The hanging gardens of Lima

Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell from Grafton Architects are the architects of the moment: Next year they will curate the Architecture Biennale in Venice and an impressive university building has just been completed in Lima. We spoke to Shelley McNamara about the project.

Baumeister: How did you get the job?

Shelley McNamara: Through a competition. Utec, the client, had commissioned Frederick Copper Llosa, an important architect from Lima, to organize a competition. Llosa then wrote to many architects and invited them to take part. He also invited us because he had seen one of our buildings, the Università Bocconi in Milan. The shortlist comprised around 65 architects, around 50 of whom were from Peru. With our competition entry, we were one of the last five to be invited for an interview. The other four were Peruvian firms. Yvonne Farrell, who runs the office with me, took part in the interview in Lima, so we won.

B: How did you prepare for the competition? Did you visit the building site in Lima beforehand?

S M: No, we didn’t, but there is an architect working in our office who has spent a long time in Peru and knows Lima pretty well. She brought the city to life for us with her descriptions. We also analyzed Lima in the usual way for us – in other words, we took a close look at the climate, the culture and the surroundings. Of course, it wasn’t possible to learn everything about Lima in the little time you have for a competition, but we gathered as much information as possible in order to make an appropriate proposal.

B: What kind of building is it?

S M: It’s a university building for engineers, especially mining engineers. Utec, the client, is a private, non-profit university. The student body consists of self-pay students and scholarship holders. We were really impressed by the tender documents. What impressed us most was that the client wanted to bring culture and engineering together: The building is a combination of laboratories, classrooms and a library, but also includes a theater, a cinema and exhibition halls. It was important to the university management to give the arts a place in the building. Creative courses in various artistic disciplines are therefore also offered alongside the science courses.

B: What kind of district is the building in?

S M: The university is located on the border of two very different districts. To the north of the campus is Miraflores, a rather affluent district with many new restaurants, hotels and chic stores. On the southern side is the very beautiful old and quiet residential district of Barranco. But the design of the building is also inspired by one of Lima’s two green valleys, which connect the city with the Pacific Ocean 40 meters below. There is an imposing cliff: at the top is the city, and at the bottom a highway runs parallel to the beach. The building is located in one of the green valleys, a side arm that connects the city to the sea. The different geographical conditions are very dramatic in their contrasts: the contrast between the noisy city highway and the barranco on the one hand, and the relationship between the cliffs and the sea and the cliffs and the city on the other.

B: What is the architectural concept of the building?

S M: The building is 300 meters long and will be constructed in three sections. The first section, which has already been completed, is 120 meters long. It is a very extensive task, because this is not an existing university moving into a new building, but a completely new university is being built – with a new study concept, new curricula, everything there is new. The building site is long and narrow and has the shape of a boomerang. It quickly became clear to us that access from the city highway was not possible and that access would have to be from Barranco instead. We gave the side of the building facing the city and the highway a public and striking face. As this north side is noisy due to the heavy traffic, the access zones are mainly located here, while the classrooms face the quieter residential buildings of Barranco.

B: The building is very tall. How does the building interact with the small-scale development of Barranco?

S M: The larger laboratories and lecture theaters are all on the first floor. As you go up to the higher floors, the rooms get smaller and smaller. This allowed us to design the building as a cascade of gardens and terraces that connect to the smaller scale of the residential neighborhood and provide different views of Barranco.

B: To what extent is the building designed as a public space?

S M: The public character of the building is emphasized on the one hand by its location in a site that is visible and accessible from many sides, and on the other hand by the fact that the outdoor space is part of the circulation areas. With the exception of the façade facing the highway, which has no glazed openings, the building is visible from the outside. The climate is very mild, which is why almost all areas of the building function as outdoor space. The breeze blowing inland from the ocean is very pleasant – it is never too hot or too cold. The only real indoor spaces are the seminar rooms. We think it is particularly successful that the students can walk to the classrooms via galleries and bridges and are thus constantly in contact with the city: You hear the city, you see the city, you always know where you are.

B: What architectural influences were there?

S M: For many years, we studied the work of South American architects very intensively, especially Lina Bo Bardi and Paulo Mendes da Rocha. I don’t think we would have taken part in this competition if we hadn’t developed an almost emotional affinity with these works.

B: Are there also influences from Peru itself, for example the terraced landscapes in the Andes and Machu Picchu?

S M: Yes, absolutely. We deliberately wanted to create a connection. We also found that there is a parallel between the location of Machu Picchu and the location of our university building. Namely in the way Machu Picchu reacts to the inhospitable environment of the Andes. We also had to establish a relationship with an almost hostile environment due to the location of the site next to the urban highway. That’s why we designed the stepped terraces. We wanted the users to find a place of retreat within the vertical infrastructure of the building.

B: Have you visited the landscapes in the Andes?

S M: Yes, we have been there. Incidentally, there is also a historic landscape in Ireland that is reminiscent of Machu Picchu. We presented this landscape at the Venice Biennale in 2012. It’s a monastic settlement in the middle of the Atlantic.

Photos: Iwan Baan