The Molded Curtain
SANAA’s Christian Dior building in the Omotesando district of Tokyo is an elegant exterior expression of the interior couture fashions it houses. The building is defined by molded acrylic panels set behind a glass curtain wall, with horizontal banding distributed in alternating heights. The horizontal bands may suggest floor plates but in actuality are distributed unevenly across the facade. The strong horizontality of the bands cuts through the verticality of the contoured forms while also suggesting a multiplicity of floors that do not actually exist.
The exterior cladding, or first layer, consists of a relatively simple panelized glass curtain wall system. To the interior, the second system is one of formed acrylic panels meant to mimic the form of elegantly billowing curtains. Though the many billows are formed by only four different molds, variation in the facade is produced by clipping the acrylic panels at various heights, thus truncating and variating the forms
The void between the glass and acrylic become an important visual space. Natural and man-made lighting cause the void to register differently under varying conditions. The billows create depth and movement while the glass defines a datum against which that movement can be read.
In designing an exterior envelope, Sanaa deals directly with
The process of heat forming the acrylic panels creates several limitations within the system. The material choice is limited to those of a plastic nature that can be bent at will and retain the shape of the mold after bending. Furthermore, the panelized system,creates limitations in module height both because of the demands of tessellation as well as the realities of physical production.
The Transformation & the Dance
This invention relates to the technique of molded acrylic panels and the repetitive assembly of these panels to create a comprehensive envelope system for building. The new system retains many of the original aesthetics embodied by SANAA’s design. It is a double layered system comprised of an exterior panelized glass curtain wall and an undulating, billowing layer just to the interior.
Th first change is an elimination of the registration of the horizontal aluminum bands and floor plates on the exterior of the building. By pushing the floor plates behind both layers of cladding, the dominant visual cue in elevation is that of the dance between the orthogonal glass system and the undulating system behind it.
The acrylic layer is then systematically altered. Rather than connecting cohesively, one billowed panel to the next, they are clipped at the edge of their billow registration, eliminating all flat planes. This results in a shredded, rather than continuous appearance to the metaphorical fabric. The billow is then made more dramatic, deeper and more contoured. While SANAA consistently organized two billows per panel, we allow the billows to merge, and blend into one another, at times registering separately, partially attached, or as one merged unit. When the billows meet each other at the corners they react in torsion to their neighbor, twisting and contorting to form concavities and convexities, such that the corner becomes ambiguous.
To completely erase the registration of the floor plates the panelized system must disappear as well. Thus we introduced a laminar system of horizontal stacked bands that could conceivably end at any point, near or far. This laminar system frees up a multitude of possibilities as far at materiality and form, and suggest a reading less topological, and more topographical.
