tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65730623157592472972024-02-07T21:35:47.231-05:00Negative ArchitectureLong Distance online Course at BACbearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-30285456125339054972009-05-10T09:08:00.003-04:002009-05-10T09:43:55.459-04:00Final Review RequirementsHi guys,<br /><br />Below are the Final Review Requirements for the studio.<br />Feel free to emphasize areas that are more descriptive to your concept, or add additional information that better conveys your ideas. But try to complete as many of he below items as you can to show a well-rounded project.<br /><br />1. site plan (locate the building on the site, including the surrounding landscape design)<br />2. conceptual diagrams( analysis for Negative architecture idea, and how it is applied into the design project)<br />3. site analysis drawings<br />4. building diagrams<br />5. plans sections and elevations<br />6. perspective renderings<br />7. progress sketches<br />8. finalize diagram to discribe the Negative architecture system defined during this semester.<br /><br />Let us know if you have any questions and please post progress information throughout the week.<br /><br />best,<br /><br />jonathanbearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-68783992540549125472009-04-19T13:52:00.001-04:002009-04-19T14:01:54.547-04:00Moving forward<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Hi, guys:<br /><br />As the project moving forward, the concept and the focus point from each of you is getting more and more clear and well defined into different directions, including the scale of the matter that you are trying to discuss, the theme of the retail space, and the way of exploring the negative architecture. At this point, I’d like to suggest we work in groups, for example, Mark’s focus point now is starting his discussion from the the scale of the whole park, Danielle has picked her theme of interest as the wedding dress store, and a lot of interesting ideas and treatment of the architecture is coming up, Katie has a interesting analysis about the way of dealing with a plane, and the dividing of the space, followed by the definition of the space. I think you guys can work more closely with each other, Mark could be the person focus on the master plan of the park, and provide the best location for Katie and Danielle’s building, through the discussion with them. And Katie and Danielle can continue focus on the architecture project you have been doing, but give Mark feed back on the site planning, and also about the design of the surrounding context of your building. This way, each of the student will gain the maximum experience from what they are doing and will all contribute to the team from the different aspect. You guys may also push the use of the interactive tool (skype or msn), you may call for the meeting with or without me and Jonathan, and we should have more group discussion for the rest of the semester. Let’s trying our best to get most out of this project!<br /><br />Xu</span>bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-85800570113995536172009-04-08T12:19:00.000-04:002009-04-08T12:21:18.133-04:00REVERSING:CHOFU THEATRE, TOKYO, 1997<br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I designed a stage for the dancer and choreographer Haruakira Isshū. Except that is not quite true. Designing a demarcated space called the ‘stage’, distinguished from the ‘seats’, seemed to me a limited endeavour. I was more interested in the space of the theatre, the relationship between performers and audience, and rather than confirm the pre-existing relationship, I wanted to reverse it. There are various forms of reversal: this one was topological, involving the reversal of stage and seats. The dancers danced, not on the stage, but in the empty seating area, while the audience sat in the space or ordinarily called the stage.<br /><br />Reversing stage and seats does not mean much if the two areas are spatially of equal value, but of course in the modern theatre they are not. The stage is a privileged space raised above the level of the seats, like a classical building on a podium. This endows every performer and object on it with a privileged character.<br /><br />The status of the stage is further elevated by the proscenium arch that frames it. Naturally, the arrangement and effect of that frame are asymmetrical: it appears as a frame only when viewed from the seats, and not from the stage. Thus reversing stage and seats requires careful calculation, as a simple reversal of space does not produce a reversal of effect. In this case I chose to screen the proscenium arch with a vinyl sheet, which intervenes at all times in the relations between the two spaces and makes possible something more than a simple reversal— a relativisation and dissolution of the privileged status of the stage.<br /><br />The process of separating and elevating the stage above the seats began in antiquity, in the evolution form Greek to Roman theatre.Early Greek theatres were open to the environment.They had rising tiers of seats arranged in concentric circles;the stage was round and occupied the lowest level inside the seating area.Seats and stage were not in opposition, but were literally one space.<br /><br />That unity was soon destroyed with the addition of a wall at the back of the round stage.Behind the wall was the tent (skene) where the actors dressed.Later this was replaced with a wooden hut and then a permanent masonry structure (which was nevertheless still called a skene). Eventually, the front wall of the skene began to function as the background for the stage,endowing the objects on it with a privileged character. The next step was to shift the focal point from the circular stage at the lowest level to the proskenion in front of the skene.This effectively drew a clear line between stage and seats.The skene was subsequently made larger and acquired an elaborate,palatial facade which became the prototype for the Roman theatre.<br /><br />The development of the Roman theatre was not simply a matter of spatial change,for a theatre is temporal as well seats from entrances at the highest level.This sequence had a decisive effect on the structure of space,serving to increase the distance between stage and seats.It increase further with the introduction,in early seventeenth-century Italy, of a proscenium arch framing the stage.<br /><br />The nineteenth-century composer Richard Wagner attempted to go further still and effect a complete separation of seats and stage.With the cooperation of Gottfried Semper,1 he constructed what he believed was the ideal theatre space in Bayreuth.As if to make doubly certain that seats and stage were separated,he built two proscenium arches.He placed the orchestra in a pit between the arches,concealing it from view.The stage became an entirely separate world,its otherworldliness and privileged character only reinforced by the music emanating from a hidden source.Wagner devised a new arrangement for the seating as well.He dispensed with the horseshoe configuration and with the boxes and galleries that were customary at the time and instead arranged the seats in shallow concentric rows around the stage.In addition, he dimmed the lighting in the seating area and kept the ceiling low to ensure the audience would focus on the stage.The lifeblood of opera is spectacle, and to heighten the spectacle,the stage was made to dominate.In Bayreuth, isolated individuals confronted the privileged object, one on one.<br /><br />In a sense, Wagner's ideal theatre space became a prototype for twentieth-century spatial form,not only in architecture but also in Urban spaces.The spatial form of the suburbs is quite Bayreuthian:house is separated from house by a set distance and a buffer zone of lawns.Just as the ceiling over the seating was kept low in Bayreuth, so everything in the suburbs is kept low, including the buildings.Just as the low seats confront the high stage, so the low suburbs confront the tall, privileged city.Needless to say, the city overwhelms the houses.<br /><br />If the suburbs are the product of a Bayreuthian vision of the city, then fascism is the product of a Bayreuthian Vision of politics.The masses are isolated into individuals, left, as it were, in low-ceilinged darkness and then suddenly confronted by a transcendent and radiant being.It is no accident that Hitler was a devotee of Wagner.Hitler attempted to translate Bayreuth into cities and buildings.<br /><br />Bayreuth's structure is more visual than theatrical.Wagner attempted to effect a complete separation by means of the proscenium,a process that ultimately yields a condition much like film or television,where the image on the screen is the only reality for the spectator.The isolated spectator facing the stage in Bayreuth is not so very different from the solitary viewer in front of a television set.Moreover, if an image on the screen has sufficient reality, then there is little need for performances of the sort produced in Bayreuth,which require elaborate staging and live actors.<br /><br />The decline of opera as an art form coincided with the advent of the cinema,which offered spectacles that rivalled stage productions,but were generally much more affordable.By the 1920s film had become the most popular form of entertainment in the United States,with Americans seeing on average one movie a week.At the same time, something happened to opera as an art form.Schoenberg's Moses und Aron and Puccini's Turandot were both left unfinished.Opera was unable to compete with the new medium of film,and was weakened further with the invention of television in 1933.Opera was the first form of theatre to suffer a decline precisely because it had demanded the most complete separation of the stage from the seats.However, theatre space did not simply wither away.As staged productions came under increasingly intense competition from visual media such as film,experiments to change the structure of theatre space itself took place throughout the world.Though diverse, these experimental forms curiously shared one thing in common:all of them rejected the proscenium arch.This was quite natural, if one thinks about it.Wagner had doubled the proscenium arch and achieved the separation of the stage from the seats,but that separation had led to the weakening of dramatic theatre and its eventual defeat by screen images.In this light,the reintegration of stage and seats was seen as the only way to revive drama and restore the allure of the theatre.The theatre had to use the power of actual space to fight nonspatial media such as film.The French poet and director Antonin Artaud declared,'We will discard stage and seats and replace them with one place.We will not compartmentalise or obstruct, no matter what we use.'<br /><br />However, all these experimental spaces ended in failure.They were defeated,not by the traditional theatre form,but by screen images,which proved to be more spatial than the new theatres.What was this spatiality that screen images succeeded in achieving? Screen images made possible both an immersion in space and a comprehension of its overall structure.By means of their frames and the movements within them,by the Way figures entered and exited,they developed a dual character, referred to as spatiality, whereby the audience was able to be inside space and at the same time to stand above it.Conversely, screen images that simply showed a continuous, uncut scene from the viewpoint of a protagonist were not at all spatial and left viewers with only a vague, claustrophobic feeling.<br /><br />This is similar to a condition described by the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty in his last,unfinished work.2 He pointed out that in asserting the subjectivity of space, phenomenology is apt to fall into the trap of visual solipsism.To escape that condition,we must see a viewer other than ourselves,in a 'cycle of the seeing and the seen'.This cycle can be said to be the alternation between two positions, one inside space, the other on a metalevel.<br /><br />For much of the twentieth century, architecture sought to achieve a spatiality comparable to that of film,but was unable to achieve it.The situation only began to change with the emergence of electronic technology.It is an article of faith that the intervention of computers will restore interaction between subject and space, enabling one to 'walkthrough' a place.Such 'interaction' is in fact no better than a camera fixed in a position approximating the subject's eye,no better than visual solipsism.In donning a virtual-reality device,the subject simply falls deeper into a solipsistic,claustrophobic trap.The development of personal computers equipped with graphical user interfaces (GUIs) offers a way out of that trap.Interfaces such as Microsoft Windows allow users freedom of movement between different sessions;they can switch screens at will.The switch takes precedence over any single image on the screen.It allows the subject to control the space projected on the screen,that is, to be on a metalevel of space.The cycle of inside and metalevel comes into play, and image is raised to the status of space.Moreover,the space that arises is a completely interactive space.<br /><br />Screen images in the twentieth century acquired spatiality through the cycle achieved by the camerawork.Unfortunately, that cycle was produced solely by the creator of the screen images;it was unilateral.Twentieth-century screen images had space but no spontaneity, no capacity for active participation.As long as film was the dominant art form,these constraints placed limits on cultural production as a whole.However, thanks to the intervention of PCs,the subject is now able to alternate spontaneously between metalevel and inside space for the first time.That is the greatest contribution that computers have made to our culture.<br /><br />I wanted to use the idea of a screen switch to reestablish the direct link between spectator and stage.First of all, I reversed the stage and the seats.This was not in itself my objective, but merely a means and a process.In its preexisting form,the stage is the privileged space and the seats are an adjunct to it.In cyberspace,on the other hand,the subject has precedence,manipulating both switch and space.I wanted to restore the privileged status of the subject on this stage too.To do this,I brought the spectators onto the stage and had them look down on the seats,which became the de facto place of performance. The existing stage was about one metre above the seating.Here, the spectators for the dance performance sat higher up, perched on eight layers of bubble-wrap that were laid directly on the stage.Built-in lighting lent a white glow to the layers of bubble-wrap.The soft, wobbly floor was both tangibly and visually unstable.<br /><br />In Bavreuth,Wagner made the seats dark and hard in order to amplify the radiance and dynamism of the stage and assert its privileged status.In this project, however,I amplified the freedom and the instability of the subject by means of a softly cushioned and brightly lit material.I amplified the privileged character of the subject almost to excess.Seats and stage were divided by a transparent screen, a vinyl membrane 15 metres high,in the place where the proscenium arch would normally be.I thought of the screen as an oversized CRT. Water trickled down the screen and the relationship between the two spaces could be determined by changing the volume of water and the lighting..The screen thus functioned as a kind of spatial switch.<br /><br />Water trickled down the screen and was collected in a stainless steel box, from where it was pumped back up to the top.A computer controlled the volume of water and degree of illumination.The screen was made of sheets of polyvinyl chloride,a material widely used in plastic hothouses.I thought of using glass,but a single sheet of glass can be manufactured only up to a certain size and I wanted to avoid any joints.There was also a danger that the structure necessary to support the weight of the glass Would be more conspicuous than the glass itself.The polyvinyl chloride sheets were simply overlapped.Neither the overlaps nor the sheets themselves were discernible because of the continuously trickling water.The spectators were aware only of the switch.<br /><br />I used water because it is both material and immaterial.It has substance,yet is image-like in character.We think of the water that flows out of countless different taps as being the same everywhere, just as we think of the images on countless television screens or computer monitors as all being the same.Water thus occupies a halfway point between substance and image, the material and the immaterial.That was why the switch had to be water.<br /><br />I first used water as a switch in a collaboration with the theatre group Et in terra pax,when they performed an experimental piece, The Humidity of Transmission,in 'Water/Glass'.A video of a previous performance3 was filmed by the director Jun Kurosawa and the video was projected onto a white wall as a backdrop for the live performance.A 'water switch' was installed between that performance and the audience.Layer upon layer of reality and image, the material and the immaterial,were thus overlapped.The boundary between reality and image was extremely ambiguous, because each was as rarefied and fluid as the other.The switch in this case was not made of vinyl but was a single, enormous sheet of acrylic with water trickling down it.The subject, that is,the audience,used the device to switch on or off the multiple layers arranged before it.By manipulating the switch,the audience could call up, erase or overlap specific spaces.They could do this quietly and instantaneously with an almost mathematical precision because all the layers, including the switch,were made of the same materials — the bodies of the performers and water.The body swimming in water A was instantaneously transmitted to water B or suddenly began to swim,live,on the other side of the water switch.<br /><br />With the water switch,an audience can occupy a metalevel over the stage.The next goal is to create multiple theatrical spaces where each spectator will be able to<br /><br /><br />manipulate the switch separately and spontaneously.This is not something I want to do simply in theatrical space but for each individual in real space.This does not call for the creation of a battery of special devices or spaces. We are already moving through real space surrounded by and equipped with many electronic devices— the fusion of real space and cyberspace has already been achieved to a remarkable degree.With the support of diverse technologies, we are repeatedly and instantaneously shifting between spaces of entirely different modes.However, urban design,architectural design and theatre design scarcely acknowledge that fusion.Planning continues to adopt a Wagnerian approach based on separation:the stage is cut off from the seats and made autonomous;space and architecture are also cut off from the audience (i.e. the subject) and made into autonomous objects.The subject and space must be connected once more.To that end,the object must be stripped of its privileged status, stage and architecture must be stripped of their privileged status;everything must be reduced and restored to a state of wilderness.Then grass will grow, roads will form.rain will fall and streams flow.These are all switches,that is, symbols.These switches will connect the subject to the wilderness.Only then will the audience be connected to the stage, and the subject to space and the world as a whole.<br /><br /><br />NOTES<br /><br />1. Gottfried Semper (1803-1879),German neoclassical architect. The most radical theorist among nineteenth-century architects.Semper Laid the theoretical foundation for the modern architectural movement.<br /><br />2.Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Le visible et L'invisible, 1964; trans. Alphonso Lingts, The Visible and the invisible (Evanston:Northwestern University Press, 1969).<br /><br />3. Koya Arimura put on an unbelievable performance,swimming in a pool of water only is centimetres deep. With her slender physique,Arimura seemed as fluid and rarefied as water.<br /><br /> </span>bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-26229086223314683302009-04-04T22:47:00.002-04:002009-04-04T23:03:18.130-04:00Hi guys,<br /><br />We have noticed that there has not been much recent activity on the blogs. If you are interested in continuing the studio please contact us to make some arrangements for the rest of the semester. We are hoping to incorporate more frequent online live sessions to answer questions and exchange ideas, either individual or as class-wide meetings.<br /><br />Below is part of a conversation we had with Danielle last night. I think her comments and questioning might be helpful if you are in a similar situation.<br /><br />[10:06:27 AM] xu wang says: Danielle, do you want to directly get into your project, or you have some general questions for me and Jon<br /><br />[10:06:55 AM] Danielle Haley LeFebvre says: No I think the project is my main concern, I think I am just stuck..<br /><br />[10:07:33 AM] xu wang says: sure, I can give you couple suggestions to move it forward, and I believe Jon would have some suggestions as well<br /><br />[10:08:20 AM] xu wang says: right? Jon<br /><br />[10:08:42 AM] Danielle Haley LeFebvre says: Ok. I am finding it hard to develop my design ideas, because I think my design ideas are vague. I also think it hard to develop without a specific program in mind<br /><br />[10:08:47 AM] jonathan.byers says: sure! that's what we're here for<br /><br />[10:09:43 AM] xu wang says: first of all, there's a lot to do for this project, because it involves different levels of design<br /><br />[10:09:57 AM] Danielle Haley LeFebvre says: ok<br /><br />[10:10:14 AM] jonathan.byers says: it is difficult...i think typically in studio instructors often look for the idea to be generated from program or specific site<br /><br />[10:10:47 AM] Danielle Haley LeFebvre says: yes<br /><br />[10:11:27 AM] jonathan.byers says: but this studio is looking to develop a logic that can applied to these project specific peices (site, program) to generate the architecture<br /><br />[10:12:12 AM] xu wang says: from the bottom up, 1. you may think about the materials, like what you did in your previous post; 2. to sketch and generating idea about the architecture based on the program and the site; 3. to generating a design system or a logic of defination from this process<br /><br />[10:13:04 AM] xu wang says: seem to me, these 3 levels can go at the same time or one after the other, without a specific sequence<br /><br />[10:13:18 AM] xu wang says: so there's nothing wrong as you talking about the material first<br /><br />[10:13:18 AM] Danielle Haley LeFebvre says: ok<br /><br />[10:14:02 AM] Danielle Haley LeFebvre says: oh ok, I thought i was jumping ahead, without actually solving the problem first<br /><br />[10:14:32 AM] xu wang says: for the program, we defined them as commercial and retail, so it could be a restaurant, a cafe, or a fashion store<br /><br />[10:15:53 AM] jonathan.byers says: right...it's not a linear process. each step informs the others so you can continually refine your approach<br /><br />[10:16:05 AM] xu wang says: this is the point 2 I was listing, to be able to do this, there's some research need to be done for the retail architecture, you know, their best way of layouts (or you can say traditional way, they were tested to be the best efficiency for selling, but we can always try new things)<br /><br />[10:16:57 AM] xu wang says: the frontage of the retail, the service path, how to organize the pedestrain and service circulation around it<br /><br />[10:17:29 AM] xu wang says: when you start touching this topics, then you will have a lot specific questions regarding the site, that we can help to answer<br /><br />[10:18:06 AM] jonathan.byers says: you can make some assumptions about the type and size of the retail based on the rough site information...and we can help with any additional information you need<br /><br />[10:18:18 AM] Danielle Haley LeFebvre says: ok, thats where I can see spaces being defined. How certain materials enhance, define, certain spatial qualities of the retail space<br /><br />[10:19:26 AM] xu wang says: but I agree that we can't try to do everything in such a short semester and also with the internet, so I would say, for this studio format, we will focus more on the conceptual aspect<br /><br />[10:19:44 AM] Danielle Haley LeFebvre says: ok<br /><br />[10:20:12 AM] xu wang says: otherwise, even for a samll retail like this (around 100000 sqft), you want to work with the retail and marketing consultant for real<br /><br />[10:20:28 AM] xu wang says: to make it a serious design<br /><br />[10:20:52 AM] Danielle Haley LeFebvre says: ok, makes sense<br /><br />[10:21:24 AM] jonathan.byers says: haha, yes i think for the studio format you can make some informed assumptions on the program...or start hiring consultants<br /><br />[10:21:49 AM] xu wang says: so, within the time frame and the effort we can offer in this class, like Jon said, we will focus on something, and make some assumptions for the rest<br /><br />[10:22:04 AM] xu wang says: to be able to get what we want from this studio<br /><br />[10:22:27 AM] Danielle Haley LeFebvre says: ok..lol<br /><br />[10:23:01 AM] jonathan.byers says: based on our discussion today you can make a brief schedule to organize your time for the remainder of the semester<br /><br />[10:23:28 AM] xu wang says: at the end, is how to define the system, as I said on the class blog before, we are not trying to just simply agree what Kuma said about negative architecture<br /><br />[10:23:51 AM] xu wang says: because that's his opinion based on his experience and culture background,<br /><br />[10:24:03 AM] Danielle Haley LeFebvre says: right<br /><br />[10:24:06 AM] xu wang says: what we trying to learn from his is the way he set up this concept<br /><br />[10:24:26 AM] xu wang says: but this level 3 is the most hard part<br /><br />[10:25:05 AM] xu wang says: it requires lots of reaserch and discussion and organize your own thoughts, and make the abstract<br /><br />[10:25:48 AM] Danielle Haley LeFebvre says: ok<br /><br />[10:26:10 AM] xu wang says: this is the final goal we are shooting for, we will try our best, but if we can't get it, then at least we will have some nice progress and a interesting building design<br /><br />[10:26:46 AM] Danielle Haley LeFebvre says: ok<br /><br />[10:27:34 AM] xu wang says: we are not trying to get something that took Kuma dacades to get, but at least we go through this process, and this is a good experience to see how a design system or a theory system could be built<br /><br />[10:28:35 AM] xu wang says: so, if you like, there's plenty to do at any of these 3 levels<br /><br />[10:29:05 AM] jonathan.byers says: at the end of this process, hopefully we will have some good analysis, research, a simple theory with an architectural proof to describe it<br /><br />[10:29:13 AM] Danielle Haley LeFebvre says: Yes, I think that answers alot of my questions, and I feel like i have something to develop now as well<br /><br /><br />hope to hear from you soon!<br /><br />jbbearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-39034894463296577232009-03-11T11:58:00.002-04:002009-03-11T12:01:26.827-04:00This week<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Hi, guys, for this week, I hope every one has already finished their site research and analysis without any problem, since I haven’t heard much question about it so far.<br /><br />Regarding the program, the original setting is commercial use, such as restaurant, retail, café, etc. but for the first couple weeks, you don’t have to think too much about the real building, but focus more on the concept and design strategy you have been working on, the site at this point is only help you to frame your imagination to a certain area and cultural background.<br /><br />I’m looking forward to see many conceptual models and analysis sketches on this matter. Or even questions!</span><br /><p><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span> </p><p><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">btw, this week let's all comment on Danielle and Jed's blog.</p>Xu</span><br /></span>bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-3663280695339932062009-03-11T11:27:00.001-04:002009-03-11T11:33:26.466-04:00HINlMISING:<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">NŌ STAGE IN THE FOREST,<br />TOMOYA,MIYAGl,1995-96</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">by Kengo Kuma</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I was asked to design a Nō stage in Toyoma, a small town on the Kitakami River, about 70 kilometres north of Sendai, the seat of Miyagi Prefecture.The name Toyoma, written<br />with the characters for 'ripen' and 'rice', may be a reference to the area's rich harvests of rice, but is more likely to be a corruption of toyama,meaning 'distant mountains'.Toyoma, which has been producing rice since the Edo period (1600­—1868),prospered as the castle.town of a branch of the Date clan.From the Meiji period(1868—1912),its location on the Kitakami River helped make it a transDortation hub;for a few brief years it was even the seat of the prefectural government.With its beautiful buildings and townscapes, the town is almost like an open-air museum.However,its population,now calculated to be 6,000, has been declining in recent years.<br /><br /><br />Toyoma has a number of old cultural traditions but townspeople are proudest of its own distinctive style of Nō, which has a 400-year history going back to Date Masamune, a daimyo of the domain of Sendai.1 Masamune loved Nō.He added original touches to the Kita and Komparu schools and founded the Komparu Ōkura school,later known as the Ōkura school.<br /><br />There has always been an active interest in Nō throughout the TOhoku region.2 Whereas in western Japan Nō was performed by professional troupes—originally the descendants of nomadic hunters—here it was performed by ordinary villagers.The prototype of Toyoma Nō is believed to have been a synthesis of the Ōkura school and a form of Nō that had been performed in the town long before Masamune came on the scene.<br /><br />Townspeople rather than professionals continue to perform Nō in Toyoma.The local No society has 70 members and is the last of its type in Miyagi Prefecture.Nō is still such an integral part of everyday life that NŌ songs are sung at practically every ceremony.But despite this, the town did not have a theatre.The townspeople's desire for a stage dedicated to Nō led to this project.<br /><br />From its necessarily limited financial resources, Toyoma managed to scrape together l90 million yen.Constructing a Nō theatre is usually said to cost 500 to 1,000 million yen,so in working on this project,we had to make every yen count.Architectural work nearly always involves a struggle between the ideal design and the reality of the budget.However, as I discovered,no such opposition or conflict arose here.<br /><br />In creating this project, I gradually began to understand that the use of material ought to be minimized in such a space.As a consequence, the design objective did not conflict with the reality of the budget.That did not mean the design was without difficulties;in fact,it consumed an extraordinary amount of time and effort.<br /><br />Minimisation is very different from minimalism.Its motive is not the simplification and abstraction of form,but rather the criticism of matter.This critical attitude is consistent with Nō theatre, which is often focused on the spirit world.Zeami perfected a form of Nō in which almost all the characters are spirits of the dead.3 In plays in that form, time as experienced by the dead and time as experienced by the living are intertwined.The spirits censure this earthly world and the matter from which it is composed.That is the essence of Nō.<br /><br />Of course, the actors are made of flesh and blood,and the stage is made of materials such as wood and tiles.It is both the paradox and the source of appeal of Nō that it uses matter to censure matter.Such paradoxical criticism of matter is what I mean by minimisation.<br /><br />In what way, then, does Nō criticize matter? First, by the low position it assigns to it. In both the spaces and the direction of Nō, a low centre of gravity is of crucial importance.Raising a thing to a high position affirms its presence and causes it to lapse into being an object.For this reason everything in Nō is kept low.When all things that might rise up are eliminated,all that is ultimately left is the floor.Thee floor therefore acquires a particular importance.<br /><br />Nō actors walk in a distinctive Way called namban,half-crouching and gliding over the floor.This posture is said to be modelled on the movements of farmers in rice paddies.However, in light of the fact that the tradition of Nō was maintained by people who were descended from hunters, it cannot be attributed simply to farmwork.Actors walk in this Way precisely because a low centre of gravity is demanded of them.<br /><br />A space for Nō must also be low, that is, close to the floor.One might even say that a No space can be reduced to three floors:the main stage (butai),six metres square;the floor called kenjo where spectators sit;and the shirasu,the white pebble.covered stretch of ground between the stage and the kenjo.The stage is a space for the spirits of the dead,that is,the other world;the kenjo is the world of the here and now, and the shirasu divides these two spaces.The three floors with three different functions are all that is essential to the Nō space.Everything takes place close<br />to the floor.To make certain that spectators focus on that area, the actors stamp their feet on the floorboards.Jars are arranged beneath the stage to amplify the sound.Every design device is intended to focus attention on the floor and to lower the centre of gravity of the performance as a whole.No one looks up at the roof over the stage—it is there simply to protect against inclement weather,and to wrap the stage in dark shadow.The spirits of the dead must not stand out but must sink into the dark shadow of the roof barely distinguishable in the faint light reflected by the white pebbles.<br /><br />In l884,the construction of an entirely enclosed Nō theatre called Kōyōza in the Shiba district of Tokyo destroyed this traditional arrangement.The building, which made it possible to perform Nō throughout the year,immediately became the prototype for the modern Nō theatre.Its stage and the seats arranged around it were both enveloped in a large outer structure.This prevented the weather from affecting performances,but many things were lost in the process,including the low centre of gravity.The building envelope became of necessity an enormous structure with a high ceiling, sheltering not just the stage but also the roof directly over it.Outwardly, the Nō theatre became a conspicuous object with a high centre of gravity. Inside,the roof over the stage became a towering object in the high—ceilinged space.Even more devastating was the treatment of the shirasu,which was reduced to a narrow strip less than two metres wide.The space that was once central to Nō,separating this world from the next,had been virtually eliminated.<br /><br />The Nō theatre in Toyoma was intended both as a criticism and as a reversal of the arrangment first introduced in Kōyōza.Indeed,calling it a theatre is apt to give rise to a misunderstanding,for this suggests an enclosed,self-sufficient structure, that is, an object. Our goal was neither an object nor a building,but rather a garden in which three floor surfaces are carefully placed in a natural environment.<br /><br />That idea was inspired by the site that the town provided—a beautiful hillside covered by woodland.Among the trees stood an abandoned house.I felt that I could create an excellent Nō space by arranging three floors on that spot.The floors would be open to the woods.There seemed to me no need for walls,for a complete building.<br /><br />The work was more like garden design than architecture.First, I situated the stage and the bridge ( hashigakari ) in the landscape.Those two elements together constitute the performance space of Nō.I arranged the floor for spectators in an area facing the stage.The kenio is covered with tatami mats,which need to be protected from rain,so I provided the area with a roof, that I made as low as possible.A steeply pitched roof like the one over the stage would have been too assertive, turning the kenio into an object, whereas it is strictly a place for the spectator — that is,the subject.As a result,the kenjo is practically modernist in design,resembling a Miesian building composed simply of a floor a roof and the minimum structural support.It is open on all sides, though it can be closed off with movable glass panels when necessary.<br /><br />Between the wooden floor where spirits dance and the tatami-covered floor where spectators sit is the shirasu.Those three floors are open to the landscape and people can access them at any time.That is the biggest difference between this stage and the enclosed No theatre of the Kōyōza-type.In principle, a Kōyōza-type theatre is closed except during performances.People are not free to come and go-a problem that nearly all public buildings share.<br /><br />I wanted to propose an alternative to such closed facilities.Toyoma Nō is a form of Nō performed and watched by townspeople;it is an extension of everyday life.Anyone can approach the Nō stage at any time. They can stroll around the stage as they might stroll through a garden;they can even go into the woods.They can close their eyes, listen to the sounds of the woods, and imagine<br />past or future performances on the stage.<br /><br />More than just open up the space to the public,1 wanted to make the tatami-covered kenjo a community centre for the townspeople.They proposed many possible uses for the space, including a practice room for the tea ceremony and traditional Japanese dance.At my suggestion the dressing room is also used during the day as a small museum displaying Nō masks and costumes, and in the evening as a place for practising Nō songs.In this way, each room serves multiple functions.By cross-programming and by opening up the space to the natural environment, I was able to dissolve the rigid framework of architecture.<br /><br />In opening up the space to the woods,my greatest concern was the design of the shirasu.Ordinarily, this is a left-over area between two structures,the stage and the kenjo.In the modern era,the focus of design has always been objects;the design of open space has been treated as a matter of secondary importance.A garden designer is usually called upon to deal with the space that is left over when the structures (that is,objects) have been completely designed.Here, however, I felt this process ought to be reversed.This narrow, residual area is in fact key to the performance of Nō, sometimes separating and sometimes miraculously connecting this world and the otherworld.If it were correctly designed,it could assure the success of the scheme.<br /><br />I felt that the shirasu had first of all to be large.I based its size on the shirasu of the south Nō stage in the Nishi-Honganji temple in Kyoto, but in contrast to that shirasu,this one is stepped so as to create another spectator area, a second kenjo, with a side-on view of the stage.This lateral view forms the main view of the stage, with the woods beyond providing a backdrop.(This sightline is indicated by arrow X in the plan on page l33.) Usually the main view of the stage is from the front, with the so-called 'mirror board' (kagamiita) seen directly behind.From this viewpoint (arrow Y in the plan),one cannot see beyond the mirror board.<br /><br />The mirror board came into being as a way to enable performers to access the stage from the dressing room without being seen.It is painted with a stylised pine, the lower portion of which is never depicted,as it is meant to represent a tree standing behind the stage and partly screened from view.The introduction of the mirror board was a major event in the evolution of Nō.It helped create a backstage circulation route and,in the depiction of the pine,provided an opportunity for further artistic expression.However, something important—the open stage, a quite<br /> unique theatrical space—was lost.<br /><br />The natural environment that had originally existed beyond the stage was not a world unto itself, but simply another laver of space interposed between the spectator (i.e. the subject) and nature.Creating an entirely separate world within the confines of the stage would require an enormous space and ingenious stage devices.Stages in the West in fact underwent such a process of enlargement and elaboration.<br /> <br />Nō, however, took the opposite path.Its spaces were gradually stripped of material until they were reduced to simple frames that are self-effacing and so able to enclose anything.The otherworld (the immaterial world) reveals its true nature only when seen in the framework of this world (the material world).Likewise,this world begins to reveal its true nature only when seen in the framework of the otherworld.Nō in that sense is a drama about framework.It was to restore the stage's original character as a framework that I reorganised the entire spatial arrangement around a view of the stage in the X-direction, with the woods forming the background.The dark woods suggest an eternal distance that no man-made object can block.This position also provides a sideways view of both the kenjo (this world) and the stage (the otherworld);it makes manifest the great divide between them,but also their overlapping through the arrangement of the stage.The view suggests both result and structure,both representation and being.<br /><br />Here,I made two decisions.0ne relates to the quality of the shirasu.This ground area is usually made of white pebbles:its whiteness indicates its special quality.In addition,it is considered to have originally symbolised water.In the Nō stage built out over the sea at the famous Itsukushima Shrine in Hiroshima Prefecture,water is used to separate this world from the otherworld.Perhaps 'separate' is not entirely correct in this case:the stage and the kenjo are not divided but instead both float on a surface of water that stretches as far as the eve can see.<br /><br />Whether made of water or of white pebbles, the shirasu is not on the same level as this world and the otherworld (the stage), but exists in a space on an entirely different plane—that is,on a metalevel.It must therefore have the quality of infinite extension appropriate to the metalevel.It must be a space without form or distance, a space so abstract it seems almost mathematicalin character.Establishing a spatial metalevel makes possible the creation of a dramatic metalevel.<br /><br />On this site in the woods,however,I felt that white pebbles would be inappropriate.The trees and the damp earth beneath them were both dark.Set against that dark background,the white pebbles would be too conspicuous and assertive.I decided to use crushed black stone instead, so the shirasu blends in with the forest floor, which in turn becomes an extension of the shirasu and thus comes to represent the metalevel.Just as the water in 'Water/Glass' preserves its abstract quality by continuing to flow out and spill over into the sea, the shirasu maintains its abstract state by continuing to flow out and spill over, from the stage towards the woods.<br /><br />The other decision I made concerned the detailing of the stage.My first idea was to use a traditional design expressing the ideals of Nō.In a traditional No theatre, the main stage is six metres square;to this are added a bridge that meets the stage at an angle and a side stage (jiutaiza) 1.5 metres deep.The main stage is raised 90 centimetres above the shirasu, with a wainscot covering its lower portion. I was troubled by the idea of the wainscot, which would have created the impression that the stage was a large mass,an object, on the shirasu,whereas my objective was to reduce the materiality of the stage until it approached the condition of an immaterial frame—ideally, a single thin floor floating over the shirasu.The only precedent I could find for such a stage was the stage at Itsukushima Shrine.It had no wainscot,probably because the wood panels would have rotted in the water.<br /><br />I came to the conclusion that this Nō stage, too, ought to be designed as if it were built on water.Such an interpretation seemed in accord with my decision to use crushed black stone instead of white pebbles on the shirasu,because deep water appears dark.I gradually began to picture a pale stage floating on dark water on the forest floor.Eliminating the wainscot reduced both material and construction costs.Design ideals were in happy agreement with budgetary objectives.<br /><br />Once I had eliminated the wainscot, I began to be troubled by the thickness of the roof over the stage.The traditional roof has multiple layers of shingles applied at its bottom edge to make it appear thicker and enormous end –tiles (so-called 'ogre tiles' ),more than three metres high, ornamenting the ridge.It is too heavy and substantial to be called an immaterial frame.<br /><br />I wanted to strip the roof of as much matter as possible.In a traditional NO stage, the roof is either gabled or hipped.A triangular gable would have presented itself to the kenjo, turning the roof into an enormous object.By contrast, a hipped roof would present only its lower edge to spectators;by reducing the thickness of that edge,I thought I could reduce the apparent volume of the roof as a whole.The lower edge of the roof was made quite thin, as in sukiya-style architecture.For the ends of the ridge, I used kawazu tiles,which are only about 15 centimetres high,instead of the larger ogre tiles.The ridge tiles,too, were thin and low in profile.<br /><br />Despite these efforts,the use of tiles presented problems.Being thick and heavy they inevitably increased the presence and materiality of the roof.It would never be thin, no matter how we detailed it.We were studying alternative roofing materials when we came across a natural slate quarried in a mountain near Toyoma.This local slate was used to roof two well-known Tokyo landmarks:the old Ministry of Justice Building (Ende and Böckmann, 1895) and Tokyo Station (Kingo Tatsuno,1914).<br /><br />What made the slate attractive was its thinness, a result of the great pressure it had been subjected to deep underground.Each material has its own distinctive system of dimensions.Knowing the material,one can with fair accuracy predict the dimensions of a unit of that material and the width and depth of a joint between two such units.The strength of the material and the method of construction define that system of dimensions.Conversely, given the dimensions,one can determine both the material and the method of construction.One can tell through dimensions everything about the way the material was collected and transported.Dimensions must therefore be determined with great care.<br /><br />I decided to roof the building with this local slate.I liked the fact that it could be as thin as 6 millimetres, in defiance of the normal system of dimensions for stone.Materials are all basically the product of action and movement.In most cases, however, materials do not have the capacity to acknowledge that fact, nor do we have the capacity to understand it.Materials have incredibly rich histories,but we don't know how to read them, so materials and buildings remain silent.<br /><br />I hoped that the 6-millimetre dimension would provide an opportunity to break that silence.We conducted repeated experiments on the stone's strength and were able to reduce the thickness even further, to 4-5 millimetres, which proved to be its limit.I felt that the slate would be most articulate in the vicinity of that limit.<br /><br />The thickness and the distinctive surface texture reveal a great deal about the slate:the rippled folds on its surface tell us it was not cut by machine, but split with a wedge.In his perceptive study of folds.4 Deleuze reexamines Leibniz's sense of materiality.Leibniz believed that matter is not composed of autonomous particles (i.e. objects) with absolute hardness;nor is it a fluid of absolute liquidity (i.e. ground against which objects stand out as figure).Matter is instead aggregation and the product of pressure applied to aggregation.Time is built and folded into matter, and so cannot be separated from it.When the natural slate of Toyoma is split, that essential nature of matter is instantaneously revealed.Splitting the slate into thin sheets reduces its volume and leaves only time exposed on its surface.<br /><br />Nō is similar in its effect.Matter and volume are reduced until they are virtually eliminated,making it possible to come and go freely between the immaterial and the material worlds, between life and death.Matter is converted into time.At Toyoma I attempted to take the reduction of matter in Nō even further.The stage, stripped of its wainscot,becomes a single thin plane floating in the woods.Split into the thinnest possible sheets,the slate drifts between matter and time.Matter melts away into the woods.<br /><br />The dissolution of the distinction between matter and time and the conversion of matter into time are not themes unique to the dramatic spaces of No.We are today engaged in an effort to regain time.Up to now, time has been suppressed by an excess of matter.By stripping away matter, we can restore time.Enabling matter to articulate time, we can excite the flow of time.To do so, we must criticise matter but at the same time believe in the potential that is surely sealed into it.The result will be the emergence of something that is not so much architecture as landscape.<br /><br /><br /> NOTES<br /><br />1. Date Masamune (1567-1636),warrior of the Azuchi-Momoyama and early Edo periods. He was made dalmyo of the domain of Sendai after siding with Tokugawa leyasu at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600<br />2. Tohoko, the northeastern region of the main Japanese island, is comprised of Aomori, Iwate,Miyagi, Akita,Yamagata and Fukushima Prefectures.<br />3. Zeami (1363-1443),actor, playwright and critic. In his treatises,Zeami formulated such aesthetic principles as yūgen (subtle beauty). Zeami's father Kan'ami (1333—1384), also an actor and a playwright, took an older genre of performing art known as sarugaku and, under the patronage of the third Ashlkaga shogun.Yoshimitsu (1358—1408),elevated it into a dramatic art form of great refinement.His troupe,the Kanze school,is still one of the foremost schools of Nō.<br />4. Gllles Deteuze,Le Pli:Leibniz et Le Baroque (Paris:Editions de Minuit, 1991);trans. by Tom Conley as The Fold Leibniz and the Baroque(Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press,1992).<br /> </span>bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-25035967708116545742009-03-03T21:13:00.005-05:002009-03-03T21:31:53.671-05:00Concretizing Heidegger's Notion of Dwelling<span style="font-size:78%;">[Originally published as in Building and Dwelling [Bauen und Wohnen], edited by Eduard Führ. Munich, Germany: Waxmann Verlag GmbH; New York: Waxmann, 2000, pp. 189-202; to see other articles in this collection, which originally appeared on the Web, go to: </span><a href="http://www.theo.tu-cottbus.de/Wolke/eng/Subjects/982/Seamon/seamon_t.html"><span style="font-size:78%;">http://www.theo.tu-cottbus.de/Wolke/eng/Subjects/982/Seamon/seamon_t.html</span></a><br /><br />In “Building Dwelling Thinking,” phenomenological philosopher Martin Heidegger discusses the notion of dwelling and contends that “only if we are capable of dwelling, only then can we build” (Heidegger, 1971, p. 160). A major problem with dwelling as an idea is its lack of specificity, particularly in terms of design significance. This article argues that the work of two architects--Thomas Thiis-Evensen and Christopher Alexander—indicates important but different ways in which Heidegger’s dwelling can be translated into more grounded architectural meaning. Thiis-Evensen and Alexander's ideas, placed in a Heideggerian framework, point toward a way of thinking that might lead to the kind of dwelling‑building relationship suggested by Heidegger when he writes that "to build is already to dwell" (ibid., p. 146).<br /><br />DWELLING AND BUILDING<br />In “Building Dwelling Thinking,” Heidegger's major means of investigation is etymological: what is the word history of "to build" (“bauen”) and its links to dwelling? Bauen, says Heidegger, relates to nearness and neighborliness and also implies "to cherish and protect, to preserve and care for" (ibid., p. 147). Bauen also relates to the old High German word for building, “baun,” which means “to dwell” in the sense of remaining or staying in place.<br /><br />In emphasizing this link to place, Heidegger suggests that building relates to dwelling, which therefore can be said to involve a sense of continuity, community, and at-homeness (Harries, 1983). The crux of dwelling, Heidegger argues, is sparing and preserving--the kindly concern for land, things, creatures, and people as they are and as they can become (ibid., p. 149; Zimmerman, 1983). As human beings, we cannot fail to dwell, for dwelling, ultimately, is the essential existential core of human being-in-the-world from which there is no escape.<br /><br />At the same time, dwelling is just as much a means as an end. There will always be a certain tension, a kind of imperfection, between what we wish, do, and make. The significant questions are how do we dwell in our own particular situations and how can we shape the quality of our dwelling for better or worse? Heidegger links the quality of our dwelling to the quality of our building, since an effective building arises from a genuine sense of sparing and preserving (see Foltz, 1995, pp. 159-63).<br /><br />Heidegger also argues that, in practical terms, dwelling involves the gathering of the fourfold--the coming together of earth, sky, people, and a sense of spiritual reverence, or "the gods," as he signifies higher realities (ibid.). In this sense, dwelling is no mere extension of existential space or place; rather, "it becomes itself the fundamental human activity, in the light of which both place and space find their first clarification" (Jager, 1983, p. 154). As Heidegger interprets dwelling, the built environment is crucial because it supports and reflects a person and group's way of being-in-the-world. The built environment is a certain embodied grasp of the world, a particular way of taking up the body and the world, a specific orientation disclosing certain aspects of a worldly horizon (ibid., pp. 154‑155). The world in which we find ourselves completes us in what we are, and therefore the specific nature of the built environment becomes crucial.<br /><br />In other words, people are immersed in their world, and this immersion is qualitative, subtle—in many ways, ineffable. Thus a walk through a well‑tended garden evokes a different state of being than a similar walk through an uncared‑for garden or an unsightly vacant lot. Similarly, entering a church evokes a different human stance than entering a nightclub or a shopping mall or an empty street or a street filled with human activity. One aim for aim for architects is to become sensitive to these experiences and to become more aware of how specific qualities of the built environment enhance or stymie particular human experiences.<br /><br />Heidegger argues that, in our modern age, human dwelling is reduced and so, therefore, is building. His explication of why we dwell less fully today is complicated; he suggests that, in part, it is because we manipulate and demand from our world rather than meet it an attitude of sparing and preserving‑‑i.e., allowing it to be and become. In this sense, a key to dwelling is letting ourselves and the world be, and this letting‑be includes the ways we build, see, understand, and think.<br /><br />It is this need for letting‑be in designing and understanding that marks the value of Thiis-Evensen and Alexander's work for a deeper, more grounded, understanding of dwelling. Both architects seek concrete means for identifying and describing built qualities that sustain and strengthen the quality of dwelling. Through evoking one style of sparing and preserving, Thiis-Evensen and Alexander provide ways to see and think more clearly, which, in turn, might lead to better designing and building.<br /><br />A PHENOMENOLOGY OF ARCHITECTURAL FORM<br />Norwegian architect Thomas Thiis-Evensen's Archetypes in Architecture goes far in developing a language of architectural elements as they have relation to dwelling (Thiis-Evensen 1987).1 Thiis-Evensen's aim is to understand "the universality of architectural expression" (ibid., 8). His vehicle is what he calls architectural archetypes—“the most basic elements of architecture," which for Thiis-Evensen can be identified as the floor, wall, and roof (ibid.). Thiis-Evensen argues that these three architectural elements are not arbitrary but, rather, are common to all historical and cultural traditions. The essential existential ground of floor, wall, and roof, he argues, is the relationship between inside and outside. Just by being what they are, the floor, wall, and roof automatically create an inside in the midst of an outside, though in different ways: the floor, through above and beneath; the wall, through within and around; and the roof, through over and below.<br /><br />Using examples from architectural history as evidence, Thiis-Evensen argues that any building can be interpreted experientially in terms of these three archetypes. His main purpose is to describe the kinds of environmental and architectural experience that different variations of floor, wall, and roof sustain and presuppose. The result, he claims, is "a common language of [architectural] form which we can immediately understand, regardless of individual or culture" (ibid., 17).<br /><div><div><div><div><br /><br /><br /><br /><div>Thiis-Evensen demonstrates that a building’s relative degree of insideness or outsideness in regard to floor, wall, and roof can be clarified through motion, weight, and substance—the three “existential expressions of architecture” (ibid., p. 21). By motion, he means the architectural element's sense of dynamism or inertia--that is, whether the element seems to expand, to contract, or to rest in balance. Weight involves the sense of heaviness or lightness of the element and how it relates to gravity. Last, substance relates to the material sense of the element--whether it is soft or hard, coarse or fine, warm or cold, and so forth.<br /><br />In broadest terms, the central question Thiis-Evensen asks in Archetypes is, “How do floor, wall, and roof express insideness and outsideness through motion, weight, and substance?” The relationship between insideness and outsideness has, in fact, received considerable attention in phenomenological research on environmental and architectural experience (e.g., Chaffin 1989, Dovey 1985, Mugerauer 1991, Mugerauer, 1994, Seamon 1991, Silverstein 1991), especially in geographer Edward Relph's phenomenology of place (Relph 1976), which demonstrates that insideness is the hallmark quality transforming space into place and sustaining the deepest sense of dwelling. One of Thiis-Evensen's contributions is to illustrate ways in which architecture contributes to insideness and outsideness and therefore grounds a sense of dwelling.<br /><br />Thiis-Evensen emphasizes that different architectural styles and cultural traditions may interpret the inside-outside dialectic through different degrees of openness and closure (for example, the medieval fortress's impenetrable walls versus the Renaissance palace's walls of many windows). Regardless of the particular stylistic or cultural expression, however, floors, walls, and roofs provide related results in that they shape an insideness in the midst of outsideness so that the individual and group can dwell. In addition, varying physical qualities of floors, walls, and roofs lead to different experiences of motion, weight, and substance. The result is an intricate set of tensions between architectural elements and architectural experience:<br /><br />What is it that the roof, the floor and the wall do? As a motion, the roof rises or falls. The walls stand up or sink, the floor spreads out, climbs or descends. In this way, weight is also implied. That which rises is light, that which falls is heavy. And if the roof is bright and soft as a sail, it is open. If it is dark and of stone, it is closed. If the openings in a wall are tall and narrow, they ascend, if they are short and wide, they sink. A soft and fine floor is warm and open, but if it is hard and coarse, it closes and is heavy ( ibid., 23).<br /><br />THE WALL AND WINDOW AS EXAMPLES<br />In the three main sections of Archetypes, Thiis-Evensen examines the ways through motion, weight, and substance that floors, walls, and roofs express insideness and outsideness. This work marks the start toward a descriptive language delineating the invariant elements of the built environment that have significance for human experience and dwelling.<br /><br />One example is Thiis-Evensen's explication of the wall, which, of the three archetypes, he shows to reconcile most potently the relationship between inside and outside, since it is by way of the wall that one "passes through" between exterior and interior, either physically or visually through doors and windows. The wall resolves the existential tension between inside and outside in two ways: either the wall draws exterior space inside, or the wall draws interior space outside. In turn, this degree of penetration from inside to outside or vice versa can vary: on one hand, there can be complete openness and invitation; on the other hand, there can be complete closure and rejection.<br /><br />One way in which the wall expresses this dialectic between openness and closure is through its windows, which are said by Thiis-Evensen to contribute to a building's sense of inside and outside in that they announce the mode of life within the building. Windows are "always an expression of the interior to the world at large" (ibid., 251):<br /><br />While the door is determined by its relation to what is outside, the window is the symbol of what is inside. Just like the eye, it expresses the interior's outlook over exterior space.... (ibid.).<br /><br />Thiis-Evensen points out that a window is much more than a wall opening: a window that is only a gaping hole makes the wall "a lifeless skin around a dead and empty interior" (ibid., 259). In clarifying how windows actually give life to a building, he examines the parts of a window‑-the opening, the face in the opening, and the frame around the opening. He then considers how each of these components contributes to a sense of insideness and outsideness.<br /><br />For example, the frame of a window is important because it makes a setting for the inside space and brings it toward the viewer on the outside. If the window has no frame, the outside forces its way in. The frame is important, therefore, because it leads the inside out. This "leading out" occurs in varying ways, depending on what parts of the frame‑-sill, lintel, and jambs‑-are emphasized or deemphasized (figure 1). If all its parts are emphasized (a in figure 1), then the entire interior space seems to reach outward. On the other hand, if only the lintel is highlighted, then an upward movement and roofs take precedence (b); or, if only the sill is highlighted, a sinking movement and floors take precedence (c). In addition, the sense of movement for a wall as a whole can be affected by the arrangement of window frames (figures 2 & 3).<br /><br />Figures 1, 2 & 3<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ18rHwBxiNaBVKCkA6qT91x8TEGK0K37z_9A5Azm3RoRnUrUhq-hIpiCIGa5n1uefVS6YBrpXyUMJ7vx2qc4U1IjQh1RLGKxKkOBpqiOAyoqAqco3OTWom7CSJzmjzsClKv_Sy7XZXisC/s1600-h/!fig1sea%202v.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309150508195602034" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 166px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 232px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ18rHwBxiNaBVKCkA6qT91x8TEGK0K37z_9A5Azm3RoRnUrUhq-hIpiCIGa5n1uefVS6YBrpXyUMJ7vx2qc4U1IjQh1RLGKxKkOBpqiOAyoqAqco3OTWom7CSJzmjzsClKv_Sy7XZXisC/s320/!fig1sea%25202v.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG52uoNxyHXvoiSj7j5P4Dxsf1IwbsYGJVTWJCULKYp6jAItvhMm2uVPUjSdCKuBRtWizwHmhlzl5W_fB2-Z0IQ9jNcmkBQcMgN9Kp4fIxr0NaEDdGVDVW-uFnMtontUjbXq-XzW2AbTo7/s1600-h/!fig2sea%202v.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309152935117769138" style="WIDTH: 135px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG52uoNxyHXvoiSj7j5P4Dxsf1IwbsYGJVTWJCULKYp6jAItvhMm2uVPUjSdCKuBRtWizwHmhlzl5W_fB2-Z0IQ9jNcmkBQcMgN9Kp4fIxr0NaEDdGVDVW-uFnMtontUjbXq-XzW2AbTo7/s320/!fig2sea%25202v.gif" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVHc81bpCEfWUEILRnDpk7hEekjJaQlONiwhBAfXRBcRedTn7OT3YMU1epaLrLJ2GiU2PE-mblxP1H-7_DLyGMLN9qteQOXMGFBb3vaoWqH4Ks2-E76PZfW1DfxJbMsZdDjxfsPh6azjwr/s1600-h/!fig3sea%202v.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309153367147837010" style="WIDTH: 79px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVHc81bpCEfWUEILRnDpk7hEekjJaQlONiwhBAfXRBcRedTn7OT3YMU1epaLrLJ2GiU2PE-mblxP1H-7_DLyGMLN9qteQOXMGFBb3vaoWqH4Ks2-E76PZfW1DfxJbMsZdDjxfsPh6azjwr/s320/!fig3sea%25202v.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /></div><div></div> Another important quality that relates to the window's sense of insideness and outsideness is the shape of its opening for which Thiis-Evensen identifies three variations‑-vertical (a in figure 4), horizontal (b), and central (c). These different forms lead to different inside-outside relationships, thus both vertical (a in figure 5) and central (b) windows suggest a movement coming from inside out, while a horizontal window (c) suggests an inside lateral movement that is separate from the person outside.<br /><br />Figures 4 & 5<br /><br /><br /><br /><div></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyk4I2tiwZq47qsAiWDw0WmOVgarsz9xKA4JyP1cNe2bIjJ4RbV7FoqoMPnhwW0cO-BTiX0kpP2Vh5gqfVcn9icTX1Ec03nUKffbcBattCFPV-La89zRwkQqMryvWU7FdIqi5Kk9YAQG5j/s1600-h/!fig4sea%201v.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309153858534866994" style="WIDTH: 204px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyk4I2tiwZq47qsAiWDw0WmOVgarsz9xKA4JyP1cNe2bIjJ4RbV7FoqoMPnhwW0cO-BTiX0kpP2Vh5gqfVcn9icTX1Ec03nUKffbcBattCFPV-La89zRwkQqMryvWU7FdIqi5Kk9YAQG5j/s320/!fig4sea%25201v.gif" border="0" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5P91hqSzp1O9T4Qkw-an0yJuV3YxJWOdJm7FgsyXBg68POSIeBDUxpZ_2tvouEWFHkg_n_NfejkV5B3qkycuMm23q431cX6zfdTpALwTm48G-G811zG4vOxSDTVFxN5Tke_2FITyCfqRi/s1600-h/!fig5sea%201v.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309154020402537490" style="WIDTH: 119px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5P91hqSzp1O9T4Qkw-an0yJuV3YxJWOdJm7FgsyXBg68POSIeBDUxpZ_2tvouEWFHkg_n_NfejkV5B3qkycuMm23q431cX6zfdTpALwTm48G-G811zG4vOxSDTVFxN5Tke_2FITyCfqRi/s320/!fig5sea%25201v.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div><br /><br />In his explication of the floor, wall, and roof, Thiis-Evensen assumes that there are various shared existential qualities‑-insideness-outsideness, gravity-levity, coldness-warmth, and so forth‑-that mark the foundation of architecture. Thus, a wall with windows whose lintels are emphasized suggests a sense of upward movement and levity, just as a wall with windows whose sills are emphasized will feel heavier and in relationship to the ground. Or, if one studies the experienced qualities of stairs, one realizes that narrow stairs typically relate to privacy and a faster ascent, whereas wide stairs often relate to publicness, ceremony, and a slower pace. Similarly, steep stairs express struggle and strength, isolation and survival--experienced qualities that frequently lead to steep stairs' use as a sacred symbol, as in Mayan temples or Rome's Scala Santa. On the other hand, shallow stairs encourage a calm, comfortable pace and typically involve secular use, as, for example, Michelangelo's steps leading up to the Campidoglio of Rome's Capitoline Hill (ibid., 89-103).<br /><br />Thiis-Evensen argues that his work has direct design implications. He claims, that, too often, an architect's aesthetic sense is subjective because he or she has not thoughtfully considered how architectural forms arise from and translate themselves back into shared existential qualities like motion, weight, substance, insideness, outsideness, permeability, closure, and so forth. Thiis-Evensen believes that understanding the archetypes “and their expressive potentialities is essential when [a design] vision is to be turned into a realization" (ibid., 387). The result might be a building whose formal qualities resonate with its practical needs. The possibility becomes greater that human beings and their built world are reconciled and the quality of dwelling strengthened.<br /><br />CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER AND PATTERN LANGUAGE<br />This reconciliation between people and their built world is also a major aim in the research and design of American architect Christopher Alexander, though he works at a different experiential scale than Thiis-Evensen, who largely emphasizes lived qualities of individual buildings. Alexander is more concerned with architecture in its larger environmental context. In other words, how can activities, buildings, spaces, and landscapes be designed in an integrated, coherent way to create places that are coherent, beautiful, and alive for their residents and users? In short, the aim is place making that sustains dwelling.<br /><br />Like Thiis-Evensen, Alexander believes that architecture today often fails both practically and aesthetically. He also believes that many built environments of the past--for example, a city like Venice or Oxford, or a building like Chartres Cathedral or a Japanese farmhouse--generally had a sense of togetherness and harmony (Alexander, 1979). An important focus of Alexander's work is how architectural parts belong together in a larger environmental whole (Alexander, 1993). Alexander argues that, if an environmental whole is made rightly, it has a powerful sense of place, which may help people who live in and use that place to have more satisfactory, vibrant lives.<br /><br />In his work, Alexander seeks a way to return a sense of wholeness to the buildings and environments of modern Western society. He emphasizes that the crucial process is healing. Every new construction, whether building or square or street furniture or window detail, must be made in such a way as to heal the environment, where “heal” especially means “make whole.” The obligation is that the thing built must work “to create a continuous structure of wholes around itself” (Alexander 1987, p. 22).<br /><br />The practical tool that Alexander develops to foster environmental wholes and healing is "pattern language"--a conceptual method whereby the layperson or designer can identify and visualize the underlying elements and relationships in a built environment that foster a sense of place (Alexander et al. 1977). In his master volume, Pattern Language (ibid.), Alexander and colleagues identify 253 of these elements, or patterns, as the are called. A pattern is both interpretive and prescriptive: first, it is a description of a particular element of the built environment that contributes to a sense of place (for example, "identifiable neighborhood" [no. 14], "degrees of publicness " [36], "main gateways" [53], "high places" [62], and "window place" [180]); second, it is a practical instruction that suggests how to design the particular element effectively (for example, in regard to "main gateways," "Mark every boundary in the city which has important human meaning‑-the boundary of a building cluster, a neighborhood, a precinct‑-by great gateways where the major entering paths cross the boundary" [Alexander et al. 1977, p. 278]).<br /><br />Alexander emphasizes, however, that successful places are always composed of many interrelated patterns that work synergistically to create a whole greater than the individual parts. To incorporate this wholeness in pattern language, Alexander organizes the 253 patterns from larger to smaller in three groups:<br /><br />1. Patterns that describe larger-scale environments that cannot be designed or built all at once (e.g., "community of 7,000," [12], "shopping street" [32], "housing cluster" [37]);<br />2. Patterns that describe buildings and groups of buildings (e.g., "main building" [99], "family of entrances" [102], "positive outdoor space" [106]);<br />3. Patterns that describe individual building details (e.g., "structure follows social spaces” [205], “columns at the corners” [212], “front door bench” [242]).<br /><br />Alexander argues that, for any new design problem, it is important to write a pattern language that begins with larger patterns and then incorporates smaller patterns. In this way, the larger qualities of environmental wholeness are held in sight as smaller qualities are fitted around them. He also emphasizes that the 253 patterns in Pattern Language are illustrative and far from complete. New design problems and environments may require revised patterns or even entirely new patterns that the architect will need to create from scratch (e.g., Coates and Seamon, 1993). In the end, pattern language is not a finished product but an on-going process of dialogue among architect, client, user, builder, and site. Pattern language is not a master list of unchangeable design principles that must be incorporated in all buildings and places. Instead, it is a way of looking at and thinking about buildings and environments so that one can better understand how their parts might work together to create a whole. As Alexander (1987, p. 16) explains,<br /><br />Design must be premised on a process that has the creation of wholeness as its overriding purpose, and in which every increment of construction, no matter how small, is devoted to this purpose.<br /><br />ASPECTS OF AN ARCHITECTURE OF DWELLING<br />Like Heidegger, both Thiis-Evensen and Alexander believe that the built world can help illuminate and sustain essential qualities of human understanding, life, and experience, though the two architects’ thinking is somewhat different as to what these essential qualities are. Alexander would no doubt appreciate Thiis-Evensen's effort to understand architectural elements existentially, but he might ask that Thiis-Evensen give more attention to how individual archetypes join together into a larger sense of human meaning, environment, and place. For example, Alexander would probably accept Thiis-Evensen's interpretation of the way that architectural qualities support a sense of insideness and outsideness, but he would also emphasize that these architectural qualities are of little use if they do not contribute to the building's wider sense of place.<br /><br />To understand more clearly this difference between Alexander and Thiis-Evensen, we can consider one example‑-windows, to which both writers devote considerable attention but in different ways. In Pattern Language, Alexander includes several patterns dealing with windows and, in each, they work in such as way as to involve people more directly with their place. For example, the pattern "windows overlooking life" (no. 192) insists that the building, through its windows, have direct visual or physical relationship with the surroundings so that there will be a connection between inside and outside. Similarly, the pattern "window place" (no. 180) says that:<br /><br />Everyone loves window seats, bay windows, and big windows with low sills and comfortable chairs drawn up to them....Therefore, in every room where you spend any length of time during the day, make at least one window into a "window place" (Alexander 1977, p. 834, p. 837).<br /><br />This pattern particularly well illustrates Alexander's emphasis on how buildings work as networks of behaviors and experiences. When people enter a room with a window, Alexander argues, they typically experience two forces: first, they are drawn toward the light; second, they want to rest and be comfortable. A window seat automatically resolves these two forces, and a space is transformed into a place where one can both sit comfortably and enjoy the light.<br /><br />In pattern language, Alexander uses the term density to describe the multivalent meaning of the built environment. He explains that "many patterns overlap in the same physical space: the building is very dense; it has many meanings captured in a small space; and through this density it becomes profound" (ibid., p. xli). A simple example of density is the "window place" pattern, which, in terms of Thiis-Evensen’s motion, weight, and substance, could be said to gather and reconcile darkness-light and movement-rest. By incorporating a "lighted place to be comfortable," a room becomes more meaningful and dense than if it included either a "lighted place" or "place to rest" alone.<br /><br />Unlike Alexander, Thiis-Evensen does not consider how windows work as a significant locus of activity. Instead, he speaks of the window largely in terms of its formal existential expression. In other words, how, by its specific size, shape, and physical arrangement, does a window allow the interior and exterior of a building to speak or not to speak to the world beyond?<br /><br />Thiis-Evensen’s emphasis on how formal architectural qualities are experienced does not mean that Alexander is more complete in his existential understanding of architecture than Thiis-Evensen. Rather, these differences in approach and scale point toward the considerable variety of ways in which the built environment can contribute order and pattern to human life. One can imagine a continuum of architectural and environmental meaning that runs, on one end, from the pure architectural element to, on the other end, complex aggregations of buildings, spaces and environments that evoke a powerful sense of place. A thorough architectural and environmental phenomenology would delineates this full range of architectural and environmental experience and considers how qualities of the natural, built, and human worlds contribute to a sense of place and environmental wholeness.<br /><br />In this sense, both Thiis-Evensen and Alexander’s theories of architecture and place are a major contribution to clarifying Heidegger’s cryptic statement cited at the start of this article—“Only if we are capable of dwelling, only then can we build.” The work of both architects helps us better to dwell because they help us better to see one part of our world—the way that architecture can contribute to human being-in-the-world. In different ways, both architects seek a virtuous circle in which people and world, thinking and designing, designing and building are all mutually supportive. In this sense, Heidegger would no doubt cheer these works, seeing them as a pragmatic complement to the larger philosophical questions that he reopens in his own writings.<br /><br />NOTE<br />1. Thiis-Evensen's book is a rewritten version of his 1982 doctoral dissertation done under the direction of Norwegian architect and architectural theorist Christian Norberg-Schulz, one of the major figures in developing a phenomenology of architecture and environment. Though not discussed here, Norberg-Schulz's work also draws centrally on Heidegger’s thinking and is another major contribution to grounding Heidegger’s notion of dwelling practically. See Norberg-Schulz, 1971, 1980, 1985, 1988.<br /><br /><br />REFERENCES<br />Alexander, C., 1987. A New Theory of Urban Design. New York: Oxford University Press.<br />Alexander, C., 1993. A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art: The Color and Geometry of Very Early Turkish Carpets. NY: Oxford University Press.<br />Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S., & Silverstein, M. 1977. A Pattern Language. New York: Oxford University Press.<br />Chaffin, V. F. 1989. Dwelling and Rhythm: The Isle Brevelle as a Landscape of Home. Landscape Journal, 7: 96-106.<br />Coates, G. J., and Seamon, D., 1993. Promoting a Foundational Ecology Practically Through Christopher Alexander’s Pattern Language: The Example of Meadowcreek. In D. Seamon, ed., Dwelling, Seeing, and Designing. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, pp. 331-54.<br />Dovey, K. l985. Home and homelessness. In I. Altman & C. M. Werner eds., Home Environments. New York: Plenum, pp. 33-64.<br />Foltz, B. V., 1995. Inhabiting the Earth: Heidegger, Environmental Ethics, and the Metaphysics of Nature. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.<br />Harries, K. 1983. Thoughts on a Non‑Arbitrary Architecture. Perspecta, 20, 9‑20; reprinted in Dwelling, Seeing, and Designing, D. Seamon, ed. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, pp. 41-59.<br />Heidegger, Martin, 1971. Poetry, Language, Thought. New York: Harper and<br />Row.<br />Jager, Bernd, 1983. Theorizing and the Elaboration of Place: Inquiry into Galileo and Freud, in A. Giorgi, A. Barton, and C. Maes, eds., Duquesne Studies in Phenomenological Psychology, vol. 4. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, pp. 153‑180.<br />Mugerauer, R. 1993. Toward an Architectural Vocabulary: The Porch as a Between. In D. Seamon, ed., Dwelling, Seeing, and Designing. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, pp. 103-28.<br />Mugerauer, R., 1994. Interpretations on Behalf of Place. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.<br />Norberg-Schulz, C. 1971. Existence, Space, and Architecture. New York: Praeger.<br />Norberg‑Schulz, C. 1980. Genius Loci: Toward a Phenomenology of Architecture. New York: Rizzoli.<br />Norberg‑Schulz, C. 1985. The Concept of Dwelling: On the Way to a Figurative Architecture. New York: Rizzoli.<br />Norberg-Schulz, C. 1988. Architecture: Meaning and Place. New York: Rizzoli.<br />Relph, E., 1976. Place and Placelessness. London: Pion.<br />Seamon, D., 1979. A Geography of the Lifeworld. New York: St. Martin's.<br />Seamon, D., 1982. The Phenomenological Contribution to Environmental Psychology. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2, 119‑140.<br />Seamon, D., l987. Phenomenology and Environment‑behavior Research. In G. T. Moore and E. Zube (Eds.), Advances in Environment, Behavior and Design, vol. l. New York: Plenum, pp. 3-27.<br />Seamon, D., 1989. Humanistic and Phenomenological Advances in Environmental Design. The Humanistic Psychologist 17 (Autumn), 280-293.<br />Seamon, D., 1991. Awareness and Reunion: A Phenomenology of the Person-Environment Relationship as Portrayed in the New York Photographs of André Kertész, in Place Images in the Media, L. Zonn (ed.). Totowa, New Jersey: Roman and Littlefield, pp. 87-107.<br />Seamon, D., ed., 1993. Dwelling, Seeing and Building: Toward a Phenomenological Ecology. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.<br />Seamon, D. & Mugerauer, R., eds., 1985. Dwelling, Place and Environment: Towards a Phenomenology of Person and World. New York: Columbia University Press.<br />Silverstein, M., 1993. The First Roof: Interpreting a Spatial Pattern. In D. Seamon, ed., Dwelling, Seeing, and Designing: Toward a Phenomenological Ecology. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, pp. 77-101.<br />Thiis-Evensen, T., 1987. Archetypes in Architecture. Oslo: Norwegian University Press.<br />Zimmerman, M. 1983. Toward a Heideggerian Ethos for Rational Environmentalism. Environmental Ethics, 5, 99‑131.</div></div></div></div></div>bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-75290826792657666872009-03-02T11:04:00.002-05:002009-03-03T21:45:41.124-05:00MSN & Skype<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">hi, guys: You can add my MSN and skype to your list, so we can have more different ways to interact with each other, maybe for a video conference or online real time discussion : )<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Please also let me know yours!</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br />Xu:<br /><br />MSN: <a href="mailto:bearrun78@hotmail.com">bearrun78@hotmail.com</a><br />Skype: bearrun78</span><br /></span><br />Jonathan:<br /><br />MSN: <a href="mailto:jbirdspy@hotmail.com">jbirdspy@hotmail.com</a><br />Skype: jonathan.byersbearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-46547513493701858242009-03-02T10:43:00.003-05:002009-03-02T10:50:49.912-05:00Al Jaber Tower in Dubai<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisOYcKilQps5p8O6lYQNERqTVgub_dR0_Pr8BSMZj8kmYsf-L9BTt0IL_SiXw1UtD44EaznQXRTJgVVhiWdu4beKE_Vj_nYD3FAJcoBiFvfzt_LmXXB1haX1zr1tTeGY37GyV4XyIS5dP4/s1600-h/imresolt007du8.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308617430793901666" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisOYcKilQps5p8O6lYQNERqTVgub_dR0_Pr8BSMZj8kmYsf-L9BTt0IL_SiXw1UtD44EaznQXRTJgVVhiWdu4beKE_Vj_nYD3FAJcoBiFvfzt_LmXXB1haX1zr1tTeGY37GyV4XyIS5dP4/s320/imresolt007du8.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilAUjmwsDKuj-AxKufEnVK0LIojpPsTuiZUmfp4Abel_FKlOeKJKPOLGGd2aoxImptZ2Brj69NULGyJcCSbykJjLv3sFeH9jiS9kbDuONPBPzdItHjJt68OhJEYV_gn4Ja0U9JO_QHr__T/s1600-h/imresolt059wv9.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308617247543749490" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilAUjmwsDKuj-AxKufEnVK0LIojpPsTuiZUmfp4Abel_FKlOeKJKPOLGGd2aoxImptZ2Brj69NULGyJcCSbykJjLv3sFeH9jiS9kbDuONPBPzdItHjJt68OhJEYV_gn4Ja0U9JO_QHr__T/s320/imresolt059wv9.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAlU0y5oLbL8ACrlHPLAB56xb0b66nBqpEtywrRB-wRLCVXuBEjdSSWgr5SFPJUm1ji4Fs_CYpI_59jmD28zUL0EryEWlWoF9rGHJGbZrdweuPaaf3Jgml-lpAGH-Qhj-R2LNLpWsDlL89/s1600-h/img4510bc2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308617095540892594" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 213px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAlU0y5oLbL8ACrlHPLAB56xb0b66nBqpEtywrRB-wRLCVXuBEjdSSWgr5SFPJUm1ji4Fs_CYpI_59jmD28zUL0EryEWlWoF9rGHJGbZrdweuPaaf3Jgml-lpAGH-Qhj-R2LNLpWsDlL89/s320/img4510bc2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">We designed this tower with the faceted curtain wall, tilted towards four different angles, to get a fragmented image of the city view, the facets become unified while they go towards the top of the tower. We use this idea to present this building since it is the gate way tower of entering the Dubai Media city, we think the basic element of the media today are the pixels, in most of the way of visual expression.<br /><br />Now that I think about it, could be a good way to explain the diffuse effect that Kerry brought up.<br /><br />Xu<br /></span></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnZyecjloHwMBcZyRYVqXoxon_VUePTCau6QvCrtzyyBZWXUzl4hsLsLX99RotYcNqrD1DetFFL6pCreP3gWw__vS4Po6OkY529wXJokb7MqJLLEs9OUwFrYObcvAAGzl5KW_OQbZv-wR6/s1600-h/imresolt007du8.jpg"></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><div></div></div></div>bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-7684822966633422512009-03-02T10:41:00.001-05:002009-03-02T10:43:27.316-05:00Comment on the comments for Kerry<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">lots of great comments and thoughts, I think it is time to put these ideas into some really interesting models, to test out the material, the layers, the frame, the diffusion effect....I can already see many opportunities in my head now, except I can't do it for you guys, but looking forward to see what each of you come up with!</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Xu</span>bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-10630468867259742592009-02-27T09:13:00.001-05:002009-02-27T09:15:34.449-05:00ERASlNG:<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">KIRŌSAN OBSERVATORY,OCHl,GUN,<br />EHIME,1991-94</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br />The island of ōshima lies off the coast of Shikoku,to the northeast of Imabari City in Ehime Prefecture.It covers 45-5 square kilometres and has a population of 10,000. Tangerines and fishing are the main industries.Part of the Geiyo Islands,the largest archipelago in the Inland Sea, Ōshima is next to Ushima,an uninhabited island that is reputed to have been the birthplace of a notorious pirate clan that operated in these waters centuries ago.<br /><br />The highest point on Ōshima is a 315-metre peak with the curious name Kirōsan ('turtle.aged—mountain'). Although little more than a hill,it looms over the small island.The residents of the nearby town asked me to design an observatory on top of it.<br /><br />My first visit took place on a winter's day.The mountain was not a pretty sight.Several years earlier, the summit had been levelled and trees cut down to create a so-called Observation Park.The park was a cold,windy, desolate place, almost deltoid of life.The only structure was a small public toilet.<br /><br />The townspeople wanted to create an observatory that overlooked the outlying islands.They wanted the building to be a symbol of the island and the town.In short, they wanted a monument.There were few constraints.The site was large enough.I was free to determine the internal programme.It was not a built-up area,so planning regulations were not very stringent.Nevertheless, the project proved extremely difficult.I developed various schemes,but none of them was satisfactory.I grew impatient.I could not get the bleak image of the Observation Park out of my head.There are times when the absence of programmatic constraints can actually make it difficult to arrive at a design, but that didn't seem to be the problem in this case.<br /><br />I thought through the problem once more and came to the conclusion that the very idea of an observatory involved a contradiction.Typically an observatory is constructed to take advantage of a beautiful environment.However, its construction can spoil that environment.It does not matter how beautiful the form of the observatory is; in fact, the more beautiful it is, the more conspicuous it is likely to be, to the detriment of the environment.<br /><br />Observatories demonstrate the self-centred nature of human perception.They are generally objects—that is the core of the problem.I wondered if this observatory could be made transparent, that is, effectively erased,so minimising the damage to the environment.<br /><br />I therefore tried designing a transparent object.My real aim was not to create an object, but to choreograph a sequence of movements by the subject—that is,to create a device controlling his vision.Nevertheless, given the site—a park on a hill—it was inevitable that any kind of mass would appear as an object in the environment.With this scheme, I could only try to minimise the impact of that object by employing a material that was as delicate and transparent as possible.<br /><br />To achieve transparency I decided to use a steel frame,which allows for more delicate columns and beams than a concrete structure.Preliminary calculations showed that,when reinforced with diagonal bracing,columns and beams could be made of steel tubing with a 200一millimetre cross section.The result would be a box-shaped structure,40 metres long,6 metres wide and 12 metres high,wrapped on two sides in stainless steel mesh.The vertical planes of mesh would divide the site into three layered spaces—a bamboo grove,a sandy beach,and an area carpeted with wildflowers—representing the three different types of landscape on the island.At intermediate points in the sequence, glass boxes would penetrate the mesh,enabling the subject to pass from one spatial layer to another.<br /><br />The purpose of this was to remind the subject that the world is not absolute but is instead diverse and relative in character.The subject was to be made to understand this,not through intellectual argument, but through physical experience.In ascending to the top of the observatory, the visitor would pass easily from one thinly sliced layer to another, from one world to another.Such thinly sliced spaces are rare in the real world but commonplace in cyberspace,where they allow speedy transitions from one layer to another.Computer games depend on that speed of transition.One of the ideas of this scheme was to introduce into real space the structure and speed of cyberspace.<br /><br />Though thin, each of the three spaces in this scheme had character.Instead of being closed,they were open and connected to the natural environment of the outside world.They were not complete in themselves,but served to mediate.For example,a difference of a few centimeters in the subject's position relative to the stainless steel mesh completely altered his vision of the world.Seen through the mesh,the Inland Sea appeared in vague outline,as if rendered in an impressionist style.Seen without the filter of the mesh,it became a landscape straight out of the Mediterranean,sharply delineated,with bold shadows.Such things do not happen in spaces that are designed to be complete in themselves, which necessarily have depth.The scheme confirmed the fact that the position of the subject determines the appearance of the world to a large extent.It showed that the world could be freer, lighter and more relativistic.<br /><br />The culmination of the upward sequence of movements was to be the subject's arrival inside a hollow, free-form volume made of living plants.That volume was the sole opaque object in the project.All man-made objects having been made transparent, the only object permitted to assert itself was a natural one.It was almost as if a fragment of the forest was floating in mid-air on top of the mountain. I felt that this scheme effected a decisive reversal.Since Ancient Greece and Rome, artefacts have been made to stand out as figures against a natural ground—a schema that has enabled architecture to assert its superiority over nature.In this project, however, nature was the figure that stood out against a man-made ground.This reversal was Intended to serve as a criticism of the traditional relationship of contrast and domination.<br /><br />Ultimately, however, I decided to discard the scheme.I did so for two reasons,one having to do with transparency, the other with the critical stance that was expressed.Using a transparent material such as glass is not always enough to erase an object.Many glass buildings are in fact conspicuous objects that thoroughly dominate their environments.In terms of erasing an object, the setting is more important than the choice of material.In this case, the setting was a summit that had already been leveled and turned into a perfect pedestal.Anything that is set on a pedestal becomes an object, regardless of what it is made of or how discreetly it is placed.Most works of<br />contemporary art are tiresome because they rely on this particular property of the pedestal.<br /><br />No particular skill or effort is required to turn something into an object.Preventing a thing from becoming an object is a far more difficult task.I had intended to criticize the system for generating objects, first by erasing the object through the use of transparent materials,and secondly by creating a 'natural' floating object made of living plants.However, the scheme was still premised on a levelled site:I was not repudiating the use of a pedestal.In that sense, I was taking a stance that was both critical and conservative.<br /><br />I began to wonder if it might not be possible to reverse the nature of the mountain peak itself, to make it the very opposite of a pedestal.If I could achieve that, it would represent a far more decisive repudiation of objects than the use of transparency.Even though the working drawings were nearly complete, I decided to abandon the scheme I had developed and take another approach based on burial.simply placing the building below ground without altering its basic form would be the same as concealing an object.My intention was to make the polar opposite of an object.I wanted to explore the potential of a form that was concave and thoroughly passive rather than assertive.<br /><br />My starting point was to restore the topography.I conceived a concrete structure,with a U-shaped cross—section, set on the existing open space at the summit and bermed and planted on both sides.The top of the mountain was to be restored to its original height, with the observatory forming a slit-like excavation at its apex.Instead of an observation deck it was to be an observation trench.<br /><br /> I decided on the method for planting the berms only after careful study.If the plants did not quickly take root, the steep banks of earth might be washed away by rain.A landslide was the last thing I wanted.First,a welded metal net was used to hold the banked earth in place;then a viscous solution of seeds,fertiliser and fibres was sprayed onto the berms.By these means vegetation was restored to the mountaintop.<br /><br />The trench is completely Open and exposed to the sky, but is nearly invisible unless one is directly above.Only a thin,sharp slit appears on the face of the mountain.Here, as in nearly all public projects,the client had expected me to create a monument.Being able to meet such expectations is considered the test of a good architect.However the only monument on this site is the natural landscape, Kirōsan itself.I felt that it should be the only thing to admire here.<br /><br />Visitors are momentarily taken aback by the downward orientation of the approach.They do not anticipate walking down,even part of the way, to an observatory on top of a mountain.After passing through a narrow opening,where the walls press in on them from both sides, they arrive at a sunken plaza.The space is open to the sky but enclosed on three sides by high walls.On the fourth side is a large stairway. The only thing visitors can see of their surroundings is the sky;they wonder what sort of observatory this can be.Ascending to the top of the stairway, their field of vision suddenly expands:the islands of the Inland Sea are spread out before them.From this deck (Deck 1),visitors make a 180-degree turn and cross a narrow bridge with a cypress footway.The bridge connects with Deck 2, located at the opposite end of the observatory, where there are views of the natural landscape.Nature has long been considered sacred in Japan.In many religious spaces, the object of veneration is natural.(At Ōmiwa Shrine, for instance, it is a mountain.1)Typically,visitors to a Japanese shrine are led through a carefully orchestrated sequence, which often includes a bridge.The culmination of the sequence is the shrine building,beyond which worshippers may not go—the object of veneration itself remains out of bounds.For this reason the man-made structures that mediate between worshippers and the venerated object are not massive or assertive, but rather lightweight, fragile and subject to weathering over time.They are most often made of one of the pale,lightweight, fragrant woods,such as cypress, that have been highly prized in Japan since ancient times.Hence my choice of cypress for the bridge, as this observatory, too, is a device for mediating between people and nature.A hierarchical sequence carefully and gradually leads visitors into the inner depths of nature.<br /><br />Deck 2 is at the highest point of the observatory, the last stage in the hierarchical sequence.From there, visitors go down a separate, steep stairway which returns them abruptly to the sunken plaza.I felt that Deck 2 required a device that effects this sudden reversal—something like the mirror typically positioned in the innermost depths of a Shinto shrine space.Having crossed a bridge,climbed the steps and reached the inner sanctum,the worshipper peers eagerly into the mirror, but the mirror rebuffs his gaze.It does not simply obstruct vision,but shows how it is imperfect, self-centred and self-referential.<br /><br />The mirror in a shrine strips the act of seeing of its privileged character.I sought to create a device that performed a similar function.My solution was to arrange three pairs of cubes on Deck 2—half of them function as seats while the other hall positioned opposite,are equipped with monitors.<br /><br />When a visitor sits on the first seat and looks at the monitor opposite, he sees an overall image of Deck 2.If he looks carefully he sees himself sitting on the stone bench —and is unsettled to realise he is being watched.The camera,hidden among trees, is difficult to spot.When the visitor sits on the second seat and looks at the monitor opposite, he sees his own face in profile,his gaze directed slightly downward.Here too,the camera is well concealed:it takes some time to find the small hole bored into the lower part of the adiacent seat.When the visitor sits on the third seat and looks at the monitor opposite,he sees an image of woods—the same woods, directly ahead,that he can see unaided.However, that natural view differs from the image captured by a video camera in colour and resolution;where the image seen by the unaided eye has no fixed frame, the video image has a fixed frame and a clear boundary.Here too, the camera is hidden,suspended beneath the floor of the deck.<br /><br />Electronic technology is used in these devices to expose the imperfection of vision and reverse its privileged status.Under ordinary circumstances, the seeing subject is under the illusion that he dominates what he sees.However, seeing also opens up the possibility of being seen.Anyone who dominates another through vision is always vulnerable to a brutal reversal.<br /><br />Akira Kurosawa's 1963 film High and Low2 depicts the possibility of just such a reversal.A child is kidnapped from a luxurious residence situated high on a hill in Yokohama.The picture window of the residence affords a panoramic view of the city below.The kidnapper calls the wealthy owner.I've got your child;he says 'You can't see me, but I can see everything you're doing right now.' The roles have been reversed.The owner of the residence is brutally stripped of the privileged status bestowed on him by his high vantage point.<br /><br />Kurosawa is pointing out the danger inherent not just in seeing,but in objects.The hilltop residence is a typical object.Set on high ground,as if on a pedestal,it is a product of bourgeois desire.Looking through its enormous picture windows,the occupants come to believe that they dominate not just nature but the world as a whole At the same time, the bourgeoisie wants the world to see the manifestations of their sensibility and wealth.The suburban house enabled them to satisfy this dual desire—to see and be seen.As a result, the twentieth century was the century of suburban houses, which proliferated at an extraordinary rate until they dominated the landscape.<br /><br />Eventually, however, it was realised that these objects were not as ideal a form as had been supposed.Success was assured only when an object stood alone on a hill, dominating and being seen by the rest of the world.When there were multiple objects,those conditions no longer applied.The view from the object was no longer of the natural landscape or the world at large, but of obiects built by others—other people's houses.The subject was overwhelmed by these unwelcome sights.Moreover,every object was continually observed,inside and out, by its neighbours. <br /> In the suburbs,the misery of High and Low is an everyday occurrence.The dual desire to see and to be seenleads to instability.An object may be made transparent,but it remains an object.And transparent,it is more thoroughly under observation and more thoroughly dominated.<br /><br />Conditions in the surburbs are in a sense even more wretched than those in the panopticon, a prison system conceived by the English jurist and philosopher Jeremv Bentham (1748-1832).In the panopticon the cells were arranged so that they could all be kept under constant observation from a central tower.Foucault saw this system as the model for modern disciplinary society3. In fact, disciplinary society is more completely realised,in a less obvious form,in the object—strewn suburbs of today.There is no need there for a central control tower:evading observation is impossible.<br /><br />Instability is not endemic to the suburbs:all buildings that are objects share it.One-way to overcome the instability of objects is to thoroughly expose it—through theft.Theft is an effective method against those who build objects and with naive delight show the rest of society how much they have to lose.For most people, a house is an irreplaceable asset, the fruit of a lifetime's work.That is precisely why some resort to theft,and why theft has such an impact.<br /><br />Kirōsan Observatory is a facility for committing theft, for stealing looks at visitors.The beautiful natural environment lures people to the place.Once there,they are invited to go up to the decks from the plaza.On the final deck they are given their come—uppance:'You cannot see me.I can see everything you are doing.' Fear must be instilled in those who would possess and dominate the rest of the world through vision and objects.<br /><br /><br />NOTES<br /><br />1. Nara Perfecture. The object of veneration of Miwa Shrine is the mountain Miwayama.<br />2. Original title Tengoku to jigoku (Literally, ‘Heaven and Hell’), based on the novel King’s Ransom by Ed McBain.<br />3. Michel Foucault (1926-1984). French social scientist, historian and author of Surveiller ep punir; naissance de la prison, trans. Alan Sheridan, Discipline and Punish: The birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage 1977).</span>bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-1642359676411143902009-02-22T10:13:00.000-05:002009-02-22T10:14:03.917-05:00Katie Hovis and Kerry Zawadzki<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Are the blogs we are all going to comment on for this week : )</span>bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-35299642162419811702009-02-22T10:00:00.002-05:002009-02-22T10:10:52.362-05:00Site study and research<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I hope you guys all got the site location, photos and the program. This is the central park in the heart of Wang Jing District of Beijing. It’s surrounded by cooperate headquarter towers, and commercial buildings. The land use for this site is Park, however, the north side of it is allowed for some commercial buildings. These settings give us many different dimensions and aspects to define this site as we need. You may also choose to work on the landscape of the park together with the building if you think it will help you to merge the architecture into the surrounding environment. </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Please send any of your questions regarding the site.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Xu</span>bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-13709850864299239582009-02-22T09:57:00.002-05:002009-02-22T10:00:17.589-05:00interesting material study<a href="http://architectonicsofmusic.blogspot.com/2009/02/imaginary-landscapes.html"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">http://architectonicsofmusic.blogspot.com/2009/02/imaginary-landscapes.html</span></a><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">It's a friend's studio blog, shown some of the material study they did for their class.</span>bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-49491125347487048222009-02-16T11:47:00.001-05:002009-02-16T11:48:58.680-05:00comments to Kerry's post<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">hi, Kerry, your writing about the three methods of create Negative architecture is very interesting, and seems very doable. I can totally imagine each of them to be tested and realized and form interesting architecture treatments. I'd suggest you to do some conceptual physical model to try to explain your thoughts by some physical form and logic, it would be very good to be able to see it in reality.</span>bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-7210598265631317062009-02-16T06:35:00.004-05:002009-02-16T07:02:16.301-05:00Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a site!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGQKY30htLaPJY6KvoccryPd4QLZ6dUd-oHErhwIK4JksdzbhgTco70OhjMPTP92Hv1uTlTuBiWD0iIkCVIiyz_zW8_CLCJFw8ITMRsuAI8SK87ESdZBU6ZXONqRZ3Wg0-uIp9xMA4NXJM/s1600-h/surrounding+context.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303360453531762178" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 295px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGQKY30htLaPJY6KvoccryPd4QLZ6dUd-oHErhwIK4JksdzbhgTco70OhjMPTP92Hv1uTlTuBiWD0iIkCVIiyz_zW8_CLCJFw8ITMRsuAI8SK87ESdZBU6ZXONqRZ3Wg0-uIp9xMA4NXJM/s400/surrounding+context.jpg" border="0" /></a>Hi guys,<br /><br />Please see the above image for the first information regarding our site.<br /><br />More information will follow shortly in the form of site photos, Google Earth coords, CAD files, etc.<br /><br />The site is to be a central feature for a developing urban center of Beijing. The context is diverse with retail, residential, and corporate centers all bounding the site.<br /><br />Consider the site as a sandbox for experimenting with your ideas about negative architecture.<br /><br />Jonathan<br /><br /><br /><br /><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-73699402638771208682009-02-15T10:34:00.002-05:002009-02-15T10:39:23.749-05:00The Blog of the WeekThis Week, Let's all read and add comments to Mark Rogers and Scott Kasper's blog.<br /><br />The amazing fact is that in this studio, each of the students has their own point about Negative architecture, it insures you may broaden your perspective about this concept by 6 times. If not including the ideas from me and Jonathan.<br /><br />Xubearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-20183283061002683722009-02-15T10:17:00.002-05:002009-02-15T10:32:50.037-05:00Suggestion of comment on your classmates blog<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Hi, guys:<br /><br />I saw a lot of you has followed other classmates blog, that’s very good, please go ahead to make comment on their posts, because of the format of this studio, that will act as our in class discussion. Which is also the point why we need to take a course or studio together, because we need interactive to achieve better efficiency and more interesting results. Otherwise, we just study and reading by ourselves would be just fine. So let’s make this effort worth it.<br /><br />Two suggestions:<br /><br />1. From this week on, I would choose two students per week, and every one in the class need to add comments on their posts, as part of our assignment.<br />2. Try to make comments on the course blog, since it is the one every body will come to, so it is the best place if you want to bring up discussion, and only the discussion will make this online course make sense and benefit every one.<br /><br />P.S. You may try to make shorter posts, but more frequently, such as one or two paragraph every two days, so it is less work for you every time, but make you think about this studio more frequently. Plus, this made other people more likely to read your post, since it is not long, I won’t tell myself, “ok, I will leave this long one for the weekend to read.” Then it is more like the normal blog we would read. More images and sketches would also help your posts to be more attractive. At the end of this studio, we can vote for the most attractive and most popular blog in our class : )</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">for example, here is one blog I always read:</span><br /><a href="http://lu-yi.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">http://lu-yi.blogspot.com/</span></a><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">of course it is not just because there's a lot of pretty girls on it. </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Xu</span>bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-71921644696409200482009-02-15T10:07:00.003-05:002009-02-15T10:12:46.510-05:00Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1V89HANgy51u8o8aGBppSWlF4SDkmbr3-8d0mDi0-rp0PUkPBxIndHSdAazowuMQ0bvx3Hi3eAOYYV2BzU94yAz0WE75fQ0131AvHsqjeKe-J0Aayyn8pExisO33HKw13fiKLUz0uekVp/s1600-h/516%252BBSVCpCL__SS500_.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303041716251955282" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1V89HANgy51u8o8aGBppSWlF4SDkmbr3-8d0mDi0-rp0PUkPBxIndHSdAazowuMQ0bvx3Hi3eAOYYV2BzU94yAz0WE75fQ0131AvHsqjeKe-J0Aayyn8pExisO33HKw13fiKLUz0uekVp/s400/516%252BBSVCpCL__SS500_.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Spring-Summer-Fall-Winter/dp/B0002J4X20/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1234710293&sr=1-1">http://www.amazon.com/Spring-Summer-Fall-Winter/dp/B0002J4X20/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1234710293&sr=1-1</a></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">It has such a interesting definition about doors. Amazing.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">There's a lot that Architects could do is deeper than just techical stuff.</span></div>bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-5212047956260807442009-02-11T10:01:00.000-05:002009-02-11T10:03:53.311-05:00BREAKING DOWN INTO PARTICLES:<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">The first time I used louvers was in ‘Water/Glass’. That work is basically a transparent glass box inserted between the two horizontal planes of floor and roof. Since the roof, which extends out towards the sea, would cast an enormous dark shadow and become a conspicuous object if it were make of opaque panels, I undertook various studies to see if I could somehow make it less powerful.<br /><br />One possibility was to use transparent glass, which would certainly have eliminated any shadow. However, if the glass itself were transparent, the supporting steel str5ucture might become too assertive. I considered frosted glass. If the structure were situated above the glass, it would only appear as a faint shadow to someone looking up. Frosted glass is halfway between transparency and opacity, and might have been the ideal material for dissolving the architecture. However, I did not select it because it was not compatible with water. A 15-centimetre-deep pool of water is a key feature of ‘water/Glass’. The water surface reflects light, and fine particles of light are scattered throughout the space. I wanted a similar particled effect on the roof. Frosted glass is translucent but appears heavy and viscous.<br /><br />I considered perforated metal. Like frosted glass it is halfway between transparency and opacity and projects a particled image. However, I decided against it because the particles did not sparkle. When light hits water, particles of reflected light dance over the surface; what would produce such a glittering effect on the roof?<br /><br />I decided in the end to use stainless steel louvers, with blades 1.5 millimetres wide and 75 millimetres high, set at 75-millimetre intervals. The stainless steel was livelier and sparkled more than any other material; it responded most sensitively to changes in light. The louvers cast dark, striped shadows if light hits them diagonally, or become transparent if light passes directly through. They appear in different guises depending on the environment and their relationship to the subject. If the line of sight is parallel to the blades, the louvers seem light and perfectly transparent; if it is at right angles to the blades, they seem heavy and opaque. If frontally lit, they reveal their colour; if backlit, they lose their colour and appear in dark silhouette. Louvers stand between the environment and the subject and reflect that relationship; they interact more than they reflect. If materials that have an invariable and distinctive colour, texture and degree of transparency are absolute, then louvers are relative: their character is not fully determined by the designer or architect but is left in part to each observer, allowing for his or her input. In that way louvers are like rainbows. A rainbow is not something absolute that exists somewhere, but instead it is generated by the relationship between the sun, droplets of water and the observer. Rainbows are relative because they are collections of particles-the operative word being ‘particles’.<br /><br />By using louvers in ‘Water/Glass’ I effectively transformed and relativised the architecture, creating a condition as ambiguous and variable as that of drifting particles; that is, I ‘particlised’ the architecture. Endeavours of a similar nature were undertaken in a number of different fields towards the end of the nineteenth century.<br />The impressionists, for example, ‘pariclised’ painting. They believed that colours should be mixed, not on the artist’s palette, but on the retina of the observer. When colours are mixed on a palette,there is a subtractive process and the colour approaches black.The more one mixes pigments in an attempt to create a subtle colour, the darker and heavier it becomes.The impressionists attempted to avoid this by applying pure colours directly onto the canvas in dispersed dots.Mixed on the retina of the observer, these dots created subtle hues and shades.<br /><br />The impressionists were critical not just of the conventional method of painting but of the relationship between the artist and the observer.Before impressionism, the artist had a privileged status, and the observer was expected to assume a completely passive role.The unilateral nature of this relationship determined the character of works of art—their technique, exhibition and dissemination.Works of an ambiguous or dispersed (i.e. particlised) nature were excluded from consideration because they were not easily accommodated in this unilateral relationship.The system favoured more powerful and coherent works whose objects were clear and coercive and revealed everything about themselves from the outset.There was no possibility of multiple interpretations.<br /><br />In the wake of impressionism, the painter Georges Seurat devised a specific, scientific method to depict objects—pointillism—which is most fully demonstrated in his Sunday Afternoon On the Island of La Grande latte (1886).Seurat assigned colours to his dots,which were fine and uniform,in accordance with the optical theories of Eugene Chevreul and Ogden Nicholas Rood.among others.He wanted to make painting scientific because science was open to everyone;in this way, he hoped to destroy the notion of the privileged artist and the unilateral character of the existing relationship between artist and observer.<br /><br />Seurat died aged 31,and the method he developed was short-lived too, while he remained committed to dabs of paint of a uniform size,other artists quickly discovered that those spots of colour were a superb medium of expression, and that individuality and inner character could be conveyed by subtle changes in their size and the force with which they were applied.The touch of the artist<br /><br />could be as powerful and individualistic a means of expression as composition or colour.An increasing interest in individual expression led to the demise of pointillism and the rise of fauvism and other twentieth-century art movements.<br /><br />A further reason for the failure of pointillism was Seurat's idea that painting could be transformed into science by means of colour optics.This goal was not embraced by less scientifically oriented painters.Instead,the avant-garde focused on the reduction of painting to simple geometrical objects,as defined by Cezanne and the cubists.<br /><br />The end of the nineteenth century was a period of ‘particlisation' in architecture as well,but whereas painters were concerned to integrate aesthetics and science,architects were from the start divided between an aesthetic and a technical approach.Most of the century had been marked by a battle of styles between classicism and the gothic.As historians have pointed out,the two styles share many elements in common,1 most notably a roof with a basically triangular cross section and a centralised,stable character that exercises control over both the parts and the whole of the building.However, the impressions they create vary widely because the objective, in the case of classicism,is to heighten the intensity of the object, whereas the objective of the gothic is to break down matter.In classical architecture, the building is set on a podium,becoming a massive, highly assertive autonomous object.In gothic architecture,by contrast,the building is articulated into small elements:columns,for example,are deliberately designed to suggest bundles of slender members.As a result, there is no sense of mass but only a weightless,immaterial space.<br /><br />Out of this context emerged art nouveau,which was critical of the heaviness and darkness of traditional architecture and its equation with political or religious authority.The whole basic structure of the world was beginning to change, as new means of transport such as the railway evolved at an astonishing rate.Whereas politics and religion were still vertical forms of communication,transport was for the most part a horizontal form of communication.Hector Guimar's lightweight wrought-iron entrance canopies for the Paris Metro can be seen as an expression of this change.Art nouveau buildings associated with transportation were to be made as light as possible,using the materials of the new age.<br /><br />Art nouveau broke new ground,but like pointillism was extremely short-lived.The classical principle of validating objects through the authority of prototypes had become so engrained that it coloured the thinking even of avant-garde architects critical of classicism.In the case of art nouveau,there was too heavy a reliance on plant motifs,which were too delicate to sustain the movement as a whole.<br /><br />Reservations about representation led to another approach to particlisation in architecture in the early twentieth century:industrialised buildings.Buildings are by their very nature more or less industrialised,but the term here has a special nuance.The primary method of building in the West before the twentieth century was masonry construction,based on units of stone or brick which are laid one by one and bonded with a substance such as mortar.A building constructed by this method is inevitably a heavy mass.In essence, industrialization referred to technologies used to break down that heavy mass into particles,and specifically to 'dry' construction (Trockenmontagebau).Dry construction is the opposite of wet construction, a building technique that mixes a material with water, and is completed only when that material has dried.is referred to as wet construction.In wet construction,particles adhere to each other and are not individually distinguishable.In dry construction, water is not used and the particles remain individuated.Walter Gropius foresaw the great importance of dry construction and made it a pillar of architectural education at the Bauhaus.2 He was an ardent advocate of prefabricated concrete construction,which involved the on-site assembly of slabs and panels that had been manufactured in a factory.Particlisation was the most important theme for architects at this turning point in history.<br /><br />Nevertheless,the form of particlisation known as industrialisation met with setbacks.Buildings broken down into different elements were considered weak and ambiguous in terms of their expression,just as Seurat's paintings were considered weak and ambiguous.The twentieth—century system of communication weeded out particlised works of architecture.However, Works designed by Le Corbusier survived that process of elimination.Oddly enough,Le Corbusier also began with particles.His Maison Dom—ino, published in 1915,was the first important work of his career.His perspective of that scheme became one of the most famous architectural drawings of the twentieth century. Le Corbusier proposed a system based on prefabricated floor panels and steel beams.The Maison Dom—ino was without doubt a dry-construction industrialised house.In subsequent works,however, Le Corbusier abandoned the theme of industrialisation with surprising alacrity.He continued to make statements proclaiming the need for a new technology for a new age, but in his actual work showed practically no interest in dry construction.He remained to the end an architect of in-situ concrete,that is,of wet construction.His about-face enabled him to become the champion of the modern movement.<br /><br />Le Corbusier dedicated himself to creating 'scientific' (that is,pure geometrical)forms.With dry construction,the abstract character of the planes is inevitably marred by the joints that arise between the panels when they are assembled on site.With in-situ concrete,on the other hand,pure geometrical forms can be created without joints.Moreover concrete, with its suggestion of great mass and aggregation, is effective in endowing forms with an aura of strength.But concrete is not at first heavy, hard or strong;it is fluid,before it quickly sets and hardens.This radical and almost mysterious transformation further reinforces its image of strength.<br /><br />Le Corbusier made full use of this special quality, though he did not become interested in concrete because of its method of production.What prompted him to convert to an architecture of objects was the shift from particles to objects that took place in painting,the evolution from cubism to suprematism and purism.<br /><br />Le Corbusier was active in both painting and architecture and won renown by 'trading' between them.Together with the painter Amédéé Ozenfant he initiated an art movement called purism,which focused on the pure,essential forms of geometrical objects.Le Corbusier imported that same shift into the world of architecture, so ensuring that the logic of architecture was suppressed by the logic of painting, and that the logic of production was suppressed by the logic of communication.Straddling two fields of endeavour and two systems of logic,adroitly importing and exporting ideas, Le Corbusier ultimately gave powerful objects of concrete a central role in twentieth-century architecture.<br /><br />Le Corbusier was not solely responsible for the changes that took place.The twentieth-century system of communication sought objects and,as a result, twentieth- century architecture came to be dominated by obiects. If we wish to recover particlised,that is,ambiguous, variable and relativistic works of architecture,we will have to intervene once more in the system of communication.Unless we critically examine and reverse our passive form of appreciation,architecture will remain object-oriented:the logic of production and the logic of the user will continue to be suppressed by the logic of communication.<br /><br />Communication between architecture and people, that is, the appreciation of architecture, occurs mainly in three phases.In the first, phenomenological phase,an actual Person experiences an actual space.The second phase, the realm of micromedia, determines in what form actual works of architecture are converted into media. How, for example,is architecture converted into a two-dimensional print medium? How is it converted into drawings? At what angles,in what sort of light and with what degree of resolution are photographs of architecture taken? The third phase is the realm of macromedia.This determines how architecture,having been converted into media,is disseminated or transmitted.In what forms are books and magazines on architecture sold? What kind of architecture do art museums select for exhibition, and on what basis? What kind of visitors do they expect to attract, and how are the exhibitions promoted?<br /><br />The important thing here is not the number of phases,but rather the interrelations that exist between them. The form of architecture can influence the choice of the medium it is converted into as well as the subsequent form of distribution or transmission.That influence can also be reversed:the form of distribution or transmission can influence the medium into which architecture is converted,and even the form it takes.These two opposing vectors continually roil the architectural world.Generating shockwaves that reshape architectural history.<br /><br />One might call pre-twentieth-century architecture photographic architecture or, better still,perspectival architecture, because from the Renaissance period perspective was the basic method of reproducing and disseminating architecture.Photography was simply an extension of that method.Like perspective, it is a medium in which time is abstracted;in other words,it converts architecture into limited numbers of two-dimensional still images obtained by a subject observing an object from a certain distance.That distance must be maintained for the object to be reproduced without distortion.<br /><br />In photography a clear, absolute silhouette is required,since materials and details are difficult to distinguish from beyond a certain distance.Moreover, the building is required to be absolute in character, since the image is transmitted through limited amounts of two-dimensional information. By 'absolute' I mean invariable:the character of the building must not be affected by changes either in the building's relationship to the subject or environmental factors such as the intensity and direction of sunlight.A building that is relative in character, by contrast, is one that can seem entirely different depending on its relationship to the subject;in this sense it is like a rainbow.It is difficult to obtain an overall image of a building with a relative character from limited amounts of two-dimensional information.The image remains fragmented;it never coalesces, even when a number of different aspects are overlapped.<br /><br />That is why particlised architecture is the polar opposite of photographic architecture.The silhouette is ambiguous.When viewed from a distance,it is hard to distinguish the constituent particles. A particlised work is extremely relative in nature.It can appear transparent and weightless one moment and opaque and massive the next, depending on the way light hits it.It does not possess a clear overall image and never appears to advantage in photographs or perspectives,which are best suited to objects that are not apt to blur or vary.<br /><br />Just as architecture before the twentieth century was photographic, twentieth-century architecture was oriented towards the moving image,which represented the cutting edge in communication systems.Yet moving images proved expensive and susceptible to manipulation,so it continued to be disseminated by Way of still pictures in books and magazines.The biggest media-related task in twentieth-century architecture was therefore to close the gap between moving images and still images.Architecture was not the only field in which this dilemma had to be confronted.It was the very essence of the era and determined the form of every aspect of culture.<br /><br />Le Corbusier devised the most ingenious architectural strategy for closing that gap.He made the path of circulation manifest (see Chapter 1,Making a Connection).By detaching stairs and ramps from other architectural elements and giving them independent forms, he transformed the path of circulation inside a building into objects.Moreover, he deliberately arranged those objects in conspicuous positions in space.<br /><br />The biggest shortcoming of still images is that they cut time into fragments, and so cannot communicate the way it unfolds.What they can do, however, is capture paths of circulation, as embodied in stairs and ramps.Since these allow the subject to move and movement is a function of time, photographs of paths of circulation can indirectly suggest time. In photography, everything must be embodied in an object, and through the object anything, even time,can be evoked.<br /><br />Le Corbusier's objectified paths of circulation, captured in architectural photographs, can be said to have anticipated the GUI (graphical user interface) arranged on the screen of personal computers.The GUI is a window to time opened in a two-dimensional still image.By clicking that window, the subject can move freely to another picture, that is,to another time.0ne cannot click<br />on photographs of Le Corbusier's paths of circulation, of course, even if they do suggest time.His objects remain a unilateral medium;there is no interactive relationship with the subject.That is the qualitative difference between images such as photographs and film on the one hand, and cyberspace generated by computers on the other.<br /><br />Le Corbusier did not simply introduce time into architecture.His method was,in a sense, cinematic. Cinema has various in—built devices that connect the subject seeing the images to the space of those images.Poststructuralists showed that alternation of vision is the principle behind those devices.This insight is based on Merleau-Ponty's criticism of visual solipsism,which I have already touched upon, and Lacan's psychoanalysis (see Chapter 6:Reversing).Lacan coniectured that a subject comes into being only when the person is aware of being seen by others.Lacan assigned great importance to this process, which he refe, red to as 'symbolic identification'.<br /><br />Poststructuralist theory maintains that images taken simply from the view of a protagonist-taken, in effect, by a camera held to the protagonist's eye-do not constitute cinema.The subject viewing such images never establishes contact with the space of the images,but only feels impatience and discomfort because he cannot confirm his own position in that space.The situation changes the moment another viewpoint,one in which the protagonist himself is seen, is introduced.The subject confirms his position and establishes contact with the environment in the images.One viewpoint is simply insufficient.Alternation between two viewpoints brings the audience into contact with the environment.The camerawork is what makes film cinematic.<br /><br />In short, the alternation of viewpoints is a necessary condition for cinematic media,just as an absolute silhouette of the object is a necessary condition for photographic media.<br />Le Corbusier was not an artist of film (although he did make films,such as L’Architecture d'aujourd'hui of 1929, co-directed with Pierre Jeanneret).The medium he used most often was photography.However,by introducing another point of view, he succeeded in creating 'cinematic'photographs.How was this possible? Through an analysis of Le Corbusier's architectural photographs, Beatriz Colomina has shown how he often suggested an unseen presence and thereby another viewpoint.3 He did this by depicting furniture and objects such as a pair of glasses, as well as paths of circulation.Paths of circulation suggested a person moving along those paths and the viewpoint of that person.Why, then,did he not simply introduce actual people into his photographs? The reason is that they would not have served as our proxy;our point of view can only be suggested by a disembodied presence.4 It is important both to suggest another viewpoint and to make possible the substitution of our viewpoint.Only then can alternation take place.Only then is the person viewing the photograph connected to and projected onto the photographed space.<br /><br />Le Corbusier converted photographic architecture into cinematic architecture.He achieved this difficult conversion by designing and manipulating objects-his only recourse, given the era in which he lived.His continuing dependence on objects is what makes his works heavy and stiff:they draw US in,but oppress us.How can we free ourselves of this dependence? Let us first re-examine the relationship between the subject and the environment.<br /><br />The moment the peaceful and seamless connection between the subject and the environment was severed,media arose to reconnect the two.Architecture emerged for the same reason.The media and the architecture of any given era are products of the same environment and responses to the same disconnection, so they cannot help but take similar forms.In copying each other, they amplify each other.In this Way their similarity is further reinforced.<br /><br />Subject and environment were first reconnected by a medium of points,namely perspective.Perspective is the connection of point to point-the fixed point of the observing subject and the fixed point, selected from an infinitely continuous environment, of the thing observed. Photography is an extension of perspective.Two points are connected by the medium of a third point called the shutter.In opening the shutter, the photographer selects a perceptual point, that is, an instant out of an infinitely continuous extension called time.<br /><br />The exterior of a building is readily perceptible as a point, independent and isolated,in the environment.This made it ideally suited to perspective.Architecture was also a favourite subject matter of photography.The medium was in accord with the subject matter,point in accord with point.A line is an expansion of a point.A linear architecture is a series of experiences that emerge the moment we perceive architecture as an interior.Moving images are similarly linear.They are the spatial,temporal and perceptual expansion of the media of points.Movement expands a point into a line.However, moving images have a fatal flaw:they are unilateral.Movement and expansion are the prerogative of the director.Only the space, time and perception of the privileged person called the director expand;only the director is free.The audience is bound to a fixed position in front of the screen and has to accept what is presented-it cannot intervene with respect to time or space.<br /><br />The interior, as a linear space, is similarly a restricted enclosure.Only the privileged person called the architect understands all the arrangements of rooms and the interior as a whole.Freedom to move and manipulate space and time is the prerogative of the architect and the user experiences only a restricted space and time.<br /><br />Freedom,but only unilateral freedom—that is the paradox of the relations embodied by both films and interior spaces.However, the problem is not so much the paradox itself, as the fact that the one-sided nature of the relationship has been so cleverly concealed by camerawork in films or by the circulation plan.Both work on the principle of alternation.In the case of film,it is the alternation of the viewpoint of the protagonist with the viewpoint of those who regard the protagonist.In the case of interiors, it is the alternation of the privileged overall viewpoint with the viewpoint of the protagonist who cannot help but be enclosed in some spatial unit.The classical architect invoked that alternation by arranging a large space of great height at the centre of the building,where the protagonist acquired a privileged viewpoint that enabled him to understand the building as a whole.Le Corbusier conceived a more compact and contemporary version of that device.By means of a circulation device such as stairs or a ramp, he had the subject connect with the building as a whole.<br /><br />The invention of these cinematic and spatial devices enabled an essentially passive observer to identify with the privileged subject.In reality, an interactive relationship between the passive observer and the space was not possible.Nevertheless, the observer mistook the prearranged alternation of viewpoints for a subjective and spontaneous intervention in space.In film,that illusion is called empathy.In interior spaces, the passive observer comes to understand the space in its entirety, thanks to the central circulation space,and falls under the illusion that he is in control.<br /><br />The illusion ingeniously conceals the one-sided nature of the relationship.That is not all that is concealed.The passive observer also comes to believe that the limited spatial and temporal enclosure is the totality of the environment.He thinks that he is closely and surely connected to the environment,because its closed nature is concealed.Such illusions governed the twentieth century.<br /><br />The spatial form called the theme park is the most successful example of such concealments.The perimeter wall of the theme park is carefully hidden,lest visitors see it and awaken from their dream.In order to work its magic,it directs their gaze inwards,towards the centre,where there are spaces of a grand scale and form (such as wide boulevards offering vistas).Visitors are intoxicated by the privileged position they are allowed to occupy.They fall under the illusion that they are completely connected to-even that they dominate-the environment.The theme park may be an enormous complex encompassing outdoor spaces, but it is nonetheless based on the principles of film and interior spaces:indeed it is the most fully developed form of spatial device of the cinematic type.<br /><br />The aim ought to be,not to prolong the life of enclosures through cinematic alternation,but rather to dissolve them through particlisation.This is not a matter of making their boundaries transparent or translucent:changing the design or capacity of the surface does not change the form of architecture-an object is still an object, an enclosure remains an enclosure.<br /><br />This is true even if the surface of an object is particlised.The particlisation of the surface relativises the external appearance of architecture:the exterior becomes capable of changing in diverse ways,depending on the relationship between the subject and the thing under observation.However, an object remains an object in form even if its surface becomes interactive.The interaction that is enabled is prearranged interaction, no more spontaneous than the prearranged alternation between subject and environment in film.<br /><br />It is not the surface but the form that has to be particlised:the point is not to prearrange interaction, but instead to make the arrangements themselves interactive.Rejecting objects and enclosures brings us to gardens,which are far more open than architecture.Despite this,garden designers often try to close them off.They attempt to construct unique, self-contained worlds because they are individuals who persist in unilateral behaviour, namely self-expression.In doing so, they produce gardens that are enclosures,no different from theme parks.Moreover,no matter how freely gardens may be arranged,they will still have paths that are determined by their designers.Interaction is still prearranged,and designers still exercise control over people.<br /><br />If we are to achieve more open spaces,we must aim for a wilderness rather than a garden.Unless designers themselves become more open, however,we will not be able to produce such a condition.We need to abandon the idea of self-expression.Instead of stepping forward,designers need to remain completely open to visitors' needs.Only then will we have a space without boundaries and paths.The space may consist only of an unprocessed cluster of particles-scattered rubble and grass-none the less,countless places will emerge and a network of relationships will develop the moment someone steps foot inside.<br /><br />Such a condition is called a network society and is similar to a non-hierarchical horizontal network.There are no boundaries or enclosures,no prearrangements or fixed paths, but each subject is surely connected to the world.We have gone from point (perspective,photography and architecture) to line (moving images, interior spaces and enclosures)and now we are about to embark on nets (networks and wildernesses).However, the form called architecture still survives and,as an object,disrupts the network.<br /><br />The shrine structures at Ise are set on ground that is covered entirely with white pebbles representing a wilderness.The shrines are ritually reconstructed every twenty years,suggesting that the ground below is far more important than the structures built on top.The fact that the ground is covered with pebbles that have not been worked in any way is significant.The size of these stone particles is also significant.If the pebbles were any smaller, they would no longer be perceived as particles but would instead appear to form a single,heavy mass.The ground would become matter that permits no intervention-absolute,unilateral matter.If, on the other hand,they were any larger, they would become conspicuous objects,as assertive as brushstrokes in a painting.They would become, not a material awaiting intervention, but something already complete, forestalling any intervention.Their dimensions of course are not absolute;they must be determined in each case by the surrounding environment.For example, in the sequence of spaces at Ise Shrine, the subject arrives at the pebbles after experiencing things of various dimensions.from trees to man-made structures.The entire sequential process determines the dimensions of the Pebbles.There is no guarantee that those pebbles will function as particles if taken to another place.The pebbles become particles-pure, unadulterated material.anticipatory, open and thoroughly relative-only as the result of a quite prosaic operation.The first thing for us to determine should not be form or colour, but rather suitable dimensions.We can arrive at particles only in this way.<br /><br />This applies to cities as well as to architecture.Modern city planning has been an attempt to regulate cities using two means,objects and enclosures.Planners used objects in the still-image phase of media development and enclosures in the moving-image stage.In the former, baroque city planning is a typical example of control exercised through objects;that is,regulation through the use of monumental,object-type buildings at focal points of the city.In the latter phase,theme parks are an example of control exercised through enclosures.The division of commercial districts and residential districts and the twentieth-century city planning method called zoning are also examples of the use of enclosures to exert control.<br /><br />However, the accelerating speed of life in cities has rendered objects and enclosures ineffective.Baroque cities,conceived as still images, cannot keep pace.Methods based on moving images have become ineffective as well.Although from a bird's-eye view the city may appear to be nothing more than an absolutely random collection of particles,people and information within the city are constantly connecting and separating at high speeds.<br /><br />We need a ‘particle-based urban theory' to respond to this.A city in which there is a convenience store every hundred metres anticipates the emergence of a city separated into particles.To induce free and random movement of people and particles,we need city planning that is based on the planning of particles,and not on control by means of objects and enclosures.<br /><br />In determining the size and ‘hardness’ of particles, the various speeds that operate in cities must be taken into account.According to Deleuze,there is no such thing as absolute hardness.Hardness is an expression of the compressive force acting on a material.A wave in the ocean can be as hard as a wall of marble,depending on the speed of a ship.Much the same can be said of particles.The viscosity, hardness and density of particles are expressions of the speed and forces acting on them.The subject must be free to roam.We will be connected to the environment called the wilderness only if we are allowed to wander.<br /><br />To wander is to trace the contours of particles and lend our ears to the sounds they make.We must scan the distance between particles,not by eye, but with our bodies moving in time.Only then are sounds born.Everything possessing a frequency is subordinate to time, and generates sounds and colours only when its contours have been traced in time.If we want to design a wilderness we must design space as if we were composing music;we must cast ourselves in time and extract sounds from the particles of the wilderness.<br /><br />The theme of the 'Stone Museum' is particlising stone so that it can be used to generate sounds.The museum is in Ashino, Nasu-chō, Tochigi Prefecture, a village once visited by the famous poet Matsuo Bashō (1644—1694).The site contained three crumbling storehouses for rice, made of local Ashino stone, a plain,grey andesite.Constructed in the early Shōwa era(1925—1988),they were architecturally undistinguished,but I felt they ought to be preserved.I proposed that the overall environment be reorganised by means of a few additions to these structures.<br /><br />Instead of being closed and self-contained,I wanted the additions to be open and vulnerable, more like fences than buildings.My aim was to create several lavers between the preexisting objects so that a free, ambiguous field-a wilderness-would gradually emerge.I felt this field ought to be, not just spatially open, but open to activities and ambiguous in character.Besides an art museum,this facility contains a shop selling local produce, a restaurant, a local community centre and a children's play area.Activities take place not just inside the building but also in the strip of land between it and the adjacent old highway.Additions to this type of traditional architecture are often made of glass,but I felt that glass, by its transparency, would provide too sharp a contrast to the stone storehouses and make them too conspicuous.However, a wall of Ashino stone similar to the walls of the preexisting storehouses would be neither vulnerable nor ambiguous.I decided to use the same stone but to particlise it; that is,to create a fence of stone.In this way, I hoped to make the silhouette of the stone storehouses ambiguous, causing them to melt into the surrounding air.<br /><br />Particlising stone is by no means an easy task,as it is a heavy and friable material.Moreover, the traditional technique of masonry construction involves cutting the stone into units and then laying those units one by one to create a thick, heavy wall.Masonry construction is the basis for Western classical architecture and the technology that made it possible,or, in other words,the technology at the heart of object-type architecture.That is why I wanted to take up the challenge of masonry construction-to see if I could dissolve the object that is so often a product of that technology.<br /><br />I began with an extremely simple experiment,extracting stones one by one from a wall of masonry construction.The wall seemed lighter and weaker after only a few stones had been taken away.Having started as a single,coherent mass,it now acquired the appearance of a collection of particles.It wavered between being and representation,between its essential heaviness and its apparent lightness,between its opaque attribute and its actual transparency.The process by which such a dual condition is produced is what I mean by the relativisation of matter.At such times,matter oscillates;it almost seems to generate sounds.We can create various tones by the way we extract stones from the wall;in this regard, designing a structure approaches the composing of music.<br /><br />I searched for a detail that would convert stone into an even lighter and more insubstantial presence.I found a way of cutting it into slices that were nearly as thin as the slats of wooden louvres.The thinnest possible cross section was 40 millimeters by 150 millimeters.We attached stone slices of this dimension to stone columns in which grooves 40 millimeters wide had been carved.This was obviously a major departure from conventional methods of stone construction.The stone slices were set at 80-millimetre intervals.Since the stones themselves were 40 millimeters thick,the gaps between them were also 40 millimeters.Matter and aperture of the same dimension alternated, generating an oscillation between matter and empty air, reality and fiction,opacity and transparency.The oscillation depended on the position of the subject relative to this ambiguous wall,and the direction of light.The wall did not oscillate independently of the subject;the subject's body and the wall resonated with each other.<br /><br />By its very nature,stone is under enormous Cohesive force.To release stone from that force and particlise it is difficult.In that sense, bamboo is the opposite of stone—it is particlised from the start.Aggregating or bundling together bamboo is as difficult as particlising stone.It is not only its round cross section that makes it resistant to bundling,but also its extremely lustrous surface and hollow interior.Using bamboo in a form such as architecture, which demands aggregation,is difficult, so it has more often been used in dispersed forms such as fences.Wood,on the other hand,is halfway between stone and bamboo;it is both easily particlised and easily aggregated,which has made it the most popular building material in both East and West.<br /><br />The cohesive force of stone was central to western architecture, which used it to create powerful objects that could express and unite the organisations and communities represented by the objects.Modernism ostensibly began as the antithesis of that western architectural tradition, that is, as the antithesis of cohesive force and as a movement to dissolve objects into particles.However, the cohesive force of concrete ultimately conquered modernism;particles were defeated.Ironically, Le Corbusier, the most adept user of concrete,then became the hero of modernism.<br /><br />After Le Corbusier achieved success with the Vilia Savoye, Bruno Taut arrived in Japan,having been practically chased out of his homeland.Visiting Katsura Detached Palace on the day after his arrival,he was stunned by the sight of a bamboo fence even before he had seen the villa itself.He described himself at that moment.'I just stood there silently.Finally I said,“This is truly modern”’.5<br /><br />For the rest of his stay in Japan Taut used bamboo with great enthusiasm in both architecture and furniture.The walls of the large room in the Hyoga Residence were lined with slender bamboo, arranged vertically.The two or three hundred small lightbulbs on the ceiling of the social room are each hung from a bamboo chain,and the chains in turn are suspended from bamboo poles.In just three years, Taut learned practically all there is to know about the properties of the eloquent material of bamboo.He discovered in its particlised nature the very essence of modernity.<br /><br />When I was invited to participate in a project called Simple Garden in Les Landes on the western coast of France, the first thing that went through my mind was the way Taut's encounter with bamboo had provided him with an entirely new approach to design.We Japanese are so familiar with bamboo that we are insensitive to its power and technique.I thought that perhaps on French soil it would suggest new techniques and new worlds to those who encountered it,as it once did to Taut.<br /><br />Simple Garden is part of a project directed by the French artist Gerard Boidin.Its aim is to allow children from all over the world to stay for a year in a ‘house’ in the pine forest of Les Landes and experience a life at one with nature.What we normally call a house is a cohesive human dwelling that excludes outsiders.Simple Garden is no ordinary house, but a place that attempts to establish human relationships that are open,temporary and nomadic.I felt that the container for those relationships ought to be equally open and ambiguous.The outer membrane of the structure consists of bamboo arranged in a dispersed way, as particles.A breathing fabric of natural fibre is stretched over the bamb00.Inside this space is installed a second membrane, which helps to control the temperature and humidity.Two layers of air are formed.one closer to the outside air than the other.The structure exercises a gradual and ambiguous control over not only temperature and humidity but also vision and movement.<br />A series of spaces that is neither outside nor inside, neither architecture nor garden, extends through the pinewoods of France.<br /><br />This structure of bamboo and membranes can be dismantled and moved.The site changes-in summer it is near the seashore,in autumn it moves to the woods inland.It may be in France one yea, Japan the next.The structure can be freely changed in response to the configuration of the site.There are no limits to its location or form:the particles repeatedly gather and disperse.In this case the bamboo always remains a material,1ust as the pebbles at Ise always remain a material.The children who use the spaces are particles as well, repeatedly gathering and dispersing.<br /><br />Architecture is another name for the aggregation of matter (i.e. the creation of an object), and ‘particlisation’ is the reversal of that aggregation.The German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz (1646—1716) effected this reversal in philosophy long ago, to counter the Cartesian deftnition of matter as an absolute mass (aggregation) that was independent of the mind.Critical of such a mass,Leibniz proposed that the universe was formed of individual particles called monads,which were distinguished by an irreducible simplicity.He believed that every experience was the outcome of the unstable combination or oscillation of these monads,which were continually changing. Leiblniz criticised all attempts to create a stable, fixed aggregation,declaring ‘the monad has no window';neither substance nor accident could come in from outside.<br /><br />In the same spirit, we must continue to reject windows.We must continue to shun the stability, unity and aggregation known as the object.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> NOTES<br /> 1. John Summerson,Heavenly Mansions and Other Essays on Architecture (London: Cresset Press, 1949)<br /> 2. Gropius was director of the Bauhaus from l919 to l928.<br /> 3. In Privacy and PubLlcity Colomina points out that all those pieces of furniture and belongings suggest the Presence of Someone other than the resident and presents an interesting theory that Le Corbusier introduced the viewpoint of a detective or voyeur. See the photograph of the terrace of the Villa Savoye Chairs are more important props than tables because they suggest human presence. Here, the chairs have been deliberately arranged at an odd distanee from the table in order to serve as proxy for our viewpoint (P. 23,Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret,Oeuvre complete l929-1934 (Editions d'Architecture, Zurich,1934).<br /> 4. See the photograph of the vestibule of the Villa Savoye. Here too props have been arranged in odd ways A table has been forcibly wrapped around a column,and a hat and coat are placed on the table,drawing us into the scene (Oeuvre complete l929—1934.P. 26)<br /> 5. Taut,Nihonbi no saihakken.</span>bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-13370288985680444992009-02-11T07:31:00.005-05:002009-02-11T09:27:18.783-05:00The Relativity of MaterialsThe selection and application of materials is central to Kuma's perspective on design. His essay below describes his fascination with "particlizing" materials by breaking them down into essential relationships.<br /><br />In the essay Kuma likens his view of materials to the phenomenon of a rainbow. He describes a rainbow not as an object, but rather a multi-layered relationship between particles of water, a group of substances known as "sunlight" and a specific perspective. This delicate balance is a reflection of the fragility of the world around us. For Kuma, particlizing materials allows him to impact the world freely and infinitly.<br /><br />As Xu said, we are each looking to define our own logic, or design process. Kuma's viewpoint does not necessarily represent the "right" way to look at things, but hopefully it can serve as a tool to sharpen our own understanding.<br /><br />Jonathanbearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-39296021001896836662009-02-11T07:21:00.005-05:002009-02-11T09:27:55.384-05:00<strong><span style="color:#cc6600;"><span style="font-size:130%;">The Relativity of Materials</span><br /></span></strong>Kengo Kuma<br />(Published in <em>JA The Japan Architect</em>, 38, Summer 2000)<br /><br />Why do I want to particlize materials and reduce them to tiny pieces? Why do I want to break down stone, bamboo and Japanese paper into louver-like particles? Why do I want to punch countless holes in every material?<br /><br />It is not because I hate materials that I smash them and divide them into fragments. Nor is it because I dislike their tactile qualities.<br /><br />On the contrary, it is because I love them. Without particlizing materials, we cannot appreciate them as materials, nor feel their vibrancy.<br /><br />No matter how rich the tactile qualities of materials are, if they appear as single masses, then to me they are not vivid, because they do not change their expression. If materials are thoroughly particlized, they are transient, like rainbows. At times they clearly appear as object, but with a momentary change of light, or in respect to the observer's movement, they instantly disperse like clouds and dissolve like mist. Louvers that appeared to be walls suddenly become transparent and disappear. This transience and fragility is their charm, and their very essence.<br /><br />The reason that the fragile nature of materials feels essential to me is that I wish to accomplish something with them. That is, I think of materials as basic ingredients for making things, and always want to use them proactively. But on the other hand, the outcome is never as expected, and I realize I am continuing to fall short of my own expectations. To me, torn apart by those two emotions, materials are fragile and transient, and the true attributes of a material emerge only when it is broken down into particles. In other words, particlizing materials turn them into ingredients awaiting action by the architect. They are not a result of action, but rather ingredients for action. They emerge not just as submissive ingredients, but profound ones that, without revealing their true nature, continually fail to meet the architect's expectations.<br /><br />Materials can't be too big or too small. If they are too large, they become a mass. If they are reduced to particles that are too fine, they once again take on the appearance of a single mass when they are grouped together; they lose their transience and cease to be ingredients. For that reason, the size of the particles must be given careful consideration.<br /><br />Their size must be determined in response to the distance between them and the observer, the relative size of other particles, and the framing. The central focus of my designs is the selection of particles and the determination of their size and details. If design were suddenly to be redefined as a process of "selecting particles", we architects would be thrown into an entirely new world. The biggest change would be that processes which so far have been divided into architectural design, garden design and urban design would be integrated into a single act: that of designing particles. The fact is that until relatively recently Japan had no boundaries separating these three areas. Teachers from Europe who visited Japan at the end of the 19th century divided into three parts an area which until then had been, in the Japanese mind, seamlessly linked. Before that, architects had concentrated their awareness on the design of particles, regardless of whether the target of the design was a building, a garden or a city. For example, garden designers felt that the central theme of their work was to consider what size gravel should be used to cover the garden. In the design of Ise Shrine, for instance, the key aspect was not the form of the buildings or their proportions, but the size and dimensions of the cobblestones, made of white granite, that formed a stone carpet around the buildings. the design of the stone garden of Ryoan-ji Temple, the most famous of all Zen temples, comprises nothing but the size of the fine gravel, along with the depth and pitch of the numerous grooves made on its surface with rakes.<br /><br />In buildings too the greatest emphasis was placed on the design of particles. Before books on architecture were imported from Europe, Japanese carpenters relied almost entirely on Kiwari, a system or principle used in traditional Japanese architecture to determine the proportion and size of each component or module in the design and construction of buildings. The kiwan technique is said to resemble the orders of classical architecture as well as the size/dimension of wooden building materials, which is also referred to as the Le Corbusier Module. What makes the technique differ most from these Western architectural criteria is that Kiwari is a standard for the size/dimensions of the material wood, which is a specific particle. Another point is that without setting the size of a particular particle, deciding the dimensions of the building becomes meaningless.<br /><br />As we have seen, everyone involved with architecture in Japan in the past-carpenters, gardeners, and government people engaged in urban planning-did all their designs by using particles as their standard. In this way, the entire environment became seamlessly connected, creating an environment which people found warm and comfortable.<br /><br />Gilles Deleuze explains the same thing using the concept of elasticity of materials. He states that all materials have elasticity. In his view, elasticity is a reflection of the active compression of materials and all elasticity is relative. For example, if a ship travels at a certain speed, the waves become as hard as marble. In this way, any material can be solid, liquid or gaseous, depending on the forces acting on it. I agree with Deleuze that materials are relative, and that the relative state of a material is determined by the activity of the observer. Where Deleuze uses elasticity to illustrate this argument, I use particles. My aim is not only to explain this concept, but to clearly reveal the relativity of materials and make it evident, by actually reducing them to particles. If I were to add one thing to Gilles Deleize's theory, it would be that a substance's phase is not determined solely by the relationship between a substance and an entity. Rather, an infinite number of substances overlap one another in layers, and the relationship between this multi-layered substance and the entity determines a single phase in the substance's relativity. To take the phenomenon of the rainbow as an example, a rainbow does not appear only in the contest of the dyadic relativity between an entity and an object-particles of water in this case. Instead, the multi-layered relativity of the entity, particles of water, and a group of other substances (in this case, the source of light known as the sun), makes the rainbow appear.<br /><br />This is just one example that shows how complex and delicate the world is, and how it is constantly shifting between modes. To clarify the uncertain delicacy of this world, I personally want to transform buildings, gardens and cities into particles. Sometimes, the world towers over us, solid as a rock, like a looming wall. Its absolute presence is such that it robs us of our courage. The fact is, however, nothing is as delicate and uncertain as the world. We are able to approach the world and act on it in a variety of ways; the world responds to us and transforms itself in an infinite number of ways. This is how much the world is free, and my hope is to identify this fact through design, which is a specific act.<br /><br />In the traditional wooden structure of Japanese architecture, Kiwari was born out of craftsman-technology, it is the system that determines size and proportionality of each part.bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-53764001932228103082009-02-10T11:03:00.001-05:002009-02-10T11:03:56.560-05:00Our goal, again<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">As you can see, Kuma is using his design and built process to define his idea about negative architecture, and this is the core point we want to learn and use as a sample for this studio. Eventually, each student will using their own project to define their own “Negative”, not necessary the same as Kuma’s (glass and merge into the ground or landscape), but definitely the way he set up his logic, his design process, how he relate his interest in philosophy to his building, are the things we want to refer to for this project. Above all, this studio is not about design a building, but about how to define an idea or a notion, or how to develop a system of theory.</span><br /><br />Xubearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-73041778791494109192009-02-08T21:20:00.003-05:002009-02-08T21:27:03.222-05:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijg61oftzBt9o0icNprZz5xXX5-zIINDYoQxV_vxS3sTGfc18xvWcwIqLSEHpaiiFgt7Ovw7MzfrZ_NWyBjInzM1K9LUi_F-EM2CIGoACIx8j0CwxhZnWrqy161dedxzHYXLy_2InMPO3K/s1600-h/Shinonome+Apartment+Building.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300618131221490450" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 323px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijg61oftzBt9o0icNprZz5xXX5-zIINDYoQxV_vxS3sTGfc18xvWcwIqLSEHpaiiFgt7Ovw7MzfrZ_NWyBjInzM1K9LUi_F-EM2CIGoACIx8j0CwxhZnWrqy161dedxzHYXLy_2InMPO3K/s400/Shinonome+Apartment+Building.jpg" border="0" /></a> Shinonome Apartment Building<br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi408L8aPZOoO1AmfY-_GvwuXtNmbJpE0bjJoOiQUgDhndADAu6wDfjyYcbbKDYFd0FKTRcYxIqrnxQNXdhmvi73ksWRuopoeA2fE8kYKZ_sOIKv5qjZKaY_ohfDNuaIiCVwp_rxFKsetCc/s1600-h/Shinonome+Apartment+Building02.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300618126703124546" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 228px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi408L8aPZOoO1AmfY-_GvwuXtNmbJpE0bjJoOiQUgDhndADAu6wDfjyYcbbKDYFd0FKTRcYxIqrnxQNXdhmvi73ksWRuopoeA2fE8kYKZ_sOIKv5qjZKaY_ohfDNuaIiCVwp_rxFKsetCc/s400/Shinonome+Apartment+Building02.jpg" border="0" /></a> Shinonome Apartment Building<br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvcveJPj1YozxBV1YlUwtKB_Ys0ek3Qi2-AL51EdQLwoA0cWpj51h_AgEPTSXXr1Ci1tZ2OeRhcKSsMtCZdCcPpzzN6U9Cll-pyp_nhgmmfTrjd3t6Eouimp6r93PTrocHh3ls8n4Kr_f_/s1600-h/One+Omotesando.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300618122712029826" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 288px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvcveJPj1YozxBV1YlUwtKB_Ys0ek3Qi2-AL51EdQLwoA0cWpj51h_AgEPTSXXr1Ci1tZ2OeRhcKSsMtCZdCcPpzzN6U9Cll-pyp_nhgmmfTrjd3t6Eouimp6r93PTrocHh3ls8n4Kr_f_/s400/One+Omotesando.jpg" border="0" /></a> One Omotesando<br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0HlXTfOMIRywOKpqgJTuvzedRsvqYYfgVpJKyv4Bip1a3A_Xvd98yhqaniaRiTaQJcY7DwLnY06Kvxr3uDRYUeXePxH2rce6OLXPDmPh3nDKcO3ba48y60P5mfsMb7xgKBKIHig1Z37Fh/s1600-h/Baiso+Buddhist+temple.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300617386026841026" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 278px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0HlXTfOMIRywOKpqgJTuvzedRsvqYYfgVpJKyv4Bip1a3A_Xvd98yhqaniaRiTaQJcY7DwLnY06Kvxr3uDRYUeXePxH2rce6OLXPDmPh3nDKcO3ba48y60P5mfsMb7xgKBKIHig1Z37Fh/s400/Baiso+Buddhist+temple.jpg" border="0" /></a> Baiso Buddhist temple<br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGZxFTK8jCPMDNwHGI3eho53grB3jwMxiHdyOliT-4hiw55AVS6N99VMnwcZw50gUep3rejJsowe_tQdtXkQoNdS3tOMBJ5lxKbHnEFtbBk1QcuiBxjm8nCpSGJJIE5IQTP3GAw67fcRx7/s1600-h/Soba+Restaurant.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300617381970507842" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 341px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGZxFTK8jCPMDNwHGI3eho53grB3jwMxiHdyOliT-4hiw55AVS6N99VMnwcZw50gUep3rejJsowe_tQdtXkQoNdS3tOMBJ5lxKbHnEFtbBk1QcuiBxjm8nCpSGJJIE5IQTP3GAw67fcRx7/s400/Soba+Restaurant.jpg" border="0" /></a> Soba Restaurant<br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwWbHZTNFTMy5o4cuSCTYQ0vft-eu96hiuXZXXlCFcZVu4ogwIvDafw_y44jrIv9ynO8I49eRBaDRGbY3couwEhR-XC8cQCfB3pjRbceME6UybaAn69Z-RJwWznE7GTmNDBTS-rtIQpLey/s1600-h/Soba+Restaurant02.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300617377119722722" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 295px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwWbHZTNFTMy5o4cuSCTYQ0vft-eu96hiuXZXXlCFcZVu4ogwIvDafw_y44jrIv9ynO8I49eRBaDRGbY3couwEhR-XC8cQCfB3pjRbceME6UybaAn69Z-RJwWznE7GTmNDBTS-rtIQpLey/s400/Soba+Restaurant02.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><div>Soba Restaurant</div><br /><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div> </div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXVQOhKauTQK-Oe-A_baR8uFJc2AnxmPvfqgqamh3ntObTX1XxsttA8g99JD-2AhctTWWBkocYZZSvw5-SUbo-XBUfip84_QVL6disxEA3UAThtM1TRWk1d2UOtQWk2dEdBwX1F-ZTxdkQ/s1600-h/Soba+Restaurant03.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300617369666763266" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 156px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXVQOhKauTQK-Oe-A_baR8uFJc2AnxmPvfqgqamh3ntObTX1XxsttA8g99JD-2AhctTWWBkocYZZSvw5-SUbo-XBUfip84_QVL6disxEA3UAThtM1TRWk1d2UOtQWk2dEdBwX1F-ZTxdkQ/s400/Soba+Restaurant03.jpg" border="0" /></a> Soba Restaurant<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div></div></div></div></div></div></div>bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6573062315759247297.post-65874482208584810382009-02-08T21:09:00.005-05:002009-02-08T21:19:53.020-05:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh25NX8IViBQcOjw78Y9l57_TDGfSOoSyfqDQCMBoBOL5VtWH_n11AFCIu1E0yLVfRfb-TiZKhreZr6yIaPStX5i4Fkjs_U79WrFW0fvZZ7ouph1QM_77uu5nOvy7zBdiF19Uo4JCFxuhnC/s1600-h/ForestFloor.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300616541467756818" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 341px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh25NX8IViBQcOjw78Y9l57_TDGfSOoSyfqDQCMBoBOL5VtWH_n11AFCIu1E0yLVfRfb-TiZKhreZr6yIaPStX5i4Fkjs_U79WrFW0fvZZ7ouph1QM_77uu5nOvy7zBdiF19Uo4JCFxuhnC/s400/ForestFloor.jpg" border="0" /></a> Forest Floor<br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgmcdYB0RZtg1Ql4Z0FRVPwkRJlr9tilQbGq9qzx_uCqSTnRW48fc941MJUdJJTKpgMby_Soxoc6Vkx9Py-vwPYHnSR1Pxw9hDEsHU8w9i1KkeL9z5oGH9TICzctAmvAgaZSLvTMXuWgyB/s1600-h/Great+(bamboo)+Wall.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300615967784031586" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 304px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgmcdYB0RZtg1Ql4Z0FRVPwkRJlr9tilQbGq9qzx_uCqSTnRW48fc941MJUdJJTKpgMby_Soxoc6Vkx9Py-vwPYHnSR1Pxw9hDEsHU8w9i1KkeL9z5oGH9TICzctAmvAgaZSLvTMXuWgyB/s400/Great+(bamboo)+Wall.jpg" border="0" /></a> </div><br /><div>Great (bamboo) Wall</div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div><br /></div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzvnBo9BRmzJ7JVYcrM4oEMozau3pEDcm54zJE_xzZMk429xwUQOH86p36wV83LC0N6118jyTxC-Q9qLOy2LH7dB7GAgVpqdAXPAmIO0DaWHFh6hyphenhyphen3oKX8DEkU7p5swMgO9YpPBTu5_Qv6/s1600-h/Ginzan+Bath+House.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300615961350817026" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 304px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzvnBo9BRmzJ7JVYcrM4oEMozau3pEDcm54zJE_xzZMk429xwUQOH86p36wV83LC0N6118jyTxC-Q9qLOy2LH7dB7GAgVpqdAXPAmIO0DaWHFh6hyphenhyphen3oKX8DEkU7p5swMgO9YpPBTu5_Qv6/s400/Ginzan+Bath+House.jpg" border="0" /></a> Ginzan Bath House<br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPHg7XdgltjGz82K44z-K_FjKxF2YMB4Gso0_dgPJl23wZoCwMZpcoVIZVs-vqdxSr9vV9Hz3t9Vo9K6m4uNaVOm_rHnh0q1cCW69lbtZXTkfXanOqm-uz_lGo7Kuevh9YoHaYwFKkSnhE/s1600-h/Stone+Museum.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300615960717013042" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 334px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPHg7XdgltjGz82K44z-K_FjKxF2YMB4Gso0_dgPJl23wZoCwMZpcoVIZVs-vqdxSr9vV9Hz3t9Vo9K6m4uNaVOm_rHnh0q1cCW69lbtZXTkfXanOqm-uz_lGo7Kuevh9YoHaYwFKkSnhE/s400/Stone+Museum.jpg" border="0" /></a> Stone Museum<br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_jio8qKrha8u7CigcdAZodt-AWZzGoKiVLr1scHmqWO_4wQ5kIB5REQGPjNkQRE913MEthYggOQ1o9ORMEJgtTEkcMQxHOZHSj2mxMfNMnL0fQExkdtfnWrYv6-CjkUVcJy3T1j4Y1GKQ/s1600-h/Kitakami+Canal+Museum.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300615357053057826" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 346px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_jio8qKrha8u7CigcdAZodt-AWZzGoKiVLr1scHmqWO_4wQ5kIB5REQGPjNkQRE913MEthYggOQ1o9ORMEJgtTEkcMQxHOZHSj2mxMfNMnL0fQExkdtfnWrYv6-CjkUVcJy3T1j4Y1GKQ/s400/Kitakami+Canal+Museum.jpg" border="0" /></a> Kitakami Canal Museum<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTzhF5tJj6pB4zFtzCB2t8WUHmgA-RQofy1XJne2FcCDEGN80NHm_IhBo1_3TsEWeBUbyT1fzsPXoSmpZyDg7qmS-XG_AccTCdFokR7n7Vq056A-KiSzsb42kvu3kmvOGgyN-QQs5xUG31/s1600-h/Kitakami+Canal+Museum02.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300614997800540482" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 269px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTzhF5tJj6pB4zFtzCB2t8WUHmgA-RQofy1XJne2FcCDEGN80NHm_IhBo1_3TsEWeBUbyT1fzsPXoSmpZyDg7qmS-XG_AccTCdFokR7n7Vq056A-KiSzsb42kvu3kmvOGgyN-QQs5xUG31/s400/Kitakami+Canal+Museum02.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div>Kitakami Canal Museum<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6g15FfMDnojvl1kYzs3yy-7RXeSQhEZI5TpuZX7CIJ57qT0r57lwtTJ2M2aqV-B1LX9Lp0x8K2oF4JdoCB7bGTCIL4CKNpS1a-jExtqyc3wtnAwQZHjGy2esRi5igPf0HZcuymyqjCR0A/s1600-h/WaterGlass.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300614988585993282" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 339px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6g15FfMDnojvl1kYzs3yy-7RXeSQhEZI5TpuZX7CIJ57qT0r57lwtTJ2M2aqV-B1LX9Lp0x8K2oF4JdoCB7bGTCIL4CKNpS1a-jExtqyc3wtnAwQZHjGy2esRi5igPf0HZcuymyqjCR0A/s400/WaterGlass.jpg" border="0" /></a> WaterGlass<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipMteUWHM3UBXn9e0vXQLgbd52ZFVGf6ZEZKo0jga87MraaQPWDs-BWLYT-dEj4hjXvTX11ifeoqYlc7eS2DdjIDD6f3Xeeg2khsqgeVkyPR74u1IBzNkJJzlfgpFtIbpPpbrf6h2w3DZQ/s1600-h/Kiro-san+Observatory.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300614279463003954" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 339px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipMteUWHM3UBXn9e0vXQLgbd52ZFVGf6ZEZKo0jga87MraaQPWDs-BWLYT-dEj4hjXvTX11ifeoqYlc7eS2DdjIDD6f3Xeeg2khsqgeVkyPR74u1IBzNkJJzlfgpFtIbpPpbrf6h2w3DZQ/s400/Kiro-san+Observatory.jpg" border="0" /></a> Kiro-san Observatory</div></div></div></div></div></div></div>bearrunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008438891758714444noreply@blogger.com0