ANY Post

To break the blog hiatus, I present you with: shameless plugging!

Within the next couple of weeks, Log 19 will be on the shelves (CMU has a subscription, so if you’re in Pittsburgh, you can find it in Hunt Library). There are a lot of articles in this issue that are particularly relevant to discussions we’ve had both here and in studio, which is partially why I’m mentioning it.

“Interest in the social dimension of architecture is again gaining ground. Log 19 investigates the reemergence of questions such as what role can or should architecture play in society. The parametric is alternatively valorized and disavowed; the ultimate consequences of climate change and environmental catastrophe are raised; and a new course for architecture is found in Badiou’s philosophy and Finnish architecture.”

In your perusal of Log, beware. In the words of Kazys Varnelis: “Note that a brief glance in the bookstore won’t suffice. Like any good naughty magazine, the issue is shrink-wrapped and if you unwrap it your fumbling efforts will be visible for all to see.”

Quick Reading

Breaking the two-week hiatus with a short recommendation…

Two recent blog-posts (of blogs we follow) worth reading as we start finalizing the design of our light museum:

Lebbeus Woods’s “The Light, The Dark”
Geoff Manaugh’s “Editing the Shadow Volume”

MF Sounds

I just uploaded an audio sketch of the Mattress Factory on the old Tumblr account (because WordPress won’t let me post the audio file).

Check it out HERE.

Patches of audio taken from Liza’s movies.

Glass as a liquid

Earlier this week in studio, we discussed the relationship between glass and structure, and Professor Lucchino mentioned the Milan Trade Fair, a structure we’ve seen before in IDMII. The canopy drapes over a mile-long convention center.  Quoted in the Architectural Record article (click here to read the whole thing), Roman architect Massimiliano Fuksas says “The new Fiera is not a building.  It’s too big.”  To give the massive structure some sort of cohesive element that could bring together the exhibition halls, service center, restaurants, and office spaces, the glass and steel canopy becomes a central “Main Street”  that floats above (and occasionally touches down upon) the edges of these individual spaces.  Interestingly, a lot of the space shaped by the form of the canopy is not entirely enclosed.

Anyway, the article is worth looking at – no details of the structure itself, but it does further describe the organization and execution of the form – and includes some incredible photographs that hint at the experience of the Fiera.

Flying Pigs

One week into the school year and all anyone can talk about is the Swine Flu. Well, maybe it’s not all anyone can talk about, but it definitely has a way of infecting the majority of conversations inside and outside of studio. Some aspects of the situation seem a bit absurd (“If you live within 150 miles of campus, we encourage you to recuperate at home” = we don’t want you within three hours of Pittsburgh!) but it’s also kind of terrifying to hear the rate it spreads (if someone in studio gets it, the SoArch doesn’t stand much of a chance).

While all this is going on, you might have read that BLDGBLOG’s Geoff Manaugh is hosting a design studio in NYC called Landscapes of Quarantine to “discuss the spatial implications of quarantine”, and how design can influence disease control.  Definitely planning on checking out the resultant exhibit at Storefront in a few months.

Actually, something I didn’t mention in my Fit-City post was the presentation by Karen Lee, deputy director of NYC’s Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention and Control. She discussed New York’s war against infectious diseases in the late 19th century – by generating a water system, building parks, etc., they were able to drop the percentages of deaths caused by infectious diseases from 57 to 11% over the course of a few decades. It brings up the idea of how quarantine could exist (or not exist) on an urban scale.

Anyway, these are just some quick references that got me thinking about how something like the Swine Flu could possibly influence architecture and urban design.  So…thoughts?

Also, a reminder: sign up for a WordPress account so we can add you to our list of contributing authors.

(Attempted) Adventures with Uncle Lou, Part II

Last Saturday, Dan Burdzy and I took a drive down to Philly.  We were on a mission to see another Kahn building, the Richards Medical Research Laboratories (which is, I believe, Kahn’s only built project in the city, despite the fact that he lived and worked there), and explore the city a bit while we were there, too.  As with the Trenton Bath House, I wasn’t too sure what to expect.  I remember hearing that the people that worked there hated it, and that it wasn’t a particularly wonderful building.  Also, it was getting up in age (about fifty years old) and, though it was in constant use and (owned by the University of Pennsylvania) didn’t change hands as the TBH did, I wasn’t sure if there was any restoration, etc. underway.  What follows is a conversation-turned-blog-post that Dan and I had about the trip.

(Dancing) In The Streets

A few days ago, I dropped another title into the Summer Reading post. My local library isn’t very big and doesn’t carry most of the books I’ve been looking for, but I’ve been making myself go at least weekly for those previously mentioned chance encounters with books I’ve never heard of.

This time, the book WAS correctly shelved, but I hadn’t noticed it before. Bernard Rudofsky’s Streets for People. With biking on the mind, I thought it might be a good read. Littered with photographs and drawings (most black and white), I read it “on shuffle” for a week or so before actually hunkering down to the written content. His sources and references range from Hemingway to Palladio to Rousseau, his case studies from New York to Tokyo to Verona. It is an extensive review of what makes some streets pleasantly beautiful to walk through and some a near-death experience. It is a persuasive plea to bring back the pedestrian street. Published in 1964 (the binding is falling apart), but still very relevant, if not more so. Here is a summary and some notes of my own. All of the images come from the book, unless otherwise noted.

——–> ON FEET

So many people forget that they can walk, or feel inconvenienced by what is actually the most convenient mode of transportation. While car traffic is a frustration to people going to and coming from work on a daily basis, rush hour filled with honking and stress, people traffic promotes a more civil interaction among “drivers”. It’s healthy, refreshing, and in many cases (in a more urban setting, for example), doesn’t take up much more time.

I remember watching My Architect and hearing Louis Kahn’s proposal to build a walkable city center for Philadelphia, where cars would be left OUTSIDE of city limits. As Kahn said, “In the center of town, the streets should become buildings.” He studied traffic movement in Philly (drawing above is from MoMA’s collection) and searched for a way to tame the sea of asphalt. The proposal included a system of viaducts for people and shops (see the section of this post, On Floating”, below), and the cars kept away (with parking “towers” on the perimeter). This is wonderful idea (in the movie, Edmund Bacon makes it clear that he thinks it is idealistic and ridiculous, but his son, and hopefully the viewer, sees that neither is completely true), and not the first of its kind, but, as Rudofsky points out, Americans are in love with their cars (they are “capricious love objects”) and balk at any suggestion that we abandon them.

And weather, as we see in other countries, can be the “protagonist of design” (sound familiar?).  Porticoes turn streets into shelters from downpours and snowstorms.  A canopy makes unbearable heat less so. Just think of the buildings that flank the Cut, where you can walk inside, outside, or somewhere in between.  This semi-covered space is popular among universities in America and abroad, and cities, and is similar to canopy-covered markets (each shop another arch between columns).  I’d have to say that the canopied street is probably Rudofsky’s favorite “improvement”; it receives the heaviest amount of examples and text in the book, and is discussed at length in not one, but two chapters.  I won’t dedicate too much time to it here (already, this is a lengthy post…), but just mention that it serves as both a cause and effect to many of the types of streets in the section below.

——–> ON FLOATING

Allow me to introduce the pont-maison.  It is a bridge that is also a city street.  Or, perhaps more accurately, a city street that is also a bridge.  In fact, from the bridge, you would hardly be able to tell that the city was discontinuous at that point (except from within the buildings perched on the structure).  Merchants loved it (no cutting corners to avoid a shop), and in some cases, it became a mini city in and of itself (a non-island, self-isolating?).  The idea reminds me of a sort-of two-sided boardwalk, or, in the case of the Old London Bridge, miniature castles on heavy stilts.  It is a fascinating way to generate space where there is none (unless you’re building a more literal floating house…).  Think Gunkanjima.  Think Venice.

And if there isn’t any water, that’s all the more reason to build bridges.  Rudofsky calls for the pedestrian version of the overpass (New Jersey breeds the latter like rabbits – why can’t we give a few to people instead of cars?).  Some of the book’s examples are long strips of streets that seem to float in the air, taking generous strides over buildings below to reach higher ground, while others are clustered mini-spans wedged between conglomerated houses.  One is a public flyover of the city, exposed to the same sights and sounds without being immersed in cough-inducing exhaust fumes, while the other is more secluded, a private, compact space that is perpetually transitional, straddling its neighbors, yet can serve as a house of its own.

Of course, this makes us think of the High Line, our new favorite example of an elevated street.  Despite the fact that it was written decades before construction began, Streets for People mentions New York’s floating railroads, and that during rush hour, walking is the fastest way to get around the city (though he never puts the two together).  The spaces underneath the High Line have been mentioned (and criticized) quite a lot. Regarding any development of the “underbelly” of the new park (photo found on Flickr), inspiration can perhaps be drawn from Rudofsky’s Italian examples, where the spaces below are programatically and visually linked to the spaces above.

All this talk of bridges and elevated streets comes back to one very important theme: people are on top.  We love our cars and have sacrificed plenty for them, but when we are forced to reconcile both vehicular and pedestrian traffic in one space, stacking them, at least the people aren’t forced below.  So not ALL common sense has been lost.  The sketch above is curious, because the proposed city would be entirely raised above the ground, with the exception of cars – it is curious because it would be a lot less complex and a bit less intriguing if everything stayed at ground level, but the cars were forced UNDERground (rather than creating a pseudo-groundplane above the actual groundplane, as the architect here has done).  Unless, of course, you’re working with a preexisting city, such as…

New York.  Or rather, Delirious New York.  This section of the Streets book, particularly Friedman’s sketch, reminded me of a proposed solution to NYC’s traffic problem, by Harvey Wiley Corbett (images from Koolhaas’s book, Delirious New York).  It involved “elevated and arcaded walkways” – creating a new level for people – while, step-by-step, giving up the groundplane to the cars (sacrificial appeasement of the unruly beasts).  It is Venice (again), but with “an ocean of cars”.  Corbett carves away at the existing buildings: the city becomes an active mine of some precious metal they call Public Space.

——–> ON FOUNTAINS

“The love and veneration that great civilizations bestowed on water as a life-giving force are unknown to Americans.”  We buy it by the bottle.  But what of fountains?  Public water fountains are rare, here, and there is an implied “look but don’t touch” sign on most.  Yet, on a hot day, I am thankful that some of my neighbors are wasteful enough to leave their sprinklers on near the street (after the summer NJ has had so far?! what are these people thinking???) so that I can ride through them.  And I have to go five miles out of my usual route to fill up a water bottle at the public library (“How many more times is she going to try to convince us that libraries are wonderful places?”), rather than buy a new one.  Fountains work in plenty of places – they aren’t just for tossing loose change into.  One of my favorite images in the book is the one above.  It isn’t a natural disaster – it is a human solution.  Think Ancient Egypt.  Think of flooding as a solution.  Not only to walk (or ride) through the swollen fountain / submerged piazza – it is an outdoor air-conditioning system.

Last weekend (for the 4th), my family took a trip down to Princeton (some Revolutionary War history, good ice cream, and places for the puppy to wander about – a good place for Independence Day).  It got hot quickly, and Hampton (dog) was thirsty, so I brought my family to the university’s Fountain of Freedom (in front of Yamasaki’s Robertson Hall). The fountain is a pool (not even two-feet at its deepest), surrounded by trees (and tree-like columns) and air around it cool.  I’m not sure how drinking-safe it is (from the fountain directly, I mean, not the spillover), though Hampton lapped it up happily.  Pleasant place to stop if you’re walking around the town/university.

——–> FINAL (inconclusive) THOUGHTS

Is the architect loved by all, or, like so many other heroes (Batman, etc.), considered a menace?  “There still remains the architect’s role to be assessed in connection with the urban nightmare.  Despite an uninterrupted record of bungled cities, Americans have preserved a touching faith in the practitioners of architecture.”  He quotes Ada Louise Huztable: “Architects never felt the urge to establish ethical precepts for the performance of their profession, as did the medical fraternity.  No equivalent of the Hippocratic oath exists for them.”  Do we need one?  Are architects like journalists, still actually on a quest for truth but with a bad name?  Rudofsky urges architecture students to travel, “and I do not mean what passes today [or TODAY] for travel, but the methodical cultivation of one’s powers of observation and discrimination through exposure to civilizations other than one’s own.”

Sorry for the length.  I’m heading over the the library now to pick up a new book.

So now, what are YOUR thoughts?

Some of the Accumulated Ideas on My Desktop

Every once in a while, I have to clear out all the bookmarks and images that collect on my computer. Things I’ve skimmed through or caught my eye, but that I either haven’t read in full, or haven’t really digested yet. Similarly, the back of my sketchbook – what used to just be a page, but has grown significantly – is full of things (a few words, doodles) I need to look up, write about, buy (books, art supplies, etc.), or draw. Usually, a few themes emerge between these two grocery lists of ideas, and they turn into discussions here, or an actual sketchbook page, or something more cohesive.

But sometimes, they’re still just a bunch of links, to virtual or real places alike. Here are ten items from the miscellanea dump.

– I am in Architectural Record (online at least; see picture). This amuses me greatly.

– I completely forgot about the blog Subtopia, and haven’t stopped by in a while. But this post, somewhat satirical (just in case you accidentally skim by the first section of it and miss the part that says it’s hypothetical…), is amazing. The writing is above your average blog post, and makes you think.

– I’ve also neglected Life Without Buildings. Two good finds here: one, about Gotham City, relating to our comic discussion; the second about architecture blogs’ discussions of The Fountainhead.

– Sometimes, I ride my bike with my iPod on. I know that this is terrible and will probably get me killed one day. But I only put in one earbud and only listen on country roads that have very little traffic. Anyway, what I wanted to mention is that sometimes, songs sound very different when you’re only listening halfway. The left side of a song versus the right. How do they determine what you hear, and where? We’re used to assuming we have the whole picture, not just when listening to music, but when we’re looking at something. But we don’t usually, especially when we’re browsing photographs, rather than walking through the real thing (a building?). Even an animation, you’re not in control over the view, and your peripheral vision isn’t working, and you aren’t hearing things or smelling things or feeling the ground you “walk” on. What was I writing about again?

– This is a different kind of High Line.

– I drew a picture of my window at work. I think it means “GO OUTSIDE.”

– This blog has a lot of animations, interviews, news, tutorials, etc. about architecture. They aren’t all in English, and some are a bit older, but worth skimming through.

– I really want need to buy this book.

– Seeing things on the web. Scrolling down animates certain things that were never intended to do this. On my computer at work, the screen resolution is lower, and scrolling does weird things. Not really going anywhere with this, just something to notice next time you’re viewing an image-heavy vertical website.

– Getting to know TJ through Monticello. A NY Times blog, capturing the man and the building through drawings AND words. You might want to read some of the other entries, too.

(Attempted) Adventures with Uncle Lou

Today, I convinced a friend who was driving down to Princeton to give me a ride to see the Trenton Bath House. She was a little skeptical, especially when I told her I wasn’t sure what the current condition of the building was, or even if it was still there, but we went anyway.

This week, to prepare for the trip, I tried to find some information on Kahn’s bath house (who owned it, if it was open to the public, what sort of restoration was going on, etc.). The most recent information I could find on the web stated that Mercer County bought the property in 2006, with plans to restore it. But when I called a few of their offices, and no one had any idea what I was talking about, I got a bit discouraged.

From what I can tell (we did find it; it is still there), they sold it to someone, who reopened it as a private pool club. It has been restored enough to function, but the structure has seen better days. I took a few shots of the outside, but as you can see, there is something VERY wrong with my camera (I swear I didn’t dunk it in Pepto-Bismol!). I told the woman at the desk the magic words (“Hi…I’m an architecture student…”) and she let me do a few sketches from the courtyard area (as it was being used, changing rooms and all, I didn’t feel comfortable going inside, but I stood in the center of the four roofed areas).

Again, sorry about the pictures.  I have twenty or so like this.  Photoshop attempts have failed me, too.

For others that want to visit, it’s located at 999 Lower Ferry Road in Ewing, NJ.  It’s about a fifteen minute drive from Princeton.  Behind a big parking lot and a big sign, and some bushes.

All in all, not exactly a religious experience, but an interesting one. I’m glad I went, even though its condition was sort of sad and I couldn’t go exploring. Seeing it in use again, though, makes me think they’ll keep it up a bit better in the future. Maybe powerwash the walls.

Looking back, this isn’t a very informative post.  But lesson learned: Always make sure you have a sketchbook on you – you can never rely on technology.

Find Your Architect

Via VisualComplexity (click on the image to zoom)

This is a graphical representation of the forces of modernity. People dictate the flows and in turn affect others. Names of influential modern designers/architects of the 20th century, such as Gerrit Rietveld, Norman Foster and Alvaro Siza, serve as the poles in which forces (lines) radiate from. This in turn develops into a ripple effect. They act as philosophical and physical forces of influence.

Also, via Archidose (hint: start at the top for Lou, Mies, and Corbu, but you can find them elsewhere, too)

We see the same timeline (horizontal) interacting with formal concerns (vertical, from logical on the top to unself-conscious on the bottom) […]

Almost an English Sonnet: ABAB+ Responses to Non-Critical Nostalgia in Architectural Writing

The basics of the discussion:

• Tim Abrahams from Blueprint is angry that people like to look at pictures online, angry that anyone can make a blog, angry that people are being nostalgic online, angry that people aren’t treating the future like the future, angry that people are downloading and not analyzing.
• Charles Holland of Fantastic Journal understands that it might be confusing to have too many “correct” opinions, but doesn’t think it’s fair to blame the internet, says Things is actually visually critical, thinks the future isn’t something you talk about – it’s something that happens, and points out that maybe these blogs stuffed with eclectic images and seemingly irrelevant interests are contributing something more, because everyone’s been talking about the same thing for so long.
• Abrahams is a little defensive.
• Things Magazine (and again, here) says people want to look at pictures, not text, and that images don’t necessarily induce a negative nostalgic experience, though it doesn’t do much of anything, but can inspire something new (or not new).
• Abrahams is a little defensive again.

Despite the fact that I made Abrahams seem a little intense here, bloggers aren’t necessarily superheros and critics certainly aren’t a bunch of old farts. Neither is it the other way around. Like people in general, there are good bloggers and bad bloggers, good and bad critics as well.

There is an interesting concern for legitimacy all around, but I think the approach to reading a blog is very different than a book, even if the topic is the same (a big vague “architecture” heading…). There’s no need to point this out, though: people KNOW the internet isn’t the real world, even if they spend more waking hours in front of a computer than physically interacting with other people.

And I don’t think books will ever go out of style; nor with formal criticism.

As for being “nostalgic”, I don’t see what the problem here is.  Writing about and linking to things that have already happened or old trends or out-dated ideas isn’t about denying the future; it’s acknowledging the fact that history repeats itself, that fads come and go and sometimes come back again, that architecture is very much related to culture but might not be explicitly linked to current culture, that the past often inspires the future, and, maybe more importantly, the present.

It’s like Digital vs. Analog: Architectural Criticism Edition.

I could rant on and on about all this, but I wanted to keep this fairly short (haha yea, still kind of long…).  What are everyone’s thoughts on this general topic?

The Not-Quite Lecture Notes of Fit-City 4

There is always some sort of free lecture or conference going on in the city.  Monday was Fit-City 4, an annual conference open to the public (meant more for NYC-ers, but not necessarily – I mean, I’m from NJ and I was there…) about how design influences public health.  There were a lot of fairly short lectures – some were a bit repetitive, but most were interesting.

By far my favorite speaker was Professor Pucher of Rutgers University.  It was mostly about the benefits of cycling, and ways urban planning should focus on accommodating bikes.  The stats are staggering … and sort of disturbing (obesity rates, etc. – I can’t put it into words; just look at the charts).  A lot of his presentation can be found in this pdf.

Liam recently brought up biking on the blog,  and Matt wrote about Pittsburgh.  Unfortunately, I’m still stuck in suburbia, where sprawl makes it difficult to use cycling and public transportation effectively.  That said, I bike most of my shorter trips, and ride a lot recreationally.  On Sunday, I was hit by a car (I’m fine and my bike is fine, just a little paint on my pedal – the jerk in the SUV has a huge scratch in his car door, though).  And you guys already know about my other experiences with biking.  But I don’t intend to stop riding any time soon, and encourage everyone living ANYWHERE to ditch your car for a while.  As for perception of your city / town, it’s a lot different when you’re not driving.  You have to be a lot more aware of what’s going on when you’re perched on the top of two wheels and cars are flying by you.  Personally, I think driving alongside cyclists needs to become a standard in driver’s ed.  But annnnyway…

Back to the lectures.

Most of the presentations were about urban planning and transportation, but the two case-studies were designed by architects: Cooper Union’s new academic building by Morphosis, and DS+R’s High Line (which just opened Tuesday).

The High Line seems like a no-brainer: it’s all about walking, and stairs (nice dose of cardio there), plus, it has plants, and plants are healthy.  Yay green!

But I didn’t know much about the Morphosis design, so I learned a lot about ways architecture can manipulate circulation and physical movement.  A lot of the presentations were about stairs (making stairs prettier and obvious and tempting – someone suggested putting food at the top of the stairs as incentive; I found this hilarious), but Morphosis is putting in elevators to make people use the stairs.  Seems counterproductive at first (and I’m not sure how well it works in practice), but the skip-stop elevators only go to certain floors, encouraging people to get off and walk the extra flight or two to get to where they actually need to go.  Pretty neat stuff.  Plus, the stairs are gorgeous.  Check out the link I included before for some pictures.

Other interesting things: There was a presentation by…someone (name escapes me) about how different materials can be used to encourage people to go somewhere they might otherwise avoid (i.e. stairs), and act as signs (something mentioned about embedding light tubes in concrete? not sure what exactly he was talking about). Presentation on Governors Island (no cars allowed! walking / biking paradise!).  A lot of bitter audience members (cyclists without a safe place to park their bike, citizens who hate big ugly stores, citizens who love them, architects and designers trying to plug their firms), and some that brought up interesting points (someone asked if there was a way we could design better sidewalks to avoid massive puddles, and someone else asked if there was a better way to design bikes so that we didn’t have to worry so much about parking).

I was glad we went, even though I don’t actually live in NYC.  The range of people in the discussion, from city planners to public health officials to architects to transportation organizations, brought a lot of different approaches to the table and they do seem to be making progress.  As a whole, I think it was a good example of how things do change when people start to work together and actually take action.

On a side note, I was probably the youngest person in that room, and I think they need more students, etc. to get involved to actually implement all these ideas.  See you there next year?

Ceci n’est pas un duck: Contemplations on Criticism and Constraint

For about a week now, I’ve been chewing on a few thoughts, and I think it’s time to spit them out. I’ve been trying to write a manifesto, as per Kai’s suggestion, but haven’t actually come up with anything, due in part to the fact that I feel underqualified and inexperienced, but then, maybe it’s better that way.

Anyway, the “manifesto” I planned to write was suppose to be about architecture as a paradox. About how it is everything we want to to be and everything we stand for, and yet it cannot possibly ever be, in reality, the design we imagine. And so, you might ask, is it worth it? We’ll never know, because we can’t stop architecture. It is what it is and what it isn’t, whether we are the architects or not. And so we choose to be the architects because we can’t deny ourselves the chance to be involved in something that is great, is always great, in its attempt, even if not in its execution.

It is not a manifesto to contemporary architecture; it is a rationalization for architecture’s very existence, something that obviously does not require rationalization. It would be as if I tried to explain why people inhale.

Because they exhale.

So what is architecture?

Can a (decorated) bicycle shed be architecture? And is a cathedral always architecture? How do we classify it as a cathedral? Whatever you do, don’t ask Howard Roark.

The imposition of constraints does not have to relate in any way to any sort of “norms” – Wiscombe‘s constraints are certainly very different from, say, Romero‘s, and both apply a different set of constraints to their projects along with “standard” constraints of site, money, etc. Constraints are not just an influence on what we design; they are designed as well.

One might even say that architecture IS the rules. Architects are designing rules, and designing how these rules make up the structure. The structure is the embodiment of the rules.

For the most part, architecture has become all about that embodiment. It has become just the building – we know the rules are there, but we critique the building. It works, or it doesn’t. It fits the site, or it doesn’t. The client is happy, or he isn’t. The neighbors are happy, or they aren’t.

The architect is happy, or he isn’t?

Forget about asking what makes architecture – what makes good architecture? Does it have to be beautiful? Does it have to last?

I guess my point is, none of these questions can be “correctly” answered. As objective as some people want to make architecture, some of the “rules” architects make are subjective by nature.

And so, for better or for worse, we have criticism.

Criticism has rules of its own, so hardly bothers to get right what the original rules of a building were.  Today, more so than ever before, everybody is a critic.  Ellsworth Toohey (villain or victim of circumstance?) never had any competition, but today, we have the citizen journalist.  We have Twitter and Facebook and blogs.  We have instant access to almost anything.  And the ability to tell the world (or at least the world wide web) what we think.  And we don’t even have to think about it.

We have Starchitects.

Part of me wants to say things haven’t changed all that much since Rand wrote her book.  Check out your local dose of suburbia if you doubt that at all.  There is a “modern” house about ten miles away from my neighborhood – everyone who has mentioned it to me says it is out of place, and either they see this as a negative attribute or they praise it for being different.

Because today, everyone wants to be different.  Different is cool.  It is in.  It is modern.

Different allows us to comment, and boy, do we like to comment.  It gives us something to talk about.  We might not be able to define beauty, or even understand whether or not something serves it function, but we are fairly confident that we can pick which one of these things is not like the other.

It is mostly garbage.  But you see what garbage can make?

I’m running out of steam in this meta-manifesto and want to get back to reading Mitchell, so I’ll wrap this up with some thoughts on pedagogy.

Before his impending graduation, a fifth year passed on an interesting bit of advice. To paraphrase, he said it didn’t matter what your professors or studio coordinator wanted you to do, because as long as you worked, really worked, and believed in what you were doing, they couldn’t fail you. Sure, your grades would suffer, but ultimately, grades don’t matter all that much.

Limitations in our assignments are necessary.  I’m tempted to write that it doesn’t matter what those limitations are; students will inevitably break them, and write in their own.  But the fact that they need to be there is inarguable.

Limiting the conversation, though, can only be detrimental to our education.  Maybe between the hours of 1:30-4:30, when time constraints dictate a level of importance to topics of discussion, but not “after hours”, and never here.

Comics and Architecture, Part II

Okay, so, as usual, when I went to look something up online, I got a bit distracted and found something else that might be worth sharing here.

We’ve brought up the discussion about comics and architecture a few times (on the blog and in studio), partially because of Pablo’s own interest, but also because it’s just an intriguing pair of artforms, and any combination of the tow is usually worth reading about.  And it’s not just us – BLDGBLOG has a similar obsession with the portrayal of architecture in video games and comics (here, here, and here, for a few examples).  So yesterday, I stumbled across two documents that both dealt with this topic (but in two different ways).

Coupe d’une maison parisienne (1845)

Role of Architecture in Comics

 The second is what I’m guessing is a self-assigned project.  He gives a brief analysis on a number of comics and the importance of architecture within the confines of their pages.

In his conclusion, he writes:

“It is very clear that some artists intentionally use the architecture of their settings to underscore certain dramatic themes or issues. Others use architecture for key plot points, drawing the backgrounds into the stories and letting them play a larger role. And in some cases the architecture is, in fact, the “main character” of sorts, with a story really revolving around a certain important place, or room, or building.”

The first is what I’m guessing is a self-assigned project, but it doesn’t say.  He gives a brief analysis on a number of comics and the importance of architecture within the confines of their pages.  To him, architecture is a device used by comic book and graphic novel artists to set the tone, make a point, or serve the plot.  We’ve heard this before – nothing too new here (also, there are no pictures – kind of a bust since I don’t actually read comics and don’t usually know what he’s referring to).  In his conclusion, he writes:

It is very clear that some artists intentionally use the architecture of their settings to underscore certain dramatic themes or issues. Others use architecture for key plot points, drawing the backgrounds into the stories and letting them play a larger role. And in some cases the architecture is, in fact, the “main character” of sorts, with a story really revolving around a certain important place, or room, or building.

Role of Comics in Architecture

The second is someone’s M.Arch dissertation (part of a larger blogging project).  It considers comic strips, cartoons, and other means of sequential art as a way to represent architecture.  The paper is more about the potential these types of media than how they’re actually used in the profession (unlike the first, this pdf has a lot of reference photos, though I wish they were higher resolution).  He points out the advantages they have over more traditional forms of representation (they give a sense of time and pace, they enhance the viewer’s appreciation of the artist/architect’s personal style).

Showing the passing time is now made possible by animations (and was already possible, to some extent, through multiple clearly rendered drawings), but he also mentions the white space between two frames of a comic controlling pace, and this reminded me of one of our first lessons on composition and white space (the tool draft).

And regarding style, I’m not sure comics are the best way for everyone to go, although some firms are certainly trying it (BIG, for instance – has anyone read this yet?).  By outsourcing renderings and animations, a lot of firms have sacrificed some of their original style for the sake of flashier representation.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this non-ranting rant, but I have one more random comment to make related to the topic.  I think one of the most important potential benefits of using comics to diagram or express something about your architecture might be communication with your client.  A lot of people have, at one point in their life, read a few strips of something, and seeing something familiar next to a confusing set of construction documents or overwhelmingly snazzy computer generated images might be useful.  This goes along with the fact that architects have sort of created a language of their own, and often forget that when trying to convey an idea to a “normal person” (or to the media).

So…thoughts?

Constraints and (maybe) TMI

It seems I can only visit dornob about once a month, because when I do, I end up going through about a month’s worth of posts. Some are just sort of ridiculous, but others bring up questions about design and architecture.

 

So yesterday, I ended up looking at Monolab‘s urban townhouse – what the firm calls “Body House”.  Monolab’s website provides a lot of diagrams, earlier models of the project, and construction photos, along with your standard finished photos, sections, and computer models.  Pretty much, they fill you in on the program, the site, etc., and give you some insight on their decision-making process (even MORE can be found here, page nine).  It’s an interesting project on its own, and one of the few online that includes process work.

The post on dornob brings up two interesting points of discussion that I felt were worthy of a continued discussion here, the first of which is about constraints.  They bring up two: budget and site size.  But it reminded me of one of the fifth year’s thesis projects from only a few weeks ago.  Her project statement began with the quote, “Art thrives on constraints and dies of freedom,” and dealt with how existing buildings in downtown Pittsburgh could serve as the constraints in the creation of a new type of public realm.

As students, we deal with a different set of constraints.  We usually aren’t too concerned with cost, although it might come up in a final review.  And, though we’ll be expected to know more about how things actually work in future semesters, we were often encouraged to ignore the fact that some type of construction was impossible.  But we do have to worry about the site’s limitations and the program our assignments call for.  Yet, we are also sometimes encouraged to break even those rules.  So what type of constraints are beneficial, and when do we decide they can be bent one way or another?  Are the limitations we impose on our own projects more or less important than these real-world constraints?  Thoughts?

The dornob post also discusses the level of understanding that comes out of a project like this:

Filled with unique and angular lines and spaces there is no single viewpoint from which one can fully appreciate this home, from outside or within. Sleeping and bathing spaces are situated in central concrete node surrounded by open spaces for living, cooking and dining – but the house is as much about circulation as it is about staying in one place.

In some ways, this house can be best (or only) really understood via drawings and models which illustrate the design process and the intended hierarchies of space and structure, solid and void within the overall plan – but perhaps this layer of complexity is a happy accident adding to its mystery.

As I said before, Monolab provides an unusual amount of process work on their site, presumably so people (architects? journalists? cyber-pedestrians? or maybe just the firm itself?) can better understand the Body House project.  To what extent is this actually necessary?  Should the architecture be immediately understood, or understood at all?  Is it important that your reasons for design are explained in the final product, or is it more important that you understand your project DURING the design process?  When you look at a building, do you ever really “understand” it?  And should you?  Or is it a better goal to create a design that provokes a response that is formed more like a question than an answer?