Archinect - Cranbrook Academy of Art (Doug Johnston)

Degree Show 2007 installation

2007-04-25T22:58:08-04:00

Skipping way ahead in the chronological order of this blog, Yuji and I have finished our degree show installation! It will be in Cranbrook Art Museum until May 11th. After that it will probably be permantently reinstalled in Cranbrook's Brookside Elementary school.

Here is a practice version we had done a few weeks earlier:

I'll have more images of the finished piece later, for now here are some photos from Yuji's Flickr site:

A Nest
A collaboration of Yuji Hsiao and Doug Johnston

A Nest invites all visitors to enter inside to find their own comfortable spot. Furthermore, it is an invitation for people to find comfort together; a space of relaxation, contemplation, and conversation that is simultaneously public and private.
A Nest is honest. The shell is transparent and the materials are visible and used candidly. The shell is made of polyethylene tubing, formed into a web structure that invites visitors to explore its lines. It provides a open yet clearly defined space...

Back to life (pt. 1)

2007-03-13T16:53:22-04:00

hey!
Its been almost an entire year since i've posted to this school blog. sorry to anyone who has been wanting more info about life at cranbrook. Today, after a few months of snow, ice, grey skies, and below-freezing temps, its 72degrees, slightly breezy, and sunny outside.

I'm working in the library today, as i do for 4 hours every tuesday. Its great because i have a regular time to check out and return books, and working to check in and out books and videos puts me in contact with many books i would have not looked for on my own. Today i am checking out 4 vhs videos: "folds blobs and boxes", Jpana, 3 generations of avant garde architects", "a day with zaha hadid", and "excavations," which is a video documentation of a project done by 3 former architecture students here who cast a van upside down in concrete in the parking lot then removed the van piece by piece after the concrete cured. The project is documented also in the Pamphlet architecture book "gravity", and on the ...

CrotchRock

2006-04-06T01:12:07-04:00

so the annual chair show is this month:
its called "Chairspray" which was Eric's brilliant idea. Its at the P.F. Gallery at 14 mile, just west of Main in Clawson for those who live in the area. The open show at the Forum gallery was great - lots of really great chairs from most all departments. Obviously Architecture, 3D, and metals probably had the most representation. My chair is pictured below. Its called "CrotchRock" and includes an album of music wirrten by musician/architect/friend Al Pagano. here is the description i wrote for the gallery:

“CrotchRock” has its origins in our relationship to music and sound as physical phenomena even though their physical qualities are not visible. Music has the power to move us emotionally and has equally meaningful implications in social relationships and identities. The chair draws from several sources: courting rituals using mix-tapes, CD's and playlists, the graphic sexual content of contemporary hip-hop and rock music, the ten...

trailer update!

2006-03-02T17:53:58-05:00

I mentioned that Shan is taking over the trailer and adapting a design he has to the trailer. Its a huge water tank that will travel across the country. Today i saw him at the 4th semester reviews with a large (i think 1"=1') model of the trailer/tank made from laser-cut 1/4" steel and acrylic. it looked pretty nice.
but really why i am writing is because there is an article about it in the MetroTimes.

Cranbrook Metals
other work by Shan (scroll down to the bottom of the page)

cranbrook advice

2006-02-28T10:22:52-05:00

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cranbrook advice, originally uploaded by estimmel.

eric found this in one of the thesis books

placemats

2006-02-17T12:15:46-05:00

This is a project i did at the end of last semester which originated in the Charrette we did for the Fanfare fundraising dinner. I basically took my original placemat and rotated copies at 90deg. until i had four interconnected placemats. I modified the model a bit in sketchup and rhino so that it would join together more efficiently, but after assembling it, there was still some manual cutting and shaving that had to be done. the contours command in rhino is a nice way to slice a model, but i always forget to check all my dimensions to make sure everything is based on the same material thickness. anyway, it built it and then i built a small table which fit the exact dimensions of the placemat piece.

The table is about 1 inch lower than the table in our seminar room, which mean that once you put your plate on the 1" thick placemat, the plate will be at the same height as the other table... a detail that i didn't tell anyone about because it was really just for my own satisfa...

video: steel drop

2006-02-02T14:34:52-05:00

So buzznet now hosts video (awesome) so i thought i would try this out.

This is a video of an 8'x8' section of 3/16" treadplate that we ripped off the deck of the trailer.

The Trailer Saga: Let's put it to bed

2006-02-01T23:47:18-05:00

This is my new studio space, shared with john. My space is on the right.

the walls are folded out all the way now - this is how the rest of the studio looks.

this huge space is shared by yuji, mike, and casey. lots of room for them to build things, and for bill to store his materials.

Its really incredibly great to have so much space to work with. All the projects i want to do this semester will need lots of space, so this is perfect.

So i'll talk about the trailer project now...
The trailer is currently sitting in the corner of the parking lot by the art museum. Shan from the Metals department, who did an elective in architecture last semester and was crucial to the development and work done on the trailer, will be continuing the project as his own. The last plans i saw were to put a large somewhat sculptural water tank on top of it. I think john is going to help him with that too.

At the end of the semester, with about 3 weeks left to go, we were all trying to figure...

lots of space

2006-01-09T23:49:52-05:00

today was the first day of class at CAA, although 3 of my housemates are still not back yet. Each department does things a little differently around here. Architecture tends to be the play by the book/traditional department when it comes to scheduling.

I got back on in town on wednesday after visiting family and friends in Tulsa and Dallas and as i drove by the studio i was thinking, "that damn trailer better be out of the studio!" I then saw that it was actually being towed out of the studio as i was driving by. nice.

Though, its not going anywhere for now except the corner of the parking lot by the art museum. In my next post i'll talk about how the trailer project ended- it might bring a little insight into the nature of cranbrook.
I'll also speak about the final crits, my work, etc., and show some images.

Today we moved the walls back into their perpendicular postions and we moved into our huge spaces. its sooooo nice to have so much space to work with. I think i ha...

other stuff

2005-12-10T18:41:23-05:00

so besides the trailer project (see previous posts), and fanfare, I've done a few other things this semester which i'm excited about.
I made a 4-person pencil, which was a sketch model for a 6-person pencil that i want to make next semester.

I learned how to use the vacuum forming machine in the 3D-design department early in the semester and made a wall-mounted ipod holder for my desk, in which i still need to cut ahole for the scrool wheel:

also there was that anual raft regatta in which every department makes a raft in 24 hours based on rules written by the previous year's winning department. We made a steel tube raft that used 4 tires from the trailer as the floatation devices. it was really heavy and slow (i was one of the 3 people rowing on the raft). plus that race was at night and it was ridiculously cold outside to be in a lake.

casey even made these paddles in the shop:

I also made a placemat for the fanfare charrette which places a speaker over/next to your meal an...

werks

2005-11-30T16:01:49-05:00

sorry i didn't post last week, the network was down for testing for 5 days and then i went out of town for a bit. anyway... the following is sort of an update about the trailer project and some reflections on how that relates to my experiences and perceptions at/of cranbrook. its very editorialized and i definetely do not speak for the rest of my studiomates.

the trailer project has taken some turns, of course, and i won't really get into all the deatils now, or ever probably, but i'll talk a bit about it and what things are looking like here in cranbrook architecture. Cranbrook is a place people come to do their work, their investigations - its an art school and the architecture studio has traditionaly been run like that, like 15 artists studios. A few of the directors has put together group projects that the students worked on, but for the most part its about the individual and their work. Bill, being the way he is, felt like he wanted to test that idea and the way he tests ...

cut the sides off

2005-11-10T18:57:16-05:00

thomas and matt suggested that we chop off the sides, we all agreed and got to work. prior to this chop things had become kind of stagnant, this move really got people motivated again. Bill at first was pissed but he soon realized that it was a good thing.
Since this things have kind of become stagnant again with a few little things happening here and there, of which pictures will appear soon.

andy
casey
ed
eric
jessica
john
maryam
matt
mike
mikolaj
paul
thomas
veronica
yuji

quick updaytes updaets updaits

2005-11-09T01:28:39-05:00

Today i saw Fiona Raby of Dunne and Raby lecture. It was quite nice and exciting work in many ways. A theme that has been resurfacing over and over here in our discussions and in our seminar this semester has been non-convential ways of practicing as an architect/designer/artist. Their work as designers definetly is an exciting approach and worth checking out.

This past weekend was Fanfare, a huge fundraising event for the Art Academy that happens every fall. Basically guests pay lots of money to come eat dinner in the studios, mingle with the students about their work, and then go to the museum for desert, booze, and some smooth jazz. It was a lot of fun actually, but a lot of work preparing our studio for guests. We went all out, a studio-wide effort to transform the space.

Mikolaj, thomas, and yuji made some amazing table cover/placemats which were all laser cut specifically for the tableware and included a punch-out cardboard piece that folded into a to-go bag, which wa...

cut the ass off

2005-10-27T10:30:12-04:00

iin attempt to make the posts load faster i am going to imclude only the mobile phone size pics, but you can go to my site at buzznet and check out the rest at full size.

Also, we decided to switch all of our studio blogs from the typepad group to individual blogger accounts. I highly recommend checking out the blogs so that you get a better impression of architecture at Cranbrook. It seems though that many of my studiomates haven't posted any of their work yet.
Links to my studiomates:
ed
eric
jessica
john
maryam
matt
mike
mikolaj
paul
thomas
veronica
yuji
andy
casey

i am trying to get caught up with posting my pictures...
We cut the back end off the trailer a few weeks ago. If anyone want to take these and arrange them in animated .gif, i would much appreciate it.

photo op

2005-10-16T21:35:44-04:00

i got the photo of us with Daniel libeskind emailed to me today... it makes me want to start a collection of photos of me with starchitects.

ridiculousness.

Top left to right: Bill, Paul, Libeskind, Mike, Veronica, Ed, Andy, Brian, Casey. Bottom left to right: me, Maryam, Eric, Yuji, John

dirty dirty fingernails

2005-10-16T21:22:41-04:00

One of the first things to do to the trailer was to strip it down to its structure so we could really start to work with it. We ended up cutting off all the strap bars on along the sides as well as ripping off the steel and wood decks.
these images are about 3 weeks old... sorry.

we had to score the steel on the top with a grinder, then pry it off with a breaker bar. it was ridiculously tough work, but very satisfying. this is Matt working on the first section.

we learned how to use the oxy/acetylene torch that day, here's Yuji firing it up.

the steel deck on top was about 3/16 thick welded continously along the perimiter of the frame. the wood deck was 2x12's bolted to the beams.

john went to town with the grinder

as the welds on the perimeter were cut, we shoved in CMU's and a jack to help rip the welds apart, then john would score a line acroos the bed which we would rip apart with the breaker bar. The huge sheets were then cut into smaller chucnks with the torch so ...

the trailer project

2005-10-07T16:04:38-04:00

I mentioned the trailer project in my previous posts so i should explain it a bit. Bill developed the idea for a project which would be a way to get the work of the architecture department out into the public almost immediately after it is produced and without the usual situation of publishing it in book/catalogue, and also to avoid having it be available to a limited audience in a student gallery. He looked into the american shipping/trucking industry as a way to get the work shipped around the country to any number of venues and there seems to be a lot of possibility there. Also, Cranbrook Architecture Dept. has a history of working at full scale on smaller projects, often involving the modification of the studio (especially during the Dan Hoffman era). In the USA there is the popular culture of "chopping", as in West Coast Choppers, Orange County Choppers, monster garage, monster house, junk yard wars, etc. The trailer project is intended to roll all of these into one work.

...

Midland

2005-10-06T01:00:21-04:00

Tonight most of us (there are 15 of us +Bill) went to Midland, MI to see Daniel Libeskind lecture and afterwards hang out at a country club with he and his wife and a bunch of locals. It was fun and we got a lovely group picture with him, which i hope to post soon. He flashed through about 20 projects he is working on: mostly apartment towers over 30 floors tall in various cities around the world. In public presentations has become very good at breaking his work down into little emotive bits so that is easily digestible.
The best part is that we were invited guests and it was all paid for by someone else. Daniel was the architect-in-residence here for a while in the 70's and 80's... i think it maybe had something to do with that. His wife seemed pretty curious about how things were around here now, and he commented that it is a wonderful place. Though, what else do you say when 12 cranbrook students are standing around you expecting you to say something?

Today we also had ...

first post... newnesses

2005-09-29T16:15:48-04:00

Some very exciting things happening in the architecture studio at cranbrook this year:
Bill Massie as new Architect-in-residence
Frist Semester project (optional for second years): trailer
New tools: laser cutter and CNC router
new metalshop space
larger woodshop
new computers (sometime soon)
renovated studio building

I have info and photos of all this stuff which i'll be posting in the next few days.

My experience here so far has been great and i think its going to be an incredible 2 years. The first 2.5 weeks have gotten off to a kind of slow start due to all the new things listed above, but mostly its been really wonderful. I don't have internet access at my house and the studio computer lab was down for a while, but now i have more regular access and the blogging will begin...

I'll start off with some links to check out:
Cranbrook Academy of Art
Cranbrook Architecture dept. (new page in the works)
Massie Architecture (this hasn't been updated in like 2 years)
Architectur...