Archinect - UBC (Mike)

A House for Douglas Coupland

2011-07-17T12:08:22-04:00

Douglas Coupland, the Canadian author, also buddies with our Professor Tony Robbins was the surprise client for our final studio project.

After the installation gallery and precedent studies we tasked with designing a small house for a hypothetical client. The client was described as an artist and a writer and these two professions dictated the dualities of his personality. As a writer he was described as being a recluse. His artist side was described as being a bit of a socialite, a Gatsby figure so to speak.

We were given an interview session with “the client”, which was Tony in character, and we asked every possible question we could come up with that would help us to design as customized a house as possible. During the interview, it became clear to me that the client needed two houses. The artist and the writer had too specific needs to be met in one home. So, I moved the project forward with the concept of combining two houses into one form.

I tested the number of way...

A Gallery for One.

2011-07-09T13:45:01-04:00

Our third studio project was called ‘Gallery for One’. The point of the project was to choose a work of art and design a space to house only this piece. The hypothetical site was on UBC’s main mall next to our Belkin Art Gallery, on an enormous strip of grass. With such a simple program and very little site restrictions the goal was to generate a space that was completely original and enhanced the experience of viewing the selected art piece without overshadowing it.

I chose Artemisia’s Judith Slaying Holofernes. The painting, based on Caravaggio’s earlier version is latent with metaphor and feminist rhetoric. So, I thought there would be plenty of opportunity to make a really interesting space that leveraged this as well as the intense chiaroscuro.

I began by exploring a material palette and playing with the way fabric and lighting could create a procession towards the work. This was a dead end and I ended up with a bunch of models that looked like cat toys; boxes filled with s...

Exploring Space

2011-06-15T16:03:59-04:00

For those of your who don’t know Tony Robins, he is a Vancouver-based architect who has been in practice for over 20 years. After graduating from Oxford he began by designing six townhouses in Kitsilano and has since designed a number of Vancouver’s best buildings including the Kitsalano beach restaurant. He has projects in the US and Japan as well and recently started his own prefabrication factory called PreForm, where he designs and builds wild and beautiful houses for some of the most remote properties in B.C. http://www.aarobins.ca/

Tony has taught select studios at UBC throughout his career and this fall he taught one, which he called ‘Exploring Space’, with another young, local architect, James Eidse. James currently works at the Patkau’s office on Granville Island. The goal of their studio was to create spaces first, with a focus on conceptual development, materials, form-finding and detailing; layering in structure and program afterwards. The studio was obviously the mos...

The other side of the crit.

2011-06-13T10:31:06-04:00

Once again, I find myself almost a year behind in posts. Since last summer I have had my best studio so far, instructed by Architect Tony Robins; spent a term in London at the AA; and got a job at BIG in Copenhagen for the summer. But, before we get into all that I’ll start off at the beginning: September 2010.

I started my second year here at UBC by TA’ing the summer workshops for our incoming first years. The optional drawing workshop and the mandatory intro workshop run the last two weeks of summer, before labour day weekend. I took both workshops in my first year and had a blast, so I was really excited to help instruct them.

The drawing workshop is four days of hand drafting and is super intense, but one of few opportunities you have in architecture school to pour everything you’ve got into a drawing. Being a TA was a really wild experience, particularly during pin-ups and critiques. It had never occurred to me how exhausting being a critic can be. Obviously, presenting is ...

More from Marrakech

2010-12-28T17:32:31-05:00

Thanks for everyone’s interest in my research on Morocco this summer. I have gotten a lot of questions about it being published. It’s not likely, but, I did a small side project that was published in the Canadian journal On Site Review in its 24th issue on migration.

The issue is on newsstands now at Chapters and in most major bookstores. It can also be ordered online at: http://www.onsitereview.ca/

Here is a condensed version:

Jemaa el Fna is the main square in the medina of Marrakech and the major attraction for the two million tourists that visit the city on an annual basis. Touted as one of the busiest markets in Africa, if not the world, this remarkable public space has a bustling atmosphere that is chaotic, overwhelming and incredibly stimulating. Restauranteurs, fortunetellers and snake charmers work, among other vendors, to delight the senses of the tourists they captivate and the locals they serve on a daily basis.

Amidst the bedlam of the Jemaa el Fna night markets...

Summer Design Build

2010-12-28T00:04:51-05:00

On the south-east corner of Vancouver’s false creek the largest ‘Green’ housing development is currently under way. This includes the 2010 Olympic village. During the construction of the Olympic village hundreds of sheets of wheat board were used to protect the appliances and fixtures in the kitchen while construction on the units was completed.

When Folke Kobberling and Martin Kaltwasser, of Köbberling & Kaltwasser, were commissioned to complete a public installation in this area they decided to use this leftover material in order to create a situation of “exchange and cooperation.”

“On this interim land, which lays fallow for the time being, the artists created a 6 x 7 x 14m artwork that invites the participation of new neighbours to liberate the discarded, share excess, and contribute to the building of new forms and meanings.”

The School of Architecture at UBC and the Emily Carr University of Art & Design were invited to participate on the building team to complete the ins...

Summer Research in Marrakech

2010-09-19T03:36:25-04:00

This summer I was able to do an independent project under the direction of Professor Daniel Millette. Another student and myself, under his advice, decided to investigate the medina of Marrakech and set off on a month long tour of Morocco.

When we arrived in Marrakech in mid-May we weren’t sure what exactly we would be researching. We spent the first three days wandering, getting completely lost for hours on end. We had a great time sketching, photographing, and talking to anyone and everyone. After a few nights soaking in the chaos of the night market at Jemaa el Fna we decided we should investigate the traditional planning mechanisms that help instill order within the medina. We found that despite the feeling of chaos within the medina the planning is incredibly thoughtful and functional.

We used Aldo Rossi and Leon Krier as resources to conduct our analysis and chose the tannery district as a sample neighbourhood from which we could make extrapolations.

Spending the bulk of...

Short listed candidate presentations for new architecture building

2010-09-17T15:26:43-04:00

Schools back in session and lots of exciting things are happening in Lasserre. For anyone in the area who is interested, there will be presentations by each of the four shortlisted candidates for the new architecture building this month.

On Thursday September 23rd Patkau Architects will present at 6 p.m. in room 104 followed by Proscenium + Teeple Architects at 7 p.m. in room 202.

On Wednesday September 29th Shape + FeildenCleggBradley will present at 6 p.m. in room 104 followed by OMA + CEI Architecture at 7 p.m. in room 202.

The selected team will be announced and celebrated at the Museum of Vancouver on October 20th at 5:30 p.m.

UBC SALA under new direction

2010-07-21T00:32:02-04:00

This year a search took place for a new director of SALA and several great candidates were short-listed, giving presentations at the school. It was a really wonderful opportunity to speak to esteemed academics from all over the continent and hear what they have been working on in their practices and at their respective schools.

Leslie Van Duzer will be the new director at UBC this fall and we are all very excited to have her on board! Professor Van Duzer comes to UBC from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis where she served as Director of Undergraduate Studies. She has taught at numerous schools in the United States, Canada and Europe and is currently serving a five-year term as an external examiner for Dalhousie University in Halifax. She completed her graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley and practiced architecture in San Francisco and Vienna prior to her academic career.

An expert in early-modern European architecture, Van Duzer is co-author of four b...

Summer Reading

2010-07-21T00:14:39-04:00

I can’t put down Aldo Rossi this summer! We had read excerpts from The Architecture of the City in our Themes in Architecture course in the fall semester, but I just finished the whole thing and it is amazing. Additionally, I keep rereading paragraphs from his Scientific Autobiography; it’s so good! Both of these staples are highly recommended for anyone starting their architectural education.

ULI 2010 Urban Planning Competition

2010-07-21T00:05:03-04:00

This semester I had the opportunity to work with a group of students from across SALA on the Gerald D. Hines/Urban Land Institute student urban planning competition. Other than in the introductory workshop at the beginning of the year this competition was the first time I had been able to work on a project with landscape students. It was really great to see what they learn in their first year and share best practices. This competition also presented the first opportunity to use some of the finance skills acquired in my undergrad to come up with the phased pro forma.

This year’s challenge was to come up with a plan for developing several blocks in San Diego’s east end between Market and Broadway Streets, 11th Avenue and the I-5. We didn’t make it to the final rounds of the competition but the process was well worth it. Here are some details from our submission:

Plan outlining a more integrated neighbourhood.

Diagram explaining a more dynamic streetscape and integration of greens...

Spring Thesis Exhibition

2010-07-20T15:23:41-04:00

While the School of Architecture at UBC has a very even demographic split this spring's thesis exhibition represented a rare sample of graduating students made up of almost 80% women.

At UBC, similar to many other schools I am sure, advanced placements and co-op and exchange opportunities, among other things, often mean that students are graduating a semester earlier or later than the rest of their class. So it is not strange that this happened.

A more interesting observation, however, was the scale that many of the projects this spring took. While I have only seen three thesis exhibitions at UBC first-hand, those presented this April encompassed much more planning initiatives than I have seen in the best. It was really incredible to see such a broad spectrum of architectural projects all resolved with such high quality.

Among my favorites were those completed by Idette De Boer and Meghan McBride. Idette focused on designing a system and regulating body to promote better archi...

What kind of architecture do you want to practice?

2010-07-20T15:16:58-04:00

Does anyone else constantly get asked by those outside the industry: “What kind of architecture do you want to practice?”

Now that I have completed my first year at UBC everyone seems to be asking me this. It’s not a big deal when I hear it from friends from business school or relatives, but people in Vancouver LOVE small talk, and I seem to be getting asked this every time a waitress or grocery store clerk etc. discovers my area of study.

I used to explain that we don’t ‘specialize’ in school and while some firms find a niche, many are eager to take on any project that interests them. However, this answer seems to severely disappoint people, most it seems want to hear a basic typology that they imagine makes up a sector within architectural practice: residential or commercial for example.

The first week of summer this question was asked with such an overwhelming frequency that I tried employing the vague response, “Good architecture!” But this didn’t fly with anyone as a le...

Culture of Making Final Project

2010-07-19T21:02:21-04:00

The culture of making, as I have stated before, has been the reason for my absenteeism from the school blog project over the past few months. This studio course is fairly new to the curriculum at UBC, having only been introduced to the first year requirements 3 years ago. It is an incredible studio that many of the upper years wish they had been able to take. It promotes the development of a design process that prioritizes the implementation of structural systems, an understanding of construction, as well as sequencing in a cumulative design project. Each step of the project was given about two weeks of the semester, maintaining a fast pace and high energy in the studio. We all worked really hard, I hadn’t pulled any all nighters when this semester started, but by the end I had 7 under my belt. This paid off, however, and I feel much more capable in tackling design problems and much further along in the development of a personal design process.

Our first project was the 1:1 shelter...

Design Media

2010-07-19T19:27:01-04:00

Design Media is an essential part of the first year curriculum at the School of Architecture at UBC. In the fall, M.Arch I as well as B.Ends (Bachelor of Environmental Design) students take Design Media I together. This class helps to introduce hand-drawing skills and familiarize students with drawing and design software. It also introduces ideas on communication in design and graphic skills, with all projects culminating in a final poster and portfolio. This year John Bass and Matthew Soules taught the course. They were supported by a number of T.A.’s who were essential in helping us become adept with Vectorworks, Rhino, and the Adobe Creative Suite.

In the spring semester, Design Media II is a requirement for all M.Arch students including those with advanced placement. In this course a more advanced suite of software is explored with a focus on tooling and fabrication. Ian Ross McDonald taught us parametric modeling using grasshopper, animation using Maya and Adobe, and many of ...

Catching Up/Vancouver 2010 Olympics

2010-07-19T19:17:05-04:00

Catching up

Excuse the delay in posts this studio was a busy one… if not THE busiest one in our curriculum. I will pick up from where I left off and write about all the significant events of the past semester in arrears.

One of the more exciting, or should I say publicized, events in the past four months was obviously the Olympics. I am sure you all watched the coverage and experienced the ‘glory’. Keeping it architecturally relevant, February was an exciting month for temporary structures and wicked lighting through out the city. There were some cool and some banal pavilions along the waterfront at false creek, Alberta and Ontario’s being, in my opinion, the best examples of the former. Often more exciting were the corporate stands, Bell had a great looking lounge near the stadium and Acer and Coca-Cola each had big museum/theatre/propaganda stands at LiveCity Yaletown.

A few faculty and students of the school of architecture threw themselves into the mix. Inge Roecker designe...

Fire Hazards

2010-01-16T18:13:08-05:00

Our first studio project concluded on Friday and the heaps of bamboo reeds, twine and lycra that have filled our studio for the past two weeks turned into some incredible little tents and shelters.

The purpose of this first project was to explore materiality and gain hands on experience with structural systems on a 1:1 scale. I know that I only have two studios under my belt, but I can’t imagine a better introductory exercise. Here are some photos from the exhibition and review.

For my project I was interested in tensile structures and creating a really bizarre, sculptural form. Here are some non-photoshopped pictures of my project (excuse the rough lighting.)

I am happy with the form but was disappointed that I couldn’t make the structure more vertical, and give the shelter some better spatial qualities. Our next project is to do precedent studies on innovative and complex structural systems, so I am sure that in another few weeks I will be able to build the best fort ever....

Thesis Final Reviews: This Weekend

2010-01-07T23:09:43-05:00

Two days left until this years Graduation Projects (Thesis Projects) are due and the thesis student’s studio is a mad house. About fifteen students will be presenting their M.Arch grad. project this weekend and each have enlisted the help of lower year students to help put the finishing touches on their drawings and models.

I am helping Maranatha Coulas who, under advisor George Wagner, developed a housing complex for migrant farm workers is Kelowna, BC. The project is beautiful and I can’t wait to see all of the other final results.

For anyone in the Vancouver area interested in seeing the presentations they will be held at our downtown studio at 425 Carrall Street (at Pender) the schedule is posted on the school of architecture website as follows: http://www.sala.ubc.ca/news/m.arch-gp2-final-reviews-0

Second Semester starts, with a 1 man tent.

2010-01-06T01:36:22-05:00

Second Semester is off to a quick start with our first studio project due next week. The second semester of first year at UBC follows up the introductory studio with the second core studio called “ A Culture of Making”. This studio introduces key issues of material culture in architecture while suggesting the rich fields of disciplinary and interdisciplinary inquiry that such issues engage. Specifically, the studio is intended to introduce the essential and formative contribution that structural and material issues bring to an understanding of architecture. More broadly, the term’s work is grounded in an understanding that the varied cultures of construction have direct implication on subsequent cultures of inhabitation. Recognizing that the discipline of architecture is both expansive in its cultural engagements while highly specific in its material resolution, the studio addresses such a breadth of purpose via focused inquiries regarding scale, force, material property, geometry,...

... and first semester is over

2009-12-21T23:44:09-05:00

The final project for the first term studio was a big one this year. In past years the semester was finished with the “Odd Couple” assignment, in which students designed a house for two people with very specific and opposing needs. This year we were given a slightly more ambitious project called “A Residence without Address,” which required us to design a 16-32 unit residential building on the same site we had used for the past two assignments.

Other than the required number of units the assignment had several other parameters. On the site, we had to observe a 12-meter setback from the adjacent buildings. Within the building, there was a required mix of unit sizes, half needed to be 55 square meters and the other half 90 square meters. We also had to fulfill basic fire regulations and the fire exits could be scissor stairs as this is legal in Vancouver.

Most people chose to design their building around the idea that they had explored in the previous landscape project. In keep...

The "Landscape" Project

2009-12-21T22:58:50-05:00

With such a thorough site analysis having been completed for our third project it was no surprise when we were immediately given the challenge to create a new intervention to replace the courtyard that currently exits on the site.

This project asked us to create a new public space between the buildings based on one of the many factors that affects it. The site is in such an interesting spot many people chose to investigate environmental factors such as light or air circulation, which are both limited and change greatly over the course of the year. Other popular investigations were of the views from within the site to the streets surrounding it and access into and through the site.

Since the site is in the interior of a city block and very rarely a destination, I chose to investigate the access through the site. I found that many residents and office workers traverse the courtyard as a short cut to the street level amenities on the opposite side of the block. I was interested in ...

Project #3: Site Analysis

2009-12-21T15:23:03-05:00

Our third studio project was a group project that served as a site analysis for our final two projects. All three studio sections were given the same site: the interior of a city block in Vancouver’s west end, between West Pender, Bute, Thurlow, and Melville streets. This block has six office buildings on it and two residential towers, the buildings are placed fairly close together for Vancouver, but what really makes the site unique is that there is an alley running through it connecting Bute and Thurlow to the courtyard some of the buildings back on to.

Without knowing exactly what our final two projects would be it was our job to draw and model, at a 1:200 scale, all features that we deemed important to the site. Since the courtyard is stepped to meet the topography, we chose to show the natural slope towards the water that exists in the west end along with all eight buildings on the city block because each of them directly influence views from the site and its lighting conditi...

Between the Planes - Studio Project #2

2009-11-09T03:52:15-05:00

After our first studio project, Garmenture, was completed most of my class took the weekend to catch up on work for our other core courses before we were presented with our next studio project the following Monday, September 28th.

This project is not quite as infamous as Garmenture but it was much more challenging. “Between the Planes” explores the problems that come with moving between 2D and 3D representation. The project also serves as a means of learning 2D drawing softwares. For the most part UBC students use Vectorworks but some people with previous exposure are using AutoCad.

The project gave us the following two drawings with the measurements of 18 m long, 11.124 m wide and an assumed 18 m deep or high (depending on whether you interpreted the drawings as plans or sections.) The assignment was to infer a simple set of rules that link these drawings in order to generate a 3-dimensional space.

The problem posed an incredible amount of possibilities in our interpretation ...

Don't Make Plans for Thanksgiving.

2009-11-09T02:22:17-05:00

October has been an exceptionally busy month with midterms, essays and the wrapping up of the first three of our studio projects for the term. I have yet to pull any all nighters (some people in my studio are up to 7 for the term) but I haven’t been doing much other than school work and had to cancel most, if not all, of the social commitments I had for the month, including family and friends visiting from back east for thanksgiving.

Our first studio project is known as Garmenture and has been going on in the school of architecture for as long as anyone can remember.

The assignment is basically to conceive, construct and present a conceptual form that can be worn on your body. The purpose of the project is to help first years develop a design process, as well as to understand the importance of the body as a constant within architecture and the necessity of understanding your site. The project also served as a method of introducing us to different methods of 2D and 3D representat...

2009-2010 Lecture Series

2009-09-30T18:45:02-04:00

Here is the "poster" for our lecture series this year:

September 23: The Roadshow, 9 Canadian Architects and Designers
Architectural Landscapes of Canada
7:00 pm, UBC Lasserre

October 22: Mason White
Coupling
Principal, Lateral Office/InfraNet Lab, Toronto
6:30 PM, UBC Lasserre 104

October 26: Marc Treib – the 2009 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander Lecture
Pragmatics & Poetics: Beyond Sustainability
Professer Emeritus, UC Berkeley
6:30 pm, UBC Robson Square

November 2: Juhani Pallasmaa – the 2009 UBC Sala Arthur Erickson Lecture
Thought and Form: 12 Themes in My Work
Professor and Principal, Juhani Pallasma Architects, Helsinki
6:30 pm, Playhouse Theatre

November 12: Akihisa Hirata
Tangling
Principal, Akihisa Hirata Architecture Office, Tokyo
6:30, UBC Lasserre 104

January 28: Kumiko Inui
Houses and Buildings. Landscapes
Principal, Office of Kumiko Inui, Tokyo
6:30, UBC Robson Square

February 2: Laurie Olin
...

Lu's Pharmacy for Women

2009-09-27T16:34:56-04:00

Last weekend I had the opportunity to help put some of the finishing touches on a senior design/build project in the downtown east side. The studio was led by Inge Roecker an Assistant Professor at UBC SALA who also runs her own practice: Asir Architekten in Stuttgart and Vancouver.

The project was to build a women’s pharmacy on West Hastings Street that would be a welcoming environment and help to fulfill a number of different needs that are not currently being met within the community. Lu’s Pharmacy for Women has a pharmacy counter at the front that any woman can use to fill her prescription. From what a I understand the dispensing fees will be much lower than those at a regular pharmacy and the prescription sales will help fund the pharmacies other operations. These include a database of doctors in the area with testimonials from female patients, a resource centre and library, meeting areas for workshops and also a doctor’s office.

The students in the studio raised $115, 000 ...

School has started

2009-09-21T00:06:54-04:00

School has officially started. No more workshops, no more downtown studio, and no more pass/fail grading.

This week has been an exciting introduction to the first semester of the M.Arch core sequence. For the 40 of us who do not have advanced placement we will take three courses: Structures, Themes, and Design Media.

Structures, is taught by structural engineer Annalisa Meyboom. It explores quantitatively and qualitatively statics, materials, and the flow of force through structure. Annalisa gave a fantastic intro presentation to the class with a slideshow featuring a number of buildings and projects that used structural elements to enhance their design.

Daniel Millette teaches Architectural Themes. It is seminar on the many issues that concern the planning, design and understanding of the built environment. The course has had a reputation of overwhelming and often impossible reading assignments. This year the course package is still very large but the readings seem to have...

Introduction Workshop

2009-09-17T16:34:34-04:00

The week before Labour Day weekend was the annual Introduction Workshop for all incoming Architecture and Landscape Architecture students. It was 6 days long and, similar to the optional drawing workshop the week before, it was a lot of fun.

Both of the workshops were held in SALA’s downtown studio on Carrall Street at West Pender. This is in the heart of Vancouver’s downtown East side, the oldest neighbourhood in Vancouver. The area is noted for its high incidence of poverty, drug use, sex trade, crime, as well as a history of community activism and the highest incidence of HIV in the western world. It was once the main shopping district in the city but has experienced significant urban decay in the past decades. More recently though, many of the buildings are being renewed and many new businesses are operating in the community, this gentrification has created some tension between the community and developers.

For all of these reasons, the downtown east side is one of the most i...

Stuff White People Like #34: Architecture

2009-09-15T20:27:42-04:00

"If you ask white people what they love about cities they don’t live in, they will say “restaurants,” “culture,” and “architecture.”

They just can’t get enough of old buildings or ultramodern buildings next to old buildings.

If you want to fit in with white people you need to learn about IM Pei, Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Gehry, and a whole swath of others. Also, be prepared to say “Bauhaus” a lot.

Once you have the basics down, you should choose a city that people are unlikely to have visited, then make up a name, and choose one of the following a) opera house, b) museum, c) city hall, d) civic center. Then put all together into something like this:

“Geary is good, but I’m more much into the work of D.F. Winterhausen, he designed the new opera house in Podgorica.” Wait for a pause and then say “In Montenegro. Have you never been?”

The white person will be left in stunned silence, reverence and respect.

The reason white people love architecture so much is that deep down they...

Intro Drawing Workshop

2009-09-12T23:13:35-04:00

The School of Architecture offered an optional drawing workshop the week of August 24th. My first thought was to skip it in favour of having a week’s vacation between work and the start of school. I was fairly confident that I could draw as well as I needed to for any of our first year classes, but in the end decided to partake because drawing is fun and I wanted to meet some of the people in my class.

The theme of the course was table settings and in the pin up area of the studio the desks were set up into a long banquet table. We were asked to bring flatware and silverware and were provided with some other pieces to create a unique composition with a place setting that we then drew in a number of scales. The itinerary was laid out for us, but it wasn’t made clear how each assignment would lead into the next, and every step of the way we were challenged to think more conceptually about our composition and how we could use these technical drawings to convey an idea.

It was ini...