Sanaa: Grace Farm Riverside 

This project is designed by Sanaa (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizava). Their goal was “to make architecture become part of landscape without drawing attention to itself, or even feeling like a building, with the hope that those who are in property will have a greater enjoyment of the beautiful environment and changing seasons through the spaces and experience created by the river”. 

     This structure is located in “New Cannan, Connecticut”. It’s a place that was not very famous but two projects that are “The glass house- by Philip Johnson” and since 2015 “Grace Farm” made this location much more attractive.  

   The solution developed by SANAA is a low-rise transparent construction which sinuously meanders on the undulated terrain and in which all the functional area come one after another under a single curvilinear roof. While the building seems to be single-story from the outside, it actually has also a second underground level, accessible through stairs and ramps, which accommodates a lecture hall, as well as storage, service and ancillary spaces. It’s a multipurpose building, opened for people so they can connect better with the nature. 

    I find this project very interesting. The way that the building follows the topography gives us the idea of floating river. Even though at first sight you don’t see the natural river next to the building, you can tell that you will find one nearby. Having continuous roof and totally transparent walls makes the building more connected with nature and more inviting. Sanna uses the glass as a way to break down the barriers between people. Using glass in this way helps redefine how people share spaces. If you look at the situation of this place before the building was build, it was just a place that was left behind. This structure like I mentioned in the beginning gave note only the area around itself, but the entire city another value. Made the city more interesting. Except the design Grace Farm Riverside includes different functions. There you can find an auditorium for 700 people, a library, coffee and tea room, an underground gymnasium and a small museum. The material of the roof, when hit by light, gives you the idea of water. Another smart thing that Sanaa made was splitting it up into five pieces. This splitting forces people to move about the pavilions outside, rather than staying put behind glass walls. They said :”It is not enough for nature to be an image, it must be something we experience directly as much as possible in our daily lives”. The nature itself helped designing with building. The “river shape” is following the path between the existing trees and the few ones that were cut, were planted around again. The project has achieved a LEED certification notably for water conservation, daylighting, low heat island effect (due to reflective alumunium roof) as well as the use of high-efficiency mechanical, plumbing and ligting systems. 

                                                                                      

References
https://www.archdaily.com/775319/grace-farms-sanaa
https://www.archute.com/2018/01/24/grace-farms-sanaa-serpentine-river-snakes-way-gracefully-new-canaan/
https://gracefarms.org/river-building/