afrodisiac concretion · o l n cab 42 architecture : strategy, design opdracht - concept and design...
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cab 42ARCHITECTURE : STRATEGY, DESIGN
OPDRACHT - Concept and design strategyOPDRACHTGEVER - Rotterdam Academy of Architecture and Willem de Kooning Acad-emy of Arts, Helsinki faculty of Architecture. REALISATIE - permanently under constructionOPMERKINGEN - Design strategy for third and forth year students of architecture and interior, including concepting and elaboration of given assignment. I N S T R U C T I O N S
INTRODUCTION This brochure explains the teach-ing method that ended up with the name finX. In 1997 there was an architecture workshop in the finnish archipelago, within the frame of the Coast Wise Europe network (Rotterdam Academy of Architecture 1996). The method was later improved over time, and evaluatued in practice. The method is based on a principle I call ‘concre-tion’. Concretion is the opposite of abstraction. Abstraction results by the nature of its quest, in the loss of specific meaning. At it’s extreme, something abstract can mean anything. Concre-tion seeks to (re)produce new meaning by specify-ing everything that is included within a definition. Concretion seeks the specific rather than the generic, the concrete rather than the abstract.
WHAT IS REAL ? In the last century abstraction was a highly worthy goal for modern artists who wanted to capture the essence of the things around them. Mondriaans sequence of the apple tree is a beautiful example. Designers and archi-tects soon followed. To free his work from the style limitations of the preceding era, Mies van der Rohe designed a pavillon with such minimal material suggestion that almost nothing but pure space was left. Le Corbusier took the emerging Modernist ideology into technology, and the inher-ent abstraction allowed him to start a mass production of the minimalist aesthetics of Mod-ernism. La Ville Radieuse was an extreme result. Changing the context of a well-defined object already gave Duchamps urinoir a completely new
brilliance, very different from the original mean-ing, yet carried by the same object. Context has since been a fertile soil for editing new meaning. What is reality, and what is fiction? The anorxic junkie-model selling brand jeans in a glossy maga-zine? Or politicians applying film industry to mili-tary strategy? Inquisitive attitudes rewrote the dictionaries of our environment, it has become a hypertext so dense with links that no one can read it. The intention of creating, powered by new tech-nology, has become so much more important than the dry reality of it, that details and definitions suffer from underestimation, and the expression with it. “There’s a huge gap at te moment between architects and societies. It will keep
getting bigger if architecture, instead of dealing with its own substance, insists on the schiz-ophrenical withdrawl of reality through the cre-ation of abstract contents or the imitation of exterior subjects.” (Carrilho da Graça in PROTO-TYPO #001 januari 1999).
DE-CONSTRUCTION / RE-CONSTRUCTION The nine-ties can be characterised by the conferences called ‘ANY-…’. The Technical University of Delft is basing it’s curriculum on a book with a collec-tion of approximately 200 design approaches. The Berlage Institute has asked 100 architects how they see the future of architecture. Everybody is generating ideas at an incredible rate. Generally speaking, one can see a confusion taking place
after the storm of abstractions and the search for identity. Identity is thinning out, as Koolhaas would suggest, and there’s also a mass pro-duction of identity noise. If a new generation of designers wishes to adress an audience, i.e. their clients, with the expectation of being heard, they should learn to communicate their work in an intelligent and evocative way. The finX approach tries to rediscover original vehicles for meaning and how they can be constructed, to edit them into communicative new meaning. Meaning means very little now, and specially students are easily confused by the amount of possible interpreta-tions to a given subject. FinX tries to give a tool for orchestrating intended spatial and material experiences.
B- for each associated element goes the same (objects in category 2). C- In the middle you end up with an amount of associated elements. D- By critical selection you reduce these ele-ments to those that comply to the set of criteria. E- The chosen elements are synthesized into a new meaningful element (the derivative object).
LECTURES 1 - 2 - 3 To introduce this scheme into the realm of three dimensional design, three lec-tures are prepared. The lecture on textual mean-ing introduces basics of communication, language, idiom and syntax, and how they can be seen as a flexible system of signification. The lecture on visual meaning skips through history to explain the
development and the logic of visuals. The lecture on shape and meaning introduces design intents and results, and the criteria by which they can be discussed. Gradually design expression and design media are introduced. Meaning and construction become understandable elements of design.
EXERCISES 1 - 2 - 3 Based on the same subjects, three excercises were developped. At all times communicating a meaning is the norm. The first exercise, finX1, is a textual exercise. An easy one to get acquainted with the structure. FinX2 is a visual exercise. It demands more creativity in association. In finX3 a three dimensional object is chosen, de- and recom-
posed. Sculptural expression is the goal. The synthesis, or finX4, forges the results of the exercises into a conceptual model. This is not an architectural design, but a complex object using textual, visual and sculptural expression. They have all the aspects of an architectural model (colour, texture, composition) except one : programme.
BRAIN STORM FinX tries to give a frame for analysis and proposal: de-construction and re-con-struction. This scheme is a scalelessly structured brain-storm. It allows one to cross the line of evident solutions. A- any element (a primitive object) can be described by an acceptable set of associated elements (objects in category 1), and
D
ABSTRACTION
CONCRETIONfin X 1 - fin X 2 - fin X 3 - synthesis
YONDER =primitive
HORIZON =
FATE =
HOPE =
GOAL =
DEPTHBORDERDISTANCESUN-DOWN >
DECREEDESTINATIONLUCKCHANCE
FAITHFUTURE >WISHEXPECTATION
RESULT >USEINTENT >PLAN
N: SUN-DOWN }
E: FUTURE }
C1: RESULT }
C2: INTENT } AFRODISIACderivative
< “The INTENTion for the FUTURE is to improve the RESULT of the SUN-DOWN.” >
N: nature, E: experiment, C1: culture, C2: communicationfinX
1
primitive subject background detail derivative
finX
2
primitive primary volumes & boolean operations derivative
ENVE
LOPE
ENVE
LOPE
RO
TATI
ON
SUB
STR
AC
TIO
N
finX
3synth
esis
AFRODISIAC + + +
?
finX1 finX2 finX3 finX4
lectu
re1
: language and meaning
lectu
re2
: image and m
eaning le
ctu
re3
: shape and meaning
idiom allows us to signify our environment and share our expe- riences.
duct conduit, pipe, canal, tube, channel, passage
pro - duce
bring - forth
grammar allows us to construct new meaning in our changing environment.
produce make product yield production making
prefix: pro = for as opposed to: anti = against
no word for ice 1word for water
20 words for ice
20 words for water
performance . . .
style . . . . . . .
representation . . . . . topology . . .
technique . . . . .
A
B
C
D
E
ornament . . . icon . . .
reference . . . reality . . .
fiction . . .
O
L
N
cab 42ARCHITECTURE : STRATEGY, DESIGN
OPDRACHT - Concept and design strategyOPDRACHTGEVER - Rotterdam Academy of Architecture and Willem de Kooning Acad-emy of Arts, Helsinki faculty of Architecture. REALISATIE - permanently under constructionOPMERKINGEN - Design strategy for third and forth year students of architecture and interior, including concepting and elaboration of given assignment. E X A M P L E S
INTRODUCTION The finX approach consists of three exercises and a synthesis. The exercises follow the logic of the scheme but the synthesis has no method. By going through the exercises, students are forced to propose and discuss tex-tual, as well as visual and three dimensional mean-ing and communication. The work frame is quite strict, but the content is completely free. Anything can be chosen, analysed and proposed, as long as its comprehensible for the group. For textual communication this is usually no problem. The resulting phrases of finX1 often resemble evoca-tive haikus. Visual communication of finX2 is all-ready more difficult and personal, but can still be discussed within general consensus. Three dimensional communication of finX3 is much more
abstract for many, but elementary spacial notions, such as shape, proportion and scale, soon become the subject of evaluation. The group discusses the characteristics of certain types of spaces. Gradu-ally meaning and construction become controlable elements of design.
TWO PROJECTS On this page there are two projects. The first shows the steps taken to achieve a conceptual model. The second shows how the conceptual model is elaborated into a complete design. The scheme illustrated on the first page, is active in the whole process of con-cepting. The elaboration of the conceptual model is an application of the model to a given assignment.
FINX1 The first language exercise, by student Tom van Odijk, considers words taken form a poem on the city of Rotterdam. The word ‘city’, leads to ‘business’, ‘internationality’, ‘massiveness’, etc. etc.. In the end the three resulting words are joined in a phrase : “realising is the courageous salvation of our existence”, which in turn is char-acterised by the word ‘confrontation’. The source text, in this case the poem, has been ‘uncon-sciously evaluated’, and has delivered the notion of confrontation. This notion will be transferred to the synthesis.
FINX2 The image exercise starts with an image chosen within the context of the assignment, in this case an information centre for the city.
As a reference is chosen the lobby of the Nederlands Architectuur Institute. The image is de-constructed and re-constructed in images of constructions, city-scape backgrounds, and lob-bies. The three images that are chosen, the bridge, the cantileved space and the duo-seats, are characterised by one image : a rooftop swim-mingpool with a view of the skyline. It becomes clear that the original picture has been evaluated as a space for distant reflection on the city. This notion will be transferred to the synthesis.
FINX 3 The last excercise introduces formal pref-erences. A chosen object form the context of the assignment is formally de-constructed, in this case a city trash can. After some basic sculpting
finX3, the text follows the results form finX1 and the images come from finX2. It’s a model; it could be a building, but this model is meant for an interior. The model should not be seen as a literal spatial model. It is has to be interpreted for its meaning and it’s representative logic.
INTERPRETATION The model is an organisation of representations: an escape to survive (the white volume) that pierces through layers of mundaine humdrum (the transparent images), and stems from a earthly basis (the cortin steel base). These representations are translated into ‘char-acters’. Most important was to know how the
experience of each element played a part in the experience of the whole. The model for architec-ture becomes meaningfull. PROGRAMMING When each element had a char-acter, the next step was to translate these characters into dwelling activities. The Source became the most intimate space, the Navigation
was used as circulation system, and the Resist-ance was translated into all the boring daily task spaces, such as work and kitchen etc.. With each programmatic choice, a preference for materials was found. DESIGN Plan and section emerged and were improved within the limits of the assignment and
the intended experience. Materials were chosen in correspondence with the intended characters of the separated space-elemements. Making all this work for practical circumstances and techni-cal criteria rounds up the assignment where the spatial and material experience can be present found, even in the details.
SYNTHESIS 2 The conceptual model made by stu-dent Jan Geert de Bruin, shows a large white trapezoid volume, towering from two horizontal layers. One layer is a transparant layer with images of advertisement and commercials, the layer underneath is a solid layer made of rusted cortin steel. The shapes follow the results form
noun: city
phrase: ”buildings based on the24-7 lifestyle reflect the chances
of diversity.”derivative: salvation
selection: ‘24-7 lifestyle’, chances,buildings, diversity.
verb: to strawl
selection: experience, dream, talk
phrase: ”by talking and experiencing dreams one is inspired.”derivative: to realise
inspire.
adjective: exciting
phrase : ”looking for the uncontrolable and uncertain
derivative : courageous
selection : enticing, uncontrolable, surpassing, unknown.
surpasses the enticing.”
phrase: ”realising is the courageoussalvation of our existence.”derivative: CONFRONTATION
contents by Tom van Odijkdd 06.06.02
finX
1
primitive beam
1 >
beam 2
beam 3
seats 2
seats 1seats 3
>
tower 3
>tow
er 2tow
er 1
subject background detail derivative
lobby with
and tower in theback
beam overhead
rooftop pooldeckchairs and skyline
with
finX
2finX
3
primitive derivative
contents by Tom van Odijkdd 06.06.02
synth
esis
contents by Tom van Odijkdd 06.06.02
synth
esis
inte
rpre
tatio
npro
gra
mm
ing
desig
n
contents by Jan Geert de Bruin
dd 21.01.03
contents by Tom van Odijkdd 06.06.02
TRASH CAN
ROUNDED CONEINTERLOCKING WITHEXCAVATED TRAPEZIUM
relaxed retreat
CONFRONTATION : “analyse - relate”
... and skyline
to take a reflexive distance
“ survive “
visual media noise
red earth
to break through the hype and fly
The central vaulted spacefound in a Palladian villa.
1.source 2.navigation 3.resistance 4.survive 5.growing
1.
2.
3.
4.
Section becomescirculation.
Activity and materials linked
Section is programmed
Private programme, breaks through circulation,
breaks through resistant activity.
Plan and colour scheme.
Model 1 : 100 Details 1 : 20 & 1 : 5
and puzzling the resulting object has two intwined volumes, both triangular, but one is rounded and the other is rectangular. This notion will be trans-ferred to the synthesis.
SYNTHESIS 1 In the synthesis we see a hollow cone illustrated with sleeping people on the inside and mirrorring on the outside. It mirrors the words ‘analysis’ and ‘relate’. These words fill up the space between the cope and the triangle illustrated with the skyline, i.e. the city. The model suggests already solutions for future design questions but it is not yet a design. It is open to interpretation within certain boundaries. It definitely has a mean-ing, but it doesn’t have a fixed form yet.
fin X
4 / P
ijnac
ker 2
002
fin X
4 / F
ranx
200
2
fin X
4 / R
amec
kers
200
2
fin X
4 / T
oeba
st 2
002
fin X
4 / d
e Ri
dder
200
2
fin X
4 / v
an W
oerk
om 2
002
SYNTHESIS RESULTS AT THE WILLEM DE KOONING ACADEMY 1ST SEMESTER 2002
5.