Archinect - Architectural Association, DRL (Mustafa)

one year later (+internship)......

2010-04-19T15:52:14-04:00

internship opportunity at Zaha Hadid co|de in london -

http://data-tribe.net/wework4her/index.php?entry=entry100419-120952

serpentine take 2

2009-08-08T20:48:33-04:00

today i got down to this years serpentine pavilion in hyde park by SANAA for the second time and honestly i went down again because the first time i was with a group of people and i thought i had been too distracted and therefore did not manage to properly experience the pavilion and surely enough on the second visit.... i was still highly disappointed. Now being aware of the design and reading all about i had come with various preconceptions and none of which were true nothing, not the delicate fragility or beauty of the thin columns supporting a wafer thin roof with a reflective underbelly that created continuity with its surroundings nothing, that sense of an ephemeral structure thats just passing by in Iwan Bans photos that i really looked forward to, nothing none of that... i must admit the way the columns seamlessly met the ground was a nice detail but otherwise the detailing was coming apart with some roof panels obviously not doing so well. this being the second serpe...

end of term

2009-07-05T14:21:10-04:00

now that the projects review is open term 3 is officially over here at the AA which means i finally have time to update the blog and there is definetly alot to update it with.
Kirk has been doing a good job covering the projects review preparations, so i might be able to contribute on the happenings in the drl over the term, which had its ups and downs but i think the term ended on a high notw with rather interesting work across the studios culminating with an excellent jury with people like dana cuff from ucla and peter testa and winka dubbeldam and david ruey.
the work in the drl this year is definitely of a different vein than the last agenda of parametric urbanism something that was clear once we put the work of the two agendas next to each other in the projects review room, proto space is definitely on its way on creating a methodology and approaches.

hopefully ill upload photos soon before the second phase of the maeda workshop in hooke park and put together a couple of blo...

maeda

2009-05-03T17:50:30-04:00

heres some pics of the maeda workshop in Hooke park
which is basically the AAs workshop in the woods of dorset (an area of outstanding natural beauty- sort of a british national park) and its where students go to build large scale prototypes and use the workshop there and its large cnc machine and charlie the workshops expert and eat excellent vegetarian food for a week.

the maeda workshop is run by Shin an undergraduate tutor and is sponsored by the maeda corporation in japan

this years theme was a continuation of last years work with glass reinforced concrete and fabric formwork; we work for a week in spring and then two weeks in summer to build the final piece.

ill just post some pics now and then ill put in some more detailed shots and descriptions later

the housing

the workshop(frei otto)

the refectory(frei otto)

inside the workshop

the workshop chicken

a short rant

2009-05-02T18:16:01-04:00

it seems the drl is having an existential problem with it trying to redefine itself with comments like 'this isnt drl' being made in reviews; and when i refer to the portion of the drl that is facing this problem it is hard to for me to define who it is; a weird mixture of a few tutors, a small number of the current students and a few graduates all leads to some sort of collective questioning and doubt.
larger numbers, an apparent increase in applicants and an implicit desire to remain in the limelight all seems to be taking its toll on this course

still there is a few within the drl who bother to ask a few questions remember that we are not the digital research lab, a few who aren't taken by the supposed cool factor of the courses here(some one hinted at that in the discussion board?) and as someone smart put it recently 'know the difference between notation and research.' and who know why they joined......

apologies for the useless rant but ive been asked a lot of que...

RIP john street,reveiws and the bartlett

2009-03-23T09:31:20-04:00

just finished term 2 here at the DRL and unfortunately our review coincided with me moving house and a lack of internet so alot of stuff has happened since, more on the review shortly... have to collect some work from the other teams first and then do the post.

first for anyone familiar with the DRL, john street is gone
we've moved to bedford square last week with all the moving happening over a long saturday. it was fun cleaning out the office and a bit weird deciding which models to take along and which would be trashed, a decision which was based on the projects as well as some 'politics'...

survivors

the "office"

the not so lucky ones

also greg lynn was in town to discuss his new book as well as Hernan Diaz Alonso which is a good easing into the Theos DRL studio trip to Los Angeles on friday if anyone is interested there will be a talk in sciarc i think on the 28th and then a couple of joint reviews.

also anyone in London whos interested should try to go see the sho...

candy

2009-02-25T07:30:52-05:00

some on the side processing stuff

proto q&a

2009-02-14T10:12:27-05:00

a question being posed within the program
what constitutes a prototype in architecture?
what are they expected to fulfill/ test, what criteria do you put forward to evaluate an architectural prototype

tutor entries

2009-02-08T12:03:44-05:00

i was wondering if there would be any interest if i got some of the tutors over here to write an entry or two on the blog
if so suggest a topic or just express interest

thanks

kiss my singularity

2009-02-03T17:59:32-05:00

ah yes, the abuse and misappropriation of words in architecture
there's a lot of spinning people in their graves at the moment ....

my list of favorites is definitely growing

lars spuybroek lecture

2009-01-21T20:34:46-05:00

Lars Spuybroek gave a talk in the school recently entitled the radical picturesque which accompanied his new book continuity in architecture. The book was written in such a way as to emphasis the need and lack of the written word in recent architectural discourse, during his introduction one of the few things that hit a note was that in order to address questions of digital architecture the twentieth century should be ignored which would allow us to find a middle ground between as he put it the Hadids and the Fosters in the worlds. The larger part of the lecture spoke of returning to Ruskin and Semper and a few quick mentions of meaning in architecture as shown through his own work. What was interesting was his use and application of the concepts of agency, which is a theme that has been running through the studio recently like wild fire and personally I believe we’ve been applying incorrectly. Mainly, due to a tendency to tackle the issue in a purely procedural and technique based ...

random2

2009-01-13T10:43:09-05:00

...

wayne daly
zak kyes

is this thing on part II

2009-01-07T07:48:22-05:00

sorry for the long blackout

term 1 has ended and term 2 is about to start and its basically been a big blur of activity.

the drl has underwent a few changes with a tutor leaving and two new ones coming in and parametric urbanism ending and a new agenda starting.

term1 was split into two workshops where you're given the choice of tutor and the group you want to work with, each tutor brings a separate topic to the workshop, sooner or later you realize you're basically taking up arms with one or two of them to start to understand their opinions and leanings in order to know which one to go for in the long run (final studio). The whole term your playing catch up with readings and software tutorials with programs like massive being introduced as well as trying to figure out who works best for you in terms of a tutor and team mates.

the first workshop under theo spyropoulos was meant to work with concepts of material computation through a relatively 'dumb' material such as plaster bei...

random

2008-11-28T09:01:23-05:00

francis bacon symposium

Wayne Daly
Zak Kyes

sorry

2008-10-26T13:23:54-04:00

hello

its been a while since my last blog and i am sorry for that but here in the DRL we have been overwhelmed for the last three weeks with lectures, workshops, tours etc.

I will try to cover what happened in these weeks in a couple of blogs but for now in a nutshell:

the new agenda after Parametric Urbanism is Proto Design and i quote challenges 'the notion that a design project is driven exclusively by contextual and programmatic parameters' ' the iterative methodologies of the design studio will be targeted towards the investigation of new spatial, structural and material organizations'

the DRL now has various new tutors including but not limited to Alisa Andrasek and Marta Male-Alemany from Barcelona and Rob Stuart Smith from Kokkugia

there are currently three workshops in phase 1 the one im involved in is collaboration with the royal collage of arts, chelsea school of art and eventually we will exhibit our work in the one dot zero festival in the british film institute...

adjaye + tulipwood

2008-09-25T20:27:41-04:00

After visiting the Gehry pavilion and having mixed reactions to it i decided to go down to southbank and visit the much smaller David Adjaye pavilion done for the London Design Festival.

The pavilion sits opposite the brutal concrete mass that is the Hayward Gallery and the juxtaposition of all that cold concrete with the warmth of Adjayes timber is large plus to the pavilion experience.

Once on the inside of the pavilion it instantly grabs your attention and doesn't take you time to create any sense of enclosure like the gehry pavilion. The pavilion is basically a cylinder created through as far as i can tell the slotting of the tulipwood, although there places where you can see tension cables within the cylindrical structure.

the roof creates a stalactite effect that creates incredible natural lighting.
according to adjaye the pavilion is designed to test the limits of American tulipwood which isnt taken seriously as a material.

After viewing the two pavilions i cant help bu...

watch out its gehry!

2008-09-19T06:36:25-04:00

finally we decided to go down and see gehrys serpentine pavilion in Hyde park.
since the internet including archinect has been full of images of the project i was going with many many preconceptions. initially the approach to the pavilion from the closest entrance is interesting since your view is mostly obscured by trees,

you then get to a noticeable material change in the ground and when you turn the pavilion is there staring you in the face in full perspective with the gallery as a backdrop.

The scale of it is another surprise and the timber posts are immense yet sadly you lose most sense of them when you are below the panels where looking up reminds of diagrams ive seen in the book deconstruction 1 courtesy of tschumi and eisenman.

Although the overall form kind of met my fearful preconceptions there where moments that were pleasant such as touching the timber and actually smelling it when you sit on the stadium like seats, and the detailing was interesting (although comin...

london open house 2008

2008-09-14T17:30:50-04:00

Next weekend is the London open house where the public is allowed into buildings which are generally prohibited to the public, since the AA orientation is on the 22nd I will only be able to go around on the 21st. If anyone is interested in seeing any particular architectural practices, civic buildings, galleries etc you can check for the available viewings on http://www.londonopenhouse.org/public/london/find/
and I will do my best to visit them and take some photos and some general impressions.

please mind the closing doors...

2008-09-10T20:56:18-04:00

hello and sorry for not having posted anything for the last few days since they have been hectic.

ive been in London for almost a week now and after a nerve wrecking four days of house hunting and paperwork i finally decided to go and get a small reminder of why i came here in the first place . (the aa)

so we went down to bedford sq at midnight and enjoyed the

many midnight moods of the DRL pavilion

hello (is this thing on)

2008-08-19T15:30:43-04:00

So, school starts in around a month but i will be moving to London in two weeks to look for a house and try to capitalize on the rising US dollar!

at the moment im in dubai where ive been for 21 years
and in case your wondering what an architecture school looks like in the uae

more domes that you can shake a stick at!!

anyways any dubai questions are welcome while im still here and
yes it is hot (today 43c)

and thank you archinect