http://www.architectmagazine.com/exhibitions/small-scale-minor-letdown.aspx
Exhibition Page
19.11.10
Reevaluating Urban Form
I have just begun reading Design for Ecological Democracy by Randy Hester, Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning and Urban Design at UC Berkely and author of several community planning texts. In a nutshell, the book is about redefining and recreating the American city. This remade city would be ecologically and socially integrated and concerned with local knowledge and community participation.
In the Introduction,Hester critiques current American urban development and design; and points to it as the underlying critical issue that has destroyed the ‘sense of community’ and ecological richness in our cities and has lead to environmental crisis. “City makers continues to design urban areas more and more the same and less and less particular to to the vegetative mosaics,microclimates,air-movement patterns, and hydrologic cycles. We still call resulting urban wildfires,energy shortages and flood damage “natural disasters"(Hester 2).
With the same basic argument of many(many,many) Hester discusses the disconnect from surrounding nature caused by technology,the automobile,poor planning,ect. However while this remains an obvious problem in the developed world, I feel his argument could be a bit more thorough and..recent. He calls for a response of applied ecology and democracy(hence the books title) which leads to “actions guided by understanding natural processes and social relationships within our locality and larger environmental context”, and there fore a new urban ecology (Hester 4).
He introduces "3 fundamental roots to reformulate better cities":
1. our cities and landscapes must enable us to act where we are now debilitated(which according to Hester is almost everywhere down to our un-anchored soul)
2.) our cities and landscapes must be made to withstand short term shocks to which both are vulnerable.
3.) our cities and landscapes must be alluring rather than simply consumptive or conversely,limiting.
This new thought foundation is encompassed by a "global design process" which is participatory,scientific and adventuresome (Hester 8).
Successful and productive design is::
-inspired by local environmental processes
-ecologically and culturally diverse
-contextually response
to be cont....
In the Introduction,Hester critiques current American urban development and design; and points to it as the underlying critical issue that has destroyed the ‘sense of community’ and ecological richness in our cities and has lead to environmental crisis. “City makers continues to design urban areas more and more the same and less and less particular to to the vegetative mosaics,microclimates,air-movement patterns, and hydrologic cycles. We still call resulting urban wildfires,energy shortages and flood damage “natural disasters"(Hester 2).
With the same basic argument of many(many,many) Hester discusses the disconnect from surrounding nature caused by technology,the automobile,poor planning,ect. However while this remains an obvious problem in the developed world, I feel his argument could be a bit more thorough and..recent. He calls for a response of applied ecology and democracy(hence the books title) which leads to “actions guided by understanding natural processes and social relationships within our locality and larger environmental context”, and there fore a new urban ecology (Hester 4).
He introduces "3 fundamental roots to reformulate better cities":
1. our cities and landscapes must enable us to act where we are now debilitated(which according to Hester is almost everywhere down to our un-anchored soul)
2.) our cities and landscapes must be made to withstand short term shocks to which both are vulnerable.
3.) our cities and landscapes must be alluring rather than simply consumptive or conversely,limiting.
This new thought foundation is encompassed by a "global design process" which is participatory,scientific and adventuresome (Hester 8).
Successful and productive design is::
-inspired by local environmental processes
-ecologically and culturally diverse
-contextually response
to be cont....
16.11.10
Defining Environmental Architecture
This week I sped forward through the literature from early 70's to arrive at the present debate of sustainable design:What is sustainable? How do you design sustainably? ect. ect. Living in the age of "green washing", where for every product there seems to exist an alternative that is natural, organic, green, eco-friendly, many don't question the actual defining parameters of these terms
In,Taking Shape:A New Contract between Architecture and Nature, author Susannah Hagan calls for a redefinition of sustainable architecture. Hagan argues that creating a new sustainable design process based upon environmental ethic and not aesthetics will ultimately fail. She introduces three criteria which engage with environmental design and can act as tools to examine the idea of "sustainable".
1-Symbiosis: considers the building's life cycle and recognises the dynamic interrelated system of the environment
2-Differentiation: "considers whether biological diversity implies cultural diversity".
Looks to architectural diversity and what environmental advantage may be gained by pursuing it.
Looks to architectural diversity and what environmental advantage may be gained by pursuing it.
3-Visibility: "considers if all existing forms and theories are the only options”.
“The criterion of ‘visibility’ therefore asks whether this push towards conscious signification should not be included in environmental architecture. The issues of visibility pushes beyond architecture made sustainable:it marks out the ground on which some environmental architecture doubles back to architecture as art, that is to directed expression.”
Also, included in the reading in the chapter, “Rules of Engagement”, Hagan argues for a a restructuring of the BREEAM rating system, which is Britain’s equivalent to the U.S. LEED evaluating system. While the argument is a bit outdated at present, since this publication the BREEAM system has revamped their criterion for buildings achieving rated status, Hagan holds the same stance on the issue as many LEED skeptics to in the United States. Hagan contends that the rating system is superficial and undemanding and, “the most problematic aspect of the award, however, is the fact that is based on work done at design stage and not when the building is up and running”. She calls for a more holistic design and building approach:
“A symbiotic relationship is only possible if the building flights entropy like a natural system ,blurring the line between the man made and the given”.
Earlier this year, Frank Ghery defended his criticism of the LEED rating system in the U.S:
Ghery believes sustainable building concerns to be too “political” and LEED awards superficial and “bogus” in nature. While a skeptic of the LEED rating system myself, I am a proponent of sustainable design and believe there must be accountability in the design/build/operation. To call these issues political is unreasonable and "short sighted".
Good write up on Ghery:
ECT.
"Green wash" critique
Thankfully, there are still those who disagree with Ghery...
http://inhabitat.com/2010/11/16/spanish-highrise-keeps-its-cool-under-a-double-skin/#more-186992
7.11.10
On Robert Smithson:Heterotopia,Entropy,Language
In Chapter 3 of Earthworks, Susan Boetteger introduces Foucault's idea of "heterotopia" and its connection to earth work sites.
Foucault defines “heterotopia” in his 1986 article "Of Other Spaces":
“Places of these kind are outside of all places,even though it may be possible to indicate their location in reality. Because these places are absolutely different from all the sites that they reflect and speak about, I shall call them by the way of contrast to utopias, heterotopias”
Boetteger also employs Foucault's description, while initially used to describe social institutions, as applicable to art works which “simultaneously represent, contest and invert” not only only literal vertical,circumscribed masses but also the social ideal of sculptured monuments”.
Robert Smithson provides a prime example of an artist who embraced Foucaultian ideas of place and projected them into his in his sculptured environments. His fascination with entropy in the physical landscape through unnatural processes is investigated by Boetteger and became of keen interest to myself. The author explains his compulsion with entropy as related to the death of Smithson's older brother, who died before Smithson was born. Boetteger argues that being a "replacement child" led him to his "morbid preoccupation with the topic of death and with naturally occurring catastrophes". Critics also argue that Smithson’s connection to entropy can also be related to his brother’s death from cancer: the body's interior and exterior entropic disintegration.
In his earlier work, Smithson maintained a preference towards crystalline structures and process rather than that of organic shapes and materials. In 1966 Smithson’s story, “Crystal Land” was published in Harper's Bazaar and chronicled a “rock hunting adventure” with his wife and another couple. This acted as the first publicised proclamation of his shifting interest from “discrete crystals to that of desolate land”. This was an important move in Smithson’s career that went on to influence his later and most important works.
toward the development of an air terminal site_
Towards the end of Chapter 3, Boettger goes on to critique Smithson's essay entitled “Towards the Development of an Air Terminal Site” which was written during the fated collaboration between Smithson and the T.A.M.S. development group in the late 60’s. Boetteger refers to the essay as a ,“a very ambitious piece, suffering from its juxtaposition of abstract thinking and only prosaic data…[the only thing to be extracted] was impressively detailed substantiation”.
I decided to review the article for myself.
I was immediately puzzled by the disjuncture of subject matter and contextual references. Smithson wanted to create a new kind of building that brought together “anthropology and linguistics through an esthetic methodology”. (in which non site provides an obvious model) However, he does not clearly explain how he is going to combine these disciplines. Smithson also fills the essay with tables and numerical data that dissect the text and create a piece that is difficult to navigate and therefore challenging comprehend the entirety of his conclusive(or non conclusive) ideas.
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