Buildings for People and Plants

It is rare, very rare, that when glancing through a tome with pictures of architecture that I feel entranced by what my eyes are showing me. And, while this quite often happens when looking at images of nature, it is seldom the case when looking at man-made stuff. Needless to say, it is not only the architecture that fascinates me, it is also the presentation, the photographs, that is, that show me what the photographer has decided to frame, and thus to make me look at.

"We try to maintain a childlike sense of wonder, both in our design process and our finished projects.", I read in the introduction, and this sense of wonder can be also experienced when looking at these pics that were taken (for seven of the ten projects in the book) by Bruce Damonte. Another photographer that needs to be mentioned is Miguel de Guzmán. We do not look simply at truly fascinating architecture, we look at it through the eyes of these gifted photographers.

Transforming parking into a social experience with a vertical 

 stack of public spaces, including a gallery, play area, garden, 

and more © Imagen Subliminal

The essay Civics Lessons for an Uncertain Age by Nicolai Ouroussoff lets the reader/the viewer know that "under the colorful packaging, these projects are informed by a stubborn determination to reengage what is left of the public sphere." Not only a laudable but also a necessary endeavour. "Over time, as the architects became more established and the budgets got bigger, the geometries got more complex. Yet the interest in how public buildings can serve as places of common ground remains."

Come to think of it, it is pretty obvious that buildings do not stand alone. After all, everything is somehow connected. We all influence each other in ways we are hardly aware of. To emphasise the already exisiting connections and to establish new ones is the goal of the architects of WORKac. Contemplating what they have created gave me feelings of joy and lightness.

A vibrant hub for student life and a new campus entry © Bruce Damonte

There's also a conversation between Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, both cofounders of WORKac, and Heidi Zuckerman, "a globally recognized leader of contemporary art" (what would Americans do without superlatives, I wonder?), that is introduced by Zuckerman asking: "How does art inspire your practice and why do you think it matters?" I must admit that the answers by the architects I did not find very inspiring ("One learns to value life through art."), which isn't too surprising since, as one of the two points out, architects (bound by various constraints) and artists (very few constraints) work in very different way.

What I liked best about this conversation is Heidi Zuckerman's remark: "the more you look, the more you see.", that describes precisely my experience with this impressive tome that documents beautifully what the WORKac architects see as their mission: "We don't think of buildings as isolated objects, Rather, we enlist their power to frame, reexamine and reinvent relationships – between citizens and cities, public and private space, the individual and the collective, inside and outside, and people and plants."

An aesthetic pleasure of the first order!

WORKac

Buildings for People and Plants

Park Books, Zurich 2025