BY CHARLIE SUTHERLAND
PAM PUBLIC LECTURE
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
- Studied Architecture at the Mackintosh School of Glasgow.
- Established Sutherland Hussey Architects, with Charlie Hussey.
- Seven RIBA award winning Projects.
- Most recently won the design competition for the new Media City Headquarters for Chengdu TV
- Now Lecturer at the Mackintosh School of Architecture
- Has been a visiting critic and lecturer throughout the UK and Europe America and the far east.
- He is currently external examiner at Greenwich and Newcastle Universities.
- He was elected as a fellow to the Royal Scottish Academy for Art and Architecture in 2011.
The public lecture given by Charlie Sutherland, TITLED " BETWEEN THE DEFINITE AND INFINITE", is basically a series of introduction and explanations of his successful projects and how he defines these buildings as an architect. He believes that architectures in this era have slowly turning into a fashion (DEFINITE), and he state that we as an architect should have a certain principle (INFINITE) to architecture design, fashion comes and go, but principle should always be there. That’s how he defines the definite and infinite in architecture, and this principle of his states that every design should be a reason in it, to the site context or human behavior. In this talk he talks about a few things in architecture, route, urban landscape, massing, and materiality.
An Turas, Tiree, UK
A shelter built near the ferry terminal on the island of Tiree, off the west coast of Scotland. Its main purpose, though, is not to serve a shelter for travelers waiting for the ferry, instead it acts as a protection for its users against elements while simultaneously allowing them to experience exposure to them. Put it another way, it is a way to enable its users to appreciate all the factors that make the place (Tiree) unique. "It’s a folly that would speak about the idea of shelter," says Charlie Sutherland. "It’s not a totally pragmatic shelter, but an example of unified art and architecture." From this, I can clearly see how Charlie Sutherland utilize architecture and the landscape as a tool to complement the surrounding. I think that this is a very important thing, architecture should be a thing that unified the place and the people, and to enable the people to appreciate the place just as much of the building. Architecture today are mostly appreciated by the users while the surroundings are so neglected. So, I think this project from Sutherland, is a simple and yet a great example, of architecture as a complement to the location.
From these images its clear that the building creates a contrast but still maintaining exposure to the surrounding in order for users to experience the environment elements that make the place unique.
"In the first stage, you are sheltered from wind, but open to the sky and rain," says Sutherland. "In the second stage, it is black, dark and sheltered from the light. Your experience is focused on the rock landscape of the ground below. The final stage gives exposure to the landscape, but it is silent inside the glass box. At the different stages, there is lots of light, rain and wind. There are all these elements of nature and the structure abstracts them in different ways."
Here we can see the three different stages that the user experience through the building,where each stage provides different exposure to different elements, all to show appreciation to the surrounding.
THE LOVESHACK
In the talk, Charlie Sutherland stresses about the important of materiality, in this project I think he shows great use of materials not only for basic purposes but also has a meaning behind it. The site for this modest little cottage is located on the shore of Lake Windermere on a steeply sloping wooded copse by the edge of Cunsey Village. The materials selected for the building are in sympathy with the surrounding woodland. Though the house was not originally conceived as a ‘green’ building he worked hard to use sustainable materials and build with its carbon footprint (and those of its future owners) in mind. The main body of the building is clad in vertical timber boarding. Natural larch panels and glazing are contained within this frame. A sedum roof is used both for environmental stability internally and to reduce the carbon footprint of the building. In the Q&A session someone asked him about how important is materiality in the architecture. He said that it (MATERIALS) is the best honest expression of an architecture, and they speak a voice for the building and express something beyond texture and visual expression. I do agree on that, I believe the use of materials does reflect the meaning and the voice of what a architecture is trying to express. And that we should choose the use of material for a purpose in terms of the site, cause only then, the architecture could express best to complement the surrounding.
Appreciation of material, appreciation to the environment.
Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, UK
This project for me is very interesting one, because we are currently having a project about creating an artist village in our design studio semester 4. Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop (ESW) are an organization that offers a base for artists, providing studios, exhibition spaces, workshops and accommodation. There are two phases, where the two phases represent an exploration into the opposite sides of the ‘arts building’ coin.
One, the hermetic, practical, messy side of the making of art and the open, accessible and extrovert of the gallery. They are The Bill Scott Sculpture Centre (Phase 1) and The Creative Laboratories (Phase 2) respectively. Phase 1 is a compact building containing metal, stone, wood and mixed media workshops with 30 ‘garret’ studios sitting on top and a series of public facing services at street level as well as two autonomous artist’s lodgings. This represents the internal needs of the organization, and of the artist with the thinking and making spaces accounted for, as well as educational facilities which maintain ESW’s focused creative programmes for the public to engage with sculpture and the arts. Building this first allowed ESW to decant from their dilapidated shed on the adjacent site, freeing up the land for Phase 2 which is an altogether different building. The main elevation to the cycle path is clad in brick and metal screens, a reference to the sites industrial past that allows glimpses into the courtyard, revealing the process of making to the public and encouraging passersby to explore within. The sequence is completed with a 28m tall campanile, left for interpretation by future visiting artists, acting as both a gateway and as a beacon visible to the wider city beyond. Its amazing to see how he create spaces not only for the artist’s but also the public, and allowing the public to interact while maintaining the privacy for the artists.
This image shows how he made a space for the public as a space of gathering while providing access from both side of the building alowing the public to walk through and experience the differences
THOUGHTS
All in all, I think that his project reminds us that design doesn’t have a standard, instead each project brings a different diversity, in terms of the site, and the people. And our design of architecture should be a respond and reaction to the context, act as a frame to the landscape. We should be developing relationship, understand and design in terms of context. We should utilize the sensibilities of an architects ourselves, to interrogate situations in different context.