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Home > Journal > Issue Nine > Measure Measure - Aoibheann Ní Mhearáin In his collaborative work, Conzett set out to interpret the spatial ideas of the architect. What he aimed for was a synthesis of the spatial division and the structure. In the Volta school in Basel, the architects, Miller & Maranta, had arrived at a spatial idea for the project - of having 4 central voids at upper classroom level, while using the existing trough left by an oil company to sink the sports hall into - prior to consultation with Conzett. He addressed the project using a system of walls. These walls act with the floor slabs, creating a double T beam, to eradicate the need for downstands or any transfer beams to span the 28m of the sports hall beneath. The horizontal restraint of the floor slab - achieved in most buildings by vertical elements, such as lifts and stairs - keeps the walls in place. Furthermore, with this system, the walls become autonomous, they do not need to sit above each other, but only need to meet the floor slab and one other support along their length. This very sophisticated solution remains entirely undemonstrative; it is there for those who are looking. Jürg Conzett is not, he told us, searching for an expression; he enjoys, instead, the seeming ordinariness of this school. What is evident from this project [and the other collaborative projects shown, including insurance offices in Chur, with the architects Jungling, Hagmann and the Murau bridge with Meili & Peter architects] is that the architectural and engineering solutions are inseparable. They are developed and worked on together to produce a synthesis- he spoke of building a card model and together, pushing and pressing on it to see how its structure acted. And yet, what Conzett values about any project is not simply the mutual reliance of the space and the structure, but also their independence of each other; each can be understood on its own terms. What is important in this process of collaboration is an openness, an interest in what the other is saying; to try to search for curiosity. What is necessary is discussion, exploration and exchange. Though each case is different, the result is one where this mutual search is manifest. Halfway through his lecture, Conzett showed an image of an old-fashioned weighing scales with one metal nut resting on it. He didn't make reference to it. But to me it seemed emblematic. Where would the weighing scales be without the weight to measure? In the projects pursued by his own engineering practice - where he was free from pressures of the architects requirements - he spoke instead of other sources and forces on the project; the site, the brief, others who influenced him. His practice he said, was not simply interested in the resolution of static structural problems, but looked outward for influences.
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