1st ProofTitle: BA: Architectural Design
Job No: PD0710-67/4028Chapter 3 final (3.4)_.qxd:layouts to chapter one 7/24/10 11:07 AM Page 138
The design projectDevelopment and detailProject: King Abdulaziz Centre
for Knowledge and Culture
Location: Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
Architects: Snøhetta
Date: Ongoing
above:
Early conceptual model of tubular
steel shading wrapped around the
pebble form of the building.
right:
1:1 mock-up of part of the tubular
steel shading and glazing layers;
this is used to test the design,
manufacture and performance of an
important element of the building.You have said that the people who architects design for
are not abstractions.
Craig Dykers
People are often pulled out of the picture; at least, people
as living creatures. They’re normally codified into some
functional analysis.
The point where a practising architect often loses that
thought is once they’re detailing and they’ve got
something like a door schedule to do. How do you
protect against this problem?
Kjetil Thorsen
Scale models and mock-ups: for instance, where you have
to walk through them or you have to touch them. So by
making things which move under your skin, really moving
you, you have to be concerned about the human condition.
If you consider only form then you would be very quickly lost.
Craig Dykers
Also, the notion of discussion doesn’t die as the project
moves forward, so in terms of associative issues we’re often
re-envisioning our understanding of an object. There are
discussions quite late into the process that say, ‘Well, we
didn’t realise it but this thing actually is doing something else
to the general population as opposed to what it started out
to do’, and you make adjustments to your thinking.
Kjetil Thorsen
We talk about how you sit or how you lie, how the night
looks, how the day looks when you walk through.Text
1st ProofTitle: BA: Architectural Design
Job No: PD0710-67/4028Chapter 3 final (3.4)_.qxd:layouts to chapter one 7/26/10 7:38 AM Page 138