book-2

76 STRUCTURE AS ARCHITECTURE▲ 4.42 Church in Porta, Brissago, Switzerland, Raffaele Cavadini,1997. Front elevation with a visible gap under the beam.▲ 4.43 Splash Leisure Centre, Sheringham, England, Alsop & Lyall,1988. Wall-to-foundation detailing conveys a lack of grounding.a building is grounded. At one end of the spectrum an architect mightseek to express a strong sense of grounding where a building is read asbeing rooted to its foundations and growing from them, but otherdesign concepts, as illustrated by the following two examples, expressfloating or hovering.At the Porta church, Brissago, ground floor beams that would normallybe partially embedded like typical foundation beams are elevated abovethe ground, creating a 100 mm gap (Fig. 4.42). By visually separating thetiny cube-like church from its foundations the architect conveys a senseof the building ‘touching the ground lightly’. This perception of thesuperstructure being not of the site, but rather built over it, respects thesite’s previous occupant; a medieval chapel whose demolition causedconsiderable controversy.The lack of any visible structure at the base of the Splash LeisureCentre, Sheringham, conveys the even more extreme impression of thebuilding being transportable (Fig. 4.43). This perception arises from asimple construction detail. The double-layered plywood cladding overhangsand partially conceals a conventional concrete foundation whoseedge sits flush with the inner layer of plywood.By way of contrast, an effective method to express strong connectivitybetween a building and its site involves exposing foundations that emergefrom the ground and then seamlessly form the superstructure. The WelshWildlife Centre, Cardigan, illustrates such an approach using stone blocks(Fig. 4.44). They form a solid plinth that suggests a strong connectionbetween the substructure and the superstructure. Although expressed farless intensely, that same sense of a building being grounded or grafted to