MANN & CAPUA MANN
Time, Innovation and “art de vivre” Today’s techniques and technologies are subject to rapid change. Fortunately, advances in architecture occur at a much slower pace, primarily when it comes to the use of new construction techniques and technologies but also in terms of the relationship between the art of constructing and materials. The greatest architectural inventions essentially focus on a new definition of the art de vivre, on the interpretation of a theme or a program, on the quest for new spatiality. There is a history of evolution of techniques but there is also a history of the method in which space is appropriated.
volumes. When seeking to make the movement more dynamic, the walls, concrete shear walls and columns create the space based on the choice to show, to show less or to conceal.
The construction of school buildings is a matter of regular debates and constitutes a series of reference points which mark our work. The issue of education in a changing society, have left their marks in the spatial definition of recreational sites and schoolyards. Inside, corridors integrate meeting space, encourage exchange and nurture i nteraction among the students. In the process we cannot isolate ourselves from history. Progress follows a historical and social continuity through scenarios of resistance as well as the pursuit of its slow evolution. We should not live with the idea of an exceptional future disconnected from the past but must assume the ambivalence of this reality.
Architecture and “art of locale” We use the term “locale” to designate a whole—major or minor— belonging at the same time to the landscape, the territory and the interior of a building. The objective of the “art of locale” is the c reation of images and strong sensations whose interaction tell us more about the significant elements of the place and provides for a reading of synthesis. The territory and its architecture enter into a permanent dialogue and tend to reveal themselves mutually by osmosis, at a time when “everything is one”. The quality of each architectural project depends directly on the intensity of such a dialogue.
Expression of structure in Space and the “art of constructing” Today, manipulation offers a great freedom of choice when it comes to constructive and structural elements : show or not show, show spatially, or integrate. In our projects, the structure recalls the feeling of an absent presence and fades until it is no longer identifiable. The structure contributes to the definition of an ambiance where space and light alone interact and complement one another within simple
In an effort to express our architectural research in terms of locale, we will present two projects: the football centre in Lausanne and the secondary school in Riaz. They are two territorial structures which follow the same path and operates a harmonious symbiosis between territory and construction. Treated in different ways depending on the territorial context, they demonstrate our sensitivity towards the “locale” and takes part in our on-going quest of harmony between man and land.
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Accordingly, architecture loses the will and need to reveal the structural and constructive elements in a literal sense, and becomes charged with metaphors and harmony through the innovating play of its components. It is this kind of harmony which transcends us and compels us to blend—through a unique and targeted thinking process—all these elements which contribute to create our architecture.