being + becoming
Lecture Project | Dept. of Landscape Architecture Galina Novikova | Prof. A. Wilcox 2nd Year | 2016
lexicon ................................................................. 05 06 Reveal 07 Pattern 08 Programmatic Characterl 09 Ecology 10 Complexity 11 Performance 12 Geodetics 13 Tectonics 14 Augmented 15 Fineness
theory ............................................................. 16 17 19 21 23 25 27
‘Gestalt’ theory | Augmented Landscapes Being and Circumstance Projective Ecologies Pattern Mc cloksey Atlas of Novel Tectonics Islands&Atolls
discussion ................................................................ 28 29 Witnessing SCi-arc 31 Witnessing CPP
context
insight ................................................................ 32 33 Insight 01 34 Insight 02
reflection ........................................................... 35 36 photo essay 38 photo essay
reveal
To reveal is a process of discovering an embedded function within the landscape. Embedded functions such as histoires, ecologies and other natural processes can be revealed upon a land that has been or will be occupied. Whether or not a revelatory landscape is clear to viewers from a first glance or if the landscape only exposes itself over time, certain changes can be measured.
FOREST DECAY
lexicon
BLACK BAND MARKS THE PHENOMENA OF DEATH IN THE FOREST
FOREST TREE | DIEING FOREST TREE
pattern Line + form are arranged using techniques of repition and seriality. These arrangments are found everywhere, in nature, materiality and spaces. Patterns are intrinsic and are a reflection of the pattern making within our imaginations.
programmatic character Programmatic character is the intended and unintended activation of a space and how it is used. A sense of place is derived by the specific moments at which one experiences a space but can also be guided by the designers hand as it traces the landscape to guide circulation and occupancy.
DEVELOPING PATTERNS
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X UNINTENDED | MOMENTS OF DISCOVERY
ecology
complexity
Ecology is a fluctuating and evolving system that lends itself to a larger network, one that is becoming and dynamic. It is the study of relationships at various scales but specifically it is where the natural world and cultural presence intersect where a heightened intensity is found.
Design is complex, as it can reveal processes that combine several elements to create some sort of coherence and understanding. Communicating complex ideas into simple expressions can lead to the clarity of hidden entities.
BIRDS
CHANGE
BIRDS
PIECES + PARTS FISH
INSECTS
FISH
performance Designer’s choreograph and position elements within space to define ideas of motion. Gestures begin to emerge as the relationship between static and dynamic elements are organized and manipulated. The observer and their immediate surroundings become a stage for movement to occur.
geodetics A geometric and structural system that can align imaginary lines to follow the curvature of form. It takes simple expressions of form and traces the hidden complexity that would otherwise be invisible. There is a sense of coherence and flexibility when it adapts to a given condition of structural skins to modular pieces and parts.
tectonics
augmented
Attention to craft and the way pieces and parts are organized is what defines tectonics. It is a process that communicates specific qualities in making.
Design process has many layers and motives. One way to distinguish a an augmented landscape from a typical landscape is its ability to index and poise certain processes, through the combination of landform and materiality this can be achieved.
PLAN VIEW
PHYSICAL VIEW
Fineness
theory
Is the ability to understand parts of a whole at different scales. It requires finding a balance between force and geometry, and principle that can be applied to various modes of design.
Augmented Landcapes- Smout Allen [Inhabiting the horizon and Shape Recognition: Where things fly up and Outward]
Within Smout Allen’s pamphlet, the “Gestalt” theory is drawn upon to discuss how perception of the whole is different from the sum of its parts. This concept is applied to the project Inhabiting the horizon and Shape Recognition: Where things fly up and Outward as well as the foundation for our current design studio. The designflirts with the relationship between form and its position between sky and ground, inlayed within the horizon. Such logic reveals that when viewers witness a landscape they only see the whole rather than understanding the various fragments and systems that makeup a site. Instead, the project invites a performative instrument to point to and reveal the individual parts of form and position to the horizon. Dialing in to these individual parts can create a higher awareness and appreciation for the fleeting, momentary relationships to the sites which are ‘temporarily occupied’. In relationship to the larger urban landscapes, specifically Los Angeles, viewers are reading spaces as wholes rather than individual parts. The problem is that when read as a whole, opportunities to understand the nature of the site and its fluctuating reality are dis-engaged. The reality is that the larger urban fabric is stitched together by different hands and forces but are read instead as an urban monster. How can we pull apart or point out such existing fragments to better understand their form and relationship to systems within the site? Perhaps a performative instrument is the solution to revealing systems that go unseen.
Being and Circumstance- Robert Irwin [Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing one sees]
From the once highly valued picturesque landscape to the new performance based and phenomenological landscape, a new way of perceiving can be referenced to Robert Irwin’s speculation of non-objective art. Thinking of the landscape as a changing entity can bring designers and viewers to an intelligent and complex understanding of aesthetic. But it doesn’t mean past perceptions of pictorial landscapes are untrue or false, it simply suggests that such perceptions of landscape has become incapable of satisfying our questions of contemporary design today. For example, the LA River will not be designed simply for aesthetics, there is much more involved in regards to its functionality and ability to appeal to culture and politics. At the forefront of programmatic design, designers and other public advocates are seeing a new, inviting potential for the site as opposed to previous informal occupancy: such as swimming, fishing etc. Thus, how the site will be experienced in the future is determined by social value and perceived progress in the field of design and what sort of understanding can be derived from a new way of seeing space, in process and art. Phenomenological thinking, if applied to the LA River can invite new opportunities for seeing and experiencing. Perhaps, certain processes and ecological functions become revealed overtime but also processes that are true and hidden to the nature of an ever changing world that surrounds the viewer.
Projective Ecologies [Design Thinking, Wicked Problems, Messy Plans] Design process is marked by a contingent series of complex problems that takes design thinking to new territory. Design problems can be categorized into types. One type, known as ‘wicked problems’ are defined as having no definite answer, only better or worse solutions that can be evaluated through an iterative analysis of trial and error. For example, the Pershing SQ park competition in Downtown LA is primarily concerned with finding the appropriate fit. Previously, there has been much discussion on the space not fitting in with the current urban fabric of LA. There is a lack of continuity and cultural projection in its current state. However, there is not one correct answer, the appropriate fit is currently being debated and evaluated. The finalists have repeatedly had to revise their designs, exploring typologies and strategies that work best to accommodate the new and improved Pershing SQ and its site determined qualities. Of course, there is no right answer to these designs but by exploring many modes of potential, new solutions that otherwise would have been ignored become explored. Adjusting to a ‘wicked’ design thinking approach can also mediate larger, complex problems that involve various organizations and professionals.
Patterns- McCloksey [Patterns are everywhere.]
On the surface, patterns are present everywhere; on our clothing, in nature and even social order or hierarchy. Design is fascinating because it lends itself to the realm of creating patterns whether proposed consciously or sub-consciously. Patterns can be defined as ‘diagrams of process’, they are a reflection of patterned thought and the conceptual imagination. When applied to spaces, techniques of repetition and seriality can communicate a variety of potential, emergent truths of a specific site. They can reveal hidden systems within the landscape or even site determined qualities that haven’t been recognized thoroughly by human users. The systems of a place can facilitate that things are constantly happening and things are alive. As a human species, we respond to patterns and contemporary design has become a necessity for drawing connections in nature and human understanding. Patterns are currently being adapted to deal with the non-native or invasive species within the southern California region. There is in fact an exchange occurring between the social and ecological systems, and nature has begun to assemble itself as a response to habitat availability and quality. As a result, uniquecombinations of the flora and fauna are becoming as development destroys native habitats and creates new ones with its infrastructure. As Landscape architects and conservationists continue to draw connections to natural systems and the importance of function for the sake of stabilizing ecosystems, it has become an apparent problem for native species. If the goal is to maintain native biodiversity, why is regulation so loose? Natural systems will continue to adapt to create new patterns.
Atlas of Novel Tectonic-Rieser + Umemoto [The Unformed Generic: Form Acquiring Content]
Form is a projection of the uncanny, emergent qualities of a subject’s purest function. Rieser and Umemoto reference Leonardo Da Vinci’s use of stain as a source of his inspiration to create form by analyzing gesture and movement. By analyzing a quality, at a specific moment: force against gravity, energy propelling an object, or the entropy of accumulation, can become in and of itself an expression of composition and program. The significance of the stain is brought about in its nature of non- containment and loose form that is a result of its emergent nature. The nature of Landscape as an ever changing and emergent entity has ephemeral and fluctuating qualities that can too impose an expression of composition and program. The ocean, a mysterious and forceful body of water is emergent in the same way as the stain. The shoreline along the coast of California has caused intensive damage to the cliffs, eroding and chiseling the solid mass, our land, as time passes. Such a force is hard to contain and although it is a hazard to live along an eroding landscape, there remains an enticing luxury to live along the coast, on a cliff facing the crashing waves. This process reaffirms that human intervention cannot control the emergent quality of the ocean, we can only adapt to its impact on the new composition it has created.
present
50 years
Islands & Atolls- Luis Callejas [Airplot]
Luis Callejas’ work extends beyond the object itself. He focuses on revealing local site conditions with the goal of curating ‘environments, experiences and atmospheres’. As a contemporary designer, he has become fluent in landform and ecological processes as tools to guide his decision making and ability to comment on a provocative reality. One thing I have noticed, as I engage with design process and experience designed and unintentionally designed spaces; is that careful attention to the atmosphere of a place is necessary for understanding its cultural and ecological projections. It is the combination of all the places elements reacting with each other that create our experiences of atmospheres, disregarding its scientific definition. In my visit to the outskirts of Los Angeles, away to the vast desert - to a place called Slab City and the Saltine Sea, I have witnessed and realized exactly what Calleja’s is aiming for in his design. Slab City, is a strange place, uncomfortable because of its unknown and mysterious qualities. People live there, away on the outskirts, opposite of the coastal cliffs mentioned before. At a first glance, it seemed abandoned and bare however I was adamant about understanding the site. I began to witness the culture, after entering the little gazebo by the main road; people seemed to be lost, and uncertain of time from the way they idolized. I began to understand its context, by visiting Salvation Mountain and the Saltine Sea; two places that reveal a disrupted culture and a disrupted ecology. These mysterious qualities surrounding Slab City gave way for a new perspective on how atmosphere of a place shapes the viewers experience of it. I enjoyed Slab City because it wasn’t shiny or superficial, there were dead fish, mud pots, slab dogs, graffiti, and ecological mysteries that have shaped my experience of its atmosphere.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ATMOSPHERIC PRO-GRESS
Patrik Schumacher + Tom Wiscombe: Duel + Duet Kappe Library
discussion
May 17, 2016 at 7:00pm The duel and duet of Patrik Schumacher and Tom Wiscombe revealed fundamental concepts being applied to architecture and design practices today. The topic for both speakers was on the magazine Parametricism 2.0 – which aims to identify architecture’s agenda for the 21st Century with a new emphasis on the societal relevance of parametricism. Patrik Schumacher starts off the conversation with the goal of discovering something different. Through his design process he works intensively with technology to discover a sort of weightlessness. Based on a syntactical approach, he brings character, identity and richness to his projects. With the application of existing forms in nature and close attention to the construction, materiality and phenomenological qualities; he explores morphology’s for surface modeling. His free forms become less constrained and are able to communicate complex situations in a legible manner. The use of geodetics to shell structures or skins is defined by a unique performative action relating to its environment. Patrik argues that composition and articulation are instrumental to social functionality as his primary value during his process. Tom Wiscombe also advocates for performance but in a exaggerated expression; he believes architecture can expand social imagination by producing something that is alien, when its holds viewers in alternate realities. He mentioned landscapes of change as having intensive forces driving the surface form. However, he was adamant about isolating an object through its silhouette to not confuse it with the landscape. Patrik and Tom, have illustrated design applications that are present in the contemporary urban fabrics across the globe. The Broad Museum in Downtown Los Angeles illustrates a building skin that has performative action but also separates itself from the landscape. Surface modeling, whether landscape or architecture is at the forefront for communicating high performance environments-- a reflection of society’s value for greater performance and efficiency.
Professor Roxi Thoren University of Oregon Landscape Architecture May 20th, 2016 12:00 pm in the IDC Professor Roxi Thoren spoke of second nature as a fundamental theory and value being explored in her studio. She discussed Forests and our collaboration with them over time as they grow into maturity. Her students worked closely with the forest to hone in on the dynamic systems and critters that are exceptionally remote to the existing ecologies within and around the forest. This studio was a collaboration with artists to discover the invisibility of forest properties. One student became fascinated by ticks and how they just hang out waiting for life to host them which took him through a design process that explores how the critters are densely distributed as microscopic red dots across the forest. Another student, placed black arm bands around trees that were soon to be dead. As you step away, all the trees marked with black bands creates a ribbon within the forest, signifying death and how it typically goes unnoticed. An understanding of the forest manifested as they identified processes that can lead to working with the forests rather than unknowingly against them. Another studio of hers explored power in the landscape and how it can lead to ‘unknown unknowns’’. They analyzed rivers and roads that have been polluted and abandoned from a coal mine. During one point in time, the coal mine advanced a fire to the surrounding areas. The river became contaminated with cars and other contaminants from the mine causing an interaction between iron and other sediments to form a thick, toxic layer that blocks any sunlight from reaching clean water running underneath. This studios goal was also to make invisible systems visible. Mrs. Thoren’s lecture is exemplary for taking on projects that deal with large, complex issues in search of systems that are crucial to landscape design. Similar to contaminated river near the coal mine, the Silver Lake reservoir, was contaminated with bromide due to interaction between sunlight and algae; the reservoir was emptied and gated. Nearby, the Ivanhoe Reservoir has been filled with 400,000 black shade balls as a precaution against bromide. By understanding natursl systems, designers can express and mend systems in the landscape.
insights
01 insight
02 insight
Discovering for the sake of curiosity.
The Art of Model making and tectonics.
In the duration of our studio, I have found that the process of designing (or building complexity) requires a certain level of wanting to know more. From the very start, of researching and analyzing the sites physical pieces + parts, I became curious as to what changes and programmatic qualities can emerge. The critically combines that we’ve created for Project 3 enabled me to understand how I can manipulate land forms and its potential for various occupancy as a result of its fleeting cultural and ecological moments. Based upon rules derived by my observations and experiences; designing requires critical thinking and observation of tiny, fleeting details. In retrospect, over the past two years I have learned to observe with my senses, a new foundation for ‘seeing the unseen’, as Robert Irwin puts it. Understanding the ephemeral, phenomenological and ecological processes can reveal interesting moments that otherwise would go unnoticed. The CPPLA curriculum has trained my mind to see things and draw connections to the larger urban fabric. Coming from NYC, a place of concrete floors and buildings that create a sense of enclosure and chaos, I am able to compare and witness the beauty marks within the Los Angeles region.
Exploring various mediums for representation has led me to perceive spaces in a new way to acknowledge places that are both sightless and site-full. From manipulating the topography to the very process of drawing it by hand and then digitally; confronts the hands and mind to think in layers and process. Constantly, I find myself fluctuating back and forth between the marks I draw in plan view and then how it will emerge once I create a physical representation of those spaces. It is with the combination of different materials, textures and application that I can begin to better understand my own design and its ephemeral and conceptual qualities. I’ve gained a new appreciation for model making in the past two years, using anything from re-used materials to plaster and even to 3D printing. By projecting certain textures onto our models we can communicate hidden processes and patterns that happen within the landscape. I recall a project called Green Alleys created by SALT, a local Los Angeles Landscape architecture firm who designed alley ways with a clean concrete path utilizing various textures and materiality to create a channel that directed the watershed from the Mountains nearby. Creating a space that is both functional and aesthetic is a contemporary design ethic that starts by the marks we make on our models.
01 Revealing Hidden Patterns
photo
Pattern is an amusing concept to think about, as it reflects the repetitive human condition of mimicking and responding to the patterns we see all around us. I would argue that pattern is the closest thing we have left to natural. Line and form create patterns that we understand. We take patterns and project them onto our clothing, onto our daily schedules and also onto our designs. We mimic patterns that we see in nature and forget to acknowledge where such patterns came from. Instead they become symbols for communication and normalcy in our very culture. Nature and it’s mighty force has a funny way of creating systems that don’t fail and as conscious beings we adapt certain processes and patterns that make living on earth organized and understood. When we look at the electricity poles we see undulating lines guiding the roads. That is a pattern. When we look at a chair that has been sitting outside for a while, with leaves piled over it, we see a pattern. The pattern of wind and gravity leaving marks on the surfaces surrounding us. I am beginning to see patterns everywhere, without patterns we would live in a dull world.
02 Programmic Potential and All it’s Glory Determining a site’s programmatic potential is commonly understood in the design process. As designers we assume and romanticize how a space will be used, however the reality is that people- who come from all different walks of life, will walk the site however they wish and choose. During my visit to the Silver Lake Reservoir I witnessed different modes of recreation. The most common form was exercising. Los Angeles is known to have arguably the best weather in the country, and so it is quite understandable that people like to look good all year round. It has become a part of Los Angeles culture to be sporty and cleanse the body of the smog cloud that surrounds it. Whether or not we acknowledge a sites potential, there are a variety of users who will use the space as they see fit. By creating the Silver Corpse as a studio, we can only propose what the future will look like for Silver Lake not determine, as that is out of our control.
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