In seeing the recent work of Gianni Botsford, and Kerstin Thompson in particular, I am wondering to what degree architects engage in site investigation as a design process.
In Gianni Botsford's Light House a lengthy investigation of how light enters and interacts in the site was set up as the principal generator of the form and function of the house.
The Lake Connewarre House by Kerstin Thompson was developed with intense knowledge of the site, including camping on site and documenting site conditions, flora, weather patterns etc.
How important is this process? How do you quantify the more intangible qualities of the site? How important are existing conditions? How detailed do you get?
1 i think both houses try hard to define or find a conceptual meaning to their otherwise ummm., composition. when you are with lofty departure points as such, i'd expect a more unusual discoveries, methods.
i find the first house incredibly contrived and cold. i wouldn't want it. there are better functioning and organically warm samples of that one in japan.
i love the second house and one day i'd like to have a ranch house (sort of california name for similar layouts) like that with some kind of usonian layout on north of san fransisco... insert janis joplin's 'oh lord won't you buy mea mercedes benz?' here.
i mean at the end, diabase, how much one can find out about the site? aren't we all equipped with some kind of decent sensory organism about the sound, light, geographical positions like hills, valleys, above and under? temperature etc.? like go the the site, take pictures, measure few things, smoke a joint or two, take a nap and thats it, get a feel for it. but, hey, if someone want to make a dissertation about the site and everything, it needs to be totally original and new. at least to a large degree. neither project offers that kind of ingenuity and these are my honest feelings based on some previous visits to similar rendetions.
also, frank lloyd wright's short initial visit to bear run, the location of fallingwater house is a classic example of one's sensory registrations of a place as an architect. and undoubtadly there are many simple stories like that. but in no way i have any opposition to anybodies lenghty analysis to a building site. if someone is willing to take that to another level, than naturally the expectations would be udjusted as well.
Well Orhan, I like your way of site investigation.
My suspicion is that too often site investigation means visiting the site, taking a few photos, and looking at the survey.
The first house has been and can be criticized along those lines, but I guess the response will be 'live in it and see'. The second house is phenomenal.
I wondering where people stop investigating, why they stop, if they stop, if they start...
I absolutely love the Botsford Light House; anything with concrete walls, stainless steel and glass mixed with a play of light is what I call captivating. Unfortunately, Diabase, I do not have the answer to your question – I am only a student.
I would assume that one could spend many months analyzing the orientation of light through various components and utilizing color to reflect and diffuse light; but assuming that most architects/firms/clients do not have the budget to support such elaborate and rigorous analysis, I would assume that many do not perform this kind of extensive research?
In one of Botsford's articles, they mention that they "… spent six months testing what we call the 'solar geometry' before the design was even thought about. This gives the building a different set of attributes and creates a design best suited to this unusual enclosed site." This would lead me to believe they utilized some sort of software similar to a product (you may already be familiar with it) called SOLAR 2 (UCLA) which plots sunlight through windows with any combination of rectangular fins and overhangs. It also plots hour-by-hour 3-D suns-eye view movie of the building, and prints annual tables of percent of window in full sun, radiation on glass, etc. However, determining whether any project we want to build requires this sort of rigorous analysis is questionable. Nevertheless, what I do know is that I love Botsford's work, and if I had the money to do such an analysis to produce work like this, I would do it. However, I would hope that one were able to achieve the outcome without sinking in the allotted six month timeframe as this project did; like Orphan stated, aren't we all equipped with a basic sensory – get a feel for it and build it damn it; but is this enough? I could not tell you.
I am very much interested in the subject and thanks for bringing this subject to light Diabase…
An interesting (albeit short and patchy) book I just read on this subject, describing analogies between memory and space in Freud's writing and mnemonics. This culminates in two beautiful descriptions of Robert Smithson's journey through Passaic, New Jersey, and Georges Descombes' playground project in suburban Geneva.
yes. memory has a big role for me when visualising space, light, movement, location, smell, climate as well as site specific elements. it is a very usefull series of evokes.
"six months testing the solar geometry" that's a lot of naval gazing, and you wonder why some think Architects are a little "loopy", come on the solar geometry changes in a known way and could plotted within many simple methods as noted. Now if the light hit some button on a way on the solstice that triggered some harmonic convergence and explained the the nature of dwelling on that place within the world "a la Raiders of the Lost Ark kinda-stuff" then we are talking! But if we aren't then its a lot of Archi speak to justify that fact someone likes steel exposed concrete and glass.
this interests me as well. i've recently been arguing with a friend about how much site analysis is too little/too much.
if you've seen the thread on our recently gained project, you'll have seen the picture of the hill it sits on the edge of...
for some reason, i feel we'd be doing the design of the client's house a disservice were we not to at least see a sunrise/morning there and a sunset/evening there. i know that some software etc can show this and it's all prediscovered data, but isn't there honestly some value in knowing what it's like to wake up there? go to sleep there? be hot, wet, cold, etc. there? these are for sure the things the client will feel and so why not we as architects?
So you want the client to feel( Hot Wet and or Cold) when they wake up.... do you truly think thats what the client wants??? its not what I would want, come on people think. Use your supposed design intellect, you know "firmnes commodity and delight" not stand out in the rain buck naked and tell me how shitty it feels. I don't have to do some things to tell you it won't feel great.... like pulling out my toenails, or hammering my thumb ( although I have done the later by accident before) some things don't need to be over thought too much. Your better off to do some work early and go back later with some preliminary concept / model / investigation and check it out so that things can be fine tuned to an appropriate level and carry on from there. sheesh!
Kerstins...site makes me a little dizzy....with the gizmo....for showing work.....It makes it really hard to tell if the work is really as good as the Aussies would want one to believe. Kinda stark, simplistic...but green....yikes....it hurts me to call it green...
diabase, are you using "emptiness" in the Michael Benedikt meaning: very roughly quoted and paraphrased from "For An Architecture of Reality":
...emptiness is more akin to the idea of space, or interval (as in the Japanese word "ma", the space between things that allows things to be seen as themselves), also, emptiness as a component of "realness", that is, more like life as we find it...Kahn's word for emptiness was "Silence"....
In this reading I think emptiness is virtually impossible to intentionally create even though we should always strive for it - it exists sometimes because of our efforts but also sometimes in spite of them. I also use "authenticity" and "realness", though Benedikt argues that realness is something different, anyway, as to site analysis....
Personally, I feel this strongly: that nothing can be completely experienced unless it is experienced relative to all four seasons. In other words, anything - a new city, job, diet, lover - needs to be experienced for a year before it can be understood. I'm a big believer in seasonal affect, I suppose, and think our psyches do go into a sort of "hibernation" in winter and reawakening in spring, vibrancy of harvest, etc. It's closely tied to my feelings about our bodies as earthly objects and how we experience the world through them, anyway, I'm rambling as I always do when you start one of these types of threads.
I've heard of people building platforms on sites to get up to the right floor/view level, and living on the paltform for a bit, either an hour or a month. And a good architect (maybe one who has been around for at least 20 or 30 spring-turning-to-summers?) can predict, both though software and through knowledge/experience, how the sun will come through a 10' high window and land on 25' of diagonally-laid mortarless slate floor.
(Also, at the risk of discrediting everything I just wrote, I agree with vado on all counts. Objects should restore silence, site analysis takes money (but less so as one gains more of the kind of experience I emntion above), and wet/naked is not only a good way to gain valuable insight and a new reading of a place but also fun.)
Also, to address crillywazzy: Yes, there is definitely something to be gained in seeing a sunrise/sunset at the site, experiencing it in the rain, etc. One big piece of it is sound: what do you hear there at the time of day you'll be making your morning coffee? I recall waking to the sounds of crows out on the lawn virtually every morning I was at Cranbrook. Can't predict that by looking at pictures of the site.
LB, I was being a little bit cheeky with that term -
to see what came of it...
I tend to thing of 'emptiness' along the same lines - I see it as a field of pressures, enabling form..
The shot above may be the classic example of the moneyshot.
But the question is whether it was intended, and if it was intended, it obviously relies on an analysis of site conditions above what is standard. Is the result valuable?
It always comes down to the designer. If they care about a certain thing, then they'll incorporate it, if not, they won't. I think this'll happen whether they visit or not, whether they spend a lot of time lookin at the site or not. Just depends on what the particular designer cares about.
I think FLW was a great example. For someone that cares a ton about capturing these elements, like light, views, etc., then they will understand this, at least in part, by just looking at drawings.
For me, I think site visits are crucial. I think video taping and photographing a site at different times is a great inspiration. But light and spatial experience are important to me. To many, they are not. Do you think Greg Lynn's buildings would look different by studying a site in person? I doubt it.
Just depends on the designer and what they care about. And this is also a luxury, as it's not always practical and it also depends on a the project.
Maybe, diabase, it doesn't matter whether that beam of sunlight was intentional, because once it has happened and been photographed others can try to intentionally replicate it.
So of course it is valuable, whether intended or not, because it is beautiful and can inspire others.
As for being an analysis of site issues "above what is standard", everyone has different standards. For some the site (physical, temporal, historical, ecological....) is the main contributor to form, for others not, and one isn't necessarily more "right" than the other, though most of us have a preference for the results of one approach over the other, I'm guessing.
Do you suppose they move those two ceramic vessels along the shelf bit by bit every day, following the path of the sun? What a lovely way to engage the seasons in your building!
LB -- I agree with your VERY WELL WRITTEN first post much more so than your follow ups --
Actually, I think that certain approaches ARE more right than others, otherwise everything is neither good nor bad. I guess I'd like to hear someone suggest a design foundation/point of origin more powerful than the site-driven one you originally outlined. I'm all ears.
Perhaps some of the above naysayers/ridiculers might enlighten us.
I think it's more valid than most approaches, however, it does not mean that it's an end to all. It's just things that I think many of us believe to be fundamental parts to quality architecture.
I'll go back to lb's suggestion that it may not matter if the light was intentional, because it 'is'. Personally, this is why I love more formal architecture, because it allows for those spectacular 'wow, could have never imagined that''s to happen (this is what I thought of when visit Gehry's buildings for the first time - those unexpected skylights that transformed a space).
I guess it's about everything. Sometimes it's perfectly formed intentions, like some of Holl's lighting tricks that are amazing, other times it's by chance that is invoked by process. Either way, it's how it is experienced in the end that really matters.
I always become suspicious when exaggerated mathematical analysis is taken as an explanation of a process or a site analysis. The "Light House" project from the initial post is very paradoxal if you look closer at the design. If six months were used to painfully analyze the light of the site, build complicated voxel models of data from Arup etc. how come the end result is a closed box, higher than the surrounding buildings, with only a glazed roof as light source, completely unobstructed? And how can you analyze how the light will fall in a building before it's designed? According to the linked article "This comes very close to intution-free architecture" from AJ, most of the analysis was thrown away in order for a more ordinary design process (not "intuition-free" then) when the clients wanted to see some results, taking only the fact that the south side of the site had a bit more shade as a conclusion of this lengthy introduction. The article concludes that at least this is a better method than "monkeys and typewriters", but I would propose a visit to the site on a sunny day as a more efficient way of coming to this conclusion.
Not aimed at you, trace -- I like your approach.
By the way, the side issue of the intentional v. the unintentional: Unlike you and LB, while I don't think that either matters to the participator in the experience, I think that the pursuit of the intentional has to be critical for the architect. Happenstance won't sustain a meaningful art for long.
The other question, if not the site, what?
As mentioned in the "Sub-urbanism" book above, personal memories of a site can be used to analyze and design it. As can site ownership, geology, sight lines, views, flora, fauna, local building techniques and materials, history, climate, neighbouring buildings, topography etc. To only incorporate light for an "Indiana Jones" effect is a bit... shallow? Surely a building is more than an envelope for illustrating your latitude twice a year?
Well, I'm sure that this light effect is not the reason for the building, but its value can be debated.
Is'nt architecture more than the sum of its parts? I'd rather have an effect like this - which has been created in an architectural manner [in this case through an investigation of the site, its orientation and solar patterns] - than having marble floors or a projector screen [as an example].
I think that the pursuit of the intentional has to be critical for the architect.
I agree, Rim Joist.
And yes, I was being wishy-washy above about whether one set of standards for approaching design is beter than another. Of course some projects will have longer resonance through time than others. I tend to think the ones that take context and site and material usage into account are the more valuable pieces of architecture. But I can also get giddy about follies, for lack of a better word, that are whimsical and fun and not so balls-out serious and intentional.
I'm too tired to think of examples right now, but Rem's IIT student center comes to mind: I love that building, even though/because it is basically just graphics and plastic and crap detailing. It is intentionally cheap, maybe? And it definitely takes site issues into account, just not in the wholistic-integrated-timeless way that I tend to typically think of as "serious" architecture.
Bah, I'm whipped and should probably just delete this instead of hit "submit" as I'm about to do...
My 2 cents - light is an architecture element for which we should not overlook; whether it is an induced implementation or it happens purely through natural aspects, it must be investigated and incorporated aptly.
Learning from Emptiness
In seeing the recent work of Gianni Botsford, and Kerstin Thompson in particular, I am wondering to what degree architects engage in site investigation as a design process.
In Gianni Botsford's Light House a lengthy investigation of how light enters and interacts in the site was set up as the principal generator of the form and function of the house.
The Lake Connewarre House by Kerstin Thompson was developed with intense knowledge of the site, including camping on site and documenting site conditions, flora, weather patterns etc.
How important is this process? How do you quantify the more intangible qualities of the site? How important are existing conditions? How detailed do you get?
Any thoughts, practices or other examples?
1 i think both houses try hard to define or find a conceptual meaning to their otherwise ummm., composition. when you are with lofty departure points as such, i'd expect a more unusual discoveries, methods.
i find the first house incredibly contrived and cold. i wouldn't want it. there are better functioning and organically warm samples of that one in japan.
i love the second house and one day i'd like to have a ranch house (sort of california name for similar layouts) like that with some kind of usonian layout on north of san fransisco... insert janis joplin's 'oh lord won't you buy mea mercedes benz?' here.
i mean at the end, diabase, how much one can find out about the site? aren't we all equipped with some kind of decent sensory organism about the sound, light, geographical positions like hills, valleys, above and under? temperature etc.? like go the the site, take pictures, measure few things, smoke a joint or two, take a nap and thats it, get a feel for it. but, hey, if someone want to make a dissertation about the site and everything, it needs to be totally original and new. at least to a large degree. neither project offers that kind of ingenuity and these are my honest feelings based on some previous visits to similar rendetions.
also, frank lloyd wright's short initial visit to bear run, the location of fallingwater house is a classic example of one's sensory registrations of a place as an architect. and undoubtadly there are many simple stories like that. but in no way i have any opposition to anybodies lenghty analysis to a building site. if someone is willing to take that to another level, than naturally the expectations would be udjusted as well.
Well Orhan, I like your way of site investigation.
My suspicion is that too often site investigation means visiting the site, taking a few photos, and looking at the survey.
The first house has been and can be criticized along those lines, but I guess the response will be 'live in it and see'. The second house is phenomenal.
I wondering where people stop investigating, why they stop, if they stop, if they start...
I absolutely love the Botsford Light House; anything with concrete walls, stainless steel and glass mixed with a play of light is what I call captivating. Unfortunately, Diabase, I do not have the answer to your question – I am only a student.
I would assume that one could spend many months analyzing the orientation of light through various components and utilizing color to reflect and diffuse light; but assuming that most architects/firms/clients do not have the budget to support such elaborate and rigorous analysis, I would assume that many do not perform this kind of extensive research?
In one of Botsford's articles, they mention that they "… spent six months testing what we call the 'solar geometry' before the design was even thought about. This gives the building a different set of attributes and creates a design best suited to this unusual enclosed site." This would lead me to believe they utilized some sort of software similar to a product (you may already be familiar with it) called SOLAR 2 (UCLA) which plots sunlight through windows with any combination of rectangular fins and overhangs. It also plots hour-by-hour 3-D suns-eye view movie of the building, and prints annual tables of percent of window in full sun, radiation on glass, etc. However, determining whether any project we want to build requires this sort of rigorous analysis is questionable. Nevertheless, what I do know is that I love Botsford's work, and if I had the money to do such an analysis to produce work like this, I would do it. However, I would hope that one were able to achieve the outcome without sinking in the allotted six month timeframe as this project did; like Orphan stated, aren't we all equipped with a basic sensory – get a feel for it and build it damn it; but is this enough? I could not tell you.
I am very much interested in the subject and thanks for bringing this subject to light Diabase…
the role of objects is to restore silence-samuel beckett
the investigating stops when the money runs out-vado retro
An interesting (albeit short and patchy) book I just read on this subject, describing analogies between memory and space in Freud's writing and mnemonics. This culminates in two beautiful descriptions of Robert Smithson's journey through Passaic, New Jersey, and Georges Descombes' playground project in suburban Geneva.
yes. memory has a big role for me when visualising space, light, movement, location, smell, climate as well as site specific elements. it is a very usefull series of evokes.
"six months testing the solar geometry" that's a lot of naval gazing, and you wonder why some think Architects are a little "loopy", come on the solar geometry changes in a known way and could plotted within many simple methods as noted. Now if the light hit some button on a way on the solstice that triggered some harmonic convergence and explained the the nature of dwelling on that place within the world "a la Raiders of the Lost Ark kinda-stuff" then we are talking! But if we aren't then its a lot of Archi speak to justify that fact someone likes steel exposed concrete and glass.
exactly.
this interests me as well. i've recently been arguing with a friend about how much site analysis is too little/too much.
if you've seen the thread on our recently gained project, you'll have seen the picture of the hill it sits on the edge of...
for some reason, i feel we'd be doing the design of the client's house a disservice were we not to at least see a sunrise/morning there and a sunset/evening there. i know that some software etc can show this and it's all prediscovered data, but isn't there honestly some value in knowing what it's like to wake up there? go to sleep there? be hot, wet, cold, etc. there? these are for sure the things the client will feel and so why not we as architects?
So you want the client to feel( Hot Wet and or Cold) when they wake up.... do you truly think thats what the client wants??? its not what I would want, come on people think. Use your supposed design intellect, you know "firmnes commodity and delight" not stand out in the rain buck naked and tell me how shitty it feels. I don't have to do some things to tell you it won't feel great.... like pulling out my toenails, or hammering my thumb ( although I have done the later by accident before) some things don't need to be over thought too much. Your better off to do some work early and go back later with some preliminary concept / model / investigation and check it out so that things can be fine tuned to an appropriate level and carry on from there. sheesh!
sometimes being buck naked and wet is quite delightful.
one might even go so far as to say "frequently" vado...
Kerstins...site makes me a little dizzy....with the gizmo....for showing work.....It makes it really hard to tell if the work is really as good as the Aussies would want one to believe. Kinda stark, simplistic...but green....yikes....it hurts me to call it green...
Was this intentional?
Akira Sakamoto
diabase, are you using "emptiness" in the Michael Benedikt meaning: very roughly quoted and paraphrased from "For An Architecture of Reality":
...emptiness is more akin to the idea of space, or interval (as in the Japanese word "ma", the space between things that allows things to be seen as themselves), also, emptiness as a component of "realness", that is, more like life as we find it...Kahn's word for emptiness was "Silence"....
In this reading I think emptiness is virtually impossible to intentionally create even though we should always strive for it - it exists sometimes because of our efforts but also sometimes in spite of them. I also use "authenticity" and "realness", though Benedikt argues that realness is something different, anyway, as to site analysis....
Personally, I feel this strongly: that nothing can be completely experienced unless it is experienced relative to all four seasons. In other words, anything - a new city, job, diet, lover - needs to be experienced for a year before it can be understood. I'm a big believer in seasonal affect, I suppose, and think our psyches do go into a sort of "hibernation" in winter and reawakening in spring, vibrancy of harvest, etc. It's closely tied to my feelings about our bodies as earthly objects and how we experience the world through them, anyway, I'm rambling as I always do when you start one of these types of threads.
I've heard of people building platforms on sites to get up to the right floor/view level, and living on the paltform for a bit, either an hour or a month. And a good architect (maybe one who has been around for at least 20 or 30 spring-turning-to-summers?) can predict, both though software and through knowledge/experience, how the sun will come through a 10' high window and land on 25' of diagonally-laid mortarless slate floor.
(Also, at the risk of discrediting everything I just wrote, I agree with vado on all counts. Objects should restore silence, site analysis takes money (but less so as one gains more of the kind of experience I emntion above), and wet/naked is not only a good way to gain valuable insight and a new reading of a place but also fun.)
Also, to address crillywazzy: Yes, there is definitely something to be gained in seeing a sunrise/sunset at the site, experiencing it in the rain, etc. One big piece of it is sound: what do you hear there at the time of day you'll be making your morning coffee? I recall waking to the sounds of crows out on the lawn virtually every morning I was at Cranbrook. Can't predict that by looking at pictures of the site.
LB, I was being a little bit cheeky with that term -
to see what came of it...
I tend to thing of 'emptiness' along the same lines - I see it as a field of pressures, enabling form..
The shot above may be the classic example of the moneyshot.
But the question is whether it was intended, and if it was intended, it obviously relies on an analysis of site conditions above what is standard. Is the result valuable?
what if they're out of town that day?!
It always comes down to the designer. If they care about a certain thing, then they'll incorporate it, if not, they won't. I think this'll happen whether they visit or not, whether they spend a lot of time lookin at the site or not. Just depends on what the particular designer cares about.
I think FLW was a great example. For someone that cares a ton about capturing these elements, like light, views, etc., then they will understand this, at least in part, by just looking at drawings.
For me, I think site visits are crucial. I think video taping and photographing a site at different times is a great inspiration. But light and spatial experience are important to me. To many, they are not. Do you think Greg Lynn's buildings would look different by studying a site in person? I doubt it.
Just depends on the designer and what they care about. And this is also a luxury, as it's not always practical and it also depends on a the project.
Classic, classic moneyshot.
Maybe, diabase, it doesn't matter whether that beam of sunlight was intentional, because once it has happened and been photographed others can try to intentionally replicate it.
So of course it is valuable, whether intended or not, because it is beautiful and can inspire others.
As for being an analysis of site issues "above what is standard", everyone has different standards. For some the site (physical, temporal, historical, ecological....) is the main contributor to form, for others not, and one isn't necessarily more "right" than the other, though most of us have a preference for the results of one approach over the other, I'm guessing.
Do you suppose they move those two ceramic vessels along the shelf bit by bit every day, following the path of the sun? What a lovely way to engage the seasons in your building!
In other words, yeah, what trace just said.
LB -- I agree with your VERY WELL WRITTEN first post much more so than your follow ups --
Actually, I think that certain approaches ARE more right than others, otherwise everything is neither good nor bad. I guess I'd like to hear someone suggest a design foundation/point of origin more powerful than the site-driven one you originally outlined. I'm all ears.
Perhaps some of the above naysayers/ridiculers might enlighten us.
I think it's more valid than most approaches, however, it does not mean that it's an end to all. It's just things that I think many of us believe to be fundamental parts to quality architecture.
I'll go back to lb's suggestion that it may not matter if the light was intentional, because it 'is'. Personally, this is why I love more formal architecture, because it allows for those spectacular 'wow, could have never imagined that''s to happen (this is what I thought of when visit Gehry's buildings for the first time - those unexpected skylights that transformed a space).
I guess it's about everything. Sometimes it's perfectly formed intentions, like some of Holl's lighting tricks that are amazing, other times it's by chance that is invoked by process. Either way, it's how it is experienced in the end that really matters.
I always become suspicious when exaggerated mathematical analysis is taken as an explanation of a process or a site analysis. The "Light House" project from the initial post is very paradoxal if you look closer at the design. If six months were used to painfully analyze the light of the site, build complicated voxel models of data from Arup etc. how come the end result is a closed box, higher than the surrounding buildings, with only a glazed roof as light source, completely unobstructed? And how can you analyze how the light will fall in a building before it's designed? According to the linked article "This comes very close to intution-free architecture" from AJ, most of the analysis was thrown away in order for a more ordinary design process (not "intuition-free" then) when the clients wanted to see some results, taking only the fact that the south side of the site had a bit more shade as a conclusion of this lengthy introduction. The article concludes that at least this is a better method than "monkeys and typewriters", but I would propose a visit to the site on a sunny day as a more efficient way of coming to this conclusion.
Not aimed at you, trace -- I like your approach.
By the way, the side issue of the intentional v. the unintentional: Unlike you and LB, while I don't think that either matters to the participator in the experience, I think that the pursuit of the intentional has to be critical for the architect. Happenstance won't sustain a meaningful art for long.
The other question, if not the site, what?
As mentioned in the "Sub-urbanism" book above, personal memories of a site can be used to analyze and design it. As can site ownership, geology, sight lines, views, flora, fauna, local building techniques and materials, history, climate, neighbouring buildings, topography etc. To only incorporate light for an "Indiana Jones" effect is a bit... shallow? Surely a building is more than an envelope for illustrating your latitude twice a year?
Roger that sunny day approach over the Shakespeare typing monkeys.
a-f I don't disagree w/ you.
Well, I'm sure that this light effect is not the reason for the building, but its value can be debated.
Is'nt architecture more than the sum of its parts? I'd rather have an effect like this - which has been created in an architectural manner [in this case through an investigation of the site, its orientation and solar patterns] - than having marble floors or a projector screen [as an example].
People can be happiest with the simplist things....ahhhhhh!
ps. I was being sarcastic about the marble floors....
architectural terms that sound dirty: moneyshot
I agree, Rim Joist.
And yes, I was being wishy-washy above about whether one set of standards for approaching design is beter than another. Of course some projects will have longer resonance through time than others. I tend to think the ones that take context and site and material usage into account are the more valuable pieces of architecture. But I can also get giddy about follies, for lack of a better word, that are whimsical and fun and not so balls-out serious and intentional.
I'm too tired to think of examples right now, but Rem's IIT student center comes to mind: I love that building, even though/because it is basically just graphics and plastic and crap detailing. It is intentionally cheap, maybe? And it definitely takes site issues into account, just not in the wholistic-integrated-timeless way that I tend to typically think of as "serious" architecture.
Bah, I'm whipped and should probably just delete this instead of hit "submit" as I'm about to do...
My 2 cents - light is an architecture element for which we should not overlook; whether it is an induced implementation or it happens purely through natural aspects, it must be investigated and incorporated aptly.
heres some change back...
cha ching!!! You crack me up...
i like the pursuit of the intentional, but i think the pursuit of the accidental is much sexier.
beta: that is fucking brilliant. should be my motto actually... did you write that or did someone else?
With most egos out there, everything is intentional. Or if undesirable, someone else's fault.
The accidental is much cooler. A less contrived form of accidental. He he.
that has always been something i keep looking for or keep open to the possibility of...ahh prepositions.
the last time that sex and an accident were used in the same sentence involving me, i had to go to a clinic...
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