A-Periodics?!?! NO....just A tile.

Finishing up my final studio project this quarter for the M.Arch 1 program and this is what i'm left with. 1) a piece of code for danzer tiling, 2) Connection points to make clean connection among tiles, and 3) 100 extra pieces I was never able to put together.....

The built portion of this project consist of roughly 6oo surfaces glued together (4 straight days of building)....the process was a difficult one due to the scale of the pieces. Its a little odd to say that the 1 to 1 scale mock up might have been easier to build then this 3/4 model was...but time will tell after break. Hopefully I'll be able to build this during break! Wish me luck!!

ice cube celebrates the eames

yes! meet your new meme

the [dark] cloud

so.... a few days ago we were thrown for a psychological loop.
here's why:

winy maas came to lecture in wood auditorium and two days later a studio mate sent us this link to "the cloud" MVRDV's new project.  basically, it's our housing project [but, of course we like out gesture more...].  so, in an attempt to maintain our design genius we - jokingly - said winy must have seen our project and stolen our idea.

i hope that's not the case, but it helped us feel better about our work.  then, look what pops up on msn's homepage [not mine] and being hotly debated.
seriously?! get over it people.  support the arts, and optimism!

[update]: housing studio

a little more tweaking.  can't wait to get the unit models in there.
whoa.  get ready folks.  we're coming for ya the 14th!

 corner of 125th and lexington

 look up!

 porosity | pixelation



hovering corner

marketplace bridge

[update]: housing studio

live : work

in full on production mode. learning to tame the vray beast....

semeseter is wrapping up [wrapped for most]

i want to keep working with my partner!

a reluctant enemy

a reluctant enemy

#occupywallstreet

occupyprints

UCLA Project 3 so far.

BentSpace:
A project based on bending plywood....right... I threw material study out the window for the start of the project. Instead I took a stab at A-periodic tiling and this is where i'm at.

The system lends itself to make pockets of space.

these pockets have different variables to create new atmospheres within one system. [not shown... :(] But what is shown here is refinement on how these tiles come together. No more Crazy Angles connections!!!



so far...is this what they want? I have no idea :P.

#occupywallstreet

below is a preview of some of the poster art i've been putting together. 
monday's rally should be epic!

a few more details to polish up and they should be ready to print.

"the status quo has got to go" (2011)

"who are you protecting?!" (2011)

"brutality" (2011)

...more to come.

#occupywallstreet

some reading for those wanting to know more about what is happening

paul krugman: nytimes
matt taibbi: rolling stone
reinhold martin: design observer
jd sachs: nytimes

data visualized: by the gaurdian


charts, charts, charts


...and this ariticle highlighting the bat signal of the 99% that showed up at the 11.17 rally.  first across the federalist buildings in the financial district [the cops caught wind and coralled everyone marching from folley park across the brooklyn bridge].  it was a much needed inspirational lift at the time... and then to see it occupying the verizon tower facade. remarkable!

ofuro

custom japanese ofuro [bath]
bath made of wood.  so nice.  i soak a while in that.
apparently, baths don't come in endless varieties like shoes.  too bulky to store in warehouses and keep on show room floors means only the strongest [sellling] survive leading a lack of diversity.


this deep cedar bath is an elegantly crafted solution for an applicance that takes up plenty of household real estate.




some other examples of ofuros can be seen through custommade:ofuro.

#occupywallstreet

r. black

OWS week of action.  student and laborers. shut the city down.

massive canvassing @GSAPP [just in time for zaha].  this is a call to action.

earth

this video happened to catch my eye walking past a friend's desk!  i could sit and watch this for hours (due to school, i've calculated many minutes, approaching an hour - but best believe i will return again and again to this clip!)


view here.... the embed didn't work for some reason.  but seriously, do yourself a favor. take a break and make on more click!


a camera attached to the outisde of the international space station captures some riduculously amazing imagery of cityscapes illuminating darkness, storm systems dancing across the arc of the horizon, and the most spectacular dance of the aurora borealis i have ever seen!


serious props to ron garan, michael konig and crew!

tree sketch

trees

jim kazanjian

wow. these images are absolutely fantastic! photoshop mastery.

untitled (implosion), 2008

untitled (structure), 2007

untitled (facade), 2010

more, more, more!

Occupy Wall Street Architecture

Occupy Wall Street Architecture
Frederic Levrat – Nov 4 2011

Controlled space

Space is currently defined by a controlling mechanism ofproperty right. Investment companies acquire land through leverage andspeculation, then rent it for a profit to the real user of the space, whiledisenfranchising the community as well as the individual from the most basicright to occupy space.

The main maps we have of the city – such as the Sandbornregister – are black on white definition of property right,only stipulating theowner and its property for insurance purpose on profit on the  increased value of property. There is absolutelyno indication of existence of trees, of community activity, of the density ofhappiness, noise level, social interaction or any human quality. It is a purerepresentation of the controlling power of a few individual over what used tobe public space. Everything is about money and control, about property and the precise/legaldefinition of it.

Questioning these types of boundaries is essential but notentirely a new struggle. The history of the nomads, violently repressed by thesettlers in the North American genocide, the North African Touareg, theaboriginal tribes of Australia is a long history of confrontation between thehoarder of the land for a profit against the actual user of the land. Morerecently, some alternative thinking produced some interesting re-mapping of theurban context, with the French Situationists trying to remap Paris based onsubjective perception of space rather than objective state-issued maps.
We need to rethinkspace in general, and public space in particular.

It is not surprising that the drum circle is the mostcontroversial element of the OWS camp. It challenges the notion of enforceableboundaries. Unlike the physical presence of the occupiers, the sound travelsfree in between the buildings and through the air. The physical bodies areconfronted to metal fences and police forces closing space down at every turn.The police are enforcing every possible law – and many interpretation of it –to claim territory and mostly to deny the freedom of assembly andmovement.  But there are other ways tooccupy the space, to break boundaries, to circumvent the solid edges the powerfuland its legal sub-system has been erecting. An ephemeral occupation of thespace needs to be engineered, with temporary banners, video projection and soundprojection.  We need to rethink our environment, as a flexible and adaptable one, where boundaries are allowingpeople to meet rather than to separate or protect the dominant from the dominated.

blow up the school; pi san animation

with the nytimes reporting of increasing censorship by the communist party in china they've also produced a supplementary piece that outlines the creativity and pointed criticism of the government's actions.

animator Pi San's cartoons are a "mordant swipe at the educational system." One of his first animations of the wordcloud-headed character, Kuang Kuang apparently was viewed 3 million times on its first day posted. government officials reacted by slapping the artist with a fine for "inappropriate content."


here's the Pi San's first animation called: blow up the school.


there are many more available via youtube


* interesting editorial note:
the video is posted by an online chinese magazine called danwei; which is also a type worker house_ this term is connoted with the period of chinese history under heavy socialist influence.

#occupywallstreet

ideas

the results of an exchange of information after a rather awkward platform for discussing [@gsapp] the events that have surrounded the occupy wall street movement.

[yates mckee was terrific; articulate and insightful!]

see you on friday.

math = cool

proof that math is cool!


15 uncoupled simple pendulums of monotonically increasing lengths dance together to produce visual traveling waves, standing waves, beating, and (seemingly) random motion.


for more details see science demonstrations


the period of one complete cycle of the dance is 60 seconds. the length of the longest pendulum has been adjusted so that it executes 51 oscillations in this 60 second period. the length of each successive shorter pendulum is carefully adjusted so that it executes one additional oscillation in this period. Thus, the 15th pendulum (shortest) undergoes 65 oscillations.

this apparatus was built from a design published by richard berg [am j phys 59(2), 186-187 (1991)] at the university of maryland. the particular apparatus shown here was built by our own nils sorensen.

caffeine

excellent animation! simple architectural axons put to good use - taking on a life on their own.... a scary, gattaca-esque life.

La confusion de la répétition​. Nuages robotique

<+>

beautiful sketches.  similar themes.  famous architects and thinkers.
french.

ICA: A premeditated response

This is an excerpt from an email I wrote in reply to a request to give thoughts on the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston as well as respond to an article, also furbished here:

"Die Another Day"

I should make a disclaimer that I only had seen images and working drawings before I wrote this response and that it would be pleasant to be proven wrong about the material expressions I foresee when I actually go. But the building really becomes secondary in my response, regardless. Enjoy:

"...As far as the ICA, I have yet to see it in person, but now from the
article you sent and the pictures and reviews I've read, I am pretty
intrigued. I'll hold off my opinion on the experiential and material
quality until I go there, but the article did peak my interest about
something else. When the critic asked of other critics "Do they
imagine that promoting innovation—even just the look of innovation—is
such a pure good that the defense of all other values must be
suspended along with our disbelief?" I think he is exaggerating a
pretty interesting point. I know that you have often said that
computational/visual design leaves you cold, and I think that the kind
of expressions the critic is offering might be similar; but there is
something else in his rant and questions that makes me want to reply
and raise him on his ante. Innovation at this kind of civic level
(and DSR call it "civic") needs to be at a much larger scale than this
building offers. I couldn't care less about how it looks at the sea
or how spectacular the cantilever seems to be (although it does seem
an engineering feat, albeit one that has many predecessors) or how
bamboozled we all are by pretty pictures or how that fits into the
socio-capitalistic monster of visual consumption, but I do have a beef
with people who talk about innovation and architecture (perhaps like
many Starchitects do) but fail to push the bounds of the low ceiling
(thank you Kafka) of codes, social norms, and program through their
material expression. My favorite and most-influential set of
exercises in Microcosm were those that asked us to question the
program, to, perhaps, think completely in the opposite way one might
usually regard, in this case, how one experiences a museum. From what
I've seem so far about this project, it is not the boxy quality or
'innovation/worldsheet" fix or bourgeois-facing windows that leave me
cold, it is the idea that it completely doesn't DO anything in the
city. What an interesting site, what an interesting project, and it
doesn't innovate at the scale of the civic at all. Stair-cantilever
is nice... but why not make the stair disappear down into the water
and make people baptize themselves if they want to enter? Why not
make the museum span the docks in succession and create courtyards out
of ancient pools of docks? Why? I suppose the low-ceiling of codes
again cannot allow those ideas to stand up fully, but they could
certainly bend over humbly and make a go of it, pushing boundaries and
innovating at the civic scale truly. Instead they just kind of sit
back, as he said, and take their laurels from the critics, who, I
think, he's right, are blinded by stardust that is actually dust, but
also numbed by never being shaken up. They too sit under the low
ceiling and never think what would happen if we cut a hole in the
roof, if not to be able to stand straight, then to look up and see
true stars, instead of just dust. (oh, and this critic might be
blinded too, he sounds like a new-urbanist... I mean, I think entering
a building by its industrio-like back near a pastry shop sounds
delightful)..."

gms: grande palladium

nice bit forwarded to me and on to you.**

malik architecture out of india has just finished this fantastic project.
not sure about how it fits contextually, but it's still a terrific piece of energetic urbanism.
bold, expressive volumes fly out in axis, floating over the clay composition of the vernacular city.
expansive glass planes open onto the busy streets below.
too much metal for me though.... or maybe, because it's toned like a swordfish or something.

_subjective response concluded. objective report commencing;

the architects lift the building +8m (26.25 ft) above the ground plane to allow for free public spaces to address theoretical inconsistencies found in commercial buildings (locally), environmental cycles(monsoon season), public space (lacking), etc. etc.

re; monsoon season_ validating +8m lift:

"The suspended building volume negates the need for extraneous canopies, and the ubiquitous atrium has been replaced with functionally scaled lobbies, that use space efficiently and visually include the landscaped podium and allow the eye to roam unfettered to the grass berm beyond."

ok, i get it. nice gesture. liberating the ground plane... giving it back to the community... deconstructing planar volumes and refilling with light and air. floating above is a cloud of tessellated steel embraced by bent aluminum sheets. seems ominous, but actually works well.

the aluminum enclosure is playfully, punctured by pure glass geometries. the design is really driven by environmental concerns (solar) and structural expression. totally valid. but, the most poetically expressive element is the treatment of the water:

"Water has been expressed in two ways; a shallow water sheet explores the reflective and depth inducing properties of water, while adjacent to it, raked and textured stone surfaces generate rippling water surfaces; a gesture that not only explores its auditory properties, but also geometrically links it to the building structure."

mmm... water, senses, atmosphere. but, seriously corporate project, with a developer's description on dezeen.

** i realize my inconsistent opinion of this project. i wrote as i read, having read first the images. i guess we can chalk this up to a bit of gonzo journalism.

...with a little help from my friends

summer? what summer? it seems i'm not getting one this year. at least in the traditional academic sense of a summer ["break"]. long work days gave way to late work nights. lots of research, illustrator, photoshop, and tweaking rhino models [thanks to peter's processing power!]

following up on competition 1 of 4, here it comes...
straight from the pdf print shop.

#2.

another ideas competition meant our imaginations took the reins and ideas of celebration, unity, festival and broadcasting took over... holy rollers with joo-joo eyeballs. an information pavilion, yes, but also a advertisement to the city at large. kite power. water collection. bringing people together under one roof.

through muddy waters we mojo filtered... this is,
come together, right now [c]over me.

The Olympic Games unify the world in the spirit of healthy competition; inspired by this founding principle, "Come Together..." abstracts the symbolism of the interlocking rings, forming five bands which twist and merge into a unified composition. As a formal gesture the pavilion serves as a funnel, inviting spectators from the city into the charged interior; the reception desk, souvenir shop, and administrative facilities are housed under a twisting canopy, while the cafe spills out to engage the steps of the National Gallery- a place familiar to sitting and collecting.

The exterior of each band is populated with the flags of participating countries, forming a skin which reinforces the idea of cooperation and international competition. The interior is clad with printed and electronic display panels which aggregate on the underside of the cantilevered canopy, creating a large screen for live event display, replay, news, and interviews. The pavilion effectively communicates Olympic activities at the local scale and acts as a kinetic signifier at the urban scale, broadcasting the winner of each event to the city at large through the deployment of embroidered kites whose elevation is indicative of that countries respective ranking.

"Come Together..." employs sustainable design techniques in all aspects of the proposal; the structure is made of reclaimed aluminum, while the flags and kites are woven with a nylon/polyester blend made from recycled PET plastic bottles. Rainwater is channeled from the canopy down the walls and deposited into a water tank underneath the walking platform. Our renewable resource strategy capitalizes on the opportunities presented by this unique locale- the UK, situated in the high speed jet stream, is the eighth largest producer of wind power worldwide; in response, the pavilion is conceived as an energy-generating kite farm which holistically integrates concept and function while broadcasting to the city, celebrating the accomplishments of an international athletic competition.

kite power

implementing would put us on track to power our world!
Saul Griffin's outlines his plan that could easily curb our coal addiction.
...and provide a little inspiration in the process.

linear house: patkau architects

i've been waiting to hear something more about this patkau project. i first was exposed to the linear house during good ol' boy - kenneth frampton's 80th birthday party at GSAPP. the north american anthology. that was a great day! terrific firms presenting a broad range of work from all over the upper american continent.

so the linear house. ran across it again on archdaily (big surprise there right?). it's this very clean form - a line - nestled in the threshold between old growth douglas firs and a canadian prairie. the house almost disappears into the landscape. i wish the diagram they showed during their lecture would've made it to the web. it captures the essence of the project in such a clear and straightforward manner.

the shadowy palette of the exterior of the fibre-cement panels are contrasted with the luminous acrylic panels on the interior and sky lights. nice touch... and it's pretty bad ass that the whole house can open up via folding panels create a dialog with the surrounding environment; an open air pavilion of sorts.

one thing i admire about these architects is their ability to capture and highlight the essence of site. and, amplify the contextual highlights (orchard, prairie, views between the trees) through clean, simple, well-detailed designs. their sensitivity regarding materiality is always refreshing. in this case, the design reminds me of todd williams and billie tsien's work. the lexicon wood glass, wood and stone is a combination i will always love.

© James Dow

"dualities in repose"

We're off an running for a crazy summer of competitions/collaborations. Here's the first in a 'quadfecta' of work that will [hopefully] get pushed out this summer - with some stellar results. First on the docket, I have joined Corey Gaffer of Gaffer Photography [and amateur landscape design] in a collaborative effort to create an imaginative design for SLANT.eu, an international competition on Landscape Architecture. This is our submission to the competition:

"Sitting on the bend of a river, a plot of land

lies vacant. Overgrown and derelict, the possibility for

regeneration is palpable as an engine for change and

growth. As the river cuts, a park will connect. Industry

and culture coalesce, through creativity, innovation and

active participation sprouting a green economy and

joining communities with healthy local food and access

to art while improving the ecological health of the river.

The park softens hard edges created by urban residences to the west, large cultural complexes to the east and the river embracing the site perimeter. The resultant softening creates a multitude of new relationships and accessibility with the waterfront. Physical access to the river, access to education and information regarding river ecology and access to jobs through community gardening reengage residents with water as a resource in a full range of social and recreational activities.

Strategic planting restores and refreshes the soil on site and filters runoff before entering the river maintaining and improving the health of the river as an amenity. Embedded within the comprehensive bioremediation strategy, implied program hugs the water’s edge. Soft delineations are marked through unique relationships to the riverfront; community garden, beachhead, and art island. The passive characteristic of the river reemerges in an active dialogue with the park user.

Conceptually, the park draws from the diverse strengths and unique potentials in the surrounding context to activate new public space: a confluence of culture, economic innovation and individual repose. Strategic design emphasizes the relationships between greater natural, social, civic, and economic ecologies: where dualities exist they are reinterpreted as strengths and harnessed to emphasize the unique characteristics of the site’s surrounding context.

The north end of the park extends the museum’s impact through the introduction of an outdoor sculpture park. Set among waving grass a prairie is peppered with sculptures to be discovered, viewed, engaged, and reflected upon. To further heightening views, an island creates a new platform for viewing one’s surroundings from a vantage point encircled by a wetland marsh. The sculptures occupy an ecotone from prairie to marshland: an extended threshold. Here birds, frogs, lizards and snakes call home.

The south end contrasts the individual intellectual experience with a community based garden and market. The transition is dappled with trees opening to terraced modules creating a tapestry of gardens and ponds aiding the cultivation of local food sources. Physically engaging with earth reconnects residents to natural processes and cycles of growth strengthening community and improving health for residents across the river. Through this haptic engagement, the community gardens create a new micro-economy for residents by growing and selling healthy, local foods.

Linking both ends,a primary path wends through the site amplifying the gesture of the linear park. A thick forest hugs the path offering a visual and acoustic buffer from the urban fabric. The path creates new connections and opportunities to experience the neighborhood along and down to the waterfront as one navigates the dualities of culture and industry. The result is a park where dualities converge in an area of tranquility to experience, appreciate, reconsider, enjoy and grow.

Frac Centre.

So i'm back in France for those who do not know already....working on another project with THEVERYMANY. This will be my last structure before I leave for LA. Its probably another reason for the active posting recently, traveling gives me some time to think and blog I guess...

here is a time lapse I threw together; make sure to check out the website as well for updates on the build/whats going on. THEVERMANY.COM

thank you all for the support and encouragement. Hopefully after I finish my masters Nick, Jessie, and I will make something amazing out of our experiences.

#thoughts:
I quickly realize that being "responsible" was more complicated then simply telling people what to do. I have to adapt to different situations/fields, work out difficult problems, teach, manage, maintain public relations, relaying messages and keep a straight face in moments of panic. I can't say i've done a great job, but I can say i'm happy with how its going, and Frac/Students have been so helpful to me. I'm glad I get to share this experience with them.

Tvmny, Wins competition:

#of course this comes with realizations....

So, while working for THEVERYMANY I jumped on a small competition held in LA as TVMNY in collaboration with Volkan Alkanoglu after much debate with the jury (about skateboards, scale, and construction) in march, we won! They loved it fyi, yay! possibly my first built project and i'm moving to LA for school. Its perfect, a little to perfect I say....

http://theverymany.com/work-in-progress/11-la-redondo-beach/

After looking at that link, I guess you can say at this very moment I leveled up my digital skills. I learned how to model differently in Rhino, Python, and alittle bit of zaha theory (which I can't say i'm proud of...)

:after all is done and over with I realize how afraid the public truly is of architecture...but not just the dynamics or ideas presented but also how others will affect it or be affected by it! so, friends....how do we Intend fix this? how do we win back the trust of the world? to prove not only to the public but ourselves that we are not only necessary but an important function to the expansion of the human mentality.

Mobile thought.

Literary...

What separates the men from the boys. Managing my first project in Orleans I gotta say "holy crap this is alot of work." I start to wonder if I'm really cut out for this type of work....(I'm not, but who is?) I can't honestly say "Hey! I always wanted this!"

I've always been more of the laid back "lets design" for fun kind of guy......

But in the end this is reality, this project was been a large part of my life in NYC. If I don't see it through who will?

heres a link for the project in Orleans.

THEVERYMANY

Thoughts: its a idea about structure to surface, in the end YES it does look like the other projects and YES he has done something similar before (TVMNY semi official age maybe 2?). BUT, look a little deeper....think about the construction of the pieces, and how it comes together. The fact that a small 4x5x1.5 box can make a 30' long 20' wide and 14' tall structure is amazing..... right? no? are you not impressed? then these designs are not for you! :P and that only scratches the surface....theres so much more depth to the process....

I'll post my own pics in a month.

please remind me......

The Art of Unemployment 3: Georges Bataille and a Night of Excess

The Art of Unemployment 3: Georges Bataille and a Night of Excess

This piece in the series is a party invitation. In keeping with the series material process themes, this work made me learn a new crocheting stitch and required the leisure time to create several hand-made objects in a smaller time frame. The party was themed on the thought-work of George Bataille: that of excess, of destruction and the joys of debt and not being sober or entirely 'civil'. The piece itself was a meditation on his philosophy. Why have an invitation that was readable at will? To get the party information, one had to destroy the structure of the invitation and pull it apart in order to get at the most important part: the tumor, or excess, of the sphere.

The information itself called for black-tie and insinuated bringing costly and overly extravagant food and drink. Get down with Bataille. And drink, dress, smoke, feed and sex yourself into oblivion.

Art of Unemployment 2: interactive portrait

This multi-media piece is the second in my art of unemployment series. Just like the first, it showcases over-worked detail/structure and material process that comes from environments one may only frequent when at leisure. The flowers were pressed weeks before the idea came about.

This piece is a birthday "card" for a dear friend. Our faces on the caterpillars' bodies are laminated and Velcro-ed to be changed with the users mood and at the users leisure. The faces come in angry, stoic, happy, kissy and pensive. mix and match is encouraged.