design, architecture, urbanism… with a grain of salt

May 20^th Landscape of Clouds also got me thinking about the studio with a great title that I never took either.

This post is starting from “transient, vicious, ominous & beautiful” (urban) cloud.

Sometimes, in an urban context, the clouds are of the few elements of the natural landscape that remains for us to bring to a project. (It´s not often you can´t find a piece of sky out of the window).

Despite risk of reductionism, or missing the point about ´tacit architecture´ (as oulined in the Landscape of Clouds), this post presents a short story of a journey from one side of a window to the other via company analysis statistics, Shakespeare, to an Argentenian artist in MACBA, to staring out the window (I need more skylights too, Dan), and finally back to two clouds one abstract and static, one transient and moving: in fact - already disappeared from view.

The client was Neometrics, specialists in analytic intelligence. They are based in Madrid, and required a new office fitout in Barcelona (“Analyze to decide. Decide to Create Value” )

(1) Data analysis language: A diagram that explains social network analysis (2) Gego at MACBA, January 2007.

The architects were Calderon-Folch Arquitectes and the project is travesura 2. The fitout is finished and remaining is this big, long, blank wall… from the door to the window…

What could happen between the door and the window?

What is already happening on the other side of the window?

An idea began simply with some movement. An increase in density of lines, or form, or something on the wall as it reaches for the light from the window.

Arriving at the window it meets the landscape and chooses one element, to mirror, echoe, abstract and reinterpret. The window became the interface where reality became stylised form…

Enter Hamlet & Polonius, stage right:

The job progressed in a couple of quick sporadic jumps, between other things in the office.

Until a 1:1 test piece was produced: 1.5mm galvanized wire, heat straightened, soldered, and/or bent at the junctions, and then the production of a 10 metre long, silver lined cloud began.

Finally it´s a beautiful piece of sky on the inside of the window. And a nice way to learn that every cloud has a silver lining.

Images courtesy of Calderon-Folch Arquitectes

I remember whilst studying back in the early 2000’s, an Academic by the name of Julian Raxworthy was running a Landscape Architecture class, or a studio, on the Landscape of Clouds. 

I wasn’t enrolled in this class, but it interested me. As per usual I only really paid attention briefly, enough to pick up on the title, and ponder a little on what it meant. I should have read on. There is a plethora of these moments that litter my memory, and all I am left with is the ability to draw my own conclusions from a title I remember from a distant time. I suppose its enough sometimes. I read other things. As the other day, whilst skim reading BLDGBLOG I came across the more than stunning images that are in this post, and it triggered my memory and the thought that if Clouds form landscapes, then these landscapes could be captured in building or landscape projects. A transient piece of landscape that is forever still, vicious, ominous and beautiful. Nothing is more relaxing than staring at the sky. I need more skylights. 

It also triggered a plethora of questions relating to; the indeterminant nature of Nature. Thoughts on manicured gardens, macro landscapes and the image, Gaia and micro landscapes and control (e.g. courtyards).

 It then led me to think a little more about another question, “can Architecture (or Landscape Architecture) be taught?”. My answer is no. I believe it can’t be taught, but the teaching of Architecture is essential to Architecture itself. Architecture is tacit then… but if it is tacit, how can you teach it? 

   I was fortunate enough to work with Julian Raxworthy, Rene Van Meeuwen and Laura Rossi as well as other Landscapers from the ALVA school a couple of semester’s later than the Cloud studio on the entry to the National Arboreturm Competition, and was really fond of JR’s and RvM’s approach. RvM went on to be my honour’s supervisor. I got to explore the project tacitly. To apply one’s self to a project or a part of a project. I came to the conclusion that you aren’t a designer until they are completely your own designs and ideas that are on the page, in the music, in the product etc.etc. That is what I took from that experience.

So there you go. I came into this post at cloud, and left on tacit knowledge.  

Photos by Carlos Gutierrez for UPI, I saw these on BLDGBLOG

These are my links for March 14th through April 30th:

• AA - EXHIBITION - November/December 2003 - Article by Peter Moran, on Julius Elischer
• BLDGBLOG: Game/Space: An Interview with Daniel Dociu -
• ArchiNed Sites - Design Offices -
• Thermotec - Home -
• BURAK ARIKAN -
• Sze Tsung Leong -
• YouTube - Michael Jackson Best Moves -
• Waterproofing Products from Ardex New Zealand, Butynol Waterproof Membranes,Waterproofing Systems -
• Products and Services of Butyl Products Ltd. -
• Mojo Furniture Design -
• Welcome to Cadimage Tools Website -
• FrontPage - ArchicadWiki -
• ArchiCad East » ACE-CSI-Library - A World First in GDL Unification - Download Now! -
• ArchiCAD-Talk :: -
• DUMB BOXES « LEBBEUS WOODS -
• Dezeen » Blog Archive » Tetris Haus by Plasma Studio -
• Dezeen » Blog Archive » Bryghusgrunden Project by OMA 2 -
• ArchiCAD-Talk :: View topic - Door & Window drawn schedule - a tip - Notes on generating a door and window schedule in ArchiCAD
• Spanning Sync - Sync iCal and Google Calendar -
• FontStruct | Build, Share, Download Fonts -
• BUDHA.DK -
• canberra house -
• Baliwaves | The Original Bali Surf Site -
• Delta Corporation Limited : Precast Concrete Manufacturers -
• Make your own book with Blurb -
• a blog about blogs…on zeitgeist related topics -
• Zazzle custom t-shirts and more, create or shop for unique designs shipped in 24 hours -
• Manufacture and Sell Anything — in Minutes -
• Association of Societies for Growing Australian Plants -
• dezeen » Blog Archive » Split and Line by Maigrau -
• gideon.com.au :::: shop -

My great friend Rhys is currently working across the road from OMA’s ”most ambitious project to date” in Beijing.

Did someone say steel? 

  

 

Amongst a myriad of heritage listed Architecture in the Notre Dame precinct of Fremantle, sits a concrete structure worthy of the first post in this category.Next time I’ll get the address so you can see it, though for reference, it isn’t too far from the main train station. Just around the corner from the cafe Long Macc at 27 Market Street. You can still see on the facade the impression of the vegemite logo of the Commonwealth Bank, and the general massing of this building suggests that of a bank. I reckon they got the colour of this concrete spot on. Any ideas on what it is used for now?

    
 

I was  busy reading my Daily Dose of Architecture, and this passage appeared; 

“Architecture used to be about beauty. Now it’s just about money. What has changed? Well, everything, really, in three revolutions: social, theoretical, cultural. The social revolution occurred when democratic capitalism took money from the hands of a cultivated aristocracy and gave it first to the mercantile classes and then to the plebs (us). This fitted architecture with an entirely new client-class, which is really two classes — the developers who build, and the people who buy. Neither of them is especially interested in architecture, urbanism or the making of place.    

[...]The second revolution was, if not theory-led, at least theory-coated. In the mid-twentieth century, design-meisters Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius jointly marched architecture towards an engineering aesthetic of bare functionalism. That they did not practice their creed made their preachings no less effective, and led, inevitably, to a wholesale burning of the books. Which was the third revolution. The people are not the only ones who know what they like but can’t get there. In schools and academies across the planet, ignorance of the ancient (or indeed, modern) canons of beauty is profound. Which is not to argue that beauty as a rule thing. It’s more that old tenet that knowing the rules is especially essential for those who would break them.

The problem, therefore, is not just a lack of clients-with-taste-and-money, though that is real enough. It’s that the knowledge itself is no longer architecture’s dilly-bag. Beauty has become an embarrassment never to be discussed outside those inner-sanctum slide-nights when architects warm their hands against the tiny flame that flickers now at the profession’s core, blowing protectively on the coals lest the chill winds of commerce extinguish the flame forever.”  

- Elizabeth Farrelly in Blubberland (MIT Press, 2008)

If you would like to buy it, click on the link. Then read it. Then come back here and make a comment.  I’ve ordered the book. It appears that the author is an Australian. I look forward to reading it. One 5 star review has already been given on Amazon.  

green….green green greengreengreengreengreengreengreengreen.

Yes its all getting a little old. There are some capitalists out there milking it for all its worth. Even the ACCC are on the case, making sure everyone adheres to its true meaning.

Then, you get the goods. Jetson Green. I really like this site. It has a lot of integrity, its intention is to promote awareness for sustainability, and moreso for me, identify what the bloody hell sustainability means.

I’ve linked here to their critique of the beautifully proportioned Federal Building in San Francisico by Morphosis, and its relationship to the LEED energy rating system.

The battle continues, and Fortune has listed Gehry’s Stata Center as no.55 in its list of 101 dumbest moments in Business (USA business).Oh well, form for forms sake is always going to be a challenge. I have to agree with Fortune here. 

[Photo courtesy of Kate Shanley, found on flickr.com ]  

On the thought, read 

this article I found in the NY Times on Starchitects

I’ve caught onto blogging in a big way. I’ve now got a feed reader. Do you check 4 or 5 different sites in a day? You need a feed reader. It puts all the updates of your favourite sites in one place. You can minimise wasting your employer’s valuable minutes with one of these suckers.Ahh how I love RSS.Anyway, to the Architecture. I “feed” on numerous Architecture sites, and the best articles I come across I highlight. You can see these in the “feeding on” section of my side bar.One of the articles I thought I’d include photos of and include in this rant. It is of a Meier apartment in NYC. A really nicely detailed building.  [photo from curbed]  [photo from curbed]   [photo from curbed]   [photo from curbed]    [plan from curbed] 

Click here to view the article.

This one we’ll keep an eye on. We all know it’s possible, probably moreso with a Gehry building.

The building in question is the Stata Center at M.I.T.

[Image from Wikipedia]