Middle_Out by Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning

PLY Architecture

The Architecture Program at the University of Michigan is defined, in part, by the creative work done by design faculty through private practice. Inadequate on its own to fully account for the intensity of the school, these practices nevertheless pressurize the collective conversations within the curriculum. This book intends to celebrate and disseminate the design work of our faculty, emanating outward from the middle (of Taubman College, of the discipline of architecture, of the country). Much of the work published here speaks to recent contexts of economy and geography in southeastern Michigan through small scale, design+build projects. Simultaneously, there is a strong collection of projects that openly game with digital organization, fabrication, and assembly as it relates to projects of all scales. Pacing these two strands in the book is a third that exemplifies an intellectual preoccupation with representational methods and diverse conceptions of making. Together, these three strands offer a robust approximation of the near now within the discipline of architecture. The design of the book purposely casts the work of diverse and mostly independent practices together across its pages, allowing for a varied range of work and approaches to manifest themselves and in doing so reveal consistencies among the projects.. Organized in horizontal bands, the projects intermingle and suggest new, diagonal readings of a collectivity that might otherwise remain ambient within the College. In this sense, the book claims a geography for what otherwise might dissipate into the day-in, day-out interactions between faculty and students. _Jason Young, editor

DN UP

open to below

The Robbins School proposal responds to an expansive attitude toward education and community where the potential of each emerges from its relationship to the other. In recognizing the evolving role of The Robbins School as an educational community, this proposal intertwines the public spaces and classrooms around a series of outdoor courtyards and playgrounds. The addition duplicates the volume of the existing school and is transformed with a series of simple operations. The new school complex is organized as three concentric layers that wrap an internal courtyard and plaza. The layers consist of an outer series of pre-cast concrete panels, a central core of classrooms and circulation, and an inner fiberglass screen. In each of the three layers the proposal explores the potential of materiality and construction economy to address issues of identity, environment and learning.

Mitnick Roddier Hicks

Split/View is a permanent structure built on the grounds of the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The form of Split/View is intended to play upon the interactive dynamics of two distinct, oppositional aspects of architecture: geometry and perception. From the outside, the structure appears to be a reduced and rational geometric form, composed of two symmetrical wedges off-set along a single central frame. From the inside, one looks out across the intersection of two apertures that split outward-directed views. By running two contradictory models of order against one another, the structure frames the schism between the way things appear to us visually and the way we know them to be intellectually.

M1/DTW

Primarily concerned with the construction of image, the cutting of hair is essentially a series of abstract operations that transform material. M1 is interested in the operative act and its effect; an action whose result is held in suspension and not immediately registered. M1â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s comprehensive approach to the design of the identity of the salon through its spatial, material and graphic manifestations exposes the acts and operations underlying image maintenance. A series of layered materials and spaces provide varying degrees of privacy and spatial separation and simultaneously reinstate relationships with the public through direct visual contact with the storefront. A montage of close-cropped images is displayed to passers-by on the sidewalk through a row of small screens positioned at eye level on the interior signwall.

1. SECTION 1

WETSU

As digital technologies proliferate and displace traditional shopping mediums, local retailers become more reliant on offering a range of services alongside their established idioms of selling. Internet sales of almost any product have driven prices down and have altered face-to-face exchanges within shopping. Patterns of consumption have been permanently altered by the shift from small boutique to mall to big box discount store to retail website. This shift places the local retailer under great pressure, but in doing so foregrounds the profound possibility inherent to architecture; namely, to maximize strangeness through material atmosphere. It may seem counterintuitive, but architecture enjoys a rare status here. It qualifies its own inherent redundancy, making itself vital through being threatened with irrelevance. Architecture is strange that way.

Guthrie+Buresh Architects

TB_

DG_ TB_

DG_ TB_ TB_

DG_ TB_

DG_ TB_ DG_

What? Found an old house with an adjacent empty lot. Where? Modest neighborhood, mile from downtown, west of the old west side. Outside the historic district. Buy it. Program? The usual- three bedrooms, two baths, two car garage. Midwest standard, straight up. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hot, warm, cool, cold, cool, warm then hot again. Dress it in layers. Symmetrical. Dropped section. Steel frame, SIPs, MDO and cedar cladding. Adjustable corncrib wrap with a lifeguard shed stuck on the front. No oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ark. Any pretensions? No. wearHouse.

UP DN

Adams+Gilpin

As once suggested, if you really want to understand what being in Beijing is all about today, go to the Kentucky Fried Chicken overlooking Tiananmen Square and gaze out the third floor window. From the Forbidden City, Chairman Maoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes fix the geometry across the peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s square. In the southwest corner Colonel Saunders throws a sideways glance across the Imperial Axis. People eat KFC chicken. Incoming KFC employees are indoctrinated in fast food etiquette. Fifty meters away the historic core of the Ming Dynasty is evacuated. The Olympics. Beijing is in the game. Ancient Chinese spatial strategies collide with American suburban pathologies; Leninist-Capitalism hijacks the city producing a less predictable, more volatile set of futures. Our eyes recover from the retinal burn of the arc welder. Urbanism eclipses the city as we knew it. Chairman Mao and Colonel Saunders stare off into oblivion.

ofямБce dA

Peter von Bulow + Kristine Synnes

A pivotal development in the urban revitalization of South Boston, the Macallenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s design required a reassessment of conventional residential typologies to produce an innovative building that worked within a developerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s budget. Occupying a transitional site between highway off-ramps, the old residential fabric, and an industrial zone, the building negotiates different scales and urban configurations. The western end responds to the Boston skyline with a glass curtain wall that yields panoramic views for residents inside. The eastern end slopes down to a smaller scale, mirroring the neighborhoodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s building fabric of brickwork and storefronts. On the north and south facades, bronzed aluminum panels reflect the industrial neighborhood and express the staggered truss system within. Fully integrated in structure, MEP, and sustainability, the Macallen is the first LEED gold certified building of its type in Boston.

The Treehouse, located at the Fowler Center on the Michigan thumb, was built for children needing ventilators and often wheelchairs. With its innovative structure, this project challenges traditional assumptions regarding handicapped accessibility. The superstructure, held aloft by a steel branching column carefully entwined with a red maple, makes playful reference to a ship crashing through the treetops. The design allows all users to experience super-mobility—mobility beyond an individual’s perceived capabilities—regardless of physical restrictions or limitations. Body-prosthetics including harnesses, ropes, track and cradle-like seats enable this enhanced motion. Everyone entering The Treehouse utilizes these devices to be launched 22 feet into the air, leaving wheelchairs behind. The normal horizontal orientation of walking, or forward motion in a wheelchair, is transformed into a vertical orientation experienced by all.

+ 252

15.0

1" bar

Axonometric

60°

+ 215.0

45°

R1.0

11.0

t=0.5

Mast

+ 165.7

Brace Plate

45°

SCALE 1:10

1/2" brace plate + 74.8

Center Branch

Proof Load 2000 Lbs.

R12.0 90°

+32.6

60.00

60°

Side Projection

West Branch

60°

32.6

+ 0.0

East Branch

7° 120°

67°

1/2" brace plate

NE Exploded Isometric

66° R4

67° 60.00

Top Projection

Rope-Snag Center Line

Isometric

7°

Elevation

Plan

120°

+ 449.8 + 252.0 SEC 10

+ 252.0 1/2" Plate + 409.1

Axonometric

+ 213.2

+ 232.2

R12

+ 206.6

+ 179.7

+ 143.7

+ 143.9

SEC 5

+ 119.2 C.L. of Pipe + 98.6

+ 98.0 + 254.0

+ 48.9

+ 49.4

SEC 4

+ 0.0

SEC3

Side Projection

Side Projection SEC2

+ 64.1

SEC 1

Top

Top Projection

Base Connection

East Side Projection

Top Projection

+ 0.0

North Side Projection

Geometrically descriptive drawings for the branching steel column

Perry Kulper

A. Melissa Harris

Instinct and desire have been effectively eradicated from our perceptual practices. Programmed society and mediated experience have hijacked embodied encounters to a realm of artificial constructions, leaving primary and authentic desire unrequited. Moving between the creative agency of metaphor and the deep presence of material and atmospherics, this preliminary strategy for the Metaspheric Zoo (a genetic cross between metaphor and atmosphere) explored the possibility of reinventing deep experience linked to animality, imaginatively occupying the space between the habituated and the bestial. In the final proposal this will happen by analogically structuring tendencies of animality, including territorial negotiations, behavioral patterns and species interrelations through new material and durational assemblies. Situated in the suggestive space of a metaphoric site, this strategic thematic image structured gradient tendencies that oscillate between the tame or domesticated and the wild or savage, reestablishing a wilderness that prompts instinct and desire.

Dragonflies do not sit for portraits; they flirt. Grasshoppers never trust. First feigning indifference, they deceive then they strike. To make these photographs I sometimes track a single insect for hours. As I follow, they become aware of my presence. Oblivious to their beauty, these creatures are humbling. Power emerges from their melding of opposites â&#x20AC;&#x201C; velvety vulnerability leaking from a crusty armor, tiny pupils revealing fear and ferocity, skeletal structures supporting pliable veils. There are faces on top of backs; heads on tails, eyes within eyes. I am aware of a spirit where I had assumed there was none. The scale of their impact transcends their size. All the insects I photograph are alive. When subjects most intimately familiar can be seen anew, we rediscover our limitless capacity for awe. We earn new eyes.

Atelier Mankouche

area.architecture

Paramanipulations was an entry for the Van Allen Institute Parachute Pavilion Design Competition. The competition called for the revitalization of the Coney Island Boardwalk by inserting a restaurant at the base of the famous Parachute Tower. The project capitalizes on a roof system derived from modifying and super-sizing a classic design motif used all over the world to construct metal grating and other architectural elements. The design motif was also inspired by the irregularity of ripples that occur on sandy beaches. To this effect, we decided to manipulate the roof system, creating an ebb and flow of larger and smaller apertures that look up at the parachute drop tower.

This portal is the point of transition between a fast-paced vehicular underworld and its housing city above. It seeks to bridge these parallel worlds yet not give itself entirely over to either. As such, the portal is conceived of as both a landscape and an object; as a part of, and apart from, its particular conditions. As a landscape the portal gates and frames its respective beyonds. From the expressway it feels like an extension of the urban fabric beckoning forward. So too from the city, the portal gestures to greet the expressway. As an object, however, the portal vibrates between the city and its expressway. With multiple offset layers in many directions it resists being pinned to one or the other as it sits between.

DN UP

Tsz Yan Ng

studio caj.e

Using the abandoned rail line along the New York waterfront, this project is a hermeneutic exercise that attempts to reconstruct the ‘ground’ (the rail line in its representation) through a series of photographs. Each photograph presents a particular view/perspective of the rail line along with the positioning of where the other views are taken. Using the rail as the referent object, it is out of these variations of itself (self-referential condition in its appearance in the photographs) that representation appears. It is not the cubist notion of the representation of multiple views simultaneously that constitute the ‘object-ness,’ but through the reconstruction of the variation of views (as it appears over time and in memory) in reference to each other (interdependence) that objectivity emerges.

In the much-quoted passage from The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois states: “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line.” My work explores the complex lines that—in black and white—outline the spatial relationships between socio-historic underpinnings of African American identity and its expression and representation in contemporary architectural design in the United States. More specifically, this project interrogates the links between western design and the legacies of the African Diaspora. Presented in three stages, 1) “I AM...: America’s Trophy or a Conversation Between a Piece of Wood and a Rope,” 2) “Call: Reconciling Irreconcilable Differences,” and 3) “Response: An African Diaspora Place of Re-Memoration,” it represents a moment in, and spatial interpretation of, a cultural healing process that would reconcile us with the history of racial violence and its haunting presence.

Harry Giles

The work explores paradigms for form-finding of building shells by considering an intelligent relationship between shell and skin, suggesting new opportunities for plate and shell configurations. The model strives to integrate material types and shell typologies, where a surface can possess intelligence based on material and geometric properties that hold form-finding capabilities and extend to include texture, transparency, and climatic performance; all integrally contributing towards a concept of intelligent shell and surface. The relationship between shell and skin can be differentiated in a surface structure that compares a rigid with a flexible three dimensional space continuum. The form of a shell can be more advantageously interrelated with and dependent on the composition of the structural skin, according to the through-thickness of an apparent surface which possesses not only depth, but behavioral form-finding properties.

Lara + Hermeto

In 2005 we entered a competition for transforming a 19th century governmental building into an orchestra hall. Drawings and images were sent via e-mail. Skype kept our conversation going every couple of days. Sketches were born out of those conversations, scanned and e-mailed. How to place an auditorium for 600 inside an old building and increase the amount of light in the lobby? Amidst many sketches one inverted curve does it all: the incline of the auditorium and the light well for the foyer. The drawings are being prepared in Brazil. The final text is sent by e-mail and does not arrive. One desperate phone call goes through, the boards need to be printed later today. The text does arrive a couple of minutes later, the boards are printed and delivered and one month later another anxious phone call is placed. We won.

Future Cities Lab

Volume One

Inspired by the postwar buildings of its neighborhood, this building was designed as a re-interpretation of traditional pitched roof and exposed masonry construction. The extremely long and narrow site asked for an unusual solution for a semi-detached house. With access occurring from the south side, the entrance and carport were combined, lowered a half a story into the ground, and covered by the terrace and the living room. The exposed party wall emphasizes the length and the division of the building along its central axis. The open first floor, with its floor-to-ceiling openings, reflect the living and activity program of the house, and are connected to the garden. Triangular monochromatic volumes of stucco walls, punched-in windows, and smooth concrete roof tiling achieve a solid and abstract appearance of the second floor’s private sleeping quarters.

HOUSE 2

HOUSE I HOUSE 2

HOUSE I

HOUSE 2

HOUSE I

Ma §s tab 1:500 N

0 0

30 m

2 6

15 ft

The Seoul Energy Farm is an experimental proposal that attempts to release architecture from its conventional role as a static urban backdrop and transform it into a vital, dynamic and active participant within cities. The project was instigated by the International Design Competition for a “Performing Arts Island” located on an artificial landfill within the Han River in Seoul, Korea. Through the exploration of site and program elements as an interacting matrix of fields, forces and flows [energy, program, water flow, infrastructure, etc.] our proposal emerged as a variegated landscape marked by its capacities to produce its own energy, interweave heterogeneous threads of structure and program, and instigate a diverse set of scenarios in which the physical and virtual realms coalesce. This project suggests that architecture is fundamentally a complex negotiation between geometry, energy and form. Within this scenario, architecture and landscape become creative and catalytic agents with profound social, political and ecological implications for the future of cities.

2 6

15 ft

2 6

15 ft

2 6

15 ft

Atelier Mankouche

Mitnick Roddier Hicks

Ceramics and Architecture is an interdisciplinary fellowship program initiated by the European Ceramics Work Center in â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;sHertogenbosch, the Netherlands. The objective of our collaboration was to develop an open process of working. Rather than have a specific objective, program, or product in mind, we were interested in developing ceramic systems that could be assembled for various and unknown applications. Discovery played an important role in our collaboration leading both of us to consider different ways of working. Our material explorations led us beyond typical architectural applications of ceramics. We constructed objects out of a variety of different clay bodies, assembling them in different configurations, at times taking advantage of the translucency of bone china to create screen elements, or using glaze to bond different stacks of stoneware to create bench elements. These constructs were the direct result of a dialogue between artist and architect.

11'

10' 10' 10

11'

10' 1' 11 11' 2 12 12'

3' 13'

11'

10'

The form of The LL House, located in Yellow Springs, Ohio, is intended to frame and challenge the long-standing model of the typical single-family home through visual transparency and alternative rearrangements of conventional material and territorial codes. The house questions how materiality may play into the structuring of views through the re-coding of ordinary commercial and industrial materials in a domestic context, and how the seeing of one perceptual realm through and across another may serve to confound the conventional means by which domesticity is produced by architecture.

Lower Level

Ground Level

Lower Level

WETSU

Ground Level

Conceptually, everydaywines attempts to complete a culinary market site by offering high quality, high value wines in an atmosphere that promotes approachability and accessibility. The floor has been given over to circulation while the vertical surfaces have been loaded and literally carry the weight of the project. There is a room of reds, a wall of whites and a garden of roses. Born of necessity but fitting with the model, there is no back of house or secret cellar where the â&#x20AC;&#x153;goodâ&#x20AC;? wines are kept. Instead, the design puts it all out there. By articulating product storage as the primary means of visual display, the store acts as its own active ledger. As a business strategy, this toys with consumer perceptions of success. In this way, the design wears its pragmatism proudly as it races towards the paradox of hoping for a daily disappearance.

Adams+Gilpin

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

In Beijing the lower the taxi registration number, the longer the driver has traversed a city under extreme transformation from the materials markets beyond the 5th ring-road to the few remaining hutong near Tiananmen Square. The taxi driver as urban surveyor, four-hundred-thousand kilometers turning over the odometer like the build down cycles of rapid urbanization, flash entrepreneurial ecologies, construction crane operators; Mr. Liu negotiates the migratory pattern of station points seldom fixed like the city itself, cascading, Mr. Liuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s faint smile, and his eyes scanning a continuously streaming urbanism. There is no project, no logic, no arc, just marking time, taking notice, tooling up, attempting to reconfigure the agency of architecture; the architect draws a bead, China in the cross-hairs, looking to make a killing, yet caught off guard by the maelstrom of construction culture in China.

29 30

PLY Architecture

grotto

Guthrie+Buresh Architects

balcony

watchtower steps

earthwork

Experiments for the second BTB interior emerge from a series of questions about the relationship between hand craft and digital fabrication. These methods are frequently employed in the fabrication of complex forms which often result in large quantities of wasted material as the complexity of form precludes the efficient use of flat sheet products. This project produces a complex spatial reading with an economy of means. A mixture of both advanced digital design techniques and traditional labor produced a ceiling where each part is different from the one next to it. This complexity yields a space where the form and materials are integrated to create a sensuous experience. The subtle variations in pattern and spacing for the ceiling make it simultaneously open and closed, depending on the perspective, and also allows for the concealment of various types of infrastructure above.

Ox Bow Inn

Informed by both the primary activities of the Ox Bow School of Art and the competition directive to ask the question, “Would I like to paint this scene?” this proposal is composed of a set of scenes to view in and out of simultaneously. In homage to painters of the late 19th century, Klee, Cezanne, Matisse and others, we envision the surrounding landscape and existing buildings as a painter works with figure and ground, with the new addition positing an intensified composition of back, middle and foreground, with multiple figures in close proximity. We then imagined being “in” the compositionviewing from the balcony (guest rooms) over the landscaped earthwork (dining hall) past the watchtower (guest rooms) toward the setting sun; a scene framed by the existing Inn (to the south) and the new steps (guest rooms) to the north.

It is not easy to arrive at a conception of a whole which is constructed from parts belonging to different dimensions. -Paul Klee

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Given the impossibility of fitting the new library program in the existing square footage, two new pavilions housing key programmatic components were positioned within the barrel vaulted void of the historic banking hall, enabling the addition of new study spaces, a reading room, and a circulation island. The inserted objects not only house these programs, but make use of every surface and pocket of space to maximize their functionality. Conceived as colossal pieces of furniture, the pavilions frame a reading lounge that acts as a collective â&#x20AC;&#x153;living roomâ&#x20AC;? for the students housed above. In addition, the pavilions were prefabricated offsite, ensuring the most efficient installment and dismantle, with minimal disturbance to the space. They enhance the composition, character, and strength of the existing hall, without mimicking or trying to copy its architecture.

studio caj.e

In the context of growing gentrification, this project revives and riffs on Harlem’s soapbox culture or what Jane Jacobs has termed “street characters.” Historically, Harlem’s streets resounded with the speeches of figures like Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X, who charged its spaces and communities politically and ideologically. Responding to that legacy, the Harlem Speak installation centers on a large-scale megaphone featuring an oversized trumpet mouthpiece to celebrate the past and present voices of Harlem and its rich jazz heritage. The installation also includes a portable street propaganda kit including two audio-visual stations broadcasting interviews with Harlem residents, and objects for public distribution (buttons, pamphlets, local publications). Its goal is twofold: first, to celebrate Harlem as a racialized site where many voices can be heard, and second, to stage a vocal and architectural intervention that highlights and protests the color lines that still divide American cities, neighborhoods, and minds.

Tsz Yan Ng

with Studio for Architecture

M1/DTW

China is arguably responsible for the proliferation of low-cost industrially manufactured objects throughout the world. When we were asked to design an eleven-story building in Shantou, China as the headquarters of a NY-based fashion design company, Lafayette 148, the issue of human labor in relation to industrially manufactured objects was paramount. We decided that it was important to make a building that took shape from human labor, rather than a building whose primary vocabulary was assembled from industrially manufactured components. To that end, we decided to utilize concrete as the only material of building, pushing the methods of forming concrete to an extreme of technical expertise and labor intensity. The building organization is to incorporate the various branches of their operation: the design studios, showroom/sales, administrative offices, residences, and most importantly, the factory.

HORIZONTAL BRACING

SOUTH SIDE

The sleeper studio always has a split personality. Designed for Derrick May and his own way of working â&#x20AC;&#x201C; sitting on the floor surrounded by instruments and other equipment - it was also burdened with the task of accommodating visiting DJs who would not only make music in the space but would live there for short periods of time. Conceived as a temporary place of withdrawal for both. Pixilated slickness. A room to be tuned? Doubt it. The steel. Powder-coated white. A one-to-one mock-up tucked away in a warehouse. Sleeper Studio: done-in by the very forces it sought to celebrate: the global performer away on another continent; a locked Detroit office working the Belgrade/Tokyo markets; 11 am: anybody there? The sleeper studio sleeps tonight.

HORIZONTAL BRACING

SOUTH SIDE

Lara + Hermeto

area.architecture

Competitions are how we have managed to keep our partnership alive. In the summer of 2005 we would be in the same city for some weeks and that would make the process smoother. Indeed it does. It is much easier to design in person. All that time spent on scanning and e-mailing and scheduling phone calls is used to draw and develop the ideas. Details can be solved on the spot rather then waiting for an e-mail response the next day. The spatial solution flows easier and they could be much bolder this time, safely relying on the group dynamic that was enhanced by daily presence. We were both very pleased with the result, our best collaboration so far. But we were working on a site not familiar to us and this time we didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t win anything.

mediascape is proposed as an immersive media environment that explores the line between landscape, building, and media. The project begins with one simple move that creates two different types of media viewing spaces â&#x20AC;&#x201C; an open air cinema on the upper level and an immersive media environment below. Taking advantage of the western sloping surface on the site â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the mediascape rises as the site drops in elevation and gestures towards the arch monument culminating in a two side projection screen. The screen is both a response to the scale of the arch and the adjacency of the highway creating a visual draw for the greater market street zone. Utilizing monocoque construction methodology, the mediascape tapers to a thin line at its edges â&#x20AC;&#x201C; masking its depth, thus playing a visual game with the spectator. The elliptical forms on the ground level house light controlled galleries in addition to serving as vertical structure and access between levels.

Volume One

SECOND FLOOR

FIRST FLOOR

SCALE : 1/16" = 1'

SCALE : 1/16" = 1' 0

25 ft

Future Cities Lab

This nine-unit building redefines the predominant convention in residential and commercial building tradition. The mix of commercial and residential use was a design priority in the creation of an adaptable environment, either of which can expand or contract with respect to changing economic circumstances. Additionally, the design and construction sets a new tone for sustainable construction in Detroit. Environmentally responsible design through modular prefabricated construction expresses the contemporary conscious lifestyle as well as the need for energy conservation. The units will be light-flooded, distinct in their organization of private and family spaces, and will have a variety of exterior spaces and terraces. Both the passive solar design and modern systems, like a combined hydronic heating and cooling system, will conserve up to 70% of energy consumption, compared to conventional housing projects.

9.11.06

Super-Galaxy is an architectural system saturated in extreme atmospheric and electronic phenomena. It is a nomadic enclave carved out of an existing mega-tower located in midtown Manhattan. The proposal provides a refuge for wayward nomads as they traverse global networks around the planet. Super-Galaxy is in an endless state of spatial and material flux as it negotiates the desires of its adventurous visitors and the unpredictable and dynamic conditions of the site. It is an active and responsive organization that dynamically calibrates and recalibrates relative to both local real-time sensing [wind, heat, light, sound, microclimatic variations, etc.] and remotely-sensed datasets [weather, pollution, warfare, etc.]. In its capacity to sense, plan, act and feedback information into its system, this project proposes a new type of physical environment, both responsive and intelligent. Super-Galaxy suggests a future in which the boundaries of ecology, technology, and architecture will be increasingly blurred and productively intermeshed. Temp (C)

215.8 m

Winds (knots)

145

Hurricane

A. Melissa Harris

The first time I remember it happening was in graduate school. I was in Christopher Alexanderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s seminar - the Nature of Wholeness. Our only assignment was to design and construct a bench embodying the properties he was preaching. All semester I worked steadily in my sketchbook musing over forms and how, if at all, my bench held centers, had alternating repetition, or inner voids. I arrived at my solution of good shape and set off for the local lumberyard. Turns out the components essential to my ensemble were out of financial reach. The plan crumbled, my heart sank. There was little choice but to redesign it. Right there in the hardware store. Just in case. That is the way I justify my obsessions with things daily, local, small, and how I see these drawings. Getting ready for those moments of call.

Perry Kulper

Tom Buresh, Chair of Architecture

The Landscapes, made in Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Cambridge, England are a small sampling from a body of 700 drawings. Produced at disparate times, but resulting in groups, or sets, the drawings are initiated by a number of motivations. On one hand, these might be the materials on the drawing table and a game of ‘what ifs?’ On the other, inspiration might be provoked by the possibility of a perspective sky, a multiplied horizon, a liquid landscape, found pheasant feathers or a provocative phrase from a poem. I indulge in the material surface and the open potential inherent to the act of making. The act of making moves between drawing and masking to surface flooding and the resultant unpredictability of the liquid. Reflectively, the drawings acknowledge psychological and emotional states and reveal, and equally hide, imaginative landscape potential. The Landscapes, made in Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Cambridge, England are a small sampling from a body of 700 drawings. Produced at disparate times, but resulting in groups, or sets, the drawings are initiated by a number of motivations. On one hand, these might be the materials on the drawing table and a game of ‘what ifs?’ On the other, inspiration might be provoked by the possibility of a perspective sky, a multiplied horizon, a liquid landscape, found pheasant feathers or a provocative phrase from a poem. I indulge in the material surface and the open potential inherent to the act of making. The act of making moves between

drawing and masking to surface flooding and the resultant unpredictability of the liquid. Reflectively, the drawings acknowledge psychological and emotional states and reveal, and equally hide, imaginative landscape potential.

Super-Galaxy is an architectural system saturated in extreme atmospheric and electronic phenomena. It is a nomadic enclave carved out of an existing mega-tower located in mid-town Manhattan. The proposal provides a refuge for wayward nomads as they traverse global networks around the planet. Super-Galaxy is in an endless state of spatial and material flux as it negotiates the desires of its adventurous visitors and the unpredictable and dynamic conditions of the site. It is an active and responsive organization that dynamically calibrates and recalibrates relative to both local real-time sensing [wind, heat, light, sound, microclimatic variations, etc.] and remotely-sensed datasets [weather, pollution, warfare, etc.]. In its capacity to sense, plan, act and feedback information into its system, this project proposes a new type of physical environment, both responsive and intelligent. Super-Galaxy suggests a future in which the boundaries of ecology, technology, and architecture will be increasingly blurred and productively intermeshed. Super-Galaxy is an architectural system saturated in extreme atmospheric and electronic phenomena. It is a nomadic enclave carved out of an existing mega-tower located in mid-town Manhattan.

The proposal provides a refuge for wayward nomads as they traverse global networks around the planet. Super-Galaxy is in an endless state of spatial and material flux as it negotiates the desires of its adventurous visitors and the unpredictable and dynamic conditions of the site. It is an active and responsive organization that dynamically calibrates and recalibrates relative to both local real-time sensing [wind, heat, light, sound, microclimatic variations, etc.] and remotely-sensed datasets [weather, pollution, warfare, etc.]. In its capacity to sense, plan, act and feedback information into its system, this project proposes a new type of physical environment, both responsive and intelligent. Super-Galaxy suggests a future in which the boundaries of ecology, technology, and architecture will be increasingly blurred and productively intermeshed. The first time I remember it happening was in graduate school. I was in Christopher Alexanderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s seminar - the Nature of Wholeness. Our only assignment was to designand construct a bench embodying the properties he was preaching. All semester I worked steadily in my sketchbook musing over forms and how, if at all, my bench held centers, had alternating repetition, or inner voids. I arrived at my solution of good shape and set off for the local lumberyard. Turns out the components essential to my ensemble were out of financial reach. The plan crumbled, my heart sank.

We would like to recognize the extraordinary support of Robin Wilson Carrier and Gordon R. Carrier, B.S. ’79, M.Arch, ’81 in the publication of this work. This compilation is simultaneously a testament to the strength of the faculty and an affirmation of the bond between Taubman College members present and past. Thank you Robin and Gordon.

middle_out : practices, geographies and the near now Editor: Jason Young Designed by YARD: Jason Young, David Karle and Ellen Donnelly middle_out is printed in an edition of 2000 copies at Regal Printing Limited in Hong Kong, China in CYMK and Pantone #877C on 60# uncoated white matte text paper. The cover is printed in Pantone #143C and #877C on 100# cover matte. Typeset in DIN and washout. THANK YOU: Christian Unverzagt of M1/DTW was supportive in all aspects of the book’s production. Tom Buresh, Chair of the Architecture Program at Taubman College, enthusiastically supported the idea of the book and made the persistent work on the project enjoyable. Faculty colleagues at the college, without whom this book nor anything like it would be possible, embraced the book project and provided open access to their practices. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means without prior written consent from the publisher. ISBN 978-1-891197-45-1 Printed and bound in Hong Kong, China. middle_out: practices, geographies and the near now | copyright© 2008 | The Regents of the University of Michigan | A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning | 2000 Bonisteel Boulevard | Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2069 USA | 734 764 1300 | 734 763 2322 fax | arch.umich.edu | A Non-discriminatory, Affirmative Action Employer

A. Melissa Harris || Portraits | ongoing | t: A. Melissa Harris | Pinckney, MI | exhibtions: Museum of Natural Science, Raleigh, NC, 2004; Light Fine Arts Gallery, Kalamazoo College, 2004; Institute for the Humanities, University of Michigan, 2003 || Yosemite Field Notes | ongoing | t: A. Melissa Harris | Yosemite National Park, CA || Adams + Gilpin || Chairman Mao and Colonel Saunders’ Oblivion | 2006 | t: Robert Adams, Dawn Gilpin, Celeste Adams | Beijing, People's Republic of China || Driving With Mr. Liu, # 011402 | 2006 | t: Mr. Liu, Robert Adams,Dawn Gilpin, Celeste Adams | Beijing, People’s Republic of China || area.architecture || stop + go | 2003 | t: Glenn Wilcox, Anca Trandafirescu | c: Chicago Architecture Club competition | a: finalist || mediascape | 2006 | t: Glenn Wilcox, Anca Trandafirescu | c: St. Louis Follies Competition | a: 3rd place competiton entry || Atelier Mankouche || Ceramics and Architecture | 2005 | t: Steven Mankouche, Abigail Murray | s’Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands | a: Ceramics and Architecture, European Ceramic Work Centre Fellowship || Paramanipulations: Revising the Coney Island Boardwalk through Material Splines | 2005 | t: Steven Mankouche with Danielle Peto and Mark Davis | Coney Island, New York | c: Van Allen Institute Parachute Pavilion Design Competition || Future Cities Lab || Seoul Energy Farm | 2005 | t: Jason K. Johnson and Nataly Gattegno with Anthony Viola and Beth Haber | Seoul, Korea | c: Seoul Metropolitan Government | a: 2nd Prize in the Seoul Performing Arts Center International Competition, 2005; BSA Design Merit Award for UnBuilt Architecture, 2006 || Super Galaxy NYC | 2006 | t: Jason K. Johnson and Nataly Gattegno with Carrie Norman, Beth Haber and Thomas Kelley | New York | c: Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition || Guthrie+Buresh Architects || wearHouse | 2005 | t: Danelle Guthrie and Tom Buresh with Peter Cornue and Dave Mulder | Ann Arbor, MI | Photographs courtesy of Guthrie + Buresh Architects | c: Danelle Guthrie and Tom Buresh || Old & New Dreams | 2004 | Danelle Guthrie and Tom Buresh with Peter Cornue and Amanda Spicuzzi | Photographs courtesy of Amanda Spicuzzi | c: Ox-Bow School of Art competition||

assisted by Kyoung Hee Kim ||

Harry Giles || Passive Skin Intelligence | ongoing | t:Harry Giles in design collaboration with Peter Lynch,

Lara + Hermeto || OSMG | 2005 | t: Humberto Hermeto, Fernando Lara, David Mosqueira, co.arquitetos | Belo Horizonte, Brazil | c: State Government of Minas Gerais, sponsored by Vale do Rio Doce SA | a: 1st prize in the National OSMG competition || Giants | 2005 | Fernando Lara, Humberto Hermeto, office Paraladelelepipedo | Giants Causeway Natural Area, Northern Ireland | Giant’s Causeway Visitor Centre competition || M1/DTW || 6 salon | 2003 | t: Christian Unverzagt and Chris Benfield with Martha Merzig, Craig Somers, Don Behm, Makoto Mizutani, Ryan Kelley, Kevin Kuza and Andre Sandifer | Royal Oak, Michigan | Photographs courtesy of GTODD Photography and M1/DTW | c: George Nikollaj, Johnny Nikollaj, Tomy Lulgjuraj | a: Salon of the Year 2004, Salon Today Magazine; Best Salon 2004, 2005, 2006, Real Detroit Weekly || Sleeper Studio | 2002 | Chris Benfield, Chris Puzio, Christian Unverzagt with Ryan Kelley, Peter Warren, Martha Merzig and Neil Meredith | Detroit, MI | c: Transmat Records||

Mitnick Roddier Hicks || LL House | 2006 | t: Keith Mitnick, Mireille Roddier, Stewart Hicks | Yellow Springs, OH | Photographs courtesy of Mitnick Roddier Hicks || Split/View | 2005 | t: Keith Mitnick, Mireille Roddier, Stewart Hicks | Philbrook Museum, Tulsa, OK| Photographs courtesy of Mitnick Roddier Hicks || office dA || Macallen Building | 2007 | t: Monica Ponce de Leon and Nader Tehrani with Dan Gallagher, Lisa Huang, Ghazal Abassy, Remon Alberts, Hansy Luz Better, Scott Ewart, Katja Gischas, Anna Goodman, David Jeffries, Krists Karklins, Ethan Kushner, Christine Mueller, Julian Palacio, Penn Ruderman, Ahmad Reza Schricker and Harry Lowd; Architect of Record: Burt Hill | South Boston, MA | Photographs courtesy of John Horner Photography | c: Pappas Enterprises, Inc. || Fleet Library at RISD | 2006 | t: Monica Ponce de Leon and Nader Tehrani with Daniel Gallagher, Arthur Chang, Lisa Huang, Sean Baccei, Kurt Evans, Anna Goodman, Ahmad Reza Schricker, Ghazal Abassy | Providence, RI | Photographs courtesy of John Horner Photography | c: Rhode Island School of Design ||

Perry Kulper || Metaspheric Zoo | 2005 | t: Perry Kulper with Mark Ericson and Johnny Leahy | Prague International Biennale of Contemporary Art || Landscapes | ongoing | t: Perry Kulper || Peter von Bülow and Kristine Synnes || Treehouse | 2005 | t: Peter von Bülow and Kristine Synnes with Mark Weston, Cathy Maurer | Mayville, MI | Photographs courtesy of Peter von Bülow, Kristine Synnes, Mark Weston, Cathy Maurer | c: Fowler Center for Outdoor Learning || a: University of Michigan Council for Disability Concerns Award; Community Service Award, Michigan Forestry and Park Association || PLY Architecture || The Carroll Robbins School | 2005 | t: Craig Borum and Karl Daubmann with Jen Maigret, Michael Powers, Sam Barclay, Jeana D'Agostino, Josh Bard, Lizzie Rothwell, Kasey Vilet, Na Young Shim, Ka Young Shim and Nick Quiring | Trenton, NJ | Photographs courtesy of PLY Architecture | c: The Carrol Robbins School | a: finalist, phase I; honarable mention (2nd place), phase 2 || BTB2 | 2005 | Karl Daubmann and Craig Borum with Jeana D’Agostino, Jen Maigret, Michael Powers and Liz Kuwada | East Lansing, MI | Photographs courtesy of PLY Architecture | c: Big Ten Burrito || studio caj.e || FYM: reconciling irreconcilable differences | ongoing | t: coleman a. jordan (ebo) | Charleston, South Carolina || Harlem Speak | 2004 | t: coleman a. jordan (ebo), Karen Sanders, Monte Martinez, Mark Weston, Jessie Allen-Young, Carrie Dessertine, Anthony Harris, Anthony Smith Jr., Amir Mughal, Jason Welker | The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY | Photographs courtesy of Clay Hensley, Karen Sanders, and studio mis·fits | c: Thelma Golden, The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Harlem community|| Tsz Yan Ng || Rail/Ground Construction_New York Waterfront |1999 | t: Tsz Yan Ng || Lafayette 148 | 2008 | t: Tsz Yan Ng and Mehrdad Hadighi of Studio for Architecture with Chris Romano, Jose Chang, Mike O’Hara, Mike Adesh Sigh, and Maciej Kaczynski | Shantou, China | Photographs courtesy of Studio for Architecture | Volume One Architectural Collaborative|| House K | 1998 | t: Lars Gräbner, Matthias Hintze | Langwedel/Verden, Germany | Photographs courtesy of Bitter Bredt Fotografie, Berlin | c: Ingrid & Henrik Kaczmarek || 2nd Boulevard Buidling | 2004-2008 | t: Lars Gräbner, Christina Hansen, Martin Schwartz | Detroit, MI | Photographs courtesy of VolumeOne | c: Midtown Development Group, Detroit || WETSU || v2v lifestyle store | 2000 | t: Jason Young, Neal Robinson and Zeke Busch with David Rhoese | Ann Arbor, MI | Photographs courtesy of GTODD Photography and WETSU || everyday wines | 2004 | t: Neal Robinson, Jason Young | Ann Arbor, MI | Photographs courtesy of Clayton Studio and WETSU | a: 2006 Michigan AIA Award, 2005 Interiors Award from Contract Magazine || || title | date | t: team members | location | p: photography credits | c: client/competiton name | a: awards ||

middle_out : practices, geographies and the near now