Mbr? Any Interest?

[garethace]

http://www.laforum.org/events.php

 

Any of the LA types here going to see Mr. Beksky get his award. I was at a lecture here in Dublin recently, it was quite good actually. Mr. Betsky is one very intelligent man me thinks. I like that in my architects!

 

http://www.archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2544

[mbr]

I like him, too. He spoke at a reception for Ben Van Berkel at UCLA and for an artist (name escapes me). It was pretty good. Not a lecture, just a long introduction, be he mananged to make it entertaining, intellectual, and still understandable.

 

His essay for Hadid's monograph is exceptional, I think, and really goes to explain her dynamism (which I have a particular attraction to). If you haven't read it, take a look.

 

I am currently in Connecticut, though. Won't be back to LA for a while.

 

Thanks for the link.

[garethace]

i have just spent the last two hours or so looking at the foreign office architects web site. What do you think about the completed photographs of hte Ferry Terminal.

 

I remember back in 1997 having to do study sheets of it, and I really had not got a clue what it meant, or what it might look like. Good things come to those of us who wait long enough I suppose.

 

I did visit the Piano building in Amsterdam, which isn't a million miles away.

[mbr]

http://www.0lll.com/lud/pages/architecture/archgallery/foa_yokohama/pages/foa-yokohama_links.htm

 

I assume the Yokohama Terminal is what you are refering to?

 

I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it's an interesting approach and one of the few fairly successful (imho) blob exercises. On the other hand, I never really (personally) bought into the field/surface theory crowd. Great ideas and interesting discussions, but the results seemed too superficial and purely a result of Maya's modeling capabilities (a la Greg Lynn and other blobitects).

 

So it's interesting, and I'll give them credit for experimenting and getting it built. The materials are interesting, too. I believe it's pretty much gotten the same reactions from most people I've spoken to about it.

 

What do you think about it?

[garethace]

Well at the moment I have spent quite a bit of my time, trying to understand the scale of urbanity. That is, rather than ignoring surburban parts of the city, as architects here in Europe often do - to try to grasp through actual physical experience what these places are like.

 

The Hennighen Peng partners here in Ireland did a very interesting publication in the university, to try to understand how the new LUAS light rail project could be used to make a new relationship with Dublin city. Places that weren't very important for generations, suddenly have been discovered again, and interesting things happen around the stops for the new LUAS light rail, or could actually happen.

 

That is, parts of the city that were 'out there' in the suburbs are not so remote now. Sure it is not all city centre nice narrow street frontage stuff, it is out in open vast suburban territory.

 

Betsky refers to the modern pre-occupation with infrastructure - infrastructure is where we come together in shared experiences he said. His lecture talks a lot about Holland, and how they actually subsidise open space out there, because they deem it necessary for people. They even put sheep grazing there.

 

Betsky believes that for every more 10 acre field out in the suburb you build on, that a new open space should be clear in the city centre to allow cities to have much needed open space.

 

I am not sure if this says much about my opinions of Yokohoma, but i think the key to understand the better blobs projects, is to understand the context and try to imagine new parts of the city becoming more accessible to people. To allow people in cities to enjoy the benefit of open space, and that seems to be what the Terminal building does.

 

It seems like a place you could enjoy, while passing through it everyday waiting for a ferry.

[garethace]

I will post up some notes I took at the Betsky lecture too soon. Thanx for pointing out the Hadid essay too btw.

 

I think these kinds of images though, aren't blob-y, but do give an similar idea of space to that in the FOA web site.

 

http://www.arcstudio3d.com/exteriors/panorama_west1_fin1%20copy.JPG

http://www.arcstudio3d.com/exteriors/botg_view1_fin1%20copy.JPG

http://www.arcstudio3d.com/cdg_ice_rink_day_fin_1.jpg

http://www.arcstudio3d.com/cdg_ice_2_summer_fin1.jpg

http://www.arcstudio3d.com/cdg_ice_1_summer_conagra_fi.jpg

[garethace]

Or perhaps this little project.

 

http://www.a-matter.com/eng/projects/Mackay-Apartmenthouse-pr074-01-r.asp

 

A manifesto for open space. Promenade Architecturale etc.

 

Oberhofer and Février started to work on a concept that was to add public space to private space. They had noticed that the flat roofs of the case study houses had usually not been envisaged as living space.

[mbr]

That's interesting. I love the Mackey Apart House! It was one of the places MAK took us on the Schindler tour. His use of space is pretty great.

 

I completely agree with the 'landscape' idea, especially when introducing new elements of a large scale. It was highly encouraged in school to explore this, as a means of expressing the 'surface and field', and creating open, outdoor space. It also is an interesting solution to scale, as you suggest.

 

There have been several attempts at these kinds of solutins. Some are theoretically driven (Hadid, Morphosis), some software driven (Lynn, regardless of what he says), and some economically driven (think Rockefeller Center, and a project I worked on while at Gensler that is being built in Culver City, CA).

Personally, I prefer those that are skilled with form making (that have that intuition for creating space with form - as most architects don't necessarily have that sculptural ability). Hadid is moving in this direction.

 

Take a look at these links:

http://www.latentutopias.at/

Not too much, but an interesting grouping. I just stumbled across the link and thought I'd post it.

 

Snohetta does some nice work, too, and incorporates that landscape and scale with a little more logic, imo.

http://www.snoarc.no/

 

On an unrelated note, something I just came across:

I am really excited about seeing this project built in Denver! I will be there in January (permantently - I think) and will be able to watch the construction. They are just beginning to construct the foundation.

http://www.denverartmuseum.org/expansion/index.html

[garethace]

That is some beautiful use of Flash alright!

 

Hector's work here even, another friend of mine here at the form, has been improving dramatically in the last year - 2003. Notice how large scale some of the projects are, and he even begins to think in terms of planting and landscaping.

 

http://iruditek.com/hedaweb/mod_proyectos.php?PHPSESSID=9bed93bd2e199a340e3ba3583ef7357e

 

I must post up a little piece I have written about Capability Brown too, he is quite an innovator for his time and possessed something of that skill you are refering to.

 

http://www.archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?s=0cfdb30c75dc5472cc9ffca0b9f8779b&threadid=2437

 

Coincidentally, I notice the Ferry Terminal came up in this discussion at archiseek too:

 

http://www.archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2567

 

I haven't been keeping up much with what is cool in Architecture, so I actually have to read threads like that one, when I have a free saturday!

 

I think that Snøhetta and many of these Architects might be very dangerous Architects to look at it college. I know when I was doing college projects, I didn't know what width a real door was - it was just too easy to throw more space at the problem. But I actually think that in Scandanavia, they actually use their public buildings an awful lot more than we would in Ireland. I wrote something about this recently here:

 

http://www.archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2541

[HeDaCoM]

thank you

 

I'm studying a specialization in landscape architecture also and doing my final project for architecture... a music museum

I like landscape architecture very much. I had the privilege to assist to the 3th european biennial on landscape architecture this year.. and it was great.

 

Héctor

 

[ December 13, 2003, 11:49 AM: Message edited by: HeDaCoM ]

[mbr]

A lot of the issues have to do with scale and what the intention is of the space. For example, is it a park-like area, ciculation, or a intimiate gathering area. One of the first things I'd critique about Yokohama is that the grass is not accessible and it seems much of the surface is useless.

 

Peronally, I like Snohetta's work a lot. It looks like mine ! I like how landscape, via different surfaces and materials, can dissolve the edges, thereby diluting what is figure and what is ground (this is some of my thesis chatter).

 

Anyway, here are some of the images I managed to dig up. The idea was to bring the small town through the site and integrate the new community with the old, while giving access to the water. I hope some of it's clear.

I did the whole thing in about 1.5 months (but there was much prep before the design), so the 3D was quick and dirty.

 

 

 

[garethace]

I was just thinking about it last night, and how many of the buildings that I do like, including Le Corbusier's stuff, Meier's stuff, Mayne's stuff, Stirlings stuff - you have to understand, to work hard at this idea of people moving on a continuous surface to appreciate why I like those designs.

 

A lot of designs in architecture aren't overtly trying to imiatate the landscape as much as a Rem Koolhaas idea or MDRDV, but still the properties remain the same - you feel you can circulate around the building in a continuity rather than, dividing the outdoor street and the building interior.

 

Florien Biegel has written about this coming originally for Hans Sharoun - the idea of informal public spaces, which are inside the buildings of Sharoun. Sharoun felt Prague was the perfect city to experience for this kind of spatial idea - it was one with its landscape.

 

Le Corbusier into his Mediterranean living and Mies into his Eastern Tent like enclosures.