Basel Volkshaus | Model | Nov 2019

Void and structure

Analytic models telling different stories

When reducing a building to an analytic model, multiple facets’ fade away and we are left with a focused interpretation. As a research project we investigated the relation between 12 buildings structural systems and the way they relate to the void spaces created inside. The typologies examined were sport hall, Food court, green house, swimming pool, multi purpose room and waste center. By representing air with gypsum, we get homogeneous volumes that displays the contours of the negative space. In the structure model we can start to analyse the structural components and openings of the envelope. Grey cardboard references the solids and the black laser cut perforations reveal the openings.

In collaboration with Gianluigi Pini [ITA] I analysed the Basel Volkshaus by Henri Baur, 1925 – particularly largest multi purpose hall. The building has had many functions throughout time, first it was used as a local gathering space, where art, politics and culture were shared. It later became a theatre space and a concert hall. That also the main usage of the hall today, but it can be rented and host public/private gatherings as well.

In tackling the analysis of the type, we also read the text “On the typology of architecture” by Giulio Carlo Argan. He defines type “as something that does not present so much an image of something to be copied or imitated exactly, as the idea of an element which should itself serve as a rule for the model.” This proves to be the clearest way of interpreting the 5 typologies, as the type in itself is more or less vague, but that the model redefines itself in every new project and over the duration of time. Cause type is more a schema of spatial articulation as a response to practical and ideological demands. An additive series of particular characteristics in buildings, not understood as one certain structure – but as infinite variants. There are levels in which typology resides, like ideology, structure, decorative elements and some would even suggest, time. A building can either choose to imitate an instance of a “perfect work of art”, try to define own new typology, or act as a “counter-type”.

Particitants involved were Alexandre Gonzalez, Amelie Mischler, Bruno Känel, Antonietta Maria Kempter, Chiara Pezzetta, Céliane Eliane Malou Grenier, Daniela Alexandra Lopes Peñaloza, Daniele Boschesi, Duncan Guillaume Jaime Fouchet, Edoardo Massa, Gianluigi Pini, Gilliane Hasler, Isabelle Christina Miodonski, Karen Kim Schuler, Kenzo Giaccari, Kimberley Meghan Archimi,

Laure-Line Camilla Baehni, Laureen Menglian Océane Hu, Lina Hélène Formica, Lisa Alice Fanny Carminati, Loïc Timothée Schwab, Maria Sivers, Matthias Gabriel Venceslas Jammers, Maxime Francis Nicolas Theubet, Nicholas Axel Ghielmini, Noah Ajani, Pauline Lucie Berger, Sarah Helene Von Steiger, Sean Pasquier, Sibylle