48, Brendan Macfarlane from Jakob+Macfarlane

An evocative discussion with Brendan discussing their project near Cairo Egypt for a new 4000-student university.
Brendan describes shadow and geometry including the intimacy of sub-ground tombs as his archeological context.
The firm won the C40 competition Reinventing Cities for their unbuilt ‘Energy Plug’, a gateway building at Paris Olympics 2024.
Brendan’s creative studies originating in Aotearoa NZ are also highlighted.

Episode Transcript

(00:15):
Hi. This is Rosland Derby fromLocal Architecture. Now and currently right now
I am speaking with Brendan McFarlane inParis. Hi, Brendan, Hi,
Rosalind, how are you good?And Brendan is part of Jacob McFarlane,
a well renowned architecture practice in Paris, which we're very privileged to have here

(00:40):
in the Zoom studio today for ourNovember session. So Brendan, this heaps
to talk about. There's a bitof history potentially, there's what's happening right
now and the architecture situation in Paris, Europe. I suppose I mean the
mic is open to you. O. Thank great, so no thanks,

(01:00):
Rosalind. What's happening now and thenthe situation in Europe. I'll try and
give you an idea of what onething then the other what we're doing.
What we're working on right now currentlyoutside of France, really is a two
projects. One is on the Belgiancoast in a place called Knokla Zut and

(01:22):
it's for a project that we designedmaybe twelve years ago. You know,
this is architecture, at least inEurope. Things sometimes take enormous amounts of
time to finish, but anyway,we're under construction and it's a tall tower
on the coast of Belgium, andit's what we call the Community House.

(01:46):
Yes, and the Community House isbased around a lot of ideas which we
started running with the local mayor.He is no longer alive, but quite
kind of a fantastic individual, MonsieurLupins, and he started wanting he was
talking about a new way of livingwhere he wanted, you know, younger,

(02:06):
older students to live in. Thisarea of conuct now has become kind
of a very let's say suburb reallyfor Brussels on the coast. A lot
of people go there, they havean apartment on the weekend, and so
all of that gradually has become akind of like you can imagine the nice

(02:30):
for France is like the Kanuk isthe equivalent version. You know, it's
an upwikly mobile population. There area lot of people from Brussels, as
I said, and prices have thereforegone up, and elderly people and students,
those parts of the population that havenormally rented or not have not necessarily
having much income have gradually over theyears moved out, and so there's been

(02:57):
quite a big imbalance on this partof the coast. Is dream when he
was alive, was to actually breakthat way in which it was going.
And he said, a healthy cityis not about having one population. Is
we all know. It's about havinga mix city of elderly, young people
that are students, people that arecoming in from maybe even other cultures that

(03:20):
don't have the money either. Andso his idea of mixity. We designed
a project called the Community House,and sure it's taken a long time,
but in it are lots of ideas. One of the ideas is that elderly
people living alone need to be connectedinto a community. And the building in
this case is kind of considered likea community where we have ways of which

(03:45):
we can mix things. One ofthe examples would be there's a library in
the bottom part of the building,a local library, and the idea is
that instead of bringing in people fromoutside to run the library and keep hours
running at all times of the day, older people that aren't necessarily working are

(04:09):
and living in the building. Areyou know, the idea of the program
anyway, when we build it isthat they will be running the library,
and they will not only be runningthe library. Of course, therefore,
it gives them disability to talk topeople, to communicate, you know,
to share their experiences as people arethat have lived longer. And also they

(04:33):
will be teaching or running part ofthe crash for kids. And when that
crash will of course will also bepart of the people living in the building,
young younger couples will be living let'ssay they are young young ones in
the crash, as well as peoplein the outlining outlying community will. So

(04:55):
it's a kind of a mixed qushof sorts to the wider community. But
the idea of building building a programmixing the issue of age, we thought
that was brilliant and interesting to workwith. And there's other ideas in the
in the building. One of themis that people often in an apartment building

(05:18):
end up in this kind of isolatedrelation of themselves in their apartment and then
the only place they ever mix withother people is when they take a lift
or a staircase or and then they'reout of the building. And what we
wanted to do was again break thatmold. So our idea of kind of
coming in and working with his ideaof community was to create what we call

(05:42):
glasshouses in the building where those spacesare the Belgian coast is like you can
imagine it, but like windy Wellington. All the Wellington's less windy these days?
Do you the climate change from whatwe think? Anyway? The point
is that that wind is definitely onthe Belgian coast and we have these glasshouses,
but there's a lot of sun evenin winter a lot. Can I

(06:06):
just break in and ask is itlike going from Wellington to the Capital Coast
in terms of kind of relationship toBrussels? Absolutely completely, it's like the
weekend an hour away or forty fiveminutes or something. Absolutely. Oh my
gosh, I mean I'm in theKapiti coast right now. Yeah, what

(06:28):
you're talking about is basically talking toyou're basically talking to our local borough council.
This is the conversations that we wantedto have. So I will I
will stop there. Okay, no, but it's good because I think that
relation is between the big city andthen a place where you go on the
weekends, or you know, thatrelation between the big city and a larger

(06:49):
region which is part of the Wellington, but then it's the Capity coast and
then actually where do they merge whereyou know, where does that one leave
off? And you know, becauseit's not just a history of maps,
but it's also a history of distance, driving distance. It's also a history
of how people want to run theirlives, you know, where they want
to work, where they want toplay, et cetera. And I would

(07:12):
say, yeah, you had onthe comment about the disparate sort of demographic
it sometimes you know, been aa high point of leisure and recreation as
decades go by, changes to besemi retirement, and then you get all
these different sort of and so theactual the trick for the council is is
it's a very loose program and theynever really know where to go with it

(07:33):
in terms of that in terms ofproviding excellent architecture to serve the geography and
the democratic of that place. Well, I think it's an interesting one.
I think it's in that sense,it's like you had a mayor in this
particular instance that saw that problem buildingover time. It didn't just become as

(07:55):
a kind of let's say, youknow a dream, you know, and
you woke up on morning it said, listen, we should do this.
I think he's sort of the problembuilding over years and years, you know,
and his way of breaking it was, let's try let's try this kind
of prototype. There's a way inwhich we can get a mix city going,
and a mixed city also, asI said, a kind of financial

(08:16):
mixity, so that people are notdriven out, you know that you have
different kinds of populations staying in apretty beautiful place, you know, not
being driven out of that. Youknow, because I remember as a kid
the Capity Coast very well, wehad a batch in Paraparan, if I
can call that the Capity Coast,and it is and now of course it's

(08:39):
you know, it was demolished tomake way for you know, housing for
fairly wealthy people. And the batteris not about that. The batch was
just it was built on an olddune, you know, and near the
golf course, and you know,you know, and very out of very
poor materials. Was never for tobe It was a bit of shlock.

(09:01):
It was never thought to be somethingfor rich people. It was a definitely
easy for our family to buy itand just run a kind of weaken place.
Of course, all of that's changed, and those changes are very much
linked into the kind of changes thatwe would see and we've seen on the
kununk, and it's a very nicesegue that you're trying to make. I
totally agree with you, and you'reseeing the same kinds of issues. Getting

(09:22):
back to those glasshouses. By theway, we then people come out of
their apartments and go into we hopethese glasshouses where they can keep warm,
they can grow tomato plants, theycan grow flowers, they can share an
activity. But better so, theycan even just go down. There's some
deck chairs in there, and sopeople on that level in the building or

(09:43):
whatever on other levels can come downor up and meet in those spaces.
So their breakout spaces, they're transitionalspaces in the building. So that I
think is pretty cool in the sense. We hope anyway that you know,
you again, you can you providespaces that where people can meet outside of
their apartments. You try and breakthis down, this issue with me and

(10:07):
the rest of the community. Youkind of make you try and as an
architect, create moments where you confrontthe issue. You know it's a challenging
issue. And so the glasshouse definitelyis, let's say one possibility. The
crash the library is another possibility.We have a cafe in the building on

(10:28):
the ground floor which gives on toa marketplace. But those, let's say,
are the more stable way in whichwe would do that. But I
think the more interesting ones are definitelythe glasshouses. We have about five or
six of these glasshouses throughout the tower, and it's about ten stories high,
and you know, and then ofcourse it's the I would just say essentially

(10:50):
that those are the driving things.The other ones is that our corridors are
no longer corridors, they're balcony spaces. Yeah, that's related related, So
people are moving around on their flooron a big communal balcony, which,
of course today in architecture we're gettingrid of those corridors. We're getting for

(11:11):
very good reasons because they're useless spacesthat were used to heat. They're no
longer heated. We have to getused to the idea of living in more
changing temperature conditions. If it's abit cooler in winter, we live with
that, you know, we don'tjust immediately go into a hot building and

(11:31):
stay there. So in this case, we've got these outdoor you know,
as I said, terraces that areno longer corridors, and these are other
places where by the way, peoplecan pull their chairs out of their apartments
and meet at and meet on.So anyway, there's some that's a nice
project. I think we're under constructionmight know with that, and we're really

(11:54):
proud about that. So that makesfor quite an exciting trip up the coast.
Yes, I'm taking your segue withcapity. And then another one that
we're working on right now, whichI thought maybe mentioned too, is that
where we want it kind of animportant competition for a project called the French
University of Egypt. It's in Cairo. It's forty five minutes from the capital

(12:18):
in a north easterly sense, andit's a huge campus. We're in construction
drawings for that right now and thefirst phase will be for three thousand students.
The next phase will be for fourthousand. So that's the kind of
a long term project that we'll berunning over years. That that's an interesting
project because we're using a lot oflocal materials. We're using earth, we're

(12:41):
using stone, which is really strangebecause Jacob mcfarnod, we're usually associated with
more you know, aluminium or morecomposite materials, more futuristic materials, but
we again, you know, climatechange has hit all of us in a
huge way, and us being allof us, you know, not everyone,

(13:05):
And so architects have to come toterms with these the kind of issues
that are coming up that are alreadywith us, and they have to reinvent
the way we are making buildings,even thinking about buildings, the kind of
energy we're consuming, the kind ofmaterials we're using, what we pollute on
the planet in order to create abuilding. You know, you've heard all

(13:28):
of these issues before Rusland's side,I don't need to go down the list,
but on the on the on theEgyptian university, for sure, we're
using stone, we're using earth walls, and the Egyptians were really there using
earth architecture way before you know wewere born. Yes, and you know

(13:50):
that's that's a you know, andthey're brilliantly talented at it. There's an
incredible technique. So hopefully all ofthat's going to come into stone. In
Egypt, in the region, dothey have stone not just heaps of sand?
Excuse my ignorance, good question,No, they of course they do.
You know, I mean, ifyou look at the Pyramids, you
look at the ancient buildings, theywere using sandstones and there's a very important

(14:16):
stone called Hashma, which is avery beautiful stone and it usually considered the
past to be a very simple kindof like a poor man stone, but
in fact it wasn't. It wasused by the Faronic cultures as part of
the building material. So we're justslipping into something which is in a huge
sort of continuity of how they've beendoing it for thousands of years, you

(14:39):
know. Yes, which, consideringJacob mcfahn you're talking about your sort of
futurist at your composite, your aluminiums. What a delight, I mean,
what a big thing, meaningful thingto be going back into thousands of years
of material experience. Well, it'swhat's really great there, Rosaland is that
we started with bread. I cantell you, Like any architect, you

(15:01):
know, you start with certain materialsand then you realize at some point in
the project the material isn't right forall sorts of reasons. And in this
case the brick we were bringing infrom Belgium, ironically, because the Belgian
culture is a great brick producer ofvery beautiful bricks and a big variety and

(15:22):
a big choice. And as anarchitect you get to know all of that
and so your knee jerk reaction isoh, you know, and the campus
we wanted to get this kind ofsandy color, and we thought the best
way of doing it was bricks.And at one point we then started when
we got the competition and started spendingmore time in Cairo and around the environs,

(15:43):
we realized that the stone was fantasticand why the hell will be bringing
it in from Europe again? Youknow, reducing, reducing those that part
on footprint, you know, allthose so and it wasn't just that it's
like good, I mean, that'syou know, that's actually a really important
point. As an architect, youdon't there isn't any one reason why you

(16:06):
do something. There's always reasons,and some of the moment just simply in
a hierarchy. And I don't knowwhere to place one of the issues in
that hierarchy, but I would saythat the stone, this Hashman stone,
particularly when it catches the light ofEgypt, is phenomenal and it leads to

(16:29):
a light shadow condition which I've neverseen before in any building material. So
why do you know what I mean, why screw you know not? Why
not do that? And if youcan do a shadow with building. You
know, it's another whole dimension ofthe architectural I mean, it adds such
a strength to the architectural impression shadowas you can imagine for people's sort of

(16:55):
everyday kind of understanding of Egypt.You know, the great light and the
sort of mono kind of color thatwe experience of the sandstone colors, and
do you use shadow into it,into the yep, into the geometry is
kind of a dynamic. It's orinspiring. And I think that that and

(17:17):
it's not to use those words lightly, you know, I do think that
it had in ancient Egypt and orinspiring quality, and they very much were
aware of what they were playing withand what they were doing with it,
and it was about inspiring. Itwas not just scale, but it was
also that the you know, theas you said very well, that the
color, the shadow, the light, the shadow, and the kinds of

(17:41):
shadows that they could get were phenomenal. So and you there is a depth
of shadow with the stonework in Egyptwhich I've never seen before. And so
as soon as you get into thatas an architect, you know, you
realize you're you're just you're working withstuff that's been there way before, and
it's really a case of just rediscoveringyou know, why and how it is

(18:06):
so powerful and what are those conditions. I think it's really well put by
you. You know that it's acase of discovering shadow and you do it
in a way what's interesting there,like you do in life. Anyway you
do it. You have to doit alone in a way. You know,
you have to look at the material. You have to see that the
conditions that you're playing with and discoverwhy. Then you know, we've been

(18:27):
building some mockups of those walls onside and we saw them in the late
afternoon, and when you see themarkups on site, the real scale markups
with the material and the late afternoonlight hitting a Hashma wall, it's all
inspiring. And you do get theshadows, so you need to it's not
even in photography that you can getthat. You know, you've got to

(18:48):
be there on the side to seeit. And then there's a whole lot
of things that click into place.So that's that's quite exciting. I get
it to score in Auckland. Idon't think you may have gone there.
Did you have Pat Hanley teaching youto draw a Pat Hanley was my teacher.
Well he's my lifetime influence. Hetaught me to draw, and thousands

(19:12):
of other architect students. But histhing was the shadow. You know,
he said, you know, wewent and out a rule or a rubber.
I've never used one since for sketching. We had to get out there
on site as a group of Motleypeople and he would sit us downe and
say, just paint, sketch whatyou're seeing. But look, the rain
is coming, so for goodness sake, get in the graph fight, get

(19:33):
in that black, get in thatshadow, and then we can go.
And as soon as we got thisblack and this shadow in, then we
had a building. And great aboutgetting the graph fight. And because it's
going to rain, we've got togo. But we had this bring up
building, We had this shape,and that was that was his number one
lesson. And what you're talking aboutis just bringing me right back to well,

(19:55):
you know, it's amazing because maybein the words I'm using your recognizing
Pat Hanley, Pat handling was ahuge influence on me. And one of
the comments that I also remember himsaying, I was never in a rain
storm with him, So that's amazing. I missed that to ray never quite
come. But we were we didn'thave time to fuss with the drawing,
and he taught us all to draw. Of course. Of course, the

(20:19):
other thing he would always say,which was very powerful, and you would
remember that, which was give methe big picture, the big issue.
Go for the big issue. Andthat is an extraordinary It's so simple,
you know. But over the years, you never never forget it. And

(20:40):
I will be on competitions over theyears and I will think of those comments
at that when you start going downa narrow you know, corridor, and
you've got lots of little stuff,and you go, oh gosh, you
know, am I ever going topull this off? And is it even
even close to winning? Noread forAnd then you think of some word words
like this from a number of timesof you, I've thought of that,

(21:03):
and of course it's not the bigpicture. It's the big picture, which
of course gives you all the rest, you know, but sometimes you miss
it. I'm concentrating only on therest. So yeah, great, great,
teacher Auckland. Great, it's reallyinteresting to talk about shadow. I'm

(21:25):
trying to remember back now towards thedrawings that I was doing and thinking about
it. For sure, his bodiesand space they were all always floating due
to shadows as well. And youknow that only I really discovered later after
leaving Auclory, coming back to newLand and seeing a number of his paintings,
you know, and a number ofhis works I don't even know if

(21:48):
they were paintings. They could havebeen Prince or something like this. And
yeah, and so no, wonderfulbut good stuff. But going back to
Egypt, you know, I've alwaysbeen I've always been nervous about this actually
talking about the geometry, you know, because that's like the building is object,

(22:11):
whereas I'm very much about the buildingresponding to site, responding to people,
responding to community. And so theidea of I'm all about designing geometry
I sort of left there at thetable. But now that you're talking about
this geometry in Egypt, it's likeanother whole step for me. You're talking
about volume, metric experience of buildingsand great big and the expanse of a

(22:36):
site such as in Egypt. Soit's pretty interesting and you can bring in
this idea as a geometry and theshadows and the sharp building against the sky
or whatever. No, but Iam you're touching on a lot of stuff.
I think you're touching on the intimateand the you know, the site

(22:57):
inspired unique, you know for ahuman scale, and then you're touching on
this big scale, big sky,big stretches of space, you know,
which you do have in Egypt.But then what it's funny. You know
you need to travel to places,that's for sure. And we about a

(23:18):
year ago went to a complex ofthe tombs in a place called Sakkara.
Sakkara which is just outside of Cairo. But just when I say just outside
is still about an hour's drive bytaxi, and it knows the step tomb
and it's the one where instead ofbeing a slope side, it steps down

(23:41):
on the sides and they think itwas really like a transitional piece leading to
the triangulated diagonal sided two which sheops all of these other tombs. Later
there are a refinement of the steppedbut before the step there was actually in

(24:06):
this sense that I played it allthe way back. What's incredible. On
the site in Sakkara, you havethe beginnings of toomb making, and the
tom making was a shaft of verticalshaft into the ground build up and at
the bottom of that shaft off thoseshafts if you netflix, you know,
there is very nice kind of contemporaryarchaeological films, you know, with the

(24:27):
Egyptian archaeologists that explained it very well. Those shafts had off them the mummies,
the different burial chambers. But theshafts were you know, let's say,
I don't know, twenty thirty fortymeters. You can see them when
you go to a side like Soccara, and they're just a square hole in
the ground, very dramatic, andyou can be on a plateau of rock

(24:49):
and you'll have hundreds of these shafts, just black, square, beautifully cut
shafts going twenty or thirty meters downinto the ground. You can drop a
an object into it and it takesa while to hit the bottom. The
point is that image. You canimagine then that was filled and so that
was really the symmetry in the beginning. From what we understand then it had

(25:11):
also I think they were either theywere filling them or they were putting a
thing like a mustaba, which isa kind of platform that capped these things
and which was bigger than the wholeFrom what we understand, but I think
it looks and that's what the archaeologistssay that over time those mustard does got

(25:33):
bigger and they also started starting putting. It's clear in a way. I'm
not an archaeologist, but you cansee how it sort of happened is that
they would maybe put a second mustabut on the first, and maybe a
third. So this idea then oflike you know, capping the two.
I think it was done for keepingpeople out because tomb rubbers were you know,

(25:55):
it was prevalent even when they wereyou know, cemeteries is ongoing problems
of you know, keeping the securityof these sites anyway, blah blah blah
blah. These mastabbers over time,you can see that someone got hold of
the idea that I'm building them oneon top of the other and into a
heat, let's say a stepped heat. It gave rise to the pyramid.

(26:18):
And I find that story fantastic.So it's like it's a prototype for the
future diagonal piece. Why am I? Why am I going there? Because
I'm going a little bit of offthe subject, but it's kind of just
giving you a sense of what whysoccer is really interesting and why if you
go to soccer. The point thatI'm really heading towards is that the one

(26:40):
of the one of the sorry architectsof the period made the one of the
major entry ways, like a portalinto the Soccara tom complex, and that
portal, if you go there today, is one of the portals you come
through as a tourist. It's actuallyhighly intimate and very small scale and highly

(27:03):
human scale, and it's got nothingto nothing to do with this huge,
vast, you know, impressive impressyou thing. Yeah, the detailing is
really intimate. It's not domestic,but it's it could almost be domestic.
It could almost be going into someone'shouse. And you go through that in
order to then to get to thisbig step pyramid into a courtyard and then

(27:26):
looking on to a step pyramid,which is more like a kind of a
Mexican experience, you know, thesebig you know, pyramids in the landscape.
And so I just thought what wasgreat about being in Egypt is that
sometimes you discover the intimate like that, you know, you discover the tiny
scale, do you know what Imean? You know, you know what
I mean. It could be allit could almost be someone's house and that's

(27:49):
what's crazy. You know, noone it's like, you need to travel,
you need to see these things.No one's get about to tell you
that because of course, you know, maybe they'll experience the site in a
different way than I did, butI certainly had that experience of digit So
I would say Egypt's complicated, complex, beautifully complex. It's not just these
vast side but it's also an incredibleintimacy at times. So you know,

(28:14):
I'm just thinking about your you know, your your point about that and the
joy of experiencing that human scale.I can imagine that they're all about building
for the people scale as well,you know, as natural architecture builders.
And it comes through that level.It comes through that level because also they're

(28:36):
having time to work it out.They're working over a long period of time,
and they're thinking it out, andthey're thinking it out through their their
bodies. What the experience is,you know, you want to go into
an intimate place, pretend you knowsince and then going into a into a
biggest place. So architecture history lessonthis, architectural design lesson with pleasure.

(28:57):
The other part. I'm just thinkingthat the other part that is interesting in
your is interesting in your in yourquestion shall I take shall I come back
to Europe because you had a questionabout that. Yes, yes, all
right, so I'm segueing back toEurope the second part of your question,

(29:18):
which I noted as you as youwere talking, so on the European scene
right now? How do I seeit? Or how is it? I
think it's I mean, I thinkthat's the line of your question. Yes,
am I wrong? Yeah, ifyou if you want to. I
mean, I'm looking forward to hearingabout your project currently regarding the Parisian Olympic.

(29:41):
But I'm very glad that you thatyou're open to talking about Europe in
the way that you just just initiated. All right, but then hang on,
then maybe I talk about the prothat's a way of talking about it
then, and you I think Isaw it's like a sort of accommodation hub
community thing as well. Today wasnext year, twenty twenty four exactly.

(30:03):
So this is called the Playo project, or it's called in a way the
Energy Plug a concept, and theEnergy Plug is a project that we conceived
and we won a competition for acompetition which is an international competition called and

(30:26):
Architects in New Zealand would know.It's It is very much based around the
idea of using all of the argumentsas much as you can about environmental change,
climate change, you know, allof the kind of ecological let's say,
kit set that we have in termsof keeping buildings, you know,

(30:48):
low carbon foot runs, et cetera, and meeting the challenges that climate change
is proposing. This is one ofthe project projects that we won. We
won another one in Iceland. Wewon this one in the same year and
it was on a building on pluggedinto a nineteen thirties huge hall turbine ball

(31:11):
in the north of Paris, builtout of concrete in the nineteen thirties.
Our deco, which the local communitycalled the Cathedral, has no religious connotations
other than being this incredible vertical space. And the Paris Metro in the nineteen
twenties was running off energy that wasboth coal fired and also using a lot

(31:37):
of water from the Seen River,and that electricity was basically generated right next
to this building on a vast sitewhich today is completely is something else no
longer exists and no longer you know, of course, coal, the coal
production of energy finished. I thinkin the nineteen fifties or sixties for the

(32:02):
Metro even earlier. Maybe, sothis became very quickly a kind of redundant
piece of industrial architecture, remained emptyfor years and years. It's a beautiful
building. It's kind of stepped,you know, we're talking about stepping again,
step three times down from the kindof cathedrals based down to the ground.
And what we proposed, we wereasked to keep it. It's it's

(32:25):
considered a you know, like anindustrial what the French court year heritage patrem
one and so what was that wordpatrum one. It's the same thing heritage,
absolutely, and don't and and andthe point is we were asked to

(32:47):
do an extension, build an extensiononto it. And as most architects know,
the C forty is a complex projectsbecause you really need to go out
and find your client, then youneed to go out and find the budget
with the client, et cetera,et cetera. It's a whole process which
is quite complicated, and then hopefullywin the project and then hopefully build it.

(33:07):
So it's a long process. Anyway, The point is, we had
therefore a choice as to what wethought you should put programmatically on this old
building and we've chosen that sense tomake it an art center, a restaurant,

(33:28):
a huge glasshouse that faces south fora vertical growing wall of tomatoes and
strawberries that would be growing those productsthroughout the year. And the roof,
of course's are solar panels. Andthe upper story is mine of France's most

(33:50):
famous startup companies that starts startups,you know, so in fact they're an
umbrella company for the whole startup cultureand that we went out with our client.
Our client at this point was dfwhich is an electricity France, and

(34:12):
they, you know, they wewere a partner, and we came up
with this program, a very interestingprogram, and decided to make the whole
building out of wood. So ifyou see the images, you'll see that
it's a prefabricated module that is builtback east in France and then brought in

(34:35):
by barge boats along the river systemand then the barge canals a very close
to the site. So the wholeidea is then to bring them in off
the off the barge boats as closeas we can give them to the building
and then building and then bringing themacross to the building. So it's a
pre fabricated thing. It's placed ontop of an existing structure. There's a

(34:59):
certain the restructuring of the old building. But the idea here was also it
was an energy plug. So ina nutshell, the solar panels produced energy
the glasshouse produce was south facing,so producing a huge amount of thermal energy,
and that thermal energy would actually producethe heat for the building throughout the

(35:21):
year. So by doing that,we came up with a calculation that could
prove that in fact, in theold building we do not need to put
insulation on the inside, but wecould actually keep a certain amount of heat
inside the old building throughout the year. There are it's not black and white.
There are parts of the upper buildingwhich do not use that calculation,

(35:44):
you know, because they're places wherepeople are working and they're not moving,
so the heat is you know,it's generated in other ways, natural ways.
But what was interesting here is thatwe came up with a prototype for
essentially not just site. I shouldsay it's a prototype for the site,
but it's a prototype for any industrialbuilding around the world, which we saw.

(36:08):
As you know, the usual wayan architect is about treating an industrial
building is that if you keep theold you know, the tons of concrete
you know, in a lot ofthese buildings, if you keep that essentially
a concrete exterior, the idea thenis you do you pump it full of
insulation on the inside. You know, you say, have twenty thirty forty

(36:29):
centimeters of insulation to meet the thermallaws, especially in Europe, which are
draconian, but in a good wayand for good reason. But the problem
is that is that you end updoing a new building inside an old building,
You end up spending huge amounts ofmoney, and you end up end
up using a lot of material.And we're trying to keep material down these

(36:52):
days, you know, we're tryingto do more with much less in another
way, not in the Messian way, but certainly in the material way.
There are other reasons for for energycalculations, you know, and with all
of the arguments of lowering resource use, et cetera, which are all new,
you know, and again related tothe whole climate change phenomenon. So

(37:15):
the point here was to say wecome up with a prototype, which we
proved with thermal calculations, that wecould actually apply to any place in the
world. And that became very excitingbecause it meant that we didn't have to
do much to the old building.We could keep it, We could keep
the experience of an old building forthe inside, and it kept the temperature

(37:36):
down. We bought the temperature downa bit, because it's true that we're
trying to bring down generally now inEurope the temperature, the workable livable temperature
of spaces, because again it's relatedto energy consummation and energy and also resource.
You know, the more thermal,the more thermal stuff you need to
keep that energy in, which ispart of the absurdity in a way,

(38:00):
you know, so it's all itall sounds in a way a little bit
scientific, it isn't because in asense it's related to what you see and
and so here we were wanting toOur argument was, you know, and
you can see that a lot inEurope, and I would say it's a
negative part of the thermal laws andfrances that now everyone's rushing to fill old

(38:22):
buildings filled with new thermal layers justto get the you know, the the
those interiors trapping the heat inside notlosing it to the outside. The move
is right, but it's slightly absurdbecause in a sense we're using massive amounts

(38:45):
of material to do that. Sothat's another whole calculation which has not even
taken into consideration, and we're nottaking into consideration. Also that the idea
is that we should and those arevery recent arguments. The idea is that
we really should be worth living acceptinglower or higher temperatures for the human body

(39:09):
and not going for the kind ofcalculations that we've been looking at in the
past. So, I mean,there are two factors. There's a bunch
of factors that come in here,but they have big impacts. They have
they're huge, really interesting challenges forarchitecture. It's the way that they're going
to the core of how we makethings, what we make them from,

(39:29):
what impact do we have on ourselvesand what impact do we have on other
people and the generations that follow.So those are not minor, they're really
big issues. And that then theenergy Plug is absolutely That's why we called
it the energy plug, all aboutall about what we do with energy and
proving that we could make this prototype. So the intentions were very good.

(39:51):
I've only got one sad thing tosay is we're not building it. We're
not making it. Oh you're notactually but you've designed it, but you're
not building it because you know,and then it's going ahead. No,
it's not going ahead unfortunately, becauseit looks so lovely. I mean you're
talking about the existing industrial building andthen the building that you're stitched into.

(40:12):
It's beautifully stitch. It looks likethese timber kind of webs, this timber
kind of lattice, and so youhave this lattice timbery thing, and then
you've got the solid masonry thing andthe two counterpoint. Really well, yeah,
no, I thank you for yourenthusiasm. It's not going ahead,
damn it. It was meant tobe finished to the Olympics, and it

(40:35):
would have been one of the gatewayprojects. Look at one of the Olympics
areas, was that one of theareas are right right next door to the
Olympic Village. Yeah, and itwas the major gateway for the Olympic Village.
So the village is where everything essentiallywill happen in terms of where the
Olympic you know, of course,the you know, the the would have

(40:57):
been so exciting, it would havebeen really and exciting. But unfortunately our
client shifted before the Olympics really gotgoing, and after we had won the
competition, they shifted their resource investmentaway from these kinds of projects, architectural
projects, which would have been reallygreat, and overnight they shifted it,
and we didn't. We really wantedto try and find another client. But

(41:21):
as architects listening to the program willknow in the end, you're an architect,
you know, you're not a developer. You know what I'm saying.
Absolutely, absolutely architecture. Absolutely,I've tried. It doesn't work, No,
I completely agree, And then thedevelopers just don't. It's such a
schism. I mean, we've gotdevelopers popping up doing We've got this medium

(41:45):
density housing rules now, and thedevelopers didn't take long to sort of pick
up the ball and run with it. And we've got all these in this
as you say, this beach sidekind of amorphous, kind of mixed kind
of landscape here building wise, andall these developers are doing their thing,
you know, and the council youknow, really doesn't know what it can

(42:06):
do. I mean, it doesn'thave a lot of control. The developer
is good at what they do.They know what they do, they know
what the I margins are and theybuild stuff. But yeah, but the
architect architectures doing development. I totallyunderstand it. It's it's not what we
do. And then the developers dowhat they do. And how do we
get the clients to how do wemen get a client and make it all

(42:27):
work so that we can we cando this public private partnership thing or whatever
they talk about. Well, forone thing, you get around the table,
that's for sure. You have toget around the table and bring people
together that don't usually talk, youknow, because we live in societies that
we're all doing our thing in ourseparate sectors, you know. And and
I think you know, if youwant to change the Waylan Whiche we're making

(42:50):
stuff on the Capital Coast, itis about, you know, first of
all, looking at Landfall and thinkingabout, you know, the extraordinary landscape
there and thinking about how do webuild on it and keep preserved that landscape.
I think the big key is tostart with landscape because it's the one
thing that brings everyone together. Everyonecan agree you've got a beautiful island off
the coast, you've got an extraordinaryy, you' have in fantastic light conditions,

(43:14):
and you have an amazing landscape landscapethat's been formed by dunes between hills and
sea, and that landscape is primordial. It's why we go up the capit
of the coast. It's why welove it, it's why we associated with
great memories like I do from mychildhood. You know, it's unique.
If it's unique, it's about whatwe all go there for. You've got

(43:36):
to get everyone around a table toagree what they love about the natural environment,
do you know what I mean?Start there, then kick off from
there and say, okay, well, how do we go about keeping what
we all love, but at thesame time in densifying it and bringing in
and making it available for more andmore people, but at the same time

(43:58):
also making places for the community.And I'm getting back to the community.
Yes, and you know, howdo we make community great community space?
I think it's got to be it'sgot to come out of the landform.
Yes. A good way though,is that that whole group of people getting
together, whether they're developers, architects, artists, you know, politicians,

(44:20):
you know, you just have it. You have a series of think tanks,
you know, and out of itcomes a lot of ideas. And
you've heard it before, people havedone that in the past. But I
think it's actually always something that comesout, you know, and always something
and if anything, it brings everyonetogether around what's fantastic in the environment.
It may take generations to finally getthrough to people what they're losing. H

(44:45):
oh, the it. But thepoint is you've come through. Sometimes making
ugly things in an environment kicks thegets the ball rolling, do you know
what I mean? Yeah, andI think, but I'm not saying you
should make ugly but I'm just sayingthat I think that I think getting people
around the table hugely important. Itmay take generations. It may not.

(45:07):
You'll have one or two developers inthere which are ready, you know,
that may not. There may becoming up. Also, there may be
a kind of a younger generation ofpeople looking and thinking, how the hell
do we do something differently? Sothat's one aspect I do think, you
know, conversation talking, getting thepeople around and getting just around what is

(45:28):
the great environment? How do wekeep it? How do we keep those
trees on those hills in the backgroundof those dunes close to where we're living
that we can see them, andwhen when we wake up in the morning,
we still see some of these hillscovered in green or that those hills
are then regreened. You know,because from memory the forests, the forests,

(45:50):
the pieces of forests that I memoryand member as a kid, they're
fantastic nik our palms, you know, come on, where do you get
that in the world? Micro microlandscape? Where do you get that in
the world. You know, youstart walking up in some of that stuff.
It's unique. So I think morepathways, more ways in which you

(46:12):
know that making it available to thelocal community, getting them nature based hugely
important. Getting around these issues ofclimate change, asking how that's going to
affect the coast, Asking how theissues of rising sea levels is going to
affect the coast. How far shouldyou build back? If you build near
the coast, at what height shouldyou build so you're not going to be

(46:34):
flooded. You're going to have tostart thinking about new ways of creating cities
on the coast that will take intoaccount two, three, four or five
more meters. It's coming. It'snot a it's not theory. It's not
blah blah. You've got the Antarcticshelf there. You know the thing,
you know, what we're what we'reseeing now this year is particularly reality.

(46:55):
So you know you've heard it before. You I'm I don't need to be
kind of you know, you know, getting up and talking about all of
these issues, because you know,you know the issues intimately, and I
just think I think the important thingfor me to say is that kind of
I'm just trying to remember back whatI thought was really important about all of
that capital the coast, why itwas unique, why it is extraordinary.

(47:19):
I was back there at Christmas,I went up there. I could see
that there were more walking tracks inthis area. People are taking, people
are there, They're making, they'retaking more pleasure out of the coast.
I can see that in terms ofpublic space. You know, just keep
on going in that direction. It'sreally important. But start thinking also about
that future that's coming. You know, I'm building higher, building on on

(47:45):
you know, maybe up on stilts, working with the dunes in that sense,
you know, working with the dunesas a kind of protective zone,
a barrier, you know, workingwith the unique form. You know,
the dune is a monthing. Butalso those views decide where your major views
from public spaces are. Yeah,absolutely, yes, yeah exactly, because

(48:07):
how do you how do you buildand also get to appreciate the sea,
you know, from back from thecoast, and but still see it in
the future. Do you have doyou have corridors visual vision corridors that the
community all can all agree to thatthey don't have someone in front of them,
but that they can build back andjust and see still the island,

(48:29):
you know. I mean these thesehave to be community discussed and put into
you know, legislation, no bigdeal because it's it's not new. You
know, you have fantastic precedence forthis Denmark. You know, they've they've
they have some amazing precedents up onthe coast of Denmark, similar situation,

(48:51):
sand dunes. How to build nearhow to create community spaces, parks and
also build buildings so that every oneactually can experience nature and at the same
time not build in front of eachother. Densify, you know, because
Denmark's a good case and point.You know, there's a huge problems issues
of densification, but there are answersthat people people have been there before.

(49:15):
So I think as a group arounda table, you know, take your
time, you know, meet Idon't know, night and weekends, whatever,
you're going to have these have thesetasks discussion groups. Make them fun,
you know, put them to geta someone making coffee, you know,
make you know what I mean,Make make it a make it a
great event, and just have itover a series series and take get someone

(49:37):
taking notes of the whole thing,trying to publish it, put it into
some form so that the city canthen pour over it. They go through
it, the urbanists can look atit. It can become like a task
force vision for the Campity coast.And you know, even if you get
two or three things coming out oftwenty five ideas, Wow, that's fantastic,

(49:59):
you know what I mean, Andand and and this this this issue
of precedent, that's a biggie.You know. Really, I think there's
there. As I said, Denmarkis just one example. There are other
places in Europe absolutely similar to theCapital Coast which you can be looking at,
which is a really that's a pleasurebecause it's not just talking about what's

(50:20):
beautiful on the coast, but it'salso talking about how communities around the world
have come to come to task withsimilar issues, do you know what I
mean? And what they what they'veproposed, what they've come up with in
terms of community space, what they'vecome up with in terms of private space.
How do you get in and outthe coast, you know with a
vehicle? You know, where doyou put that vehicle? How do you

(50:43):
do? You know what I mean? It goes on and on and anyway,
And I love your emphasis on communitybecause this is where people have a
native intelligence. They come to thisplace, they see the hills to the
sea, they see the wet theysee the gens. They respond to it.
But then but then their their sensessort of done down by the buildings
and which they have to inhabit andwhich they see, you know, and

(51:05):
and that native intelligence of people whoare just not architects, but they know
what they see, they know whatYeah, people know more than all of
us. And then if we havepublic spaces which reference all of what people
know, then we're getting a democratdemocracy of space and people are able to
talk to what they know, andthen we get activation in so many different

(51:27):
areas. But I'm recognizing that we'regoing to jump back to Europe, from
wetlands and cavity to Europe. Andwhat you think, yeah, well,
you know, I mean, Ithink it's interesting for me because in fact,
in many ways talking about cavity andlet's say, talking about presidents and
things like that, and how howyou need to work with groups of people.
You know. Actually it's I'm sayinga lot about myself as well,

(51:49):
you know, and or at leastmy vision of how you work. And
I've got there. It's taken time, you know. I was never really
like that, but I realized thatactually you do need people around you.
You do need to be able totalk across with someone at a table.
You do need to produce things thatthen go outside beyond you, you know,
and it can affect other people.So I would say that we're trying

(52:14):
to I mean, I would saybecause of that attitude, we're working on
we are working on projects that nowhave a scope beyond themselves. You know.
We're working on a library which isbeing built right now in Avignon,
which is in you know, inthe south of France, a so much

(52:37):
avenue On like tomorrow. It's agreat city. It's you know, the
city of the Pope, that's theegg with the you know, the second
capital of the popes. Of course, you know all the story. It's
one of the great. It's oneof the great. Every year they have
a Festival of Theater for the wholeof Europe. So you have the best

(52:59):
in innovation theater, and you havetroops coming from all over the world,
and you have like a I thinklike ten days of different theaters, and
you will have maybe every day willbe five six. And then you have
also the off part. So thecity is taken over by theater. It's
a great it's a great background tothat. Anyway, The point is that

(53:20):
it's a stone city. It's wewe won a competition. The competition was
about keeping an old building from thenineteen sixties in concrete again. So it's
a nice segue with the project thatwe're not you know, I mean you
never know. We may build it, but you know, Touchwood I would
love to, but player, Idon't think we'll build the energy plug.

(53:43):
But this is another kind of energyplug. It's a different kind of energy
in a way, but it's thesame idea. It's an old concrete building
nineteen sixties. We got rid ofall of the outside, the stucco,
all of the stuff that have beenput over it over the years. We
samdblust that back to its concrete.The concrete's tough, it's rough. We

(54:04):
managed to convince the city that theyshould keep that look. It's kind of
a pored in place in bits andpieces concretes, not clean and like which
I love, you know, Ilove the kind of the nature of it.
So it's about three floors high.It's a big kind of box.
It looks kind of like a sortof dumb box in the nineteen sixties.

(54:25):
But it was designed by a localarchitect who's still alive, and ironically he
was on the jury chose our project, and I think it's a win win
between his project and our project.Ours was simply to put a huge wooden
roof over the top and very lightlysitting on top of his concrete box.

(54:51):
And the wooden roof supports a wholeseries of solar panels. And it's a
structure which really is a kind ofvery abstracted version of a tree. And
we took the metaphor of a bobattree, which we find in Africa,
the notion of the wise man sittingunder the tree talking to or reading from
a book, let's say, astory to kids. It's that image that

(55:15):
we took, which we thought wasan extraordinary image for this particular situation.
We are interested in context. Youknow, I go with you when you
talk about that Rouslin, because it'sthe same way. We always try and
generate a work from a unique orfrom the situation. And in this case,
it was an old building. Solet's say the tree becomes a kind

(55:36):
of protective of the old building,and the tree goes down inside the building,
and we have a staircase, anold staircase and concrete. Again,
it's all been ripped apart in termsof all the layers of painting stuff off
it, and we've taken it downto what it was as a concrete sort
of skeleton with a lift in themiddle of it, and we've transformed it
into the trunk of the tree.And so that goes down of a three

(56:00):
story vertical wooden tree trunk which actuallyis a bookcase. So when you start
walking up, but there are books, aren't more or less more or less
that's the theory is not quite likethat, but the idea is that you
can walk up the stairs, pickup a book, and keep on walking
over three floors. And as peopleknow, maybe some of our work from

(56:22):
the past, we've always loved thebookcases. You know, I was thinking
of your bookshop from way way backin two thousand and two. Yeah,
well, yeah, well then Rosalind, that's exactly what it is, except
you could take the books that youcould take one of those totems and extrude
it over three floors, and that'sexactly what And also it sounds heartspecks to

(56:43):
fake Lloyd Write's gallery. What's itcalled that? The gallery you know,
going around and circles up the galleryin the Goggenheim Momen. Yeah, in
the gallery in New York Goguenheim Museum. Absolutely, that's that's nice. That's
a nice segue. I hadn't eventhere, so yes, So that's I

(57:04):
mean, we're really proud of thatproject. It's under construction. And in
a theater art cultures capital like Avignon, you're talking to that, the storytelling
and the and yeah, sitting andtalking and telling stories. But you know
what's really good as well here aswe're in the suburbs of Avenon, and
so we're not right in the heartof their cultural heart. We're in a

(57:29):
tougher part of that Avignon, whichisn't touched so much by what I've just
mentioned as the theater, although itis, you know, it's it's the
juice at the heart. But weare in the suburb and we're really proud
of that because now we're taking somethingwhich was a bit tough and we're trying
to introduce something a bit more poeticinto it. And the idea is here

(57:50):
that kids, neighborhood kids can comein. They are our clients, let's
say, for the library, andso we we're kind of we're very proud
of that. So we'll see howit all goes. That's your brief introduction
to Europe in general. We'll takeit from the stories of talking to kids
in the suburbs of evinor we'll leavethat at the steps of the building.

(58:13):
In terms of what's going on inEurope, it's talking to the children right
now in Aviannall and Brendan McFarland trainedas an architect in New Zealand initially and
went to California and teamed up withhis partner Jacob McFarlane. And you've been
a world leading practice based in Parisfor a number of decades. Thanks very
much, Brendan, Thanks Rosalind,thanks for the opportunity to talk today.

(58:38):
I really enjoyed it. Likewise,so did I. Bye bye for you
bye. This program was made withassistance from New Zealand on Air for radio
broadcast and through the Accessmedia dot mZ website. Thank you New Zealand on Air.