Architecture of Encounters To act and to respond
Chen,Po-Jung
Chen, Po-Jung Design Thinking | Fall 2015 Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts Washington University in St. Louis Professor Jesse Vogler Teaching Assistant Malia Kalahele
CONTENTS
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TO ACT AND TO RESPOND SITE AS INTERIORITY AND EXTERIORITY PROGRAM AS ENCOUNTERS PRACTICE OF RESPONDING
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PREFACE
The booklet is named “Architecture of Encounters: To act and To respond”. It’s my suspicious answer to Architecture so far. My intention is to create a overview defining what Architecture is to me and what attitude I am going to take toward design. This booklet is also a setup for practicing this attitude thoroughly in my degree project.
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TO ACT AND TO RESPOND “Man acts; he exercises his powers on a material foreign to him; he separates his operations from their material infrastructure, and he has a clearly defined awareness of this; hence he can think out his operations and co-ordinate them with each other before performing them; he can assign to himself the most multifarious tasks and adapt to many different materials, and it is precisely this capacity of ordering his intentions or dividing his proposals into separate operations which he calls intelligence. He does not merge into the materials of his undertaking, but proceeds from this material to his mental picture, from his mind to his model, and at each moment exchanges what he wants against what he can do, and what he can do against what he achieves.�[1] Paul Valery
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The caves of Ra Paulette
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“As Melvin Webber has pointed out: Planning is the only branch of knowledge purporting to be some kind of science which regards a plan as being fulfilled when it is merely completed; there’s seldom any sort of check on whether the plan actually does what it was meant to do and whether, if it does something different, this is for the better or for the worse...The point is to realize how little planning and the accompanying architecture have changed. The whole ethos is doctrinaire; and if something good emerges, it remains a bit of a bonus. Not to be expected but nice if you can get it.�[2] Paul Barker
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Villa Savoye, Le Corbusier
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WHAT IS ARCHITECTURE ?
Architecture play important roles in human society. It starts from the purpose of physical protection, creating comfortable environment, carrying culture meanings, to creating sustainable communities. The scale ranges from Urban design, landscape design, to small housing design. It covers Sociology, Economics, Ecology, Psychology, and even Biology and Many other Sciences. Architecture have its ambition to solve all the problems of human beings. So what is Architecture? “What is architecture?” is similar to the question - “What is the meaning of life?”
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STRATEGY AND TACTICS The argument of Michel de Certeau in his book “The practice of everyday life� [3] in 1980s discussed about the relationship between two roles in the world -to control using strategy and to oppose using tactics. He proposed that the relationship between strategy and tactics is a battle of repression and expression . However, in the modern society the relationship has became more neutral that I think it should be reconsidered as a dialogue between to act and to response. Or we should say that there is no difference between strategy and tactics now since strategy usually won’t work as it is designed and tactics most of the time works like another strategy changing the original strategy. For me, the change from a battle to a dialogue not only provides great potential to achieve a better society but provides new ways of thinking about the role of both sides. What is the role of architect? To act or to respond or both?
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Shortcut on grassplot
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FREEDOM_TO ACT AND TO RESPOND
When the strategy/concept/idea has became a tool for architect to develop the project and doesn’t necessarily guarantee the success of the space, I argue that we shouldn’t be too obsessed in constructing a strategy/concept/idea, but we should use all possible ways to act as well as to response. In other words, we should explore the possibility by practicing escaping form the scientific positivism imposing on us unconsciously by embracing human nature which is not throwing a way our thinking but to exploit our body as well as our mind to think, to see, to walk through. What kind of space provide more freedom for people to respond?
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Mies van der Rohe, IIT Crown Hall
Kanagawa Institute of Technology Workshop / Junya Ishigami
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RESTRICTION_TO ACT AND TO RESPOND
The restrictions for architect to act and for people to respond also exist when architect start loosing the courage to act and have nothing for people to respond. Responses are only given when there is a object. A tactics is only took when there is a strategy. Freedom became meaningful when there is a limit.
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Nothing to respond to-A space without quality
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WHERE IS THE BEST PLACE FOR A CHAIR
“Where is the best place for a chair� is an experiment set up to observe the process between to act and to respond. As a chair placer, you can make a decision by carefully thinking about how people will experience the chair - for example, thinking about the view on the chair. You can also take the chair, walk around and put it down. As a responder, you do whatever you want/can to respond to the space as well as the chair. It brought up several questions like - Which is the better strategy to place a chair? - What is the purpose to place a chair? - In the latter strategy, do we make random decisions? - In the latter strategy, are we responding? - Should we put a chair or not? Architect is a chair placer. We are not going to find the best place for a chair, but create encounters for responding.
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The experiment- Where is the best place for a chair
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HUMAN NATURE TO RESPONSE
it is a human natural ability to respond. We don’t need a guide telling us what we should feel when listening to music. And we don’t need to have a Art degree to appreciate a art work. Although it need practices, but everyone should practice in his/her own way. Marinetti described museum as cemetery in the Manifesto of Futurism[4]. He think museum poison and retrain the creativity and sensibility for people, especially artists. I think it is the guide given by museum and the mind giving up the natural ability to respond that make museum cemetery.
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Untittle, Yang, Shu-Wei
Double Cage, Bruce nauman
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TO ACT IS TO RESPOND
In order to embrace possibility and get more closer to humanity and everyday life. My answer for architecture is the shifting from designing as an architect to designing as a person. The shifting to design as a person first argues that architect should focus on not only the way we act as an architect, but the way we response as a person. And it suggests that there is no difference between architects and regular people when talking about the value of architecture. What’s more, it eliminate the unnecessary restriction on architect and reopen the path for architect to dig inside more than seek outside.
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Architect at his drawing board. 1893
Architect’s own house. Tsutomu Abe
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SITE AS INTERIORITY AND EXTERIORITY
My site is an 8800sf vacant land between two building at the corner between Olive street and N Compton Ave in Grand Center district near St. Louis University where many art museum located. To select a site, is to set up a ordinary surrounding which giving me two neighbors, one alley and one front street, and to set up a boundary that I can mainly focus on the interiority and the interface of interiority and exteriority.
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N Compton Ave
8,800 ft2
Olive St
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PROGRAM AS ENCOUNTERS
The program of my project will includes 3,000sf of entrance, support, and circulation, such as stairs and freight elevator, 1300sf of storage and administration spaces, 4000sf of cafe’, book shop and restrooms, 20,000sf of gallery exhibiting art works which I call them encounters composed with the space, for example, for performances, a space for speech, a space for conferences, a space for gathering people, a space for exhibition, a space for interaction, a space to have some ribs, a space for showing anther space.
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A space for interaction
A space to have some ribs
A space for conferences A space for exhibition A space for spaces A space for gathering A space for lining up
A space for speeches
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Entrence 100 ft2
Cafe’ 800 ft2
Gallerys 20,000 ft2
Freight elevator 800 ft2
Restroom 500 ft2
Encounters 25,000 ft2
StairE 1,000 ft2
Storage 800 ft2
levator 500 ft2
Administration 500 ft2
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PRACTICE OF RESPONDING
The objects I respond to a. The specific artifacts I chose. b. The site. c. The basic facilities of the program. The way I respond a. Digging the quality. d. Superimposing meanings. c. Creating Space for exhibition.
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Secure, Hiding, Look through
Low, Crowded
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Open, Speedy, bluring, anxious
Public, Moving, Empty
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Compressive, Anxious
Narrow , Closed, Crowded
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Meditative, Aliented, Dark, Quiet
Large, Empty
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Narrow, Obscure, Curved
Low, Enclosed
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[5]
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Humourous, Lovely, Relax, Connected, Peaceful, Human
Large
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[6] 42
Universal, Warm, familiar, Connected
Narrow
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[7]
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Social, Meditative, Introspective
Narrow, Closed, Crowded
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[8]
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Calm, Aliented
Narrow, Crowded
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[9]
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Anti-authority, Individualism, Minute
Large
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One person, Meditative
Small, Intersected, Blocking views
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EPILOGUE
Although I didn’t label the program, it dose serves like a kunsthalle which hold exhibitions without specific tendency. Other than creating a big empty space which kunsthalles or galleries are often characterized by, creating spaces act as interventions into the bilateral relationship between exhibits and people creating a new trilateral relationship is the fundamental task in this project. It is crucial that we treat this kind of intervention not as a control, but an act given by architect in order to create encounters which provide more freedom and get more responses from people.
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REFERENCES [1] Paul Valery, Uber Kunst (Frankfurt, 1959), p. 69; quoted in Alfred Schmidt, The Concept of Nature in Marx (London, 1971), p. 101. [2] Hughes, Jonathan, and Simon Sadler. Non-plan : essays on freedom participation and change in modern architecture and urbanism. Oxford Boston: Architectural Press, 2000. 8-10. Print. [3] Certeau, Michel De. The Practice of Everyday Life. 1. Pbk. Printing ed. Berkeley, Calif.: U of California, 1988. Print. [4] Stangos, Nikos. Concepts of Modern Art: From Fauvism to Postmodernism. 3rd Exp. and Upd. ed. London: Thames and Hudson, 1997. Print. [5]http://dreamdiscoveritalia.com/2015/09/01/5-of-the-best-pavilions-at-the-venice-art-biennale-2015/ [6]Isamu Noguchi, “Sculpture to be Seen from Mars,� 1947. Model in sand (destroyed). Photo by Soichi Sunami, Courtesy of The Noguchi Museum, NY.
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[7] Ron Mueck. Flicker. 1 Dec. 2015.. https://www.flickr.com/photos/polishsausagequeen/308045465/ [8] Morning Sun, 1952 by Edward Hopper [9]Ben Vautier. Total Art Matchbox from Flux Year Box 2. c.1968, Fluxus Edition unannounced
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