The Vancouver-based designer and founder of Bocci, and LA-based Thai starchitect discuss the violence of architecture, sustainability and evolving in the age of material technology.
Kulapat Yantrasast: Are you focusing on more installations these days?
Omer Arbel: I love lighting, but in addition to an installation-based practice, where we do one-offs and very, very large monstrous, gigantic works that mostly have to do with light, I have returned to the architectural practice after a ten-year hiatus. What I am trying to do is cross all the disciplines and knit together a way of working where it doesn’t matter if it’s a commercial item, or a one-off, or a piece of architecture. There is a philosophy that unites all the work. And that is the idea, that a material and its intrinsic properties, chemistry, the mechanics and the physics of a material, are the generating impetus for form.
Yantrasast: So, a form flows from material kind of thing?
Arbel: No, I just kind of tease or encourage the materials to get formed.
Yantrasast: Isn’t that what Louis Kahn says, “You say to a brick, 'What do you want, brick?’”
Arbel: Yeah, exactly, but it’s already a brick. But we have to take a step back and think about clay. Or I try to find this transformation on a molecular level, and then try to see if I could allow that transformation to express...
Yantrasast: Kind of like cooking almost?
Arbel: Yes, exactly. I am very comfortable with that. Like cooking.
Yantrasast: So, is concrete a protein?
Arbel: I read the other day that concrete is the most abundant material on the planet other than water. That is kind of depressing. I have always loved concrete, concrete is the most amazing material, but it’s problematic because it produces almost ten percent of the carbon in the atmosphere. We should all stop using it, we should stop building things out of concrete, but my love for it is too great to stop.
Yantrasast: Concrete needs a new binding agent.
Arbel: The only thing evil about it is cement. We just need to find replacements for cement. And there are, there are all these companies now using other kinds of binders. I even heard the other day that there is a biological one, like a bacteria, that replaces the cement. Imagine, so your concrete is kind of alive, you have to feed it, water it. (laughs)
Yantrasast: Yeah, like some kind of mushroom.
Arbel: It’s super great. We’ll see, but yes, I love concrete. I am finding ways to work with it differently. I have always been depressed by the fact that concrete’s liquidity or plasticity is not expressed in most constructions that you see. Everything is rectangular, and I think that’s dishonest in the highest order to the material’s nature, on the one hand, but also super wasteful, and expensive. So, we have worked with four or five different ways of trying to do that, developing a method of forming that allows the concrete to sort of express itself. And I want to keep going, especially with this whole idea of thinking of it as an animal instead of a liquid stone, a living organism in some sense. Then, what are the formal implications of that?
Yantrasast: It is a very classic ingredient, from Roman times even, but we haven’t evolved much from that in an age when you are 3D-printing buildings. When I saw your house, you seem to long for concrete to collaborate better with other materials. Can you talk about that?
Arbel: So, the starting point, called 75, is this idea of trying to develop another way of forming concrete. And the thought we had was to pour it into fabrics instead of a wood framework, because fabrics stretch, and it responds to the weight of the material. In the experiments we also discovered that just naturally, because of the way a fabric stretches, it swells in exactly the places that you need it to be thicker from a structural perspective. So there is kind of an intrinsic efficiency. We developed a series of, what we call, the lily pads or the reverse trumpet forms. It is essentially a series of geotextiles, which is a woven tarp stretched between plywood ribs. Everything is organized in a radial pattern that flute up, in some instances as high as 30 ft. tall. Our approach to that architecture is to think of it almost as if they were found objects. As if I had arrived at the site and discovered these ruins of archeological remains that are sort of aggressive.
Yantrasast: Yeah, in the last ten years, you know, people have dealt with quite a bit of that, because at the end of the day, you need a cavity, and you need the concrete to define that cavity.
Arbel: The house is on an agricultural field. I was always moved by this Edward Hopper painting, where the field came right up to the edge of the house. So, we thought of the agricultural field almost as if it were a carpet draped over this archeological site.
Yantrasast: You are known as a lighting designer. Is light material, and if so, what is the DNA of light?
Arbel: This is a theme that I keep returning to, which is the idea of thickening an atmosphere. When you go to Mexico City, or a city that is very polluted, you see that the sunbeams have to go through so much particulate on the way to your eye. It’s depressing, but it’s also the most beautiful thing, and it captures the nuance of light and texture. And I think that is something I try to do in the architectural projects, but also in my lighting practice. And in the installation work, is this idea of thickening the atmosphere, almost thinking of light as if it were liquid, and trying to place many things in its way. I was thinking of the rooms as if there were giant sponges sucking in light as if it were a liquid. That might come from a childhood spent in the desert environment, where sun was abundant and syrupy, not like here where it is very crisp, a much dustier sort of light.
Yantrasast: I remember a long time ago, I took Toyo Ito, who is a good friend and someone I admire, I met him in Japan, but we went to Thailand together, he loved Thailand. He was so fascinated by Thai rivers. In Japan, the water is so clear, almost like sake, and maybe because it’s a mountainous country, the river is flowing quite fast to go to the ocean. Whereas in Thailand it is almost like a very thick soup. It is kind of an alluvial plain and we don’t have a lot of mountains. The water is flowing very slowly to the ocean. Because of the soil and everything, it is very brownish, sticky. And, he was blown away by the fact that even water is so different. Even though his work was sort of all about transparency and clarity, he liked that water can thicken. That also makes us human, that makes us more organic. Of course, you are making something very humane, something that people can live in.
Arbel: Because architecture is violent, I think, when it’s good architecture it has a kind of violence to it.
Yantrasast: Yeah.
Arbel: And to start to think of the idea of domesticity, or even the idea of coziness. These things are at odds with the violence of architecture. The best architecture is able to make the violence comfortable.
Yantrasast: I thought a lot about that too, which comes back to the subject of order and chaos. I think the art of architecture needs to have a sense of clarity. It is monumental, it is inhumane in scale, and it has to be a manifesto of something that is not alive itself, even though it grew out of life. It has to be surreal. Look at the results of modernism, whether it is Chandigarh or Brasilia. Like you say, it is so violent, it is so out of human sentiment and logic that it’s hostile.
Arbel: Yes.
Yantrasast: What are some of your design principles?
Arbel: It has been to find form in an intrinsic material quality. Like you mentioned, you can 3D print with concrete, you can 3D print with anything. It is true that in the next decade, or next two decades, we will be at a point where anything that can be imagined we will be able to create and produce in perfect fidelity, printed in any kind of material. So, imagine a world where we can make anything. What is worthwhile? What should we make? It becomes a really hard problem and so, for me, the forms on some level are born of a very specific chemical reaction, or mechanical action.
Yantrasast: So, let’s talk about sustainability. It’s a big word.
Arbel: Yeah, there are two ways to talk about it. One thing that I think about is if we have buildings, or objects, that have a cultural relevance, that are purely made to delight people, then it is less likely to be demolished or replaced. That is the most basic sustainability principle for architecture. The second thing is the trench warfare of being involved in making anything where you have to constantly be aware. I love concrete so much but learned that concrete is just this toxic and evil material that is dumping all this carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. What is the answer? Stop using concrete? No, you need to find ways to work with concrete, find out who is working with new kinds of concrete. We did an analysis on the fabric forming method and found that there is forty percent less embodied energy in these forms. Because fabric is just easier to stretch than wood would be to nail together. Way less materials, they are not thrown away after.
Yantrasast: I think, when you look at the history of concrete, people were actually efficient before. If you look at someone like Anton García-Abril, who made that chapel, he put the hay in there and he put the concrete over the hay and when it was done he sent a cow to eat the hay. A lot of this really depends on these specific locations. But I love your idea of how we evolve in the age of material technology. What about your new space in Berlin? Is it like a showroom?
Arbel: No, it’s like an old foundry. It’s enormous; it’s like five buildings. We have been active in Berlin for eight years and at the moment we occupy a courthouse. It was a derelict courthouse when we found it; 150 years old. It has been renovated and it has been, up to now, our showroom where we have been able to exhibit things. I was always thinking of it more as a library for old ideas. All our experiments end up there. We generally don’t respond to opportunities, we just produce work. And then when opportunities come we sort of match the idea to the opportunity. It served as an archive of ideas, and also as a laboratory to explore new pieces before they were ready.
Yantrasast: Most of the objects are being made in Vancouver?
Arbel: Yes, everything is made in Vancouver. We have a few small collaborations with glass shops in the Czech Republic, the bohemian glass region of the Czech republic. But most of the work is made in our studio.
Yantrasast: We just announced a very big opera house in Russia, in which we have a big glass chandelier. I do like the idea of how light is not explored enough in architectural thinking. It’s always an afterthought. I was reading a book this morning about the Light and Space artists in LA. You have someone like James Turrell, you have Peter Alexander, and you have the Venice School. It did not talk about the theory; it did not talk about the execution of it. So, how has the art of Light and Space, which is so prominent in Southern California, never penetrated beyond the surface? A lot of people are now bringing music, bringing colors, and perceptions, and smells, into this fundamental art form. And I feel like that is fundamental, it is architecture. I want light to come in and, like you mentioned, the space would be like a sponge. And how is this sponge absorbing light, not just passively reacting to it? It feels like the art form of the future. Any thoughts on that?
Arbel: It just sounds great. (laughs)
Yantrasast: Because as an architect you make space, you make objects and material. But as a lighting designer you create objects that illuminate.
Arbel: An object occupies the space. It perhaps has architectural ramifications, but in general is surrounded by empty space. But as an architect you create the outlines of the empty space. So it’s kind of the opposite approach. And I always think that architects make great sculptors or industrial designers but it does not really work the other way around. Industrial designers do a terrible, terrible job when they try to make space. And I think it is because you can’t think of a building as just a big object.
Yantrasast: Yeah, you are absolutely right. Even someone like Sottsass, who had really set a strong language, but when I see some of his houses, I’m like, “Hmmm.” But I think, as you say, this art of space and form as an architect, in a way, we are making space, but we are also making form. The Europeans tend to be better at space because they don’t have a lot of forms to build. The whole thing was already built. The Asians tend to be more form-based because there are a lot of places to build. There is almost a kind of dichotomy. But, more and more, people find difficulty with space, space is not real for most people anymore, because of digital media. Now you zoom in, you zoom out on the computer, and the scale of it is completely odd. You can’t put yourself into it. It is troubling in a sense, but it also gives you a sense of freedom.
This interview was published in Autre’s Spring/Summer 2020 “Edge Of Chaos” issue. Omer Arbel will present a new solo exhibition of architectural works in progress at Aedes Architekturforum in Berlin. From 28th August until 22nd October, 2020, the show 75, 86, 91, 94 will document a series of major innovations within Arbel’s ongoing experimental practice. Kulapat Yantrasast is a founding partner and Creative Director of wHY. He and his team are working on multiple current projects.
