Archinect - SCI-Arc (Marlin Watson)

2006-05-15T06:36:49-04:00

Keep reading, because this is the very end, and there's more archiporn at the other end.

A-L The Archinect blog poses a predicament: my finale, my circus sendoff, my epilogue, also serves as a preface and a tease. Even more disposing personally, I know this sentence, this last first preface, is the third sentence you'll read, new reader, as you noodle through the blog archives.

N-S This ordered beginning entry is very different than the chronological beginning entry at the end. I presumed the end wouldn't be a "goodbye" because "goodbye" posts are misguided and sappy: Misguided because, ultimately, they're the first post read by you, and sappy because it seems like I'm abruptly saying goodbye, and youÃ¯Â¿Â½ve only just arrived. At times I roll like that. Ask anyone who's ever attended my crits.

T-G To you, new reader, hats off. There are some pretty good treats in here if you keep digging. In one early entry, near the blog's end-beginning, I compare the late architectural critic P...

Appendix x: Aggregation

2006-04-26T14:57:48-04:00

Heartbeat a Design The morning after a final review, over a cup of coffee, the body is still tense, still worked up. The marathon of the nights prior leave behind the residue of anxiety about the work: why do I have time to drink coffee? Isn't there something I'm supposed to do now? Is that it? No. That's it. That was another review come and gone. Tomorrow, I'll wake up, take a shower, towel dry to a drizzly Angelino April sky, and over another cup of coffee, I'll think up in a heartbeat a design that outshines what I completed for the semester, then kick myself alot because of it.

Spectacle of Zap-O-Gap In the days following the semester's end, the work fragments remaining around the SCIArc hallway illustrate a flux: absolutely nothing bears a rank or study, and the model in the trash bin is also the best-dressed in the building. The circus atmosphere of discarded material piles and scraps softly obscures authorship. Take a look around at everything: these are not study models...

K

2006-04-19T06:15:16-04:00

Kaput This cathartic net search for images was inspired by a segment on NPR's Design and Architecture show earlier today about student and faculty experiences while they attended signature architecture high schools, like Morphosis' Diamond Ranch. I was curious about the idea of student snapshots with the architecture in the background.

Kaput The highlights of the show were student commentary on the function of the building, like the lack of covered walkways that result in a thorough soaking on rainy days. For me, the show was inspiring: consider opening a sidebar of a more candid commentary on signature architecture and its effect on the everyday.

Kaput Thom Mayne described Diamond Ranch to Charlie Rose on The Charlie Rose Show as a successful marriage of the social and the formal act. In one of the interview segments on the Planet Architecture CVD, during a site visit to Diamond Ranch, Mayne commented to John Enright about being bewildered by the scale shift to the real. When publ...

H

2006-04-06T16:57:35-04:00

Work binge one.

I'm edgy. I'm exhausted of documents. I'm tired. I haven't had time to devote to essays. I wierding out. There's two weeks left. This is catharsis. Someone asked for my work. Sure why not. Time for the fun. I'm typring into the entry window, not cutting and pasting from word. If i missspell, color it automatic. Unedited and i'll hesitate from doing so.Quotes because it seems like its talking. Images because they seemed sexxxy, and because i could make fum of them.

"This was the final from first year. Something about two apatment occupants, and the apartments that occupied the alleyway between thier two buildings. The occupants entered from the opposing buildings, and the main design was in the circulation. I thought doors avearged 3'6" at the time. Carry a tapemeasure during architecture school."

"This was fun. Second year, A section model of a house. We still hadnt taken structure."

"Way way way too into Eisenman for a second year 2b student. Can they tell? The...

Appendix ix: Punctuation

2006-04-02T12:21:09-04:00

G

2006-03-31T18:18:03-05:00

Dear Brad:

Welcome G! If architecture had a Variety magazine, this would be our full page ad! Also, our studio is hosting Fridays@5 this evening. Please consider stopping by for the free mohitos and bonfires. We're waiting to formally tell you in person that your're already a welcome addition to our clan. Dont believe the hype! Contrary to the conclusions of Archinect discussion threads, per capita, more beautiful women attend SCIArc than UCLA! Come on down! Tell 'em Uncle Butter sent ya!

Your Pals

SCIArc

D

2006-03-13T13:06:55-05:00

Thems lotsa words. Enjoy.
-MW

Departure
I finally borrowed a Crash Academy screener DVD. Crash stole the best picture Academy Award from pretty much everyone else nominated. For 11 million, the movie is a well orchestrated production, but I don't think how well someone performs under a budget should be a handicap in the Academy Awards discussion. Besides, Crash sucked. That movie was a lot better when it wasn't so acutely heavy handed, pathetically literal with its social issues, and titled Magnolia.

En route to the Miami studio site, my flight was fifteen minutes late landing in Ft. Lauderdale. Not too shabby, I guess. Nat Belcher, my studio professor, expected me at the site on Virginia Key one hour after my expected touchdown. I have a rent-a-car to get, security screened check-in luggage to retrieve and a dead cell phone. The rest of the studio arrived the day prior. Miami, and Virginia Key, are forty minutes south on the I-95 from Ft. Lauderdale. I imagine I sound like I kn...

S

2006-03-02T10:49:19-05:00

Above: The first of two short films on Miami, this first film was made prior to our studio visit to Miami. The Assignment's constraint, naturally, was that only appropriated footage could be used for the film. This film depicts a deserted Miami by using only a series of subtly manipulated still photographs found on Flickr and re-created ambient sound and foley.

Shade Ã¯Â¿Â½The best thing about Miami is how close it is to the United States.Ã¯Â¿Â½ This is the mantra overheard in Miami. Studio Professor Nathan Belcher insists my glib view on Miami will change. It already has. Stories of the studio trip, calling Miami payphones and asking answerees for instructions to the colored beach. Ã¯Â¿Â½You know, the beach where you have to get off the ferry and wade in to the shoreline. You know, that beach.Ã¯Â¿Â½ By referring to the studio site in Miami as Ã¯Â¿Â½the colored beach,Ã¯Â¿Â½ not too many people knew how to get me to it. Mapping will become a crucial part of BelcherÃ¯Â¿Â½s Miami studio...

W

2005-12-07T08:02:48-05:00

Appendix vii: Appropriation

2005-12-07T07:51:29-05:00

LL

2005-10-24T11:02:07-04:00

La Llauna More akin to Morcheeba than Portishead. The elephant of a ringtone keeps blowing up and no one wants to address it. So, Eric Owen Moss continues right on with the discussion. The line between ringtone and theme music is permanently smudged. Every leader needs theme music.

Lampin cold cold lampin Pearl Girl rolled an impromptu gathering of drunkards into a birthday celebration in my honor. In addition to Pearl's professional peeps, Deo and Rosen brought some old friends and celebrated their old-friendedness by double fisting forty ouncers. Two Night Trains finished, two Cobras and one Mickeys were left half-empty, ultimately becoming the smoker cipher's five impromptu ashtrays. Things have changed since the years when leaving an unfinished forty ounce of fine malt liquor was a party foul.

Left in the Lurch This past summer when I returned to my undergraduate studies, I felt like an outsider to the celebration of Hernan Diaz-Alonso's PS1 commission, SUR. I was away from SCIAr...

L

2005-10-08T18:45:43-04:00

Here Dangerous Water The point of Perry Kulper may ultimately be a kind of confusion. Studio has never been about precisely defined projects. Again, if it were, perhaps studio would be an engineering course. So then, how do studio professors teach? Why is it so easy to be lost or, rather, why do studio problems seem so ungraspably open ended? Indeed, the solution is never the problem. The problem thus should arrive at a solution and a well-stated problem.

Left Safe Authority Gives Food The slippage of quantifiable human activity greases the slope towards a design solution. The active frameup for problem solving is never precise. What the hell are square footage designations for a bedroom anyway? The problems of architects are never precise. The design problem, therefore, can never be introduced as, “Here are some lemons. Make lemonade.” Rather, the pedagogic modus most often is, “Here are oranges. How do you make lemonade?” This is the side of architectural thinking that gets to t...

Index

2005-09-17T00:15:09-04:00

“Token: Noun, an instance of a linguistic expression, an outward sign or expression.”
- http://www.merriamwebster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=token&x=0&y=0 2005

“It is obvious that [Peter Eisenman's 1970s architectural] practice must be something other than the usual article. One might say that he first sought to reconstruct, at the time of minimal art, an architecture of elemental components according to an intrinsic Syntax, before discovering that a Wittgenstienian search was to be forever frustrated by the Semantic powers of actual buildings.”
- Kurt Forester, from the article, Eisenman Unfolding; AV Monographs: Peter Eisenman. 1995

“Chomsky thinks human speech is an altogether specific gift discontinuous from any animal function. I think their view is a misinterpretation which largely rests on a misunderstanding of the way evolution has worked in man. It misses, in my opinion, the fact that human evolution has been dominated so completely by human culture i...

appendix v: muted trumpet

2005-09-09T09:25:10-04:00

LA

2005-09-06T07:45:40-04:00

LaBranche Witold Rybczynski, in 1995's City Life, cites the LA river as the thing which gives the standardized grid of LA's street plan a sense of poetic character. The ability of the river to fracture and cut apart the grid, adds a poetry to the planning found normally only when the systemic grid model collides with the natural landscape.

LaCroix “English you can learn in thirty days. French in thirty months, German in thirty lifetimes” - Mark Twain

LaCled “For the clearest ice cubes, use boiled water in ice trays.” - random note on pg. 177 of my father's copy of Mark Twain's Roughing It.

LaCleie Harvard GSD's Dept of Landscape Architecture put out a publication in 2002 on it's studio project titled, LA River Studio Book. The studio investigated landscape revitalization and redevelopment of the LA river. Student Han Song Lee's project has SCIArc and my summer studio site in part of his proposal. Lee writes, “Railroads along the river will be moved outside of this downtown...

B for B-side

2005-09-03T20:37:00-04:00

PS. Congratulations Ali. I'm certain this has something to do with Poonam. Very good news

K for Kappe House

2005-09-03T07:34:20-04:00

Professor Ray Kappe House. Now you know.

Added: A wonderful anecdote about a Kappe House visit from the U of Toronto weblog (see bottom).

M for Movie

2005-08-25T18:22:48-04:00

Magnificent MontagueÃ¯Â¿Â½this oneÃ¯Â¿Â½s a curious one. As far as posting the rest of my final work, IÃ¯Â¿Â½m content spending this first part of my vacation with my thumb in my rear rather than compiling and editing images for the log.

Moms Mabley I mentioned to a log passerby that my posts generally tend to be close-ended pieces, and ultimately donÃ¯Â¿Â½t invite much dialogue. In the case of this film, I would enjoy some dialogue, if thereÃ¯Â¿Â½s any to be had. The film is a reflection of my writing style, it turns out, and so I encourage the folks that enjoyed the log pieces to grab the office Aeron chair and draftsman no. 13 for a good six minutes. Heaven knows draftsman no. 13 needs a break. I hope you enjoy.

dictated@11:21 081505

2005-08-15T14:24:32-04:00

Good: I'm an uncle to my first niece!
Bad: Take a pick from the litter, though its all routine stress.

Dictated@21:07 080905

2005-08-10T00:16:11-04:00

S html

2005-08-02T15:23:53-04:00

“For most of us, design is invisible. Until it fails.” - Bruce Mau, Massive Change

Double and I often meet to watch bad movies-very bad movies. Straight to video mostly, any box office turd. Better stated, I will have witnessed some travesty to filmmaking and force Double to watch it. And I harass him point by point, all the way through, to mentally note all things bad. Then we watch the trailer.

George Lucas explains the droids from Episode One to Steven Spielberg: “They're supposed to be flimsy. The Jedi cut them down like nothing.” The design flaws of the droids foreshadows the clone army.

Some lines from old and obscure British movies I always liked, but whose origins I've long since forgotten: “No one likes a clever dick,” and the very clever dick sounding, “I'm gonna kick seven shades of shit outta you.”

Dubble is a burgeoning director, which means he'd love to direct, and in the meantime he's fighting the bill-paying professional merits of his best talent, photograph...

appendix iii

2005-08-02T14:58:34-04:00

appendix i

2005-07-31T17:46:54-04:00

a. "Figure 12: The Sinestre"
b. The Playground Thug

P

2005-07-13T21:14:01-04:00

Peeps The HDH sits in the underground garage and I lease the tiniest plastic Chevy. The motor revs with a whistle similar to a Radio Shack RC car servo. As much as I hate the HDH, I miss the throttle of a Kawasaki engine. The Chevy can parallel park anywhere.

Paper Champ The peeps dragged me out this weekend. Friday night I meet up with Pearl Girl at the Avalon off Hollywood and Vine, and take advantage of another gracious plus one for the Brazilian Girls show. Female crooner blew up the spot, big beats and showmanship to boot. Pearl Girl and I get toasty over Ketel Ones and meet up with Pearl's journalist friends at El Carmen on 3rd and Crescent Heights. Mexican wrestlers velvet posters, burlesque and lucha libre, beer batter fish tacos and beer.

Parking Patrol Deo swings by Saturday for dinner and the Esthero show at the Avalon off Hollywood and Vine. Odd. A few months prior Deo was deep in a broadcast design project sucking away his free time meager wealth. Conversating with...

00

2005-07-08T12:16:33-04:00

ED NOTE: it was brought to my attention that no title screws up the linkage in some browsers. Apologies when mandated.

Also, the quality of my cell phone photos is beginning to bother even me. I dust off the Lomo and use the video for a still. Enjoy. Also, and this will be the one time I ask, cue up the KCRW show in the following link:

http://www.kcrw.org/cgi-bin/db/kcrw.pl?show_code=or&air_date=6/19/05&tmplt_type=show

Kevin sent me a recall Email yesterday Thursday. Both the Moss/Prix debate lecture tape from the 2002 SCIArc lecture series, “Make it New” and the first Moss monograph were requested for recall in anticipation of a project. “What's up?” I ask.
“I'll tell you when I get the books.” Kevin knows to delay the punch line. The bastard.

This past Wednesday eve. I attend a screening of “The Wedding Crashers” followed by a Q&A with writers Steve Faber and Bob Fisher at the Harmony Gold screening room on Sunset Blvd. Writer Steve Faber, khakis, denim blue shirt, wear...

N

2005-07-04T18:47:40-04:00

Three Kings: Hector Rios 1990, Jimmy Jam, Ray Kappe

Nunya Worry Coincident threads within Archinect. I'm at the all school meeting The Day After. In my blog, in the threads, I say nothing about the uneasy atmosphere at SCIArc following the trial. Three times a week for the past eight weeks I see Ray Kappe SCIArc founder. Three or so times a week I see Journalist Urbanist Sam Hall Kaplan, notorious hater of all things things, most passionately hater of all things Moss. Three times a day I IM brother Damon, inventor of the Joystick Corridor. Google it.

Num Lock High School AP classes means access to a UCLA library card. My high school in Reseda is in reality a campus for 4-12 grades. Our high school library, then, is indispensable if every paper I write is a 5th grade caliber essay on Spaniard explorers. This is gulf war I pre internet early ninties. Like navigation around Los Angeles, I can live near UCLA and still have no clear sense of direction on this campus. In spite of spendi...

M

2005-07-02T08:00:06-04:00

AK

2005-06-24T04:24:06-04:00

Available Jones Are you for real? I just want to get coffee, sir, this past Tuesday evening officer, sir. Please? Nope. Some woman is doing donuts outside your apartment. Up Higland, Franklin, down Las Palmas, Hollywood, up Orange, and around again. Over and over.

Bronx Cheer Double hangs out in the chair through Thursday morning while I'm cutting up the Nike silo biker joint in his editing bay. I drive the mile between our apartments, hit my bedroom, prep for the catnap. The phonecamera rings: the fedex guy's outside. Skipping sleep means forgetting your pants. I'm sure the fedex guy thought I did it on purpose.

Cassanova Fly Earthquakes. A low 808 Bass in the distance, barely audible, only for a moment: the first phenomenal component of an earthquake. I know this one. Instantly I run to the living room. The first wave hits, the first physical component of the earthquake. Earthquakes tango, and tango well. She hits her beats, jolts and rolls. After enough of them, I got that rhy...

ABC

2005-06-19T19:31:52-04:00

An open letter A few passerbys have left posts. Judging by the general subject matter of Archinect commentary, I expected any casual comments on my blog to fall along the same lines. The comments have all referred to the quality of writing, a humbling anomaly. I was curious about this endeavor; it's encouraging I've managed to steer a handful of passerbys away from strangling the me. Like everyone else, I delete emails I don't immediately recognize. For the first couple of weeks I posted, it never, ever occurred to me that anyone would have any reason to email me from the archinect site. When the light bulb went off, I read and responded. If anyone wrote without a response, my ambivalence is the cause. Always the subject was a brief comment on the writing. More so than humbling, collapsing. I assumed this blog would be like a local theater performance: only my friends and family would show up. So I didn't bother to tell anyone. From my past I only knew a few people that emailed. So,...

P-V

2005-06-13T10:31:37-04:00

Panasonicvision A croquet tournament at the Hollyhock house: this offers tremendous freedom. The location makes beautiful motion photography an afterthought. The distance from the street makes diamond studded audio. And, a bunch of arbitrary folks are showing up in Sunday whites and flapper apparel to compete in croquet clueless to the rules or gameplay.

Qualitative If the focus of Jeffry Inaba's Video City seminar switched from a “polemic on architecture” forwarded through the medium of film to “the social institution of sports and the environments, circumstantial and intentional, formed to accommodate them,” then the serendipitous occurrence of this themed croquet match at the beginning of the semester would make my first short a snap. Interesting characters, Broadacre reminiscent pastoral setting, Hollywood sign for establishing shots, on and on. So, I made the phone call to the Barnsdall peeps, got the OK, called double and his two bomb 24p cameras, and off we went.

Rhododendr...