Isaac Howell Recent Work: 2013-2015
Isaac Howell Recent Work: 2013-2015
University of California, Berkeley: 2013 B.A., Political Eonomics
University of Michigan: 2016 Master of Architecture Candidate
Contents
Studio Work A Loss Disguised as a Win | 6-21 Re-Acting History | 22-27 Dissecting Venturi | 28-31
Research + Production Second City! Or, How Improv Made Chicago Funny (and Vice Versa) | 34-41
Representation Making a Situation | 44-49 Projections + Speculations | 50-54
Anatomies Case Study: Prada Tokyo | 56-57 Case Study: Crane House | 58-59
Studio Work
A Loss Disguised as a Win Ludocapitalism as Urbanism of Detroit
Graduate Core Studio IV: Networks Instructor: Jen Maigret In its frantic search for more profitable investments, capital will begin to live its life in a new context: no longer in the factors and spaces of extraction and production, but on the floor of the stock market casino, jostling for more intense profitability. But it won’t be as one industry competing with another, nor even productive technologies against another in the same link of manufacturing, but rather in the form of speculation itself: specters of value, as Derrida might put it, are vying against each other in a vast, worldwide, disembodied phantasmagoria. -Frederic Jameson, Postmodernism, or,The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
The first gas-powered automobile and mechanical slot machine were both invented in 1889. Since that year, the city of Detroit, Michigan was built on a bet of capitalistic speculation and automobile production. 90 years later and all but abandoned by this industry and facing bankruptcy, Detroit turned to the most modern form of capital production: casino gambling. Labeling it as “urban recreation” in the zoning ordinance, casinos now contribute over 30% of the total tax revenue.
6-7
Casinos are the embodiment this new era of ‘ludocapitalism.’ There are no longer laborers nor a manufactured good. Only profits are produced, which are kept in constant movement to create further profits. One strategy in particular to produce this phenomenological environment is the multi-line slot machine. By placing multiple, simultaneous bets, the player has a greater perceived chance of a win. When one line ‘wins,’ the machine celebrates a victory, stimulating a desire for continued gaming. The machine, however, fails to acknowledge the total loss incurred. By maximizing exposure to these losses disguised as wins, the casino has become an alternate reality of a complete tonal experience. This project explores the architectural implications and possibilities of the multi-line gaming space, and its application in built form in Detroit.Working in section, the design is intended to be a spatial correlation to the methods of slot machine designs; creating spaces of intensified exposure to the abstractions of capital and gaming within.
diagram: Patent US 6270410 B1 Remote-Controlled Slot Machine
9th Century: First recorded use of Playing Cards, Tang Dynasty, China
529: Roman Emporer Justinian issues 'Corpus Juris Civilis', bans gambling in all public and private houses
1500 B.C.E.: Betting cattle on chariot racing becomes the most popular activity in India, Vedic period
3000 B.C.E.: First six-sided die recorded, Mesopotamia
0
1732: Pope Clement XII permits the establishment of a Roman lottery
1726: The Netherlands establishes the first national lottery 800
1783: Treaty of Paris, British cede Fort Detroit and surrounding territory to the United States
1760: France surrenders Fort Detroit to the British
1701: Fort Detroit first settled by Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac
1670: French missionaries first arrive to the site of Detroit
1621: Étienne Brûlé paddels up the St. Mary's River and enters Lake Superior
21,019 1887: First mechanical, coin-dispensing slot machine invented by Charles Fey, San Francisco, California 1888: Globe Tobacco builds a factory near downtown Detroit 1889: Hammond Building completed, first steel-framed skyscraper in Detroit
1869: Gambling is frist legalized in the U.S. State of Nevada
1837: Michigan becomes a State
1500
1832: First legal gambling house opens in United States, New Orleans, Louisiana
1665: First horse racetrack built in North America on Long Island
1660: King Charles II of Englang allows gambling by all
1520: King Francis I of France signs a bill legalizing lotteries in Paris, Lyons, Strasbourg, Bordeaux, and Lille
1444: The city of L'Éduce runs a lottery to raise funds to repair the city's walls and fortifications, France This is the earliest recorded lottery in which participants pay for a chance to win. Grand prize is 300 florins
1000 1800
I it, M
Packard Chrysler
Ford Motor Company Lincoln Motor Company Motorcar Company Chevrolet Buick General Motors Rapid Motor Vehicle Company Cadillac 1954: Northland Center shopping mall opens, Southfield
1,568,662
1943: Detroit Race Riots
1943: Peak WWII production, one B-24 bomber/hour at Ford’s Willow Run plant
1933: Horse racing betting is legalized in New Hampshire, Ohio, West Virginia, California, and Michigan
993,678
1947: Clark County, Nevada, approves 352 gambling licenses 1948: gambling legalized in Puerto Rico
etro of D
1934: Horse racing betting is legalized in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Po tion pula
1920
1934: Puerto Rico institutes a lottery
285,704
1929: Ambassador Bridge completed, linking Detroit and Windsor, Ontario
1900 1,623,452
1940 1,849,568
465,766
1946: Total amount spent on legal gambling in the United States: $500 million
1968: Bally invents first multiline payout slot machine
1967: Detroit Race Riots
1963: Bally invents the first electromechanical slot machine
1977: Renaissance Center opens
1974: Total amount spent on legal gambling in the United States: $17.3 billion 2013: Wyoming legalizes state lottery
2012: Ohio legalizes casino gambling 2013: New York legalizes commercial casinos
$1,435,064,984
$1,402,740,796
$1,355,974,378
o Detr it casinos om s fr ue n ve $1,370,316,981
2000
2010: Casino approved in Maine referendum
Re
2007: MGM Grand Detroit opens larger casino 2008: Alabama legalizes video bingo halls
$1,173,174,718
951,270
2005: Harrah’s, Inc. acquires Ceasar’s Entertainment, Inc. for $9 billion 2005: MGM-Mirage buys Mandalay Resort Group for $7.9 billion 2007: Kansas and Maryland legalizes casinos
2004: Pennsylvania and Oklahoma legalize casino gambling
1,203,368
2008: Arkansas legalizes state lottery
2003: Tennessee legalize state lottery
2002: North Dakota and South Carolina legalize state lotteries
$539,639,134
1,027,964
2000: MGM Grand buys Mirage Resorts for $6.4 billion
1998: California allows for the establishment of Indian casinos 1999: Tribal casinos begin operating slot machines in Washington 1999: MotorCity, Greektown, and MGM Grand Casinos open, Detroit
1996: Michigan Casino Gambling Act passes, 51.5%-48.5% Michigan Gaming & Control Board created
1990: Riverboat gambling allowed in Illinois 1991: Tribal casinos begin operating in Wisconsin 1992: Racetrack casinos legalized in Rhode Island 1992: Georgia legalizes state lottery 1993: first tribal casinos open in Arizona, Idaho, and Oregon 1993: Riverboat casinos allowed in Mississippi, Indiana, and Missouri 1993: 92 million people visit casinos in the United States 1994: Racetrack casinos legalized in Delaware, Iowa, Lousiana, and West Virginia 1994: Ceasar’s Casino opens, Windsor, Ontario 1995: New Mexico legalizes state lottery 1995: Colorado legalizes tribal casinos 1991: Texas legalizes state lottery
1980
1990: Louisiana and Maine legalizes state lotteries
1986: South Dakota legalize state lottery
1985: Iowa, Missouri, and Montana legalize state lotteries
1986: first tribal casino opens in Connecticut 1987: gambling legalized in Deadwood, South Dakota 1987: U.S. Supreme Court legalizes tribal casinos in California vs. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians 1987: Kansas and Virginia legalize state lotteries 1988: Detroit voters reject casinos, 62%-38% 1988: South Dakota votes to allow slot, video, and other gambling machines in the state 1988: Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, and Wisconsin legalizes state lotteries 1988: Federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act 1989: Idaho legalizes state lottery 1989: Casinos legalized in Iowa
1984: Oregon and West Virginia legalize state lotteries
1982: Washington, Colorado, and Washington, D.C. legalize state lotteries
1979: Seminole Tribe opens fist Indian casino, Florida
1976: First video slot machine
1976: Casino gambling legalized in Atlantic City, New Jersey
1973: Coleman Young elected mayor
1,514,063
1980: Arizona legalizes state lottery
1976: Vermont legalizes state lottery
1974: Illinois, Maine, and Rhode Island legalizes state lottery
1972: Maryland legalizes state lottery 1973: Delaware and Ohio legalizes state lotteries
1971: New York legalizes off-track betting, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut legalize state lotteries 1971: Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut legalize state lotteries
1970: New Jersey legalizes state lottery
1967: New York legalizes state lottery
1964: New Hampshire legalizes state lottery
1960 1,670,144
713,777
files for bankruptcy
files for bankruptcy
2004: Total revenue from slot machines in the Untied States: $25 billion
2004: Total amount spent on legal gambling in the United States: $78 billion
Patent US5580053 A: Multi-Line Gaming Machine “Players who regularly play gaming machines quickly tire of particular games and therefore it is necessary for manufacturers to add interest to the games in order to keep the players amused and therefore willing to continue playing the game. Many various strategies have been tried in the past to make games more enticing to players, and these strategies are often aimed at either increasing the maximum prize payable on a machine or creating at least the perception of more winning opportunities.�
loss loss loss loss loss loss loss loss loss loss loss loss loss loss loss loss loss loss loss loss loss loss
WIN loss loss loss loss
A Loss Disguised as a Win -Prof. M. Dixon, Dept of Psychology, University of Waterloo
12-13
When they spin and win, these spins are accompanied by reinforcing sights and sounds. Such reinforcement also occurs when the amount won is less than the spin wager. These losses disguised as wins, or LDWs, are as arousing as wins, and more arousing than regular losses.
tonal studies: perception of winning machine scale, building scale, urban scale
A Loss Disguised as a Win 14-15
When Foucault defines Panopticism, either he specifically sees it as an optical or luminous arrangement that characterizes prison, or he views views it abstractly as a machine that not only affects visible matter in general but also in general passes through every articulable function. So the abstract formula of Panopticism is no longer ‘to see without being seen’ but to impose a particular conduct on a particular human multiplicity. -Gilles Deleuze, Foucault
section study: a space that intensifies exposure to disguised losses, encouraging a continuous production of gaming or, the participation of any other program that may occur
16-17
A Loss Disguised as a Win
18-19
site studies: situating a casino on the old Michigan State Fairgrounds
urban gambling network: disguised gaming losses in Detroit/Windsor network of casinos + points of lottery ticket sales
20-21
A Loss Disguised as a Win
Re-Acting History Historical Perception, Three Ways
Graduate Core Studio III: Situations Instructor: Anya Sirota Memory and history, far from being synonymous, appear now to be in fundamental opposition. Memory is life, borne by living societies founded in its name. It remains in permanent evolution, open to the dialectic of remembering and forgetting, unconscious of its successive deformations, vulnerable to manipulation and appropriation, susceptible to being long dormant and periodically revived. History, on the other hand, is the reconstruction, always problematic and incomplete, of what is no longer. Memory is perpetually actual phenomenon, a bond tying us to the eternal present; history is a representation of the past. -Pierre Nora, Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de MĂŠmoire
Located near Pittsburgh, in Braddock, Pennsylvania, this project attempts to explore the potential of situating a historical narrative on a constructed site. Home to the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, Braddock currently does not contain any reference to this signifiant event in America’s history. The proposed archive and reliquary allows for the curation of this history to be made available to the public, as well as a space for a constructed representation of a natural environment for performances of historical reenactments.
22-23
Rather than mimicking a natural space, the falsified landscape allows for a greater interpretation of the space and the reenacted events which takes place there. The result are three different ways of experiencing historic narratives (written, physical, and reenacted) to be contained within a single structure. This allows the visitor to perceive and recreate the history of Braddock for themselves.
Re-Acting History
Historical Archive
Historical Reliquary
26-27
Historical Reenactments
Dissecting Venturi Model as Diagram of the Vanna Venturi House
Graduate Core Studio II: Form Instructor: Tsz Yan Ng There is a truism in architecture that books are sometimes more important than buildings. This could be said for Palladio, and perhaps for Le Corbusier.Yet the Vanna Venturi House is a writing, in architectural terms, of Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction; no American house or building before or after can make that claim. -Peter Eisenman, Ten Canonical Buildings
28-29
In this studio we were each assigned an iconic home and over the course the semester, we were asked to analyze the house in through several different projects. In this project, we were given a dimension (14’’x14’’x20’’) to construct a diagrammatic model of the home. I read my assigned house, the Vanna Venturi House, as a series of architectural elements layered and compressed upon one another. I represented the negative space of the house as these layered elements in tension, in an attempt to model the moments of compression as you move through the house. Suspended within acrylic planes, this space is independent to the exterior reading, just as the facade of the Vanna Venturi House operates.
Diagram: Separation and Re-Compression of Elements
Dissecting Venturi 30-31
Diagrammatic Model of the Vanna Venturi House
Research + Production
Second City!
Or, How Improv Made Chicago Funny (and Vice Versa) 2014 Research on the City Grant
in collaboration with Prof. John McMorrough, Prof. Julia McMorrough, Prof. Joseph Rosa + Caitlin Sylvain Cities are funny things, both equation and caprice, they are testaments to, and limit cases of, “big plans,” and nowhere more so than Chicago...Like all cities, Chicago is a combination of circumstantial facts (the quantities and dispositions of its urban form) and a projective imagination (how it is seen and understood)...Whether reversing the flow of the Chicago River in 1900, or raising the mean level of the city by physically lifting buildings six feet in the 1850s, Chicago’s answer to the question of what the city is, has always been, in a manner of speaking, funny. -John McMorrough
I was fortunate a member of the research and production team with Caitlin Sylvain for the Taubman College 2014 Research on the City Grant, Second City! Chicago’s Funny Urbanism, in collaboration with Professors John McMorrough, Julia McMorrough, and Joseph Rosa. For the project, Caitlin and I were responsible for conducting research, design strategies, site visits, the production of material for a book, two films, and an exhibition.
34-35
Looking at the relationship between improvisational comedy and the city of Chicago, two questions were first asked: How did Chicago’s improv comedy become such a large industry, and what connections are there between improv, design, and urbanism? Our initial investigations yielded overwhelming results. The question then became not what connections are there, but how can we make sense of them, and how can they be communicated? The result was the organization of our research into a book, which follows the format of a specific type of longform improv (a Harold). By juxtaposing relationships between improv and Chicago in different ‘beats’ and ‘scenes,’ the reader will be able to make connections between the material discussed. The resulting exhibition was in two parts: An Urban Improv Study Center, which is a proposed new type of institution for collaborative work in and of the city, and a City-Stage, presenting a space for people to engage in improvisational games. By using Second City and improv as a way to understand Chicago, we thought of a city as not a problem to be solved, but as an evolving set of scenes to produce an ever-changing (and sometimes funny) solution.
Book: Urban Research as Longform Improvisation (i.e., a Harold)
Second City! + Urban Improv Study Center
36-37
Exhibition: City Stage
Film: Chicago Theater
6. First Game
Finding the Game
5. First Beat, Third Scene
Group Mind
4. First Beat, Second Scene
Abstract Where
3. First Beat, First Scene
2. Monologue
1. Initiation
38-39
12. Evaluation
Workshop for Improvisational Urbanism
11. Third Beat
Film: Base Reality
10. Second Game
Yes, And
9. Second Beat, Third Scene
In the Moment
8. Second Beat, Second Scene
Object Work
7. Second Beat, First Scene
Second City!
Greening the Grounds @ Jane + Finch competition entry: Islands and Piers in a Sea of Green (and Browns and Greys)
Representation
Making a Situation Architecture as Program and Performance
Graduate Core Studio III: Situations Instructor: Anya Sirota The pleasure of space:This cannot be put into words, it is unspoken. Approximately: it is a form of experience—the “presence of absence”; exhilarating differences between the plane and the cavern, between the street and your living room; symmetries and dissymmetries emphasizing the spatial properties of my body: right and left, up and down. Taken to its extreme, the pleasure of space leans toward the poetics of the unconscious, to the edge of madness. -Bernard Tschumi, The Pleasure of Architecture
Through a series of one week projects (one line drawing, three models), the creation and representation of situating people, program, and space were explored. Through a lottery system, a program (verb) and site (noun) were randomly assigned for the drawing. The result, Taxidermy in a Dressing Room, depicts a scene juxtaposing the skinning of dead animals and trying on new clothes. The image, drawn in freehand cartoon, was intended to put a humorous tone on a potentially gruesome subject.
44-45
The three, one-week models were an exploration of specific modeling techniques as a way to represent program, site, and performance. The techniques were intended to expose us to a breadth of modeling possibilities, experimenting with whimsical ways of occupying the models. The first model was an insertion of a performance space in a parking garage. The second model, using a casting method, in the site of a swimming pool, creates program with ice, that as it melts, becomes a performance itself. The third, with found objects, experiments with atmospherics through melted crayon and dry ice.
Taxidermy in a Dressing Room with Annelise Heeringa + Jayne Choi
Situation Logics: Models with Rubin Quarcoopome
Creating spaces of various performances and program of movable, occupiable objects in a parking garage.
An expiramentation of atmospherics in a museum with melted crayon and dry ice
Program as performance: occupying ice
Representation Work Instructor: Perry Kulper
Subjective Projection: Waffle Iron
Bell’s Two-Hearted
October 3, 2014 46° N
Representation
2022
2018
2014
2010
2006
2002
1998
1994
1990
October 3, 2014
water Samuel Adams Oktoberfest
44° N
Samuel Adams Oktoberfest
42° N
water
40° N
Pabst Blue Ribbon
38° N water
34° N Bell’s Two-Hearted
32° N
water
20:00
20:30
Mappae Mundi: Mapping a Meal
50-51
19:30 30° N
Representation 52-53 Promiscuous Architecture Flight Deck of an Aircraft Carrier
Anatomies
Case Study: Prada Tokyo Arch 417: Construction Instructors: Jen Maigret + Claudia Wigger
Diagram of Structural + Facade Systems
This introduction to construction course focused on understanding different types of construction systems and representing them through drawing.The final project was a case study of the Prada Tokyo, by Herzog + de Meuron. The drawings here show how the facade acts as the structure for the building, which allows for an exceptionally open interior.
Case Study: Prada Tokyo
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
1: aluminium diagonal post-and-rail facade 2: two-paned rhomboid window, glazed 3: silicone waterproof seal 4: aluminium guide track 5: welded sheet-steel supporting section 6: calcium silicate fire-resistant cladding 7: two-paned rhomboid window, glazed 8: aluminium diagonal post-and-rail facade 9: stainless steel sliding track
56-57
14 15 16
10: stainless steel outer pane fastener 11: aluminium fastener clamp 12: silicone joint strip 13: W10 x 33 steel I-section structural facade member 14: silicone compression strip 15: aluminium smoke extraction flap 16: calcium silicate fire resistant cladding
Case Study: Crane House Arch 527: Building Systems Instructor: Neal Robinson
This assignment, done in a group of four students, we were asked to look at a canonical modern house in Ann Arbor, designed by Robert Metcalf.The group divided up the separate tasks such as site, enclosure, systems, heating, and structure. We were asked to look at the overall design by Metcalf, and how he designed a house specific for the site and needs of the client. My task in this group was to look at both the site and heating systems. By depicting the house on New Years’ 1958, we were hoping to represent and understand the how the house functioned as an architectural structure and a place of inhabitation.
58-59
Case Study: Crane House
Thanks!
Contact e: ilhowell [at] umich [dot] edu t: (562) 472 8702 a: 223 Sunset Road Ann Arbor Michigan 48103