边缘学科：约翰森·施马林的建筑

作者：卡尔·沃里克（威斯康星大学密尔沃基分校建筑与城市规划学院的副教授和副院长。与他人合著了广受好评的专著《基兰·廷伯莱克：探究》，由里佐利出版。）

By Karl Wallick (Associate Professor and Associate Dean at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture & Urban Planning.He co-authoredthe critically acclaimed monograph “KieranTimberlake： Inquiry,” published by Rizzoli.)

OS House

不知不觉，我们生活在一个盲目迷恋图片和造像的世界中，而忽略了生活中的实质和细微之处。不足为奇的是，现在的许多建筑都在不断追求新奇和独特的风格，这是当代世界文化中普遍存在的审美轻浮和压抑肤浅的根源，而这些也不过是稍纵即逝。正是在这种文脉下，约翰森-施马林建筑事务所的建筑设计则显得与众不同，激进中融合了简单和安静。

这种风格独一无二，无与伦比。这些建筑设计低调质朴，它们或许只存在于你的眼角余光中或第二次路过时才引起你的注意。总有一些意想不到的事物会让你停下脚步，比如明亮的芥末色门道，优雅的不锈钢薄窗框，略显不同寻常的砖墙。很明显，布莱恩·约翰森和塞巴斯蒂安·施马琳对当前这一趋势持谨慎态度，他们陶醉于适度正交构图的简单，寻求持久清晰的气氛，而不是新颖的形式。他们关注的不是精细的体积或复杂的几何学，而是集中在简单的轮廓以及固体和空隙的空间延伸中。随着时间的推移，建筑慢慢与所在地融合在一起，污渍消失殆尽就是最好的证明。这是一种近乎修正主义的保留感，使建筑的架构与今天的数字驱动实践和他们对算法实验的关注形成鲜明对比。

沿袭早期赫尔佐格和德梅隆或Tham & Videgård 的传统，并将其推广应用到北美文脉中，约翰森·施马林的建筑依据的是严格的材料探索和构造实验；它们在形式上保守低调，但精心设计的材料和创新的组装技术使它们能够从许多在建的建筑中脱颖而出，这就引出了一个近乎自相矛盾的问题：在今天，端庄有可能被颠覆吗？

文脉与故事

了解威斯康星州（约翰森·施马林的家乡，位于美国中西部）的文化文脉对其作品风格演变所产生的影响至关重要。威斯康星州的光环笼罩在阿卡迪亚和没落的工业，充满活力的水上公园，舒适的砂锅菜，以及偶尔过度浪漫化的腹地森林的黑暗之美。约翰森·施马林的作品和实践充分体现了该地区普遍存在的人造景观和真实景观，庸俗与原始的草原景观之美并存。

场所精神显示了该地区所特有的一切显性和无形条件。诸如事件、流动或文化接触之类的词汇也体现了类似精神，虽然这是大多数建筑师关注的一个基本问题，但在当代建筑话语中，“场所精神”一词并没有得到广泛使用，但在约翰森·施马林的设计过程中，却凸显了自己的核心价值。其特点是通过不懈探索隐藏在每一地点的共鸣品质，通过简单调查来揭开其建筑所在地的场所精神。在这一过程中，他们发展出一种叙事方式，提供了一种方法来组织五花八门的文脉艺聚空间，并将它们编织成一条精确的建筑故事线。“文脉（context）”从contextus（拉丁文“编织在一起”的意思）衍生而来，为建筑师提供了协调文化、美学、技术、居住和历史等不同力量的DNA。古代的建造者通过占卜当地动植物的起源来确定一个地方的适宜性，并依靠基本方向和地理位置来确定基本方位。同样，我们对文脉做出反应，将其作为确定自己方向和建立世界观的一种手段。然而，在约翰森·施马林的作品中，建筑不仅仅是对周围环境的反应；相反，它们被视为关联框架。文化、历史、生物和技术力量贯穿其项目中，但最有力的呈现是基于直觉现象的集合。重点是对细节的处理，如树皮、光、阴影和叶子的半透明模式。在一波波长满草的田野发现纹理，从土壤中提取色彩。人们会特别注意孤山的远景。古器物来自于前住民，在这些被遗弃的古器物的古铜色中发现特征。维度由地平线的宽度决定。因此，他们的设计显示了对纹理、光度、和阴影的高度认识；同时，他们也在网站上传达出一种谦卑恭逊，对关系不予评价的态度。在迷彩屋，我们采取了一些措施，使建筑物在树线后渐隐，以免干扰景观边缘的细微效果。Topo住宅像土丘一样从大草原上缓缓升起，与遗址的地形轮廓相呼应。510 房屋的葱郁绿植成为墙板的模板，这些墙板将外面的景观带入建筑内部。

约翰森·施马林的建筑力求增强现场感，编织出一个清晰的故事使人们体验到当时的文脉。它突出了日常生活中的细微差别。精心设计的视图和边缘来定义内部设计，这些视图和边缘融入到景观中。墙壁、隔板、外壳和窗户的位置以这样一种方式定位：向内、向外或向上都可以注意到建筑物。一条走廊的方向可能是这样的，当光线从蓝色变成琥珀色时，我们会一次次注意到光线的变化，而在其他时间，光线则几乎不会有什么变化。相反，在类似于Redaction House 的项目中，视野可能会被有意遮挡，以修订现存的杂乱文脉，这就好像是在暗示一个理念——它原本可能会是某种样子而现在并非如此。

无论建筑的具体文脉映射如何，约翰森·施马林的内部空间是有意简单设计的风格毫无隐藏，几乎为个体风格，接近于直接使用。人们和他们的日常故事都是以形式或细节为基础的。约翰森·施马林的房子旨在为日常生活中的人提供一个中性住所，强调色彩、材料对比或空间只是个别情况。

体积与形态

如今，形式在建筑中的作用常常被简化为寻找新奇的形象，就好像创意从设计师的头脑中冒出来，在没有外部污染的情况下源源不断地流入页面。当然，这样的理解忽略了许多真正影响形式的其他因素的作用，如文脉、方位、程序、装配、照明、声学、热梯度和建筑预算。那么，什么样的工具才是管理和解释复杂流程的合适工具，这些流程甚至支撑着简单的建筑形式？形态就是这样一种工具。作为一种综合解释手段，形态过程代表了一种理解围绕一组特定参数构造物理形态的基础方式，它们在约翰森·施马林的创作过程及其对适度立方图形的执着“依赖”中扮演了关键角色。

Pleated House

Linear Cabin

约翰森·施马林对形态学研究的严谨方法确保了他们项目体积演变的深刻和清晰，这一点使他们与丰富的造型策略相对立。在其项目中，对材料选择，装配精确度和场地灵感的那种平静的信念占据了主导地位。即使是像堆叠式小屋和线性小屋这样的小型项目，也要进行大量的体积调查，并辅以一系列物理模型和图表，这些模型和图表记录了形态操作的顺序，目的是在多尺度的遭遇中增强空间体验，或提供令人惊讶的视觉效果。这些适中的体积当然不能模仿自然形态；显然，它们是人类创造的人工建筑，但它们展现了隐性场所的姿态。通过采用经济的形式，这些建筑与周围环境明显不同，但表现却不张扬。

约翰森·施马林项目的实际体积质量总是来自于对一个立方体质量的仔细操作，产生了丰富多样的室内空间体验。固体和空隙的精心安排以及由此产生的空间和体积的互锁是约翰森·施马林形态学研究的核心，并构成变化的学科基础。

然而，尽管这些建筑的体积设计看起来很简单，但它们却远非这样平淡无奇。从悬挑的体积到起伏的木板和大块的玻璃，再到精心挑选的单个螺钉头，在各种建筑尺度上，其对空间、建筑构件和景观安排成复杂组合的关注都是显而易见的。即使规模很小，约翰森·施马林的建筑通过在内部质量矩阵及其与外部的相互关系中精心安排一个给定的程序，呈现出更宏大的规模。当进入这些看似直接的箱体时，我们会遇到由重叠的体积构成的复杂的程序层，在许多情况下，这些程序层会将我们引向一个休憩区域，而这片区域则为意想不到的景观所束缚。体验品质是那种环境中的宁静和静止。

轮廓和内饰

轮廓和内饰是装潢的策略性工具，在约翰森·施马林的建筑中起着重要作用。当然，对许多建筑师来说，“装潢”是一个颇有争议的术语，大概是因为它暗示了一种超出必要范围的装饰。但装潢促进了与建筑的密切联系。装潢调和了建筑风格。装潢给平淡的工作增添了活力。装潢是对各种建筑要求和功能的夸大和放大，否则这些要求和功能会被忽略。不要与装饰（仅仅是一种表面应用，如壁纸）混淆，装潢是功能和细节的结合。这些接缝是建筑的技术要素，有时是小规模的，通常只被认为是外围因素，但却是我们在建筑环境中价值工作方式的核心。

通过强调边缘细节而不是整体造型的优势，约翰森·施马林寻求强调建筑的核心学科任务，使我们所占据的空间人性化。事实上，轮廓和内饰的部署明确了触感和构造的特性，渗透到他们的建筑工作中；它们是零件的施工方法和重音符号。通过一种附加方法，在折叠式房屋的简单体积上增添细节，并将其置于树木繁茂的林地中。同样，Topo 住宅上的翅片将建筑的外部衬里与场地的广阔规模无缝衔接在一起。在这里，装潢作为一组控制性的线条出现。分隔缝、接缝、阴影、竖框和其他连接可以调节场地条件并强调人的比例。这种强调有时可以补充形式和体积的辨认度。在其他情况下，线条会被有意改动，以模糊其确切定位。

诸如熵、侵蚀、染色和腐蚀时间等术语对建筑的影响。通常，建筑师只是默默地应对建筑物不可避免的衰变，以悄悄掩盖老化迹象。相反，约翰森·施马林通过夸大甚至颂扬建筑外壳结构设计中的熵过程来挑战我们怀旧、衰败和修复的概念。侵蚀是必然的，时间的腐朽是不可避免的，约翰森·施马林对真实性的不断探索解释了他们对易受风化影响的组件和建筑表皮的兴趣，将氧化和侵蚀的自然过程转化为一种活跃的美学设置。约翰森·施马林并没有将其设计为电阻元件或纳入结构、建筑表皮和机械系统的主要排序策略中，而是有意将绿锈、污渍及其阴影效果提升到符合其自身构造顺序的建筑饰面上。设计者工作室说明了这一策略：在这里，生钢覆层每天都会有一个新的衬里，因为天气原因，产生侵蚀，所以营造了新的装饰效果。在约翰森·施马林的建筑上和建筑内部的光线和预谋衰变的痕迹相互作用，在其禁欲主义的体量和表面上增加了一个短暂的、不断变化的层——这是一个装饰层，强调了建筑固有的时间性，更广泛地说，是强调了生命本身。

修正和修复

理想情况下，建筑是一种修正日常生活的方式。我们用音乐、运动、宗教、艺术和故事等手段，为日常生活增添目标和乐趣。约翰森·施马林建筑事务所的建筑设计，放大了建筑的影响力，让我们注意到简单细微之处并放大其影响。一幢建筑物彰显了在天空映衬下的树枝之美，启发我们反思生命的短暂。优美陈旧的青铜立面面板不禁让我们想起了生活的短暂。实际上，可以通过深思熟虑的建筑修改来增强和重塑整个场地，比如围绕着低矮的Topo 住宅的被侵蚀的冰川地带，或者遭受了Belay MKE 风化的、陈旧的后工业时代的景观。

可以说，对被忽视或低估的建筑物、场地和空间的再利用和再创造，是建筑师可以使用的一些最基本的可持续发展策略：在不断变化的世界中，老旧的建筑在其生命的尽头会被赋予新型的流通方式，而不是被丢弃在垃圾填埋场。约翰森·施马林的建筑因其环保性而受到赞誉，但他们可持续进行的大部分工作可能是早期的翻新和修复项目。这些项目并不是盲目的仁慈行为，相反，正如肯尼斯·弗兰普顿说的那样，一种对商品化永无止境进程的一种抵抗——寻求修复、赞美、放大被低估的品质。这里的严谨来自于对废弃建筑的关键元素的微妙操纵，约翰森·施马林的新设计就出现在其中。像Salve 员工餐厅的室内窗户这样简单的元素，展现了旧砖石地基墙壁和前住民历史层次等信息，这产生了意想不到的视觉效果，也将建筑的衰变和腐蚀转变为令人惊叹的美学元素。对于约翰森·施马林来说，在一座废弃建筑中发现的遗留文物成为了对现有空间进行彻底改造的积木，就像在前布拉茨啤酒厂发现的4,800 个空啤酒瓶被改造成了具有纪念意义的旋转幕墙，巧妙地捕捉到了这座历史建筑的场所精神。

约翰森·施马林的所有作品出自同一个工作室，他们沉迷于材料和细节。但是，假设构造重点包括其实践的全部内容，则会使其作用力的覆盖面最小化。事实上，在威斯康星州弗兰克·赖特，马塞尔·布鲁尔的中西部野兽主义和阿尔瓦·阿尔托的现代主义现象学化身中的空间和材料限制的建筑中，指导约翰森·施马林设计过程的精神气质与在建筑作品中再现的显著主题，使他们的实践处于先河之中。约翰森·施马林的项目中的细节证明了一种对执行的深切关注，这种关注基于一种广泛的世界观，并由对建筑如何与历史、遗址和文化相互作用的认真阅读驱动。约翰森·施马林的建筑之所以如此有影响力，最终如此动人，是因为它提高了我们对存在本质的感受力。这种特质通常是无形的，激励我们有意识地体验、无条件地拥抱我们周围复杂的条件，虽然这些条件有时会相互矛盾。它提出了微妙之美的新奇形式，我们的生活方式与居住空间的另类模式，以及意识理想与物质世界的参与。在一个充斥着建筑师们渴望视觉华丽的时代，前所未有的形式主义古怪狂欢，疯狂喧嚣。约翰森·施马林自信地断言，一种新型谦逊美学的倡导者——一种平静安定、注重周边环境的建筑，由于人们对形式严谨、细节精明和概念化理念的执着追求，会受到其推动发展。

We live in a world that inadvertently fetishizes images and iconography at the expense of substance and nuance.Not surprisingly, much of today’s architecture is engaged in a perpetual,trivial quest for novelty and uniqueness—fleeting qualities at the root of aesthetic frivolity and oppressive superficiality that permeate much of contemporary culture across the globe.It is within this context that the workofJohnsen Schmaling Architects offers a stark alternative, an architecture of radical simplicity and quiet repose.

Johnsen Schmaling’s buildings are unique, but peripherally so.They are subtle, and you may notice them out of the corner of your eye or only the second time you pass by. Something unexpected will stop you: a bright mustard doorway, an elegantly thin stainless-steel window frame,a slightly unusual brick coursing.It is evident that Brian Johnsen and Sebastian Schmaling are wary of formal trends.Reveling in the simplicity of modest orthogonal compositions, they seek atmospheres of enduring clarity rather than novel form.Instead of elaborate volumes or complex geometry,they focus on simple profiles and spatial extensions of solids and voids.Stains are worn proudly as evidence of a building slowly engaging with its place over time.It is an almost revisionist sense of reserve that places their architecture in marked contrast to today’s digitally driven practices and their focus on algorithmic experiments.

Following the lineage of early Herzog & deMeuron orTham&Videgårdand extending it into the North American context, Johnsen Schmaling’s projects are informed by rigorous material explorations and tectonic experimentations; they are formally reserved and muted, but their carefully curated material palettes and innovative assembly techniques allow them to stand out from much of what is being built today—which begs the almost paradoxical question: Is it possible for modesty to now be subversive?

context & narrative

It is critical to understand the impact thatthecultural context of Wisconsin, Johnsen Schmaling’shome base in the American Midwest, has had on the evolution of their body of work.Wisconsin’s auraoscillates betweenArcadia and vanished industries,between exuberant waterparks, the comfort of casseroles, and the occasionally over-romanticized dark beauty of hinterland forests.It is the region’spervading juxtaposition of the artificial and the authentic, of kitsch and the raw beauty of prairie landscapes,that plays out in JohnsenSchmaling’s work and practice.

Genius locidescribes theentirety of overt andintangible conditionsthat are unique to a certain locale. Words such as events, flows, or cultural engagement capture a similar spirit. While it is an elemental concern to most architects, the term genius lociis not widely used as a term in contemporary architectural discourse, but it reveals itself as a central concern in Johnsen Schmaling’s design process. The character of their projects is formed bya tenacious search for the resonant qualities hidden in every site, by concise investigations to uncover the genius loci of the land their architecture occupies.Along the way, they develop a narrative that provides the means to organize myriad contextual encounters and weave them into a precise architectural storyline.

Derived from contextus, the Latin word for‘weaving together’, context provides the DNA for an architect toreconcile divergent forces of culture, aesthetics, technology,inhabitation, and history.Ancient builders divined the origins of local flora and fauna to determine a site’s suitability and relied on cardinal directions and local geography to determine primary orientations.Similarly, we respond to context as a means toorient ourselves andestablish our worldview.In Johnsen Schmaling’s work,however, buildings are not just merely reacting to their surroundings; instead, they are conceived as contextual frames.Cultural, historical, biological, and technical forces are woven throughout their projects, but the strongest presence is based on a collection of intuitive phenomena.Emphasis is given to minutia such as bark,patterns of light, shadows, and translucency of foliage.Textures are found in waves of grassy fields.Colors are extracted from the loamysoil of a site. Special attention is garnered to a distant view of a lonely hill.Character is discovered in the patina of abandoned artifacts from previous inhabitants.Dimensions are determined by the breadth of the horizon.Consequently, their designs display a heightened awareness of textures, luminosity, and shadow; at the same time, they convey a sense of humility and reserve in relationship to the site.At the Camouflage House, care was taken to not disturb the subtle effects present in the margins of the landscape by allowing the building to fade behind a treeline.The Topo House gently rises from the prairie like a mound, echoing the contours of the site’s topography.The lush greenery surrounding the 510 House became atemplate for wall panels that bring the landscape outside into the building inside.

Johnsen Schmaling’s architecture strives to enhance the sense of site and weave a legible story of encounter with that context. It serves to foreground the nuances of everyday life.Interiors are defined by carefully framed views and edges that dissolve into the landscape.The location of walls, partitions, casework, and windows are positioned in such a way that one pauses and focuses attention inward,outward, or upward.A corridor might be oriented so that light catches our attention again and again as it changes from blue to amber on otherwise barely different days.Conversely, in projects like the Redaction House,views may be intentionally occluded to edit the existing cluttered context, as if to suggest an ideal of what might have been instead of what is.

Regardless of a building’s specific contextual responses, Johnsen Schmaling’s interiorspaces are deliberately simply and nearly bare in their immediate proximity to individuals and use.People and their everyday stories are meant to be foregrounded over form or elaborate details.Johnsen Schmaling’s houses are intended to serve as a neutral ground for the characters of everyday life with only an occasional emphasis of color, a material contrast, or avoid.

volume & morphology

Today, the role of form in architecture is oftentimesreduced to a search for novel figures, as if ideas appeared out of nowhere in a designer’s head and flowedonto the page free of external contamination.Of course, such an understanding leaves out the role of so many other factors that truly influence form, such as context,orientation, program, assembly, illumination, acoustics, thermal gradients, and construction budgets.What, then, are suitable tools to manage and explain the complex flows that underpin even simple building forms? Morphology is such a tool.A means of synthesis and explanation, morphological processes represent a way to understand the basis of structuring physical form around a set of particular parameters, and they play a key role in Johnsen Schmaling’s creative process and its inexorable reliance on modest cubic figures.

The rigorous methodology of Johnsen Schmaling’s morphological studies ensures profound clarity in the volumetric evolution of their projects, something that positions themin opposition to strategies of exuberant figuration.In their projects, a quiet confidence in material choice, precision of assembly, and site inspiration dominates.Even small projects like Stacked Cabin and Linear Cabin undergo intense volumetric investigations, supported by an array of physical models and diagrams that document the sequencing of morphological operations intended to enhance the spatial experience at multiple scales of encounteror offer surprising visual effects.These modestly sized volumes certainly don’t mimic natural forms; they are clearly artificial constructs created by man, but they take a recessive site stance.By employing an economy of form, the buildings are assertively different from their environs but decline to shout about it.

The actual volumetric massing of Johnsen Schmaling’s projectsis invariably derived from the careful manipulation of a cubic mass that yields a rich variety of interior spatial experiences.Thediligentarrangement of solids and voids and the resultinginterlock of space and volumeareat the core of Johnsen Schmaling’s morphological studies and constitute a disciplinary basis for variation.

Despite their apparent volumetric simplicity,however, the buildings are far from plain.The care with which spaces, building components, and views are arranged into compositionallycomplex tableaus is evident at manifold architectural scales,from cantilevered volumes to undulating wooden boards and large sheets of glass down to carefully selected individual screw-heads. Even whensmallin size,Johnsen Schmaling’s buildings assume grander dimensions through the careful arrangement of a given program within a matrix of interior masses and their reciprocal relationships with the exterior.When we enter these seemingly straightforward boxes, we encounter complex programmatic layers wrought by overlapping volumes,which in many cases lead us to areas of repose bound by unexpected views into the landscape.Theexperiential quality is one of tranquility and stillness within the environment.

lineaments& linings

Lineaments and linings are strategic instruments of ornamentation and play an important role in Johnsen Schmaling’s architecture.Of course, “ornament” is a deeply contested term for many architects, presumably becauseit implies an embellishment beyond the necessary.But ornament encourages an intimate connection with architecture.Ornament harmonizes the most rigorous and severe forms.Ornament adds life to the banality of just doing the job byminimum means.Ornament is the exaggeration and amplification of various building requirements and functions that would otherwise go unnoticed.Not to be confused with decoration(which is merely a surface application like wallpaper), ornament is the joining of function and detail.These joints, technical elements of construction that are sometimes small-scale and often perceived only peripherally, are central to the way wevalue works in our built environment.

By emphasizing marginal details over the dominance of holistic figuration, Johnsen Schmaling seek to underscore architecture’s core disciplinary taskto humanize the spaces we occupy.In fact, thedeployment of lineaments and linings informs the very character of tactility and tectonics that permeates their built work; they are part construction method and part accent mark.Through an additive approach, detail is appended to the simple volumes of Pleated House, knitting it into its wooded site.Similarly, the oblique fins on Topo House stitch the building’s exterior lining with the vast scale of the site.Here, ornament emerges as a set of controlling lineaments.Reveals, joints, shadows, mullions, and other connections mediate the site conditions and emphasize the human scale.This emphasis can at times compliment the legibility of forms and volumes.In other cases, lineaments are purposely agitated to obscure their precise roles.

Terms such as entropy, erosion, staining, and corrosion frame time’s impact on architecture.Typically, architects addressa building’s inescapable decay only tacitlyin an effortto quietly disguise thesigns of aging.In contrast,Johnsen Schmaling challenge our notions of nostalgia, decay, and repair by exaggerating and even celebrating entropic processes in the design of their building envelopes. Erosion is insistent, time's decay is inevitable, and Johnsen Schmaling’s incessant search for authenticityexplainstheir interest inassemblies and building skinsthat are susceptible to the effects of weathering, turning the natural processof oxidation and erosioninto an activeaesthetic device.Instead of being designed as resistive elements or subsumed within the dominant ordering strategies of structure, skin,and mechanical systems, Johnsen Schmaling intentionally elevate patina, stains,and their shadowy effects to architectural finishes worthy of their own tectonic order.The Studio for a Composer illustrates this strategy: here, raw steel cladding receives a new lining every day as weather constructs new ornamental erosive effects.The interplay of light and the markings of premeditated decay on and within Johnsen Schmaling’s buildings adds an ephemeral, ever-changing layer to thesurface of their ascetic volumes and surfaces – an ornamental layer that underscores the inherenttemporality of architecture and, more broadly, life itself.

amendment & remediation

Ideally, architecture is a way of amending the goings-on of everyday life.We use music, sport, religion, art, and stories as means to add purpose and joy to the regular habits of existence.Johnsen Schmaling Architects’ work exemplifies architecture’s capacity to make us notice and amplifysimple encounters.A building highlights the beauty of a tree branch silhouetted against the sky, inspiring us to reflect on states of ephemerality.Asight of gracefully aged bronzefaçade panelsreminds us of life’s transience.In fact, entire sites can be enhanced and reinvented through thoughtful architectural amendment, like the eroded glacier fieldssurrounding the low-slung Topo House, or the timeworn, post-industriallandscape that hosts the weathered volume ofBelay MKE.

The reuse and reinvention of overlooked or undervalued buildings, sites, and spaces are arguably some of the most fundamental sustainable strategies at an architect’s disposal: instead of being discarded in a landfill, old structures at the end of their life are given new currencyin an ever-changing world.Johnsen Schmaling’s buildings have been lauded for theirenvironmentally performance,but some of their most sustainable work might be the renovation and remediation projectsfrom the early years of their practice. Those projects are no acts of blind mercy but instead, as Kenneth Frampton might say, a form of resistance against the perpetual march of commodification – they seek to repair, to compliment, to amplify undervalued qualities.Rigor hereemerges from the subtle manipulation of key elements of abandoned structures within which Johnsen Schmaling’s new designs emerge.Simple elements, like the deep interior windows at the Salve StaffCanteen that reveal old masonry foundation walls and historic layers of previous occupants, produce unexpected visual effects and transform decay and corrosion into elements of stunning beauty.For Johnsen Schmaling, left-over artifacts found in an abandoned building become building blocks for the radical transformation of existing spaces, like the 4,800 empty beer bottles found in the former Blatz brewery that were transformed into monumental pivoting screen walls, cleverly capturing the genius loci of this historic building.

JohnsenSchmaling’s oeuvre is that of an office that obsesses overmaterials and details, but the assumption that tectonic emphasis comprises the entirety of their practice minimizes the breadth of forces at work. In fact, the very ethos that guides Johnsen Schmaling’s design process and the broad themes that reappear in the built work situates their practice within antecedents of spatial and material restraint in the architecture of Wisconsin’s own Frank Lloyd Wright, Marcel Breuer’s Midwest Brutalism, and Alvar Aalto’sembodiment of modernist phenomenology.The details in Johnsen Schmaling’s projects evidence a deep concern for execution that is based on a broad worldview and driven bythe careful reading of how architecture interacts with histories, sites, and cultures. JohnsenSchmaling’sarchitecture is so impactful and, ultimately,so movingbecause itheightens our sensibility toward the essential but often intangible qualities of our existence, inspiring us to experience consciously–andembrace unconditionally– the complex and sometimesparadoxical conditions surrounding us. It suggests novelforms of subtle beauty, alternative models for how we live and inhabit space,and ideals of awareness and engagement with the physical world.In a time filled with the mad-scramble noise of architects longing forvisual flamboyanceandparticipating inan unprecedented bacchanal of formalistic eccentricity,Johnsen Schmalingconfidently assert a rear-guard role as advocates for a new kind of aesthetic humility – a quiet, peripherally operating architecture fueled byan uncompromising quest forformal rigor, astute details, and conceptualdiscipline.

Topo House