Hanif Kara: The better the architects, the more qualified they are as engineers as well. They actually have a very good intuitive understanding of engineering, but the starting point is a different one. They don’t expect you always to be a problem-solver. The tradition in the relationship has been that the architect is the creator, and the engineer is the problem-solver. We subscribe to this, but operate somewhere in between the two. We still like to add some creativity and some innovation to the work. These two components add a value to “normal” projects as well. Remember that even among the best architects, there is a different derivative position in architecture from which they start. My skill is in being sensitive to this and adding something to their vision to make it even better. Take, for the sake of explaining this, Zaha Hadid and Will Alsop, or Foster and Partners with Jean Nouvel (with whom I am working on a fascinating project under the name of Atelier Foster Nouvel) or Foreign Office Architects. They all work in a different way to be visionary and creative, but don’t expect us to be just problem-solvers or simply to offer the voice of rationale. They expect a lot more, but I am always careful not to step over into their architecture. I would rather contribute to making it even better. In this regard, I believe projects like the Science Centre in Wolfsburg are ushering in a refreshing shift back to showing an interest in each other’s discipline. In this case, it is more noticeable, since this has been facilitated by new technological possibilities such as digital technologies or advances in an understanding of materials like self-compacting concrete – somehow making it more successful in splicing the two disciplines together seamlessly. In the end, it is difficult to tell where the architecture stops and the engineering begins. I feel that with well-known architects I have to begin to develop relationships with their work that evoke feelings of sympathy, empathy and an urge to reproduce similar concepts evoked by beauty and not taught at engineering school – as well as being technically competent.
Detail: How creative can an engineer be when working with architects who have a distinctive image? Is the engineer allowed to influence form at all?
Kara: I have never found it to be a problem, because I think that we come to the table without any mutual threats. In our case, we have grown a culture and environment that positions and allows us to adapt to many situations and levels of demand. We are recognized for allowing theory, avant-garde experimentation and delivery to co-exist. Wolfsburg provided a moment in time that illustrates this: we did not retreat from complexity, but took it as an opportunity to provide for experimentation, critique and theoretical speculation without simply falling back on past precedents. In the case of Peckham Library, this relied on the big idea of raising the library to create a public space underneath with a cantilever. What we ended up with was a group of dancing columns, which as a composition stabilize the structure, but also take away the notion of a rigid grid where they meet the ground; in fact, they take away the idea of the cantilever with a superior and more effective solution that serves and enhances the big idea. The back acts as a large column, with spanning flying trusses supporting the library and with complex pods inside – a clear set of structural subsystems to make the whole.
A lot of contemporary architecture, however, is challenging traditional engineering in its pursuit of 3D complex geometry and continuously changing form. So to be creative also requires new analysis tools. In the case of Wolfsburg, spaces are created by morphing different sections into a seamlessly differential continuum. The structure cannot be an assembly of simple tectonic forms like cubes, domes, pyramids. We had to stop thinking about clearly independent structural subsystems. It is more about “topology” than “typology”.
Detail: Do architects feel restricted by the necessity to collaborate with an engineer?
Kara: I haven’t come across this. Somebody once said, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” In the information age, it is those who adopt a “pluralistic” approach and a “collaborative” attitude – not only towards other designers, but also constructors – who are producing the best work. I guess that there are degrees of creative input, but in each case the aim should be to add a layer to the architect’s vision; so when this is understood, how can we think of it as a restriction? In fact the worst case is the other way round, when there is actually too much expected of the technologies and an overreliance on a search or a “structural phenomenon” from which to hang the architecture.
Detail: Did you show architects limits, or can one find a solution for anything?
Kara: Again, all things are possible at a cost. I feel engineers have a better understanding of cost, so they can assess the risks better.
I guess that is usually the limit. Of course, there are the more measurable aspects such as the limits of technologies or materials.
Detail: Is it really true that the sculpturally developed architecture of the Science Centre is at the limits of what is feasible?
Kara: I would say so. I’m not sure how far we could have pushed it. I mean, the reality is that when we conceived it, the idea was already there, but the software wasn’t, so we had to think of it in parts. But we knew that in parallel we had to develop a complete computer-generated analysis model. If you imagine the deck, it becomes stable only when all the cones are in, because it’s a melted shell in a way, acting as a whole.
Detail: What would you have done if the software hadn‘t developed?
Kara: I think there would have been a lot of redundancy in the structure if we had strengthened all these parts unnecessarily and put lots of safety elements in. If you think of predefined items like walls and slabs, they don’t apply to this building; and therefore the analyses had to simulate this accurately. We were confident that as we progressed, the software would work. And if it didn’t, we had plan B. You always operate with plan B in mind.
Detail: Don’t solutions like the cones standing on their heads contradict the structural logic?
The idea is that it has to be fat at the top. The reason is that the slabs do most of the work. They flow. And on plan we had to make sure that it would work, however you arrange it. Even at the competition stage, we knew the slabs span different distances if you look at it on plan. There was never a point where these slabs exceeded the norm of 17 or 18 metres. So if you turn the cones upside down, the whole logic would disappear. Plus the way the architectural concept works: the cones are usually entrance areas, and you don’t need a lot of volume. That is actually completely logical.
Detail: How much higher is the requirement of reinforcement for this building compared to usual concrete construction?
Kara: There are no past models of buildings like this. So you cannot go to the book and say: “OK, for normal cost-driven projects you can say 125 kilograms a metre cube.” But with this kind of project, there are no past precedents.
Detail: What would you say were the greatest structural problems that had to be solved in Wolfsburg?
Kara: The funny thing is that the one we expected to be the least problem was the greatest problem, which is the roof. We expected that to be so easy, because it’s so easy to understand. Although again, it is a very interesting response to contemporary architecture. Because if you understand the roof structure – it was almost conceived as a biological model, which is what everybody is doing today, as a cell that morphs and changes in shape. That is very easy to do with steel. You know the lines; you know the stresses – unlike concrete, where you need to do all the analyses. But the reason it became difficult was that we had to get it through the German system in terms of the checks. That involved the most negotiations, because the construction people said that first of all it would be impossible to build. We would have to put bracing in it and do this and that. So we went through four or five, let’s say, primitive solutions again, despite the fact that we had already proved that all the primitive solutions would actually not be as economical as doing this one. So some people said, let’s put more members in that will have fewer forces, but more welding and so on and so on. In the end, luckily for us, it came back to our solution for the competition. But that became the most difficult part in the end because each of the elements changes in size and thickness.
Detail: What do you think about simplicity as a goal for an engineer?
Kara: I think it’s a case of horses for courses. If you look at our work, one of our best projects, for example, is a housing scheme for 1,000 students in London, consisting of simple stacked boxes. In that scenario, you have to keep most things simple. But we did it with flair, making it shiny and affordable. To us, simplicity does not mean “dumbing down”. But in some situations, complexity becomes the driving force, and I think contemporary architecture in many respects is catching up with the rest of the world, because the car industry and all these other industries have been dealing for many years with complexity: complex analyses, complex thinking, morphing surfaces, morphing changes. So it doesn’t have to be the answer to everything to make it simple.
