hmm .. i didn't know that .. nice actually .

everyone has their own trademark

I think what is remarkable is that they've not taken reference from history or convention. So much of what we do as architects takes finds precedent particularly in historical models which serves as some rational basis - despite there being little substance to it. The essentialists ask why are we doing what we are doing, looking instead at the needs and desires of the outcome, and not at the solutions we have programmed in our heads. We need air and light, but it doesn't have to be a window, it could be a door or reveal in the wall. I hope that gives you a better idea of his or any justification.

yes...but then I'm just responding to ManuG query of "justification." By all means add criticism or a least substantiate your statement

i think superimpose just might be onto something.

Hmm, I think I have to agree with you on that. But I don't think Holl is limited in his use of Corbusier's Ronchamp for "inspiration" or "dublication" as the case may be.

urban surroundings of the sponge (simmons hall): CSX railroad tracks, Briggs Field, parking lots, vacant lots, a park, more dorms...so those tiny square windows are inspired by the railroad tracks? maybe if stephen holl had paid attention to how one designs a dorm, this building could be called a good place to live.

whoops, steven holl, not stephen holl. my bad.

have you lived there awol? From the people i know - the few architecture students that get a chance to live there, they love it (with the exception of public spaces/carvings inside)

perhaps it's a fascination for architecture students? all of the people i knew who lived there hated the building.

perhaps mr. holl had a proustian moment, as i did when coming across a keypunch card. my mother, who worked in the accounts payable department at whirlpool, would often bring these cards home.why i dont know. perhaps stevie saw one and was inspired to use it in one his projects. is this an accounting building by any chance? or does it have to do with accounting matters? accounting is very important. everyone should respect accounting...

hmmm possibly so; in any case I just like way he works...granted of late that seems not to be the case. He was a big supporter of the small office - that anything could be done with just 11 people (see GA 06); but he's become one of the big boys now...mutliple offices and all

"maybe if stephen holl had paid attention to how one designs a dorm, this building could be called a good place to live."

going to college and living in the dorms is about getting away from your family and all the little cubby holes they put you in. how to think, live, eat, love and so on, not creating little mini recreations of home. Sadly everyone seems to want to bring their favourite plush toys and posters of Britney or the Backstreet Boys, and their preconceived little box for themselves.


The building seriously messes with your sense of scale. It makes it hard to discern ones own place in it. Individual dorm rooms are not easily indentified from the outside. Perhaps that is why some people are uncomfortable with it.

going to college and living in the dorms is about having a place in which you are able to create and engage in community. i suppose i'm just a proponent of dorms that favor horizontal space, rather than dorms that contain towers. having lived in a dorm that was separated into six distinct towers, there's a lot to be said for a dorm that doesn't automatically separate you spatially.

but either way you will be seperated vertically into different floors, no?

Is that building divided internally into towers? are the individual units taller than they are wide?

looks pretty hoizontal to me. lots of common space for community.

The dorm i lived in took 5 minutes to get from one end of it to the other( horizontally). it too, like simmons hall had lots of brutalist concrete. Not a very comforting place to be. The keys to good dorm design are the same to low scale urban design. treat it like a mini-city. area's to socialise, smaller communities within the larger etc.

bob_dobbalina, that's the staircase on the first floor. there are elevators in each tower.

[momentary digression]
vado, there is a building on the tulane campus that was not only commonly known as the punchcard building, it was supposedly intentionally designed with that in mind. legend has it that the precast concrete panels with tiny vertical openings were arranged so that they would scan to read 'go to hell lsu'. i never knew anyone to check it out, however.
[end digression]

holl was prolly lookin at that one rather than the nuns habit building...

prouve was doing the watercolour thing sixty years before holl decided to pick up the brush and doodle away.

prouve started the watercolor thing?!

i thought that was part of the beaux arts education for generations! learn something new everyday.

sarcasm aside, i associate holl's watercolors with those of mackintosh as much as anyone else. i don't think holl's watercolors are an attempt to be original; he's just very good at it and they are excellent 'thinking' drawings. no need to tear him down because he's gotten known for doing something really well...

superimpose,

seems like a questionable assertion, the suggestion that holl might use watercolor to 'demonstrate how some other medium is somehow evil or inferior'. or that he hasn't embraced cad and considered all options that are available.

have you heard holl eschew cad? i expect that it is used on his projects, though maybe not in the conceptual phase when he's working through what the issues of the project will be.

i think you're creating a fictional/strawman holl so you can tear it down.

stephen ward.

i never assumed that prouve "invented" the watercolour.

i was merely pointing out that there is more that holl has borrowed form his predecessors than was originally pointed out.

you really need to go and grab an americano from steve o reno's and chill out.

never used the word 'invented' and wasn't really worked up. your comment DID indicate that holl had somehow taken credit for something that he shouldn't. we've all borrowed a lot but we don't go trumpeting it around all the time.

thoroughly chilled, but curious about that americano anyway...

I do think architects are often not totally forthcoming in where they draw inspiration for their work. However, I strongly believe that this is not always willful withholding. We take in so much, constantly. A 50 year old architect has been looking at/absorbing architecture for probably at least 35 years, perhaps even the full 50, as it may be hardwired into architects' brains to absorb things "architecturally".

"you really need to go and grab an americano from steve o reno's and chill out."
Can I borrow that line from you for some other discussion? It sounds cool...

Sorry, I just noticed how incomplete my comment sounds. Not willful withholding of information on my part, I just assume everyone understands my point ;-)

My point being: we see things, process them, and turn them into something else. Any similarity to a previous influence may not even be conciously realized.

(French, you are cool)

Hey thanks Lib. You're too nice. I don't even know how to write in blod letters on these forums. That's how unbeliveably cool I am.

that's "bold" for blod". I'm dislecsic too (and I can't spell).

French:


[ b ] insert word to be bold [ / b ]

minus all the spaces

same for (i)talic or (u)nderline

french. consider it yours.

thanks VADO.

I read that Holl started using watercolours early in his career because everybody else wasn't. he just wanted to be different.

Either way he uses them well.

[ b ]OK[ / b ] [ u ]only now[ / u ][ i ] do I undestand[ / i ] [ b ] how[ / b ] [ i ] it [ / i ] [ u ] works [ / u ]

no I don't. Oh well f*** it.

no no no no...without the spaces between the brackets and the letter

no spaces whatsoever, otherwise, you're golden.

and cool for sure, whether or not you figure it out...

yeehaw

to get back to the original topic, now that i've thought about it more. i think your lecturer may have drawn his conclusion from one or two isolated projects, but i would argue that this broad statement is probably not true as a general rule.

most of the projects seem to have their own internal narratives/metaphors that drive decisions. these can be seen in the watercolors discussed above. check out the coverage of bellevue art center when first published in arch record - the diagram on the cover of fingers and some scientific rationalization which i can't remember. and the mit dorm as sponge. the seattle chapel as colored glass bottles. the atkins museum as lenses. obviously these are starting points but, more than many other architects, they seem to carry through in the realization of each project, independent of urban patterns.

that said, i think it's holl himself that said, for him, EVERY project is an urban design project.

Its been written, I refered to GA no.6 earlier, that Holl would produce daily watercolours as a thinking tool - to get started in the day, and as a way to keep working even when the projects weren't there -which they weren't when he started out. He did have a fine arts background as well, both he and his brother (I think) started out in Art School he eventually becoming a starchitect of sorts. So the watercolours don't seem so odd. And yes he uses CAD both in his practice and himself - how well, who knows. I'm sure he has enough to keep him busy what with couple million dollar projects still in pre-construction stage that to doodle with CAD which his jrs can churn out ten times faster - of course that is an assumption though.