19 May 2013

The Draftery Figure 03



I am proud to have my work featured in the next publication by The Draftery, "Figure 03."

They are running a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the publication, please consider supporting this project.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thedraftery/the-draftery-figure-03

06 May 2013

Amanda and Yhadi

Spiller, “Arcadia, Alchemy, Antiquity and Machines”
Introduction, Visionary Architecture: Blueprints of the Modern Imagination
Pages 5-17

  1. [Page 9, Mechanistic, Dreamy Outside Rooms] “The twentieth century, like no century before it, was defined by technological development, particularly the exponential and accelerating power and dexterity of the machine.” Technology continues to develop at an even greater exponential rate in the 21st century. Should this be of concern and is there a way to balance the growth of technology and the capacity of the architect?
  2. [Page 9, Mechanistic, Dreamy Outside Rooms] “Conversely, some visionary work of this period sought to purvey a more agrarian attitude, seeking non-industrialized materials, antique construction methods, figurative compositional protocols and naturally occurring phenomena that might create a meaningful architecture.” Are the methods or ideas listed here the only way to create a meaningful architecture? What defines a meaningful architecture to you? Can the advancements in technology help create this, or will it hinder the creation of this meaningful architecture?
  1. [Page 12, Drawing Prisons] “Piranesi also anticipated the other great tradition of twentieth century visionary architecture: exploring the gap between the architecture of architectural drawings and the architecture of real built buildings.” Is the gap between drawings and real built buildings increasing or decreasing? Photo realistic rendering capabilities won't capture the true essence of the built environment, so to what degree should these capabilities be used?
  2. [Page 13, Drawing Prisons] This question relates to the previous question... Spiller describes how Piranesi pushed his drawing style to the limit. “His vanishing points are unaligned, and his projection planes multiply with unparalleled fecundity as he constructs the representation of an unrealizable group of objects and spaces.” Can digital media assist in the production of such drawings or would an image like this be more effective if done by hand?

Woods, “Radical Reconstruction”, Radical Reconstruction
Pages 27-31 [Tactics and Strategies]

  1. [Page 28] “The forces of reaction, as cynical and self-serving as ever, are eager to fill the void left by a destruction that they themselves to a large degree have caused.” Woods mentions war and violence which have clearly caused mass destruction in our past and the need for reformation and reconstruction tends to follow such an event, but can this idea of reconstruction refer to events that aren't directly caused by our own actions, such as natural disasters? Unless of course, we begin discussing the topic of global warming, and our effects on the environment...
  1. [Page 28, Instigate change] “Destruction has set in motion a reformation of the city that is both radical and irreversible.” This is directly followed by the statement “when change could be more easily resisted or controlled.” Sadly, I think it's true that the majority of the population are not as open to change and prefer a more stable environment, but as architects, should be we forcing change as the future is ever changing?
  2. [Page 29, Make second-order designs] “The architect must now design the rules of the rules, therefore the languages for comprehending and describing the space of a new dynamic stability. The task of the architect in the reconstruction of the damaged city is to make “second-order” designs, that is, to design the architecture of architecture.” What does Woods mean when he says to design the architecture of architecture? Can the describing of the space of a new dynamic stability be done solely through representation?
  3. [Page 30, Recycle, re-form] “The technique most essential to this process is a conceptual one: see the old as if had never before been seen. From this, all technical means will follow.” The technique being the way in which the architect transforms the material of destruction into the genuinely new.
  4. [Page 30, Recycle, re-form] “The technique most essential to this process is a conceptual one: see the old as if it had never been seen. From this, all technical means will follow.” Although we have advance technology would you agree or disagree with this statement?


Interesting Articles relating to topics:


Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis, “snafu” Pamphlet Architecture 21: Situation Normal
Pages 4-13

  1. [Tactics] “Architecture has always been defined by strategies-witness Vitruvius's writings on the orders of architecture; Diderot's reclassification of the orders in his Encyclopedie; Le Corbusier's five points; and the recent codes of New Urbanism.” Do we anticipate new strategies to be developed in the near future or will we continue to use past orders of architecture or would it be in our best interest to take ideas from all strategies?
  2. [Surrationalism] “Surrationalism is first and foremost a conscious, critical, and rational project, its goal being the liberation of rationality from the encrusted habits of convention.”
      “ If surrealism seeks to explore the more-real-than-real world behind the real, then surrationalism uses rationalism to test the boundaries of rationalism itself.”
Explain..