GENERAL COMMENTARIES year 4 students: Dear all!, First of all, I really want to thank you all for your marvellous hand in and for the extremely useful participation in the cross commentaries session. My second commentary is trying to help you to develop a more specific vulnerable-community designs. It is time to choose 6 different members of the selected community, and analyse through design one significant action that link them to your previous design collection. This simple selection of 6 different people is going to be a brilliant way to zooming into the design answering questions such as details, construction, functioning, materiality, protocols of use, energy and good consumption, structure and many more subjects. In next GENERAL SESSION, scheduled on Wednesday the 19 th, you are going to show our 6 design developments and you are going to describe more accurately two different significant actions* of your community members focusing in the performance between the actor (human, animal, object, plant.... etc) and the design. This is going to be the starting point of our ZOETROPE ADVENTURE. you are going to describe more accurately two different significant actions* : in order to be able to explain it properly, we suggest you to produce an story board containing 3, 5 or 15 frames. The amount of frames is related to the number of images we need in order to recreate the natural movement of our actors into the spaces that you are creating. The second part of the session will be dedicated in giving different task to all of us to start building the ZOETROPE that will be used for all of your tests. During the construction process, we are also going to improve the ZOETROPE system to augment the number of frames, and to include more MEDIAS in the final result. Here is pasted a link to a very good set of instructions to build a very professional one. Please, have a look and like that we will be able to discuss about the difficulties and the improvements in a more effective way. http://www.v27.org/files/Get%20Animated%20Zoetrope.htm After this intro, I continue with the commentaries following the student list order. YEAR 4 1- AKMAL: a- 3d nutrition pyramid: first of all congratulation for the huge improvement of the nutritional pyramid concept. I think this is an exceptional opportunity tu jump into an even more efficient 3d storage space in which food products cannot only be storage, but as well cultivated and maintained alive (full of vitamins!) till just before we eat them. Imagine that as most of the market fruits are not ripe enough, we are going to offer a natural sunlight space for ripen them. Once they are perfectly ripen we can eat or storage...... are we going to allow others to eat the products we are not going to be able to eat before expiring date? Imagine what effect the future shortage of animal proteins is going to produce in our diet, and concept of comfort and culinary tradition. Do you know that insects are going to be the protein provider?. http://www.vidafine.com/blog/2009/10/philips-design-probe-biosphere-farming/ Are we talking of a little wardrobe or about a new-kitchen-space-and-concept? b- butterfly in my stomach: can we think about a little device that using it's thermal energy could move according to our needs? Can you think about the components and materials it is composed of? Can you start drawing some details regarding fabrics, herbs storage, heating systems, ecological energy consumption?----etc It is a piece that can only be used individually?, can we use it in pairs?, mother and sons, couples...etc? c- Reflect-xology: simply perfect. It would be marvellous if you increase your knowledge about feet reflexology and shoe industry?, do you remember (probably you were not born yet!) the Reebok pump air?? http://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&q=reebok+pump+air&um=1&ie=UTF8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1366&bih=681
d- Head-gear: this device is extremely useful! I'm going to try myself!, and makes me think about a wonderful contemporary US Musician called Alvin Lucier, who composed several pieces for human alpha waves in 1965: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIPU2ynqy2Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q73ZbDhQsb4 http://alucier.web.wesleyan.edu/ e- cuptopus: As with all the previous examples, this is a perfect starting point for an astonishing year, now is time to little by little improve design and the efficiency of it by increasing the knowledge about the subject, in this case, the techniques and real benefits that lay underneath the traditional medical procedure. My only recommendation is to enrich the scale diversity of the proposals, to jump into inhabitable spaces, urban scales....etc. Congratulations! 2- KAOWEN: a- relocation: marvellous departure!. I'm willing to know which are the specific spaces for the everyday activities every human need to do to survive, and the everyday activities the royal family does. How those spaces are going to be transform?, are they going to take into consideration the sustainable parameters of the moment? Are those spaces going to held the next generation? This is also the perfect opportunity to discuss and project taking into account the future concept of comfort, that for sure is going to evolve enormously in the next years. b- cultural exchange: this subject is extremely rich and complex! But at the moment, it is far too theoretical to be able to suggest you any specific recommendation. First of all, I would start working by short-listing the most interesting relics to be taken as part of the cultural exchanges, and to look for valuable royal contributions to exchange for. Both constraints would give you clues about the spaces that both programmes required, techniques, technological approach, etc. I copy paste some link to one of the best coordinated multi placed even of my life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCx5bx-qtJQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnY83VTHSTM&feature=relmfu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5jw9lmAZNE&feature=related c- commercialization: have you never think before that their everyday life consist on a Hollywood set chopped in many little components? Enumerate, with a very professional attitude, the amount of people, materials, energy consumption, spaces, means of transport involved is going to be determinant in this project. d- privatisation: again, congratulations for this new zooming into the royal-reality. But in order to make this part of the project accessible (in terms of effort and timing) and your life easier as well, I would focus in only one specific location/place/property/space of their immense patrimony. And start thinking, through design and research, over it. 3- PAUL LEADER-WILLIAMS: First of all, I would like to congratulate you for the super relevant community selection. This situation is a mayor concern nowadays and we should react properly to improve everyone life. In any case, I think that in your case, you should establish some proper definition of the different targets you are working for. Technostress is affecting people in many different environments: workers and volunteer users, fixed users or moving ones, ciber-natives or ciberilliterates. Although at the moment Izaskun and I are asking people to choose a very small part of the vulnerable community, in your case, I would strongly recommend you to select one member of all the different sub vulnerable communities belonging to the main category, and propose designs for them focusing in the specific significant actions each one has. a&b- life support, health: taking into consideration the previous suggestion I would start by describing the everyday activities those Technostressed members do (the natural ones and the technological ones). And I will focus my efforts in try to balance them according to the leading activity of the set. –
Main: having dinners with friends/eating/drinking/toilet/checking artificial components with the android application residual: sending e-mailes/checking facebook/looking for plans (communal or individual)/talking with parents with telephone....
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Main: cultural stroll in museums/looking for information about the artist/recording coming related activities in the digital calendar residual: taking pictures, sending e-mailes/checking facebook/......
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Main: studding in university/library/internet researching/ residual: dating/sending e-mailes/checking
facebook/...... –
Main: grand parents skyping with grandsons/daughters abroad residual: drinking, eating, talking, smoking/sending e-mailes/checking facebook/working......
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Main: working at the office/ pc work, residual: drinking, eating, talking, smoking/sending e-mailes/checking facebook/......
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Main: toilet residual: drinking, eating, telephone talking, smoking/sending e-mailes/checking facebook/......
c- accident prevention: Can you think about the components and materials it is composed of? Can you start drawing some details regarding fabrics, herbs storage, heating systems, ecological energy consumption?----etc d- social interaction: I'm very happy with the inhabitable capacity of this design, but in any case I would never reduce the spatial interest to the minimum. We have to take into consideration that the sub community members your have as clients are coming from very different backgrounds, ages and skills. The space you have been thinking about is more close to the teenagers-escaping-from-parents requirements than to rest of them. Could we eat in this place? Looking for a more enriching environment (it can be a shelter as you propose, but a well a place that produce an effect in the activity you are going to do)..... so, Imagine that in order to have wonderful-intimate skype conversations you provide spaces at the Nathiona Gallery allowing the user to choose the painting she/he wants as background. And what about tele-ciber-dining in Kew Gardens' green houses? And in the lions' zoo cage? e- intervention: It is very funny to think about the use this virus might have. For example, is it going to be part of the against-drugs policies? What is the virus going to propose you as an alternative activity? Is the user who is going to establish the time limits of her/his connections? Or is the boss who hire an enterprise to correct workers behaviours? The limit between dictatorship or education might be very thin....... 5- CLAIRE: Dear Claire, the six design collection is a real success. All of them are full of interest and sensibility, and the thing that is more important at the moment, full of development possibilities! Nevertheless, I would like to invite you consider two recommendations to improve the efficiency of your project, and therefore, to reach your goals: a- I would strongly recommend you to select one member of all the different sub vulnerable communities belonging to the main category, and propose designs for them focusing in the specific significant actions each one has. b- I would try to diversify a little bit more the scales of the designs. Most of them can be included in the “furniture” scale category, and I think that some of your design cases are going to reach their potential while transforming their scale into a medium size one, becoming components/spaces of the inhabitable landscapes of the vulnerable community. a- park bench: one of the most incredible experience I've ever had in London was to be using a gym machine at Finsbury park open air gym together with a Muslim woman wearing burka! Till that moment, I've never though about this possibility...... a Muslim woman wearing burka working out in a gym? Again reality is even more complex than our imagination. And that means as well that most of the people need are not attended in our cities. So, to think about a park bench that can allow someone to drink a tea, while others exercise, and others talk with people who are 12000km away, and others talk in a privet environment, that can export freedom attitudes everywhere, that can control the level of humidity, temperature and light...... well, we need them! b- balcony baskets: if you focus in your clients as I suggest you in my first paragraph, I’m sure this little project is going to have a main role and repercussion in our urban landscapes and configurations. Who produce them? Which are the techniques? Which are the materials?, who water them in England's dry times? Can we interchange them? Is it going to have an space repercussion or influence in our kitchen spaces??? what happens with the food that nobody eats? And with the organic wastes? c- library: where in the house this library might appears?, can we stick some of them?, can we think/design some details describing the materials, joints, people's customization...etc? d- light carpet: taking into consideration that London weather is not so sunny, does it means that we are going to have a digital window implement??? is it going to produce shadows that transcript messages that others send us? http://frikingenieria.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/varini-el-arte-de-jugar-con-la-perspectiva/ http://siobhanogg.wordpress.com/2010/10/16/perspective-art-for-navigation/ e- trail: What makes this path special? Which is the differences from the ones we already have in Hampstead Heath or Finsbury Park? Is it only existing in green areas? Or it is may be existing as well in indoors areas (V&A)? Is it fix? Or we
can propose an produce temporary-secret paths with specific interest? f- not-so-secret-staircases: I want to see the next step! Congratulations again! 6- MEGAN TOWNSEND: a- market stall: This design is extremely useful to re-discover the potential of an stall, and the many different uses it can assume to make our life better. Is it useful to storage the food, or only for selling it?, is the fruit and vegetables continue their growing process while exposed? Can the goods ripe naturally? Is the stall only an envelope? Where is the seller?, does It has a motor? Which is the maximum load it can have? b-milk station: At the moment, you have already make a wonderful approach to the urban-farm scale. But in order to increase the urban adaptation and the efficiency of the symbiotic relationship, I invite you to continue enlarge the context description and the agents might become part of the project. It can contain thoughts about the milk container, about the organic-kitchen waste we produce, about the cows welfare state, about the economic relationship among the little-city-farm members.... c- market carousel: I see this project and the Satellite tram as new iterations of the market stall you have start studding. To be able to show the natural growing of the products the clients are going to buy is very interesting and challenging. At this point, it can be very interesting to start analysing the specific requirements the seasonal London plants required: cubic metres of soil, sun light, watering, food production..... and to study as well the infrastructures you need to make it possible in a borough scale. Which is the relationship between this projects and the London allotments? Who are the farmers? d- Satellite tram: the everyday movement of people in cities from one place to another is at the same time one of the most interesting and enriching situations (social, cultural....etc) and the worst one form the environmental and economical point of view. The Satellite tram seems to be the perfect system to start thinking in a new way of citycontra-zonification. e- model: as I discovered in the tutorial, you were much more ambitious, doing a model of an urban scale instead of an horticulture fake tree...... nevertheless I copy paste the reference about the Fibonacci sequence and how we can get more sun energy by selecting a proper structure, http://inhabitat.com/13-year-old-makes-solar-power-breakthroughby-harnessing-the-fibonacci-sequence/2/ 7- CLARISSA: First of all, I want to congratulate you for the richness design answer you have given, it is in fact a very consistent design catalogue to improve the life of your community members and of course, everybody's life. Although all your projects are highly interconnected, I would strongly encourage you to continue this multiple design tracks. Sooner or later you are going to melt them, but as well as in good cuisine, they will not lose their essence. a- fresh basil: in this particular case, even though the design is the consequence of the study of the environmental conditions the architectural research and result is coming form the XX century kitchen prejudges. There is no an specific design attitude that makes you use the environmental conditions you need to re-produce, as part of the materiality of the project. From my point of view, this simple decision (environment conditions=project materiality) would produce a whole spatial revolution. What are the walls used for? Instead of having only one wall, could we have a gradient of walls which configuration changes according to the different seasons conditions?, Are those walls porous? Do they filter the water? What do we need to have lunch alfresco? What happen with the basil wastes? And with the rest of wastes?......etc. b- garlic: as you have shown in your sketch, in order to storage and preserve garlic we need to provide a dry, cool and dark space. If the coolness and darkness of the space is something easy to provide, dryness is a real problem in London environment (my garlic reserves disappeared in only 3 weeks!). But there is nothing impossible! If we study the residual thermal energy produced in an average London house (with a professional attitude), and we control it trough a proper installation/services/materials system we are going to be able to storage them as long as in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece (more than one year). c&d- cooking device: as Julian suggest you, to check the information bellow (El Bulli, Ferran Adriá restaurant):
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ElBulli
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http://www.elbulli.com/home.php?lang=en
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books: elBulli1998-2002, elBulli1994-1997, elBulli1983-1993
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferran_Adri%C3%A0
In any case, I would always encourage you to look at this wonderful device designs as an opportunity to jump in scale and to not reduce the level of design ambition. Can we imagine and change the obsolete cleaning protocol, can we propose a new way of maintaining the level of domestic hygiene without destroying the cleaners health and environment balance?, Do we have to waste more than 2 hours per day in doing all those activities? e- tomato ripping: can we extend this design to many more products? Which are the differences in those natural ripen procedures (light, dryness, coolness....etc) What do we do with wastes?, Can I interchange some products with other people to reduce wastes? And preservation? Can we produce the inverted process? d- vitamin: cooking/storaging ….etc, can be done in many different ways,
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http://www.nri.org/news/archive/2010/20100921-sweet-potato.htm
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http://www.bio-cube.com/products.php
And not only the way you do is relevant, but also the user/eater protocols that are linked such as pack lunching, reheating, freezing, etc. I encourage you study the whole protocol of producing and consumption to have a broader approach (from kettle to mayor furniture, from methods to energy and water consumption.....etc). In any case, I want to express the high interest of your research and issue selection! 8- Michelle: As we were talking during the tutorial, in your case, I think that the most important issue is to define which is the final community you are going to work for: tourists (of every kind), tourist icons (monuments and events). After selecting and choosing a seizable community the design process is going to be easy and smooth. –
Scale diversity: As Wendell Berry and Shelly L. Willis, in order to solve a problem, we have to operate in the context of the problem and in may different scales. If not, we can produce a lost of balance in the context and produce mayor problems than solutions.
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Significant actions: Once you propose a community (members of the vulnerable reality of your interest), you can short-list 6 of them that are going to be your representative clients. The designs should be focus in improving one significant action of each of them.
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Reflecting time and space: At the moment, your proposal is not taking into account the time and space to which this vulnerable realities and context belong to. But at the same time, this quality (time/history-based and space-based) is the one that makes an object become and icon and therefore, attract tourism.
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Recreation versus real experimentation.
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Materiality/Components: As your proposals seem to be too theoretical, your designs are more in the part of the textual description then in the project and function description. We are only interested in the effective transformation of reality, and as a group of architects, we can only achieve our goals through the construction of our projects. This has obvious materiality implications. And we want encourage you to think at this scale as well, to enrich the design procedure and the effectiveness of the proposal. This materials are going to be assembled with tools, machines, workers, this materials have loads, some of them need an special protocol of use and skills.......etc. All of this variables define our designs.
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Technology, digitality: It is also quite impressive, that even though our world would never be the same without technology and digitality, this is not a relevant issue of interest in your proposals at the moment. I hope you could find your telephone and start taking it into consideration again. They are full of possibilities.
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Datas, professional gathering of them.