Canberra
The Finnish Embassy in Canberra, Australia, was designed by Kivi Sotamaa and Johan Bettum. It results from a synthesis of folded topologies, program and function in order to meet with an identified set of new general and specific conditions for nation-state diplomatic presence and representation.
While the context for the traditional Finnish national identity and autonomy is being challenged and undergoes radical transformation within the framework of a unified Europe, there exists an increasing pressure on individual countries in general to participate in the intensified international exchange of goods, labour, capital and information. As inter- and transnational corporations and institutions equal and bypass nation-states in degrees of general, public presence and exertion of power, the nation-state can revise its own terms, forms and types of representation as part of developing and renewing its agenda for servicing the public and its role in relationship to the distribution of politico-economic power. Architecturally this revision calls for entirely new categories of space to be instrumentalised. To the extent that architecture contributes to the production of a politico-economic matrix, this production is partly spatial and can no longer be deferred to established and sanctified forms of monumentality, typology, or symbolism. On the contrary, it can only be achieved by an architecture that realises alternative types of spaces to those produced from within the established catalogue of representational forms.
Set on a sloping hill in the diplomatic area of Yarralumla, mid-way between Capital Hill and Lake Burley Griffin, the proposed embassy is the place for an open exchange and flow of those things and activities which are connected to diplomatic presence. Within a total field of landscaped zones, the architecture enables and directs the distribution and intensity of these. These flows and exchanges encompass those implied by the numerous different constituencies of users the embassy will serve: representatives and employees, public customers and visitors, official guests, neighbours, and -by extension- the Finnish and Australian public. Towards this end the architecture is viewed as an enabling mechanism for producing the space that will accomodate the widest possible range of program and events and maximise the number of occassions for and the intensity of interaction and exchange.
Rather than relying on the formal language of an architecture that belongs to the past, the space of this project results from the synergetic effects of formal and systemic syntheses that enable a high degree of differentiation within a continous experiential field of events, program and form. The coextension of topology and program yields a composite resultant that contains a highly varied and non-congruent configuration of compositional sub-sets. The programmed spaces are situated as an intensification and extension of the pre-given landscape-structure and topology on a west-east axis across the middle the site. They are contained in the interstitial space resulting from articulating the site topology, in effect by bisecting the sectional lines, inwards from the edge of the building zone . As an intensification of a topographic field, the programmed spaces are not referred to as a ´building´, but a zone. Within this zone, a set of programmatic units are situated as the extension of the ground and craddled in a concrete structure poured in situ. The remainder of the program elements are housed within an aluminum, glass and wood exoskeleton on a steel structure floating above the concrete, ground support.
The surface articulation of the site topology is continued in a corresponding articulation of the exoskeleton. This is divided locally into two-three strata. The different strata all comply to the folded topology but remain non-aligned with the folds and are respectively highly irregular and non-congruent in extents. In certain places a given area of the exoskeleton folds down to cover the ground beyond the building zone.
The high degree of articulation of the exoskeleton produce, apart from a formally complex outer surface, highly varied light and heat diffusion through this outer skin. Further regulation of daylight and inside temperature is achieved through standard measures, such as reflective glass and aluminum and adjustable louvres. But most importantly, resolving the program requirements within interstitial spaces which are partly imbedded in the ground, yields favourable temperature regulation in all areas of the building zone throughout the year.
The outer-surface articulation in the project forms a counter-movement to the extension of the site topology into the building zone. In order to activate the topographic surface of the site, the material and geometric articulation of the exoskeleton is matched with a general landscape program. This program consists of different systems organised in the same manner as the project in general. The overall product is an architecture which produces highly differentiated and articulated spatial experiences within a continuity of landscaped zones.
While the context for the traditional Finnish national identity and autonomy is being challenged and undergoes radical transformation within the framework of a unified Europe, there exists an increasing pressure on individual countries in general to participate in the intensified international exchange of goods, labour, capital and information. As inter- and transnational corporations and institutions equal and bypass nation-states in degrees of general, public presence and exertion of power, the nation-state can revise its own terms, forms and types of representation as part of developing and renewing its agenda for servicing the public and its role in relationship to the distribution of politico-economic power. Architecturally this revision calls for entirely new categories of space to be instrumentalised. To the extent that architecture contributes to the production of a politico-economic matrix, this production is partly spatial and can no longer be deferred to established and sanctified forms of monumentality, typology, or symbolism. On the contrary, it can only be achieved by an architecture that realises alternative types of spaces to those produced from within the established catalogue of representational forms.
Set on a sloping hill in the diplomatic area of Yarralumla, mid-way between Capital Hill and Lake Burley Griffin, the proposed embassy is the place for an open exchange and flow of those things and activities which are connected to diplomatic presence. Within a total field of landscaped zones, the architecture enables and directs the distribution and intensity of these. These flows and exchanges encompass those implied by the numerous different constituencies of users the embassy will serve: representatives and employees, public customers and visitors, official guests, neighbours, and -by extension- the Finnish and Australian public. Towards this end the architecture is viewed as an enabling mechanism for producing the space that will accomodate the widest possible range of program and events and maximise the number of occassions for and the intensity of interaction and exchange.
Rather than relying on the formal language of an architecture that belongs to the past, the space of this project results from the synergetic effects of formal and systemic syntheses that enable a high degree of differentiation within a continous experiential field of events, program and form. The coextension of topology and program yields a composite resultant that contains a highly varied and non-congruent configuration of compositional sub-sets. The programmed spaces are situated as an intensification and extension of the pre-given landscape-structure and topology on a west-east axis across the middle the site. They are contained in the interstitial space resulting from articulating the site topology, in effect by bisecting the sectional lines, inwards from the edge of the building zone . As an intensification of a topographic field, the programmed spaces are not referred to as a ´building´, but a zone. Within this zone, a set of programmatic units are situated as the extension of the ground and craddled in a concrete structure poured in situ. The remainder of the program elements are housed within an aluminum, glass and wood exoskeleton on a steel structure floating above the concrete, ground support.
The surface articulation of the site topology is continued in a corresponding articulation of the exoskeleton. This is divided locally into two-three strata. The different strata all comply to the folded topology but remain non-aligned with the folds and are respectively highly irregular and non-congruent in extents. In certain places a given area of the exoskeleton folds down to cover the ground beyond the building zone.
The high degree of articulation of the exoskeleton produce, apart from a formally complex outer surface, highly varied light and heat diffusion through this outer skin. Further regulation of daylight and inside temperature is achieved through standard measures, such as reflective glass and aluminum and adjustable louvres. But most importantly, resolving the program requirements within interstitial spaces which are partly imbedded in the ground, yields favourable temperature regulation in all areas of the building zone throughout the year.
The outer-surface articulation in the project forms a counter-movement to the extension of the site topology into the building zone. In order to activate the topographic surface of the site, the material and geometric articulation of the exoskeleton is matched with a general landscape program. This program consists of different systems organised in the same manner as the project in general. The overall product is an architecture which produces highly differentiated and articulated spatial experiences within a continuity of landscaped zones.