selophane.blog

Article: A house straight out of Beetle Juice

The New York Times home and garden section ran an article about a home in East Hampton, LI designed by Architects Arakawa and Madeline Gin. From the picture, description and accompanying multimedia slideshow this house seems to have jumped out of the pages of a surreal comic book or the celluloid of the Michael Keaton, Geena Davis, Winnona Ryder, and Alec Baldwin film, Beetle Juice. There is a moonscape of shifting non-planar concrete and a din of color and forms that fill the main living area, and the facade of the structure is an assemblage of multicolor planes. The general design concept behind the house is to stave off death by refusing to allow the inhabitants to feel calm and at ease: it is the Architect’s belief that ease is the precursor to death. Whether or not this is architectural post rationalization not withstanding, this house definitely refuses to allow the senses to rest. This project seems to be the culmination of a career’s worth of work for this pair in exploring and perverting the de stijl and pop-art movements as a rococo creation for for the 21st century.

The reason I wanted to blog about this building is its location. Growing up on Long Island, the Hamptons have always been a semi-mythic Xanadu where the rich and famous explore a simulacra of suburbia (much in the same way Marie Antoinette played “villager” in her hamlet at Versaille). The contrast that makes the Hamptons (and much of the peconic townships) something more than a vacation retreat of sprawling McMansions is that here, in this pocket of Über-wealth, is one of the few places on the Island that avant garde architecture is encouraged and nurtured. It was on the cutting edge of wood design and construction at the end of the 1970’s and beginning of the 1980’s and I would love to see a re-emergence of the East End as a new Architectural hotspot to rival Marfa, Texas.

Paperchitecture: Shigeru Ban’s Tea House

Shigeru Ban's paper Tea Room - Image from Dezeen.com

Yanko Design has an interesting article which they referenced from Dezeen about Shigeru Ban’s paper Tea House installation being put up for auction. Now as much as I’d love to own this piece of architecture, I know that I would never be able to afford it. On the otherhand, I can admire it and learn from it.

Ban’s use of paper has been his recent ongoing material de-mode. Paper as a building method is an interesting, though not intuitive, choice. There are some fundamental problems that come with paper; first, structural stability can be compromised by water, second, (non-coated) paper is very difficult to clean, and third, the presence of sunlight and air can cause acid-rich paper to deteriorate overtime. All of this non-withstanding amazing things have been created from paper; Frank Gehry’s famous series of chairs, Ban’s recent work with paper tubes, as well as recent pieces at DWR and other retailers. But the paper design that strikes the most similarity to the Paper Tea House is some of the recent office furniture from MUJI. They have the same kraft paper color and texture, as well as the crisp almost modern edges.

Paper as an architectural and design material could positively impact both design and the environment. First, paper made of post-consumer recycled content is not only a renewable resource it also diverts raw goods from the landfill and incinerator. Second, coated paper could easily be made to have the same clean lines and pure color palette as the myriad of plastics currently used. Third, paper construction could lead to a revolution in both raw material and finished furniture transportation – by shipping precut and pre-scored pieces in flat sheets. Imagine going to IKEA and purchasing a flat packed dining room table, which is literally FLAT. The consumer could fold along the dotted lines and “create” their new eco-friendly designs in the comfort of their own home – À la the blow up furniture of the 70’s and the inflatable air mattresses that have come into vogue recently. This could bring back the mail order home business of two centuries past, and make it affordable and modern.

University Architecture

So my sister (a visiting professor at Case [2016 UPDATE – she is now an Associate Professor of History at UNH]) sent me a link to a funny web-comic illustrating american collegiate architecture. This comic hits the nail on the head for a number of different styles of campuses across the country. Of course, because this is the media of a web-comic it only grazes the surface. One of the things that I have always found interesting about architecture is the ideas and concepts that a building can convey to the individual observer, and how institutions can co-opt these signs and signifiers to reinvent their identity and develop a new grammar of style. The other thing is that overtime the connotations of these buildings can get lost, and new un-trained observers start to create a new grammar of form. The interesting thing about this is that the untrained observations seem to have almost a viral growth factor. I think the best example of this from my experience is the original buildings on the campus of Tulane University. The oldest buildings are all ashlar limestone/marble in a Richardsonian Romanesque style, these buildings were the original natural science buildings on campus. Which makes sense because their stone skin evokes the classics and natural sciences which was the school’s specialty in the late 19th century. After a while the campus added two red brick buildings, which became the liberal arts and physics buildings. This makes sense based on the architecture as well, red-brick buildings/universities are associated with the new world and post-industrial society.

This language of buildings, which would have been evident to students 100 years ago, is lost on the population today. Instead, the student lead admission tours explain that these buildings don’t match the rest of the “front quad” because there was a mix-up in between Vanderbilt’s bricks and Tulane’s. This bit of canonical fallacy achieves a similar end result as the “real” reason – the University ends up claiming a piece of legitimacy as a liberal arts institution by comparing itself to a more prestigious school. As an interesting aside, this story of mixed up bricks (which would NEVER happen in real life and not result in a multimillion dollar lawsuit) seems to have propagated to so many different schools that it is hard to figure out where it started and how.

Article: Theorizing the American City

A detailed analysis of a site - the most common starting point for architecture.

a456 has a very interesting post about the lack of theory and prevalence of study in contemporary architecture (Click here for the article). This speaks to me because I feel that critical theory has left the world of architectural design and moved into its own sphere of academic theory.

How often in school did we start a project by analyzing the site, environment, and urban anthropological records as compared to developing a theory of place and setting idealized goals and a grammar of forms? The first was much more common than the latter. In fact we were always taught to analyze and then use the analysis to develop forms. The only time theory made its way into our curriculum was in a lecture setting where we “learned” about contemporary architectural thought through reading lectures and treatises, not design.

This translates to the practice of architecture as well. Projects are designed to fulfill a function, and not argue a thesis. While flights of academic fancy are not feasible in a client driven situation, I am hard pressed to think of many non-avant garde/magazine architecture firms that strategize an idea of a building instead of a program schema.

I think that architecture theory is still alive, but it is retroactive. Instead of being a part of the design process it is post rationalization for subconscious decisions that do not fit with a designer’s analysis. In addition, it is alive and well amongst architectural criticism and specifically blogging. This, to me, is because theory can be read and discovered in any building (even those designed without a conscious intent), but analysis usually requires access to the architects notes or some sort of key to “read” it out of the building.

Sorapot

So I received my Sorapot today at work. This is the first non-mass produced design object I have purchased for myself and I LOVE it!. This piece is a total design experience from the moment you open your shipping box.

The packaging is a rival to apple’s, except instead of embracing the sleek modern design of the product, this packaging plays up the dichotomy by being made from rough corrugated cardboard and tied with twine. The pot itself is just as pictured and works wonderfully. It is truly an architectural statement and would be at home in any midcentury modernist home, or on the pages of dwell and wallpaper. I hope to get many good years from it.

Article: Real Estate Road Trips Scout Troubled Market

The Decadence of the American Housing Market

So I don’t know how I missed this, but apparently on Monday, March 31st The Washington Post ran an article about the new phenomenon of Foreclosure Tours in the DC/NOVA metro area (Click here for the article). This strikes a sore spot with me, it makes me think of the Katrina tours that sprung up in New Orleans once tourists started to return to the city. Now I know this is a different sort of animal; the article describes these tours as “foreclosure seminars on wheels” and they are intended to help fill in neighborhoods instead of to educate. Yet in the end, I wonder, aren’t they both ways of profitting off of the pain and suffering of others?

Now I know that this in and of itself is not really architecture or design related, but I feel as if the whole foreclosure mess stems from the modern architecture and urban development of the US. For the past century we have been spreading farther and farther from urban centers and the average american living space has ballooned, this has not only affected us mentally and physically, but it is also affecting us environmentally and monetarily. As we move farther from the cities we need to travel farther to reach our employment, have less mass transit available to us, and the larger properties get the more spread out they must be. Where a 1/4 acre of land was plenty large for each Levit house (and considered private in comparison to inner city living), a modern McMansion would hardly fit within the property lines and required setbacks of the same lot. Daily travel becomes more expensive — monetarily and environmentally — especially with a lack of decent regional rail systems. Add all of this into a market in the past few years where 0% ARM’s were a common thing and a mind set which said that ownership is always better than rental, and its easy to see how we got in this situation.

The thing that interests me is that no one is suggesting that as a solution to the housing crisis we start building rail lines or beefing up mass transit systems and encouraging urban and suburban densification. Condo and apartment living provides many environmental and economical advantages to single family home ownership — heating and cooling loads are lower and more averaged, water usage is decreased because there is less lawn/planting per person, and there is less land being used for housing which allows for more land being used for other needs. While I may have some design and business issues with the new urbanist town centers and mixed use developments I do believe that they are a long term plan for dealing with housing.

Article: D.C. Paves Way for Environmental Responsibility

$US Green Building Council\'s Logo$ On tuesday the DCist ran an article about the National’s Stadium being the first LEED rated stadium in the country and the general move of DC towards what may be perceived as “Green Architecture”. (Click here for the article)

I feel that this article fails to clarify some key issues and understand a few things about the difference between “Green Architecture” and LEED. First, the US Green Building Council (USGBC) to quote their own website is “a 501(c)(3) non-profit community of leaders working to make green buildings accessible to everyone within a generation.” This group is not affiliated with any state government, and I feel that it bears questioning the merits of requiring new construction to comply with a private non-profit agency (as DC is doing), instead of a public agency. This smells a little too strongly of privatization for me, but thats another post for another day. Second, the LEED system is a method of ranking a building based on points for certain qualifications. While this system requires certain points to be achieved and assigns value to certain points, it is important to understand that the value of these points. A certified building is the lowest tier, silver is third, gold second, and platinum is at the peak. It is possible for a building to garner enough points for a certification by a combination of existing infrastructure, choosing the right products, and painting your roof white. While it is true, all of these help decrease the carbon count of a building and are worth doing, I would hardly say that this is being on the forefront of “Green Design.” In addition there are some green design points which do not figure (or figure very minimally) into LEED ratings, such as operable windows, brownfield redevelopment, and products from renewable resources.

All of this speaks to a larger issue here, what is Green Architecture? Is it designing a building to achieve a punch list of environmentally friendly goals as one would fit a building code or the ADA, or is it something greater? An embracing of alternative design strategies that permeate the entire essence of the building? If we start labeling all LEED buildings as Green Architecture we are doing a disservice to architecture; whilst they may be Green not all are Architecture.

Article: This Diamond Isn’t a Gem

The Washington Post ran an article critiquing the National’s Stadium on the Anacostia Waterfront. (Click here for the article). The author’s main thesis is that while the new stadium functions much better than RFK, it is lacking in charm and thoughtful design.

The old and much-maligned RFK Stadium, where the Nationals played the past three seasons, might be a better building — more visual interest, more presence on its prominent site, and a better mix of modern style with the city’s vernacular gravitas — but it was a lousy experience. Today, we have a great experience but, alas, a lousy building.

and

[A]s sports lovers know, sports is never just sports. And architecture, especially in a world capital, is never just architecture. Nationals Park might be a better experience than RFK, but it fails to say anything larger to the city, or the world.

I personally feel that Mr. Kennicott is both on track and off base at the same time. What he maligns is one of my greatest issues with American contemporary architecture, engineered buildings. The majority of our construction today are buildings meant to function as “machines for living,” they are tweaked and altered to arrive at the lowest cost most program efficient yet bland and boring structures; wouldn’t Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius be so proud? The new Nationals Stadium was built by HOK, which while known for sports architecture and building stadiums that can turn a profit, is not on the cutting edge of any designs. This is the direction we’ve been moving towards since the last World War, secluding the contemporary avant-garde architecture of Greg Lynn, Morphosis, and the Metropolis/Dwell set to pages of architecture magazines and shimmering California cities, while the rest of the country focuses on the fabric that fills in our aging cities. This is where Mr. Kennicott is off the mark. He discuses iconic stadiums around the world, Calatrava and Herzog and de Meuron’s olympic stadiums, and does not realize that these buildings have arisen out of a new form of critical regionalism – or rather critical regional idealism. Those stadiums show the sense of self that Greece and China wish to be, as does the Nationals Stadium. It shows a Federal Government who functions well without good form, or if you’d rather an ideal of the pinnacle of American utilitarian structures – a building to fade into the background. In this way, the Stadium is a success by all counts.

Article: Jean Nouvel Wins Architecture’s Top Prize

L'Institute de Monde Arab in Paris

According to the Washington Post (click here for the article) Jean Nouvel has been awarded the Pritzker Prize. A more fully illustrated blog post can be found at Gizmodo (click here for the post).

This intrigues me because Jean Nouvel is one of the contemporary architects whose buildings were used quite often as precedent studies in school. He joins other distinguished contemporary precedent study architects like Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, and Herzog and de Mueron.

I have only seen one of his buildings in person, the institute of the Arab World in Paris. I was only able to see it from the outside, but that is where most of the design concept lies. The skin, which is patterned off of an Islamic geometric progression and screening methods, is made of a geometric/fractal-like pattern of operable irises that adjust to limit the solar gain. When I visited the building, it appeared to have some issues with the operation of these irises. Some of them were stuck in the open and others in the closed position.

Article: Architecture and the Ability to Draw People In

The Washington Post has an article (click here for the article) in this Sunday’s “Style” section about two different urban landscape projects in DC. This article is an intersting analysis of two urban landscapes on the boards for DC. The author examines these landscapes in two dimensions: first to see if they fit with the DC status quo and second to explore whether they would be welcome and beneficial explorations of urban space.

The thing about this article that strikes me is that since moving here 3 years ago, DC has always seemed to be a city out of scale. The monumental city is so large and the same rules of planning and vistas have been applied to the commercial districts to create a city which – to the pedestrian – rarely feels crowded. I compare this with Manhattan and Paris and immediately see where they differ (succeed if you will). Both of these cites have broad monumental axis where it is appropriate, yet in the pedestrian commercial corridors space is a commodity. This allows the individual to feel the herd-like nature of the crowd and truly understand the modern city and its perpetual quixotic noise, motion, sights & smells. DC, by creating grand avenues and pedestrian poor business centers, maintains a stoic “each man is his own island” nature that can be easily read as being quintessentially part of the city. The author’s exploration of scale and context for the convention center alleyway speaks volumes to this issue.

On the other hand, the street scape he explores near the stadium seems to be a discussion solely about one rendered image and disregards the reality of this image already in practice within the city. To me, this image – which is included above – could easily be Chinatown, Columbia Heights, Adams Morgan, Silver Spring, Bethesda or any other gentrified part of the city and its surroundings. It is not against the DC character to populate new urban landscapes with national brands and mega merchandising in a simulacrum of a true urban mixed use development which is closer to Reston Town Center than Old Town Alexandria. As for the whitewashing of the crowd, of which the author is critical, this is slowly becoming the new reality in this city. In areas of urban wealth, minorities are less visible; look at any of the developments I’ve mentioned above and you will see that the crowd or shoppers and diners are mostly white, middle and upper-class, and in their late 20’s and 30’s. I am not an urban ethnographer, so I can’t cite sources and censuses, but this is what i’ve observed. The large lower-class african-american population of DC is slowly being forced into Prince George’s County and those who remain are mostly middle class and do not seem to be the target of the gentrification projects.

In the end, I’m glad that this article is opening the lines of dialogue about DC as a living as well as working city. The need to innovate and recreate has for too long been suppressed for the sake of municipal identity and federal aesthetics. I hope that the architectural spirit of DC is able to adapt and change not just at the monumental and municipal level but also at that the small scale residential.