VARIABLE FLEXIBILITY

MARIA AND J.O.S.E.F, BAR AND RESTAURANT, ZURICH, SWITZERLAND, 1996.

the concept is one of simultaneously projecting two scenarios onto the same shared context. it is this deliberate collision of moods, needs and desires that offered the project potential. the two configurations behind the core concept are of openess on the one hand and intimacy on the other - the two prime facets of bar and restaurant life. both scenarios represent an idealized state of affairs; and both should be seen in the context of people's needs as they change over time.

"seamless rearrangement" provides the formal link between the various construction principles which the project employs. form, construction and materialization are all expressed and reflected in the structural interfaces, which are formulated without exception through their own immanent laws. to ensure that none of the harmony of the constellations is compromised by presence of redundant elements, all the transformations are causally linked. interior walls are never removed: they are merely repositioned, remaining integral elements of the overall spatial whole. fittings are not removed, either; they are rearranged to become more or less prominent, redifining both the space they have come from and the new space they adorn.