Archinect - Rice University-RSA (Nkiru)

Last entry

2009-03-09T22:40:10-04:00

This is my last entry as the Rice university school of architecture administrator for Archinect. I wish I had posted more, commented more etc. I need to launch my own website or look for another blog spot where I can keep throwing things up (ha ha). I'm excited about the future. I feel as though, over the last 8 years of tutorials, crits, reviews and experience, I have been able to really crystallize my architectural interests. So now, post thesis I have a clear avenue of pursuit... and I'm excited. Wish me luck. Bye Rice, it's been ultra violet.

Mobile Transactions - Thesis Defended

2009-02-13T21:58:32-05:00

My thesis is defended. I had an exceptionally difficult time and taking a look at what I produced, after a three week, post defense detox, I still feel as though it is unresolved. A sad thought but not an entirely hopeless one - I have already spied an upcoming competition that will allow me to explore my thesis further.

So here it was -

This thesis intends to learn from Lagos’ “publiccongestion” infrastructures to create a new architectural typology: The drive through market, an intensification of the interchange market phenomenon.

Lagos is a modern third world megacity in a rapidly urbanizing world. Seventy per cent of its economy is grounded on unregulated markets. In anticipation of the future densification of the megalopolis, its transportation infrastructure will be atomized to facilitate an unprecedented magnitude of collective inhabitation.

So this became my thesis - accommodating a space for trade and transactions on an infrastructural scale.

The thesis jury i...

market park

2008-10-21T12:45:12-04:00

In Lagos, every high frequency intersection is an opportunity for trade, so much so that the conduits of flow are filled to a point of stasis; a staccato flow. The geometry of the urban plane is one of hyper congestion and informal organization, massive urban intensity, spontaneity and resourcefulness. How can the activity of trade and the environment of intensity it thrives on be retained whilst incrementally returning the flow back to the city?

This collage illustrates a segment of the proposed mega interchange located on reclaimed land to the north of Lagod Island. It will facilitate the flow of imported goods into zones of storage and distribution, concentrating the intersection of public transportation trajectories (bus rapid transit system, light rail, river bus and taxis) while absorbing the temporal formation of a valuable, dynamic urban spaces of interaction and exchange ( accommodating high density market spaces and supply of necessary resources:- power, water, refrigera...

Traffic Island

2008-09-17T02:02:07-04:00

Thesis is ongoing with the help of Eva Franch Gilabert. The question I am asking myself is - what is the relationship between infrastructure and the city?
Infrastructure constitutes the geometry of the urban plan, from the molecular to the massive. An organizing structure and support system. A network for collective living. I'm reading Visualizing the Invisible - towards an urban space, Read and Pinilla.

Lagos is my incubator. A city of over ten million people and broken systems. To a great extent the city has no water infrastructure, no electricity infrastructure, an inadequate sewer system, and an informal mass transit system. However it is still a city!? Barely. A modern conurbation where people live in a state of emergency (emergence). "A market place where people give money in exchange of goods , to those who desire to sell, and to take money from those who desire to buy".

[Lagos Center - major informal bus stations and associated markets]

Millions of urban poor join...

It starts.

2008-08-30T16:52:48-04:00

After a pre - start of semester weekend on the Texas/ Mexico border with my friend Richie, I’m back in H town. Although the first week was a little structure less (no official tutor/professor to meet, no thickness of timetable to build) I feel my thesis semester has officially begun.

I spent time this summer in Lagos, Nigeria researching its market culture. The co dependence of the traders and the citys primarily motor bus based transit system is currently my focus. I suspect this might shift. A double program transit center/city market is lurking in the back of my mind but I am not entirely convinced and at this stage I'm trying to be careful of jumping to dry conclusions. There is so much exploration to be done. Input, advice, sources, links; testimonials would all be very much appreciated.

Bartlett Summer show Highlights

2008-06-29T13:21:55-04:00

I'm working in London for the summer so I was able to pop down to the Slade School of Art, where the Bartlett Architecture School hold their summer show every year. Peter Cook is no longer the dean of the school and I am tempted to say, things are changing there. Not for the better or worse, the school is just taking a very, very slow curve. Overall the quality of the work is outstanding as usual but, as ever and as everywhere CADCAM seemed to take a stronger hold on the output of work this year. There where many an intensely lazer cut model and more than a few 3d prints which I believe to be a recent thing at the school. But the design ideas and solutions behind the methods of representation were incredibly well thought through, inventive, ingenious, cheeky, brave, fun and (entirely unaffordable but!) very inspirational. The show ended on saturday but I think you can get a copy of the catalogue on amazon perhaps.

Far From Equilibrium

2008-04-03T20:03:08-04:00

So Sandford Kwinter, an associate professor at Rice, released his new book last night– Far From Equilibrium. Sanford spoke to us about the ideas behind the book. He said it contained the answer to a question he had always wished someone would ask him.

(Someone) Sanford, what do you think has been the one defining concept of the 20th century?
(Sanford) Chreods!

The explanation is complex and I’m still not quite sure I get it but Chreods are the ultimate determinants of form!(?) And the exploration of its science has been the single most significant influence over the field of architecture in the ‘post blob’ era.

So basically, Sanford reckons that by looking at the work of early mathematical biologists and physicist like Conrad Waddington, D'Arcy Thompson and Rupert Sheldrake, whose work revolves around the concept of the chreod and the epigenetic landscape (waaaa?), you can trace the emergence of recent concepts in architecture and the proliferation of tools like algo...

Sir Peter Cook| SUPER HOUSTON

2008-03-31T22:41:29-04:00

A gigantic pink and fluffy feather duster came to tickle the RSA this evening.... and it was superb. Sir Peter Cook shared his experimental vision of what could take place under the tree canopies of 'Super Houston'.

He romanticized about vegetation and architecture, presenting projects entitled 'Veg house' and later 'Veg village', commenting on the appropriation of "veggies, growies and floaties" as architectural tools for setting up an analogy of metamorphosis. The gradually weaving vines engulf your cooker as a bush becomes a seat in a mixture of both organization and drift.

The lecture was delivered in sections each introduced by a sequence of images timed to music the choice of which I found particularly tantalizing. John Coltrane, Alex Cook, Heiter - Villa - Lobos and Hanne Huckleberg accompanied images of past projects, from the days of Archigram and future projects, like the theatre competition in Verbania,Italia. I loved the section on continuing dreams where he spoke...

SEEKING THE CITY

2008-03-29T15:44:50-04:00

This year’s ACSA conference is being held in Houston. Lars Lerup, the dean of the RSA, gave an introduction to the first keynote lecture by Richard Sennett and Saskia Sassen.

Michaele Pride and Dietmar Froehlich - This year's conference co-chairs.

Richard Sennett, an urbanist and a sociologist, spoke on the barriers of modern capitalism in developing craftsmanship. His perspective on the abuse of CAD and value in learning from resistance within the design process was particularly interesting to the students in the audience. He also spoke about the challenge of dealing with perfectionism and its potentially counterproductive contribution to the craft of practice. He contrasted the work of Adolf Loos and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein who designed and built a house in Vienna for his sister. The only building designed by Wittgenstein, was intended to crystallize his philosophy of architecture. In retrospect he wished he had built more and spent less time obsessing over perfect...

LIFT/TUCK - China lab Charrette winner

2008-03-10T16:17:09-04:00

Matthew Crnkovich | Quyen Ma | Viktor Ramos |Peter Stanley

Rice University won the China lab charrette. There were 22 entries. They are all on the China lab website if you want to check them out.They've put together a pretty interesting future city with the axons of all the entries.
It was a fun weekend. The timing was perfect because we submitted our proposals just before heading off on the studio field trip to Hong Kong.

Lift / Tuck was created to address many of the pitfalls of high density housing projects in China and Hong Kong. The scheme concerns the tower / podium relationship and how it can work to form a landscape. The block was conceived of as a solid that is carved away and has voids cut through the middle of it. The result generates a main promenade circulation which is obvious and
global. One travels through the podium by means of a secondary circulation system that is more circuitous and localized.

Sections of the building were lifted high off the ground p...

China Lab Charrette

2008-02-14T23:26:27-05:00

In Clover Lees studio we are taking part in the China lab Charrette. The brief is not too far from the overall intentions for the semester. We are looking at reinterpreting high density housing. Our site is Tseung Kwan O, Hong Kong. Currently these massive, gated mega blocks are being described as the vertical equivalent to US suburban sprawl. We are being encouraged to think of new ways to achieve the density and efficiency of the generic tower, podium typology while overcoming the banal, interiorized urbanism that it often introduces.

Cities in the Pearl River Delta are clearly growing fast and efficient space use and infrastructure implementation is paramount. But how do you tackle the scale of these mega blocks that house thousands of people pulled way up above the plane of the city street? Many of the new housing developments currently being built are becoming mini cities in themselves with all you need built into the complex. The metro (mtr) will often plug right into ...

Seonocity

2008-01-30T21:59:36-05:00

antonia wai | gloria chang |lindsey ramos

In investigating the concepts of integrations and migrations, the system aims at assisting unhindered mobility and activity throughout the residential community by eliminating conventional, self imposed boundaries of interiority and exteriority. To create this sense of integration between private and public spaces, a system is created where volume supersedes surface area. The system takes the form of a structural skeleton, allowing space to evolve into ambiguously (and paradoxically) defined 'zones'. Boundaries that traditionally separate and define different modes of programming now become blurred and give way to a sinuous network that sprawls across the entire site.

Migration occurs when these concepts are vertically and horizontally applied and distributed throughout the site, weaving together private and public spaces and in effect creating a sense of community so often neglected in society today. Integrating program such as sport faci...

RSA Spring Lecture Series

2008-01-29T17:06:22-05:00

These posters are designed by Richie Gelles. I think they are pretty clever

01.29.08 Rice Spring Film Series

2008-01-29T13:28:35-05:00

Film series begins tomorrow! There are more than a few on the list that I haven't seen before.
This time around it was compiled by the students instead of faculty and there seems to be a real mixture although a general theme of space, exploration, future, time,
travel and dystopia is apparent. Rock!

11.28.06 We Get Fellowships

2006-11-28T16:10:41-05:00

We get fellowships.

At the end of every spring semester, Rice School of Architecture’s generous alumni and donors give a handful of students the opportunity to do research by traveling abroad – [graduate] students propose research and itineraries, and the faculty decide who’s going (and dispense the checks); here are just a few of the fellowship winners, and what they did on their summer vacation . . . (with little blurbs to say what they did and then glamour shots to follow).

Jonathan LaRocca

In Australia, the crisis of unbridled development as continuous linear coastal conurbations, predominantly residential, has resulted in alarming losses of productive rural land ringing the coastal periphery. Could Australian cities lead the way in new urban inventions by both holding existing and creating new areas of green productive land within and between large urban conurbations?

Today over 58% of its population concentrated in just five large cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Per...

04.08.06 Paris program

2006-04-08T13:39:11-04:00

So here we are finishing up the semester at the Rice School of Architecture program in Paris, and since I haven't posted anything ALL SEMESTER LONG -- here's a rundown of the greatest hits we've seen in Paris so far.

Going back to Houston Texas after this is not going to be easy.

just some shots from around town . . .

. . . and tourists

this is the view from August Perret's one-time office. not bad, n'est pas?

napolean's tomb -- it's really that big.

Lucio Costa and Le Corbusier's building for Brazilian students at La Cite Universitaire.

Cobusier's Suisse Pavilion at Cite Universitaire. There are other Corbusier photos that I will not torture the community with. I have an idea, let's NOT see the staircase at Villa Savoye from every angle again.

Look familiar? It's the French suburbs.

and French architects in the French suburbs.

coolest building on earth. Niemeyer's communist party headquarters.

More suburbs.
Cergy, France: the town that postmodernism built....

11.08.05 libeskind

2005-11-08T12:10:30-05:00

On a book tour for his new autobiography/monograph Foundations of Optimism : My Journey from Communist Poland to Rebuilding the World Trade Center, Daniel Libeskind stopped in at the Jewish Community Center of Houston this week for a chat. Rice Dean Lars Lerup served as the interviewer in a strangely James Lipton-esque pairing, complete with a black backdrop and director's chairs.

Libeskind can speak about his passion for architecture, culture, life, family, cities and not come off precious or showy - he's easy on the archi-babble for sure, but inspiring nonetheless. For a change, it's nice to see an architect who can speak to people other than other architects.

11.06.05 â€“ make your own hotwire foam cutter

2005-11-07T01:33:42-05:00

So you want a hotwire foam cutter but you can't shell out the $398.99 for one? No problem! We've got the lowdown and we're passing it onto you, lucky blog reader.

Here's your shopping list: assortment of bolts (1” to 3” length), turnbuckle eyelets, nichrome hobby wire, 120 volt to 12.6 volt, 3 amp transformer, dimmer switch (one way, not three way) and lamp chord wire with a plug.

Decide how large you want your base to be, and at what height you want your wire. The workable bed on this machine is 18” x 18” and the height of the wire is 10”. Mount the transistor near where you'll eventually place your dimmer switch and mount it so that it doesn't directly touch the wooden base, just to be careful.

For the tension on the wire to remain consistent, and to keep from constantly recalibrating the wire, attach a spring connection to the lower arm of the machine. A simple copper tube drilled through the bottom arm mechanism makes an easy pivot.

Attach the top arm so it is directly ...

11.03.05 Halloween

2005-11-03T15:42:46-05:00

The theme at this year's party was "Bloody" OR "Muppets." Not necessarily both together. (that's what happens when you think of a theme when you're really sleepy.) Take a look at what came out of that idea. whah?. Hope yours was just as smashing.

If you didn't dress up, you're a loser, BUT . . . as our Dean Lars Lerup says, "Capitalist society needs losers, so it's okay."

10.20.05 - return of the street philosopher

2005-10-20T21:26:55-04:00

Manuel Delanda returned to Rice this week - hustling his all-encompassing and all-related and all-divergent version of social science, critical theory, history, economics, city building and computer hackery - after last year's sold-out performance (not really) at the Kennon Symposium. He's referring to it as a crash-course seminar (entitled, The Role of Cities in Social Science, originally a course at Columbia) and he came complete with a plexiglass backdrop, for him to scribble verses and diagrams a la Bill Cosby in the Electric Company.

Here's the rundown:

Monday October 17th:
Beyond Micro and Macro: The Place of Cities in a Materialist Philosophy

Tuesday October 18th
The Economic Aspects of Cities

Wednesday October 19th
The Biological Aspects of Cities

Thursday October 20th
The Linguistic Aspects of Cities

Monday October 21th
The Military Aspects of Cities

Some folks are repelled by the guy, saying he leaves out huge chunks of theoretical substance in his arguments, others have...

09.27.05 - rita update

2005-09-27T14:37:49-04:00

For all the panic and stress spent last week, Rita, the jumbo-size hurricane that was supposed to be Katrina part deux, spared Houston.

Some people left town in the Hollywood disaster movie-like mass exodus (2 million people on 3 freeways = 30 hours in the car to get to Fort Worth, which is usually a 3 hour car ride).

Some people left, but turned back (after going 20 miles in 6 hours).

Some people flew out (left the house at 3 a.m. for a 7 p.m. flight - and barely made it).

And some people stayed to wait it out. Needless to say, it wasn't much worse than the average Houston thunderstorm. No power out, no flooding, no injuries for anybody.

Leaving Houston thursday morning, 10 miles in 4 hours: notice the empty Southbound lanes on the right side of the image.

Rita bears down on Houston, friday evening (thanks for the photo, Matt).

09.03.05

2005-09-03T11:59:54-04:00

Here's what the administration at Rice is saying regarding students displaced by Hurricane Katrina . . .

Students can register for seminars and/or lectures at Rice but as far as studios, it's to the discretion of the professor to decide whether they allow students outside of Rice Architecture to join. Feel free to send a comment if you have any questions on this stuff.

p.s. sorry i posted that last enry twice.

09.02.05

2005-09-03T11:53:17-04:00

The walls and halls are filling up: here are some images from studios and pinups so far.

first pin up with visiting professors Julien De Smedt and Bjarke Ingels from the Danish firm plot. check em out at http://www.plot.dk

getting moved in at Professor Will Cannady's studio

award-winning rice building workshop at the brand-spanking new slab (it's almost ready to begin steel framing). read more about rice building workshop here http://www.projectrowhouses.org/cdc.htm

Also: We've received some questions as to whether Rice is going to open its doors to Tulane students, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Every student I've talked to would be happy to accomodate any displaced students from Tulane. We've got spare rooms and air matresses at our apartments and extra clothes, etc. etc. Unfortunately it's not all upto the students here, but if we hear anything we'll post it.

08.31.05

2005-08-31T17:03:30-04:00

Welcome back everybody. We're all fresh and clean and we kicked off the semester last week with a nice group keg and edamame (still a few loose ones rolling around the halls). We had a nice presentation by Dean Lars Lerup (that's the 2004 Swede of the Year to you.) Here are a couple lines from the sermon (on Suburbia).

"Fear and paranoia thrive in this place"
"Suburbia is perfectly organized in its interior, totally unorganized in its relation to the outside"
and (my favorite)
"Obesity is multidimensional in Suburbia"

Incase you couldn't tell, Rice tends to look at the suburban condition, how to intervene, how to diagnose and how to make it more sane. It's a thing we're really good at, you might look into coming here if you're concerned with those types of issues.

Another thing we're good at is being small. My studio consists of 13 people, some studios only have 11 or 12, and since Rice is such a small place, we're going to try and make this Blog thing into a sort of group spo...

08.08.05

2005-08-08T19:04:23-04:00

still on vacation . . . i'll be writing more soon.