Hapticity and Time
Juhani Pallasmaa
Notes on fragile architecture
Materials and surfaces have a richly complex language of their own that evolves and changes over time. In this major essay, Juhani Pallasmaa puts the case for haptic, sensuous architecture.
Modern consciousness and sensory reality have gradually developed towards the unrivalled dominance of the sense of vision. This thought-provoking development has been observed and analyzed by a number of philosophers in recent years. [1] David Michael Levin, one of today's thinkers concerned with the hegemony of vision, motivates the philosophical critique of the visual bias in the following words: 'I think it is appropriate to challenge the hegemony of vision in the ocularcentrism of our culture. And I think we need to examine very critically the character of vision that predominates today in our world. We urgently need a diagnosis of the psychosocial pathology of everyday seeing -- and a critical understanding of ourselves, as visionary beings'. [2]
I believe likewise that many aspects of the pathology of today's architecture can also be understood through a critique of the ocular bias of our culture. As a consequence of the power of the eye over the other sensory realms, architecture has turned into an art form of instant visual image. Instead of creating existential microcosms, embodied representations of the world, architecture projects retinal images for the purpose of immediate persuasion. Flatness of surfaces and materials, uniformity of illumination, as well as the elimination of micro-climatic differences, further reinforce the tiresome and soporific uniformity of experience. All in all, the tendency of technological culture to standardize environmental conditions and make the environment entirely predictable is causing a serious sensory impoverishment. Our buildings have lost their opacity and depth, sensory invitation and discovery, mystery and shadow.
Multi-sensory experience: the significance of touch
Every significant experience of architecture is multi-sensory; qualities of matter, space and scale are measured by the eye, ear, nose, skin, tongue, skeleton and muscle. Maurice Merleau-Ponty emphasizes this simultaneity of experience and sensory interaction as follows: 'My perception is [therefore] not a sum of visual, tactile, and audible givens: I perceive in a total way with my whole being: I grasp a unique structure of the thing, a unique way of being, which speaks to all my senses at once'. [3]
Even the eye collaborates with the other senses. All the senses including vision, are extensions of the sense of touch: the senses are specializations of the skin, and all sensory experiences are related to tactility. Ashley Montagu's view, based on medical evidence, confirms the primacy of the tactile realm: '[The skin] is the oldest and the most sensitive of our organs, our first medium of communication, and our most efficient protector [...]. Even the transparent cornea of the eye is overlain by a layer of modified skin [...]. Touch is the parent of our eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. It is the sense which became differentiated into the others, a fact that seems to he recognized in the age-old evaluation of touch as 'the mother of the senses'. [4] Touch is the sensory mode which integrates our experience of the world and of ourselves. Even visual perceptions are united and integrated into the haptic continuity of the self; my body remembers who I am and where I am placed in the world. In the opening chapter of Combray, Marcel Proust describes how the protagonist wakes up in his bed and gradually reconstructs his world on the basis of 'the memory of the sides, knees and shoulders'. [5]
The task of architecture is to make visible 'how the world touches us', [6] as Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote of the paintings of Paul Cezanne. Paraphrasing another notion of Merleau-Ponty's: architecture concretizes and frames human existence in the 'flesh of the world'. [7] In developing Goethe's notion of 'life-enhancing' in the l890s, Bernard Berenson suggested that when experiencing an artistic work we imagine a genuine physical encounter through 'ideated sensations'. The most important of these Berenson called 'tactile values'. In his view, the work of authentic art stimulates our ideated sensations of touch, and this stimulation is life-enhancing. [8] Genuine architectural works, in my view, also evoke similar ideated tactile sensations which enhance our experience of ourselves.
The retinal-biased architecture of our time is clearly giving rise to a quest for a haptic architecture. Ashley Montagu sees a wider change taking place in Western consciousness: We in the Western world are beginning to discover our neglected senses. This growing awareness represents something of an overdue insurgency against the painful deprivation of sensory experience we have suffered in our technologized world'. [9] Our culture of control and speed has favoured the architecture of the eye, with its instantaneous imagery and distant impact, whereas haptic architecture promotes slowness and intimacy, appreciated and comprehended gradually as images of the body and the skin. The architecture of the eye detaches and controls, whereas haptic architecture engages and unites. Tactile sensibility replaces distancing visual imagery by enhanced materiality, nearness and intimacy.
We are not usually aware that an unconscious element of touch is unavoidably concealed in vision; as we look, the eye touches, and before we even see an object we have already touched it. 'Through vision, we touch the stars and the sun', [10] as Merleau-Ponty writes. Touch is the unconsciousness of vision, and this hidden tactile experience determines the sensuous quality of the perceived object, and mediates messages of invitation or rejection, courtesy or hostility.
Matter and time
`Architecture is not only about domesticating space', writes Karsten Harries, Professor of Philosophy at Yale University, 'It is also a deep defence against the terror of time. The language of beauty is essentially the language of timeless reality.' [11] Architecture's task to provide us with our domicile in space is recognized by most architects, but its second task in mediating our relation with the frighteningly ephemeral dimension of time is usually disregarded.
In its quest for the perfectly articulated autonomous artefact, the main line of Modernist architecture has preferred materials and surfaces that seek the effect of flatness, immaterial abstractness and timelessness. Whiteness, in Le Corbusier's words, serves 'the eye of truth', [12] mediating thus moral and objective values. The Modernist surface is treated as an abstracted boundary of volume, and has a conceptual rather than a sensory essence. These surfaces tend to remain mute, as shape and volume are given priority; form is vocal, whereas matter remains mute. The aspiration for geometric purity and reductive aesthetics further weakens the presence of matter, in the same way that a strong figure and Contour reading diminishes the interaction of colour in the art of painting; all real colourists in painting use a weak Gestalt in order to maximize colour interaction. Abstraction and perfection transport us into the world of ideas, whereas matter, weathering and decay strengthen the experience of time, causa lity and reality.
As a consequence of its formal ideals, the architecture of our time is usually creating settings for the eye which seem to originate in a single moment of time and evoke the experience of flattened temporality. Vision places us in the present tense, whereas haptic experience evokes the experience of a temporal continuum. The inevitable processes of ageing, weathering and wear are not usually considered as conscious and positive elements in design; the architectural artefact exists in a timeless space, an artificial condition separated from the reality of time. [13] The architecture of the modern era aspires to evoke an air of ageless youth and of a perpetual present. The ideals of perfection and completeness further detach the architectural object from the reality of time and the traces of use. Consequently, our buildings have become vulnerable to the effect of time, the revenge of time. Instead of offering positive qualities of vintage and authority, time and use attack our buildings destructively.
A particularly thought-provoking example of the human need to experience and read time through architecture is the tradition of designed and built ruins, a fashion that became a mania in eighteenth-century England and Germany. While engaged in the construction of his own house in Lincoln's Inn Fields - which, by the way, incorporated images of ruins - John Soane imagined his structure as a ruin by writing a fictitious study of a future antiquarian. [14]
There are architects in our time, however, who evoke healing experiences of time. The architecture of Sigurd Lewerentz, for instance, connects us with deep time; his works obtain their unique emotive power from images of matter which speak of opaque depth and mystery, dimness and shadow, metaphysical enigma and death. Death turns into a mirror image of life; Lewerentz enables us to see ourselves dead without fear, and placed in the continuum of timeless duration, the 'womb of time', to use an expression of Shakespeare's from Othello. These are dreams of the fired clay brick in the same way that Michelangelo's sculptures and buildings are dreams of marble; the observer is permitted to enter the unconsciousness of stone.
The language of matter
Materials and surfaces have a language of their own. Stone speaks of its distant geological origins, its durability and inherent symbolism of permanence; brick makes one think of earth and fire, gravity and the ageless traditions of construction; bronze evokes the extreme heat of its manufacture, the ancient processes of casting and the passage of time as measured in its patina. Wood speaks of its two existences and time scales; its first life as a growing tree and the second as a human artefact made by the caring hand of a carpenter or cabinetmaker. These are all materials and surfaces that speak pleasurably of time.
As a reaction to the loss of materiality and temporal experience, we again appear to becoming sensitive to messages of matter, as well as to scenes of erosion and decay. Materiality, erosion and ruins have been favoured subject matters of contemporary art from Arte Povera and Gordon Matta-Clark to Anselm Kiefer and the films of Andrei Tarkovsky. The art of Jannis Kounellis expresses dreams and memories of matter, whereas Richard Serra's and Eduardo Chillida's uniquely authoritative masses of forged iron awaken bodily experiences of weight and gravity. These works directly address our skeletal and muscular system: they are communications from the muscles of the sculptor to those of the viewer. Contemporary art and architecture are again recognizing the sensuality and eroticism of matter. The popularity of earth as a subject and medium of artistic expression is another example of this growing interest in images of matter. The imagery of Mother Earth suggests that after the utopian journey towards autonomy, imma teriality, weightlessness and abstraction, art and architecture are moving back towards primordial female images of interiority, intimacy and belonging.
Collage and assemblage are favoured techniques of artistic representation in our time; these media enable an archaeological density and a non-linear narrative through the juxtaposition of fragmented images deriving from irreconcilable origins. Collage invigorates the experience of tactility and time. Collage and film are the most characteristic art forms of our century, and have penetrated into all other forms of art, including architecture.
Material imagination
In his phenomenological investigation of poetic imagery, Gaston Bachelard makes a distinction between 'formal imagination' and 'material imagination'. [15] He considers images arising from matter project deeper and more profound experiences than images of form. Matter evokes unconscious images and emotions, but modernity at large has been primarily concerned with form. However, engagement with material imagination seems to characterize the entire 'Second Tradition' of modernity, to use the title of Colin St.John Wilson's recent book.' [16]
In his development away from the retinality of the Modern Movement towards a multi-sensory engagement, Alvar Aalto made a distinct step towards 'images of matter'. Significantly, at the same time, he rejected the universalist ideal of modernity in favour of a regionalist, organic, historic and romantic aspiration. In his episodic architecture, Aalto suppresses the dominance of a singular visual image. This is an architecture that is not dictated by a dominant conceptual idea right down to the last detail; it grows through separate architectural scenes, episodes, and detail elaborations. Instead of an overpowering intellectual concept, the whole is held together by the constancy of an emotional atmosphere, an architectural key, as it were.
In the mid- 1930s Erik Gunnar Asplund, Erik Bryggman and Alvar Aalto made remarkably parallel moves away from the Functionalist aesthetics of reduction towards a layered and multi-sensory architecture. Aspiund described this change of ideals in a 1936 lecture: "The idea that only design, which is comprehended visually, can be art is a narrow conception. No, everything grasped by our other senses through our whole human consciousness and which has the capacity to communicate desire, pleasure, or emotions can also be art'. [17]
This transition implies a departure from the predominantly visual and masculine air of modern architecture towards a tactile and feminine sensibility. The feeling of external control and visual effect is replaced by a heightened sense of interiority and tactile intimacy. Sensuous materiality and the sense of tradition evoke a benevolent experience of natural duration and temporal continuum. Whereas the architecture of geometry attempts to build dams to halt the flow of time, haptic and multi-sensory architecture makes the experience of time healing and pleasurable. This architecture does not struggle against time, it concretizes the course of time and makes it acceptable. It seeks to accommodate rather than impress, evoke domesticity and comfort rather than admiration and awe.
The architecture of experiential events
Whereas the usual design process proceeds from a guiding conceptual image down to the detail, this architecture develops from real experiential situations towards an architectural form. As drawings, in fact, these buildings might sometimes appear vague, fragmentary or incomplete, as the design aims solely at qualities arising in the lived experiential situation. This is an architecture of sensory realism in opposition to conceptual idealism. Speaking of his cultural realism, Aalto writes: 'Realism usually provides the strongest impulses [also] for my imagination'. [18]
Architecture is usually understood as a visual syntax, but it can also be conceived through a sequence of human situations and encounters. Authentic architectural experiences derive from real or ideated bodily confrontations rather than visually observed entities. Authentic architectural experiences have more the essence of a verb than a noun. The visual image of a door is not an architectural image, for instance, whereas entering and exiting through a door are architectural experiences. Similarly, the window frame is not an architectural unit, whereas looking out through the window or daylight coming through it, are authentic architectural encounters.
In his description of the design process of the Paimio Sanatorium, Aalto formulates a design philosophy progressing from the identification and articulation of experiential situations: '[...] a building has to be conceived from inside outwards, that is, the small units and details with which a person is engaged form a kind of framework, a system of cells, which eventually turns into the entity of the building. At the same time as the architect develops a synthesis from the smallest cells onwards, the opposite process exists and the architect keeps the entity in his mind'. [19]
Using this method of analyzing experiential situations, Aalto conceived the sanatorium as a carefully and empathetically studied instrument of healing for the benefit of human beings at their weakest, 'the horizontal human being', [20] as Aalto calls his hospitalized client. Aalto's sanatorium could well be the one building in the history of modernity that contains the highest concentration of technical innovations, yet it is firmly rooted in human experiential reality.
Fragile architecture
Our culture aspires to power and domination and this quest characterizes Western architecture as well; architecture seeks a powerful image and impact. Referring to a way of philosophizing that does not aspire to totalize the multitude of human discourses into a single system, the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo introduced the notions of 'weak ontology' and 'fragile thought', il pensiero debole. [21] Vattimo's idea, which has aroused world-wide interest since the early 1980s, seems to be interestingly parallel to Goethe's method of 'Delicate Empiricism' (Zarte Empirie), an effort 'to understand a thing's meaning through prolonged empathetic looking and understanding it grounded in direct experience' [22] In accordance with Vattimo's notions, we can speak of a 'weak' or 'fragile' architecture, or perhaps, more precisely, of an 'architecture of weak structure and image', as opposed to an architecture of strong structure and image'. Whereas the latter desires to impress through an outstanding singular image and consistent articulation of form, the architecture of weak image is contextual and responsive. It is concerned with real sensory interaction instead of idealized and conceptual manifestations. This architecture grows and opens up, instead of the reverse process of closing down from the concept to the detail. [23] Because of the negative connotations of the word 'weak', we should, perhaps, use the notion 'fragile architecture'.
The idea of 'weakness' as an architectural principle has emerged simultaneously in various writings. As I was developing my own views of fragile architecture, I came across an essay entitled 'Weak Architecture' (1987) by the Spanish architect and theoretician Ignaside Sola-Morales. [24] Also Peter Eisenman has used the notion of weak architecture in his writings [25] Sola-Morales projects Vattimo's ideas on the reality of architecture somewhat differently from my interpretation. 'In the field of aesthetics, literary, pictorial and architectonic experience can no longer be founded on the basis of a system: not a closed, economic system such as that of the classical age [...] the present-day artistic universe is perceived from experiences that are produced at discrete points, diverse heterogeneous to the highest degree, and consequently our approximation to the aesthetic is produced in a weak, fragmentary, peripheral fashion, denying at every turn the possibility that it might ultimately be transformed definit ively into a central experience', [26] Sola-Morales writes. He defines 'event' as the fundamental ingredient of architecture and concludes as follows: "This is the strength of weakness; that strength which art and architecture are capable of producing precisely when they adopt a posture that is not aggressive and dominating, but tangential and weak' [27]
A recent issue of Daidalos [28] devoted to urban strategies, refers to Sola-Morales's essay and develops the ideas of 'weak urbanism'. The dominant trends of town planning have also been based on strong strategies and strong urban form, whereas the medieval townscape as well as the urban settings of traditional communities have grown on the bases of weak principles. Strong strategies are reinforced by the eye, the sense of distant control, whereas weak principles give rise to the haptic townscape of intimacy and participation.
A similar weak structure has also emerged in literature and cinema. The new French novel, nouveile roman, deliberately fragments the linear progression of the story and opens it up to alternative interpretations. The films of Michelangelo Antonioni and Andrel Tarkovsky, on the other hand, exemplify a weak cinematic narrative, [29] which is based on improvization, and creates a deliberate distance between the image and the narrative with the intention of weakening the logic of the story and thus creating an associative field of clustered images. Instead of being an external spectator of the narrative event, the reader/viewer is made a participant who accepts a moral responsibility for the progression of the events.
The power of weakness
The idea of fragility suggests listening and dialogue. In the early l980s, the Finnish painter Juhana Blomstedt entitled a series of his paintings 'The Listening Eye'. [30] This notion suggests a humbled gaze liberated from the desire for patriarchal domination. Perhaps, we should also conceive architecture through a listening eye. Geometry and formal reduction serve the heroic and utopian line of architecture that rejects time, whereas materiality and fragile form evoke a sense of humility and duration.
The idea of weak image in architecture seems to run parallel with the idea of 'weak force' in physics, as well as the weak processes of nature when compared to the use of excessive physical violence in our technological processes. [31] Besides, architecture is an art form of inherently weak impact compared, for instance, with the flood of emotions mobilized by theatrical, cinematic and musical experiences. The strength of architectural impact derives from its unavoidable presence as the perpetual unconscious pre-understanding of our existential condition. A distinct 'weakening' of the architectural image takes place through the processes of weathering and ruination. Erosion wipes away the layers of utility, rational logic and detail articulation, and pushes the structure into the realm of uselessness, nostalgia and melancholy. The language of matter takes over from the visual and formal effect, and the structure attains a heightened intimacy. The arrogance of perfection is replaced by a humanizing vulnerabil ity. This is why artists, photographers, filmmakers and theatre directors tend to utilize images of eroded and abandoned architecture to evoke a subtle emotional atmosphere.
In his essay on Peter Brook's manipulation of the architectural space through destruction for theatrical purposes, [32] Andrew Todd writes: 'The walls engage time in a complex way. There is an after-echo of the original bourgeois music hall form, and this is rendered profound, even tragic, by the opening up of the layers of time on the walls. The top skin which seals the imagination at a specific style or period has been scorched away, so the walls exist in an indeterminate time, part way between cultural definition and eschatological dissolution. But this is no dead ruin: Brook has not been afraid to bash the place around a little more, breaking holes, putting in doors [...]. One can also speak of another virtual patina the walls have acquired through the accruing memory of Brook's work in there'. [33] This description evokes Rainer Maria Rilke's stunning chapter in The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, where the protagonist reads the life that has been lived in an already demolished house through the trac es it has left on the end wall of the neighbouring building; in fact these are signs by which the young man reconstructs essential aspects of his childhood and self. [34] A similar weakening of architectural logic also takes place in reuse and renovation. The insertion of new functional and symbolic structures short-circuits the initial architectural logic and opens up the emotional and expressive range. It is indeed thought-provoking, that architectural settings which layer contradictory ingredients project a special charm. Often the most enjoyable museum, office or residential space is that which is fitted into a recycled building.
The ecological approach also favours an adaptive image, parallel to the inherent weakness of ecologically adapted processes. This ecological fragility is reflected in today's art, as, for instance, in the poetic works of Richard Long, Hamish Fulton, Wolfgang Leib, Andy Goldsworthy and Nils-Udo, all set in a subtle dialogue with nature. Here again, artists set an example for architects.
The art of gardening is an art form which is inherently engaged with time, change and fragile image. On the other hand, the geometric garden exemplifies the attempt to domesticate nature into patterns of man-made geometry. It is evident that the tradition of landscape and garden architecture can provide inspiration for an architecture liberated from the constraints of geometric and strong Image. The biological models, bin-mimicry, have already entered various fields of science, medicine and engineering. Why should they not be valid in architecture? It seems to me that the more subtle line of high-tech architecture is already heading in that direction.
Images of fragile architecture
The architecture of the Japanese garden, with its multitude of parallel, intertwining themes fused with nature, and its subtle juxtaposition of natural and man-made morphologies, is an inspiring example of the aesthetic power of weak form. The remarkably sensitive architecture of Dimitris Pikionis in the footpaths leading to the Acropolis In Athens, the reassuringly abstracted waterfall of Lawrence Halprin's Ira's Fountain in Portland, Oregon, and Carlo Scarpa's meticulously crafted architectural settings, are contemporary examples of an architecture that places us in a different relation to space and time than the architecture of eternal geometry. These are examples of an architecture whose full power does not rely on a singular concept or image. The work of Pikionis is a dense conversation with time and history to the degree that the design appears as a product of anonymous tradition without drawing attention to the individual creator. Halprin's designs explore the threshold between architecture and nature; they have the relaxed naturalness of scenes of nature, yet they read as a man-made counterpoint to the geological and organic world. Scarpa's architecture creates a dialogue between concept and making, visuality and tactility, artistic invention and tradition. Although his projects often seem to lack an overall guiding idea, they project an impressive experience of architectural discovery and courtesy.
Alvar Aalto's Villa Mairea [35] is, of course, an early masterpiece of the episodic architecture of fragile formal structure; it is made from a sequence of architectural parts or acts in the same way as a theatrical play consists of acts and a piece of music of movements. The composition aims at a specific ambience, a receptive emotional state, rather than the authority of form. This architecture obscures the categories of foreground and background, object and context, and evokes a liberated sense of natural duration. An architecture of courtesy and attention, it invites us to be humble, receptive and patient observers. This philosophy of compliance aspires to fulfil the humane reconciliatory task of the art of architecture.
Perspectival space and peripheral vision
The historic development of the representational techniques of space is closely tied to the development of architecture itself The perspectival understanding of space gave rise to an architecture of vision, whereas the quest to liberate the eye from its perspectival fixation has enabled the conception of multi-perspectival and simultaneous space. Perspectival space leaves us as outside observers, whereas simultaneous space encloses and enfolds us in its embrace. This is the perceptual and psychological essence of Impressionist and Cubist space; we are pulled into the space and made to experience it as a fully embodied sensation. The special reality of a Cezanne landscape, as well as of fragile architecture, derives from the way they engage our perceptual and psychological mechanisms.
While the hectic eye of the camera captures a momentary situation, a passing condition of light or an isolated, carefully framed and focused fragment, the experience of architectural reality depends fundamentally on peripheral and anticipated vision; the mere experience of interiority implies peripheral perception. The perceptual realm that we sense beyond the sphere of focused vision is as important as the focused image that can be frozen by the camera. This assumption suggests that one reason why contemporary spaces often alienate us -- compared with historical and natural settings that elicit powerful emotional engagement -- has to do with the poverty of peripheral vision. Focused vision makes us mere outside observers; peripheral perception transforms retinal images into a spatial and bodily involvement and encourages participation. That is why a photographic image is usually an unreliable witness of true architectural quality; architects would do better if they were less concerned with the photogenic qu alities of their works.
Even creative activity calls for an unfocused and undifferentiated subconscious mode of vision, [36] which is fused with integrating tactile experience. The object of a creative act is not only enfolded by the eye and the touch, it has to be introjected, identified with one's own body and existential experience. In deep thought, focused vision is blocked; thoughts travel with an absent-minded gaze. In creative work, the scientist and the artist are directly engaged with their body and existential experience rather than an external logistic problem.
The margin for tolerance and error
The ideal of strong image aspires to the perfectly articulated and final artefact. This is the Albertian aesthetic ideal of a work of art 'to which nothing can be added or subtracted'. By definition, a strong image has minimal tolerance to change and consequently it contains an inherent aesthetic vulnerability in relation to the forces of time. A weak Gestalt, on the contrary, allows additions and alterations; a fragile form possesses aesthetic tolerance, a margin for change. The criteria of tolerance also takes place on a psychological level; contemporary designs are often so constrained in their exclusive aesthetics that they create a hermetic and arrogant sense of isolation and autism, whereas a fragile structure projects a welcoming openendedness and a sense of aesthetic relaxation.
Strong image is obliged to simplify and reduce the multiplicity of problems and practicalities to condense the shapeless diversity of the task into a powerful singular image. Strong image is often reached by means of severe censoring and suppression; the clarity of image frequently contains hidden repression. Here I would like to stress that Lam not condemning the architecture of formal strength; lam merely critical of visually formalist architecture, and suggest an alternative to the prevalent reductive aesthetics of Western architectural thought. Besides, there are architects today who combine conceptual strength with sensual subtlety, like Peter Zumthor and Steven Holl. Also in the case of Luis Barragan an apparently strong image glides into the elusive world of dreams.
It was John Ruskin's view that: 'Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of process and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be, rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent [...]. And in all things that live there are certain irregularities and deficiencies, which are not only signs of life but sources of beauty'. [37]
Aalto elaborated Ruskin's idea when speaking about 'the human error' [38] and criticizing the quest for absolute truth and perfection: 'We can say that architecture always contains a human error, and in a deeper view, it is necessary; without it the richness of life and its positive qualities cannot he expressed'. [39] Architectural design usually aspires to a continuity of ideas and articulation, whereas fragile architecture seeks deliberate discontinuities. The design process of Aalto, for instance, seeks differences and discontinuities instead of a unifying logic. Elaborating an idea of Michel Foucault's, Demetri Porphyrios identified Aalto's thinking as heterotopic in opposition to the usual Modernist homotopic manner of thought. [40] Referring to discontinuities in design logic, Aalto uses the expression 'sympathetic error'. [41] He was himself a master of turning last minute design alterations or on-site mistakes into brilliant detail improvizations.
Aestheticization: beauty as a preconception
Traditional architectural environments rarely read as outstanding singular aesthetic objects; they present variations on the unselfconscious themes of tradition. Even aesthetically awkward units add up to attractive environments. The pleasurable experience of vernacular settings arises from a relaxed sense of appropriateness, causality and contextuality rather than any deliberate aspiration for preconceived beauty. In our culture of material abundance, lost in a spiritual desert, architecture has become an endangered art form. It is threatened by quasi-rational, techno-economic instrumentalization, on one hand, and the processes of commodification and aestheticization on the other. Paradoxically, architecture is simultaneously turned into objects of vulgar utility and objects of shrewd seduction.
The architecture of modernity -- and particularly of our consumerist era -- has become too consciously engaged with aesthetic effects and qualities. Our culture has aestheticized politics as well as war, and aestheticization now also threatens the art of architecture. Joseph Brodsky ventures to criticize Ezra Pound for his too direct engagement with beauty: 'The Cantos, too, left me cold; the main error was an old one: questing after beauty. For someone with such a long record of residence in Italy, it was odd that he hadn't realized that beauty can't be targeted, that it is always a by-product of other, often very ordinary pursuits'. [32]
'We should understand that beauty is not a mysterious veil thrown over a building but a logical result of having everything in the right place', [43] wrote Erik Bryggman wisely already in the early 1920s.
Focused on visual imagery and detached from social and contextual considerations, the celebrated architecture of our time -- and the publicity that attempts to convince us of its genius -- too often has an air of self-satisfaction and omnipotence. Buildings attempt to conquer the foreground instead of creating a supportive background for human activities and perceptions. Architectural projects of our day are often impudent and arrogant, and our age seems to have lost the virtue of architectural neutrality, restraint, and modesty. Authentic works of art, however, always remain suspended between certainty and uncertainty, faith and doubt. The task of responsible architects is to provide resistance to current cultural erosion and to replant buildings and cities in an authentic existential and experiential soil. At the beginning of the new millennium, architectural culture would do well to nurture productive tensions between cultural realism and artistic idealism, determination and discretion, ambition and humil ity.
This text was originally delivered by Juhani Pallasmaa for the 1999 RIBA Discourse Lecture. It was illustrated by 130 paired slides to create a counterpoint of words and images. The illustrations are a selection of the slides.
(1.) For instance; Martin Jay, Downcast Eyes -- The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth Century French Thought, University california Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1994.
David Michael Levin, Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, california, 1993.
(2.) Levin, p205.
(3.) Maurice Merleau-Ponty, 'The Film and the New Psychology'. In Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Sense and Non-Sense, Northwestern University Press, Evanston 1964, p.18.
(4.) Ashley Montagu, Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin, Harper & Row, New York, 1986 (1971), p3.
(5.) Marcel Proust, Kadonnulla aikaa etsimassa (Remembrance of Things past). Otava, Helsinki, 1968, p8.
(6.) Maurice Merleau-Ponty, 'Cezanne's Doubt', in Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Sense and Non-Sense, Northwestern University Press, Evanston 1964, p19.
(7.) The notion derives from Merleau-Ponty's dialectical principle of the intertwining of the world and the self. He also speaks of an 'ontology of the flesh' as the ultimate conclusion of his initial Phenomenology of perception. This ontology implies that meaning is both within and without, subjective and objective, spiritual and material. See Richard Kearney, 'Maurice Merleau-Ponty', Modern Movements in European Philosophy, Manchester University press, Manchester and New York 1994, pp73-90.
(8.) Montagu, pp308-309.
(9.) Montagu, pXIII.
(10.) As quoted in Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision, p14.
(11.) Karsten, Harries, 'Building and the Terror of Time', Perspecia: The Yale Architectural Journal, 19, New Haven, 1982, pp59-69.
(12.) As quoted in Mohsen Mostafavi and David Leatherbarrow, On Weathering, The MIT Press, cambridge, Mass., 1993, p76.
(13.) See On Weathering.
(14.) See John Soane, 'Crude Hints' republished in Visions of Ruin: Architectural Fantasies & Designs for Garden Follies, John Soane Museum, London, 1999.
(15.) Gaston Bachelard, 'Introduction', Water and Dreams: An Essay On the Imagination of matter (1942), Dallas Institute, Texas, 1983.
(16.) Colin StJohn Wilson, The Other Tradition of Modern Architecture, Academy Editions, London, 1995.
(17.) Erik Gunnar Asplund, 'Konstoch Teknik' (Art and Technology), Byggmastaren, 1936.
As quoted its Stuart Wrede, The Architecture of Erik Gunnar Asplund, MIT Press, cambridge, Mass, 1980, pl53.
(18.) Alvar Aalto, untitled manuscript for a lecture held its Turin, Milan, Genoa and Rome in 1956. Published partly in Italian in Alvar Aalto, 'Problemi di architettura', Quaderni ACI, Edizione Associazione Culture Italiana, Turin, 1956.
(19.) Ibid, p3.
(20.) Ibid, p4.
(21.) Vattimo introduced the notion in the late 1970s. The idea was developed in a volume of essays entitled IL pensiero debole edited by Vattimo in collaboration with Pier Aldo Rovatti. Vattimo also discusses the notion in his seminal The End of Modernity (1985), John Hopkins University press, Baltimore, 1991.
(22.) 'There is a delicate empiricism which makes itself utterly identical with the object, thereby becoming true theory'. Goethe, Goethe: Scientific Studies, Princeton University Press, 1934, p307. As quoted in David Seamon, 'Goethe, nature and Phenomenology: An Introduction', David Seamon and Arthur Zajone, Goethe's Way of Science, State University of new York Press, Albany, 1988, p2.
(23.) Distinguishing between opening and closing design strategies and artistic structures, Lawrence Halprin speaks of 'open and closed scores'.
(24.) Ignaside Sola-Morales, Differences: Topographics of Contemporary Architecture (1987), MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1997, pp57- 70.
(25.) In his recent prize-winning scheme for the Cultural City of Galicia in Spain, Eisenman generated the architectural structure semi-automatically by the traditional street pattern of the historic centre of the adjacent pilgrimage town of Santiago de Compostela and the imagery of a natural mountain top. The formal language is consequently the result of a generative process rather than distinct formal intention.
(26.) Sola-Morales, pp58 and 60.
(27.) Sola-Morales, p70
(28.) Simon Hubacker, 'Weak Urbanism', Daidalos, 72, Berlin, 1999, pp10-17.
(29.) See Juhani Pallasmaa. The Architecture of Image: Existential Space in Cinema. Unpublished book manuscript, 1999.
(30.) Harold Arnkil, Juhana Blomstedt, Weilin+Goos, Helsinki 1989.
(31.) The power of a weak force in nature can be illustrated by comparing the toughest known material of nature with that of ours. None of the man-made metals or high-strength fibres of today can come even close to the combined strength and energy-absorbing elasticity of spider dragline. The line spun by the spider is five times stronger than steel, and much tougher than polyaramid Kevlar, the material used in bullet-proof vests and facial masks; it can absorb five times the impact force of Kevlar without breaking. According to an article in Science News, 21 January 1995, a web resembling a normal fishing net in its thickness of thread and the scale of the mesh could catch a passenger plane in flight. The spider line is produced with low energy at spider body temperature whereas in the production of Kevlar petroleum-derived molecules are poured into a pressurized vat of concentrated sulphuric acid and boiled at several hundred degrees Fahrenheit to force it into a liquid crystal form. The energy input is very high and there are problematic toxic by-products. Janine M. Benyus, Biomimicry, William Morrow, New York, 1998, pp132, 135.
(32.) Andrew Todd, 'Learning from Peter Brook's Work on Theatre Space'. Unpublished manuscript, 25 September 1999.
(33.) Ibid, p4.
(34.) Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, W.W. Norton & Co, New York and London, 1992, pp47-48.
(35.) See Juhani Pallasmaa (editor), Alvar Aalto: Villa Mairea 1938-39, Alvar Aalto Foundation and Mairea Foundation, Helsinki, 1998.
(36.) For the role of unconscious vision, see Anton Ehrenzweig, The Hidden Order of Art (1967), Paladin, London, 1973.
(37.) As quoted in Gary J. Coates, Erik Asmussen, architect, Byggforlaget, Stockholm, 1997, p230.
(38.) Alvar Aalto, 'Inhimillinen Virhe' (The Human Error), Goran Schildt, editor, Nain Puhui Alvar Aalto (Thus Spoke alvar Aalto), Otava, Helsinki, 1997.
(39.) Ibid, p282.
(40.) Demetri Porphyrious, Sources of Modern Eclecticism, Academy Editions, London, 1982.
(41.) Alvar Aalto, 'Speech at the Centennial Celebration of the Faculty of Architecture', Helsinki Univerisity of Technology, 5.12.1972. Schildt, p283.
(42.) Joseph Brodsky, Watermark, Penguin Boooks, London, 1992, p70.
(43.) Erik Bryggman, 'rural Architecture', Riitta Nikula (editor), Erik Bryggman 1891-1955, Architect, Museum of Finnish Architecture, Helsinki, 1991, p279.
1 Fragile architecture - Scarpa's entrance to the Architectural Faculty of Venice University.
2 Pathology of the eye - still from Bunuel and Dali's Un Chien Andalou.
3 Significance of skin - Bonnard's scintillating Nude in a Bathtub.
4 Architecture of the muscles - steps at the Helan Shrine Garden, Tokyo.
5 Architecture and time - detail of Aalto's iconic Villa Mairea.
6 Multi-sensory experience - the town of Casares in southern Spain.
7 Image of brick--saynatsalo Town Hall by Alvar Aalto.
8 A dream of stone tomb of Giuliano de Medici by Michelangelo.
9 Image of memory and matter- Athens Wall, installation by Yannis Kounellis.
10 Imagination of form -Ledoux's Spherical House for a Bailiff.
11 Imagination of matter -- sensuous Islamic fountain.
12 Architecture of strong Image - Lethbridge University In Alberta by Arthur Erickson.
13 Architecture of fragile Image -- garden of Katsura Detached Palace.
14 Fragile art -- Broken Stones Scratched White, by Andy Goldsworthy.
15 Landscaping for Acropolis in Athens, by Dimitris Pikionis.
16 Appropriateness and humility of design -- a Finnish seal hunter's lunchbox. The boatlike object can float on bllgewater.
17 Architecture engaging peripheral vision -- Aalto's Finnish Pavilion for 1939 New York World's Fair.
18 The strength of fragility -- Pollen from Hozelnut, installation by Wolfgang Laib.
COPYRIGHT 2000 EMAP Architecture
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
Friday, October 9, 2009
How to blur the metaphysical aspects of Architecture
Statement:
Throughout time, society has come across issues of poverty and crime. Some efforts have been made to correct the minds of the unfortunate however no valid attempts have been made to revitalize them into a positive aspect of our community. The goal now is to detain, and rehabilitate into society through a means of education and integration. The facility will incorporate all means of community possible without seclusion. ***Through the use of existing conditions both in building structure and existing structure of lives to be corrected, an architectural statement will create a blur of the physical and metaphysical aspects of space and human interaction with those spaces. In order to create this “ blur “ of conditions old and new a number of provisions will be made to accommodate community interaction, educational facilities, housing, and administrative help including healthcare, and social services. The aim of such an institution is to give those less fortunate the means to re-learn many things that members of community take for granted. ***
Throughout time, society has come across issues of poverty and crime. Some efforts have been made to correct the minds of the unfortunate however no valid attempts have been made to revitalize them into a positive aspect of our community. The goal now is to detain, and rehabilitate into society through a means of education and integration. The facility will incorporate all means of community possible without seclusion. ***Through the use of existing conditions both in building structure and existing structure of lives to be corrected, an architectural statement will create a blur of the physical and metaphysical aspects of space and human interaction with those spaces. In order to create this “ blur “ of conditions old and new a number of provisions will be made to accommodate community interaction, educational facilities, housing, and administrative help including healthcare, and social services. The aim of such an institution is to give those less fortunate the means to re-learn many things that members of community take for granted. ***
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Kahn - last note on the Salk Institute
"You are driving on the roadway in La Jolla and you turn into the gravel driveway and that's when the sound changes... You stop the car and hear the last little skid of the tire on the gravel.
You open the door and step out and you hear your shoes are hitting the ground.
Seconds later, you walk onto different surface and the sound changes again. This time your steps are crushing the leaves on the ground and light filters in through the tree branches.
You are at an oblique point near the entrance gate and the stairs; you still do not see the courtyard.
You turn frontally to enter and you go up a few steps then you see the channel of the water right down the middle, in symmetry with the buildings on both sides. Your eyes follow it and immediately your mind superimposes that on the ocean itself, so it goes 'boom' and you are out to the horizon and any thought you had up to it, evaporates."
"Your thoughts are just too tiny at that moment and you have drawn into the shot. If you sit there for couple of hours as I did, you see light and shade, people traveling the courtyard and you can pick out who are familiar with the building from the way they cross over the water.
The building becomes so static, it allows you to see the world around it, changing and moving.
Therefore, the life itself is the variable, and the architecture is constant."
--Michael Rotondi
You open the door and step out and you hear your shoes are hitting the ground.
Seconds later, you walk onto different surface and the sound changes again. This time your steps are crushing the leaves on the ground and light filters in through the tree branches.
You are at an oblique point near the entrance gate and the stairs; you still do not see the courtyard.
You turn frontally to enter and you go up a few steps then you see the channel of the water right down the middle, in symmetry with the buildings on both sides. Your eyes follow it and immediately your mind superimposes that on the ocean itself, so it goes 'boom' and you are out to the horizon and any thought you had up to it, evaporates."
"Your thoughts are just too tiny at that moment and you have drawn into the shot. If you sit there for couple of hours as I did, you see light and shade, people traveling the courtyard and you can pick out who are familiar with the building from the way they cross over the water.
The building becomes so static, it allows you to see the world around it, changing and moving.
Therefore, the life itself is the variable, and the architecture is constant."
--Michael Rotondi
Labels
I just realized that we should be using generic labels for the posts - it makes it real easy to search per topic. In the least, put your name on ALL postings that are related specifically to your work. This way you can click on the label and all your work will show in one scrolling view. This is particularly good for sifting through the data for presenting the "books". This makes your work individual as the blog remains of the studio. Lets talk more Tuesday.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Thesis Draft
Creating a space for scientists to live and work in the same environment with greater significant growth through the direct contact with nature and without any distractions that they would find in everyday society. Along with the research being conducted outdoors, scientists will also have the option to work within laboratory to share information with fellow scientists and to enter into another form of tranquility. Kahn believes that art is seen through the eyes of the beholder and that certain people work better in certain atmospheres. Although we will give the scientists two options to work indoors or out, the light inside the building will still be sufficient enough to conduct the tranquil atmosphere we are trying to obtain.
Louis Kahn
"A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be unmeasurable.”
Louis Kahn
Louis Kahn
Louis Kahn
"A Work of Art...
is not a living thing ...
that walks or runs.
But the making of a life.
That which gives you a reaction.
To some it is the wonder of Man's Fingers.
To some it is the wonder of the Mind.
To some it is the wonder of Technique.
And to some it is how Real it is.
To some, how Transcendent it is.
Like the 5th Symphony
it presents itself with a feeling that you know it,
if you have heard it once.
And you look for it,
and though you know it you must hear it again.
Though you know it you must see it again.
Truly a work of Art is one that tells us,
that Nature cannot make what man can make.”
Louis Kahn
is not a living thing ...
that walks or runs.
But the making of a life.
That which gives you a reaction.
To some it is the wonder of Man's Fingers.
To some it is the wonder of the Mind.
To some it is the wonder of Technique.
And to some it is how Real it is.
To some, how Transcendent it is.
Like the 5th Symphony
it presents itself with a feeling that you know it,
if you have heard it once.
And you look for it,
and though you know it you must hear it again.
Though you know it you must see it again.
Truly a work of Art is one that tells us,
that Nature cannot make what man can make.”
Louis Kahn
More Salk Institute
Kahn said that scientist should have a refuge from the hardware of science and should be provided with an environment that the exhausted with contemplation.
Salk and Kahn both wanted each scientist to have a private "study unit" removed from the laboratories but still accessible to them.
Suggesting that great thoughts would emerge from tranquil refuges away from the mess of the labs.
Each scientist had an unobstructed view of the pacific.
Kahn believed "No space was an Architectural space unless it had natural light".
Spaces that are intended to be dark should have just enough light from some mysterious opening to tell us how dark it really is.
Kahn called light "The giver of all presences".
Kahn believed that "mass and structure of Architecture was made to cast shadows. The shadows belong to the light."
Salk and Kahn both wanted each scientist to have a private "study unit" removed from the laboratories but still accessible to them.
Suggesting that great thoughts would emerge from tranquil refuges away from the mess of the labs.
Each scientist had an unobstructed view of the pacific.
Kahn believed "No space was an Architectural space unless it had natural light".
Spaces that are intended to be dark should have just enough light from some mysterious opening to tell us how dark it really is.
Kahn called light "The giver of all presences".
Kahn believed that "mass and structure of Architecture was made to cast shadows. The shadows belong to the light."
Envisioning Information
Can you bring in the Tufte book to class so I can look into the diagrams?
Thank you.
NAAB Accreditation
October 6, 2009
To: Design 7 Thesis Faculty
From: Matthias Altwicker, Nader Vossoughian
Re: NAAB Accreditation
Our NAAB re-accreditation is coming up soon, so Matthias and I wanted to take a moment to remind you all that this year we need to make an effort to redouble our efforts to make sure our students – and our thesis students in particular – are being taught skills that fulfill the 2009 NAAB Student Performance Criteria that was circulated to all of us all earlier this week.
Below is a list of some of the specific skills that we need to be teaching in Design 7; going forward this semester, please be see to it that evidence of these skills is demonstrated in student work. Few of you will likely be able to cover all of these points; hopefully, though, together we can make an effort to cover the majority of them.
A.2. Design Thinking Skills: Ability to raise clear and precise questions, use abstract ideas to interpret information, consider diverse points of view,reach well-reasoned conclusions, and test them against relevant criteria and standards.
A. 3. Visual Communication Skills: Ability to use appropriate representational media, such as traditional graphic and digital technology skills, to convey essential formal elements at each stage of the programming and design process.
A.4. Technical Documentation: Ability to make technically clear drawings and models illustrating the assembly of materials, systems, and components appropriate for a building design.
A.5. Investigative Skills: Ability to gather, assess, record, apply, and comparatively evaluate relevant information within architectural coursework and design processes.
A. 6. Fundamental Design Skills: Ability to effectively use basic architectural and environmental principles in design.
A. 7. Use of Precedents: Ability to examine and comprehend the fundamental principles present in relevant precedents and to make choices regarding the incorporation of such principles into architecture and urban design projects.
A. 8. Ordering Systems Skills: Understanding the fundamentals of both natural and formal ordering systems and the capacity of each to inform two- and three-dimensional design.
B. 1. Pre-Design: Ability to prepare a comprehensive program for an architectural project, such as by providing an assessment of client and user needs, an inventory of space and equipment requirements, an analysis of site conditions, a review of the relevant laws and standards and assessment of their implications for the project, and a definition of site selection and design assessment criteria.
B. 2. Accessibility: Ability to design sites, facilities, and systems to provide independent and integrated use by individuals with mobility, sensory, physical and cognitive disabilities.
B. 4. Site Design: Ability to respond to site characteristics, including proper contour manipulation in the development of a project design.
B. 5. Life Safety: Ability to apply the basic principles of life-safety systems with an emphasis on egress.
B. 8. Structural Systems: Understanding of the basic principles of structural behavior in withstanding gravity and lateral forces and the evolution, range, and appropriate application of contemporary structural systems.
B. 9. Environmental Systems Integration: Understanding the principles of active and passive environmental systems, such as embodied energy, energy efficiency, indoor air quality, bioclimatic design, solar geometry, passive heating and cooling, day-lighting, carbon-neutral design, as well as the application of appropriate performance assessment tools.
B. 10. Building Envelope Systems: Understanding of the basic principles involved in the appropriate application of building envelope systems and associated assemblies relative to fundamental performance, aesthetics, durability, and energy and material resources.
B. 11. Building Service Systems Integration: Understanding of the basic principles and appropriate application and performance of building service systems such as plumbing, electrical, vertical transportation, security, and fire protection systems
B. 12. Building Materials and Assemblies Integration: Understanding of the basic principles utilized in the appropriate selection of construction materials, products, components, and assemblies, based on their inherent characteristics and performance, including their environmental impact and reuse.
C. 2. Human Behavior: Understanding of the relationship between human behavior, the natural environment and the design of the built environment.
C. 3 Research: Understanding of the role of research in evidence-based design in areas such as human behavior and building sciences.
C. 4. Client Role in Architecture: Understanding of the responsibility of the architect to elicit, understand, and reconcile the needs of the client, owner, user groups, and the public and community domains.
To: Design 7 Thesis Faculty
From: Matthias Altwicker, Nader Vossoughian
Re: NAAB Accreditation
Our NAAB re-accreditation is coming up soon, so Matthias and I wanted to take a moment to remind you all that this year we need to make an effort to redouble our efforts to make sure our students – and our thesis students in particular – are being taught skills that fulfill the 2009 NAAB Student Performance Criteria that was circulated to all of us all earlier this week.
Below is a list of some of the specific skills that we need to be teaching in Design 7; going forward this semester, please be see to it that evidence of these skills is demonstrated in student work. Few of you will likely be able to cover all of these points; hopefully, though, together we can make an effort to cover the majority of them.
A.2. Design Thinking Skills: Ability to raise clear and precise questions, use abstract ideas to interpret information, consider diverse points of view,reach well-reasoned conclusions, and test them against relevant criteria and standards.
A. 3. Visual Communication Skills: Ability to use appropriate representational media, such as traditional graphic and digital technology skills, to convey essential formal elements at each stage of the programming and design process.
A.4. Technical Documentation: Ability to make technically clear drawings and models illustrating the assembly of materials, systems, and components appropriate for a building design.
A.5. Investigative Skills: Ability to gather, assess, record, apply, and comparatively evaluate relevant information within architectural coursework and design processes.
A. 6. Fundamental Design Skills: Ability to effectively use basic architectural and environmental principles in design.
A. 7. Use of Precedents: Ability to examine and comprehend the fundamental principles present in relevant precedents and to make choices regarding the incorporation of such principles into architecture and urban design projects.
A. 8. Ordering Systems Skills: Understanding the fundamentals of both natural and formal ordering systems and the capacity of each to inform two- and three-dimensional design.
B. 1. Pre-Design: Ability to prepare a comprehensive program for an architectural project, such as by providing an assessment of client and user needs, an inventory of space and equipment requirements, an analysis of site conditions, a review of the relevant laws and standards and assessment of their implications for the project, and a definition of site selection and design assessment criteria.
B. 2. Accessibility: Ability to design sites, facilities, and systems to provide independent and integrated use by individuals with mobility, sensory, physical and cognitive disabilities.
B. 4. Site Design: Ability to respond to site characteristics, including proper contour manipulation in the development of a project design.
B. 5. Life Safety: Ability to apply the basic principles of life-safety systems with an emphasis on egress.
B. 8. Structural Systems: Understanding of the basic principles of structural behavior in withstanding gravity and lateral forces and the evolution, range, and appropriate application of contemporary structural systems.
B. 9. Environmental Systems Integration: Understanding the principles of active and passive environmental systems, such as embodied energy, energy efficiency, indoor air quality, bioclimatic design, solar geometry, passive heating and cooling, day-lighting, carbon-neutral design, as well as the application of appropriate performance assessment tools.
B. 10. Building Envelope Systems: Understanding of the basic principles involved in the appropriate application of building envelope systems and associated assemblies relative to fundamental performance, aesthetics, durability, and energy and material resources.
B. 11. Building Service Systems Integration: Understanding of the basic principles and appropriate application and performance of building service systems such as plumbing, electrical, vertical transportation, security, and fire protection systems
B. 12. Building Materials and Assemblies Integration: Understanding of the basic principles utilized in the appropriate selection of construction materials, products, components, and assemblies, based on their inherent characteristics and performance, including their environmental impact and reuse.
C. 2. Human Behavior: Understanding of the relationship between human behavior, the natural environment and the design of the built environment.
C. 3 Research: Understanding of the role of research in evidence-based design in areas such as human behavior and building sciences.
C. 4. Client Role in Architecture: Understanding of the responsibility of the architect to elicit, understand, and reconcile the needs of the client, owner, user groups, and the public and community domains.
NYIT Design 7 and 8: Introductory Statement
NYIT Design 7 and 8: Introductory Statement
Coordinators: Professors Matthias Altwicker and Nader Vossoughian
October 2009
I. The Thesis Sequence: What it is, and what constitutes a successful thesis
The thesis sequence is the capstone course of the B.Arch. program at NYIT. It summarizes and demonstrates the competencies required for the professional architectural degree. It allows students the chance to conduct original, independent research on topics they develop in collaboration with their critic. It also permits them the opportunity to confront architectural problems that are meaningful to them personally, and which bear relevance to the field of architecture as a whole.
What is an architectural problem, and what constitutes a successful thesis? There is no single way of answering the first question – definitions of architecture vary greatly, and you and your instructors should be clear about what this term means at the outset of the semester. There are, however, standards for evaluating a successful project, and we can boil them down to three basic criteria: rigor, originality, and relevance. These are not the only criteria that matter in architecture. They are also not definitive (there are lots of other things that are important, and your critic will clarify them to you). They should serve, however, as a starting point through which to frame and make accessible some of the values that are important to advanced undergraduate architectural study. Again, your thesis critic will be responsible for defining in more careful detail what each of these terms means.
First a statement about rigor. A successful thesis is about something. It tells us a story. It makes an argument. It concentrates on issues and interprets them. What are the issues that matter to you? What is your particular attitude toward the issue or set of issues you are interested in? How do you arrive at your interpretation (i.e., what processes, research methods, and/or strategies will guide your investigations)? How can architecture give expression to the things you are interested in exploring? How can you best communicate what your thesis is about? Will others understand what your thesis is about, and if so, how do you know?
Now to originality and relevance. What makes my thesis unique? Do I know something about the history and context behind my thesis? What makes my thesis different from what others have done? Why does my thesis matter? Why do I care about my thesis? Why should architects (or students of architecture) care about my thesis?
If you can answer all the questions above by the end of your first thesis semester, you are not guaranteed to succeed; you will, however, be well on your way, particularly if you address these questions in a visually, spatially, and verbally rich and inventive way.
To help you get started, you are encouraged to read widely, see lots of stuff (e.g., exhibits and buildings), think hard, and take chances. You are encouraged to visit the 2009 thesis exhibition in Education Hall on the Old Westbury campus. (What did they do well? What did they not do as well?) You should also document your dialogue with your instructor, your classmates, your own work, and the world at large (a blog or sketch book could be very useful in this regard!)
II. What You Will Be Expected to Produce in Thesis
This year will be unique from prior thesis years at NYIT in that you will be required to produce both a publication and an exhibit. The exhibit is what you have always already been doing since you arrived, but with a twist: it is a two, three, and/or four-dimensional explanation of your thesis. It is presented, however, in a manner that is appropriate to your audience, i.e., it has to be legible and comprehensible to a jury. You need to think about form (how you communicate your ideas graphically and rhetorically) and not just content (what your thesis is about). You will also need to produce a 30” x 40” board that synthesizes the main arguments of your thesis, and the precise area of your analysis, and that will need to be submitted for the Design 7 and Design 8 walk-thrus prior to the end of the semester.
The publication part is unique in that it should, on its own, without you standing in the room, make accessible the intentions, ideas, arguments, and conclusions of your thesis in a succinct, two-dimensional format. It should be something you can potentially upload onto the web. It should be something that could readily be adapted to become part of your permanent portfolio. It should be a document that you would be proud to leave behind at the NYIT Architectural Library in Education Hall or the 1855 Broadway building so that other students can refer back to it.
On the opening page, there should be a (i) abstract or project statement (maximum 250 words) that describes what your thesis is about. Apart from that, we ask that you include in your booklet a section that (ii) gives some background to your project, (iii) a project description/documentation tied to the concept for your project, (iv) photographs of models and drawings (titled and properly cited) for your project, (v.) a conclusion statement, and (vi.) an acknowledgement section.
Your publication (and the abstract in particular) will be reviewed by the thesis Coordinators between the final review of Design 7 and the start of Design 8.
Both your publication and exhibit should show give evidence of your skills as an aspiring architect, at least as outlined by the Performance Criteria of the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) (speak to your critic for more information about what this means).
As far as length is concerned, your publication can be as comprehensive as you like. Your exhibit, however, should include only the most vital information – it should be something that any reasonably well-educated, advanced student can see and understand in under 10 minutes. In the past, jurors have dedicated inordinate amounts of time to simply understanding what students are after. This year, we would like to have you work on clarifying and distilling your ideas before you come to the jury so that more time can be dedicated to discussion and open dialogue.
We would also like to reduce the amount of time that juries as a whole absorb. Juries are, indeed, an extraordinary opportunity for students and faculty to come and share their thoughts in a public way. They can also be an unbelievable drain on one’s time unless they are focused and directed. In the real world, time is money, for good or for bad, and proposals need to be presented succinctly and crisply to clients. Why can’t we also expect the same thing in an academic setting? Why do we not spend more time honing how we want to say what we say, and not just what we say?
III. Thesis: What should be Produced When
Your thesis publication and exhibit will both need to be produced jointly over the course of the academic year; that is to say, you should make progress on both simultaneously over the course of Design 7 and 8. Here are some guidelines that should help direct your progress.
First, design and agree to a schedule for completing both your publication and exhibit in partnership with your critic. Break down your publication and exhibit into parts, and ask yourself what will be produced when. By when will I have my thesis abstract ready? By when will I outline a draft for my thesis? By when will I outline the history and context for my thesis? By when will I document its relevance? Obviously, your responses to all of these questions will change over the course of the semester (they should change, actually). What they will give you, however, is a set of references points you can come back to modify and rethink your thoughts and arguments. They will also give you and your critic a set of clearly outlined goals and expectations you can refer back to in order to figure out what you need to work on and develop.
By the end of the first semester, you should be able to say in five minutes or less what your thesis is about, why it is relevant, why we should care, and why it is original (though not necessarily in that order). You should also have a draft of your publication prepared, and that draft should at the very least document the research you have produced thus far. In your publication and juried presentation, you should be able to offer a vision for how you will execute your completed thesis during Design 8.
In Design 8, your completed project – both the juried presentation (or “exhibit”) and the booklet – should explain visually, spatially, and verbally what your thesis is about, why it is relevant, and why it is original. Critics or jurors should be able to evaluate and understand the publication without you standing in the room explaining it. It should be written in clear and compelling terms.
IV. Thesis: What Students Can Expect, What Critics can Expect
Students can expect that critics will state clearly and in writing the specific ambitions and expectations for their specific thesis studio. They will also provide a statement to you about what rigor means, what originality means (to the extent that it can be defined), and what relevance means. Conversely, critics can expect that students will state clearly and in writing their personal goals for thesis studio (i.e., what are you actually interested in?), how they intend to achieve their goals, and by when they intend to achieve them.
Furthermore, both students and critics will be able to call upon studio coordinators – as well as their classmates – for support and feedback. To facilitate receiving support, critics are encouraged to help students establish blogs (private or public blogs) that allow them to document their work; there will be a series of events and gatherings over the year in order to allow students the chance to meet other critics and the coordinators.
Thesis Coordinators will also be holding office hours. Professor Vossoughian will primarily (though not exclusively) act as coordinator for Thesis critics and students on the Manhattan campus; Professor Altwicker will do so on the Old Westbury critic, again primarily though not exclusively.
Professors Vossoughian and Altwicker will also be available to answer questions and concerns by email. Professor Vossoughian can be reached at nvossoug@gmail.com. Professor Altwicker can be reached at maltwick@nyit.edu.
V. Important Dates
What are the important dates that students and faculty need to bear in mind? The final reviews of Design 7 and Design 8 are of course the most important deadlines. For the Fall Semester, reviews will fall on December 21 (for Manhattan students) and December 22 (for Old Westbury students). The walk-thru, moreover, will be held on December 18th.
Aside from those, we ask that students draft and submit for review an abstract (again, in 250 words or less) describing their thesis project by the midterm review of Design 7 (in other words, during the week of October 18-23). The abstract will need to be approved by your design instructor. It can obviously be modified over the year – it should be modified, in fact – but it is important that you make this first important step toward formulating and developing a thesis, and early on in the process, if possible.
In addition to the reviews, we intend to organize a series of events to promote discussion and interaction amongst the studios and the two campuses. One important date that you can already mark on your calendar is Saturday, November 14th, 12-3pm – that’s the date when we will be making a group outing to the MoMA to see the new Bauhaus exhibit that is about to open there (we will meet at 16 W. 61st Street on the 11th Floor).
V. Thesis Will Be Difficult but Fun
Thesis is the the capstone course in the studio curriculum at NYIT. It is not your magnum opus. It reveals what you have learned, and what you still need to learn. It It should be extraordinarily challenging. It should also, at some point, be fun. You are going to spend 9, maybe 10 months on this project, so it is vital that it be personally meaningful to you, as well as something that demonstrates your capacities as a designer and architect.
Coordinators: Professors Matthias Altwicker and Nader Vossoughian
October 2009
I. The Thesis Sequence: What it is, and what constitutes a successful thesis
The thesis sequence is the capstone course of the B.Arch. program at NYIT. It summarizes and demonstrates the competencies required for the professional architectural degree. It allows students the chance to conduct original, independent research on topics they develop in collaboration with their critic. It also permits them the opportunity to confront architectural problems that are meaningful to them personally, and which bear relevance to the field of architecture as a whole.
What is an architectural problem, and what constitutes a successful thesis? There is no single way of answering the first question – definitions of architecture vary greatly, and you and your instructors should be clear about what this term means at the outset of the semester. There are, however, standards for evaluating a successful project, and we can boil them down to three basic criteria: rigor, originality, and relevance. These are not the only criteria that matter in architecture. They are also not definitive (there are lots of other things that are important, and your critic will clarify them to you). They should serve, however, as a starting point through which to frame and make accessible some of the values that are important to advanced undergraduate architectural study. Again, your thesis critic will be responsible for defining in more careful detail what each of these terms means.
First a statement about rigor. A successful thesis is about something. It tells us a story. It makes an argument. It concentrates on issues and interprets them. What are the issues that matter to you? What is your particular attitude toward the issue or set of issues you are interested in? How do you arrive at your interpretation (i.e., what processes, research methods, and/or strategies will guide your investigations)? How can architecture give expression to the things you are interested in exploring? How can you best communicate what your thesis is about? Will others understand what your thesis is about, and if so, how do you know?
Now to originality and relevance. What makes my thesis unique? Do I know something about the history and context behind my thesis? What makes my thesis different from what others have done? Why does my thesis matter? Why do I care about my thesis? Why should architects (or students of architecture) care about my thesis?
If you can answer all the questions above by the end of your first thesis semester, you are not guaranteed to succeed; you will, however, be well on your way, particularly if you address these questions in a visually, spatially, and verbally rich and inventive way.
To help you get started, you are encouraged to read widely, see lots of stuff (e.g., exhibits and buildings), think hard, and take chances. You are encouraged to visit the 2009 thesis exhibition in Education Hall on the Old Westbury campus. (What did they do well? What did they not do as well?) You should also document your dialogue with your instructor, your classmates, your own work, and the world at large (a blog or sketch book could be very useful in this regard!)
II. What You Will Be Expected to Produce in Thesis
This year will be unique from prior thesis years at NYIT in that you will be required to produce both a publication and an exhibit. The exhibit is what you have always already been doing since you arrived, but with a twist: it is a two, three, and/or four-dimensional explanation of your thesis. It is presented, however, in a manner that is appropriate to your audience, i.e., it has to be legible and comprehensible to a jury. You need to think about form (how you communicate your ideas graphically and rhetorically) and not just content (what your thesis is about). You will also need to produce a 30” x 40” board that synthesizes the main arguments of your thesis, and the precise area of your analysis, and that will need to be submitted for the Design 7 and Design 8 walk-thrus prior to the end of the semester.
The publication part is unique in that it should, on its own, without you standing in the room, make accessible the intentions, ideas, arguments, and conclusions of your thesis in a succinct, two-dimensional format. It should be something you can potentially upload onto the web. It should be something that could readily be adapted to become part of your permanent portfolio. It should be a document that you would be proud to leave behind at the NYIT Architectural Library in Education Hall or the 1855 Broadway building so that other students can refer back to it.
On the opening page, there should be a (i) abstract or project statement (maximum 250 words) that describes what your thesis is about. Apart from that, we ask that you include in your booklet a section that (ii) gives some background to your project, (iii) a project description/documentation tied to the concept for your project, (iv) photographs of models and drawings (titled and properly cited) for your project, (v.) a conclusion statement, and (vi.) an acknowledgement section.
Your publication (and the abstract in particular) will be reviewed by the thesis Coordinators between the final review of Design 7 and the start of Design 8.
Both your publication and exhibit should show give evidence of your skills as an aspiring architect, at least as outlined by the Performance Criteria of the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) (speak to your critic for more information about what this means).
As far as length is concerned, your publication can be as comprehensive as you like. Your exhibit, however, should include only the most vital information – it should be something that any reasonably well-educated, advanced student can see and understand in under 10 minutes. In the past, jurors have dedicated inordinate amounts of time to simply understanding what students are after. This year, we would like to have you work on clarifying and distilling your ideas before you come to the jury so that more time can be dedicated to discussion and open dialogue.
We would also like to reduce the amount of time that juries as a whole absorb. Juries are, indeed, an extraordinary opportunity for students and faculty to come and share their thoughts in a public way. They can also be an unbelievable drain on one’s time unless they are focused and directed. In the real world, time is money, for good or for bad, and proposals need to be presented succinctly and crisply to clients. Why can’t we also expect the same thing in an academic setting? Why do we not spend more time honing how we want to say what we say, and not just what we say?
III. Thesis: What should be Produced When
Your thesis publication and exhibit will both need to be produced jointly over the course of the academic year; that is to say, you should make progress on both simultaneously over the course of Design 7 and 8. Here are some guidelines that should help direct your progress.
First, design and agree to a schedule for completing both your publication and exhibit in partnership with your critic. Break down your publication and exhibit into parts, and ask yourself what will be produced when. By when will I have my thesis abstract ready? By when will I outline a draft for my thesis? By when will I outline the history and context for my thesis? By when will I document its relevance? Obviously, your responses to all of these questions will change over the course of the semester (they should change, actually). What they will give you, however, is a set of references points you can come back to modify and rethink your thoughts and arguments. They will also give you and your critic a set of clearly outlined goals and expectations you can refer back to in order to figure out what you need to work on and develop.
By the end of the first semester, you should be able to say in five minutes or less what your thesis is about, why it is relevant, why we should care, and why it is original (though not necessarily in that order). You should also have a draft of your publication prepared, and that draft should at the very least document the research you have produced thus far. In your publication and juried presentation, you should be able to offer a vision for how you will execute your completed thesis during Design 8.
In Design 8, your completed project – both the juried presentation (or “exhibit”) and the booklet – should explain visually, spatially, and verbally what your thesis is about, why it is relevant, and why it is original. Critics or jurors should be able to evaluate and understand the publication without you standing in the room explaining it. It should be written in clear and compelling terms.
IV. Thesis: What Students Can Expect, What Critics can Expect
Students can expect that critics will state clearly and in writing the specific ambitions and expectations for their specific thesis studio. They will also provide a statement to you about what rigor means, what originality means (to the extent that it can be defined), and what relevance means. Conversely, critics can expect that students will state clearly and in writing their personal goals for thesis studio (i.e., what are you actually interested in?), how they intend to achieve their goals, and by when they intend to achieve them.
Furthermore, both students and critics will be able to call upon studio coordinators – as well as their classmates – for support and feedback. To facilitate receiving support, critics are encouraged to help students establish blogs (private or public blogs) that allow them to document their work; there will be a series of events and gatherings over the year in order to allow students the chance to meet other critics and the coordinators.
Thesis Coordinators will also be holding office hours. Professor Vossoughian will primarily (though not exclusively) act as coordinator for Thesis critics and students on the Manhattan campus; Professor Altwicker will do so on the Old Westbury critic, again primarily though not exclusively.
Professors Vossoughian and Altwicker will also be available to answer questions and concerns by email. Professor Vossoughian can be reached at nvossoug@gmail.com. Professor Altwicker can be reached at maltwick@nyit.edu.
V. Important Dates
What are the important dates that students and faculty need to bear in mind? The final reviews of Design 7 and Design 8 are of course the most important deadlines. For the Fall Semester, reviews will fall on December 21 (for Manhattan students) and December 22 (for Old Westbury students). The walk-thru, moreover, will be held on December 18th.
Aside from those, we ask that students draft and submit for review an abstract (again, in 250 words or less) describing their thesis project by the midterm review of Design 7 (in other words, during the week of October 18-23). The abstract will need to be approved by your design instructor. It can obviously be modified over the year – it should be modified, in fact – but it is important that you make this first important step toward formulating and developing a thesis, and early on in the process, if possible.
In addition to the reviews, we intend to organize a series of events to promote discussion and interaction amongst the studios and the two campuses. One important date that you can already mark on your calendar is Saturday, November 14th, 12-3pm – that’s the date when we will be making a group outing to the MoMA to see the new Bauhaus exhibit that is about to open there (we will meet at 16 W. 61st Street on the 11th Floor).
V. Thesis Will Be Difficult but Fun
Thesis is the the capstone course in the studio curriculum at NYIT. It is not your magnum opus. It reveals what you have learned, and what you still need to learn. It It should be extraordinarily challenging. It should also, at some point, be fun. You are going to spend 9, maybe 10 months on this project, so it is vital that it be personally meaningful to you, as well as something that demonstrates your capacities as a designer and architect.
Re: thesis scheduling
Nader,
Below is a link to our Thesis Studio Blog. We have started posting data and research information toward finding intent for each student project (we are all pretty much on track). We will be more organized and comprehensive by the mid-review in two weeks. Our plan to present the blog as a studio "book" that will be available for examination not only at the end of each semester, but throughout the year. It will be a complete, wide-ranging overview of our expedition as the studio forms its ideas, surveys, analysis, constructions and final presentation.
I encourage you to comment in the blog. At the mid-review we will send the site to all of the thesis faculty, department chairs and the dean for commentary and critique.
This e-mail will post directly to the blog as it is my aim to provide open communication to the students. I will post the revised NYIT Design 7 and 8: Introductory Statement and the NAAB Accreditation memo as a follow-up to this posting.
http://codythesis0910.blogspot.com/
We all look forward to reading your views, critique and inspiration and hope to see you in the studio!
Robert Cody
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Progress
Over the next week everyone must make process models that describe the primary aspects of your thesis concept and outline the main parts of its program.
Diagram these and present them on Thursday.
The first presentation will be short – a description of the studio intentions and what you have found to be important aspects of community space. Next are the critiques of the D# projects. Take notes in relation to your work. End with a group discussion about where the D3 class should go with their ideas and how you will use what you have seen in your work. Post the notes on the blog. Please do sketches as well.As for selection of a site. Some of you already have a site, some have an idea where and two have no site. My advice is, aside from the Nik and Stacy with no site, pick something and stick with it through to the mid term.
Nik – you need to find a place as big as your program. Where could this be? Any ideas from the studio?? Keep going with the inside-out transparency studies. Map out for everyone what each of your models is about and how you are beginning to fine results in your study.
Stacy – no site for now – keep modeling the idea of the program and do build a model that begins to demonstrate the varying scale of your program.
Jenn – model the overlapping cultures. Perhaps you should modify the Queens map to show the overlaps of the cultures. The boundaries are much more fuzzy and overlapping than the diagram suggests.
Matt – build something to represent the scale of the site and its relationship to the market. How many veggies from the field fit in a crate and how much area is required per crate? This might tell you how the outside farmers interact and sell their produce. The market is the key here
Steven – we need to see a model relating time and space. Like we said, your project is a timepiece, a continuous loop of events that lace the monks, the retreat and the visiting public. Model that loop. I will post Tshumi Sequnces – all should read it if you haven’t already.
Derek – we missed you today. Let’s see what you have.
Dennis – model the two spaces and how they become a third. Perhaps one model shows how they combine to become and interior volume and another could show how the spaces converge to open out to an exterior space.
Brian – Lets see the brainstorming session on the blog. Make notes and sketches about your intentions. Describe who you think this place is for and how they will use it. Lets all give Brian a hand in making some decisions in program. Pick three potential sites and present them and determine a program that is about the site selection.
Diagram these and present them on Thursday.
The first presentation will be short – a description of the studio intentions and what you have found to be important aspects of community space. Next are the critiques of the D# projects. Take notes in relation to your work. End with a group discussion about where the D3 class should go with their ideas and how you will use what you have seen in your work. Post the notes on the blog. Please do sketches as well.As for selection of a site. Some of you already have a site, some have an idea where and two have no site. My advice is, aside from the Nik and Stacy with no site, pick something and stick with it through to the mid term.
Nik – you need to find a place as big as your program. Where could this be? Any ideas from the studio?? Keep going with the inside-out transparency studies. Map out for everyone what each of your models is about and how you are beginning to fine results in your study.
Stacy – no site for now – keep modeling the idea of the program and do build a model that begins to demonstrate the varying scale of your program.
Jenn – model the overlapping cultures. Perhaps you should modify the Queens map to show the overlaps of the cultures. The boundaries are much more fuzzy and overlapping than the diagram suggests.
Matt – build something to represent the scale of the site and its relationship to the market. How many veggies from the field fit in a crate and how much area is required per crate? This might tell you how the outside farmers interact and sell their produce. The market is the key here
Steven – we need to see a model relating time and space. Like we said, your project is a timepiece, a continuous loop of events that lace the monks, the retreat and the visiting public. Model that loop. I will post Tshumi Sequnces – all should read it if you haven’t already.
Derek – we missed you today. Let’s see what you have.
Dennis – model the two spaces and how they become a third. Perhaps one model shows how they combine to become and interior volume and another could show how the spaces converge to open out to an exterior space.
Brian – Lets see the brainstorming session on the blog. Make notes and sketches about your intentions. Describe who you think this place is for and how they will use it. Lets all give Brian a hand in making some decisions in program. Pick three potential sites and present them and determine a program that is about the site selection.
Thursday - October 8th
All,
We will be meeting with Amoia D3 studio this Thursday - October 8th - 9am. If some cannot attend - I understand, but lets all try to make it sometime during the 4 hrs. We will address our studio as a group in the beginning and agian at the end. Since we will meet on Thursday - no class on Friday. The important thing about the review Thursday is taking notes and providing analysis of public space presented by the D3 students. The notes must be posted on the blog and will be shared as critique for the D3 students on their blog. We will discuss more today. Pin-up in the main space.
RC
We will be meeting with Amoia D3 studio this Thursday - October 8th - 9am. If some cannot attend - I understand, but lets all try to make it sometime during the 4 hrs. We will address our studio as a group in the beginning and agian at the end. Since we will meet on Thursday - no class on Friday. The important thing about the review Thursday is taking notes and providing analysis of public space presented by the D3 students. The notes must be posted on the blog and will be shared as critique for the D3 students on their blog. We will discuss more today. Pin-up in the main space.
RC
More posts
All,
I just want to remind you that in order for the blog to work as substitution for the required “book", you all need to post more notes, data, sketches, photos of models and precedent images and analysis. Also, everyone should be commenting on each others work. This communication is what makes a real interactive studio that a printed book can never offer.
RC
I just want to remind you that in order for the blog to work as substitution for the required “book", you all need to post more notes, data, sketches, photos of models and precedent images and analysis. Also, everyone should be commenting on each others work. This communication is what makes a real interactive studio that a printed book can never offer.
RC
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Le Corbusier
Steven - this is what we were talking about:
La Tourette - Cross seen upon entry made by chimney stack and bridge
Friday, October 2, 2009
CSX Train Website
Heres a link to the Freight Train line that runs adjacent to my site. There is an interactive map that allows you to see where the different tain lines run.
https://www.csx.com/?fuseaction=about.map
https://www.csx.com/?fuseaction=about.map
Book?
Prof.
Do you have the book "Utopias and Architecture" by Nathaniel Coleman? There is a chapter in the book about La Tourette and the Library doesn't have it..
Steve
Do you have the book "Utopias and Architecture" by Nathaniel Coleman? There is a chapter in the book about La Tourette and the Library doesn't have it..
Steve
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Venn Diagram
A Venn diagram is an illustration of the relationships between and among sets, groups of objects that share something in common. Usually, Venn diagrams are used to depict set intersections (denoted by an upside-down letter U). This type of diagram is used in scientific and engineering presentations, in theoretical mathematics, in computer applications, and in statistics.
The drawing is an example of a Venn diagram that shows the relationship among three overlapping sets X, Y, and Z. The intersection relation is defined as the equivalent of the logic AND. An element is a member of the intersection of two sets if and only if that element is a member of both sets. Venn diagrams are generally drawn within a large rectangle that denotes the universe, the set of all elements under consideration.
In this example, points that belong to none of the sets X, Y, or Z are gray. Points belonging only to set X are cyan in color; points belonging only to set Y are magenta; points belonging only to set Z are yellow. Points belonging to X and Y but not to Z are blue; points belonging to Y and Z but not to X are red; points belonging to X and Z but not to Y are green. Points contained in all three sets are black.
Here is a practical example of how a Venn diagram can illustrate a situation. Let the universe be the set of all computers in the world. Let X represent the set of all notebook computers in the world. Let Y represent the set of all computers in the world that are connected to the Internet. Let Z represent the set of all computers in the world that have anti-virus software installed. If you have a notebook computer and surf the Net, but you are not worried about viruses, your computer is probably represented by a point in the blue region. If you get concerned about computer viruses and install an anti-virus program, the point representing your computer will move into the black area.
Illustration of the concept of overlapping communities
a, The black dot in the middle represents either of the authors of this paper, with several of his communities around. Zooming in on the scientific community demonstrates the nested and overlapping structure of the communities, and depicting the cascades of communities starting from some members exemplifies the interwoven structure of the network of communities. b, Divisive and agglomerative methods grossly fail to identify the communities when overlaps are significant. c, An example of overlapping k-clique communities at k = 4. The yellow community overlaps the blue one in a single node, whereas it shares two nodes and a link with the green one. These overlapping regions are emphasized in red. Notice that any k-clique (complete subgraph of size k) can be reached only from the k-cliques of the same community through a series of adjacent k-cliques. Two k-cliques are adjacent if they share k - 1 nodes.
The Hannover Principles
The Hannover Principles
Insist on rights of humanity and nature to co-exist in a healthy, supportive, diverse and sustainable condition.
Recognize interdependence. The elements of human design interact with and depend upon the natural world, with broad and diverse implications at every scale. Expand design considerations to recognizing even distant effects.
Respect relationships between spirit and matter. Consider all aspects of human settlement including community, dwelling, industry and trade in terms of existing and evolving connections between spiritual and material consciousness.
Accept responsibility for the consequences of design decisions upon human well-being, the viability of natural systems, and their right to co-exist.
Create safe objects of long-term value. Do not burden future generations with requirements for maintenance of vigilant administration of potential danger due to the careless creation of products, processes or standards.
Eliminate the concept of waste. Evaluate and optimize the full life-cycle of products and processes, to approach the state of natural systems, in which there is no waste.
Rely on natural energy flows. Human designs should, like the living world, derive their creative forces from perpetual solar income. Incorporate the energy efficiently and safely for responsible use.
Understand the limitations of design. No human creation lasts forever and design does not solve all problems. Those who create and plan should practice humility in the face of nature. Treat nature as a model and mentor, not and inconvenience to be evaded or controlled.
Seek constant improvement by the sharing of knowledge. Encourage direct and open communication between colleagues, patrons, manufacturers and users to link long term sustainable considerations with ethical responsibility, and re-establish the integral relationship between natural processes and human activity.
The Hannover Principles should be seen as a living document committed to the transformation and growth in the understanding of our interdependence with nature, so that they may adapt as our knowledge of the world evolves
Insist on rights of humanity and nature to co-exist in a healthy, supportive, diverse and sustainable condition.
Recognize interdependence. The elements of human design interact with and depend upon the natural world, with broad and diverse implications at every scale. Expand design considerations to recognizing even distant effects.
Respect relationships between spirit and matter. Consider all aspects of human settlement including community, dwelling, industry and trade in terms of existing and evolving connections between spiritual and material consciousness.
Accept responsibility for the consequences of design decisions upon human well-being, the viability of natural systems, and their right to co-exist.
Create safe objects of long-term value. Do not burden future generations with requirements for maintenance of vigilant administration of potential danger due to the careless creation of products, processes or standards.
Eliminate the concept of waste. Evaluate and optimize the full life-cycle of products and processes, to approach the state of natural systems, in which there is no waste.
Rely on natural energy flows. Human designs should, like the living world, derive their creative forces from perpetual solar income. Incorporate the energy efficiently and safely for responsible use.
Understand the limitations of design. No human creation lasts forever and design does not solve all problems. Those who create and plan should practice humility in the face of nature. Treat nature as a model and mentor, not and inconvenience to be evaded or controlled.
Seek constant improvement by the sharing of knowledge. Encourage direct and open communication between colleagues, patrons, manufacturers and users to link long term sustainable considerations with ethical responsibility, and re-establish the integral relationship between natural processes and human activity.
The Hannover Principles should be seen as a living document committed to the transformation and growth in the understanding of our interdependence with nature, so that they may adapt as our knowledge of the world evolves
Dear Thesis Faculty:
Week of October 19-23: Midterm Reviews
Please schedule your midterm reviews for this week, and pair up with another studio to exchange progress. Typically the whole week is used for reviews - one studio on Tuesday and the other on Friday. The pairing up can cross campuses as well. When you have paired up let us know with a quick email.
Saturday, November 14: MOMA-Bauhaus exhibition visit
Our idea for a group event is a visit to the Bauhaus exhibition that is coming to MOMA. Having just seen it in Berlin I can tell you it is worth a visit. While the precise event is still in the works, we will be able to send in the students in groups of 25.
Friday December 11: Walk-Thru, 2009 Version.
For those of you unfamiliar with the thesis walk-thru, it is a meeting between all thesis faculty to look at the work from both campuses produced in the Design 7 studios. It is simultaneously 1) a way to collect work for accreditation 2) a way to exchange teaching methodolgies 3) an opportunity to discuss particular student projects that might be unsatisfactory in the eyes of the studio critic. Each student is responsible to produce a 30x40 board describing their project (both digital and hardcopy); these will be collected and retained for accreditation.
Nader and I would like the walk-thru to work hand in hand with the book that is to be submitted at the end of the semester. (The parameters for this document will be outlined in a separate email). At the walk-thru, each professor will use the boards to explain their studio methodology, but not each project in particular. A studio critic may voice concern over a particular student's work, but this is only for us to make note of for further review and feedback. Detailed scrutiny and feedback of both particular projects and studio methodology - which is the real advantage of having all of us look at each student's work - can only occur over the break while looking at the books, after understanding the studio methodology.
Monday / Tuesday December 14-15: Design 7 Final Juries
Monday in Manhattan, Tuesday in Old Westbury. Rooms will be assigned. If you intend to change your date you must alert us of this immediately.
thanks and see you soon,
Matt and Nader
Please schedule your midterm reviews for this week, and pair up with another studio to exchange progress. Typically the whole week is used for reviews - one studio on Tuesday and the other on Friday. The pairing up can cross campuses as well. When you have paired up let us know with a quick email.
Saturday, November 14: MOMA-Bauhaus exhibition visit
Our idea for a group event is a visit to the Bauhaus exhibition that is coming to MOMA. Having just seen it in Berlin I can tell you it is worth a visit. While the precise event is still in the works, we will be able to send in the students in groups of 25.
Friday December 11: Walk-Thru, 2009 Version.
For those of you unfamiliar with the thesis walk-thru, it is a meeting between all thesis faculty to look at the work from both campuses produced in the Design 7 studios. It is simultaneously 1) a way to collect work for accreditation 2) a way to exchange teaching methodolgies 3) an opportunity to discuss particular student projects that might be unsatisfactory in the eyes of the studio critic. Each student is responsible to produce a 30x40 board describing their project (both digital and hardcopy); these will be collected and retained for accreditation.
Nader and I would like the walk-thru to work hand in hand with the book that is to be submitted at the end of the semester. (The parameters for this document will be outlined in a separate email). At the walk-thru, each professor will use the boards to explain their studio methodology, but not each project in particular. A studio critic may voice concern over a particular student's work, but this is only for us to make note of for further review and feedback. Detailed scrutiny and feedback of both particular projects and studio methodology - which is the real advantage of having all of us look at each student's work - can only occur over the break while looking at the books, after understanding the studio methodology.
Monday / Tuesday December 14-15: Design 7 Final Juries
Monday in Manhattan, Tuesday in Old Westbury. Rooms will be assigned. If you intend to change your date you must alert us of this immediately.
thanks and see you soon,
Matt and Nader
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