EFFICIENCY IS BEAUTIFUL
Efficiency Lab for Architecture is an architectural design firm committed to a better understanding of efficiency in the built environment through rigorous research and design. They advocate for environmental consciousness at design and policy making platforms, they also invent, analyse, evaluate and teach. But above all they firmly believe: ‘Efficiency is good business. Efficiency is sustainable. Efficiency is beautiful.’
Talented, energetic and multifaceted Turkish/American architect Aybars Asci shares with us his vision for sustainable design and his passion for efficiency. With almost two decades’ experience working on large-scale developments across the globe, he recently founded his own architectural design firm under the thought-provoking name of Efficiency Lab for Architecture.
Asci graduated from Columbia University (New York) in 1999. He started working at a small architectural firm specialising in building enclosures, where he was exposed to the know-how of modern curtain walls. However, rather than specializing in one aspect of architecture, Aybars sought a broader perspective and harboured a desire to work on large scale projects. His dream was to engage functional, environmental, infrastructural and urban layers of architecture. These aspirations took him to the New York office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), a renowned American architectural firm, where he was introduced to skyscrapers in New York. He mentions that as result of the 9/11 New York terrorist attacks, commercial work slowed down. He then shifted focus to government projects, working on the US Census Bureau Headquarters just outside Washington DC. The building received a LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) Gold certification, and Asci says of the project that it gave him great sustainable design experience.
His dream was to engage functional, environmental, infrastructural and urban layers of architecture.
After 2003, he started working on projects in the Middle East. As a young senior designer in the firm, his first project was the ambitious Al Rajhi Bank headquarters in Saudi Arabia. Working in a harsh desert climate led him to question the high rise typology. He explored quite a few innovative concepts, such as relocating the core of the towers from the centre to the perimeter to provide self-shading, resulting in reduced energy loads. His ongoing interest in sustainable design and finding environmentally sound solutions was honed in those projects. He was also in charge of designing the super-slender 360-metre-tall Al Sharq Tower in Dubai, and the 412-metre-tall Al Hamra Tower in Kuwait.
Project designed by SOM. Aybars Asci, Director-in-Charge of Design
Asci’s latest projects during his long tenure at SOM include the Shenzhen Shumyip Master plan, which included setting the urban design guidelines for 650,000 sq. m of mixed use commercial, residential and retail program and associated open public spaces, the Baccarat Hotel and Residences in front of MoMA in New York, completed in 2015, as well as 35 Hudson Yards mixed use tower, part of the Hudson Yards Masterplan in Manhattan’s Far West Side.
Project designed by SOM. Aybars Asci, Director-in-Charge of Design
FERNANDO LÓPEZ DEL PRADO: Why the name of Efficiency Lab for Architecture?
AYBARS ASCI: I did not want to give my new office my name; I find that approach to be too one-person-centric. Efficiency Lab for Architecture allows people that are working in the office to feel part of a movement or an institution. It has a more collaborative ethos and everyone feels ownership to their work. We are a young company with a lot of experience. We combine the energy, vision and youth of a start-up with decades of experience in architecture. My tenure at SOM is very valuable in my maturity as a designer, and the amount of experience I got out of it. But ultimately, as a creative person, I always wanted to have my own practice that is less corporate, smaller and more focused on the issues that I want to explore.
The concept of the firm — efficiency — is a concept that has always intrigued me throughout my career. You can see efficiency manifesting itself in many forms and processes in nature. You can see it in the sprint of a cheetah — elegant and decisive. Both the movement and the body manifest beauty in efficiency. Look at nutrient cycles and energy flows in ecosystems. There is a continuous flow that sustains life. Ecosystems do not create waste. And now look at the built environment. We are far from being an efficient ecosystem. We consume and deplete resources from other ecosystems and we generate waste. Lots of it. And it has become increasingly evident that we reached a critical point in time. We cannot continue with business-as-usual, because the disturbances we are causing to other ecosystems are becoming unrecoverable. Efficiency Lab for Architecture is committed to a better understanding of efficiency in the built environment through research and design. We believe that efficiency is good business, efficiency is sustainable and efficiency is beautiful.
We cannot continue with business-as-usual, because the disturbances we are causing to other ecosystems are becoming unrecoverable.
FLdP: Can you give me an example of efficiency and beauty from your work?
AA: I think one good example is the lobby of the Al Hamra Tower. One of the biggest design challenges in tall buildings is how they meet the ground. Structural, infrastructural and urban demands are the greatest at the ground level, and the resolution of all these demands needs to be accomplished in a relatively small footprint. The Al-Hamra Tower meets the ground by creating a grand space through weaving the perimeter columns into each other and back to the tower core in an intricate concrete lamella structure. The end result of this is a direct reflection of the forces. There is not a single element which is redundant or decorative. And yet, there is poetry in this space, in the way sunbeams come through the lattice work of the lamella members, creating a beautiful play of light and shadow.
There is not a single element which is redundant or decorative. And yet, there is poetry in this space.
FLdP: You have designed numerous skyscrapers. Can you tell us about efficiency and tall buildings?
AA: I liken supertall buildings to Olympic athletes. They challenge the boundaries of what is possible. A 100-storey building is not ten 10-storey buildings stacked on top of each other, just like a marathon race is not ten 4.2 km runs added together. You cannot think accumulatively. You need to think holistically. Everything needs to be integrated so the building performs as one. There is not a lot of margin for error. A super-tall building needs to be well-disciplined and rigorous.
FLdP: You have a patent for a high performance enclosure system. What can you tell us about it?
AA: One of the biggest energy consumptions in buildings is directly attributable to the building enclosures. We all love glass buildings. It brings natural light, it allows you to look out. Glass is a very enigmatic material, with its transparent and reflective qualities. It is the quintessential modern material. However, glass walls are challenging from an energy perspective. They are much more thermally conductive than an opaque wall with insulation. The ratio is about one to ten. Imagine, in the US we spend 47% of all our energy consumption in the building industry to heat and cool our spaces. This is a big number. And this is largely attributable to the building enclosures. I wanted to design a glass wall system that is open, transparent, but also as insulating as an opaque wall. This is not possible with the standard insulating glass units. A standard insulating glass unit is an assembly of two lites of glass and an air space in between. The air space helps to bring some level of insulation, but heat transfer continues in the air space through convection.
The idea for the glass tubes is really simple — completely vacuum the air out from the air space so there is no conduction and convection. The cylindrical shape allows you to do that. Because when the air is vacuumed out of a cavity, it creates negative pressure, meaning that a flat unit without any support would collapse. But the cylinder is a structural shape therefore can resist the pressure. With this idea, we are bringing outer space to Earth. The result is a glass wall system that is fully transparent and yet, thermally, insulates as well as a solid opaque wall.
FLdP: What project are you working on these days?
AA: I am designing a vacation house in Telluride, Colorado. It is located on a magnificent site, a steep slope looking towards the Box Canyon. The client has in mind the spatial qualities of Mies Van Der Rohe’s Farmsworth House, which blurs the boundaries of inside and outside. The challenge is that the house they want to build is quite large compared to the Miesian glass house. I am working on a concept of breaking it into three glass houses, half submerged in the landscape. One side of the house is anchored to a series of stone terraces, connected by a meandering staircase. I want to create both panoramic experiences that take advantage of the magnificent views, and intimate ones that ground you and connect you back to the landscape. I explored this meandering path concept on a much larger scale in Shenzhen, a zig zag footbridge that connects public open spaces to a major city park.
Project designed by SOM. Aybars Asci, Director-in-Charge of Design
There is something curious about looking one way then the other — much more inquisitive than walking in a straight line. Your perspective changes in each turn, and hopefully you discover something new.
We are still at the early design stages for the house. Beyond the spatial ideas, we are also exploring the idea to turn this into a Passive House (the Passivhaus standard focuses on reducing the requirement for heating and cooling, while achieving excellent indoor air quality). Given the cold climate in Telluride, I think this is the right thing to do.
FLdP: I know you are teaching. How important is it for you to be part of an academic environment?
AA: I have always been a great advocate of fostering an intellectual environment in professional offices, to avoid an insular practice that employs technocrats and problem solvers but not thinkers. I also believe that there is a great value in experienced architects who can engage with academia in thoughtful ways. They can bring a perspective to schooling and architectural research that is more grounded on the practice of architecture. Over the last few years I have been teaching concepts of Efficiency, High Rise Design, Building Enclosure and Thermal Comfort. After each semester I put together a publication with my students on the work we have done.
FLdP: Where do you see the future of architecture?
AA: Data is the zeitgeist of our times. At Efficiency Lab for Architecture, we believe that achieving meaningful engagements with data is the key to unfolding today’s environmental, social and economic challenges. We like to do more with less, be accountable, be proactive and be inventive. We believe that efficiency is the new beautiful. It goes beyond the surface of physical appearances, to understanding beauty as a manifestation of high performance, sustainable processes and harmonious ecosystems. This is where we think the future is.
Efficiency is good business. Efficiency is sustainable. Efficiency is beautiful.
