Starting in Guthenburg and finishing in Cannes. From circular simplicity to circular decadence.

If you walk the the lovely street from Wavrinskys plats towards the Sahlgrenska hospital you will notice a big tower upon a hill watching over you. That is Guldhedens norra vattentorn. It was originally built as a watertower but was rebuilt 2008 to a building containing 74 student apartments. The architect behind the rebuilding of the tower is Knut Fredrikson and I met up with him to get behind the thought process and construction of the project. (CH) Can you tell us a bit how this project came about?(KF) - Sure. We had a housing crisis during the 90´s and new apartments needed to be built. Our firm (Fredrikson & Schuberg) found this watertower which was a very small tower but we thought we could work something out with it. We contacted SGS (deals with providing housing for students) about turning it into apartments but their CEO was not really all that interested. They thought it would be hard to pull it through economically. Then time went by and there came a new CEO to SGS and he had a more offensive style with a more open attitude. Then we pitched the project again and this time, the response was different. We went through the zoning and it actually showed that they "underbuilt" the tower. We could actually add 5-6 extra stories to it with the extra height and that meant that SGS became even more interested. So we sketched and tried some ideas but as the project developed and awareness increased, so did some neighbours worries as well. There were a lot of complaints. People were worried about students moving into the area, they assumed the noise levels were going to increase, as well as littering and traffic problems. It became so severe that it had to reach the highest instance on whether or not it could be built, until it was finally cleared after a full years delay. Then we could actually start to proceed. It was a beautiful tower. The steel construction was amazing, it was all flawless with no cracks or problems. We tore down the inside of cistern and kept the pillars to hold the facade. We casted new floors and we also had to build a supporting sidetower. We first wanted another material for the new sidetower but some calculations was made and we instead decided to use Rheinzink since it also had the advantage of keeping maintenance costs down. (CH) Can you talk a little bit about the design and what kind of thoughts that were important to you? Any special inspiration? (KF) - We wanted to keep the smooth cylinder-shape that was originally there. That meant that we did not want to build any larger windows to ruin that shape. The tower was built during the time when a lot of buildings were inspired by functionalism and this is too. There were also already a very beautiful slabs of Fjäråsgneiss in the entrance that we wanted to keep. You can also see the original building date (1935) engraved into these slabs. After our talk, I decided to take my camera and take a stroll to see what my perception of it was and how it stroked me being next to it. My first thought was about the massive presence of the different kinds of stone. You walk up through the asphalt, you climb the natural stone stairs and on your right side, there are gravel and the mountain sticking up, while on your left side there is a grey cement ramp with steel railings. After climbing the stairs there is a round stone wall surrounding the building and then again asphalt and finally the gneisslabs in the entrance. The feeling is both a bit depressing but also very impressive due to its massiveness. I took a stroll around the building and what amazed me was the spectacular view. The stroll around the circular building also got me thinking about shapes, how we use them

and what they provide us in terms of function, feel and aesthetics. We are used to rectangular shapes and our entire world seems to try to fit into boxes. In this case, the circularity is imposed by the original structure but it is also perfect in order to maximize the view. The panoramic view is really more beautiful and rare then the upfront one. It has another feel to it and I think the circular form works really well with this building.

Image from Twistedsifter.com One architect that really has been questioning this ideal about rectangular buildings is the Hungarian architect Antti Lovag. He designed Palais Bulles in Cannes. His view about architecture is that it should be a ”form of play – spontaneous, joyful, full of surprises”. He also talks about "humans limiting themselves to cubes full of dead ends and angles that impede movement and break our harmony". According to him the straight line is "an aggression against nature", as it does not exist naturally. This touches on what I believe is the prime concept of how using round or curved shapes affects architecture and design. It takes us back to nature and allows the building to live and feel personal. Lovag continues on this theme as well with the Palais Bulles being inspired by what he call Habitology. It takes us back to nature with roundly shaped rooms that is closer to what we originally lived in with caves as the inspiration. Lovag also talks about that the circular shape is pure as it only has one dimension, the radius and that is the lightest, strongest and most material efficient form of them all. I continued to do research about round spaces and how they affect us and stopped to think about it myself. I believe it comes down to it being a form that allows us to gather and focus each and everyones attention to one place. It is built so that we all can be equal, there is no side better then the other and we all are facing each other in a natural way. That is why that it is perfect for common rooms, dinning rooms and all types of spaces where people meet to

interact. Reference:http://twistedsifter.com/2011/04/pierre-cardins-bubble-house-palais-bulles-antti-lovag/