Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Site-analysis: tracing sensorial experience (101019)

Site analysis is to trace the sensorial experience, which belongs to either 'extensive' or 'intensive' properties. (See http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/delanda/, particularly Space:Extensive and Intensive, Actual and Virtual to understand the difference between the two properties.)
See also: Stan Allen, Mapping the Unmappable.







images above following google search with key words: Sound contours, Signal to Noise contours, Sound-scape, Wind flows(Fuller), abstrat smoke turbulence.

Blurb - Prosthetic Device (101019)

1. Read the'blurbs' about Stelarc, our major reference for the prosthetic device.

http://v2.stelarc.org/



Stelarc: The Monograph

Edited by Marquard Smith · MIT Press, 2005
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=10458&ttype=2

"In this collection of essays, we are invited to envelop ourselves in a series of events that oscillate between tranquil meditations and violent crashes as data, hardware, and flesh mix in a variety of unbounded artistic orchestrations. With contributions from the critics and theorists who know Stelarc best, this book contains illuminating commentary on and analysis of his technoperformative work that is as compelling and as disturbing as anything found in the most radical of science fiction novels. Welcome to the world of Stelarc."
Steven Kurtz, Critical Art Ensemble

"A Nietzschean experimental site, Stelarc delivers a punch of utmost severity, joining performance art with prosthetic innovation and philosophical reflection. This book brings together a colloquy of techno-warriors who probe the limits of the eviscerable body, its post-pornographic submission, and hybrid presumptions. One imagines Heidegger traversed by Schreber."
Avital Ronell, Professor of German, Comparative Literature, and English, New York University, author of The Test Drive and The Telephone Book

2. Compare two paragraphs below to clarify what a blurb is as an act of design:

A blurb in a book cover is a subjective opinion fused with the 'fact,' the summary of the work, which is again filtered through the blurbers' interpretation. It reveals the unique way they read and interpret.

A blurb in the first project, Intro Mutant, is a sensorial experience fused with the 'site', which may have been a neutral setting before but has been relocated within a personal narrative.

A prosthetic device helps to improve:
a.the delivery of the sensorial experience
b.the choreography of the personal narrative
c.the fusion/connection/integration to the site.

To achieve these requires components of:
a.function(collector, amplifier, magnifier, reflector, filter, spacer, fan,...)
b.motion(frames, joints, wires/strings/rods...)
c.connection employing tactics such as camouflage, adaptation, mimicking, illusion, screen...

3. Diller & Scofidio, NAT CHARD
See the post in the blog about Diller & Scofidio from here:
http://birdjeff.blogspot.com/2009/01/influence-from-dillerscofidio-and-nat.html

it says:
"Diller & Scofidio operate in times when the architectural observer cannot possession of a building through the ritualistic experience of its fixed and common iconography.
'Automarionette' : a prosthetic apparatus by Diller & Scofidio that makes the empathetic viewer aware of his own body and inertia of its parts.
Sandbags are suspended by levers and attached with the body of men model. It appears the tensions which affect other parts beside the bones and the body. Therefore, body is as a structure of pre-stress and the pre-stress was shown by the way which we lay eyes on.(explain the ‘Automarionette’ project )"

and about NAT CHARD
"Users will mark the architecture with their actions during occupation, leaving traces that suggest how it should be inhabited. (Nat Chard, 8)
Durational scan of two figures walking and consequential space, 1994
Durational study of space between lower legs of two people walking, 1994
Perception drawings of foot, to be read with drawing opposite, 1994
Perception drawings for desire sensitive space, 1994
Early body project to take possession of the city using imagined bio- and nanotechonologies, 1992. Two drawings to left(shown with synthetic organs opend out for illustration) make up stereo pair.
Durational feedback drawing for desire sensitive space for two people, 1993. Study of relationship between personal projection of space, recollection of the previous condition, context and the feedback loop.Post by: Tsai AT 20:12 "

See the images together in the blog.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Next week pin-up (101019)

Next week pin-up:

Nishima, Jose, Gunes and Matthew - pin up your work (task week 1,2,3) and prepare for your presentation by 10:10

Register starts at 10:10.
The pin-up order follows the register order after Matthew.

Drawings - A2 landscape (make A2 landscape joined for best shots)
or 2 joined A3 landscape

Make the drawings express YOU.
Hard line drawings (base)+ hand sketches
Hand drawings w/tones highlighting key components
Cad drawings with soft patterns/textures
Sketches well structured and documented
Photo-documentation
-select images carefully
-highlight parts you want to emphasize
-make a story-board

Alex's drawings are good. Give more depths to the space by indicating the context clearly. The section showing the hairdresser's shop, the return-air flow to the vent and the connection to your device is a key. Design your device with the proportion of the cave triggering the the sea breeze in your memory.

Sherien's hand sketches of the rain pipe capture the materiality nicely. Develop this expression consistently in your own site - the soundscape drawing, your own rainpipe drawing and device.

Sherien, a rain pipe, hand sketch

Dexter, the interaction between the cast-iron and the royal red paint of the phonebox sounds interesting. Research & design!

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Composite drawings (101005)

Task 1. Complete the cad drawing: partial plan and elevation of the site photo-documented
First find your site in the cad drawing and print it in 1:20 scale.
Then use it as a base for your hand drawing: you need to add more details of which site you identified - materials, surface articulations, traces of uses, weathering, .... Do the cad drawing for this task if you know or can work out using the cad platform - recommended as you will be cadding later to make a model anyway.
Bring your laptop next week, Tea or I can help you learn cad basics.

Task 2+3. Complete the hand drawing on the site drawing (task 1): sensorial experience with your body actions - plan and elevation
Then map your sensorial experience on top of the drawing - if you're not sure, you can first complete the site plan (cad base + hand drawing) and use a tracing paper to map your experience - wind flows, gradual pattern of light and shadow, the distribution of particles that provokes specific smells, a sounscape - wave pattern etc.
Locate your body and identify your action in relation to the sensorial experience.

Task 4. Merge all into one drawing – Composite plan and elevation
Composite plan / elevation (1:20), bring a photocopy of your composite plan reduced at 1:500 together.

You can try the sensorial drawing a few times using tracing papers until you find it satisfactory. Then scan both, combine them to make a 'composite drawing'.
Or if you're confident, you can map the experience in the site drawing directly.

Do the same process to produce a composite elevation.

Task 5.Sketches of your prosthetic device
Identify where your body is extended to use the site better and blurb more effectively
Outcome: Crop the merged drawing to have a part of the site, of the experience and of the body and manipulate the boundary between those to extend body and create a prosthetic device.

Task 1-4 are all related and make two 'composite drawings' - plan and elevation.
Task 5 is a sketch of your prosthetic device using the composite drawing as a base.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Site plan

Site plan cad file was released today by email. For cad/rhino/...tutorials, visit here:
http://designreform.net/

Monday, September 27, 2010

Site visit

Site visit: 1.45pm – 5.15pm, 28th September
Site: Between Leicester Square Station and Covent Garden Station



Schedule:
1.45pm: Meet @Leicester Square Station
2.00pm: Move to Leicester Square
Introduction of the first project - task 1, 2
Hand-out of the site map, background info
2.45pm: Individual work – task 1, 2
Work as a pair for task 2, the photo-documentation of each other
4.45pm: Quick tutorial (venue – TBC)
5.15pm: wrap-up

Task 1. Identify your site in an 'ornament scale’ - partial, specific
i.e. ornament scale: where steps meet a door threshold, where handrail returns to a
basement, a corner of a window, a soffit between an architrave and a window…
Outcome: photo-documentation (close-up photos)
Task 2. Identify your sensorial experience of the site
Outcome: photo-documentation of your sensorial engagement with the site
sketchy mapping of the sensory atmosphere, potential effect in composition with your blurb (words/phrases characterising yourself in relation to your site)

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

2010-2011 Blurb-scape









credits.
images: googled from various internet sources
drawings: Tea Lim & Taeyoung Kim

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Task - 4 Home-ranging for 100223





We will only talk about the task listed below next week:

Study model 1:500
Plan drawings 1:250
Section drawings 1:250

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Task - 4 Home-ranging for 100216


Only one new task for next week - one perspective/axonomtric - see the image of Nathan's work above.

Prepare for a model (for tutorial on 23th this month).
- model - the whole premise of the centrepoint cut in two pieces
- decide how to cut (two ways available) - Tim, Sof or Grazina, send out relevant files (1:250) asap please
- book your slot for laser cut
- will discuss on your design next Tue

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Students' Work

Sof - Exploded pod mechanism






Adam - Visual Brief





Adam - Exploded pod mechanism & Site analysis



Task - Project 3a home-ranging: vertical hometown - phase I

project 3a. home-ranging: vertical hometown - phase I
So much preoccupied by the aesthetic value of pleasure, architects have repeatedly manifested the importance of play in the production of beauty, often creating controversial phenomena of painful play. Centre Point proudly advertises the cycle of creation and recreation, yet in an underdeveloped sense of modernism. Now, the built environment is the site to hatch a cocoon/cockpit. Your logic of habitation, still premature, undergoes a series of metamorphoses/transformations. The energy of growth slowly turns Centre Point into a playful place to live in. Your colleagues flock to the incomplete environment where all together play to work to play to shape a vertical hometown.

week 18. (Jan. 19)
drawing: exploded axonometric of pod
- catalogue (separate the components of pod and identify what each component is and does)
site analysis
-horizontal and vertical analysis of Centrepoint premise - context

week 19. (Jan. 25)
visual brief (four graphic statements in separate sheets)
1. profile
- characterise architects, who they are and what they do, based on your interest
- collage or drawing
2. programme - categorise programmes you provide based on 1 (what architects do)
- diagram of their activities and programmes
3. user group size - critical proposition on the size of architects’ community
- diagram - represent your proposition visually
4. area - critical proposition on the size of each programme based on 1, 2, 3
- diagram - represent your proposition visually

week 20. (Feb. 2)
catalogue: pod components - each component on one sheet of paper (min. A3)
- transform each component of pod considering the following:
1. week 18, 19 tasks
2. location to plant the component in the Centrepoint and its size (spatial/volumic growth)
3. forms
- Geometry - linear, curved, faceted
- System - types and variations
- Pattern - repetitive, fractal or graduated
- Facade - materials and manufacturing

week 21. (Feb. 9)
week 22. (Feb. 16)
week 23. (Feb. 23)
week 24. (Mar. 2)
week 25. (Mar. 9)
week 26. (Mar. 16)
crit
week 27. (Mar. 23)
crit

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Graphic examples


Site analysis examples (image from Future 16/17, p17)


Strategy diagrams (image from Future 16/17, p149)


1 profile - characterise architects, who they are and what they do, based on your interest
- collage or drawing (image from Future 16/17, p16)


2. programme - categorise programmes you provide based on 1 (what architects do)
- diagram of their activities and programmes (image from Future 16/17, p12-13)


3 user group size - critical proposition on the size of architects’ community
- diagram - represent your proposition visually
(image from AD Patterns of Architecture, p50)



4 area - critical proposition on the size of each programme based on 1, 2, 3
- diagram - represent your proposition visually (image from Future 16/17, ciudad p54)

Q & A II

Just a quick question regarding the visual brief,

week 19. (Jan. 25)
visual brief (four graphic statements in separate sheets)
1. profile - characterise architects, who they are and what they do, based on your interest
- collage or drawing

Q. Are these architects specifically for the practice I am creating at the centre point site?

A. Yes, in the future. But for now, create characteristics generic based on statistics, research etc. and at the same time specific in relation to your scheme.

Q. So could they have different characteristics, to the ones normally found with everyday architects?

A. Yes.

I attached some examples below to encourage you to think out of the box.

Do not make up purely from your imagination but RESEARCH some facts about the profession from surveys, statistics from journals, RIBA website, books and HIGHLIGHT some factors you can relate to your homely conditions/activities. Make headlines/manifesto, express them visually such as collage images or (photomontage) drawings(like a propaganda poster or advertisement).

(Part III books can also help – Architect’s job book or similar from http://www.pedr.co.uk/6home.asp?menu=7&sortorder=0&area=main)

e.g. 1 architects are manipulating people’s way of living. Therefore they need to learn how people are living now by having as much contacts/exposure as possible.

You can quote an interview like “I really believe that architecture is not the goal but the tool – human life is what you want to maximize the potential for. And in many literal ways our prime source of inspiration is trying to observe how life in the city evolves, and how the framework that we create for it should adapt to this evolution.” (Bjarke Ingels, BIG, Icon journal 079, p040.)

e.g. 2 architects chasing clients 4 hours, marketing and socializing 4 hours, talking to people 4 hours and…design 4 hours – 16 hours a day!

e.g. 3 a creative/crazy animal obsessed with something new.

e.g. 4 dreaming what he can’t afford to….


2 programme - categorise programmes you provide based on 1 (what architects do)
- diagram of their activities and programmes

Q.This is similar to the first question, that the programme is specifically for my practice at the centre point site,e.g.Start work at 10:00 - Lunch at 12:00 - back to work at 14:00 - finish work at 15:30?

A. We want you to challenge a conventional everyday routine of an architect, characteristics tamed and stereotyped to the stable profession.

Visually present the types of spaces you need to support the characteristics you defined above. Relate them to the key concept/ activities you have dealt with in the first and second projects.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Task for week 18 (19 Jan) and week 19 (25 Jan)

Bring all the work (week 18 and 19).
Tutorial this Friday in the maritime from 1:00.

week 18. (Jan. 19)
drawing: exploded axonometric of pod
- catalogue (separate the components of pod and identify what each component is and does)
site analysis
-horizontal and vertical analysis of Centrepoint premise - context

week 19. (Jan. 25)
visual brief (four graphic statements in separate sheets)
1. profile - characterise architects, who they are and what they do, based on your interest
- collage or drawing
2. programme - categorise programmes you provide based on 1 (what architects do)
- diagram of their activities and programmes
3. user group size - critical proposition on the size of architects’ community
- diagram - represent your proposition visually
4. area - critical proposition on the size of each programme based on 1, 2, 3
- diagram - represent your proposition visually

Bring your portfolio next Tuesday (25 Jan)- we'll individually discuss how to improve your folio. Table discussion of your new tasks (week 18, 19) will be held by Tea at the same time next to the follow-up table.


Adam Bell 10.15am
Martin Cannings 10.30am
Scott Lawrence 10.45am
Tim Watts 11.00am
Grazina Pleckauskiene 11.15am
Sohail Sarwar 11.30am
Ar Ching Tse 11.45pm
Lewis Hatrull 12.00pm
Cedric Engele 12.15pm
Jenna Killeen 12.30pm
Ka Ming Leung 12.45pm
Nathaniel Burrows 1.00pm

Nathan Siewart 2.00pm
Lee Feasey 2.15pm
Elisha Bembridge 2.30pm
Sofoklis Giannakopoulos 3.00pm
Becci Standley 3.15pm
Gulizar Sevin 3.30pm
Jenifer Ly 3.45pm
Josh Browning 4.00pm
Vin Moonosawiny 4.15pm
Zoe Mavromati 4.30pm