Selected Interview Questions Q:
Many of your projects have been developed based on the Laufen Manifesto, which advocates for a more humane design culture in the face of the widespread non-formal urbanism taking place across the globe. Based on your real-world experience, why has there been a greater need for such a humane design approach?
A:
The climate and health is on our side; and also the need of doing good, meaningful buildings. To make good-looking architecture is a basic thing for architects. There are so many goodlooking architecture all around. But to have not just good-looking, but also humane and sustainable architecture is something we really long for. We also need identity, and that comes with the process, not just the outcome. I think the focus on process is increasing. With the current COVID-19 pandemic, at least people’s consumption is more careful. For the fair textile project in our office, it was difficult to sell before the crisis; now with the crisis I have a feeling that people are willing to buy something that is not just good-looking but they know they are also doing good somewhere else. There is now certainly a greater need for humane design. When everything is so fast we don’t have time to reflect, we just go with the flow. Now that the flow is interrupted, it also gives us a chance to think over, how we want to continue and where we want to focus on.
Q:
In a field dominated by contemporary trends, how did you get others to come onboard this vision of architecture? Is this a problem you still face today?
A:
Yes it’s really challenging. The biggest challenge is always the fear. The image of vulnerability of natural material is something that is so dominant, and it has always been emphasized by the lobbyists in the past decade – “mud is weak”, “wood is week”, “bamboo is weak”. There is a lot of superstition that we are trying to erase, and that requires the biggest energy, effort and time for every project, as we try to raise the trust of the clients to believe in us.
There are also not so many facts and figures. Normally when a material is invented, you have an industry behind that is paying for all these tests, and once you have the numbers, it’s easy for architects to use it. With mud, of course it is not a standardized material, because nature is not standardized. You have the diversity, that is also the nice thing. But there is no industry behind. Ideally every city needs to have a manufacturing plot, and the material properties would be different at every place, which is kind of difficult. In Germany, we have to do a lot of test for material, which will cost a lot of money. In Switzerland, you don’t have to do that. In Austria, it depends on the mayor. For example, when you go to the mud house you can hear good acoustic, but you can’t prove it because you don’t have the money to invest in testing. Even for fire-proofing, what happen when mud is met with fire? The worst case is that mud will just turn into bricks! So it’s very difficult sometimes for the project when it is highly regulated which raises the cost unnecessarily. But it’s still possible, you just need to have enormous energy to push constantly for it to happen.
Q:
Urbanisation is increasing, and it is projected that 68% of the world’s population will be situated in cities come 2050. How do you see your philosophy of humane design working with local material could apply in denser urban context?
A:
Well, natural material is everywhere. Normally you don’t dig and find cement under your feet. Labour force is also there. You can’t go extremely high with mud, you can go multi-storey, but the question is how high can you go such that it is still a humane, liveable city. If you go too high, you lose the contact with the street. For me, Paris is the ideal height – tree height, six storeys. It is also very dense. Is it better for us to focus on only mega cities? Or should we not also look at the regional sub-centre where we can decrease the height a little bit, and really concentrate on a humane scale and liveable spaces.
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