An Opaque and Lengthy Road to Landmark Status

A six-month examination of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission's operations by The New York Times reveals an overtaxed agency that has taken years to act on some proposed designations, even as soaring development pressures put historic buildings at risk. Its decision-making is often opaque, and its record-keeping on landmark-designation requests is so spotty that staff members are uncertain how many it rejects in a given year. NYT | Interactive Map

Razing a neighborhood to save a city?

Local and federal officials on Tuesday announced plans for a 70-acre medical campus in the heart of New Orleans to replace two hospitals damaged during Hurricane Katrina, a $2 billion investment that supporters say will create thousands of jobs and begin to rebuild the citys shattered health care system. However, the National Trust for Historic Preservation estimates there are some 165 historic structures that will go down if the hospitals are built. Additionally, an earlier report by RMJM Hillier concluded it would be more quicker and more cost effective to renovate the old exisiting Charity Hospital. link and Report press release

Chicago Architects Win Union Station 2020 Competition

These are quite neat.

On Aug 1st, the Chicago Architectural Club and the Chicago Humanities Festival launched UNION STATION 2020, an international design ideas competition for the conversion of Chicagos Union Station into a high-speed rail hub, regional market, and meeting place. The three winners and seven honorable mentions of this competition have now been announced. Bustler

An American Socialite in Venice?

Eric Holm has an amusing post about his attempt to have a conversation about the Biennale with a visiting tourist. Metropolis POV

Architects Against Museum of Tolerance

Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine issues a protest in Guardian against the Museum."We call on the Jerusalem municipality, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and the Israeli authorities not to allow this architectural time-bomb to proceed." Among the signaturesare; Charles Jencks, Richard MacCormack, Neave Brown, Abe Hayeem, Haifa Hammami, Hans Haenlein, Cezary Bednarski, Kate Mackintosh, Suad Amiry,Shmuel Groag, Beatriz Maturana, Walter Hain, Ian Martin.

European Trio for International Justice

A jury has selected three winners for the international architectural competition for the new International Criminal Court building in The Hague. Results on Bustler.

The happy architect

Irena Bauman is on a mission to make cities more loveable. Martin Wainwright hears why she is challenging the profession to stop, look around and stand up to developers. Read and Watch video

Campanile

Campanile, originally uploaded by Super Bjorn.

One of my favorite photographs I have taken.

ShowCase: The Waiting Room

From Archinect:

ShowCase is an on-going feature series on Archinect, presenting exciting new work from designers representing all creative fields and all geographies. We are always accepting nominations for upcoming ShowCase features - if you would like to suggest a project, please send us a message. Enel Contemporanea, the art sponsorship program of Italian utility company Enel, recently opened its third installation created by the American artist Jeffrey Inaba, in Collaboration with Luca Peralta Studio, Rome, Italy, at Rome's Policlinico Umberto I, the most important hospital in the Italian capital and one of the largest in Europe. A multi-functional medical structure which was at the cutting edge when founded at the end of the 19th century, today it is often the subject of debate and controversy. ↑ Click image to enlarge This is being countered by a gradual but significant process of renovation. The artistic project is focused particularly on the waiting and transit areas, used every day by large numbers of people. Within the delicate and complex social context that a hospital represents, the artist offers different kinds of space where patients, passers-by, visitors and doctors can enjoy moments of relaxation.  ↑ Click image to enlarge ↑ Click image to enlarge Colors, lights, geometric shapes and various environmentally friendly elements give the hospital a new, dynamic energy. Through art, waiting becomes potential energy, transmitting positivity and bringing an element of comfort to an architectural space normally seen as a temporary and highly emotional environment. ↑ Click image to enlarge The solar PV system generates more than the energy needed for the electricity to run the lights and the monitors and DVD player inside the sphere. The project uses a sustainable system but it is also intentionally accessible in form and image (Alice in Wonderland mushroom meets solar ray chomping PacMan). ↑ Click image to enlarge Jeffrey Inaba Jeffrey Inaba is founder of the architecture and cultural consulting studio INABA based in Los Angeles, which operates across architecture, art and urban design with a special focus on research and social issues. He is also Director of C-Lab, the architecture and communication research group of Columbia University and the Features Editor of Volume Magazine. From 1997 to 2003, together with Rem Koolhaas, he co-directed the Project on the City at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He recently exhibited work at the New Museum of Contemporary Art (New York), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Turin) and will participate next month in the show, BIG, INABA, MAD, MASS: Four Urban Proposals for Ansan, at the Gyeonngido Museum of Modern Art in South Korea. He lives and works in Los Angeles.

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Public Spirit: Philip Johnson's Lost Town

from Archinect:

In 1955, Canadian uranium magnate Joseph Hirshorn commissioned Philip Johnson to design a plan for an entire town in Ontario, Canada. The project was never realized. Public Spirit, an animated tour of this Utopian town, debuted at the prestigious Directions exhibit in the Hirishhorn Museum on November 7th, 2008. ↑ Click above image to view high resolution video Joseph Hirshhorn is best known as the man whose collection fills the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. But few people know about Hirshhorn's ambitious 1955 plan to build a Hirshhorn Museum in the wilderness of Canada as the centerpiece of a Utopian "town of culture" The town of Hirshhorn, Ontario was designed by Philip Johnson according to a progressive modernist program. Special attention was paid to aesthetics; Hirshhorn requested "the most beautiful small town in the world." Public Spirit communicates the excitement and optimism of the town project with an emotionally uplifting mix of animation and music. Public Spirit is a wall sized animation, part of a larger installation piece with research about the town of Hirshhorn, and a scale model of the office tower. This project was commissioned by the Hirshhorn Museum. All design and animation was done by Sticky Pictures.  Archinect: Describe your collaboration with Terence Gower on Public Spirit.  Sticky Pictures: Terence is a video artist and architectural afficianado. He discovered the plans for the Hirshhorn by Philip Johnson and needed a creative and production team to partner with in order to realize his goal of creating this Utopian town to exhibit at the Hirshhorn Museum in DC. Our role was to find a visual direction for the project including an editorial flow, town layout, environmental elements and all production aspects.  What resources did you have to recreate the town of Hirshhorn? Alexandra Kiss was contracted separately by Terence to do the bulk of the modeling for the buildings. Many photographic references were supplied by Terence. Many of the textural elements were created from original photographic elements taken by us specifically for this project. Some of these textures were very period specific such as "aggregated concrete" and more challenging to find samples of. Other than that it was up to the team here at Sticky Pictures to realize Hirshhorn.  What were some of the most challenging parts of this project? The biggest challenge of this project turned out to be the environmental aspects. Man made objects such as buildings are relatively simple compared to nature. There's probably more complexity in one tree than the entire town. When you start building an entire forest....well you get the idea. Architectural rendering often use 2-D cut outs of trees to solve this problem. However because of the elaborate 360 camera movements in some of the shots we needed to use 3-D trees in order for them to not look like cut-outs. Other than that the duration of the finished piece and the need to render in HD meant that rendering was a huge time-factor in the project. Artistically, coming up with a color palette that was both subdued, and period specific was also challenging.  What tools (hardware/software) did you use? Maya, After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator Directions-Terence Gower, Public Spirit is on display from November 5, 2008 to March 22, 2009 at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Sticky Pictures is a Brooklyn based design and animation house specializing in 3D and 2D digital animation. With experience in live action, illustration, and cell animation, as well, out full skill set is ready to accommodate the various needs of our client. We are about making the smart choices that best illustrate a brand's indentity. Our goal, to create a kick-ass visual experience that viewers want to see again and again. Michael Darmanin the founder and creative director started Sticky Pictures after working in the motion graphic industry for over 10 years, here in NYC and in Australia his native country. Now he has been freed to paint the town. On a more personal note we are a company with a green edge. We believe green is not a fad, but rather a commitment to our world. Our work practices are green from recycling, to the eco-frendily furniture we built, to how we commute to work. For us, green means integrity in all actions.

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A Berkeley Museum Wrapped in Honeycomb

I have no idea whether, in this dismal economic climate, the University of California will find the money to build its new art museum here. But if it fails, it will be a blow to those of us who champion provocative architecture in the United States. Nicolai Ouroussoff, NYT

An end to global poverty starts with property rights

The key to securing global prosperity in our increasingly interconnected global marketplace is addressing the housing crisis that no one talks about. While experts debate how best to solve the international financial crisis, providing the worlds poor with secure tenure to their home or land is a crucial global economic and social problem for which solutions already exist. Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Imposing Simplicity

There is nothing timid about the ambitions of the new Museum of Islamic Art that opens [in Qatar] next week. Rising on its own island just off the citys newly developed waterfront corniche, it is the centerpiece of an enormous effort to transform Qatar into an arts destination. Designed by I. M. Pei, 91, who has described it as his last major cultural building, it recalls a time when architectural expression was both more earnest and more optimistic, and the rift between modernity and tradition had yet to reach full pitch. NYT | Slideshow

Obama and Biden: 2 would-be architects?

Apparently they both wanted to be architects... Chicago Tribune

Wal-Marts that become Schools and Churches

Hundreds of new big-box buildings are built each yearand hundreds are vacated. What happens to big-box buildings when a retailer abandons them? Slate

Search the LIFE photo archive on Google Images!

Google has partnered with LIFE Magazine to make publicly available the entire archive of historic photography. In high resolution no less! Check it out

 

The Aesthetic Responsibility

Writer, curator and philosopher Boris Groys gives a keynote lecture on how design today functions as a leading medium of self-revelation and self-positioning in public space. Arguing that design has acquired a new ethical dimension, he contended that where there was once religion, there is now design. listen @ frieze

Uncontained Living: Streamlining Residential Construction with DeMaria Designs

From Archinect:
 

by Martina Dolejsova At 40ft long x 8ft wide x 9.5ft tall, the shipping container is a transcontinental, intermodial traveler carrying potato chips, childrens toys, designer bags, or a functional residential space. Architect Peter DeMaria, from DeMaria Design Associates, based outside of Los Angeles, has dedicated the past five years on taking the messengers of consumerism and converting them into role models for an environmental and economical housing solution. Containers have a large number of structural characteristics that lend itself well to the production of buildings. In addition to that, theyre plentiful. ↑ Click image to enlarge Redondo Beach House by DeMaria Design Associates(Click on this and all of the images to get a detailed view) ↑ Click image to enlarge Redondo Beach House by DeMaria Design Associates ↑ Click image to enlarge Redondo Beach House by DeMaria Design Associates Yet, it was not an easy task to use shipping containers for a residential home. The Redondo Beach House, his first realized container home, a two story hybrid of eight containers and wood framing with a container pool, required considerable thought into the engineering by the building authorities. We had testing done, we did all of these things that no one else really has, and it was accepted (by the city). And now weve got it to the point where what we design complies completely with the Uniform Building Code . A feat, DeMaria states as unprecedented and gives him the stepping point he needs to introduce this building method to more cities. ↑ Click image to enlarge LA Community Center under construction The Redondo Beach House, awarded by the AIA in 2007 for Design Excellence/Special Innovation, used the raw, bulky, industrial mass and transformed it into a slender rigid frame. Each container was positioned and stacked so that the ends could take advantage of becoming full height windows, maximizing the natural light into the linear structures. Negative spaces allowed for 20ft high ceilings in the main living. As equally thoughtful and innovative, an airplane hanger door opens up onto an adjacent courtyard, extending the outdoors into the interior, and serves as an awning for the conjoining spaces. ↑ Click image to enlarge Container Placing Every container is made to fit comfortably with other units. This has leant a hand in the rapid motion of building. Conceivably, everything could have gone up in less than an hour. You could drive to the store and get groceries and find on your way home, what was just a foundation, is now a two story building, says DeMaria, relating his experience in forming the structure for the Redondo Beach House. In reality, it took six hours to build because a truck was stuck in traffic, causing a minor delay. ↑ Click image to enlarge Mixed Use Container Project Clearing the structural hurdles opened up the next step to a market that DeMaria feels is underserved. People want good design, DeMaria says, reflecting on what has made companies like IKEA popular with their kit of parts and assured quality. Using the industrial influences of Ford and McDonalds and applying it to the housing market, he has created what he calls a predictable process for building a home. ↑ Click image to enlarge McLoghlin Residence in Venice Beach, CA Walking into one of the standardized 20 or 40ft steel units, you mysteriously forget while looking out of the floor to ceiling windows cut into the side, that not long ago this was stacked near a port. The teak wood flooring, now sanded and stained handled the rough loading and unloading of boxes and crates. In these rooms, a rich and warm space has been created by using what the cargo container offers: structure, walls, ceiling and floors. There is every component you need for a home. DeMaria, like other architects within the last decade, has acknowledged this, and is working, always pushing the boundaries. ↑ Click image to enlarge McLoghlin Residence in Venice Beach, CA This has given the best solution to the lot we have and the cost. states client and mother Oona McLoghlin, who is finishing their container home in Venice Beach, CA, adding, I think they are fantastic. ↑ Click image to enlarge McLoghlin Residence in Venice Beach, CA Solving the various connection and structural problems, DeMaria now tries to think beyond the container, seeing it as a building block for new spaces. Launching soon, Logical Homes, a container prefab line , is a made to order residence changing the way we think about home. ↑ Click image to enlarge McLoghlin Residence in Venice Beach, CA --- Shipping containers were standardized mid 20th century with the shipping giant Sea-Land, when trade showed significant increases from industrialism and a more efficient method was needed for delivering and exchanging goods. The containers are designed to fit on top of each other, stacking like Legos. They are durable to salt water, water-resistant when sealed, and reusable. Today, there is a surplus of containers that are found sitting in yards along the coast. In the last twenty years, architects have begun to challenge and experiment with the function of these relatively abundant, simple and economical boxes for shopping spaces, offices and museums, temporary structures, and permanent residences. Martina Dolejsova Martina is an architect and writer currently living in Los Angeles.

Behnisch Wins Baltimore Law School Design Competition

The University of Baltimore has named Behnisch Architekten of Stuttgart, Germany, in partnership with Baltimores Ayers/Saint/Gross, Inc., as the winner of the international competition to design the new John and Frances Angelos Law Center at UB. Bustler

Working out of the Box: WSDIA | WeShouldDoItAll

from archinect:

Working out of the Box is a series of features presenting architects who have applied their architecture backgrounds to alternative career paths. Are you an architect working out of the box? Do you know of someone that has changed careers and has an interesting story to share? If you would like to suggest an (ex-)architect, please send us a message. Archinect: Where did you study architecture?  Jonathan Jackson: I studied architecture at Kent State University in Ohio. I am grateful for attending Kent. It was a very technical school but there was select few students who wanted to really push their individual boundaries there, but also the school's as well. I graduated in 2003 with the idea to work as an architect in Italy (wanted to work for Studio Archea, where I did my first internship), London (wanted to work for Adjaye Assoc.) or New York (numerous studios). ↑ Click image to enlarge New Practices New York 2008 Exhibition, photos by Floto+Warner (Click on this and all of the images to get a detailed view)   ↑ Click image to enlarge New Practices New York 2008 Exhibition, photos by Floto+Warner    At what point in your life did you decide to pursue architecture? I knew at the very early age of 12 that I wanted to be an architect. By my 3rd year in architecture, my outlook changed and I wanted to be a more general term...a designer. Get the Flash Player to see this video. Video for New Practices New York 2008 Exhibition When did you decide to stop pursuing architecture? Why? I haven't stopped pursuing architecture, I am just taking another route. A slower route. Discovering other types of design/concepts that we can later interject into architecture. My love for architecture has never weakened. It is the ultimate form of design in my opinion. My cause for my delay...is the goal to be well balanced, to develop other skills. ↑ Click image to enlarge Website for photography agency, Marilyn Cadenbach    Describe your current profession. WSDIA is simply our constant goal. Our studio is interested in creating graphics, products, furniture, interiors and eventually architecture. It's a studio ran by 3 people, myself, my partner in crime & cousin, Jared Seavers, and my home-girl, Sarah Nelson. The beef of our work has been graphic design and exhibitions. We are slowly drifting into wayfinding/signage. We hope more and larger exhibitions and signage will lead to interiors into small scale architecture. ↑ Click image to enlarge Lecture poster for Kent State Univ.'s architecture program using actual 3D letters. Shot by Mastromatteo+Steen   ↑ Click image to enlarge Lecture poster for Kent State Univ.'s architecture program using actual 3D letters. Shot by Mastromatteo+Steen    What skills did you gain from architecture school, or working in the architecture industry, that have contributed to your success in your current career? Architecture school is the highest test for anyone who wants to be a designer/creator. It's an incredible test of your love for this profession, and you don't love it...architecture school will definitely weed you out. The most appreciated skill I gained from Kent's program was being able to communicate my ideas about concepts and ideas through heavy critique. This tool is vital for our studio in expressing our designs to our clients. Being able to critique your own and other's work, and being able to take criticism, is something I am proud of. ↑ Click image to enlarge The Park at the Center of the World: Five Visions for Governors Island Exhibition, photos by Floto+Warner    ↑ Click image to enlarge Official Website for The Park at the Center of the World: Five Visions for Governors Island Exhibition Do you have an interest in returning to architecture? Definitely! But in a very slow migrative way. Thank you Archinect! This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Architecture for Homeless

Students at Vancouver's Emily Carr University were given the task of designing 64 square-foot living spaces for homeless citizens that would have a price point of $1,500 each. Great idea, in theory, but proving to be a failure in reality. CTV

100% Futures at Tokyo Designers Week

From Archinect:

By Terri Peters Based on last years numbers, more than 100,000 people were projected to attend the three-day 100% Design Tokyo event, a big part of Tokyo Designers Week 2008, which concluded last week. Its the largest, curated, trade show exhibition one could ever imaginehundreds of international exhibitors both established and emerging showed furniture, interiors, products and concepts to an audience of design professionals, students and visitors. Countless thousands of cups of (green) tea were consumed, Subway sandwiches got the prime snack selling position inside the venue and millions of digital photos were snapped as visitors scurried through the massive show in the enormous, temporary, white tent pavilions at Meiji Jingo Gaien park. The fourth annual 100% Design Tokyo, inspired by the success of Londons 100% Design, included a dozen show within shows on the site: 100% Light, 100% from Zero, 100% Prototype among others. The main entry, 100% Design Tokyo. 100% Design, outside the main show near the Container Ground exhibition 'village'. 100% Design, inside the show at 100% Professional. And 100% Tokyo is just a part of the 23rd annual Tokyo Designers Weekanother massive and well-curated show held during this time is Design Tide Tokyo and Design Tide Mart, at Tokyo Midtown. Design Tide featured innovative design from around the world: furniture and lighting from DMY Berlin, digitally manufactured vases and sculptures from Japanese designers Central Line studio and striking linear lighting installations by Tomas Alonso and sculptures by Chris Kirby. With so many designers in town for the Design Week, Tokyos galleries, bars, cafes and exhibition spaces were positively heaving with pop-up exhibitions, product launches, parties, art openings and fashion shows around the city. Design Tide Opening Party, image courtesy Design Tide. Design Tide Opening Party, image courtesy Design Tide. Tokyo based Canadian designer Chris Kirby exhibited his new Negative Series lights at Design Tide, an independent design event that happened alongside Tokyo Designers Week. Image courtesy Design Tide. One small but significant part of 100% Design was 100% Futures, a show of student works that has historically been an important part of Tokyo Design Week. This is the first year that the student work has been included at the main venue of 100% Design and the students made sure 100% Futures rose to the challenge of participating along side grown up work. While end of year or graduate design student shows are nothing new, 100% Futures turned the concept on its head in scale and scope. More than 50 schools in Japan exhibiting the best student work and selective curating focused their energy on creating a coherent exhibition. Students of industrial design, interior design, architecture, graphic design, and spatial design were focused around the concepts of eat, move, comfort, protect and touch. 100% Futures, Students from University of Tsukaba installed an all white soothing environment focused on 'healing' with new furniture designs. Despite a few lost-in-translation conversations and texts, (the exhibition was entirely in Japanese) highlights seemed to be in innovative furniture and lighting design. Interior architecture students from ICS College of Arts showed diverse works with the theme of creating an ideal living environment. Prototype furniture included a laser cut chair with slots for tidying up clothing and a heavy carved wooden stool sloped and sculpted to be extra comfortable. The installation by students of interior architectural design at university of Tsukuba drew crowds with its mystifying glowing white table and hanging sculptures. Interior design students at Mukogawa Womens University showed various designs for tactile furniture, wall coverings and interior products with the theme touch. Another interesting project was Inochi no ki a recycled lamp made from found kitchenware, including forks and wine glasses. 100% Futures Students from Mukogawa Women's College investigated the idea of 'touch' with tactile new furniture and interiors designs. 100% Futures Students from ICS College of Arts presented prototype furniture and interiors projects. A unique aspect of 100% Futures show was that half the exhibition was of themed student work and half was structured around a semester long collaboration project with industrial sponsors, some of the biggest companies in Japan: Toto, Able, Nissan, Morimoto, Fujitsu and Fuji. 100% Futures, Led by professional designer and tutor Hiroshi Yoneya, students from six different universities worked in collaboration with Nissan to produce new works on the theme of 'motion'. "We are embodying the pivotal dimension 'movement' in an abstract world". The teams worked together between May and October designing and researching this installation. 100% Futures, Let by Tomoyuki Tanaka, the collaboration between students from seven different Japanease design schools and Fuji Electric Systems was concerned with the creation of eco friendly ways of living using ne w solar batteries. "We thought forms for new technology and designed three products: 'eco-cart', 'community tree' and 'neo-mushi' by three ways of thinking: extension, alternative and innovative." A crash course in networking, professionalism, communication and business, the Futures students were exposed not only to the daunting challenge of preparing an installation to be potentially viewed by about 100,000 paying visitors who are expecting professional quality work, but also critical skills in confidence and communication. Skills like this are almost entirely untaught in architecture schoolits truly valuable experience for the students to stand next to their work and greet professional and lay visitors and explaining their approach to their work. Zoe Garred's Snap Bowl shown at Design Boom Mart is made from four flat pieces of aircraft plywood (very strong, thin and flexible wood). Two pieces bend and snap together to make a bowl and two pieces slot together to make a base. The bowl can be taken apart and stored flat again when not in use. Image courtesy Zoe Garred. Visitors came to see Frank Gehry's Tokyo Bench outside the World Company Building in Tokyo, an extension site of Design Tide Tokyo. Image courtesy Design Tide. At Claska Hotel, Keep on Truckin' is an exhibition of recycled truck tarp Freitag bags celebrating 15 years of this durable Swiss-made product. Of course it wasnt all networking and no playmany of the best parties as part of Tokyo Designers Week were freejust very, very, crowded. Surely the best networking happened here, as design lovers mingled at after parties and launches around the city, from the Cibone party at Aoyama Bell Commons where guests included Moois giant horse sculpture, to the Mother of All Design Party at Marunouchi house where guests huddled around designer Nosigners stunning broken eggshell sculptures, to late night DJ sessions at Claska Hotel with its rooftop campsite drawing crowds for moon watching. Japanese designers Tomohiro Kato and Satoshi Hasegawa exhibited their Popet dolls at 'The Mother of All Design' party at Marunouchi House. The dolls are conceptually designed rubbish bags that turn into a cute pet. "Popet is a pet that feeds on trash. If you do not separate rubbish according to the type or throw away what you do not have to, he or she will go down with a stomach ache." 'Rebirth' is an new light by Japanese designer Nosigner made of real eggshells carefully assembled. His work was on show at the launch party 'The Mother of all Design' held at Marunouchi House. Terri Peters is an architect and design journalist who has just relocated from London to Copenhagen, Denmark.

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green+wired=AWESOME

Shifting Paradigms Part 1

From Archinect:

Steven Song is a young architect in NYC who has written an article named "Shifting Paradigms: Renovating the Decorated Shed." It explores theories discussed in Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown's latest book, Architecture as Signs and Systems: For a Mannerist Time, which revisits the dual quality of Architecture as signage and shelter in the post-industrial information age. Learning from recent developments in communication technology and personal electronic gadgets, and considering increases in urban/suburban population density, the article suggests that these changes prompt a redefinition of context, signage, shelter and their relationships to one another, if architecture is to respond to new life styles and necessities of today. Signage, Shelter and Context in Architecture Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, arguably among the most influential architects of the late 20th century, have explored and emphasized the importance of learning from the vernacular landscape to better understand the social, cultural and technological context of the present. In their 1972 book Learning from Las Vegas, Venturi and Scott Brown acknowledged the duality of architecture -- its role as both shelter in its interiority and signage in its communicative, decorative, informative, and symbolic aspects. Based on their studies of the automobile-oriented Las Vegas strip, they coined this combination the Decorated Shed.i (Figure 1) Their celebratory learning-from the vernacular, especially the 1960s Pop culture, has led to a general perception of them as post-modern. This paper re-evaluates Venturi and Scott Browns theories and investigates their significance and potential in a contemporary context through a reading of a recent expression of their ideas in their latest collaborative book Architecture as Signs and Systems: for a Mannerist Time.ii Figure 1 - 1970s Las Vegas Strip and the Decorated Shed sketch from Learning from Las Vegas The book revisits the architectural duality of signage and shelter, introduces the concept of superimposed activity patterns as a design tool for deriving physical form from social conditions, advocates a reassessment of our ideas of context in architecture, and discusses the relationship between form and functional flexibility, ultimately advocating rule-bending mannerist architecture for todays post-industrial Information Age. (Figure 2) These ideas are relevant to contemporary society, in which rapid developments of communication and sensory technologies blur boundaries of civic, public, and private spaces, negating the dogmatism of one rigid value system, one established aesthetic measure, or one function in a static space. Unlike Neo-Modernisms superficial staged-functionalist architecture, or Deconstructivisms nervous expressionist style, which avoids historically and culturally pertinent architectural dialogues, Venturi and Scott Brown suggest methods of understanding contemporary society both as a whole and as individual patterns, while celebrating architecture as an integral part of its complexity. Through a study of current social and technological paradigms and their effects on society, this paper proposes that shifts in these conditions necessitate yet again a redefinition of context, shelter, and signage, to cover the breadth, flexibility, and interactivity called for as their trinal relationship continues to expand in architecture today. Figure 2 - Architecture as Signs and Systems and its authors Context: Shifting Social, Technological, and Spatial Paradigms Venturi and Scott Brown consider architectures spatial and systemic aspects partly through a discussion of context. According to Scott Brown, context in architecture takes many forms -- not only the physical, but also the social and cultural patterns of the space-time. Context both affects architecture and is affected by it.iii In any culture, the social paradigm that defines its values and the technological infrastructure that supports its activities are inseparable.iv As Manuel Castells writes, "technology is society and society cannot be understood or represented without its technological tools"v. Time magazines selection of YouTube.com, a virtual space and non-tangible product, as the best invention of 2006 is symptomatic of the shift from the established social paradigm of the old Industrial Age to that of the new Information Agevi (Figure 3) The development of communication technology and personal sensory gadgets such as the internet, cellular phones, the iPod and the Sony PSP, has provided society with the ability to instantly and conveniently shift the spatial perception of its users. (Figure 4) Even in a public or civic space, a cellular phone user can have highly personal and private conversations with another user who remains anonymous to the public. Conversely, a user connected to the internet can fulfill conventionally public functions, such as shopping in on-line malls, having open discussions in on-line forums, or facilitating meetings through video conferences, all within the most private space of a bedroom. One can even engage now in Massive Multiplayer On-line Role-Playing Games (MMORPG), such as Second Life, a 3D On-Line virtual world, which is built and owned by its 7,256,167 global users (as of June 20, 2007),vii whom the program appropriately refers to as residents. (Figure 5) There are two kinds of activities here - non-spatially based activities, dependant on information and communication technology; and spatially based physical activities. In 1964, Melvin Webber described the nonplace urban realm of the city of the future, in which motor-based personal mobility would make physical places immaterial and people could choose the nicest places, wherever it was, to fulfill their activities.viii Webber felt then that the development of communication and transportation technology would allow many activities that now depend on spatial propinquity to be conducted through non-spatial means and that this would encourage a distension of human settlements. However in 1996 he observed that urban centers still prospered and many activities continued to be spatially based, because of the credibility and convenience of information received face-to-face and the added attractiveness of chance encounters.ix But developments in communication and transportation technology have undoubtedly improved the speed and ease of connection across extensive space, and therefore increased levels of interaction and transaction between distant places. Today, our personal communication gadgets and our ability to instantly shift non-spatially based functions in virtual space have given rise to debate on how this alters the traditional relationship between civic, public, and private spaces. We ask how designers should react when the boundaries of spatial definitions are blurred, and wonder whether architects should endeavor to strengthen the traditional distinctions, maintaining a clear hierarchy of spaces to provide security, comfort, and convenience to occupants who have varied requirements for both privacy and public life. But neglected in the questioning is the fact that the new non-spatial activities do themselves take place in spaces -- in work places that have some unusual and demanding characteristics. These are financial trading floors, information technology-based companies such as Google, or on-line universities whose public classrooms are dispersed to individual users private spaces. In them, the efficiency and quality of activities depend on connectivity of communication and adaptability of space. In designing them, we should critique rigid spatial hierarchy and the conventional allocation of functions, and explore better networked and more flexible spatial layouts. Such places, which benefit from synchronicity and real-time interaction across distances, are described by Castells as the space of flows.x As the global network increases coverage and diversifies application, more spaces whose programs benefit from flexible spatial infrastructure will inevitably be created. Kevin Lynch, in his 1958 article "Environmental Adaptability," described a well-distributed communication system as a way of creating spatial flexibility, arguing that, "if internal connection is good, then resources can quickly be mobilized and shifted to meet emergencies."xi Lynch meant spatial connectivity such as corridors, but the idea can be extended to information and communication connectivity of the virtual realm, such as emails and video conferences. For the Information Age, non-spatial connectivity must be reliable and convenient, and work space must be flexible and generic to accommodate different programs and corresponding levels of privacy as non-spatially based activities change continuously within the same space. This notion of flexibility, a historically important theme in the discourse of architecture and planning, is especially relevant in contemporary society where social, cultural, and economical paradigms shift quickly and constantly, encouraging timely adaptation of the physical environment. Figure 3 - YouTube.com as the Time Magazine 2006 Invention of the Year Figure 4 - An iPod commercial and its users in China Figure 5 - A captured scene from the Second Life Additionally, the rapid densification of population in urban areas all over the world today -- whether induced by post-urban sprawl, re-settlement back into mature cities such as New York and Pittsburgh, or the gold-rush to newly developing cities such as Shanghai and Mumbai -- has caused the value of urban real-estate to rise, thereby creating an economic necessity to reevaluate the importance of flexibility in architecture, and to explore spatial arrangements that can accommodate more functions than conventional layouts in the same allotted space. In 2001, the National Assessment Synthesis Team announced that the US urban population is now at 79% of the total, a considerable increase from the 40% in 1900.xii (Figure 6 and 7) And the worlds urban population surpassed its rural population for the first time on May 23rd, 2007.xiii This shift is accelerating in speed everywhere but it is faster and grander in scope in developing countries -- in the last 40 years, Koreas urban population has increased from 20% to 80% of the countrys total.xiv Figure 6 - US Rural and Urban Population Chart from Climate Change Impacts on the United States: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, published in 2001 Figure 7 - US suburban population chart from The First Measured Century: An Illustrated Guide to Trends in America, 1900-2000, published in 2000 Figure 8 - US population and growth trends from Climate Change Impacts on the United States: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, published in 2001 Redefining Function In the chapter entitled "Architecture as Patterns and Systems" in Architecture as Signs and Systems, Scott Brown, who uses her background as both an urban planner and architect to enrich her practice and theories, treats social paradigms, such as the development of communication technology and increasing land value per population movement, as patterns to be superimposed upon one another to collectively inform urban research, urban and campus planning, as well as building design. Learning from diverse places - South Africa, England, and the US - Scott Brown states that as society becomes more multi-cultured and complex in its definitions of value and function, methods of superimposing information become a prime means of gaining a clear understanding of both the overall social fabric and its individual patterns. Yet Scott Brown warns that users of these superimposed systems may face conflicts between the rules of respective layers, and may find it inefficient, if not impossible, to follow all the rules of every system simultaneously. She emphasizes that architects and planners should not be hasty in determining their priorities and suggests taking a mannerist approach -- bending individual rules to derive functional optima for the whole. Venturi and Scott Brown define mannerism as an educated and productive breaking of rules by people who know the rules well. They recommend that the breaking be for functional reasons and limited in scope, because most rules have a purpose and "if all is exception, exception is not interesting anymore".xv Learning from the current shifts in social patterns and rapid turn-over rates in building programs over time, Scott Brown advises architects to design buildings that can house a wide range of activities or functions beyond those called for by their first users. In proposing a spatial layout that achieves this, Scott Brown uses the analogy of a glove vs. a mitten.xvi A glove fits the fingers of the original user well, but the mitten can be used by various users because of its extra wiggle room. Instead of designing a building custom-fitted to one original function, she suggests providing an architectural equivalent of the wiggle room in buildings to anticipate future space requirements, identifying generic, high-ceiling, open-plan industrial loft buildings or Italian Palazzos as examples of flexible space. (Figure 9) Figure 9 - Glove vs. Mitten Sketch and examples of the spatial types with wiggle room from Architecture as Signs and Systems Functional Flexibility in Architecture The notion of functional flexibility has been a recurring theme in architecture. In 1958, Kevin Lynch listed several means to achieve spatial flexibility. These included zoning and concentration of structure at a few widely separated points, leaving wide spans where future changes will not affect the fabric of the whole; use of modular or lattice structures whose peripheral growth does not affect the structure at the center; use of low-intensity buffer zone between spaces to allow their programs to expand and contract without running over other uses; avoidance of narrow adaptation of forms to specialized functions; over-supply of space to provide generous room for future expansion of programs; use of temporary structures; and a well-networked communication system, so that program and interaction changes can be analyzed and accommodated efficiently.xvii Architects have conceptually addressed the subject of flexibility in many ways. Some examples are Gerrit Rietvelds Schroder House, Mies van der Rohes Universal space, Louis Kahns The Served and the Servant Spaces, Carnegie Mellon Universitys Intelligent Workplace, and Peter Eisenmans Blurred Zone. Inside the living room of De Stijl architect Gerrit Rietvelds 1924 Schroder House is a changeable open zone, which can be subdivided by sliding or revolving partitions. The concept of movable partitions, inspired by the sliding Shoji screens and doors of traditional Japanese architecture, is an idea employed by both early-modern and contemporary architects to achieve flexibility. This method became particularly popular in the Industrial Age as advancements in engineering technology minimized the need for structural elements in building interiors and allowed for larger open spaces. (Figure 10) Figure 10 - Schroder House in Utrecht, Netherlands, by Gerrit Rietveld, and Yoshijima House in Takayama, Japan In the 1940s, Mies van der Rohe investigated flexibility through his concept of Universal Space, a generalized interior space, with evenly distributed artificial and natural lighting and minimal structural elements, as illustrated in his design of the Illinois Institute of Technology. (Figure 11) He also suggested reorganization of the space via movable partitions, to accommodate the different programs of the institute. (Sketch 1) Figure 11 - Illinois Institute of Technology in Illinois, Chicago, by Mies van der Rohe Sketch 1 - Diagrammatic illustrations of the Universal Space Louis Kahns Served and the Servant Spaces in the 1960s built on Mies Universal Space but acknowledged the secondary back-of-house function as an integrated but independent part of the whole. In his design of the Richards Medical Research Laboratories Building, Kahn located the circulation and utility shafts (Servant Space), to vertical and subtly connected entities at the periphery of the laboratories (Served Space), thereby providing flexibility to the spatial layout in a minimally interrupted plan. (Figure 12 and Sketch 2) Venturi and Scott Brown expand Kahns ideas by including extensions of the public space into building interiors.xviii Drawing from Giambattista Nollis mapping of urban civic, public, and private spaces and David Cranes multi-layered definition of the "Four Faces of Movement,"xix Scott Brown analyzes urban public space as a complex continuum that passes indoors and out. The street that moves into and through the building provides linkage of exterior to interior as well as space for access, activities, and flows of communication. No longer merely a Servant, it adds a civic element to Servant and Served Spaces, thereby modifying the roles of both, while bringing the conventionally background civic street to the foreground of architecture. Figure 12 - Richards Medical Research Laboratories Building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by Louis Kahn Sketch 2 - Diagrammatic illustrations of The Served and the Servant Spaces in Richards Medical Research Laboratories Building On the roof of the Margaret Morrison building at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh is a faculty office space called the Intelligent Workplace, which was completed in 1997 through the collaboration of a group of professors in the fields of advanced building systems and sustainable architecture. In addition to technological adaptability and environmental sustainability, the space aims to achieve organizational flexibility by providing its users with movable partitions and furniture units, enabling them to reconfigure the space and thereby accommodate future variance in programs. (Figure 13) Figure 13 - Intelligent Workplace in Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh Such examples of flexible architecture rely primarily on movable partitions or furniture in simplistic open spaces. Yet their alleged flexibility is often dubious. Not only are partitions rarely moved except at the beginning and end of occupancies, but the vagueness of the functions they define makes us question the very desirability of this type of space. Spatial flexibility is often relegated to merely an occasional rearrangement of furniture in an undefined area. Although the minimization of structural and mechanical elements in the examples above creates open, uninterrupted spaces that initially promise flexibility, some movable elements are, in reality, either inconvenient to move (in the Intelligent Workplace, the wheeled bookshelves were too heavy to roll with books in place, while the movable walls and desks needed all the electrical, mechanical connections unplugged and rerouted to be moved) and others, perhaps because they lack specific programs, merely define simplistic divisions in an open space much as did the living room of the Shroder House. The degree of flexibility provided is therefore too expensive for its limited and occasional use. In the 1980s and 1990s, Peter Eisenman experimented with another form of flexible architecture. Adapting Jacques Derridas notion of an arbitrary text, Eisenman formulated a Blurred Zone through randomly dislocating the conventional architectural texts of function, site, program, and tectonics, ultimately creating a space that is not finalized but rather in the state of constant change, and hence metaphysically flexible.xx (Figure 14 and Sketch 3) However, in reality, the introduction of an arbitrary text and the resulting sculpturally abstract and intentionally chaotic architectural elements merely produces a frozen image of a space/program overlap, rather than initiating true functional flexibility. Frank O. Gehrys design of the Stata Center in Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while exuding the feeling of flexibility via its intersecting forms, in reality is a static allocation of programs in a rigid space. (Figure 15) However, the range of space types in the plan may, if the circulation serves them well, allow for flexibility through variety. This is like the Furness Building at the University of Pennsylvania which, one hundred years after being built, allowed for the introduction of computer library systems through its diversity of spaces. Figure 14 - The 3D model design for City of Culture of Galicia in Spain, by Peter Eisenman, expected to be completed in 2011, and another Deconstructivist architecture, the Danish Jewish Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, by Daniel Libeskind, built in 2004 Sketch 3 - Diagrammatic illustrations of the Deconstructivist Blurred Zone Figure 15 - An image and a floor plan of the Stata Center at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Boston, Massachusetts, by Frank O. Gehry, completed in 2004 Continue to Part 2 » [i] Venturi, Robert, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1972; revised edition 1977), p. 87. [ii] Venturi, Robert and Denise Scott Brown, Architecture as Signs and Systems: For a Mannerist Time (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004). [iii] Scott Brown, Denise, "Context in Context," Architecture as Signs and Systems: For a Mannerist Time, pp. 175-181. [iv] Stalder, Felix, The Network Paradigm: Social formations in the Age of Information, (1998). [v] Castells, Manuel, The Rise of the Network Society, the Information Age: Economy, society and Culture, Vol. I (Cambridge, MA: Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1996), p. 5. [vi] Grossman, Lev, "The Peoples Network," Time (November, 2006), pp. 61-65. [vii] Linden Lab, What is Second Life?, (2003). [viii] Webber, Melvin M. et al., "Urban Place and Nonplace Urban realm," Explorations into Urban Structure, (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1964), pp. 108-132. [ix] Webber, Melvin M., "Tenacious Cities," Conference Research Notes: spatial technologies, geographical information and the city, Baltimore (September, 1996) [x] Castells, Manuel, The Informational City (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1989). [xi] Lynch, Kevin, "Environmental Adaptability," Journal of the American Institute of Planners 24, no. 1 (1958), pp. 16-24. [xii] The Nation Assessment Synthesis Team, US Global Change Research Program, Climate Change Impacts on the United States: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, (2001). [xiii] Dr. Wimberley, Ron, Mayday 23: World Population Becomes More Urban Than Rural, (2007). [xiv] Kwon, Tai-Hwan , Population Change and Development in Korea, (2001) [xv] Scott Brown, Denise, "Mannerism Because You Cant Follow All the Rules of All the Systems All the Time," Architecture as Signs and Systems: For a Mannerist Time, p. 212. [xvi] Scott Brown, Denise, "The Redefinition of Functionalism," Architecture as Signs and Systems: For a Mannerist Time, pp. 153-154. [xvii] Lynch, Kevin, "Environmental Adaptability," Journal of the American Institute of Planners 24, no. 1 (1958), pp. 16-24. [xviii] Scott Brown, Denise, "The Redefinition of Functionalism," Architecture as Signs and Systems: For a Mannerist Time, pp. 158-161. and Harteveld, Maurice and Denise Scott Brown, "On Public Interior Space," AA Files 56 (November 2007), pp. 64-73. [xix] Crane saw the street as providing access, pressure for city buildings, space for living and opportunities for communication. See Scott Brown, Denise, "Urban Design at Fifty, and a Look Ahead," Harvard Design Magazine (Spring Summer, 2006,) pp. 33-44. [xx] Eisenman, Peter, "Blurred Zones", Written into the Void: Selected Writings, 1990-2004 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 111-112. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.