10111 Grand master pages Images Focus on the work of an Examples from architects and architect who has championed designers bring the principles the use of a particular material. under discussion to life. Timelines Provide details of significant projects in an architect's canon of work. Case study pages Focus on a project or build that demonstrates an innovative use of materials tttt Quotes Provide key insight from professional architects. Body text In-depth discussion of working methods and best practice is covered in the book's body copy. 01 MOH118 |119 56 | 57 10 | 11 prelims (1-11)_.qxd 10/6/08 1:46 PM Page 11 Concrete The Church of the Light Tadao Ando’s Church of the Light in Osaka, Japan (1988) is an example of a cultural building that embraces ideas of geometry and spirituality. Many of Ando’s previous projects were simple houses constructed to make use of courtyards to bring light into the interior spaces, but geometry, minimal, modern design and the use of concrete with a high level of craftsmanship are values evident throughout his canon of work and exemplified in The Church of the Light. The church is aptly named as the chapel is illuminated by light. The building is comprised of two rectangular volumes, that are both cut at a 15-degree angle by freestanding concrete walls. Worshippers and visitors indirectly enter the church by slipping between the two volumes. One volume contains the Sunday school and the other contains the worship hall. A cruciform cut in the concrete wall of the worship hall extends vertically from floor to ceiling and horizontally from wall to wall, aligning perfectly with the joints in the concrete. It is a simple device, but an effective definition of the space, and at night the cross creates an illuminated symbol on the outside of the church as light from within pours outside. Both the worship hall and the Sunday school use wood to soften the interior spaces, but The Church of the Light is all about contrast. The Sunday school opens up to a double￾height space with a mezzanine level and its interior utilises a lighter-coloured, smooth-finish wood. The combination of concrete and wood creates a modern, spiritual atmosphere that focuses on light within to encourage a contemplative inward experience. The Church of the Light is superbly crafted. The smooth finish of its concrete surfaces reflect light into the interior spaces and the building reveals its construction processes via traces of the joints and bolts that held the shuttering in place, leaving tactile impressions on the smooth, grey walls. Tadao Ando Grand master An interior view of the worship hall Significant projects 1976 Azuma House, Sumiyoshi, Osaka, Japan 1976 Tezukayama Tower Plaza, Sumiyoshi, Osaka, Japan 1983 Rokko Housing One, Kobe, Japan 1986 Chapel on Mount Rokko, Kobe, Japan, 1988 The Church of the Light, Osaka, Japan 1989 Children’s Museum, Himeji, Japan 1992 The Japanese Pavilion for Expo 92, Seville, Spain 1993 Vitra Seminar House, Weil am Rhein, Germany 1995 Meditation space, UNESCO, Paris 1999 Rokko Housing Three, Kobe, Japan 2000 FABRICA Benetton Communication Research Center, Treviso, Italy 2001 The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis, Missouri, USA 2002 Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas, USA How to get the most out of this book Images Examples from architects and designers bring the principles under discussion to life. Body text In-depth discussion of working methods and best practice is covered in the book’s body copy. Grand master pages Focus on the work of an architect who has championed the use of a particular material. Case study pages Focus on a project or build that demonstrates an innovative use of materials. Timelines Provide details of significant projects in an architect’s canon of work. Quotes Provide key insight from professional architects. TEXT BLACK Case study Foster + Partners | The McLaren Technology Centre Glass and steel Grand master: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe › The McLaren Technology Centre The McLaren Technology Centre is the corporate and manufacturing headquarters for the McLaren Group. Designed by Foster+Partners, the group’s state-of-the-art centre is located in Surrey, England. Foster+Partners are renowned internationally for their approach, which combines functional architectural design with an elegance in engineering. This combination produces expressive buildings that envelope and contain function, but challenge preconceptions of space via the innovative use of building materials. The design brief The McLaren headquarters fits the paradigm of a Foster + Partners building. McLaren depends on the continued development of high technology in order to produce some of the fastest Formula One cars in the world. The architecture that would become the company’s headquarters needed to reflect this technological sophistication and serve as a ‘laboratory’ for McLaren’s innovation. McLaren came to the architects with a number of preconceptions, not about what the architecture should look like, but what the spirit of the building, its aspirations and its social generators should be. The building’s site plan shows the scheme within its context, surrounded by a lake and carefully organised planting Foster + Partners were asked to ensure that the headquarters would house the majority of the McLaren Group’s employees (who had been previously scattered across 18 locations in Surrey). The architects worked with the client to respond to their working methodology and processes to ensure that the building could accommodate their experimental, developmental and manufacturing needs. There was a natural synergy between McLaren and Foster+ Partners and in determining what the architect and client, both of whom came from very different design disciplines, wanted to achieve. ‘As architects, my colleagues and I had been engaged for many years in meeting the challenge of social, technological and lifestyle change, the way they interlock and looking at the re-evaluation of the workplace as a good place to be. This inspiration has permeated down into the building itself.’ Sir Norman Foster An exterior view of the McLaren headquarters (AVA): Basics Architecture C + M CD1008-10 / 3173 ~ 1st Proof prelims (1-11)_.qxd 3/11/09 5:44 PM Page 11