It’s the end of the year so it’s (clearly I didn’t make it) list-making-time, and because it’s also the end of the first decade of the 21st century we have an interesting time-frame to look at, especially when dealing with architecture. It takes some time to build, to reflect, to see trends turn into fads and to digest what you actually appreciate in buildings. I take notice of most of architecture’s production through the media (like the most of us), which makes it hard to render a constructive criticism of building production in general. But what does communicate are the idea’s that have driven a buildings’ design. This list of ten buildings and their designers summarize what to me personally is inspirational. These buildings have an attitude I appreciate, they deal with reality in a pragmatic, poetic and smart way, and they address a context, its limitations and potential in a explicitly architectural way. The list is chronological, and it is first and foremost about ideas and not about the particular building per se.

2000: Lacaton & Vassal, House in Coutras

The French office Lacaton & Vassal works from a few simple but convincing ideas that carry through all their work but is perhaps most simply illustrated by the above house in Coutras and the one in Floirac.

Ready Mades 1

Architects are often not the ones driving innovation in the building industry, but on the other hand they are the first ones to jump on new design-tools and materials exploiting the potential. In a radical way not in terms of formal innovation but in using the potential of industrial mass-production this is what Lacaton & Vassal is doing by incorporating the greenhouse into their repertoire (Bucky would like it: cheap, mass-produced and light). It’s cheap in terms of material and labor, and thus enables lots of usable space for little money. Besides it being a pragmatic solution in terms of budget, the greenhouse is also a very pleasant space to be. Very light, open-able roof and sides, free view to the outside, and when adjacent to other spaces, these spaces can easily spill out into the greenhouse when more space is needed for a particular use. The greenhouse provides a habitable climate about 80% of the year, and it can be incorporated smartly in the climatic scheme of a project. The greenhouse space has a different quality in its finishing, temperature, etc. which makes it a space that allows different kinds of use, like; fixing your motorcycle, playing in a sandbox, party, gardening, i.e. messy stuff.

The Luxury of Space

“Luxury is not gilded materials – luxury is pleasure, happiness, comfort, and a good rapport with the outside world.” as Philippe Vassal tells us. The office’s mantra is that luxury is to have more space, to build more m² for less. This is not a good thing in itself, but in a world where the architect has to negotiate with project developers and housing corporations this is a strategy worth while, and one which the office is successful at. It is especially an approach that has been productive in the social housing projects they have done, where budgets are limited anyway and the trade off between a medium quality of materials and an industrial aesthetic that creates more space is easily made. For an example, take a look at their Social Housing project in Mulhouse. Here also the greenhouse is a perfect tool to realize this additional space, in Coutras as well as in Florias the greenhouse doubles the living space!

2002: Diller Scofidio, The Blur Building

The American office Diller Scofidio (now + Renfro) designed one of the most important buildings of the past decade: The Blur Building. A building made entirely of an artificial mist generated by an array of nozzles that vaporize the water from the Lake Neuchatel above which it hovers. It’s not there anymore because it was a temporary pavilion for the Swiss Expo 2002 in Yverdon-les-Bains.

The Stuff We Live In

This building puts forward a radically different definition of what space is, of what it means to define a space not by walls, openings or demarcations on the floor but by what the nature of space itself is. Space is not a void, not a vacuum, not just the leftover when you carve a hole out of solid matter. Space is oxygen, water, a gas infested with particles, the vacuum in between atoms. What we think of as space is extremely anthropocentric. It is where we as human beings can move through and/or see through. I’ve always been fascinated by underwater photography where the ceiling of the underwater scene is the light fracturing water surface. It is merely where one material stops and another begins, but we can move through both. “Our space” – the places where mankind can be- is as much a material as concrete is. Space is the stuff we live in! Much of my favorite artist; Olafur Eliasson‘s also works with these theme’s in very interesting and persuasive ways.

2004: Elemental, Quinta de Monroy Housing

In a collaborative and participatory process Elemental (an unusual partnership with COPEC (Chilean Oil Company) and the Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile) produced a scheme, a system actually, for social housing (which is now being repeated across the country). The challenged was to re-house a community on the same location, maintaining the social fabric and their central location in the city. With the decision to stay on the location, which was three times more expensive than relocating to another plot, the project had to deal with extreme budgetary limits. But found the solution in building half of a good house, and leaving room and facilitating self-built expansion of the house by the inhabitants themselves. Here the architecture frames the infill.

More information on this project; Small Scale, Big Change at MoMA (has great video’s) and over at ArchDaily (has plans and sections)

Framing The Infill

The role of the architect in this case is to develop the framework, to design the architecture of the system that can host change, welcomes uncertainty, instead of designing a fixed image. Besides the budget constraints another argument Elemental uses is that in contrast with ‘normal’ housing, social housing decreases in value over, it’s more like a car, than it is real estate. To provide the space in the plan, literally ‘room for improvement’ each house acquires identity, inhabitants acquire pride in the upgrading of their house, and the public space doesn’t have the dreary monotony associated with social housing. The “framing the infill” approach is one that is not only useful in a social housing, or developing world context. Kunststad at the NDSM wharf, Amsterdam is an example. But balcony infills and literally frame infills are a common DIY practice in the Soviet social housing projects (Plattenbau, Microrayons) across the former Soviet union and eastern Europe. Although the frame/infill is really about an open system it is also used as an aesthetic, for instance this frame/infill pastiche by MVRDV in their Sildodam project in Amsterdam. While a certain system, produces a certain aesthetic, this doesn’t mean that behind that aesthetic the associated system is actually at work.

2004: Recetas Urbanas, Strategies for Subversive Urban Occupation

Recetas Urbanas, translates as Urban Recipes and this is exactly what a series of ‘Strategies for Subversive Urban Occupation‘ are. These projects, like the Skip project above, are scripts, how-to’s that exploit the loop-holes of the system. Recetas Urbanas seeks out the fringes, the legal limits of what the possibilities to make vacant space useful for playgrounds and temporal habitation. Architects as modern activists who don’t work against the grain of the system, but with the system as accomplice.

Love the System

Fuck the System, was the slogan of the Punk’s , Love the System, could perhaps be the slogan describing the hacker’s attitude. The hacker needs to passionately seek out the potential of a system, to exploit the possibilities that the authors unintentionally wrote into the system. A system serves specific agenda’s, it is equipped to deal with specific events, but ‘the system’ always lags. It lags behind the creativity and ingenuity of the hacker, of the entities that are unexpected, and were not incorporated as a possible variables. The system is the arena of the 21st century, with on one side the ones who write it, on the other side the ones who play it, whether this is the legal, technological, commercial or political system. The system will be the battlefield and the common ground for collaboration (also see Framing The Infill), we better learn to love it, one way or another. Especially when more and more gets systematized with the digitization of more and more sphere’s of society

2007: Ontwerpgroep Trude Hooykaas, The Crane-track (Kraanspoor)

When biking around the Amsterdam harbor searching for new office space Trude Hooykaas spotted an abandoned crane track and imagined it as the majestic pedestal for a long glass office hovering above it. Ten years later it was there. A long process, working together city authorities, a project developer and her office doing the design. The initiative was hers, and in that sense this project can classified as unsolicited. The Crane-track is simply the most beautiful re-use project i’ve ever seen.

Re-Use

Nothing shocking about this notion in architecture, although in building practice it’s still far from commonplace, as the recent Dutch contribution, Vacant NL, at the Venice Bienale makes clear. I would almost want to argue to write law that buildings need to be put to a use, when there is a shortage of housing, or another function for that matter. To forbid demolition to a certain extend, it’s basically the destruction of capital and history. Not that everything should be preserved, but in principle demolition should be the less attractive second option, not the first one.

2007: FAR, The Wall House

Another project from Chile, this time by FAR. Not just Chile, but the entire Latin-American world is presenting the world with great work and bringing an activist and socially conscious edge to architecture. Other favorites of mine are Urban Think Tank (Venezuela) and Pasaj Emergentes (Columbia). What I think is smart about The Wall House project is the concept of decomposing the laminate of which a buildings wall’s and especially its facades are usually made up of. The result is a ‘baggy architecture’ (the term comes from Rory) that allows a generosity of space, which allows for various types of usage changing over the course of a day and with the seasons.

More on The Wall House (images and plans) over at ArchDaily, and a profile on FAR over at designboom

Baggy Layering 1

A Building’s exterior wall is typically a package of construction, insulation and door or windows openings. This packages also serves a variety of functions security, privacy, comfortable indoor climate, visual control of the surroundings etc. With bundling all these functions in one laminated layer in a sense makes all inside spaces more or less interchangeable (when it comes to climate and comfort). When de-laminating the various materials which make up the typical exterior wall, it results in a series of ‘inbetweens’ with distinct atmospheric and functional qualities. What I often lack in buildings is a place that allows you to make a mess, or to be nonchalant about. The sterile modern dwelling limits usage, it doesn’t allow dirt, stains, damage. Typically this is the garage or the garden, but these are always so separated from the rest of the living experience of a house, like people, smells and sounds don’t spill over into other spaces. A baggy layering also allows for is a more gradual way of living in terms of time and space. Just like the winter-garden provides a space that provides you an option between summer and winter. It’s not, either weather to be outside, or weather to be inside, there is an intermediate option. Baggy layering allows for a spatial ebb and flow in a building and invites a broader pallet use. Baggy layering can also be seen in the work of Lacaton & Vassal and Architecten De Vylder Vinck Taillieu.

2007: Tezuka Architects, Fuji Kindergarten

In the category ‘buildings that make me smile’, this one is on the top of the list. Just he idea, but also the architecture, they’re so beautifully simple and executed gracefully. I remember first seeing it, I couldn’t stop smiling. The story behind the project has a similar feel good touch:

“The request from the kindergarten directors was extremely simple in content: “we want you to make a Roof House for five hundred kindergarten pupils.” We had been introduced by Kashiwa Sato, a creative director who loves the Roof House. The Roof House is a work we completed in 2001. Even now, the family eats together up on the roof. The Roof House has caused debate on its pros and cons. Has the roof been really used during hot summers and cold winters? The answer is YES. The husband and wife team that run the Fuji Kindergarten understood this roof without a single word of explanation. Nor was it necessary to explain the power of understanding of Kashiwa Sato, who had introduced us to the kindergarten directors. At the climax of the initial meeting, we conferred at the Roof House. Although it was originally just an inspection visit, having gone up onto the roof, somehow no one wanted to go home. Whether Mr. and Mrs. Takahashi (the owners of the Roof House) became involved, or whether the other couple involved them, unconsciously there was a deepening feeling of familial solidarity, however slight. We don’t think this is due to it being a gathering of people with similar hobbies and preferences. Discussion was unnecessary. The Roof House told us everything. “In summer the roof is hot, so we go out in the morning and evening. In winter the roof is cold, so the afternoon is good.” These comments from Mr. and Mrs. Takahashi, owners of the Roof House, penetrated to the essence of the architecture. This time, our team understood perfectly. The Roof House is the mother of the kindergarten.” – source: e-architect (for the entire story behind the realization and design of Fuji Kindergarten)

Here all the images and plans if the Fuji Kindergarten over at Architype Review

Rock the Roof

Probably one of the most under-utilized space of a building. No bigger story here other than a plea for that the roof should be used more, especially in urban settings.

2008: Architecten De Vylder Vinck Taillieu, Les Ballets C de la B en LOD

I think in recent years my appreciation for Belgian architecture is surpassing my appreciation of Dutch architecture. In the work of the Belgians there is an appreciation of the ordinary, an aesthetic not aimed at the spectacular, but at dealing with common materials but using them in an architecturally interesting ways. Unlike the Dutch or ‘Droog’ Design trick of old stuff, or the ordinary in a new wrapper, or with a ‘twist’, something Roemer van Toorn calls ‘Fresh Conservatism‘. The Belgians are virtuoso’s within the ordinary without trying to remix or refresh it. (All of this is a grand generalization, and weakly supported position. Not more than a hunch really)

Although an annoying website, one should take the effort to see more of De Vylder Vinck Taillieu’s work

Baggy Layering 2

In the facade above another example of baggy layering resulting in a very different kind of image as in FAR’s Wall House. Behind the vertical glass plane, a stone wall that locally retracts from the glass to make room for the stairs. In front of the glass are the sunscreens. Here the bagginess happens in a smaller range, every layer is visibly stacked on top of the other. Here the layering really results in a distinct aesthetic, this baggy aesthetic isn’t so much visible in the Wall House, where it the bagginess is experienced throughout in the entire plan.

Ready Mades 2

Not in this project, but in other projects of De Vylder Vinck Taillieu has used a remarkable ready made; the pre-fab strut, as a budget solution for keeping the floors up. Apparently cheaper than your basic concrete or steel column, although a pity you can’t profit from the column’s adjustable height after construction.

Here are more pictures and plans of the project: ovo-1(4)

2009: Gon Zifroni, Void House

Former Metahaven partner Gon Zifroni designed this house in Brussels. Minimalist woodwork, without interior walls and what I like most, no ground floor! Such a simple, but radical architectural move especially in a street with row housing where such a move makes an impact. I haven’t invented a name for why this appeals to me so much, but it has something to do with a fundamentally architectural move. To make an opening, to close of or to frame a view. To make one straightforward un-nuanced purely architectural gesture that radically determines the experience and use of space. Kersten Geers and David van Severen often use these brutally simple but radical architectural choices as well, like ‘walling a space‘ is a strategy that often occurs.

2010: John Körmeling, Happy Street

Definitely in the category ‘buildings that make me smile’; John Körmeling’s Happy Street, Holland’s contribution for the 2010 Expo in Shanghai. What I love about the work of Kormeling is it’s humor, it just tells us “Why so serious?”, and especially “Why so serious about design?”, which is I think important to ask more often than we as designers do. Design won’t save the world, but a happy street will lift your spirits, and perhaps this is what Körmeling thought, as he explains in the video. When addressing the Expo’s theme ‘Better City, Better Life” he replies with, “a good city starts with a good street”, who wouldn’t agree.

One of the things that intrigues me is that the architecture on Happy Street quotes the past, icon’s from the Dutch modernist canon (at one third of the original size, work of Duiker, Dudok, Rietveld and others). It’s retro, it’s pomo in a sense and it doesn’t annoy me at all (it usually does). For instance in all of Körmeling’s buildings he uses the same detailing, like simply re-using the classic modernist window detail (glass fitted in steel T- and L-profiles sealed with putty), and why not?. These details are simple and beautiful, and this probably means that deep inside, when it comes to aesthetics, i’m a modernist (which I don’t see as an insult). But it also brings back a the discussion of the recent Volume (#26) launch, on the ethics of aesthetics (a piece by Rory Hyde in the issue), with as one example the social housing project in Islington by FAT which makes me cringe honestly, but then again I think the Inntel Hotel in Zaandam by WAM Architecten is funny, I can actually appreciate it. Clearly humor is serious business!

“All our thinking is performed upon signs of some kind or other, either imagined or actually perceived. The best thinking (. . . ) is done by experimenting in the imagination upon a diagram or other scheme, and it facilitates the thought to have it before one’s eyes”
-C.S. Peirce, (Hoffmann, 2005)

The dominant notion of the diagram is the diagram as a graphic of sorts, ranging from the highly articulate and systematized diagrams of mathematics, to scribbles and sketches which only have an intelligibility to the maker. The key is that the one who is engaged with the diagram, who is thinking with it, is reading or seeing it in a certain way. Through a perceptual lens, a conceptual framing. One reads it with the help of a system of representation. For example; to read English you need to read it with the help of English grammar, syntax and vocabulary, in other words the system of representation associated with an English word or sentence. But one could choose to read it in an entirely different way, one could choose to see a word or letter as the section or the plan of an architectural project, seeing them as pure form, devoid of meaning, not governed anymore by the rules of grammar. This is actually a common problem with dyslectics, they often also see letters as forms, and then the letters ‘d’ ‘p’ and ‘b’ are actually the one and the same form, only flipped or mirrored – which is a typical spatial way of thinking, not a lingual way of thinking.

C.S. Peirce calls this the interaction of internal representations (in the mind) and external representations (in the world) in what he calls ‘signs of some kind or other’. How this interaction works is described in Peirce’s concept of diagrammatic reasoning. Diagrammatic reasoning is based on the three step activity of “constructing representations, experimenting with them, and observing the results. The idea is that by representing a problem in a diagram, we can experiment with our own cognitive means, and thus develop them. ‘The diagram becomes the something (non-ego) that stands up against our consciousness,’ as Kathleen Hull puts it; ‘reasoning unfolds when we inhibit the active side of our consciousness and allow things to act on us” (Hoffmann, 2005; Hull, 1994)

I would like to make an argument to stretch up the definition of the diagram and the arena of diagrammatic reasoning beyond just graphics. When Peirce talks about a ‘sign’ he is not just referring to graphical entities. A sign is something that signifies something else, but the sign can primarily do so by power of the interpreter. Because the interpreter chooses (this can also be ‘involuntary’, i.e unconsciously) to see something as a sign of something else (as in the previous ‘English language’ example), in other words what the sign signifies. A diagram is a certain type of sign, the most important characteristic being that how one reads it, uses it and manipulates it, is governed by a certain system, a system that works through conventions, a certain rationality, navigated through inhibitions and intuitions. In other words, certain kind of rules are at work. As a fine example of a non-graphic diagram I present the foam-cutter!

Albena Yaneva’s little book on OMA I reviewed before, provides wonderful illustrations of how foam-cutting, book-making and diagrammatic reasoning (graphic and non-graphic) work together in the design process at OMA.

The foam-cutter, or more accurate, the constellation of: ‘foam, foam-cutter and the operator’, together form the triad of ‘matter, tool and mind’. Each of these objects, or actors in the activity of foam-cutting exert influence, ‘rules’ over the process of foam-cutting. The foam has certain material characteristics which dictate a range of possible manipulation (or one could also say ‘imaginations’!?), as does the foam-cutter as tool, as does the operator/designer with his/her knowledge and skill of operating the machine, and bringing to bear all his/her accumulate experience as designer and human being.

What is especially striking, is how the OMA architects themselves talk about working with the foam and the foam-cutter. They say that they surrender themselves to the process, the mechanics of the machine, the rationality of the tool. The intelligence of the designer seems to reside in a form of reasoning that unfolds when they inhibit the active side of their consciousness and allow things to act on them, as pointed out earlier by Kathleen Hull.

Clearly the designer entrust a lot of confidence in this tool, the design process is really a joint effort, where tools, matter and mind are operating on a leveled playing field. It’s actually not so hard to see that the second generation of OMA buildings (since the Seattle Library more or less) have a geometry that clearly has its roots in the foam-cutter. The huge impact of tools and materials used in the design studio on the final buildings is not limited to foam; OMA architects explain to Yaneva: “How the foam-cutter is an invention as important as Perspex, an invention capable of changing the face of architecture. Once the transparent and easy to manipulate Perspex began to be used for models, this changed the face of the final buildings, claim OMA architects. The Perspex models ‘show at one glance the outside and the inside’. It also anticipated buildings with such properties.” (Albena Yaneva, 2009 p.76)

image via: archinect

The process of cutting-foam, a rationality you almost undergo, is in sharp contrast with the arguments that are put forward to justify the building in public discourse, and when ‘sold’ to the client. Seattle Library is the perfect example, a seemingly super-logical and clear building in its argumentation (which I previously dissected). Olga explains: “So, that’s why you always have to go back and forth, checking repeatedly. Is it still the same diagram? Do the program and the shape still fit together, or are they readable as separate entities? At the end you have to sell it again. And if people see that it doesn’t work, they are not convinced. That was the strength of the Seattle project, because now we can explain it in three sentences, and you can argue about its aesthetics but its logic is so strong that people buy it even if they don’t like the form.” (Albena Yaneva, 2009 p.36) There is an active search to make the argument (the ‘diagram’) fit with the design, but the design actually happened quite differently, as Alain remembers “I am thinking of Seattle Library. I didn’t do it, but my friend did it. They made a model of something and it was misinterpreted as the whole building and (…) Do you know the library? It’s a really beautiful building. And then it became a solution.” (Albena Yaneva, 2009 p.93)

Although Alain and Olga have seemingly conflicting accounts; this doesn’t mean that one of them is lying. There are lots of degrees of rationality, of reasoning at work in the design process. There is an active search for ‘a fit’ to the ‘problem’ at hand, rationality evolves over time, and that the final argument is a strong rhetorical argument that is the instrument in justifying a specific design doesn’t disqualify the intuitive and messy practices that produced the argument as well as the design. Or as Yaneva puts it:”You can still appreciate a building, like or dislike it, praise or dismiss it, without knowing anything about the design experience that made it happen; but you cannot understand a building without taking these design experiences into account.”

All quotes from: Albena Yaneva – Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture: An Ethnography of Design, (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers; 2009)

This just came in at Archis:

Design Anthropology: Object Culture in the 21st Century. Edited by Alison J. Clarke
Here’s the blurb: What makes objects, like the iPhone, iconic? Why do design innovators spend more time observing consumers than styling new products? Is the shift from analog to digital culture really de-materializing our world? Design Anthropology explores design’s radical turn to users, their social lives and rituals, and questions who is really in control of our material lives.

Take a look at the table of contents, which features the departments: ‘Designers go Native’, ‘People, Objects and Entanglements’, ‘Mutating Forms, Shifting Materialities’ and ‘Future Trajectories: Future Users’

Just flipped through it, it it looks intriguing. I’m excited in a similar way by this book, as I was excited about Albena Yaneva’s Ethnography of O.M.A. That these field are becoming interested architecture and design products and practices is a great development. It gives new grounds for explaining what design knowledge and culture is, how the design process generates this knowledge, and how the ‘design way’ of seeing and dealing with the world is distinct from other ways, and a valuable addition to the cultures of science and the humanities.

The past few months I’ve been intrigued by some new developments in philosophy that fare under the banners of Speculative Realism and Object Oriented Ontology. What these emerging movements have in come is a passion for realism, not in dull limiting way, but in a way that opens up limitless possibilities. It moves away from a perspective where the dominant human-world dyad, towards a network of things, objects where the human is not the center but equal to the universe, oranges, sound-waves, a circus act and a cup of tea. This article in Frieze by k-punk/Mark Fisher is a good place to start as well as the Wikipedia article on Speculative Realism. Or this intro lecture by Graham Harman, one of the main protagonists (and my favorite so far) on the recently held ‘Hello Everything’ Conference at UCLA. [ The Harman talk (+ intro) start around the 21:00 mark ]

Two books by Graham Harman just came in.

Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics
Here’s the blurb: “Prince of Networks is the first treatment of Bruno Latour specifically as a philosopher. It has been eagerly awaited by readers of both Latour and Harman since their public discussion at the London School of Economics in February 2008.

Part One covers four key works that display Latour’s underrated contributions to metaphysics: Irreductions, Science in Action, We Have Never Been Modern, and Pandora’s Hope. Harman contends that Latour is one of the central figures of contemporary philosophy, with a highly original ontology centered in four key concepts: actants, irreduction, translation, and alliance.

In Part Two, Harman summarizes Latour’s most important philosophical insights, including his status as the first “secular occasionalist.” The problem of translation between entities is no longer solved by the fiat of God (Malebranche) or habit (Hume), but by local mediators. Working from his own “object-oriented” perspective, Harman also criticizes the Latourian focus on the relational character of actors at the expense of their cryptic autonomous reality.

This book forms a remarkable interface between Latour’s Actor-Network Theory and the Speculative Realism of Harman and his confederates. It will be of interest to anyone concerned with the emergence of new trends in the humanities following the long postmodernist interval.”

Here‘s more on the book, AND you can buy it or download Prince of Networks for free

The other book by Harman (unfortunately not available for download) that I got is:

Guerrilla Metaphysics; Phenomenology and the Carpentry of Things
Here’s the blurb: “Too unorthodox to be conservative, too systematic to be postmodern, Guerrilla Metaphysics is a unique attempt to describe the carpentry of things. At once systematic and offbeat, technical and poetic, it is a startling new vision of phenomenology’s motto: To the things themselves!

Instead of the occasional cause that makes God responsible for all events, Guerrilla Metaphysics seeks the vicarious cause that links human beings, tools, rivers, mountains, plastic, and clowns. Professor Harman argues for a radical shift in the phenomenological attitude to objects, and explains how phenomenology can be reunified with the physical world that it wanted to bracket from view.”

http://www.opencourtbooks.com/books_n/guerrilla_metaphysics.htm

To continue the string about things, something else I would like to get my hands on it this.

What Things Do; Philosophical Reflections on Technology, Agency, and Design by Peter-Paul Verbeek
The blurb: “Our modern society is flooded with all sorts of devices: TV sets, automobiles, microwaves, mobile phones. How are all these things affecting us? How can their role in our lives be understood? What Things Do answers these questions by focusing on how technologies mediate our actions and our perceptions of the world.

Its systematic and historical review of the philosophy of technology makes What Things Do suitable for use as an introductory text, while its innovative approach will make it appealing to readers in many fields, including philosophy, sociology, engineering, and industrial design.”

More here.

The Diagrams of Architecture, AD Reader. Edited by Mark Garcia
And then finally back to architecture and its diagrams. The architectural diagram has been dealt with in theme issues of ANY and OASE and it has been touched upon in monographic works (as with UN Studio and Eisenman) but never have the writings on diagrams been brought together in a comprehensive book. Although quite expensive for a ‘reader’ (a whopping 100 EUR) this is the first collection which gives a good overview of the discourse (since the 80s) in a single volume. And indispensable if you’re to embark on a research project on diagrams. Here’s the table of contents.

The big news is that I have been accepted as a researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academy (JVE) in Maastricht. I’m very excited about this, to be working the coming year (hopefully two) on the project I proposed: Diagram Catalogue. In short (as short as possible), this is what the project is about:

Since Vitruvius’ De Architectura (25 BC, rediscovered in 1414) architects have made treatise, manuals, catalogue’s, atlases, style and pattern books. In all of these the diagram plays a pivotal role as a condensed version of an architectural concept. Whether it provides a template for beauty, a structure to organize program or site, or legitimizes a design as a rhetorical device. These can all be understood as diagrams. Although throughout history these devices have gone by various names like; parti, archetype, model, pattern, schema, sketch, machine, abstract machine and prototype, they all share a similar diagrammatic nature. The diagram as understood in this project is a device through which one, especially the designer, ‘reads’ and ‘writes’ in the material world. The brain is not bound by its skull, thinking happens through manipulating objects in the imagination as well as in the real world. The diagram is what binds mind, action and perception together in a system that we experience through inhibition and intuition, a mode of thinking that follows certain rules, norms and values mostly unconsciously.

The diagram catalogue project wants to bring diagrams from all these various types of ‘treatises’ together, from the renaissance to today, and to organize them not by style and ‘isms’ but by the nature of their workings. With this project certain questions arise; “How can a taxonomy can be established based on how the diagram operates independent from the categories of art history.” “How can a narrative be made that takes the diagram as a vantage point?” “How can the diagram be constituted as the monad of architectural knowledge and thinking.” “How an alternative narrative of architectural design history be developed, one that puts the emphasis on continuity and evolution, rather that accentuates dialectics and consecutive revolutions?”

I’ll be starting at the JVE this January.

The next day after I did my lecture on expanding architectural practice, new business models and unsolicited architecture there was a panel discussion with various practitioners, which in various ways fit into the ‘expanded’ or ‘unsolicited’ models of architectural practice promoted in this lecture. In this discussion some interesting guide lines or lessons were shared on their practice ‘models’. The practices around the table were: Agency, Coloco, Arquitecturas Colectivas and DJ arquitectura.

All of them practicing closely together with local authorities, directly with users and addressing urgent socio-economic conditions on the ground. Curious for what the kind of business models were behind these practices, I asked them ‘how do you pay the rent?’ and ‘how are projects initiated?’. Some of the answers/lessons:

Paying the Rent:

- Accept that you won’t earn a lot of money, and that you won’t get rich! You will be ‘poor’.
- Live and work cheaply.
- We are enabled to do our work with a grant/subsidy
- Take a part-time other job.

Taking Initiative:

- Yes, you start some projects without getting payed anything. But you need a realized project as a ‘proof of concept’. When a project actually does what it claims to do, people will ask you to it again in other places, repeated it and up-scale it.
- You have to realize that politicians have bags and dossiers packed with empty words, they need concrete projects, proposals to give those words real meaning. This is the potential, the opportunity. And this is also where eventually money will come from to realize projects, politicians are searching for opportunities to execute policy, you can provide that opportunity.
- Politician, are important as well as the media. They can speed up processes, you need journalist and politicians as collaborators to expose and broadcast ideas, in order to get the public on your side.

What I realized after these answers is that, the traditional role of the architect was very intimately connected to the client. The architect represented the client. Up to the crisis building project, real estate development etc. got bigger and bigger. Architect to an ever greater degree were working for investors, speculators. Organizations who rent out office space, who trade real estate and to whom return on investment is the most important criterion. Now their projects are On Hold. Recently the city of Amsterdam in their plans for 2011 declared that the current models of real estate development have failed. And that the city sees a great potential in citizens, collectives and small developers. The architect has to re-find the client, the client that actually lives and works in the house that he or she build for/with him. In other words the users, individuals, groups, collectives the various localities and those who inhabit them. The architect/client collaboration became something unholy, something that had little to do with users, citizens, the public, but all the more with the built environment as a commodity.

Redefining architectural practice is as much about redefining the architect as it is about redefining the client.

Last week I was in Barcelona at eme3 (phonetic Spanish for cubic meter), international architecture festival, held at cccb, and was very honored to present the opening lecture at the inaugural session of the festival. Besides the festival itself it was very nice finally meeting some people in real life that have been on my online radar (Mario Ballesteros, Ethel Baraona Pohl, Cesar Reyes Nájera and Pedro Gadanho).

What will follow is the lecture I presented there and at the end the some additional remarks based on the debate that was held on the next day. For printing purposes, here is the entire slide-show and lecture text.

The Toolbox and The Arena,
Strategies for Expanding Architectural Practice

The financial crisis has made it again very clear, architecture is a depended profession. Many architects lost their jobs, saw their project portfolio shrink as well as their offices, and not by a few percent but by half or more. While other sectors of the economy are slowly recovering, the building industry is still down. A sector that is dependent on big investments, political will and the rest of the economy. Architects have always been dependent of those in power. Gaudi needed the Güell family and Aalto needed the Ahlström family and many other architects made their best works when side by side with remarkable and powerful clients. Besides the networks of power that are still important today, the real estate developers and investment funds are those in key positions, … and they’re waiting. Architects and their projects are ‘on hold’, thus a good moment to reassess the current architectural profession, and to see how the profession can regain initiative.

In this lecture I would like to explore two movements that are currently present in architectural discourse and practice:

The first is the movement to expand the toolbox of the architect beyond design. Architects are specialists in making physical spaces and places, it is their responsibility to provide society with well built environments, ranging from cities to chairs. But as I just explained architecture depends on clients and budgets, amongst other things. One could say that perhaps design is not enough anymore to guarantee well built environments. Perhaps more influence can be exercised on what our cities should look like, and shaping how we could live and work, through other tools. This implies the expansion of the architectural toolbox with tools from other disciplines, so the architect can fulfill his responsibility to work on a better built environment better.

The second movement is to export architectural or design intelligence to other fields. Architects and designers are trained in a specific way of thinking, something we could call architectural or design intelligence. Architectural knowledge and thinking has an application outside the building industry. Architecture and design have become powerful metaphors through which we can understand and engage the world. Architects and designers employ modes of thinking that make them able to deal with a wide variety of data; economic, cultural and social, and an ability to synthesize these into solutions. In this scenario its about expanding the arena for architecture beyond building.

What these movements have in common is that in both cases architects are exploring new territory beyond the traditional perimeter of the architectural profession. Another similarity is that both are reactions to a sense of marginalization of the profession, but the difference is that the first reacts against a marginalization of the architects influence in shaping the built world, the second takes the flight forward in search of new arena’s where the architects influence may be useful. Where the first movement is committed to the product; building, the second movement is committed to the process; thinking.

Both these scenario have potential as well as certain problems. I will elaborate on both.

Movement 1:Expanding the Architectural Toolbox Beyond Design

First let’s take the scenario of expanding the tool box of the architect. To overcome marginalization, to regain initiative one needs to reinvent practice and reinvent the business-models that goes along with it. In the fall of 2007 at Volume we worked on an issue titled Unsolicited Architecture which was addressing precisely this. In the issue the following was proposed. To overcome marginalization, and in search for a more autonomous role, the architect needs to seek out urgencies and/or opportunities that are in need of response. Wether these projects are idealist, politically inspired or supported by any other agenda, one can only speak of unsolicited architecture when one or more of the traditional four corner stones of architecture is missing, these are; client, budget, site and program.

The practice to overcome these missing elements is where one needs to reinvent practice. Besides the design of the architectural object itself, the project might need financing, a marketing plan, collaborators, strategic alliances etc. If one just focuses on one element, the practice becomes something else. If you design the object without the financing, you’re an academic. If you design the marketing without the object, you’re a politician. If you design the financing without the object, then you’re a capitalist.

The main idea of Unsolicited Practice is; “mr. Architect, don’t wait for the phone to ring” in other words, criticizing the passive architect, the dominant form of architectural practice that waits for the client. Instead the Unsolicited Architect promotes a vision of the architect that is an amalgamation of the idealist, activist and entrepreneur. Active, not waiting for the world to come to him or her. Someone with his or her own agenda, sensible to the urgencies of society. With a commercial sensibility, yet an idealist, a politically conscious activist.

But what does this mean in practice? The architect already likes to think of himself as an intellectual, as a social and culturally conscious being. The architect as businessman and entrepreneur is a rendering of the architect we’re not used to, it’s an exception to the rule. In general commercial success is of secondary concern, good ideas are more important. The architect cherishes his craft more than his business, the architect loses initiative to those who hire him.

The average size of an architecture office is 4.1 persons, large firms are an exception, not the rule. Running a business in architecture is usually the result of an accident. Most offices become a business by surprise, when they win a competition, or when the first serious commission comes in. Suddenly office space needs to be expanded, personnel hired, etc. Business happens TO architecture, its not a conscious decision or deliberate and integral part of setting up an architectural practice. Thus with proposing the figure of the Unsolicited Architect, what needs to be added to the architect mix is the entrepreneur, wether this is a social, commercial or a political entrepreneur. The entrepreneur searches out the tools needed to realize a project, checks if the project is viable, and manages the execution. We could wonder if this ideal architect we’re talking here is a figure that is architect and developer. Vision and money united in one character. A constellation in which architectural visions could be realized without compromise. But this is a dangerous dream.

An infamous example of this figure is John Portman, who developed and designed large parts of Atlanta and huge hotel complexes around the world and introduced new urban and architectural types, the result being spectacular, but very debatable. Koolhaas writes the following about John Portman in SMLXL:

“John Portman is a hybrid; he is architect and developer, two roles in one. That explains his tremendous power: the combination makes him a myth. It means, theoretically, that every idea he has can be realized, that he can make money with his architecture, and that the roles of architect and developer can forever fuel each other. In the early seventies, to a power-starved profession, this synthesis seemed revolutionary, like a self-administered Faustian bargain. But with these two identities merged in on person, the traditional opposition between client and architect – two stones that create sparks – disappears. The vision of the architect is realized without opposition, without influence, without inhibition.”

In contrast to the John Portman model, The architect as activist, as public intellectual is certainly a role that does create sparks, because bringing a particularly architectural way of seeing things into public discourse can be a very powerful tool, when used in the right way. I will tell you about an example to illustrate this notion, that I got through my fellow blogger Rory.

In response to Copenhagen’s housing shortage that forced out the lower wage earners that are crucial to a functioning city, PLOT (BIG and JDS) produced this scheme. A housing block wrapping Kløvermarken park, providing 3000 new apartments, without sacrificing any of the soccer fields in the park. The next step was to generate public debate by promoting it in the media, and through this get public support for the proposal. This is a crucial step of the unsolicited process, since you don’t have a client or the political power to execute it alone, getting the public behind your cause can generate the necessary momentum.

However, after much attention and public support instead of PLOT getting the commission to execute the plan, the government organized a competition with seven offices in which PLOT was awarded second place. In that sense this unsolicited strategy might be considered failed in terms of acquisition strategy, but in terms of raising awareness of a social need, and stressing the urgent need for action it was a success.

The important difference between the story of John Portman and PLOT, is that Portman adds a tool that is new to architecture, where PLOT on top of expanding its toolbox with politics and PR campaigning, expands the application of architecture itself. Both are expanding the arena of architecture but via different strategies.
In PLOT’s case the architectural design process produces an answer to a societal problem, and architecture’s power visualize and communicate these answers is utilized as a political tool in a mediatized debate. In Portman’s case the architectural design process works integrally together with the real estate development process, these two rationalities are intertwined into a hybrid form of practice.

Movement 2: Exporting Architectural and/or Design Intelligence to Other Fields

PLOT’s story already hints at the second movement of exporting architectural and design intelligence to other fields. This movement is based on the premise that design has a universal quality, that it is a kind of meta-discipline. Design is not limited to objects and Architecture is not limited to buildings. The whole world is our arena, design can be applied to anything.

Design has a certain obsession with the universal, whether it’s the latent wish to make that timeless piece of design, the urban plan that will shape the perfect society or the renaissance edifice that wants to tells us that we are united with the universe through geometry and proportion. More recently the design process has also risen to be the bearer of a universal characteristic, designing as a general method for problem-solving and innovation, ranging from businesses to cities and from continents to entire geo-engineering schemes.

A few examples:

For a commission from the EU, AMO, OMA think tank, recently presented a solution for Europe’s energy needs. Roadmap 2050. AMO proposes a European energy grid, that makes use of the geographic difference in terms of sustainable energy solutions. In a complementary scheme, North and South are coupled. Windy Northern Europe provides most of the energy in winter, Sunny Southern Europe provides most of the energy in summer.

Bruce Mau can make an entire country transform, or at least that’s what he claims with the ¡GuateAmala! communications project in Guatemala. His portfolio states:

“This multi-year communications project continues to develop strategies to galvanize action and mobilize a nation”

In business circles Design Thinking is hot, here are some of the headlines from the business press.

“Desperate to innovate, companies are turning to design schools for nimble, creative thinkers”
- Jessi Hempel and Aili McConnon, Bloomberg Businessweek (9 october 2006)

“Thinking like a Designer can transform the way you develop products, services, process – and even strategy”
- Tim Brown (IDEO) in Harvard Business Review (June 2008)

“The methodology commonly referred to as design thinking is a proven and repeatable problem-solving protocol that any business or profession can employ to achieve extraordinary results.”
- Mark Dziersk, Fast Company (20 March 2006)

And this is what Businessweek’s Bruce Nussbaum wrote in 2005 on the occasion of the World Economic Forum in Davos:

“This year the conference may as well be called Design in Davos because for the first time there is an entire category of programs, meetings, dinners and late-nite talks called Innovation, Creativity and Design Strategy”

Within architectural discourse Volume, since its inaugural issue, in 2005, is seeking to expand the arena for ‘architectural intelligence’. Here are two quotes from that issue:

Ole Bouman: “Architecture has become a universal access key that can open countless doors in culture and society”

Rem Koolhaas: “In order to escape the prison created by the architectural office as it is currently constituted, we must consider architecture as applicable in almost any other domain, with the comfort that there is at this point a great potential welcome for the conquering intruder from those domains”

The processes of design are useful for shaping not only what is physical, but are also increasingly involved beyond the object, beyond the visible and at every imaginable scale. Design is everywhere, or like Mau proclaims in and on his book Massive Change: ‘It’s not about the world of design, it’s about the design of the world.’

But it is not just that designers and architects can start seeing the whole world as their playground. This movement is not one-way, it’s two way traffic. For a mere $US 9,500 Stanford is training CEOs to become ‘design thinkers’ over the weekend, so they can unleash the power of the design process in their corporations. Here is what the brochure says:

“Design Thinking Boot Camp: From Insights to Innovation offers executives the chance to learn design thinking – — a human-centered, prototype-driven process for innovation that can be applied to product, service, and business design. We believe that innovation is necessary in every aspect of business, and that it can be taught. We invite you to join us here at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, affectionately called ‘the d.school,’ for an experience that will enhance your ability to drive innovation in your organization.”

In this case the design process is reduced to a method that is teachable over the weekend, this is a ridiculous claim. The thinking that is involved in the design process is more than a couple of techniques like; observing human behavior, brainstorming and rapid prototyping that CEO’s can learn.
But also the other way around the notion that designers and architects can be put on any problem, independent of the disciplines of knowledge involved is an equally ridiculous claim. Thinking of one’s practice as ‘universal’ is a dangerous notion, and especially in design, which is so involved with the contextual. The designer’s thinking is to such a large extent informed by the culture, context and experiences that are instilled within themselves OR that they have to actively seek out in order to deal with an unfamiliar context. On his blog ‘City of Sound’, Dan Hill calls it ‘method designing’; after method acting, as a way of ‘getting into character’ that consciously and subconsciously informs the design process:

This approach might come from the fact that, as a designer, I’ve actually spent a lot of time writing, curating, and doing strategic work. All these activities require the ability to process vast amounts of data (often media) fairly rapidly and synthesize into some new form – as does designing, or at least the kind of designing done by designers like me. I find it difficult to have a discussion around form and function without trying to get at the ineffable, intangible aspects of a project’s context, for which I’m yet to discover a good word. Raymond Williams’ ‘structure of feeling’ partly does it, and mise-en-scène does to a limited extent, but ‘context’ isn’t quite enough, and doesn’t get at the lived experience and cultural aspects as well as the socio-economic and form-based.

What this reminds us of is that design is also deeply cultural and specific practice, which can be better specified as a form of artistry or craft. To render the designer more as a craftsman gives more credit to the kind of knowledge the designer has and uses. This is what Design theorist Nigel Cross in his book Designerly Ways of Knowing has to say about it:

‘Designers are immersed in this material culture, and draw upon it as the primary source of their thinking. Designers have the ability to both ‘read’ and ‘write’ in this culture.’

The ‘thinking’ in design thinking’ is not a method; it is deeply imprinted in the mind through experience and education. The methods of design are but the surface of a process; they are the ‘container’ in which the actual thinking takes place.

Concluding

So what to do with this knowledge? How can you use it when you get back to your office next monday morning? What to do when make your cup of coffee and sit down at your desk next to your computer, telephone and sketchbook? (referring to Willem-Jan Neutelings’ remark at Projective Landscape conference)

I’m a firm believer that architectural design practice can be influential and powerful in today’s society. That it can promote certain agenda’s and certain values. To do this architecture must take initiative, it must not wait for clients. It must seek out how ideas can be realized. For this we need new collaborations across disciplines and new business models to support these new forms of practice.

So the first thing you could do is pick up the phone and call a potential collaborator from outside your architecture bubble, a professional from a discipline unlike your own.

With collaborations across disciplines I do not mean, fusing architect and developer in a John Portman like figure, I am more of a believer in partnerships between specialists from different disciplines. For instance the business mind is dedicated to another ratio, another way of seeing the world than the design mind, although they certainly have and especially need an overlap, a common ground.

A week or so ago I saw Paul Pangaro speak at PICNIC, a conference on innovation, technology and new media in Amsterdam. Pangaro is specialized in the cybernetics of conversation, and innovation processes, and was quite critical of the current promotion of design thinking as a panacea for companies that want to be innovative. He told us about a student of us who did an internship at Apple, and he asked him if he ever see Steve Jobs in real life. The student told him that he saw Steve Jobs in the cafeteria every day. And every day he sat there he was chatting with Jonathan Ive, Apple’s lead designer, and they clearly had a great time. Pangaro explained that companies that do great innovation, and that use design in a smart way aren’t based on method, but on a conversational partnership, people from two different disciplines, but that share the same language. These are the kind of partnerships that are valuable, and perhaps not that different from Gaudi who found its conversational partner in Güell. But today we shouldn’t look for a mecenas but for collaborators unlike ourselves.

The second thing you could do is to revisit your business model. New collaborations ask for different forms of business. What are you actually selling? are you selling? Do you make something? do you trade? do you provide a service? are you an investor? a stakeholder?, a capitalist? or a socialist? I don’t have any answers, I’m not a business guru, or an organizational specialist, but I do know that Google doesn’t earn money with selling an email service,video’s or scanning books, and that Wikipedia isn’t selling me an encyclopedia. Google, Wikipedia or for that matter the entire internet is providing us with business-models that go beyond a two party economic transaction of customer and provider. Every business that the web touches is heavily disturbed, shocked even. The web shows that a lot of things are for free, while behind the scenes money is made. In contrast the building industry is one of the most conservative and slow sectors of the economy. In that sense there is an immense potential to tap into.

Thus, I would say expand the crisis beyond the economy, make the crisis also cultural, social and personal. Use this moment to induce catharsis, to get the adrenalin needed to build momentum towards shaping other collaborations, other forms of practice. Practices that are more powerful, more architectural and more independent. Let’s go from the collective ‘On Hold’ condition to ‘Hold On, we’re going for a ride!’

—
Some afterthoughts relating to the arguments presented here, in the next post: Redefining the Client

Edwin’s piece ‘Intellectual Disaster Tourism‘ is featured over on Archined, where he casts the architect as contemporary urban archaeologist, continually seeking the ‘perverse pleasure’ of studying the next city in decline. With Detroit as his example, hollowed out by mass unemployment leading to urban decay, Edwin cites a ‘reversal of roles’, whereby

‘the affluent west receives intellectual development aid; the second and third worlds supply the apparently over-developed, trouble-free Europe with challenging cases for education and research. Young academics are scarcely aroused or stirred by problems within the borders of their own country any more. They’ve got to be more spectacular, more exotic, more extreme.’

Similarly, Rory and Todd Reisz have written of ‘The Architect as a City Critic’ over on the Huffington Post, as part of a new weekly blog looking at all things Al Manakh. Here, the recent emphasis on ‘research’ as a precondition to building is exposed as a competition of one-upmanship, with architects travelling further and further into ‘unexplored’ territory to stake their claim and expose the strange spatial experiments to the world. Focusing specifically on the Gulf region of the Middle East, it nevertheless emphasises the importance of understanding the rapid urbanisation of Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Riyadh, too often dismissed as unsustainable folly.

What both posts agree upon is that, whatever the motive, architects must immerse themselves in and interpret the wider world in order to design for it.

Although delivered simply as an amusing anecdote, when taken out of context, this crude piece of wisdom from the elder statesman Peter Corrigan seemed to capture the essence of ‘extra/ordinary’. This was a conference about engaged practitioners; engaged in the ‘ordinary’ messy reality while still managing to scratch out something ‘extra’. Architects presented innovative (and often idealistic) approaches to complex problems, while not afraid to go beyond the discipline to engage with the pragmatics of financing, policy or public engagement in order to see them executed.

Creative director Mel Dodd’s vision for the conference included the words ‘contingency’, ‘compromise’, ‘complexity’, ‘concession’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘constraint’ – a clear endorsement for tentative conclusions and grappling with the real as opposed to the confident presentations of crisp and complete buildings by architectural stars as we have seen at past conferences. This is at once a reflection of our ‘no frills’ economic times – an end to the age of excess – but also a statement of urgency for the profession. If we continue to hitch our future on offering rarefied aesthetics instead of participation in the complex mechanisms of the city, our days are surely numbered.

However, these words of vision came back to haunt the organisers, who were forced to make compromises, contingencies and concessions as Iceland’s volcano left five of the eight international speakers grounded in European airspace. This served to highlight Australia’s location on the other side of the world, far away from the global centers of discourse. Although most were able to present via satellite with few technical hiccups, as is the cliché of conferences generally – it’s not what is presented that matters, but what is said in the bar afterward – a layer that was unfortunately missed.

One of those who did make it was Alejandro Aravena of the Chilean practice Elemental, who presented a number of community housing projects which challenge established methods of financing and delivery to produce a more equitable and quality end product. For the Quinta Monroy housing in Iquique, Elemental worked within the government subsidy for housing provision of around $10,000 per house, which is only enough to build a tiny 40m2 house. Instead of accepting this limitation and perpetuating sub-standard outcomes, they instead reframed the problem, to build as Aravena describes, ‘half of a good house’. This is done in a way that encourages infill and extension in the future when the family can afford the materials themselves. A genuinely innovative and demonstrably beneficial built project.

Elemental’s Quinta Monroy housing in Iquique, Chile.

This ethically-motivated project contrasted sharply with the other projects Aravena presented which were planned for Switzerland, Germany and the United States. Despite claiming that the practice tries ‘to approach design problems in the same way in developing countries as in the developed world … to achieve the same limit of irreducibility’, with a seat on the Pritzker jury, and a building in construction on the Vitra campus adjacent to the fire station by Zaha Hadid, Aravena makes no secret of his ambition to join the A-list.

This seeming contradiction is highlighted further by the fact that Elemental is supported by the Chilean oil company Copec, who donate to the practice as part of their philanthropic investments. Although many assume this relationship to be sinister, could this instead signal an innovative practice model for the support of research into social projects? Just as Aravena upended the subsidy system in order to provide a full house with only half the budget, so his practice is also supported through an unlikely partnership. Both require vision beyond the ordinary.

Also flying the flag for the socially-engaged, research-driven approach was architect Teddy Cruz, who gave an express version of his excellent ‘Radicalizing the Local’ lecture via satellite. From a shocking analysis of the extreme disparities in wealth and opportunity that span the US–Mexico border, Cruz projected an architecture that could begin to address these social, economic and policy-related issues through built form.

Despite the obvious similarities in terms of territories and concerns, Aravena didn’t take kindly to my comparison of his work with that of Cruz, simply stating ‘I wouldn’t like to compare myself with him, because I haven’t seen any built work.’ I also have to admit, that while being incredibly impressed when I first came across the work of Cruz, by the third viewing I left feeling disappointed that his exceptional analysis and proposals have yet to be tested in reality. Of course, this need not be the responsibility of the urban researcher, but perhaps there are other architects who could adopt this thinking and deploy it as a case study? Without it, this incredible research is unlikely to make a difference where it is needed most.

Teddy Cruz, presenting via satellite.

In contrast to the earnestness of Cruz and Aravena, the inclusion of Sam Jacob (replacing his partner Sean Griffiths) from the UK firm FAT seemed a curious choice for a conference decidedly focused on the ‘ordinary’. But of course, this is precisely the territory FAT revel in, mining the language and peculiarities of ‘common’ taste – a kind of urban vernacular that dispenses with sober sincerity in lieu of humour and irony. We were treated to the chequered brick patterns of the Islington Square social housing development – supposedly derived from a dandy’s socks – and the digital mash up of a Gothic source book for the Sint Lucas school in Boxtel, Netherlands.

FAT’s Sint Lucas School, Boxtel, 2006

Not everyone supported this approach – again, Aravena showed his teeth (when I provoked him), claiming that ‘I don’t buy from that presentation that that is the taste of the people, it was extremely exaggerated, a bit ironic, and I don’t think you can play with these kinds of issues, [social housing] is a serious thing.’ This comment – and other backchat from delegates to the same effect – seemed to capture a major rift in the reception of the ideas presented; namely that social ambitions ought to be expressed with a corresponding language of earnestness. Has our Modernist training led us architects to measure authenticity and honesty by image not impact?

The doubters must have missed Jacob’s excellent potted history of half-timbering, where he traced the source of this so-called ‘authentic’ British style – revered by architectural conservatives such as Prince Charles – as one imported from Saxony, and originally built in England to remind these German invaders of home. Far from being vernacular, half-timbering in England is therefore nostalgic and referential at its very core. FAT pursue this superficial heritage to its extreme conclusion by creating a half-timbered font – pure communication – and use it to write nothing less than ‘Kill the Modernist Within’.

Indeed, hidden behind FAT’s fancy façades are buildings that are making a real difference in improving communities, a point reinforced in the presentation by Tom Bloxham of Urban Splash, the developer of the Islington Square project. FAT’s work brought much needed humour (and critical rigour) to a conference line-up bordering on high-horsery, and a reminder not to confuse the image of ethics or honesty with the actual social impact on the ground.

These speakers – and the many others I’ve overlooked here – represent a renewal of architecture’s instrumentality in dealing with social concerns. Our heritage and training in a spatial and aesthetic discipline is being augmented by a need to engage simultaneously on social, environmental and political levels. Our marriage to the market of past decades is being tempered by a broader responsibility for the city, and an ambition to take into account those needs beyond the commissioning client’s. It’s time we all learned how to fly.

Extra/ordinary conference site
Interviews with Sam Jacob and Alejandro Aravena for The Architects

From my archive, an essay I wrote in 2006, which is relevant to the theme of this blog. The essay deals with the discrepancies between theory and practice , and the role of criticality in this relation. Two of the main source texts which functioned as the point of departure for The Projective Landscape conference are analyzed and compared in respect to these themes.

Revising Practice;
Strategies and attitudes for architecture in the next century.

Stan Allen’s endeavor in reformulating architectural practice and theory in his book “Practice, Architecture, Technique and Representation”[1] is not a solo undertaking. In recent years a lot of academics in the field of architecture have done the same. All trying to define a new way of practicing architecture and theory, all slightly different but with many similarities in the direction where the look for answers. This search for the definition of contemporary and future architectural practice is part of a bigger debate. A debate in the United States around notions such as ‘post-critical’[2] and ‘projective practice’ . The American debate however seems to be extremely geared towards a reaction against the architecture and theory of Peter Eisenman. Although the debate is colored with this sort of motives it persists to be a very interesting developments and appears to be putting forward a fruitful strategy for architectural practice for the 21st century.

In this essay I would like to put Stan Allen’s “Introduction, Practice vs, Project” from the book “Practice, Architecture, Technique and Representation” [3] in context of this debate, mainly through the article “Notes around the Doppler Effect and other Moods of Modernism” [4]. This article is much more specifically taking position against the a generation embodied by the work of Peter Eisenman and K. Michael Hays and has a lot of overlaps in formulating the alternative that the new generation (here personified by Stan Allen, Robert Somol and Sarah Whiting) is proposing to counter the dominant model so far (I have to note that this debate and generation conflict is mostly taking place within the American academia). But both writings leave one question unanswered: “What about architectural critique?” The issue of critique was very central in the work of Eisenman and Hays and an entire group of architects and writers of their generation. All taking ‘a’ critical stance towards society, capitalism and other societal structures. But how will this notion of critique be part of the formulation of architectural practice for the next century.

One of the issues that stands at the root of this debate is the troublesome relationship between architectural practice and theory. Allen does a very good job explaining how these entities are positioned towards one and other and why they cause a problem.

“Theory and practice are (…) equally rule-bound: theory devoted to the production of rules, practice relegated to the implementation of those same rules (…) Theory’s promise is to make up for what practice lacks: to confer unity on the disparate procedures of design and construction.”[5] These quotes summarize the situation as is predominantly seen and already gives us a clue about what the problem is. “In this view, theory tends to envelope and protect practice, while practice excuses theory from the obligation to engage reality. Design is reduced to the implementation of rules set down elsewhere.(…) Theory imposes regulated ideological criteria over the undisciplined heterogeneity of the real, while the unstated assumptions of conventional practice enforce known solutions and safe repetitions. In both cases, small differences accumulate, but never add up to make a difference.”[6]
Theory and practice are captured by one and other and in this situation both incapable of engaging reality, this is a sad and dumb situation according to Allen. This does not mean; let’s get rid of one of them to liberate the other. Allen proposes a revision of both definitions. So he reformulates practice as well as theory as ‘material practice’ and ‘hermeneutic practice’. Two practices that work more closely together in engaging reality. Hermeneutic practice understands the present through analyzing the past and material practice analyses the present “in order to project transformations into the future” [7]. In this new relationship, architecture is not the object of theory and architecture does not need theory as legitimation for defining the form in which it manifests itself. “What is proposed instead is a notion of practice flexible enough to engage the complexity of the real, yet sufficiently secure in its own technical and conceptual bases to go beyond the simple reflection of the real as given” [8]

To understand what exactly is meant by these terms hermeneutic and material practice it is perhaps more interesting if we compare them with a third term ‘projective practice’ which aims at a very similar redefinition of practice and places these ‘redefinitions’ in the context of the current debate described earlier. The term ‘projective’ is put forward in the article ‘Notes around the Doppler Effect and other Moods of Modernism’ by Robert Somol and Sarah Whiting. When Somol & Whiting introduce the term ‘projective’. They also address the problem of the theory-practice distinction but in a far more indirect way, in their argument these are still very much intertwined. The article starts off with the heading “from critical to projective”. This needs some further explanation. The notion of ‘critical’ to which is referred in this article originates from how K. Michael Hays uses it in his article “Critical Architecture: Between Culture and Form”. In this article Hays uses the architecture of Mies van der Rohe as a paradigm to explain how through dialectics architecture can occupy a in between status between two contradicting positions. Architecture can do this through using its autonomy, detaching itself from reality but at the same time reflecting it. “For Hays, Mies’ architecture situates itself ‘between the efficient representation of preexisting cultural values and the wholly detached autonomy of an abstract formal system.’ [9] This status of being in the world yet resistant to it is attained by the way the architectural object materially reflects its specific temporal and spatial context, as well as the way it serves as trace of its productive systems.” [10] In this way ,Hays explains, Mies’ architecture can be critical, because it has positioned itself at the necessary distance to be critical through architectural means of its materiality through which it can reflect on contemporary reality. Even though architecture is produced by reality and the way a building is built is a trace of that reality, autonomy is a form of resistance to this reality. This piece of theory and the formulation of ‘critical architecture’ had such an influence that “What for Hays was then an exceptional practice, has now been rendered an everyday fact of life.” [11] This is the role of theory which Allen is referring to: “The enlightened discourse of theory (scientific, and generaliazable) is contrasted to the mechanical techniques of practice. Today this view persists in the form of a mandate for ‘critical’ practices that would hold the individual instances of practice accountable to ideological criteria.” [12] Practice held prisoner by criteria of a theory that refuses to fully engage reality and instead detaches itself from reality through retreating into formalistic autonomy, an almost autistic architecture.

Both Somol & Whiting as Allen are not content with this state of affairs. And propose a more open, flexible approach to reality through an architectural practice that is confident in its own modes of operation and intrinsic disciplinary knowledge. In contrast to architectural autonomy, Somol & Whiting state: “If critical dialectics established architecture’s autonomy as a means of defining architecture’s field of discipline, a Doppler architecture acknowledges the adaptive synthesis of architecture’s many contingencies. Rather than isolating a singular autonomy, the Doppler focuses upon the effect and exchanges of architecture’s inherent multiplicities: material, program, writing, atmosphere, form, technologies, economics, etc.” [13] With the ‘Doppler effect’ notion Somol & Whiting want to counter the rigid position of architecture positioned ‘in between’ the two oppositions (culture and form) that constitute a dialectical framework. In the Doppler situation the (op)positions are constantly moving and changing with a relative velocity to one and other. This reflects a much more flexible and larger space for architecture to maneuver in and to choose it’s own position at any instance. “More significantly, practice is not a static construct, but is defined precisely by its movements and trajectories. There is no theory, there is no practice. There are only practices, which consist in action and agency. They unfold in time, and their repetitions are never identical. It is for this reason that the ‘know-how’ of practice (whether of writing or design) is a continual source of innovation and change.” [14] The hard distinction between a theory that instructs how a practice should operate have disappeared in this formulation, they are now equally important practices, existing next to each other and informing each other. “Ironically, practice (usually assumed unproblematically identified with reality) will discover new uses for theory only as it moves closer to the complex and problematic character of the real itself.” [15]

The definition of architectural practice might now seem to be one with a very vague outline. But Allen and Somol & Whiting also sketch a new perimeter for architectural practice. “Architecture’s limits are understood pragmatically –as resource and an opportunity- and not a defining boundary. The practitioner looks for performative multiplicities in the interplay between an open catalog of procedures and a stubbornly indifferent reality.” [16] “A projective architecture does not make a claim for expertise outside the field of architecture nor does it limit its field of expertise to an absolute definition of architecture. Design is what keeps architecture from slipping into a cloud of heterogeneity. It delineates the fluctuating borders of architecture’s disciplinarity and expertise. So when architects engage topics that are seemingly outside of architecture’s historically-defined scope –questions of economics or civic politics, for example- they don’t engage those topics as experts on economics or civic politics but, rather as experts on design and how design may affect economics or politics. They engage these other fields as experts on design’s relationship to those other disciplines, rather than as critics.” [17] The limits of architecture are not clearly defined in both quotes, but what is very clear is that the practice and field of architecture is defined from within the discipline itself. From a ‘historically-defined’ body of knowledge and an ‘open catalog of procedures’ new knowledge and procedures will emerge, when architectural practice is confronted with the real. But what is overseen here is that the real imposes limits on architecture as well. Liberating architectural discourse of Marxists rhetorics and the architecture as an a priori critical practice is one thing. But shaping this ‘new’ practice from the inherent knowledge of the discipline is something else, and a paramount question. The argument of returning to the body of knowledge intrinsic to the architectural discipline can be interpreted in two very different ways. One is a revaluation of the craft of making buildings and spaces, the effects of materiality , tactility and spatial atmospheres. The other is regarding the operations in architectural practice abstractly, in ways of architectural thinking, design tools and strategies. These operation can be applied on any problem and the product of the process can be anything, so not necessary a building or a spatial design. Architectural or design thinking as a body of knowledge and a set of tools and operation which can address a multitude of issues. But history teaches us that the nuance of both paradigms existing next to each other under the flag of ‘architecture’ is unlikely.

But what about critique? Critique on architecture’s position society and how it should or should not operate in this relationship? The ‘critical practices’ very specifically addressed the problems of the relations and structures in contemporary society. With the negating autonomy of Eisenman as prime example of the American version of ‘Critical’. How would a projective or material practice address these issues of societal criticism? Somol & Whiting leave this question open ended with their closing statement : “Setting out this projective program does not necessarily entail a capitulation to market forces, but actually respects or reorganizes multiple economies, ecologies, information systems, and social groups.” [18] Respecting reality seems like a very sensible thing to do, and a lot less naïve then believing in the critical strategies rendered capable of refusing or changing society. But the problem remains, if architecture doesn’t take a certain distance, how can it be critical. How can you be truly critical of the systems of which you yourself are dependent on. Allen has maybe a more fruitful strategy to address this problem. In this arguments he uses the example of ‘the walker in the city’ used by De Certeau to illustrate his story how one can improvise with a present system, just like the geometric spaces of the city can not dictate the trajectory of the walker. “De Certeau describes a series of ‘tricky and stubborn procedures that elude discipline without being outside the field in which it is exercised.’ [19] He has confidence that there will always exist fissures and cracks that provide openings for tactical reworkings. Making opportunistic use of these footholds, the creativity of everyday practice can often outwit the rigid structures of imposed order, or out-maneuver the weighty apparatus of institutional control” [20] Allen describes with the use of De Certeau how one can outwit the structures in which one is embedded. The strategy proposed could be characterized as embedded critique, but it has to be said that this is a very different position and less credible to state critique from. But the Marxist critical position is not feasible either from within architectural practice. The main problem with critique in our contemporary society is that it is largely internalized within our societal systems. Marxism always poses a critique on how the whole of capitalist society is organized, there are very few positions from where you can pose a credible critique like that and it has to be a position without any appearance of conflicting interests. The academic world has always been a haven for critical thinking like this. But architectural practice is deeply intertwined with all kinds of interests, and its even one the architect’s many capacities to work with them in a smart way. Architecture is also a business, so practice as a vocation of academic critical thinking won’t get any bread on the table, and even if it could your critique can never entirely credible, because your client pays for it. Critique in the Marxist sense as part of any business practice is problematic. But this doesn’t directly mean that you capitulate to all market force. Everywhere in business there are ideals, principles and societal criticisms which drive enterprises. But this form of idealism which also has to be pragmatic and has to be commercially viable is aimed at concrete results and not at reflection on mankinds existential condition in our post-industrial globalized society.

This brings us back to the academia, the school for architecture. Where theoretical discourse has its real influence on practice by training the next generation of architects. In this sense the school is critical in how architects think about what architects and architecture should do and its meaning in society at large.
Here I would like to make a point. Architectural theory as teached in schools in general generates the image that architecture should be employed to intellectually reflect on the existential conditions of contemporary mankind, heavily drawing on ideas from philosophy. This together with the dogma of architects being artists creates the climate on architecture schools that the ideal architecture should be a high-cultural-intellectual-practice, with the architect as central author/artist or guru. Here I am missing a nuance in a way thinking which can engage reality more directly, instead of through intellectual culture production. The paradox of the architecture school is that is doesn’t demystifies architectural design, but actually mystifies architectural design. The idea that architects are also entrepreneurs, which in my opinion is the most fruitful way to constitute new forms of practice and reinvent what architecture can do in engaging reality, seems to be an idea which is unable to enter the academic world and become an integral part in the thinking about architecture. In other words you could describe this again as problematic relation between the sphere of theory (being the school) and that of practice (being the office).
Nevertheless I think both texts of Allen and Somol & Whiting are signals that support the idea that theory and practice should work more closely as two equal but not similar practices. Theory and practice should formulate what architectures operations, tools are and together plot out a strategy to conquer new territories where ‘architecture’ can be applied by architects which see themselves as thinkers, designers and entrepreneurs.

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1 Stan Allen, Practice: architecture, technique and representation, (London: Routledge, 2000)
2 ‘post critical’ was one of the buzzwords at ‘The State of Architecture at the Beginning of the 21st Century’ Conference held at Columbia University on the 28-19th of March 2003. Bernard Tschumi, Irene Cheng (editors), The State of Architecture at the Beginning of the 21st Century, (New York, The Monacelli Press, 2003)
3 Stan Allen, Practice: architecture, technique and representation, (London: Routledge, 2000), pp.13-25
4 Robert Somol & Sarah Whiting, “Notes around the Doppler Effect and other Moods of Modernism”, Perspecta 33, The Yale architectural Journal, (Cambridge, MIT Press, 2002), pp.72-77
5 Stan Allen, Practice: architecture, technique and representation, (London: Routledge, 2000), pp.15
6 Ibid.,pp.16
7 Ibid.,pp.18
8 Ibid.,pp.16
9 K. Michael Hays, “Critical Architecure: Between Culture and Form”, Perspecta 21, The Yale architectural Journal, (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1984), pp.15
10 Robert Somol & Sarah Whiting, “Notes around the Doppler Effect and other Moods of Modernism”, Perspecta 33, The Yale architectural Journal, (Cambridge, MIT Press, 2002), pp.74
11 Ibid.,pp.73
12 Stan Allen, Practice: architecture, technique and representation, (London: Routledge, 2000), pp.15
13 Robert Somol & Sarah Whiting, “Notes around the Doppler Effect and other Moods of Modernism”, Perspecta 33,
The Yale architectural Journal, (Cambridge, MIT Press, 2002), pp.75
14 Stan Allen, Practice: architecture, technique and representation, (London: Routledge, 2000), pp.17
15 Ibid., pp.17
16 Ibid., pp.18
17 Robert Somol & Sarah Whiting, “Notes around the Doppler Effect and other Moods of Modernism”, Perspecta 33,
The Yale architectural Journal, (Cambridge, MIT Press, 2002), pp.75
18 Ibid., pp.77
19 Michel de Certau, The Practices of Everyday Life, trans. Steven F. Rendall (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1988), pp.96
20 Stan Allen, Practice: architecture, technique and representation, (London: Routledge, 2000), pp.23

[images: Drawings from SITELESS: 1001 Building Forms, The MIT Press, 2008 François Blanciak]

In The Architectural Cognition Laboratory, research is done on one of the most remarkable professional tribes known to man: architects. A team of neurobiologists, psychologists, ethnographers and an odd-ball theorist are interested in this tribe’s social and cultural practices, most importantly to reveal how the architect thinks. In the lab, an architectural studio has been recreated containing a group of architects working under the regime of a design competition. The Big Brother house for architects have eagerly surrendered themselves to the familiar practice of competition; the reward is vague but suggests the celebration of genius for those who win. All the ingredients are there to keep the architects entangled in the dynamics of their game. With regular intervals the subjects are taken apart so a researcher can interview him or her. 15 is called to come to the completely white room. 15 sits down at a table and hears a researcher’s voice over the speaker.

“15, I would like to ask you a question” the researchers voice said calmly “Can you tell me what your thoughts are made of?” “Hahaha. You expect me to just tell you this?” 15 said surprisingly. “Why not? Have you never wondered about how you think, what it is you think with?”, “Well no, not really, I never consciously thought about my own thinking that much. Isn’t it your job to find out?” “Yes, but I don’t have your brain. So you’ll have to help me out a bit here” “But how? I hardly understand what sort of answer you’re expecting. What do you mean when you talk about what ‘it’ is that you think with?” “Let’s say that when you’re designing, what then are the things you are manipulating?” “I guess I manipulate drawings, images, sketches, foam, 3D models, diagrams; those sort of things, but they are outside my brain” “Is their a difference, if it’s in or outside your brain?” “I think so” “What can you do in your brain that you cannot do on paper?” “Well I can imagine in my mind what a space should be like. Or I have a shape or organization in mind, but I can only go so far in the mind. It’s like a universe of half-formed thoughts, impressions, memories, shapes, patterns and structures that seem disparate” “good, go on” “ok, errr but I can only make sense of all these disparate thoughts when I start drawing, modeling, trying to get my premature associations and connections between these thought out of my brain into the world as a sketch or something. Then I have it before my eyes. Then I can progress. It’s kind of like, as if the paper and my pen are an external memory drive, like external RAM, outsourced working memory. Ha! Never thought about it like that” “Very good 15, tell me more about how this process of progression works” ” I guess that when I have something on paper it makes room for new thoughts. My head is like a hotel that can only hold so many thoughts at a time” The fluorescent light in the room flickered; a buzz slowly intensified and the lights popped. The researcher laughed “divine intervention … , we’re getting too close to the truth.”