2AeM is a cooperative design effort composed of the 3 young Midwestern-sprung, spread-the world-out, out-and-out Architecture student-architects: nicholas m. reiter, Jessie Wilcox and Peter Nguyen. The team base was originally Milwaukee, WI but since has become a mobile abstraction or a state of mind. 2AeM is sometimes physical, sometimes sober, partially virtual, usually vocal, and all-the-time IN-it.
We are track jumpers, demons, villains and observing you right now. Design is the New and so are the Stakes.
this project is like lincoln logs meets art meets awesome.
the japanese tezuka architects teamed up with tis & partners to create a unique space for net artist toshiko horiuchi macadam. it sits in the hakone open-air museum. no metal was used in the construction of the pavillion. the joinery is derived from thousands years old japanese wooden temples in nara and kyoto.
"this is a permanent pavilion for a net artist, toshiko horiuchi macadam. the artist knitted the net entirely by hands, which is designed for children to crow in, roll around, and jump on the net. it was easy for us to see the artwork being outside even when it cannot be exposed to rain or ultraviolet light. we wanted to design a space as soft as the forest where the boundary between outside and inside disappears. the space attracts people like campfire. the children play inside of the net just as fire and parents sit around and lay on the woods."
i cruise archdaily as i sit in my living room enjoying the festive atmosphere. the smells and sounds of family gathered for the holidays.
completely unrelated, i've been participating in a project through our university [uwm] and the urban ecology center - a local organization that seeks to instill the values of respecting mother earth to urban communities in milwaukee. they're experimenting with a the idea of a satellite branch and i've been heading up a design team - partnered with the other design school [miad] in milwaukee.
the goal was to collaborate and synthesize a new design for our client on the edge of the glacial valley. we aimed to meet the "living building" challenge. this desire pushes pragmatic and fiduciary design into realms not yet achieved. we are operating in a dense urban environment. our design was to be three stories. more later....
this project caught my eye. it's a new facility for manitoba hydro by kpmb architects. below is a quote explaining the project. i couldn't help but marvel at the diagrams and the similarities in design intent [though with a much larger budget]
"manitoba hydro is the major energy utility in the province of manitoba, the fourth largest energy utility in canada and offers some of the lowest electricity rates in the world. owned by the provincial government, nearly all of its electricity comes from self-renewing water power. Its new headquarters tower, manitoba hydro place, is the first of the next generation of sustainable buildings integrating time-tested environmental concepts in conjunction with advanced technologies to achieve a “living building” that dynamically responds to the local climate... manitoba hydro place sets a precedent for the seamless integration of architectural excellence and climate responsive, energy efficient and sustainable design while enhancing and improving the quality and comfort of the human experience and the civility of urban life."
been trying to follow the cop15 conference the optimism... the compromise.... the frustration.... the hope... the disappointment....
i was intrigued by this first hand account by thom yorke. acquiring a press pass he has logged thoughts at deadairspace
here are a few of his thoughts;
"and as i wrote the previous entry my battery goes dead and obama walks past with a very grim expression, everyone thought he was stroming out but no he'd just been in talks with the chinese. just now a french delegate tells me that brazil has stormed out of the talks. this is all so sad. still peace and goodwill to all men. love and understanding.
just no more business as usual ok?? this is all starting to really feel like some enormous vaguely pointless corporate expo."
"well ... i am truly disgusted about the way things have ended here. if you read in tommorrows headlines that a deal was reached?? remember it was nothing like what was needed and was filed by a bored complicit press who needed to show something for two weeks of crap.. and that it reflected the wests inability to lead decisively. that it will make alarm bells ring throughout the world. we have no international agreement. this is all too too late. i feel deeply traumatized by the whole experience. if you'd been there you would also have been."
"Federal attention to America’s infrastructure is a critical part of our nation’s economic recovery plan, but we must also consider how that investment in the next generation of bridges, roads, and waterways will create more sustainable, more engaging, more livable cities. This symposium gathers some of the country’s most talented young designers –finalists in the WPA 2.0 competition, together with design talent recognized internationally, to address a new future with policy makers. Innovative ideas drive the work that will be presented; technical and practical sensibilities demonstrate that those ideas could be the basis for a Working Public Architecture."
check these great works of digital animation and film from the finalists at the wpa 2.0 finalists.
here's a clever little project that has found a place at the feet peter zumthor's thermal baths....
the dutch architect's[SeARCH] ask; "shouldn’t it be possible to conceal a house in an alpine slope while still exploiting the wonderful views and allowing light to enter?"
the steep topography of the site provided opportunities for expansive views across the valley while views from the bath house remained unspoiled.
true to form [as we all learned in architectural history] the swiss required a timber frame model of the residence to be constructed at the site for neighbors and authorities to critique. the residence is a great example of pragmatic, unobtrusive development; neighbors were delighted.
of all the mobile medical clinics that have been thought up by sympathetic designers, i think this is one of the most ingenious. it's practical, cost-effective, creative, and uses existing infrastructure, namely camels...
these animals have been used forever to transport things and people across the hot, dry deserts. now, with the help of a simple photovoltaic panel a refrigerator can keep critical medicine and vaccines at the right conditions to deliver to remote villages in africa - for now, kenya and ethiopia.
these mobile health units will allow medical supplies to keep up with nomadic communities as well as remote villages.
headed by the nomadic communities trust, partnered with California’s Art Center College of Design’s Designmatters and Princeton’s Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials [PRISM].
i've been back in school working towards completing a sculpture minor as a supplement to the architectural design degree we three have [or are working towards]. i'd like to share some photos of the work in progress.
'tiles' made from a plaster cast [clay tile + two part rubber + plaster]
modification for connection
structure + surface
variation_complexity through repetition
the work complete and illuminated to follow shortly.
as this semester winds down, and anticipation of upcoming events begin to take hold of my mind, i'd like to give a short update [more to follow] regarding upcoming endeavors.
next semester i will be participating in the marcus prize studio, with distinguished architect alejandro aravena. this prestigious studio will begin an exciting experiment in collaboration. not only will we be learning from an internationally acclaimed architect, but will be collaborating across campus and disciplines. this studio, though small, will incorporate students from the arts, as well as city planning in addition to traditional architecture students.
never before have i had this experience during my architectural education, and now that i'm on the arts side [more on that later], it should make for some great, innovative, provocative works.
Heres an interesting design build project that recently caught my attention. while my search for the holy grail I found myself looking at Voronoi geometry. of course I can't say I understand it since I am still in the beginning process of learning parametric ideas, But... I can say I like it :P heres something on the side that reminded of what I was looking at.
the project is pretty wild yet simple, all the extruded (Packed) pentagons point and bend towards a certain object in the exhibition. and on top of that changes thickness from top to bottom I'm guessing for structural reasons.
There is a simple 3 and 4 prong solution that holds the pieces together. I have also recently ran into a plugin for rhino called Rhinonest, its used for so for to unwrap models and tag them for fabrication, maybe in a couple of months I'll figure it out so we can use it for something interesting :D
heres the link for where I found it originally. and heres the link for their own blogs and updates.
legos have been receiving a lot of love recently. everyone it seems is using these building blocks that have powered so many of our imaginations growing up.
there's james may's lego house.... sadly destroyed.
then there's Jean-Charles de Castelbajac's, a famous fashion designer, accessories strutting down the catwalk.
but, this project absolutely blows my mind. while i maintain a personal nostalgia for these little modular building blocks this project utilizes these tiny pieces in combination with light to create amazing works that shape shift before your eyes.
"the program called shadow art is an amazing new computer model that allows designers to create objects based on the multiple and highly specific shadows that those objects will cast when lit from different angles."
i don't quite understand how or what these designer/artists are doing, or how they are able to combine images into a three dimensional work, but it's an amazing process with equally supreme results.
While I am away in Europe studying, I set up a blog for my trip. the entire blog is filled with images I have taken and is updated almost daily until now. so I hope you like it, and I'll be back in the states in roughly two weeks. maybe then after we'll do another competition in celebration of my return??? :P
finally a tool that allows you to draw in the digital world, and i'm not talking about cad people! With the combination of a track ball and tablet this program allows us to draw freely in euclidean space, i can only image the fun things nick and jessie could dream up. is the gap between hand drawings and digital accuracy dwindling? or am I just day dreaming?
I excited to see what happens next, that or maybe we'll just have to take the exploration into our own hands. :D
This video on TED is a good illustration of howPlay is important. However, the short lecture made me think further on several things. One, the man giving the speech, while most likely a veteran public speaker, seemed very much at ease. He was not simply sharing and spewing his passion, he was enjoying himself as well. The images he chose to show, too, were designed to be playful... visually playful anyways, and hitting something in a collective consciousness of pop culture. His allusions to animals seemed more astute, but it wasn't until Homer shows up on screen that people actually participated in laughter. The topic of work and academic-frameworked play was especailly interesting to someone like myself, thinking of the way in which we 'work' or create. I wonder if those students who made that great movie about an alternative form of meeting dressed in a suit and tie and lived ina bad office building while they came up for schemes of the film, or ideas about what a "meeting" was. Putting Csikszentmihalyi in there, too, made me think. The philosophy in "FLOW" is very appropriate to an individual's outlook on whatever task he or she is doing, but my problem with using it in the interpretation of this film is that it is still somewhat protestant in a way. One can experience FLOW in anything, but there is also something to say about finding what gives you FLOW. Did the character in that film enjoy working in a suit and sitting at a computer all day? Well, maybe he did, but the fact that a mundane office beauracracy like a "meeting" had to be turned into a FLOW experience, makes me wonder if the task of sitting at a desk all day could be transformed bodily to give it more of a FLOW experience for this young man. Professional firms like Google, Apple and IDEO seem to respond to this principle.
This could open up so many more conversations, then, about creating for yourself, creating for many, the biological political/systems impact on the workplace and on what we consume.
the beauty of nature touches us as something great that goes beyond us. man comes from nature and returns to it. an inkling of the measure of human life within the immensity of nature wells up inside us when we come upon the beauty of a landscape that has not been domesticated are carved down to human scale. we feel sheltered, humble and proud at once. we are in nature, in this immeasurable form that we will never understand and now, in a moment of heightened experience, no longer need to because we sense that we ourselves are part of it. i look out into the landscape; i gaze at the sea on the horizon, look at the masses of water; i walk across the fields to the acacias; i look at the elder blossoms, at the juniper tree and become still. she is bathing in the sicilian sea and dives under water. her heart misses a beat. a huge fish passes close by silent and infinitely slow. its movements are untroubled and powerful and elegant. they have the self-evidence of millennia.
after a long night, some strange thoughts flicker through one's head.
my roommate and i have endeavored on a new experiment with the qualities and synaesthesia.
the idea is to play an in congruence with an instrumental piece of music as a driver for another, secondary spark of creativity. quick writings, inspired by vibrations. a dialogue built between two, could be infinite, furthers depth, weaving the tapestry into focus...
play while reading. play while writing. play while thinking....
[push play]
[read] the music rises and falls, undulating like the surface of the sea. am i lost? am i on a nautical navigation to some sort of distant destination?
Mother nature, evident in the Midwest. Harmonies exist between men and their mothers. Inland America, the statistical average of the sea to shining sea. Are we forgotten? Is our fate nothing else but to be mocked by the 'united citizens'?
the horizon breaches... a glimpse of a tail dives back beneath an azure blanket. comforting...
Another day dawns upon us. Who are we? What are we? What are we capable of? insecurity threatens our existence like a cold war - when will we dispose of our preconceived notions? when will things change?
central park yelps. rat dogs. slow rain. heavy drops dance across the window pane...
I see a crane. Is development to be taken literally, or figuratively? Is it a mere coat of arms for a society or something more?
bring your coat, we're going out. to where? its not about the destination.
It's about the journey. Imagine an apple core... how did it come to be? Where did it come from? Who harvested it? What were they like?
eyes squinching shut on an undersized couch. no comfort. head spinning. gaining bearings, smacking lips, cotton mouth, nothing to do but wait it out.
I can't sleep. Am I awake? There's nothing I can do but shake.
on the edge of a cliff. waiting for gravity to release me. wind steals droplets from my face. the hike down through pine canopies, yellow stones, chipmunks, squirrels, into the unknown. don't feed them, just jump in.
Please leave a comment on how the two work together.
eco-architects, Mitchell Joachim, Lara Greden, and Javier Arbona, designed the structure combining contemporary digital technologies with some great concepts drawn from various vernacular sources. The result, a living, growing structure: a microcosm of ecology and high technology.
TerreformONE, the collective, is a non-profit design group... wow. according to the site, "Terreform ONE is a unique laboratory for scientists, artists, architects, students, and individuals of all backgrounds to explore and advance the larger framework of green design. The group develops innovative solutions and technologies for local sustainability in energy, transportation, infrastructure, buildings, waste treatment, food, water, and media spaces."
this post is long over due, but i'd been helping construct uwm's first entry into the solar decathlon. this is building competition that 'joins 20 college and university teams in a competition to design, build, and operate the most attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered house.'
the project is the culmination of two years of design and execution. i jumped in during the last 6 months of the project as a builder. not really having much formal training in carpentry, i learned on the job, fast. we all did. the house was showcased in dc from october 9 - 18, 2009.
the project - meltwater - uses nature as a model. much of the region around milwaukee has been shaped by glacial forces. the earth's shaping strength is articulated in the butterfly roof and along the south facade. the design was stimulated by a desire to harness the limitless power of solar energy and our finite fresh water resources.
the rain screen ungulates over the surface, giving depth and allowing shadows to paint its surface. 'the topographical facade sweeps across the front of the building reminding the building and its maker where we come from, and our indelible ties to our region.' we worked closely with the aldo leopold center, many of the materials used in the house were sustainably harvested from the foundation's grounds - including the rain screen.
the form and potential of the home takes on the strength characterized by the natural process that reworked our regional landscape.
we constructed in multiple locations around milwaukee, including our newly renovated kenilworth building - with historical ties to milwaukee's long tradition to industrial processes - and the courtyard of the school of architecture and urban planing. we had eight days to reconstruct the house on the mall - the heart of washington dc. we were in the early morning shadow of the us congress and the evening shadow of the washington monument.
there, we ran into some snags and our competition scores reflect. it began after we were re-routed around indiana and later getting into washington dc. the deliveries put us two days tardy... growing pains. it's all a learning process.
there will be a flood of new posts in the next fews days... weeks... however long it takes me. i've been without the internet for the last few weeks.
kicking it off. i stumbled upon an artist doing some really nice time lapse videos. combining graffiti style, with outrageous dedication and collaboration. here's a taste of some of the recent work:
check out the sketchbook as well. the images are provocative if not disturbing. their is also a great gallery of large scale work.
My ever new height reaching associative meaning surfing, has lead me, this morning, to some interesting articles. How do things develop? Something we take for so much granted... where did it come from? The article below on the origins of the Hoodie got my mind turning-- especially when it came to the end of the article with the blip on how high fashion designers adopted it- but only after 50 years of becoming popular. What does it mean to take things for granted? And, in the second article... an evolutionist questions why we run in shoes. Why do we?
Ever since I was recommended "Chaos" by James Gleick, I've begun a love affair with scientific philosophy. I stumbled across this article about Quantum Mechanics in Scientific American about new views of space relationships and nonlocality. The first few pages were sort of introductory, but it was the final paragraphs that grabbed my Architects' waning ADHD attention.
Follow the link below the few poetic excerpts I've highlighted.
"We believe that everything there is to say about the world can in principle be put into the form of a narrative, or story. Or, in more precise and technical terms: everything there is to say can be packed into an infinite set of propositions of the form "at t1 this is the exact physical condition of the world" and "at t2 that is the exact physical condition of the world," and so on. But the phenomenon of quantum-mechanical entanglement and the spacetime geometry of special relativity—taken together—imply that the physical history of the world is infinitely too rich for that."
"...we need to take seriously the idea that the world's history plays itself out not in the three-dimensional space of our everyday experience or the four-dimensional spacetime of special relativity but rather this gigantic and unfamiliar configuration space, out of which the illusion of three-dimensionality somehow emerges. Our three-dimensional idea of locality would need to be understood as emergent as well. The nonlocality of quantum physics might be our window into this deeper level of reality."
as i alluded to in a previous post. russell mahoney is a recent graduate of the frank lloyd wright school of architecture. it's has been a long standing tradition for the apprentices to design and build structures to live in down in the desert. taking that mentality into midway's failing silo structure, he has designed a series of platform based on the principles of tinker toys. over-designed components allow platforms to be interchanged and elaborated as the need arises.
russell has been sympathetic to the historical fabric/enclosure that is the silo. light filters in through the clerestory windows near the top of the structure and filters down through layers of platforms creating a soft, pleasant and comfortable atmosphere for studying, reading and sleeping.
to elaborate on the education post by jessie [see below]. i feel like this is an excellent exercise for students to really engage in designing and building; something lacking, at least, in the education at uwm.
[ Photos copyright 2009 Russell Mahoney + Eric Oxendorf ]
Nick's post on his first visit to Taliesin has given me a reminder about the thoughts I've been developing on Architectural education and my misgivings. While it was Nick's first visit, I've been a staple guest over the past few years. I've attended lectures, know the students and fellows as friends and have participated in the community there many times more than I can discern from memory. One thing that strikes me as positive in their cirriculum is the immense intamacy they have with their environment. In any architectural school, there is a tendency to over-stay your welcome in regards to your health, social life and sleep schedule, and a connection with the people and place you all share is close and taken for granted. But the very roof under which the students at FLLW School is a lesson-- and I mean that not as it was constructed by FLLW, but because they acutally have to help rebuild it. The buildings on the estate are part of the laboratory of the school. It is not necessarily my place to go into the details of politics and problems this may bring up amongst the broader community of people and the preservation-minded and musuem-minded who want things fixed quickly and definitvely, but it is my opinion that the experimentation and lessons the students learn by working on their own place of life has been something missing from an education like my own, for instance.
On a broader level, the idea of learning should very rarley be associated with a museum-like quality. One cannot simply look at ideas under a glass case, nor should one be asked to understand things 'later' or without tactile input. Most career-oriented programs in higher education require some sort of internship, apprenticeship or mentorship program. Architectural school tend to pretend they have this covered with studio work, IDP, and the insistance of learning from work. But non of these have any weight in the physical realm. Architecture needs to actively insist on buidling. Turning out idea-makers does not mean we can not turn out craftsmen. Some have this ability, but it needs to be common. Structure classes cannot be simply statics and codes and politics and the age-old "look it up in your construction companion text." It needs to be classes in wood, in steel, in concrete, in alternative and non-traditional materials. And objects, shelters and stand-up construction should happen. I feel robbed of this, and I only now see that I will have to take it into my own hands to learn the tools of these crafts. No wonder the post-modern world is full of office buildings of post and beam and manufacturer-standed components. Money is the easy answer, but I contest it is the quality of thought and practice of our recent past. We don't know how to build anymore, and builders who are craftsmen or engineers who are passionate are rarely asked to use their whole skill or knowledge, and no one seems to ask them (or are educated in how to ask them) what alternatives and solutions there are to join two things together or make things stand up. We simply don't know. That is a problem.
after brief stops for lake louie's 'kiss my lips' ipas and pbrs, and procuring fresh wisconsin cheese curds, we take the scenic route to the hillside school compound. over the waterfall, around the 'house', through the corn fields [which i heard was a golden sea of wheat during the first growing season], past midway's silo steeple [surrounding apprentice russell mahoney's jewel of an installation], we received the shade of an ancient oak.
over the weekend, i was realized a long awaited visit to the fabled taliesin [east]. a local legend and personal hero's compound of living, learning and laughing. the school's 2009 summer box celebration - a festive event marking the final presentations of the idealistic, optimistic, exuberant students as well as a gathering of some fellows, well-doers and characters from all the old stories i've heard of this pastoral paradise. originally, this event marked 'Mr. Wright's' birthday, today its meaning has been reincarnated. if you want to hear some great stories from the day's of 'Mr. Wright' minerva montooth is your lady. this sweet matriarch has been involved with the taliesin fellowship since 1947 and personally assisted 'Mr. Wright' for nearly 23 years.
during the afternoon we caught ourselves up with the student's projects, made introductions, and heard stories from past visits. a few apprentices have succeeded in a major undertaking - red squared art gallery. this place is has some innovative use of materials - peg boards clad the walls, making hanging exhibitions quickly and neatly. additionally there are some accordion walls that break the space up with great connections: zip ties. the evening included trips between the gallery turned dance hall and the shed for pizza, beers and conversations added depth to the evening.
our tent pitched, a bright orange folly on the landscape, we awake to the birds calling and the sun filtering through the screens. earning our keep; sweeping, dusting, picking tomatoes for the dinner salads, preparing tables, and tableware we passed the afternoon exploring midway and swinging in the hammock.
as the sun set we continued showing our appreciation for the invitation by serving drinks, cooking food, and serving - we all helped out to make the event. after a dinner that had those who knew remembering the 'old country' we retired to an incredible dance party - in the assembly hall. learning to salsa, box step and bachata we spent the night shuffling our feet, cutting and mixing.
the migration to the winter complex happens this weekend... we await spring.
what a Man. and what an Architect: cigar in one hand, stylish lead holder in the other.
a phenomenologist, speaking of a particular place, with particular materials, but with insight into what could be discerned as contemporary viewpoints, such as "all parts as a whole" and always experiencing the "imprint of the architect", "never escaping the presense of the architect." and those ideas which belong to both, perhaps: architecture of the 5 senses, architecture as instrument, materiality and comprehensive design.
a small firm of 10 designers is doing some interesting work in beijing. according to their philosophy vector architects is established by partners with combined experiences in architecture design practice and real estate development [this shows their chinese sensibilities]. the firm pursues the fundamental simplicity and logical clarity through the everyday thinking and working process.
i've always wanted to do a project like this. the idea is to develop the concept of “temporary” from a meaningful perspective, to design a piece of floating “installation” in the garden, which could be built, demolished, and recycled through an easy and straightforward way with the least impact to the planned site.
1. the structural member can be recycled when the building is eventually taken down. 2. overlap the structural member factory fabrication process with site excavation; minimizing the construction schedule. 3. the building is elevated, greatly reducing the excavation and foundation work, allowing easy demolition and site recovery
i love the building envelope: an envelope of grass. a vertical grass wall paneling system and green roof provide support. it's not only aesthetically pleasing, but practical by; 1. reducing the heat gain and loss and enhancing the thermal efficiency. 2. the grass panels will reduce storm water runoff. 3. although the central lawn is taken away to make room for this building, vector effectively triples the original planting area by using the grass panels. 4. grass wall panel is planned to be relocated onto the partial fence of the residential compound after demolition. 5. it visually harmonizes the temporary structure with the existing garden and the so called “classic spanish” style
bjarke ingels group [ big ] is a copenhagen based architectural firm. a big place. 85 architects, designers, thinkers doing some amazing work. their site is a little wild. they only showcase a few highlight projects - this one not up yet. but their firm philosophy is written quite eloquently explaining their desire to harmonize between the two diametric oppositions [historically] in architecture: "investing in the overlap between radical and reality."
vernacular structures [yurts] are employed as formal inspiration. the result is a combination of elemental architectural concepts [universal archetypes]; circle, rotunda and arch merged, with the addition of the yurt, into an overlapping, flowing moebius strip.
the project amalgamates computer generated design, sustainability and high architectural thought into an absolutely composed and articulate form.
these are some of the best diagrams i've seen yet. wow. clear, elegant, graphic. beautiful, informative, inspiring...
their rendering is something to be awestruck by as well. [see above too]
check out these links for more info, pictures, etc.
