Art Case Study by Kim Hyunji
François Roche
Discussion of Creative Individual and the Importance of Visual Communication
To observe
François Roche is a French architecture who was born in 1961 in Paris. He used to work as mathematician before he graduated at the school of architecture of Versailles in 1987. He is the founder of R&Sie(n) architecture studio with his colleagues, Stephanie Lavaux and Jean Navarro. His portrait actually is not Francois Roche. Roche and his team create the portrait from their faces because he and his coworkers don’t want people to associate their figure with their work. Today, many architects depicte and commoditize themselves as brand. Even in the several interview with Roche, he never show his face, only voice and his hand. His passion for creating architectural ‘scenarios’ of mutation is based on new technology. His projects can be described as aesthetical, mechanic ,organics, biological and artificial. He has worked with other disciplines such as scientist, artists, programmers, and mathematicians to try to experience many possibilities. He has changed the name of studio over a year, depending on who is working with him because he wants to show that his office transform. He prefers to make the reality that people want to deny visible. For example, Bangkok city is severely polluted; citizens want to avoid reality. Nevertheless, he actually uses the dust in order to provide understanding the context. He founds strong desire to go further as an architect after meeting with the prior generation of architects:Claude Parent, and Yona Friedman. When he was a student, he discovered that it was rarely to find information about prior generation of architects in history. Thus, he is trying to redefine the position as architect within society. Technology is another way to deal with reality. In other word, it is different territories. Integrating nature with technology creates intriguing scenario in his projects. Moreover, he uses fiction and geometry to produce mutation in his projects. However, he emphasizes “telling stories” because people tell stories based on what society they are in. In other words, telling stories contains the context of society. Stories itself does not directly give reality. Sometimes telling stories state reality as well as fictional reality. Reality does not involve what we know and see. Reality may have another reality that doesn’t want to be exposed. He does use science in order to produce knowledge and possibility from stories. Thus, the architect should understand between two realities and take into account in the process of reality via technology. In the past, he was think nature as a substances but he finds that mathematics in nature. In other word, he found the way to understand plant materials in terms of geometry. He learned that architecture is design of process from Vilard de honnecourt, an architect of cathedrals who kept doing experiments in order to process the construction, not the accomplishment. Moreover, Roche advocates Kazuo Shinohara, influential Japanizes architect, because he is the one who challenging to escape from post modernism. He creates forms that people never expect where it comes from. To be short, from his website” New-Territories”, there are three main themes : ‘research as speculation, fiction as practice, and practice as lifespan.’ (New-Territories). These three themes can be easily found in his projects. Roche is always seeking to find potential and he wants to show that any objects are mutating via new possibilities.
From the aerial view of Green Gorgon, this New Museum of Beaux Arts in Lausanne is well balanced with nature being already existing . In other word, the Plants materials and artificial elements coexist in the area. The five small boxes take account for the progress of how the concrete planter spikes, which has hydroponic system, make grass grow to cover the entire building. Green Gorgon is more likely to be forest rather than built structure becasue artificial nature is also part of nautre. To be speicifc, grass in the skin of the building do photosyntheis that helps to purify wastewater and the atmosphere in the city. Thus, the building itself modify themselves as time the grass grow, defining it as a new living element within the environment. Green Gorgon, 2005
To emote Mosquito Bottleneck which is a temporary safe-house for a private art-collector in West Nil Fever virus mosquito location. The mechanism of this structure is to build within the technology of a Klein-bottleneck in order to make mosquitos to travel all around the mosquito trap and come back to the original location which occur endless loop. Also, the designer applied fragile fabrics and plastic materials to simply adapt to any kinds of the geographic positions. The Klein-Bottleneck technique and the material allow the residence to see fatal mosquitos fly around the mosquito traps and their buzzing and vibrations sounds. The structure creates subtle emotion between secure and tension because the resident can watch them flying and dying at a glance. Mosquito Bottleeck ,2006
To diagram The completed structure of an art museum look more complicated than this diagram. It hardly can tell how to build the structure. However, the diagram given illustrates clearly the process of assembling 180 pieces. From the diagram, we can guess that Francois Roche is inspired by nature because of the organic forms that can be easily found in nature. The brownish color indicates that the 180 pieces are made of wood. In other word, R&Sie(n) use ecofriendly materials. From that, the building itself becomes a living forms because there is relationship between nature and human.
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The design of an office building is more exclusive than other buildings in the city in that the building is actually disconnected from the ground. It is relying on the hairiness façades. And you can notice disconnection of the building even from the section view. Francois Roche put notations like parking and ring road (Boulevard Circulaire in french), direction of the view so that people can imagine the office building in urban city. Because without the notation, it is stimulating people’s curiosity about how the system of the building work. From the section, it brings questions like why it is disconnected with the urban ground and why it places the façade. The purpose of the building is to develop a sustainable building that produce and obtain sun energy.
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Working locations Projects around the world Main Exhibitions around the world
Unplug ,2001, section view
Contour line
Stipple
Claude Parent
Kazuo Shinohara
Claude Parent
Yona Friedman
-During 90s, architects were promoted themselves by their identity rather than works . He decided to have clocked identity. - Roche take into account in m own approach to practice a comparison to the prior generation of architects.
1961 Bron in Paris
1988 Studied in Chalon Sur Saone; entered scientific preparatory school in Lyon Enrolled at the School of architecture of Versailles and graduated
1989 Founded R&Sie(n)
2001 Unplug
2002 Dust ( Bangkok)
From the process of his work, every his projects have storylines. Before building something, we should listen a story because there may have multiple stories in a territory. From the story, we can notice various possibilities that can be affected. Also, we can develop the story in order to create forms. Try to be open to the possibilities which is important as a designer. However, the important word in his architectural experiences is mutation. His work is concentrating on integration with nature in order to create a organic forms. He emphasizes the relationship between building, human , and nature. Thus, most of the projects are placed in nature; in the territory, there is human relations. Lesson one, technology as major medium His major method is the computer technology because via programming in computer, he can research and approach the various experiments. The computer program has huge advantage that without making them in reality, we can predict what it is going to look like and how it will work. Personally, i thought that hand drawing is powerful method to persuade and communicate but by seeing his rendering, i realized that the computer technology is very strong enough to convey a context. From Roche’s work, his rendering is likely to be fictional because of unbalancing with reality. However, he created fictional object on purpose in order to penetrate mass media culture. Thus, the fictional rendering gives us profound meaning that mess media culture make us to be less accurate because people have already so many SWARMTOWN, Korea, 2006 references from the culture. SWARMTOWN, Korea, 2006 Lesson Two, building a model Discussion of Line, Composition and Color To make his project be more reality, he actually builds a model. Via a built model, we can feel that his project Francois Roche’s work is mostly done by computer program. However, even from his digital drawing, he utilizes different line is becoming a real; even though a model is scaled qualities and compositions. For example, in the section view of down, people can imagine the structures in urban city or in Unplug project, the hairiness of the façade is depicted by curve reality. Moreover, building a model with real materials lines; the contour lines are utilized to describe the swelling glass has different effect as compared to rendering by with mono crystalline solar cells. Grid is used for describe a computer program. Sometimes it is powerful way to 2D Open Compostion regularly listed solar panels. From his work, Mosquito bottleneck, Grid communicate because people can see and feel the he uses scribble in order to express the concept of the project. actual project. However, when the actual project is His description of projects with the use of line is well expressed constructed the emotion of the structure will totally in order to communicate information. In terms of compositions, his projects are using space in order change because of the scale, when a small model is built, people won’t feel the emotion coming from interacting to interact with surrounding such as nature. Moreover, his space at large scale. If the actual model is made, the scale composition is associated with the stories. In case of open composition, Scrambled Flat is an example. Since the project is to changes into human scale. And people will start to feel create new farm, there is relationship between animals and human. the emotion from standing the outside and inside of the structure. Scribble 2D Closed Figure Ground Compostion From Green gorgon, the geometric structures are overlapping Lesson Thee, Digital drawing with technics each other, creating unique feature of the museum. An example of closed figure ground composition is symbiosis hood. Most of his work is done by digitally. However, The structure is placed on middle of the two territories. Since from his computer drawing is well utilized the line the territories are at the boundaries between South and North technics such as hatching, and scribbling and so on. Korea, the land takes an important role between neighborhoods. The use of line technics in both paper and computer is In other word, composition is not all about arranging subject; pretty same. The only difference between them is what sometimes composition is conveying profound massage. your preference is to design. Even in computer drawing, Theses massage can be found in his projects. if we play with different line technics and line weight, Since he researches and produces his work, integrating with it is easy to understand what the drawing describes and Hatch 2D Closed Compostion + Overlap nature, from most of his works, you can notice that green color is the intent of the drawing . Without the line weight and dominated. technics, it is difficult to communicate the drawings, rather it gives confusion about the drawings. = 2003 The game (Chang Mai, Thailland)
2005 Green Gorgon
2006 Olzweg ( Paris, France)
2009 Water Flux
<References> Hebel, Dirk E., and Marta H. Wisniewska. Building from Waste Recovered Materials in Architecture and Construction. Basel/Berlin/Boston: Birkhäuser, 2014. 110-115. Print. Ruby, Andreas. Spoiled Climate: R & Sie, Architects. Basel: Birkhäuser-Publishers for Architecture, 2004. Print. Barzon, Furio. The Charter of Zurich: Eisenman, De Kerckhove, Saggio. Basel: Birkhäuser, 2003. Print. Inaba, Jefferey. "Francois Roche Interviewed by Jefferey Inaba and Benedict Clouette." C-Lab Columbia Laboratory for Architectural Broadcasting. Web. 7 Mar. 2015. <http://c-lab.columbia.edu/0063.html>.