Architect Answers Architecture Questions | Tech Support | WIRED

[00:00] I'm here today to answer your questions from the internet. [upbeat music]

[00:12] Is there a theoretical limit of how tall a building can be on Earth without collapsing? to do a building over a kilometer high.

[00:26] I mean, in theory, tall buildings are built It's rather like a tree, the roots, the pile foundations a kind of spreader plate effect

[00:40] Obviously, there's ways to make a frame building to a point at the top as the Burj Khalifa does. Elevators restrict the height of a building.

[00:57] Tall buildings you have to get out of one into another. Ultra Saurus. that melted cars and set buildings on fire in 2013.

[01:11] as the walkie talkie 'cause of the shape of it. because of the setting fire to things. What happened was the angle of the sun on the glass,

[01:26] It was increasing the power of the sun's rays and in the end they had to fix like a breeze sole,

[01:38] You can't necessarily predict something like this. and typically if you're going to step out you have to have the stomach for the fact

[01:51] They found a solution, but yeah, it's not ideal. you've ever faced?

[02:05] that was on an island in a volcano crater. It was a 15 minute walk from the nearest road How on earth was I going to deliver building materials?

[02:20] but they don't do that anymore. And I'd also designed this huge pivoting arched window and the answer was to do helicopter drops.

[02:33] was the weight restriction of the helicopter. and the glass had to be loaded up on the road

[02:45] and then come around the mountain of guys waiting on site. I did ask them to film it so I could see it afterwards,

[03:01] Huadpe says, change my view. Brutalist architecture is ugly. It comes from the French "beton brut."

[03:16] It's usually hammered concrete. so it's small windows of leaking pipes.

[03:32] I mean, funnily enough, they're becoming trendy again, I think it's the way that people view these kind of monsters and then insert something soft and emotional into them.

[03:45] Take for instance, the Barbican. bush hammered concrete. but it was a utopian vision of how Londoners would live.

[03:58] It's quite a complicated piece There are two types of lifts. you're not on the right floor.

[04:12] of the architecture that is quite off-putting. and it is full of architects, Brutalist architecture is almost like

[04:25] If you compare the enhanced the Kardashian approach versus I mean I think there's something quite interesting. Is that ugly?

[04:40] So from the Architecture Subreddit, how architecture is built? They're dealing with snow.

[04:52] of the local architecture takes on The other end of the scale, when I was in India recently that I visited.

[05:06] smaller windows, not really glass to passive solar gain to cool spaces

[05:19] and the orientation of those spaces to create shade That said, it's strange also in India to be witnessing high rise going up with air conditioning,

[05:32] and not the same fundamental intelligent approach to Polite Architecture asks, can architecture influence human decisions or behavior?

[05:46] I mean, when I was a young architect, I was a massive fan by Berthold Lubetkin.

[05:59] The penguins could jump off and play and jump into the pool and architecturally it's absolutely exquisite. The interesting thing is the penguins became very sad

[06:13] in that environment and the zoo keepers decided simple timber buildings, a pool where they could interact, into this sort of geometric form.

[06:28] having baby penguins. It's really interesting how a kind of beautiful piece have that effect on living creatures.

[06:44] SecondnameIA is asking do people really build for new projects? Certainly there are models that are made for show,

[07:00] We use models in a slightly different way, we can use them as like little maquettes, usually make them out of cardboard and that can be everything from a small part of a city

[07:17] that might be the fragment of a building. to break off from drawings in two dimensions It's typically very useful when you have meetings with,

[07:33] to convey the narrative of There's a gallery roof building we designed in Mayfair.

[07:45] to create these uninterrupted floor spaces, We used the roof structure. you know that it has an inherent strength.

[07:58] So we started to explore how we could actually use that. what you're seeing on the inside. and the installation and all of that would work.

[08:11] is just quite a useful thing to do. why doesn't Zaha Hadid believe in using right angles? She came many times to inspire my students.

[08:26] I think that her sense of space, voluptuous space was so inspiring, like almost on a cosmic level that the sense to be not registering the story heights of buildings,

[08:43] amorphous form. when they're built, they're like amazing. But you know, it was radical, radical what she was doing,

[08:57] and it's not easy to build her forms, not at all. Straight lines are much cheaper.

[09:09] between an architecture designer versus an architect? It's protected as a professional title.

[09:21] An architectural designer is typically someone but they don't have any accountability for the drawings

[09:35] It depends on the scale of the project, details of buildings. So you'll know that it won't leak and it'll stand up.

[09:49] Freetimephotography asks design versus final product. and then you actually, it goes through all these processes but it's the process

[10:03] and you just go, well, this is my idea and that's how it must be, actually, you're missing a trick because often things happen along the way

[10:16] We did a project with an arcade, and what I hadn't understood was how the light would enter and it was like this magical moment when the beams

[10:30] of sunshine shone in before we'd finished the actual design Not in the way that we intended to do it. So yeah, I think it's good to be quite open

[10:42] Iridescentlight, why is Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture The most iconic masterpiece of American architectural houses has gotta be Falling Water.

[10:57] kind of extraordinary intervention in nature with the water coming from beneath the terraces.

[11:10] It's a motif almost that people go, In fact, it was very much of its time. I think if one was to commission today's Frank Lloyd Wright,

[11:26] modernist way. and thoughtful about the location. It's effectively a spiraling ramp.

[11:40] the gallery is on the ramp. So you're seeing a linear exhibition from top to bottom to view the show.

[11:53] to be an architect? When you're talking through ideas with a client, to pull out a pencil and then quickly sketch.

[12:09] It's not about being good at drawing and doing watercolors. There's a lot of clients who would ask for a CAD rendering These have a slightly weird, like a hyper real quality.

[12:26] So what we tend to do is we might build a computer model of a building, but we will by hand sort of draw the spaces and there's a sort of level of trust between architect

[12:40] That I think comes across when you have hand drawings. with this is exactly what it's gonna look like.

[12:52] it's a little more friendly, it's a little more uncertain. and you can draw, great, that's what you need.

[13:04] Chetoos08, why do we not build ornate buildings anymore? If you look up as you walk through the streets of a city, skilled amazing brickwork on Victorian buildings.

[13:20] and the reason is that it's expensive to do that. of modernism in, I think it was 1910, Adolf Loos wrote an essay, which was the foundations

[13:34] of the Bauhaus Studio, which was ornament is a crime. That's because the modernists were saying that once you add ornament to everyday objects, they go out

[13:47] And we should actually think about the form follows the function, with the advent of the machine age, buildings were no longer typically made

[13:59] by stone masons with beautiful carved gargoyles, whatever. They're often machine made offsite and then they come So there's not necessarily the same regard

[14:12] Alternative-Big-6493 is asking how do architects know that their designs are feasible, It's not entirely down to the architect.

[14:29] Obviously buildings are made with a series of experts to actually put together all the ideas in a way It might be shapes and forms.

[14:44] because that is very restricting. We'll also make exploratory maquettes. So as the design develops, we will test it.

[14:59] So an EnglishmaninParis says, Pompidou, of course, it's that 1970s optimism It's also very interesting that the architects chose

[15:13] to really reinvent the gallery space, turning it inside out. of the buildings which are normally hidden. The water's in green, the electricity's in yellow

[15:29] So the guts are on the outside. adjacent to the Pompidou Center. and lovely place for people to gather.

[15:41] as an iconic form, but it's the space in between that iconic form Ahmqur asks how difficult is it to build

[15:57] Concrete is a liquid thing that sets, it needs You have to create form work, so you pour the concrete in, and the concrete needs to dry out.

[16:11] So although concrete itself isn't expensive, it's basically something that is, it's like a moment But you have very little opportunity to make mistakes

[16:26] and as a result, it's quite expensive to do, Then-Feeling-7989 is asking, is an engineer's worst nightmare.

[16:42] The spirit and the vision has to be a shared thing. And for a structural engineer to work well of pragmatism on the one hand and fantasm on the other.

[17:01] that's when great things come out. of the world's greatest structural engineers to the outcome of the building.

[17:15] Sanandrios asks, why does the Louvre pyramid get a pass? that place is there's definitely a tension between the sleek glass versus the old stone buildings

[17:29] A lot of Parisians despise it. and yet, very interestingly, The juxtaposition of the old with the new.

[17:44] and I think it's quite special. It's a difficult thing to pull off, but I think he did. why don't most architects live in self-designed homes?

[17:59] It's very expensive to build your own home. My own realization is So my last house had an oculus in the roof open

[18:15] to let the snow fall in, apparently into the bedrooms. It had brick doors that swing open. when you're doing your own house

[18:27] to actually introduce magic and excitement if there's problems, you gotta live with them. This has been Architecture Support.

[18:43] [upbeat music]