HANI RASHID
Question
How would you describe the general quality of the projects in this edition of the International VELUX Award?
Hani Rashid
I was very surprised to see students from all over the world who confront the problem of light, the large amount of work and its quality. The way they represent their ideas of “Light of Tomorrow” is inspiring.
Basically, there were two kinds of authors that we looked at. There were those students who worked with the privilege of being students, conscious that they can actually explore new ideas away from the practice of architecture – those who thought “outside the box” in an innovative and experimental way. And there were students who had a sense of reality. We had both. Which I think represents a kind of Zeitgeist of pedagogy in schools. And actually it’s encouraging to see that students are awake again.
Q: Do you think that in the past years we have lived through a sort of swamp moment?
HR: From the 90s onwards there has been a terrible confusion. A confusion that can stem from the fact that computers have become of age and students have been confronted with a kind of “global versus local” situation. So both, the globalization of ideas and theories as well as the computer caused a moment of uncertainty. Now, in this competition you start to see an interesting maturity on both fronts. There are students showing that they are equally able to understand the nuances of the global and local approach to place and culture in architecture, and you also see that the computer is no longer just a fascination in pushing buttons and creating nice forms, but it is finally becoming a facility, a realistic and obvious tool in the work of research.
Q. How would you describe the winning projects?
HR: I’m very pleased with the winners because they cover three distinct parts of this entire propagation. We have practical, visionary and poetic approaches. They cover a range of what all these students are after. What I find amazing about competitions like this one is that it’s a way to get to the Zeitgeist of the period we live in without any barrier.
Q: Do you think there’s a connection between the geographical provenience of the participants and the actual on-site experience of light?
HR: I think the great thing about this competition is that it hits the nail on the head: architects from everywhere have been interested in light. Light is a metaphysical instrument, it’s a tool of expression; it’s a way to understand form and time. I’m working now on a project in Abu Dhabi and we are really interested in the quality of light in the desert. There’s refraction in the desert, especially when the sand storms are up. By tapping the light, you tap a cultural DNA of a place which is fascinating. When you try to use the light as a kind of source of inspiration, you find very deep and profound possibilities. The intriguing thing is that a shift in education is happening now: the global condition is beginning to penetrate schools of architecture that were otherwise not necessarily interested in the Western discourses. And the healthy thing is that those discourses are opening up to others and we’re seeing the upside of global understanding. If we had a psychologist in the jury or a social scientist, we would start to see slight variations of how different cultures think about light. We as a jury were interested in architects using light as a tool, no matter where they came from.
Q: This Award differs from other ones by involving the teachers. In your opinion what has been the impact of this approach?
HR: I often believe that I’m teaching my best when I teach students how to learn, instead of simply how to do things. If you can impart to someone how to ask the right question, you are teaching into the right direction. What’s interesting here is that there’s a fine line between the autonomy of the student and the teachers’ influence. Looking back on this whole process almost literally by walking down those halls looking at nearly 700 projects one could tell when the students were listening to their teachers and provoking them or when they were doing whatever the teacher told them. If the teacher is a good one and has taught the students to ask the right questions then they are able to produce a work that hovers between autonomy and authorship: the singular collaborative discussion with the teacher is very healthy and important. It allowed the students to be self critical enough to produce works that really struck a cord with the jury. And the jury is effectively a combination of people who practices and teaches architecture.
Q: What kind of advice would you give to future competition participants?
HR: My advice is always the same… Winning a competition has an interesting double edged condition: on the one hand, if you are not careful, and you believe your own press, you can quickly dwindle or fail. To win does not mean that you are the best; it means that you excelled for the moment. What you have to ask yourself is how do I continue to excel? By the same token, winning a competition recognizes that you managed to get past a certain hurdle and you have to understand what that means. My bottom line piece of advice is: don’t forget that in our discipline, in architecture, patience is an extreme virtue and you have to be ready for the long haul. When I first read Louis Kahn saying that an architect doesn’t build until he is 50, I thought he was crazy. Now that I’m getting close to that age I’m beginning to realize that you gain experience along with the gray hair, even if in your mind you’re still young and vital, active and energetic. And at that stage you get clients listening to you, asking you to break the rules, but with a patina of experience.
ENRIQUE BROWNE
Question
The focus of this award is the role of daylight in the architecture of tomorrow. Can you describe it in terms of your own experience and your work?
Enrique Browne
I think the attitude towards light has changed. The starting point is that without light we cannot see form. So we use light as a tool to make architecture look better. But I prefer to see and use light as an actual building material. Imagine, we can even paint a surface with light.
Q: How did the students react with their competition entries to this theme? Or, in other words, how would you judge the projects?
EB: I think they are good, they are really good, because they ask new questions. And in many cases they even know solutions. The use of light in the city and in big spaces, like the underground for example, is a good starting point. And they are trying to find out in which way light works… Strangely enough, nobody knows very much about light. You know, Einstein won the Nobel Prize with photons. Today light has become a mixture of photons and waves, and still nobody knows exactly what it is. There are a lot of theoretical researches, but more factual, physical and scientific tests have to be done. We have to experiment with light to be able to go ahead. Some of these students investigate for example how to filter light with water, with vegetation, with different natural phenomena. All this shows how the problem is turned into an ecological discourse, which is very interesting.
Q: The theme of the International VELUX Award 2008 is “Light of Tomorrow”. What do you think about this claim?
EB: I remember when I was a child, light was some small objects in the street or some small boxes in the house. Now, light is everywhere, it is in all of the streets. It’s a whole new thing. The stimulus is much greater. Also the type of light is different. There is glass and other different materials that can enhance light.
Q: This Award differs from others by involving the teachers. What has been the impact of this in your opinion?
EB: Some teachers basically design themselves, they ask questions, and tell the students what to do. In my experience that approach turns out better for the teacher than for the student. Personally I like to draw on a student project and tell him what I would do: even if this seems to be a very bad approach for a teacher. At the same time I think it makes the student happy, because I help him to find the solution to his problem. The best teachers are those who continue to learn themselves every day.
Q: What do you think is the difference between being part of a jury that judges works by professionals and being part of a jury that judges works by young students?
EB: Oh, that s a good question! I have participated in many juries, but here things are different: we have to judge ideas and concepts, not realizations. It doesn’t matter to what degree the technical aspects are resolved (even though design is impossible without them), instead the concept and the idea are the most important things.
Q: Listening to you, I just remembered a line by the British poet Dylan Thomas: Rage against the dying of the light which describes the condition of a dying father. It s very moving as the man s dying is condensed in the concept of the dying of the light. Light is not just an important theme in architecture but also fundamental in everyday life…
EB: What happened, at least with me, who thinks of light as one of my favourite items in architecture, I was surprised. Among the projects presented in this VELUX competition were two or three great ideas, which managed to surprise me.
Q: For example?
EB: One of them was the issue of scale, the relationship between scale with light. It is a very important theme and changes our perception a lot. I was actually surprised to discover how greatly important it is.
HUAT LIM
Question
How do you see the role of light in architecture?
Huat Lim
What’s interesting is the idea that light is a phenomenon, a very profound concern for architects. That’s why I was interested in being a part of the International VELUX Award, where we could see numerous ways to look at light and the importance to take care of light. Light is one of the most ignored, underrated, somehow forgotten things so far. We have all these forms of architectural materials but light is something that we cannot forget to consider.
Q: What do you think of the projects?
HL: In terms of visual qualities, I think, that 50% of the competition entries were very sophisticated, even though I was more interested in their arguments. During the jury evaluation we nevertheless had some difficulties to understand and “read” the presentations. We spent a lot of time discussing the text of a project, which was actually rather weak. In some cases also the quality of presentation was not up to the standards that I expected.
Q: The theme of the International VELUX Awards is “Light of Tomorrow”. The aim has been to encourage and challenge students of architecture to explore the theme of sunlight and daylight in its widest sense, to create a deeper understanding of this specific and ever-relevant source of energy. Have the students – from your point of view – succeeded in this?
HL: The “Light of Tomorrow” is a very relevant issue because of its connection to daylight, sustainability and energy. Are we more aware of energy? Can we be more sustainable? The more light you bring to a building, the less energy you require. A lot of the projects dwell on the idea of extracting light, they are almost replicating and reproducing energy. I think architecture is a much more passive concept. It’s about conservation: preserving and conserving energy and turning light into something useful. It’s not about producing it. The future is to recognize the importance of conserving energy, using it in the right way and respecting it. The Light of Tomorrow is about awareness and appreciation for light. If you look at the new concept of offices, for example, the idea is all about opening views, giving people the ability to focus on some thing that is far away. For me, the Light of Tomorrow is to bring light into buildings, it s not about technology.
Q: How would you describe the winning projects?
HL: They were very good. The three winning projects showed a certain responsibility towards the use of light.
Q: Did the involvement of teachers play a significant role in the process of the projects?
HL: All of us in the jury have, in one way or another, been involved in teaching. So it was interesting to see how we worked together as a jury. Somehow the propagation of knowledge, awareness and responsibility could not have been possible without a jury like this one and also the idea to bring together people like us has been essential. I was taught by very influential people who had a huge impact on the style of my work at that time. Today it’s much more difficult to identify a teacher. The influence of teaching is less strong. Students have a greater awareness; they probably look for inspiration beyond school or even beyond their profession. There are some trends going on. The internet, for example, has a kind of aesthetic appeal to go globally very quickly.
Q: What is for you the main point of a student to enter such a competition?
HL: For me it s about experience. The best way to learn is to walk around places, to sit in a building, to travel, to speak, to talk, to communicate. Learning for me is conversation, like Peter Cook says “you cannot learn from talking to yourself.
EVA JIRICNA
Question
What was your general reaction to the students’ projects presented?
Eva Jiricna
The general quality was really high. When you judge in this kind of student competitions, you have an extremely rich variety of methods through which the students chose to express themselves. Especially in this VELUX competition different schools of architecture from different countries presented themselves in completely different ways.
Q: After the work in this jury how would you describe the role of light in contemporary architecture?
EJ: Light in architecture is the most difficult discipline to understand. Being a student of course you have expectations and you have a high level of imagination. The different experiences of light, which were analyzed in these projects, the different aspects which students looked at, were amazingly interesting and varied. These students just started looking at the subject with great depth, which is a tremendous help for the future. To be inventive with light is very difficult. We had a great variety of ideas to look at and to discuss.
Q: Teachers play a central role in this award. What is your attitude towards teaching?
EJ: I have done a lot of teaching in my life and I always try to be a teacher who doesn’t actually make the students copy my work. But I like to see myself as a teacher who encourages to explore, experiment and maximize the level of imagination. When you are a student, it’s the last time in your life when you can work in completely unlimited conditions: without a client, without concerns for cost or planning approvals...
Q: What would you do if you were a participating student?
EJ: My advice would probably be just to think of how you are going to communicate your idea and think about presenting it in a simple, understandable way. Sometimes students want to express everything that comes across their minds and they are not able to generate a process of elimination and simplification of the message. The need of getting a clear message is more and more important in competitions: when a jury has to judge some 700 projects it can not spend a long time trying to interpret what a student wants to say which is always the most difficult task. So, when you present your idea, do it clearly and try to make it a joy ride for the jury.
Q: What are your own experiences of this jury s meeting sessions?
EJ: When you judge a student s competition entry you imagine what you could have done in a similar situation. A jury is generally trying to find details which the student didn’t even think of! But it’s always amazingly interesting to see how many different points of view and aspects the different jury members bring on the table. To be part of this jury has been a fantastic experience. I have to say that in the last years VELUX products have greatly improved its quality. There s always an improvement when you use the same product over and over again. As there is development, there is investment for research, so the performance of the final product continues to improve. I think this competition is part of this cycle. Maybe somebody at VELUX will be able to use some of the ideas. We as a jury were looking for some practical applications. But I m sure, some unit at VELUX could probably interpret some of the other ideas better than we did. I think this competition is giving an opportunity to young people to come up with ideas.
Q: Was there a project that you connected with emotionally?
EJ: Light is a never changing aspect of our life and I have dealt with it a lot as an architect. I have been working with materials that transform light. So I feel a strong connection with those students who manage to reproduce the atmosphere of their idea and some of these students were able to produce magnificent presentations.
FRANCIS NORDEMANN
Question
The students’ interest in the International VELUX Award has been overwhelming over the years and in this third edition there have been nearly 700 entries. How would you describe their general quality?
Francis Nordemann
We have neither very high nor low standards. Of course there are winners and losers and even a hierarchy for the nearly 700 panels. There is light that is used in buildings and products and then there is innovation in the making of light. As a jury we were more interested in the idea behind the “Light of Tomorrow”, so we’ve been speaking of light as much as we’ve been speaking of darkness. We were looking for another way of considering light. Most of the products in this competition bring light to places where it does not exist. This is a way to deal with it, to push the limits and light up darkness.
Q: So you didn’t find any possible benchmark for the light of the future, like some kind of incredibly avant-garde standard?
FN: I’d like to say so, but it was not what we were looking for. The question was rather: what is innovation when you speak for instance of the plateau of light? What is the opposition of light? We were not expecting a new light-bulb with special effects or something like that.
Q: Have you noticed any trend in regard to the use of daylight in architecture of today or tomorrow?
FN: There is an interesting new ecological attitude, which is good, as ecology should be considered as equally important as hygiene. Some projects were trying to transform light, others conserved light in order to reanimate and use it at a later stage. This is really a new attitude. When I joined the jury two days ago, I didn’t expect to view close to 700 projects. None of my students entered it, none of my friend s students entered it.
Q: How would you describe your experience in this jury?
FN: I think there’s a great responsibility on the part of the teachers to help their students to respond to the International VELUX Award mostly because of its complex theme. Light is everything, but it can mean nothing. So an answer was not I had the idea to make a window with a special shape. We’ve seen that before and it s not enough to serve the purpose of the Inter national VELUX Award. At some point we have to be sharper and more precise, more sophisticated and focus not on a general idea of light, but on new visions, even a new culture of light. Which in fact means to envisage an idea of the light of tomorrow - which is quite a difficult but at the same time stimulating task. For both, student and teacher.
Q: What could you suggest to a student who wants to participate in this VELUX competition?
FN: The message would be to concentrate, to try to understand exactly what I just said… In a project about light the goal must concentrate on light for the future, it must focus on innovative concepts.
MICHEL LANGRAND
Question
I’d like to start with the importance of light, not only in architecture but also in everyday life. How did VELUX become so interested in promoting a discourse about light? It seems like VELUX is pushing forward an idea that goes beyond simple product promotion.
Michel Langrand
Most of the successful companies need to have a vision or a project that goes far beyond the simple product that they sell. We are interested in bringing daylight and fresh air through a roof-slope into the building. So it’s not only about selling windows, it’s more about how important it is to have daylight and fresh air at an affordable price and still create the best indoor comfort.
Q: There is a great difference between judging a student and judging a professional. Why did VELUX decide to invite only students to this competition?
ML: The mind of students is still uncorrupted. They are allowed to question a concept, whereas professional architects are already concerned with reality. Being a student is the ideal moment to experiment. They’ve gained a lot of knowledge while they still continue to study, and they are in a privileged situation where anything is allowed. They can really be open-minded.
Q. The theme of the International VELUX Award 2008 is “Light of Tomorrow”. How did the company come up with this idea?
ML: “Light of tomorrow” started in 2004 as a next step to the concept of contemporary light, which is already well handled by architects, industries and companies. But a number of new issues emerged, which question the energy resources of tomorrow. We need to be much more foresighted about the possibilities of tomorrow’s light in terms of energy saving combined with indoor comfort. Compared to just few years ago, today we notice a much bigger concern for renewable energy.
Q. In your opinion, how did the involvement of teachers work?
ML. Depending on the schools and their location in the world, teachers approached this contest in very different ways. Some schools got really involved and turned the competition into course projects, which made the whole school to take part in the contest. On the other hand, there are some very individual architecture students who first worked by themselves and checked back with their teachers at the end. I would say that both of the two approaches are actually a bit wrong. If a teacher leads to much the students can’t explore their creativity, but if the students are left alone, they easily become frustrated, as he/ she feels to miss out on some necessary advice. It’s not an easy exercise for teachers. The best ones are probably those who were able to stimulate the
Q: What would be an advice for a participant to the award?
ML: I would say that any student in architecture throughout the world, should give it a try. Daylight is one of the essentials of architecture. VELUX is very humble in this context. We don t try to ask the participants to develop a concept for our products, but we give them a chance to work on one of architecture s essences. We give them a chance to become famous, even before they graduate. One of the pleasures we have here is to think that some of these young architects have gained a recognized award that will help them to find a job.
Q: How do you see the role of VELUX in tomorrow s architecture?
ML: VELUX may not be the ultimate solution for the development of the future, but it plays an important role. Increasingly artificial energy involves a lot of drawbacks, so the more we can bring in and utilize natural elements, the further we’ll go. Roofs have always played an important role, even in religious buildings. The quality of light which enters into the building is also a sculpting tool to the space. The roof becomes the fifth façade of the construction and at the same time it is the intelligent element which can provide energy and comfort.