Archive for June, 2009
The Royal College of Art Show opened last week with some excellent work which no doubt wmmna will cover in depth. One project I particularly enjoyed was Tom Foulsham, an ex-Bartlett graduate and now graduate of the RCA’s Design Products programme.
In some ways Tom’s work could be compared to Heath Robinson’s imagined machines and certainly he has that mad inventor spirit, but underneath this is a sensitivity that should not be underestimated. His intricate machines are both playful and though provoking.
They are beautifully balanced and responsive objects that play with the forces of nature as well as the forces of information. His work and very much more great work is on display at the RCA this week.
June 30th, 2009
I first saw Jimenez Lai’s work when it was presented at Materials & Applications in LA. Finally he’s put together a website so I thought I’d cover 2 recent pieces of his work. Jimenez describes his work as an exploration of “hypothetical scenarios of experimental architecture. By pressing alternate conditions against our context, the projects aim at interrogating different points of views and broaden the ways we engage conventions. Graphic novels and physical installations are the two primary weapons of choice, and we believe representation is more than half the battle. The drawings often explore storylines of architecture and urbanism that dramatize exaggerated realities. The projects swerve back into the physical world via the interactive installations derived from the stories. These installations are attempts to better understand the spatial implications of the two-dimensional fiction.”
Phalanstery Module
This installation grown from the hypothesizes that in zero-gravity, one can rotate (in) architecture and treat all elevations as plans – i.e., walls, ceilings and floors. Without gravity, all surfaces can be occupied. In essence, the distinctions between orthographic drawings become obsolete. To this end the installation will be a large constantly rotating structure which visitors will be able to approach and use differently every time.
The installation is inspired by a comic book Lai created to assert commentaries regarding the Broadacre City– a 1932 Frank Lloyd Wright vision of a Utopian city where each family own a one-acre agrarian plot and commutes by private automobile. Wright never really took into account that space and natural resources are limited. We are witnessing such an impact today. Wealthier citizens have fled cities for sprawling suburban sub-divisions.
Downtown cores are left to the poor, and cities are becoming increasingly ineffective in controlling energy consumption. Lai takes Broadacre City to outer space. Flipping it on its side and making it an Ark are ways he signifies that resources are finite. It is a world where every man (gets) a dwelling unit and every man (gets) a pointlessly boring job… until the citizen dies.”
Point Clouds
This project uses a set of standard modules and simple geometric rules to compose a system. The com- plexity Lies within the softness of the connection points.
When force is applied to one rotary joint, the entire structure will respond with further geometrical transformations. Softness allows the piece to be interactive, as visitors can converse with the impermanence of its form. Affordances, as defined by psychologist James J. Gibson, embody all action possibilities latent in the environment, objectively measurable and independent of the individual’s ability to recognize them.
Dimensions, in this case, has various meanings in the many ways our bodies may instinctively inform actions such as lean, sit, grab, skip or pull. Any storyline of the above appropriations will have a physical morphology in the diagram. Self-illuminating pigments are applied to the control points to highlight its topology at night. This project engages the limits of the body as abstractions of architectural programs and their relationships to the formal resolutions.
June 29th, 2009
It’s that time of the year and the Bartlett Summer Show begins today. Over 450 students are showing innovative drawings, models, devices, texts, animations and installations. I find it usually takes a few visits to absorb everything.
Location
Main Quadrangle and Slade Galleries of UCL, Gower St, London WC1
Official show opening by Massimiliano Fuksas
Friday 26 June, 19.00
Exhibition open to the public
Saturday 27 June, 10.00 – 20.30
Sunday 28 June, 10.00 – 17.30
Monday 29 June, 10.00 – 20.30
Tuesday 30 June, 10.00 – 18.00
Wednesday 1 & Thursday 2 July, 10.00 – 17.00
Friday 3 July, 10.00 – 20.30
Saturday 4 July, 10.00 – 17.00 (show closes)
Guided exhibition tour by the Bartlett Professors of Architecture
Tuesday 30 June, please arrive at 6.30pm for 6.45pm start, tour duration approximately 1 hour.
June 26th, 2009
I just got back from Lisbon where I saw, amongst other things, the Gulbenkian Museum. Ok… it has very little to do with interactive architecture, but I was so inspired by it that I decided to write about it anyway.
The thing that really struck me walking through the museum was the balance throughout. I don’t mean in a the-building-is-almost-falling-down-but-not kinda way: I’m referring to an unusually great combination of art and architecture, and how it felt.
The museum building was designed by a team made up of the architects Ruy Jervis d’Athouguia, Pedro Cid and Alberto Pessoa and hints (rather strongly) at inspiration from Mies van der Rohe. The building’s minimalist concrete form sits in a beautifully landscaped park, concealing bunker-like yet welcoming rooms of marble and wood floors and ceilings. Blinds obscuring the view to outside through floor to ceiling windows reduce the outside image almost to paintings.
Inside, one of the most amazing art collections I’ve ever seen is actually given the space it deserves. The minimalist architecture is the perfect backdrop for an intricately crafted collection which includes everything from Egyptian treasures to Chinese and Japanese tapestries and ceramics, to Rembrants, Rubens’, and Monets. I’m not an art historian, by any stretch of the imagination, but clearly only the best was good enough for this collector.
That one man managed to gather this collection is unbelievable. That it has all ended up together in this setting is even more amazing. In a time when I’m thinking more and more about interactive and reactive installations, and the opportunities an increasing number of permanent commissions will bring, 2 hours walking through the Gulbenkian has reminded me in the significance of balance. Although completely static, save the variation of the small amount of natural light entering the museum, I would dare describe the resulting feeling of being in this museum as immersive. The combination of light, minimal architecture, a subtle connection to the surrounding landscape and an extremely detailed collection of artworks, drew everyone in a way I’ve rarely experienced. I could go on about this forever but I won’t – I guess I just look forward to seeing more and more interactive installations that find this balance too.
June 10th, 2009
I don’t usually advertise jobs on the blog but this is an opportunity to work with the Bartlett Interactive Architecture Workshop! Its a 2 year position and available for the right candidate at £22K PA plus £4K benefits. You need to be an architecture or design engineering graduate, preferably with experience of detail design and hands on workshop skills. You will be based in Litchfield and at UCL (UK) . The job is to help design, prototype, test and install a new interactive retrofit facade product. Contact Stephen Gage.
June 3rd, 2009