Archetech Issue 25 2016 | Page 39

Architecture CI Refurbishment The calm, orthogonal geometries of the The Commonwealth institute’s main new residential buildings pose a deliberate exhibition hall will be the new home of contrast to the dramatic hyperbolic the Design Museum, offering nearly three geometries of the exhibition hall’s roof. times the space of original location at Shad The facades of the new buildings register Thames, meanwhile dedicated to house the amplitude of the roof’s curvature like Zaha Hadid’s archives. ‘graph paper’. With the exception of the roof and it’s Each residential façade is a hybrid of supporting structure, the building has two different façade types: one being an been almost entirely rebuilt. array of identical vertical windows, the other essentially an expression of the A new basement has been installed buildings’ structural grid. The latter offers beneath the full footprint, and the floors the apartments magnificent views and within have been rebuilt at new levels to also incorporates their outdoor spaces, accommodate the needs of the Design including the large terraces on the upper Museum. The outmoded 1960s facades floors. have been replaced with energy efficient fritted facades, designed to resemble the The two façade types coexist in a original. seemingly accidental relationship. The addition of skyboxes gives a certain The refurbishment of the Commonwealth plasticity to the building volumes, allowing exhibition hall has been funded from (some of ) the apartments to extend revenue made from the residential outside the building perimeter, redirecting development to the point that the Design the view back to one’s own façade. Museum has been offered a for-purposebuilding as though it were new, without the obligation to pay rent.