April 6, 2010
by Lisa Delgado

Event: The Sensual City
Location: Center for Architecture, 03.12.10
Speakers: Jacques Ferrier — Principal, Jacques Ferrier Architectures
Organizer: Center for Architecture

Pavilion-Shanghai-Competiti

France Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo.

©Jacques Ferrier architectures/image Ferrier Production

French architect Jacques Ferrier doesn’t believe in the term “sustainable architecture,” instead embracing the idea of “architecture for a sustainable society,” he explained. It may seem like a fine distinction, but it’s key to understanding his approach. Consider, for example, his eponymous firm’s design of the France Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo, which opens next month.

The pavilion was designed as a reaction against the architecture of some of Shanghai’s satellite cities, which focus more on energy-efficiency than beauty, Ferrier noted, as he showed a photo of one with boxy buildings and a bland, empty park. “Even if these buildings are really efficient in terms of energy, these are cities without quality,” he remarked.

By contrast, the France Pavilion will offer a vision of the “Sensual City,” both through its exhibitions on the topic and through the architecture itself, which is surrounded by a pool of water and features a lush vertical garden that acts as a brise-soleil. A steel frame grid is clad with glass-reinforced concrete elements that look like a light white mesh on the exterior, which provides structural support and allows natural light to penetrate. The design sprang from the “idea of a new urbanism where there is no clear difference, no clear limit between architecture and landscape,” according to Ferrier. As visitors enter a courtyard waiting area, breezes from the pool and shadows will offer a rejuvenating sense of coolness during a warm time of year, while music and the views and smells of the vertical garden will engage the senses. Once visitors make their way into the building and through the exhibitions, they will emerge onto a verdant rooftop, a reinterpretation of the traditional French garden.

The pavilion also features solar panels, like many other of the firm’s projects, such as a sailing museum in Lorient, France, and an office building in Grenoble. Beyond the panels’ obvious benefits for energy generation, their aesthetic possibilities intrigue Ferrier, too. His firm received a grant to research new types of solar panels, whose wide range of colors offer appealing design choices, he remarked. It’s an emphasis that embodies well his firm’s focus on architecture that’s sustainable in a way that’s highly aesthetic, not ascetic.

Lisa Delgado is a freelance journalist who has written for OCULUS, The Architect’s Newspaper, Blueprint, and Wired, among other publications.