Controversy Over Designs for Cologne's New Mosque

Earlier this month, despite tremendous opposition, Cologne's City Council approved designs to allow construction of what will be Germany's largest mosque within Ehrenfeld, an industrialized district of Cologne.

The structure is estimated to cost between 15 and 20 billion euros and will be financed by over 800 private groups in Germany. Construction will be completed in 2010 by the locally based Turkish Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB) which has close ties to Ankara. The mosque designed by German architects Paul and Gottfried Bohm will be a domed building with glass walls and two 180 foot minarets, one-third the height of the towers of the Cologne Cathedral. The building will be flanked by highrise office complexes so the DITIB has agreed no to broadcast the daily prayers over loudspeakers.

Though the architects initially saw their design as being welcomed by all Cologne residents and viewed as "an architectural masterpiece that tour buses will take people to see after they visit the Cologne Cathedral," the building as met with heavy opposition from numerous parties including the Conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), Cologne's Roman Catholic Bishop and extreme right activist who have drummed up support from as far as Austria and Belgium.

Indeed, the opposition has triggered anger in the middle east with the Iranian Foreign Ministry urging France, as the current European Union President, to block the protests in Cologne by far-right activist from all around Europe. The IFM also expressed their fears that the protests over the approved mosque designs are increasing "anti-Islamic sentiments in Europe." Pro-Cologne leaders who head the protests, say that they support Muslims' rights to live in Germany provided they learn the language and "actively demonstrate" a willingness to integrate but they say that such a large mosque has "no place in traditionally Roman Catholic Cologne."

When I first heard of the protest, I initially thought it had something to do with the designs themselves or some component of it but the protests seem to be more about the symbolism of the mosque and the not so warm feelings Germans have of Islam. I think that the designs are pretty intriguing but outside of that, I'm not touching this one people! It was just an interesting issue going on right now that I thought you all would like to know. But I would like to ask; in situations like this, how can architecture separate itself from the controversy of religion and be just about the building and all issues that follow building design?


Images obtained from www.spiegel.de/international
For more information, check www.salon.com/wires/ap/world/2008/09/12/D9358V980_germany_mosque_protest

Post 9/11 Building Codes too Stringent?

The General Services Administration (GSA), a federal agency which serves as the government's property manager within the United States has joined some of the nation's biggest landlords in trying to repeal stronger safety requirements for new skyscrapers, that were added to the UBC and IBC last year arguing that they would be too expensive to implement.

The new provisions are based on a report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which issue safety standard recommendations after building catastrophes, and now requires all non-residential buildings over 420 feet or about 40 stories to have more robust fireproofing and a third stairwell for emergency egress. Also, the new codes would require all buildings taller than 75 feet to have "glow in the dark" markings on stairwells as a back-up in case the power goes out. The fireproofing in itself must be capable of withstanding an impact of 1,000 pounds per square foot and could cost real estate developers $13million for a 42 story building as well as $600,000 a year in lost rent due to decreased rentable floor space.

David Frable, a GSA fire safety engineer argued that, "It does not take a NIST report or a rocket scientist to figure out that requiring extra stairs will increase general occupant evacuation times but the question that needs to be answered is at what economic cost to society?" Frable and many others from the GSA have written petitions to the International Code Council to rescind the changes this week at the Minneapolis Code Council meeting.

As the debate rages on, one consideration that might be made is to replace the third stairwell with specially designed elevators that can reliably operate during a fire or any event of power outage. The GSA are hoping that this will help recover lost building space and money to what they describe as "an emotional reaction to the 2001 attacks that has led to unrealistic and unnecessary new building standards."

Well, I am not surprised that the GSA, who are really developers are more interested in overall profit above the occupant's safety. I know that the Sept 11 attacks were isolated cases and there is a very slim chance that another plane could come crashing into another highrise but as long as there is that likelihood of occurrence, everything should be done to prepare for it. I do understand the concern about reduced square footage within the building but safety is a higher priority. That is what architecture is about! Not just pretty building to fatten a landlord's purse but a place of refuge and safety for the tenants.

This new standard is no different from designing for earthquakes which definitely requires more money for something that might never happen but still we ensure that the building is ready to withstand the strongest tremors specific to the site. That being said, the General Services Administrations should stop worrying about the money being taken from their already bulging pockets and get with the program.


Images obtained from The New York Times.
For more information check www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/washington/08codes

Another Gehry Monstrocity

Princeton University's science majors started classes on Thursday the 11th of September but they also got a tutorial on how Frank Gehry seems to always throw up all over a site, totally disregard budgets and still wins acclaim and gratitude for it.
The $76 million dollar (and counting), 87,000 square foot project houses the University's collections for astrophysics, biology, Geo-science, chemistry, math, physics and statistics, student classrooms and lecture halls.

Taking slightly over four years from ground breaking to top-out, this building required 90,000 pounds of embossed stainless steel and 620 pounds of clay brick which were combined with glass, steel and stucco to "attempt" to reflect the design of surrounding buildings. The atrium, just inside the front door expands into a wide open space, giving the visitor views of all parts of the building with walls painted all sorts of colors from tangerine to blueberry. The group study room on the top level looks out onto the building's roofs and the rest of the campus through a prism like array of windows.

In putting up its new Gehry designed "Lewis Library," Princeton endured its share of challenges. It paid to construct models of the building to give the subcontractors a chance to practice, it fired a contractor halfway through the project when the building was already past due and recently learned that some contractors bribed their way onto the job site.

But the project has finally been completed and Princeton is very satisfied though I can't imagine why. This building looks like it was thrown together to see just how many completely different materials could be connected together without having the entire ensemble come crashing down. The concept of using glass, steel and stucco was to have the building relate with those surrounding it but when did you ever see a Gehry design blend in with its surroundings? You would have a better chance of seeing Ray Lewis participating in the cirque de soleil, than a Gehry design that didn't look like it was just dropped there from outer space.

The main questions I want to ask are, how energy efficient is this building and will it withstand the weather? I think these are very relevant questions for Mr. Gehry especially in the aftermath of his designs for the Ray and Maria Stata Center at MIT that leaked once the rains began.
Well, Gehry has done it again and I guess I shouldn't be whining about it. That's his trademark design and if Princeton got it then they specifically asked for it.


Images obtained from arcspace.com, chronicle.com/blogs/architecture

Construction Boom In China Slowing Down?

As growth in Europe and the United States seems to be grinding to a halt, China may also be facing an economic slowdown and consequently, a decrease in construction projects.

In recent years, we have seen a lot of "throw-up" development that revealed China's insatiable desire to emulate architecture of the West, such as Thamestown, which is a copycat slice of England outside Shanghai. It seems that now they're construction sector is also being hit with a slow market as residential values have dropped by 15% in Beijing and Shanghai since the Olympics. One reason for this is the fact that money supply for developers has tightened in the past few months leaving commercial and residential projects to languish.

Callum MacBean, managing director of Gensler's Shanghai office confirmed in a company Newsletter that many of the firm's projects have been put on hold with many foreign investors suddenly very cautious preferring to venture to India and Vietnam instead.
U.K based firms report that this has been caused by the Chinese government itself who have made it more difficult for smaller scale Architecture and engineering firms to secure projects, by demanding astronomical insurance deposits. Also, the Chinese government has decided to limit the number of residential and commercial landmark projects and emphasize more on infrastructure, education and health care and have also created larger land parcels thereby making them increasingly more difficult for smaller developers to purchase.

I don't know what may have caused this state-driven shift in the last few months. Maybe the government felt that there was overbuilding in the housing sector to the detriment of infrastructure and health care but who can explain why a communist government does what it does. Still, for all those seeking investment and building projects in China, this trend seems to be predominantly restricted to Beijing and Shanghai; at least for now. There is still plenty of work to be had in the cities of Chengdu and Chongqing.


Image obtained from the Architectsjournal.com

Transforming The Sahara Landscape

Last week, a trio of visionaries, Charlies Patton, Bill Watts and Micheal Pawlyn unveiled their ambitious plan for the Sahara Desert. The project seeks to produce enough water to grow crops, produce a sustainable bio-fuel that does not negatively impact world food supplies and harness enough solar power to supply electricity to cities in Africa and Europe by redefining some of the desert landscape.

As we know, no one solution will successfully address global warming and all the numerous issues that go with it such as shortage in water supply and increasing food prices. The Sahara Forest Project seeks to combine technologies by marrying greenhouses with concentrated solar power (CSP) which uses mirrors to focus the sun's rays and generate heat and electricity. The installations would transform patches of the vast desert into lush vegetation without the traditional system of digging wells for fresh water, which has depleted many aquifers around the world.

Plants cannot naturally grow in arid climates so the greenhouses work by using the solar farm to power seawater evaporators and then pump the cool damp air throughout the greenhouse. This reduces the temperature within by about 20 deg Celsius compared to that outside and at the other end of the greenhouse, the water vapor is condensed creating situations of high humidity and lower temperature.

According to the designers, virtually any vegetable could be grown here, depending on the specific conditions at which it is maintained as demonstrations have already produced lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers with the necessary nutrients for the plants coming from the seawater itself.

Charles Patton reports that the greenhouse would produce more than five times the fresh water needed for the plants so the rest could be utilized by the local environment and the same goes for the excess solar power generated.

The cost of the Sahara Forest Project will be relatively cheap as both CSP and seawater greenhouses are already proven technologies so estimates for a 20 hecter greenhouse combined with a 10MW CSP scheme would come to about $130 million or 80 million euros.

This sounds like a good idea but I'm not sure just how much food or electricity could be produced on a 20 hecter greenhouse to really counterbalance the high cost of food or equally high demand for energy around the world as the designers claim. Will the 20 hecters be enough or will the entire face of the Sahara have to be similarly changed eventually and what will that do to the ecosystem and environment?


Image obtained from www.Guardian.co.uk