Ultramoderne, Rhode Island School of Design (all images from the Ultramoderne website)
Unfortunately, I was unable to attend this lecture, given by the co-principals of the architecture firm Ultramoderne and both instructors at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, in person, but I was able to view it online. Yasmin Vobis and Aaron Forest trade off discussing four of their recent projects, involving their experiments with cross-laminated timber (CLT), reimagining typological precedents, way-finding, and boundary making. The firm is interested in the dual definition they ascribe to the word “structure.” They articulate them as:
the structure (clean engineering + increased attention to materials) of Modernism (think van der Rohe)
&
the social structures which architecture can delineate and direct
I learned quite a bit about the firm through this lecture, as they go in-depth on four of their projects. I’ll recount some of key ideas from each of those projects.
1) Four Corners- a deconstruction of the typology of the New England barn structure. The firm uses CLT to bring contemporary flair to an exposition piece. They invert the structure, turning it from single, introverted volume into one composed of several angled masses.
2) Chicago Horizon- this was a contest wining design of a kiosk that was displayed in the Chicago Architecture Biennial and then went on to be installed permanently along the waterfront. It is concerned with questions of scale. A hulking wood mass serves as the roof, supported on the minimum -13- number of slender, rectangular columns. The roof references the horizon seen beyond it while also cutting off the sky from anyone beneath it. Drastically lowering the “sky” that was visible to one as they approached the structure.
3) Weir Farm- this was a project that ended up as a simple way-finding system, with a couple layers of complexity over it. The site, sitting in a National Park in Connecticut, draws tourists to the view the grounds where the Impressionist painter J. Alden Weird resided, while locals spread out over the untamed, rolling landscape making up the remainder of the park. The Weir Farm project attempted to unify these groups, through a periodically changing way-finding system. Humble cedar posts had three holes carved in them, which when peered though split the view into the traditional divisions known to landscape painters: foreground, middleground, and background. These holes would then be directed at different scenes throughout the park, with a rotating group of experts – ecologists, geographers, artists, etc. – deciding what they where showcasing. These posts could either be stumbled upon or could be included in the routes of the park rangers conducting tours.
4) Recess PS1- this entry to the MoMA PS1 contest is a meditation on what makes a boundary. Situated in New York, it grapples with the question, “how do create boundaries in dense places?” Their proposal is a two-layered, fifty foot tall structure which cuts off the enclosed area form the surrounding bustle and creates a unique interior experience, flanked by chain-link fence and columns that appear to be caught in a slow dance.
Architecture is an excellent example of mixing art and science, perhaps the most salient yet least discussed field that does so. While each of the above projects is attempting to answer an aesthetic or social question (the domain of art) it is limited by the constraints of engineering and transportation. Take for example the wooden roof of Chicago Horizon. The symbolism of the flat, hanging rectangle presented a number of technical issues. Among these was the question of the largest span possible with such a mass. The size was limited, in the end, by the trucks, which had to transport to panels of CLT from the plant to the site of assembly, to a length of 56 feet. The orientation of the supporting columns of this structure are an example of how the constraints of science can enhance the power of the art, thus demonstrating the symbiotic nature of their relationship. They were arranged in a radial pattern in order to evenly receive the force of the famed Chicago winds. At the same time, this radial pattern directed the attention of the people under the roof outward, towards the rush of the city and the calm of the sea.
Two of these projects, the aforementioned Chicago Horizon and Four Corners, experiment with the idea of void, a concept my project also grapples with. In my case, the void tells a history of things that have made their contributions and passed on: a fully-decayed nurse log and the early career of Buster Simpson, while in their case the void is a volume to be filled. The whole is made more complete when people wander through the Four Corners’ complex play of volumes, when people pass time under the man-made sky of the Chicago Horizon. This allows to me think about my void in a more active way, and to ask the question:
Is my void static or does something still move through it? If so, what is this thing? The continued development of the mycorrhizal fungus that takes root on nurse logs? The ongoing influence of Simpson’s commitment to a sustainable art?
More likely than not, it now represents my continued interest in the subjects of forest ecology and art, though these ideas.
Image from the blog ISO50