Solving the Rubik’s Cube:
San Francisco-based Mark Horton Architecture uses metal to make projects fit in the urban condition
Stefan Schumacher,
Posted
12/08/2010
To say that Mark Horton
Architecture in San Francisco takes on an eclectic mix of projects
might be a bit of an understatement. Its three most recent projects
include a synagogue, a computer history museum and a high-end
trampoline facility. MHA represents what might be a somewhat rare
breed today-a general architecture firm. The firm, which has been
around for 25 years and has a staff of six, can and will do almost
anything.
"I think it provides a tremendous benefit to our clients, because
we can cross-pollinate on a variety of different projects," said
Principal Mark Horton.
The firm's work-which also includes single and multi-family
residential, schools and interiors-tends to be very contemporary,
modern and rational.
"It's based in a large degree on the materials we use, how they're
put together, what they carry intrinsically in meaning, and how
they're being used," Horton said. "I think materials carry meaning
and that meaning needs to be injected into the design. It's a big
part of how we put architecture together. I also tend to be very
interested in architecture as three-dimensional object making."
Metal in the City
One material MHA is very
comfortable using, particularly in urban settings, is metal. The
trampoline facility was an old light-metal framed long-span
airplane hangar that MHA detoxified-removing lead paint and
asbestos-and turned into a soon-to-be LEED-certified historic
building.
The Temple Sinai synagogue in Oakland, Calif.-done in
collaboration with Michael Harris Architecture-features a
sculptural chapel clad in standing-seam Green Tinted VM Zinc from
Umicore Building Products. This cladding is on the walls as well as
the roof, and the gesture is one of a continuous wrapped
surface.
"The gesture of a continuously wrapped surface, the continuity of
wall and roof cladding, were also a key element of the building's
symbolic and functional quality," said Keith Dubinsky, the MHA
architect on the project. "It represents the traditional prayer
shawl (tallit), which is wrapped around one's head in order to edit
one's field of vision and focus attention. The chapel cladding does
this on the scale of the whole building for the congregants as a
group."
Horton said metal is especially useful in the urban condition
because it can be manipulated in a number of different forms, and
still give a solid, permanent feel to a project.
"Some people might think of a metal building as a hard, solid,
forever material," Horton said. "But it can weather and be
weathered pretty quickly and easily."
The green zinc was used on
the Temple Sinai project to give the resemblance of a patina
copper, which was rejected by the municipality because of run-off
concerns. Dubinksy said it was also interesting to see the
traditional use of sheet metal on monumental buildings with a
modern twist, the malleability of the zinc giving the Temple Sinai
both vertical and horizontal curves.
On the California College of the Arts housing dormitory in a very
urban setting in Oakland, MHA used Pre-weathered Gray VM Zinc to
create an elliptical shape that encompasses the lounges on each
floor. A traditionally difficult shape to build because it has no
constant radius, metal allowed it to take form.
"It's definitely a material people identify with as a high
quality, permanent material that's used on buildings of some sort
of importance. Using it on institutional buildings and urban
buildings, it provides a stronger appearance than other materials,"
Horton said. "In San Francisco, stucco is pretty common. If you
take the exact same building and clad it in metal, the metal clad
building would be perceived as a higher level building.
"It's very clean material. It can provide incredibly sharp joinery
and edges. To a certain degree, it's self-cleaning, it provides a
luster. We used aluminum on a winery and it just catches the light.
All the way around, it's a spectacular material to use. For many
clients, it also provides the idea that the downstream maintenance
is significantly less. Clients have the idea that it's a
no-maintenance building, but those don't exist."
Horton added that along with its ability to be shaped, metal
allows for hundreds of different options in terms of color and
texture. MHA has used bronze, for instance, on the inside of a
restaurant, and decorated other interiors with support columns and
steel surrounds on fireplaces.
Satisfying the Neighbors
Metal's formability and
feeling of being light yet significant, make it a good fit for the
urban condition. Urban projects, according to Horton, are under
constant pressure with regards to space and the concerns of
neighbors, interest groups and municipalities-particularly in
California.
"You spend a lot of time rendering, modeling and shaping
buildings," Horton said. "In the end, for the developer, time
becomes the ultimate determinate on whether or not the project is
going to happen. Some people just want to hold it up long enough to
kill it.
"You try as best as possible to satisfy as many people as
possible. You depend on the permitting agency to weigh that
balance. On the CCA dorm, for example, the neighbors were
particularly concerned about one face of the building, so we moved
it back from the street. We changed the color on that building.
That's the Rubik's Cube the architect needs to solve. What can fit,
what might fit."