Site: Dallas, TX

New Thesis

I am going to pursue a question that I have yet to document: 'What makes it difficult to build?'. The answer seems to rely on the logistics of construction, combined with the role of the responsible architect to design an easy-to-build, yet ambitious project. Furthermore, I would like to address the principles of economics within the buildings through an analysis of budgeting and opportunities within the field of architecture.

One direction I would like to focus my attention to is the construction of the building, by analyzing site management. An underlying issue is the lack of 'spacial flexibility', as I was told. However, I think that it would be defined as 'flexibility of spacial use'.

Andrea Kahn: Defining Urban Sites

Andrea Kahn talks mostly about the process of defining a site and how the end product is the 'site knowledge' rather than a delineated guideline for building. Site knowledge is accessed only from analysis of a 'multiscaled site' while considering its boundaries that rely on the influence of interactions and 'reach' of operations within the site, which are identified. 'Representation', the tool of the designer as Khan professes, is "not about depicting reality, but about making knowledge". He goes on with the Five Concepts for Urban Site Thinking, which are basically ways to understand urban sites.

It seemed like Kahn is an enthusiastic educator as he articulates through his buzzwords and recommendations. The truth is that I don't believe anything seemed insightful to someone who has an idea of intangible context, which is a simple understanding. In any case, Kahn institutes or re-institutes an idea of catalogued analysis, sort of like a a code-book of thoughts, as she lists five methods. I am glad that writers are there to write about ways to avoid despair for the amateur designer that I am.

The Muses Are Not Amused

From what i understood from this reading, I can say that Silvetti insists on form-making to be prioritized as the full intent of the project scope for the designer.  He starts by delineating architectures, which are the causes of a progressive neglect in form-making, as 1. Programism, 2. Thematization, 3. Blobs, 4. Literalism.  

Programism is an automation of form-making, which requires no creativity or real architectural competence, and is one of the main reasons why our abilities as designers are overlooked.  The act of compiling a schema from graphical implications of programmatic aspects would only get you as far as solving programmatic issues.  

Thematization is for entertainment.  However, it does more damage by imposing a way of life within the environment.  It is a marketing tool that dumbs down the architecture by objectifying it as a spectacle, although the rhetoric itself is intangible.

Blobs, or "blobitecture" is the intimidating, but unmerited method of form-making based on a nostalgia for the future.  It is a hysteria that is ultimately formless and is later refined with abstract statistical data that attempts to dignify the out-of-context form.  It is naive.  

Literalism is described as the act of architectural jargon (adaptability, flexibility, flow, indeterminacy, process, malleability, etc.) linked to form-less buildings by way of creating physical metaphors.  The refusal to use any pre-existing vernaculars is a failed attempt to have any urban context.  

He concludes by simply stating that contemporary form finding should not have a real place in the practice, because it serves to be the scapegoat for the architect after the building is subjected to criticism.  He further analyses contemporary forms by comparing their roles as architecture to the roles of Baroque architecture, in that Baroque also uses rhetoric and physical metaphors to communicate.  He goes on comparing the art world and the art of architecture and its relationship on the grounds of Art as the Big Idea, not bound by medium.  He then says if Architecture is allowed to be merited as a free medium, it would not work.

I enjoyed this reading, because he doesn't go on with a prescriptive process of form-making, rather debunks the methods highly used today.  It got me thinking about how the future of this field will evolve, leading me to conclude that theorizing about the future are mere speculations in this day.  Technology serves as a catalyst for an exponential rise in forum and no real code will emerge until our advances reach some sort of apex.  Popular culture will reign supreme, so we will have to tread lightly with artistic agendas.  As far as "Art as Architecture", I don't believe will be coined, we simply won't allow it, as in the Art world, people are considered Artists for nothing that involves the discipline of Art.  Writers aren't architects, musicians aren't architects, doctors aren't architects, etc.  The only Architects in this world are, and will always be, motherfucking Architects.  I only say that, because I adore all the ego and phallocentric controversy in architecture!

Thesis statement

Architecture as Medication

From the Modular to LEED standards, there lies perpetual connections between simplifying our understandings of the human body and adding complexities to our buildings. As these practices are further advanced, I feel that their paths will eventually intersect. What becomes of this will be a new phenomenon.

It is our individual nature to be self sustained organisms, composed of elaborate systems that are worlds of their own. Science has deciphered these systems in order to deduce history, trying to find the ultimate answer. Although we have come so far, there is no final truth. Artists have interpreted the truth socially, in whatever form they saw fit. Politicians have acted on their own preconceptions of what to believe and created economics, law, and religion. Within the field of creating space, these disciplines were forced to work together. However, considering the corrosive aspect of the end product to the earth, we can only assume that the field has relied on a number of misconceptions. When I think of a doctor and designer working together on a project, the process seems to have promise in being concise and well executed. Our knowledge of such things like anatomy and construction will hit pay-dirt, finding vindication in combined-effort's assumed form and function.

Visual Reading Response

Reading Response

I read the excerpt of Jose Louis Mateo's "How to Draw up a Project". He addresses the process of building design as a fixed direction, involving a dialogue of truths. He begins a project with its induction as a phantom, manifesting questions that dictate which issues to address. With these issues further investigated, he states that the second phase involves managing a heiarchy that organizes the systems into structure. The guidelines of this process involves the natural order of operation, seeing where the elements fall into place harmoniously. After that, he addresses space and envelope. The space, as he explains, is a formulation of building use and its limits. The envelope is the material that gives the building a role of expression.

Although this summary of the reading is my attempt at concisely explaining his intent, it is merely an assumption of his general idea. Throughout the reading, Mateo seemed keen on treating the project as organic body that has a place for each cell. I think this analogy can be pushed to further investigation in regards to building performance. I believe that the more and more projects are designed for the ecosystem, the medical institution will be closely tied to architecture, far beyond safety and comfort levels, directed towards advent standards of living.