as for freedom of choice, i think architecture as building(s) will always be impoverished in terms of communication. That is, buildings will always suffer a crisis of representation, unable to confer a consistent meaning. This is why i think of architecture, as the powers that be at columbia will preach, as a discourse. Naming is not an innately architectural operation, metaphor is a borrowed tactic, without these Liebeskind's tower is just a tall building that blinds you once in a while. That said, the discourse is, like Adam Smith's invisible hand, a great leveller... Liebeskind's (read: Child's) tower will be talked about just as much for the reflectivity in the glass (post-modern, modern or contemporary? just check the mullions, reflectivity and iron content of the glass) as for the final height of the spire (measured from what datum?).
That said, i think an incredibly interesting project is why architects choose to represent their buildings in certain ways at certain times. What was it that made DL turn to metaphor? Why did this resonate with the jury (the people?) at the time? Why do we now scoff? The corrollary to this project is which representations get picked up, recycled, and churned out. Which will make believers... which will be worthy of our boredom, and which will never enter into our temporary canons? Currently I'm looking at how those who deal with (in?) landscape-y buildings by way of the diagram come at them from entirely different directions, and they end up rendering (designing?) them in ways that abolishes the difference. In effect, the 'meaning' in a winka building no longer seems all that different from a bjarke building... what would peter and rem think? apparently it doesn't matter any more if you read deleuze or musil... there is a great levelling force at work in architecture that is coming at a time that cannot mutter the word manifesto. The 'freedom' of ideological pluralism has allowed for a focus within the field. Where's the difference? Have you ever looked at the first three pages of Mark magazine? If it's there at all, is it washed out by speed and mediation? In short, has representation, Evan's first chapter, caused for a washing over of difference?
Finally, to respond to Evan's ideas about site, I'm reminded of Jeff Kipnis' exhibition at Wexner on the Perfect Acts of Architecture... all made during the economic slowdown of the 70s and 80s... all not built... all 'perfect'... that said, many of them were 'sited': thom mayne's was sited on 6th street, rem's in london. bernard's eponymously in manhattan... i think site is a constituent part of architecture, but it is not always a physical entity, or geography... and it is always sited in the cultural. I am beginning to believe more and more that culture is the best field of expertise for any architect. Rem has said that he was always plagued by an instinct that put his ideas 2 years ahead of their time, and I think his success as a builder is due to the fact that he, amongst many other things, has been able to choreograph the propagation of his ideas into the world in a way that is 'timely'... perhaps you have to be able to see the future to know which borrowed techniques to employ. Also, don't forget that architecture is a slow sport... metaphors are delivered almost instantaneously, but to hold up, they have to survive the years it takes to make a building... even in dubai (or wherever), where buildings go up in months, the rate of critique speeds up to compensate and tear down architecture before it is even occupied (cf. jesse reiser).
for more, see: www.troyconradtherrien.com/KIMSTUDIO/surfing.pdf
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
Freedom of Choice?
A fuzzy, muddled response to your eloquent reasoning, Evan.
There seems to exist a delicate balance between contextual associations and meaning and our aesthetic (albeit biased) judgement. It is unfair to assume that if your design intentions are incongruent with a reviewers interpretations then your project is basically rendered impotent. It is also unfair to assume negligence on their part or vice-a-versa. Of course, it is stunning when a design projects its meaning through built work. Naturally, some of our projects are saturated with metaphors, abstract material associations and programatic ideas. We have, to some extent successfully engineered an experience; however, this experience is associative. Each design will have multiple meanings and associations, which is great. And i think we have to be cautious about how we explain/design for the sake of the programatic experience.
If we over-explain (or over-design) our work with facile manipulations of spatial and thematic metaphors, then we risk alienating the reviewer/visitor. So, should the design speak for itself, or should we speak for the design? Do we speak through the design? If the latter, are we at risk of conspicuously designing our abstractions and metaphors so that everyone will "get it"...using a heavy hand to literally guide the reviewer/visitor through our design rationale. If this is true, are we diminishing the freedom of association and meaning through such didactic design methodologies? Should a reviewer have the freedom to understand an architectural space on their own terms, unburdened by over-explanation? Am i making any sense?
Sometimes i feel like i'm shamelessly pandering to the critics....but maybe this is good a thing. The most successful designers and architects have mastered the art of verbal communication. You basically have an arsenal of design monikers that ignite a response from a reviewer. Forgive my cynicism: things that are flat become "planar", windows are "fenestration"; buildings basically become boats for meaning. "Temporality of spatial experience," "demonstrable/tangible registration of programatic effect," "narrative," didactic," "palimpsest" *i'm waiting for this one.* We use these allegories to convey a message and personify our design (or maybe gesture towards our intent *bad!*) Maybe we use them to garner support, or maybe we use them to cloak our insecurities.
Whatever the case, we use them, and maybe we shouldn't. And these are just to inflate our processes and methodologies. Visit the WTC site and you'll basically drown in the literal, physical metaphors: Freedom Tower, Wedge of Light, 1776...it's everywhere....So, where is the freedom of association here? i'm not allowed to translate that space because it's been translated for me. I have no choice but to recognize and register (!) that space as it is intended. Yet, stripped of its labels, what does it become? Simply another office development that might as well be located in the UAE, not the USA?....i'm not sure.
so, i guess what i'm trying to say (and poorly) is that words matter; choose them wisely.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Thoughts on the Review
The review yesterday sparked an insane number of thoughts and questions, at least for me. I thought that instead of recording them merely for myself, that I would post them here, in case anyone else finds them useful. I apoligize in advance that they are so unorganized and imprecise.
Remember that they're just my thoughts, and as such could be totally wrong: I reserve the right to change my mind about any of them :-)
REPRESENTATION
Most of the reviews (with around three exceptions) followed a similar format: we presented our project, then the critics spent the rest of the time discussing it while we stood and listened, answering a few questions but otherwise not contributing much beyond our initial explanation.
Architecture demands many forms of explanation and representation: verbal, visual, spatial, material; these forms may speak to different purposes and audiences. If you consider physical construction and inhabitance as the ultimate goal of an architectural project (which is not always the case), then verbal and visual representation are, broadly, useful to sell and communicate your design to a client; visual and spatial and material representation are how one communicates through the building itself to the people who will use it everyday.
In this sense, the review structure follows a sort of professional logic: if a critic can't connect the concepts you convey in your explanation to the representations pinned to the wall, then how could the inhabitants possibly understand your concept built in the final, built structure? You're not going to stand outside the building and engage everyone who enters in a conversation about the design. If you can't read it in the architecture, it's not there.
SITE
"The development of a successful architecture is certainly about the intersection of construction, materials and ideas with a physical site." Is this one of the reasons many of the criticisms of yesterday's review revolved around site? I think, at least in my case, doing a quick study of possible sites would've greatly enriched my understanding of how my space would functions. It's probably good that we're spending almost two weeks on site in the next phase of the project.
CHOICE
Architecture is, by nature, a series of judgments and decisions. Any design requires hundreds or thousands of tiny decisions; all of these then inform the success of the larger decisions. This makes it vitally important to have a conceptual framework in which to design: otherwise, where are these decisions rooted? In addition, the act of decision - of judging - is automatically a positioned act, an unavoidably moral act.
The constraints placed on architecture - constraints of site, program, purpose, budget, light, material, gravity, etc. - are the nutrients nourishing the architectural process. They constrain, but also reveal and enable. Without them, architecture would be dependent on concept alone and devoid of much of its power. Without them, it would be almost impossible to make these hundreds of tiny decisions.
Architectural education encourages an extremely rapid process of absorption, analysis, and judgement; likewise, architectural critique requires a complementary series of rapid-fire responses. Perhaps this is why the ego, the manifesto, and the provocateur can be such powerful forces in the profession - architecture flowing out self-righteous faith in one's own actions is architecture with a powerful, proselytizing effect.
Yet, while ego can be a powerful force towards progress, all of this analyzing and judging, while crucial, can also breed layers self-righteousness that, in my opinion, can alienate and segregate contemporary architectural thinking and practice from contemporary cultural understanding. Provocation is good, but not for provocation's sake.
This is why I have enormous respect for our studio's research-driven process: as painful as the timeline can be, by attaching our architectural decisions to other non-architectural fields of knowledge with a fixed-connection (a rigorous methodology), we enable our designs to withstand forces of time and public perception. While basing one's architecture around the physical realities of the human form (like many of the other studios did) is a totally adequate starting point, I think that our broader base exploring the interconnectedness between programmatic interior and public registration is a richer, more useful base; it is the sort of foundation that architecture needs if it is to have power over how society understand and relates to space, let alone larger notions of how the world works
AIM
I think that I'm starting to understand what it means to create successful architecture, but what does it mean to have a successful review? Are the two synonymous? Is there an objective answer to this question? Obviously, above all we strive to educate ourselves and learn more about our abilities and what we need to address in our designs. But beyond that, what does it mean to have a successful review? Do we strive to make our critic happy? Do we strive to make the guest critics in our review happy? Do we strive to create discussion and provoke thought? Do we trust our critics and strive to produce architecture that is successful in the way that our critics think architecture should be successful, or do we take our own path and try an convince them of its merits? Is a mid-process review, like this one, a different thing than a Final Review? These questions aren't all that important in Core Studio, I don't think, but they will be in a year or two. It's good to think about them now.
ARCHITECTURAL METHOD
We research to inform our architecture, but does it not flow both ways? Shouldn't our design process inform our education about our concept? Designing a laboratory requires information and research about how laboratories operate, and how they fit in the larger worlds of science and the built landscape; this design process in turn helps inform the concept that we initially developed. The architectural method is not only rooted in research, it is also a method of self-education, a process with vigorous counter forces that inform one another in quick succession. My biggest question is where this process ends: is it over only when the deadline approaches, or is there some point where the natural processes finally reach a point of completion?
OTHER THINGS I'M STRUGGLING WITH
How does narrative relate to site?
How does curvilinear movement in a space relate to rectilinear movement?
What precisely did P-squared mean by reading the section, vs. cutting the section? I think I understand, but . . . maybe not.
Architectural reviews mean staring at the back of a lot of heads.
How can we apply the architectural method to other forms of design? Is it possible, or does the method require a spatial program to work correctly?
How can we force architects to be more rigorous with their research? Do we even want to? Would more accurate and more rigorous research produce a better architecture, or is research mostly useful on in so far as it sparks spatial and material ideas?
Is architecture worth the cost? How can architects do a better job producing architecture that speaks to non-architects; how can they create a visual representation that is powerful yet accessible?
Remember that they're just my thoughts, and as such could be totally wrong: I reserve the right to change my mind about any of them :-)
REPRESENTATION
Most of the reviews (with around three exceptions) followed a similar format: we presented our project, then the critics spent the rest of the time discussing it while we stood and listened, answering a few questions but otherwise not contributing much beyond our initial explanation.
Architecture demands many forms of explanation and representation: verbal, visual, spatial, material; these forms may speak to different purposes and audiences. If you consider physical construction and inhabitance as the ultimate goal of an architectural project (which is not always the case), then verbal and visual representation are, broadly, useful to sell and communicate your design to a client; visual and spatial and material representation are how one communicates through the building itself to the people who will use it everyday.
In this sense, the review structure follows a sort of professional logic: if a critic can't connect the concepts you convey in your explanation to the representations pinned to the wall, then how could the inhabitants possibly understand your concept built in the final, built structure? You're not going to stand outside the building and engage everyone who enters in a conversation about the design. If you can't read it in the architecture, it's not there.
SITE
"The development of a successful architecture is certainly about the intersection of construction, materials and ideas with a physical site." Is this one of the reasons many of the criticisms of yesterday's review revolved around site? I think, at least in my case, doing a quick study of possible sites would've greatly enriched my understanding of how my space would functions. It's probably good that we're spending almost two weeks on site in the next phase of the project.
CHOICE
Architecture is, by nature, a series of judgments and decisions. Any design requires hundreds or thousands of tiny decisions; all of these then inform the success of the larger decisions. This makes it vitally important to have a conceptual framework in which to design: otherwise, where are these decisions rooted? In addition, the act of decision - of judging - is automatically a positioned act, an unavoidably moral act.
The constraints placed on architecture - constraints of site, program, purpose, budget, light, material, gravity, etc. - are the nutrients nourishing the architectural process. They constrain, but also reveal and enable. Without them, architecture would be dependent on concept alone and devoid of much of its power. Without them, it would be almost impossible to make these hundreds of tiny decisions.
Architectural education encourages an extremely rapid process of absorption, analysis, and judgement; likewise, architectural critique requires a complementary series of rapid-fire responses. Perhaps this is why the ego, the manifesto, and the provocateur can be such powerful forces in the profession - architecture flowing out self-righteous faith in one's own actions is architecture with a powerful, proselytizing effect.
Yet, while ego can be a powerful force towards progress, all of this analyzing and judging, while crucial, can also breed layers self-righteousness that, in my opinion, can alienate and segregate contemporary architectural thinking and practice from contemporary cultural understanding. Provocation is good, but not for provocation's sake.
This is why I have enormous respect for our studio's research-driven process: as painful as the timeline can be, by attaching our architectural decisions to other non-architectural fields of knowledge with a fixed-connection (a rigorous methodology), we enable our designs to withstand forces of time and public perception. While basing one's architecture around the physical realities of the human form (like many of the other studios did) is a totally adequate starting point, I think that our broader base exploring the interconnectedness between programmatic interior and public registration is a richer, more useful base; it is the sort of foundation that architecture needs if it is to have power over how society understand and relates to space, let alone larger notions of how the world works
AIM
I think that I'm starting to understand what it means to create successful architecture, but what does it mean to have a successful review? Are the two synonymous? Is there an objective answer to this question? Obviously, above all we strive to educate ourselves and learn more about our abilities and what we need to address in our designs. But beyond that, what does it mean to have a successful review? Do we strive to make our critic happy? Do we strive to make the guest critics in our review happy? Do we strive to create discussion and provoke thought? Do we trust our critics and strive to produce architecture that is successful in the way that our critics think architecture should be successful, or do we take our own path and try an convince them of its merits? Is a mid-process review, like this one, a different thing than a Final Review? These questions aren't all that important in Core Studio, I don't think, but they will be in a year or two. It's good to think about them now.
ARCHITECTURAL METHOD
We research to inform our architecture, but does it not flow both ways? Shouldn't our design process inform our education about our concept? Designing a laboratory requires information and research about how laboratories operate, and how they fit in the larger worlds of science and the built landscape; this design process in turn helps inform the concept that we initially developed. The architectural method is not only rooted in research, it is also a method of self-education, a process with vigorous counter forces that inform one another in quick succession. My biggest question is where this process ends: is it over only when the deadline approaches, or is there some point where the natural processes finally reach a point of completion?
OTHER THINGS I'M STRUGGLING WITH
How does narrative relate to site?
How does curvilinear movement in a space relate to rectilinear movement?
What precisely did P-squared mean by reading the section, vs. cutting the section? I think I understand, but . . . maybe not.
Architectural reviews mean staring at the back of a lot of heads.
How can we apply the architectural method to other forms of design? Is it possible, or does the method require a spatial program to work correctly?
How can we force architects to be more rigorous with their research? Do we even want to? Would more accurate and more rigorous research produce a better architecture, or is research mostly useful on in so far as it sparks spatial and material ideas?
Is architecture worth the cost? How can architects do a better job producing architecture that speaks to non-architects; how can they create a visual representation that is powerful yet accessible?
Friday, October 10, 2008
SlowLab
SlobLab Idea
The times we live in are fast.
Fast food, media soundbytes, speedy information networks, rapid, global flows of goods and services, an over-saturated and ever-growing commercial landscape...... Daily life has become a cacophony of experiences that disable our senses, disconnect us from one another and damage the environment.
But deep experience of the world-- meaningful and revealing relationships with the people, places and things we interact with-- requires many speeds of engagement, and especially the slower ones.
'Slowness' is a holistic approach to creative thinking, process and outcomes. It envisions positive human and environmental impacts of designed products, environments and systems, while constructively critiquing the processes and technologies of which they are born. It celebrates local, close-mesh networks of people and industry, it preserves and draws upon our cultural diversity, and it relies on the open sharing of ideas and information to arrive at innovative solutions to contemporary challenges.
Slowness is not time-based. It doesn't refer to how long it takes to make or do something, but rather describes the individual's elevated state of awareness in the process of creation, the quality of its tangible outcomes and a richer experience for the community it engages.
To see the Slowprojects you can go to www.Slowlab.com. I highly recommend it!
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Sustain What?
Tonight at a lecture on sustainablity in architecture by Volker M. Welter of UCSB, your critic raised a very stimulating point: in terms of sustainability, what is is that is being sustained? In fact, although a good paper, I was surprised that this wasn't developed during the lecture, and was greatful that Janette brought it up.
Welter ran through a micro-history of sustainability, selecting 3 representative moments to converse about at the end of the lecture/seminar. I think what was obvious was that Janette's question was not, and often, in talk of sustainability, is not answered concretely. The problem, as I see it, is that architectural representation is impoverished in its ability to accurately state its level of sustainability. (How do we really know the embodied energy of the materials, if the atrium is actually acting as a chimney, how much energy it takes to climatize, etc.) Further, science is equally impoverished by its inability to agree upon standardized metrics for arguing the sustainability of an architecture.
As such, what I think becomes interesting, is the way in which architects doing architectural projects which manifest a desire to be considered sustainable choose to represent them. Further, which of these images/architectures then become invariably categorized as sustainable.
The proto-thesis is that, if architectural representation is inable to accurately say whether a building is actually sustainable, and science is unable to prove it one way or another, then we need to start looking precisely at the images, the representations of these buildings that have allowed them to become unquestioned in their placement in the territory of sustainable on the architectural map.
The bigger, and perhaps unanswerable question, is whether architecture mutates faster than understanding, and so produces the images which we (the 'public') then come to understand as sustainable, or whether we begin through other mediums to understand what sustainable might look like, then gravitate to those images which coincide with this. (ie. does architecture set the standard, or follow it?)
Why am I writing this? I think that if you are dealing with a project that aims to manifest, or translate, or relate scientific data, then you need to have a position on whether the most effective means of communication is to study the forms of representation happening in the world ('oustide' of architecture) and then try to fit your system within that, making it readily readible by the public, or whether you try to create a new system of communication/representation. And, if the latter, how do you define your audience, and how do you go about making an argument for how they see and understand. Do they read fiction or non-fiction?
Welter ran through a micro-history of sustainability, selecting 3 representative moments to converse about at the end of the lecture/seminar. I think what was obvious was that Janette's question was not, and often, in talk of sustainability, is not answered concretely. The problem, as I see it, is that architectural representation is impoverished in its ability to accurately state its level of sustainability. (How do we really know the embodied energy of the materials, if the atrium is actually acting as a chimney, how much energy it takes to climatize, etc.) Further, science is equally impoverished by its inability to agree upon standardized metrics for arguing the sustainability of an architecture.
As such, what I think becomes interesting, is the way in which architects doing architectural projects which manifest a desire to be considered sustainable choose to represent them. Further, which of these images/architectures then become invariably categorized as sustainable.
The proto-thesis is that, if architectural representation is inable to accurately say whether a building is actually sustainable, and science is unable to prove it one way or another, then we need to start looking precisely at the images, the representations of these buildings that have allowed them to become unquestioned in their placement in the territory of sustainable on the architectural map.
The bigger, and perhaps unanswerable question, is whether architecture mutates faster than understanding, and so produces the images which we (the 'public') then come to understand as sustainable, or whether we begin through other mediums to understand what sustainable might look like, then gravitate to those images which coincide with this. (ie. does architecture set the standard, or follow it?)
Why am I writing this? I think that if you are dealing with a project that aims to manifest, or translate, or relate scientific data, then you need to have a position on whether the most effective means of communication is to study the forms of representation happening in the world ('oustide' of architecture) and then try to fit your system within that, making it readily readible by the public, or whether you try to create a new system of communication/representation. And, if the latter, how do you define your audience, and how do you go about making an argument for how they see and understand. Do they read fiction or non-fiction?
Sci-Fi
In going through some readings i did this summer, i came across an especially applicable fragment of Reinhold Martin's paper on "Architecture's Image Problem", in Grey Room 22, Winter 2006. Here he triangulates Latour, Jameson, and Venturi & Scott-Brown by way of the scientific laboratory. I've uploaded a pdf at: http://www.troyconradtherrien.com/KIMSTUDIO/
The passage begins on p.19 and ends on p.24.
The impetus for posting this is its address of the relationship of architecture to power and production. On p.20, Martin gives the example of AIDS research as ostensibly living within the domain of science, but it is actually contaminated by politics (and economics, culture, society...).
Another example of contaminated science is the creation of the Atom bomb. The Manhattan Project was entirely decentralized (though centrally orchestrated), carried out by many scientists across the US, each asked by the government to work on specific problems, so specific and remote that it was almost impossible for many of them to know what they were working on. As such, science (and its practicioners) was liberated from value (moral, ethical, theological) systems and able to perform as it is often thought to perform: in a vacuum of reason. Once the bombs dropped in August of 1945, many of the scientists realized their co-opted participation and were outraged.
The crux of the studio is to negotiate the interface between science and the public, and many are taking on contamination. I am posting this paper to stimulate an understanding of another direction of contamination: from society into science.
Martin starts out the passage with setting up science as necessarily entirely fact, or entirely fiction, by the nature of its own constitution. He then tempers this by bringing Latour into the picture as one who straddles the line, as he is, "simply unwilling to transfer the source of scientific authority from a universalized 'nature' to a relativized 'culture'."
I think this (double) double move, of creating a totalizing system (fact OR fiction), then destabilizing it with a third option (fact AND/NOR fiction) is an issue to consider when making the laboratory public. In other words: What is your position with respect to science, is it pure, enlightened reason at practice, is it a puppet of the state/culture/etc., is it a more complex relationship; and, how does your architecture relate to this (reflect, reveal, negate, obscure, bifurcate, stimulate...).
Finally, as Martin goes on to talk about the Lewis Thomas Lab at Princeton by way of the oikos (greek for house... get used to this, you'll see it a lot... it is the etymological root for economy and ecology, as elaborated locally by Wigley, Martin and Aurelli, amongst others), that is, in terms of the social space which allows for interdisciplinary work, I think this can be instrumentalized in the studio as a means of understanding the interaction between scientist in the space, between scientists and the public if they are to enter the space, and how it can relate to image (ie. how the architecture may register this).
that's all.
For continuity, I've reproduced below what Martin refers to in: "... Jameson reproduces Latour's 1984 list of sardonic synonyms for "the modern world," all of which exhibit a shared aversion to the impure, networked hybrids that Latour argues constitute the true firmament of scientific knowledge." (p.19)
the modern world, secularization, rationalization, anonymity, disenchantment, mercantilism, optimization, dehumanization, mechanization, captialism, industrialization, postindustrialization, techinicalization, intellectualization, sterilization, objectivization, Americanization, scientization, consumer society, one-dimensional society, soulless society, modern madness, modern times, progress.
The passage begins on p.19 and ends on p.24.
The impetus for posting this is its address of the relationship of architecture to power and production. On p.20, Martin gives the example of AIDS research as ostensibly living within the domain of science, but it is actually contaminated by politics (and economics, culture, society...).
Another example of contaminated science is the creation of the Atom bomb. The Manhattan Project was entirely decentralized (though centrally orchestrated), carried out by many scientists across the US, each asked by the government to work on specific problems, so specific and remote that it was almost impossible for many of them to know what they were working on. As such, science (and its practicioners) was liberated from value (moral, ethical, theological) systems and able to perform as it is often thought to perform: in a vacuum of reason. Once the bombs dropped in August of 1945, many of the scientists realized their co-opted participation and were outraged.
The crux of the studio is to negotiate the interface between science and the public, and many are taking on contamination. I am posting this paper to stimulate an understanding of another direction of contamination: from society into science.
Martin starts out the passage with setting up science as necessarily entirely fact, or entirely fiction, by the nature of its own constitution. He then tempers this by bringing Latour into the picture as one who straddles the line, as he is, "simply unwilling to transfer the source of scientific authority from a universalized 'nature' to a relativized 'culture'."
I think this (double) double move, of creating a totalizing system (fact OR fiction), then destabilizing it with a third option (fact AND/NOR fiction) is an issue to consider when making the laboratory public. In other words: What is your position with respect to science, is it pure, enlightened reason at practice, is it a puppet of the state/culture/etc., is it a more complex relationship; and, how does your architecture relate to this (reflect, reveal, negate, obscure, bifurcate, stimulate...).
Finally, as Martin goes on to talk about the Lewis Thomas Lab at Princeton by way of the oikos (greek for house... get used to this, you'll see it a lot... it is the etymological root for economy and ecology, as elaborated locally by Wigley, Martin and Aurelli, amongst others), that is, in terms of the social space which allows for interdisciplinary work, I think this can be instrumentalized in the studio as a means of understanding the interaction between scientist in the space, between scientists and the public if they are to enter the space, and how it can relate to image (ie. how the architecture may register this).
that's all.
For continuity, I've reproduced below what Martin refers to in: "... Jameson reproduces Latour's 1984 list of sardonic synonyms for "the modern world," all of which exhibit a shared aversion to the impure, networked hybrids that Latour argues constitute the true firmament of scientific knowledge." (p.19)
the modern world, secularization, rationalization, anonymity, disenchantment, mercantilism, optimization, dehumanization, mechanization, captialism, industrialization, postindustrialization, techinicalization, intellectualization, sterilization, objectivization, Americanization, scientization, consumer society, one-dimensional society, soulless society, modern madness, modern times, progress.
LOW ENTROPY URBANISM
I though you might find this interesting. The whole article can be found at:
http://www.doorsofperception.com/mailinglist/archives/2008/10/tribal_currenci.php
LOW ENTROPY URBANISM
"What would architects design, if they did not design buildings?” My question is not a rhetorical one. The inputs and outputs of industrial society are wildy out of balance - and that includes its buildings and infrastructure. We have reached the end of a brief era in which we could burn cheap fossil fuel, and despoil ecosystems, mindless of the consequences. We need to re-imagine the built world not as a landscape of frozen objects, but as a complex of interacting ecologies: energy, water, mobility, food. Our life-sustaining ecologies, especially, need to be nurtured, not swept away, built over, or diverted. The need for new buildings will be rare. Sometimes the design choice will be to do nothing”.
Do you find this abstract to be tendentious piffle? I’m developing this talk at three events this Autumn, and would welcome your critical participation. University of Brighton, 7 October; Arc en Reve in Bordeaux, 9 October; Megacities conference in Amsterdam, 28 October.
http://www.doorsofperception.com/mailinglist/archives/2008/10/tribal_currenci.php
LOW ENTROPY URBANISM
"What would architects design, if they did not design buildings?” My question is not a rhetorical one. The inputs and outputs of industrial society are wildy out of balance - and that includes its buildings and infrastructure. We have reached the end of a brief era in which we could burn cheap fossil fuel, and despoil ecosystems, mindless of the consequences. We need to re-imagine the built world not as a landscape of frozen objects, but as a complex of interacting ecologies: energy, water, mobility, food. Our life-sustaining ecologies, especially, need to be nurtured, not swept away, built over, or diverted. The need for new buildings will be rare. Sometimes the design choice will be to do nothing”.
Do you find this abstract to be tendentious piffle? I’m developing this talk at three events this Autumn, and would welcome your critical participation. University of Brighton, 7 October; Arc en Reve in Bordeaux, 9 October; Megacities conference in Amsterdam, 28 October.
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