SMC Alsop

Interview with Vincent Lin

- For the readers who don’t know about yourself & SMC Alsop, can you please give us a brief description.

V: My name is Vincent Lin, I have worked at SMC Alsop for about 6 years and my role is a Senior Architect. Alsop is a company that likes to describe itself as an office that works with multi-disciplinary roles like Architecture, Master Planning, Product Design and even Illustrative & Animation works in the past. It’s this kind of diversity, cross-fertilisation and looking at many disciplines that helps us to become better designers. Ultimately, we focus on Architecture with all these different elements and skillset bases helping us to sell Architecture.

- Are there any underlying concepts that you try to adhere to?

V: The Architecture we do is very social. Alot of times, when we develop Architecture, we try to involve the community. The way we do that is by creating workshops; where we sit down with the locals of a specific area as they have the best knowledge and understanding & experience of the history of the location. We try to harness that and use that as a basis and foundation for Architecture and see what the opportunities are.

As a Senior Architect, what is one of your favourite parts of the job?

V: On the more fun days, it is when we are starting a new project and we have been given carte-blanche. We will be speaking to the client and finding out what their needs are and it’s normally that first model/painting/drawing that is really fulfilling. This starts a narrative and then every decision you make after that has a strong relationship with the beginning. It’s all about creating a line and then following its course.

- Have you always been based in London?

V: I was born in London and left when I was 7 years old to live in Hong Kong. Living there for 10 years was a great experience for me as I spent my primary and secondary education meeting people from all over the world. The city has a very international feel to it and I was glad that I had a chance to experience it. Ultimately, I knew that I would end up back in London and I always wanted to be an architect; being able to communicate your ideas is one of the key ways to successful architecture and I have been following my dream ever since.

- Would you say that London is the ‘best’ place to be for your field of work?

V: London itself has an explosion of creativity right now; if you look at what architects here are doing, for example every city worldwide now wants a ferris wheel, modeled to the one that we have in London. Designing tall buildings that are highly sustainable, such as the Swiss RE building which, like it or not, has become an icon of the city of London. Many cities are looking to London as a source of inspiration; a city like Shanghai, Dubai or Delhi wants that same kind of worldwide cultural recognition. They are all looking for something current and iconic and in tune with the current times and be considered ‘Contemporary’. As many projects begin life in London, this draws in the best talent from around the world and they all want a piece of the action.

- What is your definition of being ‘Progressive’?

V: It is an ongoing developing process and is something that requires a lot of feedback. One of the abilities of an architect is to be able to distinguish when certain social changes take place within our city and having to learn to adapt to them and respond.

- A word that we hear a lot in Architecture at the moment is ‘Sustainability’? Is it just a trend or is it already the new foundation of all Architecture?

V: Sustainable development is key; as Architects, we have a huge responsibility to control any changes we make to the environment or looking at how our buildings make an impact on the immediate and even further surroundings. Considering our buildings contribute to about 40-50% of carbon emissions,

we have the utmost responsibility to make buildings as efficient as possible. This means that they should be well cladded, so they lose less energy and how we can harness this; an example being the orientation of a building and how that can effect the loss of excessive energy. Wind turbines, PV cells or CPH are ways of creating energy but they are relatively expensive and provide relatively small return in energy. We should be looking at how buildings are made, with what materials and their orientation before we attempt to concentrate on new technologies. I’m not against new tech, but sometimes I think we should look at the infrastructure of a new building first. They are all ongoing processes and more people are becoming aware of the long term impacts and are therefore putting more pressure on companies, architects and engineers to come up with appropriate solutions to the problems we face.

- Are there any of your past projects that you feel have really pushed the envelope in terms of their design or the method of their creation?

V: One project that sticks in my mind is the Peckham Library, which won us the Sterling Prize. The core of the library is elevated above the square, giving a new pride and civic sense to the area. As the form was an inverted L-shape, it gave a secondary function as a covered space, providing shelter from the weather because, as you know, in London it does rain a lot! Many of our current projects are dealing with high-rise buildings. Fortunately the Mayor of London supports high-rise development as they have a very small footprint and an economical infrastructure in scale with the proportion of people they can sustain. As they use up less land, that frees up more ground for public use. Right now, we are looking at how we can use external chimneys to draw

out heat that we don’t use. By reducing the amount of heat in the room, we reduce the need to cool the room, therefore using less energy and doing a small bit to reduce energy consumption.

More recently, the roles of the architect & engineer have become more blurred; what are your views on the traditional role of the architect in the present day?

V: In the beginning, there was no distinction between the two. Everyone was considered as a tradesman, either as a stone-mason or a woodworker. The role of an architect emerged when the role of the building became more demanding or they needed these technologies to be mixed up together. The person was had to understand how to use these various interfaces and what was possible with these materials. Eventually these demands became even more complex that there was a need to split it between architectural design and the engineering side of things. Architects still co-ordinate the various aspects of a building and engineers are able to work on varied tasks, from structural & services engineering, to sustainability & environmental issues.

Website : www.alsoparchitects.com

Written by Selph