People-shaped Architecture: A Revival DIAN MASHITA EDDY SURYONO 560645
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ABPL90117_2016_SM2: Twenty-first Century Architecture
Prelude
The role of architects as thinkers and solvers of housing crises is not something that is recently adopted. The Modernist movement in the early 20th century heralded the radical rethinking in solving the problem of the post-Second World War worldwide population explosion. Prominent figures such as Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe were among the trailblazers in using Modernist principles to counter the urban problem of housing the population affected by war. A number of emblematic and dialectic design philosophies emerged as the result of architects embracing the zeitgeist of the mass production industrial revolution of the 20th century.
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Figure 1.1 An illustration of the 20th Century Industrial Revolution
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The phrase “form follows function” became the chant for architects and designers when discussing the principles of Modernist. This is due to the shifting of emphasis in achieving immediate progress in social and economy from efficient use of scarce resources as well as the abundance of aluminium as a consequence of war. Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion house, his principles of sustainability and his “more with less” philosophy are emblematic of the Modernist principle in achieving efficiency of solving the problem of post-war housing shortage. Le Corbusier’s interest in the engineering revolution of steamships is demonstrated through the streamlined and modular design of Villa Savoy. The use of standardised ribbon windows is a narration of the standardisation in mass production.
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Figure 1.2 Villa Savoye, Poissy, France
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Le Corbusier further epitomised his Modernist vision of an ideal urban plan in The Radiant City. The Radiant City represents his idealized perspective of technological advancement of modern life and his persistent faith in modernity’s ability towards general economic progress and social betterment. Le Corbusier’s social agenda is based on a theory that the application of scientific and rational planning containing “good or enlightened buildings would elicit similar attitudes or behaviours in individuals interacting with those buildings”. (Birmingham, 1999, 296) The essence of factory and industrial design: regularity, unadorned surfaces, and straight lines; is believed by Le Corbusier will promote a sense of democracy and equality among people. However, Le Corbusier’s paternalistic approach of imposing his vision of democracy is ironic, contradictory and criticized by many, including Jane Jacobs. Jacobs claimed that Le Corbusier’s vision is dissociated from popular input. The imposing of order in built environment design as proposed by Le Corbusier is disruptive to the natural complexity order of community and social engagement.
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Figure 1.3 Ville Radieuse/The Radiant City
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Modernist architecture is the beginning of a detachment from historical architecture and its visceral emotive connection. Average citizens no longer understood the newly formed formal and spatial language of Modernist architecture, hence created a sense of alienation towards Modern buildings, especially in social housing. Adaptation of Le Corbusier design principles such as Pruitt-Igoe complex in St. Louis, United States of America was proven to be unsuccessful as it failed to correlate with unplanned changes in segregation law that affected the social and economic condition of the building development. The intended social engineering plan in reality became a breeding ground for crime and other social-ills. The infamous large complex of 33 buildings continuously deteriorated and incurred huge financial liability to a point of demolishment.
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Figure 1.4 Demolition of Pruitt-Igoe housing complex on March 16, 1972.
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Theoretically, Le Corbusier and the rest of Modernist architects produced innovative and sound proposals that were intended to alleviate social and economic condition of the masses. However, most of the time, the design principles were merely architects’ unprecedented utopic and idealised vision of cultural appropriation from another field (in the case of Modernist, from engineering to architecture). Essentially, the people’s voice was missing in the design process hence the architecture did not reach its intended purposes. Moreover, the success of a Modernist project particularly in housing, was only measurable after a lengthy period of occupation; when the financial and social costs have already snowballed. Simultaneously, similar architecture was replicated elsewhere despite the success of such design was still uncertain - repeating the same mistakes. With all that in mind, it is learned that a successful and un-wasteful architecture need to incorporate the people’s voice.
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Manifesto
Buckminster Fuller’s speech in 1961 Congress of the International Union of Architects in London touched on the task of architects in the then current world situation. He urged those who are studying architecture to be as well-informed in other disciplines in order to make full use of the “world resources to serve 100 percent of humanity by peaceful, comprehensive laboratory experiment and progressive design evolution�. (Fuller, 1961) The key point of the speech is that design should always be evolving to cater to collective human needs. The 21st century brings with it the advancement of technology that expedited communication beyond physical, spatial and time limitation. For instance, the internet and media connectivity have emerged as the most valuable resources. Therefore, architecture must take advantage of all these changes to stay relevant.
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Figure 1.5 Plotter printing updates of Open Source Architecture manifesto from Wikipedia page
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Umberto Eco’s theory on “open work” embodied in the “Arte Programmata” exhibition illustrated how people’s participation and feedbacks can be incorporated in artwork initiated by the artists. (Brennan, 2015) Just as it was for the artwork exhibition, inclusion and participation from people consuming architecture must be seriously considered. Similar concept of viewer participation can be seen in Carlo Ratti’s Open Source Architecture manifesto. The manifesto consists of a plotter and a Wikipedia page. A plotter printed Ratti’s original manifesto text that was published on Wikipedia on a wall. As people edit the manifesto content on the Wikipedia page, the plotter updates the wall concurrently to reflect the collaborative changes. (Fairs, 2012) The demonstrated open-sourced, crowd-sourced and ad-hoc collaborative manifesto showcased the content and basic framework of Open Source Architecture. It demonstrated the establishment of multi-agency architecture; whereby the architects and users collaborate for the design; thus balancing out the architect’s vision and users’ satisfaction.
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Figure 1.6 Diagram outlining the workflow of Open Source Architecture versus conventional
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In addition to that, collaborative design is further catalysed by internet connectivity which liberates architecture beyond the exclusive world of architects. Architects can no longer afford to be idealist and have utopic visions of architecture sans public opinion. They must start to include the directly-affected public in the design process. With the help of today’s fluid technology and communication, consumers’ feedbacks can reach the architects in no time before construction starts. Voices of the people must become the building blocks and part of architecture narration. That way, more representative and sustainable designs can be built thus reduces waste of resources consequential of unsuccessful architecture.
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Figure 1.7 The social-media outlets for architecture
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In retrospect, radical and audacious architecture can be introduced by the architects, such as what had been done by Le Corbusier, provided that there was public consultation prior to project realization. In today’s heavily connected global society, architecture can be communicated to the people through social media such as Instagram and Facebook; to obtain their insights which are useful for the architecture’s whole narration. Architecture is no longer shaped by our knowledge of past architecture, rather it will be shaped by the preferences of our society whom will be directly and indirectly affected by the building. In this manner, we can say that information becomes the base for form-searching in architecture, just as discussed by Carpo (Carpo, 2015).
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In addition, I want to challenge the extent of collaborative scope of the design process. What if the collaboration goes beyond post-occupation of built architecture? Post-occupation collaboration will spur constant evolution of the architecture and this would reverse the notion of inhabitants adapting to the built-form. Instead, it will force architecture to adapt to people’s needs from time to time therefore making it closer to achieving 100 percent service to humanity. Design that is in a state of perpetual evolution adapting to the voices and desire of its inhabitants would emulate a deeper sense of belonging. For every planned and built architecture, a virtual platform for public participation and scrutiny must be established. We must treat each unique architecture as its own persona; a character that is intertwined among the public, always in a constant state of change for every injection of interaction with its users. No buildings should remain the same from its inception phase and no buildings should be left as historical artifacts. Rather, we must breathe along with history and let it revolve with our needs.
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Figure 1.8 Virtual representation of BIG’s Serpentine Pavilion
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More importantly, we must challenge the idea of architecture that is confined to physical buildings. Architecture embodied in physicality is limited by weathering and mortality. We need to capitalize on the potential of virtual reality (VR) to immortalize architecture. This platform can be used to testify the absolute public participation and scrutiny of architecture. Although we are well aware that an absolute will never be achieved, but near absolute is absolutely possible. The 21st century technology development is certainly heading towards communicating design more virtually each day and so should architecture. Virtual communication of design such as VR not only expedites people’s participation and allows for constant experimentation in a truer spatial sense; it is also a better alternative to conventional physical experiments as it diminishes material and resource wastage. Such example is 2016 Serpentine Pavilion designed by BIG. Exploration of various possibilities of the pavilion form is possible if you have a simple device with internet connectivity.
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This is a revival of Architecture or Revolution. This time, with the technology of 21st century, we can afford to marry both architecture AND revolution. The machinery of our society is the intangible gear of the internet connectivity. The various class of our society CAN have dwellings adapted to our needs; both artisan and intellectual. We must democratize architecture by letting go of the archaic physical representation of our visions. To move forward, we must continually embrace the virtual representation of our projects beyond the point of inception. On top of that, the inclusion of people’s voice must transcend beyond pre-construction consultation.
As the saying goes, the only constant in this world is change. But
for architecture, the only permanent and everlasting building blocks in all designs are the people’s voice. Only when we do this, Buckminster Fuller’s words on purposeful design can materialise (Fuller, 1961). We must be in a state of constant awareness of the people’s power over our own self-centered visions and open our minds to revive and revolutionize architecture.
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Bibliography: Birmingham, E. (1999). Refraining the ruins: Pruitt-Igoe, Structural Racism, and African American Rhetoric as a Space for Cultural Critique. Western Journal of Communication, 63 (3), 291-309. Brennan, A. (2015), “Olivetti: A Work of Art in the Age of Immaterial Labour,” Journal of Design History. Advance Access http://jdh.oxfordjournals.org.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/content/early/2015/03/30/jdh. epv007.full.pdf+html Carpo, M. (2015). “The New Science of Form Searching,” AD, 85 (2), 22-27. Fairs, M. (16 October 2012). Open Source Architecture Manifesto by Carlo Ratti Associati. Retrieved from https://www.dezeen. com/2012/10/16/open-source-architecture-manifesto-by-walter-nicolino-and-carlo-ratti/. Jacobs, J. (1961). The death and life of great American cities. Le Corbusier (1923). Towards a New Architecture, Dover Publications. Ratti, C. with Claudel, M. (2015). Open Source Architecture, Thames and Hudson. (excerpt)
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Image References: Front Cover Designed by Dian Mashita Eddy Suryono (2016) Figure 1.1 Retrieved from http://briandcolwell.com/2016/06/ theres-a-fourth-industrial-revolution-part-2-the-second-industrial-revolution/.html Figure 1.2 Retrieved from http://www.harvarddesignmagazine.org/ issues/15/savoye-space Figure 1.3 Retrieved from http://www.archdaily.com/411878/ad-classics-ville-radieuse-le-corbusier Figure 1.4 Retrieved from https://designerlythinking.wordpress. com/2011/04/14/fallacies-of-master-planning-%E2%80%93-is-ordosanother-pruitt-igoe/ Figure 1.5 Retrieved from https://www.dezeen.com/2012/10/16/ open-source-architecture-manifesto-by-walter-nicolino-and-carlo-ratti/ Figure 1.6 retrieved 6 October 2016 from https://likemyplace.files. wordpress.com/2013/10/04-pieter-stoutjesdijk-open-source-emergency-habitat-for-haiti-cnc-study-house-haiti-designboom-12.jpg Figure 1.7 Retrieved from http://www.arch2o.com/how-architects-use-social-media/ Figure 1.8 Retrieved from http://www.archdaily.com/789013/playwith-a-parametric-version-of-bigs-serpentine-pavilion-in-this-model
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(NEVER) END
ABPL90117_2016_SM2: Twenty-first Century Architecture