CHARLIE SUTHERLAND definite&infinite
Charlie Sutherland is a Scottish Architect. He completed architecture at the Mackintosh School in Glasgow. Upon graduating he joined the office of the late Sir James Stirling and worked on a number of international commissions and competitions. In 1997 He established Sutherland Hussey Architects with his long term colleague, Charlie Hussey. His firm completed a number of award winning small scale projects all over the UK. Some of his projects was shortlisted for the Stirling and Mies van der Rohe prizes.
Aside from seven RIBA award winning projects in the UK, his firm has developed in collaboration many projects overseas on a larger scale. For instance, a major urban regeneration proposal for Sligo, the new British Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia, a design template for a new National park in Xiling Mountains of Sichuan China and the most recently winning an International architectural competition in Chengdu for a New City Museum.
Between Definite and Infinite, a talk from Mr. Charlie Sutherland on 15 March 2017 PAM public lecturers. It was a great experience to gain knowledge through his sharing session. Charlie Sutherland show us a lot of project he have been involved all around the world and explain how the design ideas been apply in each of them.
From what I learnt from him is that every design must be begin with the site context and how it react or interact with the environment. Most of his project was design well to communicate with environment, he make use of site context to emphasize a building characteristic, to identify an architecture. There are two buildings, Edinburgh sculpture workshop and Chengdu City museum that I found can represent the ideas he wanted to share with us.
Edinburgh sculpture workshop, a facility providing artists with low-cost studios, exhibition space and workshops in the Scottish capital's Newhaven area. The previous function of the site is an old railway shed, it was then develop into a facility for artists. This building have make use of environmental elements such as sunlight as façade and natural lighting.
Opening was created to allow natural sunlight into the building, as lighting purpose or create suitable environment using shadow. Beauty of building is not only depends on façade but the way it react with environment. The location of the window and the size of openings is the key to interior pleasure.
An open plan pathway traverses the space between the Workshop and the Creative Laboratories, connecting the street with a cycle route that passes along the complex. Twelve external sculpture bays divided by elegant concrete piers flank that used as artist exhibition spaces which direct connected to central courtyard, where events and exhibitions can take place. Charlie had organize the spaces to allow indoor can interact with outdoor.
A freestanding 28-metre-tall structure had become the landmark for this sculpture workshop. This outstanding structure is actually influenced by traditional bell towers or campaniles. The ideas is intended to draw attention to the otherwise hidden facility, giving a bit of presence. The ESW has international significance, yet their site provides little visibility. Site context should be apply in the building design so that the building can be parts of site.
Chengdu City Museum, a new museum located in Sichuan, China. Charlie’s firm had won the first prize in the international competition for the design of this Museum for Chengdu. The building is located in a historic core as a new central focus. This building was designed based on Chengdu Site context.
The form envelopes a new undercover outdoor public space which form a gateway through the building. The space provided was used as outdoor public space where people can gather, cultural events can take place even the local street market extends through to the square. This gateway also can be used as a connection of site. The main entrances to the museum, theatre and museum offices all connect with this route through the building.
The facades of the building mostly used to enclose the monumental exhibition halls. These are represented as a giant crafted artefact in the city cloaked in a precious skin of copper alloy. The façade also used a lot of glazing curtain wall to allow relationship between indoor and outdoor. The combination of different façade material allow the variation of natural light, shade and texture at the same time accommodating all the technical requirements for ventilation grilles.
Mr. Charlie Sutherland is an experience architect that willing to share his finding and knowledge. A wide variation of his projects from small scale to large scale had been a success as he realize the important of site context together with surrounding environment. In brief, a project without site context factor is just a typical building that can be relocated at any place in the world without a significant identity.
