For the Super Small

We are a society of individualization: single souls fighting for meaning, definition, and place. in our media-induced delirium, we struggle for significance.
Starved for connection, we increasingly insert ourselves into cyber space, cyber culture: online communities have replaced any sense of real face-to-face community.
Architecture is slow, reflective of culture, a frozen monument to a society’s biases and preferences. So where does architecture fit, when our culture has shifted from concrete relationships to that of the ephemeral?
The basic necessities of life that our built environments must meet are no longer just to provide food storage, shelter, or community engagement. Our digital dependence will not lessen, but virtual communities do not rely on real-life relationships. We face a severe shortage of physical interaction.

In a field of isolation, does architecture have the power to reconnect individuals, to build physical community?

In two stages, yes.

First, our architecture must enforce interpersonal affairs by removing the middleman crux of the digital device. Only by absorbing the digital interfaces that guard our persons (removing the laptop, blackberry, or ipod) will individuals have the opportunity to reconnect without hiding behind tech devices. By fully accepting user tools, architecture as form may come to reject the obviously technological. Futuristic will become passé.

Secondly, we must cultivate the super small.
Communal living is contemporarily taboo; Modernist idealists and the Age of Utopias are at their bloody end, hanging on by a few residual fragments. Public housing blocks were an undisputed failure, bare bones of the last vestiges paying homage to (what turned out to be) devastating dystopias.
The Soviet Constructivists had this same idea; “new byt”, they called it, or “new everyday life.” The Narkomfin building minimized living quarters, reducing sleeping space to a single small cell. All public acts were shared. The project, so hated, was never completed and quickly vacated.
Hippy communes are still comical, ostracized by capitalism and practically impossible.

So, then, is ours too doomed to fail?

While these other eras failed, ours has the potential to succeed, because the super small can only exist, and absolutely must exist, within the context of the extra large: high density, globalized culture juxtaposed by the individualism of small space.
When our extra large digital community becomes too engrossing, the extra small discourages excessive alone time- it enforces communal gathering, personal interaction. The extra small can exist in any physical setting, but can only exist communally.
The extra small is adaptable, relatable, human in scale, and potentially local. The extra small can be recyclable, fanciful, luxurious, and unpredictable.
The extra small provides the most basic needs, but depends on a larger context. In this way, the individual is acceptable, but the individual must also connect with others. The new architecture of community enforces individual physicality.

apocalypse… later. how about some sincerity?

We face a future of obvious uncertainty.
As graduates during a recession, we look out upon a future limited by our loss of promised opportunities.
It is easy when times seem tough to despair. It is easy to see the faults in others or to lose confidence in our capabilities.
Throughout the most progressive academic discourse I see concern for the environment shape dreams into dystopias. I see social injustice perverted and extorted. I see the belief in change reserved for the apocalypse.

It seems as if all faith and hope in the humanity of today has been lost.

We may not stand at the most crucial turning point of architecture, but our time does have significance. Our generation is the first to deal with the digital dimension's influence on our social order, the wild abandon with which our cities sprawl, and the ability to both design and manufacture nearly all the forms of fancy.
Our actions, but more importantly our attitudes, towards these challenges will be the points of influence and critique of architecture to come.

A slump in building always coincides with the rise of ambition, dreams, and purpose. We decide, while we have the time to think, where the future of architecture is headed.
While future architecture's disapproval is inevitable, we (like parents every where) hope to impart some meaningful new knowledge, something important, that will stick.

It is therefore why we must push firmly for an architecture of hope, consideration, and good.

It is not the form, nor necessarily the initial concept, of much contemporary architecture I draw issue with. It is the cynicism, the harsh irony, the utter disregard for humanity and spirit that drive the discourse.
Though beautiful, it concerns me to see only dark, brooding images come from top universities; it concerns me to work on projects where the individual experience is never discussed; and it concerns me that intellect is now so closely aligned with sarcasm.

With the rise of postmodernism, we became fearful of sincerity, afraid our best intentions would be found so wrong, like the urban imaginings of the Modernist Utopians. But turning away from all forms of sincerity is not the only way to comment or critique contemporary society: fanciful does not have to be violent, beauty does not have to brutal, edgy does not have to be aggressive.

Midterm Review Reflections

My review went terribly. Read: second worst review I've ever had, outdone only by my final review third year where 8 jurors ripped me apart.

That said, it's time to move on.
While I can't work harder and please them, I need to find a way to please myself. Last week was hell. I hardly slept or ate, skipped all my classes and didn't do any of my other work. I made myself sick for something I didn't love.
And I refuse to do it again.

I have 6 weeks to fall in love with my project and end on a good note. I started today by not going to studio, taking the day to go shopping, be outside, reflect on architecture, and dream about future possibilities.

The criticism for my project has been the same over the last few weeks: it feels confused, disconnected, and conceptually weak. I have to agree, considering there has been no time for thought, I've spent the entirety of my days and nights producing new formal iterations based on nothing but elevation proportions, I've become increasingly frustrated by my professors' lack of interest in the program.
However, there is one kernel of interest from the comments I received: the suggestion that it wants to be a monastery.

While this by no means solves all of my problems (especially concerning circulation), it at least provides some solid inspiration and a new route for research. An interfaith monastery!!
It is so obviously meaningful, I don't have to argue for it.
Monasteries have rich historical formal relationships that could be extorted.
An urban monastery has obvious inherent juxtapositions embedded in the concept: enclosure, quiet, and seclusion in the context of a city... all of the things I wanted to explore but couldn't argue for. Programatically it makes sense to have large contemplation spaces, private cells, a library, a kitchen and dining hall, a large central courtyard, etc... and for them to be very separate.

I know there are several monasteries in the city... perhaps I could visit to get a better idea of what they are like.

My only source of encouragement these days:

After contunally frustrating and unproductive reviews with my professors, and unhappiness in the success of my project thus far, the one kernel of hope I have is this:

The GPAs I could graduate with:

Straight As (unlikely): 3.961
B in Studio, As in everything else: 3.922
C in Studio, As in everything else: 3.883
D in Studio, As in everything else: 3.844
Straight Bs (impossible): 3.844


I love having so many credits that a poor grade doesn't matter.

Defining Circulation

I am realizing, as I struggle to piece together my building, that good spaces are largely about circulation. In fact, movement is really the most defining aspect of space: space can only be understood in three dimensions, necessetating movement over time.

This is both shocking and odd, because circulation is often an afterthought, a secondary design feature shoved in where it feels convenient. This is more true, perhaps, for -bad- or standard architecture; thoughtful, well designed spaces typically aim to solve circulation creatively.

While programs have various emphasis (and therefore it is unfair to apply this reasoning to _everything_), modern art museums are typically good examples of this.

It has been interesting to read Koolhaas simultaneously to working with Kruek; through studio, I am learning the conceptual nuances of Modernist space, while digesting the best contemporary criticism.
I understand the anger and frustration towards glorified abstraction of "phenomenal space" and the obsession with disparate program.

It is largely over circulation where OMA battles Modernism; while Mies' spaces enourage free movement over the free plan, Koolhaas often exploits paths, breaks circulation, or revels over mechanical aids.

If I am to let program define the building (which I must), the primary question then becomes : What sort of space, and therefore circulation, does the program necessitate?

Interfaith meeting

March 11, 2010
Coffee shop, 12 or so people. Half pagan, half Christian. Discussing Faith and Space: the role buildings and spatial environments have on our experience of the divine.

The Questions:
What places are meaningful to you?
What role does space play in your understanding of faith?
What environments are most conducive to reflection, feeling close to god, reflecting on your spiritual center?
Can space feel inspired or sacred without symbol or iconic form?
Do any materials resonate with you?

The Answers:
Varied and revealing. Opinionated and informative. Far too long to post all of them.


The Important Notes:
Emphasis on wandering, progression or sequence through space;
A multiplicity of events

Having an entrance that is not initially obvious is ok. It encourages the visitor to seek.
Integration of garden and architecture
Disrupt traditional hierarchy
Grand Gathering is more useful than Grand Contemplation
Many entrances
"Communitas": a shared individual experience


Generally, I feel validated for some of the initial decisions or instincts I had. A few of the suggestions are helpful in forming a direction for the problems I am struggling to overcome (specifically entrance and procession into the contemplation space).
Definitely helpful.

space vs place

the spatial environments that stay in our memories, and thus define our histories, our selves, are more often places than spaces. The common place becomes historic space: the doorway where a first kiss happened, the backyard pool of a lifechanging conversation, the second bathroom stall on the right.
The banality of our memory spaces is astounding.

Not that impressive spaces don't stick with us, lasting imagery in memory, but the places that are truly important are usually of the ordinary.

There is power in this- event transforms space, however banal, into powerful place.

Is it possible to design for place and not just space?
Is this the same as designing for experience?

Finding passion

I like space but not architecture.
...Quality construction, but not finished models.
...Parameters but not limits.
...Materials but not details.
...Theory but not concept.
...Experience but not circulation.
...Natural curves but not manufactured curves.

Universal symbols vs. universal space

I am reading The Temple in the House: Finding the Sacred in Everyday Architecture by Anthony Lawlor.

This book describes elements that are universally present and sacred or meaningful [the gate, path, and destination] in all cultures. The steeple, or tall element, is a universally symbolic element.

But universal space is not necessarily achievable by the culmination of universal symbols. To what extend are these symbols really legible as metaphors? Is it too classical (ie. representative) or Venturian (ie. decorated shed or applique) to consciously apply these forms in order to find meaning? Are they powerful only when stumbled across or found unintentionally? No. This must not be true.
Symbols can be consciously employed, but likely compose more successful space when not intentionally metaphorical. The narrative rarely reads in architecture, but the space does.
So powerful universal space may contain these elements, perhaps unintentionally, but it's point or purpose cannot be solely defined by these characteristics.