Reading responses for Tuesday oct 15th
From Alyssa P:
Re: Paglen reading
1. As architects, we often create spaces, rooms or “containers for human activity.” How are ways that human activity can be the driving force for new forms or spaces?
2. “… Experimentation means production without guarantees, and producing new forms of space certainly comes without guarantees.”
Experimenting in architecture can come with great costs, consequences, and potential environmental impact. Would exploration and experimentation in using space through architecture be building a physical space or would it require something of a different nature? And if so, what would this new “space” be?
1.
I think this depends on what you are defining as space? Is it like the article, physical or mental? The article suggest both, and uses the terms so broadly I fail to grasp what definition the author is using for his description of space, production, are they real or in the mind.
I don’t know if I really understand the reading that well, and philosophical ideologies such as solipsistic, metaphysics, Cartesian dualism, and German idealism are out of my depth of knowledge (besides what Wikipedia says).
It seems as though the writing was suggesting that everything we do creates space.
2.
For me it is hard to think of architecture as strictly a mental creation. It is the art and science of building. I think experimentation in architecture starts with theories and then the theories are tested physically. Some work, some have a life span in which they are accepted or appropriate for society and some do not work at all. I think why the article says that creating new spaces is difficult goes back to Henri Lefebvre. Where he believed that the production of space is actively produced through human activity. The spaces humans produce, in turn, set powerful constraints upon subsequent activity, and if activity is the producer then each consequent space makes the next more difficult to create, due to the constraints created through that creation of space. Confusing to understand and confusing to write. I don’t know
1. Human activity and spaces are interconnected. Spaces and buildings are constantly changing over time depending on the era and resources available. One example of an activity that is currently changing is the way we gather information. Only a few decades ago libraries were the greatest resource for knowledge and as a result there was a great need to store books. In the past few decades, this has been changing immensely with the widely available world wide web. The Seattle Public Library, designed by Koolhaas and Prince-Ramus, is proof that human activity has been changing in the way that we obtain information. When exploring the library, only a small portion is dedicated to books, while much of the space is filled with computers sitting on tables, or empty tables intended for laptops.
2. A building will inevitably always be a bit of an experiment. But in order to reduce the consequences and negative environmental impacts other means of experimentation could include artwork, or regulated analyses in laboratories.
Paglen reading
1- “Space is not a container for human activities to take place within, but is actively ‘produced’ through human activity.” I think the answer is that human activity is always the driving factor for spaces, even if they are unsuccessful spaces. We, as architects, generally design spaces as a response to some form of human activity. It is a back and forth relationship; the spaces we make constraint what activities we can do and the activities we do instruct the design of spaces.
2- If you are questioning the idea of ‘space’ I think that is a very open-ended concept. My first thought is no, it would not be building a physical space, at least not the way we do now. If we are questioning space we should not be limiting ourselves to the traditional sense of an enclosed physical space. Perhaps it’s more about the boundaries we are creating with space and how those can be adaptable and change with different activities. I would focus on experimenting with new types of ‘boundaries’.
1.
I think this ties back into space versus place pretty well. It can’t be a place without us, either our physical presence or our attention makes it as Paglen describes, a “feedback loop” where we create places and then are shaped by them which in turns informs future places.
2.
One of the beautiful things about design is that the experimental space produced doesn’t have to come with great costs and consequences. Thanks to our design tools we can draw, model, analyze, and visualize without ever touching a shovel. It’s true that some experiments require actual physical creation but even then, we can predict far more accurately what the effects will be than in the past (how high can Gothic go? Until it fall down…).
1. As architects, we often create spaces, rooms or “containers for human activity.” How are ways that human activity can be the driving
force for new forms or spaces?
Architecture has gotten to a level of technical sophistication in the realm of building science in which our understanding of how to
grapple with the technical components of a building, the performative aspects from a measurable data standpoint, are beginning to exhibit
robustness. This focus on technical performance has the danger of swinging us too far towards the technical and away from the non-technical
(if we assume that they are diametrically opposed which is not an assumption that I advocate for but one that I use as conventional). The
non-technical, the experiential, perhaps the immeasureable, exists in the space between two walls or the floor and the ceiling in which
building science currently does not seem to explicitly provide a feedback loop to generate awareness for the occupant of his\her
interpretation and use of the space. In order to develop new forms or spaces, we as architects can propose them, but if they are too
foreign, too inaccessible for the occupant, humans will have no desire to occupy them or use them. It is therefore necessary for the
architect to be able to communicate the purpose of a new form or space and embed that awareness into the feedback the new form provides to
the occupant. Otherwise, new forms can not exist.
2. “… Experimentation means production without guarantees, and producing new forms of space certainly comes without guarantees.”
Experimenting in architecture can come with great costs, consequences, and potential environmental impact. Would exploration and
experimentation in using space through architecture be building a physial space or would it require something of a different nature? And if
so, what would this new “space” be?
In order to be effective, a new space, just like the effective existing spaces, has to bridge the physical with the virtual. As architects,
we make spaces which are not purely performative or functional unless the performance of the space transcends the physical and expands to
the experiential or the ephemeral. Exploration into the physical or formal nature of a building inherently carries with it a virtual
exploration which is much more difficult to understand given it’s non-visual nature. For instance, what would we imply about human
interaction if the spaces that we designed and occupied were spherical rather than rectilinear? Would we develop self-balancing chairs on
ball bearings that allowed us to hold class literally in the round? This line of questioning inevitably brings us to wondering what the
world would look like if we didn’t take for granted that it is the way it is. Is it even possible for us to stretch our design mentality so
far to get us out of a design mentality that has been established for us prior to birth?
2- No matter if we are experimenting throw building physical “boundaries” (Hey Amanda! ) or other types of boundary. Our experiment will still have consequence that might even be stronger than physical experiment.
(1)Human activity is the driving force behind spaces and forms. The problem is that over time, these spaces develop different or new requirements based on the changing type of human activity. It is important to keep this in mind when designing spaces particularly because we cannot precisely predict what the use of the space will be in 20, 30, 50 years. We can however mindfully design spaces knowing that they should be flexible or temporary.
(2)Experimentation always poses risks, but what would we learn if we didn’t experiment? A good way to approach design challenges is not always necessarily, how do we do it correct, but rather how do we not do it incorrectly. By eliminating the options, we can get closer to the best choice. With the design technology available today and in the future! we can only I improve the way in which we design spaces. We also must be aware that design software can inhibit or connection. With the physical space. Therefore, it is always good to have a back and forth of the ‘physical’ and ‘experimental’.
1. Human activity IS space making. If you go one step further, our essence is PLACE making. The way people live, how culture expresses itself, inspires architects to create new spaces and places to facilitate, encourage, and create new expressions.
2. HOw does nature experiment? By taking advantage of difference, filling unfilled niches, utilizing untapped resources, trying new defense mechanisms, and finding new ways of living. Do humans and designers move this way? or is expermentation now just purely about the “NEW”? True experimentation is not there just for its own sake, but in order to produce more vitality, resilience, and even beauty for ourselves and the world.
To not experiment, however, could employ the precautionary principle, and rely on things that do work, not risking too much on new and shiny, but trusting in the tradition that has gotten you here so far.
1.)I agree with Casey in, “The way people live, how culture expresses itself, inspires architects to create new spaces and places to facilitate, encourage, and create new expressions.” This statement can’t be more true in my opinion, but I feel that as architects, we have the power to also control and even encourage certain human activities. This was obviously a common thread in a lot of the work of Modernism in which architects attempted to create architecture for healthy and productive citizens (Corbusier, etc.) I don’t think we should control activity through space making to quite this degree, but there is certainly an opportunity to encourage certain activities as much as learn from them and use them to create spaces.
2.)Again I agree with Casey in the need to look at how nature “experiments”. I agree that it produces “vitality, resilience, and even beauty for ourselves and the world”, which is what is so great about it. Sure there are failures, but not all failures are bad. As it has been said time and time again, failures are learning opportunities to have success. We need to do this architecture and this is what Erin is challenging us to do with our project. We will be experimenting with what goes into an environmental art museum and we will be charged to challenge conventional thoughts on “green” design, art, museums, etc. This should create a more beautiful, thoughtful, and detailed project. This experimentation will come in new spaces as we try to create a museum of this beast we call “environmental art” and it will come in materiality and theory. I have no idea what this experimentation will look like, but it will be fun to find out (i hope).
1. Paglen would say that to start letting human activity drive design, we first have to create the space of inquiry in which we’re able to see what has kept us accepting of past methods. We would need to see what factors made current methods of production, and then actively go against–but first be open to seeing them. A lack of creativity, education systems that teach us to follow. And follow things that made sense somewhere else and definitely not today.
2. I was glad he started talking experimentation. His theory doesn’t seem to be doing much more than taking a determinist stance and saying we should use that info normatively. Since it appears a lot of designers think this way already, I liked reading his argument but didn’t come away hoping for a world in which more people knew this. They already do, but they don’t know it viscerally, and experimentation seems to be the only way that can happen. So we look at past ways of doing things and then actually do them differently. Which is way easier said than done, both on a political/pragmatic level and also subconsciously, I think it’s in more peoples’ nature to avoid risks than to take them.
1- Various factors form the built environment (material, technique, economic system are a few examples). One of which is human activities. This influence is broadly scaled from change in cooking habits that change kitchen designs to a change in social activities and religious activities that shape the towns and neighborhoods. On the other hand they are also many examples where the change in the built environment is the driving force for change in human activities.
2- The question and effort for making a new space without physical nature has two aspects:
ONE is what is sth with a physical nature defined as? Are non- visual elements of space, such as sound, smell and breeze are considered non physical? Or symbolic and nostalgic aspects?
Or is it the feeling?
SECOND is that the stated effort for making a new space without physical nature, is not guaranteed and also has non- physical coincidence.
1- The “fetishism of commodities ” is the Achilles Heel of contemporary architecture. In the contemporary value system commodities is a decisive factor. At this point I don’t have any improving idea.
2- There is something remote about all of them. I think the feeling of unknown and desired to be know, owned or being part of; binds them all together.
1- it depends on how physically durable and how effective the art installation is in getting the massage across.
In general how durable is the massage of the most effective peace of pure art ? (it has no function or marking of something else )
2- This is the same for a branch of Architecture today. By this I mean: role of land art as being more of a social and collaborative movement and less about the aesthetics.
3- I will not necessarily code remote as aesthetic but more of an enthusiasm for something that is not here or controlled or owned or ? This type of enthusiasm is intrigue to both artists and architects.
this last comment does not belong here,