LEVRAT DESIGN

Project:

University of Geneva/European Space Agency Research Office

Phase:

Completed

Description:

The first planets discovered outside of the solar system were found by a group of scientist using an ISDC System in the Versoix/Geneva Observatory. To further their research, the European Space Agency has sponsored the construction and launch of a new satellite. The data provided by the satellite would need a new high-tech satellites data analysis building. This new program is integrated into an old existing wooden barn, where the vertical structure, the roof and the upper floor had to be preserved.

The addition of a new façade, based on a rigorous repetitive module, permeate the entire project. It operates as a rhythmic raw data, from which all part of the project are defined. The module is clearly visible on the façade, but also operate on the inside partitions. The new rigorous texture offers a strong dialogue with the existing wooden structure. The moments of exception, such as the stair space offers a double height space and a curvilinear movement activating the modular intervention.

Project:

A “materialization of Information” pavilion in Mumbai.

Phase:

Completed

Description:

Frederic Levrat’s design studio designs and builds a “materialization of Information” pavilion in Mumbai.

‘our environment today is increasingly influenced by nonmaterial conditions, from which we interpret material equivalences. from the stock market to urban regulations law, the tension between the virtual and the physical is increasingly richer and complex. most of the time, the rules defining architecture are based on the physical condition of gravity and the economical condition of construction cost. but other forces are shaping our society, from social to informational. are there other forces to be expressed in architecture than responding to gravity?’ these are the thoughts posed by professor frederic levrat and director phillip anzalone of columbia university. with these questions in mind, a group of six students from thegraduate school of architecture, planning, and preservation (GSAPP) and narsee monjee institute of management studies (NMIMS) developed ‘space + image pavilion’, a small structure which would explore the relation between the virtual, the visual, and the physical.

http://www.designboom.com/architecture/columbia-gsapp-mumbai-nmims-space-image-pavilion-08-12-2014/

Project:

Design and construction supervision of Eight Schools in Northern Afghanistan

Phase:

Completed - Designed and Built

Description:

Eight Primary Schools – Northern Afghanistan

After forty years of war, the public institutions of Afghanistan are thoroughly destroyed. Under the sponsorship of USAID a program to rebuild primary schools was launched by the Ministry of Education and the International Office of Migration. Frederic Levrat worked with a construction company which was producing an interlocking brick system, initially developed in Bangkok Institute of Technology, Thailand. The interlocking brick system is made of pressed earth bricks, containing only 10% of cement. The bricks are part of a modular system, where the Lego-like brick interlock precisely, without the use of mortar. Internal void columns are created by stacking the bricks and reinforcement as well as a minimal pour of cement is integrated within the bricks. The main advantage resides in the production of a reinforced concrete structure – essential in a earthquake prone region like Afghanistan – without the need to have large wooden planks for the formwork. Special U-shaped bricks were used for the lintels, integrating horizontal reinforcement steel bars. The small construction company produce also reinforced concrete beams, which works with the exact module of the interlocking bricks dimensions. Levrat was instrumental on drawing and supervising the entire construction set, solving the connection of the interlocking bricks with the stone foundations, as well as the village urbanism. Since the large classrooms were requiring a longer span than what the prefabricated concrete beam could achieve, an intermediary pour-into-place beam was build to reduce the span in half.

Eight Primary school were designed and build by Levrat’s office in Kabul, in the Northern part of Afghanistan. There are school in Pul-e-Khumri, Baghlan, Kunduz, Samangan, Mazar-e-Sharif and Balkh.

As qualified professionals, applying our knowledge to humanitarian work is quite important and, in many ways, satisfying.

Project:

Exhibition at the Van Alen Institute

Phase:

Completed

Description:

The Swiss Exhibition, at the Van Alen Institute, is an original installation design, supporting the content collected by Nina Rapapport. The premise of the show is in regard to the complex topography of Switzerland, influencing the architecture and urban condition of Swiss cities in a positive three dimensional way.

The exhibition design follows this concept by challenging the flat space of the exhibition wall, folding it into space. The entire folded surface becomes its own structure, interlocking itself with its adjacent components. The hundred of pieces were all drawn in the computer and automatically produced through laser cutting. The translucent effect of the Plexiglas questions our perception of the space, its depth, the surface and the volume of the exhibition.

Project:

Awarded Project - Library for the University Institute of the International Studies

Phase:

Unbuilt

Description:

The library for the University Institute of the International Studies was awarded to Peter Eisenman and Frederic Levrat after they won the second place in an invited competition to redesign the Place des Nations, as the new entry to the United Nations in Geneva. Located on the norther tip of the Campagne Rigot, the Library insert within itself a public path which would connect the Place des Nations to the open green spaces of the Rigot park. Set as a repetition of Electroencephalography signals the projects operates within this repetition and difference of complex sections, integrating the inside and the outside spaces. The resulting triangulated surfaces emerges from the landscape, providing an access ramp from the center of the library, distributing the user from an entry bridge onto the two main wings of the library. The butterfly plan allows the mezzanines spaces to overlook onto the double height spaces of the reading rooms, while its underside houses the specialized book collection.

The precast concrete panels were to rest on a steel structure, while some of the triangulated surfaces would become openings for natural light and views. Fred Levrat was the project manager for the design in New York and later established his office in Versoix – Geneva to operate as the Local architect responsible for the design production within the Swiss legal standards. The project was fully developed from a technical and cost dimension, but a referendum against the entire Place des Nations restructuration ultimately cancelled the project.

Project:

A large white Y sculpture in Zurich

Phase:

Completed

Description:

The large white Y sculpture has recently become a well-known public art element of a culturally rich city.  Zurich had decided to improve one of its toughest neighborhood, by building an urban park and a new school. The Hardau is mostly populated by Balkan refugees and to animate the park they invited Balkan related artists to a Design Competition. The New York based conceptual artist, Sislej Xafa was invited and decided to work in association with Frederic Levrat, an architect and a Swiss citizen. Xhafa and Levrat won the competition with a very large sculpture, a 20 meter tall Slighshot, entitled ”Y”. The translucent sculpture is refusing to be clearly quantifiable, too big to be a swing, too small to be a catapult, too playful to be a visual symbol, too bright to be solid.

It is an exercise in “escapism” and “deconstructivism”, continuously diverting the possible meaning of the build object, oscillating between its representational meaning and its physical presence. It is an unusual design strategy where physical elements are resisting what they appear to be. The visual symbol of street resistance is transformed into a comfortable swing, illustrating the trajectory that some refugees have been forced to take. At the urban scale, the trajectory of a hypothetical projectile launched with the Slingshot would land straight at Zurich City Hall, which at the local scale explains the 6-degree angle shift between the sculpture and the rest of the surrounding buildings. The 66-meter-tall sculpture – as tall as 6 stories building -  needed serious engineering and is built in robust steel on a concrete base, to absorb the generous swing movement of the users. Nevertheless, the translucent outer shell appears as a soft urban light, colored in the pastel yellow, white and orange inspired by the typical children “rocket” ice cream, as the user activate the light sitting in the giant ludic swing.

Project:

Theater for The Foundation for Culture and Civil Society

Phase:

Completed

Description:

The Foundation for Culture and Civil Society needed a new theater space. The site, located on a hill in the center of Kabul consisted of an old retaining wall, with traces of habitations dating at least two hundred years back. The design intent was to preserve the old wall by placing five new concrete columns alongside the wall and covering the theater space with as many open-webs steel beams. The contrast between the existing traditional methods of construction and the required more modern structural elements created a contemporary theater space, respectful of the local traditions and culture. A proscenium in brick for the stage and a domed smaller poetry room completed the cultural compound of the extension of the Foundation for Culture and Civil Society. The outdoor courtyard space operates as the lobby and is part of the entry sequence. Working for the reconstruction of a war torn country doesn’t only involve rebuilding housing or schools and clinics, but also some important creative and educative space for the community.

Project:

Levrat Design Exhibition in Pratt Institute main Gallery

Phase:

Completed

Description:

A large exhibition of Fred Levrat and Zolaykha Sherzad’s research and buildings was held in the main Gallery of the Pratt Institute School of Architecture. Following the concept that images are questioning our understanding of spaces, where the primacy of the physical world is challenged by the consumption of visual material, the exhibition display refuse the conventional hierarchy of the display walls. The conventional structure would be for the wall to be there first, and the images hung onto its surface respecting the hierarchy of structure and gravity. Instead, the display is the space, where continuous bands of information are hung from the ceiling with transparent nylon threads. Liberated from gravity, the display can then be following a radically different geometry, flowing into space at a diagonal angle, moving up and down freed from any wall, floor or traditional construction constraints. The long linear display is structurally mounted on foam-core panels. In opposition to the free flowing and floating space of the image, the models are rooted to the ninety degrees geometry of the gravity, perpendicular to the floor and aligned to the orthogonal geometry of the walls. The combination of these two systems of geometry creates an intricate flow for the visitor of the exhibition. 

Phase:

Completed

Description:

Project:

The National Museum of Afghanistan

Phase:

Unbuilt

Description:

The concept for the National Museum of Afganistan operates between the ‘CONTAINER & CONNECTOR’ accumulating and preserving material as well as disseminating the image of its content to the visiting public.   The vertical wall embodies that mission becomingthe element  able to negotiate this paradoxical condition, offering a separation and a protection for the content as well as a system of exhibition for the collection. The perimeter wall's is used for security to solidity, the separator provides the space for displaying niches of the gallery wall.   

In Afganistan 2012, the architecture of a National importance must provide a ‘SEPARATION & PROTECTION’ for the museum, its contents and its guest.  The design strategy is one of Peeling the walls to find the galleries at its nucleus. Within this multiple layering of perimeter wall, space is defined sometimes as an inside as well as an outside. The potential reversal between the inside and the outside, is inherent in the traditional Afghan architecture, where gardens are walled in and courtyards are the inner center of the "Qala". The garden becomes an active part of the building and successive courtyards offer light and protection to the galleries. In the proposed museum, at the end of the exhibit sequence , the central courtyard becomes the most inner space of the museum, while remaining open to the sky,  distributing natural light throughout the adjacent spaces. Within the layers and in the interstitial spaces between inside and outside is the garden. The primary exhibit space is framed by a ramp that wraps around this gallery

Presence of the Absence

The void making the courtyard is the central space in the National Museum, mirroring somewhat the current contextual condition of Afghanistan. The courtyard and the void becomes a positive and insular exterior space.

Carving from the land

The National Museum is an expression of the national identity, directly emanating from the depth of its land. While integrating the garden into the design of the museum, the visitor enters  right into a garden, slowly immersing the visitor into the earth and into the layers of its walls and exhibit space. 

 Sequence of Spaces

From the entrance into the lobby, the visitor moves slowly up in a spiral form, transgressing the basic logic of the containment walls. Passing from the Hypostyle foyer to the double height space of the Main Gallery, the sequence continues with a ramp enclosure where smaller artifacts are displayed until one arrives on to the next level, where the Archaemenid, the Great Kushans, the Early Islam, the Timurid, the Ethnographic and the Contemporary galleries are displayed in succession, before reaching the intense light of the Central Courtyard.

Project:

Museum

Phase:

Unbuilt

Description:

The Museum of the Craft art of the Islamic Knot is designed to house a world famous collection of woven art, cutting through hundred of years of Persian, Turkmene, Afghan and Uzbek masterpieces. As much as museum for paintings and sculpture are common throughout the western world, museums of the Craft Art of the Knott are rare. The initiator of the program – Maurice Lidchi – desired a museum which would express the value and the art of what is regarded too often as “carpet” in the western world. The project addresses the issue of the transformative condition of a horizontal surface onto a vertical surface. As Rosaline Krauss mentioned in an essay on Jackson Pollock, the horizontal art is too often misinterpreted as a functional surface to walk onto, while the Vertical art is to be consume by the eyes only.

Five strands of a rectangular section curve upwards at different speed creating a transformation form the Horizontal space to a vertical space, from an entry to a vertical gallery. The five different strands repeat themselves, but their intersections are multiple, complex, and unexpected. The rich compositional “knot” that result in the process driven design is unique and impressive. Initially planned for Al Ain, the project location is in Singapore marina bay area. The circulation and the program takes full advantage of the horizontal spaces, for the lobby, the restaurant and the archiving, while the vertical gallery brings the visitor into a complex sequence of cascading spaces.

Project:

Orphanage in Nepal

Phase:

Unbuilt

Description:

The Foundation A House with a Heart based in New York operates an orphanage mostly for orphan girls in the capital city of Nepal. The small compound already has a few buildings operating but wanted to add a new dormitory as well as an open ground floor for a small clinic for members of the larger community. With this sectional difference, the clinic being open to the street while the upper floors are open to the members of the orphanage only, a large stair in inserted into the program, offering a place to congregate. A secondary façade made of wood continue the tectonic of the transition started in the section, offering variability and settle progression, rather than an orthogonal extruded block. The double façade offers some privacy to the orphanage bedrooms and some personalization of the spaces as the stacked floor plans repeat vertically, while the external envelop vary slightly for one level to the next.

Project:

Clinics in Afghan 

Phase:

Completed

Description:

The humanitarian project for twelves primary care clinics located throughout the norther region of Afghanistan was designed within the development of a larger system of Interlocking bricks material development. Residing and practicing in Kabul for a year and a half, the extent of the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan required an approach beyond the usual scope of a conventional architecture practice. Modern construction materials such as reinforced concrete were too costly – requiring imported cement, steel and wood for the framing. A system of interlocking bricks, developed by the Asian institute of technology in Bangkok, provided an affordable while earthquake resistant structure. The role of the architect expanded to manufacturing bricks made of ninety five percent of local soil, three percent sand and two percent cement. Compressed by hand, the interlocking bricks provided a “Lego” system which would stack up without any required mortar, while at the same time providing vertical cavities for the metal reinforcement bars to be inserted without any external framing. The production of small concrete beams would allow us to produce all of the necessary construction material in situ, a tremendous advantage considering the very poor condition of the road system in rural Afghanistan.

Respecting the basic requirements of the Ministry of Health for a Primary Care Clinic, as well as the structural requirement required by USAID, the clinics are redesigned to integrate the material specificities of the interlocking brick system. Twelves such Primary Care Clinics have been designed and build in the northern provinces of Baghland, Kunduz and Balkh. Each clinic follows a similar set of plans, but the integration into the landscape, the slope and the access direction constitute each time a unique variation.

AFGHAN SCHOOLS

A front portico leads to a centrally loaded corridor with the classroom distributed on either sides. Due to the larger dimensions of the classroom then the self-produced small concrete beams could span, a poured into place concrete beam is inserted into the middle of the classroom, reducing the span in half to accommodate the smaller structural system.

Project:

Exhibition for League Against Cancer

Phase:

Completed

Description:

Located inside an old turbine hall at the center of Geneva, the Exhibition for the League Against Cancer consisted mostly in the design of some free standing walls for the display of the panels. Two full length of sheet of polycarbonate were attached together at their end with a metal stud. The flexibility of the large sheet of polycarbonate allowed a gentle curvature to augment the width of the temporary wall in the middle. A simple existing structural element was inserted in the middle of the double layer to create a free standing stable translucent wall. Due to the material quality of the translucent polycarbonate, lights were inserted inside the structure to allow the walls to have a gentle glow. The content panels were hung at the top of the polycarbonate sheets. A meandering passage was provided to lead the narrative of the exhibition content.

Project:

Pavilion

Phase:

Completed

Description:

The project is a culmination of the Knowledge City Studios developed by Fred Levrat at Columbia University. Exploring the relationship between the Virtual – Visual – Material logics, the project assimilate the multiple layers of our constructed reality. The project was located in a large bus station in the northern periphery of the capital city of Jordan. The proposal for a Materialization of Information pavilion asked for a research into the unknown, looking for an interaction between information space and material space.

The Information space is reduced to a flat two-dimensional linear surface, which diverge and multiply as the physical requirement appears. The linear band of information twist and turns, from a horizontal band to a vertical wall for projection and information transmission. A covered waiting area emerge under a roof, as horizontals band from the wall transform into a horizontal canopy. The extension lines become benches and simple direction line on the floor, as the emerging linear elements dissipate. In a collaboration with a local Jordanian producer of Alucore - an aluminum façade surface material – the project was detailed for construction. A system of 3” vertical steel columns would support the folded metal sheets. Prototypes were made and the vertical structure erected on the site. Unfortunately, the Alucore/Alucobond provider did not deliver the material and the structure was temporarily build with bands of white fabrics.

The exploration into the materialization of information went much further than in usual research studios, where the final product is only a well polished digital rendering. The actual construction and detailing of the structure offered a new perspective on the overlapping relation between information and material, constituting a multi layered special device.

Project:

Performance Theater

Phase:

Unbuilt

Description:

The city of Athens organized a Cultural Olympics, to be held in parallel to the Olympic Games festivities in 2000. The program of a temporary performance theater, with projections, lectures and mostly theater performances was proposed as an architectural competition. The subject of the temporary performance offered another attempt to explore the relationship between the logic of the image and the logic of the material world. A system of continuous two-dimensional surfaces defines the space. The surfaces inflections slowly wrap the space into an entry, a set of seating and a covered roof. The functions are loosely defined as appearing as potentialities between the three main folded surfaces. The lightness and versatility of the folded surfaces respond well to the notion of a temporary building, while offering a large range of potential usage.

The theoretical exploration between surface and volume, between precisely defined programs and emerging event spaces become visible in this theater. The logic of the eye related to a minimal surface become a partially defined volume for the body to occupy and activate. The tension and transition between the folded surface and the volume could be expressed in the simplified equation 6x2D > 1x3D. Nevertheless, the openness of the street theater in the warm climate of Athens doesn’t require a fully enclosed surface and the volume is only partially enclosed and the precise definition of the space is subject to the viewer’s experience and interpretation.

Project:

A project proposal for Ministry of Interior building in Jeddah.

Phase:

Unbuilt

Description:

"...like dolphins jumping from the ocean, or dunes emerging from the desert..." 

The project proposal for Ministry of Interior building in Jeddah is following a clear program distribution, with one volume for the Minister office, the second volume for the Ministry reception and the third volume for the administrative offices. The three volumes respond to a similar design strategy, operating as a system, generating a shared open space between them. Nevertheless, each one has its own specificity, creating an ensemble of differentiated elements.

The iconic inspiration for the buildings is its emergence from the very own land of Saudi Arabia. The buildings are rising from the landscape, emerging from the mineral context to materialize into a set of inclined structures. The dynamic condition of emergence, inspired by the relation between the function of the Interior Ministry and the land it organizes, is expressed through three strategies.

1.     In plan, the shape of the masterplan, are highly dynamic, following segments of spirals, converging to form the buildings, as well as expending to defines the landscape. Water features, green spaces and paved area all converge and diverge following these dynamic lines.  

2.     In section, the emergence of the building from the landscape, offers a dialogue between the build and the unbuilt, as a dynamic process of materialization. Almost like dolphins jumping from the ocean, or dunes emerging from the desert, the buildings relate to their environment.

3.      The composition of the facade express a similar condition of emergence and dynamism with a sun protective shell. The outer facade filter the light in a pattern of dense aggregation, protecting the building from the intense environmental impact of the sun, while at the same time offering a playful composition of abstract elements.

Project:

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Phase:

Unbuilt

Description:

The ministry of Foreign affair is located at the center of the city, within a generous green garden. Levrat Design was asked to provide new modern office spaces for the ministry. The choice of the location, on an existing parking, allowed the new volume to constitute a strongly defined green courtyard in front of the existing ministry. The ground floor provided a generous arcade to allow the movement of the users along the open green space, while the above office floors would benefit from the serene view.

The modern treatment of the glass façade complemented the urban treatment of the long rational bar of office space. The three stories building was supported by exposed concrete columns, which were exposed on the ground floor to provide the external protected space of the arcade.

Project:

Exhibition at The New York Institute of Technology 

Phase:

Completed

Description:

The New York Institute of Technology asked Fred Levrat to exhibit his work and research at their main campus gallery. The strategy of the information image shaping the physical space of the exhibition is necessary as the walls of the exhibition room are not suitable for hanging artwork. Two existing walls are glass panels while the other two walls are wood paneled storage cabinets. Hanging the double-sided strip of information form the ceiling, the visual content is liberated from the rigor of gravity and can find a new folded geometry, intrinsic to its adjacency, rather than its structural dependence on an anchoring display wall. The heavier models and their bases are attached to the logic of gravity-based objects, aligning themselves to the orthogonal geometry of the room and its vertical extrusion. The multiple study models of the Museum of the Knot were well displayed as the project represented the latest work developed in the office.

Project:

Afghan Embassy to Pakistan

Phase:

Unbuilt

Description:

The Afghan Embassy to Pakistan is a touchy subject as the two nations have been in an undeclared war for a number of decades. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul wanted to build a new embassy, while expressing the traditional and historical culture of the country. A set of plans for the Consulate, the Embassy and the Ambassador’s residence were developed, mixing a traditional architecture with modern technology. The traditional construction technology of the rammed earth combined with the central courtyard typology offered a cultural identity for a country in search of its roots in a tumultuous recent past.

Project:

New Museum Streetfest 

Phase:

Unbuilt

Description:

Every year the New Museum organize a temporary street festival. The design is changed yearly through a design competition. The entry we proposed for the competition is an inflatable module of translucent pillows. The wide section of the pillow allows it to be structurally robust. A few compressed-air ribs would solidify the system, which can be used as a wall, a canopy or a smaller piece of furniture. The wide footprint allows the pillow shaped element to stand freely on its side to become a wall. The assembly of these fluid inflatable and translucent shapes reflects a condition of temporality and playfulness, suitably appropriate to the New Museum Streetfest.

Project:

Axon Chair 

Phase:

Completed

Description:

The Western civilization has become so cerebral, we have to build object for the pleasure of the mind, as it is impossible to build only object for the pleasure of the body, however functional they are intended to be. Ambiguously operating between the logic of the Virtual, the Visual and the Material, the Axonometric chair is a simple functional object anchored in a large philosophical theory. Accepting the increasing value we give to the visual world over the physical world, the design of the chair responds partially to the logic of the representation of a third dimension compressed into a two-dimensional support. The angle suggesting the depth in space in a representation is taken as the plan for an orthogonal projection in the materialization of the object, responding to the necessity of gravity. The combination of both logics, the visual and the physical logic creates an object that can have multiple readings. Frontally appearing as a heavy metal chair, the object changes in our mind as we perceive it differently depending on our viewing point, becoming an angled thin sheet of folded metal. The barely credible transformation happening as we move through the space confers a very dynamic quality to the object, even if it is entirely static, and the only transformation occurs within our own perception and representation of the multiple-logics designed object we try to comprehend.

Project:

Community Center for Underprivileged Community in South Africa

Phase:

Currently Under Construction (2024)

Description:

Urban_Think_Tank_Empower is offering a higher density of housing then the single story shack or the proposed government housing, constituting a more integrated community, allowing the existing complex community of the shantytown to continue its development within a sound environment. By densifying the housing structures, space is freed for communal activities such as a children’s playground, green spaces with trees, a children creche, and a community center. Collectively, with solar panels on the roofs, the neighborhood can become a sustainable power plant.

The Community Center is built on three levels, with a generous double height space for the main ground floor space. The main space program will vary from an indoor soccer pitch, theater and music performance, allowing the youth of the community to generate creative activities rather than hanging out in the street. A Creche, changing rooms and bathrooms, will occupy the side of the main space, with offices on the second floor. On the third level, an urban aquaponic farm will allow the local community to grow fresh food and empower their participants in self-sustainable practices.

Project:

Conceptual Spaces (Escapes Conceptuels) - Architectural Exhibition at Galerie du Boléro in Versoix, Geneva

Phase:

Completed

Description:

The work of Frédéric Levrat, an architect born in Versoix, is based on three pillars: Creation - Transmission - Humanitarianism. Come discover what architecture can bring to our lives today and to future generations.

This architect has traveled the world, from Japan with Tadao Ando to New York where he continues his creations and teaches at the New York City Institute of Technology and the Pratt Institute. But he also takes an interest in the most disadvantaged by building emergency housing, the first of which are installed in the townships of South Africa.

Project:

Livingstone Youth Club in Zambia

Phase:

Ongoing (2024)

Description:

The African Impact Foundation has commissioned Frederic Levrat and Urban Think Tank for the design of their Youth Hub in Livingstone, Zambia. Located on a beautiful site on the Southeast edge of the city, the Youth Hub is designed around the existing large acacias trees. A series of classrooms are arranged along a large linear circulation, connecting both ends of the site. The architecture is constituted by a layering of elements, with a large roof protecting the spaces forms the rain and the sun, while smaller brick volumes house the classrooms, the caretaker house, and the public bathrooms. The architecture and the long pathway offer a connection with the natural landscape, opening the youth hub to the wind, the presence of the trees and the natural forces, while creating denser volumes to secure and protect from these similar forces.