Architrave 19 by Rolando Lopez

ARC HITR AVE

ARC HITR AVE ISSUE 19 FALL / SPRING

2011 / 2012

TERRITORIES

OBJECTS

SYSTEMS

MESSAGE FROM THE EDITORS In our search for answers within architecture, we find ourselves in constant tension - questioning the very essence of what we do. What is a good drawing? What is a building? And deeper still, what is architecture? Yet, nonetheless, as public servants and intellectuals we are expected to draw the line somewhere and provide tangible solutions to the societal issues in which we participate in. It is this gray area, this uncertainty in doing, in which we operate from. While this publication has no intentions of providing absolute answers with a capital â&#x20AC;&#x153;Aâ&#x20AC;?, it embraces the multifaceted themes that are present within our field of study. The book provides a framework in which to analyze the work presented based on a new vocabulary. This framework, first proposed by Stan Allen in his lecture at the University of Michigan, organizes architectural themes into three categories: Territories, Objects, and Systems. In this way, the book seeks to clearly separate particular topics in hopes that you, the reader, will seek your own connections - physical, conceptual, and global connections. The Architrave team would like to thank the students and faculty who contributed their work, time, and thoughts to compiling an exceptional series of projects that embody the studio culture and creative architectural mind at the School of Architecture at the University of Florida.

ARCHITRAVE, ISSUE 19

A PUBLICATION OF STUDENT DESIGNERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA Architrave is an independent, student-run design publication. Our mission is to document, distribute, and expand the creative force of the students and faculty at the University of Florida. This publication serves as an opportunity to showcase the design work being produced by the students of many disciplines. As a design project in itself, the publication sets in motion a catalyst for discussion and community involvement throughout the school. This momentum begins to unfold a document that combines the efforts of many who support it. The final product is a cohesive blend of work and ideas, distributed free of charge nationally and internationally to schools, firms, and students. Architrave is a non-profit publication that is funded in parts by the University of Florida Student Government through the Architecture College Council, the UF School of Architecture, and various sponsors and donors. To receive future issues, submit work for the publication, or to make a donation to Architrave please contact us via e-mail, UFArchitrave@gmail.com Architrave was printed by StorterChilds in Gainesville, Florida. All rights reserved. Neither this publication nor any part herein may be reproduced by any means without the expressed written consent of Architrave.

W W W.UFA RC HI T R AV E .C OM

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF

DERRICK ARCHER, EXECUTIVE JOSE LUIS GABRIEL CRUZ, DESIGN

SENIOR EDITORS

ROLANDO LOPEZ, CREATIVE DIRECTOR ANTONY DARCE, FINANCE MIGUEL CASTANEDA, MARKETING LEAD CORINA OCANTO, MARKETING LEAD SARAH GLASS, MARKETING DAN ADAMS, SCRIPT ELIZABETH CRONIN, SCRIPT

EDITORS

DAVIE MOJICA MIKO MENDOZA CORY HECK

CONTRIBUTORS

CAROLINA ALVAREZ ELAINA BERKOWITZ TESSA CRAWFORD CHARLES GREEN ABBY JONES SAMANTHA KUPHAL BILD VIOLETTA LIZAMA DANIEL MARTINEZ FRANCIA SALAZAR RAFAEL VALIM BEN VONGVANIJ

DEDICATED TO JADE GUZZO, WHOSE VIBRANT PERSONALITY ILLUMINATED OUR LIVES.

STUDE ORGS ACC

AIAS

APX

The Architecture College Council is an organization that works towards enriching the experience of students in architecture, interior design, landscape, and the planning disciplines. Among other things, this is achieved by furnishing inter-organization meeting times to foster communication and collaboration. Students are also informed of opportunities in extracurricular activities, career resources, and educational workshops. In overseeing the other organization, the ACC aims to help student organization put together accurate budgets and consequently distribute funds in an equitable fashion.

The American Institute of Architecture Students has come together since 1956 with the goal of helping to shape our future practice environment by combining current education and the profession. Giving students the opportunity to enhance their architectural education by mingling with other students across North America through conferences and events throughout the country.

Alpha Rho Chi is a national, professional coed fraternity for the students of architecture and the allied arts. It was founded in 1914 to organize and unite in fellowship the architectural students in the universities and colleges of America so as to promote the artistic, scientific, and practical knowledge of the members of the profession.

To organize students and combine their efforts to advance the art and science of architecture, the AIAS represents the sole student voice in the decision making process of such organizations as The American Institute of Architects (AIA), Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), and National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB).

Alpha Rho Chi is a family with nationwide connections providing support and friendship through lifetime bonds. This brotherhood carries a history that is rich with tradition and whose values allow its members to grow individually and as an organization. Alpha Rho Chi accomplishes this through its activities which promote professionalism and service.

ENT ASID/IIDA

ASLA

SCC

The UF ASID/IIDA Student Campus Center is a student organization dedicated to bridging the gap between education and the profession of interior design. The group is a joint student organization of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) and the International Interior Design Association (IIDA). Members of UF ASID/IIDA have the opportunity to join either student organization and enjoy their respective benefits. On the national level, both ASID and IIDA offer mentoring opportunities, scholarships, competitions, publications and endless resources for students interested in interior design.

The Student Chapter of The American Society of Landscape Architects at the University of Florida is an organization set to unite interested graduate and undergraduate Landscape Architecture students for the purpose of developing an understanding of the importance of designing sustainable, aesthetically pleasing, and functional exterior environments. UF Student Chapter of ASLA provides students the opportunity to participate in organized activities outside the academic realm that improve skills and knowledge, and complement the curriculum at UF. These activities and opportunities include graphic workshops, professional lectures, displays, competitions, field trips, conferences, community projects, and contact with practicing professionals.

The Studio Culture Committee is a student-initiated organization that seeks to promote respect, collaboration, engagement, and innovation among students, faculty, and staff of the School of Architecture at the University of Florida. Since the Spring of 2006, the Studio Culture Committee has worked to identify existing instruments within the School of Architecture that have a positive effecton Studio Culture. Our goal in identifying these instruments is to ensure the support and extension of their significance, reach, and visibility as opportunities within the school while also discussing critical lacks or problems. Our belief is that the construction of a strong and creative studio culture is primarily our responsibility, our right, and our privilege.

CONTENTS

OBJECTS

SYSTEMS

TERRITORIES

16 PRENDELUCEPRENDEOMBRA 18 THE MUTATIVE DOME 20 BLACK, WHITE, AND IN BETWEEN 22 KIT-OF-PARTS 28 THE BEAUTIFUL BOX 30 MAVERICK THINKING 32 GAINESVILLE CORNER 36 MONUMENTAL OBJECTS 38 VERNACULAR TECTONICS 40 SAN MARTIN DE LAS CAÑAS CHAPEL 42 FOX RESIDENCE 44 FLEX HOUSE 48 FROM OBJECTS TO BUILDINGS 52 LIGHT MODULATOR 56 THE SILENT SPACE OF OBJECTS 58 LUMIERE COMPETITION 62 SPATIAL AUTOPSY 66 NO WI-FI?! 68 MUSICAL BREAKDOWN 70 URBAN VILLAGE 74 REDEFINING THE FAVELA 76 IMATRIX 78 FREE AS AIR 80 URBAN CATALYST 81 ELASTIC MORPHOLOGIES 82 ASCENT 86 DOOR, WINDOW, STAIR 90 LIKE A HINGE 92 SILVARIUM 96 MATERIAL SYSTEMS 98 ORGAN DONOR 100 CLIMBING WALL 102 ARTIFICIAL CANOPY 104 URBAN CATALYST 106 SAVE OUR LIBRARY! 110 HAIR EXTENSIONS 112 INSTRUMENTAL LINES 114 ARTICULATED CREVICE 116 FLORIDA LANDSCAPE/ECOLOGY 117 PHENOMENOLOGY OF SITE 118 SINKHOLE PAVILION 120 PETER AND THE LANDSCAPE 122 PROGRAMMING 124 PARASITIC INFUSION 126 PHYSICAL VOIDED CONNECTION 128 UFARM 130 OPEN ARCHITECTURE 132 SUNFLOWER FACTORY 134 SHIBATI: SYMBOL OF THE CITY 138 URBAN RENEWAL 140 CULTURAL RITUALISM 142 20 QUESTIONS WITH BRIAN SMITH 144 DETROIT TAILOR 146 MONASTIC RUIN 150 LA COMUNITÀ ETERNA 152 PHOTOGRAPHING EUROPE

OBJECTS 16

OBJECTS

PRENDELUCEPRENDEOMBRA TAKETHESHADOWTAKETHELIGHT JURIJ KOBE, GUEST LECTURER, SLOVENIA

JUST AS THE LIGHT BECOMES LIGHT ONLY WHEN PROJECTED ON SOMETHING, ALSO ARCHITECTURE BECOMES ARCHITECTURE ONLY WITH A DIALOGUE WITH ITS SURROUNDING.

OBJECTS

Years ago I was invited by my Italian friends from Pescara to make an object on the theme: La pietra e la luce (The stone and the light) to participate with them in the famous Verona exhibition of stone. In my proposal I was questioning how to make in the most elementary but also in the most abstract way something that could represent my understanding of space - my most important preoccupation in architecture. A kind of spatial polygram resulted in what I call Prendeluceprendeombra (Takethelighttaketheshadow): Five stone plates, cut with a saw, are exposed to the light from different angles: Each of them reflect the light in varying degrees- from the one that radiates with all power its stone being positioned in a right angle towards the source of the light to the one being practically hidden in its shadow because the light cannot catch its surface, parallel to the rays. With this object that could measure a few inches or could be an architecture in the scale of a skyscraper, I wanted to demonstrate: 1. Just as light becomes light only when projected on something, also architecture becomes architecture only with a dialogue with its surrounding. And with this I mean the physical as well as the cultural space where an architectural object is situated. Architecture answers every question differently. The dialogue is therefore its essential element. 2. That every architecture (forming of space) affects a much broader area than simply the tangible physical dimensions and construction of objects. Architectureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s elements: its structure and space continues a story, spreading itself further into the space (into the world) far beyond its physical borders.

Jurij Kobe, born in 1948 in Ljubliana, Slovenia, graduated from the Faculty of Architecture in Ljubljana in 1973 where he returned to teach in 2002. Kobe is an associated member of the architectural studio ATELIERarhitekti in which he has earned numerous awards including his most recent award in 2007, the Platinum Pencil.

3. Further the physical aspects of this object â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the architecture is, above all, carrying a message, a story - and not only that! - we can say that the story of an architecture remains alive even after the physical architectural object is actually destroyed! Then, we can say that in architecture there is an earthly, materialistic presence while at the same time a kind of eternal, spiritual reality inherent in it.

ESSAY

THE MUTATIVE DOME

DOME OF SHADOW AND LIGHT DAVIE MOJICA, G3

THE UTILIZATION OF NATURAL DAYLIGHT AS A MATERIAL CAN SHAPE SPACE AND ILLUMINATE NEW ARCHITECTURAL NARRATIVES. The Dome of Shadow and Light explores the intersection between

the utilitarian and phenomenological qualities of light. The project is composed of a minimalistic light receiving space, a double layered dome system, and the material of natural daylight. The outer shading dome utilizes a densifying diagrid which contracts at the points which receive the most sunlight on an annual basis. The variations in this shading dome control the amount of direct light which enters the space while creating metamorphose shadows across the surfaces of the inner wall, the floor, and the inner diffusing dome. This secondary dome is adapted to amplify the light qualities of the Vicenza sky. As the sun passes from east to west light moves across varying levels of opacity mimicking shifts between natural diffuse morning/late afternoon light and intense, direct midday light.

Lastly, the dome system utilizes an open oculus to emphasize the relationship between natural unaltered light and the metamorphose space within. By accepting light as a material, the exploration of its utilitarian and phenomenological qualities are utilized to shape space and illuminate new architectural narratives.

OBJECTS

STUDIO

BLACK, WHITE, AND IN BETWEEN DEPTH THROUGH A LIT PERSPECTIVE DESIGN TWO

SARAH GLASS 22

OBJECTS

DIJANA MILENOV

MICHAEL GARCIA

STUDIO

KIT-OF-PARTS

SPACE , VOLUME, AND TECTONICS DESIGN ONE

THE STUDENTS HAVE EXPECTATIONS, AND THE CUBE TURNS THEM ON THEIR HEAD SO THEY SEE SOMETHING THAT THEY DON’T NORMALLY SEE. In a short discussion with Professors Martin Gundersen, Lisa Huang, and Mark McGlothlin, we try to understand what makes up the cube project. The cube is the introduction to Design One, the first studio that Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Interior Design students take after arriving at UF.

Gundersen (G): It has been a project in a number of places: The Cooper Union, University of Texas at Austin – the 9x9 square grid, and at Columbia at some point – at the beginning of the program. It’s not original to us. G: It started something called the kits part project – pieces – components that could be assembled not necessarily as a cube, but in various ways, but that limited the material palette. It morphed into the cube probably around the time of McCarter and Hofer. late 80s early 90s. It changed. Both had experience with it, Robert McCarter at Columbia and Nina Hofer at Cooper Union.

expectations, and it turns them on its head so that they see something that they don’t normally see. G: I think there’s some sort of debate, probably even internal, about how you start it. Generally, although there are some faculty that don’t, it starts by building it. That gets into the question of skill sets: How do you assign the materials? What are the limitations and rules that come with it? I have to throw in that there is also an underpinning: the beginning of knowing through making. You have to make things to know where to go. The presumption is that you can’t make it beforehand. What’s great about the cube is that it allows the faculty to experiment. All the variations are interesting and there’s many ways to approach it. The beauty of it is that there are tons of possibilities.

G: For me, the format is instantly spatial and volumetric. We use this phrase all the time – It’s familiar but unfamiliar.

H: It’s more interesting to see different versions of it, and how students approach it. The issue of making is so important. There is a critical thinking aspect, but there’s also the issue of how to represent the idea. We intentionally make them do it over and over to refine it.

Huang (H): The cube is something that you think you just see as this object, but then you see it as something that’s more spatial and constructed.

G: TAs and GTAs have their take on it, they throw in their two cents. It has to do with the way they built it. They have to do it this way.

G: Yes, the constructed part is essential. The cube is a constructed thing.

McGlothlin: This year, my studio was strict with it being a cube, while Lisa’s had more variation/ orientation. In typical fashion, the models are more compelling than the drawing versions – as a generalization across the board.

H: It’s a great introduction - everyone comes in to D1 expecting something different. They have

OBJECTS

GUEST CRITIC MARTIN GUNDERSEN PROVIDES FEEDBACK TO SARAH V.

D1 PROFESSOR MARK MCGLOTHLIN SPEAKS DURING FINAL REVIEW STUDIO

ABIGAIL FIGARO

9X9X9 The 9x9x9 cube explores space in a platonic shape. By keeping the dimmensions exact, emphasis is placed upon how this familiar shape can be made into a collection of rich spaces. The project is structured by an armature, and is articulated through linear and planar systems.

MICHAEL STOOP

OBJECTS

ERIN LEE

CARLOS RODRIGUEZ

MICHELLE HOOK

STUDIO

SASHA LEON

HORIZONTAL By giving the cube an orientation, spaces that are formed become less concerned with the form and more with the experience. The ABA construct, for example, consists of a linear armature with two 6x6x6 cubes separated by a transition space. SASHA LEON

TESSA CRAWFORD

RYAN HOWSER

OBJECTS

STEPHEN PETTIS

TAYLOR TOFAL

STUDIO

STEPHEN PETTIS

THE BEAUTIFUL BOX SEMPERIAN PAVILION LEDIA DURMISHAJ, D8

In an attempt to explain the origin of architecture through the study of anthropology, Gotfried Semper introduced the roof, the hearth, the mound and the enclosure as the four distinct elements of architecture that are most recognizable to the human eye today. With the Semperian principles in mind, the pavilion was conceived as a simple space that celebrates these four elements. Through the use of tectonic making, each element was conceived as a system of its own. In turn, each system is clarified through the consistent use of primary, secondary and tertiary parts that make up the whole. Initially, the Semperian pavilion was conceived as a confined object, relieved of any specific function. The mezzanine intervention into the pavilion came as a solution to the issue of site and program as these were introduced after the pavilion was already conceived. The conventional way of

approaching a project was modified in an effort to seek new issues. Through this modification, issues such as space, measure, and scale came into question. The program was inspired by the prominent Japanese American artist, Isamu Noguchi, known for his light sculptures. The pavilion serves as an exhibit that houses Noguchi Lights, in Queens, NY, overlooking Manhattan. The concept of the mezzanine intervention came from the effort of keeping Semperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ideas of anthropology and the human body in architecture. The sole function of the mezzanine is to exhibit the Noguchi lamps. Through the two levels, the mezzanine provides two separate experiences with the lamps. In the double-height space, a person can experience the lamps in the most conventional way. While in the mezzanine, the lamps occupy the space as well as offer more interaction with a person.

OBJECTS

STUDIO

MAVERICK THINKING

AN INTERVIEW WITH KAI-UWE BERGMANN ASSOCIATE PARTNER, BIG ARCHITECTS

Q: How do you know Professor Maze and do you have any dirt on him? Kai-Uwe Bergmann (KB): Lots of good stories about Maze, but I’m not allowed to tell. We went to undergraduate school at the University of Virginia. He came in my 2nd or 3rd year and we finished school together in 1991. Q: In your opinion, what is the most inspirational city in the United States, besides New York?

Kai-Uwe Bergmann is an Associate Partner at BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group). Kai is head of BIG’s business development and communication departments. He is a registered architect in the U.S. (Washington and New York), the U.K., and Denmark. I had the opportunity to sit down with Kai before the everpopular ‘Yes is More’ lecture. In part one, I am surprised by the humility of an architect from such a wellknown firm. Kai convinced me that we’re not that different; UF is giving us the tools to think and work in a similar fashion. As Kai walks into the conference room with Professor Maze, I knew this was going to be good. This BIG interview did not just fall in our laps. Yep, we definitely have connections. After a round of introductions, I jumped right in.

KB: That is a difficult question. The first thing I did after graduating from University of Virginia was to drive 7,000 miles across the country. There is something unique that you find about America when you actually go see it. It is so diverse, coming from Europe, where there are lots of little countries. Today I flew from New York to Jacksonville, a total of 3.5 hours. When you fly 3.5 hours in Europe that is from Scandinavia to the tip of Italy. So to say what is my favorite city in Europe, I couldn’t tell you because I have so many. That is my answer as well as for the United States; I have a lot of favorite places. Q: Can you list a few and why? KB: First and foremost are the natural places in the United States, like the national parks. They are an amazing resource to have; very few places on earth have that kind of resource. If you are speaking about cities and cultural life, then I think about places with a city-life like San Francisco. Seattle, where I spent eight years, has amazing qualities of neighborhoods and nodes. But then I spent two years in Los Angeles. I would probably never raise a family there, but it is one of the most energetic places on the planet. You go there and you are confronted with all these impulses. Just keep your eyes open wherever you are. Q: For a firm like BIG which designs mostly urban architecture, do places like the national parks still provide inspirations of the majestic? KB: Yes. Our next-door neighbor is Sweden. It is a country of only 9 million people but has a landmass the size of the entire west coast of the United States. I think that you learn to appreciate ‘wildness’ or wilderness again. Q: What brought you to Copenhagen? KB: I went to Europe in 2002. I got a little bit disillusioned by what we call architecture. I was designing a 100-year Jewish temple, which was to last 100 years. I was designing it in balloon frame with a tiny thin veneer of stone and I looked at it and said, “this isn’t going to last 100 years, maybe 20 before things are going to look a lot different.” So, I needed to experience the sense of permanence, the sense of time and I felt like maybe I could experience that in Europe. So I left on a journey and never came back.

OBJECTS

Q: You got your undergraduate degree at University of Virginia and your masters of architecture from UCLA. How has your training influenced collaboration with Bjarke Ingles and the other staff at BIG? KB: I’m really interested in education. I‘ve also studied in Europe and taught in Asia and elsewhere. It is a chance to see how teamwork and collaborative work is done. Architecture as a profession is so large and you need to know so much that a single person doesn’t have the capabilities to actually do it. You have to rely on other people. It is basically an orgy of collaboration. I think that my schooling in the U.S. helped me understand that because we had lots of projects that were collaborative. I think what is unique about Bjarke is his positive approach to collaboration and that he seeks collaboration at a very early moment. Q: BIG is one of three finalists in the St. Petersburg Pier Design competition, with design concepts due on November 29th, 2011. What challenges and/or opportunities does this Florida site offer? KB: This is the first time that we will be working in Florida. I don’t know if me mowing lawns counts, that’s what I did back in the day. St. Petersburg in essence is a close-knit community, INTERVIEW

a small community; it has a beautiful waterfront. They are trying to find a way to create a legacy for multiple generations. The pier built in the 1970s is an underutilized place and they’d like to find a way to make it, once again, a place to go. Hopefully, our experiences in Europe and America can be translated to St. Petersburg. Q: For the past month you have been giving lectures across Europe. How do you balance your work on the business front of BIG while traveling? KB: We live in an age or moment where I have my computer in my pocket. I can read e-mail 24/7. It doesn’t matter what time zone we are in, I can reach people when I need to. I think that having offices in Copenhagen and New York does require that there are people like myself. One of us should be able to come see the places and meet with our colleagues and do things like this, like being here in Gainesville. For me it is important because it is a chance to engage and see if what we are doing actually has resonance. I don’t think the work that we do is for all of America or that it is going to fit in everywhere. But I do think that America has always shown itself as a place for experimentation, for maverick thinking for risk-taking and some of the things we do are exactly that kind of work.

GRIPPING AN URBAN CORNER GAINESVILLE URBAN INFILL JOSEPH MURGUIDO, D6

THE RIGIDITY OF THE EXISTING URBAN GRID EXTENDS BEYOND THE ENVELOPE

The typical morphological habit of downtown Gainesvilleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s development is gripping the edges of city blocks. By folding the building envelope inward, this design creates public space at the street level. The rigidity of the existing urban grid extends beyond the envelope, maximizing programmatic space within the upper levels. A network of galleries are connected visually to the public space and the city through an interior atrium and balconies which puncture the envelope.

OBJECTS

PRO-JUNCTION

GAINESVILLE URBAN INFILL ROLANDO LOPEZ, D6

FINDING WAYS OF INTERLOCKING TWO PROGRAMS AND EXPRESSING THEM TECTONICALLY

STUDIO

In Downtown Gainesville, retail and small cafĂŠs line up SW 1st Ave., whereas nightclubs and bars run alongside Main St. At the junction of these streets lies a site that does not negotiate between the two. This intervention aims to blur this line, finding ways of interlocking the program and expressing it tectonically by means of a mass and void systems. Programmatically, the ground plane connecting to SW 1st Ave. houses a retail space, while the ground plane oriented towards Main Street folds up and becomes a nightclub.

INCISION

GAINESVILLE URBAN INFILL CALEB GENEROSO, D6

CARVED BY THE CULTURAL LANDMARKS OF DOWNTOWN GAINESVILLE

The Gainesville Meeting Place is carved by the cultural landmarks of downtown Gainesville. The resultant void slices through the entire building revealing a small open market and a cafĂŠ on the ground floor, workspaces on the second, a large meeting space on the third and circulation. The circulation volume which occupies the southern face of the building and runs adjacent to the void acts as a layered filter for light and privacy for the interior.

OBJECTS

MEGA MIX

GAINESVILLE URBAN INFILL VIOLETTA LIZAMA, D6

LIGHT WELL AS A MEAN OF NATURAL LIGHT AND CIRCULATION

STUDIO

The purpose of this project is the exploration on the use of a light well as a mean of natural light and circulation. I am interested in exploring the way sunlight interacts with the building and how it affects the activities held inside. By using large open spaces, the building can be used as an art gallery: the main circulation is enclosed by the light well, allowing visitors to experience the different floors while moving in a single direction.

MONUMENTAL OBJECTS

AUTONOMOUS REPETITION ON THE MAINLAND DANIEL MARTINEZ, G3

There is no other place on earth where cultural and social autonomy have collided with the world’s rapidly globalizing network more profoundly than in Mainland China. Beijing, in particular, exudes this unique character of autonomous urban expansion through its enormous monuments and encapsulating rings of circulation, which are actually traces of the city’s former defense walls (there is no better metaphor for a growing network that simultaneously acts as a definitive edge: these connections are still a barrier). The scale of the city is immense and its effect, astonishingly, is achieved mostly in breadth through the large proportions of the city grid and the chunky, midrise character of its buildings (outside of the Central Business District of course). Miraculously, despite nearly twenty million inhabitants, there is space in Beijing. Stand in Tiananmen Square and you can feel it, though the thick gray haze of the air always hints that there is more than just volume at work here. Crossing from Tiananmen Square into the Forbidden City marks an enormous cultural

threshold; one that allows thousands of people a day to occupy the unquestionable scalar difference between old and new. This difference, however, is not to be interpreted as shear size. Certainly today (and especially in China), density and population in cities are greater than ever before, globalization ushers in broader cultural awareness, and technology has allowed for taller and significantly larger spans within structures. However, the Forbidden City offers a rare sense of vastness in terms of the encapsulation of space by the formal repetition of figures that solicit the effect. All of this is on display in a fit of dusty splendor, with the roughness of the former palace and the trace of everyday people left to reflect the decay and inevitable supplanting of ancient imperialism through radical ideological movements such as the Cultural Revolution. “Bigness,” as Rem Koolhaas puts it, “is where architecture becomes both most and least architectural: most because of the enormity of the object; least through the loss of autonomy- it becomes instrument of other forces, it depends.”

OBJECTS

Koolhaas though, often known for pushing the boundaries of concepts towards the nearly absurd in order to render the architectural point (one can think of his manifesto for New York and the “Culture of Congestion” or the article where this quote comes from which claims blatantly that the subtext of bigness is, “f**k context.”), quite frankly misses the point completely. The impact an object has on an individual, and this is especially the case within the walls of the Forbidden City, has little to do with its “bigness” and much to do with its dependence on the contingencies of time (history) and change (movement). As Jeremy Till writes, “One of the reasons that the design of objects is so privileged... is that it is one aspect of the whole process where the architect retains nominal control.” Koolhaas is a dominant figure in the world of contemporary architecture, often exuding an air of total control over the architectural operation (until, that is, his buildings catch fire). What Till and others have highlighted is the intelligence behind “letting go” and allowing architecture to accept the influence of outside forces. Till again, “The architect only starts what time and others continue.”

Unsurprisingly, there is one major other force whose influence on architecture and the urban condition is uncontestable in China: the government and its political image. Propaganda with the images of architectural icons (from the Great Wall to the Bird’s Nest) are everywhere on the streets of Beijing. They imply that as Beijing moves towards the future it will rely on the portrayal of a specific narrative, one whose heroes are monumental objects (a variation on a theme that is beginning to rival the much duplicated image of Chairman Mao Zedong). As Beatriz Colomina has argued, “Architecture is not simply something represented, but is a way of representing,” and this means, “that the building is not simply represented in images but is a mechanism for producing images.” This framework allows her to spin a unique view of modernity as necessarily tied to an engagement with and articulation of the media. It is here and on the world’s economic stage where one begins to sense the undercurrent of a less tangible but equally viable network elevating Beijing’s global status.

THE THICK GRAY HAZE OF THE AIR ALWAYS HINTS THAT THERE IS MORE THAN VOLUME AT WORK HERE.

ESSAY

VERNACULAR TECTONICS

AN URBAN STRATA: PUBLIC SCHOOL SAMI GERWICK, G3

REGIONAL ARCHITECTURE IS CREATED WHEN CULTURE ADDRESSES ITSELF TO THE SPECIFICS OF EXPRESSION ASSOCIATED WITH THE ENVIRONMENT. Memory derives the interaction between architecture and culture. It becomes the underlying link of the city of San Martin de Las Cañas to its regional identity within the Tequila Valley. Memory can be defined as a human’s ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. It allows culture to become integrated into design: Binding notions of place-making, public space, program, circulation, material palette, and expression through detail. Cultural interface arises when a group possessing a defined character responds to the challenges embedded in a particular environment. 40

This interface is a filter in which an inhabitant of a building views the immediate context. Culture emerges out of the character of a place as well as the sets of meanings associated with it through an individual’s memory. Memory connects the patterns of how a particular intervention optimizes conditions in the environmental to that of the regional context. For example, this could be how a site deals with water; how a building deals with air circulation. These reoccurrences in ecological details remind oneself of a building’s willfulness towards regional identity. Regional architecture is created when culture addresses itself to the specifics of expression associated with the environment. The program of the proposed intervention in San Martin is an educational facility: an instigation of social, political, and historical thought that becomes cultural imposition. The building from the street reads as two parallel volumes that look out onto the landscape from different angles. From the courtyard, the two buildings form an “L” where the primary volume becomes a bar piece that the secondary volume intersects. The primary volume OBJECTS

houses the main constituents of the program, including two classrooms and a multipurpose volume. The secondary volume contains the public library that hovers over the schoolyard. The bridge that connects them folds along the loft space of the large volume to connect back to the school yard by slipping between two lightweight wooden filigree planes. This interstitial moment forms a spatial joint that interlocks the two buildings to formulate one language between them. STUDIO ABROAD

SAN MARTIN DE LAS CAÑAS CHAPEL MEXICO STUDY ABROAD TJ KEIPER, G3

THE CHAPEL ASSIMILATES THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS INTEGRAL TO THE LIFE OF THE TOWN AND ITS PEOPLE, AND MANIFESTS THEM IN A BOLD ARCHITECTONIC EXPRESSION.

community; similarly, it is ideal that the public space in the heart of town is also able to continually provide for the community. The site of the project’s focus is a centrally-located plaza that is adjacent to an infrequently used bullfighting ring. The site provides a dynamic, predefined circulation, as it connects three different sections of the town and it is activated by an irrigation stream that flows southwest to northeast through the site.

The chapel in San Martin de las Cañas is designed to address, holistically, a specific set of issues typically inherent to the small towns that dot the Tequila Valley in Mexico. The respective agricultural land surrounding these towns is communally owned and cultivated. Thus, the individual towns support tightly knit communities, as all people have a single shared interest.

The chapel assimilates the fundamental concepts integral to the life of the town and its people and manifests them in a bold architectonic expression (specifically through the form and tectonics of the building). The (re)construction of the ground of the plaza allows for the engagement of the building, reinforcing its assertions. The concepts engaged include, but are not limited to: visual landscape issues, agricultural/landscape issues, social/cultural issues, religious (Catholic) issues, anthropological issues, and climate related issues.

In the town of San Martin, the agricultural land has a proven ability to maintain its role for the 42

The idea is to invigorate the public space through the construction of the chapel and the reinvention of the plaza and bullfighting ring.

OBJECTS

Site Entry

Adjacent Plaza

Existing Irrigation Stream

Bullfighting Ring/ Plaza

Specific Building Site

Site Entry

STUDIO ABROAD

FOX RESIDENCE

DESIGNING WITH CONTAINERS

STEPHEN BENDER, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

Q: What inspired the design? Who came up with using containers? Stephen Bender (SB): This project was entirely client (Tom Fox) driven. I had considered the idea of shipping containers prior, but as an architect, you never spend too much time on a project that won’t be built. Tom Fox had an idea, and over time, it escalated to the point of realistic desire—the project resulted from the social percolation of an idea. Q: Was it a project that was intended from the start to be LEED certified? SB: Yes, the client wanted a highly sustainable building. He felt strongly for the affordability of sustainability, meaning with strategy, sustainable solutions can be achieved. Every project has priorities, but sometimes desires need to be sacrificed. Though he now has over 12 years of experience designing and building in Florida, Stephen Bender began his career at the University of Florida, graduating with a Bachelor of Design in Architecture before moving to Harvard to finish his education with a Masters in Architecture in 1996. He has performed professional design phase services as lead architectural project manager and designer, and is well versed in the areas of professional service including feasibility studies, programming, design, consultant coordination, document production, estimating, field observation, and construction administration. Some of the projects completed locally include the 2nd Street Bakery, the new retail center for Urban Thread, the Woolworth Building, Volta Coffee, and PizzaVito University. For three years, Bender has taught Design at the University of Florida, combining his passion to educate with his expertise in the field of architecture. On the side, he continues to serve as Preconstruction Manager and Design-Build Coordinator for Mandese White Construction in Gainesville. The Fox Container Residence is located just south of 4th Avenue in Gainesville; construction began on December 16, 2010. 44

Q: Talk through the process, the give-and-take with the client, the fall-backs, the successes… SB: The fall-backs–very tight site, a lot of desires: wanted industrialized space, space for storage, space for roommates, a division of private and public (not a typical single family home); needed more steel than expected, but ended up using mostly recycled steel; wanted FSC lumber, but ended up buying from local stores Success– solar array, recycling of shipping containers, green wall Q: Now talk about the process from an architect’s perspective. SB: This was a LEED for Homes Project, a methodology of modifying the practice of conventional home building; Tom’s project is far from traditional, so it lost 25-30 points right there. Nevertheless, these lost points were made up in the categories of Sustainable Site and Innovation and Design. Sustainable sites, especially infill sites like this one, earn some of the biggest points. Q: What do you think of the final product? In hindsight, how would you have done it differently? Would you live in it? SB: Throughout this project, the builder always wanted to change things. It was difficult as a designer to find the compromise away from something that was just easy and cheap. Tom ended spending more money than he wanted, despite the builder’s intentions, but the builder is also responsible for applying most of the recycled material. The success of this project relies heavily on the flexible attitude of the architect. In hindsight, I would have liked the house to be smaller, and not fill up the entire third floor. I would absolutely live in it, and if I hadn’t been the designer, I would be jealous. My favorite aspect of this design is that it doesn’t try to hide anything. It stands proud.

OBJECTS

Q: How did the neighbors react to the project? SB: Most loved it, one hated it. Q: Ideas for future use of container design to shelter the homeless have been mentioned, do you see shipping container design as something that’s going to go somewhere? SB: Transitional housing and homeless housing prototypes have been experimented with in the past, but nothing has been built. A guest house of shipping containers is planned to be started next week, in Gainesville. Q: What were the final materials used? SB: End of life containers (15+y.o) Additional steel, pine, spruce, fir lumber, remnant slate flooring, gypsum wall board and soy based foam insulation. Q: What qualities do shipping containers bring to the design? (i.e. shipping containers are designed to the specifications that they can withstand 15 years of 60 mph wind at sea). SB: Modularity, certain prefabrication, high strength—holds 60,000 lbs stacked 9 high. Shipping containers are, however, difficult to work with. You’re not just using wood, you’re also implementing metal.

INTERVIEW

Q: What was the expected cost? What was the final cost? SB: The client wanted to spend less than $80 sq ft, but he ended up spending about $100 sq ft, which is still less than a typical LEED Platinum home costs. Q: One challenge with design is often relating our projects to the context that surrounds them. How did you approach that challenge with a shipping container house? SB: Because we couldn’t really address the context directly, we used simple mitigation techniques, like the green wall and porches. Gainesville’s requirements now for construction in that location are much different than they were few years ago. Based on these zoning requirements, the house was bound to be different, especially since it is by no means a conventional design. It is, however, an industrialized space, and it was placed in an industrialized neighborhood. It may not match, but it does fit. Q: Tom Fox stated that his house “is going to be one of the most, if not the most, energy efficient home in the county.” Did this prove true? SB: Definitely has the possibility, but it’s not finished yet. Tom plans to move in sometime in the next few months. 45

FLEX HOUSE

SOLAR DECATHLON 2011 INTERIOR DESIGN

The Solar Decathlon is an international design competition held biennially in Washington D.C. and Europe. In September of 2011, students from the University of Floridaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Interior Design Department had the opportunity be a part of the design team for a 930 sq-ft solar powered home. The FleX House, as it came to be known, was the collaborative entry of students from four Florida universities: the University of South Florida (USF), the University of Florida (UF), the University of Central Florida (UCF) and Florida State University (FSU). Under the unified entry name of Team Florida, each university helped to represent multiple industry disciplines including architecture, interior design, building construction, solar energy and engineering. FLeX House is designed in a holistic way as a sustainable, pre-fabricated, maximized efficiency house prototype that can adapt easily to different site situations and plan configurations. The house can be shipped on one truck and quickly deployed at the building site. The FLeX House base module is designed for a young couple or a couple with a 46

small child living in central Florida on a moderate income. As a family grows modules can be added to the base expanding living space as necessary. While the emphasis in energy efficient houses in Florida in recent years has been to reduce heat gain with well-sealed and insulated building envelopes, the result has often been an interior living space that is conditioned year round with little connection to the exterior climate or the surrounding site. FLeX House is designed to open up to take advantage of passive cooling in Floridaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mild weather months and close down to utilize highly efficient mechanical systems during the months of temperature extremes when passive strategies are not effective. This hybrid open and closed building type is conducive to a healthy indoor/outdoor Florida lifestyle and is reinforced by the design of the landscape, floor plan, building section, building envelope, and the choice of building materials and mechanical systems.

OBJECTS

COMPETITION

OBJECTS

COMPETITION

FROM OBJECTS TO BUILDINGS A DISCUSSION

TOD WILLIAMS + BILLIE TSIEN, VISITING CRITICS

Q: The spring 2011 studio that you conducted at UF’s Graduate School of Architecture was titled, “Libraries for Mind and Matter.” Students started with a 1:1 construction of a display armature for objects selected from your personal collection and ended with the design of a special collections library to house the objects of their choice. Can you talk about the main ideas behind the studio and its relationship to your own architectural work and thought?

Tod Williams was born in Detroit, Michigan. He received his undergraduate degree and Master of Fine Arts and Architecture from Princeton. Billie Tsien was born in Ithaca, New York. She received her undergraduate degree in Fine Arts from Yale and her Masters in Architecture from UCLA. She has worked with Tod Williams since 1977 and in 1986 they formed the partnership of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects. The firm’s work has been repeatedly honored by The American Institute of Architects. In 1988 the firm received a National AIA Award for a dormitory at Princeton University, in 1989 for the Spiegel Pool House addition and in 1992 for two projects in New York City, the Quandt loft and the Go Silk Showroom. In 1997 the firm won a National Honor Award for the Neurosciences Institute and in 2001 they received two more, for a natatorium at the Cranbrook School and for a house on Long Island. In 2002 they were honored for the American Folk Art Museum, the first new museum built in New York City in over three decades. In 2010, Skirkanich Hall received a National Honor Award from the AIA. Most recently the Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center was awarded an AIA New York Honor Award for interior architecture and the C.V. Starr East Asian Library was awarded an AIA NY Honor Award for Architecture.

Tod Williams (TW): It was a way for each of you to personalize the project and connect to what I feel is the importance of a strong and intimate sense of scale and material. And I wanted for you to make a personal connection through an understanding of the objects to an understanding of our own lives. The idea of an object is almost like a book. As I look at an object, I can pick it up again and again and read it in different ways, dissect it, analyze it, objectify or simply enjoy it as a memory device. Objects as books, find themselves mediated to one another. Finally, practically or philosophically I wanted to start with something real. Billie Tsien (BT): I have been reading an interesting novel in which people send out a shimmer of light when they are broken or hurt. In the story, a boy begins to see an object as something with feelings because his object also sends out a beam of light or a little glimmer. I think that by starting out with an object, while it may not be sending out a glimmer, it does hold a history, especially if it’s been touched or used by people. For instance, an old mirror may make someone think about people who had once looked in it or held it. It’s quite romantic but I think, for both of us, objects do hold the touch of people who are no longer here and the potential to be held by those who will one day no longer be here. Q: You have both been involved in architectural pedagogy for several years. Have objects always played a special role in the teaching of architecture for you? Tod, I know specifically at the Cooper Union objects were rather prevalent in some early design studios. How does the making of things engage with the complexity of making buildings? TW: I went to Princeton when the school was breaking from a Beaux Arts tradition and when one of its graduates, Robert Venturi, had just released Complexity and Contradiction. It was a time when the school’s direction was being split between a post modern and a theoretically based pedagogy. Then shortly after graduating I began teaching at Cooper where I remained for nearly 20 years. Cooper effectively became my graduate degree, offering me a chance to realize the relationship between drawing, the hand, architecture and the making of things. The workshop at Cooper Union is located OBJECTS

on the fourth floor, just one above architecture and one below art. Linking the two, it was used as much by the architecture students as by those studying art. We began to use the shop as a tool, and in the second year where I most often taught, a staple of the year was a problem of making full scale a utilitarian or (occasionally) non-utilitarian object. Not as complex as making a building, our students gained confidence in their hands, the value of making and the excitement of creating an object. BT: Well, in my own education, both as a student and teacher, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think I had something quite so formal as what was taught at Princeton, or at Cooper Union which in its own unique way also offers a formal architectural education. My undergraduate was in art with a more scattered approach and that still informs how I look at the world. For me objects are the things around me that serve as inspiration for ideas and work. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s undirected-- like seeing a bunch of balloons flying around and grabbing the strings and pulling a few of them in. I know I am not being very clear but, maybe...when you buy a car and suddenly you notice that car is everywhere. You have a heightened sensitivity to this object that you never really noticed before. When youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re working on a project and thinking in a specific direction, you look around and begin to extract a certain meaning from the things around you. You

INTERVIEW

look up and see these balloons and you pull some of the strings. Q: Implicit in much of your work (I am thinking of projects like the American Folk Art Museum, the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, and the Barnes Collection in Pennsylvania) is a vital relationship between architecture and art. What are your views on this relationship and how it affects your role as architects, educators and, more broadly as residents in a dense urban place like Manhattan? TW: I think that the issue of the relationship between architecture and art is now so deeply integrated that it is nearly inextricable. When I first began to practice, I had the most meager of budgets and challenging normative assignment. As many starting up, it was to completely renovate an apartment with virtually no budget. I was excited: an entire apartment but with it came the responsibility to first and foremost solve the problem with the means at hand. This remains the case today. Under such conditions how can one elevate architecture past the most utilitarian state? The answer is that we must humbly solve and then transcend the assignments we are given. It must be in this order: solve and transcend, not transcend and solve. The latter is an act of arrogance and hubris.

This is always the architect’s struggle; that is, to We struggle with this today. Even with the best of intentions, there are times and places where we have been impatient and arrogant. In both the Barnes and at Rubenstein artistic interventions do exist. At the same time, most of what we have done is to resolve the problem and then hope for the grace by which our architecture transcends the quotidian. Architecture is not additive. It is integrated; it is embedded. Only through a slow aggregation of pieces and an integrated understanding of the whole can our work be both practical and artistic in nature. Then and only then can it truly be realized as “architecture;” only then can it transcend. BT: I think that art is not ever really tethered. And for us both this is its interest, and yet I think especially for me, the reason why I could never really be an artist. I appreciate the sort of tether when I’m working because I need to feel that it relates to more than simply me. But I also appreciate the lack of tether in the arts and that’s what we do in our free time. TW: That’s why we can pick up and appreciate an object so much. We don’t really have a favorite. They come in so many different guises. They are tethered to one another and to life. It’s almost as if the pleasure in the matter came from the letters in the alphabet rather than the words in the book. One could look into each and every letter and almost write a whole book; where they came from and where they might be going. At the same time, the book ties them together into a completely different construct. Q: The next question is maybe the most political. The Folk Art Museum, which in many ways was a building that catapulted you guys to a certain status in the architectural community, has been in the news lately. One of my fondest memories was going through that building with you Tod and seeing your almost paternal connection to it. Do you think it will survive? Also, can you talk about the life of buildings and the contingencies that architecture always butts up against over time? TW: That’s interesting. I think that when you finish a building it’s as if you’ve sent your children off to college. You can’t help but be concerned for their well being; at the same time they’re really on their own. A long time ago Billie and I determined to only make buildings that would last a lot longer than our lives. We began to weed out commercial work from 52

the institutional and to remove things that seemed superficial in favor of things that were lasting. So it is particularly painful to see that the American Folk Art Museum is now owned by MoMA. Yet, even as the building was under construction I had a premonition that it might eventually be absorbed by MoMA. Folk art and Modern art are so very closely related. Even in the late 90’s MoMA was attempting to control the entire block; today it’s the same. What they will do with the building? I don’t know. Certainly, if they wish, they can readily use it, tying it into their collage of buildings. We all hope this will happen. That doesn’t mean that we’re not concerned. We’re terribly concerned. When we finish a building we have to set it out into the world on its own and wish it well. We hope it’s been given all the tools to survive and sometimes the survival of a child has very much to do with the way you raised the child. When they don’t survive it’s not always something you did. You mourn and yet even in mourning it’s almost impossible not to feel a sense of guilt. Ultimately, their elevation into a stratosphere of importance or their loss has to do with things outside of your control. I believe the same is true of all buildings. All we can do is to create a building with good bones; bones and organs and a life that is created with commitment and the best of intention. Q: Would you insist that if the building were to remain and not be razed, that it be used for the housing and display of works of art? TW: Not at all. I think it should be torn down if it can’t be used in a positive way, but that not need be for art. It’s difficult to imagine that it be used as offices or as a home, but not outside the realm of possibility. Under the present circumstance it could very easily be used. The top floor aligns with the second floor of MoMA. You can easily penetrate our building and make it part of an ensemble of different buildings on that block. I know it can be integrated and used for art. Yet there are other uses that might also be imagined. Over time, what has changed and what has remained the same in your architectural thinking or in thinking about things through architecture? TW: My thinking has changed in that I don’t believe buildings are objects. They are part of a greater whole. I think that nature is more important than architecture; that human beings are more important than architecture. That is not to say that

OBJECTS

architecture is not important. It is more important now than ever before. BT: I was in North Carolina giving a lecture recently and I started off by showing an image of the hand of God reaching for the hand of Adam on the Sistine Chapel and I said basically, “When I was a young architect this is what I thought architecture was about.” I didn’t exactly see myself as the hand of God but it was a kind of unidirectional thing: you have the idea, reach out, and deliver it. Afterwards, I showed another image of someone’s hand interlocked with a child’s. Certainly now I realize that it is something much more flowing and not unidirectional at all. The point is a point of connection, something more completely reciprocal. And it is a service. I know that sounds boring, like volunteering to take people around in a hospital or something. But I think the idea of essentially serving is one that powerfully elevates the meaning of architecture and what we do. In a way, it is the idea of connections, some larger and some smaller, that give meaning to your life. TW: Going back to the objects in your class last year, when they were first made, they were no more than objects of use. The authors did not think of themselves as artists. But the objects themselves connect us back to a continuum of humanity, culture and a way of living a meaningful life. It is no longer about the making of a singular object. Actually, you were the ones, in many ways, that brought the objects to life and that was truly thrilling! BT: I hope that an architect will look at the rest of the world besides architecture. In many ways I feel like this is what feeds it. Architecture does not feed architecture.

INTERVIEW

DRAGONFLY

LIGHT MODULATOR #1 JOEY CARDONA, D8

The initial generator for the light modulator was the section of a dragonfly wing. The dragonfly wing is corrugated to allow optimal structural qualities and long spanning lengths. The folds automatically give the wings a strong and rigid form while still maintaining a lightweight frame that enables the dragonfly to take flight. The idea is to corrugate and create folded shapes to strengthen this exterior light modulator against lateral forces such as high speed winds (hurricanes, thunderstorms, etc.). The modulated screening system is comprised of 2 iterations of 3 nautical stars; one that is symmetrical on every side, and the other which is only symmetrical horizontally. This asymmetrical star is the component in the network that creates variation is the screens geometry. All stars were created by cutting and folding acetate planes in a way that would allow them to take on similar diagonal axis. These stars are brought together by joints that adapt to the type of connection needed at various meeting points. The joints become a crucial part of the screen due to the fact that they are also where the primary structural component (a corrugated diagrid) connects to the stars.

OBJECTS

STUDIO

ARMADILLO

LIGHT MODULATOR #2 LESLIE WHEELER, D8

Static and shifting plates contrast to create a play of views. The armadilloâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plates of armor inspire the variety of function that the surface provides. Its shifting shell acts as protection from the harm and is easily manipulated to carry out everyday function. The same goes for the shifting plates on the wall. When there is harsh light or the interior calls for a peaceful atmosphere, the panels can be closed. 56

OBJECTS

FLEA

LIGHT MODULATOR #3 DERRICK ARCHER, D8

Multiple spatial units repeat to form a patterned surface unified by the tensile strength of a weaving blade, similarly in both form and function to the leg of the flea. As individuals, the units stand alone, but as continuous elements, the overlapping pieces form interstitial spaces and manipulate light. Each unit is assembled of an interlocking pair of folded planes with a pair of rods, one fixed to both planes and one rotating into place with the addition of the tensile blade. This blade serves as the primary structural element, holding each piece in place. STUDIO

THE SILENT SPACE OF OBJECTS MODERNISM’S DOMESTIC IDENTITY ANDREW BROWN, THEORY TWO

THE DETAILING OF THE HUMAN CONDITION WAS ULTIMATELY FOLDED INTO THE ELEMENTS OF THE ARCHITECTURE. Modernism’s utopian ideals found both inspiration and approximation in the objects of the age. In the early twitchings of the modern movement, Le Corbusier flooded the pages of L’Esprit Nouveau with images of cigarette cases, turbines, ventilators, handbags, furniture, file cabinets, watches and miscellaneous industrial equipment, all of which were, to him, direct representations of a new, all-inclusive cultural identity. “At every moment,” wrote Le Corbusier “either directly, or through the medium of newspapers and reviews, we are presented with objects of an arresting novelty. All these objects of modern life create, in the long run, a modern state of mind.”1 And this modern state of mind was at the heart of Modernism’s utopian proposal. What’s more is that Modernism’s propaganda campaigns deliberately linked the designed object to a certain ideal; an unrealized way of life which should be seen as a shift in the collective imagination. This shift held the promise of an all-inclusive, better life through transformative 58

design and the beautiful accoutrements of domesticity. Drawings and images, particularly those related to the Case Study Houses of the 50’s and 60’s, serve as perfect examples of this object to identity relationship. The Case Study Houses were tediously represented. Evocative images of homelife and everyday experience were composed around a selective matrix of meaningful objects. These images were often oddly evacuated of occupants, leaving the narrative of the scene to the silence of the objects—the furnishings of modern life as evidence of an anonymous identity. “To live is to leave traces,” explains Walter Benjamin. “In the interior these are emphasized. An abundance of covers and protectors, liners and cases is devised, on which the traces of objects of everyday use are imprinted.” In these renderings and photographs, the detailing of the human condition was ultimately folded into the elements of the architecture and into the objects which formed the designed environment. Carefully articulated, thoughtful objects were elevated to such a position as to require them to receive meanings which were traditionally left to other spheres of life. They became dignified. This conception of the dignified object had repercussions for the architecture as well, as it meant that housing the objects of everyday life was a task equally as valid as the designing of requisites for human occupancy. The object here—furniture, vacuum cleaner, house wares, automobile—took on a role far beyond its typical responsibility, for just behind these elements lied the suggestion of a modern state of mind, the promise of a superior way of proceeding. This imagery of the dignified object finds its precedent in photographs taken of two of Le Corbusier’s Villas. The first shows the empty kitchen of Villa Stein, its horizontal band of windows open-curtained and on the countertop are displayed: one fan, one mug, one carafe, one fish. In the background we see the hint of a chair just beyond the edge of the refrigerator and a table, above which one window rests open. The second photograph shows the roof garden of Villa Savoye. In the background we see a line of trees surrounding the property framed by the white planes typical of Le Corbusier’s villas. The middle OBJECTS

ground shows the gravel floor of the roof garden— the terminus of the home’s promenade—and in the foreground we see a white table. On the table are placed: one pair dark sunglasses, one bowler hat, one paperback book, one drink. In both of these photographs, the viewer is placed directly into the scene, but rather than evacuating all contents from the space, they are left as very particular objects of evidence. In this way the photographs place the viewer inside a narrative, but not in its beginning. The viewer is placed directly into the middle of the story; a story which articulates Le Corbusier’s vision of the modern state of mind and its manifestations in daily life. These photographs point to Le Corbusier’s particular faith in the ability of objects to infuse space with meaning. The traces of everyday life create a hypothetical identity which reaches the subject through an evocative imagery—the dignified object becomes Le Corbusier’s tool for meaning. Modernism was so grand that it can, in retrospect, be seen as a design project for the unification of identities at the greatest possible scale through the manufacturing of the smallest possible detail. Chairs, books, house wares, and the modest spaces they occupied were the designed fragments of a grand identity. In this way, Modernism can be understood as an enterprise which searched for the replacement of the long-lost unifying referent; one which proposed the supplanting of a communal

ESSAY

faith in the divine with a communal faith in design. It was here that the space between the objects and the walls became filled by projected messages, echoing each off the other in a dialog of shared meaning. But ultimately the promise of the modern project was never fully realized and in the wake of its passing a new conception of identity arose, one that replaced a unified notion of community with a much more singular notion of personal identity— of individualism. Along with this understanding came a necessary reformulation of the meanings, and of the space, of everyday experience. 1. Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, trans. Frederick Etchells (New York: Praeger, 1970), 276 . 2. Walter Benjamin, as quoted in Privacy and Publicity, Beatriz Colomina (Boston: MIT, 1994), 223.

LUMIERE COMPETITION

COMFORTABLE LIGHTING BY DESIGN ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY TWO

OBJECTS

ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY

ENV

SYSTEMS 62

SYSTEMS

62 SPATIAL AUTOPSY 66 NO WI-FI?! 68 MUSICAL BREAKDOWN 70 URBAN VILLAGE 74 REDEFINING THE FAVELA 76 IMATRIX 78 FREE AS AIR 80 URBAN CATALYST 81 ELASTIC MORPHOLOGIES 82 ASCENT 86 DOOR, WINDOW, STAIR 90 LIKE A HINGE 92 SILVARIUM 96 MATERIAL SYSTEMS 98 ORGAN DONOR 100 CLIMBING WALL 102 ARTIFICIAL CANOPY 104 URBAN CATALYST 106 SAVE OUR LIBRARY!

ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY

SPATIAL AUTOPSY

FROM UNKNOWN TO KNOWN DESIGN TWO

FELIPE LOPERA 64

SYSTEMS

BEN VONGVANIJ

STUDIO

REBECCA GAWRON

SYSTEMS

ADAM MAHARDY

STUDIO

NO WI-FI?!

A WEEKEND WITHOUT INTERNET VICENZA STUDY ABROAD

SYSTEMS

CULTURE STUDIO

MUSICAL BREAKDOWN

SYSTEMATIC WORKINGS OF A CLARINET BEN VONGVANIJ, D2

SYSTEMS

STUDIO

URBAN VILLAGE

MERGING NEEDLE TOWERS WITH CARPET HOUSING ROLAND FAUST + PAUL STANLEY, D7

Through the merging of two housing typologies, carpet housing and needle towers, this block proposes two primary modes of occupation. Low-rise housing fills the center of the block. This typology of densely packed homes below is filled with narrow swaths of communal courtyard spaces that contrast with the high-rises above towards the Northern edge of the block. In-between these conflations of dwellings, a narrow parking garage slopes down into the depths of the site and doubles back, above towards the center of the block to merge the low and high-rises. On the other side of the Highline, swaths of boarding school classrooms and dormitories are suspended within a rigid frame that greets the street edge. The gardens above the swaths of carpet housing are designed to welcome both boarding school students and permanent residents in ways that different generations learn from each other. Maintaining light, view, green spaces and density are the driving principles of the urban village. Light access is dealt with through the uses of small floor areas in the towers and light-wells that puncture the carpet housing. The roof canopy of the carpet housing is designed as a park that is accessible to the residents of the block.

SYSTEMS

STUDIO

SYSTEMS

STUDIO

REDEFINING THE FAVELA URBAN DESIGN CHARETTE

VIA + PESCARA + IUAVENEZIA + MATERA + ESCOLA DA CIDADE

Preceded by a three day colloquium at the School of Pescara regarding Urban Risk and organized by the three Academic environments involved, the urban design charette grouped students from Pescara, Venezia, and Florida with professors from Matera, Pescara, and Florida. Escola da Cidade in Sao Paulo, Brasil, contributed the documentation for the site, Favela Cabucu. The charette took place in our Vicenza Institute of Architecture studios over three days. Three teams of mixed students competed to design an intervention to the common problem of urban favelas plaguing Brazil and, similarly, many other countries. The groups formally presented their proposals to the public in Vicenza with a jury from Pescara and Matera. The School of Pescara is in the process of publishing these projects, which have been received very positively by academics in Brasil. The three different sets of ideas from the three different groups showcase site-specific proposals that tackle revitalization, elimination of flooding risk, substitution of the worst-case housing, provision of appropriate infrastructure, creation of jobs in agriculture, small industry, service and retail, and the public space as a carrier of innovation. The projects address the sustainability issues with varied strategies.

SABRINA BOYKIN, SIMONE CAVALLO, MICHELE Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ALESSIO, DAVIE MOJICA 76

SYSTEMS

GABRIELLA COLON, ARLENNE GIL, FRANCESCO GIRASOLE, MASSIMO LOIA, ADRIANO GALANTE STUDIO

iMATRIX

RETHINKING THE MAHATTAN BLOCK MARGARITA MARTINS + PETER SPROWLS, D7

Considering the varying qualities of spatial relationships that occur in a dense urban environment as the occupant moves vertically, two different apartment typologies are developed. Along with the private living zones of the intervention, a public datum of spaces is intersected with the private program. This public datum introduces a temporal quality of occupation that helps to introduce public interactions within the block that mimic the quality of interaction found along the Manhattan street. This overlapping of public and private programs provides an architectural dynamic that extends the urban street into the block and allows it to become a vertical, spatial organizer. A new architectural diagram for urban living is developed, one that projects a future concept of how living in an urban environment can engage with the existing urban fabric.

SYSTEMS

STUDIO

FREE AS AIR

TRANSPARENT URBAN DIALOGUE TIM BEECKEN + JOSE CRUZ, D7

LIGHT WELL AS A MEANS OF NATURAL LIGHT AND CIRCULATION

Based on Peter Cooper’s belief that an education should be as “free as air and water,” the proposal seeks to embody this concept into architectural fact. It is constructed with varying degrees of translucent and transparent layers that exhibit the diverse systems within a university setting to the adjacent street. This dialogue results in an interplay of interior visual connections that invite the curiosity of the pedestrian while establishing a defined tectonic edge that contributes in defining the urban edge. The proposal combines student housing together with the everexpansive network of a college campus. This cross-pollination of program together with the visual exchange between the street and the block results in an energetic dynamism that freely encourages movement within the lively streets of Manhattan.

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URBAN CATALYST

REVITALIZING THROUGH HYPER-URBANIZATION CHRISTOPHER FERNANDEZ + MISAGH ABDOLISEISAN , D7

By capturing the revitalizing effect of activating a Manhattan block through hyper-urbanization, new urban possibilities, in a cross programmatic fashion, are created. The animated infrastructure of the block sets up a vigorous urban threshold which dynamically shuffles urban programmatic elements with those of anti-urban quality in order to interplay the contrasting interests which would eventually draw enormous volumes of metropolitan traffic and advantageous congestion to the area. The hyper-urban edge of the block, receiving relatively heavy congestion from Tenth Avenue, feeds the traffic via the interior operations and the exterior peripheral conditions to its opposite side in Eleventh Avenue. This hyper-urban operation necessitates its own dialectic converse in order to create an anti-urban void, which shapes the peripheral urban maneuvers of the street edges bearing commercial and retail programs. This anti-urban void, behaving as a casual mall, can potentially host a multitude of cross programmed interactions of various collective activities which nourish and ensure the dynamic vitality of the urban programmatic elements.

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ELASTIC MORPHOLOGIES

REVITALIZING THROUGH HYPER-URBANIZATION STEVEN ALBERT + ALI CAN ATABEY , D7

Encouraged by recent positive interventions throughout lower Manhattan, the city block proposal is designed to encourage occupant interaction and establishes a sense of community with in Hell’s Kitchen area. The current amenities on the site do little to incorporate the neighborhood it serves and it brings little to the area in terms of activity or revenue. The proposed programs, that include a larger school, a library, bookstore, café, restaurant, gallery and community center, as well as multiple public spaces, become the means in which the neighborhood can thrive. The block revitalized with life and purpose will began to introduce a new positive energy that will improve Hell’s Kitchen and serve as precedence to future developments in the area. It used architecture to construct a fabricated environment in which education work dwelling and play can coexist and thrive The datum of the block comes from the idea of the arcade, in which a passageway becomes an event. Formed from ideas of visually experiencing the city, the dynamic nature of the arcade also begins to direct views with in the block and towards the city.

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FORMAL ASCENT

EXPLORING VERTICALITY AND SKIN DESIGN FOUR

CHRISTIAN POPPELL

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ADOLFO MAALINDOOG

FELIPE LOPERA

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SPATIAL ASCENT

EXPLORING VERTICALITY AND EXPERIENCE DESIGN FOUR MARIELA HERNANDEZ

MITCH CLARKE

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NICK LYONS STUDIO

DOOR, WINDOW, STAIR A SPATIAL NARRATION DESIGN THREE

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DANNY IZQUIERDO

STUDIO

CORY HECK

ADAM MAHARDY

OLGA LANTUH

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RAFAEL VALIM

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LIKE A HINGE

RECONCILING ECOLOGY AND POLICY IGNACIO PORZECANSKI, PH.D.

THE BASIS OF ECOLOGY IS TO BE FOUND IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES, WHILE THE WORLD OF POLICY AND MANAGEMENT BELONGS TO THE REALM OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES.

Here is the problem that many of us in the field of natural resource management have been dealing with: how to reconcile the world of ecology and the world of policy. Reconciliation is necessary because the nature of the problem involves both–suffice to think about managing fresh waters in a watershed, the conservation of a forest, or the expansion of cities. However, the basis of ecology is to be found in the natural sciences, while the world of policy and management belongs to the realm of the social sciences. How to reconcile two contrasting views, one based in the study of biology, hydrology, and population dynamics, while the other is based upon the vagaries of human interests, political forces, and market oscillations? How to reconcile two ways of looking at the world, of assigning cause-andeffect equations, of different definitions of reality? This is where the idea of a hinge appears useful. A social-ecological system can be imagined as a hinge; that is, almost any “system” that we usually approach (a forest, a city, a house, a body) must be looked at from these two perspectives. One is natural-scientific, the other social-anthropological; therefore, social-ecological because they are mutually dependent. The hinge’s wings lie firmly in a different part of the opening, for example one on the doorframe, the other on the door. That is, each part maintains its position and attachment to its particular site; the parts do not naturally merge into a new piece (the social and the ecological do not naturally mix) –we are the ones who build the hinges. How the ecology of a place is known and perceived is closely related to how it is managed. Management, then, acts upon the ecological domain and attempts to change it, and the process re-starts continually, each part influencing the other through history, technologies, and values. The hinge pin--a fabricated piece- that is not part of either the doorframe or the door- could be visualized as the institutional domain –the organizations, agencies and NGOs that lay out the norms that allow society to function. It is the realm where the social and the ecological meet, each maintaining its individual set of characteristics, methods, and concerns, while being tightly bound to each other. So, in theory at least, ecology and society should meet –but they not always do. Oftentimes ecologists, who usually deal with experiments under controlled conditions, have a low opinion of managers, who make subjective judgments about whimsical people’s opinions. And policy makers may harbor a disdainful stance towards scientists who are divorced from the actual concerns of the “real world” –as

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if the world of research about the natural world would belong to some other, different reality. As is also the case in dualities that are naturally interdependent (structure and function, thought and action, knowledge and perception, private and public, analog and digital, real and virtual, rural and urban, and so on) it stands to reason that a deliberate effort be made by people on both sides of these -somewhat equivocal- equations to come together and agree to speak a common language across areas. Coming together in this way is a fabrication, something to be constructed, laboriously, patiently, painfully, because in the normal course of events, disciplines do not come together spontaneously. Paradoxically, a fabrication can be both something unreal, invented, or imagined, and something assembled piece by piece, rivet by rivet, until it acquires shape, content, and tangibility. Bridging the gap between the ecological and social, as well as between most other real or apparent dualities is a fabrication in both senses. It includes the imaginary and the palpable, the visionary and the constructed. This encounter â&#x20AC;&#x201C;which can initially be a clash-, will be successful to the extent that specific objects spring from ideas, and that the discussion breeds a common productive and tangible space, object, or plan. For these reasons we should be free and willing to engage with other disciplines, because who knows, we may be persuaded, learn, and go forth into a better reality.

ESSAY

SILVARIUM

eVOLO COMPETITION

ROLANDO LOPEZ, BRYANT NGUYEN, BEN VONGVANIJ, PLUB WARNITCHAI

SILVARIUM PROPOSES A FRAMEWORK THAT SIMULATES THE ORGANIC GROWTH OF A FOREST AND INFUSES IT WITH THE NEEDS OF SUSTAINABLE VERTICAL LIVING. THE RESULTING SYSTEM OF TOWERS IS BY ALL MEANS AN ECOSYSTEM CAPABLE OF SUSTAINING LIFE AND SUSTAINING ITSELF.

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COMPETITION

Birth

Horizontal Connection

Clusters

Network

Single tower begins growing. Can be inhabited anytime.

A second tower grows alongside the first. Moments form where program merges horizontaly, giving birth to parks and plazas.

Towers continue growing, and programmatic shifts occur that allow for dialogue betweent the group. Clusters of two or more towers are formed.

When multiple clusters interact, a network is formed which is connected through the ground plane. With given density, these clusters become a city within a city.

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THE CHALLENGE

CASE STUDY

There is an undeniable link between humans and forests. Since the beginning man has coexisted with nature in harmony and unison but with the advancement of technology humanity has experienced rapid growth, a new quality of living, and the thirst to colonize new territories that are seemingly unattainable. This progress, although positive, has had many negative consequences as our consumption of resources increases each day and our environment suffers the effects of pollution due to manufacturing. Drought, rising sea levels, tsunamis, the thinning of the o-zone layer are all alarmingly becoming more and more of a threat to the planet. This cycle of growth through destruction cannot be allowed to continue or else our resources will become depleted. It is through smart design that the scale can be tipped the other way and humanity may find balance with nature and technology.

Silvarium threads the urban fabric through a case study in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Shinjuku Station, one of the busiest rail stops in Japan, is the site of the intervention. We begin by making new ground spanning from the station and growing outwards throughout the rails. Then, a series of towers begin to grow and connect to form a network that cleans the air, produces energy, and redefines the way people interact with buildings in an urban environment.

COMPETITION

The constructed forest consists of four key factors: it is self-sustaining, it grows, it changes, and it reproduces. The tower can sustain itself by collecting and growing all of the supplies it needs. If the tower needs to become taller to accommodate a denser population, then its forests can be harvested for materials. The tower is intended to always be indeterminate so that it can react to changes accordingly.

MATERIAL SYSTEMS

SPEAKING WITH ANDREW KUDLESS PRINCIPAL, MATSYS

In his lecture and his workshop, Andrew Kudless emphasized the importance of developing a tool box by building up digital tools using different scripts; however, this digital toolbox is only a subset of skills that he works to develop. In our interview with him, Kudless emphasized the use of digital as a tool for design, but he also discussed the need for “knowing the limits of the tools.” He stresses the act of making, as well as, digitally designing, in that making and modeling is a tool of design itself. As an assistant professor at California College of the Arts, Kudless works with students everyday to help them develop the tools that they need to form a strong process with which to design, but he also works to emphasize the constraints that come with each phase in the design process.

Andrew Kudless is an architect based in San Francisco, where he is an assistant professor at the California College of the Arts. Andrew has taught design studios, workshops, and seminars at the Ohio State University, the Architectural Association (London), Yale University, and Rice University. Established in 2004 by Andrew Kudless, Matsys is a design studio that explores the emergent relationships between architecture, engineering, biology, and computation. Based on the idea that architecture can be understood as a material body with its own intrinsic and extrinsic forces relating to form, growth, and behavior, the studio investigates methodologies of performative integration through geometric and material differentiation. The studio’s work ranges from speculative and built projects to the crafting of new tools which facilitate an interdisciplinary approach to the design and fabrication of architecture.

Kudless discussed a recent studio in which he commissioned his students to design a skyscraper in Hong Kong where, “finally, the last six weeks of the term I had them focus on production, which sounds really expanded from most studios you have probably had. Usually you focus on doing your final drawings and final renderings and final models about a week or two before the final, but what I found with that is, as digital technology has increased in use in schools and the profession in general, students, well not just students, everyone who is working, feels the need to do more because we can do more faster. Before, when I was going through school and we were doing everything by hand, it took days to do a two-point perspective… you couldn’t just do a rendering quickly like we can now…so what I have found with a lot of student presentations now is, because we can do more, they try to do more, thinking it is going to be better. So, instead of doing one plan and one rendering, they do every plan in the building and ten different renderings. Unfortunately that doesn’t carry through in the models. We don’t make more models.” For the final production, however, he had them create only three things: a six foot section drawing, in which, “they had to draw in every piece of furniture, every floor, every person, every floor beam in the thing, everything in the entire building,” a six foot render, and a six foot model, which Kudless described as “a family heirloom, that this thing should be so well crafted that you are going to want to pass it on to your children.” This allowed for the students to explore their projects in extreme depth, and only goes to support Andrew Kudless’s extreme affinity with the process of making. His refreshing ability and drive to model and create the things that he designs can also be seen in the set for the dance production “Endless Ocean, Endless Sky,” where he created an inflatable iceberg for the dancers to interact with. The set itself actually became the theatre, where the audience could inhabit the inflatable stage, as the dancers flitted in and out through a slit in the side. This set, however, was made on a $500 budget and was constructed using only standard polyethylene, an iron, a metal straight edge, and a fan. In our interview with him, Kudless referenced the work of Ant Farm, which also created many large inflatables, explaining that an Ant Farm SYSTEMS

DVD from the 70’s was actually like a “How to Make Your Own Inflatable” film. He said that his inflatable was extremely low tech, using an iron and wax paper to create the creases within the plastic and a metal straight edge to guide the iron and keep the heat from transferring too far from the edge, but that he had to work within the constraints of the budget and the project. He said, however, that it is these constraints of, specifically, set design, like a project’s durability, mobility, ability to be deployed and taken down, and budget, are what make set design so interesting. This was his first set design project, but he hopes to do more in the future. Constraints were also a driving force in p-wall, not only the constraints of the construction and design, but also the constraints in which the people can interact with the project. In 2009, p-wall (Image 2) was installed at SFMoMa. Kudless told us he was very disappointed that the people circulating through the museum would not be able to touch the installation, although, many secretly do. For him, he felt that a further ring of study could come from the wear of people touching his project, namely in discerning which areas are touched most over time and which would be left alone. This project has an almost sensual nature, in that many of the undulations in the surface begin to look like human body parts, and for this reason, Kudless was interested in determining if some parts were more desirable than others. He explained that the oils from people’s hands could start to tell a story ESSAY

about what parts were touched most. Kudless also thought it very important for the piece to be touched in order for the viewers to make a connection with the material and its appearance. He tells a story of a time when he was at SFMoMA as a student tour group was coming through and he told us “there was this one guy who was really excited by it, by the piece, and I was like, ‘Oh, you like it?’ and he said, ‘Oh yea! This is so cool! I just want to punch it! It just looks so soft.’ And I told him, I didn’t tell him who I was, but I told him that he probably didn’t want to do that, not because he would damage the art, but because he was really going to hurt his hand. It’s hard as rock.” The guy quickly touched the piece and got yelled at by the guard, but Kudless explained that, by touching the piece, there was no longer that disconnect between the fluffy appearance and the actuality of the hard plaster. A p-wall is also being designed for the FRAC Centre in Orleans, France. Here, a guard will not be present, so Kudless is very excited to see people how people interact with his work, explaining that, “architecture is made to be used, unlike art. Art is mostly made to be seen, or kind of experienced, but not quite used. People feel they have the freedom to touch architecture, like you touch a door knob, push a door, a handrail. You do not feel like these are precious objects. They are tactile and part of the architecture.”

ORGAN DONOR TUBE HOTEL

XIAOYAN ZHOU, G1

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CLIMBING WALL

URBAN SPORTS HOTEL FRANCISCO GIL, G1

CLIMBABLE ROCK WALL THAT SCALES THE EASTERN AND NORTHERN FAĂ&#x2021;ADE OF THE HOTEL TOWER

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The Urban Sports Hotel project located in downtown Orlando, Florida was developed principally as a response to the need for a rail station for the newly proposed Sun Rail transit system of central Florida. The project has, as the driving force of its design, the conditions, activities, volumetric qualities and future projections of the surrounding site. The project aims to be be an energetic synergy of activity that engages not only its guests but the surrounding cityscape along with all its events and infrastructure. The design concept for the hotel is influenced by several conditions, among them is the sports culture present in the church street corridor of downtown Orlando. This, along with the vertical nature of the surrounding context, has inspired the idea of the climbable rock wall that scales the eastern and northern faĂ§ades of the hotel tower. These walls serve dual purposes, both architecturally and programmatically. From an architectural point of view, these tectonic and structural double-skinned walls serve as the enclosure for the building while at the same time providing shading for the interior public atrium of the hotel spaces. Simultaneously, they engage the inhabitants programmatically by serving as balconies and observation platforms for the rock climbing events that take place on their outermost surface. Furthermore, the tectonic organization of hexagonal panels which provide the shading for the interior, act as the climbing surfaces which given their diverse profiles can be further rearranged in order to alter the climbing paths and difficulty levels.

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ARTIFICIAL CANOPY COEXISTING STRUCTURES

BEN VONGVANIJ, ADVANCED DIGITAL TOPICS

This project explores the possibilities of parametric architecture and parasitic structural systems by using grasshopper definitions as a design tool. The project is to intervene the University of Florida architecture building in a multi-layered space canopy, and to use each layer of designs to create programmatic spaces: used for gallery exhibition, project presentation, and relaxation spaces. As the schemes comes from the concept of a canopy covering the architecture buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s atrium, the structure of the project is very minimal as the designs revolved around the existing structural systems. Finally, the design is to maximize the spaces within the Architecture Building and to activate more usable spaces.

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URBAN CATALYST

ORLANDO HEALTH AND TRAIN STATION ALI CAN ATABEY, G1

HOW DO YOU CREATE A LANDMARK THAT IS HERMENEUTIC IN NATURE? The project rejects the current TOD proposal for Church Street train station and situates itself at the core of the downtown area. Orange Ave in Downtown Orlando has a unique urban status in the area; it supplies business circulation during the day but becomes a venue at night for entertainment. With the new Amway arena Orange Ave venue gets cut off at church street and tries to appear back again by the arena. The intention of the train station is to agglutinate these two separate venues (Orange Ave and Amway Arena). In order to accomplish this, the train station is located on top of a historic building on Church street. In order to preserve the history of the area, the project becomes an adaptive reuse project in which the shell of the historic building is preserved and respected. Programmatically the building creates a crescendo in the venue to allow both entertainment, and a supply center for locals.

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SAVE OUR LIBRARY!

PROPOSING AN ALTERNATIVE TO ITS REMOVAL ELIZABETH CRONIN

The rally to save the Architecture and Fine Arts Library, sponsored by the SCC (Studio Culture Committee), worked to bring together students from across all majors. Students from the College of Design, Construction, and Planning and the College of Fine Arts, as well as students from the College of Engineering to the College of Liberal Arts, attended the rally with the hopes of saving the library that we all love from being torn down. Working with Provost Glover, Adam Mahardy, a Design 4 Architecture student, along with many others, sent out a petition and planned a rally to show the University the importance of this library. We met the Provost with the petition and we all hoped that he would be willing to Communicate, Cooperate, and Collaborate with the students of this university. A petition was sent out, the university was notified, and flyers were posted around campus stating the date and time. There was a good turnout, and we had some large posters, so that was probably a good sign in and of itself. There was a lot of chanting, for a long time, and I mean a really long time. Then, just as scheduled, Provost Glover came outside to tumultuous applause, “woot woot’s,” etc., received our petition and left us to wander from whence we

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came. It was over. I just have one question: Do all rallies follow such a strict system of organization? System. As defined by the reputable source of dictionary.com, system refers to “an assemblage or combination of things or parts forming a complex or unitary whole,” as a railroad or body system. This word “systematic” has pervaded our studio classes from the very beginning of our architecture existence, burrowing its way into our thoughts while our GTA’s tried to explain that our first project was to be a ”creation of a systematic existence between the stereotomic and techtonic structures that would come together as a cube that’s not a cube. Clear?” Absolutely. Nothing in this world could be clearer, of course. “Systematic” has become another word added to our bank of everyday jargon. It is a word that, I feel, could generically be used to describe almost anything, and yet, in order for it to work in just the right way, must be a part of very specific conditions and environments; a system, if you will. Clarity can help to define these systems, and is not something that is always immediately evident; it is something that one must find by delving into the problem at hand, as was the case in the dilemma of the library SYSTEMS

removal. We needed to clarify what made the library such an essential element to our educational experience. The Architecture and Fine Arts Library is an extremely important resource between the College of Art and Art History and the College of Design, Construction, and Planning. Housing over 125,000 volumes, it is currently one of the largest collections of visual arts in the southeastern United States, according to the library’s profile. The volumes contained within the library are tremendously valuable for these two colleges, but it is not just the books that make the library an essential element to the University of Florida. The books could have been housed in Library West. It is the space that is so valued by the students of this school, the interactions that can occur amongst the people, the books, and the awesome “cubbies” that draw students from many other majors to study in the quiet and private atmosphere of the AFA Library. This library acts as a hub between the students of Architecture, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture, Urban and Regional Planning, Art, Art History, and Building Construction. This is the one place where we all converge. We come to this space, which is placed in close proximity to CULTURE

our complex of sorts, and are able to always find a place to study or books pertinent to our current ventures, without having to fight someone for a computer or sit on the floor because there are no desks available. This is our space. It is a part of the system that binds our colleges together and allows us to lend each other the support we need. Without this library, our system could not function in the same way. This is what we were trying to show Provost Glover and the rest of the administration of the university. We wanted them to know that this library is a viable and necessary part of our educations, in that it sets up an environment for a very narrow field of study and remains to be a very poignant example of collaboration between the different colleges on campus. It is the mediating device between the individual and the college and will always be one of my very favorite spaces on campus.

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TERRITORIES 110

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110 HAIR EXTENSIONS 112 INSTRUMENTAL LINES 114 ARTICULATED CREVICE 116 FLORIDA LANDSCAPE/ECOLOGY 117 PHENOMENOLOGY OF SITE 118 SINKHOLE PAVILION 120 PETER AND THE LANDSCAPE 122 PROGRAMMING 124 PARASITIC INFUSION 126 PHYSICAL VOIDED CONNECTION 128 UFARM 130 OPEN ARCHITECTURE 132 SUNFLOWER FACTORY 134 SHIBATI: SYMBOL OF THE CITY 138 URBAN RENEWAL 140 CULTURAL RITUALISM 142 20 QUESTIONS WITH BRIAN SMITH 144 DETROIT TAILOR 146 MONASTIC RUIN 150 LA COMUNITÀ ETERNA 152 PHOTOGRAPHING EUROPE

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HAIR EXTENSIONS THE FREYJA SERIES RAQUEL KALIL, ‘11 ALUMNA

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SKETCHING

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INSTRUMENTAL LINES AND PRODUCTIVE PATHS THINKING THROUGH DRAWING

BRADLEY WALTERS, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

DRAWING IS LESS NOUN AND MORE VERB; IT SUGGESTS A PROCESS OF LOOKING, SEEING, AND/OR THINKING THROUGH ITS MAKING. The territories of contemporary cultural production are marked by those at the extremes. On the one hand, we find a sustained fascination with celebrity and stardom; on the other is an enduring pursuit of the commonplace and/or normative. While seeking the extraordinary, it is often the anonymity of the everyday—the automobile, big-box retailer, or matching homes—that brings comfort or solace. The competing processes of individuation and anonymity often merge and intertwine, becoming distinct only at their most extreme. We often occupy a marginal condition, oscillating between the roles of sender and receiver, leader and follower, actor and spectator. In artistic production, we find similar territories. Current strategies typically displace the authorial in favor of the performative and/or instrumental. We see this in particular through the marked pursuit of parametric design tools in schools of architecture. These tools allow for the hand of the maker to disappear behind sophisticated mathematical equations; input and output are disassociated and distanced. The process creates novel fields and forms, embedded with logic (and occasionally meaning). The work is valued precisely for its capacity to become both unique and ubiquitous. It is at once the rule and the result.

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For some amongst us, the drawing is a selfindulgent and willful artifact of another age. It is seen as something constructed of and by the singular individual, and it reifies the omniscient position of its maker and his/her privileged points of view. For others, drawing is less noun and more verb; it suggests a process of looking, seeing, and/ or thinking through its making. Drawing in this way is focused on the process of its own conception, with somewhat less emphasis on visual stills or resultants. The parametric equations of digital models, at a certain level, can be understood as one particular case of this more broadly defined process. And like its newer digital progeny, drawings can inscribe within themselves logic, methodology, and meaning while camouflaging the various modes of their own fabrication. Serving as both a tool for analysis and one of synthesis, drawings can be shaped by the instructions, intent, and meaning embedded within them. The drawing is challenged to do more than describe an isolated frame of the thinking process, however. It is not enough to provide one still image, excerpted and culled from many. But rather, I would suggest that the drawing has the unique possibility of becoming many frames, many multiple and competing narratives, of which and within which architecture can be constructed. Walters, Bradley. “Urban Fabrications.” Re.Building: Proceedings of the 98th ACSA Annual Meeting. Edited by Bruce Goodwin and Judith Kinnard. Washington DC: ACSA Press, 2010, 902-912. ISBN: 978-0-935502-75-6

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JUSTINE ALA, ‘11 ALUMNA ESSAY

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ARTICULATED CREVICE SPACE IN THE DESERT DESIGN FOUR

LAUREN FRIEDRICH 116

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LAUREN LAUREN GARDNER FRIEDRICH STUDIO

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FLORIDA LANDSCAPE/ECOLOGY AN INTRODUCTION TO PLACEMAKING MARK MCGLOTHLIN, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

A MAN WHO CARRIES A CAT BY THE TAIL LEARNS SOMETHING HE CAN LEARN IN NO OTHER WAY. - Mark Twain

The image conjured by Twainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pithy comment is certainly amusing and, in some ways, offers a colorful analogy to the feistiness that the landscape can present to the design process. Students moving from the open-ended projects of lower division into the challenges of Design 5 discover this feistiness quickly, as early speculative ideas are now measured with greater scrutiny regarding conception, inception, refinement, and consequence. In this sense, the questions of context and space-making fostered in lower division offer a rich set of skills for approaching the ideas of the Florida landscape. These skills are coupled with a heightened appreciation for the ideas of space and context directly experienced, bringing forward a rich and thorough understanding of landscape that, in Twainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s words, cannot be learned in any other way. While more elaborate terms are often employed to introduce such projects to the studio (my own interest is with eidetic and exteroceptive experiments), the broader questions of experience of space and place resonate in each project.

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The explorations of landscape are anchored first to the ideas of the experience of that landscape, an unashamed attempt to enchant our students with the nuances and eccentricities of a place that would be quickly overlooked in the impatient race to build. It is this kind of intense experience that flavors the projects that follow, each an individual speculation that bridges between the measured rationales that buildings require and the poetic thinking and making through which the architectural experience can emerge. The differences between the projects reflect the variants offered by each student, and subsequently each studio, and though each is driven towards its own direction, it is equally important to view these projects as a family, bound together by the underlying ideas of experience of the land.

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PHENOMENOLOGY OF SITE FLORIDA LANDSCAPE STEVE MAHN, D5

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SINKHOLE PAVILION FLORIDA ECOLOGY ROLANDO LOPEZ, D5

AN ARCHITECTURAL GESTURE THAT CAN CO-EXIST WITH THE LANDSCAPE The Devilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Millhopper is a naturally occuring sinkhole in Alachua County, Florida that is over 100 foot deep. As a result, the place has developed a micro-climate which has allowed many unique flora and fauna to develop. In addition, the millhopper contains many layers of history, which are revealed in the ground. Stratification was the main driving force of the project. The spatial experience of the intervention attempts to showcase the layers that make it up. An emphasis is placed upon how natural phenomena found on the sinkhole can be applied towards an architectural gesture that can co-exist with the landscape. The spaces of the pavilion frame views of the millhopper, including the waterfall and age-old trees. The tree canopy shelters the pavilion from direct sunlight, while the overhead condition shelters from rain.

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PETER AND THE LANDSCAPE FLORIDA LANDSCAPE ADOLFO MAALINDOG, D5

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PROGRAMMING

A DESIGNER’S NOTES DESIGN FIVE

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PARASITIC INFUSION FLORIDA ECOLOGY CORY HECK, D5

THE FACILITY LITERALLY FEEDS OFF OF THE NATURAL LANDSCAPE Due to its dynamic characteristics, the relationship of human intervention to the Florida Landscape is often defined by the separation of the two. Rather than keeping out humidity, constructing a flat foundation, or avoiding the high-intensity sunlight, my research facility acts as a symbiotic parasite, feeding from the ecosystem and integrating Floridaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s extremities. A parasite is an organism that relies upon a host in order to feed, progress through life stages or simply survive within a micro-environment. The research facility intervening in Payneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Prairie simulates this relationship of ecological interactions, both physically and spatially. Through varying systems of scale, densities and levels of deformation, the parasite is developed as a series of infected walls, peeling off, around and through the metered host structure in a physical manner. The ideas of grafting (exoparasitism), penetration (endoparasitism) and space within space (epiparasitism) are simulated in a symbiotic relationship, working together to create space, reason and function.

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PHYSICAL VOIDED CONNECTION FLORIDA ECOLOGY LAUREN FRIEDRICH, D5

CO-EVOLVING ECOSYSTEM PERCOLATION— NATURE’S RESISTANCE TO EROSION

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Across a changing topography, the site harbors several contrasting ecosystems: that of an arid artificial desert, a wetland, and a fragmented oak canopy. As these regions co-evolve, their layers naturally bleed into one another. Erosion escalates this gesture through three relative configurations: voided connection, physical connection, and aperture. Erosion pulls the land downward toward the artificial sands. Nature itself counteracts with elements of physical overlap such as roots and thickets. Architecture places itself on the thresholds of these elevational contrasts, utilizing such devices as retaining walls and water channels.

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UFARM

A SUSTAINABLE FARMING STRUCTURE

LEDIA DURMISHAJ, ALI CAN ATABEY, STEVEN ALBERT, ROLANDO LOPEZ, JUSTINE ALA

OUR IDEA: LETâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S MAKE AN URBAN FARM THAT CATERS TO EVERYONEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S LIFESTYLE. In a metropolitan environment where we are enveloped by metal and concrete, the notion of traditional farming is obsolete. For agriculture to thrive within a city like New York, the ideas we have regarding cultivation and harvesting must adapt to fit our lifestyle. Inhabitants of hyperdense cities have become removed from traditional farming and its time consuming methods. Therefore our proposal incorporates an evolved form of farming that is adaptive and customizable to its farmers. Fueled by current innovations in technology and the needs of city dwellers, we have designed a variety of spaces in which the level of control and human involvement can fluctuate to cater anyone from the traditional to the completely virtual farmer. Empowering our urban farm through technology also allows the influence of the farm 130

to reach beyond its immediate boundaries within the community, and encourages involvement on several levels since its members are unrestricted by physical location from the urban farming center. In order to maximize the potential of the Urban Farming Center, we are utilizing the existing depressed site topology as arable land area while the programs of the community center hover above at street level. A combination of 3M(R) PETG plastic and diochroic film serves as a greenhouse to the fields below, as well as a means to channel and collect rainwater for occupant and agricultural use. This maximizes the arable land area on the site and shelters itself from external contaminants.

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OPEN ARCHITECTURE

A PANEL DISCUSSION WITH FELIPE MESA PRINCIPAL, PLAN B ARQUITECTOS

Q: We were talking yesterday about the difference between public and social works and private works. Can you tell us a little bit about what makes public projects more interesting to you than private projects? What are the characteristics of them that you think has more potential, or do they have more potential?

Felipe Mesa is the founder of Plan b architects, based out of Medellin, Colombia. He graduated from Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in 1998, and then went on to get his Masters of Architecture in Barcelona, Spain. After graduating, Mesa has been a professor at various schools in Colombia, including Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, and Universidad de los Andes. He has also served as guest lecturer for many schools internationally and he has written four books. Felipe Mesa is largely concerned with the culture of Colombia. Focusing mainly on a modular approach to many of his projects, he tends to work to “be honest with the project,” by dealing with the needs of the people and the allocations of the economic situation.

Felipe Mesa (FM): They have a different potential. When you work with public situations, you are working with the money of all of us, or the money of the people, so you don’t have…you need to find a way to respond to a lot of different settings. In a privately built, it is completely the opposite in that way, but architecture is about the two sides of the moon. For example, there are a lot of houses, important houses, that are completely private projects. You think about Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, everything was about beautiful and special houses, and we learn a lot in studying those projects. But we learn some semantics form our discipline. For example geometrical, techtonic and structural projects or aspects, but when you want to learn something about the communities, about what the people really need, it is easier to work in the public project because you need to talk to them and understand them. You need to work with the municipality. You need to talk a lot with the politicians. It is more an open work. You need to talk a lot. You need to design the agreements, really, so I think it is really interesting to work with the people, for us as architects. It is difficult, but it is very interesting. When you have a private project, it is much more about a concrete sort of solution, a technical type of solution: this kind of material, this kind of window; you can’t impact the society. Or it can impact the society, but in a really limited way. Of course, you think about all of this, so houses and the neighborhoods of suburbia, it is all the individual houses. We are changing our territory totally. That is also a big problem. Q: Have you ever had to directly work with a solution as far as, for example, in Colombia too many people are buying cars, the roads and infrastructure can’t handle it; times are changing, Colombia is changing, the world is changing. Have you ever approached or tried to think of solutions to that type of thing, integrating architecture, public urban planning, and spacing with this conflict of the changing world that we are facing now? FM: We need big transformations, as a society, as a planetary society. We need to think about, maybe, if we were only one country: if we were all cities of only one country. Think about that. We need a lot of changes. For example, we have a lot of problems with food. We have a lot of problems with alimentation. We have a lot of problems with water. They are going to have a lot of problems with water. We need political changes really, not architectural changes. I think it is going to be really difficult. We are a lot of people right now in the world. We need to decrease the population of our planet right now. We need to control that.

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Q: What is the relationship between your ideas of permeability and transparency when it comes to security, especially when it comes to kindergartens and schools? I know there’s a school [you designed] that has a fence on one side, but the main area where everyone converges is open to the public. Do you have conflicts sometimes or do you work them out with your architecture? FM: All the time. We have conflicts all the time, but permeability works really good in the tropics because we have a lot of permeability in the currents and the sun. We don’t have seasons, so it is easy for us. When we talk about urban permeability, however, we have conflicts because we have zones that really aren’t safe zones. We need to use a lot of fences, but we try to be smart about it: where we put a fence, where not to put it, where to open a building, where not to. There is social permeability, but that is more about politicians. Where do they decide to build a building? What site? What is the size of the building? How many children are going to study there? I don’t know, it is much more about the democratic options or social reasons. You really need to try and talk to the politicians, to work in teams. However, that’s not always easy.

INTERVIEW

Q: How would your influences from daily life affect something in your project if you were to build it in the United States, where the culture is completely different? Would your view change or would you just adapt it to the culture here? I don’t think that the cultures are really that different. The whole world is now very similar: sandwiches, Coca-Cola, movies. I don’t know, everyone wants to be in a movie. Everyone wants to be in a rock band. I don’t know, it is so similar to me, but I would try to understand the concrete problem. I would try to talk to the people. I would try to see the materials, local materials, and local techniques. For example, why is this campus constructed with bricks? You don’t have that kind of material here. That is very strange to me. I would try to ask those kinds of questions. And maybe then I can just decide at some moment, this is the way to work here. I love Miami. For example, the Cuban-influenced architecture, I would study some of their aspects, but I would also try to respond to my client. I think it is really smart if you try to understand each project in a different but concrete way. You need time.

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SUNFLOWER FACTORY FIELDS AND FLOWERS AMELIA SHAHRABI, G3

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SHIBATI: SYMBOL OF THE CITY EAST ASIA

THAHN MINH PHAN, D7

The culture and lifestyle is dynamic in China. Luoquan, a vernacular village in Zizhong County, Sichuan Province of China has to be one of the most challenging journeys to all foreigners who never have been there. The village may have disappointed some, due to its slow development in economics, but for others, it has given them educational knowledge of ethnic significance and cultural reality. One must live at Luoquan, eating the food, breathing the air, walking along the market, and encounter the citizens to embrace the perception much alike the villagers. The experience of this village has led my mind to another place called Shibati (literally, “Eighteen Steps”), a declining historical site located in the downtown

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of Chongqing, a metropolis in southwestern China. These two places, one urban and the other in the countryside, formulate a sharp contrast in understanding the present Chinese urbanization. The villagers are joyful in Luoquan, kids run and play, people work, play mahjong, eat at restaurants, markets are vast, services are available... All demonstrate a natural enjoyable life. In contrast, there is a lack of hospitality once a visitor enters the threshold of Shibati. Current residents don’t want to continue their lives there but cannot afford being moved. They would have to submit to a different location, but in the long run they will be incapable of doing so due to financial pressures. The area of Shibati looks abandoned, deserted and condemned.

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Walking through such a place became a dreadful realization of how infected and wasteful the area has become. This place is in fact very important to the city. It is a historical landmark that explains much of the city of Chongqing’s origin. Because of its abandonment, the site continues to become more and more unappealing. Just take Barthes’s note of how the Eiffel Tower represents Paris. Why do people visit this monument? It has been taken as a piece of art that has enormous amount of visitors to catch sight of its magnificent tall structure and develop these vast touristic attractions. Barthes stated, “Visiting the tower is to get oneself up onto the balcony in order to perceive, comprehend, and savor a certain essence of Paris.” This spatial

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essence is being lost in Chongqing and need to be revitalized. Shibati is the symbol of the city, but it is troublesome to linger in such an unsanitary environment. The current declining situation has lasted for years. The site has been frequently visited by outsiders for its unique historical atmosphere and hopes for its renovation in living environment; a better and more exciting Shibati. The government has planned to move current residents and substitute the site with high commercial towers. In the end, their goals are to modernize the city with commerce and tourism. Against this simple idea, it is the architect’s duty

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to conceptualize and strategize a way for Shibati to be better livable, accessible, green, safe, and healthy. In comparison, the Luoquan village can be a model for reviving Shibati and satisfying the needs of its future. The old streets in Shibati used to be flourishing, full of euphoric existence. The rebuilt Shibati needs to upgrade its urban image and continue its memorable history.

THE EXPERIENCE OF THIS VILLAGE HAS LED MY MIND TO ANOTHER PLACE CALLED SHIBATI.

3. Roland Barthes, “Eiffel Tower,” The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies, trans. Richard Howard (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1979), 8.

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URBAN RENEWAL EAST ASIA

KIMBERLY CONNELL, D7

The dynamic relationships which occur on the market streets of Shibati are the main organizational arteries of the community from which all other networks, both social and architectural, begin to extend. The podium and tower utilize this dynamic and begin to elevate it to multiple levels of occupation that encourage inhabitants to explore and interact within the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s less public vertical spaces, creating a vertical street along which these dynamic relationships may continue to flourish. Elevated exterior spaces create the opportunity for inhabitants to meet, shop, relax, and take part in views of the city while promoting social interaction and contextual awareness. The manipulation of interactions within the urban fabric draw occupants up the tower and through it to differing sides, promoting intimacy through a visual experience. The individual is continuously engaged in different spatial experiences and relationships with the city stretching from the constructed ground through the sensory promenade. The memory of Shibati and the journey through the construct becomes an integral part of the social sequencing of spaces and their relation to the old street dynamic, as well as how the spaces are organized and connect to one another.

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CULTURAL RITUALISM EAST ASIA

DANAE CARDENAS, D7

At present, the discontinuity between the elevations within the site and that of its surroundings reinforces the awkward relation between the Shibati and the modern movement occurring along its peripheries. The elevations of buildings within the site create the personable, intimate human scale typical of ancient chinese culture; however, crossing one of the major highways bordering the site, the occupant is faced with a more monumental scale typical of the modern western movement within the central business district of Chongqing, with no means of transition between the two. Its fabric is saturated with both historical and cultural components of this placeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s memory. The natural, cultural, and social sceneries of the project were this crucial in the representation of Shibatiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s past in connection with its future and the surrounding areas. The meeting place between

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which we found to be our conceptual basis for the project: the idea of a teahouse. The teahouse functioned as a conceptual anchor through which the new fabric could develop. The structure of the teahouse, culturally, was already an existing component to Shibati. The tradition, organization, and foundation of a Chinese teahouse was arranged as a base throughout which the entire site would be organized to fit the already existing programmatic and cultural features found in the area. There were four main areas found on the site: the CBD, the market, the hybrid circulation, and residential components of our site cultivated as different types of environments all connected through this conceptual basis. They were connected through the components of a teahouse we found to be most important in connecting this project: the idea of interaction, communication, and congregation.

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20 QUESTIONS WITH BRIAN SMITH VISITING PROFESSOR

Where are you from? Temple, Texas Instead of architect, give yourself a title explaining what it is you do: Architects are first and foremost intellectuals. Architects do not build buildings; we design new ways of thinking. Because every building is an argument, all architects are theorist - whether they know it or are willing to admit it. East Coast or West Coast? East Coast. Why education? What are you hoping to accomplish at UF?

William Brian Smith received a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill in 2005 and a Master of Architecture (with Honors in Design Excellence) from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation in 2011. While at Columbia, Professor Smith served as an Associate in Architecture for GSAPP’s New York/Paris and Introduction to Architecture programs. As a student, he worked as a designer and editor at Studio-X New York (Volume, C-Lab) and Studio-X Rio De Janeiro (Central Futuros). Prior to his graduate studies, he worked as a publicist at St. Martin’s Press and as a pianist for Nordstrom.

An architecture critic is really part psychiatrist, part instructor, and part student. Despite established opinions of the altruism of teaching, I can’t think of a more selfish thing to do than to teach. Teachers are really leeches that feed on the minds of their students; it is really just another method of learning but cleverly disguised as a ‘job’. In the same self-serving vein, teaching is an incredible opportunity to expose students to your deep-seated biases and personal idiosyncrasies. Digital or hand-built models? Hand. What is the most recent book you’ve read? The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell. The Fountainhead, yes or no? Haha. I’ve never read it. But I’ve seen the movie. Yes. The Fountainhead is one big, glorious lie. String Theory? Hold on, let me Google this. I still don’t get it. But I love string cheese. What is your favorite font? Tungsten. As the self-proclaimed “whiskey highball” of sans-serif fonts, I believe it’s one of the most handsome fonts out there. What is your favorite color? White. Is architecture ever the answer? Architecture is part of an answer. It is never the answer.

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What do you think of UF’s style? I have a lot respect for the work and teaching that is done here. It seems to belong loosely to a lineage of the Kit-of-Parts Conceptualism that began when John Hejduk, Colin Rowe, and Robert Slutzky were teaching at the University of Texas. Their idea of architectural pedagogy was a strong departure from the methodologies developed by Walter Gropius at Harvard. They posited that architectural design was syntactical in nature. It was a language that spoke of defining and articulating space through the manipulation of both implied and occupied spatial constructs. Gainesville, yes or no? Yes. What do you plan on doing next? It’s hard to plan with the impending zombie apocalypse. What is your favorite material to work with? Rockite, for its gorgeous imperfections. Favorite building? Right now, I really like the Diller Scofidio + Renfro renovation of Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. It is remarkably yet beautifully awkward. I think it’s a genuine and inspiring rehabilitation of the urban street corner. Rural or Urban? Urban. Can you judge a ‘book’ by its cover? Of course, and I encourage it. Is time an illusion? Our perception is that time moves (it ‘flies’; it ‘passes us by’; it ‘runs out’, etc…), and that the future is something that awaits us until it comes into our frame of view. But this just isn’t true. I hate to admit (as it’s highly theoretical and most certainly irrelevant) that there’s no such thing as the ‘present’; it is scientifically impossible; and if the ‘future’ is relative to the ‘present’ then it, too, does not exist. Right now is actually not happening. So yes, time is an illusion. But we can, of course, speak of time ‘to come’, but sadly we’ll never experience it. What can architects learn from Apple? “Stay hungry, stay foolish.”

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DETROIT TAILOR

RESTITCHING AN URBAN RUIN BRIAN SMITH, VISITING PROFESSOR

THE STUDENTS OF D3 ARE LESS ARCHITECTS AND MORE METAPHYSICIANS... ...who wrestle with the very notion of being in architecture. (Door, Window, Stair and The Ruin). That the two projects are conceptualized and completed in sequence is no coincidence; one is the fortress, one is the ambush. Where as the former concerns agglomerations of space though the translation and transposition of architecture nomenclature (i.e., door, window, stair), the latter proffers an excavated menagerie of spatial fragments. An important difference between the two is their location (mentally and physically). Like a helium balloon, the realities of the first project are inflated, suspended above ground; as the semester ends a ground slowly emerges and students must make more earth-bound decisions

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with the “Ruin”. Where one could ostensibly “enter” the first project off a cloud, one entered the “Ruin” from an “earth”, real or imagined. A final important distinction between the two projects is the pace, stamina, and spirit of the studio. The crescendo of the semester reaches its fortissimo with the Door, Window, Stair exhibition. Exhausted, proud, confused, the students emerge from their caves to display the products of their creative gestation. As they return to their desks, perhaps battered and bruised, the diminuendo of the semester renders a more reflective, contemplative design atmosphere – fitting for a project whose name portends its fate…ruin.

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MIGUEL CASTANEDA

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MONASTIC RUIN

EXPLORING CULTURE IN ARCHITECTURE RACHEL WILLIAMSON, D3

The idea of having a connection between a small space versus a collective space originated from the monastery layout which aligned the smaller structures that were for individual contemplation and larger, taller structures such as the church which showed its importance in the landscape by its height and large gathering spaces inside. As for the more spiritual intervention that has a tower-like structure, it is only meant to be experienced after one has spent time in meditation so that the mind is cleansed and ready to be enlightened. Much like the Irish Monastic church that was placed at the highest point of the monastery, the tallest structure within my projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s context is the place of enlightenment, where people gather to gain knowledge and understanding of both the historical and spiritual aspects of the Ruins they are visiting.

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MIGUEL CASTANEDA

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CALEB GENEROSO

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KIMBERLY CONNELL

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LA COMUNITĂ&#x20AC; ETERNA URBAN HOUSING IN ROME

ALEJANDRA LOPEZ, ROSS MCCLELLAN, TIMM SCHOENBORN, LESLIE WHEELER

Developing a site along the Tiber River in Rome, Italy posed a challenge in dealing with the fluidity of the river, but also the Ponte della Musica near the Parca della Musica and the new MAXXI Arte museum by Zaha Hadid. Designing for a community living on and off site, we researched the architectural tools and public spaces of ancient Rome to understand the layers of public space necessary for the success of the eternal city. A contemporary tool that is incorporated is the community garden that acts as a pavilion for a public market for products from the garden. A main goal was accomplished by satisfying individual needs and communal needs. Also, residents and guests can take advantage of the spa amenities below grade for a more private, physical and psychological break from activity. Large public spaces are pivotal to a community, as well as, smaller spaces to gather and meditate. The Roman Road, clad in Travertine, proceeds through the housing structures, folding down through the gardens making its way to the cyclical promenade. Below the road, an integrated aquaduct system provides water from the river to garden plots and the baths. 152

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PHOTOGRAPHING EUROPE VIA STUDY ABROAD

ARLENNE GIL, TRENT MCGUGIN, BOBBY CONNOR

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