Reading #3: How to Define an Urban Site

I really appreciate the central point of this reading, "How to Define an Urban Site" by Andrea Kahn, that an urban site cannot be taken in isolation. Kahn states: "The point is not that drawing boundaries is impermissible...but that the permeability of those boundaries has to be constantly reasserted." Of course, as we have just read for Urban Theory, Christopher Alexander advocates a semi-lattice and not tree like view of the city, and it only makes sense that urban sites must be defined on a continuum with that around it in order to create a lattice.  This is not only true of an urban site, but true of all "objects". Manuel Delanda theorizes a history of meshworks working more emergently than hierarchies in his book: A Thousand Years of Non-Linear History.

In a more architectural context, Lars Spuybroek speaks of an architecture of continuity. Drawing his definition from Charles Sanders Pierce, he states that: "Continuity is part of real things, and therefore things are necessarily vague, since they are one and many at the same time". For Spuybroek, this has immediate architectural consequences: "There is a decisive difference between a fold and a corner. A fold in a piece of paper, for instance, doesn't interrupt the continuity of the surface, but with a corner, both surfaces just end there; at that point it becomes a nonelement, not even a part. Corners are where architecture is at its deadest." Instead of corners and discrete pre-defined elements, NOX's architecture is one of weaving, bundling, an interaction between line and surface. The relationship between architecture and "context" can work similarly, acknowledging an absence of edges, and embracing continuity.  

Site Analysis: Craven Cottage

Craven Cottage, SW6

Home of Fulham FC, Craven Cottage is the one of the oldest and smallest grounds in the English Premier League. While league average attendance is around 35,000, the pitch, in West London, has a capacity of under 26,000. In addition to the tight boundaries of the site, expansion plans have been hindered by the "Johnny Haynes end" status as a grade II listed building. The best opportunity may be to rebuild the riverside stand: Adding capacity, amenities, and a better connection to the Thames. More radical positions could also be explored.

A stadium is an ideal site/program to explore previously discussed issues of material processes and simultaneous feedback. Additional parameters of sight-lines, acoustics,  and egress can be explored in addition to initial investigations in lightweight "form-finding" structures.

http://www.fulhamfc.com/Club/CravenCottage.aspx

Reading #2: The Muses are not Amused

I was promised to be irratated reading "The Muses are not Amused" by Jorge Silvetti. However, with my mind pre-blown, I think it failed to fully live up to the hype. Though it is meant to be provocative and garner a sharp rebuttal, I actually agree with the central point which is, that recently, architects try to pass off the 'authorship' of form in the search of rigor. This search for the grounding of form-making into some deeper apparatus: data (or worse, the representation of data), software, history, or metaphor, is widely implemented, and Silvetti simply exposes it as a cold fish, a tangental path away from the real thing. While this may be a fair criticism, I think it is mostly a framing problem and not a process problem. While these architects focus on their project's connections to sci-fi movies or claim that they are more 'chemical engineer than designer', the implicit and more direct connections back to form-making are still there, just not articulated. The tendency to remove authorship is only dangerous when it is coupled with some claim to perfection. When Joshua Prince-Ramus claims that seattle public library (a supreme example of Programism) is a completely rational structure, that it only works in its final configuration, he takes it too far. Instead, this technique should be treated like a blindfold exercise, if the results are useful, go with it.

Willfullness or "intuition" will always be part of the architect's process, but sometimes it lies deeper than putting pencil to paper. In computer science, the programmer is constancely weighing algorithms against other algorithms that produce the same result: while one is faster, it is also more memory intensive, etc. Here, intuition lies in the negotiation of these factors. Architects encounter similar issues all the time: an optimal use of materials may not be cost effective, a structural system may conflict with spatial configuration. This is where the muse comes in, the metaphor or the computer program or history may help you answer seemingly arbitrary questions as well as intuitive conflicts.

Sketch #3: Making something

Verifying the script:

In order to trust Processing, the software, I needed to start trying to recreate the results through anolog methods. I took a self-stopping vault system I developed last year at the AA, and printed it out with the laser cutter 3 different ways: 1. a smashed version of the processing output. 2. the pre-scored flat pattern, with the hope of deforming it. 3. The flat pieces seperated and then stitched together during construction:

  

Here are the results:

Method #1:

Method #2:

Method #3:

1 + 3 + 9

Material Processing: Self-starting, Self-stopping Architecture

The potential of automated computing rests not in autopoiesis, or self-generation, but in the simultaneity, flexibility, and interconnectivity of the systems created. While form-finding algorithms can transform data sets into novel instances of structure, space, and experience, this process will never be free from an initial ‘willed’ construct. Instead, the goal remains to relate more closely to the human condition, now increasingly associated with theories of emergence, continuity and complexity.

Architecture must rely on simultaneous processes of generation in order to achieve continuity. Scripting techniques of recursion, feedback loops, and conditional statements allow for continuously calculated differentiation and interaction across a variety of scales. A self-starting method can begin by gathering and organizing relevant data from a number of sources both intensive and extensive: material properties, programmatic flows, environmental conditions, building codes, etc. When algorithms translate these relationships into form, in order for the output to be useful, it must be self-stopping. This allies with the principle of emergence: A set of relationships begins at equilibrium, gains new information, and then reorganizes itself to find a new equilibrium. Frei Otto’s ‘material computing’ experiments exhibit this phenomenon, but only explore one factor of the system: the structure. A simultaneous program will create feedback across organization systems both performative and experiential, finding-form through negotiation and translation.

This experiment can be tested through the design and exploration of an architectural project: A framework of electric refueling stations along the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Second Concept Sketch

Here is my second concept sketch, more of a montage/mind-plot this time around.

First Concept Sketch

Stemming from "How to Draw Up a Project", here is my initial concept sketch.