Saturday, 17 September 2011
Wednesday, 31 August 2011
Ai Wei Wei's Wicked City
A very interesting article written by Ai Wei Wei about his two faced city Beijing.
Excerpt-
Excerpt-
Beijing is two cities. One is of power and of money. People don’t care who their neighbors are; they don’t trust you. The other city is one of desperation. I see people on public buses, and I see their eyes, and I see they hold no hope. They can’t even imagine that they’ll be able to buy a house. They come from very poor villages where they’ve never seen electricity or toilet paper.
Beijing tells foreigners that they can understand the city, that we have the same sort of buildings: the Bird’s Nest, the CCTV tower. Officials who wear a suit and tie like you say we are the same and we can do business. But they deny us basic rights. You will see migrants’ schools closed. You will see hospitals where they give patients stitches—and when they find the patients don’t have any money, they pull the stitches out. It’s a city of violence.
Read on HERE
Read on HERE
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
architectural discourse: Oase Journal
Oase Journal in their words:
- OASE is an independent, international, peer-reviewed journal for architecture that brings together academic discourse and the sensibilities of design practice. OASE advocates critical reflection in which the architectural project occupies a central position, yet is understood to be embedded in a wider cultural field. Intersections and affinities with other disciplines are explored in order to gain a more profound understanding of the practice and theory of architecture and rearticulate its disciplinary limits. Published three times a year, each OASE provides a rigorous investigation of a specific theme, featuring architecture, urban design and landscape design and insisting on the discussion of the historical and theoretical aspects of contemporary issues. -
Two issues of import (for semester two):
OASE 45-46 Essential Architecture
includes
-Colin St John Wilson and Adam Caruso on Sigurd Lewerentz (Caruso St John) !!!
-Peter Zumthor translated by Dick van Gameren (van Gameren architects) !!!
-Max Bill (Wiki) !!!
-Rudolph Schwarz !!!!!
OASE 84 Models. The Idea, the Representation and the Visionary
includes
-Anne Holtrop (Anne Holtrop)
-Adam Caruso
-OMA
- OASE is an independent, international, peer-reviewed journal for architecture that brings together academic discourse and the sensibilities of design practice. OASE advocates critical reflection in which the architectural project occupies a central position, yet is understood to be embedded in a wider cultural field. Intersections and affinities with other disciplines are explored in order to gain a more profound understanding of the practice and theory of architecture and rearticulate its disciplinary limits. Published three times a year, each OASE provides a rigorous investigation of a specific theme, featuring architecture, urban design and landscape design and insisting on the discussion of the historical and theoretical aspects of contemporary issues. -
Two issues of import (for semester two):
OASE 45-46 Essential Architecture
includes
-Colin St John Wilson and Adam Caruso on Sigurd Lewerentz (Caruso St John) !!!
-Peter Zumthor translated by Dick van Gameren (van Gameren architects) !!!
-Max Bill (Wiki) !!!
-Rudolph Schwarz !!!!!
OASE 84 Models. The Idea, the Representation and the Visionary
includes
-Anne Holtrop (Anne Holtrop)
-Adam Caruso
-OMA
Oscar Niemeyer's advice to young architect's
"The most important thing is to consider that architecture does not only have a functional aspect: it has to be beautiful, it has to be different, and it has to create a surprise to be a work of art."
Niemeyer adds: "Concrete allows everything!"
Niemeyer adds: "Concrete allows everything!"
An unforgettable conversation
Oscar Niemeyer and Norman Foster with Hans Ulrich Oberst.
Thank You Abitare!
This 'extraordinary encounter' is unlike an other and this conversation delves deep into architecture's core.
" Norman Foster I saw the little church, the chapel in Pampulha1, yesterday.
Oscar Niemeyer Pampulha is something so old; it does not represent what it once was… It has suffered many changes.
NF It was a very important building for me when I was 21 years old, before I started to study architecture…
ON It was my first work…
NF It was also the first influential project for me at the time and I discovered it almost by accident yesterday, I was driving past by car. I could not believe it, I saw it on the way from the airport. And then this morning I saw the Education building2 for the first time.
ON Pampulha was made in a hurry, and Brasília was also such a rush… I am very pleased with your visit because I appreciate your architecture.
NF I would like to say how much I appreciated the Education building2 this morning and how I was surprised by some of the things that I saw.
ON It is a work by Le Corbusier that we just developed… We changed many things: we put the building in the centre of the area, for example, but he did the initial croquis.
NF I saw that, but there are two things images cannot show. I thought it was a brilliant piece of city planning as well as architecturally brilliant: the shortcut underneath and the urban space I thought were stunning; it is only when you visit that you see it. But the other thing was that I have a feeling that the curves, the flowing curves did not come from Le Corbusier but from the translation of his diagram, and again that is something I think I discovered this morning.
ON We’ve changed many things…
NF Yes, yes, I see, but I thought it was more than a change: I felt it was a transformation not just a modification, if you understand the difference. I felt it was more profound. "
Click HERE to read on...
Thank You Abitare!
This 'extraordinary encounter' is unlike an other and this conversation delves deep into architecture's core.
" Norman Foster I saw the little church, the chapel in Pampulha1, yesterday.
Oscar Niemeyer Pampulha is something so old; it does not represent what it once was… It has suffered many changes.
NF It was a very important building for me when I was 21 years old, before I started to study architecture…
ON It was my first work…
NF It was also the first influential project for me at the time and I discovered it almost by accident yesterday, I was driving past by car. I could not believe it, I saw it on the way from the airport. And then this morning I saw the Education building2 for the first time.
ON Pampulha was made in a hurry, and Brasília was also such a rush… I am very pleased with your visit because I appreciate your architecture.
NF I would like to say how much I appreciated the Education building2 this morning and how I was surprised by some of the things that I saw.
ON It is a work by Le Corbusier that we just developed… We changed many things: we put the building in the centre of the area, for example, but he did the initial croquis.
NF I saw that, but there are two things images cannot show. I thought it was a brilliant piece of city planning as well as architecturally brilliant: the shortcut underneath and the urban space I thought were stunning; it is only when you visit that you see it. But the other thing was that I have a feeling that the curves, the flowing curves did not come from Le Corbusier but from the translation of his diagram, and again that is something I think I discovered this morning.
ON We’ve changed many things…
NF Yes, yes, I see, but I thought it was more than a change: I felt it was a transformation not just a modification, if you understand the difference. I felt it was more profound. "
Click HERE to read on...
Tuesday, 23 August 2011
Edwards Moore on Pitching Work
Edwards Moore
Ben Edwards and Juliet Moore
EXTRACT
Chris
But you guys would have to do the same thing like have a document pitching what you want to do?
Juliet
Explaining the process.
Ben
And there's a real art to that because you don't necessarily want to show all your work right at the start. So the way we do it is you talk softly softly. This is very logical because it gradually takes them through it and then at the end of it...
Juliet
Tah dah! Usually there's a model or something that represents everything you've talked about. So the idea is by the time you get to that it makes so much sense because everything they've been shown leads to that point and it's like, "Of course, Hallelujah!"
Ben
It's quite nice, sometimes we'll have a model actually around the corner so there'll be nothing on the table and, "Hang on I'll just go around here...", and then you come out and "Tah dah!"
Juliet
People are easily distracted too. If they walked in and there was a model on the table they'd be like, "I dont know, is the window big enough...?" You want them to think about the bigger picture.
Ben
And you can see how they're reacting when you're talking so you know whether to pull back from going too far down a certain path with something and talking about the other stuff they want to hear. Maybe they're interested in the sustainability or something like that. We'll also use references and precedents like Google Images and all that sort of stuff - images that try to create an atmosphere in a document spatially and communicating that. They're not necessarily our projects or materials. We've been really lucky in that it seems to work really well, we've had a couple of ones where they literally turned over the first page and gone, "No, no, no...".
Interview Continues [click here]
Monday, 22 August 2011
Ghost Like Architecture : Shingo Masuda+Katsuhisa Otsubo
http://salad-net.jp/
The site is a threshold of house, street, garden, and neighbor.
We judged that it would be effective to design a boundary that could constantly renew and rewrite the interpretation in our consciousness each time they involve the site, of a garden being a house, a house being a neighbor, a garden being a street and so on - without restricting sites.
We tried to create an inconsistence between physical and visual experience of "boundary" to individuals, according to the state, by constructing an ambivalent "ghost-like architecture" that emerge and dissolve simultaneously. The boundary, which creates the interpretation of the scene or the crossing of awareness, becomes the new borderline that circulates inside the consciousness, which will not belong to any or all domains.
The site is a threshold of house, street, garden, and neighbor.
We judged that it would be effective to design a boundary that could constantly renew and rewrite the interpretation in our consciousness each time they involve the site, of a garden being a house, a house being a neighbor, a garden being a street and so on - without restricting sites.
We tried to create an inconsistence between physical and visual experience of "boundary" to individuals, according to the state, by constructing an ambivalent "ghost-like architecture" that emerge and dissolve simultaneously. The boundary, which creates the interpretation of the scene or the crossing of awareness, becomes the new borderline that circulates inside the consciousness, which will not belong to any or all domains.
Monday, 15 August 2011
Weekend Retreat in Agatsuma-gun by Go Hasegawa
When an elderly couple residing in Tokyo asked him to design a weekend retreat in the dense forest of Agatsuma-gun, Hasegawa mimicked the surrounding tall, slender trees.
The main living space floats 6.5 meters (roughly 21 feet) in midair and is supported by thin stilts, creating an outdoor patio beneath it.
The design fulfills two requests: It provides the couple with a concrete deck on the ground floor that is spacious enough for the entire family to gather for a barbecue, as well as a rooftop platform high enough in the surrounding tree canopy to see Mount Asama during wintertime.
Saturday, 13 August 2011
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
The AJ asks prominent architectural thinkers to comment on the architecture of our cities and why Britain is burning
Joseph Rykwert
Cities incite riots - and herding people in high rise reservoirs of social aggression doesn’t help: if we didn’t have football and rugby matches to release it, however messily, we’d have many more, though riots are almost always triggered by specific incidents. Current hoody anomie was fostered by the spectacle of the fat-cats bloated bonuses accompanying the ‘we’re all in it’ talk about cuts - as well as by the knowledge that the police was among the public services to be mutilated (which also goes for parks, youth centres), so was inevitably demoralised. And the spark was a mishandled police shooting. Locking up cowed hoodies in overcrowded prisons won’t solve anything. We need to think about public housing and public space - quickly
Richard Sennett
The riots were all too predictable: a generation of poor, young people with no future becomes a tinderbox for violence. The British riots have one resemblance to those which afflicted France in the last decade; they occur in the places where no-hopers live, rather than political riots directed at the centres of power; the result is that the principle victims are their local neighbours
Jeremy Till
At least the architects are not blamed this time, as we were with Broadwater. Nor could we be, because (quoting Simmel) the city is not a spatial entity with sociological consequences, but a sociological entity that is formed spatially. Here the riots spatialise years of ramping up of social inequality. So when my Twitter feed calls for the reintroduction of Jane Jacobs, I blanch (because space is not the solution, just the symptom) and when the Tories say it is ‘pure’ criminality, I rage (because of the implicit disavowal of their political responsibility). One way out? Act on the New Economic Foundation’s Great Transition
Alain de Botton
People tend to distinguish between violence against people (very serious) and violence against property (not so bad). But in these riots, what emerges is how offensive it is to see buildings on fire because this symbolises a destruction of the hopes and efforts of so many who struggled to build and maintain them. It isn’t just money that goes up in flames; it’s the spirit of civilisation
Robert Tavernor
The London riots are a sobering reminder that cities are for people, that people make cities. Cities rely on a precarious social balance that can be wrecked by the irresponsible. Leadership and good action are now essential
Wouter Vanstiphout
The reality of urban riots is that they have always turned out to be the opposite of a learning experience for a city. Riots have nearly always resulted in politicians simplifying the problem even more, and looking away even further. After a riot your average city will become more afraid, more authoritarian, more segregated, more exclusive and less tolerant. That is the real tragedy of the post-war western urban riot, first it shocks and terrifies us, then for a moment it makes us see flashes of the kind of city we should be working towards, which then fades away into the darkness.
Cities incite riots - and herding people in high rise reservoirs of social aggression doesn’t help: if we didn’t have football and rugby matches to release it, however messily, we’d have many more, though riots are almost always triggered by specific incidents. Current hoody anomie was fostered by the spectacle of the fat-cats bloated bonuses accompanying the ‘we’re all in it’ talk about cuts - as well as by the knowledge that the police was among the public services to be mutilated (which also goes for parks, youth centres), so was inevitably demoralised. And the spark was a mishandled police shooting. Locking up cowed hoodies in overcrowded prisons won’t solve anything. We need to think about public housing and public space - quickly
Richard Sennett
The riots were all too predictable: a generation of poor, young people with no future becomes a tinderbox for violence. The British riots have one resemblance to those which afflicted France in the last decade; they occur in the places where no-hopers live, rather than political riots directed at the centres of power; the result is that the principle victims are their local neighbours
Jeremy Till
At least the architects are not blamed this time, as we were with Broadwater. Nor could we be, because (quoting Simmel) the city is not a spatial entity with sociological consequences, but a sociological entity that is formed spatially. Here the riots spatialise years of ramping up of social inequality. So when my Twitter feed calls for the reintroduction of Jane Jacobs, I blanch (because space is not the solution, just the symptom) and when the Tories say it is ‘pure’ criminality, I rage (because of the implicit disavowal of their political responsibility). One way out? Act on the New Economic Foundation’s Great Transition
Alain de Botton
People tend to distinguish between violence against people (very serious) and violence against property (not so bad). But in these riots, what emerges is how offensive it is to see buildings on fire because this symbolises a destruction of the hopes and efforts of so many who struggled to build and maintain them. It isn’t just money that goes up in flames; it’s the spirit of civilisation
Robert Tavernor
The London riots are a sobering reminder that cities are for people, that people make cities. Cities rely on a precarious social balance that can be wrecked by the irresponsible. Leadership and good action are now essential
Wouter Vanstiphout
The reality of urban riots is that they have always turned out to be the opposite of a learning experience for a city. Riots have nearly always resulted in politicians simplifying the problem even more, and looking away even further. After a riot your average city will become more afraid, more authoritarian, more segregated, more exclusive and less tolerant. That is the real tragedy of the post-war western urban riot, first it shocks and terrifies us, then for a moment it makes us see flashes of the kind of city we should be working towards, which then fades away into the darkness.
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
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