The
2D and 3D cutting and casting experiments that Barkow Leibinger
Architects has undertaken arose from Frank Barkow and Regine
Leibinger’s interest in emerging technologies and their firm conviction
that, as they say, “Tools shape materials that make forms, not the
other way around.”
The Berlin-based architects count themselves fortunate to have the
machine-tool company Trumpf as a repeat client. Working with
über-engineer Werner Sobek, Barkow Leibinger used Trumpf’s own
technology to build a new gatehouse of laser-cut and welded sheet metal
on the company’s campus in Ditzingen, Germany. The gatehouse consists
of a small functional core topped by a honeycombed steel roof that
cantilevers an astonishing 20 meters (66 feet) across the street in
front of it. Jury member Craig Hodgetts described the cantilever as
“just awe-inspiring.” In their submission, the architects say they
wouldn’t have been able to pull it off five years ago.
Barkow Leibinger submitted a portfolio of several cutting/casting
projects, including a complex façade of 3D and 2D polygonal, mirrored
glass panels for an office building in Seoul, Korea, and a restaurant
ceiling infilled with glulam wood cells. But it was the gatehouse and
its roof that wowed the jury. “That extruded cut and [fold] actually
became a structural roof, and it has a good span,” enthused juror
Lauren Crahan. Hodgetts agreed wholeheartedly: “That was a killer—when
the thing goes, like, all the way out there … Kabam!”
By: Amanda Kolson Hurley - http://www.architectmagazine.com/