Weird and fascinating world of architecture
Some of the most creative works done on buildings and homes by renowned architects, which will surely amaze you
WILL ALSOP (aLL Design)
If you hadn’t become an architect, what would you be doing? I might have been a sculptor.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
I don’t look at it as a job. I never have that ‘Monday morning’ feeling, that ‘going to work’ feeling. For me work is passion, to do my best and give the best. The most unusual designed building/home by you? OCAD (Ontario College of Art & Design), Toronto, Canada. I simply love it.
What influences your work most?
Not having any worries regarding finding a particular style or anything I can call ‘me’.
When you think about the future, what excites you?
Artificial Intelligence excites me - provided it can help create conditions for people to have more freedom not to work.
If you hadn’t become an architect, what would you be doing? Understanding the human mind, people’s behaviour and cultures at large is what defines a sensitive architect. Since, I am interested in these aspects of human behaviour and thinking; maybe I would have been interested in being a psychiatrist if I were not an architect.
What do you enjoy most about your job? I truly believe that architecture can spawn varied emotions in people and to see this come to fruition from the design stage to final conception is what I thoroughly enjoy about our profession. Once the project is complete, to see people celebrate the building as much as we did on the drawing board is a very satisfying feeling. So, I guess in that sense watching an idea come to life is an extremely enjoyable experience.
The most unusual designed building/ home by you? The most unusual home designed by us has to be Elastica. The client had us customise almost everything, with the brief that nothing should look like anything they have ever seen, and that included the internet too. So, we really had to dig deep, use unconventional methods for designing so that we could
create something original and unusual. What influences your work most?
I am really influenced by films and art. Both create ambient effects that I am deeply interested in and intrigued about.
When you think about the future, what excites you? As architects we communicate through drawings at the design stage and for construction. What we are really excited about the future is how technology will enable us to communicate in more effective ways. From conception to realisation there is going to be a paradigm shift in how we conceive, communicate and realise architecture.