New Order
JOURNAL OF THE MELBOURNE SCHOOL OF DESIGN
Features: Rory Hyde Forensic Architecture Lateral Office Breathe Architecture Luke Pearson
Vol 03 November 2016
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NEW ORDER
Inflection Journal Volume 03 - New Order: Transdisciplinarity + Architectural Practice November 2016
Inflection is published annually by the Melbourne School of Design at the University of Melbourne and AADR: Art Architecture Design Research. Editors: Courtney Foote, John Gatip and Jil Raleigh Deputy Editors: Natalie Chiodo and Amor Connors Assistant Graphics: Johnathon Batchelor Academic Advisor: Dr. AnnMarie Brennan Academic Advisory Board: Dr. AnnMarie Brennan Prof. Alan Pert Prof. Gini Lee Acknowledgements: The editors would like to thank all those involved in the production of this journal for their generous assistance and support. Special thanks are due to AnnMarie Brennan, whose continual support, guidance and encouragement has been invaluable. For all enquiries please contact: editorial@inflectionjournal.com inflectionjournal.com facebook.com/inflectionjournal/ instagram.com/inflectionjournal/ © Copyright 2016 ISSN 2199-8094 ISBN 978-3-88778-480-5 AADR – Art, Architecture and Design Research publishes research with an emphasis on the relationship between critical theory and creative practice. AADR Curatorial Editor: Rochus Urban Hinkel, Stockholm Production: pth-mediaberatung GmbH, Würzburg Publication © by Spurbuchverlag 1. Print run 2016 Am Eichenhügel 4, 96148 Baunach, Germany. Graphic design in collaboration with Büro North Interdisciplinary Design No part of the work must in any mode (print, photocopy, microfilm, CD or any other process) be reproduced nor – by application of electronic systems – processed, manifolded nor broadcast without approval of the copyright holder. The opinions expressed in Inflection are those of the authors and are not endorsed by the University of Melbourne.
Cover Image: Courtney Foote, Jordan Head, John Gatip + Jil Raleighumba
CONTRIBUTORS Rory Hyde Hyde is currently Curator of Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism, V&A Museum. A graduate from RMIT School of Architecture and Design, Hyde previously worked for international and local architecture practices. In 2012, Hyde authored his first book Future Practice: Conversations from the Edge of Architecture. Hyde is an adjunct senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne.
John Wood Wood is a design theorist and Emeritus Professor of Design at Goldsmiths College, London. He is cofounder of the international network, WritingPAD, and coeditor of its publication, Journal of Writing in Creative Practice. Wood established metadesigners.org in 2005 and, via his company Creative Publics Ltd, is currently applying a much-developed version of his theoretical framework within a commercial context.
Ben Waters Waters is director and cofounder of Studio Osk, Melbourne. He graduated with a Master of Architecture from RMIT University and studied at Parsons School of Design, New York. Waters is active in design research and currently leads architecture design studios at the University of Melbourne and Monash University.
Eleni Han Han graduated as an architectural engineer from the University of Thessaly and holds a Diploma in Architectural Design from the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently working on international design projects in addition to writing research papers regarding the future of architecture and its socio-economic impact.
Mariana Pestana and Suzanne O’Connell In 2010, Pestana and O'Connell cofounded The Decorators – a design practice incorporating the disciplines of psychology, landscape architecture and interior architecture. Their design process encourages community engagement through establishing connections with local authorities and public institutions. In 2015, The Decorators launched their first book, Ridley’s: Recipes for Food and Architecture.
Markus Jung, Maud Cassaignau, Jon Shinkfield and Matthew Xue Jung and Cassaignau are researchers from Monash University in the department of Art, Design and Architecture. After working for a number of international architecture practices they cofounded XPACE: architecture + urban design. Their design practice explores the intersection of culture, technology and aesthetics within space production. Jung and Cassaignau partnered with Shinkfield and Xue for the Sponge City project.
Simona Falvo Falvo is a graduate architect from the Melbourne School of Design with a strong interest in cinema, among other things. She is interested in the intersection between architecture, philosophy and meaning and enjoys, whenever possible, the opportunity to travel and experience the world.
Blake Jackson Jackson is an architect, associate and Sustainability Practice Leader at Tsoi/Kobus & Associates, Cambridge, and an adjunct faculty member at Boston Architectural College. He is also cochair of the American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment (COTE) and a board member for A Better City – a not-for-profit organisation that advocates sustainable development.
Janet McGaw McGaw is an architect and academic from the University of Melbourne with a PhD by Creative Works. Her research, teaching and creative practice investigate ways to make urban space more equitable, leading her to a collaborative installation in the international exhibition Feminist Practice and work on Indigenous placemaking. McGaw also teaches and publishes in the field of Design Research methods.
Luke Pearson Pearson is a current PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art, London, and tutor at the Bartlett School of Design. His research focuses on the application of art and architecture into drawing and fabrication. Pearson has previously edited the periodical ELEVEN and in 2005 was awarded the RIBA Bronze Medal.
Alex Holland and Stanislav Roudavski Holland is a graduate architect from the Melbourne School of Design with a research interest in games as tools for participatory design. Roudavski is a researcher and senior lecturer from the University of Melbourne whose work explores how participation, processes and design outcomes are likely to change under the influence of technology. Together, they work on projects that seek to support design as a form of activism.
Jeremy McLeod McLeod is an architect and founding director of Breathe Architecture, Melbourne. He is cofounder of The Nightingale Model – an architect-led multi-residential development model that offers a triple-bottom-line alternative in the housing market. McLeod and his team completed the award-winning Nightingale prototype, The Commons, in 2013 and are currently administering the construction of Nightingale 1.0.
Lateral Office Founded in 2003 by Mason White and Lola Sheppard, Lateral Office is an experimental design practice based in Toronto, Canada, that operates at the intersection of architecture, landscape and urbanism. The firm’s recent work has focused on design relationships between the public realm, infrastructure and the environment that engage with social, ecological and political contexts.
Fabian Prideaux Prideaux is a humanitarian shelter architect and a program advisor at Humanitarian Benchmark Consulting, a social enterprise based in Jogjakarta. A graduate of the Melbourne School of Design, his choice of vocation was inspired by his participation in the School's 2010 Bower Studio, which has students working with remote indigenous groups to provide essential buildings and infrastructure. Prideaux has since worked on major humanitarian and development projects in Nepal, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
Tristan Da Roza Da Roza graduated from the Melbourne School of Design in 2016 with a Master of Architecture, and was a finalist in the AIA Graduate Award for his thesis project Start-Up Sovereignty. He is focused on working across the disciplines of architecture, urbanism and property development, to address the social and financial forces that contribute to equity in the built environment.
Christina Varvia Varvia is an architect, researcher and the project coordinator at Forensic Architecture. A graduate of the AA School of Architecture and the Unknown Fields Division, Varvia worked for architecture and construction practices before joining the Forensic Architecture team in 2014. She is currently developing methodologies and undertakes analysis through architecture and time-based media. Her work with Forensic Architecture has been exhibited in the UK, France, Belgium, Italy, Canada and China.
Giuseppe Resta Resta is a current PhD candidate at Roma Tre University and an assistant for the design studio course at Politecnico di Bari, Italy. Regularly participating in international conferences, Resta is the architecture editor of Artwort. In 2016 he curated Evoked – Architectural Diptychs at FAB Gallery in Tirana. His research interests surround contemporary mixed-use buildings and their iconic value.
Lucas Koleits Koleits is a graduate architect from the Melbourne School of Design and holds a Master of Antarctic Science from the University of Tasmania. He is interested in the social, economic and technological ecologies that shape and influence contemporary architecture, and seeks opportunities to creatively manipulate these conditions.
Joseph DeBenny DeBenny studied architecture at the University of Arizona CAPLA, graduating in 2015. With a particular interest in writing, his research focuses on critical theory, performance-oriented architecture and continental philosophy. An avid blogger, DeBenny believes students can offer a unique perspective on the tenets of architecture, unrestricted by the dogmas of traditional theories of practice.
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CONTENTS
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Editorial
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Rory Hyde: Future Practice Now
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Ben Waters Studio Osk: Stadtumbau
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Mariana Pestana + Suzanne O’Connell: The Decorators
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Simona Falvo: Toward a Cinematic Architecture
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Janet McGaw: Design Research
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John Wood: Metadesign
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Eleni Han: Hybridisation - Synergy of Architecture + Biology
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Maud Cassaignau, Markus Jung, Jon Shinkfield + Matthew Xue: Sponge City*
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Blake Jackson: Transdisciplinarianism Innovation through Sustainable Practice
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Luke Pearson: Architectures of Ironic Computation*
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Alex Holland + Stanislav Roudavski: PocketPedal
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Jeremy McLeod Breathe Architecture: Nightingale
Lateral Office: Making Camp
110 Tristan Da Roza: The Age of Start-Up Sovereignty
Fabian Prideaux: Humanitarian Shelter
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Christina Varvia Forensic Architecture: Architecture Screams Before It Dies
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Lucas Koleits: An Embassy for the Fourth World
Giuseppe Resta: SCPTIPMFLIPPES
Joseph DeBenny: Architecture Needs an Enema
*denotes articles that have been formally peer-reviewed
NEW ORDER TRANSDISCIPLINARITY + ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE EDITORIAL BY COURTNEY FOOTE, JOHN GATIP + JIL RALEIGH
In the context of recent global political and economic disruption, architecture seems no longer equipped to address the demands of contemporary society as an isolated discipline. The old order of segregated industries and disciplinary elitism is collapsing, threatening to destabilise the foundations of architecture. A new, indeterminate paradigm is emerging, allowing architects to reconsider the nature of their practice – one currently at risk of cultural and political redundancy. One solution offered in this crisis of relevance is the notion of transdisciplinarity. Characterised by the hybridisation of distinct disciplines, this concept has risen to become a celebrated mode within contemporary architectural practice. Transdisciplinarity is the New Order. This moment of adjacencies resembles art historian Rosalind Krauss’ critique of synthesised art practice. Her 1979 essay, “Sculpture in the Expanded Field,” sought to identify the intrinsic qualities of sculpture, architecture and land art at the point at which the three disciplines were being hybridised.1 In defining the limits of each discipline, the concept of an 'expanded field' provided a space to properly establish what each discipline was, and what it might become if strategically combined with adjacent disciplines. Architecture theorist Anthony Vidler translated Krauss’ thinking to an architectural context in 2004. His adaptation, “Architecture’s expanded field,” similarly assessed the limits of disciplinary borders against categories as far-reaching as biology, politics and technology.2 For Vidler, the expanded field was concerned with what occurs at the edge of conventional architecture as a means of innovation. Both these historic perspectives describe an impasse between disciplinary essentialism and shifting practices. Yet the spatial character of expanded field terminology itself also hinted at movement across or beyond, encouraging the transgression of established borders.
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Subsequent developments in architectural discourse revealed the solidifying identity of this movement. In 2009, RMIT’s Mark Burry and Terry Cutler curated Designing Solutions to Wicked Problems: A Manifesto for Transdisciplinary Research and Design, a symposium premised upon the idea that while transdisciplinary research is the natural habitat of the polymath, any broadening of professional remit is reliant on deeply specialised knowledge.3 Far from diluting the integrity of the core discipline, transdisciplinarity has the capacity to enrich conventional modes of research or practice. This porous disciplinary boundary has been embraced within a contemporary conception of architecture and is now recognised by the wider architectural community. This is most recently demonstrated by Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena’s curatorial ambition for the 2016 Architecture Biennale, Reporting from the Front. Aravena sought to expand the scope of architecture by engaging social, political and economic fields.4 This intention is symptomatic of the trend towards architecture as a transdiscipline. Transdisciplinary practice extends conventional notions of architecture, displacing the production of built form as the prevailing mode of practice. Projects once considered to be on the ‘fringe’ of architectural practice are now routine; the expanded field is now embraced and authenticated by the architectural establishment and public expectation. Through a series of built projects, conversations and provocations, this issue of Inflection offers a survey of this expanded mode of architectural practice and presents a network of transdisciplinary interactions through which architecture can now contribute. New Order begins with a reflection by V&A curator Rory Hyde on the developments in the field since the publication of Future Practice: Conversations from the Edge of Architecture.5 The journal then turns to an inspection of the interaction between art, curatorial practice and architecture through
projects by local practice Studio Osk and London-based The Decorators, and an essay on the relationship between cinema and architecture by Simona Falvo. Design theorist John Wood discusses the potential for creative synergies through collaborative relationships, then Janet McGaw discusses transdisciplinarity in architectural design research. This leads the narrative toward bio-design research and Eleni Han’s consideration of hybrid architectures, in which nature and the built environment are synthesised. A transdisciplinary team of experts, headed by Maud Cassaignau and Markus Jung, describes the potential of architecture when coupled with hydrology. Boston architect Blake Jackson then provides an account of the practical experience of transdisciplinarity in the context of sustainable practice. New Order shifts briefly from the physical to the virtual through Luke Pearson’s proposition that the practice of videogame creation operates as a legitimate architectural design tool. Continuing this alignment with computational expertise, Alex Holland and Stanislav Roudavski present a smartphone game designed to enhance conventional participatory design processes. A return to the material world is signalled by Toronto-based Lateral Office’s account of the temporary inhabitation of wild landscapes through the lens of sociology and geography. This enquiry into modes of ‘occupation’ is broadened to the global arena, as Tristan Da Roza explores the geopolitical consequences of transnationalism. Inflection then takes an anti-geographic and anti-technological detour via Giuseppe Resta’s device that reframes the maritime landscape. This investigation of transdisciplinarity and architectural practice encounters a warning from Joseph DeBenny, who postulates that the mere accumulation of disciplines will not result in a transdisciplinary utopia. He offers a method for mitigating the risks of mediocrity inherent in disciplinary interactions. But DeBenny’s caution is answered by the last portion of the journal, which offers irrefutable evidence that transdisciplinary interactions are effecting consequential change on a local and global scale. In engaging with the fields of finance, humanitarian aid, politics and international law, the works of architects Jeremy McLeod (Breathe Architecture), Fabian Prideaux, and Christina Varvia (Forensic Architecture) demonstrate the potential of this new mode of practice. Vol 03 New Order
New Order ends with Lucas Koleits’ speculative embassy for micronations; a timely probing of the relationship between architecture and ideology as the global community finds itself in a moment of political, environmental and philosophical uncertainty. Together these contributors demonstrate a critical response to the discipline of architecture in the 21st century. No longer bound by form-focused rules, architects are now able to find a new way of engaging with the natural and built environment through transdisciplinary practice. Amidst political, cultural, social, economic and environmental uncertainty, architecture must embrace its permeability, as architects engage with and synergise knowledge from multiple disciplines. Through this critical investigation of this contemporary mode of practice, Inflection Volume 3 explores the achievements, limitations and future implications of this transdisciplinary age, weaving together a fragment of the tapestry that is expanded architectural practice. In tracing the trajectory of this New Order, this issue uncovers the matter that binds architecture together in this fragmented, yet hyperconnected epoch.
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Rosalind Krauss, "Sculpture in the Expanded Field," October Vol. 8 (1979): 31-44. Anthony Vidler, "Architecture's Expanded Field: finding inspiration in jellyfish and geopolitics, architects today are working within radically new frames of reference," Artforum International Vol. 42, No. 8 (2004): 142-148. Mark Burry & Terry Cutler, Designing Solutions to
Wicked Problems: A Manifesto for Transdisciplinary Research and Design, Melbourne, 2009 (Melbourne: 04
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RMIT Design Research Institute), http://www. designresearch.rmit.edu.au. Alejandro Aravena, "Reporting from the Front, Venice, 2016," Biennale Architettura 2016, accessed August 10, 2016, http://www.labiennale. org/en/architecture/exhibition/aravena/. Rory Hyde, Future Practice: Conversations from the Edge of Architecture (Routledge: New York, 2012).
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muf architecture/art, "More than one (fragile) thing at a time," installation, All of This Belongs to You exhibition, V&A, London, 2014. Photograph by Max Creasy.
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Future Practice Now
FUTURE PRACTICE NOW RORY HYDE ON THE EDGE OF ARCHITECTURE WITH COURTNEY FOOTE, JOHN GATIP + JIL RALEIGH
As Curator of Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism at the V&A Museum, Rory Hyde’s vision for the future of the discipline looks beyond the convention of building design. A champion for fringe practice, his curatorial oeuvre celebrates design that develops new forms of spatial engagement with our increasingly dynamic cities. The origin of these ideas were present in his work as an ‘unsolicited architect’ where, somewhat covertly, he distributed paste-ups around the streets of Rotterdam with alternative design schemes for the city. Later refining these strategies in 2012, cocurating the exhibition New Order with Katja Novitskova for Mediamatic in Amsterdam, Hyde gathered an array of creative disciplines including artists, graphic designers and architects to consider energy and creative production in a post-carbon world. By fostering these disciplinary interactions, Hyde continues the premise of his book – Future Practice: Conversations from the Edge of Architecture – and opens the discourse surrounding spatial production to practitioners in and around the discipline of architecture. Working across the fields of exhibition design, curatorial practice, events, writing and architecture, Hyde himself embodies the transdisciplinary methodology. His most recent exhibition All of This Belongs to You at the V&A considers the role of the museum in representing contemporary experience. During his visit to the Melbourne School of Design, Inflection talked with Hyde about how the ‘edge’ could be introduced within the context of the design museum:
Vol 03 New Order
I: To start, could you comment on when you first identified shifts in the role of the architect? RH: I was studying at RMIT in the Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory (SIAL), looking at how new forms of technology were affecting design practice. That was the subject of my PhD, which was a fairly academic affair, but the conclusion took a bit of a leap to speculate on where these tendencies and technologies might take us. That thinking eventually became the book Future Practice: Conversations from the Edge of Architecture, which was a more journalistic approach to the same topic, told through a series of interviews with the people and practices actually working in these new ways. I: In our work on this theme, we’ve found it can be tricky to describe exactly what a transdisciplinary approach or ‘expanded practice’ is. How did you determine who was at the edge? RH: I’m interested in people and practices who somehow subvert or challenge their assumed mode of working, or who pluck strategies from other disciplines. Of course it’s a fluid edge. At one end of the spectrum there’s the more conventional architects – practices like ARM [Ashton Raggatt McDougall], Studio Gang or OMA/AMO. And at the other end you have practices that have very little to do with architecture, such as BERG, who are technologists and product designers, or Natalie Jeremijenko, who works as an
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Rory Hyde - Expanding Field
artist-designer-ecologist, or Marcus Westbury, who has a background running arts festivals. I would argue that all of these people can point us toward a different way of doing architecture, whether they know it or not. So when ARM write secret messages in braille on the National Museum of Australia, such as “sorry” or “forgive us our genocide,” they point to a critical way of working where the architect is not a mere subservient service provider, but has an independent critical voice that may not be shared by the client. In this case, they said something through the architecture of a national institution that the government of the time wasn’t prepared to say. In a different way, BERG’s research into the invisible worlds of magnetic swipe cards and RFID readers – like your Myki card – can point to a new understanding of digital-real space. What links all these people together is a sense that they have developed new tools that we can learn from, and even add them to our own design toolkits. I: Your own practice, taking in curating, research and even designing pavilions, could also be described as transdisciplinary. How do see your projects such as the Bucky Bar or Bin Dome as expanding the field of architecture? RH: On the one hand they’re just a chance to do something fast, a chance to do something really performative, to bring that immediacy back into architecture. But really it’s a way to confirm this belief in the power of architecture as a catalyst for social effects. Both these projects were driven by creating playful scenarios for people, a kind of minimum architecture of event. But I don’t see a strict line of distinction between these more flimsy and temporary works and something more permanent and ‘real’ like this building we’re sitting in. It’s just that the stakes are higher for something made in concrete, you need to ensure that the social effects your building is imparting – over months, years, decades, centuries even – are positive ones, rather than negative ones. And that perhaps links back to the idea of misguided modernity, which I think is in the background of all my work. The idea of questioning or challenging the authority of the architect, the over-confident form-maker, which gets replaced by something that’s a bit more provisional, a bit more about asking questions, rather than delivering a manifesto. To work with the public rather than dictating to them. I think those pavilions were a bit about that. Vol 03 New Order
I: Many of your projects and provocations engage with architecture as a public good, a kind of democratisation perhaps. RH: As architects we have this very generous civic training, we are taught to serve the public good. I don’t think anybody comes out of architecture school feeling cynical, like they just to want to – I don’t know – build the tallest tower for the most miserable developer. No, you want to build a library, you want to build a town hall, you want build a civic space, you want to design a public square or a train station. But then something happens when you take your first job and you realise that serving the public good is about 1% of what you do. Instead the things driving your designs are not the generosity for the public space, but the carpark grid and the square metre cost. And that’s fine, that’s what architecture is a lot of the time, but perhaps it’s not what I’m interested in anymore. So I guess the big project has been to try to reframe the architect as a ‘custodian of the built environment.’ Or, to put it in less grandiose terms, it’s simply about seeing what happens if you zoom out one layer. To position the work in a larger context, and to take seriously our obligation to the big public, as well as to the client. I: You’ve described the conventional practice of architecture as being like a ‘fortress’ – closed on itself, protecting the status quo, not letting anything new inside. RH: That’s right, and the kind of practices I was interested in were always somehow illegitimate, marginalised, sideshows. That somehow in order to be a ‘real’ architect you had to be building private or commercial work in an urban centre. But I think what happened with the economic crisis, is that these marginal practices, the people who weren’t getting published or getting loads of work, but who were working in a particular way that was local and responsive, were suddenly looked at as the new leaders. They’d developed tactics that were resilient and engaged, which then really started to resonate, and shift the centre. So I don’t find these binaries so useful anymore, it feels much more unstable now. Alejandro Aravena wins the Pritzker Prize, Assemble win the Turner Prize, and these simplistic distinctions of conventional or traditional practice versus the fringe or edge no longer make much sense. I: You’ve now moved into the institutional sphere of a big museum. How are you able to maintain this position in this context?
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RH: Yeah that’s a really good question, because I’m in the centre now! The V&A is the status quo in many ways. It’s a giant cultural monolith, one hundred and fifty years old, with seven hundred people working there. It has so much baggage historically, but also public expectation of what ought to be in the future. Through our exhibition All of This Belongs to You, we’re asking questions like, “How can you break these assumptions? How can you turn it inside out? How can you make it a radical place?” Our answer is to point backwards and say, “There is a radical history in this place too.” The V&A was founded on the very idealistic, utopian and perhaps patronising idea that design has the power to improve society, that exposure to beautiful things can make you a better person. And I think we certainly feel this still somewhat holds true today, that objects and ideas can have a profound effect, and can be vehicles to tackle the big questions of society. I: What happens next? Can the centre push back out to shape the edges? RH: My problem is when you become interested in the edges, there’s no end, it just keeps going. It’s a limitless field, only bounded by your curiosity. So I feel like I’m leaving architecture behind more and more, and that’s probably okay for now. The next project I’m working on at the V&A goes way beyond architecture into science, design, technology, medicine and even space. Which comes back to your theme of transdisciplinarity.
Our job can’t just be building, because then you only have the same answer to every problem. Like a surgeon who always elects to amputate, regardless of the patient. That’s why I like the phrase ‘custodian of the built environment’ – because somehow it can incorporate a more diverse form of practice. If that’s how you imagine what you do, then perhaps it leads you to explore ‘other ways of doing architecture,’ as Jeremy Till puts it. I: There’s an interesting tension here between expanding the discipline, and holding on to core tenets. Should we be trying to protect some intrinsic thing that’s ‘architecture,’ or do we just celebrate the expansion? RH: I think the trick is not to see these as contradictory. I would argue that the core tenet of architecture is integration. Within a big project team, you’re the one who synthesises all the input and expertise. The engineering, the environmental reports, the client’s wishes, the public’s demands, the planning constraints, the budget, the way it looks, etc. You’re the one who has the complete overview and can navigate between all these different forms of expertise, constraints and opportunities. That’s how it applies to a building project anyway: what’s interesting is when you bounce that out, and abstract it further. The architect becomes a person who knows a little bit about a lot of things, who’s able to sort it all out and pull it all together into one thing which people can get behind. Perhaps without even knowing it, our training and experience has us perfectly placed to be that expanded practitioner.
I: What happens when this expansion goes so far it leaves architecture behind? RH: The questions I get a lot are: “Are you anti-architecture? Are you anti-buildings?” And you have to remind them that borrowing tactics from adjacent disciplines, or collaborating with improbable professionals is all about making better buildings. It’s about questioning the authority of the architect’s knowledge, and supporting it with other forms of knowing and making in order to be more relevant. But sometimes I do worry we might also be trading away our core strength. That somehow this curiosity can take you to places that have very little to do with architecture. Which of course comes back to the question “What is architecture, anyway?” On the surface it’s simple: it’s the design of buildings and places, right? But to me that sounds too specific. It doesn’t accommodate situations where the best thing might be to demolish a building, or do nothing at all. It’s the Cedric Price world of strategies: “You don’t need an architect, you need a divorce!” 12
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Previous: Hyde pictured with Bin Dome. Rory Hyde, "Bin Dome," pavilion, Melbourne Now exhibition, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2013. Photograph by Amy Silver. Opposite: Rory Hyde, "All of This Belongs to You," neon sign, All of This Belongs to You exhibition, V&A, London, 2014. Photograph by Max Creasy.
Future Practice Now
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STADTUMBAU A SPACE FOR ART + ARCHITECTURE EXPERIMENTS IN BERLIN BEN WATERS - STUDIO OSK
In March 2014, Studio Osk designed a project that attempted what is often only spoken about in the abstract: transdisciplinary practice. We wanted to test how artists and architects could engage in the collaborative exchange of spatial ideas, as well as explore the transformative effects of art and architecture in the public realm. Ultimately the project took our studio – a small Melbournebased studio made up of two architects and an artist – to Berlin, where we built a temporary pavilion to house events, performances and installations and sought out the potentials of cross-disciplinary exchange in this rich and vital context. We called the work Stadtumbau. Roughly translated as ‘city-restructuring,’ this term is more commonly deployed in Germany during the bureaucratic processes of urban design. But we wanted to invoke the term literally; we wanted to question what it was that traditionally restructured a city. Our ambitions were strongly influenced by past collaborative projects between artists and architects within this context, namely the controversial Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, conceived by architect Peter Eisenman and sculptor Richard Serra.1 The project provided us with the opportunity to test the potential of art and architectural interventions in public space, particularly in the context of Berlin as a liberal space for experimentation and transgression. Two years on from the project’s completion, we have had the chance to reflect on the experience and consider some of the aspects that made this experiment both difficult and possible. This essay presents some of our musings on the process of devising and funding this transdisciplinary project, the importance of situated institutional support, and the critical nature of the socio-political space in which these projects are conducted.
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Studio Osk, "Stadtumbau," pavilion, Stadtumbau art festival, Berlin, 2014. Photograph courtesy Studio Osk.
Stadtumbau
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The Political Economy of Transdisciplinary Projects As part of the residency program at the Centre for Art and Urbanistics (ZK/U) Berlin, we were invited to participate in a four month period of exchange, study and exhibition according to the conceptual framework of transdisciplinary practice. Part of the attraction of the project was the simplicity of the idea; a large, flexible and temporary pavilion that would house events, performances and installations by those in residency at the ZK/U. But conventional funding methods were not available, so a crowdfunding strategy became the most viable approach for us to cover the travel and material costs of the project. This funding format meant we had to conceive and publicly promote a proposal before our trip, asking those in our expanded social network to support the project via donations. These donations were rewarded through a series of ‘gifts’ we pledged to provide, like artworks, photographs and communications from Berlin. The very nature of the brief forced the architectural resolution of the project to be undefined and open-ended. We proposed an operable structure, designed from a universal scaffolding system in the form of a cube. The cube was to be clad in two layers of lightweight material; an outer skin of orange mesh and an inner skin of white canvas. That both layers of skin could be pulled up and over, in and around the scaffolding structure meant that we could reform the pavilion’s composition according to different events occurring within and around the structure. This ability for the structure to open and close – and thus transform between theatre and arena, or gallery and stage – was the key strategy to allow for unknown future collaborations. A promotional video piece was produced for the crowdfunding campaign as an abstract demonstration of the cube’s transformative qualities. This stop-motion, watercolour animation proved engaging from the outset precisely because of its grounding within a traditionally fine art medium, yet with real architectural implications. This type of disciplinary interaction works well in the context of crowdfunding, as a broad audience can easily engage with this form of communication.
The Institutional Context of ZK/U The Centre for Art and Urbanistics (ZK/U) sees itself as a laboratory for transdisciplinary activities centred on the phenomenon of ‘the city.’ The ZK/U fellows list reads as a diverse classification of cultural disciplines; from the traditional (writers, fine artists, film makers) to the obscure (human ecologists, participatory sound artists, garbage architects). This unique setting allows for exchange between adjacent and newly established disciplines – of both local and international origin – through workshops, presentations, and a monthly open house exhibition. The story of the ZK/U started almost 10 years ago when a group of artists called the KUNSTrePUBLIK established the Berlin Sculpture Park Central.2 KUNSTrePUBLIK reclaimed a piece of used land that was once occupied by the Berlin Wall and used it (without official permission or recognition) as a sculpture park. Forming their LANDREFORM project, they curated a series of works that challenged the idea of public space and arts involvement in the city. This work eventually culminated in the site being included as one of the official sites for the 5th Berlin Art Biennale in 2008.3 It was a very ‘Berlin’ condition; a major art biennale held on a piece of private land, without any formal permission. In 2010, KUNSTrePUBLIK was awarded a €1 million grant from the German Bundesrat to develop a site in inner Berlin in Moabit, a working class suburb characterised by industrial zones, a port, and a century-old freight train line. KUNSTrePUBLIK proposed to renovate the freight train depot into a space for artists in residency, and surround the building with a new public park, in an attempt to revitalise the area with new public space containing not only art, but also the artists themselves.
And so, we were off to Berlin.
The Socio-Political Context of Berlin Berlin has long been a melting pot of people wanting to collaborate and to engage and experiment politically, socially and culturally. Its cultural vitality and social intensity produces a natural context for dialogue across different artistic and theoretical boundaries. The ZK/U is an archetypal manifestation of this condition; a place where those wanting to engage in this type of exchange can base themselves. An early point of reference for our project was the collaboration between Eisenman and Serra for the conception of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Eisenman’s interests in the transformative potential of formal architectural operations, combined with Serra’s concern for disruption and disjunction within public spaces, produced a work that challenges our expectation of the role of art and architecture in providing meaning and experience in
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Thankfully, our idea and the campaign execution proved compelling enough for our social network to gather the funds necessary to support two architects and an artist on a relatively unknown pursuit; the 30-day crowdfunding campaign raised more than initially estimated for the project.
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the city. Knowing that the confrontations created in this vast public memorial were possible in this city provided the initial conceptual intent for our project, as did the belief that we would find here too a willing and open community of potential collaborators from around the world. That intuition proved correct: within a two month period we collaborated with nine different practitioners to produce works that sought new interactions with structure and material. One such work was French artist Natasha Mankowski’s installation of raw silk sheets, soaked in differing minerals and hung throughout the pavilion interior; the paintings themselves crossing over into the space of architecture. Another was a work created with Swiss-Italian artist Luca Forcucci. His sound recordings, taken from cities throughout the world, played through the cube’s steel scaffolding via speakers that transformed the structure into an acoustic resonator. Yet another – German artist Johanna Burnheart’s improvised film score (pictured over page), in response to a film by Studio Osk – similarly attempted to alter the traditional relationship between art and architecture. A Platform for Collaboration The inherently open-ended nature of such transdisciplinary projects means that conventional funding is often not available. But crowdfunding Stadtumbau has the benefit of negating standard client-stakeholder relationships, allowing our thinking of the project to be resolutely towards concept and collaboration. This funding method raises critical questions about the potential for transdisciplinary projects to succeed within the context of traditional art and architecture funding regimes. Is crowdfunding likely to be the main source of funding for projects like this into the future? How sustainable is that likely to be, and what type of practitioners, practices and audiences are privileged and marginalised in the process if this is the case? These are important questions that we have yet to deal with in the political economy of transdisciplinary practices.
References 01 Hanno Rauterberg, Holocaust Memorial Berlin: Eisenman Architects (Baden, Switzerland: Lars Müller, 2005). 02 See Susanne Schröder, ed., Skulpturenpark Berlin_ Zentrum (Verlag, Germany: Walther König, 2010). 03 "The structure of ZK/U," Center for Art and Urbanistics ZK/U, accessed March 10, 2016, http://www.zku-berlin.org/about/.
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Crowdfunding campaign diagrams. Studio Osk, Stadtumbau, 2014.
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Studio Osk, "Stadtumbau," pavilion, Stadtumbau art festival, Berlin, 2014. Opposite: Johanna Burnheart and Studio Osk, "Moabit - Live Film Score Performance," improvised performance, Stadtumbau art festival, Berlin, 2014. Photographs courtesy Studio Osk.
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THE DECORATORS MARIANA PESTANA AND SUZANNE O'CONNELL ON COLLABORATION WITH COURTNEY FOOTE Inspired by the community ethos of crowdfunded initiatives and open-source sharing, The Decorators approach architectural design as a project with many active participants. When engaging public space, the London-based practice consults the broader community, often using unique ways to initiate conversation. Their built interventions are usually temporary, ranging from a scaffold restaurant on the fringe of a market, to a public canteen imbedded within a disused Magistrates’ Court. With projects lasting between one to six months, the provisional quality furthers community engagement, as the time span of the architecture reflects public need. Described as ‘urban rehearsals,’ The Decorators aim to create spaces that are at once sites of experimentation, yet also moments of storytelling, giving the public an opportunity to narrate possible futures for their city. This ability to incorporate numerous voices in a design is informed by the diversity of their own team, as the Decorators explain to Inflection how different disciplines can work together in practice:
I: I’d like to talk about the collective, which we’ve identified as transdisciplinary. How were The Decorators formed and how are these disciplinary intersections important? MP: We came from four different backgrounds; interior design, psychology, landscape architecture and architecture. We met at Central Saint Martins at an MA program called Narrative Environments, which was a program that already nurtured interdisciplinary collaborations.
When we think about the evolution of the term multidisciplinarity, it’s usually the idea that you have different disciplines working together yet each keeps the boundaries of their own discipline. Interdisciplanrity means there is a coexistence of two disciplines, so you’re working on your own while working near another. Transdisciplinarity means that you cross – ‘trans’ actually means to cross a border. So it means that you’re already operating in some other territory. I quite like the idea of crossing disciplines because it defines the movement in-between. To never be fully in your own discipline, not quite doing something else, but constantly negotiating a place in-between. It’s where you’re in no particular territory. SO: Because we’re working within the public realm broadly speaking, that’s a complicated experiment with lots of different types of people and lots of different types of voices. I think that it’s very necessary to have different approaches because public space in itself has many people operating within it. I think that’s one advantage of the way we’ve been working. I: I was hoping you would talk about social engagement, as it is an element within many of your projects. Ridley’s in Hackney for example was a restaurant within a market, but at the same time it was a curated event. SO: Architecture doesn’t need to exist in isolation; it has a place to create social interactions. So the thing with Ridley’s was we didn’t really know what we were going to build or what we were going to do, but we spent a period of time – three or four months – at the market, talking to people.
I think that the transdisciplinary quality of The Decorators is really important, because it has always made us doubt the practice methodologies implied in our own disciplines. We had all worked to some capacity before, so it has been very important to constantly reassess our learnt approaches to a particular project by having an exchange of ideas.
We were trying to understand the day-to-day rituals and the day-to-day interactions that happen there. We wanted to avoid being an isolated structure restaurant on the site. We wanted to find a way to interact and be part of those day-to-day social dynamics.
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The Decorators,
Ridley's Temporary Restaurant, London, 2011. Photograph by Dosfotos.
That’s how the restaurant came into form – it relied heavily on the market. Those who came to dine at the restaurant had to go and shop at the market and collect some of the produce that we had on our shopping list. A very simple thing we noticed at the market was that there was no restaurant using the produce. The restaurant was a very simple insertion. All of the different resources and things that we needed were already there, so the architecture was just an add-on to support the social interactions. MP: We usually operate by making temporary structures and then inserting them into a particular site. We are less interested in playing with the formal elements, even though they are a really important part of the project as well. In Ridley’s the table was obviously an important aspect of the project as it played with the program. A lot of our projects actually ask ‘what if’ questions regarding program. What if there was an element – an architectural piece – that got inserted into this market and changed the economic dynamic of the site? What if it nurtured social interactions, and what if it opened up the field of what those social interactions could be, and who’s involved?
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I: I actually came across a pecha kucha talk that you gave Suzanne, where you suggested that The Decorators aim to create systems or scenarios that bring collaborators together. How is that conversation maintained with other sectors, like local government or private enterprise? SO: There is this constant back and forth dialogue between what the role of the professional or practitioner is in creating community. Like, what right do we have to go into a place and make suggestions about how to help build a community or a place? Obviously that feeds into us being in dialogue with the broader authorities, like local councils, landowners, the mayor’s office, etc. The main thing I keep coming back to is integrity. The vibe of the outsider is that you are not caught up in the everyday, so that you can potentially step out and see the broader picture. We try and keep relationships in the same area, rather than just responding to a tender that has come through the government portals. We know what tender is coming up and we potentially seek funding ourselves. We self-initiate projects, and we try to continue in the same area that we’ve been working.
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I: In reference to works like Crisp Street Market, which was very sensitive to the community that housed it, how should designers manage exiting facilities in the environment when they’re contributing built works? MP: I’d say that’s really crucial to the work we’ve done so far. A lot of the initial work is about spending time in a particular place and doing research and getting to know the different actors within a particular community. With Crisp Street, for example, we spent several months getting to know both the small and large cultural institutions that were developing very interesting programs and events. This was happening behind walls, however; it wasn't necessarily visible. A lot of our work was about identifying what those – we could call them micro institutions – are, mapping them, and through the realisation of the program, bringing them to the surface to make them visible. We did that, for example, through a radio program. SO: In a lot of our projects we try to use a bit of a Trojan Horse. We ask ourselves: “How are we going to go in? How are we going to start those conversations and gain key insights that enable us to understand a place?” This time we decided to do the radio show and by having those associated props, people just felt that they could talk to us. We used a series of methods to start conversations, whether that was listening in, and using that as a way to talk to people or actually arranging interviews. We used the insights gained from those interviews to then decide what our design interventions were going to be, and what kind of extra programming we were going to do. Specifically the local café was quite interesting because all the seats were really close to each other so you could really hear people’s conversations. This one guy was boasting about his gold medals for boxing, and then I noticed there were boxing clubs in the area. We then held a boxing event and built all the elements that we needed. That gives you the trajectory of how we lean and understand a place.
I: We are interested in how a practice's dynamic works with transdisciplinary collectives. How do the different professions, which each have their own inherent practice methodologies, come together and work through a design problem? SO: Collectively in our shared disciplines we’ve merged and blurred. We’ve being doing stuff that’s not traditionally architecture, for instance I’ve be transcribing interviews and then trying to decipher insights that come from that. But as we’ve developed as a business, we’ve had to clarify roles a little bit more. In the development of our practice artistic methods are still used, but we have separated out a little bit more to be more sustainable. MP: Overall, we have a non-hierarchical structure and that’s very important for us. There is place for everyone’s voice, and even when we work with other collaborators we try to keep that non-hierarchical structure. It can be a little unproductive in terms of how decisions are made, but we believe that it’s important. Even that difficultly is an important aspect of the work. By constantly discussing something we will eventually find a solution. Even if there is a number of voices, and often they can be conflicting, we believe that process of discussion will lead us to the best solution. SO: Yes – the impotence of argument! We’re very comfortable with not agreeing with each other and exhausting a problem. In a company with more traditional structure with set roles, you wouldn’t have that flexibility or those interrogative conversations. We have a flat structure: ‘the collaborative.’ It is very important to the way we work.
I: That’s an interesting research strategy: to overhear the dynamic of a certain area and then build the program from it. MP: Exactly, and it goes back to your first question on transdisciplinarity. There is something quite important about the permeability of the team. By enlarging the pool of collaborators, the Lansbury Amateur Boxing Club became a part of the team; not just an element of the program, but an active collaborator.
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Opposite above, left + right: The Decorators, Ridley's Temporary Restaurant, London, 2011. Photograph by Dosfotos. Opposite below, left + right: The Decorators, Crisp Street on Air, London, 2013-14. Photograph by Dosfotos.
The Decorators
In the context of recent global political and economic disruption, architecture seems no longer equipped to address the demands of contemporary society as an isolated discipline. One solution offered in this crisis of relevance is the notion of transdisciplinarity characterised by the hybridisation of distinct disciplines. Transdisciplinarity is the New Order. Inflection Volume 3 explores the achievements, limitations and future implications of this transdisciplinary age, weaving together a fragment of the tapestry that is expanded architectural practice. In tracing the trajectory of this New Order, this issue uncovers the matter that binds architecture together in this fragmented, yet hyperconnected epoch. Inflection is a student-run design journal based at the Melbourne School of Design, Melbourne University. Born from a desire to stimulate debate and generate ideas, it advocates the discursive voice of students, academics and practitioners. Founded in 2013, Inflection is a home for provocative writing – a place to share ideas and engage with contemporary discourse.
ISSN 2199-8094 ISBN 978-3-88778-480-5 AADR publishes innovative artistic, creative and historical research in art, architecture, design and related fields. www.aadr.info
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