NEED FOR AN ANTICIPATORY ARCHITECTURE

Ralf F. Broekman and Olaf Winkler in conversation with Hani Rashid

Hani Rashid, the work of Asymptote Architecture is covering a wide range from small office accessories to 500-meter-high towers, from physical buildings to virtual space, from defined typologies to highly experimental processes. Lately, the new Yas Hotel in Abu Dhabi had its pre-opening at the Formula 1 Grand Prix there. With the race track running right through it, it looks like a possible prototype of a new event architecture. How would you define the aims behind the design?
The hotel, a 500-room, 85,000-square-meter complex, was designed to be a significant landmark destination on Yas Island for Abu Dhabi and the UAE at large. It is not only unique as the only hotel in the world with a race track running through its centre, it is also a building that utilizes mathematics, ornament, narrative and spatial effects to achieve a lyrical and relevant story for the region it is situated in, namely the United Arab Emirates, but more importantly at the new crossroads of east and west, a place as attractive now to the west as it is to the neighboring countries and middle east as a whole. The building design stemmed from a study and understanding of how the marriage of ancient customs and cutting-edge technologies might create surprising and unique results. It effectively became a hybrid of local craft traditions and aesthetics with leading edge computing and technological advances, an architectural landmark that embodies key influences and inspirations from ancient Islamic art and traditions, melded with the artistry and geometries associated with modernity, namely speed, movement and spectacle.

Due to its setting and outline, though, it certainly seems that the hotel is focusing more or less entirely on the racing event. In how far will it be able to transcend this purpose?
The hotel, although designed to open with the Formula 1 events, is today a cultural and architectural landmark on Yas Island. What was mere landfill two years ago is today a destination for not only auto enthusiasts but also a myriad of groups looking to experience the future of the region. The interplay between old and new, technology and craft, sea and land all offer visitors a place of excitement, repose and leisure, but also an architecturally and culturally significant experience. The building is now used for conferences, events such as the upcoming launch of the Abu Dhabi Media Summit in March 2010 and it has already been used for important political events such as the recent meeting between US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Palestinian President Mohammed Abbas in November.

With a view to these functions between entertainment and representation, how did you develop the interior? 
The lobby, like much of the rest of the interior, has walls covered extensively in a white patterned shell, similar to that covering the roof. Rather than creating the feeling of sterility, as white so often does, the curved corridors and patterned walls give a sense of fluidity to the space and invoke a sense of curiosity as to what is around the next corner. The interior of the hotel mimics the exterior. The high ceilings and large glass walls of the lobby allow maximum light in without blinding the people inside. Outside the lobby, on the patio, the same themes of color and movement remain. White, patterned chairs surround glass tables and a reflective pool, all of which overlooks a marina, separated from the patio by the racetrack. Another feature of the hotel is the rooftop pool, a two-tiered creation resembling a fountain. Surrounded by a wooden deck, the front of the pool area comes to a curved head, giving the feeling one is standing at the bow of an enormous boat.

Where do you see the main features, also in a visionary sense, on a technical level?
Of architectural and engineering significance is the main feature of the project’s design, a 217-meter long expanse of sweeping, curvilinear diamond shaped tessellation constructed of steel and 5,800 pivoting diamond-shaped glass panels, which are illuminated via a sophisticated LED lighting system, providing limitless shades and colors. This grid shell component produces an architectural effect that is atmospheric-like, a veil that contains, conceals and exposes the two hotel towers, as well as a link bridge constructed as a single monocoque sculpted steel object that passes above the Formula 1 track. It visually connects and fuses the entire complex together while producing optical effects and spectral reflections that play against the surrounding sky, sea and desert landscape both by day and night. The entire building and specifically the interior architecture and grid shell utilized state of the art computing and manufacturing technologies, c+c milling, parametric modeling, optimization scripting and an array of technological advances in the building industry and design methodologies contributed not only to the elegance and precision of implementation, but also to the two year period that marked design to competition, an unprecedented feat and one tied to the use of new technologies throughout the design and building process.

Does this include climatic awareness? Most of the highly iconic buildings in the extreme climate of the Arab regions bear a certain absurdity as they avoid exactly these topics entirely.
Although the architectural impact as a whole “performs” as a spectacle it also serves an important environmental aspect of the complex. The grid shell is designed and engineered to assist in naturally ventilating the building’s envelope and roof scapes. On the hotel rooftops and balconies one experiences an unexpected breeze, even when the wind is not blowing, as result of the “stack effect”. This phenomenon occurs by way of the external grid shell’s architecture, the offset panels, moving alongside the building’s envelope, draw hot air up and through and out of the building while cooler air rushes in to accommodate the vacuum. The result is reduced cooling loads for the building and a welcome environmental response and feature for its users.

You mentioned the integration of traditional elements. Could you refer to that a bit more?
The design incorporated various important aspects and elements of traditional Islamic architecture, specifically in geometric patterns and mathematical models. The use of arabesque motifs, algorithms in shape defining and shifting and the like produced subtle and elegant references to a distant and profound past. The mashrabiya throughout the interior and in some respects as a method for cloaking and “protecting” the exterior was central to much of the design strategies utilized. Whereas in traditional Arab architecture this element was an elaborate turned wood screen often enclosing a balcony window, here the intention was to tie in this aspect of Arab architecture to notions of cover, veiling, and the like. The building’s envelope, interior surfaces and form all speak of the region and its cultural depth through this interpretation and use of a local motif.

Do you consider it at all possible to think a project like this in terms of urbanity, of a future development of the surroundings?
In today’s architecture and specifically for the design of a new building for a newly forming metropolis, Abu Dhabi, new buildings do not exist in a vacuum, and despite the fact that of the moment the surroundings are “yet to be wholly defined” there is a need for an anticipatory architecture, one that sets a standard, alludes to a rich past, galvanizes a pollution, brings a respectful dignity and persona to a place. These were the central motives behind the design. 

Were you never afraid that the building could be “swallowed” by its own spectacular character, somewhere between purely representative corporate architecture and a Disney-like dominance of the event?
The building has already been accepted and adopted by Abu Dhabi as its central and most important iconic building, and has set the bar for future developments in the city, deflecting the somewhat more corporate model of tall building architecture that was central to the development of neighboring Dubai. I believe Abu Dhabi has a vastly different attitude towards development than Dubai. I was in no way interested in designing a Disneyesque folly, or anything frivolous and superficial, rather this was a chance to design a new and awe inspiring structure to set a standard for the city’s future architecture which is inevitable. We want to start a dialogue with the city, its history, to give the place a new identity.


Hani Rashid, born in Cairo in 1958, is the Design Principal of Asymptote Architecture which he founded in 1989 together with Lise Anne Couture, who is the Managing Principal at Asymptote. Since two decades, the New York-based office has been at the forefront of technological innovation in the field of architecture and design. Asymptote works on building designs, master plans, art installations, exhibition and product design, including digital environments in projects as e.g. the Guggenheim Virtual Museum (1999--2001). Rashid currently holds a teaching appointment at the Princeton University School of Architecture, Couture currently holds the Davenport Chair at Yale University as a Visiting Professor. Asymptote’s work is included in various private and public collections including the MoMA in New York, the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
www.asymptote.net

Photos:
Asymptote Architecture: Hani Rashid + Lise Anne Couture,  Photographs courtesy of Björn Moerman 
Courtesy Asymptote Architecture: Hani Rashid + Lise Anne Couture