further ideas...

So after the tutorial, i came back to think about clearly defining what is public and private and like you said, i decided to change the screen room to be in the public building as well as the living room. What is left on the private building would be all the bedrooms and the bathrooms within them because if i move the bathroom to the public building, everything would be all cluttered in the public building as well as it does not make sense in terms of function for the owner of the house to have to walk to the other building to go to take a shower and then come back to their bedroom to dress up. Since i decided that the screen room for the camera obscura will be used as the camera obscura room and then the next sequence will be for the public to watch the film, i decided to move those film room to the second and the third floor in order for the public to interact more with the house. This will make it more interesting in terms of voyeurism since by this, the people who live in the house has the ability to spy on the public that intrudes their house as well rather than spying on themselves that obviously live in the house. For the first floor, they will see the image projected from the camera obscura. On the second floor, it is the film room for them to watch a scary film. the third floor would be for them to watch a comedy film. the storage room for films would be underground. By giving them different types of films to watch, the voyeurs can see the reaction of the public on those films when they do not know that they are being watched. The public would come in since those film rooms will allow the sound of the public out to the site to drag attention and give hints to people that they can actually come in. This matches how the public building is to show the behaviors of people as a public performance. So the screen room/ film room would be my public component.

for our next tutorial Tuesday afternoon

1- As mentioned before, you should all get a copy of the NEUFERT.
In order to design precisely according to standard dimensions.
This book is an essential guide for an architect - it will give you standards, away from which you can of course move but it is necessary to know what is a standard in order to surpass it!


2- For next time, all plans should have a structural layer, showing the existing grid of 3.5 by 3.5, and the way your layout is accorded to it, or the way you intend to modify it.
This grid should also appear in all your sections, elevations and axon, to make sure that the owner of the house does not have to jump over a beam while getting to the 2nd floor...


3- Perspective renderings + the way they work in a sequence, in relation to the film analysis + the way you will integrate them in the overall presentation.


4- Try to achieve vertical alignment between "water rooms" such as bathroom, toilet and kitchen (simpler pipe network).


5- All line drawings with appropriate line-weights and details at 1/50.


6- Programmatic (exploded or not) axon showing circulations and layout.


7- Write a text describing the concept behind your design and how it is articulated to the previous exercises of the semester.


8- Physical model of your project, as a tool and not a representation (in progress).


9- Group site model of course...


10- Good luck and work hard!

SITE MODEL

Hello guys,

I know that we have so much work right now but still.. we have to make our group 'site model'...

To get it over and done with... I would like to make a suggestion, why not have each one of us make 5 shop houses by this friday?

scale 1: 50 so each house would be 7x28x19 cm

details can also be added i.e. the horizontal fins and windows...

then all we have left is the base? sounds good?

we also need volunteers to make the base and/or the taller shophouses at the end of the cul de sac...by the main road

What do you guys think? any suggestions?

MODEL reminder + indications + references + post on the blog + ....

Dears,

* First of all, finish the site model (as a group work, at least a group agreement and organization) for next Wednesday. It should be detailed and you can use different materials, as you see fit your analysis.

** Next tutorial all drawings should be PRINTED - no computer screen no more! only physical models and printed or hand drawings (even rendering of your digital models, showing the parts you'd like to discuss).

*** All of you should be using Rhino (or other than sketchup) by now! 

The problem with sketchup, apart from its evident limitation, is that it has many so-called architectural elements in it, which prevents you from thinking about (and therefore creating) what an aperture is, what an entrance or a passage could be, what is a wall made of and how is it constructed, etc.

You have to define all this specifically for your project!!

**** As your design progresses, get the Neufert and test the dimensions of your house (corridors, toilets etc.).

***** For next time, all should have started working on the final required documents.

Do a program diagram of you house and its internal organization (best in axon).

Continue working on physical models at scale 1/50.

Besides, writing down a scenario for your house will help you a lot: do it in association to sketches and perspective drawings (which you should develop as your project develops and not produce at the end).

****** And... the links on the left side of this page are actually meant to be clicked on! (yes it is surprising...).

They are updated everyday or week (depending on the blog) . 

I particularly recommend you to read, daily, The Funambulist (a new post everyday!), and Lebbeus Woods's.

about sections.... (for Nott and all)

Read what Peter Cook (ARCHIGRAM) has to say about sections:

http://drawingarchitecture.tumblr.com/post/1284131316/sections-are-out-of-fashion-at-the-moment-but-due

... in his great book: Drawing the motive force of architecture (which you should ALL get and read).

Generally speaking a section works out vertical and oblique trajectories and circulations (natural light, people. movements, etc.). It is also strongly related to gravity, to our body, its physical capacities and its fears

Besides, as you move up, you generally depart from a socially shared level, the ground (naturally given to us) and thus moves into privacy. This can be questioned.

Levels in a house have been described as psychological places ("vertical topoanalysis") by Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of Space, which i also recommend.

For interesting projects developed through sections, look at 

The House without Rooms, by Raimund Abraham

Paul Rudolf's buildings are best understood through sections - and his drawings are fantastic!

Again the work of the Metabolist movement will be a great reference for you Nott.

Here a fictional manifesto on Kurokawa's Nakagin Tower:

For a better understanding of what parametric design is, maybe you can read this
(Kong as well)

http://stanford.edu/~vgane/research/vgane_thesis.pdf

It is written from an engineer point of view (efficiency-driven) but you can easily think of the translations, applications you can make with your own project's criteria in mind.

For Nott and Aei, social housing by Jean Renaudie near Paris (really fantastic agencement of spaces - in plan mainly though which shows that you can make use of non conventional angles):

http://thefunambulist.net/2010/12/22/classic-architectures-the-architecture-of-jean-renaudie/

Yipta, have a look at Erwin Hauer's partition walls. 

It is an assemblage with components, which do not change, but you can learn from it patterns and geometries.

Bo,

great fashion designers: 

Alexander McQueen

John Galliano

of course Issey Miyake

Viktor and Rolf

Martin Margiela

Yohji Yamamoto

Hussein Chalayan

All have different approaches to the body and the idea of creation that can be linked or applied to architecture (think of a building as the extension of the body, in an even larger scale than the one of the cloth; both are, after all, protecting and placing our beings (bodies and minds) from and in the environment).

Time to link your interested and have fun designing architecture!!

Look also at the use of fabric in architecture.

This can enrich your project (non-existant at the moment...) but now keep your focus on SOUND and research its physical properties in relation to space.

++
I do not remember to whom i was talking about the architecture of Arawaka and Gins...
But it is a great reference to all anyway!
Architecture against death
and an essay about their work by Ed Keller
and another one by Leopold Lambert.

ok - good luck all

Your production has to increase drastically!

+ start planning your final presentation  - in a consistent dialogue with the ones you previously did, especially of the masters' houses.

Tokyo Apartment by Sou Fujimoto

This is the house I've mentioned to Aj. Camillee in the last pin up. I find the circulation interesting; how one travels from one unit to the next through external staircase...Check the link out :)

http://www.dezeen.com/2010/10/05/tokyo-apartment-by-sou-fujimoto-architects/

great architectural drawings online - to be researched further in order to have a comprehensive understanding of the projects

http://drawingarchitecture.tumblr.com/archive

You work should aim to reach that level in the expression and embodiment of ideas through the medium drawing.

SITE MODEL - CHANGES!!! + extra tutorials

Dear all,

_As your individual models will be at 1/50 - the site model should as well!!
Keep the same rectangle as shown on the image - but SCALE = 1/50.

Besides, Aj Mark's group found out yesterday that the house's dimensions in plan are 3.5 by 14m.

IMPORTANT NOTICE
If you are not allowed to add another (fully closed) storey to the house (by law), you can dig max 3m in the ground...

_As you know Friday is supposed to be our last class... however i have one class to make up and i will still be available for extra tutorials during the 2 weeks to come.

I propose to meet either at TCDC or at the Reading Room, which has a great collection of books related to contemporary art.
I would prefer to meet there as i think it is a place you should definitely check out.

Next week, we could meet Monday or Wednesday and Friday, morning (from 10 at TCDC) or afternoon.

So let's vote here on :

place

& date

Site analysis: Voyeurism and Public VS. Private Space

This is my site analysis on voyeurism and public and private space. As I explored in the site, I focused on the different voyeuristic techniques the site provides which are stairs, windows and openings, looking down, looking up, mirror, and eavesdropping. I observed the relationship of the different views a voyeur can get from the scenarios of:

1. the house to the site

2. the site to the house

3. the house to the house

4. the house within itself

I also did the window typology diagram which was not presented at the presentation again because of the file size problem. From the window typology, I can judge that from the view of the site to the house, the house is rather private because all the windows and openings are mostly closed. Also, the windows are not see through. Conversely, from my analysis, from the view of the inside of the house to the site is considered public because of the views from the roof top deck and the openings.

Aei

House design

To all,



_ Re-edit your films according to the comments made during our pin-up and give them to me on a DVD on Tuesday.


_ Almost all of you will have to rework on their site analysis in order to have a good presentation (and improved content!) on the final review. Don't waste time and do it now! 
Additionally we will only accept PORTRAIT A0 for the final review and following exhibition at BACC.


_All of you should help and organize the making of the site model with Nick (you will all use it for the final). 
Provide him with dimensions and accurate drawings.
These are the dimensions and perimeter of the model (given to all groups):

_The detailed brief for the house program is here.

Comments after our last pin-up:


BOM
Define your ambition for this project PRECISELY.
How do you intend to work with colours? with light?
You have only looked (and really superficially) at one colour theory! (when i oriented you towards more - have you even looked at it??..) - you need to expand your knowledge drastically!
Idem for technical lighting in cinema.


KONG
Your site analysis was very poor. 
What does it give you? 
Your diagrams could be interesting as a design starting point but but but you have to be critical about them!
What are they of? How are they relevant to this site? How would you transform them?
How do they relate to an actual experience?
Have you looked at the references i gave earlier???


ARM
Interesting film, although the editing should be specific about framing.
It is yet neither critical nor analytical.
Your model, as well, does not relate to your main theme of framing...
You should get the most you can out of the film and the specific sequence you chose (process of translation).


BO
As said during the critique, your analysis (both plate and model) crucially lacked layers: the site, the streets, the activities etc.
Also it was far from being specific about the sounds!! (which type, what frequency etc.). For someone intending to work with sound, this is a must.
You should not represent sound, rather really work with it.
For references look at projects in experimental electronic music, such as by Edwin van der Heide, Maryanne Amacher, David Byrne (playing the building)...
You can now (in parallel to your design form(ul)ation) start a technical research on materials, properties and geometry in relation to sound, its qualities and its propagation in space.


NUNG
Your film was quite a success! You can (and always should!) still improve it, however now is time to strongly establish your concept.
Refine your thinking about the diagonal and the fact of connecting/touching/grazing/approaching/...
Articulating  public and private spheres around this disposition could be a good idea.


NOTT
Establish a hierarchy in your presentations and transform pure data (here from your specific site analysis) into form or processes that will inform your design (this is for your own sake as well as for your audience's!!)
You say you are testing ideas - much more than one should be then tested!


YIPTA
Was that a film? an animation? Was the filmic media well explored in your opinion? Was it at all necessary?
What are the rhythm(s) you are talking about? How would you compare them? translate them?
It is ok (and could even be productive) to perform a pure formal exploration, but it would make your project incredibly much better if this forms and their relations made sense! Think about a reversal of rhythm...


CAKE
Be specific in your analysis about the locations, and the different fields of vision.
You really have to improve your model making skills- so i suggest that you do a lot of them (formal explorations of diverse visual connections) for next class - you should also do computer models, in parallel and those 2 types of 3 dimensinal models should inform each other)
What are the relations between the 2 houses?
Write down a scenario for this house and really research and experiment different techniques ( i already gave you a great reference, look also at jali screens in muslim architecture, at the camera oscura and other optic devices...)


PLOY
Your film needs a serious re-edition!
Be precise now when you talk about abundance and abandonment. Of what? In which context?
Don't those context swap? 
Are those 2 terms necessary contradictory? What do you really mean by them?
You were previously studying transitions - is alternation also a transition? How would you define transition?
What types of transition can you find? (in film/in architecture)
Think about the azuma house again..


AEI
??
I am waiting for an email explaining the reason of your absence and for your work on the blog...




Thank you,
See you all on Tuesday
and...

HAPPY SONGKRAN

ITMFL BKK location (one of them!)

For those still interested...
I finally got the information about In the Mood for Love BKK's shooting location:

The large and decrepit  Old Customs House (Charoen Krung Soi 36 - oriental pier), built in 1880, designed by an Italian architect, currently used as a fire station.... and which will apparently be renovated and turned into a cultural center.

CINEMA - Lecture by Gilles Deleuze about the act of creation (may 1987)

Very interesting post on TheFunambulist:

" ... how 2 disciplines can resonate one from another and how an idea in literature can be translated into an idea in cinema ... " (or one in cinema to one in architecture) continue reading

+ translation in english of Deleuze's article:  Having an Idea in Cinema 

The logic of light - technology and the Humean turn

For the ones working with/on LIGHT, COLOUR, and ABSENCE/PRESENCE, i recommend the reading of this text by Mirjam Schaub, which goes through several concepts and theories by looking at several of Olafur Eliasson's installations.

site model

Nick offered to make a site model at 1/100.
Please see with him how you can make it useful for your site analysis - you could take pictures, film it and use it as a mock-up, a setting, etc. (that you will edit, collage ... afterwards)
Another idea would be to use it for presentation of your concept, or for later stages, in which case you would have the 4 houses removable for each one of you to be able to show your project.
Keep in mind though that a site model, as well as a site analysis is already a projection and thus no site model shall pretend to be generic.


For our next pin-up, you have to work on 3 pieces, separate, while working together to give a clear understanding of
_ how you perceive and interpret the site and the given program,
_ how you articulate it with your film analysis,
_ why you chose this particular configuration of 2 houses
_ and what is your design concept.

The 3 pieces are:
- short film (max 5mins)
- A0 sheet (portrait as Aj. A would like all production to be of identical format for the end-of-year show)
- conceptual model


On Friday we will have a group discussion about the directions your projects are taking, starting with Guide's presentation, as he will not be able to come on the pin-up Tuesday.


ps: Aei, i have the video i told you about, and i will give it to you if i see your work on the exhibition staircase wall Friday before studio (i am aware this is called blackmailing).

R&Sie - Francois Roche / Stephanie Lavaux - LECTURE IN BKK

Dears,

As mentioned previously, i invite you to go to R&Sie's 
website: http://www.new-territories.com/

and blog: http://www.new-territories.com/blog/

since they will be at the Reading Room  (Bkk)
 to give a lecture on Monday, 18th of April.

Details of the event.

And the invitation.

questions...

AJ. camille i'm really confused about what i should observe. I went to the site last week at 2 pm and today i went to the site again at 11 am and i'm going to the site again at 6 pm. Right now choosing the house is significant? since it is not about observing the house yet right it is more with the surroundings. my initial idea was to explore the site at different time of the day and see the activities and sound that happens. also observing the windows of the two houses which i think i will choose the house on the left (KTN yontrakan house). Now that i went to the site three times at 2pm and at 11 am, i observed that the sound depends on the transportation that circulates the site randomly as well as the vendor. other than that there are just sound of the water in the pipe of the house and the sound of people talking at the shops. so that can be the topic about sound distractions but it would change every time i visit the site.now i was thinking that to contribute to public and private space, the windows that i notice is mostly caged for safety and security as well as preventing the view from the outside. the people who live in the house can control when they would slide the cage door and leave the door open and etc. and i was thinking of observing the site at different speed from car view and walking point of view to see what i would notice first and what i would completely ignore since that would also relate to the different views like what i analyzed with camera views in the film analysis. Am i on the right track? I'm still thinking about how to do the diagrams though as soon as i get the specific things i should observe answered.

PS: i post it to reply to the previous post that i posted but i'm not sure if you'll see it so i copied it to create a new post.

SOUND

1.  

2.

For the site analysis,I'm trying to capture the environment of the site by the experience of surrounding that happend around the area.From the last session of the project,I worked on the music that occured in the film which is the part of the movie that the director wants the viewer to be influenced follow the feelings of the music.In this session I started with the vdo documentation of the   

experienced through the soi which is the part where the circulations happened.You will see the people who walk along the soi and childrens playing.The activity that happened and the sound that also made you noticed the surrounding which was not projected on the camera and giving you the atmosphere of the area.

SITE ANALYSIS

1.

  

2.

Site Analysis Begining?

This is the part of analysis that I did which is only detail and plan of the shophouse and some of the other activities that was going on the site. I map the circulation by walking and taking pictures and snapshot but i haven't finished arrange it yet. Circulation arrangement of photos are going to be like my site analysis but it made me kind of think back whether it benefit me or not. I think it doesn't help me getting the spark or I might be over think.

Site analysis

Based on what I observed at the site, focusing on the openings, activities, and lighting to contribute to my topic of voyeurism relating to public and private space, I still hesitate on choosing which would be my second house to analyze. I actually like the house on the left or the house behind it. From the activities I found, I see that the site is actually pretty peaceful unless there are cars or motorcycles that pass by. The circulation of the site area is a circular flow which is one way for cars, but two way from motorcycles vendors. I saw vendors selling flowers and drinks. One of them looks temporary and just keeps on moving while the other settled under the big tree. I noticed that all the shop houses are open with workers sitting and not doing much.

I like the house on the left (yontakarn) since i like how there is a connection between them in the soi there is right in between the two houses. That way there is a gap between the two houses which leaves some space of privacy for each. However, i like how they share a public space of a circulation space where people walk pass it to get to the back soi. I also noticed the facade of the two houses and i noticed that the windows match at some area while some doesn't. There are some area on the facade of Yontrakan house that has no window and is just a plain wall while for the other house, it have windows. Even though the gap between the two is just a small soi, the lighting is pretty bright in this soi.

The house at the back of the assigned house is also interesting in another way because the two houses share a common space of a public food area. There's a small restaurant in this area. The fact that the two houses is still private from each other is the fact that the gap between the two houses is more than the gap between the assigned house and Yontrakan house. However, the shared space between the assigned house and the house at the back is pretty dark and dim. It is also pretty loud since people appear very busy here as well as people use this space as a circulation space to get to their destination.

I am still deciding on which house to choose. I will also go to the site at night soon to explore the difference in activities and lighting. I also have short vdos of the site based on what i observed but it's on my iphone and can't be transferred yet. However, I will definitely show it to you in class.

Arm's

I've been looking at two culdesacs from the top view and putting "focus" on the middle part of each culdesac because I think it is the part that specifies or identifies the block of shophouses. From the top view, each culdesac is framed by shophouses and the key element is like the element within the frame.

The key elements are the ruined cars which refer to "non-living" and the other is vegetation and living space  which refers to "living". So, I think that these two blocks are different physically and conceptually. So, I am thinking about choosing the building at the back where I can play around with "transition" between two communities.

Note: I tried to play around with the collage above to show sequence of my journey moving through the site.

Thank you,

Arm