Translucency & Raw Materials: A Brief Analysis of Lacaton & Vassal's Solutions

Written by Eduardo Souza
Published on March 19, 2021

Paulo Mendes da Rocha often says that the function of architecture is nothing more than ‘supporting the unpredictability of life’. Spaces stand everyday life, meetings, landscape, art. Something like a frame, which is often also considered a supporting element of a work of art, since it highlights and, mainly, directs the viewer's gaze to the main object. The phrase of the Brazilian architect combines well with the way that the Lacaton & Vassal office works. The French couple's award raises some questions about how accurate their choices are for the current moment in the world. This includes the philosophy of their work, the design solutions adopted and the material palette generally adopted.

A project that marked the beginning of the French duo's career was that of Place Léon Aucoc, in Bordeaux, in 1996, part of an initiative of the city to ‘embellish’ its public spaces. When visiting the square, they observed that it worked well, met the demands of the locals, and was charming as it was. Changing one floor for another or installing a modern bench would not make a real difference to the lives of its users. The proposal was to use the resource that would be spent on small improvements and the maintenance of the square over time. The design gesture of doing almost nothing and rethinking the function of architecture is symbolic and powerful. And that remains throughout its trajectory.

No matter how cliché it is to say this, the company seems to materialise the so-called 4 Rs of sustainability. Although they are common sense concepts, we observe many practices moving away from this, unlike Lacaton & Vassal, who seems to include this naturally. First of all, the attitude of rethinking the real need to create new architectures, build or demolish permeates their work. Usually working in renovations or in consolidated urban contexts, architects tend to start projects thinking from the inside to the outside. In other words, with the empathy to put yourself in the place of the future inhabitants of the space, not considering the projects as tabula rasa, but understanding their characteristics and potential, destroying the minimum and making the most of it. The idea of adding and not demolishing to build something very similar is something that, in the end, significantly reduces the impact of its constructions, in an industry that generates enormous amounts of waste. Reusing structures exploring their potential and recycling materials whenever possible are key points in their work.

In new buildings or extensions, the approach of the office remains the same. Using traditional systems of pillars and beams, without large swings or structural daring, architects establish rhythms and perspectives on spaces, through well-marked structural frames. Concrete – usually precast – and steel are shown to be raw, as are most installations. The structure rationalises and modulates spaces. It is evident, but not the protagonist. Frames views and the life.

But materialising the simple is always more complicated than it seems. ‘Build generous spaces at the lowest possible cost, with a sense of economy that does not renounce comfort and beauty. Spend the minimum to get the maximum,’ comments Anne Lacaton in a lecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design. The omnipresent commitment to the economy leads to a concise range of materials in their works: in addition to the aforementioned exposed steel and concrete, the facades generally do not escape the mere closing of the structure with glass panels or translucent sheets. These deserve special mention. Many of its buildings refer to greenhouses, which architects always seek to reference in their presentations. As they themselves point out, if greenhouses are so good for plants, they can be good for us too. In fact, it is an interesting solution for the French climate, where most of their works are built. The panels, made of polycarbonate, perforated sheets, glass, and ETFE, allow at the same time that space is flooded with natural light, have adequate thermal comfort, but provide privacy, blurring the exterior of the interior, and vice versa. Natural light comes as an actor in their projects, especially residential ones. This is so blatant that most of them are photographed during the day. The sternness of a completely austere architectural space gives way to the imperfections and beauties of everyday life.

Even with marked structural frames, Lacaton & Vassal's structures appear singularly light. Even the limits seem unclear from a distance. The mix of transparency and translucency of its facades unveils the interior life, shaping buildings with almost changeable facades, relating to the context. Guilherme Wisnik brings an interesting analysis of the translucency of contemporary facades in his book Dentro do Nevoeiro [1]. While modern architecture sought transparency, symbolic and literal, through glass cloths and structures evidenced, in his words, ‘the current buildings with translucent, or semi-opaque facades, in which the structural bone fades, seem to dialogue with the system search for information on the internet. A system based on new epistemological patterns built by algorithms, in which everything can coexist side by side and concurrently, by accumulation, without clear hierarchies, and through associative links that often lead us to dispersion.’

‘Use what is there, stay simple, embrace the outdoors and honor light, freedom and grace.’ The recognition of the Pritzker Prize makes us reflect on the role of architecture today. According to Anne Lacaton, ‘any architecture is also political. As architects, we must not differentiate between projects for the rich and projects for the poor. This is unacceptable.’ Efficiency in the use of resources, in the face of an already overburdened environment, frank design and the use of simple, inexpensive materials in the best possible way and the notion that the building can be, above all, a frame, to call less attention than its content are interesting counterpoints to the increasingly rare and criticised ‘starchitects’. Symbolically, its translucent plans also make us think. If in this last year of 2020 the world was affected by an enemy invisible to the eyes, this also showed us that our certainties about the future are not so clear, but turbid.