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    i'm blabbering.

    By not_here
    Sep 26, '06 11:54 PM EST

    tonight i was looking through the library stacks for inspiration.
    it seems to be a common practice among many of my studio-mates.




    it so happens that if you search the umich catalog for "blobs", you get get one book source.
    if you search greg lynn, you get one book source.... and it's not on the stacks.



    so my question. the one's that been bugging me ever since i first thought about starting to study architecture... why do architects draw straight lines? is form anything but an aesthetic decision based on the perceptions of both the user and the architect? especially now that we don't have to constrain ourselves to architect scales, triangles, and maylines; now that we can measure curves exactly and produce construction plans that allow us build such "free" things... shouldn't we be taking advantage of these new options? what's the next step?

    i could write a bit about this project we are now working on, but ill save that for it's own post..

    as to my thoughts tonight:
    form is what people perceive.
    form fractions space.
    am i wrong to think of form as primary and space as a secondary but necessary result?

    now for the pretty pictures,
    for site planning we had to run around taking pictures of trees and identifying them... i could not ignore opportunity to take pictures of the biomedical research building here at umich. i love the exterior of this building... designed by polshek partnership architects:

    image


    image


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    image




     
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    • i think that you have it backwards... space should be primary and form secondary... architecture is about creating spaces for inhabitation, not shoe-horning program into some blobby a priori form... i think that now and then we're all seduced by the sexy forms of greg lynn and the like (i know that i went through that phase too), but i find the approach of people like ben van berkel/UN studio more interesting... he has said something to the effect of "box or blob, it doesn't matter"... they've been able to do successful projects of both types, but i don't think that the form is an a priori thing for him, rather it evolves and emerges out of the approach to each given project...

      Sep 27, 06 10:49 am  · 
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