Opus 14, Coming Full Circle (IT'S OVER!)

PROMPTS

COMMUNITY

“The strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family relation should be one uniting working people of all nations and tongues and kindreds.”

-Abraham Lincoln

A question Patrick recently started asking us was how do we get the “crap” we call the suburbs nowadays... and these are known as communities I think or developments. But we still never gained an insight to how this style even really began or why it all started to become redundant. But communities are more then just groupings of houses. It’s people, it is people coming together to create something powerful, something that can affect the world and change it, for good or worse... it’s still a community. I have to say that I’m not even in the program yet, I will be this fall! WHOA, should I be excited or not, ha. Nah but just going up there will Phillip to work on my Precedent Analysis I’ve come to socialize with many of them, last night I stayed the night and went and got some copies at Kinko’s with some majors and went and got Jimmy Johns at like 2:30 AM, which is an experience in itself. But I think that’s a community, and I like it.

STEWARDSHIP

“I do not believe we can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.”

-C.S. Lewis

I honestly had never heard this word in the context Patrick put it until we got to the annoying sustainability topic... which I am really sick of that word. People don’t even know what it means, yet some try to design that way because it’s the bee’s knees in present time. Maybe in 100 years, people will want to use our resources all again; who knows? But this word is a better word, because it has more meaning than just in an environmental ideal, plus people aren’t familiar with this word, YET! So it’s always nice to mix it up some, you know..? Mostly I’d say stewardship is a responsibility someone has to devote their own care to attending to a particular item for it’s progression.

INNOVATION

“Innovation is not the product of logical thought, although the result is tired to logical structure.”

-Albert Einstein

Innovation was a BIG word in the 20th century and I still think it is in todays time, people are always inventing insane things, like I can’t even imagine what people like 100 years ago would currently say about our technology, really anything now days would probably baffle them. I found one building there in planning stages of in Dubai (of course) that is called the Dynamic Tower, wikipedia it or something... it’s INSANE! But this building physically moves, like all 80 floors I believe. Every 90 minutes every floor revolves a full rotation and what’s more amazing about this structure is that 90% is being built in a factory, the rest is built on site and will only take 22 months to construct thanks to the innovations in todays period.

AUTHENTICITY

"Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but usually manages to pick himself up, walk over or around it, and carry on."

-Winston Churchill

I’d say this honestly is the hardest thing to achieve in merely every subject now days because soooo many things tend to look identical and it doesn’t even have to be on purpose. It’s because there is so much poopie on this Earth and things start being seen as a mass of whatever it may be, but it all starts to become sort of repetitive which certainly sucks. But you definitely have your designers and people that create beautiful things such as art, music, ideas, products, architecture. I think the gentleman that designed the HSB Turning Torso in Sweden, is a magnificent designer because there is absolutely nothing that compares in form in my mind.

REFLECTION

“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”

-Orson Welles

So as much as I hate doing Opus entries, I’m gonna miss school and Patrick walking into walls and staying the night and going to Jimmy Johns late at night and waiting in line like it was the release of the brand new iPhone or something. I’ll miss walking into class throwing frisbee back and fourth with Carlos and then Patrick catching it when he walked in too. But I think I need this break, to prepare myself for the Fall, but I’ve heard the Fall semester is a breeze compared to the Spring, so... UNTIL THE FALL! LATER FELLOW BLOGGERS!

HAVE A GOOD SUMMER PEOPLE!!!

Opus 13, [Pair]ing Down

PROMPTS

MEDITATION/CELEBRATION

So I’m not even in the program just yet, although I did register for my first year studio classes yesterday! YES! But I know that this is something the program relies heavily on, creating a place built for meditation and built to celebrate the life as a whole. I do believe this is very true and something that should be incorporated with every single design ever made, now is it? Of course not, all designs and structures have their downfalls and flaws to them, but something that can make us even fall more in love with them over time just as its happened before.

LIGHT/SHADOW

I like to think me being involved in photography that these two elements are very important in a photo because it sometimes is definitely intended and other instances it can literally ruin a photograph and block out your main subject. But in architecture I think all structures need a beautiful way to provide that, the one design that I usually think of is Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey that Patrick showed us. And when I saw the interior and how the dome lets such gorgeous lighting in throughout the day, I honestly understood how vital lighting was to a structure. Because sure there is your everyday window we control lighting through the use of blinds but then there is simply profound ways in which it can be allowed in.

TRANSPOSE/JUXATOSE

I believe that we have to do both of these things to a structure from time to time, transpose being to change its form or its entire design. Juxtapose being to place side by side one another. Especially in the 20th century I think designs often had to undergo both of them, such as the Guggenheim in New York by Mr. Frank Lloyd Wright. Patrick informed us that its main component to its design didn’t work correctly mostly because of the entire thing being rounded, thus eventually they had to design a completely different place just to house the artwork.

LITERAL/ABSTRACT

Over analyzation I believe is something people definitely do now a lot now days, there interpret designs, and artwork, life... everything in general. There thinking to much about it, to much a abstract observation towards something. And designers sometimes probably do strive towards accomplishing that, but other times they want it right smack dab in your face, kind of “what you see, is what you get” sorta thing. That’s what I’ve come to like in design, I like to steer away from the bull crap and just get to the point of it. I honestly do wish people and designers would have a goal of that more now-a-days.

MONOLOGUE/DIALOGUE

These two terms bring to mind first, english! Which is mostly where there heard I’m sure... but in architecture they can also be applied, modern architecture relies mostly being looked at in a monologue sense because there isn’t too much else to gaze upon. But when I think of Wrights work, I know he designed many of the interiors and the very furniture within which I think definitely deserves your attention and it’s more of a dialogue way sort of thinking. Everything within the design talks to each other in my mind and is made to be that way.

Opus 12, Action Verbs

SPECULATE

To speculate something is to observe it from different points of view, to fully experience a place and its surroundings. That’s something over the years that I’ve really tried living by more and more. I like to know the texture of something, the smell, using all of my senses and sometimes even the so called “seventh” sense. “The ultimate aim of all visual art is the complete building.... together let us desire, conceive, and create the new structure of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will one day rise toward heaven from the hands of a million workers like the crystal symbol of a new faith.” (Roth 523)

I believe to speculate this view from above is quite nice. 

COMPOSE

Compose a word that literally applies to so many scenarios... music, art, architecture, literature, really a ton of different topics. When used in the design sense, compose to me means the way in which a drawing/drafting is laid out. It’s the way in which you lay out your different drawings and use them in a very nice manner. I definitely think that composition is very, very vital to anything in particular. 

ENERGIZE

Radiate is a word I believe that goes hand-in-hand with energize, because energizing a structure radiates its whole entirety. “There were, however, other architects in the 1910s and 1920s who believed, conversely, that architecture is much more than a utilitarian appliance -- that can and should be primarily a vehicle for evoking emotional, even mystical states of experience achievable in no other way.” (Roth 535) I believe these designers in this time period were there to energize the style and make it more a personal experience rather than having a lack of life present within. 

SHAPE

Shape, wow! What to say for shape, we all know what shaped is and we all have our different idea’s about how shape affects our daily life. But it doesn’t matter what you believe in because no matter what shape does affect our everyday life, constantly. It’s a space, a boundary for our limits so we where we are allowed and not allowed at least without putting fourth the effort to pass through a portal into another space. A quote I found actually at the beginning of this class I liked very much was the supposed quote by Winston Churchill that states, “We shape our buildings, and then our buildings shape us.”

I definitely believe the HSB Turning Torso presents its shape in a profound, unique way. 

STRETCH

Distortion is needed to allow for a stretch, it’s like taking something that is in proportion and extending it slightly to accommodate to your likings. You can stretch something, pull it, shrink it, do many different types of translations to further learn from the drawing. This is kind of the opposite of what they were doing in the modern era, in some sense they weren’t stretching the structure over a span of land, they were stretching them heavenward to take up less space but to in fact make a bold, proud statement about its design. 

I like to think that my original paper model I made as compared to my new improved balsa wood one was a stretch on my idea. 

REFLECTION

So I began my model this week, and so far it’s coming along good but I am definitely having some trouble because I’ve never made a model but I am going to be very happy if it turns out good! And me and Phillip are possibly considering getting a apartment together at the new Spring Place Apartments which I would highly like considering driving here is old already only in this short semester I’ve been here. I also am ready for a vacation, to travel somewhere exciting and new. NOT MUCH LONGER LEFT!

Unit Summary: REFLECTIONS

So our Reflections unit of History and Theory of Design began with the Origins of Modernism, which was a nice turn of events for me. Because as bad as it sounds I sometimes I have trouble focusing on past history, because it’ll tend to be boring in some circumstances which is never good. So modernism was something more current and I enjoyed it a bit more, but I did also enjoy the previous units. Lets just say it’s far better then Intro to Art and memorizing God knows how many artworks, that just gets plain boring! But yeah, the age of enlightenment as it was known... from 1720-1790, and  let’s just say it borrows on many past historical trends in design but the designers of the modern era definitely made it theirs. As Roth states, “the modern epoch is characterized by several encompassing trends, beginning with a worldwide shift away from centralized. authoritarian governance (whether monarchical or dictatorial) and a move toward democratic republics.” (Roth 439) Probably one of the next sections we dove into was the Arts and Crafts movement which was definitely a big deal, it was then and it still is in todays time. I’ve also learned that it’s what could be labeled as a “touchy subject” because it has grey areas per say. Industrialization led to this movement though because designers felt like the machine wasn’t something that needed to be praised, the preferred the rustic feel to unique rather then creating a identical copy of the same design. They liked the hand crafted quality and the feeling that went into it and the machine took that away from people, thus they rebelled out against it. We later looked somewhat into the English Free Architecture Movement which consisted of names such as Webb, Maddox, Mackmurdo, and Ashbee. A quote I took from Charles Ashbee said that “...we do not reject the machine. We welcome it. But we desire to see it mastered.” (Charles Ashbee) Our last day of the section we talked about Chicago and all I honestly remember is there is some story about a great fire in Chicago in 1871 and it destroyed pretty much the entire city and a few years later, it led to the development of a great, massive city. What structurally made such a grand city possible was the discovery of new materials such as iron, steel, and glass were the three vital components to your now day skyscrapers. But the exterior wasn’t the only thing that had significant changes made throughout, so did the interior of such structures. Inside there was a growing interest in privacy within a home and within a single room. Before these new materials your two forms to constructing a building was either stick construction or arch construction and this allowed for so many new, innovative techniques to be applied in a building. The principles that all this was based upon was a social change and a need for meaning. Romantic past was also very much so affiliated with this popular, life changing era and lastly they wanted the past to be studied. So this pretty much sums up the entire Reflections unit, now it’s on to Explorations and only like 2 more weeks left of school! Nerve racking I’d say!

Opus 11, Road Trip

PROMPTS

ROOTS

Roots, a term even a kid is familiar with but when I think of it now days... not much has changed. I'd say just my definition of the word has somewhat expanded and I have different views on how I think of roots. I think that architecture creates new roots for its own good, but also it branches out along previous roots and creates new roots with similar qualities. "Classical inspiration, the use of smooth surfaces to envelop the three-dimensional form, love of the exotic, sumptuous materials and repeated geometric motifs characterize the Art Deco style.” (Massey 91) The Art Deco style is somewhat a new root, it branches off of previous roots to further create new and innovative roots for itself. 

My 1st attempt at using Chart Pak's, not so sure...

CONGRUENCE

Math and my middle/high school years is probably what comes to mind first when I think of congruence. I think it is an agreement of the space and nothing conflicts or has any problems it is at harmony with it’s entirety. Roth states that “the ultimate aim of all visual arts is the complete building... Together let us desire, conceive, and create the new structure of the future...” (Roth 523) I think this is what the word congruence is all about, creating unity within a structure and everything eventually working itself out and being a unified piece in the end. 

I feel like the HSB Turning Torso is a perfect example of congruency. 

CONCEPT

Everything in architecture, drafting, art really all has a concept to it. Almost anything I can think of starts with just a simple concept even if it’s in the head, it’s still a concept to some extent. Just what you choose to do with that is up to you, that’s certainly the beauty of it. A quote I stumbled upon in Roth was about Walter Gropius that says, “Behren’s conception of the architect as the shaper of form and taste, as exemplified in his buildings for the AEG, attracted a number of young architects to his Berlin office.” (Roth 521) Concepts are very important especially if you intend on creating also a prototype, archetype, and eventually a hybrid. 

This was my initial concept for my drawing, beginning stages. 

MATERIALITY

Materials are definitely one of the key components to any design, because the material within itself can be viewed as a single part of the structure. And in my mind, it’s sometimes what makes or breaks a design for me, because I look for something different then your typical materials, or a new exciting way to use those materials. I know that when I start my studio classes in the Fall that I will get to experiment with various materials that I’ve never had the chance to work with before and quite honestly I’ve never gotten a chance to work with many materials at all, so I am looking forward to it for sure. “The lavish Hall of Mirrors and Palm Court have ornamental metalwork balustrades in the style of Edgar Brandt, with exquisite glass and metal lamps.” (Massey 109) 

I tried creating a woody, grainy looking material using Chart Pak's.

COMPRESSION : RELEASE

I think this term is pretty tricky actually, because I can think of compressing as compressing a drawing to a new smaller scale to accommodate a smaller piece of paper. Or I can think of it like a computer does and compresses all the vital information like when installing a new OS or something along those lines, it compresses all that vital info because it will rarely be used by the person who physically uses the computer. But release is where I have trouble relating, I think possibly release refers very much onto the modern era were now when talking about releasing to the world really, idea’s that we Americans have for our new modern cities and what there going to be about and stand for in our world. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said “I see industrialization the central problem of building in our time. If we succeed in carrying out this industrialization, the social, economic, technical, and also artistic problems will be readily solved.” (Roth 527)

REFLECTION

So all I can really think to say in this reflection is I SO WISH I GOT TO VISIT FALLING WATER!

CITATIONS

Understanding Architecture Its Elements, History, and Meaning

Leland M. Roth

Interior Design Since 1900

Anne Massey

HSB Turning Torso Essay

Malmö, Sweden is home to one of the most gorgeous buildings that come to mind in the 20th as well as the 21st century. I am talking about the HSB Turning Torso designed by Spanish designer Santiago Calatrava, which upon completion was the biggest building present in Scandinavia coming in at 623 feet with 54 stories in all. The looming and twisting structure is located on the Swedish side of the Oresund strait. The construction of this piece of art dates from February 14, 2001 when ground broke on the site and it was then completed in 2005. The architect hails from Valencia, Spain and what I’ve really come to love about all his work is a lot of them are generally idea’s he has from his sculptures. Such is the example in the Turning Torso, which is modeled after the posture of a human spine and called it Twisting Torso (hints the name). Also 80 South Street in New York, which was never constructed due to financial situations... but it was modeled after a sculpture in which he basically stacked 12 four-story cubes on top of one another, cantilevered off a central concrete column standing above an eight-story base. But anyways that’s just some of his work and I’d certainly encourage anyone to look around at some of it, I believe it to be quite profound to say the least. The reasoning behind Sweden thriving on such a building was to re-establish a recognizable skyline for Malmö since the removal of the Kockums Crane in 2002. The crane was a landmark for Malmö but was shipped off to Ulsan in South Korea after being sold to Hyundai Heavy Industries, so needless to say Sweden, Malmö in particular needed something to put its name back on the map... and so they did!

The exterior is a very vital and fundamental part of this building in particular and because this building twists, the facade is double curved, which makes it construction very complicated. The facade is made up of glass and aluminum, which it has passed several laboratory tests concerning air and water sealing. There are approximately 2,800 panels and 2,250 windows in its facade. The panels are curved and the glass panels are flat and each of these cubes has within it 300 panels. You’ll notice up the entire side of the structure is a white steel support with every so often having what’s called “steel cigars” going out and connecting it physically to the building. The “cigars” are connected with structural walls spanning two floors at the top of each cube. And the purpose of these walls is to transfer shearing forces from the steel frame to the supporting concrete core within. The windows by themselves were a problem because in order to follow the twist of the building, the windows are either inwards or outwards, depending on which side of the building they are oriented. On the western side they are leaning inwards and on the eastern, outwards. This leaning of the windows is between 0 and 7 degrees, while the lateral leaning is about 6 degrees. 

Now for the interior... the two bottom stories are intended as office space, and the other stories from the third floor house 147 luxury apartments. All of the apartments have unique layouts depending on their position in the building. The living rooms are large and open, often with views limited to only two directions. The impression of light and space if reinforced by the elevated ceiling in the living rooms. The massive, slightly tilted windows give the apartments a generous flow of natural light to gleam throughout the living space. On the two top floors, 53rd and 54th you experience a magnificent 360-degree view. These two levels are mostly occupied by conferences for the modern day business people and throughout these floors you’ll find artwork, designed by Mr. Calatrava himself.

The design of this building seems like such a difficult thing to consider, but somehow it’s done and it is done in a remarkable fashion most importantly. The framework of the Turning Torso consists of the core, which is shaped like a concrete pipe, which has a inner diameter around 34 feet and walls which gradually go from eight feet to approximately one foot at the top of the building. Inside of this massive concrete pipe which is essentially what it amounts there is lift shafts and staircases. The core is cast in a sliding form, and what this means is that the form is suspended between vertical beams and can slide upwards, one floor at a time, by the way of jacks. 

The HSB Turning Torso uses the nine segments or otherwise known as the cubes to slowly twist 90-degrees over the course of 54 floors. Architecture is something I have faith in, and most importantly I believe we can learn vital information about a certain civilization, time period, really anything. And I believe this definitely a sore thumb (in a good way) for Malmö, Sweden. They wanted to re-innovate a noticeable structure for their land and they succeeded in my opinion. All of this can be learnt through all the idea’s and hard work and dedication that was put into this design, it incorporates such modern technology and uses it in a beautiful manner. A perfect example of this is on its facade consisting entirely of aluminum panels and glass. Next you have such breathe taking interior views all varying on your direction in the building, and lastly you have an amazing gooey center as Patrick calls it which is its exoskeleton which spans the course of its height and gradually tapers down to merely a foot in size. 

Opus 10, Between Silence + Light

PROMPTS

CRAFT

"The most important design reform movement to affect the interior in the nineteenth century was that of the Arts and Crafts. Starting in Britain, the movement had a far-reaching influence on twentieth-century design." (Massey 7) This actually was the first question Patrick asked us when we first started quizzes everyday last week... and this was something I actually retained from the reading, and it is possible because it's the first line of the reading but needless to say I remembered which is always exciting! Moving on, I believe craft is something that should be in a separate category from everything, such as architecture, sculpture, art and all that jazz has its own individual category so it only seems fair for crafts to have it as well. This term incorporates hand crafting, similar to sculpting but usually completely different materials used throughout which I believe that's how you distinguish between the two. 

PUBLIC/PRIVATE

In last weeks class, one of the two we had Patrick talked about how in the modern design era became much more in touch and involved with the public as well as private interiors. People started wanting their private spaces within their homes, and there also became much more public spaces like train stations were a huge one thanks to the material cast iron and glass and with those two new materials they could achieve much longer spans in distance. 

TECHNIQUE

When I try to consider this word in a architectural sort of way, I can’t help but want to extend it to other things, because I believe it does in fact go within so many things. Almost everything we do in our everyday life has a technique to it, meaning there is a style or fashion in which we do things. Probably almost everyone has their own unique technique for how they go about completing different things. 

LANGUAGE

Language to me conveys people, it’s what makes everything we know. You hear and use language every single day and probably will throughout our entire life. In architecture I believe language to be extremely vital because different civilizations have different languages thus their structure will have embodied within various languages. In our History and Theory of Design class thus far even though there isn't to many weeks left of school; but nonetheless I have seen many different cultures and languages put into the structures that still remain very distinct till this day. Such as the very first structure we looked at Stonehenge, this conveys a language in which no one has yet to find out about, there have been many theories about where it could have originated from, but no one truly knows and honestly probably never will. Next there is the Ancient Egyptian pyramids in Giza which to anyone should really provide such an outstanding sense of the term language because it's stood the test of time and I think it will certainly be around for many, many more years to come and probably outlast many of the US's current structures. 

VIRTUAL

Video games are honestly the first thing I can think of when I consider this word, and I think of when games were really starting to get popular and people starting calling them "virtual games" and not like consoles as they are defined today. But in design I believe virtual is an experience within itself, it's going into a building and looking every which way possible and feeling, touching, smelling the structure. LIVING in it really and using all of your senses to live in the moment and experience the structure itself and see it on how it was meant to be seen. Appreciate the structure to its fullest, and create your own virtuality and re-experience it from time to time if it's possible. 

REFLECTION

So far I've had not to much of a challenge relating my OPUS in someway but I can say that this one actually did. But I can't honestly tell if it's because of the prompts or because of me growing tired of doing these blog entries. I think doing them is finally catching up to me but luckily there isn't too many more OPUS entries left until SUMMER! Yeah man, I'm pretty stoked about it... but one thing that is pretty exciting is that I am currently taking Intro to Art and were in the Arts/Crafts section and that's what we've been discussing lately in Patricks class. But I am ready to wrap up these blogs until next year! SEE YA!