Assignment due Tuesday, April 12th

NOTE:  Please refer to the plan and section view in the post below for your measurements.  Do not use the measurements given in class today.

PROCESS:
1)  Make a Dummy Site from blue foam where the total possible build area is left as a void.

2)  Make five Box Sitings according to the following:
a)  Make a 2 by 2 by 2 condensed project box
b)  Site the 2 by 2 by 2 box in the site, filling in the appropriate amount of foam to complete the volume of the sloped ground missing.  You can extend chipboard planes and piano wire out of the box (not brass, copper, or wood) to mediate between the site and the box but you can't make new parts to do this.

These five box sitings should each fit into your "dummy site" so we can switch them out and look at them.

Take a nice digital photo of each of your five schemes placed into the site and print out your photos so we have a reference.

7:52PM....HA!

Proper Site

Herewith find an updated Site drawing based on the model discussed today.  I think that you'll appreciate the time I took to make it easier to build.

Schedule for Thursday April 7th

Come to these class times with your drawings and models in the Barn ready to discuss:
9AM: Lante, Dona Dalle Rose10AM: d'Este, Torlonia, Gamberaia11AM: Medici, Valmarana, Papa Guilia

Tuesday,April 5th Schedule

We'll meet in Solberg and have a work day.  I'll deliver your new assignment then.
Come to class ready to work on models and / or drawings.  You don't need to have anything done for the beginning of the class meeting.

Required Watching

From first to last statement watch how Joshua Prince-Ramus of REX architecture explains architectural practice.  The first main statement before the story about the hat is important.  You've heard it before almost verbatim.  Then watch how he shows you how to rethink moving around in a box.

Thursday, March 27th Class

Come to these class times with your drawings in the Barn ready to discuss:

9AM: Lante, Dona Dalle Rose

10AM: d'Este, Torlonia, Gamberaia

11AM: Medici, Valmarana, Papa Guilia

Drawing of Garden Spaces

FIRST:  This s not about the garden.  It is about the aggregate of models and drawings you've done so far this semester, which are autonomous but about the garden.  As you mull over the spatial qualities listed below consider how your paper, string, and foam models WORK.  Use the issues and qualities we see in your project as a guide or source for how you do the next drawing.

SECOND:  A Space is a rectilinear, cubic volume defined as a set of boundaries in universal space.

THIRD:  Follow this path through analysis...

What are the SPACES of the garden?  (list them)

Are there "like" SPACES? (organize the list into a catalog)

Think through sketching the issues listed below for each SPACE in your garden STUDIES: 

size (width by depth by height)

location (where in universal space?)

proportional (tall, short, deep, wide, etc.)

scalar (how big? how big in comparison?)

structural, (grounding, holding, joining, shimming, held, datum, armature)

hierarchical (primary, secondary, tertiary, background)

bounding surfaces (open, closed, solid, void, framed, striated, patterned)

material (solid, open, screen, object, light, heavy, rough, smooth)

Your speculations on each of these category sets won't yield results.  Which category or categories seem to reflect in your garden models and catalog?

Which ideas seem animated when you consider your garden work to date?

Draw the individual SPACES in the garden each in plan projection drawing on a sheet of 24 by 24 vellum.  Arrange the individual pieces in a system, organization, or composition that explores how these individual SPACES relate in the garden models.  Think it out just by drawing it.  Don't figure it out.  Think it through, just t start tentatively building up the SPACES on the sheet of vellum in a coherent relationship, modify, augment, and edit the relationship of SPACES, and explore where there may be ideas of you garden in the models you've made.  The models inform the garden, this work informs the models.  Explore your models and study the garden by drawing it.  Draw freely. 

This drawing should be ready to discuss by the beginning of class on Thursday.  We'll break the class into thirds on Thursday.

Work Day

Today is a work day.  We'll meet in Solberg at 9AM.  You should work on three final box schemes (one sheet of 24 by 24 vellum with sections / projection drawing (see assignment below) and foam model for three different versions) and consult us on your progress.

On Thursday we will start at 10:30AM in the Barn.   We will be back studying the Garden on Thursday.

Second Year Project

We're committed to a "making" based workshop project for the second year.  Here's an example of what we hope to do.  It uses only clear packing tape.

3x3x3 Box Models

Final Box Drawing Template

3 models each on a sheet with a corresponding model.

Due Thursday, 17 March at the beginning of class.

William Carlos Williams vs. T.S. Eliot

The Red Wheelbarrow 

so much depends
upon a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.

William Carlos Williams

7 lines, 16 words.  Done.

T.S. Eliot's Poem, The Wasteland has 437 LINES of poetry in it.

Thank you Jacob for reciting this for us.
Eliot and Williams lived almost the exact same years (1880s to 1960s).

Class Thursday March 3

These people should meet at 9:00AM:

Bargenquast, M.

Benedict, Thomas J.

Berry, Ross W.

Bilka, Daniel J.

Davis, James D.

Dyk, Anthony E.

Fahy, Mackenzie A.

Foxley, Blake S.

Haley, Kelsey L.

Hamer, Emily

Hamilton, James Z.

Harrington, K.

Harwood, Seth D.

Jones, Dustin W.

Krug, Alex J.

Lawrence, Tyler J.

Lyon, Rex A.

Mathiesen, Sienna Mitchell, Benjamin J These at 10:15AM: Nelson, Keeghan C. Olafson, Nicholas J. Olson, Spenser H. Peterson, Chase A. Prest, Beau D. Rolf, Neil J. Schempp, Matthew Schrempp, Jared M. Sedlmajer, Bobbie Skrovig, Brian J. Squires, Thomas A. Standing Soldier, J. Trowbridge, Jacob Urban, Jacob A. Van De Rostyne, B. Waege, Chevelle J. Wagner, Joshua P. Waldner, Christina Walter, Garrett H. Wevik, Daniel S. Wiswall, Libby S.

If you are not on this list then join the late group.  If you show up for the early session and you are in the late session you will have to wait your turn.  We should all be done before 11:30AM.

Class Tuesday and Solberg Access

We'll meet in the Barn to start class on Tuesday and then move to Solberg to work for about the last two hours.  You should be ready to sketch and draft on the cheaper sketch paper with softer lead in your lead holder, like the lead that came with it.

Building access was bungled for this weekend at Solberg.  I didn't realize there was a holiday until this morning.  In TX Geo. Washington is a foreigner and Sam Houston is the Washington.  Lincoln did that pesky emancipation thing, of course, so he's not feted as much in the old confederacy.  They don't take this day off down there.  President's Day is the nickname for a day with lots of store sales there.  Anyways, we have a solution for building access but can't get it implemented until tomorrow.

There are plenty of lead holders, vellum, trace paper, etc. etc. available for sale at Cover to Cover here in town on Main Avenue.

On Thursday we will meet at the Barn and go for a tour of the new Dairy Micro-sciences building and renovations.  The Dairy production facility is amazing materials.  Stainless steel doors, windows and frames.  Special "dairy brick" on floors and splashes.  It is a utlilitarian building, not architectural in intention.  We'll meet on Thursday at the Barn,  we'll leave backpacks behind.  Feel free to bring cameras.  We'll discuss it afterwards and do work.

Go see the architecture web page now.  It is starting to move along.  If you want to have some information accessible that isn't there now then let us know what it is and we'll try to incorporate it.  http://www.sdstate.edu/arch/

Thursday February 17th Class

Bring your new drawings to the barn for an hour.
We'll talk about them, what to do next, and then get some time to work on it.

We need to reset all the Garden work on the wall for grading.
We need to take a picture of everyone for a video that flashes through all your faces for the website.

BRAWL!!! Tuesday February 15th 6PM Barn

Here is a reduced size pdf of the Koch Hazard poster of the scheme.  (Full Size HERE)

Here is a reduced size pdf of the Architecture Inc. poster of the scheme.  (Full Size HERE)

HERE is a link to the Architecture For Humanity web page where the schemes can be downloaded at full size.

HERE is a link to a video of the walking trip from the Campanile to Barn 108.

For Tuesday - Getting to the Grid

WE ARE GOING TO MEET FIRST IN BARN 108.  Tell your friends.

Read the quotes below and the downloadable article, Scherr_GridAsBasisOfDesign to the left.  Bring your drafting equipment and paper to THE BARN at the beginning of class on Tuesday.  We'll draft in class in Solberg 130 after a brief charge in THE BARN.  You can leave your drafting stuff and at least one sheet of 24" by 24" vellum ready to draw on.


In addition to some drawing you will have a new reading:  EvansR_archreprojection to complete by Tuesday 22 February.  You can begin reading this now to keep up.

Read these quotes carefully:

The Rub: Rationalism or Detachment

Here lies the rub. Is the rectilinear matrix to be regarded as a rationalist homogenizer, an 

organizer, or is it a neutral tool which confronts that which is beyond the rational to remain 

autonomous, authentic, "sauvage"? The grid assists measure, to map, to reveal, confront, 

frame, connect or disconnect. Like a hunter's net, it can be thrown over the undulating hide of 

the planet. Perhaps the survival of the American Wilderness is contingent on the specific 

distance the Jeffersonian grid imbues. It can be the frame to transfer an actual body to a new 

scale such as a woman to odalisque, or the celestial plane to be read in distance and time. It 

can be used as a constant and objective frame to amplify subtle differences, define a limit 

from which precise relationships can be recorded, thus a locator of the subjective. Ad 

Reinhardt came closest to dissolving it into a series of boundaries, which submerge and 

appear within the span of time.

Simultaneity of the Conceptual and the Physical

The difference between the grid as conceptual and the grid as physical is a primary dialectic 

of architectural language. Is the grid intersection a point of inhabitation, or is it occupied by 

structure? Or can the column or pier be inhabited, as Le Corbusier among others projected? 

Is the grid an imaginary limit, centerline, or can it thicken into a member, or warp to express 

forces?

"THE GRID: FORM AND PROCESS IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN"

Diane Lewis

.

...the bottom line of the grid is a naked and determined materialism.

"GRIDS"

Rosalind Krauss

THE NINE SQUARE PROBLEM IS USED AS A PEDAGOGICAL TOOL in the introduction of architecture to new students. Working within the problem the student begins to discover andunderstand the elements of architecture. Grid, frame, post, beam, panel, center, periphery, field. edge, line, plane, volume, extension, compression, tension, shear, etc. The student begins to probe the meaning of plan, elevation, section and details. They learn to draw. They begin to comprehend the relationships between two dimensional drawings, axonometric projections, and three dimensional (model) form. The student studies and draws his scheme in plan and in axonometric, and searches out the three-dimensional implications in the model. An understanding of the elements is revealed, an idea of fabrication emerges.

"9-Square Grid"

John Hejduk

Peter Eisenman's projections of houses:

Think about making 9 square grids with lines, planes, and solids.

Paper Model from 90 Years Ago

Photograph of a student model on the topic of 'Frontal Surface. Vertically Limited Rhythmical Row' from the 'Space' course at the VKhUTEMAS (Higher State Artistic Technical Studios), Moscow, 1920–1926 (CCA Collection PH1998:0014:038)

 

Gehry Highrise in NYC

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/arts/design/10beekman.html?_r=1&hp

Those of you who were in ARCH101 last fall should recognize the building on the right.

Virtually every surface on the building is different.

Typical unit.  The high-rise is residential.  If you look out across the river where the right side window frame meets the waterfront--that's where I used to live.  That's the Brooklyn Bridge.

From The Campanile to DoArch

SFX Sat March 26

IT IS ON!

Schedule for Tuesday, February 8th

9 to 10:

Villas Torlonia, Valmarana, and Dona Dalle Rosa Meet with Me (13 people)

10 to 11:

Villas Lante and Gamberaia Meet with Me (12 people)

11 to 12:

Villas Medici, d'Este, and Papa Guilia Meet with Me (14 people)

Bring your paper models.  All are welcome for the full time but your attendance will be noted for your required hour.

Schedule for Thursday, February 3rd

9 to 10:
Villas Torlonia, Valmarana, and Dona Dalle Rosa Meet with Me (13 people)

10 to 11:

Villas Lante and Gamberaia Meet with Me (12 people)

11 to 12:

Villas Medici, d'Este, and Papa Guilia Meet with Me (14 people)

Bring your three paper models.  All are welcome for the full time but your attendance will be noted for your required hour.

Folding

Notes for You on Tschumi's SEQUENCE Reading

Some major points of the reading:

In architecture there are sequences of transformation (a device or procedure in making the place) and there are sequences of space (a programmatic sequence).

Tschumi complains that the two sorts of sequence rarely intersect. The device of making is rarely evident in the end product.

Then he introduces the idea of sequences of events or inhabitation that are superimposed on those spatial sequences.

Then there's some of the most important questions that you'll ever ask in architectural thinking: Is there ever a CAUSAL (one leads to the other with certainty) link between a formal system of spaces and a system of events?
Does a form possess a program? 
Is there ever a one-to-one relationships between object space and event space?

Does form lead to function? Does function lead to form? Does form lead to form?

Tschumi says that adding event space to object space motivates form.

Later he says the meaning in any sequence (or any architectural situation, for that matter) is dependent on the relation SPACE/EVENT/MOVEMENT (SEM).

Then he discusses the idea of an architectural narrative and its relationship to the idea of sequence.
Manipulations in sequence: Flashback, crosscutting, close-ups, dissolve, collage, montage, superimposition, insertion, disjunction, displacement, distortion, dissolution, repetition, contraction, expansion, combination, symbol. These are transformational devices and they can all be applied to form, event, and movement.

All sequences are cumulative. They are juxtaposed "frames". Each subsequent frame establishes itself on the memory of the preceding until one has a course of events.

A Model that Works Like the Garden Works

The model I am holding in the very last image is the model that worked like the garden works.

Check out Rex text messaging in the lower left.

NYTimes Architecture Reviews

In most major cities there are regularly published architecture critics, like movie critics.

The best paper for reviews is the New York Times. Reading the NYTimes Achre Reviews is a good way for you all in two steps:

a) first, to see "architecture culture" up close 

b) and then, to see what you should be rebelling against in your own design work

There have been some interesting reviews in recent weeks.

Steven Holl, a 63 year old NYC architect, is building a new library on the waterfront in Queens facing Manhattan.  That review is HERE. Notice how the overall form of the building is fairly complex (it is a figure) and that the shape of the windows and the shape of the building are independent?

Frank Gehry, an 81 year old Los Angeles architect, has built a new concert hall in Miami.  That review is HERE.   A nice slide show of the project is HERE.  In this project Gehry stacks a series of elements and complex figures inside and around a much larger and encompassing simple box.  The windows in this project appear to be just a section of the box made transparent.  That's very different than the independent figures of the windows of the Holl project.

Steven Holl is the architect of the Nelson Atkins Museum addition in Kansas City.  The NYTimes review of that project (and a slide show) is HERE.  That project is about making secondary spaces that surround but defer to the original new-classical museum building as the primary element of the museum.  His additions are translucent glass where the original building is white marble.  They both seem to glow.

Finally, Edgar Tafel, one of the very last people who worked for Frank Lloyd Wright, has died at 98.  Read his OBIT.

Architects really often do live a long time.  Or they die early--Enric Miralles.

Class Roster / Attendance / Grade Matrix

I've made a link to the grading matrix that I'll be using and Rachel will be keeping roll by.  Feel free to use it to keep track of the class schedule.  It lists important dates, grading formats, etc.

Below are examples of typical grade sheets for a course like this one.  These come at the end of each section.  We are near the end of the garden section so you'll see one of these in a few weeks.

The Foam / Space Model Redux

If you've done the project already then bring what you have.  What we should do for Tuesday is:
MAKE THREE SIMPLE MODELS EACH COMPRISED OF NO MORE THAN SEVEN (7) THINGS.  USE ONLY WIRE, FOAM, STICKS, and CHIPBOARD.

Something was miss-transmitted when we did that last Form model.
Here are the sort of terms and conditions we can use in describing our models.  You can ask yourself these things while working on the model.

FIrst, read the article "Sequences" by Tschumi.  It will help.

Next, as you try to make the model answer these questions:
What is the FORM of the SPACES in the garden?
What is the FIGURE of the WHOLE in the garden?
What are the SPATIAL PARTS of the garden?
What is the PART to WHOLE relationship in the garden?

Go back to your catalog and remember the parts.

Next, as you try to make the model, keep trying to answer this general question:
What are the qualities of the SPACES in the garden?

Answer the following specific questions with the garden model.  You won't have an answer for each.  That is fine but keep considering.

Next, as you try to make the model answer these questions:
What are the qualities of the INDIVIDUAL SPACES:
a) Shape (cubic, triangular, cylindrical, lattice, etc.)
b) Size (large, small, big, little, etc.)
c) Proportion (narrow, cubic, vertical, horizontal, extended, compressed, etc.)
d) Figure (simplicity v. complexity)
e) Solidity  (defined v. contained)
f) Opacity (opaque, translucent, transparent)

Simultaneously, try to make the model answer these questions:
What are the qualities of the RELATIONS of SPACES:
a) Hierarchy (primary, secondary, tertiary)
b) Composition
c) Jointure (interlocking, butt, lap, gapped, laminated, inlaid, implied, nested, linked, biscuit butt, etc.)
d) Structure (armature, grid, (holding v. held), repetition, datum)
e) Orientation (parallel, opposed, crossing, skewed, aligned, etc.)

As you are making the model keep trying to see how it  answers these questions:

What is the FORM of the SPACES in the garden?

What is the FIGURE of the WHOLE in the garden?

What are the SPATIAL PARTS of the garden?

What is the PART to WHOLE relationship in the garden?

To answer this general question:

What are the qualities of the SPACES in the garden?


You figure it out by making models of the thing.

The Foam Space / Event Model

The string model is about qualities of movement through the garden and the events that shape the movement.  The foam model is about the qualities of space in the garden (and how they connect) along with the events that shape the movement.

Read the article: Tschumi_Sequences.pdf linked to the left.

Do a Foam model using foam (duh), wire, rubberbands, glue, chipboard, and other connectors that can make a systemic way of specifying space and event in the garden.

The wire cutters are set up in 125 and 130 of Solberg.

Thursday, January 27th Class Schedule

To make the talks today better let's break up into three one hour sessions.   Each person should bring their string models, their catalogs, and the new space model to one hour of the class today.  You are very welcome to come and participate in all three sessions.  You will be marked present if you are in your assigned session.

9 to 10:

Villas Lante and Gamberaia Meet with Me (12 people)

10 to 11:

Villas Medici, d'Este, and Papa Guilia Meet with Me (14 people)

11 to 12:

Villas Torlonia, Valmarana, and Dona Dalle Rosa Meet with Me (13 people)

We really have to be prompt.  If you are not on the list on the class website then we assume you are not taking the class.

John Houser

I told you all yesterday in class about John Houser, one of my favorite Texas Tech students.  he's up in Boston working for Office dA there.  Go look at the homepage for the office and check out the string models there.

John started as an industrial engineering student.  He took my 101 class when he was thinking about changing majors.  He jumped into studio after that.  In his second year John "Parked a Car" at the entrance of the architecture building.  He has never been officially charged with the event.

Later he did a project using blenders and light bulbs, the blender box.  It won an award.

We went to Montréal for Summer Study Abroad.  He got a view of his site by flying a kite over it.  Marti, who you will meet later in this semester, is the person behind him in the video.

The Farm Machine I mentioned in class is HERE.

He also figured out how to deliver the mail to the whole country via giant "Pivot Irrigators".

He went to graduate school at Princeton.  Now he's working in Boston.  He wants to go home to Texas and have his own practice in Austin.

Movement and Event String Models

Overall, this was a very successful and well done project.  I expected to have to redo everything.  I think there's some revision and a few redos that can be taken care of but we're moving on.  Following are example string models.  They were scanned on a flatbed (regular) scanner.  I've made comments for each.

This is a drawing of the garden done in string.  It is done very well but it isn't what we're looking for.  What are the paths, movements, stops, starts, compressions, exchanges, switches and other systemic (rather than symbolic) conditions of flow in the garden?

This one is well done and there's something interesting in the way the two colors of string  relate only loosely to each other.  Green is definitely reliant on white for support.  What are the two things represented in relationship between the two colors?  How do the details of the white string work?

We talked about this one a lot in class.  There were a lot of things talked about that are not evident in the model itself.  The model has very little differentiation past the very clear and pronounced lattice of string.  One of the only variables is distance between short strings.  It is the clearest model in the room because it is limited in scope.  I think it is just being too subtle.

This one too is too simple.  It may be too contrasty too.  Visually you don't see the white  as anywhere near as strong as the colored string.  Can that be made into part of the systemic way of understanding the garden?  Is the garden an almost invisible set of loops that hold four primary conditions that stretch across and along the subsidiary whiten stuff?  What's the knot in the left?  It is unique.  Is that the entrance?

We talked a lot about this too.  There's a lot of great ways of doing things but it is hard to see how the the white part fits in.  It is very tentative in the way it is set into the rest of the model.

This one uses a material I've never seen before- sinew.  It is unique in the way the material works.  Maybe the material is hard to work?  This one is similar to the lattice above and the "drawing" of the garden in some ways.  It needs to say more.  What is unique about the way the material goes together and how can we use that in the way the model works?

You've got to zoom in on this one.  There are markings on the string, something no one else did.  The idea of marking the string is legit.  Can you use it more and integrate it into the representation?

Something about this one (balance?) is funky.  Its like there are very different sized parts and nothing between those two extremes of scale, maybe?  The Vila (The bump in the big strand) needs some more investigation or elaboration, maybe? It's almost really clear but there are questions in plausibility.

Simple, systematic, clear, not crafty.

Zoom in and notice all the levels of scaled detail in this one.  The one above this lacks this craftiness and elaboration.  There are three kinds of string.  Make it very clear how they work together.

The compactness and clarity of the overall figure are good translations of d'Este.  It could use a little craftiness of the one above but it can't be both compact and too elaborate.

Somehow the wire piece doesn't integrate into the overall clearly.  This seems undifferentiated, like the lattice.

Very nice in the way the strings work as path geometries rather than shape geometries.  There's a lot of turning  along paths, as in the garden.

Similar to the one above in qualities.  Lots of differentiation and relationships between parts elaborated.  What is the over all figure of the thing?  Is that important or clear in the garden? Is it a thing or a bunch of things?

The string in this one reads purely as flow, movement, and elaborated systems along it. It doesn't even look like the garden but it works like it.