Course schedule

Week 01 Warm up, experimental writing and diagram to define the architecture surrounding us, define the meaning of Positive and Negative Architecture.

Week 02 Continue the research and definition on Positive and negative Architecture.

Week 03 Design your own Negative Architecture, based on the system defined by yourself. The project site will be given by the instructor

Week 04 site analysis, program analysis, using the logical model you developed from the previous weeks.

Week 05 sketches, diagrams and models for the project, design critique.

Week 06 sketches, diagrams and models for the project, design critique.

Week 07 sketches, diagrams and models for the project, design critique.

Week 08 Mid-term review

Week 09 Design progress, model and renderings. Design critique.

Week 10 Design progress, model and renderings. Design critique.

Week 11 Design progress, model and renderings. Design critique.

Week 12 Design progress, model and renderings. Design critique.

Week 13 Design progress, model and renderings. Design critique.

Week 14 Final week for the design project, Students will be required to present their final work. But this is not the end yet.

Week 15 Flesh back: re-think what positive and negative architecture is. Use your own project as example

Week 16 summarize the progress of the whole semester, including both your own project and your classmate’s projects as a whole, and let’s return to where we started: what is the meaning of Positive and Negative Architecture.

Kengo Kuma "Defeated Architecture"

Foreword

by Zhue

It has be an honor to be invited to write a foreword for this book. However, it is also a risk by doing so. I myself am a graphic designer, after all. What about architect Kengo Kuma can I talk? Nonetheless, after reading this book, I would very much likely to share some feelings with all of you. Although it seems like to have obvious differences in our works, but what he says here is in fact far crossing the boundary. The crossing not only provides me courage and possibility to speak, but also opens a window for more people who are in the fields of architecture and even other design. From this meaning, readers that "Defeated Architecture" will face and expect should be much wider, because what Kengo Kuma has considered is not limited to architecture itself, but problems that our era faces.

I know Kengo Kuma through Kenya Hara. "You ought to know Kengo Kuma." Henya Hara's seriousness raised my curiosity. Later on, I work many projects with Kengo Kuma, through this; I understand him and his work more.

It is to believe that many readers knowing Kengo Kuma through the Bamboo House which standing adjacent to the Great Wall. He used bamboo as material, built a distinct space aside the Great Wall that they could face each other. It almost incredibly achieves the circumstance of "built a hut amid the throng of men". Curiously or admirably, after finish reading Defeated Architecture, maybe you can comprehend more about why he makes this choice.

"Is that possible to build architectures that neither pursue symbol meaning nor pursue visual demand on purpose? It is within this pessimism atmosphere that I wrote a series of articles, hence to make the birth of this book. And named it an indescribable title—Defeated Architecture." Looking around, "symbol meaning" and "visual demand" seem to be the target of architecture. However, why did he feel pessimistic to this condition? "The so called 'defeated architecture' is not architecture that lose, but more than the most compatible architecture." Kengo Kuma has ever explained why he uses it to name his ideal architecture to me. Although it exists a slight semantic difference between Japanese and Chinese, we can still find out his tend to make clarify because architecture is given too much appendix that departures from its original meaning.

In this book, Kengo Kuma never lists his own architectural projects, but looks to the wider world. Year of 1995, the starting of his narration, to him is a year of crisis: Hanshin-Awaji earthquake, Aum Shinrikyo cult sarin gas attacks…to the "911" attack six years later.

Architecture as human being's refuge is so weak. However, what he points out as "weak" is not limited to the physical characteristic, but more than from his position as being a builder, owner and user, to indicate that it is the private owned characteristic that deciding the weakness. The perceiving makes his target objects are not limited to architectures; his theory is hence forth not only an architect's mutter within his profession.

However, his query and pursue have never been a prate. To me, the Defeated Architecture is very instructive for understanding the variety symptoms of contemporary architectures. The two masters of modern architecture, Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, have more vivid characteristics under Kengo Kuma's writing. He seems to feel regrettable to R.M.Schindler. And his praises for Togo Murano just makes us understand how he dealing with questions more deeply and all-around. Our desires let us to sever architectures from the surrounding area. We forget the original meaning of architecture is to let us live in it, to make us live more comfortable. We tend to see architecture as "object", draw all kinds of symbols on it, until we drown ourselves. I think this is what Kengo Kuma mostly wants to express. He is also coming from this point to dedicate on designing and building "defeated architecture", the most compatible architecture.

Studio Direction

Creating your blog:
The blog platform of choice for this workshop is Google’s “Blogger”. It is a web-based system that allows the blogger to post/update/comment from any internet connection and requires zero experience in HTML programming or web design.

1. Go to: http://www.blogger.com/home and click on the orange-ish arrow “Create Your Blog Now” and follow the instructions.
2. Once you have completed the set-up and now have a blog please email me the url address so that I may include it on the Workshop blog.

Workshop blog:
The url address for the Workshop Blog is: http://negativearchitecture.blogspot.com/
This blog will include general comments from the instructor, links to the weekly reading assignments, links to your classmates’ blogs and links to general resources. You are expected to check this site often (i.e. +/- every other day) as it will be updated regularly and will serve as the main point of contact for the workshop. You are expected to participate in the discussions that are initiated here (as an extension to assigned readings).

Posting to your blog:
Please remember that your blog is your only opportunity to present your work/development – your blog IS your project. It should be treated as a design journal. Please feel free to distribute the address to your blog to those outside the studio. I will. (It is the position of this studio that blogs are not meant to be monologues, but rather a forum for open discussion focused around the posts of the blogger.)

Posting to your classmates’ blogs:
Go to the Studio blog, click on the link to one of your classmates’ blogs, read their post and click on the “COMMENTS” link at the end of each post. Note: You will be required to log into your Blogger account to post a comment.

Course Structure:
Students will be expected to work and blog and minimum of 8 hours per week. 6 hours of “studio” work and 2 hours of “blog work”. As there are no set classes or meetings, these 8 hours can occur at the student’s discretion. If a period of time of 7 days passes with no activity on the blog, it will count as an absence. Two absences will result in a failing grade. Such a ‘loose’ format requires due diligence by the student. The instructor will interact with the class as a whole via the studio blogs and with each student via their personal blogs. Grading for this studio will be based equally on ‘design work’ and ‘blogging’. Successful blogging requires frequent postings, clarity of writing, conciseness, interaction with audience, etc.

Why Negative Architecture

As Architects, most of us seeing buildings as objects, against the rest of the world, the same way like how the rest of the people’s understanding about architecture. In the book “Defeated Architecture” (translated as Negative Architecture in Chinese and Japanese) by Kengo Kuma, he brings us outside the circle of how we used to think about architecture, from many different perspectives including history, society, economy, critical media, gaming, etc, to redefine the understanding of architecture. The point of this studio is to find the way to lead us outside our thinking habit, break the boundary of how we used to think about design, and find the positive and negative architecture of our own definition!