In our last post, we published the winning designs of the [AC-CA]-hosted Amsterdam Iconic Pedestrian Bridge competition. Here's another proposal that didn't quite make the cut with the jurors, but we are happy to publish it. The author is Yaohua Wang, who – in past articles – managed to polarize the opinions like nobody else. — bustler.net
Let us know what you think in the comment section below!
38 Comments
looks like a set piece for a star trek sequel. I have a feeling this will only perpetually exist in "the future."
what a sweeping generalization toastie. Are EKE's comments indoctrinating you that much?
the way the solar panels and wind turbines are put in looks awkward. like they were slapped on after the fact.instead of being designed. This is not the future its a bad collage of metal cladding
it looks eric owen moss, and everyone knows that guy is a butt-head.
Looking good Yaohua...keep it up!!!
I, for one, welcome the arrival of our new insect overlords.
This guy does have good work though, for those that remember this project
latent city is the updated manga version of villa radieuse. visually stunning presentation - but exceptionally disturbing as a proposal. I kept thinking it was going to turn cynical or critical of it's utter lack of humanity... but I guess not? someone obviously is influenced by 70s/80s futuristic comics, but seems to have completely glossed over their social commentary.
I think this is what disturbs me about this design - there are no people there - only some kind of apocalyptic future where the machines have taken over. Like someone is sketching ideas for a Michael Bay's version of Exterminateur 17.
kind of agree with you, it represents what some might think is a harsh reality
So they go doodle high-end residential for rich people instead
I agree completely. The video was very well done indeed, and the conception of the city is technically very interesting. But there is something weirdly sinister about the whole thing. The narrative about the genius master planner lying to the government and the developers to slip in his utopian vision of the future city is kind of frightening. It's a pretty bleak vision when the best option humans have is to reoccupy a city megainfrastructure built for machines.
but we are machines, we are cyborgs.
Speak for yourself, brother.
.
nice project
your saying that from a computer EKE, get with the times grandpa
Using a computer doesn't make me a cyborg, sonny boy. When I have the CPU hard wired into my skull, then we'll talk.
or when you put on your hearing aid
If that's where you want to live, by all means, go for it. I'll be staying here with the other humans. Knock yourself out.
Death - I'm confused - are you not getting any of my references? Is this current generation just cutting and pasting various visual styles they "like?' do you guys actually read or really look at anything anymore? do you interact with other human beings outside your little circles?
this bridge is pure fantasy - with a color scheme that looks like you're about to shoot robots with lasers. look - it even has a spot to land my spaceship! it's highly reminiscent of dystopian imagery of people like lebbeus woods or mobius, and but without the requisite bleakness and social/self-awareness. just this thing existing in bland white noise - after the zombie apocalypse.
latent city is the harsh reality of fordlandia, brazil - 80 years ago.
The first failure of Fordlandia was social. "The first years of the settlement were plagued by waste and violence and vice," Grandin says.
"There were knife fights, there were riots over food and attempts to impose Ford-style regimentation," Grandin says. "When people ask me what Fordlandia was like, I tell them to think more of Deadwood than Our Town."
no i get, i just dont think some of the criticism is valid
the bridge - its just a bridge with some program who cares if "looks" dystopic or spacelike? it's self-righteous to moralize things. I think it looks ok, maybe a little self indulgent....but at least its trying to collect some renewable energy, so maybe its not as dystopic as one might think from looking at it. None of the winners collected renewable engergy. In fact the winners are even more self indulgent.
Latent city - yes its stark, not the greatest design. Im more interested in its narrative, which is just how it goes sometimes. It isn't sunny everyday everywhere.
We are doomed!
is 'dystopian' just an issue of rendering technique these days? 'cause i could just as easily see this is a bright blue sky rendering with the various elements painted bright colors and believe it was at disney tomorrowland.
so, despite the renderings (nothing that couldn't be fixed in photoshop) and from what i remember of how beautiful the amsterdam canals are on a bright day, i think this could be pretty fun and great!
steven - right - my comments are mostly about rendering technique. I'm sure it wouldn't bother me so much if there were a handful of scale figures in there and maybe a couple puffy clouds or something (as an object it is potentially interesting). But what concerns me whenever I see these overly stylized antiseptic/shiny renderings is that the individual creating this imagery hasn't really thought about how people would actually use and inhabit this structure - that it's all object fetish, borderline pornographic. that latent city project made me even more concerned that there's no joy in this work.
maybe I'm moralizing... this individual seems very talented, though, but I've been in this field long enough to know the early stages of architectural psychosis. I was hoping for gut-check, but I guess I'm just sounding like a shrill alarmist.
It is not about whether these people know how to use PS,AI or 3D Rendering software. It should be about whether designers, architects and students know WHY they are using these tools. Since the inception of digital technology especially PS and 3D Rendering software, the over all quality of deliberate thoughts on the representative drawings has been going down hill. This one should be one of the poster child for this problem.
I don't have time to elaborate right now. I'll try to expend my thoughts on that later today.
Back to the bridge....Usually the critics are more fixated on imagery than anyone else. Every time we hear the same sort of criticisms, they never talk about the project, the ideas/methods, they jump right into geometry or imagery or they promote some retreat to conservatism. As if nothing happened the last time we were supposed to save society, well modernism happened.
And It's no surprise that these same critics are clueless about software or developing trends. Yes trends, things change, I'm sorry.
The question of "why" usually leads to a "why are we doing this" good luck with that one, say hello to Cameron Sinclair on your way there.
Brighter days are ahead, even if some things are rendered in black.
Hi Happy thoughts,
I didn’t mean to offend anyone in my post. As I said in that post, I didn’t have time to explain my thoughts in details.
Image
Images are very important part of our career, and in some cases these images define who we are, what are our ideology (ies), what are our manifestos, and images also define how we see things from creator perspective. Perspective drawings of Falling water are the best example of how an image can influence our thoughts. What is the most memorable part of that house? Sounds of the water? The corner windows? The cantilever sitting on the top of a waterfall? Majority of population won’t even notice the first two, if they never set a foot in that house. But we all know the third image, don’t we?
How about Antonio Sant'Elia’s drawings? His drawings and the manifestos, Futurist Architecture were able to shake the core of the architecture world. I seriously doubt that without his drawings the manifesto would have been another piece of paper. Man I always wish Antonio Sant'Elia live a bit longer. I always wonder what will be next from his creative drawing skills.
How about early days of Morphosis? I still remember the drawings from Rontondi and Myane. They are as good as you can get from creative minds. Lebbious Wood and Zaha Hadid are also very good at creating images that can reflect their design thinking. I’m not saying about current Rhino-Zaha.
Who are our generation FLW, Antonio, Aldo Rossi, Myane, Wood, and Zaha?
Rhino, Maya, Form Z, Revit?
Tell me someone that I can go out there and worship all day long to his/her drawings and images.
I’ll continue about DNA of medium we are using.
(Please forgive me for interruptions. I’ll try to go as much details as I can. I will also confessed that I used be crazy about all these digital things. Ruby scripting anyone? haha)
DNA
The medium we utilize to convey our thoughts and ideas come with advantages and restrictions. I would like to compare that with human DNA, because these advantages and restrictions are inherited ones. You can push envelope as much as you like; you won’t go far if your medium doesn’t allow you to do so.
When you do paintings, watercolor and oil are almost completely different animals (at least for me). I love watercolor over oil paintings, as I can play around with shade and shadow by taking advantage of transparent nature of the medium. The same goes for ink, pastel, graphite and charcoal. As we have been using these traditional mediums as long as we can remember, we don’t notice the boundaries anymore. We know what we can do and can’t do, because we know them way too long. It is just become an intuitive process.
Let’s replace these old school mediums with new 01010101 mediums. Do you truly believe that majority of students, designers, and instructors know the inherited advantages and disadvantages of these mediums in depth. If they know, how much? It is especially very important question for student level. If you’re a researcher or fellow who is dedicated to substantial amount of time and resources for the cause of deeper understanding of these issues, it would not be an important issue. I’m not underestimating or questioning about learning ability of individuals.
I’m talking about how these students and designer views these new mediums. Do they think it is just a tool to express their ideas, and thoughts? Or do they over rely on these mediums? Where is the balance? Do they realize that there is a DNA in these mediums?
I love your question "why are we doing this(?)" Shouldn’t we ask that question very often in design process regardless of what kind of medium you’re utilizing. If a person used that question to not to explore things, I will label that person as an idiot and closed minded. It is an antithesis of purpose of education.
I’ll continue.
so, Tee02: what's your take on this presentation then? it's not one iconic image that the author has presented, it's more like screenshots from video. the views are mostly glam shots from the exterior, not interior in a way that might suggest that moving through is episodic. and then there are some analytic views to suggest how the pieces come together (though it's certainly not explanatory).
i'd argue that the rendering, the images, work against it. they play up the cool factor of what it might look like if we were in blade runner and circling it in a helicopter, while i think the power of this bridge would be in the myriad perspectives a pedestrian would encounter upon approaching and moving through it.
Hi Steve,
I think you're take on the images are correct. They are also the issue of using digital rendering without deliberate thoughts. Back in the old days, when you make a perspective rendering you thought very carefully about it because it takes a lot of time and resources. It is not the case for today architecture world. Sometimes, I think it is ironic to see that the best, meaningful architecture rendering came from people like Alex Roman who is not an architect or designer. The third and the seventh created by Alex always remind me why I love architecture.
We call it rendering for a reason. We call it physical model for a reason. Same goes for diagram, axon, section etc.
I seriously doubt that today cool architects and students give a damn about these things. All they can think about is who can create cooler and sexier images.
It is ok to take image from hovering angle for some images. It serve the purpose of explaining outer shall or components of the bridge. But do we really need to have all images from at least 30 feet away from bridge?
The bridge also has very good idea about operating bicycle and pedestrian on different path. But if you look at the images, you will be asking where are they? The architect also talks about the office on that bridge. Where is the office in these images?
Is he, the architects, just trying to promote the wind power equipments? No offense the traditional wind turbine are more elegant in view. It is amazing to see a group of wind turbine blades rotating slowly in the air.
What is the most important function of a bridge? Isn't that moving an object or living creature from point A to point B . How come the architect forgot to do images in formation of proceeding from point A to point B on the bridge. How would you tell your audience about the bridge without going through it? I'm very disappointed that I didn't see an image that moment where user encounter and interact with the bridge. I would also like to see the city from inside the hub of the bridge. A lot of stuffs is going on there according to the design concept of the bridge. I think we should remember Bridge of Sighs. The most intriguing part of the bridge is allowing the user to see one last time the view of Venice.
The architects or designers do the rendering because we want to capture audience's imagination, and we want to transport them to envisioned designs.
Where is the physical model? Is the architect trying to combine the physical model photo shoots with rendering? By the way, is it snowy day in Amsterdam? I haven't seen Amsterdam too white or too bland like the one in images. The cityscape looks like the white painted wooden cubes we would use for physical models.
Shouldn't we learn a thing or two from car industry? They may be cool boys with all kinds of shape and things. They may be cocky with some of their concept. But rarely a car advertisement disappoint me.
Steven always throws it down pretty well, love that guy
Tee002 if I may,
Maybe if you saw computation as drawing your perspective would not lean so heavily towards traditional drawing techniques and we would not treat this project as an excuse to trivialize computation.
I think you're mixing the rendering techniques of a mid-level design with the role of computation in architecture. And by computation we don't mean photoshop. Does Fallingwater leak because FLW drew it? Did modernism "fail" because Corbu sketched?
Quite frankly I'm not surprised you're sentimentalizing traditional drawing. The problems of this project have nothing to do with technique, but everything to do with architectural vision and awareness. That's something that we can learn from experiencing architecture, not just drawing via computer, script, or sketchpad.
the why
There is little relevance in debating what techniques produce better ideas. If I really had to I'd side more with computation, since it gives rise to ideas that cannot be visualized through drawing. Computation is the future. This project isn't exactly an example of that, it's just a bridge competition.
The "why?" question can be a big struggle which we can't always fulfill. There are times when we just have to ask "how?" instead, such as in a bridge competition.
and by the way drawing is great, I just don't think it will lead the way.
I think it'd be helpful to see the project presented using all the tools of architectural representation. It's hard to get a sense of the idea when the presentation consists of only rendered images. In this sense, I think the project lacks clarity. I for one would love to see a physical model or even, as Steven suggests, a video showing movement through the bridge. If he could somehow show a diagram of the movement in relation to the city and a sectional detail of the turbine and how it interfaces with the bridge enclosure maybe then I could see that he is committed to the project as a work of architecture. As it is now and how it is presented on the website, it just seems he is committed to the project only as an image.
The main problem of the project is it's design composition. If the project was thought of more in terms of the pedestrian, maybe it could have been better. I don't know if making a model would have helped the author realize that. He seems to be grappling with how to integrate his digital skills into a regular project.
It's just kind of an awkward collage, maybe he will do better next time.
this looks very sci-arc-ish. is the architect a graduate of sci-arc?
A few days late
This project has 33 comments. Maybe 27 agitated. The winning entires have 0 comments. That's right - 0. Why? The winning entries were posted right next to these images. 0 comments.
This competition entry has folks talking about the core of what defines architectural representation. I think there are portions of this structure that are incredibly alluring. There are definitely some pieces that seemed slapped on. Not really the point. It's encouraging to see attempts to shack things up. It's 0 comment boring when you don't.
Favorite offensive comment comes from toasteroven- "Is this current generation just cutting and pasting various visual styles they like?" I would just love to know how you are defining style. What style is this? Parametric? Is it Maya style? I like old architects who do their best to dissuade progression with preposterous comments. Just curious- What style do you do? Modernism? Baroque? Did you invent a style? Please enlighten us to your appropriate style, method, or movement. I think you were using these interchangeably when you said style.
Full disclosure - It was actually a toss up between style stealing and the person who said architecture should take a cue from car advertisement. "But rarely a car advertisement disappoint me." I really hope that's not true.
@jwl
Are you glorying the meaning of “negative publicity is still publicity?” Yesterday someone walked the Time Square without any cloths, and that person got a lot of comments about that too. Did you get any comments for you yesterday while the person is bathing himself in tons of publicity?
If someone is more interested in allure of hoax, I would suggest try out for two dollars pop culture T.V shows. We will possibly start a TV show named Kim Kardashian take on architecture world. I’m sure a lot of people will love it too, and we will also get thousands of comments! Gotta love that.
I’m not going to comment on this project in details again as almost every commenter can agree this project is staggeringly lacking commitment not only to design process but also to representation images.
Or
I, Kim Kadershian, is kounting inkoming komments b’kause komments are the koolest komponents of arkitekure.
Super funny kid. Great Kim Kardasian stuff. Really well done. Read lower for something even funnier you said.
I was saying this project agitates normal typical architects who aren't used to stepping out of their comfort zone. It's not safe. Was that really that hard to figure out from my post. That you thought it was about publicity is embarrassing. We are talking about young architects who put themselves out there with something daring. Because it annoys and offends people such as yourself you have to commend them.
Honestly the person saying car commercials rarely disappoint (yes - rarely) is lecturing other people on architecture.
I'll repost your quote because it's brilliant- "Shouldn't we learn a thing or two from car industry? They may be cool boys with all kinds of shape and things. They may be cocky with some of their concept. But rarely a car advertisement disappoint me."
Now that's funny. The rarely disappoints is beyond hilarious. With that lovely attitude I would love to see your work. I'm sure it will rarely disappoints. Your probably great with clients too. You rarely disappoint. Maybe you're in school where you rarely disappoint.
Honestly - Idiots like you are the reason why it's not interesting to engage projects on this site. Why are you even interested in acting like this? Is it really that funny to you? Can you honestly say you enjoy bashing young architects work. It's a bit sad because I see an extreme amount of talent from this project but some people are too concerned with being cute on Archinect to actually be engaging.
Not looking back on this post because the idiot has reared his head.
@jwl
Have you ever studied some industrial design process or car or aerospace industry? They usually can’t afford to do crappy works like these projects. You need to understand fundamental physic, materials, aerodynamic, fuel efficiency, user experience and aesthetic side of the product. Trial and error through iterative process which is usually thoughtfully presented to audience as final product. They have to excel at what they are doing and can’t afford to wait the audience to go back to drawing board.
I’m clearly talking about serious attitude towards both process and product. I think it is one of the most nauseating thing see people putting out crappy products to get comments! What a new concept! Next time, grab a bucket of mud and throw it to wall bits by bits. Some of them will stick, and some won’t. It will be more entertaining!
If you can really vouch that attitude is serious in this project, just say it.
Stepping out of comfort zone just for the sake of stepping out is very wonderful as well. woot! I’m in this thread not to talk about your work or my work. We’re talking about this work. So stay focus. It is not personal.
Dude you crazy! For better or worse I'm speechless, i have no clue wtf this is but it's awesome!
MIND BLOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!
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