Sunday, October 17, 2010

Mora Rover Aquarium











Urban Sites

Urban Sites is known as applying some studies in order to show simplicity and complexity. It is the study of the Palmanuova Plan and the view of Milan. With respect to the study of Palmanuova Plan the drawer shows that there are boundaries, which gives the impression that the city is fixed and surrounded with walls. As for the view of Milan it doesn’t show that there are edges or boundaries for the city.
Urban Site had five concepts of thinking:
-1- Mobile Ground: Urban design actions are best considered in strategic terms focused on framing urban relations and structuring urban processes. It provides a space of progression, slippage, and continual revolution.
-2- Site Reach: For Urban design, the concept of a site is to reach at least a vision for its final point.
-3-Site Construction: The construction of the site and the using of each construction point defies information. (Scale, distance.. etc are some examples of these construction strategies)
-4- Urban Constellation: It consider urban sites as a rational constructs
-5-Defining The Indefinite: It characterizes urban sites as spatially elastic and temporally provisional. And what matters is gaining understanding of the city in the site.
These are the five concept l the Urban Site; they differ between one and another because each one look in a different way towards it.

fold screen project
















Defining Urban Sites By Andrea Kahn

urban sites are best defined by studying the Palmanuova plan and the view of Milan by Leonardo Da Vinci which show the Urban Site between simplicity and complexity. Studying the PLamanuova , we can clearly note that somehow the drawer has defined boundaries , everything is clear ; we have impression that the city is a fixed object bounded by walls impenetrable to any new intervention . Based on Da Vinci view of Milan we can see the other definition for Urban Plan in which it's impossible to locate the edge of the city .

Urban Sites are conceptualized in meaningful 5 ways :

-Mobile Ground : sites in interactions and intersections . It's a place for progression , slippage and revaluation .

-Sites Reach : every site should have at least a vision for its final point that should be reached , its limits , boundaries and its surroundings.

-site construction : moving or static , large or small scale , close or distant , each vantage point brings different aspects of a site to light and each way of organizing site information result in a distinct site configuration .

-Urban Constellation : it's about integrating knowledge of place-based urban characteristics with knowledge of larger scale that underly contemporary urbanism in all its form . It's about considering urban design sites as relational constructs.

-Defining the Indefinite : based on challenging the idea of a table site . It defines urban sites as elastic and temporally provisional . Ideas of boundary and scale are received in a slightly different way . It's gaining understanding of the city in the site .

In a word , Urban Sites have many ways to be defined and we cannot generalize it in one conclusion . It depends on who is looking !Complexity or simplicity , stable site or progression , many definition for defining Urban Sites

Suture Chair Project
















The Toledo house, bilbao, spain








The toledo house is a residence in spain that is very remarkable mostly because of its texture and its structure that reminds us of the old castles: the cylindrical part, the dark side and the color.
The texture is the most interesting part of this residence. The bricks used are square and rectangle shapes that are placed differently: some of the, are very close to each other, and others are more distant. This fact creates a sense of discontinuity of the texture that is very uncommon specially in modern architecture(our century) which is based on simplicity and continuity .
This sense of discontinuity is accentuated by difference in the tonality of the color of the bricks. We can notice in fact that the bricks are the same color, but some of them are lighter or darker, and placing them next to eachother creates a feeling of mosaic.
The last point about this discontinuity of the texture is the difference in the form of the bricks. In fact, we can notice a difference in the shape and size of the bricks that are placed next to eachother.



In architectural manners, we find there is a narrow stairs that leads you to the inside of the building. And also the way the opening are made is really out of common.
All of these new components are very attractive because of their very special and uncommon architecture and design.

Response on the reading : On site

In the reading "on site" Carol Burns brought up the subject of site in architecture. A site not only means the local position of a building, but it may also signify a space occupied or to be occupied by a building. Therefore two opposed conceptions of site can be established: the idea of cleared site and the idea of a constructed site. Carol also insisted on the importance of relating a building to the site. In fact, the conceptual content of site must be made available for study and opened to questions, and suggested two consideration of a site in architecture, the theorotical concept, what we think site is, and impact of theory on action concept, what we make of a site. the understanding of a site is neither self evident in looking at a particular example nor explicit in theoretical terms. Every site is a unique intersection of land, climate, production, and circulation. The site is a work, a human or social trace, and it is comparable to myth and temples, it is a product of culture, it is by nature not a finished or closed product. it is an artefact of human work that can neither be completed nor abondoned. its meaning can never be determinable. The site, like the human condition, is open.

Response To The Moment Of Complexity by Mohammad khalifeh

Throught out history, technological improvments acuated gigantic socail and cultural transformation. Back in 1989 the world witnessed a decisive shift from industrail to an information soceity, and that took place with the collapse of the berlin wall on november 9. Since then, the new network culture evolved. In order to understand the logic and dynamics of the network culture, it is necessary to consider how it grows out of and breaks with previous historical moments. From 1960 till 1990, the world veiwed soficticated developments such as electronic information and telematic technologies. Afer the cold war, a new system emerged - Globalization. The processes of Globalization are now creating a new networ culture whose complex logic and dynamics we are only begining to understand. The cold war reached to an end because it's system was designed to maintain stability by simplifying complex relations in terms of a grid. However, grids and walls offer no protection from spreading webs. As webs grow walls collapse and everything changed. Never the less, change accelerates quickly and that brought everything to the edge of choas. Rather than the abcense of order, choas is a condition in which order cannot be ascertained because of the insufficiency of information. Falling between order and choas, the moment of complexity is the point at which selforganizing systems emerge to create new patterns of coherence and structures of relation. In other words, the moment of complexity is the medium in which netwrok culture is emerging.
The grid is the figure of modernisim, Le corbusier suggests. Also, he suggests that grids and their geometry are so important for modern art and architecture as well as modern life and inorder not to perish, man should work for the production to be possible and to have a line of conduct. However, the laws of experience must be obeyed. What Le Corbusier descrides as the "march towards order" imposes disciplinary practices necessary for the efficient functioning of industrail society. The city of today is dying because it is not constructed geometriclly and the consequences of geometrical plans is repetition and mass production. In order to have a well functioning network there should be equality in the daily performance among both sides, manegment and workmen, because the manegment/labor relation is more like mind/body relationship.

C_wall 2


Analysis of Banq, Boston.







BANQ, is a restaurant in Boston, Massachusetts that has a very unique interior architecture composed of hundreds of sheets of plywood, all bent and cut into an undulating wave of texture. This wavy texture gives us a feeling that the architect is controlling everything overhead to take advantage of the height and gives a certain flexibility to the ground. To do so, he used hundreds of sections of plywood that he hanged across the length of the restaurant’s ceiling. Each pieces are different in their thickness or forms and the distance between the sectioned woods is variable according to their placement: in the center of the restaurant, the space between the sheets of wood is more important than around the columns, etc… It is said that the interior acoustics of the restaurant are excellent as the hollow spaces between the sheets of plywood dull and buffer the noise. Also, we can find a variation in the thickness of the wood that is also more or less important according to its placement in the restaurant: near the walls, the thickness of the sheet is less important than at the middle or around the wine room and columns. These variations causes a rhythm of compression and release and this is one of the most noticeable qualifier of this restaurant other than its very unique and luxurious design.

On site : Architectural Preoccupations, carol j.burns

The location of the work of architecture is considered very essential for the work itself since it represents the way the builders and the users of this work of architecture view it.
At first, the location is an empty space which is measured and designed in a way that prepares it for the work. The location of the site is an entity in itself and the work of architecture is assumed to model this site and assimilate it with the architecture through using mimetic imitation and organic assimilation.
The cleared and contstructed sites are a blend that forms a complex site and both are the result of a formation of architectural involvement on a site. The location may integrate the site of a building and the space of this site were this building is positional or going to be positioned later. The site comes into existence when working on it actually starts like measurment and setting boundaries. The lot presents a local conception of land done by measuring the lot in accordance to a group of conceptual coordinates. The boundaries of the lot shows a situation which protraits the site at a scale. The culture plays an important role in relation to the idea of the land. The natural scene of a landscape reflects the way many architects view the sites which are found in such landscapes.
Location means a specific place and the presence of a plan used in that place. Modern architecture views the importance of the site according to technical use.

Freddy Screen

Freddy Screen It is a fiber glass and expanded hollow core screen. It has a benefit of achieving a great relative strength to weight ratio as in common in the construction of new racing yachts and cars. The screen is able to be molded to compound curvatures as a mean of giving more depth to its sleek (inch thickness), it is framed by an aluminum tubes, and covered in a fiberglass surface. The translucency of the fiberglass provides privacy and sense of porosity as light and shadows are allowed to pass through its thin membrane This screen is composed of one unit that is duplicated in order to form l the shape of the screen, the details of the Freddy Screen are shown below:







C_wall


Summarize Tarek Jaber

The Moment of Complexity
Emerging Network Culture

Throughout history, technological innovation triggers massive social and cultural transformation. We are currently living in a moment where systems and structures are changing at an unprecedented rate. Such rapid changes need to develop new ways of understanding the world. The collapse of the Berlin wall in 1989 signaled a shift from Industrial to an Information society. These walls which seemed secure became walls that allow diverse flows to become global. In the post war years in 1989, modern industrial organization became more obvious. These changes brought new communication technologies. Architects, Mies Van der Rohe, Venturi, and Frank Gehry became possible to trace movement of industrial society through media to network culture. This trajectory suggests that the moment of complexity can be understood in the ways of shift from world structured grids to networks. The contrast between grids and networks clarifies the transition from Cold War System (walls) to Globalization (network culture). In Cold War System, was designed to maintain stability by world in which walls provide security, however walls collapse as webs grow. A new economy displaces the old. A connection proliferates, changes, accelerates, while the wall divides and doesn’t really control. The dynamic of chaos and complexity share certain characteristics and differ in important ways. Chaos theory was developed as a corrective to the linear system of Newtonian physics. In contrast, complexity less concerned with the establishing of the inescapability of determinate chaos than with what John Castri labels the science of surprise. The grid is the figure of modernism. The grid and its geometry are very important for modern architecture. Geometry is the means whereby we perceive the external world and express the world within us. Man walks in a straight line because he has a goal and he knows where he is going. We must build on a clear site; cities are dying because it isn’t constructed geometrically. Hitchcock and Johnson described the new architecture in familiar terms: “absence of ornament”, “functionalism”, “principles of order” and most important “the formal simplification of complexity”. In 1972, Robert Venturi and his colleagues published the book credited with beginning of post modern architecture. In today’s world, grids which might have worked in industrial society are absolute network culture.

C_wall

C_wall is the result of a series of deformations produced by folding the points based data, followed by cutting the fill and leaving only the contour, which transform the points base into volumetric cells. Each cell has different scale related to the deformation made to its point base. the folding technique expands the three dimensional vocabulary of surface by producing deformation and inflection. These deformations and the various scale of the cells reflect an interesting patterns of light and shadows, this what makes the wall extremely artistique and attractive. The material used to produce the C_wall makes the deformation easier. In fact, thin paper can be easily fold and cut, and also it makes the structure extremely high strengh to weight ratio, since thin paper makes the wall weight very , on the other hand the folding technique divide the pressure of the weight on the whole wall, that's what makes the structure very strong and weighing very little.

Response to "The Moment of Complexity"

The modern world of architecture has evolved greatly with time and what used to be simple structure is now a series of complex systems and structures. The rapid transformational change that's undergone requires the development of new methods in order ro interpret the world we live in. "chaos" in "the edge of chaos"is simply a state where order is difficult to acheive because there's an inadequacy of information. Complexity is later on said to be a point at which innovation begins in patterns,structures, and style. theoretical boilogist stuart kauffman, discusses the socail and cultural extents of the modern complexity, and whats interesting is his stress on "order and surpries". Knowing the grid as the figure of modernism, Le Corbusier sets his ideology in revolve around math and geometry; which i find to be just as he says, a "foundation". I find le corbuseir's sarcastic approach with "The Pack-donkey's way" fascinating and evident in that it is responsible for the inorganization of the city. Again, Le Corbusier emphasizes in metaphor the "dying" of city becomes of the non-geometric means its been brought about by moving on, at superficial complexity, international style has come to have one goal, stylistic effect. Now with venturi's observations of twentieth century technology's influence on 19th century industrial vision, and formation being decorative, I only saw an extra perspective towards architectural analysis. In network culture, it's mentioned that form in general is not as simple as of now, but rathur more complex. architect gehry guggenheim's museum interplays grid and network beautifully tying roads and rivers and the art of architecture to the art of god. It is truly fascinating, the concepts, the diverse architectural approaches, and the alteration of architecture with the process of time.

URGENT- A COUPLE OF REMARKS ON POSTED WORK



-       First: post all your reading comments typed and not scanned (labiba and maher).

-       Second: for the project analysis: NO PHOTOSHOP LAYOUT IS ALLOWED ( aya).

-       Third: For your deformation analysis: you should draw by hand and not just describe in text ( labiba, aya). 
o   I am expecting a diagram of what the unit is,
o   then another diagram(s) showing the different steps of the deformation(s)+ identification of the deformation’s  nature- you should name what the deformation is next to each diagram( Ex: Cut+ fold , scaling+ rotating, bending and sectioning)…

Refer to the list that I gave you in your assignment handout. have consistant and well drawn diagrams ( maher)

Fold Screen + Suture Chair Project







Definin Urban Site by Andrea Kahn " Site Matter"





Post Post Post

Post your work ( project analysis+ comment on readings)
I won't take the work tomorrow in class. It has to be posted on the blog so we can discuss it tomorrow in class. 

An Excerpt from "The Moment of Complexity- Emerging Netwrok Culture" by Mark C. Taylor

Mark C. taylor touches upon several categories, such as politics, culture and society, in order to explain the ideologies behind grids and netwroks. he tries to differentiate the world into two parts, that of network structure, and that of grid structure, and he moves on to talk about the hisotry and pioneeers of each. I found his analogy of walls (security) and webs (complexity) quite interesting. his assertion of grids being "order" and networks being "chaos", is also intriguing, and the quote by Stuart Kaufman, "Life evolves toward a regime that is poised between order and chaos," sums up the entire reading. i also enjoyed reading the section on Le Corbusier where he talks about the difference between man and donkey, and their relationship to modernism/post-modernism. It was no surprise to see Adolf Loose mentioned in the excerpt, his anti-ornamentation stance reverbaerates in the segment on MVDR. The strict and ordered traits of the grid system is countered well with the introduction of netwrok structures. I found the part on Frank Gehry to be fascinating since he lived in a lifetime where the impossible became possible. Overall the piece was a good read and contained several storng messages to aspiring architects such as:
  • be unpredictable
  • principle of order
  • know your history
  • be informed well
  • Inform well
  • Architecture reflects a society
  • Functionalism
  • Simplification of complexity