Design Fundametals II Sydney Elle Gray
Table of Conetents
01 M odular Grid | Horizontal Lines 02 M odular Grid | Vertical Lines
03 M odular Grid | Types 1 Sans Serif
04 Modular Grid | Types 1 Sans Serif within inverted sections 05 M odular Grid | Types 2 Serif 06 Modular Grid | Types 2 Serif within inverted sections
07 Research | What is Deconstruction Style (Graphic Design)? 08 M odular Grid | Images 1
09 M odular Grid | Images 2
10 Research | What is Deconstructivism (Architecture | Space)? 11 Research | Zaha Hadid
12 Research | Rem Koolhaas
13 M odular Grid | Combination 1 14 M odular Grid | Combination 2
15 Modular Grid | Combination 3 16 M odular Grid | Combination 4 17 M odular Grid | Combination 5
18 M odular Grid | Combination 6 19 M odular Grid | Combination 7 20 M odular Grid | Combination 8
21 Modular Grid | Banner 1, 2 22 Modular Grid | Super-graphics 1
23 Modular Grid | Super-graphics 2 24 Modular Grid | 3D Grids 1
25 Modular Grid | 3D Grids 2 26 Semiotics Book: Transformation 27 Epilogue
Modular Grid | Horizontal Lines | 01
Modular Grid | Vertical Lines | 02
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What is Deconstruction Style (Graphic Design)? Jacques Derrida was the first to introduce the concept of ‘deconstruction’ in his book Of Grammmatology, which was published in France in 1967 and translated into English in 1976. The term ‘deconstruction’ surfaced in the design world the mid-1980s and is not used to describe architecture, graphic design, products and fashion. It has been argued that deconstruction “is not a style or ‘attitude’ but rather a mode of questioning through and about the technologies, formal devices, social institutions, and founding metaphors of representation.” Like Marxism and feminism, deconstruction, “focuses not on the themes and imagery of its objects but rather on the linguistic and institutional systems that frame the production of texts. Essentially, when it comes to literature, Derrida is saying that we can not take language or written word at face value. Instead, we should question it because it is not always clear and direct. He believes that language is always shifting. Deconstruction can be best described as “showing the unavoidable tensions between the ideals of clarity and coherence that govern philosophy and the inevitable shortcomings that accompany its production.” The term deconstruction has become popular and mainstream in the design community. The style, which was once referred to as Post-Modern includes, layering, spacing, distorting, interweaving, fragmenting, decentering, bitmapping and so on. Some writers are claiming that deconstruction is the banner of a new avant-garde movement. The Cranbrook Academy of Arts, under the direction of Michael and Katherine McCoy, published a highly experimental Visible Language magazine on French literary aesthetics. The school was the center of the postmodernist discussion at the time. The style of deconstruction used in the magazine dismissed the notion that designs had to be literal, neat, clear or even legible at all. They believed that design work should be “felt” not just read. Some examples of deconstructivism in architecture include the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing, the Dancing House in Prague (which I have been to), the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. David Carson is one of the most widely known deconstructivist designers. His work was messy, chaotic and looked as if there was a glitch. He achieved this by overlapping text shapes and photos. As the art director Ray Gun magazine, he frequently employed the deconstructivist style he was known for. Neville Brody is another designer that uses deconstructivism. His type is nowhere near as dramatic as Carson, but still distorted enough through overlapping, cutting, tilting and other modifications to be categorized as deconstruction. Brody has worked with big clients including Nike, LVMH, Nikon and The Coca-Cola Company. While the deconstructivist style had become somewhat obsolete, it is becoming popular again showing a clear rejection of the mainstream. It has been taken a step further with the idea of The “Ruined” Effect which includes splashing, scratching, ripping off, breaking or any other form of damaging effect to an already existing piece.
Research | 07
Modular Grid | Images 1 | 08
Modular Grid | Images 2 | 09
What is Deconstructivism (Architecture | Space)? Architecture has always been a core part of our culture and architects have always valued geometric purity in their buildings. The simplicity of the construction of these buildings stem from simple geometric forms like cubes, pyramids, cylinders and cones. In traditional architecture, none of these forms are allowed to be distorted, the simplicity assures the stability of the building. Deconstructivism is “the ability to disturb our thinking about form.” Deconstruction is not the taking apart of constructions rather it challenges the “values of harmony, unity and stability and proposing instead a different view of structure: the view that the flaws are intrinsic to the structure.” In the years leading up to the 1917 revolution, geometry became increasingly irregular, and after avant-garde increasingly rejected the traditional high arts. The Russian avant-garde threatened the traditional rules of composition. This avant-garde style was an inspiration for architects to lift the art off the page. Some notable projects include the Gehry House by Frank O. Gehry, City Edge by Daniel Libeskind, Apartment Building and Observation Tower in Rotterham, Holland by Rem Koolhaas, the Biocenter for the University of Frankfort by Peter Eisenman, The Peak by Zaha Hadid, Rooftop Remodeling by Coop Himmelblau and Parc de la Villette by Bernard Tschumi. One of my favorites is the Gehry House which is a renovation, in three stages, of existing suburban buildings. The original house is now embedded as part of the new construction but in an unconventional way. When Frank Gehry and his wife bought an existing house in Santa Monica, California, the neighbors did not have the slightest idea that the corner residence would soon be transformed into a symbol of deconstructivism. Gehry, however, knew something had to be done to the house before he moved in. His solution was a bold one in the 1970’s that involved the “balance of fragment and whole, raw and refined, new and old” and would strike up controversy. Frank himself stated, “I loved the idea of leaving the house intact... I came up with the idea of building the new house around it. We were told there were ghosts in the house... I decided they were ghosts of Cubism. The windows... I wanted to make them look like they were crawling out of this thing. At night, because this glass is tipped it mirrors the light in... So when you’re sitting at this table you see all these cars going by, you see the moon in the wrong place... the moon is over there but it reflects here... and you think it’s up there and you don’t know where the hell you are…” I like the way they built around it, and were trailblazers of their time.
Research | 10
Zaha Hadid Zaha Hadid was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1950. She studied mathematics at the American University in Beirut. In 1972, she moved to London to study architecture at the Architectural Association and then joined the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). She also taught at the Architectural Association (AA) with OMA collaborators Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis. She began her own practice in London in 1980 and won the prestigious competition for the Hong Kong Peak Club, a leisure and recreational center in 1983. Painting and drawing, especially in her early period, are important techniques of investigation for her design work. Ever since her 1983 retrospective exhibition at the AA in London, her architecture has been shown in exhibitions worldwide and many of her works are held in important museum collections. She is well-known for some of her seminal built works, such at the Vitra Fire Station (1993), Weil am Rhein, Germany, the Mind Zone at the Millennium Dome (1999) Greenwich, UK, a ski jump (2002) in Innsbruck, Austria and the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art (2003) in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Vitra Fire Station, designed for the factory complex of the same name in Weil-am-Rhein, Germany, was the among the first of Hadid’s design projects to be built. The building’s obliquely intersecting concrete planes, which serve to shape and define the street running through the complex, represent the earliest attempt to translate Hadid’s fantastical, powerful conceptual drawings into a functional architectural space. After the major fire in 1981, Vitra decided it would be a good idea to have a fire brigade. This 2,500 sqm. Mind Zone Exhibition Pavilion was designed for the UK’s Millennium Dome back in 2000. Zaha is a consistent proponent of advanced material experimentation, and this somewhat early example is no exception. The facade glows with the use of a new panel system, a colored, translucent FRP panel sandwiching an aluminium honeycomb inner layer. I am now on the hunt for later examples of this combination in architecture, as it seems to be a provocative take on the more typical balsa core between layers of FRP. In December 1999 Zaha Hadid Architects won the international competition for a new ski jump on the Bergisel Mountain in Innsbruck. The new structure opened in 2002. Situated on the Bergisel Mountain overlooking downtown Innsbruck, the ski jump is a major landmark. It is part of a larger refurbishment project for the Olympic Arena and replaces the old ski jump, which no longer met international standards. The building is a hybrid of highly specialized sports facilities and public spaces, including a café and a viewing terrace. These different programs are combined into a single new shape, which extends the topography of the slope into the sky. At a length of about 90m and a height of almost 50m the building is a combination of a tower and a bridge. Structurally it is divided into the vertical concrete tower and a spatial steel structure, which integrates the ramp and the café. Two elevators bring visitors to the café, 40 m over the peak of the Bergisel Mountain. From here they can enjoy the surrounding alpine landscape as well as watch the athletes below fly above the Innsbruck skyline. The belief that a building can both blend in and stand out at the same time is embodied by the Lois and Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art (CAC), located in Cincinnati. Though it’s heavy volumetric massing makes it appear as an independent and impenetrable sculptural element, the Rosenthal Center is in fact designed to pull the city in – past its walls and up, toward the sky. This inherent dynamism is well-suited to a gallery which does not hold a permanent collection, and is situated at the heart of a thriving Midwestern city.
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Rem Koolhaas Rem Koolhaas was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands in 1944. He founded OMA in 1975 with Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp. He graduated from the Architectural Association in London and in 1978 published Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan. He co-heads the work of both OMA and AMO, the research branch of OMA, operating in areas beyond the realm of architecture. His buildings includes the Qatar National Library and the Qatar Foundation Headquarters (2018), Fondation Galeries Lafayette in Paris (2018), Fondazione Prada in Milan (2015/2018), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow (2015), the headquarters for China Central Television (CCTV) in Beijing (2012), Casa da Musica in Porto (2005), Seattle Central Library (2004), and the Netherlands Embassy in Berlin (2003). Current projects include the Taipei Performing Arts Centre, a new building for Axel Springer in Berlin, and the Factory in Manchester. The Qatar National Library features tiers of marble bookcases set within a single open-plan space. The OMA-designed building, houses several collections of Qatar’s most important texts and manuscripts on Arab-Islamic civilisation. A facade of corrugated glass and a reflective aluminium ceiling are designed to filter and diffuse the bright sunlight to create the optimum light level for reading. Outside, a sunken patio allows light to filter to the basement levels .Overall the building encompasses 42,000 square metres of space for books and readers, housing Qatar’s National Library, the Public Library, the University Library, and the Heritage Collection. The Fondation Galeries Lafayette in Paris is described as a late 19th-century industrial building to house exhibition and production spaces, with a focus on creation, innovation, and research. OMA has inserted an exhibition tower into the courtyard of the building in which two sets of mobile platforms will offer a large repertoire of spatial configurations; the programmatic flexibility provided increases the potential of the existing building. A production centre at the heart of the site underpins the Fondation, while the ground floor becomes a passage connecting rue du Plâtre to rue Sainte- Croix de la Bretonnerie and hosts the public programs. The site is located in Le Marais, in the heart of Paris, surrounded by artists, craftsmen, ateliers and workshops. The Milan venue of Fondazione Prada, expands the repertoire of spatial typologies in which art can be exhibited and shared with the public. Characterized by an articulated architectural configuration which combines seven existing buildings with three new structures (Podium, Cinema and Torre), the venue is the result of the transformation of a distillery dating back to the 1910’s. Rem Koolhaas stated, “The Fondazione is not a preservation project and not a new architecture. Two conditions that are usually kept separate here confront each other in a state of permanent interaction–offering an ensemble of fragments that will not congeal into a single image, or allow any part to dominate the others. New, old, horizontal, vertical, wide, narrow, white, black, open, enclosed – all these contrasts establish the range of oppositions that define the new Fondazione. By introducing so many spatial variables, the complexity of the architecture will promote an unstable, open programming, where art and architecture will benefit from each other’s challenges”.
Garage Museum of Contemporary Art is a renovation of the 1960s Vremena Goda (Seasons of the Year) restaurant, a prefabricated concrete pavilion which has been derelict for more than two decades. OMA’s design for the 5,400 m2 building includes exhibition galleries on two levels, a creative center for children, shop, café, auditorium, offices, and roof terrace. The design preserves original Soviet-era elements, including a mosaic wall, tiles, and brick, while incorporating a range of innovative architectural and curatorial devices. The CCTV headquarters is an unusual take on the skyscraper typology. Instead of competing in the race for ultimate height and style through a traditional two-dimensional tower soaring skyward, CCTV’s loop poses a truly three-dimensional experience, culminating in a 75-meter cantilever. CCTV’s form facilitates the combination of the entire process of TV-making in a loop of interconnected activities. Two towers rise from a common production studio platform, the Plinth. Each tower has a different character: Tower 1 serves as editing area and offices, and the lower Tower 2 is dedicated to news broadcasting. They are joined by a cantilevered bridge for administration, the Overhang. The Casa da Musica attempts to reinvigorate the traditional concert hall in another way: by redefining the relationship between the hallowed interior and the general public outside. The Casa da Musica, the new home of the National Orchestra of Porto, stands on a new public square in the historic Rotunda da Boavista. It has a distinctive faceted form, made of white concrete, which remains solid and believable in an age of too many icons. Inside, the elevated 1,300-seat (shoe box-shaped) Grand Auditorium has corrugated glass facades at either end that open the hall to the city and offer Porto itself as a dramatic backdrop for performances. Casa da Musica reveals its contents without being didactic; at the same time, it casts the city in a new light. The Seattle Central Library redefines the library as an institution no longer exclusively dedicated to the book, but as an information store where all potent forms of media—new and old—are presented equally and legibly. In an age where information can be accessed anywhere, it is the simultaneity of all media and, more importantly, the curatorship of their content that will make the library vital. The Netherlands Embassy is a disciplined cube with equally disciplined irregularities which aims to facilitate a better understanding of Berlin, confronting divergent ideas about how the city, with its complexity, heaviness, opacity, and beauty, should build / rebuild. Traditional planning guidelines of the former West Berlin demanded that new buildings in the neighbourhood (the Roldandufer in Mitte) reflect the local 19th century architectural style. Planning officials in the former East Berlin were more open to innovation. As a result, OMA combined an obedient approach (strictly fulfilling the block’s perimeter) with a disobedient one (building an isolated cube).
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S C Modular Grid | Combination 1 | 13
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