Mass Media in the Praise of Shadows

I took a bath; read In Praise of Shadows, an essay by Japanese novelist Juni'ichiro Tanizaki. I finished my bath. An idea came to mind:

This year, we are to investigate the technical and aesthetic aspects of the urban film archive, situated in the one and only, dirty Houston. Given the popularity (and reactionary spite) of midtown, the film archive will move into this growing area of town.

My partner and I were given the case study of the unbuilt Raaks Cinema Centre in Haarlem, Netherlands, by Bolles + Wilson Architects. I particularly liked their short article titled "Mass in the Age of Media:" My notes are as follows:

Built and digital have surface in common—the monitor and the façade. Virtual depth and material depth. Architecture is no longer an information carrier as it cannot travel by satellite. Architecture, however, has permanence unlike digital data; it cannot be as easily deleted. It is concrete, and has an uninterruptible presence. Buildings (or, can we say, Architecture?) become their site. They become place. However, the digital age has turned “television and the Internet [as] today’s piazzas”, since social interaction no longer requires place. Media has no depth, no human-reference; it can be overwhelming or not enough. Bolles and Wilson characterize the digital as our “infinitely forgettable, post-urban settlement patterns.” Architecture, however, always “gives measure to its immediate context, to eh comings and goings of daily use.” Most importantly, it has mass.

And an important bold quote:

“In today’s carpet-like urban field (the physical consequence of the indeterminacy of logistics), architecture can no longer hope to bring order to the whole (the ambition of nineteenth century planning). Instead, by focusing its unambiguous presence, its mass, architecture has the possibility to hold fast, to anchor, to give measure to the surrounding flux.”

To hold fast, to anchor, to give measure to....what beautiful purpose architecture has! But media... to be fast, to dis-anchor, to forget measure to...

My idea of media, after reading this, is loud loud pollution of light light and sound sound. Then, a bath with Tanizaki took place. Media is not viewed alone.

Media is only accentuated when viewed in the dark...the darkness that Tanizaki mystified, glorified, and attributed to as the essence of Japanese culture: shadows are needed to accentuate light, just as shadows accentuate their architecture, theater, and cuisine.

Then, my brainstorm: If I am to make a film archive-- a cinema, if you will-- why not use light and shadow as my architecture. To pulsate light out to the public-- their movie, their light show, their night life-- then truncate their sentences as they pass this tunnel of shadow. Out from this darkness, like a solitary laser, the secrets of cinema. Like a pause in a drama-- waiting for the actor to sob.

The Nocturnal Grocery Store

In my aimless hunger, I have formulated a new building type: the sleepless grocery store, open from midnight to six in the morning. Seven-eleven neon lights, fresh vegetables down to your meats. Pancake batter, no problem!

At least 24 hours. Please, city, pop one of these open. I bet I am not the only one that wants to cook in the middle of the night, then fails to notice the lack of groceries. Never lacking creativity! Just material!

Yes, it has been a long hiatus. This blog seems no longer mine. I have ignored it like a damned, annoying puppy. It is now my senior year of undergraduate architecture school. I feel completely different, but very much enlightened. Maybe I will tell you my dreams and nightmares as this semester unfolds.

Calatrava loves cute animals.

I love how online bloggers called it the "Spiny thing."

Cute isn't it?

Summer?

I
was
so
sick
of
the
site
of the
sunrise
every
morning
of
charrette.

Sight, I mean.

I'll post more "architecturally" later. I'll post in retrospect, in hopefulness, in poorness (no job yet!)... but alas, other assignments must be completed to finish off this semester.

Desk, currently

You haven't seen it in a while.

More and More

"Almost without realizing it, we have absorbed into our lives the first generation of expendables... foodbags, paper tissues, polythene wrappers, ballpens, E.P.s...so many things about which we don't have to think. We throw them away almost as soon as we acquire them.

Also with us are the items that are bigger and last longer, but are nevertheless planned for obsolescence...the motor car,...and its unit-built garage.

Now the second generation is upon us-- paper furniture is a reality in the Sates, paper sheets are a reality in British hospital beds, the Greater London Council is putting up limited-life-span houses."

-Peter Cook, Archigram 3

Trellis

Treating the trellis as a producer of shadows + a gathering space + vine climbing structure, rather than just a vine climbing structure.

I want to look like SANAA...

Yes, I haven't written in a long while. So far, partnered project has developed so much! It amazes me how little arguments we have. And when we do, it actually makes the project better than before, simply because arguments only clarify the purpose, the concept, and the idea.

Our professor was in our last review, and before Michael and I even spoke, he laughed. "Gosh, I gotta know why you two are working together."

After the presentation, which went well, we approached him and asked him about his snickering. He declared (after some pushing on our part) that both Michael and I work so differently, that it was confusing why we worked so well. Michael, he says, starts with one, fat graphic idea, and I start with the pieces, and put them together. Doug spoke so much truth, and it only teaches me how we are all in close observance. Perhaps because its only 25 of us, but even then, without a doubt, he knows us after one semester, like the back of his hand.

So for our final review, I joked to Michael that we should look sharp, yet hip, like SANAA. He shakes his head, despite his admiration for SANAA, and says it would be obnoxious, to dress up so 'professionally.'

Well. It's still a thought.

Truth?

Someone posts on a blog, in response to a parade of exterior shots of a new housing development somewhere in Madrid:

"October 9th, 2008 at 11:32 am
horrible!
architecture because of architecture, not because of living…
bad bad bad"

How right this person is.

And I bet, there's so many buildings out there that are architecture for the sake of architecture.

Buildings without people are nothing, but pieces of concrete and joints, or steel and bolts. But. That's. It.

Make it work.

Nox : h2o pavilion / David Clovers : Nola Filigree

Scribbled down by our professor, yesterday, next to our rather weak manifesto:



The investigation of the ground plane, and what it suggests for those walking/using it.

The other:



The investigation of the skin.

House : beginning concepts

It is said, that an architectural "object modifies human behaviors and technical performance." However, we do not want to impose a rigid linear pathway on the inhabitant's movements (hallways), but have a layout formed by their lifestyles, working/living habits, etc. Humans do not simply move in orthogonal paths.

We propose a multipurpose skin system. The skin will provide structural support and storage, and can act as partition, furniture or light filter. It will infiltrate and transform )in terms of function) within the house, then exist again at appropriate areas. It will be readable from both a planar and sectional perspective.

House : H stands for (in)Habitable

"It's raining in the hall, it's raining in the ramp, and the wall of the garage is absolutely soaked. What is more, it is still raining in my bathroom, which floors every time it rains. After numerous demands, you have finally accepted that this house is uninhabitable." Says Madame Savoye to Le Corbusier.

Lesson: don't let your ideologies blind/block you from realizing that this house will need to hold humans comfortably within it!

Recycle : infrastructure

Infrastructure for homes: A water tower is converted into a house:







Found here.

Of course, you'd have to have a strong pair of legs to be comfortable in this tower, but the idea is quite elegant. Of course, the question is: how cold is it there....that channel glass there isn't that well insulating...

Desk, currently:

Start here:

How the hell do you start designing with no parameters, no restrictions, no limits, no clients?!

There's already so many possibilities, so many permutations, so many options, so many projects streaming from a couple of sentences-- nay, one phrase!:

2 bedroom, 2 bath, site lot: 50'x 100'

The 2,000 SF House

"Oh, he seems like a nice guy, very chill; but no, he tricks you. He's strict as hell."
"So he tricked you?"
"He tricked all of us."

That was about one of my professors, Sean Lally, coupled with Michael Robinson, during one of my classes, the class above us scaring us with their woes.

I've picked a partner, for our next project: a 2,000 square foot house, with minimal programming-- what this project emphasizes is the design process, and how one visually represents that process. A readable line, be it linear or looped.

"Form is not architecture until you adopt the social dimension," says Robinson.

Chicken scratches on notebook, whatever wisdom they pass forward. Even when I dive into a spectrum of books, it's easy to lose track of everything.

A clear idea of this social dimension, of what a house will be used for, for whom the house is, what activities goes on in there.

"The only times you will be working alone is in architecture school," says Lally.

I had a clear idea of who I wanted to work with or not work with. It's hard to match up your work ethic to people absent during the summer, or absent when you are struggling with your own mind, not a collaborative design. It always appears to be easier, with two minds, split the work, etc. But I know it's not that easy, there's almost some overbearing, pseudointellectual wanting monopoly of the project's concepts and designs.

Miscommunication is the downfall of humanity. Trying to remedy that is impossible; but trying the impossible can always function as some sort of remedy.

Diagramming starts today.

And so it starts, the desk:

"mean green recycling machine"

So, my mother, who is a little more sensible to my 'clothing tastes' (I'm being sarcastic), buys a shirt in Target that, in large, bold print reads: "Mean Green Recycling Machine."

Of course, this only makes me shake my head, and think of all the merchandise dedicated to this "green lifestyle"-- commercializing environmentalism instead of really, really living that lifestyle.

So Target, the factory that produced these shirts, are they green?

So, I look at the tag, I find this:



Happens to be, that the Coca-cola company started this 'sustainable campaign' to encourage recycling. Of course, if you want to think a la Cradle to Cradle...so what if you can make clothing out of plastic bottles...in the end, the t-shirts themselves are not biodegradable. They would also need to be recycled.

And me, being the cynical person I am, probably a fraction of the population recycles anyway....

I guess it's just positively hoping-- thus their "Live Positively." Hopefully they change their methods within their company first-- replace the plastic with something biodegradable, for example. Think, of all the core changes to be made, and if each corporation is willing, and each factory is willing, and if each scientist/researcher is willing--- there, some change!

Noriko Ambe : Slice/Carve + Layers

Artist Noriko Ambe: art that looks like the topography of an architectural model.

White, white, white, white....

I understand when the architect, Thomas Phifer, said, "it's all about the landscape." Because as I walk to the pavilion, to the west entrance of Fondren, I walk by the cherry trees; the ground changes from grass to mulch, follow the sidewalk, and the texture continuously changes, different shades of green. The fountain, the elm trees, a neutral white, the cheerful seating.



It's quite pleasant.

(My only protest: Coffee House has my loyalties for coffee. Yes, Brochstein Pavilion, you are gorgeous, but how dare you not be student run?!)

I have yet to enjoy a stay at the pavilion.