At Stansted the base or 'trunk' of the trees are literally rooted in the distribution of air and artificial lighting from the undercroft below. How else could you explain the big-span structural steel 'trees' of London's third airport at Stansted happening at the same time as the concrete vaults of the Lycée in Frejus, in the South of France.
But maybe it is important to state the obvious-to say that the structure is going to be influenced by the geography, even the climate of a place as well as the needs of the people who generated the building in the first place. It is difficult for me to pick apart a process of designing that seems so obvious that I take it for granted. Is that because the structure in our work assumes an unusual importance-is our approach different from that of other architects-now or in the past? Does it have something to do with the nature of our work and in the relationship that we create between the structure and the spaces which determine the appearance of the buildings both inside and out.
This is an edited version of an article written for the Architectural Association of Japan, November 1994 I am often asked for my views about the relationship between structure and architecture.
