Page 15 - AGC_EN_iBook

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It was Jean-Marc Lechat, head of the Urban Development and Management Department (SPGU)4 who welcomed me in 1977, guiding my rsts steps in the city under construction. I was given the task of designing two small houses in the Clos des Blancs Moussis in the district of hocaille.
I will always remember Raymond Lemaire’s good-natured rebuff when I showed him the rst sketch. Pointing to a lack of modesty, his criticism was so clear that I went straight back to the drawing board.Two days later I presented the new draft, this time earning a radiant smile: ‘Mais voilà !’, he said.
This was to be the beginning of a long-lasting collaboration5, and I was to discover, admire and deeply respect the thoughts of Raymond Lemaire who, as a sort of guardian angel, guided all the architects privileged to work in Louvain-la-Neuve with a well-meaning rmness.
FROm tHe CRCSL tO tHe aGC GLaSS BuILDING
In 1986, Royal Dutch Shell awarded me the task of building its Chemical Research Centre Louvain-la-Neuve (CRCSL (Figure 1 [01/160]).This saw me shuttling back and forth nearly every day between Uccle and Raymond’s heverlee home to lap up, on top of his wise counsel, his inspiration.This was to be practically the last building I designed with a brick or stone facing, in an environ- ment admittedly steeped in postmodernist ideas.
Questions linked to a building’s physics led me to question the ‘tradition’ of thin brick or stone facing and I started to look for a more logical way of enveloping my buildings using lightweight skins of wood, steel, textiles and glass.
In itself, this almost philosophic choice implied a complete questioning of the architectural vocabulary of my facades.
When using a glass facade, calories irt with light, as light can generate unwanted heat. Re ecting or absorbent glass panes are like high UV-protection sunglasses worn all the time, while clear glass will transform a building into a greenhouse.
In combination with external louvres to ward off the sun, a dou- ble skin facade made of glass or textiles xed to a wood or metal structure attempts to resolve this seemingly insoluble problem by creating a dynamic layer of air6.
Natural draughts, noise, transparency and re ection, and dust
are all factors that have to be taken into account, as well as the use of double skin structures, glass louvres and photovoltaic cells.
The design process itself is modi ed, with the approximate geo- metric layout of a brick building superseded by a layout exact to the millimetre, encouraging intense re ection on numbers, dimen- sions and modules.This increasing design sophistication goes hand-in-hand with developments in computing and design soft- ware, as well as those of production robots.
The in uence of this new approach to facade design makes itself indirectly felt right down to a building’s structural design: stairs
Fig. 1 | 01-160 | Chemical Research Centre Shell | Louvain- la-Neuve | 1986-1992
Fig. 2 | 01-225 | Brussimmo of ce building | Brussels | 1989-1993
Fig. 3 | 01-286 | Headquarters of Éditions Dupuis | marcinelle | 1993-1995
Fig. 4 | 01-320 | CNP | Gerpinnes | 1993-1995