INTERMEDIATE UNIT 1 - A NEW MIRACLE IN THE DESERT Mark Campbell and Stewart Dodd
Richard Miscrach, Stranded Rowboat, Salton Sea (1983)
‘The Salton Sea offers the good life in the sun. It’s the place for you to take charge of your future, you can come as you are — no reservations required.’ (Real Estate Advertisement, 1958) The Salton Sea is the result of a massive engineering mishap in which the Colorado River was accidently diverted into California’s Imperial Valley during the early-1900s. Before the flow could be halted over 350 sq. miles of desert had been flooded. This ‘accidental sea’ soon became a tourist attraction, however, and an opportunity for rampant architectural speculation. Resorts, marinas and suburbs grew up almost overnight and by its height in the 1950s members of the cultural elite – from Jack and Jackie Kennedy to Frank Sinatra and his booze-addled Rat Pack – visited to drink martinis and race speedboats. Unfortunately the ‘California Riviera’ was fed with chemically enriched agricultural run-off and the promise of modern architectural haven — ‘a Palm Springs with water’ — faded with the toxic reality of 140 deg. summers and apocalyptic wildlife die-offs. This year Intermediate 1 will continue to examine the architectural extremities and cultural oddities we discover through our research. We will explore the notion of ‘accidental architectures’ and investigate the outsider communities who continue to live among its residues — in defiance of any discernable reason or logic. Throughout these investigations we will act as ‘archaeologists of the immediate future’ (to paraphrase Reyner Banham) and our forensic examinations will include found artifacts, architectural precedents, images of both the past and future, and speculative and spurious research. ‘America’ — Jean Baudrillard once noted — ‘is the original version of modernity. We are the dubbed or subtitled version.’ Taking this statement as a provocation, we will begin by exploring the questions of ‘faked histories’, architectural promise, and cultural appropriation through such works as Gordon Matta-Clark’s ‘Fake Estates’ and the filmic explorations of America in La Jetée (1962), Alphaville (1965) and Zabriskie Point (1970). Our fieldwork is vital and this year we will visit the abandoned suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, the airplane graveyards of Tucson, the desert suburb of Palm Springs (the apotheosis of California modernism), and the ‘Californian Rivera’ of the Salton Sea. In response to this research and such architectural precedents as Archigram’s ‘Instant Cities’ and Ant Farm’s ‘Inflatables’ series, the unit will be asked to design a new miracle in the desert — a temporary resort, or an airborne floating city — which is playful and disconsolate, a sly ruse, a deliberate falsity and a critique of our architectural intransigence.
01. Context Intermediate 1 is interested in the manner in which architecture operates within larger systems — socio-cultural, technical, and historical. This interest is developed throughout the year by researching, writing, talking, drawing, modelmaking, filmmaking, photographing and — above all — designing. Architecture is considered as an intervention and a node within these exchanges and these interactions are also conceptualized in relation to the cultures — or ‘user groups’ — that inhabit and use these architectures. These users often comprise the odd-balls and eccentrics we discover in our research and field-work — the drifters, gun-toting retirees, chain-smoking housewives, disaffected teenagers, religious maniacs, and lost tourists. All of whom are intimately involved in these systems and have strong opinions on their use. The manner in which these inhabitants occupy architecture, and how we as architects can best facilitate that inhabitation, will be understood in terms of both the logical (functional) and illogical (dysfunctional) nature of these cultures and systems. With the manner in which these occupations are complicated best expressed in the Vietnam-era US military expression — SNAFUs (Situation Normal: All Fucked Up). These concepts are explored within the context of the United States of America. During the twentieth century the US was the world’s greatest economic, scientific, and cultural force. As we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century that supremacy is indisputably on the wane, with America heading – if not into obsolescence – then certainly into a form of progressive redundancy. If we accept Siegfried Giedion’s argument that architecture manifests the unconscious will of society, then in the terms of the United States architecture also exists as a kind of by-product — a residue — that the unit will examine in association with the ‘Paradise Lost’ research cluster, which is directed by Mark Campbell and supported by Steward Dodd.
Ant Farm, Inflatables (1971) William Eggleston, Oil Worker (1972)
02. Architectural Brief In 2011-12, the architectural brief asks students to design a new miracle in the desert — a temporary resort, airborne floating city, or theoretical construct — that is conceived as an impermanent intervention into the landscape. This design should be playful and disconsolate, a sly ruse, a deliberate falsity and a critique of our architectural intransigence. The lifespan of this intervention should be less than six months. The design should be conceived in response to the filmic explorations of ‘temporality’ and ‘otherness’ in such works as La Jetée (1962), Alphaville (1965) and Zabriskie Point (1970) among others, the on-site and unit-based research, and such architectural precedents as Archigram’s ‘Instant Cities’ and Ant Farm’s ‘Inflatables’ series. During the unit field trip to America students will be asked to select and document a site. This documentation will draw on the unit research seminars, photographic and filmic workshops, and the technique workshops and involve drawings, maps, aerial imagery, charts, and filmic and photographic documentation. Following the field trip, there will be two model-making workshops at Hooke Park to develop and produce a large-scale collective site model and individual project models.
Archigram, Instant City (1968) Ant Farm, Media Burn (1975) Superstudio, Continuous Monument (1969)
Technical Studies The technical studies are an integral component of the unit. During the field trip students will be asked to formulate an approach to the study in reference to their selected site and conversation with the unit tutors. This approach will then be developed, researched, tested through experimentation, and collated into the final TS report. Intermediate 1 does not stipulate a specific technical studies approach but allows students to develop their own interests within the context of the development of the design project. From the first term onwards, this approach is developed in consultation with the AA technical studies faculty and our dedicated TS consultant Damian Rogan, a senior partner at Buro Happold who has worked extensively with Zaha Hadid and Kazuyo Seijima (among others).
03. Timetable This year Intermediate 1 will be going to Phoenix and Tucson Arizona and the Salton Sea in South East California, in late October where we will be investigating outsider communities, cultural misnomers, environmental disaster and suburban mishaps, which in turn will lead us to a site for your project close to the Salton Sea. In the spring term we will be visiting Dungeness to see the uniquely bizarre landscape and environs around Dungeness Nuclear power station. In late autumn and late spring we will be spending 2 sessions at Hook Park to explore, investigate and manipulate our thoughts on the visits to the Salton Sea and Dungeness by way of 3-D representation. 03.1 USA Field Trip Day 1 - Friday 28th October 2011 BA London Heathrow to Phoenix, Arizona Day 2 - Saturday 29th October Arizona State University, School of Architecture with students to see work and visit suburban housing Projects. http://herbergerinstitute.asu.edu/ Stay in Tucson, Arizona Day 3 - Sunday 30th October Visit AMARC for a tour of the Aircraft boneyard, Tucson AZ85706 http://www.amarcexperience.com/AMARCdescription.asp Drive to Yuma Arizona
AMARC Boneyard, Tucson Arizona
Day 4 - Monday 31st October Visit the Algodones Dunes, drive to Salton Sea visit, Desert Shores, Salton City, Bombay Beach, the Mud Volcanoes and find site for your project. Stay in Brawley, California http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otIU6Py4K_A http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0502/feature5/ http://www.saltonsea.ca.gov/ http://www.slabcity.org/
 
The Salton Sea
Day 5 - Tuesday 1st November Visit the Salton Sea, the Mud Volcanoes, Slab City and Salvation Mountain, built by Leonard Knight in Nihland, Stay in Brawley, Ca. Day 6 - Wednesday 2nd November Drive to Joshua Tree National Park, visit Noah Purifoy Museum and Pioneer Town, Drive to Palm Springs http://www.noahpurifoy.com/ http://www.pioneertown.com/f-index.htm http://www.nps.gov/jotr/index.htm
Noah Purifoy, Joshua Tree National Park, California 2011
Day 7 - Thursday 3rd November Meet at the Palm Springs Museum by E. Stewart Williams. Visit the desert modernist houses of William Krisel, Donald Wexler,, Richard Neutra, William F. Cody, Albert Frey and John Lautner.
Richard Neutra, Kaufmann House (1946)
http://psmodcom.org/ http://www.johnlautner.org/ http://www.neutra.org http://www.moderndeserthome.com/index.php/architects/donald-wexler Day 7/8 - Thursday 4th /Saturday 5th November Drive to Phoenix for flight home to London either Friday evening or Saturday morning.
03.2 Dungeness In Spring 2012 we will visit Dungeness to see the bizarre landscape of Nuclear Power stations, second world war listening devices, Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage and a series of 21st century modern houses all located on a Nature Reserve and SSSI, Site of Special Scientific Interest. http://www.dungeness.org.uk/ http://www.nothingtoseehere.net/2006/05/dungeness_kent_1.html http://www.dungeness-nnr.co.uk/ 03.3 Hooke Park Workshops In both late Autumn and late Spring terms we will be spending 3 study days at Hook Park in Dorset to investigate, manipulate, cogitate and formulate our ideas around the sites visited for our accidental, transient and temporal architectures’. The first modelmaking workshop will involve the collective construction of a large scale site model and the smaller scale individual models of first design proposition. The second workshop will involve development of models for the second design proposition and for 3rd year TS exploration and experimentation. http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/AALIFE/HOOKEPARK/hooke.php
04. Timetable Autumn Term 2011 (12 Weeks): Monday 26th September to Friday 16th December 2011 • WK.02 Photo Workshop (individual) REVIEW 01 • WK.03-04 Film Workshop (groups of 2) REVIEW 02 • WK.05 Site Research (unit/individual) • WK.06 FIELD TRIP - USA • WK.07-09 Typology/Precedent (technique workshops / program analysis) REVIEW 03 • WK.10 Hooke Park Model Workshop REVIEW 04 – site iteration 01 • WK.11-12 Proposition 01. REVIEW 05 – End of Term review Winter Term 2012 (11 Weeks): Monday 9th January to Friday 23rd March 2012 • WK.01-03 Proposition 02. (individual) Research Symposium Hooke Park Model Workshop REVIEW 06 • WK.04 Dungeness visit Graphics Workshop • WK.05 Open week - tutorials • WK.06 Proposition Development • WK.07 Proposition Development TS Workshop • WK.08 Proposition Development REVIEW 07 – Interim review • WK.09 Proposition Development • WK.10 Proposition Development • WK.11 Proposition Development REVIEW 08 – end of term review Spring Term 2012 (9 Weeks): Monday 23rd April to Friday 22nd June 2012 • WK.01 TS Hand-In (third year) Proposition Development REVIEW 09 • WK.02-04 Proposition Development • WK.05 REVIEW 10 – End of Year Jury 2rd YR PRACTICE TABLES 3rd YR PRACTICE TABLES • WK.06 2rd YEAR TABLES • WK.05 3rd YEAR TABLES • WK.05 RIBA Part 1 Examination
05. References
Stalker dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
05.1. Bibliography —Marc Auge, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity (1995) —Reyner Banham, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies (1971); Scenes in American Deserta (1989) —Roland Barthes, Mythologies (1957) —Jean Baudrillard, System of Objects (1968); For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign (1972); America (1988) —Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-And Rock ‘n Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (1998) —Victor Burgin, In/Different Spaces: Place and Memory in Visual Culture (1996) —Manuel Castells, ‘Space of Flows, Space of Places: Materials for a Theory of Urbanism in the Information Age,’ The Cybercities Reader (2004) —Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle (1967) —Don DeLillo, Americana (1971); White Noise (1985); Libra (1988); Underworld (1997) —Joan Didion, The White Album (1979) —Richard Hofstadter, ‘The Paranoid Style in American Politics’ (1964) —Frederic Jameson, ‘The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism’ (1992) —Pauline Kael, I Lost it at the Movies (1965), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (1968), Going Steady (1969), Deeper Into Movies (1973), Reeling (1976), When the Lights Go Down (1980) — Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1956) —Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York (1978); Great Leap Forward / Harvard Design School Project on the City (2002); Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping (2002) —Esther McCoy, Five California Architects (1960); Richard Neutra (1960); Modern California Houses: Case Study Houses (1962) —Felicity Scott, Architecture or Techno-Utopia: Politics after Modernism (2007) —Robert Smithson, The Monuments of Passaic (1967) —Michael Sorkin, Variations on a Theme Park: Scenes from the New American City (1992) —Kim Stringfellow, Greetings from the Salton Sea: Folly and Intervention in the Southern California Landscape, (2005); Jackrabbit Homestead: Tracing the Small Tract Act in the Southern California Landscape, 1938-2008 (2009) —Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream (1972) —Robert Venturi, Denise Scott-Brown, Steven Izenor, Learning from Las Vegas (1972); Learning from Levittown (1970); Signs of Life Show (1976) —Anthony Vidler, Warped Space: Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture (2002)
Zabriskie Point (1971), dir. Michelangelo Antonioni
05.2. filmography —Alphaville (1965), dir. Jean-Luc Godard —Badlands (1973), dir. Terrence Malick —Bonnie and Clyde (1967), dir. Arthur Penn —Down by Law (1986), dir. Jim Jarmusch —Five Easy Pieces (1970), dir. Bob Rafelson —Gun Crazy (1949), dir. Lewis H. Lewis —La Jetée (1962), dir. Chris Marker —Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea (2004), dir. Chris Metzler & Jeff Springer —Stranger Than Paradise (1984), dir. Jim Jarmusch —Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), dir. Monte Hellman —Vanishing Point (1971), dir. Richard Sarafian —Stalker (1979), dir. Andrei Tarkovsky —Zabriskie Point (1970), dir. Michelangelo Antonioni 05.3. visual material —Duchamp, Marcel. Portable Museum (1936) —Eggleston, William. William Eggleston’s Guide (1976); Democratic Forest (1989) —de Keyzer, Carl. God Inc. (1992) —Frank, Robert. The Americans (1958) —Misrach, Richard. Desert Cantos (1987) —Owens, Bill. Surburbia (1973) —Polidori, Robert. Palm Springs Weekend: The Architecture and Design of a Midcentury Oasis (2001); After the Flood (2006) —Ruscha, Ed. Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1963); Some Los Angeles Apartments (1965); Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966); Thirtyfour Parking Lots (1967) —Sachs, Tom. Space Program Experience Report (2007) —Shore, Stephen. Uncommon Places: The Complete Works (2005) —Soth, Alex. Sleeping by the Mississippi (2004) —Sternfeld, Joel. American Prospects (2003) —Sultan, Larry. Pictures From Home (1992); The Valley (2004) —Winogrand, Gary. Figments from the Real World (2003)
06. Biographies
La Jetée (1962), dir. Chris Marker
Unit Masters Mark Campbell Mark has taught history and design at the AA since 2004. He has taught previously at the Cooper Union, Princeton University and Auckland University and received post-graduate degrees as a Fulbright Scholar from Princeton University (MA, PhD) and undergraduate degrees from Auckland University (BA, Arch Hons). He has worked in practice in Auckland, New York and London and served as the Managing Editor of Grey Room and the Cooper Union Archive, in addition to publishing extensively. He is the Director of the ‘Paradise Lost’ AA Research Cluster. Stewart Dodd Stewart is founding director of Satellite Architects. He has taught architecture since 1995 at AA, the Bartlett School of Architecture and Brighton University. He studied architecture at the Bartlett and worked for several architects in the UK and Europe prior to founding Satellite Architects in 1996. He presently sits on the RIBA Validation board and is an external examiner at the Bartlett and Brighton University. Satellite Architects have been the recipient of numerous architectural awards, most recently the Green Apple, Gold Award for Sustainable Architecture. Stewart is the Director of the AA Visiting School, ‘Marking the Forest’ in Eugene, Oregon in July 2012, Primary TS Consultant Damian Rogan Damian is the senior structural engineer in the façade design workshop of Buro Happold, London. He was worked extensively with Zaha Hadid and Kazuyo Seijima (among others) and is a consultant to the AA Diploma technical studies and DRL faculty. Workshop Leaders Thomas Haywood Thomas a is a London based photographer whose primary focus is concerned with people and place, Thomas studied Photography at the Royal College of Art and was awarded the prestigious Photographers Gallery Prize on graduation. Simon Deverell Simon is a graphic designed and founder of 0404 Design a Brighton and Dorset based graphic design company. Simon recently took over as Head of Creative at Keo Digital an award wining agency working on media campaigns, in 2011 Keo Digital were nominated for a BAFTA Joel Newman Joel is a videomaker, critic, and teacher. He has run the AA AV department and taught at the school since 1994.