Wallpaper 10

PHOTOGRAPHY: NORMAN WILCOX-GEISSEN WRITER: DAVEN WU

OUT OF OFFICE | AMANDA LEVETE

How do you take your coffee?

Espresso with hot milk.

When did you first realise that

you were creative?

I was at an academic school, but

I loved sport and art. I said from the

start that I wanted to be an artist

and if you take that position at a

school like that, they give up on you

a bit. Leaving school at 16 was the

best thing that ever happened to me

• I was in control of my own destiny.
  What did you do next?
  I went to art school. I read a lot
  about history of art and, through
  that, I discovered architecture.
  How did you know it was for you?
  The design of buildings embodies so
  much of what it means to be human.
  As an artist you’re on your own, on a
  personal quest, whereas architecture
  is collaborative; you have to take
  on board other people’s views, maybe
  even take inspiration from them.
  Who has been your biggest
  influence professionally?
  My former husband Jan Kaplický,
  and Richard Rogers, both very
  powerful, very different minds.
  Jan was a brilliant draughtsman,
  an original thinker not afraid to
  go against the status quo. Richard
  is also a great thinker and attracts
  the best talent around him.
  What buildings, other than those
  you’ve designed, do you admire?
  Centre Pompidou is one of the most
  important buildings of the 20th
  century because it literally turned
  how we see museums upside down.
  Instead of a museum being this
  grand, impenetrable fortress, it
  became open and democratic.
  I also love Frank Lloyd Wright’s
  Guggenheim in New York.
  If you weren’t an architect, what
  do you think you would be?
  I remember reading Ibsen’s The
  Master Builder as a student and
  thinking I’d love to make a film
  about it. There are many parallels
  between film and architecture:
  it’s deeply collaborative, you work
  to the same long time frames,
  and you bring people together
  from many different disciplines.

BODIL BLAIN

SHARES COFFEE

AND

CREATIVE SMALL TALK

WITH...

the Stirling Prize-winner

and architectural pioneer

Reducing energy consumption is now

a design priority for architects. Leave it

to WOHA – the Singapore-based practice

that has built its name on conceiving

climate-appropriate towers – to come

up with an elegant solution inspired

by ancient design features for an oft-

overlooked modern problem: the

huge amount of energy that goes into

ventilating an underground carpark.

For its New Cuffe Parade project,

an ambitious ten-tower development

in central Mumbai, WOHA worked

with environmental engineers RWDI

to create clusters of slender funnels

inspired by the classic wind-towers

of Hyderabad, Jaipur’s astrological

monument Jantar Mantar, the follies

of Paris’ Parc de la Vilette and the

stacked designs of architect John

Hejduk. Taking advantage of Mumbai’s

prevailing north-west winds, the

funnels naturally ventilate the basement

carparks by sucking in fresh air while

pumping out stale hot air, reducing

the energy consumption of normal

mechanical ventilation by 30 per cent.

woha.net

FUNNEL VISION

A breath of fresh air for underground carpark ventilation

Newspaper

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