Page 132 - ELEMENTS EUROPA (EN)

128
THE 15 X 15 CM SQUARE Philippe Samyn
How can the countless elements composing a building
be unified? How can each parcel be perceived as emanating
from a coherent whole? How can the various perception scale
elements of the building, from the skyline all the way to the
door handle?
Personally, I’ve always favoured geometrical lines and
numbers amongst the tools at the architect’s disposal to
proceed in this quest. Geometry develops morphology and
numbers give it its dimensions and scale.
Architectural conception certainly is no linear process but
a patient iterative toil, increasingly integrating the multiple
constraints and ideas producing the building’s shape better
and better. Thus, one after the other or simultaneously,
geometry and numbers integrate this complex process rich
with multiple reflections and questioning.
This is how the 15 x 15 cm square, a simple and modest
concept, gradually imposed itself of its own accord, so to
speak, as one of the main unifying principles of the EUROPA
building architecture. It simply comes from having divided the
1.35 m structural module by 9; this operation aims at defining
the scale of close perception elements (applying Dom van der
Laan’s “plastic number“, I always single out series of preferential identifiable and that no trapezium is smaller than 15 cm.
dimensions which we are certain will always stand out between
themselves in a harmonious progression).
The 15 x 15 cm “elementary square“ started its “career” as a
division of the emergency doors setting. This comes from the
very prosaic wish to be able to harmoniously insert required
pictograms, the 15 cm x 15 cm dimension corresponding to the
regulatory “close” vision (up to 6.70 m).
Georges Meurant’s artistic intervention, naturally intended
to use a square module, extended that module into the set and
gave it the status of a mighty generator of formal unity.
To start with, the door grid-pattern was replaced with multi-
coloured compositions, made up of a large variety of squares
and rectangles all the dimensions of which are multiples of
15 cm.
Next, the 60 x 60 cm square mesh (i.e. 16 elementary squares),
initially designed according to an elliptical layout, was adopted
for the conference hall ceilings. The composition abides by the
same principle as for doors but from a larger square, heeding
the larger perception scale and the dimensions available for
industrialised suspended ceilings.
The setting for lift shafts received a polychromic setting
following the same principle and the same elementary square
(slightly enlarged to 15.39 cm to be able to obtain a whole
number of modules for a floor height, i.e. 3.54 m, this dimension
being a legacy from the existing Residence Palace).
The wool carpeting of the conference halls does not cover the
whole surface of those halls but they absolutely must “follow”
table lines and consequently adopt an elliptical or circular
shape. As a result, what you get is an “elementary trapezium”
basis varying in size after which the composition develops
ensuring that the setting graphic structure remains perfectly
Signs too adapt to that geometry. All pictograms are
15 x 15 cm and they define the height of soffits following and
crossing corridors. Floor synoptic panels on lift landings also
are 30 cm wide, two elementary squares.