M.Arch. Portfolio by Geof Bell

gb 1

Geof Bell geof@geofbell.com +1.502.216.0632 Master of Architecture Columbia University GSAPP Bachelor of Arts in Architecture University of Kentucky CoD

Housing the Cube

Innovator-Incubator Bank

Energy-Ecology Institute

Institute for Turbulence

c-bip

Permanent Impermanence

Architectural Design Studios Modules and Networks Related Text: “It’s the Network”

Otaniemi Campus Competition

s.ky-blue 2009 Solar Decathlon

138

152

Related Text: “World of Cities”

Related Texts: “Stereoscopic Vision” “Morphology of Urban Collapse”

Competitions and Practice Design for a global future 4

04 5

Bronx Artisanal Food Manufacturing

Louisville Bourbon Museum

The Fold

Center for Musical Arts

Corning Glass Center

Net Zero Glass Box: Crown Hall

102

110

116

122

126

132

the life and death of a rose

push-pull-twist-bend

Centre Pompidou Metz

160

162

168

Technology and Building Science Tools for design

Representation and Tangents Visualizing space and form

www.geofbell.com/cube

01A

Housing the Cube Columbia University GSAPP Core Studio III Fall 2012 East Harlem, New York Critic: Charles Eldred work produced in partnership with Rong Zhao 7

geofbell.com/cube

Housing the Cube Re-developing Agency in East Harlem

Re-developing Agency in East Harlem Residents in the neighborhoods of East Harlem often have little perceived ability to control many of the issues that affect their lives: what schools are available to them, where they can buy groceries, transit options, or quality of life. This project asks if it is possible to, through housing, return some of that control, or agency, to a buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s residents. Project Brief This building questions agency at all scales, from architect to engineer to developer to inhabitant, to try to determine what role each should play in the shaping of an environment as personal as a home. By laying out an infrastructure in which people can operate, the building maintains an inherant logic, while giving the inhabitants ultimate control to determine their home life. Parametric design allows the use of a set of rules to define a system, giving the operator a great deal of control to define highly specific aspects of a project while giving up control of the in-between spaces, allowing them to be computed based on the given parameters. This often produces a number of left-over spaces, given up to circumstance. This project highlights those chance spaces, opening them to the residents as shared â&#x20AC;&#x153;backyardsâ&#x20AC;? to be filled in and shaped over time.

The parametric design process becomes a negotiation between the variety of stakeholders involved in the project: the architects, engineers, developer and potential residents. The form is broadly defined with this input, manipulating parameters to maximize views, lighting, ventilation and program. This systematized approach is supplemented through a component-based set of add-ons, interacted with and calibrated by the inhabitant to control and define their own micro-environments and domestic life.

The parametric design process becomes a negotiation between the variety of stakeholders involved in the project: the architects, engineers, developer and potential residents.

www.geofbell.com/cube

01A

AERIAL RENDERING Located at E 121st ST and Harlem River Drive in East Harlem

opp: Conceptual plan The dwellings are situated around a continuous loop of “deprogrammed space” that weaves in and out of the mass of the building.

Housing the Cube Re-developing Agency in East Harlem

Type A single-function cubes bathroom

kitchen

circulation

Module Combinations By combining two modules vertically, a third space can be added, creating a â&#x20AC;&#x153;mezzanineâ&#x20AC;? space to maximize usable floor area.

Type B

Type C

multi-functional linkages

2/3 fuction + circulation

kitchen+bathroom+bedroom

kitchen+corridor

bedroom

bedroom+corridor

Residents and visitors enter from the southwest corner, into a glazed lobby with with an industrial construction that mirrors the adjacent railway. The lobby includes a ramp that acts as the origin point for the deprogrammed path that weaves through the building. From here, access is provided to elevators that bring residents to their respective floor, or to boutique retail boxes, community space, or the large ground floor court, with green space, a public auditorium, and a pop-up marketplace. A shifting landscape and small trees help soften the severe aesthetic of the structure.

On the sides of the highway and train, the dwelling zones begin on the fourth level, to avoid the most disruptive noise zones. Acoustic baffling is provided to help further attenuate sound. On the south, external shades help block the most direct solar radiation, while configurable folding screens at each apartment allow residents to more fully configue solar light and privacy.

www.geofbell.com/cube

01A

Interior Rendering: Mezzanine SPace View of â&#x20AC;&#x153;third spaceâ&#x20AC;? floor area looking toward triangle park.

Interior Rendering Switchable wall panels allow the modulation of light and privacy.

Housing the Cube Re-developing Agency in East Harlem

www.geofbell.com/cube

01A

AERIAL RENDERING The dwellings are situated around a continuous loop of “deprogrammed space” that weaves in and out of the mass of the building.

Housing the Cube Re-developing Agency in East Harlem

public park

harlem river drive

retail

The dwellings are situated around a continuous loop of “deprogrammed space” that weaves in and out of the mass of the building, serving as a backyard- allowing residents to use and exploit it at will. All of the programmatic organization of the building extends from this pathusing a generative script, a zone

park avenue entry lobby

pop-up marketplace

Ground floor Plan Entry lobby leads to boutique retail, with elevators providing resident access.

The dwellings are situated around a continuous loop of “deprogrammed space” that weaves in and out of the building mass.

of dwellings is clustered around a designed loop; a second set of spaces is clustered around that, to become community program. Finally, structural cubes are clustered around the outside, defining the building form. This produces a series of interweaving internal courtyard spaces that bring light to the building and specificity to the schematic organization. Another layer of specificity is added through a process of editing and design, ensuring adequate structural support, circulation, light, environmental attenuation and access based on internal layout of the buiding and surrounding context.

www.geofbell.com/cube

01A

park ave. train

entry lobby pop-up marketplace

Entry Lobby Exposed structure mirrors the elevated train along Park Avenue.

community space

open courtyard

deprogrammed path

shading louvers

View from Park Showing retail boxes below residential units.

Level 9 Plan Residences situated around courtyards and community space.

Housing the Cube Re-developing Agency in East Harlem

Typical South Elevation

Typical East Elevation

www.geofbell.com/cube

Community Spaces

Live/Work

Deprogrammed Space

Development Diagrams

01A

Opp: Interior courtyard at night Auditorium with projection screen acts as a community incubator within the residential mass.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the Network The Impact of GLobal Forces on Architectural Practice History and Theory of 20th Century and Contemporary Architecture Professor Wallis Miller

Abstract: The constantly evolving and increasingly global world in which we live has had dramatic effects on the architectural profession. Transnational investment, rapid proliferation of communication and informational technologies, and the impact of free-market forces on local, regional, national, and international economies have shaped the way in which we work in remarkable ways. While there does not exist a single widely accepted definition of globalization, there has been an abundance of publication regarding its effects on architecture. It is the purpose of this presentation to investigate these effects and the ways in which they drive contemporary practice. Presented as part of a lecture series on contemporary trends in architecture, May 2009. Read more: http://geofbell.com/index_writing

Evolution of a Global World “Global” is of course nothing new. As we have discussed, Modernism was an attempt to provide a unified way of working, originating (of course) in Europe. This can be described as internationalization; the style originated in Europe, but would be agreed upon by the many different nations who would be affected by it. Continuing on with the advent of Post-Modernism, we see a new concept of the global. The United States have become a significant power, and have begun to export not only styles but products and brands. In a multinational world, corporations based in a single location operate throughout the globe, but maintain their specific brand no matter where they are. The Golden Arches are recognizable anywhere in the world. Even though today, globalization may seem commonplace, the ways in which it is affecting architecture are very new. Globalization has taken on new meaning: a planet-wide system of intensely interlinked operations that at once operate independently, and collectively make up the global market that impacts every aspect of our lives. Or in the words of Verizon, “It’s the Network.” Modernism: 18th Century to 1960s Internationalization Nation States EuroWesternization

Post-Modernism: 1960s to 1990s Multinationalization Multinational Corp. Americanization

Super-Modernism: 1994 to Present Globalization Market States Planetary

GLOBALIZATION »» Astronomically expands the realm of possibility, for better or worse; »» Exponentially depletes the architectural imagination; »» Exponentially enriches the architectural imagination; »» Scrambles the chronology of individual architect’s careers; »» Extends and/or shrinks shelf life; »» Causes, as in earlier collisions of formerly pure cultures, epidemics; »» Radically modifies architectural discourse, now an uneasy relationship between regional »» unknowing and internationally knowing. Rem Koolhaas “Globalization” S M L XL (1995)

Global Networks and Urban Infrastructure Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos, the principles of United Net Studio, have embraced the global nature of the new economy through what they call network practice. They redefine the role of the architect as co-producing technician, organizer, and planner - as only part of a highly structured co-operative process in which clients, investors, users, and specialist consultants have just as much involvement in the design process. The first project that we will look at is an urban proposal for New York, through the Canadian Centre for Architecture. UNStudio used a combination of digital techniques to integrate infrastructure, urbanism and varying programs by looking for correspondences and overlaps. Automated design and animation techniques were used to develop a working method to integrate user movement, urban planning, construction, and the potential for programmatic development.

Courtesy: Michael Speaks

What is Globalization? Integration and decentralization of the planet’s economy, infrastructure and culture. Two aspects of globalization have played increasingly significant roles in contemporary architecture: the Globalized Market and the Global City. The Globalized Market Kevin Kelley, writer and thinker, has published numerous books, articles, and essays on the importance of keeping up with the global economy. In New Rules for the New Economy, still as relevant as ever, Kelley describes the global economy as an intensely interlinked network of ideas, information, and relationships. As architects, we are a crucial part of this globalized market: providing infrastructure and translating the intangible to physical reality.

How do we as architects respond to this phenomenon? As famous architects become brand names, is there any difference between their work in America, Dubai, China, or anywhere else in the world? Should there be? Architecture, (usually) occupying a physical location, must confront the issue of an increasingly global world. We will examine the effect that a globalized market has on the work of various architects, how they confront and respond to the issues of the local and the global, and how their work responds, not only to the traditional context of the physical surroundings, but the new, global context that begins to inform how we design.

Kevin Kelley and the New Economy: This new economy has three distinguishing characteristics: »» It is global. »» It favors intangible things – ideas, information, and relationships. »» And it is intensely interlinked. These three attributes produce a new type of marketplace and society, one that is rooted in ubiquitous electronic networks. Kevin Kelley, New Rules for the New Economy (1998)

The in-depth, interactive nature of this working method allows for a network of programs which interact and maintain their distinctions while contributing to the project as a whole. In their proposal, UNStudio writes: The fascination of the emerging global city resides to some extent in its qualities of mutability and instability. Absences, deficiencies, and deformations carry a transformational potential. Allowing within themselves diversity, conflict, and change, these emerging architectural and urban organizations reflect qualities that belong to our time, such as vicariousness, transformability, and the almost limitless absorption of information. So, the organizational structures and the infrastructure of the global city are no longer seen as linear representations of homogenous systems, but scale-less and

subject to evolution, expansion,inversion, contortion, and manipulation. The crux of their argument is how, in a worldfacing increasing homogenization of cities, which cater to an increasingly transnational conglomeration of travelers, will a city such as Manhattan distinguish itself from its replicas to set the tone for the future? Through their combination of techniques, they diagram and map the performance of Manhattan, extracting the parameters by which they will generate their plan for the development of the site. By combining facilities into what they call “critical packages,” clusters of well-functioning mixed-program areas, they hoped to provide optimal conditions for the site to function effectively programmatically, economically, and politically.

Localized-Globalized Architecture Founded in 1995 by Farshid Moussavi and Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Foreign Office Architects is based in London, with a portfolio that circumnavigates the globe. Japan’s Yokohoma Port Terminal, perhaps one of the firm’s bestknown projects, is also a good example of the ambitious approach they take to work in foreign locales. Always a spectacle, FOA also determined attempts to respond to physical and cultural context, striking a delicate balance between architectural significance on the world-stage, and cultural relevance for the city and its inhabitants. Even as it strives to define the local culture, its significance at the global scale transcends the local to redefine its context, making it at once local and global.

The term “global city” was coined by American sociologist Saskia Sassen, noted for her analysis of globalization and its effects. She argues, in an essay titled “The Impact of the New Technologies and Globalization on Cities,” published in 2001, that as the world becomes more global, cities would not, as many urbanists had predicted, expand indefinitely, but that the cores of cities would become more important than ever as corporations grow and require direct access to collaborate with other firms and concentrations of intelligence through experts and specialists. “One of the ironies of the new information technologies,” she says, “is that to maximize their use we need access to conventional infrastructure.” Van Berkel and Bos quickly recognized and have embraced the rising significance of metropolitan infrastructure, and many of their projects deal directly with this issue.

FOA expands upon these concepts in their airport design for the city of Shenzhen, China. Like UNStudio, they are confronting the idea of creating an identity for a foreign city, with a few significant differences. While UNStudio’s train station was meant to reinforce the city’s social ideals by weaving into the fabric of the city, FOA’s scheme for this airport stands out as an icon of Schenzhen City, and through its shape, an icon of itself. The project is an ambitious effort to resonate with both old and new aspects of the city’s culture and iconographies. This takes form through representations of woven bamboo, the ripples of the nearby sea, and the floating forms of a ribbon in a traditional Chinese dance. Architecture becomes a form of branding, a logo for the city, one that is, significantly, only visible from the air, alluding to both its purpose (flight), and the increasingly global perspective, which not only made its conception possible, but neccessary.

As an example, the Star Network Exhibition, for the Netherlands Architecture Institute utilizes a rail-linked network of distribution facilities, creating an infrastructure, which represents “an ideology of efficiency through connectivity.” Similarly, if we take a look at a more recent project for a masterplan and train station for Bologna, Italy, we see a strong attempt to redefine a significant piece of infrastructure, the train station, not only as a key node of a transportation network emphasizing efficiency, but as a significant piece of the urban fabric as well, expanding out into the neighborhoods and streets, and beginning to emphasize and even to adjust the unique identity of the city.

Network Ecologies Servo was founded in 1999 and simultaneously exists in four separate cities, all major economic centers. David Erdman in New York, Marcelyn Gow in Zurich, Chris Perry in Los Angeles, and Ulrika Karlsson in Stockholm exploit the network infrastructures of the global information economy to link the architectural cultures of Europe and the United States. Servo’s work exists at the boundary between the physical world that we interact with every day, and the virtual network that spans the globe. They question the way architecture responds to the ever-present electronic telecommunications infrastructures. How do we assign form to such an intangible con-

cept? “How might architects operate at this level of networked intensity?” Certainly, Servo’s futuristic designs relate formally: “constructed of tubes, conduits for circuits, snaking coils, and chases.” Conceptually, too, Servo attempts to define architecture’s new role. Their work, as described by David Hight, suggests “a shift from ocusing on innovating the object of architecture to reconfiguring the subject: the redistribution of borders of the discipline into the power structures of the networked economy.” Plugging-In to the global network, through the way the user interacts with the object, and the object with its environment. Their unorthodox work can be described as “network ecologies,” in that they act as physical infrastructure, or ecologies, in which to interact with and become an integral part of the vast informational networks. Primarily dissiminating their work through installations and exhibitions, both of the projects the we will look at in-depth are speculative, residing in museums - for now. The first was exhibited at PS1 MoMA in 2004 under the title Vibronic Environments. This project helps illustrate another of Saskia Sassen’s arguments, that much of what we experience as local, is in fact global in that what we think of as local is a transformed condition, merely a localization of global processes. She writes, “Digital space is embedded in the larger societal, cultural, subjective, economic, imaginary structures of lived experience and the systems within which we exist and operate.” To continue to think of the local as “simply local” is no longer useful or adequate. Thus Servo seeks to operate within this ambiguity through their exhibition at P.S.1. MoMA. The physical infrastructure of the project invites users to “plug in” and connect to the virtual infrastructure of the information economy, referencing a world where physical proximity is no longer necessary in order to be part of the community; and in fact, unless one is plugged in, there is simply isolation. Likewise, Lobbi-ports, constructed of a parasitic membrane, carries both people and telecommunications networks. The project conceives of the future of hotel lobbies as cultural terminals, or points of entry, for cities made up of increasingly transnational travelers. “Proposing that hotel lobbies will become the urban living room for local urban dwellers as well as serve the function of cultural destination for the tourist,the Lobbi-port will thus allow for stays which extend beyond a meal, check-in, or a drink and open the possibility for new

modes of interactivity and atmosphere to emerge, where the hotel TV is the lobby and the lounge has become the room.” The implanted systems of enclosure re-wire and re-distribute existing circuits to supply the spaces with light, sound, and video. The plug-in system redirects the flow, distribution, and direction of information through the implants while at the same time re-defining the cultural and everyday pedestrian urbanism of the hotel itself. Globalized Clients and Consumer Culture The three existing Prada Epicenters stand as examples of a corporate brand which interacts with the global economy through architecture. In the late 1990s, as the Prada brand expanded, it hired Rem Koolhaas and OMA/AMO to help develop the brand across the globe without losing the aura generated by the Prada brand, as typically happens when the number of stores increases. Thus Rem proposed four Epicenters, of which San Francisco was cancelled, where each would use informational technologies to collect local feedback from customers to feed into the larger network of stores and each store would in turn sell its own specialized goods with the Prada label. Brand destabilization to keep the brand fresh. The epicenters use the context of the local to inform the global. The following projects, however, exist outside of context, to embrace the globalized consumer economy in the production of architecture. Prefabrication is not such a new thing but has been recently re-investigated by the P.S.1. MoMA’s Home Delivery Show, a commisioned show where design responds to highly specialized markets made possible by the global economy. With mass production in the housing market, architects have to respond not to a context, but all contexts simultaneously, in some cases resulting in projects that are completely self-sufficient. Globalized Clients and the Global City Cities themselves have also had to find ways to cope with an increasingly global world, and have often been slow to respond. For this reason, some architects have attempted to redefine cities to take their new global identities into account. In addition, some municipalities have taken it upon themselves to redefine the city and its place on the global scene. How can you address such extensive ideas as locality, identity, freedom, and diversity as one? In Guide to

Ecstacity, Nigel Coates invents an entirely new and novel metropolis that takes fragments from seven of the world’s major cities and weaves them into one multilayered urban fabric, whose patterns shift according to the overlap of cultures. According to Coates, “[i]t builds on the sort of complex social ecology that truly global (but not globalized) cities take for granted.” The book recontextualizes past projects of Branson-Coates, the practice formed in 1985 by Doug Branson and Nigel Coates, within the imaginary city, to investigate the relationship between locational context and experience, posing the question “how can locality, identity, freedom, diversity, and security” be addressed at once? His more recent project, Mixtacity, developed for an exhibition at the Tate Modern dealing with the issue of Global Cities, involves a similar investigation, but within an existing context. The project’s intent was to explore the potential of the Thames Gateway in East London to accomodate the diverse range of cultures and lifestyles of the million new inhabitants anticipated over the next decade. Rather than a planning model determined by political and economic interests, this project is driven by a more artistic spirit, resulting in apparently casual juxtapositions and relationships that are meant to stimulate individual interpretation.

Global Cities and the Perception of Culture The Olympics are a perfect illustration of the way cities have reacted to the forces of globalization. Every four years cities around the world compete to host the global competitions. Each are looking to the Olympics as the perfect vehicle to showcase themselves on the world stage. Cities carefully cultivate the image that they want to project when the world’s eyes fall on them. China, recently becoming a part of the World Trade Organization, wanted to project a new devotion to change and progress to match a new government. Architecture is used as a powerful tool to present this visage to the rest of the world. These buildings (often by foreign architects) become a source for deep nationalistic pride.

Abu Dhabi, like many of the UAE cities, is experiencing what could be described as a tabula rasa of physical context and of means. Vast amounts of recently acquired wealth have allowed for an unprecedented building boom in which the desire to develop an image to

The World City: World City is not a single bloblike urban conurbation seeping over every acre of the globe. But the vast networks of all kinds that girdle the world are so intertwined that they unite existing cities in a single global urban entity. In these networks, cities are the hubs for making, for distributing, and for consuming. They will succeed in much the same way they’ve always succeeded - by adapting to evolving networks of connectivity. Michael Gallis with James S. Russell “World City: Why Globalization Makes Cities More Important Than Ever” (2002) The Global City: The result is not the coherant spatial form of an overwhelming social logic be it the capitalist city, the preindustrial city or the ahistorical utopia but the totured and disorderly, yet beautiful patchwork of human creation and suffering. Manuel Castells “European Cities, the Informational Society, and the Global Economy” (1993)

… The big question is whether or not changes in the western lifestyle can be used beneficially to alleviate the worst conditions in the developing world. Roger Zetter, Rodney White “Planning in Cities: Sustainability and Growth in the Developing World” (2002)

project into the global discourse has caused a hunger for namebrand architects. The traditional local culture is re-invented in order to interact with the global market. The Global Community Up to now I’ve discussed globalization in very abstract, general terms. Koolhaas’ diagrams portray globalization as an oppressive force, dividing the world into those who are integrated into the global economy and those who are excluded. Sociologist Manuel Castells predicts how globalization will polarize cities, increasing the gap between rich and poor. In response, practices have begun to appear which try to respond to globalization at the local level. Estudio Teddy Cruz operates at the border of Tijuana and San Diego, where, in his words, politics of discriminating zoning, a catch-22 of development restrictions and economic incentives prevent the immigrant communities from developing. As means of production increasingly follow cheap labor markets south and human migration goes in the opposite direction, the two cities divide and repel each other even as they overlap. The work of Teddy Cruz responds to these factors, and he describes his work as “radicalization of the local to produce alternative readings of the global.” Cruz does this in several ways: first, by embracing the informal. In Manufactured Sites, a framework was developed to be set up as an ad-hoc architecture of addition, not imposing form on the local but allowing it to form itself. This type of concept might recall the infrastructure projects of Yona Friedman, where a system was put in place to allow for future development, but here the intention is to avoid imposing any sort of specific arrangement, allowing the culture to take over by simply framing the informal, similar to the phenomenon that Cruz points out in Retrofitting Levittown, where immigrants,

moving into the vacated housing of Levittown began to impose their own culture onto the existing structures. In the next project, Living Rooms at the Border, Cruz again investigates the concept of “an infrastructure of ambiguity,” where a series of empty spaces provide a framework for the informal. What is most important about Living Rooms, though, is that it reacts to and relies on the existing political and economic systems in its development. The real project was figuring out how to work through the legal restrictions in order to get the politics on their side. The entire program of housing, community space, and the headquarters of a nonprofit organization had to be sited on a single parcel, and the structures had to be designed so that they could call it “public art,” to work around the development restrictions. The parcel was made into an infrastructure for growth at the local level through infrastructure that frames the complexity of the informal. I end in the same place that I began: even in a constantly shifting environment, Koolhaas’ evaluation of globalization is as applicable now as ever. While the effects on architecture are abstract and difficult to define, they are unavoidable, and must be acknowledged, if not necessarily embraced, by anyone who wishes to compete in the global marketplace.

Al Halim, Dalia Wagih Abd. “Cities Under the Stress of Globalization: The Case of Cairo.” Regional Architecture and Identity in the Age of Globalization. Jamal Al-Qawasmi, Abdesselem Mahmoud, and Ali Djerbi, eds. The Second International Conference of the Center for the Study of Architecture in the Arab Region (CSAAR 2007): Tunis, Tunisia: Volume 1 (2008) pp 285-299.

Bullivant, Lucy. “Nonstandard Networking.” Atlas. Issue 23, November 2005. Burke, Anthony. “Toward a Protocological Architecture.” Network Practices: New Strategies in Architecture and Design. Anthony Burke and Therese Tierney, eds. Princeton Architectural Press: New York (2007). Castells, Manuel. “European Cities, the Informational Society, and the Global Economy.” Journal of Eco-

nomic and Social Geography. (1993). Coates, Nigel. Guide to Ecstacity. Princeton Architectural Press: New York (2003). Cruz, Teddy. “Retrofitting Levittown.” Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Foreign Office Architects with Loom Concept Ltd. Foreign Office Architects. http://www.f-o-a.net/ (2008). Gallis, Michael, with James S. Russell, AIA. “World City: Why Globalization makes Cities More Important than Ever.” Architectural Record. Hight, Christopher. “Scalar Networks, Super Creeps: Approaching the Non-Standard in the Architecture of Servo.” Network Practices: New Strategies in Architecture and Design. Anthony Burke and Therese Tierney, eds. Princeton Architectural Press: New York (2007).

Koolhaas, Rem. Content. Taschen: Germany (2004). Koolhaas, Rem. “Globalization.” S M L XL. Ocean. Ocean Design Research Network. http:// www.ocean-designresearch. net/. Sassen, Saskia. “The City: Localizations of the Global.” Perspecta. Sassen, Saskia. “The Impact of New Technologies and Globalization on Cities.” Cities in Transition. Arie Graafland and Deborah Hauptmann, eds. (2001). Servo with Jeremy Whitener. Servo. http:// www.s-e-r-v-o.com/. Speaks, Michael. “Design Intelligence and the New Economy.” Architectural Record. January 2002. (pp. 72- 76). Speaks, Michael. “Prada LA: Chatter About the Global Brand.” A+U. UN Studio. Effects (Move). UN Studio and Goose Press: Amsterdam (1999). UN Studio with Bloemendaal & Dekkers and iWink. UN Studio. http://www. unstudio.com/.

www.geofbell.com/bank

01B

Innovator-Incubator Bank GSAPP Core Studio II Spring 2012 New York, New York Critic: Mabel Wilson 29

geofbell.com/bank

Innovator-Incubator Bank Crowdsourced Innovation

MATERIAL TRANSLATION Objects with embedded intelligence are aggregated to create an operable apparatus. This intelligence is then translated to a new material to define an architectural surface.

Innovator-Incubator Bank Crowdsourced Innovation

Crowdsourced Innovation The Innovator-Incubator Bank extends existing forms of collaboration to the New Economy, both formally and informally, enabling the rapid spread of ideas while concentrating them into an environment of collaboration. Project Brief The Slowstarter Bank Traditional consumer banking and an open-source small business incubator1 are combined to produce, store and exchange knowledge: data, research, ideas and experience. Housed within one structure, businesses gain access to the physical “bank” of knowledge and experience traded among other businesses in a collaborative environment. Through network interfaces arrayed within the building surface and connected to a virtual presence, a new kind of collaborative network is opened, connecting businesses to bank customers and the general public to invest, both financially and through ideas and knowledge capital. The bank aims to help businesses succeed in the “New Economy,” an intensely interlinked global network of ideas, information and relationships.2 By merging the space of the

virtual and the physical3 into an open and public forum that includes bank, café and meeting space, businesses “bank” their own ideas, expertise, experience, brand and identity, for it to be reinvested toward new returns. Programmatic Strategies From the street level, the community-focused aspects of the program are peeled up from the ground to create a fluid, open space that merges with the streetscape, removing division between the sidewalk and the bank.

The bank aims to help businesses succeed in the “New Economy,” by merging the space of the virtual and the physical into an open and public forum.

www.geofbell.com/bank 01B

Material Transition Landscape to cladding

The collaborative work spaces are situated above, with local programmatic conditions pushed and pulled to recombine and redefine the notion of business type, and spatially producing zones for meeting and conversation. Vertically, there is a recirculating system of knowledge, in which data, ideas, branding and concepts are produced and refined by the businesses housed in the building, and mediated through

the network-surface. Developed and redeveloped within the collaborative environment, this knowledge base is stored and re-input into the system, dispersed into the community, and re-introduced through the crowd-sourced intelligence. 1. Community Ventures Corporation. http://www.cvcky.org/. 2. Kelley, Kevin. New Rules for the New Economy. http://www.kk. 3. Zukin, Sharon. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Politics and Aesthetics of Public Space.

Interior Spatial Inversion The flexibility of the modules allow the surface to be inverted on itself, creating an interior column of space

Innovator-Incubator Bank Crowdsourced Innovation

Design Through Material Translation The material translation occurs through a translocation of the joint conditions that are found in the previous iteration of the binder clip module. Three joint conditions characterize this module: the fixed, the pivot, and the slide. In combination, these allow the aggregation to deform in several different ways, including compression, expansion/contraction and twisting. The result is an aggregation that performs in a fashion parallel to the binder clip structure. This allows a degree of malleability in the structure in addition to local

variation, through the modules, which individually expand or contract to allow the overall deformation. This creates gradients that also mirror the original aggregation. In contrast, the shape of the module and the modes of connection in the translated form maintain the flat surface condition as opposed to the binder clipsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; double-curved aggregation. The joint configuration of the module allows a controlled degree of flexibility in the overall structure in addition to the local changes at the module level. This creates gradients through visual occlusion/translucency and structural modulation. 34

www.geofbell.com/bank 01B

The program of the building was simultaneously developed in and through this process of material translation. In the structural system, there is an interlinked network of modules that deform individually to allow overall deformation. Like the network of businesses and consumers, the strength of the aggregation is in its flexibility enabled by the variation among its members. There is a double-reading of the concept of “network” embedded in the architecture itself.

and within these scales allow double-readings of the virtual network with the city (interface) and the image with bank activity (façade). The skin surrounds and reflects the programmatic conditions, deformed by the interior forces produced by the collaborative work zones, simultaneously determining and determined by program, producing certain spatial and visual effects.

This double-read is further pursued in the aggregated screen that comprises the building. The modules operate at multiple scales, from interface to façade,

Scale Model The surface created by the aggregated modules is manipulated to create desired spatial flows.

Innovator-Incubator Bank Crowdsourced Innovation

NETWORK Infrastructure Multiple networks converge through the apparatus of the bank: virtual, regional and local.

www.geofbell.com/bank 01B

Physical Infrastructure The different module types allow visitors to interact with the bank through display screens, network access and physical space.

www.geofbell.com/energy-ecology

01C

Energy-Ecology institute Columbia Urban Ecology Studio Fall 2013 New Rochelle, NY Critics: Richard Plunz, Director, Urban Design Lab Patricia Culligan, Ph.D., The Earth Institute work produced in partnership with: Brittany Wright, Ph.D. Candidate, Mechanical Engineering (IGERT) Adam Atia, MS/Ph.D. Candidate, Earth and Environmental Engineering (IGERT) 39

geofbell.com/energy-ecology

Energy-Ecology Institute Davids’ Island Research Network

The greatest asset, and the greatest challenge facing New Rochelle is the city’s proximity to NYC. Like Davids’ Island, New Rochelle is situated on the edge of autonomy and connection. By making Davids’ Island available for sale to a research institute for as little as one dollar, New Rochelle can distinguish itself as a new “white glove” business center, attracting and retaining an intellectual economy, and bolstering local industry. Project Brief The proposal that the Energy Ecology Institute brings to New Rochelle is the implementation of an RFP to establish a research institute on Davids’ Island, offering the land for sale or long-term lease for as little as one dollar, to attract an institution that will fulfill the economic goals of the city.The City of New Rochelle would solicit proposals to develop a sustainable campus focused on energy resources and ecological habitats, connecting with the existing network of institutes along the Long Island Sound, and acting as an incubator for independent research applications. Davids’ Island is uniquely positioned to host a successful

research institute for three reasons: First: The island, like New Rochelle itself, is situated within a condition of both seclusion and accessibility. With relatively easy access from New Rochelle via a short ferry ride, access can also be more controlled to protect the ecology and sensitive equipment.

“Davids’ Island is uniquely positioned to host a successful research institute. The island is situated within a condition of both seclusion and accessibility.”

Ecology Network Diagram The island combines three types of programmatic ecologies: Social, Energy and Habitat.

www.geofbell.com/energy-ecology

Island Programming:

Social Ecology:

25% 10,000 SF

Energy Ecology:

55% 22,000 SF

Habitat Ecology:

20% 8,000 SF

33% 14,000 SF 33% 14,000 SF 41

Research Programs:

33% 14,000 SF

Module Types:

Algae Cultivation

Visitor Center/Cafe 3,600 SF

Ecological Stability

46% 20,000 SF

Energy Production

46% 20,000 SF

Research Labs

Research Stations

01C

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Social Pocketâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Spaces of respite created between research modules create zones of interaction between researchers, students and the public.

Energy-Ecology Institute Davids’ Island Research Network

Second: Algae, a troubling issue in the Sound, contributing to hypoxia and a reduction in marine life, presents an opportunity for a strong base of research; by harvesting the algae that naturally exists in the Sound, we can explore new and more efficient ways to extract fuels, bioengineer more productive species, and the entire process can be incorporated into the design of the institute itself. Third: Davids’ Island is unique in the NYC

area as land that was once highly developed, but has been retaken by nature. The newness of the existing ecology provides an opportunity to test new ecological environments in a controlled manner.

“Davids’ Island is unique; land that was once highly developed, but has been retaken by nature.”

Hypoxia in Long Island Sound

Phasing Strategy: The design for the research institute will consist of the systematic configuration of components: energy resources, ecological habitats and architectural spaces. The program is three-tiered: a permanent set of core labs, a series of flexible labs which connect to the core labs for research support and resources, and remote stations which are set up for

specific research applications. The project is phased in the same way: the initial core labs are constructed first, and fixed. The “flexlabs” can be added as needed, but remain physically in place, while the interior can be adapted to the project needs. The stations are linked to the flexlabs, but can be moved on-site to changing research applications.

Phase 1 Private donation to initiate construction of research hub. Public spaces raise initial community awareness and support.

Phase 2 Core laboratories are put in place to jumpstart research work.

Phase 3 Ongoing expansion- modular labs and research stations for new project teams.

www.geofbell.com/energy-ecology

01C

LEGEND

01. Core Laboratories 02. Essential Ancilliary Functions 03. Algae Laboratories 04. Visitor Center/Cafe Cogeneration Equipment Open Water Algae Harvesting Sandy Beach Wooded Area Artificial Landscape Con-Ed Easement

Site Plan Research campus

Energy-Ecology Institute Davids’ Island Research Network

Integrated Algae Cultivation + Harvesting Algae, which is a troubling issue in the Sound, contributing to hypoxia and reduction of marine life in the area, presents an opportunity for a strong base of research; by harvesting the algae that naturally exists in the sound, we can explore new and more efficient ways to extract fuels, bioengineer more productive species, and the process can be incorporated into the design of the institute itself, helping to supplement energy needs and become an integral part of the architecture. Fresh Water System Flat plate design will use wastewater effluent pumped to Davids’ Island from the secondary phase of New Rochelle’s treatment plant. The flat plate design was chosen because of its short oxygen path (lower accumulation of dissolved oxygen concentrations than horizontal reactors) and its low power consumption (vertical air mixing). It is also the only working, scaled-up example of algae in a building environment that we have to date.

Salt Water System The cultivation docks contain the mechanics to deliver nutrients and CO2 to the algae pods and to pump algae slurry back to the institute for harvesting. The photobioreactors can be extended over the water attaching to the pod below or locked onto the dock. The pods are units that retrieve nutrient-rich water from contaminated locations in LI Sound. Whether ROVs or towed-bodies they return to dock and attach onto the photobioreactors, where a pump located in the arm transfers the water to the photobioreactor for cultivation.

“By cultivating the algae in the Sound, we can explore new and more efficient ways to extract fuels, and the process can be incorporated into the design of the institute itself.”

Water Sunlight

CO2 Algae

Nutrients

Flexible Sources: • Wastewater Treatment Effluent • Long Island Sound Water Concentration Control

Algae Collector (Water) Design of Collector: • Sunlight • Mixing • Transport • Integration into building design

Harvesting (Separation) Less Energy Intensive Methods: • Separation • Drying • Salt Removal

Conversion

Biofuel

Thermochemical Conversion: • High- and Low-Moisture • Integration into CHP Algae Cultivation Integration The cultivation of algae is integral to the research of the institute, and supplements the spatial form.

www.geofbell.com/energy-ecology

Remote Research Stations The research stations are the primary medium of interaction between the public and the research institutes. Providing an on-site base of operations for researchers, by linking back to the main walking path, they act also as an information center, where visitors can learn about the research activity while viewing the impact on the environment directly. These stations are the nodes of production and circulation of network flows on the island, producing energy and data and transferring stores of knowledge to the visiting public. Individual research stations are situtated on the island, and eventually, across New Rochelle and the Long Island Sound. The stations provide a place of convergence - for the researchers to do work on-site, and also for

the public to pass through, and see real time data and information as ongoing research projects take place in-situ. For the researchers, this initiates increased public support and awareness of their work, and the public gains hightenened awareness and points of interest as they visit the island. The module components are constructed off the island and ferried to the research location and assembled. The modules may be permanent or more temporary and mobile, depending on the needs of the researchers and the level of interaction with the landscape. Each remote station is paired with a laboratory at the island hub, providing shared essential equipment and services and a central location to build the knowledge economy.

Customization Mirroring the way researchers customize lab equipment arrangements, participating institutions will have the opportunity to calibrate research stations according to need and location on or off the island. By choosing different combinations of roof, wall panel, and landscape and energy collection options, the technology and

01C

environment can be calibrated to specific need.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The stations produce a space of convergence for the researchers, New Rochelle residents and other visitorsâ&#x20AC;?

Station 1 Migratory Birds 2 Modules Topography: Sloped, Rocky Environment: Rocky Shore/Salt Marsh

Energy-Ecology Institute Davidsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Island Research Network Station 2 Underground Energy Storage 4 Modules Topography: Cliff Environment: Wooded/Shore

Island Development by Stations

Station 3 Tidal Strait Remediation 1 Module Topography: Flat (w/elevated station) Environment: Shore, Toxic

www.geofbell.com/energy-ecology

Station 4 Habitats + Invasive Species 3 Modules Topography: Flat (w/elevated station) Environment: Wooded

Station 5 Shellfish Reefs 2 Modules Topography: Slight Slope Environment: Pavement, Rocky Shore

01C

www.geofbell.com/turbulence

01D

Institute of Turbulence GSAPP Core Studio I Fall 2011 New York, New York Critic: Phil Parker 49

geofbell.com/turbulance

Institute of Turbulence Inscribed forces

The Institution is the structure/mechanism/apparatus organizing the relations of forces supporting, and supported by, bodies of knowledge. Synergies and Antagonisms in program organize forces by directing flows, creating beneficial turbulences, transmitting knowledge through building and disseminating to cultural context. The site organizes forces in immediate context. The building organizes and directs structural forces within building surfaces. Project Brief Turbulence: constrained by grid A system of constrained points is placed into the Hudson River. Movements are tracked and recorded. Shows a snapshot-duration in time, of the forces moving along the system... converging and diverging as flows act on the field: Crumpling|Condensing of quantities and intensities of line. Movements within movements:

rippling of surface within tidal waves. The use of line through multiplicities of scale allows the simultaneous reading of many different conditions, including time, overall trajectories of wave flow, smaller ripples within waves, the expansion and contraction of aquatic fields, and the underlying grid which constrains movements. Tension between liquid and line creates order. The field is thus epigenetic: both formed by and forming flows.

www.geofbell.com/turbulence

01D

Social Forces: zones of speed New York is a city of intense flows of bodies: people, traffic, communication and physical forces. Modulation of line due to social interaction across the site. Specifically studying â&#x20AC;&#x153;zones of slow,â&#x20AC;? the line is widened where movements decelerate, leaving a greater imprint in the site. Certain qualities of line emerge based on activity: play, commute, romance, relaxation, exercise... As regions combine and overlap, they produce new relationships. Sometimes, one activity will win out; it is difficult to take a quiet stroll in the run/bike path. Sometimes, the zones will merge and act in synergy; the park combines many activities into one space of social interaction.

Tension: surface + internal

the surface: a visual artifact of the liquid dynamics.

Trajectory lines are perforated to enable pliability in two directions. Degree of perforation varies based on width of line in the two-dimensional drawing. Additional score lines are inscribed into surface: vectors, ripples and grid.

Lines produce new lines and zones of strength and weakness: reinforced by bending and creasing, reinforced further by the introduction of wire. New tension is created between surface and wire: wire is bent and deformed by surface and wire in turn causes surface to deform.

This transfer of medium filters the composition as it is translated to

Defining Program: fracturing + collision Four types of bodies: Human (eye, hand, foot) Plants (seed, plant, food) Water (drinking, hydroponic, waste) Information (idea, knowledge, data)

The operative conditions modulate and redefine program through interaction with these bodies.The movement of bodies works as a force that interacts with (pushes against, is deformed by) surfaces. These bodies are the medium through which knowledge is generated and disseminated throughout the apparatus.

Institute of Turbulence Inscribed forces

The Drawings: envisioning information through line A constant throughout the drawings is the activation and modulation of line through width. In the water drawing this delineates time. Onsite, lines accumulate and gain width as bodies slow, and this idea is brought forward into

sections and plans. This accumulation of activated lines then begins to fill and activate the architectural space that it occupies, illustrating zones of slower â&#x20AC;&#x153;mixingâ&#x20AC;? and the accumulation and multiplication of knowledge.

Tightening: crumple + fracture Projected to the material realm, these lines of strength and weakness are further pushed and pulled, expanding and contracting to create new surface relationships through the resulting crumpling and fracturing of the surface.

Sections: revealing affect + effect through line Synergy :: Antagonism Extension :: Contraction Bend :: Crease Fracture :: Crumple Rigid :: Soft These contradictory conditions create tension in, along and through the surface membrane, producing new effects in-between through layered zones and gradient of effect.

www.geofbell.com/turbulence

Partial Systematization: more than “plugged in” When these forces collide, it creates a type of turbulence locally and resonating throughout the system. The apparatus is constructed through an aggregation of the modulated surfaces to be acted on through site, program and user. Through the concept of Partial Systematization, surfaces merge and expand out, creating individual nodes that branch out from a single form. Five Steps to Construct an Apparatus: 1. “Play” surface along lines: crease to reinforce strengths and weaknesses.

The Model: material parametric

The model primarily demonstrates the partial systematization of the institute’s surfaces and spaces. The “nodes” that extend from the main mass begin in a “wrapped” or condensed, contracted condition and expand out as a surface to become layered with the neighboring surfaces. The surfaces fracture and interweave with the others. Conceptually, and programmatically, this demonstrates the generation and input

2. Insert wires along creased lines to further reinforce strengths of membrane. 3. Find areas of overlap between surfaces and use wires to reinforce overlaps (synergies). 4. Begin to tighten wires along resulting nodes. Repeat. 5. By pulling and relaxing individual wires, modulate apparatus in response to site and program.

of knowledge within the nodes, which is drawn into the system to be disseminated throughout the institution. The surface conditions operate at multiple scales, with the paper model blending wall, floor and ceiling, and lines on the surface operating im multiple ways. Holes perforated into the surface, for example, become pods for hydroponic growth, plantings within floors, and permeable ground surfaces in the public spaces.

01D

Institute of Turbulence Inscribed forces

Institute of Turbulence: zones of slow Q: What is the Institute? A: The Institute is an apparatus to create beneficial turbulences within the site that compress zones of movement of bodies, creating new social interactions, supporting and supported by, certain types of knowledge, blending bodies of people, plants, water and knowledge in ways that enhance both individual and collective.

The arms or nodes that branch out from the mass act as inputs and outputs for the system. Here sunlight is brought in to facilitate the growth of plants, and the knowledge that they generate through scientific study; by penetrating the pedestrian zones of the site, the nodes bring in human activity that receives, carries and transmits that knowledge; by filtering and treating water from the Hudson River they support the activity of the institute.

www.geofbell.com/turbulence

The Institute: surfaces activated and communicative The manipulation and overlay of surfaces defines the boundaries of space, modulating the flows of bodies. When these forces collide, it creates turbulence, leading to new spatial and social phenomena between these bodies, of accumulation, compressions, unique juxtapositions, which in turn create constantly new and complex urban social realities. It is the hypothesis and proposition of this project that the collision of

these forces within the institution with the knowledge created inside and brought to it from without, will cause an amplification of the bodies of knowledge carried by the people that visit and interact with the institute. The surfaces are made active by the users; through bending and creasing, extension and contraction of space, rigidness and softness, fracturing and crumpling, the forces of circulation within the institute are manipulated to create constantly shifting social conditions.

Bibliography:

01D

Benjamin, Andrew. “Surface Effects: Borromini, Semper, Loos.” (2006). Delanda, Manuel. “Extensive Borderlines and Intensive Borderlines.” (2002). Deleuze, Gilles. “Difference and Repetition.” (1994). “The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque.” (1992). “What is a Dispositif?” (1992). Lynn, Greg. “Architectural Curvilinearity.” Folding in Architecture. (1993).

Weizman, Eyal. “Lethal Theory.” (2006). Zaera Polo, Alejandro. “Politics of the Envelope: A Political Critique of Materialism.“

World of Cities Network Culture Professor Kazys Varnelis

Abstract: This paper attempts to examine a possible future scenario in which the nation-state has exhausted its relevance as a political entity, either as a source of identity or practicality. This is written in response to a set of interviews with Michael Doyle, the Harold Brown Professor of U.S. Foreign and Security Policy at Columbia Law School, and Joel E. Cohen, Mathematical Biologist and Professor of Populations in the School of International and Public Affairs, the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation. Michael Doyle specializes in international relations theory, international security and international organizations, and from 2001 to 2003 served as assistant secretary-general and special advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Doyle authored the influential essay “Liberalism and World Politics,” and other recent publications include Making War and Building Peace: United Nations Peace Operations (2006), Striking First: Preemption and Prevention in International Conflict (2008), and Liberal Peace: Selected Essays (2011).

Joel Cohen’s research uses mathematical concepts to understand the demography, ecology, epidemiology and social organization of human and nonhuman populations. He is the author of How Many People can the Earth Support? (1995) and has written extensively on the impact of rising populations and the disparities between wealthy and poverty-stricken populations.

The world’s urban populations are today growing at an unprecedented rate. The major milestone of 2007, in which the earth’s population became more urban than rural, has signaled the need for a change in thinking, in terms of how we view cities in relation to their environmental and political contexts.1 From 1970 to 2011, the number of people living in megacities, defined by Joel Cohen as cities with over ten million residents, grew by a multiple of nine, from 39.4 million to 359.4 million. In 2011, 23 megacities contained 9.9 percent of people living in urban areas, and Cohen conservatively projects that in 2025, the number of megacities will rise to 37 and the percentage of urban dwellers in megacities will increase to 13.6 percent.2 As the importance of cities to the world’s economic, political and cultural systems increases, the international stature of these global cities may continue to rise to the point that the cities’ international stature exceeds their physical or geographical presence, and even the political presence of their nation-states. States, as described by Joseph Tainter, expend enormous amounts of energy to maintain territorial integrity, and institutional authoritarian legitimacy. “In complex as well as simpler societies, leadership activities and societal resources must be continuously devoted to this purpose.” 3 Given these statistics and ideas, one might envision a future in which the relevance of the nation state as a political unit is exhausted, either as a source of identity or practicality, and the city becomes an independent entity, in which the internal structure of the city enables it to exist without a state.4 A number of conditions would likely have to be met in order to precipitate this rise in cities, many of which are already in place, and have historical precedent. This shift in power would have radical repercussions in politics, economics, environments and populations, with, of course, both advantages and disadvantages, many of which are impossible to predict. Cities represent global concentrations of cultural production and their role in shaping future geopolitical spheres must be examined.

In many cases, the conditions necessary to precipitate the rise of cities are already in place, and in other cases would necessitate a radical shift in current economic, political and cultural policy. Doyle suggests trade, migration and the flow of ideas as the essential ‘glue’ that allows coordination and competition between entities without leading to armed conflict.5 In the age of global networks, in many spheres, the level of contact is already so intense as to exceed political boundaries. Doyle gives the example of the world of finance as a network of city hubs that act as concentrations of financial activity. The economic relationships between the major international financial and business centers: New York, London, Tokyo, Paris, Frankfurt, Zurich and Hong Kong, among others, occur across national boundaries and despite the existence of an overriding governing scheme, through telematics and intensities of economic trade. As a proponent of liberalist internationalism, the idea that liberal states have an internal structure that makes it less likely for them to engage in external aggression with other liberal states (though they may maintain a warlike foreign policy with nonliberal states), Doyle suggests that city-states with a highly refined internal structure would be able to maintain competitive, but peaceful relations with other city-states of the same nature, with a greater degree of contact leading to a greater degree of cooperation, rather than conflict.6 Saskia Sassen discusses emerging forms of segmentation already taking place in electronic space. Private companies compete for control over specialized sectors of the digital economy in a way that transcends national boundaries.7 A historical example may come from the Hanseatic League, established in the fourteenth century among market towns along the Northern European coast to protect mutual trading interests. This coalition of ‘free cities’ became so advanced that it rivaled the power of established governments.8 The league required that member cities maintain their own internal structures, such as legal systems and defense, but

1. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division: World Urbanization Prosects, the 2011 Revision: Highlights. New York, 2012.

5. Doyle, Michael. Interview with Geoffrey Bell, David Hecht and Jihoi Lee. Columbia Extreme Cities Project. Video Recording. New York City, December 12, 2012.

2. Cohen, Joel E., “Demography & Design: big challenges, big opportunities,” Lecture, School for Visual Arts, New York, October 10, 2012

3. Tainter, Joseph A., “Introduction to collapse,” The Collapse 6. Doyle, Michael. Interview of Complex Societies, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), with Geoffrey Bell, David Hecht and Jihoi Lee. Columbia Extreme Cities 1-21. Project. Video Recording. New York City, December 12, 2012. 4. Doyle, Michael. Interview with Geoffrey Bell, David Hecht and 7. Sassen, Saskia, “ElecJihoi Lee. Columbia Extreme Cities tronic Space and Power,” Journal Project. Video Recording. New York of Urban Technology 4 (1997): City, December 12, 2012. 1-17. 8. Walford, Cornelius. “An Outline History of the Hanseatic League, More Particularly in Its Bearings Upon English Commerce.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol. 9 (1881), pp. 82-136.

worked cooperatively to establish safer trade routes and further its members’ economic interests by organizing and controlling trade. The Hanseatic League is an example of a specialized structure occurring between cities to fulfill a need, outside the existing structure of the nation-state. By merging common trading interests, the cities created a new network overlaid on top of existing geopolitical conditions. To be sustainable, this necessitates a loyalty to the network above national patriotism. It may be that if new political spheres were to evolve beyond current political systems, to non-state forms of government, similar specialized networks would emerge, and cities would differentiate themselves through specializations of power through these networks. The global networks become a framework for mutual collaboration and competition.

Doyle suggests two ways that global cities might emerge. The first is through specialization of power. Saskia Sassen, revisiting the Global City in a+u, writes that “Global cities are, thus, strategic spaces of production in our current global era, but the production is not of cars but of complex advanced knowledge products – from financial services to accounting and legal advice.” 9 Cities may differentiate themselves by specializing in a single means of production, so that each city does not need to do everything on its own, using the global networks to facilitate the free exchange of goods and ideas. Sassen later writes that the specialized differences between cities allow global cities to exploit their deep histories and strengths to reduce the degree to which they must compete with each other.10 By contrast, cities may become more insular, diversifying their economies to become more self-sufficient.11 Few examples of independent cities remain today. Possible candidates include Vatican City, the Principality of Monaco and the Republic of Singapore. Vatican City is perhaps the best example of a city that has emerged as a concentration of a specialized form of power. Despite an area of

only .17 square miles, the religious power of Vatican City and the Holy See far exceeds its physical presence. The city contains just enough of an internal infrastructure to maintain itself, focusing instead on a global concentration of cultural production, outsourcing other functions to nearby principalities. Singapore, however, has attempted to maintain a diverse economy by avoiding specialization in any one means of production and by constructing a highly refined internal infrastructure. In “Electronic Space and Power,” Sassen describes the way that electronic networks have already begun to transcend the power of national governments, that indeed, like the Hanseatic League, the global capital market already has the power to discipline national governments.12 Networks make possible new forms of power. Though perhaps decoupled from the nation-state as a political entity, Sassen argues that the geography of cities continues to matter: These cities now function as: »» Command points in the organization of the world economy »» Key locations and marketplaces for the leading industries of this period (finance and specialized services for firms) »» Sites for the production of innovations in those industries.13 Cities become strategic sites of production that exploit geographic rather than political conditions. The advantages or disadvantages to a system of independent global cities are not yet fully clear, and very difficult to predict. The sustainability of such a system is similarly difficult to determine. It seems clear, as Doyle suggests, that complex hierarchies of geography would

12. Sassen, Saskia, “Electronic Space and Power,” Journal of Urban Technology 4 (1997): 1-17.

9. Sassen, Saskia, “Global City 20 Years Later,” a+u, (2011)

13. Sassen, Saskia, “Electronic Space and Power,” Journal of Urban Technology 4 (1997): 10. Sassen, Saskia, “Global 1-17. City 20 Years Later,” a+u, (2011) 11. Doyle, Michael. Interview with Geoffrey Bell, David Hecht and Jihoi Lee. Columbia Extreme Cities Project. Video Recording. New York City, December 12, 2012.

emerge, though the nature of these hierarchies depends on a number of political, cultural and economic factors.14 Would there be a mutually beneficial relationship between the core and periphery? Or does the density of a megacity necessarily drain resources, marginalizing the peripheries in a zero-sum condition? Joseph Tainter, in his book, The Collapse of Complex Societies, suggests that the primary point at which societies collapse is when investment in social complexity reaches a point of diminishing marginal returns.15 Therefore as heterogeneity increases to the point that production of energy and resources can no longer support societal functions that don’t produce, the society becomes unsustainable. Complexity is generally understood to refer to such things as the size of a society, the number and distinctiveness of its parts, the variety of specialized social roles that it incorporates, the number of distinct social personalities present, and the variety of mechanisms for organizing these into a coherent, functioning whole… Hunter-gatherer societies (by way of illustrating one contrast in complexity) contain no more than a few dozen distinct social personalities, while modern European censuses recognize 10,000 to 20,000 unique occupational roles, and industrial societies may contain overall more than 1,000,000 different kinds of societal personalities.16 Doyle predicts that we are moving towards a more multi-polar system of power, that the age of the dominant world power has ended.17 He adds however, that this would not be a simple distribution of power, but would almost certainly vary by wide margins. On one hand, specialized cities may be able to remove some internal complexity, but the system as a whole would likely experience massive increases in complexity, without centralized control. If cities moved toward a global distribution of specialized concentrations of power, would these cities

be fully interdependent, or would we see the concept of the “long tail” reappear on the global scale? Over time, it does not seem unlikely to suggest that wealth may begin to concentrate in certain geographic areas, potentially leading entire cities to ‘detach’ from the rest of society as enclaves of wealth. Sassen has warned that the dynamism of cities comes at the price of inequality, leading to more very low- and very high-income families and firms. Global Cities are hyper-concentrations of infrastructure and attendant resources while vast areas in less-developed regions are poorly served. But also within global cities we see a geography of centrality and one of marginality.18

14. Doyle, Michael. Interview with Geoffrey Bell, David Hecht and Jihoi Lee. Columbia Extreme Cities Project. Video Recording. New York City, December 12, 2012.

15. Tainter, Joseph A., “Introduction to collapse,” The Collapse of Complex Societies, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 1-21. 18. Sassen, Saskia, “Electronic Space and Power,” Journal of Urban Technology 4 (1997): 1-17.

Sassen might argue that a world of cities without national governments would further these inequalities, especially as deregulation and privatization lead to larger mega-corporations and unencumbered global alliances, benefitting the top players and leaving the rest of the world out. Corporations merge, creating concentrations of power. If corporations gain control over electronic space, could they not begin to take over physical space as well, in the form of entire cities? Predicting the future, especially the future of cities, is a difficult proposition, because many of the principal ways in which our culture has been shaped have been through unpredictable, often catastrophic events. One may conceive of a future in which networks of cities transcend nation-states to be productive and beneficial for the entire earth, or a dystopic vision of systematic marginalization. Architects and urban planners will have a major role to play in shaping the cities of the future, as existing infrastructure must be updated to reflect changing densities and demographics, and as new cities are formed to serve rising populations, along with the evolving nature of cities,

16. Tainter, Joseph A., “Introduction to collapse,” The Collapse of Complex Societies, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 1-21. 17. Doyle, Michael. Interview with Geoffrey Bell, David Hecht and Jihoi Lee. Columbia Extreme Cities Project. Video Recording. New York City, December 12, 2012.

as cores of hyper-specialization, or as differentiated hubs of activity. The role of national governments in a world of intensely networked cities remains unclear, but the importance of cities themselves, both in terms of local dynamism and global networks will almost certainly remain.

Bibliography and Works Cited Cohen, Joel E., “Demography & Design: big challenges, big opportunities,” Lecture, School for Visual Arts, New York, October 10, 2012 Cohen, Joel E. Interview with Geoffrey Bell, Ashraf Abdulla, Jason Leung and Andrew Guo. Columbia Extreme Cities Project, Video Recording, New York City, Decemeber 18, 2012. Doyle, Michael. Interview with Geoffrey Bell, David Hecht and Jihoi Lee. Columbia Extreme Cities Project. Video Recording. New York City, December 12, 2012. Sassen, Saskia, “Electronic Space and Power,” Journal of Urban Technology 4 (1997): 1-17. Sassen, Saskia, “Global City 20 Years Later,” a+u, (2011) . Tainter, Joseph A., “Introduction to collapse,” The Collapse of Complex Societies, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 1-21. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division: World Urbanization Prosects, the 2011 Revision: Highlights. New York, 2012. Walford, Cornelius. “An Outline History of the Hanseatic League, More Particularly in Its Bearings Upon English Commerce.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol. 9 (1881), pp. 82-136.

www.geofbell.com/c-bip1

01E

light(en)ing Rod Columbia Building Intelligence Project (c-bip) Spring 2013 Prototype Building Element Critics: Laura Kurgan, Scott Marble, Jannette Kim 63

geofbell.com/c-bip

light(en)ing Rod Columbia Building Intelligence Project

C BIP

COLUMBIA BUILDING INTELLIGENCE PROJECT

The Columbia Building Intelligence Project is a research program designed to explore new forms of technology-enabled collaborative design workflows within architectural education. Project Brief Architectural Element: The Lightening Rod is a self-contained building element that plugs into and becomes a part of a building’s infrastructure. The element takes as its inputs a desired amount of light penetrating the space, the angle that the light will travel, and the aesthetic or spatial conditions desired at each floor level.

The element will output a reduction in usable floor space, but an increase in value for surrounding areas by creating organizational focal points or circulation nodes that disrupt existing floor plans to produce conditions of connectivity, collaboration and natural light.

Energy

Light

• Produce a calibrated point-source of energy drawn directly from solar resources. • Create focal point around which collaborative activity may occur. • Provide clear metrics communicating energy use overall and in real time.

• Reduce Seasonal Affective Disorder. • Improve worker and tenant satisfaction. • Create a focal point to draw people together. • Conceptually link energy use and sunlight. • Provide calibrated task lighting.

Axis Line

Profile Curve

Define a vertical or diagonal line through building.

Design a closed profile to determine the resulting form.

FloorSplitter

Points

Curves

Data

Cut away floor slabs.

Diffuser

Atrium

Skin Module Choose a module type for each floor level.

???????

Data Software Workflow Input-output diagram

www.geofbell.com/c-bip1

Modular elements are designed to fit within the geometry produced by the FloorSplitter, allowing the designer to choose the spatial effect of the Lightening Rod, from targeted solar diffusers to large atrium

Light Diffuser Creates a social focal point and energy access point within a space

01E

spaces; the element can be a centralizing point for people to gather around, a source of natural light and electricity, or act as a funnel for vertical circulation.

Atrium Creates a circulation space and sectional connection within a building.

Conceptual Workflow Input-output diagram

light(en)ing Rod Columbia Building Intelligence Project

Geometry Inputs: BaseCurve (From FLoorSplitter) TopCurve (From FloorSplitter) Published Parameters: SpreadModifier Geometry Outputs: DiffuserSurface SolarTubeExtrusion AreaOfEffect Parameter Outputs: RentIncrease ($/ft2) LightLevelIncrease (#) Cost ($)

Geometry Inputs: BaseCurve (From FLoorSplitter) TopCurve (From FloorSplitter) Published Parameters: NumDivisions (Integer) StrutThickness (Real) Geometry Outputs: Enclosure AreaOfEffect Parameter Outputs: RentIncrease ($/ft2) LightLevelIncrease (#) Cost ($)

www.geofbell.com/c-bip1

Light Diffuser Creates a social focal point and energy access point within a space

Atrium Creates a circulation space and sectional connection within a building.

01E

www.geofbell.com/c-bip2

01F

(Light) Industry City Columbia Building Intelligence Project (c-bip) Spring 2013 Brooklyn, New York Critics: Laura Kurgan, Scott Marble, Jannette Kim 69

geofbell.com/c-bip2

(Light) Industry City Columbia Building Intelligence Project

(Light) Industry City Redefine the investment strategy of Industry City through an alternating series of high-risk and low-risk interventions, spread out over a series of phases. Identify and intensify desirable qualities of Industry City that make it a zone of creative production, through targeted architectural interventions at multiple scales. Engage the multiplicities of production, distribution and consumption with a real-time feedback loop that analyzes the success of past decisions and informs future decisions Project Brief The studio breaks with the traditional model within architectural education in which 12 students are guided by a single studio instructor for a single semester. Instead three studio instructors, together with a team of outside industry experts, work with 30 students in a highly collaborative manner that encourages the sharing of information, the open exchange of ideas and a deep understanding of the need for collective teamwork.

www.geofbell.com/c-bip2

01F

Retail

start up

food

pop-up

bar

dog park

informal activities

Vacant Space

open space

public meetings

Cultural Production

art studios

incubator/ start up

lab

Material Production

tailoring

Low-Low Resolution

Medium Resolution

specialty food

CAP RATE: 2.3%

NET INCOME: 2.9%

ENERGY USE: 5.1%

ENERGY USE: 8.7%

SQ FT / Rent

SQ FT / ENERGY USE

Low Resolution

Rent Generated vs. Cost

Corridor Width

woodshop

Circulation/Rentable Area

Mix vs. Buffer Ratio

Retail vs. Program Sq Ft

furniture

High Resolution

Circulation Capacity

(Light) Industry City Columbia Building Intelligence Project

Low Resolution Metrics Testing corridor widths and typologies (single-loaded, double-load-

ed, etc.) within microzone types to determine effect on cap rate, energy standards and rentable square footage.

Medium Resolution Metrics Testing the amount of retail

frontage against square footage of program types, increased rent generated and construction costs.

High Resolution Metrics Testing amount and type of adjacency conditions (buffer,

mix, open) to find new program mixes to locate vacant spaces and circulation typologies.

High Resolution Adjacent Spaces Vacant Spaces

Group Space

Market

White Box

Group Space

White Box

Black Box

Medium Resolution Public Retail Circulation Low Resolution Tenant Circulation Low-Low Resolution Microzone Massing

Microzone Massing

Retail Corridor

Vacant Space Typologies

A software link between Rhino, CATIA and Excel allow the designer to iteratively test a high volume of massing strategies according to financial/environmental metrics and spatial organization.

Several elements are linked together to create a site-wide public network of corridors that produce lines of retail storefront and gallery space to the light industrial production tenants.

By exploiting vacant space we take advantage of low occupancy phases to increase the cultural value of the surrounding microzones. Located in the internal zones of the building, these spaces require virtually no active heating or cooling.

www.geofbell.com/c-bip2

The use of pre-defined metrics at each stage of the design process: ‘low-low resolution,’ low resolution, medium resolution, and high resolution produces a constantly updated stream of data to inform design decisions based on design priorities. In Industry City these criteria include area, projected income, hard costs, projected energy used and produced and available retail space. Additionally, more abstract concepts can also be measured by defining an input/ output model to represent design

01F

intent in a data-rich parametric system with transparent assumptions. These include ‘collaborative potential,’ cultural production, and programmatic synergies. These metrics continue to inform the life of the building over a multi-stage construction period, allowing informed risk-taking in the building investment strategy, and extending the role of the architect in the process of realestate development. Phase 1: “A New Hope” Year: 2015 MP 40% CP 35% V 25%

Phase 2: “Culture Strikes Back” Year: 2020 MP 20% CP 65% V 15%

Phase 3: “Return of the Material” Year: 2030 MP 60% CP 30% V 10%

Stereoscopic Vision: Architectural Agency and the Uninvited Outsider

Abstract:

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict today might be best characterized as a multitude of parallel realities, each narrative forming a peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history, projected past as well as the day-to-day present. To navigate the complex terrain of historical, spatial, desired and obfuscated layers of Israeli-Palestinian present, it becomes necessary to develop a set of visual tools which enable the simple perception of, as well as concious work and design with realities that exist in close interrelationship however in parallel, often one precluding the other. After 65 years of unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict, competing narratives are not only to be found between the two factions, but also within the Palestinian or Israeli internal discourse - revealing the ever more intricate plastic of the conflict.

Architectural Agency? Is there a role for architecture in such a fraught socio-political terrain as Israel and Palestine? Five millennia of historical occupation have charged the land in and around Jerusalem with deep polarities of emotional, social and political perspectives that can easily lead a practitioner attempting to engage this landscape to a state of anxious petrification, or just as easily, oblivious imposition of egoistic conceptual planning. There may be no proper approach to architectural practice here, but by targeting specific opportunities for intervention, one might at least find an avenue to enact some level of progress; to apply first aid, in lieu of a cure. The human rights work of SITU Studio is one example of highly targeted spatial intervention, utilizing architectural tools and methodologies to operate within the terrain of politics, science, society and the environment. SITU Studio pushes disciplinary boundaries to actively and critically assert the role of spatial problem solving across disciplinary boundaries to be a fully engaged participant in socio-political issues.1 This is not unlike the concept of the ‘uninvited outsider,’ posited by Markus Miessen in his book The Nightmare of Participation.2 For a designer or architect to effectively engage the difficulty of the socio-political terrain of Israel and Palestine, they must critically define their own role as a practitioner and an individual, identifying and taking responsibility for a specific concept or cause, accepting the limitations of spatial practice. Preservation or Constructing History Architecture and archaeology are inextricably ingrained in the national narratives of Israel and Palestine. The fields developed epigenetically with the current terrain of conflict between the two states and cannot be fully engaged without also addressing the political issues of the region. Yedi’ at ha-Aretz, or “Knowledge of the Homeland,” is simultaneously a field of knowledge and national-cultural movement to promote knowledge and understanding of antiquity, and the cultivation of a national narrative of continual heritage throughout history.3 The methodologies of archaeology: revealing, cataloguing, assigning meaning and saving or discarding become tools in extending the struggle for control beyond military action. Likewise, architecture and planning have become potent weapons in the ongoing conflict; construction becomes both a tool for marginalization and protest, an expression of ownership and a means of subversion. As Rafi Segal

and Eyal Weizman write in their introduction to A Civilian Occupation (2003),4

4. Rafi Segal and Eyal Weizman, Civilian occupation : the politics of Israeli architecture, 2003.

Space becomes that material embodiment of a matrix of forces, manifested across the landscape in the construction of roads, hilltop settlements, development towns and garden suburbs. An architect cannot ignore the role of their work within this matrix of forces, and so must find a way to engage spatial practice responsibly. The Uninvited Outsider Markus Miessen presents a model for individual practitioners attempting to critically engage unfamiliar terrain. His work is critical of conventional models of participation-that of the participatory design charrette and the private voting booth-- as passive ways of shifting responsibility from the individual to the larger group.5 An individual who aligns himself with a particular ideology can too easily fall into the trap of taking on the entirety of that ideology, positioning themselves into unproductive antagonism with the opposing view. The ‘uninvited outsider,’ then, is particularly suited to engage specific targeted goals without passive disinterest or unproductive activism, to instead work through a proactive individualism. Miessen writes:6 The uninvited outsider is someone who has a background within a particular (taught) discipline, but ventures out of his or her milieu and immediate professional context. Using a set of soft skills required elsewhere, he or she then applies them to found situations and problematics… it is precisely the fact that one is operating without one’s own professional boundaries that one can start to articulate concerns, views, and attitudes that go beyond the benefit of the individual or particular. Here Miessen is building on the concept of the intellectual, put forth by Edward Said in his Reith lectures and book, Representations of the Intellectual, in which he states that the intellectual:7 … is neither a pacifier nor a consensus-builder, but someone whose whole being is staked on a critical sense, a sense of being unwilling to accept easy formulas, or ready-made cliches, or the smooth, ever-so-accommodating confirmations of what the powerful or conventional have to say, and what they do. Not just passively unwillingly, but actively willing to say so in public.

5. Markus Miessen, “The Nightmare of Participation.” Southern California Institute of 1. Situ Studio. http://www.situsArchitecture, August 31, 2011. tudio.com/.

2. Markus Miessen, The Nightmare of Participation: 6. Markus Miessen, The Crossbench Praxis as a Mode Nightmare of Participation: of Criticality, 2010. Crossbench Praxis as a Mode of Criticality, 2010, pgs. 194195.

7. Edward Said, Representations of the Intellectual, 1993, pg. 3. Nadia Abu El-Haj, Facts on the 23. ground : archaeological practice and territorial self-fashioning in Israeli society, 2001.

This model offers an outsider the reassurance to enter contested terrain and take responsibility for a specific concept or cause, without the crushing societal pressure to align with one group or the other, or to futilely attempt to take on the entirety of a society’s issues. Miessen’s uninvited outsider accepts the limitations of a discipline, but still embraces working across disciplinary boundaries, allowing these limits and edges to rub against each other, without which there could be no productive friction. This role also carries, however, a great deal more responsibility from the individual than the conventional group participation that Miessen criticizes, and a great deal more effort to maintain an alertness to received ideas, in Said’s words again, “an almost athletic energy to balance the problems of one’s own selfhood against the demands of publishing and speaking out.” Jerusalem & the Occupation of Memory How then should an architecture student deploy the tools of spatial practice in the terrain of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? How also can the success or failure of this attempt be evaluated? In order to fully engage the work, we must come to accept a number of truths: 1. Accept the limitations of the discipline. The ability of architecture to cure societal ills has been disproven time and again since the demolition of Pruitt-Igoe. It would be naive and presumptuous to enter yet another territory and attempt to design a solution. Architecture does however offer the ability to shape the way people define themselves in relation to their environment, and to change the way that we view our physical landscape. While it’s often said that architecture is fundamentally a harmful act, necessarily destroying something in the creation of something new, this can be directed toward something that, if not universally good, is at least useful. 2. Accept the role of an academic without disengaging from human reality.

Architecture can easily become a conceptual pursuit, singular, abstract and erudite theory that aims to push the discipline from within. Similarly, architecture can also easily become mere construction, meeting only immediate needs without fully engaging the complexities of its context. It will be important to navigate the streams of both conceptual complexity and human reality to devise an appropriate (or, if necessary, inappropriate) proposal.

3. Accept the impossibility of a cure (and the inevitability of failure?) A problem too big to be solved by decades of international debate, socio-political theory, and on-the-ground activism is not likely to be solved by an architectural project, no matter how profound the conceptual underpinnings. In a territory so fraught with conflict, any proposal is in fact more likely to cause gross offense to at least one of the parties involved. The best possible course of action will be to find some small way to engage the terrain, to take responsibility for fully engaging that action, and to at least try not to be part of the problem.

Stereoscopic Vision: Preservation <> Constructing History

Abstract:

Stereoscopy stands for an optical technique by which two images of the same object are blended into one, giving a three-dimensional appearance to the single image. The stereoscope is an instrument in which two photographs of the same object, taken from slightly different angles, are simultaneously presented, one to each eye. Each picture is focused by a separate lens, and the two lenses are inclined in order to shift the images toward each other and thus ensure the visual blending of the two images into one three-dimensional view.

Archaeology and architecture are alike in that both construct narratives: the latter through addition and the former by subtraction. Since the British Mandate in 1928, the construction of a national narrative has been key to defining Israel both in terms of its relationship with other entities (especially Palestine), and within the State itself. Most notably in Jerusalem, a city that has been occupied for over five millennia, built and demolished over many cycles, the fields of archaeology and architecture have been essential keys to the construction of Israel’s national narrative. Archaeology and architecture are so ingrained, in fact, in the policy and story of Israel that to determine where and to what degree these fields have shaped the national narrative and government policy, versus having been shaped by it is almost impossible. Yedi’ at ha-Aretz, or “Knowledge of the Homeland,” is simultaneously a field of knowledge and national-cultural movement to promote knowledge and understanding of antiquity, and the value of ancient relics that are so important to the construction of a contiguous heritage. In one way, archaeology is a tool of this narrative, carefully crafting a heritage by way of a selective archaeology. From another view, which Nadia Abu El-Haj addresses in Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society (2001), popular interest in archaeological excavation is a result of public relations, positioning the field of archaeology as a political player to promote the field itself (Instituting Archaeology, 12). The paradox of archaeology in Jerusalem is that as much as the many excavations have revealed about the past, they have concealed a great deal more. While the digging up extant artifacts under Jerusalem remain unchanged, the processes of revealing cataloguing, assigning meaning and discarding of these relics manifest a conflict extending far beyond the six-day war. Israeli archaeologists have frequently found themselves accused of taking a casual

stance toward non-Hebrew antiquities. The upper strata of the Old City, from Muslim and Ottoman periods were often marginalized in excavations and museums, left to erode and crumble, or even discarded, as too recent, or representing a “stagnant” era (Weizman, 40). Bulldozers would be common sights at archaeological digs, removing the top layers of earth and ruins to quickly reach the deeper levels of the Bronze and Iron Ages, in which Israeli biblical archaeologists were interested. This treatment of of the field of archaeology through textual and oral narrative is characteristic of selective archaeology, motivated and framed within a specific biblical/historical/national story, of continuous association and desire to return, the work focused by a prior conception of the significant events and monuments of history in which this narrative is embodied. Architecture, too presents a strange mix of preservation and construction policies that have dramatically re-formed the terrain of Israel and Palestine. As Rafi Segal and Eyal Weizman write in their introduction to A Civilian Occupation (2003), Space becomes that material embodiment of a matrix of forces, manifested across the landscape in the construction of roads, hilltop settlements, development towns and garden suburbs. In the ongoing territory of conflict between Israel and Palestine, planning becomes a tool for marginalization. By demarcating zoning areas for Israeli or Palestinian development, along with “open space” preventing further development, Palestinian neighborhoods are hemmed in and suppressed under what Weizman calls in chapter 1 of Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation (2007), the “pretext of preservation.” Ostensibly to maintain historic value, Palestinian residential construction is limited, transforming neighborhoods into “archipelagos of imposed authenticity.”

Permanent Impermanence Jerusalem: Objects of Memory

www.geofbell.com/

01G

www.geofbell.com/

01G

Permanent Impermanence Jerusalem: Objects of Memory Spring 2014 Lifta, Jerusalem Critics: Craig Konyk + Nina Kolowratnik 85

geofbell.com/lifta

Permanent Impermanence Jerusalem: Objects of Memory

“Space becomes that material embodiment of a matrix of forces, manifested across the landscape in the construction of roads, hilltop settlements, development towns and garden suburbs.” Eyal Weizman, A Civilian Occupation (2003) Project Brief The project situates itself in the current state of arrested political development in the status of Palestinian refugees. The stopgap of the refugee camp is not a pause in cultural development, but an intensification that has radically impacted the emergence of a new Palestinian identity. The project draws from concepts derived from the study of refugee camps and Israeli policy to insert a temporary-permanent construct into the current social/environmental/ political terrain of Lifta; temporary in the sense that it is designed to meet the current needs and permanent in an attempt to lead toward permanent socio-political change. In Lifta, a paradox has emerged. Despite their stone construction, the buildings are becoming more and more transient, losing both their physical presence and the community life. Conversely, refugee camps, originally constructed of tents, have become permanent- petrified into concrete and a new cultural life. The terrain of Lifta itself is a near-history archaeological site. Archaeology

has a number of implications, especially in terms of ownership. On the one hand, it implies a communal ownership as cultural heritage. On the other, it can be used to “prove” ownership of land and legitimacy by the existence of artifacts and relics in their original state. Preserving the buildings preserves the fact of the dispossession. The buildings, stabilized and kept in their current state, remain in wait for political change. Lifta, like the refugee camps, is in a sort of interstitial space, however moving in the opposite direction. Can the concepts of the refugee camp culture be deployed in Lifta to stabilize and intensify the material and cultural space of the village?

“Despite their stone construction, the buildings become more and more transient. The buildings, stabilized and kept in their current state, remain in wait for political change.”

Lifta // Permanence Structures existing in 1948.

Lifta // imPermanence Structures existing today. Demolished buildings shown in red.

www.geofbell.com/

Phase 1: Framework Construction of structure and access/infrastructure.

Phase 2: Enclosure Informal tent enclosures define spaces around domestic activity.

01G

Phase 3: Solidification Moisture hardens the concrete enclosure and allows latent form to emerge.

Permanent Impermanence Jerusalem: Objects of Memory

A refugee camp is not defined just by housing but as a condenser of life, one that is created almost overnight. The identity of a refugee camp is not tied to the physical location of the camp, but to the multiple origins of its members. The shared identity of the camp is tied to culture and community over place. The Liftawis, having been dispersed from their original lands, retain the shared identity of the physical location, but due to separation over time have lost the shared cultural identity. By deploying a new Lifta on the terrain of the old, can that shared cultural identity be regained?

The seeds of resettlement are placed to allow communities to regrow and solidify over time. The physical construction involves a three-stage process that begins by subverting planning oversight

The identity of a refugee camp is not tied to a physical location, but to the multiple origins of its members. The shared identity of the camp is of culture and community rather than place.

through informal, temporary construction of access and framework. This includes the seeds of infrastructure, including access to water and electricity. Next, temporary enclosures are created around this framework using cement-impregnated fabric. Finally, these fabric enclosures are solidified, making the structure part of the landscape and allowing new structures to be placed above.

The shared identity of Lifta is tied only to Lifta as a place. An effect of diaspora is loss of a shared cultural identity. By deploying a new Lifta on the terrain of the old, can that shared cultural identity be regained?

The initial tent-like nature of the canvas creates informality that will allow the structures to be assembled or rebuilt quickly and escape notice. Many will be de-

molished, likely by both authorities and by the residents themselves as the structures become less useful. But some will be able to remain and be adapted, whether

as garage-like storage or places to keep animals, meeting spaces, or even just as monuments jutting out of the landscape. The form is meant to take on a symbolic and monumental character, representing a merging between the tent typology and the rocks and terraces of the Lifta landscape. The relationship between the form of the structure and the landscape camouflages them from the road that runs across the top of the Lifta valley, reinforcing the idea of subterfuge. As vegetation grows around them, and the structure becomes more solid, they become more and

more hidden. From below, and at the level of the path, however, they open up like caves, inviting people in. By settling into the terraced landscape, they allow the ground to begin to grow over the roofs of the structure, and shrubs, cactuses, and almond or olive trees to grow between.

www.geofbell.com/

OPP: Plan, Domestic units Shows relationship of tents to ruins, with interstitial path between. ABOVE: Section, Domestic units With each subsequent generation, modules are stacked up to create a new terrain of terraces above the existing ground, eventually solidifying into the landscape of Lifta itself.

Left: Interior, Lifta Ruins Light enters through voids in stone mass.

Right: Interior, Tent The interior spaces of the tents modulate light through the lightweight and flexible structural envelope, adapting the methods of the original buildingsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; massive stone walls.

01G

Permanent Impermanence Jerusalem: Objects of Memory

Community space Created by the gaps in the forms. over time may be appropriated and filled in.

www.geofbell.com/

01G

Lifta Ruins with new Tents New forms mirror the old, but do not touch, creating an interstitial space between the two structures. Tents situated above existing ruins create a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;misregistrationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of old Lifta with present Lifta

Permanent Impermanence Jerusalem: Objects of Memory

View from Road The location and form of the tents act as a sort of camouflage when seen from the road. As the forms solidify, and become overgrown, the effect of camouflage increases.

View from Pool From below, and at the level of the path, however, they open up like caves, inviting people in.

Morphology of Urban Collapse Urban History I Professor Daniel Shearer

Abstract:

The history of civilization includes many crises: moments in history where the status quo can no longer support itself. Political ideologies split, resource production can no longer match societal needs, social structures become intolerable. The history of urban configuration may be read as the struggle of societies against collapse. A close reading of the monuments and urban form that precipitate collapse may reveal clues to the reasons for societal downfall. Architectures of crisis often expose core ideologies that might otherwise be hidden within many other layers.

by a continuous flow of energy.2 Thus as societies become more complex, social roles more specialized, more hierarchically tiered, societies must allocate ever-increasing proportions of energy production to maintaining this organizational complexity. This increased investment in sociopolitical complexity, Tainter argues, eventually reaches a point of marginal returns, where societal constructs are no longer sustainable. Tainter makes the case that the Western Roman Empire built itself on stored solar energy, in the form of precious metals, works of art and people, looted from conquered societies.3 Around the first century, Tainter argues, resources obtainable by force were deThe natures and causes of urban collapse are varied pleted, requiring Rome to transition to an economy based and impossible to fully encompass in a single description. However, by looking at the archaeology of collapsed cities, on annual energy production, an agricultural economic the remnants of lost urban configurations, it may be possi- system that required Rome to sustain itself through a ble to delineate a morphology of collapse, whether from an limited budget of resource production.4 Additionally, the internal critical mass of complexity, ideological conflicts or Roman Empire would face the Great Crisis of the third century: invasion along the northern border by the Franks, external military invasion. As a corollary to actual societal Alamanni, Vandals, Goths and Sarmatians, invasions from failure, the concept of the ideal city can reveal the fears the Black Sea by Gothic Vikings, invasions by Persia from and threats facing urbanity. In architectural discourse, many attempts have been made to delineate the ideal city, the east, and Mauretanians from the south, in addition to a series of usurpations of power, civil strife and devaluation often in response to the most present threats of the time, including over-complexity, ideological allegiances and mili- of currency.5 The Emperor Diocletian’s response was a tary fortification. By looking at these utopian city schemes, drastic increase in the scale of the military, and a division one can read the urban morphology as a response to these of political power to sustain the weight of political and crises, both of ideology and complexity. It will be important, military administration on all sides of the empire.6 in an attempt to understand the role of these two factors in The prudence of Diocletian discovered that the empire, urban collapse, to survey various moments in history. assailed on every side by the barbarians, required on every side the presence of a great army, and of an emperor. With Joseph Tainter, in his book, The Collapse of Complex this view, he resolved once more to divide his unwieldy Societies, discusses eleven predominant themes to expower, and with the inferior title of Caesars… Galerius, plain collapse. These include factors based on resources, surnamed Armentarius… and Constantius, who from his catastrophe, external societies, class conflict or mismanpale complexion had acquired the denomination Chlorus, agement, mystic factors and economic factors.1 Tainter were the two persons invested with the second honors of argues a theory of marginal productivity of sociopolitical change, that societal organizations can only be maintained the Imperial purple.7

Figure 1: Plan, Palace of Diocletian 3. Anderson, Aengus. Interview with Joseph Tainter. The Conversation. http://www.findtheconversation.com/. August 7, 2012. 4. Anderson, Aengus. Interview with Joseph Tainter. The Conversation. http://www.findtheconversation.com/. August 7, 2012. 5. L’Orange, H.P. Art Forms and Civic Life in the Late Roman Empire. Princeton Paperbacks. (1965). pp. 40-41.

1. Tainter, Joseph. The Collapse of Complex Societies. (1988). p. 42.

6. Gibbon, Edward. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Vol. XIII: “Reign of Diocletian and his Three Associates Part II.

7. Gibbon, Edward. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman 2. Tainter, Joseph. The Col- Empire. Vol. 1, Ch. XII: “Reign of lapse of Complex Societies. (1988). Diocletian and his Three Associates pp. 91-93. Part I.

Tainter points to this as a moment of significantly increased complexity, that at once helped rescue the Western Roman Empire from imminent demise, while also precipitating its collapse.8 The example of the city of Split becomes an archaeological monument to this moment in history (figure 1). Diocletian divides the Empire among East and West, establishing himself and Maximian as Emperor, and further subdividing power by establishing Galerius and Constantius as Caesars.9 At the same time, Split is constructed as a palace, built in a quadripartite division. Split is an urban type and an agglomeration of architectures: palace, fortress and Roman city.10 There is a multiplicity inherent in this typology that Tainter might argue reflects the complexity of the social structure, but also reflects the ideological necessities of the time. Split is an example of crisis architecture, built to hold the then-crumbling Roman Empire together. The four rulerships are reflected in the four divisions of the palace, without literally corresponding to any respective political divisions. The urban form is emblematic of a division of power, united within the Cardo/ Decumanus layout of the Roman city. Meanwhile, the morphology of the city certainly represents an attempt to deal with complexity. The plan of Split is fractal; each rectangle continuously divides itself into smaller rectangles. The repetition and variation of type in this way produces a regularized crystalline geometry that structures the layout of the city, and which is maintained underneath, even as the urban space above is jostled and weaved into itself over time.11 Aldo Rossi writes, in his 1973 comments in The Architecture of the City: The city of Split, which grew up within the walls of Diocletian’s Palace and gave new uses and new meanings to unchangeable forms, is emblematic of the meaning of architecture and of the relationship between architecture and the city, where the broadest adaptability to a multiplicity of functions corresponds to an extreme precision of form.12

The precision of the layout of Split corresponds to, and helps resolve the typological and morphological complexities inherent in a divided Empire. Reading plans for ideal cities is a way to define the impact of ideological beliefs on urban morphology; encompassing the theories and ideas to address complexity, military threats and ideology. Ideal cities often simplify the urban fabric, in pursuit of a singular ideology, either in reaction against complexity or as a diagram to be overlaid onto existing topography, deriving any anticipated complexity from the landscape and available resources. As military technology becomes more advanced, the shaping of fortifying walls becomes similarly more complex. In 1527, Albrecht Dürer publishes a treatise on civil fortifications that draws on a number of influences, including ancient Roman castrum and pre-Columbian Central America, reflecting the rapid expansion of the known world.13 It is perhaps not too much of a leap to look from the city of Split to Dürer’s 1527 Etliche Underricht Plan for a Utopian City (figure 2).14 While temporally separated by more than one thousand years, the two plans, as urban configurations, share many similarities. Both are situated along a body of water adjacent to an expansive hinterland. Both are organized in a square plan, though Dürer’s city is oriented around a large central square, rather than a set of crossing avenues. Furthermore, where the construction of Split followed various invasions of the Roman Empire by outside tribes, Dürer’s treatise was prompted by the advancement of the Turks through Hungary.15 Dürer likely drew inspiration for this utopian scheme from several sources, including, according to Hanno-Walter Kruft in his chapter on fortification in A History of Architectural Theory, a woodcut depicting the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, which accompanied Hernán Cortés’ letters to Charles V during the conquest of Mexico (figure 3).16 It is interesting that Dürer, in designing a city to repel invasion, would look

Figure 2: Albrecht Dürer, Plan for a Utopian City, Etliche Underricht (1527)

8. Anderson, Aengus. Interview with Joseph Tainter. The Conversation.http://www.findtheconversation.com/. August 7, 2012. 9. Gibbon, Edward. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Vol. 1. Ch. XIII: “Reign of Diocletian and his Three Associates Part II.

14. Dürer, Albrecht.Etliche Underricht. (1527).

10. Shearer, Daniel. Lecture. Urban History 1. Columbia University Graduate School of Architec15. Kruft, Hanno-Walter. A ture, Planning and Preservation. History of Architectural Theory: New York. February 25, 2013. from Vitruvius to the Present. 11. Shearer, Daniel. Lecture. (1996). p. 110. Urban History 1. Columbia Univer16. Kruft, Hanno-Walter. A sity Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. History of Architectural Theory: from Vitruvius to the Present. New York. February 25, 2013. (1996). p. 111. 12. Rossi, Aldo. The Architecture of the City. MIT Press: Cambridge. (1982). p. 179.

this way, Dürer’s scheme can be read as an ideological response to complexity. By making use of the unemployed and idle poor, Dürer hopes to simultaneously eliminate societal waste and prevent potential revolt from the lower classes. Dürer accepts the increased stratification of governance, later described by Tainter, as a necessary Similarly to Rome, the early Aztec economy relied on given, and looks to the lower class as the primary drain militaristic expansion. Tainter draws this parallel to argue of resources, reinforcing the hierarchy that Tainter will that, as in Rome, the ideological factors that benefited claim as the precursor to collapse. Anthropologist Ranthe Aztec empire early in its history, became maladaptive dall H. McGuire, in his essay “Breaking Down Cultural as the number of profitable conquests declined.17 He Complexity: Inequality and Heterogeneity,” identifies two suggests that the Aztec Empire was in the process of an typologies, or mechanisms, of early urban configurations. ideological shift, mirroring the reforms of Diocletian, at the time of Cortés’ invasion, which prematurely cut off the The first is characterized by concentric circles, a hierarchireforms of Moctezuma II.18 In any case, Dürer’s approach cal organization of increasing exclusivity which he refers to as concentric integration. The second, by the use of seems to be an attempt to correct what he likely would have seen as the excesses of Aztec civilization; Dürer cites independent but intersecting parameters, which may have the building of the Egyptian pyramids as a pointless waste no relation to each other, i.e. gender, age, or occupation. Less complex societies, he argues, depend primarily on a of resources, and likely viewed the religious center of concentric organization.22 While primarily a social conTenochtitlán in the same way. Whereas the Aztec city only had one fortified entrance, Dürer calls for the employment struct, these organizational concepts often find form in the urban configurations of the cities that they produce. of the poor in the continuous construction of fortifications Tenochtitlán, in the same manner as Split, was divided and building of defenses: into four sections, which were in turn further subdivided. The king shall not let people live in this citadel who are The plan was orthogonally patterned, with two downtowns not useful, but only capable, god- fearing, sage, manly separating ritualistic and economic functions.23 The multiple zones and stratifications of the city overlap and men of experience, skilled in arts, good craftsmen, intersect in both the spatial and sociopolitical organization. who will serve the citadel, who can make guns and Dürer’s plan, meanwhile, is closer to a concentric typology, use them.19 in which, while rectilinear in form, the functions of the city are organized around a central square. This may represent, Six years earlier, Machiavelli, in Arte della Guerra, made a similar argument for hierarchy and a strong central at the formal and ideological level, an attempt to revert to less complexity by clearly locating the society’s members government, concluding, though, that a submissive army in occupational hierarchies. would render fortifications obsolete.20 Dürer’s plan is in fact more social than formal. He juxtaposes related trades It is useful, finally, to examine the eventual fall of Rome in the city plan, placing, for example, blackmiths next to in the fifth century, staved off temporarily by the efforts foundries and the town hall adjacent to the royal palace, of Diocletian, but, according to Tainter, inevitable. Tainter in a configuration based on hierarchy and function.21 In to another city that had recently fallen to Spanish conquest. What formal similarities there are in the two urban configurations, though, seem to be counteracted in the text that accompanied Dürer’s scheme.

17. Tainter, Joseph. The Collapse of Complex Societies. (1988). p. 59.

18. Tainter, Joseph. The Collapse of Complex Societies. (1988). p. 60.

22. McGuire, Randall H. “Breaking Down Cultural Complexity: Inequality and Heterogeneity.” Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory. Vol. 6 (1983). pp. 117118.

19. Dürer, Albrecht.Etliche Underricht. (1527).

23. Kostof, Spiro. A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals. Second Edition. Oxford University Press: New York. (1995). p. 438.

20. Machiavelli, Arte Della Guerra. (1521).

21. Kruft, Hanno-Walter. A History of Architectural Theory: from Vitruvius to the Present. (1996). p. 110.

points to the policy of militaristic and civic expansion in the second century BC as the first indication of Romeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eventual downfall. While at first highly successful, the economic gains from looting conquered provinces funding subsequent campaigns, eventually this strategy became unsustainable, as Rome was forced to concentrate its attention instead on simply maintaining a stable military and sociopolitical organization..24 As the Empire became increasingly unable to accumulate funds for emergency reserves, when large expenses arose, the treasury adopted a policy of debasing the currency, reducing the gold and silver contents of the denarius and aureus.25 This policy, Tainter argues, bailed out the present at the expense of the future, to the point that even Diocletianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s efforts would not be enough to stave off collapse.26 The transformations put in place by Diocletian and Constantine a larger, more complex, more tightly organized government, with larger and more powerful military forces required to maintain rigid control, led inevitably to higher administrative costs and decreased income. Tainter argues that when the Western Roman Empire entered this situation of declining marginal returns, it led to both insufficient reserves with which to meet emergencies, and the increasing apathy of an overtaxed population.27 Edward Gibbon, in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, places the blame on a loss of civic virtue among the citizens of Rome. This can be attributed both to the continuous invasions of barbarian tribes, which at the time may have seemed a more desirable alternative to the already-ailing Roman Empire, and to the rise of Christianity as the primary religion among the populace:

As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal, that the introduction, or at least the abuse, of Christianity had some influence on the decline and fall of the

Roman empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity: the active virtues of society wer discouraged; and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the cloister.28 Christianity was, by nature, subversive to the Roman traditions. By allowing for only one God, the new religion rejected the polytheism of Rome, and by extension, Roman civic life. Worship of the Roman gods was civic duty, salus publica.29 Despite nominal policies of tolerance, Christianity could not coexist with the ancient traditions of Rome indefinitely. This concept of Christianity as a subversive contributor to the downfall of Rome is imbued directly into the architectures of Christian life. The basilica, repurposed from the Roman public building that it originally described, was reconfigured, from a multifunctional urban typology to the specificity of the church. (figure 4) By burying their dead within the church, this new Christian typology pushed out pagan ideology, which was offended by the allowance of burial within the city walls. The entry was moved from the long side of the building to the end, creating a ceremonial procession that emphasized the sacred, rather than public nature of the interior, increasing the significance of the internal space of the architecture above the surrounding civic life, and mirroring the private, internal nature of Christianity in contrast to the ideology of public life in Roman tradition. Finally, the scale of the basilica was increased, increasing the width of the hall by two aisles, according to Constantineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s specifications. 30 This increase in area allowed the building to house many more people than previous versions, making the building less attractive for the Roman elite, and fortifying the separation between the old Roman hierarchy and the new Christian populace.31 The Arch of Constantinople provides an additional example of an architecture of crisis, an uneasy truce between the senate, Roman elite and Christian clergy. Hastily

28. Gibbon, Edward. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Vol. 3. p. 636.

24. Tainter, Joseph. The Collapse of Complex Societies. (1988). p. 129. 29. Krautheimer, Richard. Three Christian Capitals: Topography and Politics. (1987). p. 32. 25. Tainter, Joseph. The Collapse of Complex Societies. (1988). p. 134.

26. Anderson, Aengus. Interview with Joseph Tainter. The Conversation.http://www.findtheconversation.com/. August 7, 2012.

27. Tainter, Joseph. The Collapse of Complex Societies. (1988). p. 150.

30. Krautheimer, Richard. Three Christian Capitals: Topography and Politics. (1987). p. 20.

31. Shearer, Daniel. Lecture. Urban History 1. Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. New York. February 18, 2013.

constructed with various stylistic motifs, the transitional character of the arch represents a threshold moment in the history of the fall of the Western Roman Empire, as economic and political power shift to the East.32, 33 The inscription on the arch reads: To the Emperor Caesar Flavius Constantinus, the greatest, pious, and blessed Augustus: because he, inspired by the divine, and by the greatness of his mind, has delivered the state from the tyrant and all of his followers at the same time, with his army and just force of arms, the Senate and People of Rome have dedicated this arch, decorated with triumphs. The language reveals the multiplicity of loyalties inherent in the Roman Empire at the time, crediting both intellect and the divine, along with military might. The vagueness of the wording parallels the stylistic vagueness, possibly an attempt to ameliorate all possible viewers, both Christian and Pagan.

to avoid conflict with the pagan opposition from the Senate and Roman elite.34 The topography is inextricably linked to the ideological and political environment of the time. This ideological schism points to the reasoning behind Constantine’s move east, and the subsequent fall of the Western Roman Empire. By founding a new city, Constantine abandons the uncertainty of Rome to a blank political topography, putting Constantine back in full control.

32. Shearer, Daniel. Lecture. Urban History 1. Columbia University Graduate School of Architec34. Krautheimer, Richard. ture, Planning and Preservation. Three Christian Capitals: TopograNew York. February 18, 2013. phy and Politics. (1987). p. 8. 33. Gibbon, Edward. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Vol. 1. Ch. XIV: “Six Emperors at the Same Time, Reunion of the Empire. Part I”

Collapse is still a little understood process. No society can be fully insulated from collapse, and whether any society can, or even should, exist indefinitely is debatable, but a close reading of the conditions precipitating crises of urbanity may provide clues that aid in the transition from societal collapse to rebirth.

The Cathedral of Rome, S. Giovanni in Laterano, provides further evidence of the ideological split between pagan and Christian Rome. Founded by Constantine in 312, Richard Krautheimer, points out that few of the traditional or practical considerations in locating a church appear to support the cathedral’s placement near the walls of the city: no saint’s grave, no prior liturgical significance. Krautheimer suggests that the church was placed far from the civic center, and from existing pagan monuments, in order

Figure 3: Woodcut of Tenochtitlán, Hernán Cortés’letters to Charles V

100

Bibliography and Works Cited Cortés, Hernán. Five Letters of Cortés to the Emperor. Morris J. Baynard, ed. and trans. (1969). Dürer, Albrecht.Etliche Underricht. (1527). Gibbon, Edward. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. (1782). Kostof, Spiro. A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals. Second Edition. Oxford University Press: New York. (1995). Krautheimer, Richard. Three Christian Capitals: Topography and Politics. (1987). Kruft, Hanno-Walter. A History of Architectural Theory: from Vitruvius to the Present. (1996). L’Orange, H.P. Art Forms and Civic Life in the Late Roman Empire. Princeton Paperbacks. (1965). Machiavelli, Arte Della Guerra. (1521). McGuire, Randall H. “Breaking Down Cultural Complexity: Inequality and Heterogeneity.” Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory. Vol. 6 (1983). pp. 91-142. Ninfo, Andrea, Allessandro Fontana, Paolo Mozzi and Francesco Ferrarese. “The Map of Altinum, Ancestor of Venice.” Science. New Series, Vol. 325, No. 5940 (July 31, 2009). p. 577. Rossi, Aldo. The Architecture of the City. MIT Press: Cambridge. (1982). Tafuri, Manfredo. Archtiecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development. (1979). Tainter, Joseph. The Collapse of Complex Societies. (1988).

101

Figure 4: San Giovanni in Laterano, reconstruction

102

www.geofbell.com/

02A

Bronx Artisanal Food Manufacturing Building Columbia University GSAPP Architectural Technology V Spring 2013 Bronx, New York 103

Critics: Robert Condon and Russ Davies with Davi Weber, Melodie Yashar, Yasmina Khan

Bronx Artisanal Food Manufacturing Architectural Technology V

The Bronx Artisanal Food Manufacturing Building is designed to turn the production of food into an event, a destination building where the public can view the production of artisanal food and enjoy the fruits of that production in the same space. Project Brief The primary materials, weathered steel and cast-in-place concrete, express the industrial nature of the building, while the subtle curves of the façade produce a contrasting lightness, a thin veil over the heavy mass of the concrete structure. This provides unity to the façade, obscuring and blurring the transitions between mass and void.

H-beams, which are perforated for aesthetic appearance when viewed from within the building. The brackets connect to the louvers at an interval of 5 feet on center, to match the mullion array. The H-Beams are anchored to the building every 14 feet, at each floor slab, using Z-clips to reduce thermal bridging.

The louvers are constructed of long rolls of CORTEN steel, arrayed horizontally on the north and south façades, and vertically on the east and west. This allows the louvers to control the direct solar gain at its most intense angles. A series of pivoting brackets affix the louvers to built-up

“Weathered steel and cast-in-place concrete, express the industrial nature of the building, while the subtle curves of the façade produce a contrasting lightness”

Louver Cladding System on Cast-in-Place Structural Concrete Slabs

ABove: Louver Bracket Details Left: Louver Assembly Details

104

www.geofbell.com/

105

02A

Exterior View Louvers twist for light/shade and privacy/transparency

Bronx Artisanal Food Manufacturing Architectural Technology V

Ground FLoor Plans Delivery/staging and food truck marketplace

Interior Space Brewery level

Upper Level FLoor Plans From top: kitchen/restaurant, chocolates, brewery, cheeses, cured meats, bakery

106

www.geofbell.com/

Detail: foundation West enclosure

Detail: Floor Slab South facade louver termination at second floor

02A

Detail: Storefront System South enclosure at dining

typical Structural layout Cast in place columns reduce in depth toward upper levels

107

typical Mechanical Layout

Bronx Artisanal Food Manufacturing Architectural Technology V

South ELevation

West ELevation

East ELevation

108

www.geofbell.com/

109

Detail: Slab Edge Louver connection and storefront

Detail: Outdoor Dining Wood decking with column

Detail: Roof Skylight head and drainage curb

Detail: Roof Parapet and drainage

02A

www.geofbell.com/

02B

Louisville Bourbon Museum Columbia University GSAPP Advanced Curtain Walls Fall 2014 Louisville, Kentucky 111

Critic: Robert Heintges

Louisville Bourbon Museum Advanced Curtain Wall

The Louisville Bourbon Museum exhibits the city’s historic bourbon industry, situated behind the extant façade of a building from Louisville’s “Whiskey Row,” a traditional street-front of distilleries and spirits distribution. Project Brief A unitized curtain wall encloses the building spaces, behind the remains of a historic façade, offset into the street to create an interstitial space between old and new. The minimalistic wall of glass creates a sheer surface that allows the transparency/reflectivity of the façade to be modulated, enabling multiple types of views from the street, the interstitial space, and the interior. To reduce the appearance of bulky hardware, the dimensions of the mullions and stack joints are minimized, and the loads of the curtain wall are picked up by glass fins, bolted to the mullion extrusion with a steel tab laminated between ½ inch panes of glass, of 1’-8” depth. The entire curtain wall is offset from the slab edge to allow the fins to be anchored to the slab in a concealed joint, extending the effect of sheer reflective glass. Four-sided structural glazing is used on the exterior IGUs to maximize reflectivity from the outside. Built in 1860, this building originally contained pork dealers, provision brokers, and a farm

supply store. In 1895 the building was purchased by Whiskey dealer S. Grabfelder and Co. Other buildings on the site housed various businesses such as distilleries, wholesalers, and other whiskey-related businesses. From the 1850s to the 1920s, the block was a bustling business district and was Louisville’s primary location for the buying, selling, and trading of goods (especially whiskey). The block now contains 11 buildings in total (101-103 W. Main collapsed in 2001), and features some of Louisville’s finest examples of Renaissance Revival, Beaux Arts, and Chicago-style architecture.

“From the 1850s to the 1920s, the block was a bustling business district and was Louisville’s primary location for the buying, selling, and trading of goods (especially whiskey)” Curtain Wall Assembly Diagram

112

www.geofbell.com/

South Elevation

113

Curtain Wall Plan

Wall Section

02B

PROJECT TITLE Project Subtitle

Stack Joint Detail Scale: 3” = 1’ 0” 114

www.geofbell.com/cube

01A

Parapet and Screen Wall Detail Scale: 1/2” = 1’ 0” Connection to Screen Wall Scale: 1 1/2” = 1’ 0”

115

Foundation Detail Scale: 1/2” = 1’ 0”

Mullion Detail Scale: 1 1/2” = 1’ 0”

www.geofbell.com/

02C

The Fold Columbia University GSAPP Architectural Technology III Fall 2012 Roosevelt Island, New York 117

Critic: Wilfried Lauf with Madeeha Merchant, Paul Chan, Joem Sanez

The Fold Architectural Technology III

Folding allows us to produce mutli-dimensional structural viability out of a material that begins as a thin sheet. By creasing a material, its strength and stiffness can be dramatically increased, which in turn increases its effective depth and bending resistance. Project Brief Load is transferred and to supports primarily by compression and shear, but by treating the entire construction as a cantilevered beam, it becomes necessary to add an array on tension-resisting extentions above the stairway, that also act as screens and handrails. In order to control buckling, it was necessary to maintain the designed cross-sectional shape by stiffening both the ends and the outermost longitudinal edge to resist outward thrust. Openings

decrease the efficiency of the structure, but allow filtered views through the construction, lightening what would otherwise be a massive and opaque structure.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Openings allow filtered views through the construction, lightening what would otherwise be a massive and opaque structure.â&#x20AC;?

118

www.geofbell.com/

119

02C

Aerial View Connecting Roosevelt Island and the Queensboro Bridge

The Fold Architectural Technology III

Assembly Diagram Folded modules overlap and are welded together

Foundation Detail Structure is cantilevered from island 120

www.geofbell.com/

02C

ELEVATION

121

View at Base

Overall Plan

www.geofbell.com/

02D

Center for Music Arts Columbia University GSAPP Architectural Acoustics Spring 2013 Unsited 123

Critic: Raj Patel, ARUP

Center for Music Arts Architectural Acoustics

Acoustic analysis of a space through form and arrangement in plan, producing a set of layouts which correspond to the needs of specific programming, allowing a flexibility that is nevertheless tuned to acoustic performance.

Outer Shell Material: Heavy timber frame construction and wood paneling. Stage 3 Amplified recital stage.

Clerestory Windows 4-inch airspace IGU STC Rating: 46 Stage 2 Analog performance stage.

Stage 1 Multimedia.

Project Brief This project uses acoustics techniques to define the form of an open, flexible performance hall, and the layout of movable wall panels within the space, which allow for performances of various scales and types, from spoken word to symphony orchestras. By analyzing raytrace diagrams and reverberation, the space can be optimized to fit specific the needs of the performer.

Lobby/Event Space Separated from main auditorium.

By analyzing raytrace diagrams and resultant reverberation, the space is optimized to fit specific the needs of the performer.

Raytrace configuration 1 Classical music

Entry Corridor Separated from main auditorium.

Raytrace configuration 2 Smaller audience

Raytrace configuration 3 â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Immersive environmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; 124

www.geofbell.com/

RT = K (volume / Sa) = 0.049 (92011 / 3534.1) = 1.3 seconds

RT = K (volume / Sa) = 0.049 (64389 / 2348 = 1.8 seconds

02D

RT = K (volume / Sa) = 0.049 (102543 / 4453) = 1.0 seconds

Acoustic Resonance

125

Section Drawing

126

www.geofbell.com/

02e

Analysis: Corning Museum of Glass Columbia University GSAPP Architectural Technology IV Fall 2012 Corning, New York 127

Critic: Sandy McKee with Jim Stoddart, Tiffany Rattray, Rong Zhao

Corning Museum of Glass Architectural Technology IV

Building systems and technology analysis conducted as part of the GSAPP Technology sequence. Digital modeling done in Autodesk Revit 2013. Project Brief The main intent of the building is explained by Henry Smith-Miller as the following: “The building’s new nonlinear circulation, angular surfaces, loosely defined spaces, and irregular plan were intended to mimic the elaborate unpredictability that scientists read into natural systems such as weather, and that philosophers such as Jacques Derrida extrapolate from human behavior.” This statement gives an idea of the complexity of the building’s design. This complexity is apparent in the building plan (tilted off of the existing grid by 7 degrees), the structure (a complex system of steel members), and the enclosure (two custom systems of steel and glass configured in non-orthogonal planes). The entry vestibule, framed by angled planes of glass, was meant to feel as though you were inside a kaleidoscope, deliberately disorienting. The architects’ desire to produce a building composed of planes, with deep, cantilevered overhangs and minimal obstructions led to the selection of steel as the primary structural system. By utilizing steel, the architects and engineers were able to negotiate the con-

flicting angles of the existing building and additions’ structural grids, minimize the number of columns in the main spaces, and eliminate the need for the disruptive shear walls that would be required in concrete construction. The glazed enclosure for the southern end of the addition consists of 50,000 square feet of sloping custom-designed curtain-walls with unitized low-e glazing system and aluminum mullions. Glazing panels secured via hidden connectors to the mullion system and sealed with flush mounted silicone gaskets. The resulting effect is a system that appears from the exterior to be an immense, single sheet of glass unbroken by mullions.

“Usually you see glass frontally, but we wanted to present glass on edge,” explains Hawkinson. As a result, visitors see the new glass elements as shifting, reflective planes, rather than as transparent surfaces. Envelope Systems Diagram Jitney path and glazing with masts. 128

www.geofbell.com/

02e

Typical Moment Connection at Roof

Typical Moment Connection at Floor

129

Structural Systems Free body diagram

Corning Museum of Glass Architectural Technology IV

Glazing Systems Curtain wall, window wall + masts 130

Construction Sequence: FOUNDATIONS The steel and concrete structure lends itself to a relatively straightforward construction sequence. The concrete foundations are the first element to be constructed. Following site preparation, the foundation walls, spread footings and piers, and submerged channels for connection to utilities from the existing building. Gravel and backfill were then added before pouring the ground level slab and integral channel (for the radiant heating system at the south end).

131

STEEL FRAMING Once the concrete foundation was in place, the steel framing was erected. Following the placement of the columns, the entry level framing was installed, with primary girders and moment connections having been established first, followed by secondary members. The roof framing followed in the same fashion, creating the critical moment connections before connecting secondary and tertiary members. The framing for the theater was the final steel section to be erected as it relies on tension members and the roof framing to carry a portion of its load.

FLOOR SYSTEM Following the steel erection, the metal decking was installed and concrete slabs were poured. These act as stiffener panels, working like a diaphragm across the steel framing, resisting lateral movements of the members. At the exterior slab, preinstalled steel plates were embedded into the concrete to provide connection points for the glazing masts. The mast truss system was installed, connected to a HSS member at the top and connected via a pin joint at the embedded plate at the ground level.

ROOF SYSTEM Roofing membranes were installed over the roof decking and rigid insulation board. At the south end of the building, the mullion system was installed, and then fitted with unitized glazing elements. Movement joints at the top and bottom of the mullion system allowed flexibility in installation. Along the east and north faรงade, assemblies of predrilled glazing panels were installed into a metal channel in the roof structure and secured both at their base with an aluminum clip system and to spider fitting point supports at the masts. Following

completion of the envelope, the mechanical systems were installed, followed by interior finish and exterior finish elements. Simultaneously the jitney columns and path sections are installed in place, maintaining a movement joint to structurally isolate them from the main structure.

www.geofbell.com/

02e

HVAC Layout Gallery and suspended theater

132

www.geofbell.com/

02F

ENERGY Analysis: Crown Hall Columbia University GSAPP Advanced Energy Performance Spring 2014 Chicago, Illinois 133

Critics: Craig Schwitter + Buro Happold

Crown Hall Energy Analysis Advanced Energy Performance

Mies’ ‘Glass Box’ typology is often criticized for its energy inefficiency. Is it possible to deploy contemporary passive and active systems within this design typology to achieve a highly efficient or even net-zero energy construction?

PINUP SPACE

STUDIO

Project Brief IIT Crown Hall Ludwig Mies vad der Rohe Location: 41° 49’ N 87° 37’ W Chicago, IL Climate: Dfa Hot summer continental climate. Dfa climates usually occur in the high 30s and low 40s latitudes, with a qualifying average temperature in the warmest month of >22°C/72°F. Average yearly precipitation for Illinois varies from just over 48 inches (1,200 mm) at the southern tip to 35 inches (890 mm) in the northern portion of the state. Normal annual snowfall exceeds 38 inches (970 mm) in Chicago, while the southern portion of the state normally receives less than 14 inches (360 mm). There were a number of issues to identify and address in Crown Hall. The single-glazed curtain wall is quite transparent, but conducts a great deal of heat from the space, requiring the boiler to work harder in the winter, and air conditioning in the summer

to maintain thermal comfort. The solid steel mullions and structure external to the insulated space further contribute to this heat loss by creating a thermal bridge around the perimeter of the glass. This system wraps the building on all four sides.

ENTRY

Natural ventilation is provided through louvered holes below the windows, manually operated with a pivoting steel cover. This opening provides free air movement between the interior and exterior. Finally, inside the building, the open plan provides the space with an excess of interior lighting, which could be reduced by more thoughtfully placed task lighting.

Main FLoor Plan w/ thermal zones

FACULTY OFFICE SUITE

COMPUTER LAB

SHOP

STUDIO RESTROOMS

The solid steel mullions and structure external to the insulated space further contribute to this heat loss by creating a thermal bridge that wraps the perimeter of the building.

OFFICES

STUDENT LOUNGE

CONFERENCE LECTURE HALL

STUDENT RESOURCE CENTER

ADMIN OFFICE SUITE

DEAN

Basement Plan w/ thermal zones 134

www.geofbell.com/

87° 37’ W

Site Orientation and location

Single-Glazed Curtain Wall

Thermal Bridge

Unconstrained Ventilation Excessive Interior Lighting/No Task Lighting Excessive Glass on all Four Sides 135

Opportunities for Intervention South facade and entry

41° 49’ N

02F

Crown Hall Energy Analysis Advanced Energy Performance

Energy Use Index:

195.78

Energy Savings:

7.4% BASELINE SNGL GLAZING DBL GLAZING TRIPLE GLAZ QUADRUPLE LOW-E NANOGEL

Equipment Energy Total Light Energy Heat Rejection Chillers Boilers Space Conditioning PASSIVE STRATEGY 1: GLAZING Nanogel wall panels

Boilers

Energy Use Index:

179.42

Energy Savings:

15.1% BASELINE INSULATED

Equipment Energy Total Light Energy Heat Rejection Chillers Boilers Space Conditioning

PASSIVE STRATEGY 3: INSULATION Replace natural ventialtion system

Boilers

136

www.geofbell.com/

Energy Use Index:

02F

79.45

Energy Savings:

62.4% Energy Use Index:

REMAINING ENERGY USE:

BASELINE

52.9

3,280.66 MBtu

NATURAL VENT SEALED A/C

ENERGY PRODUCED:

MIXED MODE

Energy Savings:

519.7 MBtu

75.0%

Equipment Energy Total Light Energy Heat Rejection Chillers Boilers Space Conditioning

MECHANICAL STRATEGY: Replace natural ventialtion system

Boilers

Energy Use Index:

190.54

Savings:

9.9% BASELINE DIMMING

Chillers Boilers Space Conditioning

137

LIGHTING STRATEGIES: Daylight sensor dimming

Boilers

5,887.5

6,407.3

8009.2

10,110.8

15,947.4

22,452.6

23,758.8

20,467.8

13,186.8

Heat Rejection

11,847.5

Total Light Energy

7,988.1

Equipment Energy

6,210.4 kW/h

SENSORS

JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC

Photovoltaic Energy Production Net energy savings

138

Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture Otaniemi Central Campus Competition Summer 2012 Espoo, Finland

139

Young & Ayata Architecture with Michael Young, Kutan Ayata, Jim Stoddart, Stephen Ullman, Luis Felipe and Alejandro Stein

Aalto University Otaniemi Central Campus Competition

The New Campus Center originates in three concepts regarding the planning of public space: the clearing of a public square, the filtering of circulation, and the establishment of a unique identity for the institution. Project Brief The New Campus Center is a dynamic hub of social, educational and aesthetic exchange. Our design proposal originates in three concepts regarding the planning of public space. These three concepts are; the clearing of a public square, the filtering of circulation, and the establishment of a unique identity for the institution. In other words, the project desires to simultaneously be a void, a path, and an object. These three conditions are often at odds with each other as they demand very different qualities from the architectural proposal. Our proposal for the New Campus Center master-plan at Aalto University finds these three competing desires latent in the competitionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brief: 1. A clearly defined urban space; 2. A choreographed flow of circulation; 3.A strong presence for the buildings housing the future of Aalto Universitiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; design community. In order to resolve this triad, we looked towards other spaces that successfully resolved complex conflicting desires, and found that the Campidoglio in Rome

designed by Michelangelo provided a key precedent. This design consists of a cohesive public void created by buildings that serve as backdrops. This square is also a hub of circulatory transitions that direct movement along a main axis, and then through the corners of the space at a diagonal. To further the complexity, these conditions of a cohesive void and a filtering path are created through the introduction of two object buildings of a novel identity in and of themselves. These new buildings are able to perform multiple duties in planning strategy through a doubling along the main axial path, shifting emphasis into a spatial void and a framed view, not on the objects themselves. Michelangeloâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s design also takes advantage of variable topographic

The project desires to simultaneously be a void, a path, and an object. These three conditions are often at odds with each other as they demand very different qualities from the architectural proposal.

140

Aalto University Otaniemi Central Campus Competition

change, from the smooth bulge of the plazaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ellipse, to the terracing of the low slope staircase that ascends the hill. Our concept for establishing public space developed from these ideas of a clear symmetrical spatial frame and from the locally variable treatment of the horizontal surface as found in the Campidoglio. The initial gesture consists of two long bar buildings housing the School of Arts, Design and Architecture. These bars initially frame out a symmetrical square with a focused axis on the tower of Alvar Aaltoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s landmark auditorium. This initial symmetry begins to soften and bend as it is inflected by the pressures of various circulation flows present in the site.

One of the developments is a strategy for the relation between public space and vegetation as a type of primal clearing in the forest. The two main building masses hold dense vegetation behind their bodies producing a clearing for the main public space, the heart and hearth of the campus. This freed gathering space sinks into the earth as two public plazas which furthermore allow access to commercial, dinning and exhibition spaces below grade. The plazas also provide a terraced space on which varied densities of people may gather informally. These terraces provide small scale change for programmatic use, and simultaneously speak towards a larger collective organization. This idea of a larger collectivity

formed by smaller groups of people is carried throughout the design. Both the interior and exterior spaces are developed as echeloned terrace conditions that provide a richness of varied experiences in the immediate proximity of an activity. Activities such as a design studio or a dining room are larger collections of small local relations. The stepped terrace allows these series of smaller spaces to link into the larger collective event of the study of Art, Design and Architecture. The School of Arts, Design and Architecture building consists of two long linear bars connected by a bridge which houses the multidisciplinary LUME program. In terms of the site this bridge serves

as a gateway to the campus and a frame of the iconic auditorium building designed by Aalto. In the length of the two buildings, the studios are organized as a series of flexible spaces for the study of art, design, architecture and media. These spaces open to each other as a series of stepped terraces, each with their own private experience, yet connected to each other. The shift in height fosters the possibility for a space to shift from direct desk work to large scale fabrication or sculpture experimentation. The mass and articulation of the two new buildings clearly reflect a novel expression in the context of Aalto University, but there are many parallels in their design to

142

www.geofbell.com/

143

03A

Aerial View Public space funneled through courtyard

Aalto University Otaniemi Central Campus Competition

ideas that Alvar Aalto explored through his work. The buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s form reflects a sensibility of curvature that results from the negotiation of the forces present on a site, the resistances inherent in a material, and the sensibility of a craftsman. Flows of multiple paths guide and inflect the overall form of the buildings. These flows are tied to the circulation of people through the site, but also to the natural flow of the topography and vegetation. The circulation through the site is multiple and complex involving pedestrians, bicycles, cars, buses, and a future metro line. The siteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

topography is manipulated in order to allow multiple modes of circulation to flow through the site. The parking is underground and accessed from the sunken road Konemiehentie to the west and Otaniementie to the east. This allows vehicular flow for both parking and deliveries to pass through the site uninterrupted and without noticeable alteration to the pedestrian plaza above. There are several other amenities that are accessed from the lower level including the restaurant, commercial, and exhibition facilities. The metro is also accessed from this lower level underneath the main building.

Basement and Courtyard Plan

Pedestrian Circulation Funneled through central court

Vehicular Circulation Redirected around campus

144

www.geofbell.com/

Figure Ground Grass + paved areas

145

Existing Campus Vegetation

03A

Proposed Vegetation Trees removed from public court, planted along curved axis of new building

Main Floor Plan

Aalto University Otaniemi Central Campus Competition

The push of vehicular traffic underground allows pedestrian and bicycle traffic to flow across the site. This flow has an influence on the above ground building form as well, requiring the building to spring up or connect across as a bridge. It is this structural necessity of an open span that sponsors a structural steel lattice to bridge across. The articulation of this lattice structure offers another condition close to the work of Aalto; the negotiation between the functionality of necessity and the expressivity of ornament. The buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lattices are sometimes structure, sometimes screening enclosure, and sometimes ornamental articulations of the sensorial dynamics of movement.

The possibilities are great for the reimagining of Aalto University in light of the Campus Plan 2015. This New Campus Center will provide the gathering core the campus plan needs and the dynamic hub of transformative transportation that the area wants. But, there are always further conditions that an educational building project aspires to. There is the aspiration beyond the needs of a facility and towards the possibilities of expanding the potentials of creativity, invention, and knowledge. And the dream that the qualities and character of the spaces we inhabit can challenge us to do more than necessity alone suggests.

TERRACE LUME

146

ENTRY FOYER

STUDENT & FACULTY PARKING

SUNKEN PLAZA

PUBLIC PARKI COMMERCIAL FACILITIES

100

146

www.geofbell.com/

ARCH/LAND STUDIO

ART STUDIO

COMMON FACILITIES

03A

SUNKEN PLAZA

RESTAURANT

ROAD

Section through Volumes 0

100

Flat Seam Zinc Cladding

Structural Steel Lattice Low-E Double Glazing

ING

147

Section through Courtyard Overpass

Interior Studio space

Aalto University Otaniemi Central Campus Competition

View of Open SPacE 148

www.geofbell.com/

149

03A

View of Courtyard Looking toward Alvar Aalto auditorium

Aalto University Otaniemi Central Campus Competition

View of Courtyard 150

www.geofbell.com/

151

03A

152

www.geofbell.com/solar

03B

S.ky-Blue 2009 Solar Decathlon University of Kentucky CoD Fall 2008 displayed at Various Locations

153

Critics: Greg Luhan and Don Colliver a collaboration between the University of Kentucky College of Design, School of Engineering and School of Marketing

S.Ky Blue 2009 Solar Decathlon

S.Ky Blue integrates passive means to first drive down energy load, and then uses simple, smart, and active solutions to present an illuminated form and an adaptable roof that appears to be supported by only a continuous ribbon of glass. Project Brief My primary role on this project was to lead the envelope design and thermal efficiency. The house moves from opacity to translucency to transparency and ultimately back to opacity producing not only electrical energy and hot water, but a clear reference to the Kentucky vernacular breezeway plan between the front and rear porches of the house. The exterior rainscreen cladding deflects most of the rain and the ventilated cavity carries away moisture and therefore reduces humidity. The air circulating on the exterior of the building increases the efficiency of the insulation, which equates to the highest possible insulation wall value while maintaining an immediate return on an initial investment. This cladding is mass-customizable, and can be easily switched out to suit the taste of the owner.

The thermal envelope is integrated with the solar and LED lighting to balance the design between the poetic and the dramatic, oscillating between opacity, translucency and tranparency, producing both psychological and physiological experiential effects upon those occupying the space, resulting in a visually interesting, inviting, warm and comfortable experience. The structure of the house is composed of structural steel elements designed for efficient transport as one complete, stand-alone unit ready for rapid on-site deployment. The structural floor beams are supported by four connection points, which rest on the bed of the truck trailer during transportation. The houseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s structural members are designed to minimize deflection during transport and provide external lifting points. These external lifting points eliminate the need Northeast corner

154

www.geofbell.com/solar

for a crane during construction and are used with jacks to load and unload the house once it arrives at the site. The integrated PV roof rack can be easily tilted with large integrated screw actuators to provide

03B

seasonal adaptation and maximum solar energy collection. This rack is shipped at 0 degrees for flat transport but can adjust to track the sun and optimize solar collection.

Views of installed home From left: fold-out dining table, exterior cladding, living area

155

North Elevation

S.Ky Blue 2009 Solar Decathlon

156

www.geofbell.com/solar

Wall Section

157 South exterior wall at evacuated solar hot water tubes

Wall Section North exterior wall at cement fiber board rainscreen cladding

03B

158

www.geofbell.com/dehydration

04A

The Life and Death of a Rose Columbia University GSAPP Core Studio I Fall 2011 159

Critic: Phil Parker

The Life and Death of a Rose Embedded information

Tracking the trajectories that the elements of the flower take as it decays, based on the structure of the plant and external forces such as gravity, transpiration, wilting and structural weakening. The flower was observed through a controlled environment by arranging a choreographed system oriented three ways: upright, inverted and horizontal - the resulting movement and mutations then diagrammed over a period of two days. Project Brief A grid of points is applied systematically to the flower, which are then mapped into the drawing at thirty minute intervals, following the path of their trajectories as they transform, distort and turn in on each other. By recording the physical distance between each of the intervals, one can read the rate of movement of the elements at these different points. The transparency of

each point corresponds to the degree of transpiration that has occured, measured by weight, and the outline of the flower is included to describe the change in dimensional scale of the flower. Thus emerges a continuity between the discrete forms through time, describing the linear transformation through stepped intervals.

160

www.geofbell.com/dehydration

161

04A

162

www.geofbell.com/lines

04b

Push Pull Twist Bend University of Kentucky CoD Digital Visualization in Architecture Fall 2010 163

Critic: Mike McKay

Push Pull Twist Bend Digital Visualization in Architecture

Selected drawings investigating the aggregation of object and technique as a generator for space Project Brief »» Create a unit. »» Manipulate the unit using a series of operations. »» Array the unit in three dimensions. »» Repeat the series of operations on the series of units.

164

www.geofbell.com/lines

165

04b

Push Pull Twist Bend Digital Visualization in Architecture

166

www.geofbell.com/lines

167

04b

168

www.geofbell.com/pompidou

04C

Centre Pompidou-Metz Fall2011 + Spring 2012 Metz, France

169

AD+R I + II Critics: Josh Uhl, David Fano, Michael Young and Kutan Ayata

Centre Pompidou-Metz Representational Analysis

“The changes that digital techniques are presenting to our drawing traditions can be viewed in several ways. At the extremes, they can be condemned for a breach with former methods, or they can be exalted as new, exciting and powerful. To avoid both of these generalizations, this course seeks to reconsider, investigate and experiment with the possible connections that exist in representational technologies.” Michael Young

Project Brief Representation is central to the practice of architecture. The choices made through different visual communication media have a dramatic impact on the way that a project is received. A drawing, rendering or detail is not neutral but carries with it a history and politic that must be understood to successufully communicate intent.

how representations are used to make conceptual arguments and provoke aesthetic responses.

This project begins with a scale representation of Shiguru Ban’s Centre Pompidou Metz, investigating the form and construction of the building through various representational tropes: the digital model, plan, section, detail, physical model, etc.

Taking this model as a given, or a found object, the digital model is mined to discover what can be extracted... The abstractions of various scales are now transferred in a digital realm to the abstractions of pixel, zoom, resolution and polygon count.

Taking this model as a given, or a found object, the digital model is mined to discover what can be extracted. Specific questions concern the nature of

The abstractions of various scales are now transferred in a digital realm to the abstractions of pixel, zoom, resolution and polygon count.

“Funnel” Detail PTFE membrane roof over laminated timber structure

170

www.geofbell.com/pompidou

171

04C

View of public square PTFE membrane roof over laminated timber structure

Centre Pompidou-Metz Representational Analysis

172

www.geofbell.com/pompidou

tower

ptfe membrane

the grande nef

gallery

entry 173

forum

cafe

04C

Centre Pompidou-Metz Representational Analysis

View Shift: Elevation-Plan Following structural logic through three shifts in scale and perspective

174

www.geofbell.com/pompidou

175

04C

Scalar Shift A series of changes in scale recreate the experience of movement along and through the surface.

Centre Pompidou-Metz Representational Analysis

Hybrid Drawing An intense series of movements along and through the structure overlay to create new emergent patterns: knots of extreme impact, fields of repetition and gradients of acceleration.

176

177