Volume 5 - Matter

Wentworth Architecture review

Wentworth Architecture review is an independent student-run publication that presents the rich culture of Wentworth design students.

v5

This book was set in Din. It was printed and bound on Rolland Paper at DS Graphics in Lowell, MA.

Wentworth Architecture review: Rima Abousleiman Dan Cournoyer Panharith Ean Olivia Hegner

Vien Nguyen Francesco Stumpo

Wentworth Architecture review Wentworth Architecture review would like to acknowledge the contributions of: Cambridge Seven Associates, Wentworth Admissions, Wentworth Architecture Department, and Wentworth Campus Life.

This volume would not be possible without the help of: Carissa Durfee, Elizabeth Ghiseline, Michael McPhail, Mark Pasnik, Rob Trumbour, Ingrid Strong and DS Graphics.

All rights revert back to original artists or writers. The pieces contained herein were created to fulfill either assigned or personal projects and are intended for display purposes only. Elements or portions of featured pieces may contain borrowed materials. It is not the intention of WAr to infringe upon the rights of the original artists or the sources of the material’s origin.

Wentworth Architecture review 550 Parker Street, Architecture Department Boston, Massachusetts 02115-5998 war@wit.edu

MATTER

Letter from the Editors: Matter Defined

It's a matter of meaning that resonates within us, a response to a culture unfamiliar to our own, the measure of our experiences that calculate our decisions and the flux of emotions that reveal our human touch. It's a place in our minds where we blend the deep with the superficial, the reason with the intuitive gesture, and the dialogue with the medium.

This year, the Wentworth Architecture review celebrates the release of its 5th annual publication. Showcasing a collection of work from both undergraduates and graduates, professors, and collaborators, these pieces are used to define matter both physically and conceptually. We look at the world around us and understand that this theme is not only a subject of our thoughts but a tangible object, used to describe an idea, a formal expression. How does one take this notion and manifest it into a palpable tool for discourse?

In the Fall of 2014, graduate students traveled to a variety of countries around the world: experiencing new cultures, gaining new perspectives, and mapping their journeys.

These events set the framework for defining matter. The nature of the place became a respresentation of larger architectural problems pertaining to site specifity, cultural identity, and social environments that we, as designers, grapple with in our everyday work. Matter in essence has infinite applications.

Architecture matters and matter is our world.

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DENTIT

青村老街

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One and a half hours outside the glitzy city where color and commerce enliven a place otherwise bereft of identity, we find the small, historically preserved river village of Qing Cun. Its soiled streets and polluted water distract us from a culture of beauty and craft that’s buried by rubble and suffocated by poverty. Here is where the tradition lies, and beauty lives outside the city-center, characterized by towering structures and smoldered by density.

It is here in this quaint river town that opportunity presents itself in the form of innovation and restoration; now is a moment to reveal, and to restore many of its lost qualities. Can we capture the community, embrace the energy, and relieve this small area of China’s movement towards rapid urbanization? Could it be possible that Qing Cun can once again be a stable community enriched by artistry and permeated by skill sets bequeathed to future generations?

We take a step back and remove ourselves physically from this deteriorating site but remain emotionally engaged, watching as its inhabitants interact: smiling, playing, conversing, staring with a deep sense of curiosity. Who are they, what are they doing here are the questions we perceive, as shadows cast upon our page from the perplexed heads leaning over our shoulders as we draw.

What is the matter of this place that we deem so fascinating? Is it the piles of rubble that our minds quickly reinvent or the unused pockets where the path gently meets the waters edge? Is it the links that thread the community tightly together or is it the moments of quiet separation that allows us to converge our experience with their tradition? How then will we foster the sites individuality with our knowledge of dynamic and sensitive responses to the built environment?

^ Olivia Hegner | A Matter of Convergence

Scatological Matters Matthew Carlson and Alex Griffin

The historic water town of Qing Cun is a beautiful example of traditional life that once existed in the Jiangnan region of southern China. Rapid urbanization in the country has led to an extreme decrease in the quantity, as well as the quality of these water towns. For many years now, Qing Cun's environmental upkeep and care along the Old Street and canal has been neglected. Although there are many aspects of this town that continue to offer glimpses of life once plentiful and vibrant, there are many issues that require attention and innovation to restore a healthy and communal identity.

It has been acknowledged that finding a plausible solution within the town would involve a model that offers remediation and processing of waste. Runoff water has become a main area for concern. From building roofs, to paved paths, through

piles of waste and spoiled soil, runoff water eventually lands in the canal. At one point, the canal served as a source for the town, the core element to how Qing Cun survived, thrived, and connected to the world around it. Today, the canal is used as a dumping ground for waste water from kitchens and bathrooms, material waste from building sites, industrial waste from near-by factories and other everyday items found along the Old Street.

Here we encounter an opportunity to propose a solution that reconnects the urban fabric through porosity, filtration, and layering of space and materials. This system for treating waste, while maintaining an appropriate quality of architectural character and scale, can begin to restore the life in Qing Cun's village.

A large empty lot on the southern side of the canal provides a surplus of space for filtration through bioremediation techniques such as bio-swales, phytoremediation, composting or “hugelkultur", and constructed wetlands. By introducing new spaces, through explorations of scale, use, layering, and organization, a design that uses new techniques for controlling runoff water and treating human waste can be implemented.

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^ Jennifer Lee | Qing Cun Old Street

^ Matthew Carlson

and Alex Griffin | Canal Remediation

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^ Ewelina Olechowska | Collaging the New and Old

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The Witness Steven Prestejohn

In some unfamiliar place there stood an unimaginably vast wall.

With origins that were lost to foggy eons, its sheer scope overcame the boundaries of sight; none had ever been able to glimpse its entire likeness. Cleaving through atmosphere and mantle, the wall stood in patient violence.

Enduring throughout countless centuries, it watched as the mindless ebbs and flows that brought the world up from the dark, deep nothing gave way to the frenetic ants who called themselves men. They declared themselves the masters of the universe.

The wall quietly observed as the ants grew in number, killing each other in increasingly inventive ways. Powerful instincts had guided these ants, but through eras of fire and pain, the ants were slowly discovering themselves.

Pilgrims traveled to the site of the wall, where the titanic structure sliced through forest and desert and time. Men knelt, eyes averted and heads bowed, while stark moonlight smeared itself over the wall’s surface. Many traveled in order to kneel as

such, in awe of the wall’s tireless observation of an entire existence. Through the thousands of years, the universe’s mysteries were disassembled, categorized, seemingly answered, and filed away. All the while, heartfelt souls would still travel to the wall to ponder its mystery.

The wall did not change; it did not intervene.

Vines eventually crept their way up its rocky skin, and on the farthest horizon, tall glimmering cities hummed and pulsed. It was during this time that a nameless man, who was like any other, made his journey to the wall. He knelt before it like so many had, and was startled as if a pillowy whisper had snuck its way into the murky black of his subconsciousness. He rose and began to walk towards the wall. The vistas from which the wall had been worshiped were located a great distance away, so that the wall may be observed in its immensity. As such, it took him days to cross the terrain that separated him from the base of the wall. His journey was slow and quiet, aside from the sonorous beckon of which he was only dimly aware.

After reaching his destination, the man,

^ Ciro Podany | Wandering Through Knowledge, Perception, and Existence

dwarfed by monumental height and breadth, found a small opening through which he was able to pass to the other side of the wall.

His time in that passage was devoid of thought and meaning. The traveler emerged unscathed on the other side, where no known man had ever been. Upon his arrival, he was treated to a new discovery. Across the back face, an equally immense lattice of stairways stretched across the entirety of the wall. Metal steps and landings punctuated the walls plain geometry; they stretched onwards until they vanished from sight. The stairs were wide enough for a single man to climb.

While traversing the imposing lattice, he saw only the wall. He saw it from numerous heights and lengths, he was a Cartesian plane drawn across the surface.

Through this intimate scrutiny, he began to understand the wall’s story, and he began to hear the wall’s voice. He ran his fingers over the wall’s weathered stone. I have endured the loneliness of eternity and the chaotic blaze of fragile lifetimes. His steps echoed softly across the metal landings.

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My body, timeless and unbroken, can attest to each of life’s small, frightful steps from damp darkness. The man could hear the breeze whistling slowly across the stone and mortar. Cycles of creation and destruction have spun viciously. Of your abundant conflicts, I remember only a vague longing for the end. There were deep voids in the wall, invisible from a distance. They were the scars of a turbulent, boundless past. I linger so I may hear this cacophony dissipate when the cold wheels of enmity finally still. The man could feel all of time flowing over the awall, he could see the trillions of frames that stitched together all of creation.

Consecrate! Enshrine! Build for fascination, for the search for truth! Some of these frames were filled with ecstatic joy, many were filled with familiar shades of red, and more were lying in wait. With the wall’s voice thundering through his mind, he began a slow, deliberate descent to the ground.

I am a vessel of contemplation - resonating at the heart of all things.

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^ Kylie Trainor and Hailey Cyr | Falling Skies

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^ Ben Bruce | Cut, Fold

Floatyard: A Living Community in Boston Harbor Kim Poliquin Adjunct Faculty

Anticipating the Environmental Shift Landfill operations have expanded much of Boston and Charlestown and existing hills have been lowered to fill what had been salt marsh, but the sea will reclaim the land once again when it rises with the tides of global warming. In lieu of traditional pilings, Floatyard rests on a hollow concrete barge that acts like a ship’s hull, to keep the entire complex afloat. In addition, the building superstructure is encapsulated in a fiber-reinforced watertight skin to keep water out.

Generating Energy Floatyard is held in place by a system of tidal pistons that generate power. While the building rises and falls, air is compressed within the piston chambers and converted to energy.

Fabricating and assembling Floatyard at the Quincy shipyard and using water as the primary transportation to Charlestown, eliminates the size limitations posed by ground transport. Because channels in the harbor are able to accommodate massive vessels as large as the 700 foot petroleum tanker, it is possible to transport Floatyard in tact by water.

Re-imagining the Courtyard Floatyard borrows the basic principles from a traditional centralized court but replaces the ground plane with a water-filled landscape.

The courtyard is intended to provide a micro-climate, a thermal comfort zone to protect visitors and inhabitants from Boston’s harsh winter weather. The courtyard also hosts a number of waterfront activities including kayaking and swimming. The east end of Floatyard lifts up to provide the water-court with views of the harbor.

Reinventing a Local Industry Rebuilding a Lost Habitat The development of Floatyard follows an interdisciplinary approach; a merging of regional shipbuilding expertise, engineering and additive manufacturing technology. Together, members of the team develop the most suitable material and methodology for water-tight living.

Floatyard will be constructed nearby at the Fore River Shipyard, in Quincy, Massachusetts. The shipyard, once a leader in the shipbuilding industry, is no longer active, but the original shipbuilding infrastructure remains home to heavy marine equipment services that could both support and facilitate the construction of Floatyard.

This large project could benefit the Quincy Waterfront by reactivating the city’s latent maritime trade while providing new jobs and revenue, perhaps even spurring more large-scale watercraft hybrid projects.

^ Project Team | p. 143

The water court also hosts natural ecosystems filled with saltwater organisms and native birds. Floating islands with native halophytes, lush salt water grasses and sea lavender appear and disappear throughout the day with the changing tides.

The islands are a living representation of naturally occurring salt marshes that once lived in the Charlestown waterfront, before it was reclaimed 200 years ago. Underneath the surface of the wetlands a dynamic process takes place to improve the water quality.

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^ Timothy Szczebak | Boston Street Photography

Tokyo on My Mind Jessica Valadares

The Tokyo Metropolis’ physical development and reconstruction during the 1860s through 1990s was largely in result of the contact with the colonial powers of the world in the mid 19th century.

Since then, Japanese policymakers have been acutely aware of the pressures and challenges of national survival in a globalizing world.

In this sense, the Japanese experience of modernity has been deeply intertwined with the ongoing processes of globalization during the last century and a half, following the Western example of globalizing and resulting in the removal of traditional fabric from the city of Tokyo. During this period, the development of the country sought to compete with the influential powers of the world, causing a history of adaptive urban forms in architecture and culture from foreign sources. Tokyo’s culture is defined by the goals and means of the policy makers, thus the reconstruction of the architecture and urban fabric of Tokyo became, not just a reflection of the prevailing culture, but one of the most significant tools for achieving the desired social order. The model employed in the design of Tokyo’s crowded shopping areas are developed and influenced from that of a large Western

city, reflecting the consumerist culture of the foreign influences. The development of Tokyo’s urban space and massive building volumes and heights are not proposals shaped from what society required, but catered to the economic and political regulators of Japan after World War II. The most recent conflict over Tokyo’s rapid growth as the largest metropolis in the world, emerged in the last few decades, as people of the metropolis noticed the lack of identity Tokyo holds today in comparison to the generations before them who held identity within their city’s infrastructure. It is understood that modernization and growth is a natural occurrence in the global realm; with the ever-rising knowledge and technology, a country like Japan needs to keep its place in the world. This, however, has long been a topic of interest since the 1960s with the Metabolism movement whom, during the post-war period in Japan, questioned the cultural identity through architecture and urban planning for the present. The problem of creating a ‘Tokyo identity’ continues to exist today and the transnational movement of people, ideas, goods, and images are now heightened by the globalization.

U LT U R

SULEYMANIYE

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Istanbul and Turkey are emerging as Western, Islamic, and secular societies. Strategically located at the intersection of Europe and Asia, and at the center of world trade routes over land and sea, Istanbul expresses historic and present-day cultural influences in its layering and form, and embraces the diversity of its people, cultures, and civilizations.

The Historic Peninsula, where the soaring mosques, palaces and Orthodox churches rise, is surrounded by the shimmering Sea of Marmara and Golden Horn, a natural harbor of transportation and commerce.

The majestic skyline of domes and minarets of the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque form the backdrop for the city on the water. Within the Historic Peninsula are the communities where ethnic groups of Muslims, Jews, Armenians, Greeks, Europeans and recent immigrants have settled. The Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, and the Topkapi Palace are the symbolic entry and center of the city, located at the intersection of the Bosphorus River, Golden Horn, and the Sea of Marmara.

^ Weldon Pries I Istanbul Revealed

^ Scott Graham I Aqueduct Intervention

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^ Michelle Hobbs I City Threshold

Prior to my travels, I read about the air of melancholy that surrounded the city of Istanbul as a memory of what it once was.

Upon arrival, the concept had revealed itself to be something so much more powerful than previously imagined and even more difficult to explain in words. This “melancholy� is a common feeling of place, family and culture; its sympathy for the city’s past grandeur is coupled with an unwavering pride by its people, transcending generations, and binding everyone together regardless of age, gender or financial status.

Each morning the people awake to the view of the Golden Horn. They walk the same cobblestone streets, formed centuries ago, passing broken remnants of the ancient wall, now place markers of the old city. In the afternoon they hear the same echoes of the call to prayer and at night they see the lights of the city reflected upon ripples of the sea.

Experiencing a culture such as this cannot be taught but must be experienced. As architects we are entrusted by others to make decisions and design spaces that will belong to a culture sometimes incomparable to our own. Therefore, for an architect, travel goes beyond a journey of pleasure. It becomes a responsibility and arguably a requirement to become sensitive and understanding to the culture and people around us. It provides contrast, perception and a well-versed, well-rounded understanding of the world both near and far. For how can we be expected to design for others when we can barely understand ourselves?

^ Katherine Lux I Melancholy

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Within the dense urban fabric of Istanbul's historic peninsula, architectural relics of culture, history, and spatial substance lie burried as pillars of immovable power both grounding the city to its origin and supporting a continued interconnectivity with its ever-changing surroundings. This war-hardened, reinforced space of market, religion, trade, lodging, prayer, and gathering is called a Han. The Buyuk Valide built in 1651 by Kosem Sultan has facilitated printmaking, textile weaving, metal working, the livelihood of the workers, as well as refuge for religious groups. The massive exterior wall of heavy stone is what protects the Han's sensitive interior open space and intermediary arcade of shops and housing. It helps sculpt the fast paced organic flow of people in the world of streets and alleys. This Han-Street wall relationship reveals the dichotomy of urban spaces that exist between the regular and the irregular, composing lucid build ups and releases as the pulse of life, rhythm, and inhabitable space make Istanbul profound and exciting.

In the current condition, a time worn exterior wall of sediment and protection hides Buyuk Valide's inner beauty and potential. Twentyfive of the Han's trade shops remain active while the majority of spaces remain silent and unnoticed by the passing sound of voices of people laughing, arguing, buying, selling, conversing, and moving. The approach of an urban intervention sought to open up the rigorously rich idea of the Han for speculation, discovery, and passage through extracting existing geometries, spaces, and earth.

^ Ciro Podany I Passage of Han

The Truth of Architectural Matter Anne-Catrin Schultz, PhD Assistant Professor

The investigation of what’s the matter in architecture at any particular time has kept numerous architects, historians and theorists occupied.

Etymology relates matter to the Latin word materia, meaning substance from which something is made but also meaning subject of a discourse and lastly, mother, going to the root of things [1]. Physical matter in architecture points to construction materials united with the site. The applied material palette defines the materiality of a building.

Architectural matter, at the same time, is linked to physical form and immaterial narrative of a building, to structure, enclosure and ornament equally. The truth of the matter in architecture has a lot to do with the ideas that are at the core of the design process.

This essay will explore three ways of approaching the origins of architectural materiality and truth. First, Gottfried Semper traces the development of architectural tectonics, analyzing the relationship between materiality and craft. For Semper, the textile arts are essential; they are at the root of all architecture, dating from a time when spaces were created by sticks and woven enclosures. His analysis of historic architecture and its evolution further traces the translation from fabric to other materials while formal parameters of the textile beginnings are maintained. Second, John Ruskin suggests the abstracted line of the surface of a “glacier on a spur of the Aiguille de Blaitière Mountain in France” [2] as a meaningful form for architectural ornament and as a metaphor to use as the basis of truthful decoration. According to Ruskin, nature provides the forms that bring harmony and balance to architectural detail. Finally, Peter Zumthor states his approach: “When I start, my first idea for a building is with the material.” [3]

beginning of building coincides with the beginning of textiles.

The wall is the architectural element that formally represents and makes visible enclosed space as such, absolutely, as it were, without reference to secondary concepts. […]

The transition for plaiting branches to plaiting bast for similar domestic purposes was natural and easy. Next came the invention of weaving: first with grass stalks or natural plant fibers, later with spun threads made from vegetable or animal stuffs. The diversity of natural color in the stalks soon led to their use in alternating arrangements, resulting in the pattern. […]

Scaffolds that served to hold, secure, or support this spatial enclosure had nothing directly to do with space or the division of space. They were foreign to the original architectural idea and were never form-determining elements to start with [4].

The Truth in Textile: Gottfried Semper The German architect and theorist Gottfried Semper (1803-1879) was convinced that the origins of architecture are to be found in the textile arts and that formal treatment of architectural elements is defined by those origins, independent of the material used. Architecture began with the woven branch or reed, which was replaced by woven yarn, a carpet spanning between sticks forming a structure. The carpet would be replaced by other materials over time, but the patterns related to the mechanics of the carpet and how it was held up would remain obvious in how the architectural surfaces were treated.

In his encyclopedic work about the relationship of materials, form and craft, The Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts; or, Practical Aesthetics, Semper explains the evolutionary nature of architecture, the changes in material and where the formal language started: early buildings were structures erected from wooden branches and poles covered in woven sticks, grass and later fabric:

It may be that climatic influences and other circumstances suffice to explain this cultural-historical phenomenon, and that the normal, universally valid course of civilization cannot necessarily be deduced from this, but it is certain that the

^ Gotfried Semper Knot (Top left). Different types of lace (Top right).

Floor in the pronaos in the Temple of Olumpian Zeus (Bottom)

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Semper relates the available craftsmanship techniques to architectural symbols and meaning, one set of relationships that can easily be adopted by other contemporary architects even though, or maybe because, it is rooted in primordial human conditions [5]. He defines the origin of the architectural wall demarcating interior space as a mat hung from a structure made of poles and a rug defining the floor area.

These archetypes of spatial demarcation act as the basis of all architectural parts that evolved out of them – it could be a solid masonry wall featuring patterns generated by the bricks reminiscent of the former fabric, or it could be a curtain wall exhibiting fastening mechanisms and a seam as if it had once been a hanging rug.

Surface patterns or layers of cladding are reminiscent of the woven nature of these early enclosures. Hems frame individual elements, while connections between elements are created by seams made from individual stitches. All textile elements that once formed an enclosure can be transferred from cloth to stone or stucco. Semper establishes a strong cause-and-effect relationship between the mechanisms of making and the forms generated.

Semper’s justification of ornament as the outcome of specific material use, such as the seam that connects two pieces of fabric, is based on an internal logic being expressed, a continuing truth held within the origins of building. Hanging elements (wall coverings) express the vertical nature of the wall in their details and in their ornamentation. Floor coverings, acting as the horizontal counterparts of wall coverings, display the quality of a layering element. They are surrounded by a hem with ornamentation that is “all over” [6] the surface rather than “up and down.” [7] Based on the rules of textile production, Semper lays out “rules” of how to design floor surfaces: “Let us deal first with the hem, which, according to what was said above, is the first element in the threefold arrangement into which any articulated floor should be divided.”[8] He continues to explain how the hem is part of the structure of cladding; it encloses and encircles the carpet or mosaic floor covering (after the carpet was translated from fabric to a different material such as stone) and acts as a frame. The hem offers a clear point of reference to whoever enters the space, re-tracing the overall contour of the room. Being the beginning and the end of a covered space, the hem includes not only a spatial but also a temporal dimension. Continuing the analysis of the evolution of truthful form found in textiles, Semper cites the knot as “the oldest technical symbol,” [9] once more literally tying together meaning and making, symbol and production. The knot became the architectural joint, the meeting point of linear elements, celebrating the exchange of loads as well as the expression of the connection made.

The truth of the matter sought in the textile arts offers an intriguing system that justifies form and ornament as rooted in the origins of man and first human enclosures, honoring a process of making.

^ Caribbean hut, model on display at the Great Exhibition, London, 1851 (Top).

Tomb of Midas, textile wall treatment (Bottom)

In Semper’s time, this interpretation offered a clear alternative to Neoclassical architecture, corresponding to an evolutionary approach in which materiality might evolve; the truth of expression, however, remains constant.

Architectural Deceit: John Ruskin Whereas Semper looks for truth in the relationship between material and craft (with the focus on the textile arts described above), John Ruskin (1819-1900) advocates for truth in architecture based on borrowing from nature. In a chapter titled “The Lamp of Truth” in his architecture treatise, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, Ruskin begins the discourse with the definition and consequence of the written lie and quickly moves on to architecture. He identifies three architectural deceits, or violations: the first has to do with false structure and is described as the “suggestion of a mode of structure or support, other than the true one.” [10] The second architectural deceit is “painting of surfaces to represent some other material than that of which they actually consist,” [11] and the third deceit is stated as the “use of cast or machine-made ornaments of any kind. " [12]

of lies; in fact, Ruskin calls them “innocent” [16] because anyone would understand that such treatments are a simple film. Gold corresponds to sunlight in nature; therefore, it plays an important role in architecture. The right colors for architecture are the colors of stone, all hues from green to gray and even white being acceptable.

According to Ruskin, Michelangelo’s work in the Sistine Chapel is without deceit (an obvious painting does not assert any material; it makes everything more precious), but the roof of Milan Cathedral, with its tracery that is painted for enhancement, embodies a lie.

In fact, any imitation of materials that are not actually present is inadmissible because it raises suspicion about the truth in other elements of a building.

Considering these violations as instructions, truthful architecture would show structural elements openly or clad them without deception, just as the human skin covers the skeleton, without the use of false beams or trusses that do not fulfill structural tasks.

Truthful architecture uses materials as they are and produces architectural ornament by hand, expressing the traditional crafts.

Faux marble or rafters put up for decorative reasons, atmosphere or cost savings are not acceptable and betray the search for beauty.

For Ruskin, Gothic architecture represents the fulfillment of these rules (or the absence of the violations or deceits). The Gothic building’s structure is represented by shafts and ribs (which resemble a tree’s stems and branches) or buttresses that communicate the torment of bearing the loads. A “natural, healthy and beautiful” [13] (and therefore truthful) arrangement can be found in Beauvais’ flying buttresses, a “steeply sloping bar of stone, sustained with an arch with its spandrel carried farthest down on the lowest side, and dying into the vertical of the outer pier; that pier being, of course, not square, but rather a piece of wall set at right angles to the supported walls, and, if need be, crowned by a pinnacle to give it greater weight.” [14] The late Gothic style, unfortunately, allowed the pinnacle to become decorative, corrupting the honest and natural behavior of the structural system. Ruskin acknowledges that architectural elements evolve over time, just as Semper outlined changes of material and, with that, the evolution of architecture over the course of history. According to Ruskin, the loss of a member’s structural role is not acceptable because form detached from its role drifts far from the truth of the matter. Honesty in material and structure results in closeness to nature, truth and the creation of beauty. Nature is incapable of being dishonest; it appeals to our imagination and generates happiness. For example, humans are often happy when watching clouds or enjoying a view of mountains in the distance. Nature comes with delight, a delight that in architecture corresponds to stones and joints. Even metal, Ruskin states, will develop a set of laws of use that will make it part of an architecture without deceit. Ruskin continues his exploration of architecture by moving on to the surface, maintaining the demand for honesty and condemning the “painting of wood to represent marble.”

[15] Facing brick walls in stone, a common procedure, is not truthful.

Whitewashing and gilding, however, are excluded from Ruskin’s list

Line AB

Ruskin claims Line ab is the most beautiful simple curve he has seen in his life. It is three quarters of a mile long, following the surface of a small glacier on a spur of the Aiguille de Blaitière (Chamouni). Ruskin edited the line by choosing certain crags to include together with the curve of the glacier.

Line LM

The side of a willow tree is traced by laying the leaf on a piece of paper.

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Line DC

Line EG

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This line is almost two miles long and is found on the flank of the mountain range “Dent d’Ochre” above the lake of Geneva, one or two of the lines of the higher and more distant ranges being given in combination with it.” [20]

This line is about five hundred feet long and is located at the southern edge of the Matterhorn in the Alps.

Line NO

Line ST

This line is the curve at the lip of a paper nautilus.

The side of a bay leaf forms this curve.

In the chapter “The Material of Ornament” in his book The Stones of Venice, [17] Ruskin suggests that we “look around in the world and discover what we like best in it, and to enjoy the same at our leisure: to gather it, examine it, fasten all we can of it into imperishable forms, and put it where we may see it for ever.” [18] Ornamentation is to be based on abstracted elements of nature expressing “man’s delight in God’s work.” [19] The harvesting from nature occurs through studies of natural elements such as plants or landforms including mountains, glaciers or other geological elements. Ruskin believes that beauty is embedded automatically in natural features, and it is the architect’s task to transfer this beauty into architectural materials and ornaments. Ruskin’s beliefs are illustrated in his treatise The Stones of Venice, indicating that a tree leaf or a part of a nautilus shell, mountains and glaciers can be abstracted as shown in the following images.

The variety of the lines, their dynamic form and irregularity, render them beautiful, natural and truthful. The abstracted forms and contours generated can be applied independently from their original context – large-scale geological features are combined with small parts of plants or animals. The truth of the matter is linked to the artificial, the man-made, seeking orientation and inspiration in the natural world as well as in the clear expression of each element’s role and the impact of the human hand that created the architectural elements. Truth for Ruskin also is closely connected to the presence of human labor, the goal being the search for integrity: “nobody wants ornament in this world, but every body wants integrity.” [21] The Essence of Materiality: Peter Zumthor Nature and making are both important to the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor (born in 1943), whose few but notable buildings are commonly associated with honesty, poetry and truth. An almost spiritual search for the essence of material and detail characterizes Zumthor’s work. He writes about being inspired by the artist Joseph Beuys and the Arte Povera Group: “What impresses me is the precise and sensuous way they use materials. It seems anchored in an ancient elemental knowledge about man’s use of materials, and at the same time to expose the very essence of these materials, which is beyond all culturally conveyed meaning.” [22] Zumthor prefers materials that can “assume a poetic quality in the context of an architectural object.” [23] Looking for acoustic qualities, sensations of smell, the memory of touch (he cites a door handle on his aunt’s garden gate, the asphalt warmed by the sun, the pavers covered in leaves), Zumthor searches for architectural truth (the real thing, as he calls it). His goal is to bring out “specific meanings of certain materials.” [24] At the core of architecture is an ancient elemental knowledge, something primal, possibly archetypal, that is universal rather than specific to a regional culture. Zumthor does not offer a clear set of rules, nor does he attribute a specific thematic realm to the origin of architectural material and its treatment. Buildings for him consist of many “single parts which must be jointed together.”

[25] According to Zumthor, integrating functional and technical requirements is at the core of the architect’s task, as is creating a whole out of a multitude of parts and articulating the edges and joints. Details are representative of the basic idea of the overall design philosophy.

The Klaus Chapel in Mechernich, Germany (2007), is testimony to Zumthor’s exploration of ancient knowledge, the search for the real thing. Located in a rural field, the chapel (which was donated by a

local couple, Trudel und Hermann-Josef Scheidtweiler), is dedicated to the holy Nikolaus von Fluehe, saint of the country people. The building’s construction process involved a teepee made from 112 tree trunks arranged in an asymmetric cone. Levels of concrete 50 centimeters thick were poured and rammed on top of the tree trunk structure, resulting in a volume. The parallelogram-shaped exterior volume did not reveal a trace of its interior tree trunk tent. The wooden trunks were then burned, leaving a charred imprint on the concrete skin, a legible trace of how the shell was generated. It took three weeks and a low-burning sulfur fire to burn out the wooden trunks. With a triangular lead door and a floor poured from the same material, the chapel’s interior seems to evoke a primal cave with a large oculus admitting light and weather. The exterior exhibits sharp edges and smooth planes that speak of the structure clearly being a man-made building. It is not unusual to lose or remove formwork during concrete construction – concrete and its liquid state require temporary containment. It happens less frequently that the smell of the removal becomes part of the space. As Zumthor states, “All design work starts from the premises of this physical, objective sensuousness of architecture, of its materials. To experience architecture in a concrete way means to touch, see, hear and smell it.” [26] The oculus, open to the sky, lets in the rain that evaporates in the interior.

Not unexpectedly, Zumthor also values the presence of human labor, the work that went into a piece of architecture, which then in turn reflects the skill put in. He asks whether the effort and skill put into music, literature and painting, as well as architecture, will become an inherent part of the product. Answering his own question, he says, “I am tempted to think so.” [27] A combination of making, human skill and primal essence is at the core of Zumthor’s truth of the matter. Free from fixed rules, he pursues architecture instinctively, not offering answers but sharing how he thinks about building.

The three examples reviewed above illustrate different ways of tracing the truth of the matter in architecture. Semper explores the origins of architecture – boundaries and enclosures made from grass and reed, encouraging weaving and fabric-type connections.

Ruskin favors natural elements to be abstracted and translated into architectural ornamentation. Zumthor appreciates the sensual perception of materials and works around their primal significance.

These examples express an affinity to the traces of the human craft as well as the formal and material resources of nature. The truth of the matter in architecture seems to reside in a complex triumvirate of making, material and emotion. Zumthor summarizes what all three examples might have in common: “The real thing exists but is endangered, it is found in earth, water, sun light but also in landscapes and vegetation.” [28] / Notes p. 140, Image Ref. p. 140

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^ Klaus Chapel, Mechernich, Germany, construction (Top left). Klaus Chapel, Mechernich, Germany, section sketch (Top right).

Klaus Chapel, Mechernich, Germany, exterior (Bottom left). Klaus Chapel, Mechernich, Germany, interior (Bottom right)

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^ Greg Jimmie I Folding Inhabitation

EANIN

LA GIUDECCA

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Is it to the credit of the architect when a space is found sacred? Is it the work of the author if a novel evokes emotion? Is it the labors of the painter, or the filmmaker, or the musician that incites profundity, or is it the recipient of these artifacts that should be recognized for generating a sense of humanity? Do the reader, the listener, the observer, and the user hold the power contained within the narrative? The dichotomy of conception and perception surfaces from these questions. Perhaps a thing is intrinsically charged with meaning only until encountered and pondered, at which time the meaning becomes extrinsic. The chronicle of things could be both conceived and perceived, so there is implication that through the products of artistic expression and impression, figurative immortality and the transcendence of time is achievable. No one and everyone are simultaneously the source of these stories, leaving the opportunity to gain access to the momentary divine for anyone.

^James Cleveland I On Authorship

Performing the Narrative Ben Lewis

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There was a confrontation.

Steel spheres, cold formed, Pressed, rolled and hardened, An agreement was made.

Crane’s essential member, One broken link derails the procedure, In the cloister sits a warehouse.

Profane introduction to sacred, Rolling, rotating, Bearings in motion reveal an inverted space, In the shipyard sits an emptiness.

The void, Edges broken, Bearing guilt, Bearing scars, Bearing witness, Traces run from the shipyard to the cloister.

Liberated bearings connect profane and sacred places, A mediator lives in the in-between.

Axis of rotation, Bearing all tension, Allowing passage, The cranes place totems sequentially on the site, Marking tension, Torquing, Releasing, What is bearing here?

A totem to the memory of life and tension and our bearings lifted.

^ John Greene I Unbuilt Architecture

^ Eric Rigo I Venice at Night

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Beginning in the 1970s, Luigi Nono, an Italian composer, began to explore the role of silence in music as a means of creating individual, inner experience. In silence, one can hear their inner self. In particular, the piece “Hay que caminar,” inspired by Antonio Machado’s Proverbs and Songs, asserts that ‘there are no paths, only walking,’ which demonstrates the means by which Nono sought to achieve this introverted, inner experience of wandering.

In monastic life, the cloister is a space of communal prayer, in which monks and nuns circumambulate around a fixed, sacred center. One does not enter the center space but rather circulates in a prescribed, choreographed path around a static point in order to achieve a higher experience. In contrast, Nono’s pieces create a sense of space.

He invites wandering, also suggestive in this installation. Thus, transposing the meaning of the cloister from a theistic space to a secular, humanist, and individual one.

Programmatically, the installation exists at the intersection of these concepts of silence and wandering, in which the proposal is a series of cables suspended in the cloister programmed to interpret music and translate it into space. The silence of Nono’s work becomes inhabitable, and further a spatial instrument, wherein the creation and revelation of spaces according to the music is as much of a performance as the music itself. The cables, controlled by a series of computers, motors, and wheels, move up and down, and side to side in relation to the sonic qualities of the Nono’s music. Cables come down in instances of increased sound and in silence they are pulled up and to the sides to open new space. The audience is then allowed to wander through the resultant spaces, physically and mentally.

It is therefore the intention of this intervention to be a physical, architectural complement to the spatial ideas and qualities of Nono’s music. However, the proposal does not end with Nono; it is intended that Nono’s work is a starting point, and later, artists, musicians, and composers would be invited to create their own sonic-spatial experiences.

^ Cody Pratt I Sonic Space

The Matter of Space Aaron J. Weinert Adjunct Faculty

Space can exist alone, without the presence of matter; it is an independent construct. Matter, in contrast, is dependent on space in order to be contained within it; it simply cannot exist anywhere without space.

Space without matter, however, is literally and experientially empty.

Space itself cannot be measured or comprehended without matter as there is nothing by which to judge distance or scale. Space has no meaning or characteristics in and of itself; it is essentially unknowable - and therefore frightening - without the presence of physical matter. Space is dependent on matter to give it form and to bring it to life, thus they coexist in a reciprocal relationship.

In the face of our colossal and mostly empty universe, how we make sense of everything is one of humankind’s eternal and most instinctual drives. Throughout various eras in human history, we have responded materially to space in a variety of ways: we have moved through periods of celebrating space, to shielding ourselves from it, and finally to embracing it. Over the past several decades we have seen a re-emerging tendency for architecture to relate to space rather than behaving as an object. Our present understanding of space, matter and time, more scientifically advanced than ever, has encouraged us to push the material and emotional boundaries of architecture, and has provided us new approaches to the design process itself.

What lies beyond our direct ability to observe and inhabit is literally beyond our comfort zones, physically and psychologically. We fear the void of outer space, we fear a sense of placelessness, we fear not being in control. Imagine floating through an empty space: no light, no ground, no gravity, no matter, no sense of place. It’s a frightening thought, as Karsten Harries has written in his “The Terror of Time” [1]. This is why humans began to build: to carve out moments of relative safety within the spatial continuum. We use matter to occupy and claim space; we build to assert control. Architecture is not simply physical shelter; it is an emotional shelter, a shelter of the mind. Without matter, we are lost. Georges Perec, the late French filmmaker and writer noted that:

“Space is a doubt: I constantly have to mark it, to designate it. It’s never mine, never given to me, I have to conquer it” [2].

Juhani Pallasmaa echoes this need to tame that which is beyond our ultimate comprehension: Since its very beginning, architecture has structured limitless physical space into distinct places and given space its human measure and meaning. In addition to inhabiting and protecting us in a meaningless and hostile physical space, architecture has given us our domicile in cosmic and

mental space [3].

Architecture is our primary instrument in relating us with space and time, and giving these dimensions a human measure. It domesticates limitless space and endless time to be tolerated, inhabited and understood by humankind [4].

Note the use of ‘tolerated’; we can only shelter ourselves from the terror of time, we can only hope to tolerate it, lest it drives us mad.

We therefore impose ourselves in the world using matter to create spaces at our physical and emotional scale, providing benchmarks against which to perceive the greater cosmos.

How does this work? When matter is located in space, it sets up relationships that did not exist before. An object marks a location in space. Two objects begin to describe the distance and the vector between them. Additional matter creates an expanding and increasingly complex set of spatial relationships. Is this not, in essence, what we architects are trained to do? So then, one definition of architecture is that it is the forming, placement and positioning of matter within space with the intent of creating spaces. We operate on space at a set of human scales that reside within the grand continuum of cosmic space. As Charles Moore explains: We talk of “making” a space, and others point out that we have not made a space at all; it was there all along.

What we have done, or tried to do, when we cut a piece of space off from the continuum of all space, is to make it recognizable as a domain, responsive to the perceptual dimensions of its inhabitants [5].

Designers tend to view things from outside in, as objects or as an envelope of space that things are stuffed into. This has the effect of producing aspatial conditions. We talk endlessly (and rightfully so) about space and of its production, yet we often fail to critically assess the matter that we employ in the creation of space. What if, instead, we focus on designing from the inside out, considering the importance of spatial relationships in and between spaces, both inside and outside of a building? The envelope, the mass, the matter are not preconceived but are both the generator and the product of space. Design approach matters; the approach to matter matters. As Moore continues: Curiously, the acts the architect can most effectively perform with space appear to be opposing ones, though both seem to work. You can capture space or let it go, “define” it or “explode” it. Space is surely one of the few things that you have more of after you have “exploded” it, but it seems to thrive in captivity as well. The failures come when we don’t make it recognizable, when we do not distinguish a piece from the continuum [6].

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Space does not become a sequence of spaces until matter defines those spaces. Today we are bearing the architectural fruit of the modern era, one so well captured by Siegfried Giedion: Forms are not bounded by their physical limits. Forms connote just as strongly, far beyond the confines of their actual measured dimensions, as constituent elements of volumes standing freely in the open….We again realize that volumes affect space just as an enclosure gives shape to an interior space [7].

We must therefore be conscious of the power of designing from the inside out. Architectural space exists by defining it in relation to space in general through matter. Architects divide space into a multiplicity of spaces, creating physical and psychological shelters from the intolerable vastness of the universe. We multiply by dividing. By dividing, we conquer space and our fear of it. As space is divided into an increasingly multiplied series of spaces we have buildings, and then cities. These spaces must be designed to fulfill humankind’s needs and desires. Thus matter creates place, we are no longer lost, and we are safe. As Simon Unwin posits: "The relationships between solid and space, between walls and life, are vital" [8].

To Pallasmaa, architecture is the art of reconciliation between ourselves and the world, and this mediation takes place through the senses [9]. We sense the world through the ways in which we shape it physically. Architecture, form, mass, buildings – call it what you will – it is all matter and it is the very definition of our world. / Notes p. 141

^ Alicia Eggleston I Raku (Top) Shipwreck (Bottom)

Festum Fatorum Stephen DeMayo

The Performance of a Reflection

Concealed Isolation

The Manipulative Inhabitant

An impenetrable surface – where there is neither a beginning, nor end.

The voyeur transcends the spiral staircase and surveys through the arrow slits.

Watching from his guarded tower perched as they mindlessly moved about.

Infinite configurations of space and reflections, yet uninhabitable.

He watches, but never speaks.

They build up the boundaries.

Disgusted by and rejecting of these greater souls, he escaped above it all.

The still ceiling spies.

One bound by the order of the church, and the other bound by the reality of the profane.

Now he lives apart.

He lives isolated.

He lives alone.

Aware in part of where the other must be.

He moves hesitantly between two floors, weightless, a lack of life.

His home suspended over the valor of the void, the wonder and mystery.

We find clarity in its reconfigured image.

Transforming mystery and wonder to present realities.

These realties reinterpret our own desires; calming our sense of doubt.

Under wandering eyes and ears we question, we ask ourselves – what has made us so fearful of the glancing mirror.

Gazing at the performance, we become participants, vulnerable of manipulation.

They move about in separation, they dine, they sleep, they live.

Above and below only never to cross paths.

Separated by the weight of confession, they become entangled by pursuits of truth in their respected roles.

The relentless search for interaction will only come in a consistent search for spatial reconciliation.

He becomes a part of the parts, broken from himself, suspended above the clarity.

He presides over the surface, a master puppeteer of sorts.

The mimesis of the profane redistributes his doubt.

Subjects of the voyeur.

Subjects of the manipulator.

The surface hides and reveals itself with each passing glance, breaking the calm reflection Distorting current perceptions while questioning our present self.

No longer do we see truth.

Now – subjects of our desires, our doubt.

But what comes is only a longing for what will The silent surface reflects the self, a sense of clarity at a moment. never come, a constant reconfiguration of an impenetrable The moment is leached onto by the threshold. wonderers below.

He manipulates the clarity of the silence; an undulation imposes and extracts disbelieve.

No longer silent, but an illusory.

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The Voyeur’s Loyalties

The Feast, The Fool(s)

Watching from his wavering altar as they search for his guidance.

The unwary balance in finding truth in symbols, redistribute a sense of doubt.

His troubled arms opened the sacred doors; masking his own questioned faith.

The weightless transcendence of faith acknowledges the unknown.

He speaks freely at the altar.

He is a voyeur of the confrontation.

The uncertainty suddenly finds complacency.

In the distance we seek forgiveness through He manipulates words that reflect the sacred, judgment and confession. a sense of hope in a single moment.

The audience seeks this moment.

Descending the steps we find ourselves suspended over the valor of the void He executes his sermon, and retires to his and under the reflection of the mirrored study. surface.

He lives in hiding, in search of light.

His daily routine moves him counter clockwise with the teasing sun.

He executes the sacred rituals between god and man; his liturgical acts search to confront the profane.

The mocking sun watches as he confronts, opposes, and interrogates his internal self.

The mimesis of the sacred redistributes his desire.

No longer symbolic, but true.

The manipulative inhabitants’ gesture violates our inward thinking, and provokes the profane.

Exposed and vulnerable, the voyeur questions the inhabitants’ faith; he opens skepticism of the sacred, projecting it upon himself.

The cold and relentless display of spiritual tension articulates a constant search for spatial reconciliation.

The voyeur and manipulative inhabitant choreograph the feast, while their architecture tames the sacred by locating our secular fears.

The search for light reveals the darkness it crafts.

The fool both objectifies and fulfills desire.

At this intersection we are no longer the observers but observed.

^ Panharith Ean and Greg Jimmie I Recording Ephemera

Can we perceive spaces made of charcoal, of texture, as tangible?

If a space’s tangibility is defined by perception, cannot personal perception define a space? I perceive the floor under my feet to be wood, because I have just detailed the knots and beveled edges in my drawing, and that same drawing has taken over my imagination.

Paper and charcoal is hardly real wood, but to me, it seems more real, more substantial than the floor on which I am standing.

I watch the black dust smudge across smooth paper, an extension of my thoughts, each gesture making tangible the textural landscape of imagination. When I draw, I step into that landscape, I lose myself in shadows and highlights, let my intuition guide me, and experience matter, the physical, the architecture of my mind.

^ Virginia Ofer I Matter is Perception

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LACE

RONDANE

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To a definite magnitude, interaction designs identity.

It is the manifest of space that allows the creation of places. From one single location, from the boundaries of one existing space, several places are proposed through physical attributes, emotional influences, and inner perceptions. Irregularly, it’s not the mind, but the place that recollects memory. To encounter these instances, both time and place have to be emotionally blended. The subjectivity of its definition is outlined by the accidentality of using, reading, and sensing a place. Perhaps it is time’s attribution (experience), which in conjunction with behavior leads to separation and understanding? Or is it a matter of natural character, which divorces a place from another? Meaning afterwards becomes the result of the sense of place; value not deriving from the place itself, but from the sensitivity and emotion humanly attached to it.

^ Arie Salomon I Emplazamiento: Origins and Behavior

City Between Seven Mountains James Mize

Journey From

Through the Paused

Protected exposure Diminishing beyond

Resting ground

of Perched humanity lowering dizziness in pulls of history relapsed interaction Disappearing horizon

of aggravated reflection

Smoldering stone around Foreign wood sheds Past landings with Forceful exchange

Weathered lines

of Rhythmic arrival ancient safety in closely knit hollow fibers of frozen stone

spaced voids

remembrance paused

Raising horizons of Perspective points

Hiding History in Permanence

Point of no return in slippery wandering Breath of Stillness

Unwanted lingering of rusting sharpness

unknown crossing

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Passing the Unwanted

Journey of the Forgotten

Scolding protection dragging blankly

hesitant floating comforted betraying Embedded quiet

of Forceful attention choking distances buried edges of shuffling texture the backwards facing

questioned lingering exposing the blankness

in footsteps of stillness severed guidance in Void of confidence unwavering necessity of gentle outreach in shaded edges rushing verticality whispers within the unbelonging

fragmented lingering gusts from behind pushing the shadows anticipating nothingness

realizing the fragments of shadowy reveals

fragments rearranged gutting instincts experiences ripped with hesitant panic

penitent lingering in creeping pauses

engulfing the defined wounding absences focused reluctance unconscious

Familiarity overgrown

in attitudes overturning

questioning vulnerability clarity behind skewed notions moves as fog in proximity of darkness shrouding grievances

wrath of lingering starvation unending

journey of the forgotten in stale grasping unwanted has stollen awakening the shadow

of unconscious remembering apathy

^ James Mize I Moments of Historic Intervention

Genius Loci 35 Years Later:

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X marks the spot, and research on the move Ingrid Strong Assistant Professor

As an architecture student of the 80’s, I read Norwegian architectural scholar Christian Norberg Schultz’s works with great interest: I resonated with the existential bent that he presented in Genius Loci, and felt that its relevance to architecture must be somehow universal, and, I hoped, timeless. Fast-forward 30 years, and I’m teaching architecture at Wentworth, looking back on what influenced me and wondering whether Genius Loci is still relevant to our current students. With globalization, technology that enables remote communication in myriad media, and displaced populations, would Genius Loci still be meaningful? Will it matter? Perhaps because of these current conditions, and contemporary mobility as our reality, it is more valued, rather than less – or vice versa.

Background In 1979, Schulz published his seminal work, Genius Loci: Paessagio, Ambiente, Architettura. A year later, translated to English, his subtitle became Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture. Genius Loci, from the Latin, is, at its simplest, ‘spirit of place’. Registering the shift from the 1979 subtitle to the 1980 claim of phenomenology, one might look more closely at the original, elaborated through “paessagio” – passage or landscape, “ambiente” -- environment or room, and “architettura” -- architecture. This straightforward subtitle elucidates Norberg-Schulz’s thesis on place and architecture, informed by the vast and varied terrain of Norway among other countries, which he used in Genius Loci as muse to its international counterparts. Norberg-Schulz refers to Martin Heidegger’s writing, “Building Dwelling Thinking”: grounded in landscape/terrain, dwelling/existing, and building/architettura. Much of his writing then was a process of identifying and labeling what he observed about the historical and contemporary architecture of Norway, rather than a proposal for a new architecture. Evident in its vernacular and contemporary architecture, place is deeply tied to the conditions of everyday living: architectural response to the land and sea infiltrates rural and urban centers.

Current conditions in Norway are quite different now than they were 35 years ago: From large, ongoing development projects in cities, to cultural venues and expansion of infrastructure in all directions, the country seems to be both experiencing a renaissance borne of the new oil wealth, and a kind of identity tension that springs from its desire to maintain its charter as a Social Democracy and all that it means -- with access for all citizens to all places. Immigrant populations, arriving on Norway’s shores, bring their own cultures and sensibilities to a previously homogenous, provincial culture.

Part of the effort to increase ‘access to all’ is finding its ground, so to speak: Opening remote parts of the Nordic landscape is underway through new National Tourist driving routes. Rest stops present the landscape -- like beads on a string -- to travelers, and offer it up for viewing. The Tourist Routes have a twofold intent: to preserve wild regions by claiming them for public use; and to bring a new type of

economy into remote farming regions through tourism.

At the same time, much of the National architectural dialogue whirls around what is meaningful, in particular in the context of current events such as the 2011 massacre and bombing by a Native-born, Right-Wing extremist Anders Brevik. Whether or how to memorialize those killed, potentially inadvertently shining undeserved light on the terrorist is a question as yet unanswered. In a country renowned for its Nobel Peace Prize and passive resistance in World War II, the debate of memorialization seems to cause deep concern, and signals a loss of innocence.

Place and making are recurring threads of theoretical inquiry, and appear to be re-emerging with new urgency in response to the world becoming hotter, flatter and more crowded. The Norwegian landand-cityscapes provide a rich and informed backdrop to investigate identification of site and place, to analyze acts of intervention and invention. To create an architecture of dwelling vs. an architecture of observing is an increasingly difficult distinction in the context of modern life, and one that can benefit from re-examination.

In crafting a framework for a Special Topics studio, I hoped that traveling the country could provide a true research lab for the architectural (and perhaps cultural) theory of ‘place’ by experiencing the country’s unique environmental characteristics, built and natural.

The studio traveled from Oslo, to Hamar, to the Oppland region: mountainous, treeless and vast, over to fjord country – lush, wet and dramatic; then down to Bergen – nestled between mountain and fjord. We visited open air museums, iconic Stave churches, the works of Sverre Fehn, Snøhetta, Jensen Skodvin Architects, and toured a new large scale development along the waterfront in Oslo.

We traveled on two of the tourist routes, hiked to remote works of architecture, got caught in a high mountain snow squall.

After returning, many impressions linger, and none of the categories for study could have emerged without our travels through Norway.

To frame the notion of Genius Loci as originally posited is perhaps too narrow; while identifying ‘spirit of place’ as a premise for a design studio, once immersing ourselves in the ‘cultural landscape’ specific to Norway, we can find its meaning through the nation’s culture, history, and a struggle for National identity as much as we can feel it through immersion in the dramatic atmosphere of natural phenomena, and the architecture that responds (or does not) to it.

Norway is outsized in its architectural ambitions, and is magnificent in its terrain; ‘place’ feels vibrant and spirited, if overwhelming. How the nation’s intent for both preservation of place(s), and meaningful progress is what matters now.

^ Connor Orlando I Urban Sanctuary

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^ Joseph Killoh I Exercises in Modularity

^ James Cleveland I Seep and Furrow

Matter and the Immaterial In The Berkshires: The Clark Art Institute

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Gary Wolf Adjunct Faculty

Rocks, trees, grass, a stream, ledge outcroppings, lichen, rotting logs - the stuff of nature. Concrete, glass, steel, brick, tile, wood - the stuff of architecture. It’s unavoidable. We stub our toes on it, or maybe smash our noses into it when the glass wall isn’t obvious enough and the maintenance department hasn’t yet affixed decals to alert us to its transparent presence. In the twenty-first century, we “know”—as the ancient Greeks did—that this solid stuff is just an arrangement of invisible molecules, but most of us probably cannot explain why a granite boulder is so hard, or how it is that sand, cement, lime and water, which become monolithic concrete, got here in the first place. It’s the matter of our lives, but it hasn’t always existed, just as our planet hasn’t always existed. Some religious and philosophical traditions question whether it isn’t all illusory.

The idea that such stuff may embody, or imply, something more than matter—something beyond the material world—shouldn’t surprise us. Although the term “matter” may not be on our minds today, it was here in Massachusetts in 1836 that Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that “we can foresee God in the coarse...phenomena of matter….”

(1). Following his legendary year in the woods at Concord’s Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau exclaimed: “Talk of mysteries! Think of our life in nature—daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it—rocks, trees, wind on our chests! The solid earth! The actual world!” (2). Upon arriving at the “gates of the forest,” Emerson wrote, “we come to our own, and make friends with matter…. We never can part with it…. [A]s water to our thirst, so is the rock, the ground, to our eyes and hands and feet” (3). What one writer described as Thoreau’s “unchastened embrace of matter”—suggesting a perhaps overly physical, even Whitmanesque, encounter with nature—didn’t prevent the Concord writer from finding something else: that “Nature is full of the divinity” (4). Of course, the Transcendentalists drew from ancient speculations about such connections, both eastern and western. Not far away in the Berkshires, at Jacob’s Pillow, the dance center’s name and landscape recall the stone that Jacob chose as a pillow for a night in the wilderness, according to the Book of Genesis—a holy stone that linked him to God and that marked God’s presence, the “House of God.” In line with such precedents, some among us today may sense a spiritual essence in nature’s matter, on a simple walk in the woods; however, we may be less likely to discover a spiritual resonance in the “matter” of architecture. Whatever our design intentions as architects, materials perhaps most often seem to be “only glass and concrete and stone” (5). Yet the “ineffable space” that architectural materials shape (LeCorbusier’s term) (6), and the aspiring form that they assume, at times seems to manifest something beyond materiality, what Rudolf Otto called the “numinous” (7). In fact, it was architecture, Otto argued, where the sublime was first realized.

Emptiness was one of its paradoxical “negative” characteristics. The Pantheon’s cosmic dome, with its open oculus admitting the sun, has stopped short many a visitor. Materials can contribute to such an

experience: the saturated, translucent stained glass of San Chapelle; the glowing gold of the statue of Buddha. The material itself may be seen as holy, as in the Black Stone embedded in the Ka’ba, or relics preserved in cathedral altars. The boulder spire of Peabody and Stearns’ Christ Church, Waltham suggests the two sides of matter and the immaterial in religious architecture, as it seems to express the interplay between body and soul, the secular and the sacred. The historic 1897 edifice piles up locally sourced stones—New England glacial debris—in a massive spire that appears to strive mightily to reach toward the miraculous.

Even in buildings without religious uses, materials may suggest transcendence in the way that they are used. Designers who are able to avoid obsessing over the latest glazing application or the most inventive rain screen may find a more substantial challenge in plumbing the depth of materials, their implications, their meaning.

We know that construction materials have connotations and effects that are enriched by cultural and architectural familiarity and precedent, and that are also inherent in their phenomenological properties. Thus, the selection of materials, their arrangement and their use, shape our experience of architecture.

Such a careful approach to materials and design in the work of Tadao Ando allows Kenneth Frampton to identify what he calls Ando’s “secular spirituality,” and the “revelatory aspects” of the architect’s non-religious designs (8). Ando’s architecture, Frampton writes, “postulates the continued coexistence of the sacred and the profane in the later modern world….” (9). “[T]he evocation of the divine depends on the revealed ineffability of nature.…” (10). “[I]t is the very transitory and haptic character of natural phenomena that serves to enliven and guarantee the spirituality of his architecture” (11). Thus, as another commentator writes, many of Ando’s buildings, “made with no conscious religious intention…are quite likely to stir the kinds of thoughts suffused with feelings that many would call religious”(12).

When you arrive at the newly expanded Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, by Ando and landscape architect Gary Hilderbrand, (13) a long, reddish-brown diagonal wall of granite angles all visitors toward the entrance, by way of a gap at the wall’s intersection with another wall perpendicular on the right. Through this opening, a slight offset brings you to a glazed entrance between two wings of a single-story structure on the orthogonal—the north-facing wall of Ando’s new Clark Center. With great surprise, upon entering you discover that you need not turn right, into a gallery for temporary exhibits, or left, into the entrance lobby where the ticket desk, gift shop and café await (suggestive of today’s typical museum visit, of the costs it entails and of the fact that contemplation cannot be separated from consumption). Here, instead, you find that you can continue straight ahead toward the sunlight and the landscape, through the glazed south wall, with neither turnstile nor ticket booth

intervening. An open forecourt and reflecting pools greet you, stepping down in geometric planes, to transition to an open landscape at mid-ground, beyond which the Berkshire forest beckons. A cleared field climbs the hillside to the southwest, and pathways and a pedestrian bridge invite wandering—both visual and actual—into the woods. (One trail, with elegantly simple, modern walkways, stairs and signage, leads to the Ando-designed Stone Hill Center, his initial building here that opened in 2008.) Cows graze in the meadow, speckled with trees and rocks, you stand transfixed; the experience is breathtaking, for the drama of your entry—as though a high garden wall opened to bring you into a completely unexpected, vast landscape—and also for the oddly freeing experience of finding that your wallet remains in your pocket or purse, with no toll having been charged for passage, contrary to all expectation.

This surprising open space of plaza and pools is bordered on the right, west side by another long granite wall, extending almost as far to the south as the first one did toward the parking lot at the north. The colored wall flanks the first reflecting pool, recalling the silent pigmented walls and reflective water of Mexican architect Louis Barragan. Behind you, off to the left, another diagonal wall extends from the new building toward what you see to be the Clark’s original white marble Greek Revival museum building, raised on a podium, where the red granite connector crashes into a tall glazed entry pavilion at what previously had been the back of the museum.

Further south, next to and connected to the marble temple, is the sculpted abstract form of the Pietro Belluschi/TAC building of 1971, now being recast as the Manton Center. The oversized vertical granite panels cladding the Manton are far richer in both coloration and figuration than the rugged concrete that more often typifies monumental structures of this era; upon inspection, you realize that this is the same Minnesota granite that Ando used for the horizontal panels on his new walls. His extended stone walls of the new Clark tie the complex together and visually “settle” Belluschi’s sculptural structure into its site as it never was before (14). Both its abstraction and its unusual material have been re-affirmed.

You realize by now that you are within a deft, brilliant, and extravagant reorganization of architecture and landscape. A new, open central void—an expressive “empty center” (15) —has been created as a “place” behind the low, unassuming Ando entry wing.

It is an arena of terraces, reflecting pools, long stone-clad and concrete walls, and buildings, opening to the forest, the field, and the sky. This newly created quadrant abruptly repositions both of the preexisting edifices of the Clark—an odd couple, with the one stylistically retrograde by intent, and the other, self-consciously innovative—into new, secondary positions. These two museum buildings now co-exist as subordinate, very different equals, both peripheral to something more important, the open central space. (Built more than a level higher than the original grade, with the floating pools recirculating water that is captured on site, this new, calm minimalist arena can only exist because of massive earthwork, substantial hidden structure, and constantly operating technology.)

Ando’s fragmentary building makes its own deferential reading unmistakable, for it is strictly peripheral and non-hierarchical.The opening in its unpretentious glazed vestibule/passage occupies the place of prominence, but you sidle into this Propylaea, and no honorific element, change of roof plane, or dramatic form celebrates

^ Main Entry. Clark Art Institute by Tadao Andao (Top left). Flush Floor Detail.

Clark Art Institute by Tadao Andao (Middle left). Basement Stair. Clark Art Institute by Tadao Andao (Bottom left)

either its role as gate, or its primary position. In contrast, in the most familiar historic precursor for this arrangement of an institution’s buildings around three sides of a court, Thomas Jefferson’s Rotunda at the University of Virginia rises above its keystone setting with a pedimented portico and a dome, to become the “head” of the architectural ensemble while, as the library, it houses the intellectual life of the “academical village.” (That the Rotunda’s form was inspired by the “original” dome of the Pantheon added a suggestion of spiritual content to Jefferson’s enlightenment appropriation. At the Clark’s campus, the flat-roofed, transitional nature of Ando’s glass entrance makes it clear that the only “celestial soffit” for consideration upon arrival here is that of the vault of the heavens above, as experienced from within the open court.)

The centrifugal composition of Ando’s new building combines with its long granite walls and a similar expanse of concrete wall on the plaza to create an architecture of edges and boundaries, where galleries and visitor spaces “happen” to find a home. It brings to mind not just oversized garden walls, but ruins. Thick, free-standing linear structures with no loads to bear, these extended walls are bereft of any function other than a compositional, space-defining one. The concrete wall, so close to the building, is redundant both by its placement and its load-less design. (From the basement level, we know that it functions below grade as a retaining wall.)

With the seemingly arbitrary diagonal of the two entry walls on the north set in oblique contrast to the orthogonal orientation of the walls to the south, these heavy planes of masonry suggest the remains of enormous edifices of the long-ago past, now missing whatever grand vaults they once supported. Or perhaps this is an “incomplete” construction, awaiting a future round of work that will give it the enclosing, sheltering components that it lacks. Despite being obviously new construction, the purposeless materiality of these permanent fragments is evocative. The walls form a stage set for eternity. As with one’s experience upon entering this complex, the effect is breathtaking, in its phenomenological drama and in the sheer gratuitousness of this enormous undertaking. What garden can afford such magnificent walls? (It isn’t a surprise to learn that the Clark spent $140 million here.)

What may be puzzling while you enjoy the view of nature from the new terrace is that this is not the setting for a museum of natural history, nor of agrarian life, nor of garden history. Only as an afterthought do you remember that this is the home to a fine, small art museum and study center, devoted to a collection of excellent paintings, mostly European and American, from the Renaissance to the early 20th century. While the existing museum building has been cleared out and effectively reconfigured and rejuvenated by architect Anabelle Seldorf, it is clear that this art museum’s leadership—with the help (or determination) of its architects and landscape architects—made its goal the transformation and refocusing of its environment. The art works have suddenly become an optional, literally peripheral, resource, even though it may have been the impetus for your journey to Williamstown. Landscape—both the “natural” setting, which has, of course, developed over centuries of human interaction, and the newly shaped “landscape” of Ando and Hilderbrand (as much culture as nature)—is at the center. This is not the sublime, spectacular landscape that has drawn travelers, artists and photographers to such destinations as the American west; nor, the grandeur of the ocean, whether crashing on the rocky Maine coast or peacefully beckoning at Kahn’s Salk Institute. This is simply a bucolic, everyday

landscape of the Berkshires, complete with cows grazing. It is a benign world, close in spirit to that found in a number of paintings in the Clark collection, for instance, Barbizon artist Charles-Francois Daubigny’s “The Creek” and George Innes’ “The Elm Tree” (16). It’s an ordinary “green” world, the local reality that Thoreau wrote about in Walden as a world that might suggest the “sublime” without itself having grandeur: “…we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality which surrounds us” (17).

The most obvious precedent for the Clark’s transformative engagement of landscape is the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, the Netherlands, where a modern museum building by Henry Van de Velde houses a tremendous art collection that has incrementally, over the decades, become just part of a vast garden experience.

The original enclosive museum building has been extended into the landscape in an irregular, linear arrangement of glazed loggias and galleries, and, beyond, outdoor sculptures, pathways, and freestanding pavilions. Gerrit Rietvelt’s wonderful sculpture pavilion is all intersecting planes of wall, glass and roof, in part because it could be—it was first built as a temporary sculpture gallery, with little concern for the permanent protection of art or for the durability of its construction. It is also an obvious modernist precursor for Ando and the Clark, one that bridges back to the influential early-20th century peripheral compositions of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe. With its extensive paths and attractions, and the availability of bikes to ride, the Otterlo museum is far more than its art.

It is Ando’s long-standing, unusual commitment to creating subterranean spaces in order to minimize building mass above grade, that allows him to treat the Clark buildings as garden structure. His recessing the larger portion of the program space out of sight to reduce its apparent presence brings to mind the garden device known as the “ha-ha,” a sunken fence that 18th-century English gardeners located in a ditch, so that it wouldn’t disrupt the view, and, similarly, the “crypto-porticus” of ancient Rome that Jefferson adapted, along with the ha-ha, in order to maximize open views while keeping Monticello’s “dependencies” out of sight below grade. Although in other Ando projects, such as the Water Temple Hompuku-ji, descent into the earth is part of the psychological experience of his underground architecture, here his placement of most of the Clark’s new galleries and café a level down seems to be primarily a way to hide the mass, and a design exercise in how to mitigate any sense of being below grade. Sunlight flows down at the edges from adjacent exterior courts and from the double-height interior stair hall, and Ando avoids the phenomenology of basements or of being underground, with meanings that were explored by Gaston Bachelard in Poetics of Space (18). This approach at the Clark contrasts with that of a previous generation’s underground museum spaces, such as I. M. Pei’s Louvre, with its entrance placed below the glass pyramid, or Venturi and Rauch’s Franklin Court in Philadelphia, where the visitor descends a terra-cotta ramp to subterranean galleries excavated below the site’s archaeological remains.

Ando’s smooth, monolithic, geometrical concrete similarly minimizes its references. At the residence at Ronchamp, LeCorbusier’s rugged concrete walls, stratified and pocked with boulders and stones below planted “green” roofs, suggest a cross section of the earth itself. The concrete evokes timeless strata, deposition over the eons. Here in the Berkshires, however, pristine monolithic concrete is seemingly

perfect, awaiting its slice of sun. The effect is timeless, in the sense of being beyond time. The simplicity and silence of Ando’s concrete wall, with the sunlight striking it, seems to transcend its material substance. It recalls Kahn, whose concrete wasn’t this pure and whose buildings at times could present both rugged materiality and ineffability. As one observer wrote of Ando, “…many of [his] secular buildings have the same serenity, physicality, and capacity to throw one into contemplation of beyondness” [as his religious buildings] (19). Another writer observed of Ando’s work: “[I]t is an architecture of elementalism, of primitivism, of paganism, silence, ineffable pregnancies, and near mysticism, of forms and spaces that we somehow take in through our bodies and feelings, as much as through our mind’s conceptualizing” (20).

Ando himself acknowledged that “The buildings I make have spiritual qualities….,” (21) and one may well sense something other than, or beyond, matter at the transformed Clark Art Institute. Frampton’s article on Ando’s secular spirituality draws from Yuzuro Tominaga’s exploration of the etymology of the Japanese word for landscape in a discussion of the architect. Compounding the meanings of “wind” and “sunlight,” the word fukei “implies natural things filled with wind and light…a humanized scenery, staged through wind and light, and not nature as matter itself….” (22). This modern effect may recall those of the archaic world that Mircea Eliade described, where one encountered “manifestations of the only indubitable reality—the sacred” (23). Otto’s speculations about the “void or emptiness” in Chinese art, where “almost nothing” is painted, seems relevant at the Clark, where “almost nothing” greets the visitor, and perhaps expresses the numinous in emptiness, in sunlight, air and wind (24).

Such an exploration of materials, composition and spaces so as to suggest the ethereal has become common enough in recent years for at least one writer to suspect that architects at times embrace minimalism for the chance to be “coy with light,” and that they are, perhaps, being pretentious (25). Writing of such buildings, William Saunders comments that “This architecture does rely on a vocabulary that can all too easily turn into cliché…the framing of pristine natural scenes and elements; water in pools or flowing; the blank wall…the “pure” materials like stone, concrete, steel, and glass, and the dramatic attention to and use of light, that ultimate connotation of the divine” (26). Such abstraction and minimalism may be inappropriate for a building’s purpose and its occupants, and may detract from, or conflict with, the program, to ultimately betray the architect’s implicit social contract.

Nevertheless, here in the Berkshires, in a welcoming natural setting that has drawn visitors for generations, the new Clark Art Institute surprises, and convinces. Its completely recreated world of nature—embracing forest, field, water and sky—and of architecture—encompassing existing buildings and new fragmentary structures with buried program spaces—refocuses our attention on the elements of our world. In so doing, it invites us to explore, and to contemplate, the material. Even if we came to look at paintings in the museum, it is matter that is being presented in the new Clark: the sky, the field, the forest, the landscape, the reflecting pools, the glass and concrete and stone—matter that is both found, and shaped; that is both geological, and 21st century; that can be characterized as both nature, and architecture. Is this matter simply the reality which surrounds us, adroitly selected, composed and transformed at the Clark, or is this the “stuff” through which, with Thoreau, one apprehends something beyond, and immaterial? / Notes p. 141. Image Ref. 141

^ Christ Church: Waltham, Peabody and Stearns

^ Elias Konstantinidis & Jacob Wilson I Plus/Minus

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^ Jacob Wilson I Oscillating Walkway

Displace : Catastrophic

Resilience in an Unstable Landscape Alex Griffin

Approaching a decade from catastrophic destruction, the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans is a microcosm of a society tested with adapting to our changing climate. Occupying the outlying eastern territory on the edge of the city – it is an anomaly, estranged and contradictive. A place of the nostalgic, of the resistant, and of the resilient; it is now a incoherently mixed landscape, scattered with pockets of community enclaves, dwelling in an uncertain period of optimism.

The years that followed in the shadow of Hurricane Katrina were a new kind of struggle for not only New Orleans, but for the world – watching, helping and learning from a community tested with unprecedented levels of disaster relief and redevelopment contained within a fragmented and disorienting environment.

To understand and critique the displacement of this community since the event of Hurricane Katrina, it is helpful to visualize these changes in development over time. The following is a timeline, depicting the changing patterns of development, growth, decay, stagnation, and rebirth in the Lower Ninth Ward – a 10-year period, post-Katrina.

Nostalgia The place of nostalgia is a reaction to the aspirations, the hopes, and the dreams that the community (and outside individuals involved in redevelopment) have in regards to the place that they remember, or believe they remember existing before Hurricane Katrina. The place of the nostalgic is subjective, it does not always give up, but it returns to the source of its desires and repeats. Its physical form exists in the front porch, and the stories from inside the levee walls where it lives.

It remembers, forgives, forgets and memorizes.

Resistance The place of resistance is a reaction to the neglect, the powerless, the forgotten, and the passive; the forces of nature imposing themselves upon the community. It is found in the overgrowth, the resurgence of unfamiliar species, and the natural adaptation of nature reclaiming the land that it once possessed entirely. It is a place of awareness, overt action and continual challenge – of assertion and question of the will and power of the people.

Resilience

The changing patterns along Forstall Street in the Lower Ninth Ward expose the contrasting development, growth, decay, stagnation, and rebirth over time. Partially a video produced by the New York Times in 2010, and partially matched with images from a uniform location in 2014, this timeline uncovers ‘place’ narratives of the nostalgic, the resistant, and the resilient in their most basic forms over the course of the last 9 years. It does so by calling out elements that appear, reappear, and disappear over time.

As a result of displacement, three fundamental notions of place have emerged as separate attitudes of the Lower Ninth Ward as it exists today – The place of nostalgia, the place of resistance, and the place of resilience. These distinct notions of place provide three perspectives from three arguments on the past and future course of the Lower Ninth Ward. They are separate arguments on the place that exists, contrasting one another, but cannot exist in isolation.

The place of resilience is a response to the place of nostalgia and the place of resistance. It is the place of action and active effort towards stability and progressive identity. This place joins, communicates, and shapes with and within its environment. It is a place of strength, rigidity, and grounding, bold action, foundation, determination and most importantly – consistency.

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^ Rachel Mulcahy | Water Color

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^ Alexa Ashton | Center For Wellness

Introvert Street walls close around on every side, and the over-hung eves plated with the sunlight canopy overhead. A labyrinth, this is, as it snares its guests, the visitors with bright abrasive density. A game, welcome, or leave it now, the threshold stepped over stands right behind in the form of a street sign reading Pia. Nuovio. Doors are open and windows are barred as to confuse the visitor, the porosity of the walls is intriguing as to lure out the dweller and welcome in the visitor. The walls here are old. They are crumbling and falling apart at their seams, the corners dissolve into crunched away brick. The bricks tell a story of the right fights and tormented walls of war and terror.

Under the cracked and broken stucco resides the hypnotist brick, once it accepted its paint and now under the sun stripped paint clings holding on with its last grip until the unwinding drunk may pass it and brush what is left. The portrait of the sky is framed by above through the evens of the apartments stacked. The piano keys dance drawing the imaginary horizon straight above. The city is tied together through the ropes of laundry. The colored ropes pinned with clothes, bridge a connection with the buildings around the spider has woven the town into its web.

Extrovert Barred windows stand between and our eyes meet momentarily.

Television noise voices scream waking the mouse in the gutter; quickly they scurry over the drain grate. My unsteady pace is the uncertainty under my feet after a few drinks, or is it the uncertainty of not knowing where I am in this labyrinth, the faces and the bared windows all look familiar but the unsteady laid bricks under my feet tell a different story. Around me standing like soldiers are the buildings, old and falling apart. I run my fingers along the face of a building. There is a tingle beneath my fingers as the paint falls off and the scratched surface of the brick is exposed. The paint now on my jeans is sundried and burnt by the rays of our intense sun. A door opens creaking loudly into the street in front of me and a young girl grabs her newspaper and quickly urges to hide behind her screened door.

Distracted, I miss the man passing me on this narrow street on his motor scooter, the pull from his jacket brushes my hair pulling it wistfully to the back. A drop falls from above right as I jump out of the way for his partner. Looking up I see a fresh pair of purple jumper pants and a teal coat swinging from the web of laundry lines above my head. The pants continue to drip down two floors to my feet. Past the web of roped canopy glazes the sky above my head.

^ Lauren Vorwald I Decipher Peregrination

EASUR

BIG BEND

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Throughout time, philosophers, poets, artists and scientists have been looking up to the heavens, or out to the endless landscapes of the world, and trying to record their experiences. Over time a term came into use, "sublime." Philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and Edmund Burke, paved the way during the 18th century when it came to studying the sublime, each spending time to thoroughly decipher their own understanding of it. For Kant, the sublime is divided into the mathematical and the dynamical, where the former focuses on the greatest of the object in question, and the latter focuses on the understanding of nature and the beauty it holds.

In more modern history the sublime has sparked just as much interest as it did in the past. A contemporary philosopher, Iain Boyd White, describes the modern sublime as being similar to both the natural sublime and the mathematical sublime in which Kant first theorized, “that the new structures (new machinery of our times, like the industrial revolution in general) had generated those sensations of awe, terror and exaltation previously associated with nature and natural phenomena.”(1) Consequently, we should understand that as time changes, and the tangible world we live in develops, the sources of sublimity are going to change.

After many definitions, some may argue it seems impossible to depict the sublime. This fact is one that Edmund Burke takes into account in his paper, "Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful", in which he states, “the sublime has had almost as many interpretations as it has appearances in philosophical literature.”(2) / Note p. 142

^ Francesco Stumpo I Measuring the Sublime

Hourglass Wentworth Institute of Technology, Boston, MA

The translation of data from time and movement, generates a three dimensional installation that examines the collective experience of our time spent traveling.

Similarly to the hourglass, which is considered one of the main artifacts that has allowed us to keep track of time for a number of centuries, this installation is shaped by past, present and future time.

The unifying element in the intervention is represented in the expression of the line as the single element that defines both space and data information throughout the piece.

Arguably the once revolutionary new form of timekeeping, also measured time by the

^ Project Team | p. 143

descent of one unifying element, sand, from one glass bulb to another. Unlike most other methods of measuring time, the hourglass concretely represents the present as being between the past and the future, and this has made it an enduring symbol of time itself.

Finally an hourglass evokes time in a historical sense, it suggests a technological tool and ultimately a shape that bridges from two ends. Although not intended, the mechanisms of this device also help us provide a critical revision of the perception of space and our perspectives.

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Tasked with mapping our 11-day experience during the “Think Big” special topics studio; traveling from Texas to New York and back to Boston, I tracked my movement during each day. Every hour I recorded my distance walked, number of steps taken, and whether I was static or in motion, starting from 8am to 6pm.

With this collected data, an installation based on a 3” x 3” block module was generated, becoming an aggregation of components, each representing an hour divided by the number of minutes I was standing and sitting. The number of steps determined the height of each block and the angle of the block represents how many miles I walked.

To add context to my movement within the 11-day trip, each block has a picture below it. For example, blocks that are flat with little height fluxuation represents time spent on an airplane or time traveled by van or public transportation. Taller blocks reference time hiking in Big Bend National Park (Texas), walking from campsite to campsite. The aggregation of these seventy-seven blocks form a collage of my overall experience.

^ Jeffery Bathalon | Seventy-seven Blocks

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Inside of Stuff Peter Greenberg Assistant Professor

All architectural space is made out of something. All rooms are made from real stuff. All materials have dimensional limitations and the inherent qualities of particular materials determine the constraints and opportunities of making real architectural space. Not only that: material qualities arguably determine the character of a space and its effect more than planning, utility, external narrative, formal or even volumetric qualities. How materials are assembled – how they meet and how they are detailed – can largely determine the success of the design intent and ultimately, what it’s like to be in the space.

These observations are relevant at every scale. But they are even more important at the scale of the interior because interior spaces are smaller and the material resolution of a space has more impact on an occupant. How materials are used in a room can tell us more about the space than a parti. How the materials are handled have at least as much impact on the effect of an interior space as the form of the room. How a room is detailed provides more information to a user about what it is truly like than how it is planned.

As important as a building plan may be – and it is important - the designer needs to resist the temptation of being satisfied with plan relationships as an expression of a design solution. Especially with larger scale projects, the designer may be seduced by what can be resolved in plan: pleasing or dynamic graphical relationships, patterns, symmetries and shapes. While plan resolution may be the “generator” of any design, as Corbusier proclaimed in Vers Une Architecture, even he warned: “a plan is not a pretty thing to be drawn, like a Madonna face” (1).

But there is something the designer can do! To counter this material superficiality the designer can consider section details that allow one to look inside of stuff not just to gaze upon the flatness of its surface.

One can produce drawings at a scale sufficient to account for the inherent qualities of distinct materials and to control the interface between components or material changes. Contrary to slapping impossibly thin and implausibly strong materials on extruded plan decisions, a design methodology that considers material choices at the earliest conceptual phase offers the opportunity to explore the very nature of the chosen material. Inherent qualities like thickness and reflectivity and density and rigidity and malleability offer opportunities for initial ideas. When one marries design intentions with the expressive properties of the material, one addresses its materiality.

As Marco Frascari has shown, the drawn detail has displaced the traditional idea of craftsmanship so that modern designers can control the labor of installers (3). The contemporary designer crafts a drawing that embodies a level of quality in lieu of a vernacular of presumed sophisticated joinery. To ensure a desired level of quality, we determine specific material relationships and tolerances that are proscribed by contract. For practitioners, the detail has replaced craftsmanship itself.

(Curiously, Le Corbusier used a peculiar choice to illustrate the importance of the plan in Vers Une Architecture: a Choisy axonometric of Hagia Sofia (2). This is a building that owes its plan to the consequential effects of pushing a very specific material to the limits of a structural system: the use of stone purely in compression.

How to get stone to span as far as it does was probably more of a “generator” of the space than were the plan sequences.)

Current design methodologies – those that were not available to Corbusier - offer their own versions of the Madonna face. For example, it is not uncommon to resolve a satisfying plan and then to simply extrude it, selecting two-dimensional “materials” from CAD libraries to apply on the resultant surfaces. Consequential photo-realistic perspective renderings will not be based on an understanding of how materials come together in reality. While one can make materials do anything in a digital space, building materials are actually not interchangeable like that. When materials are chosen at the end of the design process once a form has been already identified, or changed during CDs, as if a mere afterthought, like a different color of paint, the design suffers. This common method reinforces an understanding of material that is literally superficial.

^ Hagia Sofia in Costatinople by Le Corbusier (Left).

Villa Muller by Adolf Loos (Middle). Brasserie by Diller Scofidio (Right)

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The development of any architectural project is directly affected by the design methodology that is used. Methods that prioritize formal relationships or encourage de-materialized digital explorations may not result in satisfying material space. Projects that are conceived through formal or anti-gravitational methodologies, when built, may not be informed by substantive material exploration. Since most academic projects intend to remain unbuilt, it is not surprising that material exploration is frequently an afterthought.

isn’t so simple. The material plays games with one’s perception; it is present but it disappears in the light and mirrored reflections. The reflectivity of the metal blends with the silver light of its surroundings and it dematerializes in front of you. Light and surface appear the same; actual volume and reflected volume are confounded; transparency and opacity blur. It is not the crisp clarity of the material that is revealed but the beguiling nature of its use in that place. This too is looking inside of the stuff.

Emphasizing detailing in design education, especially in studio courses, presumes that the student is interested in making buildable space. This presumption assumes that good design results from an understanding of what something is made of and how it is put together. An emphasis on issues of material and assembly encourages student designs that link constructability and the design idea. Without such emphasis, a student’s work could easily express naively weightless and seamless applications of material surfaces or superficial formal manipulations without substantive material content.

New methods of building production and new construction techniques create opportunities to further explore inherent material quality. What Loos wrote in 1898 is as true today: “forms have been constituted out of the applicability and the methods of production of materials. They have come into being with and through materials” (7).

The forms that come from contemporary material exploration result from our own investigations into inherent material qualities. New materials and new assembly methods offer new challenges.

Getting inside of stuff means exploring – and exploiting - the unique materiality of specific materials. Different materials behave in different ways. The qualities that are uniquely characteristic of a material constitutes its potential expressivity – for example, how does it fold, how much tensile strength can it sustain, how does it transmit light, how does it respond to external stimuli, how resilient is it. In The Principle of Cladding (1898), Loos wrote “every material possesses its own language of forms, and none may lay claim for itself to the forms of another material” (4). This is to be contrasted with Leopold Eidlitz’s quip, cited in his obituary, that “American architecture is the art of covering one thing with another thing to imitate a third thing, which, if genuine, would not be desirable” (5).

Unique qualities of specific materials offer the constraints and opportunities that lead to designs. Everything is made out of something. Look inside the stuff you propose to build with and use it as the basis for design. / Notes p. 142, Image Ref. 142

There are many excellent examples of designs that are based on exploiting materiality, of course. Consider how Diller Scofidio exploits the bending radius of plywood at Brasserie in New York. Consider how Tod Williams and Billie Tsien contrast the difference between a concrete and a stainless steel corner at the La Jolla Neurosciences Institute. Consider how H.H. Richardson emphasizes the strength and massiveness of granite at the Allegheny Courthouse in Pittsburgh. All of these examples demonstrate the expressiveness that results from exploring the specific nature of a material.

And yet, sometimes the nature of a material is elusive or contradictory. Glass can be transparent, but most of the time it is reflective. Frequently it is both, as Robin Evans has noted about the material paradox of the use of glass in the Barcelona Pavilion (6).

Donald Judd’s aluminum boxes at Marfa are another instance of contradictory material nature. It seems that the boxes are intended to reveal the straightforward nature of their material quality. The forms are as simple as Judd could make them – but the material effect

^ La Jolla Neurosciences Institute by Tod Williams Billie Tsien (Left).

Allegheny Courthouse by H. H. Richardson (Middle). Aluminum Boxes by Donal Judd, Marfa, TX. (Right)

Tri-circle Boston Society of Architects Space, Boston, Massachusetts

^ Project Team | p. 143

Triangle-tessellation Boston Society of Architects Space, Boston, Massachusetts

^ Project Team | p. 143

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^ Fabricators | p. 142

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Hydra The Landmark Center, Boston, Massachusetts

Much like a coral reef, which is made up of colonies of microscopic marine animals, Hydra, is composed of groups of individual cells borrowing the radial organization of reef born polyps — or Hydrozoa. The benefit to this type of organization, is that it can adapt and grow in any number of ways while maintaining the integrity of one singular form.

Reefs provide a home for 25% of all marine species on our planet. While containing some of the richest most diverse ecosystems on Earth, coral reefs occupy less than 0.1% of the world’s ocean surface, a percentage that is shrinking as these fragile ecosystems are threatened by the changes in ocean temperature due to climate change.

While borrowing a natural structure so inherent in the reef, Hydra illuminates the beauty and the significance of organic growth in the marine ecosystem.

^ Project Team | p. 143

Discovering New Babylon: A Prelude Nathan St. Jean

As oil companies continued to grow more powerful, they began buying up patents in alternative energies. The companies refused to embrace clean energy, but by purchasing alternate energy patents they would own any sustainable system that was brought to light. By the time the world reached peak oil production in 1972 oil companies had sizable control over the energy market and its production. Since no alternative energy solutions were reaching the public eye, oil held on to its popularity. As time went on, numerous reports were released stating the steady flow of oil and its growth, but supplies began to diminish.

Over time the oil companies realized that their 'unlimited' petroleum supply was becoming more and more scarce. Finally grasping that more supply was needed, the oil companies began filling the seacoasts with massive oil rigs, built in the hopes of finding another untapped well. Eventually the production of oil could not keep up with the demand.

The system collapsed.. . .

The day we arrived on the coast I had an idea on the way to solving the turmoil of our current society and what had recently happened to us. In a world that had become so overpopulated and polluted, and with no oil left to power out machinery, we had one last place to search. That was the day I [found the New Babylon writing washed up on the shore and] conceived the scheme for a permanent encampment [on the abandoned oil rigs off the coast] for the nomads, and that project is the origin of the New Babylon.

Of a New Babylon where, under one roof, with the aid of moveable [existing] elements [and materials], a shared residence [community] is [was] built; a temporary, constantly remodeled living area; a camp for nomads [individuals] on an [oceanic] scale.

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Dark Matter:

Making(,) Time(,&) Matter in Architecture Robert Trumbour Assistant Professor

Dark matter is hypothesized to contribute roughly 85% of the total known matter in the universe, greatly outweighing the amount of visible matter we are familiar with. Dark Matter is considered dark because it cannot be seen or readily accounted for. Despite its invisibility, astronomers have recognized the presence of dark matter for decades, and its influence on our universe is considered by many to be immense. The gravitational force of luminous matter alone does not justify the behavior of our universe.

How is it possible that the speed of bodies at the outer edge of a galaxy equals those near its center?

This condition illustrated by the Galaxy Rotation Curve depicts the paradox between what is predicted and what is observed, a condition counter intuitive to scientists and inexplicable by Newtonian physics.

How is it possible? Dark Matter.

Dark Matter is not emptiness, it is not nothing, it is in fact, something. Something however, that we cannot see but paradoxically appears to be the largest contributor to the shaping of our universe.

What is Dark Matter's equivalent in the architectural cosmos?

What is this something for us? What are its parameters? What are its dimensions? Does our dark matter operate by a different set of rules as the Dark Matter of the larger universe does? Is it an immeasurable energy, a force or an invisible reoccurring change of state? This abstract seeks to find the dark matter of architecture, the predominant force that we cannot see, at least not so readily through our normal way of viewing. Rather than proposing an answer, it provokes questioning. Is the matter we see the most important matter there is?

Does it only matter or perhaps, is it only matter if we can hold it in our hand or roll it, crease it or fold it as Serra’s 1967-68 Verb List propagates? Although there are likely many possible outcomes from the search for dark matter in the architectural cosmos, time will serve as the subject for this inquiry. Time is understood; it is felt but not seen. Its presence is evident in the processes, qualities and limits of all matter. It operates under its own set of rules and possesses a trajectory that is both linear and cyclical. Unaffected by the basic laws of gravity, time appears to possess its own force equal in strength to the inescapable pull of gravity.

Time undoubtedly shapes our universe but does it contain the mass and dimension we can build with? If matter, or more explicitly in the case of architecture, material is the stuff we build with, can we use time as a material rather than simply an effect. Materials age and yet some resulting forms are deemed timeless.

Does time matter?

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^ Eli Mead | Base Camp Exposure

LUX

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LOS ANGELES

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When was constant rhythm born? Was it through the continuous movement of the human heart, or through the regular tempo of the moving sun? In this scenery, space, mind, and light are perpetual fluids; none of them stop their state of flux, till the rhythm departs.

The existence of a body will change a space in every position. No matter of its relevance or experience, a body modifies because a body occurs. Space, no longer equal, responds to the mind through perception.

In movement: thinking is constantly on, endlessly transforming. It is the awareness of the mind, which constantly connects to all the interfaces around us.

As its most powerful tool: the human eye, evenly fluid and natural, is the perspective machine.

Shadows result from the obstacle in front of the sun.

Objects may remain intact, but its insight will be dragged upon the sunlight. After sunset, composure shortly prevails before change.

Flux: the capacity of ongoing alteration.

^ Arie Salomon I Space, Mind, and Light: Continuous Instability

^ Corey Hayes I LA from the Plane

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. ^ Sara Zettler I Implications of the Sky

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“The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.� - G.K. Chesterton To what extents are modern learning methodologies able to lead individuals into the understanding of a place? Is technology as strong as our eyes, ears and other sensitive devices of the body?

There are several ways in which students gain knowledge, and because there is an unlimited wealth of information and experience out there, everyone can fall into the category of student on some level. Many learn by reading and discussing data in order to process information; others are geared to learn by seeing and doing, a skill that is essential for any designer to begin to channel their ideas into tangible and experiential work. An individual’s ability to see and interact allows the creation of true experience in a foreign situation, and therefore the building of knowledge from immersion in a completely unfamiliar environment. The experiential nature of architecture lends itself to an equally experiential style of learning. It develops early in history courses where a plethora of iconic structures is appreciated and continues when students design and implement their own ideas. As lectures are comprehended by learners, a foundation of knowledge is formed that can be drawn from at any point. This foundation is greatly built upon and established further when travel begins to be incorporated in the educational melting pot.

To gain a true and full understanding of a subject, one must be willing to see and experience it from many distinct angles; this is where travel becomes significant in learning.

Improvising as they go, a traveler begins to experience and learn, taking in whatever can be offered. They look for the extremes in both nature and the built world, learning from both the good and bad, from thriving forests to polluted bodies of water, beautiful works of modern architecture to decrepit villages living in squalor.

Accepting a place for the whole of what it is becomes essential, as the knowledge gained is twofold- both a look into successes as well as shortcomings. . ^ Peter Cataldo and Michael Duffy I Why Travel Matters

Sustainability:

The Feel Good Word Terry Moor Professor

Embracing the Universal Jargon Today we toss around such terms as green, natural, eco, organic and sustainable without giving them all that much thought. By now, we all know or at least think we know what these words mean. They have become part of a new vocabulary relating to our relationship with the environment. In this context, the concept relates to a better, healthier life style or our need to preserve and protect our planet from more pollution and global warming. This, in turn, reflects our desire to protect our natural resources as well. As proof of the current interest in this matter, Amazon online lists over fifteen thousand books when searching the term “sustainability.” Go to your local bookstore (if you still have one) and look at the number of “how to” books that give advice on how you can assist in this global effort by building sustainably.

Ironically, many of these books have on their covers some beautiful examples of buildings that could not be considered sustainable by even the loosest of definitions.

half of the twentieth century as a result of the stresses that modern society put upon the globe and the new, untested technologies and products that came into existence over this time period. Innovations such as DDT, atomic energy, and air conditioning were all new blessings that were intended to make our lives more productive, safe, comfortable and enjoyable. While embraced fully at first, they all were discovered to have considerable negative side effects as well. Our race into the future and the glories that these advances offered blinded us to the negatives that became obvious over time as we came to understand them better.

Many of these similar terms have been used by Madison Avenue to sell products. They are useful to that end, as the public perceives an organic cereal or organically grown meat as healthier, without the use of chemical enhancements or pesticides. Green products are considered good as they are designed to be non-polluting, thereby keeping our environment healthier. For years the word “new” was the most used (or perhaps over-used) word for retail products in our grocery stores. Now the most common is “natural.” It was, and continues to be a sure way to convince consumers to consider the product as wholesome. Add ”eco” Magazines also promote the notion of green building (or perhaps the or “eco -friendly” to your product’s description or name and it now can fantasy of it) by showing examples of structures that are intended to exemplify sustainability as an overarching goal of the architect or owner. appeal to an even larger population of concerned people.

Architectural Digest with a circulation of over 800,000 issues has Inventing Sustainability Today the word “sustainability” has a clear meaning to those of us living in the developed world: a lifestyle that can be maintained into the future indefinitely. However, this is a relatively modern concept/concern. One will not find the word “sustainability” in dictionaries of the nineteen sixties or before. Prior to the Second World War, most people did not conceive of a world that could not maintain itself. There were seemingly adequate resources to be exploited indefinitely.

jumped onto the bandwagon by featuring Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady’s new “Eco-Chic Family Home” in Los Angeles on the cover of its October 2013 publication. In the editor’s comments, she sets down a checklist of virtues that make this a fine example of “a remarkable young couple with a surpris-ing eco-conscious mindset and a forwardthinking home to match.” The editor goes on to say, “In truth, even Tom and Gisele would agree that their house is large by most standards.

But it’s also smart and inspiring, and it fits their lifestyle – and what they believe in, which is what happens when you know not only what you want but also what you need.” For the record, the house is 14,000 square feet in size. This equates to fourteen average size houses in the 1950s and six today. “Eco-Chic?” Is this really a question of need or is it one of excess under a green cloak?

All of these terms, as they are applied today, developed during the latter

There were times and places in our past that our ancestors depleted their vast forests, exhausted their arable land and overpopulated their cities; as a result, some had their civilization collapse - in some cases, even disappear. As Western European economies expanded after the Middle Ages there seemed to be even more and perhaps even better opportunities for such exploitation in newly discovered lands. The Americas, Africa and Asia all afforded seemingly unlimited supplies of necessary resources to enable the European empires to build great capitals and live lifestyles well beyond the standards of those of their colonies.

Toward the middle of the twentieth century, things began to change.

Until that time, the pollution levels had no noticeable effect on people’s lives or on that of the planet. Much of this problem, powered primarily by fossil fuels, began to develop during the Industrial Age. It brought greater optimism for the future and a better life as mechaniza-tion and mass production introduced a wide variety of new goods to the populous, improving lives by providing great luxury and increased free time. Unfortunately, it also began to spawn massive environmental changes that were only recently detected.

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^ Olivia Hegner I Artisan’s Loft

^ Nathan Thomas I Stony Brook Hotel

The Meaning of “Sustainability” The words “sustain” (verb) and “sustainable” (adjective) have been a part of the English language for nearly a millennium now. Derived from the Latin "sustinere," passing to the French as "soustenir;" “sub” meaning "from below" plus “tenere,” "to hold." The Normans added it to our vocabulary after their conquest of England in 1066 CE. However, as previously noted, the term "sustainability" came into common usage only recently. It was first cited in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1980.

The United Nations’ Brundtland Commission issued their seminal report entitled Our Common Future on March 20, 1987. In this report the first and most comprehensive definition of the word was proposed. It stated “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” This definition went well beyond the construction of buildings and sought to address social and economic inequalities around the globe. There is no compromise intended in this language or its meaning. It simply proposes that we pass along to future generations that which we have had and enjoyed.

challenge in a positive and reasonable way. While these three goals could lead to a building that is totally sustainable, it is highly unlikely because there is the problem of the initial material depletion, the energy needed to produce materials and later to reconstitute them for another useful lifespan through the recycling process. The word “reduce” implies excess, while reuse and recycle have inherent in their processes waste and degradation of the very materials that they are salvaging.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification seeks to rate a building’s performance in a variety of categories.

On their web site they state “If you’re serious about saving money, conserving energy, reducing water consumption, improving indoor air quality, making better building material choices, and driving innovation, then LEED is the best choice.” However, none of these goals attempt to reach anything near complete and utter sustainability. Rather, it measures the extent to which a building can reduce its impact on our environment. The goal of being one hundred percent sustainable is not the objective under this system, as it does not hope to solve the problem associated with the basic ideal of renewability. It seeks only to minimize the damage.

“Cradle to Cradle” is an organization that has an approach which holds out the promise for total sustainability. On its web site, it claims to promote “a multi-attribute, continuous improvement methodology that provides a path to manufacturing healthy and sustainable products for our world.” "Multi-attribute" does not solely relate to building construction, but can be applied to various building products, However, Wikipedia defines sustainable architecture in a less stringent way, as “architecture that utilizes environmentally conscious such as carpeting. The goal here is to create products that can be reused at infinitum. However, as the modern world becomes more design techniques. Sustainable architecture is framed by the larger discussion of sustainability and the pressing economic and political issues of our world.” It goes on to clarify the issue by adding that “in the broad context, sustainable architecture seeks to minimize the negative environmental impact of buildings by enhancing efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, and development space.” The key phrase here being, “minimize the negative environmental impact.” By only minimizing our negative effect on the environment, we cannot pretend to attain the goal of sustainability that the UN proposed. That is to say that by this definition we are not trying to sustain the environment, but simply to reduce, to some extent, our impact on the environment. To be sustainable one cannot compromise the goal of insuring “the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

The definition in Webster’s Dictionary supports this approach when it uses terms like “able to be maintained at a certain rate or level” and “conserving an ecological balance by avoiding depletion of natural resources.”

Paul Oliver, in his book Dwellings gives us a clear, succinct definition by proposing that sustaina-bility is “the principle that the continuity of life, of natural resources and of settlement should be ensured without further harm to the environment.”

Ironically, while hoping for sustainability, we consider ourselves consumers. We have taken that thought one step further and have dubbed our ways as conspicuous consumption. The word “consume” refers to eating up or depleting something - that which is consumed.

How can "consumers" hope for a sustainable world?

Measuring Our Impact To what extent can one say a building is sustainable when the goal is to “minimize” its impact? Can we measure that impact? The mantra of environmentalists today, "reduce, reuse, recycle," approaches this

and more complex with enormous numbers of items required for its maintenance, we will have a great deal of difficulty inventing ways of achieving this goal. Additionally, regardless of how simple or easy a product is to retrofit for another use, energy is expended during transportation, reformatting the product and its reinstallation.

The “Happy Planet Index” (HPI) aspires to give us an index by which one can compare the well-being of a nation’s people against the resources that they use. It is calculated by multiplying the experienced well-being of a nation’s people by their life expectancy divided by ecological footprint of that country. Their web site states: “The index is an efficiency measure, it ranks countries on how many long and happy lives they produce per unit of environmental input.”

Their goal is “to produce happy, healthy lives now and in the future. The HPI demonstrates that the dominant Western model of development is not sustainable and we need to find other development paths towards sustainable well-being.” It seems that the main goal here is to increase awareness. This is a noble ideal, but can we really aspire to make this point through such an index? The wealthy nations (and the next generation, mainly China and India) of the world that expend the vast majority of the world’s resources know who they are and seem reasonably contented with their actions. On the other hand, the poorer nations with less of an ability to consume seem to want what the richer ones have. Will an index shame either into changing direction?

Measuring sustainability is elusive and can be rather subjective as the individual measurements reflect organizational values that may not be universally shared. What one chooses to measure as opposed to that, which is not measured, can be arbitrary. Consequently, results generated by formula hold less meaning than they appear to – or more to the point, less than one hopes they do.

or sooner. Other, more optimistic projections, take it much further into the future. While all of these projections are speculation, the bottom line remains that any resource that is depleted and cannot be replaced does not meet the criteria of sustainability. Until such time as true renewable energy sources are found and employed globally, we will continue to use up those natural resources available to us.

Some will argue that we have adequate natural resources to last through the next century and even well beyond. But even if they last beyond our lives, our children’s and perhaps even those of their children, these resources will ultimately be exhausted. This proposition is self-serving, as it only thinks of our current or foreseeable populations, those that we can relate to directly. The truth is that we don’t know the life expectancy of petroleum, natural gas, iron ore, etc.

Nor do we know the rate at which we will be extracting and using them.

We only know that even at a greatly reduced rate they will inevitably be depleted at some time in the future.

Can We Build Sustainably?

The Pressure of Modern Demands As previously mentioned, to be truly sustainable, a building with all of its components must not have any lasting effect on the planet. Essentially, a truly sustainable building does not deplete resources that are not renewable or reusable, nor does it add pollutants into our atmosphere and soil. Furthermore, once it has served its function and is abandoned, it returns to a natural state by either collapsing and/or disintegrating into simpler or original form of matter.

Unfortunately, the demands of modern society as they stand are too great to allow us to reach this standard. We now require buildings that are built using manufactured materials, whose spaces are mechanically conditioned and consume huge amounts of electricity to power lighting, communication, and all of our modern conveniences.

All of these consume natural resources. Modern architects can no longer design and construct buildings that meet this rigorous definition of sustainability as we design buildings of manufactured materials that are transported to the building site. Materials such as steel and concrete form the basic building blocks of our modern structures.

Likewise, components constructed with glass, aluminum, other metals and plastics, are in extremely heavy usage. All of these are manufactured materials, which deplete the basic minerals from which they are made. All of these minerals are taken from the earth. While some, such as sand, are found in abundance, others like bauxite are not. They are finite and not replaceable. While it is true that, once made, many are reusable or recyclable, this cannot make up for the fact that a certain portion of the planet's resources have been consumed, never to be replaced.

More often than not, these materials are transported great distances – maybe from one country to another on opposite sides of the world. The manufacture and transport of them consume huge amounts of fuel, which depletes, in particular, coal or petroleum. These fuels pollute the atmosphere and are finite resources that are not replaceable, nor can they be reused or recycled.

Estimates regarding the amount of reserves and the corresponding time frame for the ultimate consumption of these fuels and minerals vary depending upon the source cited. For example, some predict that petroleum will start to diminish by the middle of the twenty-first century

Faced with these concerns, can today’s architects, engineers and builders truly design and build sustainably using our current construction practices?

From recent observation, it would seem that the majority consider the answer to be "yes," since little change has been adopted beyond limited attempts at making buildings and mechanical equipment more energy efficient. Steel and glass towers prevail in the same form as they have had since the fifties. It is clear that for many the overriding hope for the future is that technology will resolve the dilemma. If it does, then future generations will be able to continue to build without noticeable change.

On the other hand, it is likely that the answer to this question will be "probably not." In this event, change will be required. Will this realization occur when the problems become unavoidable? Will we continue to delude ourselves into thinking that what we are doing can go on and on at even a slower pace? No doubt we will. Hence, the term "sustainability" as it is applied to the construction field today is simply a euphemism for doing as little damage as we can under the circumstances. Maybe there is a better word or expression for what we are doing. Perhaps terms such as “thoughtful depletion” or “planned consumption” would be closer to the mark. Needless to say, these terms are hard to swallow, or, (more importantly) to sell, but they are more accurate and certainly less self-indulgent.

^ Project Team | p. 143

^ Jessica Valadares I Served and Servant Spaces

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^ Kevin Riley I The Masquerade

Plus-minus 7268826775

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Jared Guilmett

It is a mysterious atmosphere in which human beings dwell – constantly changing and evolving into glamorous shapes and hideous spaces, into provocative limits and undesirable logics. Affording purely for what the individual deems necessary and often ignoring the defined pretexts for the site and immediate context, a conglomeration of collectables has been spread across the canvas on which the world is depicted. A patchwork of both similar and dissimilar characteristics appears before the eye, unable to differentiate from the next, and yet never performing as a solitary whole. Called home by all known forms of life, the Earth continues to revolve, continues to orbit, and continues to adapt every hour of every day, and so too do the realized spaces formed by the imagination.

Today, there are approximately 7,268,826,775 (1) people living on this planet, and of the nearly 7.3 billion, over 100 million are homeless (2).

Home, defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “a familiar or usual setting: congenial environment; also: the focus of one’s domestic attention” and is “the social unit formed by a family living together.” (3) This describes not only the expensive structures in which we dwell and wake up in but also the regular location where the vagrant habitually returns for safety and comfort. A less physical and ridged form has been outlined, stating that a bench can be just as much a home as a two-story colonial; now speaking to the space that is naturally created by the surrounding world as encompassing the individual abode.

Shelter from the elements cannot always be an option for some, contrasting the ignorant display and desire for more by those positioned ‘safely’ within masses. What has been built can easily be taken down and stripped away – what may appear to be permanent in the fabric of the world, fails to the swift slicing of the shears, unraveling into a pile of undesirables. Located within one hundred ninety-six countries, there is 15.77 billion acres of habitable land, enough to

provide every person with roughly two acres of their own land (4). And yet, there are millions clinging to the dirt of the public streets and rusted trusses of the bridges, to make it through one more night.

Desolately snug, wrapped in the elegant forms and spaces, which we use to define our home, the elation of the echoing cries from the street leave hardly a chip in the clean coat of paint along the molding. With all the appearance of an impractically content being, the unbound human struggles to maintain appearances and seek for a redefined lifestyle.

True it may be, that there is controversy over the longevity of the vagabond life-choices, but what is unavoidable remains the amount of inhabitable land that is undeveloped and has the potential to completely evolve itself and its abutting context. Indisputably, an individual needs space to survive; a space in which one can find comfort and peace – a space that one can call home. Whether a physical, detail-oriented space or an environmentally integrated, urban space, the inhabitant must be provided with the necessary tools to create (or recreate) a setting to call home. Many of these spaces and environments that the world’s homeless population reside in, are neither safe nor healthy and add to the development of social issues, but does that mean that those living on the streets of our cities should live in filth and slime? If 7,268,826,775 people put their minds together, nothing is impossible.

We could achieve feats defined only in myths; we could allow for all to dwell within a beautiful structure and enjoy the stunning environmental spaces abundant in our world; we could fight hunger and disease, and no matter what other battles we pursue, we will win. A home is a home, because that is what someone has made it, consisting of a plethora of moving and changing parts that coexist in a symphony of irrevocable joy and improbable perfection. We have named Earth as our home, so why should we let parts of it shrivel up and drift away, why let parts of our home vanish under an irremovable coating of cobwebs and dust. / Notes p. 142.

^ Caleb Hawkins I A Daily Commute

^ Andrew Calnen, Neal DosSantos and Timothy Szczebak I Redefining the Layer: A Vision for Park Street

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The Industrial Dweller Michelle Hobbs

“The history of the city and the history of the individual are basic assumptions before the birth of architecture: this duality can, under optimal conditions, reach an equilibrium.� (1) In order to have a full respect for a place, one must understand the elements it is comprised of. A place is not solely the built form that creates the urban fabric; the social character of a place sets it apart from any other. A place does not exist without the people and culture that has defined the characteristics of the built form, and therefore needs to be understood as much, if not more, than the physical factors of an area. What characters are a part of the greater production that is the narrative of the city?

Looking back to the history of the Portsmouth area, two relevant characters emerge – the resident, and the worker. The association between these two is interdependent, as the residents that first established the area were the workers as well. The industry

surrounding Portsmouth was, and is particularly industrial based, relying heavily on the waterways as a means of connection between Boston to the South and Portland to the North. The tugboat industry took hold after the Industrial Revolution, when materials needed to be shipped up the bay to reach mill towns such as Dover to the North.

The area remained overwhelmingly single-family residential until the downtown began to develop with the addition of larger mixed-use structures in the early 1800s.

These characters have remained significant throughout the history of Portsmouth, and still remain today. The streets along the outskirts of the downtown are densely packed with residential homes. Those who live in the area have a deep passion for the history of their streets, and value the connection to the downtown, and many continue to work in the industrial industry. Based around the waters edge, there are multiple industrial means of occupation, from the sand and salt corporation, to the scrap metal yard, and the tugboat fleet. Across

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the bay is the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, which has furthered the appreciation and respect for the working class in the area.

Branching from the resident, it is of the utmost importance to understand all who interact with this place. Portsmouth’s economy relies heavily on the tourists who come to the area. These individuals view the city through a different lens than those who live there, as they only dwell in the area for a short period of time. / Notes p. 142.

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What's the

MATTER?

NOTES

22. Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture, 2012.

From page 38. "The Truth of Architectural Matter" Anne-Catrin Schultz, Assistant Professor, PhD.

23. Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture, 2012.

1. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=matter

24. Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture, 2012.

2. Ruskin, John, and J. G. Links. The Stones of Venice. New York: Da Capo Press, 2003, 104.

25. Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture, 2012, 14.

3. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/arts/design/13pritzker.html?_ r=0

26. Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture, 2012, 66.

27. Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture, 2012, 12.

4. Semper, Gottfried. Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts; or, Practical Aesthetics. Translated by Harry Mallgrave and Michael Robinson. 1st ed. Getty Research Institute, 2004, 247/248.

28. Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture, 2012, 17.

5. Blais, Myriam, On the Interpretation of Architecture, Wolkenkuckucksheim, Vol. 12, No. 2, December 2008: www.tu-cottbus. de/wolkenkuckucksheim/inhalt/en/issue/issues/207/Blais/blais.php

From page 38. Semper: Gottfried Semper: Knot (from: Semper, Gottfried. Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts; or, Practical Aesthetics. Translated by Harry Mallgrave and Michael Robinson. 1st ed. Getty Research Institute, 2004.)

6. Semper, Gottfried. Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts; or, Practical Aesthetics. Translated by Harry Mallgrave and Michael Robinson. 1st ed. Getty Research Institute, 2004, 131.

7. Semper, Gottfried. Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts; or, Practical Aesthetics. Translated by Harry Mallgrave and Michael Robinson. 1st ed. Getty Research Institute, 2004, 131.

8. Semper, Gottfried. Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts; or, Practical Aesthetics. Translated by Harry Mallgrave and Michael Robinson. 1st ed. Getty Research Institute, 2004, 140.

9. Semper, Gottfried. Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts; or, Practical Aesthetics. Translated by Harry Mallgrave and Michael Robinson. 1st ed. Getty Research Institute, 2004, 140.

10. Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Reprint edition.

New York: Dover Publications, 1989, 40.

11. Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Reprint edition.

New York: Dover Publications, 1989, 40.

12. Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Reprint edition.

New York: Dover Publications, 1989, 40.

13. Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Reprint edition.

New York: Dover Publications, 1989, 43.

14. Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Reprint edition.

New York: Dover Publications, 1989, 43.

15. Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Reprint edition.

New York: Dover Publications, 1989, 48.

16. Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Reprint edition.

New York: Dover Publications, 1989, 53.

17. Ruskin, John, and J. G. Links. The Stones of Venice. New York: Da Capo Press, 2003.

18. Ruskin, John, and J. G. Links. The Stones of Venice. New York: Da Capo Press, 2003, 100.

19. Ruskin, John, and J. G. Links. The Stones of Venice. New York: Da Capo Press, 2003, 100.

20. Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Reprint edition.

New York: Dover Publications, 1989.

21. Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Reprint edition.

New York: Dover Publications, 1989, 55.

Image Reference

From page 38. Semper: Gottfried Semper: Different types of lace (from: Semper, Gottfried. Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts; or, Practical Aesthetics. Translated by Harry Mallgrave and Michael Robinson. 1st ed. Getty Research Institute, 2004.)

From page 38. Semper: Gottfried Semper: Floor in the pronaos of the Temple of Olympian Zeus (from: Semper, Gottfried. Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts; or, Practical Aesthetics. Translated by Harry Mallgrave and Michael Robinson. 1st ed. Getty Research Institute, 2004.)

From page 39. Semper: Gottfried Semper: Caribbean hut, model on display at the Great Exhibition, London, 1851 (from: Semper, Gottfried.

Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts; or, Practical Aesthetics.

Translated by Harry Mallgrave and Michael Robinson. 1st ed. Getty Research Institute, 2004.)

From page 39. Semper: Gottfried Semper: Tomb of Midas, textile wall treatment (from: Semper, Gottfried. Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts; or, Practical Aesthetics. Translated by Harry Mallgrave and Michael Robinson. 1st ed. Getty Research Institute, 2004.)

From page 40. Ruskin-linesAB: Line ab (based on a diagram from: Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Reprint edition. New York: Dover Publications, 1989. P55) From page 41. Ruskin-linesDC: Line dc (based on a diagram from: Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Reprint edition. New York: Dover Publications, 1989. P55) From page 41. Ruskin-linesEG: Line eg (based on a diagram from: Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Reprint edition. New York: Dover Publications, 1989. P55) From page 40. Ruskin-linesLM: Line lm (based on a diagram from: Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Reprint edition. New York: Dover Publications, 1989. P55) From page 41. Ruskin-linesNO: Line no (based on a diagram from: Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Reprint edition. New York: Dover Publications, 1989. P55) From page 41. Ruskin-linesST: Line st (based on a diagram from: Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Reprint edition. New York: Dover Publications, 1989. P55) From page 43. Zumthor: Klaus Chapel, Mechernich, Germany, construction (from: Zumthor, Peter and Diener, Roger, Das Haus, Z端rich, 2010)

From page 43. Zumthor: Klaus Chapel, Mechernich, Germany, section sketch (from: Zumthor, Peter and Diener, Roger, Das Haus, Zürich, 2010) From page 43. Zumthor: Klaus Chapel, Mechernich, Germany, exterior (Wikipedia commons) From page 43. Zumthor: Klaus Chapel, Mechernich, Germany, interior (Wikipedia commons) From page 56. "The matter of space" Aaron Weinert, Visiting Professor.

1. Harries, Karsten. “Building and the Terror of Time”. Perspecta: The Yale Architectural Journal, vol. 19, edited by Brian Healy, MIT Press,Cambridge, MA, 1982.

2.Ibid.

3.Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Embodied Image, John Wiley + Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2011, p. 97.

4.Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Eyes of the Skin, John Wiley + Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 1996.p. 17 5. Charles Moore and Gerald Allen. Dimensions: Space, Shape and Scale in Architecture. Architectural Record Books, New York, NY, 1976, p. 7.

6. Ibid.

7. Geidion, Sigfried. Space, Time and Architecture: The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures (1969), 5th Edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2009. p. xlvii 8. Unwin, Simon. Wall: An Architecture Notebook, Routledge, New York, NY, 2000, p. 26.

9. Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Embodied Image, John Wiley + Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2011, p. 72.

From page 77. "Matter and the Immaterial in the Berkshires: The Clark Art Institute” Gary Wolf, Adjunct Professor.

11. Frampton, p. 98.

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12. William Saunders, “Strange, Hidden, Holy: Religious Experience in Recent Secular Architecture,” in Michael Benedikt, editor, Divinity, Creativity, Complexity, Center 15. Austin: The Center or American Architecture and Design, the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, 2010, p. 29.

13. The full team, with each firm hired directly by the Clark Art Institute, included Tadao Ando Architect & Associates (Osaka, Japan); Reed Hilderbrand, Landscape Architecture (Cambridge, Massachusetts); architect of record Gensler (New York); and, for the museum renovations, Selldorf Architects (New York).

14. Knowing that Ando prefers to work only with concrete, the Director of the Clark Art Institute, Michael Conforti, tells of carrying two “boulders” with him to his first meeting with Ando: one representing the white marble of the original Clark museum, and one for the 1971 building’s red granite. It was at Conforti’s insistence, and with Ando’s reluctant acceptance, that the new construction foregrounds both materials, in combination with Ando’s concrete.

15. Marcel Eliade explored the meaning of the center and the empty center in different works, including The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, translated by Willard R. Trask. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961.

16. This piece of “nature” in the Berkshires is clearly a welcoming place, within the tradition of the pastoral mode that threads through the centuries in art and literature. See art historian Bonnie Lee Grad’s speculative exploration of the theme in her essay in Milton Avery, Royal Oak, Michigan: Strathcona, 1981.

17. Thoreau, p. 197.

18. See Gaston Bachelard, Poetics of Space, translated by Maria Jolas.

New York: The Orion Press, 1964. (Originally published in France in 1958.)

19. Michael Benedikt, “Introduction,” in Benedikt, editor, Center 15: Divinity, Creativity, Complexity, p. 15.

20. Saunders, p. 34.

1.RalphWaldo Emerson, “Nature,” in Selections from Ralph Waldo Emerson: An Organic Anthology, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1960, p. 49.

21. Tadao Ando in interview, in Anatxu Zabalbeascoa and Javier Rodrigues Marcos, Editors, Tadao Ando: Architecture and Spirit.

Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gill, SA, 1998, p. 57.

2. Henry David Thoreau, “The Maine Woods.”

22. Frampton, p. 109.

3. Emerson, “Nature,” 1844, from Essays: Second Series.

23. Mircea Eliade, Images and Symbols. New York: A Search Book, Sheed and Ward, 1969, p. 40.

4. First quote from Catherine L. Albanese, Nature Religion in America.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, p. 87. Second, Thoreau, “Journal.”

5. David Byrne, “Glass Concrete and Stone,” from the compact disc Grown Backwards. New York: Nonesuch Records, 2004.

6. The phrase of LeCorbusier’s became the basis for a symposium at Yale and for the subsequent collection of papers, Constructing the Ineffable: Contemporary Sacred Architecture, Karla Cavarra Britton, Editor. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.

7. Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958, p. 69.

8. Kenneth Frampton, “The Secular Spirituality of Tadao Ando,” in Britton, p. 97.

9. Frampton, p. 110.

10. Frampton, p. 99.

24. Otto, p. 70.

25. Benedikt, p. 5.

26. Saunders, p. 34.

Image Reference From Page 78. Clark Art Institute by Tadao Andao. Photograph by author.

From Page 78. Clark Art Institute by Tadao Andao. Photograph by author.

From Page 78. Clark Art Institute by Tadao Andao. Photograph by author.

From Page 81. Christ Church Peabody Waltham. Photograph by author.

From page 93. "Measure of the Sublime” Francesco Stumpo

2004. Print.

1.Boyd White, Ian ‘Beyond the finite’’ Chapter 1 ‘the sublime: an introduction’ Page 8. MIT Press (2011)

From page 137. "The Industrial Dweller” Michelle Hobbs.

2. Ibid.

From page 100. "Inside of stuff” Peter Greenberg, Assistant Professor.

1. Le Corbusier. Towards a New Architecture. New York: Praeger, 1970, 4th printing. (First published as Vers Une Architecture, 1923), pp. 46-47.

2. Ibid.

3. Frascari, Marco. “The Tell-the-Tale Detail.” Via, vol. 7 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984), pp. 23-37.

4. Loos, Adolf. “The Principle of Cladding” in Spoken into the Void.

(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982), pp. 66-69. (First published in the Neue Freie Presse, 1898).

5. Schuyler, Montgomery. “Leopold Eidlitz.” Architectural Record, Nov 08, 1908, pp 365-378.

6. Evans, Robin. “Mies van der Rohe’s Paradoxical Symmetries” in Translations from Drawings to Building and Other Essays. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997), pp. 232-276.

7. 4. Loos, Adolf. “The Principle of Cladding.”

Image Reference From page 100. Le Corbusier. Towards a New Architecture. New York: Praeger, 1970, 4th printing, p. 47.

From page 100. Adolf Loos, Villa Müller. Photograph from Schittich, Christian, ed. in DETAIL Interior Spaces. Basel (CH): Birkhäuser, 2002, p. 27.

From page 100. Diller Scofidio, Brasserie. Photograph from Schittich, Christian, ed. in DETAIL Interior Spaces. Basel (CH): Birkhäuser, 2002, p. 108.

From page 101. Tod Williams Billie Tsien, La Jolla Neurosciences Institute. Photograph by author.

From page 101. H. H. Richardson, Allegheny Courthouse. Photograph from ArtStor from the University of Georgia Libraries.

From Page 101. Donald Judd, Aluminum Boxes, Marfa TX. Photograph by author.

From page 131. "plus-minus 7268826775” Jared Gilmett.

1. "Current World Population." World Population Clock: 7 Billion People (2015). N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Jan. 2015. <http://www.worldometers.info/ world-population/>.

2. "Homeless Statistics." Homeless World Cup. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2015. <http://www.homelessworldcup.org/content/homelessnessstatistics>.

3. "Land." Land. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2015. <http://www.zo.utexas. edu/courses/Thoc/land.html>.

4. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster,

1. Gregotti, Vittorio. "Modification." In Casabella International Architecture Review. First ed., 2-82. Italy: Gruppo Electra s.p.a., 1984.

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Instructor: Rob Trumbour, Assistant Professor Photography: Michael Greco Participants: Jeffrey Bathalon Michael Crockett Chad Keyworth Eli Mead Matthew Mulligan Andrew La Fosse Kyle Pryhuber Michael Greco Margaret Schmaling Christina Strid Francesco Stumpo Ivan Trayanov Tri-circle I Page 102.

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Jake Wilson Vien Nguyen Bernard Angst Cody Pratt

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Soft Fabrication I Page 106.

Instructor: Jared Ramsdell, Adjunt Professor Photography: Michael Greco, Eric Rigo and Francesco Stumpo.

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James Charves, Guest.

Commisioned by: The Fenway Alliance Samuels + Associates Urban Ecology in the Spree River, Berlin: Das Boatshaus I Page 127.

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