Assignment
One Exercise One
research space
122 2
12r
abv.
Webdings is a TrueType dingbat typeface developed in 1997. It was initially distributed with Internet Explorer 4.0, then as part of Core fonts for the Web, and is included in all versions of Microsoft
Windows since Windows 98. All of the Webding glyphs that are not unifiable with existing Unicode characters were added to the Unicode Standard when version 7.0 was released in June 2014. 3
research space
Exercise Space Interface Space As computational interfaces become more sophisticated and more deeply integrated, we architects ask the question: What would happen if, given the chance, architects could fully integrate our workflows? Throughout the 2010s the discipline allowed such an experiment to take place. Its most extreme version was in the radical pedagogical experiment that took place in Los Angeles inside a downtown WeWork, where architecture students and faculty were able to practice as if interacting with architecture itself as a medium.
This form of unmediated interface, what some call non-synthetic practice or, simply, analogous practice, formed the basis of some of the recreated exercises to follow. It is still unclear, as NDAs and ongoing legal matters prevent access to the deepest layers of the school’s compositional infrastructure, whether the experiment was ever intended to succeed. We can however see some of the firsthand documentation through which architecture came to know itself. -curator Jesse Gates
rgt.
4
Three gifs of possible interfaces found Online. The virtual objects allow a direct hand interface with the computational control service they describe. Ranging, Sliding, and Knobbing, formats just outside of reach.
5
student handbook
6
12r
7
organization space
Curriculum Diagram An important document recovered from the solid state hard drives of the new architecture school’s servers was just one of many network diagrams illustrating the school’s curricular construction. While the diagram references Bauhaus curricular diagrams the new architecture school’s curriculum was never constructed in its totality. The total curriculum, though popular in discourse at the school was never fully adopted. It is believed Totalization never took on because of its potential to lead the pedagogy away from analogous practice.
8
Despite the need to present a clear picture in order for students to best prepare for what is to come in their architectural curriculum, Totalization was found to reproduce existing canon, for the formation of architecture as building practice much like it has been previously. While Totalization was popular at the school for its utility in the creation and coordination of expertise, and for its ability to allow students to scale shift amsll acts into entire worlds, totality as a practice was harder to utilize.
As students worked through total projects into analogous projects, the conversation shifted from “this is everything” to “this is like that” forming a more foundational approach to the pedagogy. The Network Diagram opposite negotiates assignments, concepts, worlds, and provocations as equal members in an interconnected curriculum focused on movement through the student’s course over a stable and singular machine for the production of degrees.
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A network curriculum concepts, and worlds as big, diagram from one of the file flat, and present formations servers after still available the to move through. school’s closing. The network diagram communicated a student’s curriculum as vector through assignments, provocations, 9
provocations
Something that changes our way of seeing the institution must be more important than something that changes our way of seeing architecture. 10
11
provocations
Your role is to find out what the international avant-garde is doing, to take part in the critical development of its program, and to call for its support. 12
13
provocations
We call attention to the need to undertake effective ideological action in order to combat the emotional influence of advanced capitalist methods of propaganda; on every occasion and by every hyper-political means. - Guy Debord 14
15
proposals
Put a robot arm on every student’s desk As culture shifts in unprecedented directions in the 21st Century, pedagogy shall too shift; to begin to expand some of the potential spaces for architecture and design within the new lifestyle. How will architecture schools come to know themselves in a world where global pandemics reformat spaces around “social distance,” where for profit universities like The University of Phoenix allow applicants to claim college credit for “relevant life experience” prior to their enrollment in a degree program, or forms of ultra-fast safe investment
*
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See Jack Self’s essay: The Only Task for Architecture, for an actionable plan for using architecture as a trojan horse strategy to bring about the end of private property.
flexible space and the financial upheaval of the 2019 Make America Depressed Again Recession interrupted the school’s ability to support its students and faculty as they pivoted to private industry for jobs and education. The curatorial project at hand asks us to consider what an alternative interface with architecture as a medium might look like. In other words, if you had a robot arm on your This was the mission desk, what would you do with of the new architecture school it? What if you put a robot as it existed during its brief arm on every student’s desk? What could they achieve? experiment. The downfall of WeWork interrupted the school’s supply of available bring about the end of private property through mass adoption of the centennial corporate bond underwriting numerous affordable housing projects?* As architecture schools come to be restructured by the forces around them a sufficiently radical pedagogy would logically come to relevance within a world changing at profound speed.
rgt.
Two pleasing and unnerving office proposals. In top, a workspace is set up within Wikileaks’ nuke proof Banhof Data Center. In below, large fishtanks provide lively partitions between workspace.
working space
17
Assignment
One Exercise Two
assignment space
Project One Mouse When you click your mouse who clicks their mouse also? How can one construct a model of connection between one’s self and the collective? Make a model of you mouse. Remake your mouse. Change its materials. Make it again. Make it five times five different ways. What changes? What stays the same? Deliverables: 5x models of your mouse 1:1 scale. These models may investigate: • form and shape/feel • color and materials • assembly and componentry 1x new model for a mouse at 1:1 scale investigating connection between users, interfaces, or energies. Notes may be sketched in the exercise book pages opposite.
4
/multiple /model /1:1
abv.
Stewart Brand (born December 14, 1938) is an American writer, best known as editor of the Whole Earth Catalog. The Whole Earth Catalog implied an ideal of human progress that depended on decentralized, personal,
and liberating technological development—so‑called “soft technology”.
The Magic Mouse is a multitouch mouse that is manufactured and sold by Apple. The Magic Mouse is the first consumer mouse to have multi-touch capabilities.
5
assignment space
Project Two Universal Space Mies Van Der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion has been discussed as creating a form of “Universal Space.” Whether as an object facilitating a glimpse into the architect’s projective space, or as a political object capable of dethroning a monarch - the Pavilion is no doubt a powerful object. What is today’s universal space and how might we come to create such spaces in the world? Are these projective objects works of fiction? How might we come to design democratic objects today, using contemporary resources like the Internet to our advantage? Would such an object be Online? Deliverables: Strategic Plan for the creation of an institution which could facilitate a universal space. Create documentation around either architectural drawings or the working prototype of a digital interface.
6
/platform /web /community
abv.
Mies Van Der Rohe’s Barcelo- Paperspace by Galo Canizares updates and features to come na Pavilion as photographed www.officeca.space (when I have more time).” by Jeff Wall. “While you’re quarantined, head over to officeca.space and draw something with anonymous friends. Paperspace™ is a #wip collaborative drawing app. More 7
assignment space
Project Three Part A: Color The Institution has been often identified by its use of shades of light gray in the products it uses for its architectural and working surfaces. Collect these materials in a dossier. How do you structure your collection? Are you collecting samples? Digital photos? Stock images? How are these colors used? What colors do architects work around/on/with? Use your research to begin to design a table for the exhibition of your work. How does your surface affect your architectural artifacts? How does the institution come to know itself through the surfaces we work around/on/with?
8
/dossier /table /1:10
9
assignment space
Project Three Part B: Palette You are given a grasshopper script with multiple color interfaces and a live preview of a set of geometry. Use the interface and create a color palette on the sample drawing and take a large screenshot of the picture. (Each student will have the same picture, but the colors will be different.) This interface allows you to build a set of colors working together to form a palette. What worlds might you make with this palette tool? Are your chosen colors related? Distant? Connected? Independent? Are different colored parts of your picture different objects, or they effects of an atmosphere? Write the names of your colors. How do you verbalize a color? Red, Green, Blue? Rouge, Verdant, Azure? Moon Dust, Neon, Ballistics?
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/image /screenshot /5700x3900
abv.
Color Palettes and samples from Nike Shoes.
11
assignment space
Project Four Miniature Choose a significant event from the lore of architecture school. Examine its evidence from every angle, know the stories, speak to the witnesses, collect the available images. Considering the evidence you’ve gathered begin to build a 1:48 scale model of the event. Include all events as a combined moment. Make sure to include images from the event in your diorama. Once you have your core events established begin to arrange them together within a larger model of the school. Begin the architectural act of projection by building out the remaining space of the school to complete your iconic event. Every space is important so fill it with scale actors, get to know their actions, their intentions, and their attentions. Model more people and fill up the model until it is about to burst with the energy of your event.
12
/model /vitrine /1:48
abv.
Thomas Demand’s 1996 Zeichensaal (Drafting Room) depicts an alternative and extreme world made of paper. Its activation is in the recreation of a spirit through the fabrication of a feeling.
The Chapman Brothers also take the creation of worlds to their extreme ends. Somehow making something smaller makes it more extreme.
13
assignment space
Project Five Type into Type If typographers can take a floor plan (Christ and Gentanbein’s Volta Mitte for example) and extract the underlying possibility for a typeface, then we as architects should be able to take a type specimen to use as the formal basis for a plan. Choose a typeface and begin to type letters at large scale (at least 144pt.) Outline these letters and arrange them on a site. Be sure to understand your letters relationships to another; leading, kerning, tracking, grid alignment, baseline shift, serif and sans. As you begin to organize the letters and their adjacent charges, begin to plan out the interior spaces through the use of typologies; gallery, corridor, central void, enfilade, piloti, figural poche. Feel free to replace and recombine your letters on the site according to their interior typology.
14
/typology /drawing /144pt
abv.
Christ and Gantanbien’s Volta Mitte project strikes a strong pose, flexing for the architectural viewer. This is not the aim of the assignment, though a legitimate product of it.
Below Sungwon Chang’s Volta typeface uses plan fragments from the above complex to create an ordering system for a new typeface.
15
assignment space
Project Six Ambidexterity Using your Leap Motion hand gesture recognition device as input, construct a gesture library for your own use and to make accessible via open source. We often speak of architectural acts as gestures. Perhaps we can link the hand to the architectural object in a more handsome manner through gesture recognition. Collect and index your own library of hand gestures on a set of cards to begin to build a deck. These cards can be played in order, shuffled, combined, and reordered to begin to build gesture games and arrangements for your architectural productions. Are your gestures handed or ambidextrous? How could a gesture use one hand, or another, or both? How can these gestures begin to result in architectural objects; in the computer or out on the table?
16
/interface /catalog /hands-free
abv.
Tauba Auerbach’s works Altar/Engine (abv) and The New Ambidextrous Universe III (blw) work through the ideas intersecting ideas, geometry, gesture, object, and configuration.
Their present configuration reveals their latent potential to be reconfigured and reassessed. The seamless pattern implies an ambidexterity and unbounding beyond the object. 17
Assignment
One Exercise Three
assignment space
Project One Mouse When you click your mouse who clicks their mouse also? How can one construct a model of connection between one’s self and the collective? Make a model of you mouse. Remake your mouse. Change its materials. Make it again. Make it five times five different ways. What changes? What stays the same? Deliverables: 5x models of your mouse 1:1 scale. These models may investigate: • form and shape/feel • color and materials • assembly and componentry 1x new model for a mouse at 1:1 scale investigating connection between users, interfaces, or energies. Notes may be sketched in the exercise book pages opposite.
2
/multiple /model /1:1
working space
1:1 3
assignment space
Project Two Universal Space Mies Van Der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion has been discussed as creating a form of “Universal Space.” Whether as an object facilitating a glimpse into the architect’s projective space, or as a political object capable of dethroning a monarch - the Pavilion is no doubt a powerful object. What is today’s universal space and how might we come to create such spaces in the world? Are these projective objects works of fiction? How might we come to design democratic objects today, using contemporary resources like the Internet to our advantage? Would such an object be Online? Deliverables: Strategic Plan for the creation of an institution which could facilitate a universal space. Create documentation around either architectural drawings or the working prototype of a digital interface. Notes should be sketched in the exercise pages opposite.
4
/platform /web /community
working space
Community 5
assignment space
Project Three Part A: Color The Institution has been often identified by its use of shades of light gray in the products it uses for its architectural and working surfaces. Collect these materials in a dossier. How do you structure your collection? Are you collecting samples? Digital photos? Stock images? How are these colors used? What colors do architects work around/on/with? Use your research to begin to design a table for the exhibition of your work. How does your surface affect your architectural artifacts? How does the institution come to know itself through the surfaces we work around/on/with? Notes should be sketched in the exercise pages opposite. Physical models of the table should be presented along with the work being presented.
6
/dossier /table /1:10
working space
1:10 7
assignment space
Project Three Part B: Palette You are given a grasshopper script with multiple color interfaces and a live preview of a set of geometry. Use the interface and create a color palette on the sample drawing and take a large screenshot of the picture. (Each student will have the same picture, but the colors will be different.) This interface allows you to build a set of colors working together to form a palette. What worlds might you make with this palette tool? Are your chosen colors related? Distant? Connected? Independent? Are different colored parts of your picture different objects, or they effects of an atmosphere? Write the names of your colors. How do you verbalize a color? Red, Green, Blue? Rouge, Verdant, Azure? Moon Dust, Neon, Ballistics? Color can be applied to the exercise pages opposite. 8
/image /screenshot /5700x3900
working space
5700x3900 9
assignment space
Project Four Miniature Choose a significant event from the lore of architecture school. Examine its evidence from every angle, know the stories, speak to the witnesses, collect the available images. Considering the evidence you’ve gathered begin to build a 1:48 scale model of the event. Include all events as a combined moment. Make sure to include images from the event in your diorama. Once you have your core events established begin to arrange them together within a larger model of the school. Begin the architectural act of projection by building out the remaining space of the school to complete your iconic event. Every space is important so fill it with scale actors, get to know their actions, their intentions, and their attentions. Model more people and fill up the model until it is about to burst with the energy of your event. Notes may be sketched in the exercise pages opposite.
10
/model /vitrine /1:48
working space
1:48 11
assignment space
Project Five Type into Type If typographers can take a floor plan (Christ and Gentanbein’s Volta Mitte for example) and extract the underlying possibility for a typeface, then we as architects should be able to take a type specimen to use as the formal basis for a plan. Choose a typeface and begin to type letters at large scale (at least 144pt.) Outline these letters and arrange them on a site. Be sure to understand your letters relationships to another; leading, kerning, tracking, grid alignment, baseline shift, serif and sans. As you begin to organize the letters and their adjacent charges, begin to plan out the interior spaces through the use of typologies; gallery, corridor, central void, enfilade, piloti, figural poche. Feel free to replace and recombine your letters on the site according to their interior typology.
12
/typology /drawing /144pt
working space
144 pt. 13
assignment space
Project Six Ambidexterity Using your Leap Motion hand gesture recognition device as input, construct a gesture library for your own use and to make accessible via open source. We often speak of architectural acts as gestures. Perhaps we can link the hand to the architectural object in a more handsome manner through gesture recognition. Collect and index your own library of hand gestures on a set of cards to begin to build a deck. These cards can be played in order, shuffled, combined, and reordered to begin to build gesture games and arrangements for your architectural productions. Are your gestures handed or ambidextrous? How could a gesture use one hand, or another, or both? How can these gestures begin to result in architectural objects; in the computer or out on the table?
14
/interface /catalog /hands-free
working space
hands-free 15