sounds like a cinder block/1x12 bookshelf would fit the bill.

ok, so you've described it as a sort of operational structure - what it can/will do - but see if you can get your precis to also tell what is it for and why it will be interesting.

So you have no qualms about using a military metaphor for a non-military project?

No not really. I thought it would be interesting to take a more subdued and kind of stealth, evasive approach to creating something rather than the "let's just plop this amazingly huge mega-tower here for all to see and admire" mentality.

It seems like you have more to comment on McSmoke. What are you thinking?

No, no comment .... I just found it interesting that you were using words like "tactical", "strategic", "infiltration", etc.

Deleuze, Guattari, Debord and the Israeli Defense Force
http://info.interactivist.net/node/5324

kind of different cross-chatter from what you're talking about.. but still, this discussion reminded me of this complex.

The method of "stealth"/"guerrilla" design - a tactic of using existing conditions for achieving new and unconventional uses or situations is pretty vague just by itself.

Maybe you should approach the issue from the other side: choose a site/place, and what the new use/function should be and why. Then start working on the space with a few constraints, like the ones you outlined above. Analyze the process and try to draw out a thesis out of this particular work.

When you write about pragmatic, tactical, ... - design, the conclusions have to be rooted in actual examples: pragmatic problemsolving is essentially un-idealistic and directly responsive to particular situations and needs.

I have no idea if these thoughts help, but you could additionally check out the work of firms like Lacaton&Vassal for non-flashy solutions to particular problems.

I would try to hone your statement into an assertion as opposed to a loose description of what you want to do. It seems like you have too much of an idea of what you want your conclusion to be and then to fill in the argument to support that.

For me, it is much more interesting to make an assertion and follow it thru without forcing an end solution.

I am fairly certain that I would like this project to be some type of dwelling that attaches itself within or onto existing infrastructure. This would be kind of parasitic in nature (Lebbeus Woods-esque, though more practical and less iconic). I am very interested in these two projects below, in which a dwelling is built onto the back of billboards:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bldgblog/2059229238/sizes/o/

http://www.frontarchitects.pl/PROJEKTY/HOUSES/shauz/sha1.htm

I'm not exactly sure of a user, or a specific site or type of infrastructure I could begin to use. Any suggestions or comments?

"So you have no qualms about using a military metaphor for a non-military project?"

Pfft, what an ignorant comment. "tactical" reasons for subversion have been existent long before their implementation in the military.

cjc72 - i took a semester-long studio exploring the correlation between architecture and camouflage. i'd recommend the book "camouflage" by neil leach - it was probably the most influential for design.

take some time off and learn to squat

from Sam Jacobs of FAT. He links to a couple of other relevant articles

"We've looked at tactics of camouflage before - the disguise of machine gun turrets as neo-gothic extension of the Houses of Parliament, the inflatable architecture of hallucinatory military equipment and so on"

cjc72 .... Ignorant? Yeah, that's me, old ignorant Smokety Mc Smoke Smoke, making off-the-cuff comments about stuff I don't know about. Wouldn't be awful if I gave the impression that I may actually know something? Worse than that, what if I totally mischaracterized myself? What if I made people think I was, wait, now this is good ..... a PhD student? Wouldn't that be funny?

Look, silliness aside ... I only point out that there has been plenty of scholarship criticizing the use of military metaphors for non-military architectural projects. How interesting that your only suggestion is to recommend Neil Leach's book, which does not use camouflage in a conventional (i.e. military) sense of the word. Anyone serious about the intersections between architecture visual culture would probably invoke the likes of Gyorgy Kepes, Moholy, or even Roger Caillois to argue a point about camouflage and architecture. But perhaps you already know that, since spending a whole semester on a project makes you an expert on the topic.

Above comment was meant for fingernailbiter, not cjc72. Sorry for the typo :(

That's called squatting.

This just sounds like yet another thesis proposal that takes an age-old concept (in this case squatting), calls it by some other fancier and more exciting sounding name, and then acts as though it's a totally new idea that will recreate architecture.

If you want to do a project about squatting, that's great. I think squatting as a topic for a thesis offers TONS of opportunities for exploration. But call it what it is. When you get into trying to rename something that's already been named, you waste a lot of time trying to explain yourself and trying to dig yourself out from the BS under which you've buried yourself. Obviously that time could be better spent doing actual research or design work.

Thanks so much guys.

I am really interested in the way in which Israeli Defense Forces moved through the urban fabric in the city of Nablus in April 2002 to avoid the Palestinian guerillas as detailed in "The Art of War: Deleuze, Guattari, Debord and the Israeli Defense Force" by Eyal Weizman. "They used none of the city’s streets, roads, alleys or courtyards, or any of the external doors, internal stairwells and windows, but moved horizontally through walls and vertically through holes blasted in ceilings and floors. This form of movement, described by the military as ‘infestation’, seeks to redefine inside as outside, and domestic interiors as thoroughfares. The IDF’s strategy of ‘walking through walls’ involves a conception of the city as not just the site but also the very medium of warfare – a flexible, almost liquid medium that is forever contingent and in flux."

I would like to burrow my way through an existing abandoned structure using similar tactics of the IDF, like the way ants move through an ant farm, or a way a worm moves through the soil. This will be my camouflage: a movement that redefines the relationship of walls and floors hidden within the shell of an existing building. This would maybe be similar to the section of Morphosis's project at Cooper Union and would possibly "peek out" of the shell at key points. It would also be related to the work of Gordon Matta-Clark.

Anyway ideas on a good site or a certain program that could inhabit this kind of space? Any projects I should look at?

I agree with Helsinki, I think you should try to come at it from the other side. Start with an assertion, a program. You suggest Lebbeus Woods style parasitic dwellings, and you could start there. But why should dwellings be camouflaged versus massive towers? I am not disagreeing, just saying that is a question you should answer.

In the camouflage that Kepes worked on, one strategy was to take the distinctive features of the context and mimic those with the insertion. Repeat the pattern. Find the overall figure and don't disturb it. Much of this was concerned with textures, reflections and shadows from the air, but how might you perform a similar concealment from the ground?

But I think first, ask yourself why dwellings should be hidden.

A friend in school did a great project of hiding dwelling spaces for the homeless inside a large bank in Manhattan, tucking the sleeping spaces, eating spaces and washrooms into the existing host facilities. More of parasite than camouflage, but it might give you some ideas. It was provocative formally, and conceptually. Hiding dwellings for the global have-nots, inside the noise and excess of international capital. Just an example.

Some comments on your latest posts (cjc72) :

the examples you give as "interesting" - the two links - look like something exatly the opposite as you were describing: these are object-size units plunked wherever. Interesting projects maybe, but the camouflage aspect is a bit stressed - such a big blob hiding behind a billboard starts to seem more like a blob with advertising, than architecture that is "hiding" or using it's environment in any meaningful way.

The example of Israeli urban warfare is only secondarily a question of a chosen tactic / a way of redefining the urban fabric and its uses - it is primarily a question of force: the defining moment comes when an actor decides that a given environment and its occupants can be destroyed so a certain goal can be reached - that the actor chooses to burrow through the fabric, as opposed to doing something else is not of so much consequence after that first evaluation. I see it as lopsided wielding of power that creates as its symptoms new possibilities for operating, like this 'infestation'. In what kind of a situation would this way of operating be useful? It requires such levels of demonizing "the other" that it is not something that belongs to civilized environments or societies. The whole thing echoes the fascination with Lagos.

Matta-Clark wanted to destroy architecture and architectural notions - if you just want to ape his techniques of working, that's fine, but if you don't ground your work in his ideas it will be only very very superficially related to his art (so you might just leave his name out of it).

And, Smoke: hah! smack.

Smokety Mc Smoke Smoke,

please don't stain yourself over my "silly" remarks. but i think in the future, you shouldn't provide the obvious when given the ambiguous; i'm sure the original poster is beyond the literal interpretations of his/her project.

good luck cjc72 (also reference the "the visible and the invisible" by merleau-ponty, specifically the passage about "flesh")

hands washed .... no biggie

So i have decided that I would like the project to re appropriate the abandoned Packard Automotive Plant in Detroit, utilizing the derelict factory as a host for a parasite building that will live and grow concealed within it; penetrating walls and passing through floors, treating the urban fabric of the complex as a fluid-like medium in which the traditional idea of "wall" is dematerialized and manipulable. The parasite will become the means by which the homeless infiltrate, populate, and sustain their own community within the complex, able to spread like an ant farm. The concept of wall and movement could be in correlation with that of the Israeli urban warfare tactics I mentioned above.

Is the idea of utilizing the abundant abandoned structures in the Detroit area such as this to help control to homeless situation a legitimate program? Is there a provocative program that could operate alongside it simultaneously?

THANKS.

uhm, does it have to be "legitimate"?
and how's the thing "grow" - would the homeless build it? if that were the assumed process, how would that manipulate the thing's aesthetic? .. it surely wouldn't look the way I'm imagining it in my sci-fi-infected mind, I guess..

fuck it. just do a project about the battle of stalingrad. you could build models, bomb them blow them up hide in them. calculate the amount of german deaths per amount of territory taken. crawl through sewers. eat raw horse meat. freeze to death. surrender after being surrounded by 750,000 soviets. get sent to a gulag die. a total immersion thesis project...you see stalingrad was a symbol for both hitler and for stalin and each was willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of troops to that end.
forget your analogies to matta-clark forget about earthworms and fucking antfarms. forget the homeless who don't really care for the antfarm analogy. if you wanna talk about what you want to talk about talk about StAlInGrAd!

to cjc72:

you wrote:
...utilizing the derelict factory as a host for a parasite building that will live and grow concealed within it; penetrating walls and passing through floors, treating the urban fabric of the complex as a fluid-like medium in which the traditional idea of "wall" is dematerialized and manipulable...

The idea of the host and the parasite is that the parasite uses the strenghts and capabilities of the host so it can thrive and build upon that existing "superstructure". If you break down the host, you abuse the possibilities it offers. It's a question of economics: a parasitic relationship uses the prevailing trends and does not spend energy by working against them.

In this case you are eiher interested in this parasitic way of creating new space - and you need to rethink the tactical approach - or you are enamored by words like "fluid-like", "manipulable", "flux" - and the compelling images of urban warfare and L.Woods - and have an urge to create something that mirrors these preferences. You just have to be honest with yourself about it.

... The parasite will become the means by which the homeless infiltrate, populate, and sustain their own community within the complex, able to spread like an ant farm. The concept of wall and movement could be in correlation with that of the Israeli urban warfare tactics I mentioned above...

So, you need to ask what is 'the homeless community' and what are their needs and methods of surviving at the present - I don't know if you've seen it, but I recommend you have a look at "Dark Days" the documentary about homeless people living in subway tunnels - it throws light on some different ways of living in extreme conditions and on the dangers in these kinds of "frontiers". It also shows that the homeless are not ants.

Are you sure what you want is architectural in the way of creating spaces as opposed to something like equipment, toolkits or the like?

...Is the idea of utilizing the abundant abandoned structures in the Detroit area such as this to help control to homeless situation a legitimate program? Is there a provocative program that could operate alongside it simultaneously?...

Yes, it is a legitimate program - but using it as a way of satisfying your need to create designs that smell a bit more of a fetishistic impulse to do certain kinds of forms and interventions, instead of focusing on the needs of "the clients" is not "legitimate", and it is not in any way a worthwile pursuit.

to millions of architectural students;
stop looking at matta clark posters. it is making you look like art school candidate wanna bees. the ultimate gordon would be dropping out of architecture school or cut it up in pieces.

ps;
helsinki and smoke's advice and criticism are priceless... you should response to them for the sake of this thread alone.

Helsinki and others-

I appreciate your criticism very much. I must admit that I am very enamored by these images of Lebbeus Woods and urban warfare that I have in my head. I guess the idea of the host and the parasite here was that the parasite would not break down the abandoned factory, but actually take advantage of the fact that the factory is already falling apart (holes in walls, floors, etc. which I could use to blur the distinction between horizontal and vertical boundaries). I am not sold on the homeless program here at all. Like you said, doing the kind of thing I'm trying to do here isn't exactly appropriate or fitting to the wants and needs of the homeless and their way of life. I don't have any particular attachment to the homeless program and am more than willing to change it. The problem is that I know the kind of thing I want to do...a substructure that infiltrates the primary structure of an abandoned building to create new programmatic space. I want to make space, not a tool set. Maybe the program here is more rooted in the deteriorating automobile industry here. Perhaps you could provide me with a little advice or suggestions on some kind of program that would want to operate in this sort of way--a space that inhabits an existing space in a way that is concealed and camouflaged, peeking out to the exterior at certain times, as a kind of hidden refuge or something that snakes it's way through the factory complex as a sequence of events, relating to the sequencing of the manufacturing processes that once occurred there.

I'm really struggling with this. I would greatly appreciate some advice and suggestions. Thank you.

cjc72,

Hate to repeat myself, but starting with a design solution and then working backward to fill in the rest will most likely lead to a very superficial, formal project. With your thesis, you have an opportunity to get so much more out of it than the way you seem to be approaching it.

One of the best things about my thesis was that I produced something that I never thought I would. It didn't look like what I had visualized before starting. It ended up so much better that I could have imagined - more rigorous, thoughtful and ultimately much more rewarding.

Just my two cents.

do something with SuPeRhErOeS! and villains. they are always hiding in places that appear to be something else.

superheroes are fun. as mr incredible said: 'no matter how many times you save the world, it just keeps getting into trouble again.'

Interesting conundrum, cjc72.

I think that factories already employ many of the same qualities you are trying to understand. Changes in machine-tooling and other manufacturing technologies require a different type of spatial response, and yet this response often happens at the programmatic level. The Packard company is an interesting example in that it has held assembly lines for both aircraft engines and automobiles: two industrial objects that require different types of manufacturing processes. Another is Willow Run. Can you look at its plans and elevations and immediately think about what is made inside? Sure, it's airplanes, but what type of airplanes? Why do they need to be assembled in a certain way, etc, etc.

Also, note that the Packard Factory was the place where licensed versions of Rolls Royce Merlin engines were manufactured. Why? So they could be placed inside P-51 Mustangs. That's interesting. A car factory is retrofitted to produce aircraft engines that were designed overseas.

In other words, is it possible to think of a factory of a space that is already "a space that inhabits an existing space in a way that is concealed and camouflaged"? How then to rethink issues of "inhabitation" and "concealment."

Maybe the thing is to not look at the architecture, or at least to set it aside for just a minute ... and just consider (for a second) the concept of the assembly line.

When you go to the grocery store and buy some frozen meat, you pay money for peace of mind. You pay x amount of dollars knowing that the produce you buy will not spoil before a certain date. The store guarantees this by placing a "sell of freeze by" date on the product. You are being sold a product that is preserved, or that is in some type of stasis before it is consumed.

On the other hand, take something like a car, typewriter, or firearm. These are mass-produced objects with interchangeable parts, often the product of assembly lines. Whenever they break down, you can go to a supplier or dealer who diagnoses the problem and replaces the part. So, when someone sells you a car, typewriter, or firearm, you are buying a product that, unlike the frozen meat, in guaranteed to stop working. A car, typewriter, or firearm is a product with a short life span that can only be prolonged with the replacement of a malfunctioning part or system. The manufacturer is thus banking on the fact that you are being sold what is, in essence, an object that deteriorates while being consumed.

These are the types of objects that are manufactured in the Packard plant. Like the deteriorating objects once produced inside its walls, the plant is itself in a state of deterioration. This reminds me a lot of the concept of planned obsolescence (cf. Cedric Price's work to see how this is deployed architecturally). So, is it possible to rethink of deterioration as a programmatic strategy?

I admit that I am being incredibly reductive. However, I hope that the above discussion skirts kinda close to what you are thinking. Also, my intention was just to help re-conceptualize your ideas in a very general way. It's just a suggestion.

Good luck!

everything is ultimately a consumable in that scenario, right? you've given examples of food (short-term) and cars (long-term). building USED to have long lives, but now many are not even expected to last as long as cars.

so maybe in those terms the ultimate consumable - the one with the least life span - is a performance. ultimate planned obsolescence: it's gone as it happens.

deterioration as a programmatic strategy sounds like the thesis projects on 'entropy' that were popular in the late 80s.

things fall apart. its scientific.

Geoff Manaugh (BLDGBLOG) does urban warfare

Did anyone link to this Archinect feature on Hitching Stealth with Trevor Paglen

to Tyvek:
the idea of working with site, program and designing an architecture project un-critically would be as you say, superficial and formal. But when earlier I advocated designing for a certain site with a certain program in mind, I very much meant that this should be done "critically", that is, actively thinking about the meaning and method of formation of ones own priorities, design-habits and predispositions.

This will also likely end in a project that "is so much better than imagined" and will include, and in the best case make visible, the frictions caused by site, program and designer. There are no smooth solutions in architecture - when you look close & hard enough real projects contain an abundance of tensions and contradictions that speak of things beyond themselves.

Also, I think this would be a good way of getting started, as opposed to sinking in & getting lost in a sea of books and ambitious abstract constructs. A thesis obviously needs an idea, but the possibility and strenght of our profession is in the richness of the real and pragmatic world of constructing space.

----

The logic of production - the objects produced, the meaning of their production method and the life of objects - is a good starting point in considering the meaning of a site when it is a factory - but I have a feeling (possibly misguided) that for you here the choice of a certain factory has more to do with its status as an empty shell with a matrix-like spatial quality, a monotonous "background" for something else (maybe something Lebbeuswoodsy?)

I would (still) recommend that you start with a program - choosing one that does not shackle you to some risky terrain (like the homeless) & the site in its reality (present condition, history, function, ...) - and proceed to design a project that springs from your principal interests (some words lifted from your first post: "infiltrate", "adapt", "temporarily", "re-appropriate what that space means") - Doing this in as pragmatic a way as possible (and by producing real drawings instead of mappings of all kinds of crud and hot air) will give you an impure project that speaks more about the issues you are interested in, in the language of Architecture, than an ideologically sleek, concept-driven "paper"-project - or art-project (like some Woods drawings - they are just drawings with architectural elements, not architecture at all, in my opinion.)

The search for a provocative program seems misplaced, you can do "camouflage", "guerrilla", and what-not architecture without a correspondingly radical program. What about programs that have very changing needs and strong visual components (the 'compelling image' is one of the things you are interested in, eventhough it contradicts the idea of camouflage) - like exhibition or performance spaces? When it comes to the connection between program and space there's no better architect to study than Cedric Price, who Smoke mentioned in connection with planned obsolescence.

ok - so I guess many of the voices pull in different directions, but hope you figure out what you want to do & good luck!

Helsinki- agreed all the way around. I think that you misunderstood (most likely because I don't have much time to craft my writing here). My basic comment is that it reads to me, like the original poster is starting more from an idea about what the solution will look/feel like formally and stylistically than from program, site, etc. At least to me it reads like he/she basically wants a Lebbeuswoodsy solution and is now trying to figure out a program, site, etc. in order to get him/her to this pre-determined solution.

I feel that this is backwards and will be ultimately more rewarding to start with a program, site, conceptual idea/assertion, etc. and then, through a rigorous, iterative process (or whatever process works for him/her) and let that lead to a design solution that is not pre-determined.