Literature Review

Kyle McMindes

Key Texts

1.Experiments with Life Itself  by Francisco Gonzalez de Canales

“Experiments with Life Itself” is a text that covers 5 separate case studies based on domestic architecture between the years 1937 to 1959. The three case studies of the five which I found most relevant to my investigations would have to be the cases of Ralph Erskine, of Charles and Ray Eames, and of Alison and Peter Smithson. Each of these three cases covered very particular situations regarding Domesticity that was both the generator of and method in which the Architects designed.

Ralph Erskine was a British Architect who had fled Britain and sought solitude following WWII, his initial project discussed within the text is “The Box”. The box is a simple project located in a rural area in Sweden, the box itself was constructed in the style modern-esque style of the time and utilized an open plan, clean forms, and multi-functional spaces. The Box was highly praised for its crisp aesthetics and material composition, however Erskine lived and worked inside it and suffered due to his stubbornness in regards to form. The home was cold, vastly open, and unfit for the site upon which it was placed. He had to constantly patch and repair issues around the house, despite the failures of “The Box” as Erskine’s home, the lessons learned from it changed him as a designer.

He no longer worked in the vain of the time, his next project “House in Drottningholm” was a true master work. Paying acute attention to the details of the site, the active and responsive role of the inhabitant, and a genuine understanding of construction and detail the house came together. He no longer wished to view the beauty of the world, but to intensely engage with it, even the drawings of the home itself included every stone, tree, or contour upon the space. The interior space as well reflected the many sides of human consciousness, a need utility, wonder, incorporation, privacy, light, and movement.

The next case study that of the Eames, was valuable in regards to understanding the value of self awareness and documentation. The Eames passionately documented themselves in almost every circumstance within their home, from drawing, to film, to photography; they knew their personal patterns and interactions with the built world immensely. In some cases they would no longer consider themselves genuinely living, and thought of the house as a set in which they would hire costume designers to outfit them for their “role” that day. This wealth of knowledge surrounding the everyday allowed them to design and propose timeless products, that in many cases outshone the spaces within which they resided.

The final case study is the “Upper Lawn Solar Pavilion” by the Smithsons, this was actually a summer cottage that they and their family would retreat to for relaxation ad recollection. This space is not conversed about in the traditional means of materiality, light, or atmosphere but through the lens of activity and memory. They speak of an old footpath leading from the house, of how the stones that rest their were traversed by a Roman Centurion and how the path itself suggests and sustains his existence, his ghost forever guarding the entrance to the forest. Stories of how their children will put on plays inside of the barn, shakespearian monologues occurring for no one other than the cows, or how they might boat down the creek and follow the path of a late Danish Explorer. This piece embodies space with the sense of wonder and timeless, with the manifestation of imagination and memory, it gives power to our physical surroundings that push far beyond that of utility, practicality, or beauty.

2.Strangely Familiar: Design and the Everyday  by Andrew Blauvelt

“What we need to question is bricks, concrete, glass, our table manners, our utensils, our tools, the way we spend our time, our rhythms. To question that which seems to have ceased forever to astonish us, we live, true, we breathe, true, we walk, we open doors, we go down staircases, we sit at a table in order to eat, we lie down on a bed in order to sleep. How? Where? When? Why?   – George Perec, 1973 –

The above quote is the embossed onto the cover of this text and acts as the driving force for the collection of work found within. The book is a collection of precedents that all act to question our preconceived notions surrounding that of the everyday, it questions considerations of style, utility, performance, ritual, nostalgia, and beyond. Some key projects are as follows

• The “DO” series: is a series of products that encourage the user to act upon them in an oppositional fashion. A vase that should be smashed so as to pick up a shatter facade, a chair that is sledgehammered into form, and a ceiling light that doubles as a chin up bar
• The “Gardening Sukkah” by Allan Wexler: A small and elegantly crafted dinner cart that provides a space for a nice picnic with fine china, that doubles as a wheelbarrow and also holds onto the various large tools one would need for home lawn care.
• “Upstate” by Constantin Boym: is a play on the artisan dinner plate that holds such a sentimental place in many a person’s home, instead of picturesque rolling pastures and wildlife however, the plates utilize images typical traffic, interstates, and the worse for wear towns that plague our reality.

3. Poetics of Space  by Gaston Bachelard

The Poetics of Space is an excellent text for reference on how to imagine, describe, and write about the physical world. Excerpts from various french poems usher in layers of intriguing thought with their exceptional use of ambiguity, familiarity, atmosphere, and memory. Bachelard also does an excellent job of personifying spaces within the home, giving them emotions, roles, and life; even acknowledging spaces that one would tend to overlook, such as his chapter on the “Corner”. The piece teaches one how to beyond the physical manifestation of the built world and into its spiritual presence.

Some intriguing quotes –

“In the cellar darkness prevails both day and night, and even when we are carrying a lighted candle , we see shadows dancing on the dark walls”

“And so, when a poet rubs a piece of furniture – even vicariously – when he puts a little fragrant wax on his table with the woolen cloth that lends warmth to everything it touches, he creates a new object: he increases the object’s human dignity; he registers this object officially as a member of the human household.”

In the Corner – “you find countless remedies for boredom, and an infinite number of things that deserve to occupy your mind for all time: the musty odor of the minutes of three centuries ago; the secret meaning of the hieroglyphics in fly-dung; the triumphal arch of that mouse-hole: the frayed tapestry against which your round, bony back is lolling ; the gnawing noise of your heels on the marble; the powdery sound of your sneeze … and finally the soul of all the old dust from corners forgotten by brooms.”

4.Maverick Deviation and Visionary Architecture  by Neil Spiller

“Maverick Deviations” is a collection of drawn works by Neil Spiller himself, within this book he demonstrates the value of drawing as something beyond the form of expression. He utilizes it as his genuine thought process where the pen and paper become an extension of his own mind and the genuine driving force behind the Architectural proposals. The drawings consist of layers and layers of overlapping and intertwining information, that allows the viewer and its creator to get lost in a world beyond.

In the book “Visionary Architecture” Spiller historically traces the role of the fantastical drawing and modeling and its role within Architecture. Starting with Piranesi and working his way forward to our present generation, he catalogs the work of Imaginative and Theoretical Architects and the role that they have played in shaping the world around us. The book is an excellent reference for drawing techniques, styles, as well as an informative text on how to converse about the draw. Many times work can be weakened or over simplified via the act of conversing about it, this however is not the case with Neil Spiller, he manages to maintain the aspects of mystery, intrigue, amazement, and atmosphere all the while deepening our knowledge of the subject matter.

“For Neil Spiller, drawing is thinking. He does not ‘express’ thoughts already formulated, in which case his drawings would be mere illustrations. Rather, he formulates thoughts through drawing, indeed by drawing. Each line, each tone is a word. Their groupings are sentences. Their total ensemble is an essay, presenting a fully formed thought.”    – Lebbeus Woods, 2011-

Citations

Bachelard, Gaston, M. Jolas, and John R. Stilgoe. The Poetics of Space. Print.

Barker, Roger G. The Stream of Behavior; Explorations of Its Structure & Content. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1963. Print.

Blauvelt, Andrew. Strangely Familiar: Design and Everyday Life. Minneapolis, MN: Walker Art Center, 2003. Print.

Canales, Francisco González De, Dorota Biczel, and Lucy Bullivant. Experiments with Life Itself: Radical Domestic Architectures between 1937 and 1959. Print.

Coates, Nigel. Narrative Architecture. Print.

Ellin, Nan, and Edward J. Blakely. Architecture of Fear. New York: Princeton Architectural, 1997. Print.

Lefebvre, Henri. Critique of Everyday Life. London: Verso, 1991. Print.

Marcus, Clare Cooper. House as Mirror of Self: Exploring the Deeper Meaning of Home. Berkeley: Conari, 1995. Print.

Nicholson, Ben. Appliance House. Chicago, IL: Chicago Institute for Architecture and Urbanism, 1990. Print.

Robbins, David. The Independent Group: Postwar Britain and the Aesthetics of Plenty. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1990. Print.

Spiller, Neil. Maverick Deviations: Neil Spiller: Architectural Works (1985-1998). Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Academy, 2000. Print.

Spiller, Neil. Visionary Architecture: Blueprints of the Modern Imagination. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2007. Print.

Tschumi, Bernard. The Manhattan Transcripts. London: Academy Editions, 1994. Print.

The importance of diagrams in architecture as a field of cultural-political plasticity

The architectural diagram can be used as a device that blurs the distinction between subject and object, bringing forth tensions of looking in and through, of being in and out. Jacques Derrida, a French continental philosopher primarily interested in deconstruction, has notably theorized the use of the architectural diagram, and an important idea the Derrida has raised was that of différance. Différance, for Derrida, means not only to ‘differ’ but also to ‘defer’ the meaning if anything, endlessly, because it is never total or finished. This open process of meaning is an obvious fact of cultures since they are historical and changing. For Derrida, an architectural diagram subverts the dominant oppositions and hierarchies currently constitutive of the discourse, and can be modes of becoming an emergence of différance. Architectural diagrams in this sense can operate as an abstract machine that describes the power relations and the narratives of the city.

Operating from a place similar to that of writing, the diagram can be experimental in the sense that it can achieve emancipation and autonomy in the discipline, it can be anti-hierarchy, anti-form, anti-structure, and it can reveal clearly the power relations and mosaic of the city. The diagram as an abstract machine composed of these elements are activators that help trigger constructions that are neither objective or subjective, neither before theory nor after theory, neither conceptual or opportunist, the location of the diagram is in the inter-subjective, durational and operational field where meanings are formed and transformed interactively.

This thesis will outline the methods of achieving such a diagram, will analyze the current use of diagrams in architecture, outline the implications of which (history, trends, influences), and will aim to bring about a contemporary (in an Agamben sense of the word), autonomous place of abstraction.

Townsend, Anthony M. Smart cities: Big data, civic hackers, and the quest for a new utopia. WW Norton & Company, 2013.

Anthony Townzend grounds smart cities on the history of urban planning theories. He describes what smart cities are and how governance of cities is going to change by these new interventions. He clarifies the idea in accordance with its different actors: city mayors, industry, entrepreneurs, civic hackers and citizens. In this confrontation, what author is conveying is how determinant is each one of these actors. Townzend’s perspective as a planner is different from what corporations as actual initiators of smart cities in the market, claim. He takes a critical position to draw realities versus overexcitement of city mayors that is happening by seductive situation that has formed for them.

Gabrys, Jennifer. Program Earth: Environmental Sensing Technology and the Making of a Computational Planet. University of Minnesota Press, 2016.

In Program Earth, Gabrys asks many questions. She frames notions in their usual framework and then tries to take them beyond their recognized concepts. Her philosophical and artistic approach in contemplating about the relation of technologies with human in the context of sensing environments is radical but unfinished. Through the book and more specifically in chapter 9, the author suggests that rather than deciding which connectivities are preferred in a way towards smart city, we might instead attend to the ways in which collectives are turned into measurable entities and individuals, which are further put into relation through infrastructures of measurement.

Graham, Stephen, 1965, and Simon Marvin 1963. Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition, Routledge, New York;London;, 2001.

Arendt, Hannah. The human condition. University of Chicago Press, 2013.

McQuire, Scott. Geomedia: Networked Cities and the Future of Public Space. 2016

Scott McQuire prefers looking at the characteristics of the future cities not as smart cities or sentient cities but as media cities. He considers new media technologies from smart phones to LED screens as an integral part of the contemporary city. Here he moves from media into geomedia where online connections have moved from being placeless to being geolocated in urban spaces. Geomedia is a concept based on the intersection of four characteristics of communication in cities by new technologies: ubiquity, real-time feedback, location awareness and convergence.

Zuckerman, Ethan. Rewire: Digital cosmopolitans in the age of connection. 2013.

We live in the age of connection. With exponential growth of online tools and the number of connected people to internet, there are more opportunities for connectivity of people and societies.  However these opportunities are not enough and equal to more connectivity. Zuckerman describes how we are stuck in our own limited social circle and how we are unaware of the news that is happening around the world. He draws the necessity of factors involved in forming a meaningful connection and becoming cosmopolitan citizens.

Dourish, Paul, and Genevieve Bell. ““Resistance is futile”: reading science fiction alongside ubiquitous computing.” Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 18.4 (2014): 769-778.

The authors have written another essay, Yesterday’s tomorrows: notes on ubiquitous computing’s dominant vision in 2005. In that essay they criticize the dominant fashion of scientific writing about ubiquitous computing which is highly based on the predictions of Weiser. However they argue that we no longer need to talk about the future in the way that Weiser used to because now we are living in that future. They see a lack of cultural and realistic consideration in the most of scholarly researches of ubiquitous computing. Their Resistance is futile suggests looking at the future in a different way. They analyze the role of science fiction movies on culture on how they have in fact enriched science. Their case studies on sci-fi movies are different from Weiser point of view because of their cultural elements where failures are or victories are based on the intersection of future technologies and culture.

Bleecker, Julian. “Design Fiction: A short essay on design, science, fact and fiction.” Near Future Laboratory 29 (2009).

Liminal Urban Spaces:

Addressing the Temporality of Built Form Through the Lens of Building Mortality

Issue: The perception of permanence in architecture is a deep seated mentality.  In reality, architecture is temporal and what is here now will not always be here.  This can be a somewhat disturbing thought; especially when there are sentimental ties to the built structures that we inhabit.  A city can be thought of as a living entity made up of buildings, landscapes, and people that are in constant flux.  When a component or part of that system is not used, it goes dormant and falls into a liminal state until there is a socio-economic need for it again.  Buildings seem to experience mortality at different times for different reasons, however one could argue that a building’s death occurs well before it is demolished, renovated, or even vacated.  When buildings and landscapes progress to a point of mortality, what can we do to influence the future use of the space when it is eventually reassimilated into the urban fabric?  This thesis will look to explore the liminality between a building’s vacancy, demolition and reassimilation and what impacts building mortality has on our perception of landscape, waste,  and architecture.

*The goal of this thesis is not to eliminate liminal urban spaces or wasting, but to explore the possible influence of ephemeral interventions within them to nudge these spaces into a beneficial direction depending on community needs (social, ecological, economic,etc.) as well as alter the communal perception of these spaces from deficits to assets.  

Significance of Issue: The average vacancy rate among the 75 largest urban centers in the United States sits at 10.6% and has historically fluctuated between 12.5% and 15% in cities with populations above 250,000 (US Census 2012; Kremer, Hamstead 2015).  There are many factors that may influence when and why properties are vacated such as disinvestment, industrial decline, and contamination of the land to name a few (Kremer, Hamstead 2015).  Vacancy can have large social, ecological, and economic implications on an urban area including increased crime.   Visible environmental cues that indicate a lack of investment in an area can influence the social dynamic of the neighborhood, causing feelings of fear, abandonment, and vulnerability ultimately with the possibility of compounding vacancy issues (Garvin et. al. 2012).  Cities spend millions of dollar per year on demolishing derelict properties (HUD 2014).  However this process creates prolific amounts of waste each year.  The building sector created 530 million metric tons of construction and demolition waste in the United States in 2013, 90% of which was purely demolition related (EPA. Advancing Sustainable Materials Management. 2013).  For scale, the United States produced 254 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW consists of residential and commercial garbage and recyclables) in 2013.  

Proposal of Method: When a building dies, it has many different possible fates.  It can be reconditioned up to modern habitability standards and then reoccupied, or, it can be taken down via either demolition or deconstruction to make way for new stock to name two possibilities.  This can be visualized as a decision tree containing the theoretical maximum number of possibilities for a particular site.  This thesis would work to identify key intervention points over time that provide the maximum influence over a vacant lot’s future.  How could focused ephemeral design interventions at specific stages pre and post mortality catalyze and influence the reassimilation process to achieve a particular result? How could this work to redefine the public perception of dead buildings and derelict landscapes? How could temporary urbanism in the form of low cost, low risk transient on site building utilizing recovered materials serve as a way to provoke urban reinvestment?