Archinect - SCI-Arc (Tim)

the end of thesis?

2008-08-02T13:53:46-04:00

as some of you may know, i am in my graduate thesis semester and this week marks the beginning of the final stretch for our final presentations which will take place in a little over a month. i'm a little freaked-out, but i figure i would offer up a discussion that may help divert some of the anxiety...or maybe i'm just procrastinating.

the discussion relates to some issues brought up by sylvia lavin, professor and former chair at UCLA, during her recent visit and talk with thesis students here at SCI-Arc. i would describe the talk as being either very poignant commentary on the current state of architecture and architecture education OR the most demoralizing pep-talk i've ever been a part of. either way, i thought the issues that were brought up warrant discussion here.

her main argument was (and i'm paraphrasing) that within the current state of the profession today, given its highly collaborative an non-authoritative nature, there is no longer any relevance for personal these...

digital pleistocene: sanford kwinter at SCI-Arc

2008-06-05T03:41:45-04:00

there is yet to be any mention of chreods (i feel it's coming soon), but i found the introduction to this seminar course no less interesting. pleistocene describes the period during which humans evolved into their current form, and kwinter suggests that a return to understanding this primal existence or 'archaic endowment' is necessary to understanding current modes of media and communication. you are probably asking how, if at all, this could be related to architecture, but i think it has a strong basis as it relates to ecology, or plainly, an organisms relationship to the environment.

an example he gave was the bower bird, an animal that builds intricate bowers as a means to attract mates i.e. the bird that builds the most elaborate structure gets the most play (let this be motivation to you aspiring young architects). drawing from george schaller, who stated that the bird cannot be understood without its association to the nest, kwinter believes that humans are likewise under...

release the hounds!

2008-06-01T05:28:24-04:00

i've been reluctant to post any thesis related material on this blog because post like these are so often thrashed for being only a means to solicit research help...please know that this is not one of those post. i think my research agenda is in place (as well as my advisors: juan azulay and tulay atak), but even so, i always welcome constructive feedback.

with an entire research semester already behind me, this snapshot is during the initial few weeks of the design semester . the site is set: Saigon, Vietnam, and currently i am currently toiling with issues of programming. quickly i am finding how much of what i have learned from past semesters coming into play. i am fairly handy with formal techniques which are sort of sitting on the shelf at the moment as i explore content issues related to the site. the current methodology i am using for programmatic analysis is based off diagrammatic coupling i.e. juxtaposing known data e.g. shopping mall locations with political routes, to r...

Fogbank Day 2: Wendover Army Air Field

2008-03-19T21:03:05-04:00

Wendover Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force base in Utah. During World War II, it was a training base for B-17 and B-24 bomber crews before being deployed to the European and Pacific Theaters. Also, it was the training site of the 509th Composite Group, the B-29 unit which dropped the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs.

After the war, Wendover was used for training exercises, gunnery range and research facility. It was closed by the Air Force in 1969, and the base was given to Wendover City in 1977. Tooele County took over ownership of the airport and base buildings in 1998. A portion of the original bombing range is now the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR) which is used extensively by the Air Force with live fire targets on the range. - wikipedia.org

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Fogbank Day 1.5: Sun Tunnels

2008-03-19T20:57:47-04:00

An artwork by Nancy Holt, completed in 1976, consisting of four large concrete tubes, laid out in the desert in an open X configuration. The nine foot diameter, 18 foot long "tunnels" are pierced by holes of varying size, that correspond with the pattern of selected celestial constellations. There is a tunnel for Draco, Perseus, Columba and Capricorn. - CLUI

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Fogbank Day 1: NASA & Spiral Jetty

2008-03-19T20:50:02-04:00

i'm out of breath and out of commentary, but hopefully the images will speak for themselves...

The Spiral Jetty, considered to be the central work of American sculptor Robert Smithson, is an earthwork sculpture constructed in 1970. Built of mud, salt crystals, basalt rocks, earth, and water on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake near Rozel Point in Utah, it forms a 1500-foot long and 15-foot wide counterclockwise coil jutting from the shore of the lake.

At the time of its construction, the water level of the lake was unusually low because of a drought. Within a few years, the water level returned to normal and submerged the jetty for the next three decades. Due to a recent drought, the jetty re-emerged in 1999 and is now completely exposed. The lake level rose again during the spring of 2005 due to a near record-setting snowpack in the mountains and partially submerged the Jetty again. - wikipedia.org

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial...

SCI-Arc Spring 2008 Lecture Series

2008-01-30T03:47:48-05:00

I almost forgot...

01.16.08 | Jeffrey Kipnis: *@$#*!#!!

01.23.08 | Dan the Automator

01.30.08 | Peter Walker: Before the Memorial

02.06.08 | Manuel DeLanda: The New Materialism and the Mind

02.13.08 | Edward Eigen: A Crash Course in History

02.20.08 | Neil Spiller: Communicating Vessels

02.27.08 | Giovanni la Varra: Milanese Chronicles

03.05.08 | Mark Johnson: Re-Building Civitas: the Re-Generation of Place in Urban Design

03.12.08 | Robert Hodgin: Embrace Your One-Trick Pony

03.19.08 | Benjamin Ball + Gaston Nogues: Spaces Between the Hammer and the Mouse

03.26.08 | Yansong Ma + Qun Dang: MAD Dinner

04.02.08 | Greg Lynn: I’ll see it when I know it

All lectures begin at 7pm in W.M. Keck Lecture Hall and are free and open to the public

scattered, smothered, covered and UNpacked

2008-01-30T03:32:33-05:00

somewhere within this collection of books lies a compelling and well articulated thesis argument just waiting to be extracted (now if i only knew where to begin looking). at this stage so much is left to faith, and it's easy to get lost, or at least misdirected, from the path of poignant research. for me, these distractions manifest in various forms, ranging from the provocatively intellectual discourse on 'overlaying multiple ontologies vs. collage' (Kipnis) to the sparsely intellectual studio banter on the topic of 'predatory hawks and river whales' (it's not suppose to make sense). also on the docket is a coachella redux project that will involve a ton of bamboo, a 1000-linear-foot-12-car Amtrak station and what obi-juan azulay promises to be an "adventure in precarious construction."

to make sense of it all is the challenge, but perhaps not the objective. in a sense, its more about exposure and always being on the edge of understanding your convictions and finding the pleas...

fall semester courses (for now)

2007-09-13T00:40:52-04:00

Drop day is still in front of me, but for now the semester lineup looks like this:

1. Studio: X-Lab Vertical Studio: Hernan Diaz-Alanso
2. Theory: Philosophy of Technology: Wes Jones
3. Professional Practice: Project Management: Burcin Bercerik
4. Theory: Revenge of the Thing: Objects as Media: Benjamin Bratton
5. Workshop: Advanced Animation: TBA

p.s. if you haven't noticed, there has been an absence of pictures on my blog since my camera was stolen over the summer...i'll get a new one, but right now i'm still in mourning.

graduate thesis presentations

2007-09-13T00:22:32-04:00

This is an open invite for all to please join us for the SCI-Arc Graduate Thesis presentations on September 15 + 16, 2007

Sept. 15 Saturday
9am–12:30pm
2pm–5:30pm

Sept. 16 Sunday
10am–1:30pm

Thesis projects will be on view throughout the school from September 15–19.

960 East 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013 // 213.613.2200

...or for a more a cryptic invitation from our director:

Greetings and Welcome to Los Angeles and to Sci Arc…

Sci Arc has shifted its Graduate Thesis to the Fall. The critical discourse that heretofore concluded 3 years of graduate study now serves to energize, to stimulate, and to provoke the next intellectual chapter at Sci Arc which may confirm or contest its predecessor in that on-going narritive.

We will carefully examine the progenitors of the present thesis, one progenitor at a time; then pass that debate student by student, teacher by teacher, single-minded or nuanced, on to the successors who are carefully listening.

Our goal is to continue t...

SCI-Arc Fall 2007 Lecture Series

2007-08-07T18:48:01-04:00

I'm pretty hyped about the lecture series this fall. They all promise to be very relevant and exciting discussions...and what's even more exciting for me is that i may actually have time to attend them!

Good work by the lecture organizers.

All lectures begin @ 7pm and are open to the public.

more information can be found here:
http://www.sciarc.edu/lectures.php

09.26.07 | Mario Carpo: Digital, Drifting, and The End of History
Professor, Ecole d'Architecture de Paris-La Villette, Paris

10.10.07 | Meejin Yoon + Eric Höweler: Public Works: Projects in Play
Principals, MY Studio/ Howeler + Yoon Architecture, Boston

10.17.07 | Quinyun Ma
Principal, MADA S.p.a.m. Shanghai, China; Dean, USC Department of Architecture, Los Angeles

10.24.07 | Andrew Kudless: Processing Matter
Principal, Matsys, San Francisco

10.31.07 | Wolf Prix: Not enough is too much
Principal, Coop Himmelb(l)au; Vienna + Los Angeles

11.07.07 | Bill Mitchell: SMART CITIES: The City Car and Other Recent Work
...

coachella: temporary tent structure

2007-05-02T12:36:10-04:00

I get the phone call from juan azulay around midnight on a sunday to come help out for a few days with some kind of temporary tent structure for the coachella festival. i didn't know what to expect at all, and was only told that lodging and accomodations would be provided and people who helped out would be allowed to go watch the shows in 'measured' amounts. that was reason enough for me, so my roomate and i hopped in the car to make the 2 hour trip from LA to Palm Springs. we get there to find that 'lodging and accomodations' meant sleeping in the car parked next to a line of porto-potties...awesome!

working on the structure was a bit of challenge due to the sweltering heat and limited resources, compounded by the fact that none of us knew what the hell we were doing...but we did get some help and assurance from a crane operator named 'nascar' while roadies would continually pass by with encouraging words such as "dude, that's awesome! when do we get to burn it down?"

although it...

final review

2007-04-20T01:55:13-04:00

as sad as it may sound, i'm going through a bit of studio withdraw right now as i upload these images from our final review. the delerium has come to a sudden halt, and i am left to wonder what to do with all this free time...

the presentations went well for us. there was high praise for our level of production which i believe is the result of working hard and working well as a group even though at times we would have our differences. i have to thank my partners for really kicking ass and always providing some late night laughter.

the jurors for us included: hernan diaz-alanso, neil denari, georgina huljich, sulan kolatan, jonas runberger, stephen philips, matt melnyk, and jawn lim

for the most part, the feedback was very positive and the major topics of critique were issues of optimization (denari), skin (kolatan), interlaced with a few philosophical gems from stephen philips...hernan provided some good comic relief as usual.

p.s. don't forget the end of the year exhibit t...

open invite: final review

2007-04-18T01:24:09-04:00

For any prosepective students or anyone with interest in the MArch II Program at SCI-Arc

SCI_Arc Main Space
2GBX Final Review | 18 April 2007

1:00 - 6:00pm

My group is set to present around 4:00-4:30

Jurors include:

Hernan Diaz-Alanso
David Erdman
Neil Denari
Ramiro Diaz-Granados
Sulan Kolatan
Stephen Philips
Kevin Regalado
Heather Roberge
Jonas Runberger
Georgina Huljich
Andy Ku
Matt Mellnyk

also on the list, my friend and colleague, Jawn Lim

CATIA seminar: "system to building: optimization, performance implementation"

2007-03-02T14:14:02-05:00

assignment 01: re-parameterizations: a parametric case & design exploration

"the purpose of the exercise is to research a given building envelope (ONL cockpit) to tease out the parameters of design and design thought. the exercise will provide a background in parametric design thinking and to evaluate the relevance of this technology, technique and thought process to architecture in general. the emphasis is on deducing existing and formulating new design systems/structures through which we can further situate, evaluate and explore design logics."

same group of three for this assignment. aside from the building image at the top, all the images shown are the result of our own analysis and production.

midterm: robust morphologies and emergent tectonics: a mixed-use tower for MOMA

2007-02-28T17:59:54-05:00

this semester we are in groups of three, meaning they expect the output of nine. each group is asked to start with one of four templates:

1. structure
2. membrane
3. circulation/core
4. cellular aggregation

our project started with an analysis of circulation systems, described here as a network of nested loops that tap into, split, and expand the exisiting circulation system of the MOMA. this template was used to drive the buildings overall morphology, the floor plate system, and to some extent, the distribution of program.

as described in a previous post - "the program is a 12 story mixed-use tower including 50,000sf of gallery space for MoMA. the new building will connect to the museums second, fourth, and fifth floor galleries. the new building should interface intelligently with the existing building (Taniguchi extension), considering urban massing, daylighting, and circulation."

the jury was comprised of the usual suspects: hernan diaz-alanzo, florencia pita, neil leac...

NYC, bitches

2007-02-08T21:00:18-05:00

admittingly, my blog has been a bit photo heavy as of late. this is to mask the lack of written insight. although i very much enjoy writing, some things just have to give. maybe the lack of time. maybe the lack of motivation. probably both.

this past weekend in pictures:

planes, trains, and closed quarters

good company, okay thai food

taking in the city

our site

MoMA

some groovin

back to 75 deg and sunny, remembering why i live in LA

and in case anyone is wondering what i look like, ive been spotted by Diller + Scofidio...

new camera, typical day...

2007-01-27T18:56:00-05:00

it's on

2007-01-13T14:20:23-05:00

after a little shifting, dancing, and finagling, the next semester's line up looks like this:

1. Studio "Infrastructural Architecture": Peter Testa
2. Theory "Design Intelligence": Michael Speaks
3. Research Seminar "Free Form Fabrication": Peter Testa
4. CATIA/Parametrics seminar: David Gerber

with a possible sit in...

5. Theory "Deleuze and New Scientific Theory":Neil Leach

SCI-Arc top 10

2006-12-22T17:15:25-05:00

inspired by the archinect post in the forum, here is my SCI-Arc top 10 must have/thank/see/do/eat list.

10. mytunes redux - free downloadable software that allows you to jack a person's entire itunes collection in a matter of minutes...err ummm, i mean that's what i've heard.

9. blossom - authentic vietnamese cuisine at a good price. my standards for vietnamese food is quite high. this place passes all the benchmarks. located near the corner of 4th an main in downtown los angeles

8. yahoo groups - the chosen forum for the 2gax class to coordinate, vent, and share totally inappropriate video clips like this one

7. arizona green tea with ginseng - who knows how many hundreds of dollars i've spent on this product. keeps the motor running

6. MMatt aka "magic" - one of our studio and softech TAs who had the misfortune of having his studio located directly adjacent to ours. thanks magic, for going beyond the call of duty and always having such encouraging words to say like "this pro...

process

2006-12-07T19:39:03-05:00

love,
2GAX

midterm: exotic morphologies and porous bodies

2006-11-25T19:03:50-05:00

midterms have come and gone. overall it went well for my partner and i. no severe criticism from the jury, and no comments that weren't forseen, but still plenty of room for improvement.

more importatnly, however, i wanted to share some of the discussion/criticism that our studio got as a whole from some "outsiders" on the jury, namely michael speaks (who teaches history and theory at SCI-Arc, but not so sympathetic to the 'cellular aggregation' method) and jason payne of gnuform (or formerly gnuform).

the major topic of debate was exoticism v performativity, with speaks pointing out that there was not enough consideration of the latter. (which i agree) and jason payne pointing out that the students were not really engaging this question, at least verbally (which i also agree). it was good to get some fresh perspectives since all the reviews up until now have been pretty hermetic.

plenty to consider for the next 3.5 weeks until finals...

a face with the name

2006-11-07T12:28:44-05:00

I often get asked who's teaching at SCI-Arc these days, so I compiled these images to give some faces to the names.

I think its interesting that it is always the case for people of the arts to never smile in their pictures e.g. band members, philosophers, and in this case, architects. does it suggest unitelligence to show your grill? the most you ever get is the occasional smirk to suggest they know something you don't know, or in some cases, the look that they are out to kill you i.e. Juan Azulay and Marcelo Spina. its a bit of a farce since most of these people are some of the most easy going, good natured people you will ever meet.

anyway, SCI-Arc is going through NAAB accreditation review this week, so for those with any interest in SCI-Arc, this may be a good opportunity to come for a visit since every square inch of the school is covered in work.

Live Free or Die Hard

2006-11-01T04:44:17-05:00

i found this posted on my door today. its the 3rd notice of its kind since i moved in 2 months ago (prior was a rap video and car commercial).

word has it, bruce willis will be in the neighborhood tomorrow and already his presence is causing a commotion. the filming of this movie will cause the temporary closing of our beloved coffee shop, and apparently, the locals are not pleased. leave it to downtown LA artist to leave some poorly-spelled snub commentary.

a touch of the sublime

2006-10-22T13:06:44-04:00

Mont Blanc (1999?). picture taken during a spring break trip in college

when life gets muddled in the confines of long hours in concrete boxes, i look to pictures like these for inspiration.

oh yeah, the bike that i wrote about earlier was stolen last night :(
we had a good run while it lasted.

Studio Work - Indeterminate Architectures

2006-10-13T03:38:59-04:00

This is a sample of the work I have been doing for 2GAX studio (2.5 year grad). The result is not an architectural solution per se, but is an exercise to develop formal techniques to be applied towards a design brief in the next phase. we dealt mostly with issues of:

1. morphology: body territories
2. kinematics: motion & rigid bodies
3. infrastructure: adaptive chassis

coincidence

2006-10-12T19:33:04-04:00

so this entry is not architecture related, but i thought since there has already been discussion of mistaken identity and nobel prizes today (orhan wins), i thought i'd share a bit of coincidence with you.

meet Quang Do, candidate for the nobel peace prize

from BBC news:

Thich Quang Do is the deputy head of the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV). He is also a high-profile symbol of the human rights movement in Vietnam

The UBCV has been banned since 1981 - when the government created its own Buddhist Church of Vietnam - for refusing to submit to communist party supervision. Religion in Vietnam is controlled by the state.

Born Dang Phuc Tue on 27 November, 1928, in Thai Binh province, he has devoted his life to achieving peace and freedom in Vietnam.

Along with the church's leader Thich Huyen Quang, he has spent long periods in exile, prison or under house arrest for appealing for religious freedom, human rights and democratic reforms.

Quang Do, 77, lives at the Tha...

balance

2006-10-07T19:37:21-04:00

For the architecture student, finding that elusive balance between school life and life outside can be quite a challenge. What I've discovered is that this notion of “balance” doesn't just mean having one life to counterbalance the other as a matter of convenience, but actually means having to go the extra mile to sustain both lives in a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde/dual identity disorder kind of way. This challenge became evident for me this past weekend when I took advantage of a small break in my rigorous schedule of daily pin-ups to spend a night in Vegas with some old college buddies.

The day started at 8:00am with a studio field trip to ARIA, a well known company in Orange County specializing in the fabrication of concept cars and other unique designs, including a few architecture projects. Overall the tour was pretty unremarkable except for seeing first hand a 5-axis CNC router in action (sorry, cameras were not permitted). Aside from that, I spent most of the tour methodicall...

silence is golden

2006-09-22T04:21:18-04:00

a few shots of the library during my first work-study shift

relax, reflect, repeat.

and some pictures of exibit posters from yesteryear (in no particular order)...

La Jetee

2006-09-17T23:19:24-04:00

Fall 2008 Thesis Presentation: a Foretelling...

Once again, the main hall at SCI-Arc, in the middle of this pre-semester Sunday afternoon where he could not stay, he thought in a confused way that the new student he had been was due to be there too, watching the presentations. But first of all he looked at the exit door at the end of the hall. He ran toward it, and when he recognized the critics who had trailed him since this morning, he understood there was no way to escape time, and at this moment he had been granted to watch as a new student, which had never ceased to obsess him, was the moment of his own death.