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Architectural Association (Luis Fraguada)
"DRL is like someone you really fancy, but she's a b*" | |
Tonight, my friend KAtie Trotter said something pretty apt for the moment:
"When it's over, you are going to be really depressed. I mean, DRL is like someone you really fancy, but she's a real bitch"
Laughter . . .
Submitted for your approval . . . DRL Final Jurors | |
The word on the street is that
Hernan Diaz-Alonso
Ali Rahim
Kas OosterHuis
Winka Dubbeldam
Iiona Lenard
Antonino Saggio
Andrew Benjamin
Phillipe Morel
will be on our Final Jury. Very excited, this is a great group, plus there are always AA / Bartlett people that drop in and add a great dynamic to the jury. Back to adjusting my aitplane warning lights . . .
The models are starting to get angry . . . | |
I had to skip London town for a week to do some administrative stuff in Denver. I would like to divulge more info on my specific activities there, but more will come later . . . some exciting opportunities lie ahead!
Besides that, I took the time (one week) to visit friends and family, as well as eat as much Mexican and breakfast foods as my body could handle. One side note, I got a great opportunity to visit my undergrad program where some friends are still teaching. I sat in and gave some desk crits to students in Marcel DeLange's 3210 (urban studio). The students were working on “slot sites” with a choice between three activation programs. This was a 2.5 week assignment. It was very interesting to see this other side of things. I found myself having great conversation with the students. Some were on point, others were a bit lost, but overall everyone had some good concepts that would undoubtedly go unexplored in 2.5 weeks. Got me thinking about the teaching aspect of our profession.
I mentioned eating . . . why is that important? Well, while London is packed to the gills with restaurants, I would say maybe 1% -> 3.3457% are actually decent. Not to say that I do not like food in London, there is some bomb cuisine, but so many damn tourist trap restaurants line the city that it obscures the numbers such. Boulder/Denver also have their share of crappy restaurants, but I am going to go out on a limb and say that Boulder, CO has to have the highest density decent breakfast joints per capita in the Western Hemisphere. While I lived there for 7 years, I developed a tier system for breakfast restaurants based of quality, service, and value. It was all kept secret in my head, only for my own use. I later discovered that my wife also shared this pretentious secret. Also, let us not discuss Mexican restaurants in London. While London has its share, only a couple are worthwhile, and even then, they are pricey. On the other hand, throw a rock anywhere in Denver or Boulder and you are bound to hit on some good Mexican food . . . of course north of the border, we are looking at tex/mex for the most part, but it is damn tasty. This picture is from a restaurant that we are quite partial to. So much so that we do not speak of its name while in London, for it is too emotional for us to recall how good it is:
Not many people can forget their first time driving into Boulder from HWY 36:
If you have not been to Boulder, I recommend it. It is a strange place. One of those towns where reality is especially blurred through images of Hummers taking a trip to the recycling center. Half hippy, half trustafarian, half yuppie, half college student, it just doesn't add up. There are some good things that come out of this though:
A place sometimes so enveloped in its own contradictions that it hardly makes any sense at all. Yet, I would return to it for so many reasons. This being one of them:
Also, this mix of people lends itself to a good yard sale season. The summer is ripe with sales, and on any given Saturday morning you could find me “sailing” through the yard sale districts:
Chief Niwot, your curse is strong . . .
DENVER
While I was staying in Boulder during my week in Colorado, many of my friends are living in Denver.
There is a lot to appreciate about Denver as well. Especially this corner, all bail bonds places:
This corner (close to a pretty good Cuban restaurant) happens to be right down the street from:
I took some time to get as close as I could to the new addition to the Denver Art museum:
It is interesting, I mean, this little corner of Denver has works by Graves, Ponti, and Libeskind . . . sure, they are bought pieces that give people more reasons to come to Denver, but I must say that someone needed to build something to offset that Graves library, I am sorry, his version of pomo here makes me cringe. But I guess if it works as a library, and it is a little better than seeing all of these pay parking places everywhere:
But this is just a microcosm of the more general condition along the foothills corridor:
Of course, no trip to Denver is complete without a BBQ.
Big Models, Projects Review, and beyond . . . | |
Most of this is not news at all, actually, in my mind, probably quite stale. But I thought I would kick things off for “Phase II” of the DRL with a trip down last term's final review. It was a doozy.
Here you see two of my teammates leaning up the base for our site model . . . a 1:1500 of East London. The teammates are there for scale . . . meaning, this thing was a big f'er. Three teams shared the work.
Layer 1: Road/Block/Building profiles etched and river cut.
Buildings starting to be assembled
Working with some cutting techniques as a way to evolve the unit aspect of our project. Deformable surface condition for adaptable housing spaces seems to be the way to go for now . . . how to implement . . .
Trying those cutting techniques on a more urban scale for a continuous landscape->urban negotiation.
The areas in which we are looking to initiate the project, pretty massive, and I am not sure this was the best decision to go so big seeing as there is pretty much nothing there, including that Thames Gateway bridge. At the moment, the site is pretty much clear, once it was Britain's largest gasworks.
LST Presenting and getting comments from Alisa Andrasek, Ali Rahim, and other wonderful jurors that I do not happen to have the list of at the moment. It was a good group of jurors, including a mix from Bartlett tutors (Marcos Cruz . . .) and AA (Brett Steele . . .).
This concludes part one of this posting. What, a bit of a copout not talking about how we did? You are right. So how did we do, well. . . There were some truly brutal moments, let me just be honest. I think the work we did was presented decently, but the project was very fragmented, bits here, bits there. We had mixed reviews, some people felt there was a spirit and a catalogue of work that was exciting and robust. Others were not so kind. They did not tell us anything we did not already know (typical comment after a review), so the summer has been a critical view at how we can drive the project to discuss the issues of housing in London.
Part two . . .
Here we are after the review, on our way to see Andreas at Thirst Club. Andreas is a DRL student, and he tends bar on the weekends at thirst. Don't ask me how the guy does it, but it makes for a convenient place to rock out a bit after reviews. “How are we doing tonight ladies?”
Projects Review getting warmed up. It got much, much busier than this! Is that terrace up to scruff to handle all that?
Impressive pavilion built at Hooke Park by young AA students (damn, can't remember the year these guys were in).
DRL room at the projects review. Everything that could go wrong pretty much did. Note to self, and anyone else working with 3D Voronoi, CONSIDER MATERIAL THICKNESS + PEPAKURA DESIGNER IS NOT AN APPLICATION TO BET YOUR LIFE ON. Sorry, had to get that out. After much fumbling, the thing came together. I worked mostly on the voronoi plinths and lit em all up.
So that's how last term ended. From here on out, lets talk about the present. Peace out.
Laptop Sessions: Transdisciplinary Experiments | |
Cluster: New Media New Media, Design Systems and Tools
Curated by Joel Newman, Theo Spyropoulos and Vasilis Stroumpakos
There was an open call to display some media works as part of the AA Clusters Week. Research clusters have been set up at the AA in order to discuss a wide range of topics. Clusters also aim to involve various people from within and outside of the AA including students, staff, faculty, etc.
Brian Dale and I had worked on a project as one of our seminar submissions. The project was for the Visualizing Information seminar directed by Vasilis Stroumpakos. The aim of the project was to rewire the way we interpret spaces. The visual is such an inherent part of our ontological understanding of the world, and we wanted to test different methods to inject different ways to augment this understanding. What resulted was CCdB (a name which continues from a previous series of installations dealing with CCTV systems to survey spaces). The aims of the visualization were to have a reactive system which would also have a memory of recent events. Once the person interacting with the installation understands the rules, they can then begin to augment the visual, learn, and adapt their behaviour to make CCdB perform. Thanks to Joel Newman, Theo Spyropoulos, and Vasili Strompaukos for the opportunity to present this work.
The setup: lappy, Alesis Multimix Firewire mixer, 4 x SM58 mics, projector, processing traer.physics, max/msp maxlink.
Brian tweaking the processing code.
Shure SM58 - industry standard. Better than our budget lapel mics, still not perfect for the range we need.
“grassy_knoll”
“attracted to pink”
“attracted to pink_v2” tweaked by Brian on the spot.
Watching some vectorized HD video . . . will find out name of artist, interesting methods to track movements through time.
The Chief: Shajay Bhooshan displaying some work from his AADRL team, manifold.
Unfortunately did not catch this guy's name, but he had a sweet flash interface to Maya. He set up a system to create branching structures with internal structural elements. Very nice.
Shot taken by Vasilis of me performing with CCdB. This “performance” was not initially intended, but it turned out to be fun to pick up the mics and get CCdB to react. In the future, we will be looking at different mics to have a better range and sensitivity in order to more accurately pick up the sounds in the space.
Phase I Team/Project Synopsis: AADRL | |
One Image/Three Sentences
As this is the third term in our course here at the DRL, I thought I would ask for an image and three sentences from each team. This is an interesting time during the DRL in that we are working towards the June 22nd-23rd Final phase 1 jury.
The format for the submission is simple, one image and three sentences. Included with each submission are the names of the team members, tutor, and brief. At press time we have 10/12 teams reporting. Hopefully we can do this a few times before the jury to see how the projects progress.
Teams are presented in no particular order . . .
Team Name
ddis.turb
Members
Deniz Manisali, Dimitris Akritopoulos, Iannis Orfanos, Sylvia Georgiadou
Tutor/Brief
Tom Verebes/Soft Cities
Description
Hybrid commerce through differentiation and adaptability of spaces as a sequential aggregate logic
Image
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Team Name
Flotsam
Members
Oznur Erboga, Lillie Liu, Dora Ntatsopoulou, Victor Orive
Tutor/Brief
Yusuke Obuchi/Learning Environments
Description
Flotsam's strategy towards a Learning Environment is to develop an extremely large scale building (100,000 sqm) in which one can navigate without a map. Our goal is to develop a navigational system where in decoding the logic of the building's spatial organization, users are able to find their way. Formal organization of the site is generated through use of strange attractors as a tool.
Image
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Team Name
K²S
Members
Kyungeun Kelly Lee, Karthikeyan Ramamoorthy, Sara Sheikh akbari
Tutor/Brief
Patrik Schumacher/Swarm Urbanism
Description
Parametric Urbanism takes the paradigm and tools of parametric design into the domain of urbanism. The power of parametrics is usually exploited to cope with the rapid succession of design changes, i.e. for the ability to produce variations of a single building, or for generating versions of building components for a complex building geometry that does not allow for the repetition of elements. Parametric urbanism is suggesting that these techniques of versioning can be applied to an array of buildings, so that a new version does not replace an older version but comes to join and extend the field of simultaneous versions in the build up of a complex urban field.
Image
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Team Name
knife and fork
Members
Gerard Joson [Phillipines], Pavlos Xanthopoulos [Greece], Brian Dale [USA]
Tutor/Brief
Tom Verebes/Soft Cities
Description
Sound and bodies are our materials, feeding one against the other to generate a distributed logic of commerce. We are looking at where the fluid flows of people intersect, either at a point of sonic attraction or distraction, as well as then a point of sonic generation once the crossing up of bodies has inevitably occurred, as a way to organize this commercial logic, the flows of people, of products, the space itself. This is manifested as points of intervention of various scales, from the single person newsstand to small shops, clusters of shops, and entertainment venues.
Image
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Team Name
k-matic
Members
Ezhiil Vigneswaran R.R., Jose-Luis Lemos da Silva Neto, Lauren Barclay
Tutor/Brief
Patrik Schumacher/Swarm Urbanism
Description
Starting with the “Swarm Urbanism” brief we looked in building a logic system with a level of complexity that could be applied to an urban field. We are seeking to create a variety of porosities, alignments and continuities of massing and space to give shape to a set of building phenotypes that would gradually transform and adapt in a fluid parametric urban plan.
Image
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Team Name
P-FAX
Members
Paulo E. Flores, Feng Xu, Arturo Revilla, Xiao Wei Tong
Tutor/Brief
Tom Verebes/Soft Cities
Description
Our project for Stratford city focuses on an approach to urbanism as one that integrates the striation of a city grid into a smooth and gradient dissolution of mass and void that mix several activities and events into a programmatic differentiation into a city.
Image
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Team Name
rxn
Members
Luis E. Fraguada [USA], Sangyup Lee [Korea], Nantapon Juungurn [Thailand], Shu-Hao Wu [Taiwan]
Tutor/Brief
Theo Spyropoulos/Adaptive Ecologies
Description
The project aims to research methods to augment and redefine the character of London. We identify London (and any human settlement for that matter) as a parasitic form of nonorganic life, dependent on host resources for survival, and governed by multiple self organizing behaviors that maintain its character dynamic and fluid. The way in which London grows and evolves can be deviated by introducing an urbanism of symbiosis that is already adaptable through compatibility, and thus can spread through the existing resource channels available in the city.
Image
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Team Name
Serial Drippers
Members
Mihee Kim, Annarita Papeschi, Jose Ramon Tramoyeres, Andres Arias
Tutor/Brief
Yusuke Obuchi/Learning Environments
Description
We are working on a proposal for the IBC and MPC during the Olympic games in London 2012. At the moment we are exploring the labyrinths as an organizational system: focused in its possibilities to influence in their behavior. Using rats to simulate it: with the aim to create an intelligent navigational system.
Image
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Team Name
Sugar Inc.
Members
Marc Boles, Kristof Crolla, Giulia Foscari, Arturo Lyon
Tutor/Brief
Patrik Schumacher/Swarm Urbanism
Description
By utilizing cellular systems we are generating self organized behaviours and systems informed by localized relationships or field conditions. Arrays of responsive cells, reacting to their particular neighbourhood conditions, self-organize into clusters that respond to field forces. The emerging patterns can be applied as a massing tool responsive to the existing site-conditions. An intelligent system allows programmatically defined structures to emerge into or onto an existing context. By scanning the surroundings and responding to it in an autonomous way, optimal programmatic organisations or spontaneously grown structures emerge.
Image
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Team Name
LST
Members
Shih-Chin Wu, Shiqi Li, Chrysostomos Tsimourdagkas
Tutor/Brief
Yusuke Obuchi/Parametric Urbanism, Adaptive Machinic Process
Description
We deal with the International Broadcasting Center / Main Press Center
(IBC/MPC) for the London Olympics 2012. IBC/MPC is seen as a micro-city
which evolves following specific rules. Working with L-systems in various
ways, we try to define these rules and achieve intricate but coherent
circulation patterns and radical spatial qualities.
Image
"...like the Native American Indians used every part of the buffalo..." | |
I want to take a second out of writing this essay to share with you something I ran across a few seconds ago.
747 House
apparently old news to Archinect:
On Archinect
I find it very interesting whenever I see a piece of news which covers an architectural venture. Just the quality of the architecture is usually grandiose or just bizzare. At first I was really interested by the idea when I came across the headline. Woman plans to build house from 747 jet. SWEET! I thought to myself.
I just hope we start to see some better renderings soon! Especially for the price tag. Oh and by the way, I do appreciate the whole using of recycled material, especially something like a 747, but the quote:
It seemed to make more sense to acquire an entire airplane and to use as many of the components as possible, like the Native American Indians used every part of the buffalo David Hertz
goes a bit far for me. It's nice, but its not as if the woman NEEDS a $2M home!
I told myself I wouldn't do it . . . | |
I would be such a keen school blogger . . .
I would not skip a week . . .
I would not write the cliche school blogger entry . . . but here it is.
In all of my ambition to bring you my experience of China, I let it become an easy way to post something. The truth of it is folks, Term II is now over. A lot has happened, and I would like to share some of that with you.
First of all, after taking some sweet ass night shots at a busstop, I left my camera on the bus. Therefore, the pictures included in today's entry will be a bit dated, if not completely ripped off of google. Ok, I won't do that to you anymore.
But what has happened since China? Well, 2 papers, a trip to Valencia, a trip back to the states (Minnesota and Colorado), and a whole 'nother term at the AADRL.
The papers. One was about Attention Span, the other about Information Events. I found at times I was writing the same paper, but they eventually needed to be two. I was much more interested in the Attention Span topic. How this issue, this "disease" as some call it is penetrating through all of us if ever so subliminally. I mean, if I don't post a picture on this entry how many people will reach this WORD? I might not either, except for the fact that I am writing this. Somehow, I weaved Anasazi architecture into that paper, citing a much more temporal ontology obvious in the way they constructed their cities.
For all of those looking to go to the AADRL, don't forget, it is a masters course, and there is an opportunity to actually get down with your writing self. I enjoy writing and researching, and thus, these papers were a welcome break from the studio. Currently, I we are on term break, so more papers to write . . . more on those later as I get chronological with you.
Valencia, you sweet sweet city you. Meredith and I took a little trip to Valencia. Had a very nice time getting lost there, which is funny, because it is not a very big city. So we really never were that lost, and if you keep walking just a bit, you eventually remember where you are. So it was sort of difficult to get lost . . . hmm, how does this change the way I view the City? anyhow, thanks to some tips from a Spaniard I know, we found some nice places to eat. Our favorite was very near our hostel . . . little place called El Rincon Cafe (I think). I recommend a bocadillo de bacalao con tortilla . . . DAMN tasty! don't get enough salted cod in my diet these days. We thought is would be a good idea to rent bikes and such, and then realized that Valencia is not that Bike friendly. Weird how London has more of an affinity with bikes than Valencia. But we had a nice time anyways. got some wine. bread, cheese, fruit, and some ham and went down to the "river." the plan was to eventually end up at Calatrava's City of Arts and Sciences. Which we did.
Then a brief Christmas trip to Minnesota and then to Colorado . . .
Term II, Term II, I hardly knew you! Where the hell did it go? Really? And what the hell did we do? Here at the DRL, we are heavilly involved in Urbanism. The agenda for the year is called Parametric Urbanism. Now, I know what some of you are saying: "Isn't urbanism already parametric?" Well, apparently we are on a quest to redefine that. What matters to me is the urbanism . . . and seeing as this is an architecture masters, eventually something will be architected. My team spent the term looking for ways to play the intelligence game . . . a little intelligence here, a little there, bam, urbanism and architecture. No, not so simple. We struggled with various techniques to set up relations within certain sites in London in order to create a housing centered proposal. The time is post 2012, assuming there has been a lot of money poured into the capital, and hence, many major mass transport infrastructural projects have been completed. also, we assume that the East of London (where I currently reside) has been "regenerated," in other terms "gentrified." But you say: "wasn't Hackney gentrified in the 80's?" Yes kids, it certainly was. But they are doing it again, and we are trying to propose a different way of approaching regeneration. You wanna know something interesting? East London is characterized by the highest population density North of the Thames, and the Lowest population Density to the South of the Thames. So the Thames creates a very real barrier. Furthermore, there are something like 27 Thames river crossings to the West, and ony 9 river crossings to the east. Starting to get the picture? East London, and the so called "Thames Gateway" is the stage for the 2012 Olympics, so London wants it clean and sparkly by the time the World is ready for the Olympic feast. Hopefully we can propose a different strategy for some sites in the Thames Gateway which challenge the notion of master planning and architecture . . . stay tuned . . .
Whats going on now? I am sitting at John Stree, watching the sun . . . yes SUN, shine brightly on the windows across the street and hit my face oh so nicely. Contemplating my term break papers. One will be more geared towards the studio project. Inevitable Change . . . Designing for Adaptability. thinking of this as not so much "How to build a city" which I think is an absurd notion, and more "How to feed a city," which I think is more realistic. The second project to work on in a continuation of the interactive installations I have been doing with my good friend Brian Dale. This one we call CCdB. Essentially mapping spaces with sound . . .microphones as CCTV cameras. Analysing the qualities of sound which shape a space. And looking for a way to evolve the discussion, as this has definitely been done before.
I take my chances now, leaving this unedited, and fairly stream of consiousness. thanks to sporadic supernova for awakening the demon. peace.
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