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Relevance Required Architects During Global Urbanization

Discussing the modern state of architecture in 2018, AIA President Carl Elefante states that architecture is going through a “relevance revolution”. We see a trend of urbanization excellerating in the underdeveloped parts of the world. If trends continue an urban future is certain but what Elefante statements come more as a warning. If architects don’t facilitate these populations shifts to the cities our practice could be left behind and our environments left critically neglecting the responsibility of human environments. Architecture is for most called to embrace its identity as art. Art is something that makes life an individual experience. Architecture has always been divergent from its identity as art but its importance to human life is too essential to continue this disconnect in practice.

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Think Like a City

The role of infrastructure is intrinsic to the role of an architect. We are called to seek out layers within the aspects of desired functions. The designation of these liars and their boundaries form a dynamic that in postmodernism holds are the foundations within design.

This has morph in foundational design supports structure as the acceptable outline of a building and emphasizes it as just one layer of the architecture. The form fits the function in this sense and can be compared to propositions of infrastructure outlined by Rem Koolhaas, 1991. -The site of a subject should be created in conjunction with the subjects inception where the object is not defined by its site but it site is linked to its identity. -The aim is to solve a problem specifically saying that retainment of a an non determinatal status while achieving precise improvements is essential to an infrastructure. This is pursued with management in its cultivation and slow shifts over time in relation to the infrastructures conditions

-Infrastructure is not self referential but allows avenues for, designers, architects and civil engineers in conjunction with their communities to make a tactical improvisations.

-Allows design contingency of the site and subject for immediate conditions while maintaining continuity throughout the entire system. -Although infrastructure is actualized in massive static Structures found in highways and bridges these moments with in the design are meant to be interpreted as a part of the of the life existing within the whole. It draws attention to detail regarding open spaces and the future development of an identified systems as well as the ever changing needs of the organism. structures found in highways and bridges these moments within the design that are meant to be interpreted as a part of the living of the life that engulf it. 

-Infrastructure is engaged while changing environmental conditions of its territory and mitigating density in relation to its tree like formation. -Typical elements and repetitive circumstances approached infrastructurally allow detailed designs to develop revolving around the function of the object as opposed to it as static. Approaching something  infrastructurally allows detail designs to develop revolving around the function of the objects as opposed to its appearance.

Relating ones Architecture to infrastructure is important to the meaning sought by modern conventions. The medium of infrastructure is geography and represents communication that avoids the barrier of particular design  language. If the aforementioned 17 propositions of every structure were applied to architectural projects then architecture would be self re-inserted into the conversation of urban areas that architects need to be included in.

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Sustanable Variety

As the process of continues from the modern era the progress of universalization speeds up with development of New corners of our globe. A new layer of aesthetic considerations are introduced in relation to this evolution. With the inclusion of more and more of the world's population into a universal society, western precedent faces a gap that needs to be crossed in order for continued existence and ultimately the obtainment of cohesion. This, the modern project, requires a critical look into regional cultural disposition and their roles locally and in the global community. This refers to the way local populations gather. The layer of spaces entrances and environment must reflect critical regionalism in order to appropriately serve their design. What have been the contributions to local culture and understanding and how can our architecture adapt to preserve these invaluable assets to mankind.

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Post Problematic Design Intelligence

The processes of professional design to build have radically changed over the course of the digital advent around the world. Many modern principals still primarily apply to contemporary ideas about architecture in practice but since 1921 work like Le Corbusier’s Vers Un Architecture has fallen in relevance with four heads parametric approaches and methodologies. Without the need for approximation facilitated by new creation platforms, digital design focus on adaptation transcending parameters and measurements. In this new order of Architecture the potential Of what can be achieved through Informed computational procedure dominates thought. Along with this the rationalization of materials utilized must also reflect current fabrication methods. Shifting attention from specifications the details of this design approach move from its feasibility into the overall accord of individual structures. The interaction, for example, between the interior of walls, supporting structures and exterior boundaries is now resolved with immediate intricacy. It’s streamlining of the design process to degree where considerations for structure are completely absolved of the architect. Feasibility however would be lost without the concurrence of a physics engine in design platforms as well as emphasis on materiality. As a post parametric practice expands into this new territory of architectural research must be focused on creating surfaces that preserve initial considerations of structural conventions that in the past have been assumed. Instead of standard repetitive design joints could be implemented in a surface based structural system critically designed around the form of an preeminent idea using computed parametric. Only in the understanding of material and freeform junctures can an architect’s awareness allow innovation in the design process and not just in the overview.

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Object  & Site Logic Intertwined

An expanded field has been used to describe sculpture in a era defining piece by Rosalind  Krauss which has offered distinctive observations on the expanded needs of 3D art. He opens his essay bringing the reader into a work, perimeters/Pavilions/ Decoys, 1978, by Mary Miss where a field contains an indicating spot, a swelling in the earth. At the site lies a large square face of the pit with ladders descending into the it. This flexible space is defining a boundary through a language of posts and beams. This project contains many subject specific elements but is sculpture in the form of earthenware nevertheless. Other example of contemporary sculpture he mentions are , “narrow corridors with TV monitors at the ends; large photographs documenting country hikes; mirrors placed at strange angles in ordinary rooms; temporary lines cut into the floor of the desert” He suggests that this milieu of objects claimed as sculpture makes the it uncategorizable due the seamless flexibility in its considerations. To understand sculpture as any other convention is to interpret the logic that has been associated with it historically. Something ROSALIND KRAUSS compares sculture to in Sculpture in the Expanded Fields are monuments. The equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius is such a monument, set in the center of the Campidoglio, symbolic presence, to represent the relationship between ancient, Imperial Rome and the seat of government of modern, Renaissance Rome. Monuments stand at a particular place for a specific meaning or event. Upon this examination this a sculpture’s pedestal is an important part of sculpture. Sculpture needs to be representative of the urgency of its spatial context.

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Norristown Presbyterian and Montgomery County Courthouse Oxidized

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Effected Cause

When the material that a work consists of is exposed, the natural elements of their composition result is a beautiful uniqueness in its final stage. The marbling in wood is a timeless example of the beauty of this hidden language. The unintended shared characteristics of an object and what it was fashioned from are universally applicable. Sometimes the elemental wear and tear of a object provide a great opportunity to its expression. This can be noticed in a copper steeple atop the Presbyterian Church in Norristown Pennsylvania across from the Montgomery County Courthouse. It’s oxidized green texture has become a landmark in the vista of the Schuylkill valley surrounding Philadelphia. The relaxation of materials used in an object should be considered in its genesis. Time’s unavoidable gradation  therefore makes wear pertinent to the identity, contributing to its every interaction. Advancement in technology in turn carries its own potential of unintended effects. Like a materials properties within the objects we imagine, these accidents of advancement are to be understood in conjunction with our work as architects. Paul VirilIo, A cultural theorist, quotes,”to invent the train is to invent a derailment and to invent the car is to produce the motorway pile up.” Things that are developed are inherently connected to the accident that caused by then. The costs of error as a result of each advancement seem to be getting more complex as we move throughout history making the understanding of our causes effects ever more important as we boldly pursue our destiny.

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Conceptualizing Actualization

The idea behind a process always gets more attention then its execution today more then ever as our ability to develop ideas expands into new territory. 

in our studio this semester we have been in a frenzy to complete model cubes out of chip board using  glue. this process has turned monumental with our latest models being double the size and featuring curved and straight edges. i found dumbfounded while speaking with my mother about what i was working on and heard her say “why aren't you guys just 3D printing them. Hearing my mom refer to a 3D print is beyond me and makes me realize the era in which my architecture career is unfolding. it also made me reason that in making the models by hand we were gaining invaluable insight on the nature of of design on a higher level. The feeling crafting each piece gives insight to what I had created and even drew an emphasis on the model’s individual faces and ho we linked them to actualize our accurately. 

Today the manner of making has become completely mass production as man kind progressively falls into worse craftsmanship. This development is fairly recent in scope of our history and we still had our environment is still one that is the majority out of craftsmanship out of individual craftsmanship. The ability that forwards most of the things we have today. Has not only greatly faded but continues to diminish The longer we manufacture completely on a automated level Because of this constructing the bottles by hand as an exploratory Exposition experimental gives us many benefits that people overlook lead decision was made to switch out involvement of human hand. Negative affects from this Form of created creation form of creation are how restrictive the uniformity lack of depth subtlety overtones VARIEGATION and diversity which all call to distinguish workmanship in a workmanship and object

This dance between design and craftsmanship echos the materialist’s counter-position from Plato’s The Republic, that without instance in reality.

today the manner of 

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the Language of Exposition

The spaces defined by the designs in this show featured very interesting cross sections and over looked in between space like the offset a wall creates or the gap in between floors and any elements of the designed “so called extra” room that is created as a need for space. The range this gave to each project was critical and elaborated onto the models, giving a direct enhancement in the presentation of the model and drawing. Having a different mode in the presentation gave more insight to the subject using a drawing to really strengthen its model in unseen elements. This was the most compelling feature in the show, as it is something that I aim for with my drawing for the second set of curved cube models.

A drawing featuring iterations of my failed unroll curv. commands, where the surfaces pile up on one another, created a completely original patterning from the random geometry of their plan drawings. It reminded me of that user error feeling while trucking through our cube models in my own rhino crash course. In that moment it’s language became translated to me.

I identified shadows as the subject in one drawing which correlated with the success of shadows in my own straight cube design and also with using the voids of current designs to make it take the place as the subject. 

The drawing using 3D dimensional aerial images of an urban area and freeway was very interesting to me because in the gallery environment it made me think in the terms I was familiar with while also thinking about this type of drawing even though I haven’t digitally drawn in perspective yet.

The thing that was impressionable to me was the variety of the subject matter in each work in that the entire space generated the language of the show transcending the unrelated nature of parts of each work.

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Post Modernism: the Understanding of Space

Post Modernism’s distinctive qualities  come from the environmental elements of late capitalism. As in individual it’s hard to imagine and impossible to understand the complexities of the system that now controls our world. That’s why even business oriented people have made projects that are oriented to describing space in a post modern way. 

This is wholly achieved in the Bonaventure building in Los Angeles which is visited both by locals and tourists enthusiastically. The building itself is inserted into the fabric of LA’s landscape In a very popularist fashion. 2 of its 3 entrances are into elevated gardens on either sides of the hotel with the main utility entrance on Figueroa st. This informal facades structure are in stark contrast to the grand entrances of the hotel marquee or any monumental presentation of a space that would be used in modern architecture. 

In this manner the Bonaventure strives to achieve its own city-like space in the totality of is design. It’s rounding lobby with no set paths is set up to experience hyper-crowds in unique manner and the many elevator and stair pathways it creates gives flight to the notion of this hyper-crowd. The uniformity of this idea lends an unprecedented grandeur to the Bonaventure while shattering all preconceived notions of that what that means.

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What Can Exist Without Instance

Peter Zumthor is a Swiss architect that embodies materialism through his use of sensory experiences. This attention to phenomena focuses on the physical and quantifiable aspects in a work embodying them from a subject’s inception.

An experience of a space when it is entered is not the function or purpose of that space. The phenomena that occur through light, sound and smell strike the observer. Their relativity in size, a position in the space and its climate of its form. In Zumthor's Wooden Pavilions, architecture is achieved on a grand level while it serves to protect an Ancient Roman site. The shelters create a definitive separation between the extents of the ruins and the modern Swiss city nettling them. Their silhouettes are proportioned to mimic the ancient building that once laid upon the foundations now in ruins, creating an atmospheric volumetric reconstruction.

Zumthor wants to bring sensations to someone within a space that are both very personal and yet very relatable. A lot of his work in Switzerland implements indigenous timber that has been treated to have a rich natural musk. For a work to bring one to memories of childhood or of the world they have come up to know is a paramount phenomena in Zumthor’s achievement of architecture. Peter Zumthor’s legacy is that of advanced authenticity in design and vision.

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In Movememt

Los Angeles, and Southern California, represent the maximum extremes of a human environment. Beginning later then the rest of the United States, California’s place in the world’s youngest civilization, the USA, present stark uniqueness at a glance. It is spread out and formatted. It’s Dense but low density. It has language but creates language. The unprecedented mobility both in the practical and platonic are what drives its character in every new iteration.

California’s location on the globe has caused Los Angeles’s circumstances. The mixture of culture, citizens, and economics make it unlike any city that’s ever been. This has given it an advanced view with optimistic attention to the future. Known famously for its beaches, Los Angeles was not founded on the coast and has formed into a pattern reaching outward to points closest to its coast. Today LA’s non polar layout is a resemblance of this pattern.

LA is expansive. It’s land area is so great and primarily is defined by the mountains splitting it off from the rest of California. The neighborhoods at the foot of this physical urban boarder are its foothills. Starting westward, Silverlake, Los Feliz, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Brentwood, then Pacific Pallasades. Value of a property correlate concurrently with their elevation as they surround the LA metro. Between the mountains and the coastline are the plains of Id. Divided out in a tradition homesteading system they have grown into the urban body of Los Angeles.