Senior Thesis 2020 by Kyle Anderson

SENIOR THESIS KYLE ANDERSON

Kyle Anderson Submitted 05/08/2020 This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Architecture Degree, Auburn University. Spring 2020 Thesis Advisor: Justin Miller

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The details are not the details, they make the design.â&#x20AC;?

A New Home for the Atlanta Contemporary Project completed 2019 in preparation for this thesis. TRANSVERSE SECTION at ENTRY 1/4”=1’-0”

TABLE of CONTENTS THEORY Introduction

Defining Craft

Shifting Relationships

Re-Integrating Craft

Hand Sized Beauty

Conclusion

PRECEDENT School in Orsonnens

Children’s Village Cañuana

Fabrication Pavilion

PRACTICE Analysis & Programming

The Freewheeler Micro Hotel

REFERENCES Texts Images

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A THEORY

A Theory

THE GENERATIVE DETAIL INTRODUCTION In every human culture, history begins with creation, and the source of ultimate authority and power lies with the Creator. The Christian creation story begins, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” Arguably, God had no need to create, yet he did. This idea is even more clearly shown in the Hindu creation myth in which “There was neither non-existence nor existence… That One breathed by its own impulse. Other than that, there was nothing beyond.” By telling these stories, early man reveals an innate impulse to create, signified by imbuing the Creator as the ultimate authority. It is not Vishnu the Preserver nor Shiva the Destroyer who is regarded as the supreme being; rather, Brahma the Creator is the senior of the three deities. It is for his role as Father or Creator that the God of Christianity is most revered, not as Judge, Healer, or any of the other myriad roles he is believed to hold. In part the creation impulse arises from 10

need, as in the need to preserve ourselves, expressed through the construction of shelter, clothing, and tools. This however, only accounts for a fraction of a percentage of the objects created throughout the history of our species. Why then do we make objects that are not purely utilitarian? Why did the Greek potter bother with the effort to depict the creation of Earth on pots made to hold water? We are an object-making species, created with a desire to forge order out of chaos, to translate thought into reality. The first recordings of this inclination can be seen in the caves of Lascaux through the paintings of our forebearers. Perhaps they were created out of boredom, perhaps they were created to instruct or commemorate. Regardless, they were created for an extra purpose, separate from the mere need to survive. In these paintings are the roots of a rich heritage of human craft. This essay seeks to explore the uniquely human desire to create objects and its relationship to contemporary culture by examining modern architectural production. Architecture is perhaps the

The Generative Detail

Fig. 01 - Brickwork on the Chilehaus in Hamburg, Germany.

human profession that most directly seeks to imitate God, striving to shape the world into the architect’s vision. However as a collective practice, architecture provides a lens through which we can consider human craft in all of its forms. To understand the relationship between the two, we must first define the moving target that is craft.

DEFINING CRAFT The word craft has a long and complicated history of use in the English language. Derived from the Middle English craeft, meaning “strength or skill,”1 it was primarily used to describe skill in manipulation or shrewdness, as in the practice of witchcraft or political maneuvering in statecraft. Over time the word came to be associated with the production of objects and buildings. In his book Why We Make Things and Why It Matters, furniture

maker Peter Korn details the emergence of the word in 19th century Britain, “…in the turbulent wake of the Industrial Revolution, craft was given new meaning by the founders of the emerging Arts and Craft Movement… These early socialists took three strands of nineteenth-century thought - the applied (or decorative) arts, the vernacular, and the politics of work - and wove them into a single, compelling, counter-industrial narrative that they labeled craft.”2 The word’s modern use is derived from this interpretation, in which craft became intrinsically tied with the work of the hand contrasted against the work of machines. Once possessing these noble connotations, the word has languished for years since in popular culture’s distortion of the phrase arts and crafts, referring to activities for small children using glue sticks and glitter rather than to the use of highly skilled labor to reform society. However, American culture has seen a resurgence of interest in craft in response to

1 Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Craft 2 Peter Korn, Why We Make Things and Why it Matters, (New Hampshire, David R. Godine, 2013), 31. 11

A Theory

decades of increasing industrialization and mass production. Modern companies have picked up where the founders of the Arts and Craft movement left off, using the idea of craft products as a counterindustrial narrative. For example, in 1997, Sam and Mariah Calagione opened Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, the first production brewery to use the word craft in their name.3 Since then, thousands of small “craft” breweries have opened across the country and challenged the de facto monopoly that three large corporations, Miller, Coors, and Anheuser-Busch, have historically held on the industry. The Brewer’s Association defines craft breweries as having three main qualities: they are small, they are independent, and they seek to innovate on traditional recipes. This definition is representative of the public’s changing perception of the word craft.4 Consumers are interested in locally produced items, made in small batches, from natural or “traditional” materials because objects with these characteristics are perceived as having higher sentimental and physical value. The word craft can now be found in reference to many foods such as coffee and liquor and features heavily in marketing for clothing and homewares. Philosopher Richard Sennett embraces these new meanings by stating that “Craftsmanship names an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake.” He writes, “Craftsmanship cuts a far wider swath than skilled manual labor; it serves the computer programmer, the doctor, and the artist… In all these domains, craftsmanship focuses on objective standards, on the thing itself.”5 Craftsmanship is an ethos, an attitude towards life that can be applied to every field or profession. Craft for architects is manifested differently than for the 3 4 5 6 12

craftspeople who construct the architects’ designs, but each is focused on the final artifact, the edifice. Each group is reliant on the other to achieve the ideals of their craft. This relationship has evolved greatly over time, from a period when both roles were carried out by craftspeople, to the present, in which the two are distinct professions. This divergence is a barrier to the ability of both groups to practice their craft in relation to the act of building.

SHIFTING RELATIONSHIPS Before the emergence of the professional architect, the role of architect and general contractor was carried out by master craftsmen. The carpenter or mason with the most experience and respect was responsible for guiding the construction process. In fact, the word architect is based on the Greek architektōn, meaning “chief carpenter.”6 Construction at this time was largely shaped by the abilities and sensibilities of craftspeople, and buildings evolved throughout the course of their construction. The work was only loosely predetermined, allowing its builders flexibility to adjust details as they saw fit. They made very few drawings and contracts were simple, often consisting only of oral commitments. In his book Building Culture, professor Howard Davis suggests that the success of building at this time relied on the “embodied knowledge” of the craftsman and a design by doing philosophy. Davis writes, “craftsmanship has to do not with old processes but with characteristic relationships between the artifact and the person or people who are shaping it:

Stan Hieronymus, How Craft Became Craft, (All About Beer, 2015) Rachel Arthur, Brewers Association Changes Craft Brewers Definition (beveragedaily.com, 2018). Richard Sennett, The Craftsman, (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2008), 9. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Architect.

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“A sense of responsibility towards the artifact. Immediate feedback from the emerging reality of what is being made, as it is being made. The ability to make judgments about how tools are applied to the artifact, as a result of this feedback.” 7 Craftspeople of the past used the immediate feedback of building processes to shape their future decisions rather than relying on simulations— orthagonal and perspective drawings. Davis’s writing suggests that this idea is not merely an “old process” but a “characteristic relationship” that impacted the coming ages of craftsmanship and could have real implications for modern construction. In medieval Europe, craftspeople organized themselves into guilds. Historian Robert Lopez describes guilds as, “a federation of autonomous workshops, whose owners [the masters] normally made all decisions and established the requirements for promotion from the lower ranks [journeymen, hired helpers, or apprentices.]”8 The embodied knowledge of the master gave them their authority, and organizational bonds gave craftsmen economic and political power. Guilds slowly declined from the 16th century to the 19th century with the creation of new technology and a shift towards capitalism that made their methods outdated and slow. The Industrial Revolution delivered the final blow; France outlawed craft guilds in 1791, and Spain, Austria, Germany, and Italy would follow their lead in the mid1800s at the peak of the Revolution. However, guilds survived into the 20th century in the Eastern world where industrialization was later in coming.9

Along with the dissolution of the guilds came the rise of the formal practice of architecture. For centuries, individuals had been able to call themselves architects without government oversight or regulation. There was no required education, and while many architects completed apprenticeships before starting their own practice, there were many scam artists incapable of completing safe building designs. The Ecole des Beaux Arts began offering the first formal architectural education in 1830 in France. Shortly thereafter, in 1837, the Royal Institute of British Architects, one of the first professional organizations for architects, was established in England which set about establishing education and licensure requirements.10 The Industrial Revolution was in full swing at this point in both countries, and the formalization of the architect’s role as well as the emerging mass production of standardized parts drastically changed the building culture of the time. Many European thinkers feared that increased use of machinery and the mass production of goods would reduce the quality of life, and it was from this period of upheaval that the idea of Gesamtkunstwerk would emerge as a possible antidote to the effects of industrialization. Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art, was first described by German philosopher Karl Friedrich Eusebius Trahndorff in 1827 and expresses the notion of artists working across disciplines to design every aspect of a work of art.11 The term later gained popularity in the essays of German opera composer Richard Wagner written from 1849-1852. Wagner’s ideas revolutionized opera by uniting the disciplines of music, dance, poetry, stage design, and acting. His approach came as a reaction to German Romanticism,

7 Howard Davis, The Culture of Building, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006), 219. 8 Sennett, The Craftsman, 57. 9 The Editors of The Encyclopedia Brittanica, Craft (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2019). 10 Royal Institute of British Architects, architecture.com 2019 11 Krisztina Lajosi, Wagner and the (Re) Mediation of Art: Gesamtkunstwerk and Nineteenth Century Theories of Media, 43. 13

A Theory Fig. 02 - The turkish exhibit at the Great Exhibition of 1851, organized by Gottfried Semper displays sleds and canoes.

the dominant artistic ideology of his day, which he believed lacked political engagement, elevated the individual above the collective, and limited art by clearly establishing boundaries between artistic media.12 In The Art-Work of the Future, Wagner’s first essay, he writes, “Knowledge through Love is Freedom; and freedom of man’s faculties is - Allfaculty. Only the art that responds to this All-faculty of man is therefore free… And when every barrier has thus fallen, then there are no more arts and no more boundaries, but only Art, the universal, undivided.” In her essay Wagner and the (Re)Mediation of Art, Dutch researcher Krisztina Lajosi interprets this statement as such: “The separate artistic media - music, text, dance, painting, architecture - which represent the different human senses - auditive, visual, and kinesthetic - can only fulfill their original function if they interact in perfect harmony with one another.”13 Wagner saw art as a vehicle to improve society and create true freedom, and theater provided an avenue for the expression of Gesamtkunstwerk by uniting the “separate” arts. Soon, architects would borrow Wagner’s ideas and use architecture to fulfill this purpose. Gottfried Semper, architect and author of the seminal text, The Four Elements of Architecture, met Wagner in Dresden where the two formed a close bond. The pair had radical political ideas and were forced to leave Germany due to a failed uprising in the spring of 1849. Wagner settled in Switzerland and began writing his theories about Gesamtkunstwerk while Semper moved to London where he met Henry Cole and a number of other thinkers who would inspire the Arts and Crafts Movement of the late 1800s. Semper had previously worked at all scales, 12 Lajosi, Wagner and the (Re) Mediation of Art, 45. 13 Lajosi, Wagner and the (Re) Mediation of Art, 44. 14

producing designs for urban development like his plan for the redevelopment of the Ringstrasse in Vienna, major civic structures like the eponymous Semper Opera in Dresden, Germany, and objects like the funeral carriage for the Duke of Wellington. He valued the ideals of total design, and it was through him that Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk was exported to Britain. This happened at a key moment in the history of craftsmanship. Mass production was on the rise as part of the Industrial Revolution that started at the beginning of the century. In 1851, just two years after Semper’s arrival in London, a large exhibition of manufactured goods was held. The Great Exhibition as it came to be known, was staged in the Crystal Palace, a groundbreaking glass and iron building of enormous scale. A celebration of technological advancement, the exhibition was organized by Prince Albert and Henry Cole to showcase Britain’s supposed superiority over the goods produced by other industrialized nations. Cole gave Semper the responsibility of arranging the Turkish and Canadian courts at the exhibition. Working on the exhibit motivated him to write Science, Industry, and Art, an aesthetic critique of industrialization and an attempt to unify the arts with industry. He published this essay in 1952, three years after Wagner published his theories on Gesamtkunstwerk in Artwork of the Future. Semper argued for the abolition of the distinction between applied arts and fine arts, because he believed that industrialization was eroding the integrity of craftwork. Concerned that consumerism was devoid of artistic standards, he feared that craftsmen would be forced to chase fads rather than produce objects of true artistic quality, writing that the craftsman had

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become “slave of the employer and current fashion, which ultimately provides the market for his wares.”14 He also feared that architects’ names would become more important than the quality of their work, and that architecture too would become a slave to popular fashion. In response, he set out to create “practical and widespread possible education of popular tastes,”15 as well as to reform craft schools and inject practical training into the education of architects as a counterpart to their theoretical studies. He wrote, “From the beginning, students must learn to realize that in most cases the drawing is a means to an end, not an end in itself.”16 Concerns about the effect of mechanization on art were widely held, and while many praised the Great Exhibition of 1851 as a success, others were alarmed by the excessive ornamentation and poor construction of many of the goods on display. Even Henry Cole, the impetus of the exhibition, was 14 15 16 17

concerned, and in the years following used his role as the head of the newly established Victoria and Albert Museum to argue for better craft. “Our first and strongest point of faith is, that in order to improve manufactures, the earliest work is, to elevate the Art-Education of the whole people, and not merely to teach artisans [sic], who are the servants of manufacturers, who are themselves the servants of the public.” Cole would even establish a “Chamber of Horrors” within the museum that confronted visitors with objects of so-called “good” and “bad” taste.17 He, like Semper, believed that educating the public on the tenets of craft and design would create consumer demand for objects that he considered good and meaningful. English philosopher John Ruskin was also troubled by the shifts in society and argued for a revival of pre-industrial building practices and styles. In 1849, Ruskin published an extended essay, The

Diephouse, Science, Industry, and Art: Gottfried Semper’s Search for the Juste Milieu, 18. Diephouse, 17. Diephouse, 19. Elena Chestnova, Science, Industry, and Art: Gottfried Semper and the Status of Object in Art Education, 6. 15

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Seven Lamps of Architecture, in which he laid out seven “lamps,” or values that good architecture is expected to meet. In a section titled “The Lamp of Truth,” Ruskin writes, “Architectural Deceits are broadly to be considered under three heads: 1st. The suggestion of a mode of structure or support, other than the true one ; as in pendants of late Gothic roofs. 2nd. The painting of surfaces to represent some other material than that of which they actually consist… or the deceptive representation of sculptured ornament upon them. 3rd. The use of cast or machine-made ornaments of any kind.”18 Ruskin believed that architecture should be honest. His conception of value in architecture came from the quality of the workmanship and the authenticity of the materials used in its creation. The Seven Lamps was published during a period of Gothic Revival architecture in Britain. Builders of the time had a penchant for over ornamentation and employed formal elements of Gothic architecture inappropriately “without regard for structural possibilities or original function.”19 The thread of honesty in architecture was not merely an aesthetic position, but was deeply tied to Ruskin’s religious upbringings. His ideas would become the moral foundation for the Arts and Crafts movement in Britain in the 1860s, and in the 1940s would crystallize along with Gesamtkunstwerk as the basis of the influential Bauhaus school in Germany. The Arts and Crafts movement in Britain came as a strong reaction against industrialization. 18 John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, (London, Century, 1988), 35. 19 The Editors of The Encyclopedia Brittanica, Gothic Revival (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2019). 16

Fig. 03 - Sketches of moulding details fromt the Palazzo Foscari and others, drawn by John Ruskin during his travels.

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Proponents of the movement such as William Morris, sought a revival of traditional building practices and argued for the inclusion of craftwork in architecture. Morris’s personal home, designed in conjunction with architect Phillip Webb and completed in 1860, was a testing grounds for the tenets of the movement. Named the Red House, each element was carefully considered and shaped by hand. Furniture and doors were custom made for the home, and Morris produced wallpapers and fabrics as part of the project. Morris believed that mass produced objects were soulless, and that producing large quantities of an object has a desensitizing effect on its value. However, he and others recognized that the largest barrier to implementing their ideas was the economic forces of the Industrial Revolution. It simply costs more to create unique, custom objects than to produce objects en masse. The tension that emerged in this period between the qualitative concerns of craftwork and the quantitative economic concerns of the new consumer culture would go onto shape the coming decades of design philosophy. In particular, the American Arts and Crafts movement spearhead by Elbert Hubbard would tackle this issue. Hubbard began his career as a soap salesman before founding the Roycroft arts community in Aurora, New York in 1895. Unable to find a publisher for his book, Little Journeys, Hubbard set out to create his own press. Inspired by William Morris’s Kelmscott Press, the Roycroft Press employed traditional book making techniques, and attracted many artists from the area. The press grew into a campus that employed over 500 artisans working in many disciplines. The furniture and artworks created here became incredibly influential on popular American tastes. Numerous architects picked up on the ideals and aesthetics of the Roycrofters and incorporated them into new architectural styles. This was done perhaps most

notably by Frank Lloyd Wright, the preeminent American architect of the era. Frank Lloyd Wright began his own practice in 1893 after a stint working for Louis Sullivan in Chicago. Wright produced total works of architecture, designing furniture, lighting fixtures, and even custom concrete blocks. So thorough was his aesthetic vision that he on more than one occasion designed dresses for the women who would live in the homes he designed. For instance, in the Coonley House, completed in 1912 in Chicago, Illinois, Wright designed a dress for Mrs. Coonley to complement the table service and linens that he created for the home. While the architects of the Arts and Crafts movement did not directly reference Gesamtkunstwerk, their work shows a clear unification of many disciplines and treated architecture as a container for the decorative arts. In 1919, just seven years after the completion of the Coonley House, German architect Walter Gropius founded the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany, using Gesamtkunstwerk as the foundation of the pedagogy of the school. Gropius explicitly applied Wagner’s total work of art to the practice of architecture, theorizing a total architecture in which architects had creative license to design everything. The school had departments for virtually every design and art discipline, offering courses in painting, furniture making, graphic design, sculpture, dance, and more. Gropius believed that architects should be at the center of these disciplines, using buildings to unite every creative effort. This dogma is even expressed in the design of the building that housed the school, in which the architecture studios were placed at the intersection of the entire building. Like many designers before him, Gropius was concerned with the relationship between designers and craftsman. In a manifesto published in 1919 he writes, “The art schools [...] must return 17

A Theory

to the workshop. This world of mere drawing and painting of draughtsmen and applied artists must at long last become a world that builds… Architects, sculptors, painters—we all must return to craftsmanship!”20 The Bauhaus achieved his ideas of cross disciplinary production, with many students and professors producing work outside of their given field. Architect Marcel Breuer, for example, produced the Wassily chair for painter and professor Wassily Kandinsky, a bent metal tube and leather design that had a profound impact on the aesthetics of modern furniture design. Gropius’s ideas are clearly descended from Semper and the Arts and Crafts movement, however they would be manifested in very different ways. While the designers of the Arts and Crafts movement firmly planted themselves in opposition to mass production, the designers who studied at the Bauhaus embraced industrialization as a means for democratizing good design and advancing the

craftwork agenda. This can be seen in an interaction between Gropius and Bauhaus contributor Johannes Itten in 1921—”Itten demanded that the school either produce unique objects or fully enter the ‘outside world’ of mass production. Gropius responded that the two approaches to design should exist side by side in a ‘fusion.’”21 If design has any power to reform society, it must be disseminated to the furthest reaches in order to take hold. Though only open for fourteen years, from 1919-1933, the Bauhaus’s ideas were widely influential. World War II caused many professors and graduates to seek work abroad, with many coming to the United States. Most notably, former Bauhaus directors Walter Gropius took over the Harvard Graduate School of Design while his successor Mies van der Rohe became the dean at the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago. Due to fierce opposition from the Nazi government, the thread of the Bauhaus’s work moved abroad as well, with

20 Walter Gropius, Manifesto of the Staatliches Bauhaus, 1. 21 Mark Wigley, Whatever Happened to Total Design?, (Harvard Design Magazine, 1998), 3. 18

The Generative Detail Fig. 04 - Marcel Breuer reclines in a Wassily chair. Breuer taught architecture and furniture design at the Bauhaus before becoming a leading Brutalist architect in the 1960s.

Scandinavian architects heavily adopting its ideas. Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden produced a generation of prolific architects at this time that employed Gesamtkunstwerk in their practices. Danish designers Finn Juhl, Arne Jacobsen, and Finnish pairs Eliel and Eero Saarinen, and Aino and Alvar Aalto spearheaded a vanguard of designers working in architecture and furniture design simultaneously. The socialist governments of Scandinavia provided fertile ground for designers seeking to democratize design. To that end, the Aaltos established the furniture company Artek, to promote and sell their furniture designs. The Aaltos sought to make high-quality, well-designed furniture accessible and affordable to the masses. Many of their pieces were designed in concert with specific architectural commissions. For example, the famous Stool 60 was created for the Viipuri Library, completed in 1935. Selling the designs through Artek provided economic support to the Aaltos, enabling them to complete total works of art. In the decades that followed the zenith of Gesamtkunstwerk, architects slowly shifted their vision away from the design of small details, to the design of cities and society. They realized that the design of objects and single buildings could not produce the societal reform they sought, so they broadened their vision. In his essay Whatever Happened to Total Design? Mark Wigley describes the phenomenon, “Architects build up steam, as it were, in the domestic interior, break down the walls, and then explode their designs out into the landscape in small fragments — thus they move from designing everything in a single work of architecture to adding a trace of architecture to everything… This pyrotechnic operation, which dominates 20thcentury architecture, is not the destruction of the

interior but rather its expansion out into the street and across the planet. The planet is transformed into a single interior, which needs design. All architecture becomes interior design.”22 Many architects of the time created utopist city plans in which all of society was reshaped in a single vision. Frank Lloyd Wright produced the Broadacre City, a decentralized plan in which every family lived on their own homestead. Le Corbusier produced plans for the Ville Radieuse— the Radiant City—which called for the demolition of existing city districts and replaced them with high rise apartment buildings. While divergent in their aims, both plans redefine Gesamtkunstwerk once again, evolving the phrase from a “total work of art” to a “total architecture” to a “total environment.” Craftsmanship ceased to be the focus of architectural production in the 1960s and 70s, and the aesthetic tendencies of the modern movement eliminated ornamentation, reducing the need for highly skilled labor in building culture. This theoretical position was enforced by economic forces such as rising material and labor costs. Across the 20th century, architecture evolved from the modern movement to the international style, postmodernism, and in the 1990s deconstructivism, none of which concerned themselves with craftsmanship. Rather, the focus of architectural dialogues was placed on issues of building form and historical reference.

RE-INTEGRATING CRAFT In contemporary practice, many members of the architectural community have returned to considering issues related to craft and the separation of architects from physical building

22 Wigley, Total Design?, 3. 19

A Theory Fig. 05 - Steel seam connection detail from NADAAA’s Fabrications Exhibition. Fig. 06 - Drawings exploring the twisting gypsum ceiling for the Daniels Faculty of Architecture by NADAAA.

processes. Architecture schools across the United States have begun design-build programs in which young architects are taught to build structures of their own design. Many firms have adopted design-build business models in which contractors, architects, and engineers work as one company, reducing the distance between the design and construction industries. Other architecture firms are experimenting with new forms of practice aimed at increasing the quality of the built environment while engaging craftspeople directly with the design process, in some instances becoming craftspeople themselves. NADAAA was founded in Boston, Massachusetts by Iranian-American designer Nader Tehrani in 1986 as Office dA. The firm is selfdescribed as a “multi-disciplinary practice dedicated to bridging between design disciplines,” whose work “demonstrates a commitment to new forms of knowledge through making.”23 This dedication to learning by doing is exemplified by the work of the NADLAB, an in-house fabrication shop that conducts research. Each research project begins as an inquisition on a small-scale, whereby discoveries are applied to larger projects over time. Tehrani identifies four acts in this process: the scale model, the installation, the detail, and the mock-up. In his essay Perspective, he describes four projects that explore the structural and experiential properties of folded-plate constructions at each of these scales. The first, Casa La Roca, is a small, private home organized by a “folded” brick wall. The designers explored the project through scale models in which every brick was modeled as a small wood block. This led to the invention of the 23 24 25 26 20

“variable bond,” a brick-laying method that enables the creation of self-supporting planar geometries in brick construction. Of this process of discovery Tehrani writes, “the drawing for the model proved the idea that drawings in the architectural context are not mere illustrative representations, but the first act of construction. That models could pave the way to a dialogue with the world of construction was our first act.”24 Tehrani and his partners, Rodolphe El Khoury and Monica Ponce de Leon, worked in this mode for many of their early projects. Their work with models earned them recognition in the 199_ Progressive Architecture Awards. They received a commission for an installation in the Museum of Modern Art’s Fabrications Exhibition in 19__ for which they produced a large folded plate steel installation. Tehrani described the installation as “still small, but proto-architectural — almost a building, even if only a fragment.”25 The installation, served as a vehicle for expressing larger architectural ideas that would be realized in full buildings later in the firm’s life. The installation was intended to challenge conventional folded steel plate technologies and discover new architectural possibilities. The third act is the detail. Tehrani writes, “the microscopic scale of the detail [is] a center-point of contemplation, where small things stand to change entire constellations of architectural relationships… Within this context, the connection between our small-scale detail experiments have an immediate, and sometimes unmediated, connection to the larger scale work.”26 Tehrani conceives of details not as isolated moments in a building, but rather as the building blocks of systems that aggregate to produce

NADAAA, nadaaa.com Nader Tehrani, Perspectives, (AIA Small Project Practitioners Review, 2015), 27. Tehrani, Perspectives, 27. Tehrani, Perspectives, 27.

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a structure. Tehrani provides as an example the firm’s conceptual proposal for the Thunder Stadium in St. Paul, Minnesota in which a system of deformed shingles was used to define zones of program in the building. Developed through scale models and mock ups, the shingles’ design originated in an idea about the malleability of materials. NADAAA studied these details out of curiosity; their potential use was unclear. This is representative of NADAAA’s commitment to generating “knowledge through making.” Of the fourth act, the mock up, Tehrani writes, “The recently approved roof structure for the University of Toronto DFALD project is maybe the most salient example linking the small project to a large impact… Deemed to be unbuildable, the fullscale fabrication of the mock up within our studio was undertaken unilaterally after the tacit rejection and passive responses of the construction management team on site.” Ultimately, the mockup served to

prove not only that the structure was feasible, but was “also easily achievable enough to save over $500,000.”27 Taking responsibility for the means and methods of construction allowed the design team to advance the design idea and save the client money. NADAAA’s technical ability to produce the twisting roof structure was derived from years of experience studying folded planes in models and mockups. Tehrani writes that this commandeering of means and methods is a “critical aspect of all projects—if only to speculate through making, to involve other trades, crafts, and subs into the process of speculation, and to effectively test out unprecedented architectural scenarios.”28 Other firms, such as Gray Organschi, are exploring the possibilities afforded by engaging with the means and methods of construction. Based out of New Haven, Connecticut, Gray Organschi has also integrated a fabrication shop into their practice. Like NADAAA the firm often uses physical models to explore spatial ideas as well

27 Tehrani, Perspectives, 28. 28 Tehrani, Perspectives, 31. 21

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as to “rehearse the assembly of buildings through detail prototyping and full-scale mock ups.”29 This ability to simulate or rehearse on-site construction processes is valuable in identifying potential conflicts and unforeseen opportunities. For example, when working out the acoustic complexities of Firehouse 12, a music studio and performance space, the firm used material and assembly system prototypes to address the conflicting needs for an acoustically dead space during recording, and reverberant space during public performances. Effectively solving this issue could not be done solely on paper. The tactile and sonic qualities of the program demanded tangible, built studies. Without an in-house workshop, this type of exploration would be impossible. Gray Organschi also advocates for architects taking greater responsibility for the means and methods of construction. In an interview for Constructs, the student publication of Yale’s School of Architecture, principal Lisa Gray says, “In our first ten years working on houses, we learned from construction managing and design-building that we need to design the whole building-delivery process, not just the building form and organization… What do you set in motion when you make a set of drawings—what are you really asking people to do?” Alan Organschi tacks on, “We like to understand the processes so we can manipulate them where possible.”30 Only by understanding the process of construction can architects most effectively bring their ideas into the world. Architects can enter into this dialogue by working directly with craftspeople on projects of a small-scale. For example, Tom Kundig of Seattle-based firm Olson Kundig Architects and the craftsmen of ironmongery Twelfth Avenue Iron came together to

create a line of door hardware. The team utilized simple forms and standard steel shapes to craft the line. The line’s efficiency lends itself to repetition, but clever reinterpretation of standard forms generates a bespoke quality. Speaking about the collaboration, Kundig offers, “There is a bias in architecture in thinking that important architecture is large architecture. But in fact, if you look at the history of architecture, and if you look at some of the better work out there, some of the more influential work, it’s actually small architecture. It’s the architecture of the human body.”31 Human beings are most directly impacted by small architecture. We relate most explicitly to the elements of architecture that are human scaled such as doors and furniture. Attention to small architecture and hand sized beauty is distinctly lacking in contemporary practice.

HAND-SIZED BEAUTY Architecture is not about the container, but rather the objects and activities contained. While large scale issues such as building form and organization impact the ways that we experience space, it is the furnishings, fixtures, and details that compose the most visceral user experience. Doors, chairs, windows, bricks—these operate at the scale of the human body. We can understand them in their entirety and our perception of them grounds us in the reality of the world in a way that, for example, the exterior facade of the 89th floor of a skyscraper—or the 6th floor for that matter—cannot. To understand this issue, let us consider the humble role of the door and its related fixtures, an often ignored set of details in contemporary architecture.

29 Nina Rappaport, Constructs, 3. 30 Rappaport, 3. 31 Tom Kundig, “The Art Of Tom Kundig Collection by 12th Avenue Iron HD,” 0:12-0:26. 22

The Generative Detail

In his book The Eyes of the Skin, Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa writes, “The door handle is the handshake of the building.” Much like handshakes with other human beings, door handles set expectations for the relationship we anticipate having with the space on the other side of the door. Door handles can hold a “talismanic significance” in relation to buildings. Writing of Pallasmaa’s door handle designs, architect Peter Mackeith writes, “a cast bronze, gently curved vertical door pull… contains all the elements, formal principles, and ambitions of an entire building commission.” Doors provide sensory feedback that most building elements do not. Along with the usual visual feedback, doors provide tactile feedback such as the weight of the door, and texture and temperature of the handle, along with sonic feedback such as the sound of latches shifting inside the frame or of a door shutting behind a visitor. This feedback grounds the user in the world. They will have felt the warm and cool spots on the handle from uneven sunlight. They will see the effect of their presence on the handle, reflecting in its aging with touch over time. To better understand the effects of doorways on user experience, let us consider two similar spaces that vary greatly in detail. Commercial restaurant spaces generally occupy similar shoeboxes of space. A fast food restaurant in a strip mall and a local joint on main street are primarily differentiated by the character of their context and the furnishing and detailing of their interiors. For example, consider the experience of entering a pizzeria in a historic neighborhood. Perhaps the doorframe is made of painted wood, carved with small columns. Perhaps it is shaped from stone or features a brick arch laid by hand. Perhaps the door is assembled from carved wood panels and has a wrought-iron handle. Doorways

such as these persist in many American cities, though they are not nearly as common as they once were. Built at a time when mass production was less prevalent, these doorways feature a character and specificity that is not present in standardized constructions found in chain restaurants. Their doorways, in contrast, are much easier to imagine because they are the same as almost every other building built in the past decade. Most likely made of an anodized aluminum frame, they encase large sheets of glass. The handles are most likely simple, bent tubes. The doorway itself is most likely standard within its context; all of its surrounding structures most likely have nearly identical doorways. Now consider for a moment a scenario in which a customer was presented with these two doorways and nothing else. Completely separated from their context, the customer, based on past experience, will assume that behind the first is a local restaurant, featuring food shaped by local culture. They will probably expect the walls to be decorated with idiosyncratic items from nearby and so on. Behind the second door they will expect a commercial, standardized interior. They will have a greater degree of certainty about the quality of the food served, the types of furniture within, and the overall experience. This difference in expectations has nothing to do with the relative characteristics of the materials from which the door is made, or the aesthetics or age of each entryway. There are plenty of ugly doors which have been handmade from high quality materials. Rather, it is the distinction between the specific and the universal that signals the user. In the context of the restaurant industry, mass produced doorways, chairs, and tables, signify to the user that the food within will meet an acceptable standard that is consistent across geographical locations. Generally, they also signify that the experience will be 23

A Theory

reliably good, but is most likely not going to aspire to the highest levels of quality. Unique doorways and furniture on the other hand, signify a greater level of risk and reward. They signify that the restaurant is seeking to create an experience with specificity, rather than seeking universal appeal. Homogeneity is safe, but rewards little.

CONCLUSION One might argue that contemporary architecture is devoid of craft because it no longer relies on skilled labor and handcraft to produce buildings. In this view, an example of a well-crafted building might be a Gothic cathedral in which each stone was cut and laid by hand, and every surface was articulated by the decorative arts. However, buildings do not have to be handmade in order to be considered well-crafted; in fact, machines possess greater capacities for precision and efficiency than human hands. Theoretically, digital fabrication technology could carve the David in half the time with the same level of detail. Therefore, the lack of hand-sized beauty in contemporary architecture cannot be blamed on the lack of skilled labor or appropriate tools. Furthermore, due to globalization, we have access to virtually every material, natural or processed, on the planet. We have a greater capacity than ever before to create tailored, beautiful, high quality objects. Therefore, The absence of handsized beauty is due to a lack of will or attention from architects. Craftsmanship is precise, thorough, and sees opportunity for expression in every aspect of an artifact. It can be applied to large acts like the pouring of a concrete slab, or to small acts like the placement of a screw. Architects practice craftsmanship by reinterpreting normal uses for 32 Pallasmaa, Hapticity and Time, 4. 24

materials, by exercising detail thinking throughout the design process, and by creating moments in which users can see and experience the effort that has gone into producing a work of architecture. Architects practice craftsmanship when they create “elegant but always functional solutions to problems of whatever kind.” To do so, architects ought to challenge their preconceived notions of architectural elements, seeking to bring beauty to the functional, and function to the beautiful. There are two clear strategies for employing this approach to architecture. The first relies on the design of custom elements. This strategy has a close relationship to traditional notions of craft. The character of the aforementioned Gothic cathedral comes from the unique characteristics of its custom elements. Value is closely related to rarity and individuality. The second strategy embraces mass production and finds opportunity for individuality within its uniformity. To do so, architects must think at the scale of the detail. Consider Aalto’s words, “…a building has to be conceived from inside outwards, that is, the small units and details with which a person is engaged form a kind of framework, a system of cells, which eventually turns into the entity of the building.”32 What would happen if architecture was created in this way? How would the aggregate craftsmanship of a building’s smallest parts affect it’s overall quality? Can detail truly generate large scale decisions in architecture? This kind of architecture begins with hand sized beauty, and allows hand sized beauty to radiate out to the rest of the space. Space is defined by detail first, and building form and organization are understood by their details.

The Generative Detail

B PRECEDENT

The following case studies were undertaken to explore why certain details were created. The following buildings allow detail thinking to radiate out to the rest of the design and influence large scale decisions.

B Precedent

01. SCHOOL in ORSONNENS TEd’A Arquitectes A sculptural timber column sits at the heart of this school’s atrium. Each member of the column bends away from itself to form a square opening for a skylight. This design originated from a need for economy, in which four small members was more affordable and easier to install than one large member. This created the opportunity to express the concrete base of the column below and to create the skylight above.

Fig. 07. - Above - The school sits on a hilltop in rural Switzerland. Fig. 08 - Right - The interior finishes are unstained pine, displaying an attitude of frugality. Fig. 09 - Following - The concrete base is sculpted to receive the column’s different members. 28

Precedent

The Generative Detail

The Hands of an Architect

B Precedent

Precedent

The Generative Detail

The Hands of an Architect

B Precedent

02. CHILDREN’S VILLAGE Estudio Gustavo Utrabo The school takes advantage of Brazil’s temperate weather to create an open-air education “village.” The structure of the building must adapt to these conditions and take advantage of local materials that are readily available. The designers address economy by using an undersized member as the center of the column that is braced by standardized lumber where it is most needed.

Right - The column details create an elegant solution to heavy rainfall. Fig. 10 - Facing - Downspouts are carefully integrated into the design of the school. 32

Precedent

The Generative Detail

The Hands of an Architect

B Precedent

03. FABRICATION PAVILION RURAL STUDIO Built by a team of four students in rural Alabama, the design had to adapt to the materials and tools at hand. The designers created a clever construction system that used standardized pieces of lumber to create columns and trusses. A clear example of the generative detail, the connection detail drawn to the right is used at every important connection and generates a system that defines the pavilion.

Right - Boards interlock and are bolted together to create the construction system. Fig. 11 - Facing - The pavilion creates a covered area for mockups and prefabrication. 34

Precedent

The Generative Detail

The Hands of an Architect

C PRACTICE

C Practice

The Generative Detail

the FREEWHEELER MICRO-HOTEL 39

C Practice

What makes a good, urban building in downtown Auburn, Alabama? There has been a long-running debate about the height of buildings in the city of Auburn since the city introduced a new maximum height ordinance in 2015. However, height is not the primary issue with the downtown buildings completed in the last five years. Poor construction, uniformity, and mass are the main problems at play. The city’s zoning code states that “Building height shall not exceed 75 feet measured from grade to the top of the roof structure.” This, in combination with expansive parking requirements causes developers to extend new buildings uniformly to the maximum height. Other ordinances strictly regulate material usage and glazing percentages, leaving designers little room to be creative. The sum effect is the creation of massive student housing blocks that look nearly identical for blocks at a time. If the height limit is not the issue, what other factors might guide development in Auburn?

City zoning allows for a maximum floor-to-area (FAR) ratio of 8.5 in the urban core. This is a very generous allowance that displays the city’s desire for density and by extension walkability within the city. However, under the current height restriction, the maximum FAR is unattainable. Another factor that might influence building height is the relationship of new buildings to local landmark, Samford Hall. The site section below shows the relationship between the chosen project site, an existing twostory building built in 1910, and Samford Hall on the left side of the page. Samford’s height might offer a possible benchmark for future development in the city. The diagrams on the following page were undertaken to understand the architectural impact of maximizing the FAR and reaching a similar height to Samford Hall. This was the basis of a feasibility study for a new downtown micro hotel.

The Generative Detail

Scenario 01 - Full extrusion of existing building. Typical floor area - 3,454 sq. ft. Max area allowed by FAR - 40,971 sq. ft. 40,971/3,454 = 11.7 floors allowed

Scenario 02 - 5ft. Setback on southern edge to allow glazing. Typical floor area - 2,930 sq. ft. 40,971/2,930 = 12.75 floors allowed

Scenario 03 - 10ft. Setback on west edge to allow terrace.

Program Distribution

Typical floor area - 2,650 sq. ft. 40,971/2,930 = 14.1 floors allowed

10 floors of hotel units are sandwiched between a roof terrace above and coworking floor below. The tower rests on top of hotel lobby and services contained in the existing base.

C Practice

AUBURN

The Generative Detail

OPELIKA

Why a Micro Hotel? This map shows the distribution of hotels around the Auburn-Opelika region. Hotels are primarily clustered around intersections between major highways and Interstate-85 which runs east-west along the bottom of the map. There are two hotels within downtown Auburn. However, bringing more hotel space to the city will increase density and contribute to Auburnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vibrant culture.

C Practice

Opeli

y. ka Hw

HISTORIC TRAIN DEPOT

PROPOSED TRAIN STATION

THE FREEWHEELER 120 keys

Gay St.

College St.

Glenn Ave.

Magnolia Ave.

SAMFORD HALL Thach Ave.

COLLEGIATE HOTEL 40 keys

AUBURN HOTEL 225 keys

The Generative Detail

Above - The existing western facade of the Freewheeler building. Facing - Auburn university, shown in solid yellow, intersects with the city’s Urban Core along College St. and Magnolia Ave.

Why the Freewheeler? Built in the early 1900s, the Freewheeler building is one of Auburn’s last buildings of that age. The structure sits at the end of Auburn’s Urban Core (UC) district close to a proposed passenger train station. Visitors to the hotel would be able to arrive by train, and walk to all of their engagements within the city.

Building at a high density of rooms will add one third more hotel rooms to the city in an efficient and dense manner without adding large parking lots within the urban core.

C Practice

The Generative Detail

A system of shutters and facade panels wraps the hotel and mediates between the hotelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interior and exterior conditions. Based off a standard cut of lumber, the texture and pattern of the solid wood panel is replicated in the board formed concrete panel. The panels are aggregated according to the solar conditions of the facade, with primarily wooden

shutters on the southern face and fixed concrete panels on the northern side. A gradient of concrete and wood is used on the short east and west facades, where a balance of opacity and transparency is desired. Above - The panels are based off a 2x6x10â&#x20AC;&#x2122;-6â&#x20AC;? board. Facing - The view from college street on the southwest.

The Generative Detail

C Practice

Facing North from Toomerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Corner Toomerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Corner is the heart of the city. The micro hotel contrasts in height and mass with new mixed use structures in the city, like 191 College shown on the left side of the image. Rather than extruding a massive footprint to moderate height, the Micro Hotel doubles down on height while employing a much small footprint to achieve a similar level of density of use. The facade of the Freewheeler is animated by its occupants use of the shutters, changing the character of the building over time.

The Generative Detail

C Practice

The Generative Detail

Approaching Auburn from Atlanta by Train As the tallest building on the northern edge of the urban core, the Freewheeler becomes a new landmark for the city. Passengers approaching the city from Atlanta will be greeted by the Hotel shortly before arriving at the train station. The northern facade is directly on the property line. As such, there it cannot be animated by glazing and shutters. Rather it is animated by the alternation of textured and smooth concrete panels with small openings that bring light into the egress stairs and elevator lobbies.

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION C Practice

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION

The Micro Unit

The hotel units are half the size of traditional hotel rooms and prioritize space for storage, sleep, and showers. A counter-height ledge wraps around the room uniting the separate functions of the space. The interior finish mirrors the patterning and texture of the facade, changing from wooden boards in dry areas to concrete “boards” in the wet space.

Above - Unit floor plans and interior elevation nts. Facing - Interior perspective at unit entry.

The Generative Detail

C Practice

Transverse Section nts.

SK STUDENT VERSION

The Generative Detail

Section Perspective at Lobby nts. Stepping of the buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s form creates long, narrow skylights. Hotel services are located on the ground floor, with a mezzanine lounge for guests. 55

SK STUDENT VERSION

C Practice

The Generative Detail

Longitudinal Section nts.

PRODUCED BY AN AUTOD