Cosimo Scotucci on being a competition tank, trusting people and the project that brought the whole company together/that allowed him to find Eldorado.
I still remember my first day at MVRDV, 6 years ago. I walked through the door, rigorously dressed in black. I was welcomed and shown around by Lies and Hedy, our fantastic support staff. I walked to my new spot and without even realizing it, my Head of Department approached me and said “hi, I’m Wenchian, you must be the competition tank I’ve heard about”… I smiled, obviously confused, with nothing on my head but 3 simple words “What the F**k?!”. I dropped the coffee cup and I held onto the mouse. That is how the journey began. That’s how I crossed paths with the most inspiring, creative and talented people in the field, that’s how I ended up working on more than 50 competitions, that’s how I learned how architecture is much more than buildings.
But wait… How did I become “the competition tank” in the first place?
Right before finishing my studies, I joined Paolo Venturella Architecture, a young, visionary and restless firm. Paolo and I became great friends over the 5 years we have spent together, side by side, doing more than 40 projects. When I applied, Paolo had just come back from BIG in Copenhagen, and had a genuine vision on how to bring what he had learned to his home country. Soon enough I realized that “the guy” wasn’t a tank… he was the full army. He knew every project on the web by name, every Rhino command, every trick and shortcut. I owe him a lot.
Hainan Art Center.
MVRDV was invited with four other international companies to take part in one of the most prestigious competitions in Asia: The Hainan Art Center. Hainan, for the ones who don’t know, is a wonderful island in the south of China with pristine beaches, wonderful mountains, an alien-looking salt field (the Yangpu Ancient Salt Field) and all the essential qualities to become an international cultural beacon. The island has a very long tradition of opera and the new competition was meant to provide a new home for performances and to create a cultural attractor for the people of Haikou (the capital), of the island and broadly from all of China.
The location is breathtaking. The designated spot is adjacent to the river that crosses Hikou from north to south, while on the other side of the road there is a new museum, for which another competition is also running. On one of the long sides of the spot is a highway that connects the two parts of the city, and on the other, a brand new, shiny development made of condos and skyscrapers is about to be built. The brief contained a fantastic mix of cultural functions: an Opera Hall for 1500 people, a Performance Hall for 1200, a Multifunctional Hall for radical new types of performances, an educational institution to promote the culture of music and opera in Hainan, a rehearsal space, bar and restaurants. Pretty much the perfect recipe for a fun competition.
Winy Maas was the founding partner working on the competition. When I arrived at the office early in the morning, out of breath, he was already there, discussing a different project with another team. Elisa, the new intern, was behind the glass of the chamber, observing the scene with ecstatic eyes on her first day of work. The rest of the team, Xiaodong, Bertrand and Federica, were still enjoying the remains of their holidays or compensation hours, (almost) unaware of the journey that has yet to begin.
There was not much time before the mid-term presentation, so we all dove into the brief, detecting what was more important for the client and, in parallel, we started, as usual, an endless series of program studies.
We always start with the functions – that way we can aggregate them, separate them, combine them, stack them, divide them, juxtapose them and mix them. From the more orthodox to the ones that are conceptually more radical. What usually follows are some weeks of back and forth, of trials, evaluation, successes and failures that are all necessary to achieve the final result.
Once we narrow down the choices, the most magical, fun, challenging, sometimes bizarre part of the process starts, the one that I love the most: massing studies. They are volumetric tests of all the possible design iterations that we can possibly think of. The aim is to look for something that is simultaneously form and function, with no distinction, that is bold and radical but yet feasible and pragmatic. It is the search for Eldorado.
Following the programmatic aggregation studies, all types of typologies are tested, from large-spanning roofs holding together the entire program to self-sufficient monads. This part of the process is held together by an intricate network of meetings and e-mails between the team and Winy, between us and the external consultants, the engineers, the local architects that support us complying with the regulation, the graphic designers etc. It is a hectic, sometimes chaotic, but yet perfectly functional process: a ping pong match on a strange table with 6 or 7 players.
The clock was ticking. We narrowed the project down to 2 main options: a group of interconnected large roofs that form a much larger hovering structure and a series of sculpted entities with an internal three dimensional void that connects the functions.In the little time we had left, we put together an extraordinary presentation file with solid storytelling, the floorplans (still very sketchy but yet interesting), efficient and sexy renders.
On an extremely early morning of a midsummer day, we all sat together around the table, digitally connected to the other side of the world for the first meeting with the client … the camera turned on and Winy began to speak. We all attended the meeting with observant eyes.
The team endeavor has been appreciated. The client liked both options. We were free to move in the direction we liked the most. We were all tired, happy and very excited and we knew that the best was yet to come. Still at the table, we tried to understand what was the best option to go for, which one had more potential, and talking the 2 options through, clearly, everyone at the table had the same impression: we had to combine the best of both. But how do you combine a massing that is light and ethereal with something that is more solid and enclosed? How do you create a void where there is no mass to carve?
The days that followed the meeting were a strange melting pot of excitement and disillusion. We have tried hard, in many ways, to square the circle but we couldn’t solve the case. We thought that Eldorado was not yet to be found. Maybe it is a myth or maybe the goal we set for ourselves was impossible.
At the end of another anonymous meeting someone said: “what if we consider the void as a mass? What if we can bend it or squeeze it?”
.
.
.
EUREKA! We all understood the magnitude of the idea, everybody jetted out of the room and one minute later, on a dark gray background of a Shaded Rhino view-port the destiny of the project was taking shape.
Some hours later a bunch of smooth shapes clustered together materializing what little ago was just an idea. A bottom and upper cupola formed the structure and the circulation, defining the lobbies and openings towards the outside creating entrances, leaving enough space for the theaters to sit in the middle.
We couldn’t wait to send the update to Winy.
“Dear All,
Thank you.
This is quite exciting!
Gr
W”
This is what we read the morning after we have sent the PDF out. We hit the bull’s eye.
While the team was busy modeling, drawing and modifying the last few things Winy asked us to do, we needed to put together a team to visualize the project. We had our incredible Viz team on board, Antonio and the guys were as excited as we are to start. We had some extra budget and we could ask someone else to help us out with the images. We wanted the best people: who else if not MIR. During the first meeting it was clear that they have absolute freedom.
We also needed to produce an animation, one minute fly-through, that also had to be memorable. I had exactly in mind who could do it for us. Massimiliano from Imperfct* picked up the phone and in less than 2 minutes after he received the model and the latest version of the booklet he was fully on board. When we heard that he hired an Italian composer to create a track we all knew it was going to be fantastic.
At that point, there were only 3 weeks to go. A great vibe of excitement connected Rotterdam with Shanghai, Bergen, Rome and Haikou. Pretty much every single person in the office knew what we were doing and couldn’t wait to see the final result. Everybody in the team was working on their PCs, we all wanted to make a memorable presentation. There were meetings scheduled everyday to talk about structure, sustainability, landscape and storytelling. From time to time someone in the team tried to cool down and release the stress by playing ping pong between one task and another.
When, ten days before the submission, we received the first batch of renders, there was a religious silence across the room. Everybody, even people working on other projects, gathered together behind one screen observing the zip folder downloading. We finally put it on the server and opened it. None knew what to expect.
The images were breathtaking, every time we switched to the next one a “Wooooooooooo…” pervaded the room. Everybody was smiling, motivation and productivity from that moment skyrocketed. The rest of the week flew by while the booklet took shapes and the panels were layouted. We couldn’t be more focused. Something special happens when a team is in “production mode”, somehow things are more clear, somehow people feel more bonded to each other, somehow everything feels better.
The day before the submission the whole team sat together to see the final animation. What we saw was beyond imagination, the guys did a terrific job. It was powerful and yet romantic, solid but delicate. The images moved on the screen supported by delightful music. For all of us, it felt like being at the movie theater watching a show specially designed for us.
24 hours were left to go.
Everything was almost ready, our Viz team was about to surprise us. They felt so inspired that instead of the 8 images we had agreed upon they managed to make 14. Antonio, Luca, Magda, Francesco, Angelo and Luana worked restlessly to create something extraordinary.
Time was up. The email with all the files was sent. We got notified by the client that everything was successfully delivered. We were all exhausted – it was a hell of a journey, it has been a crazy race against time but we managed. We leave the office heading to the bar. We worked hard for a couple of months and then, finally, it was time to play.
Conclusions.
Competitions are tough. Jurors are tough. Time is limited and resources are usually scarce. How do you survive all of this? The conclusion I have gotten to, after 100 competitions, is…. people! You must trust the people! All the people around you. As a Project Leader you trust your team, as a team member you trust your leader. Everybody’s opinion and expertise is essential. You trust all your consultants from the engineers to the render folks, as they know things you don’t. Someone says, trust the process, or the method, for me both are fallacious, people are always true. People are the only thing that can help you navigate through the most turbulent seas, a reference in the darkest nights. People make architecture.
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Cosimo Scotucci
Cosimo Scotucci (1988) is an architect and innovator.
Scotucci studied in Rome, where he graduated with a Master’s degree in Architecture. After his studies he has worked at Paolo Venturella Architecture, Clement Blanchet and MVRDV where he is currently a Project Leader in the Studio Asia. He took part in over 100 competitions.
In 2019 he founded his own office, cosimoscotucci.com where he works together with a multidisciplinary team on speculative design tackling the biggest issues in society. Through his works he reflects an ideology that focuses on people, envisioning the world of tomorrow.
The office is intended as a design laboratory where you can experiment with pioneering ideas to create a more democratic and resilient future. Through functional scientific fictional stories the office aims to create a better future, triggering the imagination of a new World. At the lab, Scotucci and his team collaborate with scientists, engineers and specialists from every field to outsmart the threats for humankind.
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