#21 TEN (CH+SRB), Arquitetura Entre Vistas ABROAD

Arquitatura enter Víster. Your public space for thinking architecture is now going abroad. Welcome, I'm Catarina, no longer a student, not yet an architect. Join me and I guest architects three times a month with new episodes dropping every third, 13 and 23rd. Three is the number to remember. Each episode on a different place but always on Spotify. In Instagram and on the website, rquitaturaintervíster.com, go check it out. This time the podcast travels to Belgrade, Serbia and Zurich in Switzerland. There is where we can find the physical spaces where 10 studio gather to think architecture. Yes, I set physical spaces. 10 is not only made in a Belgrade studio, not only in the Zurich studio. With ideas and debates come out of an in-between space named online group chats, such as the one they have on Discord. 10 is many things. 10 annotates projects with many hands. 10 practices designed by research. 10 defines the collective. 10 welcomes all. With all their facets, I must admit that my initial speculation pondered whether they have named their practice 10 due to the video "Powers of 10" by Imps Office in 1977. But I can now advance if it was not because of that. So the uncertainty remains. Today, I'm joined not only by one person, neither two people, we are 7 today. With me I have Ninyama, Lucas, Scott, Tijana, Cyril and Fabian. 10. After all these years of work, are you still discovering new meanings for your name? Indeed, the name is somehow ambiguous. I think that was one of the reasons which it stuck. I think having a name, which was our own surname or name of something which was very identifiable, we would get bored with it. I think the idea that something evolving can take its shape in any form, in any instance. The name 10 is so universal and so it's everywhere. I think it allows us to say, well, let's explore within that, the identity where it came from. There are other stories as well. I think about these stories, it's pretty interesting, but they're also more conflicting. Well, I want to hear a story now. Choose one and tell us. There's one about boats. I'm actually not quite sure about the story or the stuff. I don't even know it's true. Apparently, there was a boat sailing up the boss' verse. It went up and one of us saw it. It took a photograph of it two weeks later. It returned or it was a key to a different space. It was at Buffalo, all of its cargo, the boat rose from the water. As it rose, one could see 10 emerging on the side of the boat. Someone has a dear geography movement, unloading, unloading goods, materials, the name 10, disappearing from the water. That's stuck. I think helped us frame our approach. So if 10 is many things, let's not hear just one story. Let's share another one. Yeah, I might. Honestly, as Scott said, I think the strength is in the ambiguity. Though it might bring some confusion. It might also seem as if it's 10 people or 10 as a dogma by which we all approach the architecture. But actually, it's not. It's something that can be read into, definitely. And by joining both stories, we can see that, yes, they both complement the idea of 10, whether it is by the geography and the offloads and inloads we get from the boats, whether it is from the non-dogmatic approach you have to architecture as well. I remember also, this was in a conference, I think, from Nemanja. And he mentioned you see your architecture practice as if it was a record label. I really want to know more about this record label. You know, the great thing about establishing something that sounds like that in the architectural practice is that you do not have that many role models. And that allows you to constantly be asking questions and inventing both the internal structure, ways you operate. That's the first step to freedom in that sense. And but it also allows is not to function in a classical way that you were taught architecture functions. You do practice it like that. So that's the skill you manage internally, but essentially you're allowing different voices within the structure to operate within their own dynamics, their own coupling or their own producers, their own bands, their own preferences. What is great about it is that suddenly very different rhythms, dynamics and characters actually talking about the essence of what architecture is in their own right without necessarily being under someone. So you're creating actually several parallel trajectories. And the idea of a record label is because all of us believe that we have to keep certain independence and voices within a structure and not to all somehow blend over the years. So that also creates a mission individually that we have to develop, that we have to ask ourselves questions, that we have to research and find out more than we just know. Because if we make ourselves better individually, that you can help the structure as well. And of course the whole economy behind our natural practice does not work in the same manner, but that did not stop us until now to actually bring in over a lot of meaningful things from such an idea. It seems to me that it's a feeling of being involved. One hand is being involved in the other hand also being responsible for. Because suddenly the responsibility is not structured in a kind of hierarchical way. So also calling for responsibility on a particular task, but you're actually asking everyone to be responsible for the entire structure constantly. That is the difference how ten operates today as well. And it always did operate like that. You're having actually everyone being responsible for it. You are not hierarchical, but at the same time you are not an article as well. To be an article would mean that you would have no orientation, but it seems to me that you pretty much know what you're doing. So if you don't follow a hierarchy and you are not an article at the same time, you fall somewhere in between. How would you define that? Maybe to come also back to the name ten. I mean it stands for multitudes in a way, right? And I think what we offer is we offer many narratives or ways how ten could work. So we have the record label, but we also have other sort of ideas of structuring. So these different logic, you know, a project has a structure, but then a research project has completely other. That kind of opens up possibilities. And I think that the core idea of ten is that we offer enough structures so everyone feels comfortable and welcome. But I think there is also not a problem if there is contradiction in between the structures. As long as we agree that all these structures can find a place within this thing that unites us or that we share, it makes sense. It does. And also coming back to the idea of the record label, I find it's a beautiful idea. This thing of having many voices, some of them are duos, others can be an orchestra or maybe and this is very polemic. Maybe some of you are just in a bend and waiting for the right moment to go solo. This is also a possibility. Of course. Yeah, I think it is about sharing knowledge, about also sharing the time, right? I think the solo of course is possible and it's also very good if we have to stick out with our own voices in order to get forward. But we also don't want to speak alone in an empty room. What is very important is just that there is an answer and many projects start with someone raising up an issue or an invitation or whatever. And very often there is an exchange and something happens. And I think that's always unknown. The path the project takes and that's also quite an interesting part of working with us because we don't have a prescribed top down way of how a project has to evolve. Yeah, it forces a new constellation of people and dynamics. The important thing is that we share our learnings from each project. So that is maybe what differs us from being an article. We still try to evolve as a group by sharing what we learned. But it doesn't mean that there is a prescribed mechanism or order that one has to proceed to follow something. Just before we get to talk about the projects, whether they are research projects or build projects or yet to be built projects or never to be built. projects. I just had an idea about these. I don't think this was ever done before, but imagine an architecture practice that instead of being characterized as a record label, it was characterized as a football team. Imagine that we were all singular architects and then there would be something like a transfer market and we would choose people to join a team, you know? And then you would have the best of the best players in a certain team and they would be in the best physique, you know? This was just a crazy thought I had in mind and I had to put it out. I mean I can't quite follow the soccer analogy because I'm too far from being a soccer player. My immediate thought was the soccer analogy sounds a lot like in markets where there's a lot of money and they buy like the best players and then there's like other teams that have like little money and don't get the good players. So I mean it's not I would like to see how the mechanism works. May I tap in? Because I also had the same feeling that the comparison is great with the transfer, but that's driven by you could say an economic desires or a ending career or whatsoever. And in this case it might be a kind of antidote to that because you might want to leave your well-paid club or something where you can actually play the game you want to play or how you want to play it and that is actually the essence of our structure where actually a different question gathers different voices and they form a trajectory on how they want to do something which is not what you get at the very well-developed football clubs. And maybe now reaching into the project filled everything in the everyday life seems to be very much about the economic pressure. How can architecture not dry up under the economic pressures under the societal norms and under its dependence among all the exercises operating within the field of architecture. So how can architecture not lose its vitality? No, I mean I wouldn't see it as a general answer. It's just probably a very personal one. For me it's about interest and what interests me, what inspires me to do things. I believe or I want to believe that that has its place in architecture and you might not be given all the things that probably somebody which provides more economic passes towards the project, but in the end you'd be proud of what you did. So I think we'll have to figure out where we want to go and there would be a period for you to lose all your interests by just having to give in to the market or what you described as economically driven. So for me personally I do want to believe that there is a reason to be practicing it rather than just being in it for the money. It really interests me what you just said but on the other side the starting point of architecture many times is not in the architect himself. It usually comes out of a wanting of someone out of architecture maybe because they want a house to live in and we are expected to deliver him a house. So how can we develop our interests within these circumstances without being just a service provider? I can tell you my how do you formulate an architectural idea that is so resilient that it would work with different kinds of frameworks around it. Namely the most radical architecture for me that you can do is the one that you can build. So it's a buildable one and no matter how that is simple that might be in a drawing or in a model if you're able to imagine the way to build it then it becomes very radical and to survive that or survive a change or constantly changing conditions around you in the world which are very challenging today as we know politically, ecologically, economically times are very difficult to create such ideas that can not survive but actually coexist in that context is actually something that is beyond service-providing and it's actually a very radical way of practicing that. How can we measure the resilience of a project? Is it by the time frame it exists in? When I think the most resilient architecture is the one which has value, inter-subjective value, not just value from the architecture in measure. I think we proposed a project which we call it a 500-year tower and this is something which caused a lot of controversy in the way because no one's thinking about having building which is so resilient and so much wanted did it can last 500 years. Over generations, over organizational timelines and life spans and it has to be done in such a way that it creates an intrinsic value which is not just an aesthetic perspective, it's not just a service to what the client wanted because no client wants a building to last a 500 years. There even no exists and if we were to provide service, we would have provided a normal tower, this is a tower by the way but the reason we didn't was because we do believe in that value and the value is something which I think even grows when the building can be adapted. We call this the capable structure. I think it's something we tried to embed in every single project. It's not just a response to a brief, it's evolving a brief into thinking long-term. That's basically our value that we give not only to the client but also to society. I think if we can't do that then going back to your previous question, then architecture will dry out. It will become irrelevant. We should be the ones who are on the edge projecting a vision and thinking more than just the service and that's where we create value for society and that's where architecture can thrive. It's very interesting when we are speaking we as certain expressions maybe we are not very aware of. You said otherwise we would suggest a normal tower. I wonder what you can see in your mind as a normal tower and what differs your tower from the other towers. I know the project but many of the people who might be listening might not know this project and I invite you to explain it. What becomes I think built on for us central design is also the design in a way to work with the unknowns or things that we are not so comfortable with. It starts with and that's not just a near challenge. It usually comes from partnerships with buildings. One way to do this sort of to go beyond service providing was to also work with people and that's what our structure allows. They actually have very different expertise and very different experience and knowledge. And such you're able to raise questions about very standardized briefs because in architecture these days a lot of times you get very standardized briefs even if they tend to be very radical. If you look at them a lot of the checkboxes are there to find everywhere else. I'd like to go beyond that in a bit more forensic way we start to discover what is really actually for you at the interest of such a brief. Let's say here it was the first time we were working on a tower project designing a tower project. So we did ask ourselves what is problematic about. In that time there was a lot of fashion around wooden towers and building wooden towers as the way to answer a various serious problem about high rises and desification and so on. And for us we went actually into the analysis of such projects with consultants with experts and realized that there is something we want to develop there. The kind of a knowledge of kind of a proposal that does something else except just a promise of something sustainable which was not. And then you can drag that down to a mere section of a beam which is laminated with glue and understand that there's actually more glue than wood in the other towers. So it's not that we want to defer from what you call normal but it's actually that you could execute projects according to briefs and also you could raise questions in those projects which lead you to certain unknowns which are very uncomfortable, very risky for both you as a designer blind and everyone else. They allow you to actually keep that aspect of research in your design work. Yes so this is concrete and wood tower, it's mixed material and the concrete makes for three levels and it can be filled up with three levels in each one concrete tier. First of all congrats on that idea while I was setting you know one violence play in your head it was one of those moments and at the same time I saw some photos of the construction and I also saw that it was awarded for price in a competition. I got really confused if it was awarded for price how was it being constructed. I even thought that it could be a very realistic rendering but please help me understand this. I think for us ideas are really really important and this kind of shows what is serious to us to share ideas right and I think it makes us happy that we have been successful to do that and because we really wondered how can we bring this out to the world, right? So I don't know who will tell the truth if there is one. I think it's about creation of realities. I think that's what Ten is about, you know. And whether something was awarded first or fifth prize, it doesn't necessarily evaluate in an arise as such. It is about way to work on ideas beyond a certain deadline, which is a very classical problem of architecture to understand your deadline and then package an archive of your work in your ideas. That's what we confront each other at the time. And this is just one example of it. So as that happens, after the thought price was started to get a lot of feedback, and actually a lot of people approached us, companies approached us, clients approached us, partners, very experienced architects, and so on. And it creates a conversation which goes beyond an image, beyond the rendering, beyond an idea. And that's fantastic because we actually still building that town. In our minds and also with our partners and the people who are involved, this is something that is constantly part of our conversation. And suddenly we see something that's a very similar appears somewhere in the world. And like two, three years later, we don't think we were the ones who had to invent anything or do something similar. Actually we are quite happy to do and contribute to the discourse in our profession and we don't necessarily have to take that as a kind of, did we build it first or last or will we build it like that? But actually we want to see that happen and more, actually more often, to be taken over by others. So I would say the real answer to your question, it is a construction of reality. And we were very serious, and we are very serious about that approach in that project of this capable structure that actually has sparked many other projects within ten as well. But is it actually being constructed? As such, not. So this was an idea you had in your pockets? Not really pockets. This was an idea that we really developed. Once we worked on a project of a town that was in this particular case a competition. This was the idea that was worked out and actually genuinely made as a proposal to the clients. I actually don't know what's happening on the site right now. It could be that it's not yet being approved and it could still be a chance. I can also see in your discourse that you're very good at analyzing questions. You really know how to tackle the problem. And maybe this is because you develop as much architecture in building form as you do in research form. And this is actually not a kind of approach we get to have within the academic world. Because when we are studying for architecture, we think that we are going to be constructing buildings and solely buildings. We never think that we can develop architecture in the theoretical form. But if we take this out of the architecture zone, let's look into medicine. There are some doctors that do surgeries with their own hands and then there are doctors that spend their time in the lab doing research for others to do the surgeries with the knowledge they've gathered. In the beginning of a practice, were you aware that architecture could steam not only from a multitude of constructed buildings but also and mainly from research endeavors? I would say that this overlap of research and practice is actually the core value. But then I would also refer to the previous question. So these images are actually an amazing way to superimpose the reality of construction, the research and the concept that comes beforehand. And finally, I think that we are at the point where we have the tools to experiment and to develop these ideas in a way that will truly somehow show the intent and maybe even show the repercussions. I think it is, as Tien has said and it was mentioned, it is the structure that Tennis that sort of provides you with two options. Or the options that you listed, you could do construction, you can do research, and both go hand in hand. None of them has to be a similar path that you have to choose. Whenever we do a project or you decide to read a book and then go do a thesis on it, it is all down to the process and are we interactive on another? You can sprout an idea from just sitting on a table and drawing a sketch for one of your competitions or a building that might sprout some spark in someone's mind that then goes off and starts a research and brings it back into the practice and maybe the next time we sit together at a table, this sketch will look mighty different and what we have previous because he did or she did the research. I'd say it is a constant back and forth and we are in a position that we can do both things and all the things together and communicate to each other and take our freedoms to explore whatever interests us or we might have found on our paths. Maybe it is important to say that even if one project is maybe a research project and the other is a competition or so on, I don't think we really change our mindset. We are always trying to understand deeper links between problems and we have to be analytical and look at things from very different sides. Always I would say the question leads to a different outcome and not really the method. Of course the process and the method adapts as well but I don't think we have a particular different mindset when we start a research project or a direct commission. There's no golden bullet in that sense. I'm sure there is a correlation between things everything we do, right? We don't have a top-down steering and implant an idea from there to there. It's a non-linear process so and I think that exactly creates these things and the beauty is not foreseen. We try to create a framework where these collisions can happen or they have to happen actually. I would not say it randomly, definitely not. I think when we design a research program, we try to open research, meaning that we change or update our research objectives based on feedback and when we present our research publicly, we allow feedback from professionals or the public to influence the objectives of the research. I think the research objectives and the methods we use are very clear. They're unambiguous. Unambiguity comes more from everything around the objectives. I'd say that. For example, like the construction research project we did in Nepal. This was an ongoing process and we basically started because we reacted to an NGO who wanted to help a valley which was decimated by the earthquakes. 90% of the valley was wiped out by the earthquakes. We didn't know how to start a research project because in that particular area without just starting. I think the idea was when you start, instead of having a very clear plan, actually, let's think about that as the ambiguity. The start is perhaps ambiguous and perhaps in classical science or hard science, you kind of already try and frame your research. You already have an understanding of what your result should be and you go in and try and prove your assumptions. In this case, I guess you could say that we start rather ambiguous because we have to get onto the ground and find out actually what the research on how it should be framed. For example, materials are not determined by price, the determined on season in the sense that you can buy anything and have everything shipped to Nepal, but you have to go through people who are carrying every single object up the mountain or they are cutting blocks and rolling it down the mountain or you're contracting helicopter pilots and the price fluctuates between $30 an hour to $300 an hour depending on the season. Those things you need to be on the ground to find out an architecture is physical. I think research into architecture then has it in its outset, a degree of ambiguity, but when we get to understand what the conditions are, we can be very clear with our objectives. In this case, we came up with very novel ideas for how to implement low cost, earthquake, proof building technology with the local construction teams in Nepal. I think the right value of such a project was that you were not just building an object somewhere far away from you, but you're building, you're also bringing people together and you're building a method and you're also exploring how to do that, I guess, all of us. By doing that, we're making something public, but we're making public and that is the basic interest also of what we do here is that it goes out and it's meaningful that someone can pick it up and do it again, and again and again, whether it was a Holy Good Tower or Nepal system, you could say, a NO system. A chance to scale something up or a chance to create something that really has meaning for other people also be on the architecture is really, I think, at the center of almost every design research trajectory. So if you would have actually a very classical brief in front of you, but at the same time we can ask certain questions through the research, which would be of common interests, you know, that would immediately create this wicked problem that Lucas mentioned. And that's usually how things work, even if let's say a project which is a private house somewhere could be proposed to us if we see a potential to actually work through that, a meaning for that value, the generated value for others through it beyond an owner or an investor or a client. That's actually where we start really to engage in the entire 10 structure and then body and merge research and project. So even if something would be a classical design group, it would end up being a research trajectory or the other way around. And I think that is something that when starting something we never have to determine whether it will be one or the other, it will play itself out. The point is to identify the biggest potential for that public value within doing something whether that is research or design. And to see that during your work is actually the biggest advantage of such a structure in which everything is transparent, everything is visible. Actually 10 is defined by its statute, which guarantees that transparency. And everything is voted on and discussed and thought again and again. And that is the project that requires a lot of energy to actually cultivate a discussion and dialogue on how you make decisions, you know, and how do you identify potential problems, which are in the end something to deal with and do architectural media, architectural form and through the creation of space and one of the values through that. Following up to that thing that you said, what was the last thing that you've discussed on? Maybe in your group chat. We met somebody today who wrote an article about how cities could be privatized and that sparked a conversation like no other about how do we act with such a claim. And that is something that we could also close our eyes to and it could pass by us. But actually it's something that we choose not to close our eyes against and we want to discuss and debate this. And this is actually a very important agent within a project we are doing right now. But we have a kind of disbelief something like this. So for example, that is just a really raw off-the-table. I'm sure others could bring other things to it. Yeah, that was through this court and I think in our last meeting on Wednesday meeting, it was really nice to not talk about projects but to talk about everything else. And I think that was quite an important discussion that our structure we need this sort of time to let things happen and be together in a room. And that's the main point. That's how it starts, right? The more pure it is, the more open the outcome. So I think the conclusion was it's just very nice to be together and wait for someone to say something. It's kind of moment where you actually wait for someone to pick up the word. I think for me that was the beauty of that meeting this week because it means we are not under pressure to constantly deliver. That's also one of the really precious things that ten has always to have. It has to have this space without the pressure. Coming from other practices with a lot of projects, I also feel that when there's too much daily life constantly, it's very hard to plan things to happen. It's almost impossible. So, hooking dinner and doing research and building a building is pretty much the same thing. Say it is in our case because we'll base on communication, right? We're in two separate locations and we would discuss everything. And I think this is the culture that we try to preach and also invite people to join. The last this week as well on this meeting was the idea of individual and collective fragility. It's fine to be fragile. It's fine to show your weakness in time. That is actually one big advantage because the structure is there to pick that up. Talking about this early informal meeting that we had now, it was thinking that it's actually very similar to this conversation that we are having with you. We almost made you a part of ten now. Really good to feel part of the team. Well, many times say that architecture is a mirror of our times and I also feel that the way you practice architecture is a mirror of the way you work your architecture. So, I wonder what is architecture reflecting from us today? What is your conceived idea on this? I think it's the complexity we have to deal with. I think this is also a thought that I had when we were talking about the similarity of research and design. It's always a very complex field and it always involves a lot of people also around architects, all different kind of researchers, politics, the clients, the people on construction. It all has their own logic. I find that the structure of ten allows to reflect on this complexity in a much more powerful way than conventional office. I think the openness that is within ten can also allow the people around ten to say a different role, much more active. We try to include them into the process over a much longer time and profit from the conversation as long as possible. A book. One of my favorite books is by a writer called Raleith Labbite. It's called Hamam Balcania. It is about two stories going in parallel with 500 years of difference. One is in Belgrade between the writer and Leonardo Coyne and the other one is in Istanbul, 500 years before that. And it's really about acting but being far away in every sense. A place. Every first of January, every year, Svetogoska Street in Belgrade, which is one of the central streets in the downtown, turns into a street for children where all kids in the city come and actually own the street for a full day. And I really like that place on that day. Most likely, Roland Utenborg Art is a very obscure South African architect who was looking into. A project of your own. Thinking of a lamp, which was like an ostrich eggs for a restaurant. The recycling center, which we recently completed for our in-zero, the structure is still occupying us. I'd go for the one that I'm going to be working on, which is a high rise in my hometown. It's just a passion of mine and it keeps evolving. It's my day today and fills up my dreams and daily thoughts that would have to go with it. A project from another architect. And I just had to think of the Trigon by Hayden Peter Wenger, which is like a really huge holiday house in Bali. Let's say the Rumi's Burg studio house by Peter Markling. Thank you, Tenn, for having the ability to bring fresh air to anything you do. Whatever you do, you do it with the joy of doing something for the first time. Even if it's something you do every day. Thank you for that. Dunk of Brigada. It was a pleasure. Thank you. Let us know if you're like planning to. Yeah, let us know when you come to Zurich. You should visit us. Yes, I will accept that. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Did you know you can also take part in this episode? 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