拒绝臃肿式奢侈！赫尔佐格和德梅隆设计的皇家艺术学院办公楼
Herzog & de Meuron Designs an Unlikely Pair of Buildings for a Venerable Art School

由专筑网江鹏，小R编译

巴特西的新皇家艺术学院（RCA）办公楼绝对是对上一代建筑师的无声谴责。从赫尔佐格和德梅隆（Herzog&de Meuron）工作室设计的建筑四楼阳台向北看，看不到河流的景色。相反，当在现存的RCA校园（包括其绘画和应用艺术工作室）的顶部往外看时，你所看到的是福斯特建筑事务所（Foster + Partners ）在其总部附近设计建造的豪华公寓楼的巨大尾部部分，这两座大楼使得泰晤士河这一段的银行看起来是一个臃肿的玻璃幕墙豪华建筑。

然而，伦敦南部并非没有希望。赫尔佐格和德梅隆的两座新RCA建筑体量并不小，总共提供了167000平方英尺的车间、工作室和研究空间，是英国领先教育机构190年历史上最大的一次扩建。作为一对组合，工作室大楼和它所附加的新研究大楼展示了现代主义的兼容性，建筑在材料和细节上的细微差别，以及可步行的街道模式的创造。该事务所完成了泰特现代美术馆(Tate Modern)及其扩建项目，建筑师吸收了伦敦的文化特征，并巧妙地将其融入建筑中，使伦敦这座城市形象再次得到了极大的改善。

The new Royal College of Art (RCA) buildings in Battersea are a quiet rebuke to the gargantuas of a previous generation of architects. Looking north from the fourth-floor balcony of Herzog & de Meuron’s studio building, one does not find a view of the river. Instead, all that one sees when peering over the top of the pre-existing RCA campus, which contain its painting and applied art studios, is the vast rump of the luxury apartment block that Foster + Partners built next to its own headquarters—both buildings that helped make the banks along this segment of the Thames an architectural free-for-all of bloated, glass-fronted luxury.
South London is not without hope, though. Herzog & de Meuron’s two new RCA buildings are not small, together providing 167,000 square feet of workshop, studio, and research space and representing the largest expansion in the 190-year history of one of Britain’s leading educational institutions. As a pair, the studio building and the new research building to which it is appended demonstrate the compatibility of modernism, architectural nuance in material and detail, and the creation of a walkable street pattern. The city of London has again been improved immeasurably by the work of the Swiss practice (designers of the Tate Modern and its extension), which has absorbed the city’s material culture and added to it so ingeniously.




赫尔佐格和德梅隆设计的皇家艺术学院办公大楼
Herzog & de Meuron's studio building at the Royal College of Art. Photos © Iwan Baan

这座横跨Howie街道的办公大楼在一个基座上有三个交错的砖砌阳台，具有清晰的识别性，这完全是一个成功的设计。这使得建筑看起来并不会过于高调，而是低调大方，并通过一些小细节来丰富建筑体量感，从而使这座看似坚固的建筑具有连贯性和人性化。在建筑底层，建筑的北侧和南侧提供了多个入口，使学生能够通过建筑到达校园其他地方。大楼的中心是一个约3800平方英尺的的双层通高空间，铺着抛光的沥青地板，形象地被称为“机库”。巨大的库门将机库封闭起来，也可以向展览和公众开放，这样就完全恢复了被切断的Radstock大道的视线空间。

该建筑在结构上并不复杂：它有一个狭窄的混凝土核心筒，侧面由混凝土填充的钢柱支撑，使楼板相对不间断。工作间位于一楼，窗户朝东，面对着繁忙的Battersea大桥路，并能让公众看到学生们使用工业设备的景象。雕塑专业的学生则在上面一层，他们说“他们不想待在一个金鱼缸里”，所以这一层有一圈天窗和几扇窗户，并有砖砌格栅遮荫。大楼上面两层则是美术和设计专业的工作室，立面玻璃使用得更加广泛。

在这些工作室内，人们可以微妙地感受到砖块的影响。这种材料让人联想起伦敦各种各样的建筑，尤其是20世纪30年代随处可见的公寓楼，其单元入口可从外部走道进入。这些元素具有多种功能，不仅提供社交空间，而且在工作室周围提供充分灵活的流动空间。同样重要的是，栏杆的设置为靠窗的学生们提供了防晒功能。

The studio building, which runs the length of Howie Street and is legible as three staggered brick balconies on a plinth, is a straightforward success. It is not fussy or overly clever, but, instead, is generous and enriched by small details that give this tough building coherence and humanity. On the ground floor, entrances on the north and south sides provide multiple access points, enabling students to pass through the building on their way to the rest of the campus. Inside, the building’s heart is a 3,800-square-foot, double-height space with a burnished asphalt floor, called “the hangar.” Book-ended by enormous garage doors, the hangar can be opened up for exhibitions and public days and, in so doing, completely reinstates the severed Radstock Road.  
The building is not structurally sophisticated: it has a narrow concrete core and is supported on its flanks by concrete-filled steel columns that enable a relatively uninterrupted floor plate. The workshops are located on the ground floor with windows to the east, facing the busy Battersea Bridge Road and giving the public tantalizing glimpses of students using industrial equipment. Sculpture students, who occupy the floor above, said they “didn’t want to be in a goldfish bowl,” so this level has a ring of clerestories and several windows that are shaded by a brick trellis. The two floors above, which house fine art and design, are more extensively glazed.
Within these studios, the impact of the brick is subtly felt. The material evokes all manner of London structures, particularly the city’s ubiquitous 1930s apartment buildings with units that are accessed from exterior walkways. These elements serve multiple functions, providing not just social space but full circulation around the studios. Also important: the balustrades provide a sunscreen for the students working at the desks closest to the windows.




皇家艺术学院的工作室大楼
The studio building at the Royal College of Art. Photos © Iwan Baan

建筑师在砖石上使用的粘结剂也是奇特而巧妙的，告诉人们如何利用最简单的材料来创造愉悦或有趣的空间，与其说砖块能怎么利用，不如说砖块如何变得有趣。墙壁的顶部向外延伸，在阳台内部形成了起伏的效果，为学生们提供了额外的视觉焦点。这种处理方式也为曾经布满库房的街道提供了一种合适的外观。赫尔佐格和德梅隆在细节上的处理与他们在大规模建筑体量的手法类似，中央阳台向西突出，向东凹陷。通过将街道延伸至建筑内，有效地创造出机库空间。这对任何学生来说都是深刻的一堂课。

然而，更棘手的是研究大楼，它和工作室大楼一样，都是RCA建筑中不可或缺的一部分。RCA始建于19世纪30年代，是一所设计学校，它搬到了南肯辛顿，RCA一直是创新设计的发源地，这座新建筑的设计方案力求延续这一传统。

这座方形的七层研究楼附在工作室建筑之后，但由于其具有更高的高度和可回收的铝片装饰其外部，因此明显不同。这些铝片满铺建筑的四个立面，既为内部遮阳，又有助于其自然通风系统。从远处看，铝片将建筑很好地融入了城市景观中，赋予了它存在感和材料质感，但当它与工作室大楼相邻时，因为在四楼有一个凸起的平台连接着两栋建筑，产生的效果却有点令人失望。铝板很薄，没有工作室大楼的砖墙那么厚重。

The bond that the designers used for the masonry is quirky and clever, too, and offers a lesson in how the most simple material can be manipulated to create delight or intrigue: not so much what the brick wants to be, but how the brick can be fun. The wall’s headers are all pulled outward, creating an undulating effect on the inside of the balcony that provides an extra layer of visual interest for the students who will look at it daily. The treatment also provides the right kind of rough exterior for a street that was once lined with garages. What Herzog & de Meuron have done in detail is the same subtle game of push and pull that they have played with the volume of the building at a bigger scale. The central balcony protrudes to the west and is recessed to the east. The hangar space is effectively created by extending the street into the building. It’s a lesson for any student.
More tricky, though, is the research building, which is just as integral to RCA’s mission as the studio wing. Begun in the 1830s as a design school and encouraged to be even more of one when it moved to South Kensington (the area was planned by Prince Albert to provide historical insight that would help raise the standard of British industrial production), RCA has always been home to innovative design and this new building seeks to continue that legacy.
The square-plan, seven-story research building is appended to the studio building, but is clearly distinguished from it with its greater height and recycled aluminum fins adorning its exterior. These fins run across all four of the building’s facades, and are designed both to shade the interior and to aid its natural ventilation system. From a distance, the fins place the structure well in the cityscape, giving it both presence and texture, but the effect when one is adjacent to it—there is a raised terrace on the fourth floor which connects the buildings—is slightly disappointing. The aluminum is thin and lacks the heft of the studio building’s brickwork.


新建筑里的机器人设备
A robotics facility on the new campus. Photo © Iwan Baan

得益于立面遮阳效果，研究大楼比工作室大楼更加节能。一层创业工作室和办公室环绕中央电梯核心和公共厨房布置。这是一个发生一系列不同活动的地方，这些活动比工作室建筑中的活动更为独立，空间宽敞，沐浴在自然光中。机器人工作室位于一楼，因此设备不必运上楼，但让大楼的其他部分失去这些精彩时刻实在是太遗憾了。毕竟，工作室建筑中的开放空间，只是被部分分割，才提供了一个创意性的场所，这恰恰是艺术学校的关键部分。

总的来说，这些新建筑总体上是成功的，尽管价值2.23亿美元的造价相当昂贵。然而，或许正是在制度层面上，人们最深切地感受到了它们的影响。尽管该校有三个独立的校区，一个在南肯辛顿的达尔文大楼，另一个在伦敦西北部的BBC工作室附近，但对于它们的发展却没有真正的总体规划。赫尔佐格和德梅隆的项目，通过借鉴达尔文的一些特质——健壮的外观和共享使用的内部空间作为一种创造性和社会凝聚器，在学校不同的部分创造了凝聚力。同样重要的是，这两栋建筑也让巴特西的校园变得更加舒适宜人。

Thanks in part to the shading, the research building is more introspective than its counterpart. A floor of start-up studios and offices rings the central elevator core and communal kitchen. It is a place where a range of distinct activities occur (these are kept more separate than in the studio building), and it is generously spaced and bathed in natural light. The robotics studio is on the ground floor, ensuring that equipment doesn’t have to be carted upstairs—but it is a shame to deprive the rest of the building of the drama of these moments. After all, the long, open spaces in the studio building, which are only partially divided, provide a theater of creativity that is a key part of the art school.
Taken together, the new buildings are overall a success—although, at $223 million, a pretty expensive one. It is perhaps at the institutional level that their effect is most keenly felt, however. Despite the school’s having three separate campuses (one at the Darwin Building in South Kensington and another near the BBC Studios in northwest London), there was no real masterplan for how they would develop. Herzog & de Meuron’s project, by co-opting several qualities from Darwin—a robust appearance and the use of shared internal space as a kind of creative and social condenser—has created cohesion across the school’s disparate parts. And, no less important, the two buildings have also made the Battersea campus infinitely easier and more pleasant to be in.


Photos © Iwan Baan


Photos © Iwan Baan


Photos © Iwan Baan


Photos © Iwan Baan


Photos © Iwan Baan

项目信息

建筑师：Herzog & de Meuron — Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, Ascan Mergenthaler（主管合伙人）; John O’Mara（助理/项目总监）; Giuseppe Giacoppo（项目经理）; Carmo Montalvão（项目建筑师）; Stuart Hill（运营经理）

顾问：The Planning Lab（规划）; Mott MacDonald （结构、服务、成本）; David Bonnett Associates（包容性设计）

总承包商：Kier Group
客户：皇家艺术学院
面积：181275平方英尺
成本：1.7亿美元
竣工日期：2021年8月

砌体：Ibstock Brick
混凝土：Byrne Bros
金属格栅：Lang + Fulton
电梯：Kone

Credits

Architect: Herzog & de Meuron — Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, Ascan Mergenthaler (partners in charge); John O’Mara (associate/ project director); Giuseppe Giacoppo (project manager); Carmo Montalvão (project architect); Stuart Hill (operation manager)
Consultants: The Planning Lab (planning); Mott MacDonald (structural, services, cost); David Bonnett Associates (inclusive design)
General Contractor: Kier Group
Client: Royal College of Art
Size: 181,275 square feet
Cost: $170 million
Completion Date: August 2021

Masonry: Ibstock Brick
Concrete: Byrne Bros.
Metal Grille: Lang + Fulton
Elevators: Kone