ethnobotanical architecture workshop!

next weekend i'll be heading down to the new school to participate in the futurefarmers workshop.
really excited to work with some of my friends at GSAPP.  hope to represent!

check it.
thanks amy franceschini and myriel!

FY-Langes: the second showing

come one, come all down to Governor's Island this weekend!
FY-Langes, a digitally fabricated installation will be showing at FIGMENT .

"Constructed almost exclusively out packing foam, FY-Langes is a tactile, interactive, reconfigurable installation designed and built by students at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation."



a small blurb leaked on the CC:GSAPP website last night.  and more information can be found on the FY-Langes blog!

bolton historical museum addition

so, two super talented graduates of GSAPP recently secured a commision (or at least presented their proposal to the community board) for an expansion to the bolton historical museum up north... 
check out the full article on the mirror: lake george magazine

"the story is ongoing"

rueben caldwell and leigh salem (two guys i really looked up to while they were here.) started tack design (out of brooklyn) and along with their one legged chair and have found some early successes.

the simple design is elegant and powerful.  full of architectural allusions.  fitting of its surrounding context while remaining proud in its own design language.

my favorite, "we use elements in such a way that people can look at the building from multiple reference points, including barns, ice houses and the commercial buildings of main street, as well as boat houses," said caldwell. "the building should communicate something meaningful to a broad range of backgrounds."

in the words of beck hansen, "hell yes!"

[interrogating] hades chamber

the icon: the pear

 

 

plan strategies

formal taxonomies

model photos coming!

...into the underground

the images are edited from my midterm presentation.  my first, of the advanced studio sequences.  it started out the same as most.  pushing abnormal schedules, and working through the night to plot, model, and do the presentation mash-up.  oh what fun we have in 500S (gotta say, sick view of campus - overlooking the central square. nosy pigeons and water color sun sets [/rises]).

carving out terra firma for a pear shaped performance space, light and air.  the sequences leading up to 'hades chamber' (complete with three-headed guard dog) are meant to architecturally spatialize the story of orpheus entering the underworld in search of eurydice.  the procession is broken (for now) into four acts; the threshold into the underground; the grotto; the river of styx; hades chamber.  haunting reverberations of civic infrastructure and orchestral maneuvers in the dark echo as one approaches hades pear-shaped performance pit.

check it out... so this is all happening at the old trolley station at delancey and essex!  after receiving (surprisingly enthusiastic) feed-back the push begins to re-organize and re-visualize this project in sexy (but, informative) images and models, models, models. 

more clues coming later!

experiments in motion

EiM_ Mark Wigley

underground inspirations

here's some images i've been coming back to over the past few weeks... 
more being added to my pinterest board all the time - these are a simple snapshot

little bits of imagery.  what is space like underground?  it's weird not to think about facade and a dialogue between external and internal experiences: now the external experience is totally conceptual (and rooted in architectural drawings) - it's all about that internal procession.  section is super important - and i'm digging that.

cut, carve & dig on!

native states of america

new show that just went up.

[picture forthcoming]

riding off the intense foreclosed: re-housing the american dream (a whole other post) one week to fabricate and install!

Annie Siris Coombs and Zoë Malliaros present:
Native States of America: Lakota Housing, Infrastructure and Economy

after winning the Percival and Naomi Goodman Fellowship as well as a couple Kinnie awards the two spent some time out in the good old midwest, on the reservations.  interviewing, recording and investigating the complex, convoluted relationship between those on the reservation and outside forces (mostly the government).  a few case study projects are on display along with a couple short films and an awesome glowing map.

check it out.  down on the 200 level of Avery Hall.

experiments in motion

EiM

an advanced studio option for the third years @GSAPP is partnered with Audio of America to seek answers to the questions: "what is the future of our cities?"; "what is the future of mobility?"


there's some great interviews following the link, and a nice shot of my boy e.Ben Brichta
this is highly curated, which is terrific to see.  lots of collaboration.

a year behind, but still asking the same questions, our studio is concerned with the same site....
let the conversations begin.

i argue poetics over motion, but that's still motion.  i guess it's a question of pace, and scale...
an argument for slower over faster maybe.

VOTE4CENTRIPETAL

vote here!

Centripetal_ zoomscapes

 2A_eM collaborates with Situ Studio.

today's technology (the camera) allows one to experience architecture through a new medium (film) at new speeds beyond the human experience. we can replay, distort and adjust reality along new trajectories at various elevations and perspectives creating new opportunities for experiencing space, the city and the architecture surrounding us.

this is the result of an exercise in design fabrication. a prototype was constructed using CNC technology combined with reclaimed bicycle parts to produce a mechanism to rotate a camera about a Y-axis. the revolutions combined with a forward vector produces a loopty-loop or corkscrew condition.

occupying a subway, we shot these clips looking across and down the tracks out the side and front windows (respectively) of the J train. the result is a disorienting experience of the city.

here is a link to the vimeo album.  

a short edit is up for voting in the videotect architectural film competition,NOW!

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!

#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!

#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.

my world

a glimpse of where i spend more time than sleeping




and some of my roommates

'high tech pavilion'_ animation

 the final results of an architectural digital visualization introduction.  here are some images of Lebbeus Woods' 'High Tech Pavilion' in Chengdu China.  

tubes of light span a mirrored void projecting them into infinity.  a short, 50 second animation was created through rhino, 3ds max, and adobe after effects.

the airlab is coming...

my modeling skills are still archaic at best. but behold - the start of something beautiful.... i hope.

lebbeus woods; light pavilion

the fabrication technique

one of the classes i'm enrolled in deals with the art of digital representation.
i'm learning a brand new set of skills; rhino, 3ds max, and grasshopper... about time.
we are to pick a building to study, model, love and hate. the goal by the end of the semester is to create a 60 second animation of the project.

my project was spurred on by my studio professor. he's working with lebbeus woods and steven holl on the raffles city project in chengdu, china. so.... i'm modeling lebbeus woods' high-tech [light] pavilion. it's a series of aggressively angled light shafts surrounding stairs and platforms. the surfaces are all mirrored, conveying a sense of infinity and ambiguity.

the modeling is coming slowly, but i wanted to share some progress of the physical model i need to produce.
it's the start of a 1/2" = 1" scaled model of the light tube. the photos show the jig used to create the bevelled corners as well as some of the products of the acrylic heating and forming.

the jig

the result

i'll post the images of the project when/if i get permission. big names and the work hasn't been built, so i hear things are a little shaky. i'd hate to be the one to spill the beans and end my career before it begins.