Showing posts with label Week 1 - ExquiSITE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Week 1 - ExquiSITE. Show all posts

Extra Research - Walking City





The Walking City was an idea proposed by British architect Ron Herron in 1964. In an article in avant-garde architecture journal Archigram, Ron Herron proposed building massive mobile robotic structures, with their own intelligence, that could freely roam the world, moving to wherever their resources or manufacturing abilities were needed. Various walking cities could interconnect with each other to form larger ‘walking metropolises’ when needed, and then disperse when their concentrated power was no longer necessary. Individual buildings or structures could also be mobile, moving wherever their owner wanted or needs dictated.

“Walking City imagines a future in which borders and boundaries are abandoned in favor of a nomadic lifestyle among groups of people worldwide.”


One day, in the near future, a city like a walking city may be “real”ised as technology improves and advances. This means that technology that we have is influencing the architecture, in a broader sense, the whole world, at a vast amount. And part of the technology may be Culture Technology using new kinds of mediums and modalities especially digital. These technologies are saying that they are creating the world a better place and for this instance, the walking city which is an imagined world seems to be a very nice, flawless and peaceful place with no borders and boundaries. However, would that really be a utopia or a dystopia? That is the question that clicked in my head with this idea of a ‘walking city’.

“A new generation of architecture must arise with forms and spaces which seems to reject the precepts of ‘Modern’ yet in fact retains those precepts. We have chosen to by pass the decaying Bauhaus image which is an insult to functionalism. You can roll out steel – any length. You can blow up a balloon – any size. You can mould plastic – any shape. Blokes that built the Forth Bridge – they didn’t worry.” - David Green in Archigram Magazine
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Data Collection of the Microclimate

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ExquiSITE


The highlighted bit of the image above is the allocated sector of Auckland CBD site that we are working on to generate 3 images. The three images that we are directed to create is one section and two elevations of either side of the road. The most important thing to do with these images are to recreate the elevations and sections so that they cover some ideas of utopia/dystopia and ‘The Ultimate City’.

Left Elevation

Through this image, we wanted to create a sense of moment how a utopian building is constructed and put standing on a dystopian site. The building is emphasized as utopia through its bright blue feeling and the organised and consistent look of the building. Grided, ordered facade and its verticality convey the idea of perfect world. Whereas the outer site has very dim, polluted view and with cars and unhealthy looking sky which leads us to think about dystopian world. And one more interesting moment to take a look at is the growth of tree/ tree bursting out of a pole. Therefore, there is a hint of architectural duality in this overall image.


Right Elevation

Right elevation of the site is also showing us the two perceptions to look at the site. The left part of the image is bright, blue, clean, tidy with a stiff looking building. Whereas, on the left hand side, there is polluted atmosphere with a rusted looking gas station. This gas station has a relationship between the story, ‘The Ultimate City’ where Halloway finds a broken down gas station with fuels all empty and used up.  We have also imported the idea of duality of utopia and dystopia to show that neither of them are really ideal and perfect. Which means that by having both of them mixed well together may create an “Ultimate City”.


Left Section

From what our group observed at the site, we gathered that the main building was a uni lodge/accommodation of some sort for university students. After looking around the outside and peering into the windows, we were able to locate that the bottom floor was a gym and reception. From that information we were able to proceed with illustrating a section of the building, by adding rooms and elevators on top of the ground floor reception and gym.
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Site Summary - Auckland CBD



100 Beach Road, Auckland Central,
Off-Centered on the Vector Arena our modestly scaled cityscape is in its own way a cluster of side streets that form a self-sufficient neighborhood. It is cut off from the city by the rail line and the cliff and roads that once were the coastal foreshore.






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Material Textures















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Rough Sketches



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Stop Animations


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Avatars



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The Ultimate City - J.G.Ballard

What I think is the ultimate city?
My perspective on an idealistic ultimate city, would be a city that has a perfect balance between construction/technology and organic natural elements. To create a city that doesn’t control nature, but embraces it with open arms. A city with a maze of transport routes that were environmentally friendly, easy access to places by foot to discourage the use of cars and other fossil fuel burning engines/machines. A city with a sense of whole community, low crime and economically sustainable job and business. Neither the boom or the bust. A city that would take an advantage of the technologies that we have invented as a species to overcome problems succinctly, and to appreciate the best for both humans, and the world we live on.

Two cities, which is the ultimate city?
Personally, from what i gathered in reading this book, I think that the Garden city is the ultimate city. Although on the surface it appears to be a relaxed countryside type of lifestyle, i think it would make the ultimate city, as it has hope for the future even though it may not be the ideal exciting city scene that the metropolitan had. The Garden city has a sense of community, fairness, and respect to its surroundings. It isn’t based on greedy consumption and economic competition between firms or politicians to fight over oil or other dying resources. Instead it has adapted to a new, maybe even old way of life in order to keep the generations going.

What is utopia?
Utopia is an idea of a city or place that is perfect - it is the
idealistic way of life for everyone where everything is in harmony and peace. Utopia can mean various things - living in harmony with nature, having a perfect world where everything is in order, or an ideal society/community. It is the opposite of Dystopia.

What is dystopia?
Dystopia is the opposite to Utopia - meaning that it is the unideal, polluted, depressing way of life or place. It is referred to as a place or a community that is dysfunctional and over all has a negative feel or emotion to it. Nothing is perfect, or close to it.

And which of those words fits which city and why?
Out of the two cities that were described in the book (Garden city and metropolis) i think that the garden city would fit the utopian description better then the metropolis, due to the way it is illustrated and expressed in the book as a fine city with natural recourses and a sense of pure stability. It gives off the impression that the city is somewhat perfect - it has a sense of a sound community, freedom and relaxation along with allowing the natural elements to overgrow and be unleashed. The metropolitan on the other hand, was built to be a lively city that would revolutionize the world. But when population and pollution increased, and resources decreased, the way of metropolitan life seemed to be a impossible future. This city represents the dystopian idea because the city has a sense of abandonment, unpleasantness and a demand for controlling and over-throwing nature, rather then allowing the two elements to get on harmoniously.
-Emily Smith
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Hotel Research



We have searched for some of the examples of hotel exterior and interior.


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Methods of Manipulation - Jennifer Bloomer


In her text about James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake identifies “Signifiers do not signify in a linear or hierarchical fashion but in mulptiple directions: they slide, they move, suggesting a space created by the signifier as it indicates the directions of its own movement through fields of knowledge. The material exhibits similarity on multiple levels to Freudian mechanisms of signification (condensation and displacement) in dreams.

The material is manipulated through strategies of:
-Deformation
-Splitting
-Multiplication
-Repetition
-Motifs
-Numbers
-Geometrical configurations (Euclidean and Non-Euclidean)
-Collision
-Portmanteau words (two or more words that “collide” to form one)
-Ambiguity 
-Sliding signifiers
-Portmanteau words
-A dominant presence of hermaphroditic emblems
-Necessity to use extra –visual senses to decipher
-Blurring of distinctions between visual and verbal
-Homophonies
-Superimposition
-Of structures
-Of disseminated material 
-Of sematic content (ambiguity)
-Fragmentation 
-Thematic weaving and Layering
-“Phenomenal Transparency”
-Absence of hierarchies
-Plays of resemblances 
-Presence of syntactic armatures
-Residues of processes left in the object
-Excess
-Reflexivity
-Self-allegorizing “

For Bloomer these moves are Joyce’s manipulations that shift the linear time based narrative to a space of the “potentially infinitely generative neighborhoods and spatial relations, not sequences of events and causes and effects”. These techniques allow us to enter the object of the book not chase its tale.
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Evolutions of Architecture - Charles Jencks

Our group have chosen 9 words out of timeline blobs called ‘Evolutionary Tree’ and have done further research about those words to get better understanding at some of the evolution in architecture as well as inspiration for the upcoming project.

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Questions of Space - Bernard Tschumi



1. Is space a material thing in which all material things are to be located?
No. I think that space is not all about materiality which means that other conditions and parts may form a space. To me, it feels as if the term ‘space’ is more emotional/psychological than physical/material thing. Hence, space is not really a material thing in which all material things are to be located.

2. Is perception of space common to everyone?
Yes, I think so. Through our senses, we can see, touch and feel the spatial values that places have, and this tells us that perception of space is common to everyone. However, I think there are some levels of perception that people can have. For example, some people have no sense of direction at all but some people are experts at reading maps.

3. Is there a language of space?
There could be, yes. Basically, a language is a system of communication. Within spaces, they are able to communicate, interact and influence each other. Size, shape and circulation and whatever that is associated with expressing some kind of moment of space might be the language of space. 

4. Is space the product of historical time?
Yes. Space may change over a long time. As we are on the Earth, even though the locations of spaces does not change, there are many things that can alter the space such as climate change, natural disasters, natural living, artificial treatments, etc. These thing have happened in the historical time which have created and modified the space. Therefore, I think a space is a product of historial time.
-Jongwoo Kim



1. Is space a material thing in which all material things are to be located?
No, space is not just some concrete. It is the combination of the reality with the sensation. For example, some space is not the same as what we perceive. However, the general materials can not bring this kind of sense to us.

2. Is the perception of space common to everyone? 
No,it isn’t. Different people have the different perception for the same space. It depends on people’s knowledge, background and some thing else. 

3. Is there a language of space?
Yes, language is used to transmit the information, express emotions and make sense. We can also complete those functions by the design of space. Therefore space also has its own language.

4. Is space the product of historical time?
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-Vera Wu



1. Is space a material thing in which all material things are to be located?
I think in order to create a space where you experience an emotion or feeling, elements of it do need to be located, as if it were forever changing, the space would become more of a jumble of objects and matter creating a somewhat distorted space. But in another sense, i don’t think materials have to be located, as space could be an array of objects and matter with no specific position or purpose.

2. Is the perception of space common to everyone?
Personally, i don’t think that the perception of space is common to everyone, and i think this because different people enjoy different spaces, depending on what they find relaxing, places they’ve been, and the memories they have gained of good spaces. I believe that no one can exactly see eye to eye no matter what the subject is about, and space falls under that same category. We perceive everything slightly differently, thus i do believe that we do see spaces differently, and that although we may see the same space as each other - we receive different emotions and experiences from each other that will all differ from one another.

3. Is there a language of space?
There may be a language of space - as in a way to translate spaces into our minds and how we perceive them. Presumably, there could be a debate on whether there was such thing as a language of space, but overall i don’t think it would be classed as a ‘language’, but more of a way of translating elements from one another.

4. Is space the product of historical time?
Technically, i would argue no, as when time goes on we are physically beginning to run out of space. As generations pass, buildings and cities are getting more and more cramped to hold the booming population. Big open fresh spaces are becoming scarce and hard to find. But through history, the evolution of architectural space has been an interesting episode to witness. As spaces have changed rapidly from era to era, from ornamentation and clutter to stark plain geometric spaces with hardly any ornamentation. Through advances in technology and creating new building materials, the availability to create larger spaces has indeed increased, but with the consequence of decreasing over all space. Therefore, yes i think space is a product of history, but also no, for that space has been affected so much by history in both negative and positive aspects.
-Emily Smith
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When Ideas Have Sex - Matt Ridley



In this TED talk video, Matt Ridely is telling people that how humans trade their knowledge, ideas and technologies to progress, innovate and advance living standard. One of the examples that he have pointed out is the difference between an Acheulean hand axe and a computer mouse which are both real objects with similar shape and size to fit on human’s hands. The hand axe is made of one substance but a computer mouse is a combination of different substances consisted from sillicon, metal, plastic, etc. More important point is that it is a confection of different ideas having plastic, laser and transistors and so on. Hence, no one in this world, actually know how to make a computer mouse. However, since we as human beings have intelligence to exchange various different ideas and specializations, a computer mouse could be manufactured. Therefore, “when ideas have sex”, we obtain ability to do things that we don’t even understand which means that we can do things that are beyond our capabilities.



You need to understand how human beings bring together their brains and enable their ideas to combine and recombine, to meet and, indeed, to mate. In other words, you need to understand how ideas have sex.” - Matt Ridley

Similarly in Architecture school, when we exchange, discuss and review each others’ ideas and thoughts, more extraordinary outcome may be produced. Thus, Matt Ridley has gaven us the idea that working together, in other words, cultural trade is very important. It’s not important how clever individuals are, he says; what really matters is how smart the collective brain is.
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Week 1 Overview

The traditional processes of design are well documented and are a stable feature within architectural education. Upon completing architectural studies, a prerequisite of entering the architectural profession is a demonstration of an intimate understanding of these procedures through prescribed examination. However, design, construction and occupation are now manifested by new mediums and modalities. (Extracted from the Topic Description of Design 2 Course Outline)

These new kinds of mediums and modlities used in architectural design are closely related to Culture Technology. To define Culture Technology, it is simply an intellectual knowledge or a physical technolgy that prototypes, creates, designs, develops and distributes digital cultural contents but in a wider concept, it also refers to multiple technologies that incorporates in design, art and anthropology. Of course, architecture is associated with culture technology and there has been significant changes throughout periods of time, as I mentioned above. Hence, new tools (especially mechanical and digital) such as the Internet, Virtual World, BIM, CNC, laser cutting and new communication technologies have not just made designers and architects to work fast, accurate and efficiently but influenced their working procedures (making and documenting) and fundamental design ideas so that it may develop and change to create the world better place for modern society to live in.

The key point of this project is not that Architecture is the silent but that its story is more complex and subtly rendered. Through the work, exercises and projects completed, as two hotels are designed, each group of three students will carefully and mindfully engage in giving a contemporary voice to their own architectural expression. Upon completion of this course we should be able to develop strategies that allow productive investigations of the underlying themes; Space, Matter, Culture and Process in Architecture Design.


Up-coming Contents
-How Ideas Have Sex - Matt Ridley
-Questions of Space - Bernard Tschumi
-Evolutions of Architecture - Charles Jencks
-Methods of Manipulation - Jennifer Bloomer
-Hotel Research
-Shared Drawings of Ideas About the City Site and Hotels
-The Ultimate City
-Interpretation of the City Site through Images
-Stop Animations
-Avatars
-Material Card
-Data Collection of Micro-Climate
-Site Summary of Auckland CBD (City)
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