Friday 7 December 2012
Monday 3 December 2012
Sunday 2 December 2012
Tuesday 27 November 2012
Sunday 18 November 2012
[Co:LAB] Rational for selecting project:
Highbury Park: Hide
and Seek Rainwater Harvesting structure
The brief for both the Highbury Park projects appeals to my
own design drivers as something that can create a positive function on the
environment and as something that can be a beautiful piece of design that is
appropriate for its location.
Both these projects have interesting briefs; firstly the
hide and seek proposals asks for a three dimensional structure that can provide
a new range of habitats but can also be a place that enables an intimate
connection to nature that can be used as a place to view and also to experience.
It is also important to incorporate a sense of place but still connect to
sustainable issues and zero costs.
The second brief is to explore a design that can be used as
a process of Rainwater harvesting. There is an emphasis of the ideology to make
this system something that is of zero cost and can be made from the resources
that can be found at Highbury Park. The project should conclude with a concept
prototype installation that can demonstrate the potential to be green and
off-grid.
The unity of these two briefs makes for a beautiful design
that can be sustainable and also functional.
Sunday 11 November 2012
Saturday 10 November 2012
Sunday 4 November 2012
[Design Agent] Entrance to the Jewellery Quarter
Entrance to the Jewellery Quarter [Connection lost] Routes and journeys.
Saturday 27 October 2012
[R&T] Essay_Three
The social Dimension
Public Places Urban Spaces
Matthew Carmona, Tim Health,
Taner Oc and Steve Tiesdell
The social
dimension of urban design raises issues of the value of design effects and the
decisions on individual and group society. Designers attempt to deliver certain
social goals that can truly benefit public space. This paper attempts to
discuss the methods and examples of how designers change and influence public space
in a two-way process by society creating space and at the same time space
influencing society.
The notion that space and society are closely related doesn’t seem to be
a ground-breaking theory but as this chapter discusses in 24 pages it is
nothing to be sniffed at. The
relationship between space and society becoming a two-way process is evident
from our surroundings: people adapting to space and space adapting to people
and society. In 1989 Dear and wolch argued that: “social relations can be constituted
through space”. Therefore by shaping the environment designers can influence
certain activities and social reactions to any given location.
The chapter begins by dividing this subject into five key aspects; the
relationship between people and space, the public realm and life,
neighborhoods, safety and security and finally accessibility. The first aspect
of this paper discusses determinism, the theory that humans are influence by
space and the change in their environment that dictates how a person behaves.
Some things in the environment will give or take away certain opportunities
that an individual can or cannot do. Porteous (1977) and Bell et al (1990) both
examined how environmental effects can influence an individual. Bell concluded
that design does matter but not absolutely to how a person reacts to space- an
important factor is the personality of the individual in the situation. As this
paper outlines: “The choices made in any particular setting depends on each
individuals own situation and characteristics”.
Similarly to what bell
perceived Gans (1968) observed how a powerful environment can give a certain
effect to individuals that manipulate how space is used. Equally Gehl‘s theory
found in Life Between Buildings (1996) encourages the concept that: “designers
cannot make place but they can create more places of potential”. He divides
public spaces into three categories: Necessary, Optional and Social activities.
These all have different drivers as their agenda to the space but one thing
between them all is critical and that is the quality of the space. The quality
gives a hint to the opportunities within that space and what the space is
intended for. Maslow (1968) identifies the hierarchy of basic human needs that
can be read together with Gehl’s theory of what public spaces are divided into.
Maslow theory introduces five basic human needs; such as physiological, safety,
affiliation, appreciation and self-actualisation. These five human needs if
completed by society according to Maslow meets all the human needs an
individual needs in a civilised society.
Generally these needs are ‘soft-wired’ into the human psyche depending
of culture and learnt characteristics of society. These different cultures and
societies inhabit distinctive rules, which according to Lawson (2001) ‘govern
their use of space’. Lawson goes on to suggest that the behavior used in space
therefore is an unconscious reaction triggered by certain prompts in the
environment.
Unfortunately as this
paper discusses public space that encourages social experience is on the
decline: the works of William, Jacobs, Davis, and Carter also describes this
observation. This statement often ends with the similar concept that designers
can advocate good behavior by creating good designs. However there lies
something that is frowned upon and in some cases not possible in design and
that is to control society by design. It is inevitable that all space that is
designed will at some stage be used as something its cause didn’t intend.
However to not give society an active environment for the soul reason that
society may misuse an item is avoiding the issue that is the problem. The main
concept of the urban designer is to design to allow the individual to have
choices in their environment and to then mange the use of the environment
after.
The public realm has a physical
and social dimensions, it is understood in this text as a setting for the
agenda of either private or public space. This agenda either facilitates public
life or social interaction that can be termed as sociocultural public realms.
This paper then moves on to describe the functions that take place in the
public realm; public space becomes a forum for political action and
representation. According to Loukaitou-Sideris and Benerjee the public realm is
a “neutral or common ground for social interaction… it is a stage for social
learning, personal development and a place for information exchange”. This
section concludes with an example by Boyer who argues that ‘public’ refers to a
whole collective but in reality the public sphere is fragmented and
marginalized into groups to which many have no voice or representational
standing in the public sphere.
This stage links nicely
the issue of the decline in the public realm and the current trend of things
becoming privatized. “Actives that were once only available in collective and
public form have increasingly become available in individualized and private
forms” This issue is not help by the increase in the use of cars and the
shopping mall. Both these contemporary subjects abandon the city centre. These
will inevitably lead to public spaces becoming less and less intensions to
create new ones and maintain current space to create a vicious spiral of
decline.
One thing that is still
operational is the idea of the neighborhood and the concept of new towns. These
ideas according to this paper should be spaces that are balanced and provide
identity and character that also allows sufficient opportunities for working
and home life. These spaces should be safe and secure and allow for
accessibility. Public space must help stop crime and prevent victimization by
design processes that think about space as conversations that discuss space with
the user as hints on how to use the space and what is and is not tolerated. Whatever
the strategy though space must be successful as people places and accessible to
all.
The role of architecture
and landscape design therefore is to deliver particular social goals that
encourage certain behavior to happen is public spaces. It is important to allow
choices for individual to benefit socially from space, and to also make sure
these spaces are accessible and secure. However as this paper concludes
economic and social trends are making public space a rare and difficult thing
to deliver.
Monday 22 October 2012
[R&T] Essay_two
Generic City
This paper discusses the idea of the Generic City according to how Rem Koolhaas perceive it. This essay introduces the idea of the generic city with the concept of the contemporary city like a contemporary airport – “All the Same” He goes on to consider the convergence of generic cities that loose there identity and ask the questions; what are the disadvantages of identity and what are the advantages of blankness?
“Identity
is like a mousetrap in which more and more mice have to share the original
bait, and which, on closer inspection, may have been empty for centuries”.
This
paper then develops by using more analogies and metaphors into how the city is
changing from the central mother to its conceptual orphan with inadequacies of
what a city should be. Furthermore describing the generic city as becoming
liberated from the centre, dependent on current needs and present
abilities. Koolhaas declares that the
generic city is “Big enough for everyone… It is easy… If it gets old it just
self-destructs and renews”.
Another
question is asked at the Statistics point; did the generic city come from
America and did it get exported out to the rest of the world? This is where the
example of Asian cities that aspire to be a generic city is written and the
concept of a city as a logo.
A part of this
essay that I find touches on something interesting that needs more attention is
the idea of cyberspace in the generic city. “The generic City is what is left
after large sections of urban life crossed over to cyberspace”. Koolhaas
describes the city as a place that is weak and distended of sensation and emotion.
The city becomes sedate; moments that happen in the everyday are lost and
become mundane.
Koolhaas
describes what the city is supposedly meant to be at its centre, a place of
business that is manic and hectic but as a generic city it is reduced to an eerier
calm. The serenity of the generic city as this paper is described is to become
a place that is solely design for an urban plane of necessity. A place that
accommodates fundamentally for the car, the generic city is aiming for a ‘seemingly
automotive efficiency’. This creates a landscape of endless repetition that
fractures the cities milieu into a simple structure for the car. People should
be on promenades in the generic city, to lift them off the ground to make way
for cars below.
This paper then
turns to a subject that I find very interesting, the concept of the airport. A
space that is neutral by nature, a place that has no characteristic that is
prevalent of importance to its space. The airport becomes a space of non-place,
“airports become emblematic signs imprinted on the global collective
unconscious in savage manipulations of their non-aviatic attractors”. Koolhaas
discusses the airport as a concentrated location of the hyper-local, as a place
that you can get things you couldn’t get anywhere else in the world to the
Hyper global for it’s a place that you can get goods that you cant get from
even the city the airport is in. He concludes this section by stating the
airport and its facilities are like quarters in a generic city and that maybe
they should be at its centre.
The paper then
turns back to the discussion of the generic city having a lack of character in
culture, which Koolhaas examines as a reason for its multicultural background
and as a place for any religion or heritage. This lack of culture is also
supported by the use of public art in the generic city to bring it life and a
feel of place and purpose; once again Koolhaas claims this as being a lost
cause: “The organic is the generic city’s strongest myth… the street is dead”.
Koolhaas touches
a little on the idea of new towns that circulate around the generic city like
vultures that age quickly and “dies of a disease in the first five years of its
life”. It makes no difference of planning or design, the life of the new town
is doomed. This is also similar to the life of the office, as Koolhaas
describes soon they will become obsolete as people will work from home, to
which the office will fight back and will become either converted to homes or
become destroyed. As Koolhaas concludes:
“The
generic city is like a dating agency: it efficiently matches supply and demand…
that is the story of the city. The city is no longer. We can leave the theatre
now”.
Sunday 21 October 2012
[Design Agent] Imagined
: My personal vision of what the Jewellery Quarter would be like before visiting or any research...
[R&T] Essay_One
The Social Logic of Space
Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson
This paper appealed to me by the first few lines in explaining very clearly in the idea of logic in design. At the beginning of this essay the concept of an artefact is discussed and the theory that everything designed has a certain amount of logic at the first notion of its inception. The idea that a principal action in design is to create a functional objective that then leads to a second dimension of style makes a lot of sense to my own personal theory of design. The main quote in this paragraph that I find is important is ‘there is never any doubt that the artefact does belong to two realms. Invariably, artefacts are both functional and meaningful’. Design is first practical then social.
The paper develops by evolving the idea of form follows functions in architecture and the paradox that the style of a building is most often the main concern of the public. The concept that buildings are a peculiar property that sets them apart from other forms in that the relationship between usefulness and social meaning are complicated by volume of space and pattern.
“It is this ordering of space that is the purpose of building, not the physical object itself”.
The idea that buildings are not what they seem is a clear statement to get the reader to realise that buildings are not just physical artefacts but they have purpose and a relationships between function and a social agenda. The believe that architecture is not just a ‘social art’ or a visual symbol of society is a strong theory in this paper and develops to describe how building form organised space that is recognisable to society.
Something which seem so simply written in this text which actually I find is quite often missed in architectural theory is the difficulty in talking about buildings as what they are socially and not what they appear to be. The authors describe how it is much easier to talk about style and socially relevant description of materiality then it is to discuss functional from. The paper goes on to describe: ‘When space does feature in architectural criticism it is usually at the level of surface’ which is so very often the case in modern architectural journals and magazine reviewing current buildings.
When space is discussed in journals for example it is most often at a level of individual space rather then the system of spatial relationships; this can make reading the plan and settlement of a design difficult and means the reader can lose the buildings intended experience.
The paper then moves on to discuss the idea of anthropology and understanding different cultures is an interesting example of how different social groups conceive architectural form and pattern. I find that this subject is something that is relevant to all types of design large or small, all societies vary, not only in the style of architecture but also most importantly in the way form is lay out and circulated. The next section I believe attempts to develop the readers understanding of theory and method that is directly concerned with the relation between society and urban form. It determinations that form is of order in itself and is created for social purpose which is both constrained and recognisable.
The main bulk of this paper discusses the concept of ‘order in space as restrictions on an underlying random process’. Which later moves on to describe the result of strangers policing space and the inhabitants policing the strangers. However the most significant concept is the idea of the distinction between inside and outside and the distinction of the interior space of building and the collective exterior. This seems an important element to the paper and in short it is space that is a function of the forms of social solidarity, and these are in turn a product of the structure of society.
From this text I have understood that the authors are trying to communicate that buildings are not just objects that are adapted but are spaces that are adopted through objects. Architecture determines the substantial extent to which we become automatically aware of others, both who live near strangers and as a result of living out everyday life in space. ‘Society, it is said, begins with interaction, not with mere co-presence and awareness’.
To conclude this essay and my understanding for what this paper is trying to deliberate through the idea of randomness and its role in society to design space by the influence of encounters and the awareness of others. Without different social systems and encounters architectural form would not become the places that we know or recognise.
Tuesday 16 October 2012
Saturday 13 October 2012
[Design Agent] Critical Urbanism [ARC7201]
Stage One_ Urban Readings
Group Project: Jewellery Quarter
Thursday 11 October 2012
Saturday 6 October 2012
Wednesday 3 October 2012
Thursday 27 September 2012
Wednesday 26 September 2012
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