DETAIL 10.2019

From the editorial 10.2019

Code Word Hybrid

The new Blox building in Copenhagen is a hybrid in more ways than one. With its fully glazed facade, OMA’s multipurpose ­facility accommodates a lively mix that combines exhibition spaces for the Danish Architecture Center with housing units, co-working spaces, a fitness studio and a café with a terrace, to name a few. In addition to its unusually hybrid use, the ­striking harbourside building was built as a hybrid: in order to meet the design requirements and their respective material properties, a combination of steel and concrete was used for its load-bearing structure.

For our October issue, Frank Kaltenbach has compiled this and other outstanding examples of hybrid forms of construction. The range of possible structural combinations – be it prefabricated wooden elements with reinforced concrete, steel frames infilled with bricks, or timber frame construction with load-bearing reinforced concrete panels – are as varied as the architectural expression of the individual projects. Our ­documentations show to what extent these two aspects go hand in hand, for example, at the new residential complex in Stockholm by BIG, in the renovation of a former locksmith’s shop in Bordeaux by RCR Artotec, or at the primary school in Flanders by Compagnie-O. This issue’s essay considers hybrid timber high-rise buildings and examines how construction types, building owners, architects and structural planners are setting new height records. Our Technology feature highlights one such example – namely the highest timber-hybrid construction in Switzerland; Primin Jung explains the project’s structural design challenges.