these experiences fluctuate in time, say between day and night or winter and summer. Next, design architectural and structural elements that trigger the physical processes in the building necessary to produce the desired sensory experiences. Get these assumptions tested in computer models by a building physicist to see if it will all work. Avoid using mechanical devices, these are usually expensive and non-integrated.

Building
Making buildings is not a goal in itself but a means. For an architect the greatest satisfaction is in solving the complicated puzzle of the design. Building the puzzle in reality brings delight of quite another order. The heroic adventure of labouring in the mud, balancing in wind and weather on shaky scaffolding, is a fascinating enterprise that never fails to command respect. Building is an ancient craft in a remarkable branch of industry where literally all the bits and pieces are fitted together. We try to sneak devices into the customary practices of that world. These devices are not intended to pass as innovations, we are merely trying to create an added value by constructing and combining the usual things in other ways. This 'bonus' is expressed less in financial terms than in the obviousness of the result, in the elegance of the solution. And not to forget the joy that technical ingenuity can bring...

Make sure that what is designed well gets built well too. Buy a hard hat and put it on the rear shelf of the car in case of an unexpected visit to the building site. Be sure to know beforehand exactly how every nook and cranny of the building fits together. Make as many details of the building as possible, scale 1:5. Try to discover how different kinds of materials should be joined and how buildings can best be assembled, and even try to improve on it.

Silhouette
Buildings ought to have flamboyant tops to them. A roofline etched against cloudy skies can make a building recognizable. A roof is not a termination but an integral part of the outline as a whole. Industrialized housing is dominated by repetition. Repetition alone is meaningless, but arranged repetition creates rhythms and rhythms bring meaning. This is why the silhouette is a far more interesting instrument than the make-up of the facade, restricted as this is to the relationship between wall and opening. The silhouette of the housing block by contrast addresses the relationship between communal and individual; here the street block becomes more than just a string of dwelling units. Like silhouette artists we cut out paper shapes for our buildings, looking for the right outline. Sawtooth or ziggurat, head or nose, peak or trough, every building deserves its own distinctive silhouette that it can proudly show off to its surroundings...

Draw the elevation of the building block as a black silhouette, from one end of the street to the other. Try to discover what the relationship between the whole block and the individual dwelling should be. Look for a practical rhythm based on the measures of the units or the supporting structure. Try out all kinds of roof forms. Cut out the silhouettes from a sheet of cardboard and decide which looks the best, both from the front and diagonally, by rotating it at eye-level. Accentuate the rhythm at the extremities, otherwise you'll have a row but not a city block.

Use
A building is an instrument for people. It has to be functional in different situations, also in situations that were unforeseen by its designer. Its design must therefore be the most natural affair, a dependable backdrop for everyday life; as natural as the cool tiles in the passage in your grandmother's house during a hot summer holiday. It should not be just a functional translation of user needs. A building's character must side with its users, must sidestep the obligatory platitudes of today's spatial condition. It can be as sturdy as a firefighter instead of glitzy and transparent, as chaotic as an actor instead of clearly organized, as introverted as a academic instead of hospitable. We don't embrace the 20th-century pretence that architecture can change people, but we do hope that architecture is able to make day-to-day life more pleasant...

Try to get a good picture of the day-to-day life of the organization the building is being made for and only then start designing. Don't base the design on how the organization operates at present, but try to assess its future functioning. Look for spatial models that can organize these activities. Never accommodate exact activities but make models that accept all kinds of uses. Visit the building once it has been occupied and enjoy the surprises: it won't ever be quite the way you imagined it.

Weight
Buildings need to be extricated from gravity. While the earth pulls everything towards it, the architect does his or her best to achieve the very opposite. We feel that buildings should not make a show of the interplay of forces. They should not arrogantly give the impression of being lighter than air, nor triumphantly celebrate their victory over gravity with expressive columns. The supportive nature of structural elements is if anything a display of weakness. Architecture should express weight. And we want to show that weight by deliberately designing buildings that are obdurate and robust, that stand upright with a natural pride and express their strength silently without explicit reference to supporting structures. Working closely with our construction consultants we piece together sturdy buildings with smart though unadvertised constructions, gigantic Cantilevers for example. Indeed, the threat of falling inherent in the cantilever illustrates the violence of gravity with a dramatic beauty...

First develop the basic idea of the building's sculptural aspect and vertical build-up. Find a clever construction consultant and show him these initial ideas. Do some brainstorming together and make some sketches and models. Find out by trial and error how to keep the building from falling over without needing to shore it up with explicit structural members. A little pushing and tugging on the study model soon indicates what might happen if it were a real building. Test intuitive ideas by making calculations of the statics with a computer. Don't be hindered by tried and tested solutions.

Texture
Buildings should be pleasant to touch. A building's skin should therefore have a sophisticated level of tactility. Texture is the means to achieve the right tactility, not just to the touch but to the eye as well. The texture of the facade has to match the physical nature of the building. The grain of the crust or the roughness of the brickwork enhances a facade's narrative aspect. Obviously a facade should be waterproof and robust, yet gleaming, dull, rough, knobbly, scratchy or woolly are equally relevant attributes. These properties of the facade can be directly felt and more importantly seen in the effects of light, rain and shadow that lend a building character. The nature of the texture tells a story and influences one's first impression of the building...

See to it that the pattern and composition of the facade are in place. Look for a suitable material for the facade. Research the market; collect and evaluate samples and make new ones to match your own ideas. Pay attention to colour, sheen, smoothness, the effects of light and shade. Try to simulate the effects of ageing such as discoloration, pollution, wear. Work out for yourself how seams can be made. Make a mock-up of the facade, scale 1:1, and study this model in all possible light conditions and weather situations.