What's in a parapet? - fondation louis vuitton

While everybody was enjoying the sweeping view of paris from the rooftop, I played the part of curious douchebag architect and looked under the parapet cap at the foundation louis Vuitton in paris. I could see tiny fibers poking out from the underside of the cap. I suspected rightly that the material was ultra high performance concrete (UHPC). A couple months prior, I had visited an ultra high performance concrete vendor to scout how I could incorporate this material into our library design.

Buried in the Brooklyn navy yard is Ductal’s UHPC showroom showing material samples, molds, and castings. We were drawn to the material because our library is in a marine environment and we needed a resilient material that could withstand harsh environments and potential ocean flooding. For our library, we wanted to develop simple cladding that resembled weather beach wood. The boards would be fabricated on molds that had real wood grain imprints. The casting molds can be re-used a couple hundred times, the color can be custom selected, the patterns are flexible in pattern and geometry. On display at the showroom were the molds for the pollinator’s pavilion project which enlisted the help of pratt students. https://www.pratt.edu/news/view/habitat-for-the-bees-pratt-professor-explores-post-human-architecture-for-n

At the Fondation louis Vuitton, the UHPC panels were vacuformed over custom molds to achieve 3-dimensional forms called ‘icebergs’. (58 other patents were issued in the building of the museum which pushed limits of building technology) the icebergs are double height skylit gallery spaces. Cladding the 126,000 square foot building, and soaring above the icebergs are the glass laminated-wood supported facades. The glass recalls the glass roof structures of the grand and petit palais, and the glass palmarium that used to inhabit the bois de Boulogne site years ago. when those glass structures were built in the 19th century, pioneering architects were pushing ways to utilize new 'modern' materials iron and glass in design.

Navigating through and around the iceberg galleries one ascends to the site’s tree-dotted rooftop terraces with sweeping panoramic views of the city. 

when criticized for focusing too much on form-making a week before the fondation museum opening, gehry responded with a middle finger and said, "In this world we are living in, 98 percent of everything that is built and designed today is pure shit. There’s no sense of design, no respect for humanity or for anything else. They are damn buildings and that’s it…. Once in a while, however, a group of people do something special. Very few, but God, leave us alone."

pollinator pavilion

wall assembly

mold

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glass sails

UHPC icebergs

glass sail and iceergs

looking up an iceberg

cutting edge use of 'new materials' glass and iron in 19th century grand palais 

gehry 1 week before museum opening