http://spacehacking.net spacehacking//citytactics Tue, 21 May 2013 00:28:29 +0000 http://spacehacking.net en http://spacehacking.net/rockspeak http://spacehacking.net/following/spacehacking.net/rockspeak Tue, 21 May 2013 00:28:29 +0000 spacehacking//citytactics 5655900 <img src="http://payload167.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/5655900/rockspeak-1_760.JPG" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload167.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/5655900/rockspeak-1_o.JPG" data-mid="30606365" border="0" align="left"/> Over time, vacant and derelict pieces of the urban environment become no more than scenery for the pedestrians that pass by them every day; they are forgotten, or at least unnoticed. rockspeak challenges this status quo, prompting passers-by to engage in a momentary encounter with such a site - the fenced-off driveway to the parking lot outside a vacant bank in Oakland, California. The essential functionality of the piece is to play a series of site-specific sounds in response to, first, the passage of a pedestrian and, subsequently, to the continued occupation of the space. This sequence lasts approximately one minute, and references the urban trajectory of the site. Through this simple interaction, people passing by the vacant space are made aware of its presence, if only fleetingly. Confronted with it, they may see it anew. They may begin to imagine. rockspeak | reactions from Nathan John on Vimeo. In its first installation location, behind a fence in a driveway linking the parking lot of the vacant bank to the street, it was observed that users initially identified the object, but subsequently examined the broader site, frequently looking up and around themselves as they stood in front of the object. In its second installation location, the object was physically accessible to users, though by looking towards the object one was still given a clear sight-line along the bank building and back into the parking lot. The most notable difference that was observed when the object was physically accessible was that it was much more the focus of attention – fewer users examined the broader site. Rather, they would visually interrogate the object much more carefully, before moving on, often without looking up and around. It is also interesting to note that though the object was within reach of many users while installed in Site 1b, it was only physically engaged once, and then only with the tip of a foot. rockspeak | timelapse from Nathan John on Vimeo. On the whole, rockspeak represents a promising first venture into the possibilities that arise from the insertion of interactive into everyday or non-spaces within the city. It was evidenced by the reactions of those who interacted with the piece that they were experiencing surprise and curiosity as a result of the intervention – this was precisely the goal of the work, so it may be called a success in that sense. At the same time, the success of the piece in generating interest and awareness in a derelict space only opens the door to many further questions, and creates a pressing need for further works, in which the user interaction becomes more intense and explicit, and the goals of the work become more specific and refined. Over time, vacant and derelict pieces of the urban environment become no more than scenery for the pedestrians that pass by them every day; they are forgotten, or... http://spacehacking.net/paralite http://spacehacking.net/following/spacehacking.net/paralite Tue, 21 May 2013 00:25:22 +0000 spacehacking//citytactics 5655855 <img src="http://payload167.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/5655855/paralite_v2_who knows_small_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="1200" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload167.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/5655855/paralite_v2_who knows_small_o.jpg" data-mid="30607292" border="0" align="left"/> As the urban environment darkens, the pedestrian relationship to it changes. As the scope of the unknown territory through which one is moving increases, the level of curiousity one exhibits about that territory decreases. A feeling of threat can become palpable in certain moments. At the same time, the visual gravity of the objects within the landscape is upended - massive buildings become unreadable except as shadow, while small points in space leap out if they are lit. These lights may become beacons, falsely or otherwise, promising observation and infrastructural connection. To enter an area of light surrounded by darkness is no less fundamental an experience - it can produce dislocation, discomfort, reassurance and enjoyment. paralite draws on these multiple and contradictory properties of light in the urban nightscape, questioning how much is required to transform the experience of a darkened public space, as well as how much is required to break pedestrians from their carefully cultivated habit of un-seeing elements of their surroundings after dark. paralite | reactions from Nathan John on Vimeo. Though originally conceived of for an underpass, the paralite was instantiated on the side of a derelict hot dog stand, as seen above. In spite of this change of site, there were ways in which paralite performed as expected, and ways in which it demonstrated unexpected potentials. Foremost among the latter is the way that users felt moved and empowered to touch the piece, presumably as a result of the textural quality of the silicone - simply by looking at the piece, it can be perceived that it has an extremely unusual material quality. It remains to be seen how the haptic nature of the piece as installed can be reconciled with the imperative to make it as difficult as possible to uninstall, were it to be more permanently mounted in a site. As well, the willingness and desire of users to interact with the piece, rather than simply have it react to their presence, was remarkable, and suggests that future versions might benefit from more robust interaction design. paralite | timelapse from Nathan John on Vimeo. As the urban environment darkens, the pedestrian relationship to it changes. As the scope of the unknown territory through which one is moving increases, the... http://spacehacking.net/venice-biennale-round-two http://spacehacking.net/following/spacehacking.net/venice-biennale-round-two Mon, 03 Dec 2012 06:28:08 +0000 spacehacking//citytactics 4487903 <img src="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-1_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-1_o.jpg" data-mid="23819187" caption="view of a defunct plant nursery | venetian lagoon" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-2_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-2_o.jpg" data-mid="23819189" caption="view of new grapes | mazzorbo" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-3_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-3_o.jpg" data-mid="23819194" caption="view of buried armories | isola san giacomo in palude" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-4_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-4_o.jpg" data-mid="23819196" caption="view of a tunnel | isola sant'andrea" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-5_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-5_o.jpg" data-mid="23819198" caption="the sound of modern angles | mazzorbo" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-6_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-6_o.jpg" data-mid="23819201" caption="view of clam diggers | venetian lagoon" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-7_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-7_o.jpg" data-mid="23819204" caption="view of a marina | isola della certosa" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-8_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-8_o.jpg" data-mid="23819206" caption="view of a partially absorbed barracks | isola san giacomo in palude" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-9_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-9_o.jpg" data-mid="23819207" caption="waiting for someone to love | mazzorbo" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-10_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-10_o.jpg" data-mid="23819212" caption="view down a hall | isola sant'andrea" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-11_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-11_o.jpg" data-mid="23819216" caption="view of lost property | isola sant'andrea" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-12_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-12_o.jpg" data-mid="23819220" caption="view of a defunct playing field | mazzorbo" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-13_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-13_o.jpg" data-mid="23819222" caption="view of a canal (old and new) | isola della certosa" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-14_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload109.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4487903/venice_wkshp-14_o.jpg" data-mid="23819225" caption="view of aquaculture (view of a salt marsh) | venetian lagoon" border="0" align="left"/> If my first visit to Venice was a triumph of style over substance (see my post on the Biennale), then my second was just the opposite: a complete displacement of glitz in favor of fact. My return took place within the context of a three-day workshop, led by the CED’s Nicholas de Monchaux in connection with the inclusion of his project Local Code in the US Pavilion. A stated goal of the workshop was to turn the evolving Local Code toolset towards the intractable problem (or ineluctable opportunity, depending on your viewpoint) posed by the Venetian Lagoon’s many disused, abandoned or under-populated islands. The very fact that such areas exist on the periphery of one of the world’s most intensely touristed cities came as a shock to me; it was, in contrast, quite unsurprising to find that the issue of tourism was the backdrop to every discussion about possible futures and uses for the spaces in question. As we tromped through overgrown military bases that were around to see Napoleon's invasion, farmlands left fallow in the face of imported produce and neighborhoods shrunken by migration, what was most remarkable was the similarity, rather than the difference, of these spaces to others I have seen. They are more visually striking, to be sure, and perhaps more bureaucratically entangled (by virtue of the fact that they are mostly owned by the military), but at their root they are defunct urban spaces in need of new ideas. What is different is that here, more than in many cities, it has become obvious that neither a monoculture of use (around tourism) or a master plan is likely to find a way to revitalize these vestigial places. Instead, smaller actions will need to be (and in some areas are) taken, and their results observed. Successful experiments can be scaled up, unsuccessful efforts allowed to expire. If such an approach were codified, it would have the potential to result in a truly resilient system – one that enshrines adaptability at the most basic level. It was encouraging and intoxicating in equal measure to realize that some of the strategies I have been looking at have the potential to travel the distance between an alleyway and an island, and to imagine futures for spaces that have seen so many pasts. If my first visit to Venice was a triumph of style over substance (see my post on the Biennale), then my second was just the opposite: a complete displacement of... http://spacehacking.net/interview-collectif-etc http://spacehacking.net/following/spacehacking.net/interview-collectif-etc Wed, 21 Nov 2012 12:20:37 +0000 spacehacking//citytactics 4478495 <img src="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/changement_1_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="760" height_o="506" src_o="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/changement_1_o.jpg" data-mid="23764747" caption="site view // &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.collectifetc.com/place-au-changement-chantier/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;place au changement&lt;/a&gt; // image courtesy collectif etc" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/changement_2_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="760" height_o="506" src_o="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/changement_2_o.jpg" data-mid="23764755" caption="seating // &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.collectifetc.com/place-au-changement-chantier/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;place au changement&lt;/a&gt; // image courtesy collectif etc" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/changement_3_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="760" height_o="506" src_o="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/changement_3_o.jpg" data-mid="23764764" caption="plantings and pathways // &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.collectifetc.com/place-au-changement-chantier/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;place au changement&lt;/a&gt; // image courtesy collectif etc" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/a nous_1_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="760" height_o="506" src_o="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/a nous_1_o.jpg" data-mid="23764664" caption="design build workshop // &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.collectifetc.com/a-nous-le-parking-le-workshop/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;a nous le parking&lt;/a&gt; // image courtesy collectif etc" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/a nous_3_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="760" height_o="506" src_o="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/a nous_3_o.jpg" data-mid="23764686" caption="intervention in use // &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.collectifetc.com/a-nous-le-parking-la-vie-du-parking/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;a nous le parking&lt;/a&gt; // image courtesy collectif etc" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/a nous_4_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="760" height_o="506" src_o="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/a nous_4_o.jpg" data-mid="23764700" caption="re-arranging // &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.collectifetc.com/a-nous-le-parking-la-vie-du-parking/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;a nous le parking&lt;/a&gt; // image courtesy collectif etc" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/bientot_1_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="760" height_o="506" src_o="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/bientot_1_o.jpg" data-mid="23764718" caption="preparing for permanent installation // &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.collectifetc.com/le-parking-ici-bientot-2/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;a nous le parking&lt;/a&gt; // image courtesy collectif etc" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/bientot_3_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="760" height_o="506" src_o="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/bientot_3_o.jpg" data-mid="23765591" caption="preparing for permanent installation // &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.collectifetc.com/le-parking-ici-bientot-2/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;a nous le parking&lt;/a&gt; // image courtesy collectif etc" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/moon_1_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="760" height_o="506" src_o="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/moon_1_o.jpg" data-mid="23764775" caption="stairs + slide // &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.collectifetc.com/on-the-moon/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;on the moon&lt;/a&gt; // image courtesy collectif etc" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/moon_3_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="760" height_o="506" src_o="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/moon_3_o.jpg" data-mid="23764806" caption="site view // &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.collectifetc.com/on-the-moon/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;on the moon&lt;/a&gt; // image courtesy collectif etc" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/moon_2_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="760" height_o="506" src_o="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/moon_2_o.jpg" data-mid="23764795" caption="interior view // &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.collectifetc.com/on-the-moon/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;on the moon&lt;/a&gt; // image courtesy collectif etc" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/refuge_1_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="760" height_o="506" src_o="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/refuge_1_o.jpg" data-mid="23764814" caption="pavement marking // &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.collectifetc.com/bons-plans-pour-le-refuge-panier/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;bons plans pour le refuge?&lt;/a&gt; // image courtesy collectif etc" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/refuge_4_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="760" height_o="506" src_o="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/refuge_4_o.jpg" data-mid="23765345" caption="structure // &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.collectifetc.com/bons-plans-pour-le-refuge-panier/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;bons plans pour le refuge?&lt;/a&gt; // image courtesy collectif etc" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/refuge_3_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="760" height_o="506" src_o="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/refuge_3_o.jpg" data-mid="23764840" caption="structure // &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.collectifetc.com/bons-plans-pour-le-refuge-panier/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;bons plans pour le refuge?&lt;/a&gt; // image courtesy collectif etc" border="0" align="left"/> Through a stroke of luck, I was able to sit down with one of the members of Collectif Etc during my visit to Paris. This group (or collective, to be precise) is composed of just over a dozen young French architects who are making their practice up as they go along, and while that in and of itself isn't such a remarkable achievement, the success that they're attaining is. Over the course of a few hours at a sidewalk cafe, I heard about how they started, what they've been up to, the movement they're a part of and the challenges facing them (and others like them) going forward. An instructive conversation, to put it mildly. nj :: How did Collectif Etc start – it was from school, right? ce :: Yeah, we’re just a group of friends from two proms… I don’t know how you’d say it: two years? When we started, we were doing street art: we would say, “Ok, let’s meet this Sunday and do something.” without much idea of what it would be. One day we decided to work on a wall that had these fake windows, and do stuff on them. It doesn’t matter, actually [laughing]. But that day many people came to help us – people from the buildings around, who said, “Oh, maybe you need this tool,” or “Could we help with that?” or “What are you guys doing?” And it became great; it was really nice for everyone, and by the end of the day we said, “Ok, what matters is that people get involved. That’s how it’s interesting for us, and interesting for them.” We were doing a couple of different things - one day, we decided to work on a small pedestrian bridge, to turn it into a place where people could stay, because it had a really nice view but no one could stop on it. So we designed these origami chairs that people could make out of paperboards. And then we all left school – as architecture students we got to study many things, and it was really interesting, but we missed one thing, which was to build real-scale stuff that we had designed. <img src="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/a nous_1_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="760" height_o="506" src_o="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/a nous_1_o.jpg" data-mid="23764664" caption="design build workshop // &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.collectifetc.com/a-nous-le-parking-le-workshop/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;a nous le parking&lt;/a&gt; // image courtesy collectif etc" border="0" align="left"/> design build workshop // a nous le parking // image courtesy collectif etc So we offered to organize a workshop for students [at our school] to build furniture for a parking lot that’s right in front of the school. So there was no public space where students can stop a little bit and, like, smoke cigarettes, or eat something, or… there’s nothing. So we said, “Ok, let’s remove all the cars from this parking lot, put them in a parking lot that was behind the school and always empty, which is stupid.” And the school said “Ok, you’ve got a couple of thousand euros, you can buy some materials and organize this, go ahead.” We did that, it was really interesting - these pieces of furniture that people can move, and the students designed them, and built them, and we were all around and all together, and it was great. Yeah, I love that project. Oh, you know it! So the school really loved it also, and decided to extend it: no car is on the parking lot right now. It lasted for one year and a half, and then they asked us to come back and do one thing to show that it’s forever now, so we destroyed a parking space, and planted a tree. It’s a bit symbolic, but we did it. Ok, so we thought: “That was a good start, and we got some good publicity from it, and it was really interesting.” And we applied to a competition to design a public space in Saint Etienne. When the jury was happening, we said, “If you pick us, you have to know that you have to let us manage all the money, and you have realize that we will do a collaborative, participative work with all the inhabitants. That’s what we stand for – if you don’t accept that, we don’t want to win the competition.” And they picked us, so they said, “Ok, we trust you.” <img src="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/changement_1_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="760" height_o="506" src_o="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/changement_1_o.jpg" data-mid="23764747" caption="site view // &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.collectifetc.com/place-au-changement-chantier/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;place au changement&lt;/a&gt; // image courtesy collectif etc" border="0" align="left"/> site view // place au changement // image courtesy collectif etc When some of us went to St. Etienne to prepare, we already had in mind this idea of taking one year off to go around France, meet all the people who work in the field we work in, to see how things could be, to create a network between these people, and to see if we could have some room in it, if we could actually exist and survive. And the project in St. Etienne was really – it was great. It was amazing, actually. So we decided, after this stuff, we go around. In September and October last year, we started preparing the ground. We had two goals: one was meeting all these people and creating a network, and one was work with those people, create projects, and build stuff. And you guys made a lot of projects as you went. So, we did around 15 projects, or something like that. Wow. Yeah, it was great: we met and worked with so many from different fields, with different interests. We worked with municipalities and with associations, with schools, with social centers, with random people. We worked in the center of cities, and we worked in neighborhoods outside of cities, in rich places, poor places. We worked in villages… So it’s been really amazing, and the response from everyone was great. Because politically, it’s always great – no municipality can say no to somebody who comes and says, “Ok, I’m trying to legitimate any action on the public space: do you accept that or not?” They can’t say no, or they will lose votes for the next election. Did you collaborate with someone every single time you made something? Yeah, we tried to. We tried. In some places, there is no such structure. Like I come from Rennes, and we did a project in Rennes, and there’s really nothing. You must have a really good understanding of this movement in France – I think right now it is more in France, than perhaps any other place, that there is this type of thought or engagement. Do you have some – maybe it’s impossible to say, but do you have some insight to why this is happening now? I would say that by the late 90’s, Brut d’Frigo and Colloco, and some structures like Atelier d’ Architecture Autogeneré – there were a couple of groups who appeared out of the blue, and they fought for things, and they are still alive now. I mean, many of them [have since] stopped, but they were the first group of people who said: it is possible. This is what we believe in and it is possible. <img src="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/moon_2_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="760" height_o="506" src_o="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/moon_2_o.jpg" data-mid="23764795" caption="interior view // &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.collectifetc.com/on-the-moon/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;on the moon&lt;/a&gt; // image courtesy collectif etc" border="0" align="left"/> interior view // on the moon // image courtesy collectif etc It was not fashion then, it was not really what it is now: it is trendy to be, to work, in this field, I would say. But ok, so there was this moment then, nobody heard much about it, but now the actual trend is social - it’s easy to communicate with people; it’s easy to get collaborative tools. So these tools, and the fact that the background was already there, I think explains the fact that we just appeared and that so many groups such as us are… Kind of appearing all at once. Right now, yes. We’ve been meeting all these people - we’ve interviewed like 30 groups, and we are creating a platform called superville.org where the experiments we’ve been doing, and news people have, will appear. The aim is to show, to explain processes: to make them legible to the people who can make decisions. We want this not to be our product, but the product of the whole community of people, a tool that everyone can be involved in and everyone can use. I think that’s a really fantastic idea. It becomes like a handbook for this way of working, so that other people can also attempt it. Yeah, we think we have to give back what they gave us, when we met all of them and they were so amazing. It’s been really great, because [it makes] you feel like things are possible. And for you – I mean, for the collective - it seems like you’re thinking about what happens next or how it evolves. How this goes from being a bunch of students who can volunteer their time to make something in a parking lotx to something else. Well, we think it’s not enough to talk to people – we think it’s better to do things together. That’s why we, the projects we do… In Bordeaux, we worked on a public square; we did these workshops everyday where people could come and saw wood and we had nails, screws, whatever. <img src="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/refuge_3_760.jpg" width="760" height="506" width_o="760" height_o="506" src_o="http://payload108.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4478495/refuge_3_o.jpg" data-mid="23764840" caption="structure // &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.collectifetc.com/bons-plans-pour-le-refuge-panier/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;bons plans pour le refuge?&lt;/a&gt; // image courtesy collectif etc" border="0" align="left"/> structure // bons plans pour le refuge? // image courtesy collectif etc But then, this is not for everyone. This is for people who are interested in [building things]. So we believe there should be food lessons, there should be music, a concert, there should be round tables – that’s really important, actually – and there should be petanque competitions or whatever, to make sure that everyone can come and talk about what matters. And what matters is living together in a place. The idea of psychogeography – that a thing can make an impression that can change a place for someone – is this also part of your way of working, thinking about the sort of psychological impression you’re making in public space? It is, by [a matter of] fact, but [we didn’t think about it] this way at first. We’ve realized this is a real lack, so we are working with the University of Marseille, with a group of researchers, sociologists, to evaluate the way our work has had an impact on people, businesses, and municipalities. So they’re going to do some systematic research – they call everyone six months after, two years after, to see how things will evolve. It’s really fascinating as a way of working. Do you have an ambition to move beyond temporary use? So far you always work in public space with these temporary interventions – is that just because that’s how you started, and it’s a very easy way to bring people together? Because you’re a bunch of architects, right? So maybe it’s not quite so usual that you always want to work in the public space… It’s because it makes us feel great! No, really! You learn from people, you see what you’re doing. By the end of every day you know what has been done, what has not been done. You feel like what you’re doing can be changed and corrected. Like, we don’t care if a town decides to destroy, to remove or change everything we did. In French, to say “a piece of furniture” we say “mobilier”, which means mobile. But it’s not mobile! There is no piece of furniture that is mobile in the public space! We believe that the city should evolve as people evolve, and that means all the time. Temporary interventions are a way to show that with little money, much ambition and many people, you can do great things. Through a stroke of luck, I was able to sit down with one of the members of Collectif Etc during my visit to Paris. This group (or collective, to be precise) is... http://spacehacking.net/paris-modernism-reclaimed http://spacehacking.net/following/spacehacking.net/paris-modernism-reclaimed Fri, 19 Oct 2012 05:31:33 +0000 spacehacking//citytactics 4237283 <img src="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-3_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-3_o.jpg" data-mid="22325309" caption="saint-denis | view of a distribution center" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-4_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-4_o.jpg" data-mid="22325314" caption="saint-denis | view of an electrical box (&quot;tony&quot;)" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-5_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-5_o.jpg" data-mid="22325319" caption="saint-denis | into the light (off in the distance)" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-6_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-6_o.jpg" data-mid="22325338" caption="saint-denis | view of a missing wall" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-7_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-7_o.jpg" data-mid="22325354" caption="saint-denis | leaving marks, marking territory" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-8_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-8_o.jpg" data-mid="22325363" caption="saint-denis | view into an accidental courtyard " border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-9_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-9_o.jpg" data-mid="22325367" caption="saint-denis | items of unknown provenance" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-10_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-10_o.jpg" data-mid="22325373" caption="saint-denis | view of conduits (full speed ahead)" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-11_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-11_o.jpg" data-mid="22325381" caption="saint-denis | view of conduits, two (unintended consequences)" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-12_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-12_o.jpg" data-mid="22325388" caption="saint-denis | empty ground not vacant land" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-2_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-2_o.jpg" data-mid="22325299" caption="saint-denis | bellastock workshop + sorting bins for reclaimed materials" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-14_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-14_o.jpg" data-mid="22325394" caption="saint-denis | bellastock festival center" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-1_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-1_o.jpg" data-mid="22325288" caption="saint-denis | bellastock festival center" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-13_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_warehouse-13_o.jpg" data-mid="22325390" caption="saint-denis | bellastock site, demounted" border="0" align="left"/> It is safe to say that I had an unusual visit to Paris, at least from a touristic standpoint; I never saw the Eiffel Tower, except from afar; I spent scant time in the historic center; I ate at relatively few restaurants; I neglected to visit the Louvre. Instead I spent the bulk of my days on the periphery of the city, or as a Parisian would put it, not actually in Paris at all. I was in the suburbs, but suburbs of a sort far removed from the cookie-cutter landscape of mirrored floor plans and tidy oblong chunks of grass in which I grew up. Suburbs, in the local parlance, are dense agglomerations of mid- and high-rise housing projects that form their own governmental and conceptual zones, cut off from the city proper by the Périphérique, an enormous ring road that limits access to the center more effectively than any wall. Collectively, these extra-Parisian cities are home to most of the people that live in the metro area, though they are generally under-served by rail transit (the metro system seems afraid to venture much beyond the official city limits) and other municipal services. <img src="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_iphone_1_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_iphone_1_o.jpg" data-mid="22609513" border="0" align="left"/> social housing | ivry-sur-seine They also look as though they were built en masse during the historical moment when the urban ideals of modernism stood unchallenged. Concrete tower blocks march one after the next, with tired public spaces and retail storefronts doing their best to fill the spaces in between; the physical differences from one suburb to the next are largely a matter of degree. Collectively, they stand as perhaps the largest built monument to the urban ideals of the 1960’s and 70’s that I’ve ever encountered. They also went a long way towards making it clear to me how I came to be in Paris in the first place. I had always planned to go to France, of course; it is one of the requirements of the Branner Fellowship, and as well there were several people there that I wanted to interview. But when I climbed onto the plane to Paris, it was at the invitation of the guys behind the architectural collective YA + K, who I met during the course of the 72 Hour Urban Action in Stuttgart. Also at that event was one of the founders and several collaborators from Bellastock, another Parisian collective, which got its start organizing an eponymous design-build festival for architecture students and young practitioners. Talking with members of these two groups during our shared time in Stuttgart, I began to sense that beyond being interesting practitioners in their own right, they might also be representative of a movement or an ethos experiencing broad appeal amongst young French designers. That intuition, as I found out when I arrived, was more correct than I could have guessed. I gratefully spent a week looking over the shoulders of Etienne, Yasine and Anouk, the core of YA + K, and speaking with members of Bellastock and Collectif, Etc, another collective in a similar vein (look for those interviews soon), as well as Stefan Shankland of Atelier Trans305, who has served as a sort of patron-mentor for YA + K and others. <img src="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_iphone_5_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_iphone_5_o.jpg" data-mid="22609562" border="0" align="left"/> members of ya + k at their annual meeting | ivry-sur-seine What I discovered is that these people (and many of the others who I was fortunate to meet) are all part of a sprawling and unexpectedly vibrant community of architects, designers, artists and urbanists engaged with questions of spatial and material reuse, appropriation, and the identification of opportunities for action at the margins of official processes. Which brings us back to the Parisian suburbs, and to the photo essay that accompanies this text. The pictures are from the site of the most recent Bellastock festival, a defunct distribution center on L'Île-Saint-Denis, abandoned in 1999 by one of France's large department store chains. In addition, it is now the site of one of the organization’s first non-festival projects, a proposal to establish an atelier for the investigation, documentation and dissemination of practical knowledge related to the reuse of various building materials (it is also, it should be mentioned, very close to Le 6B, an abandoned building repurposed as a creative incubator and party destination). <img src="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_iphone_3_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_iphone_3_o.jpg" data-mid="22609530" border="0" align="left"/> view of yellow-painted ruins | saint-denis <img src="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_iphone_4_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload96.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4237283/paris_iphone_4_o.jpg" data-mid="22609545" border="0" align="left"/> view of modified tunnel lights | saint-denis As I wandered the building in the company of two patient and informative members of Bellastock, I couldn’t shake the thought that there was an almost causal relationship between the sublime post-industrial graffiti gallery in which I found myself and the collective whose members trailed me, speaking animatedly of their plans for the space. Though Bellastock existed before they gained access to the distribution center, and YA + K formed before they moved into the container atelier in a construction site where they currently work, there is a deep affinity between these groups and their zones of action. The European fiscal crisis has affected each country involved differently, and to varying degrees, but there has been a certain consistency in the response of young architects across the continent; faced with the implosion of their industry and along with it the demise of yesterday’s ideals, many designers seem to be looking around and asking: what is this? What is here, now? How can I engage it? What can I do with it? It is early days yet, and too soon to say what will or won’t come of these impulses, but in Paris I found the tangible beginnings of a new methodology, one that sprouts up in the inevitable aftermath of blunt force master-planning, whether the fresh rubble of a construction site or the forgotten monoliths of outmoded uses. It is safe to say that I had an unusual visit to Paris, at least from a touristic standpoint; I never saw the Eiffel Tower, except from afar; I spent scant time... http://spacehacking.net/venice-biennale-round-one http://spacehacking.net/following/spacehacking.net/venice-biennale-round-one Wed, 10 Oct 2012 05:17:49 +0000 spacehacking//citytactics 4202924 <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-1_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-1_o.jpg" data-mid="22281939" caption="courtyard with members of the design team | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.spontaneousinterventions.org/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;spontaneous interventions&lt;/a&gt; | usa" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-2_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-2_o.jpg" data-mid="22281941" caption="in progress | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.spontaneousinterventions.org/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;spontaneous interventions&lt;/a&gt; | usa" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-3_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-3_o.jpg" data-mid="22281947" caption="info banners and counterweights | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.spontaneousinterventions.org/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;spontaneous interventions&lt;/a&gt; | usa" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-4_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-4_o.jpg" data-mid="22281952" caption="a delicate dance | finland" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-5_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-5_o.jpg" data-mid="22281953" caption="detail view | untitled installation | &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81lvaro_Siza_Vieira&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;álvaro siza&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-6_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-6_o.jpg" data-mid="22281957" caption="interior view | market hall | &lt;a href=&quot;http://cargocollective.com/devebere&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;devebere&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-7_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-7_o.jpg" data-mid="22281961" caption="interior view | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.usaprojects.org/project/grounds_for_detroit&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;grounds for detroit&lt;/a&gt; | 13178 moran street" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-8_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-8_o.jpg" data-mid="22281966" caption="step away from the light | china" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-9_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-9_o.jpg" data-mid="22281969" caption="oblique view | architecture and its affects | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.farshidmoussavi.com/flash/index.html&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;farshid moussavi&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-10_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-10_o.jpg" data-mid="22281971" caption="view of study models | home-for-all | japan" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-11_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-11_o.jpg" data-mid="22281974" caption="view out | untitled installation | &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Souto_de_Moura&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;eduardo souto de moura&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-12_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-12_o.jpg" data-mid="22281976" caption="view down a table | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jedansto.com/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;1:100&lt;/a&gt; | serbia" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-13_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-13_o.jpg" data-mid="22281982" caption="view of a banal future | russia" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-14_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-14_o.jpg" data-mid="22281990" caption="view of an informatic couple | the gateway | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fosterandpartners.com/Practice/Default.aspx&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;norman foster&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-15_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-15_o.jpg" data-mid="22281997" caption="view of libertarian hallucinations | freeland | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mvrdv.nl/#/news&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;mvrdv&lt;/a&gt; + &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.thewhyfactory.com/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;the why factory&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-16_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-16_o.jpg" data-mid="22282000" caption="view of a soundscape | &lt;a href=&quot;http://labiennale.art.pl/en/exhibition&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;making the walls quake as if they were dilating with the secret knowledge...&lt;/a&gt; | poland" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-17_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-17_o.jpg" data-mid="22282002" caption="view of a model | monument for modernism | &lt;a href=&quot;http://rb.fzz.cc/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;robert burghardt&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-18_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-18_o.jpg" data-mid="22282008" caption="view of a folly | arum | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zaha-hadid.com/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;zaha hadid architects&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-19_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-19_o.jpg" data-mid="22282012" caption="view of a beach | revisit | cyprus" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-20_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-20_o.jpg" data-mid="22282014" caption="view of a bench | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hparc.com/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;shifting ground&lt;/a&gt; | ireland" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-21_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-21_o.jpg" data-mid="22282017" caption="view of screens | unmediated democracy demands unmediated space | croatia" border="0" align="left"/> Upon leaving Berlin (leaving? what about what happened in Berlin?)*, I embarked on a face-bending six-week tour of some new corners of Europa. The first and penultimate stop was Venice, for the 13th International Biennale of Architecture. My two visits were markedly different in both tone and content, in ways that reflect the tension between style and substance that underpins my research. My first foray began on 21 August, when I arrived to help install Spontaneous Interventions, this year's exhibition at the US Pavilion. The first handful of days were all frenetic activity: sleep to boat to work to boat to sleep, repeated five or six times. While this grinding schedule left me ignorant of anything beyond the path from the front gate of the Biennale grounds to the pavilion, it was highly instructive with regards to the amount of time, effort and money that gets pumped into these temporary showpieces (a lot, a whole lot, and somewhere between a truckload and a vespa-full of large bills, respectively). As my first week wound down, the working gave way to an equally intensive program of party attendance (various monikers have been suggested for this phase: schmoozathon, the schmoozepocalypse, schmoozapalooza) and in addition to radically expanding my familiarity with prosecco, I had a chance to begin checking out the exhibitions. <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-1_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-1_o.jpg" data-mid="22281939" caption="courtyard with members of the design team | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.spontaneousinterventions.org/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;spontaneous interventions&lt;/a&gt; | usa" border="0" align="left"/> courtyard with members of the design team | spontaneous interventions | usa Having come to Venice with little understanding of the Biennale other than intimations of its role as a sort of hedonistic show-and-tell for archinerds, a few unexpected fundamentals quickly asserted themselves as I walked through the grounds. First, things were a lot less temporary than I had imagined: the pavilions themselves are permanent (and frequently imposing) structures, built beginning in 1907 by architects from the nations being represented. A second realization was linked to the first: the installations were split between being works unto themselves and being catalogic exhibitions of the work of others, weighted heavily towards the latter. Of the relatively small category of original works, fewer still felt adventurous, or experimental. Instead, a valedictory mood generally seemed to prevail. Given a captive audience of people more or less guaranteed to care about weird avant-garde architectural undertakings (and how many of those are there in the world?), the widespread impulse to shut up and play the hits seemed to me a squandered opportunity, if somewhat understandable given the number of marble-clad rooms that needed filling. <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-16_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-16_o.jpg" data-mid="22282000" caption="view of a soundscape | &lt;a href=&quot;http://labiennale.art.pl/en/exhibition&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;making the walls quake as if they were dilating with the secret knowledge...&lt;/a&gt; | poland" border="0" align="left"/> view of a soundscape | making the walls quake as if they were dilating with the secret knowledge... | poland There were several bright spots, however, ranging from the fascinating to the sublime. The US Pavilion in particular stood out amongst the catalogic installations for its exuberance and eagerness to engage quasi-, post- and even anti-architectural interventions in the city, all of which added up to a sort of indictment-by-documentation of the literal and metaphorical cracks, holes and vacancies that are the result of the present planning-governing-building complex. As my former colleague Shin-pei Tsay, one of the founders of Planning Corps (featured in the US Pavilion) pointed out, the selections also spoke to an interesting aspect of the burgeoning American movement towards dispersed, self-initiated urbanism: accustomed to a level of neglect and disinterest on the part of our official apparatus, we are proving remarkably willing to simply take action in the city, come what may. Also in this vein, and also excellent, was a brief history of efforts to address the vast urban question mark of Tempelhof Airfield in Berlin (see my previous post on one such attempt). In the category of works-unto-themselves, the Serbian and Polish pavilions were both experientially rich, the one an enormous and infectiously interactive table-cum-drum machine and the other an alternately meditative and overpowering soundscape, composed of noises found or generated in a vast empty room of grey stucco walls and a rough wood floor. Also magnetic and dense with content was an installation by a group of young architects, artists and designers working in Detroit, which combined an exhibition of their respective undertakings in that city with an installation in which each participant took charge of a discrete section of a single structure, giving the piece as a whole a sort of ugly-beautiful Frankenstein quality. Of particular interest (and particularly Frankensteinian qualities) was the work of Thom Moran, presently teaching at Michigan’s Taubman School, who recycled waste plastic from Detroit into furniture/art. Twinned installations by Eduardo Souto de Moura and Álvaro Siza, built reflections of the long relationship between the two architects, also bear mentioning for their restraint and gracefulness, unsurprising given their provenance. <img src="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-5_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="760" height_o="507" src_o="http://payload95.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/4202924/venice_biennale_sm-5_o.jpg" data-mid="22281953" caption="detail view | untitled installation | &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81lvaro_Siza_Vieira&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;álvaro siza&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> detail view | untitled installation | álvaro siza At the end, I began to suspect that the work itself was to some extent peripheral to the central goal of seeing and being seen, at least during the vernissage days (see schmoozapalooza, above) that precede the public opening, after which the notable personages largely return to their places of origin, and presumably turn back into pumpkins. Seductive as it was to experience, and necessary as it likely is to the international architectural-academic ecosystem, I couldn’t help wishing that more of the hubbub was about the (architectural, social, economic, urbanistic) provocations (which could have been, but largely weren’t) offered by the collected works. When I say that Venice represented the tension at the heart of my research, this is what I mean; at the event that represents the top end of temporary architecture in terms of money, attention and the profile of the participants, there was little evidence of a will to seize the advantages of temporariness and turn them to experimental ends, in the sense of an undertaking with an unknown outcome. The flip side, consisting of proposals that seek to do those things exactly, was very much on display during my second trip to Venice, for a workshop held by CED professor Nicholas de Monchaux, in connection with the inclusion of his Local Code project in the US Pavilion, but that’s for another post! *After an unexpectedly lengthy hiatus from blogging (the result of life events, six weeks of travelling, summer vacation, and astrological confluences), I have decided to throw chronology under the bus. Reports from Berlin and Summertime will be forthcoming. Upon leaving Berlin (leaving? what about what happened in Berlin?)*, I embarked on a face-bending six-week tour of some new corners of Europa. The first and... http://spacehacking.net/interview-sou-fujimoto http://spacehacking.net/following/spacehacking.net/interview-sou-fujimoto Fri, 20 Jul 2012 12:10:20 +0000 spacehacking//citytactics 3671929 <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/fujimoto_v2_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/fujimoto_v2_o.jpg" data-mid="19308255" caption="sou fujimoto // in his studio" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_final wooden_1_jeff gaines_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_final wooden_1_jeff gaines_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="19308039" caption="final wooden house // exterior view // image courtesy flickr user jeff gaines" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_final wooden_2_christophe ramonet_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_final wooden_2_christophe ramonet_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="19308040" caption="final wooden house // detail view // image courtesy flickr user cristophe ramonet" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_house before_1_woranol sattayavinij_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_house before_1_woranol sattayavinij_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="19308043" caption="house before house // exterior view // image courtesy flickr user woranol sattayavinij" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_house before_2_woranol sattayavinij_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_house before_2_woranol sattayavinij_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="19308044" caption="house before house // exterior view // image courtesy flickr user woranol sattayavinij" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_house na_1_bruno dot nihon_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_house na_1_bruno dot nihon_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="19308046" caption="house na // exterior view // image courtesy flickr user bruce dot nihon" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_house na_2_bruno dot nihon_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_house na_2_bruno dot nihon_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="19308048" caption="house na // exterior view // image courtesy flickr user bruce dot nihon" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_primitive_1_nicholasgkw_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_primitive_1_nicholasgkw_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="19705475" caption="primitive future // installation view // image courtesy flickr user nicholas gkw" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_primitive_2_nicholasgkw_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_primitive_2_nicholasgkw_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="19705477" caption="primitive future // detail view // image courtesy flickr user nicholas gkw" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/fujimoto_models_1_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/fujimoto_models_1_o.jpg" data-mid="19705521" caption="scale models // detail view // in the studio" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/fujimoto_models_2_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/fujimoto_models_2_o.jpg" data-mid="19705524" caption="table of scale models // in the studio" border="0" align="left"/> Hands down, bar none, sports metaphor, etc., having the chance to visit with Sou Fujimoto is one of the highlights of my trip to date. He met me at the door, emerging from a crowded warren of desks, models, interns and teetering boxes, and proceeded to be every bit as disarmingly earnest and eccentric as his buildings. After a scary first couple of minutes, during which he seemed to be politely excoriating my research, we settled down to a wide-ranging and (I hope) enlightening conversation. nj :: So I’m really interested to hear about some of your small and temporary works, and to hear a little a bit of the thoughts behind them and why they were interesting or useful to you. sf :: Mmmmmm, ok. But I’m… Honestly, I’m not so good at designing temporary structures, like for art museums, or for installations. I’m more of an architect. So I like to have the surroundings, the basic conditions, and the requirements and some more complex things. Then I can start to think about the whole form. Of course, I do have experience designing such installations: temporary, tricky structures. But for me, it is not so satisfying, because it is just the play of the forms, the play of materials. For me, it is difficult to design a nicely tricky installation. Recently, more and more requests come in from art museums: something to design a nice pavilion… And some installations, for example the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe - it is not temporary, but half-temporary, half-long standing. But anyway it is one good example to express the new value of space, new value of architecture, new value of life… or something like that. This kind of power of the temporary pavilion is really really nice. But that was almost 100 years ago, and now it is more and more tricky, more kind of “everything is possible for us”. Stranger things are possible, but there are not too many nice visions. Yet a lot of your works have a certain smallness - some of them almost seem to be at the scale of an installation, even though they’re buildings. The Final Wooden House, for example, is a very small-scale structure, as is House before House. I wonder if you could talk about your thoughts on smallness, or scale. Because it seems like most architects want to make bigger and bigger works…. Yeah, of course I would like to make a bigger one! [laughing] But as you said, the Final Wooden House and House before House, and also our recent project House NA - those three are at a smaller scale. But for me, it is about the relationship between the human body and the space. So in the Final Wooden House, 35cm is the module of the whole building, and we stack the modules up to create the basic space. <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_final wooden_2_christophe ramonet_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_final wooden_2_christophe ramonet_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="19308040" caption="final wooden house // detail view // image courtesy flickr user cristophe ramonet" border="0" align="left"/> final wooden house // detail view // image courtesy flickr user cristophe ramonet It is a vision of our future lives – people can find their own comfortable spots in a landscape-like space. Then it is opening the door towards a more… Not a usual, functional house, but a more creative blurring of life, I think. That was one of the first trials for me to re-think architecture from very basic, fundamental problems. And thinking about the relationship between the body and space, we have to focus on much smaller scales, more related to the human body. It is not intended as an art installation – it’s more oriented to a nice relationship, or a different relationship, between body and space. Because usually the size of the architecture is… for example, if one story is four meters, four point five meters – that is very big. I like to create between furniture and architecture. I like to find something new between such abandoned scales. That is the first inspiration. And of course, between furniture and architecture could be an installation scale. But it is more, I think, fundamental. Because my works are related to human activities, and they reconstruct, or restructure, basic architectural forms. For me, the smaller scale means a new definition, or the beginning of a new typology of architecture. Was there a similar idea behind the Primitive Future installation you made for the Venice Biennale? That was, I think, the beginning - the original idea. I was thinking about these kinds of possibilities, to integrate furniture scales and architecture scales. And maybe, the landscape scales. So, from very small scales to the much bigger scales, together. Creating some kind of continuity between the forms or the systems - this kind of idea, of a cloud-like, landscape-like house. <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_primitive_1_nicholasgkw_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_primitive_1_nicholasgkw_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="19705475" caption="primitive future // installation view // image courtesy flickr user nicholas gkw" border="0" align="left"/> primitive future // installation view // image courtesy flickr user nicholas gkw And in the latest project, House NA, again I tried to create different levels, floating floors. But each floor is very small – sometimes like this [holds arms out wide] or, maybe, the biggest one is smaller than this table! [laughing]. So it is not like a floor, but more like a piece of furniture, a table. But then we can make a group of these kinds of furniture-scale floors. Finally, it is like a house. Because we have different levels, but the size of the whole space is big enough for a couple, and the different levels work for different functions, according to your reactions. And in that case, we are more focused on delicate details, because if you make the floors smaller, like furniture, then the size of the columns becomes very important. Usual columns are not fitting for such a scale. And then thickness of the floors was the new big problem - we tried to solve conceptual problems, but at the same time real problems, real structural calculations, and real construction technologies. So we used 6cm columns: that’s really really slim. And 6.5cm slabs – really crazy! But it’s necessary for us, because that form of architecture requires us to re-invent the definition – if you have 20cm slabs, everything is different, and the basic concept will be spoiled. <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_house na_2_bruno dot nihon_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_house na_2_bruno dot nihon_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="19308048" caption="house na // exterior view // image courtesy flickr user bruce dot nihon" border="0" align="left"/> house na // exterior view // image courtesy flickr user bruce dot nihon So finally, it is like an installation, but for me it is very exciting because it is coming from real requirements, [which are coming] from real discussions. And then we have to re-invent everything: the windows, how to put the glass, how to put the insulation and how to put the electricity cables! [laughing] We have to innovate. So it has the quality of an experiment with structure and form, and also with an idea, but grounded in the reality of a site, and two people, two actual clients. Yeah yeah yeah! Especially in this case, with House NA. The Final Wooden House and the House before House are more like model houses - experimental projects. The most realistic project, House NA, is the most challenging in details, in structures – everything had to be re-innovated, because the real requirements were very strong. In the House before House project, we could decide everything: the lifestyle of the client, everything. And nothing was beyond our imagination! You just imagine someone who wants to live in that place… Yeah, but in the case of a real house, the client’s requirements are always beyond my imagination. Then we can jump up, to catch the requirement. So for me, this kind of a dialogue or discussion is more inspiring. Sometimes, for the design of the installations, there is not enough of this kind of a dialogue for me. Because it almost doesn’t exist – it’s a dialogue only with yourself. Right. So, as you said in the beginning, real interventions into the city’s situations through temporary structures, and installations in art museums, are not touching to each other. That’s a very big problem. For me, more realistic situations are more inspiring, because they can be something beyond my recognition or beyond my imagination. Then we can try to solve the problems, or try to propose something beyond the problem. Then we can innovate. So I’m very interested in your viewpoint, to put these two separated things together. To take these idea-full situations to more realistic fields, and to take these more realistic inspirations to the ideas. It’s very similar…I mean, thank you. I think we’re talking about the same things. Would it be fair to say that these four projects, from the Venice Biennale to the Final Wooden House to the House before House to the House NA, are all part of the same investigation for you? They’re kind of the same idea – the same stream of ideas. Sometimes the stream splits and comes together again; new ideas come, but basically it’s the same stream, just developing more and more. The first, Primitive Future, is more conceptual, just to think about the relationship between the human body and space. But then, gradually it’s more realistic. <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_house before_1_woranol sattayavinij_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671929/sou_house before_1_woranol sattayavinij_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="19308043" caption="house before house // exterior view // image courtesy flickr user woranol sattayavinij" border="0" align="left"/> house before house // exterior view // image courtesy flickr user woranol sattayavinij Sometimes they’re related to the smaller-scale streams, but other streams are bigger-sized, or more directly related to nature, or something like that. We are growing these kinds of streams. If you have only one stream, it is very tough to continue with experimental things, in a constant way. But we have various different streams, so sometimes, for example, two or three years, this stream is vanishing underground, and then coming up on such an occasion. And of course these various different ideas are related to each other in a different way – not the same ideas, but slightly related, like networking. So it is developing, developing. When you’re talking about these different streams – a lot of your work so far has reconsidered the building block, or the essential scale of architecture. But usually while working at the scale of a building or a house, or of the human body. Do you have an interest to also reconsider larger scales? I’m very, very interested in urban scales, in the relationship between architecture and urban scales. Maybe one of the reasons is that I am raised in Tokyo, and Tokyo is a really strange city! [laughing] It is a really huge city, but made by really small things. So that is kind of the starting point of my architectural thinking: every kind of human activity is more comfortable in a group of small scales. Like in Tokyo. And I am interested in landscape-like things as well - the Final Wooden House is one small landscape. But we can extend the landscape ideas more and more, bigger-sized, so sometimes we can say: urban situation, urban planning, architecture planning – everything is like a landscape. And especially, related to your topic, I think smaller-sized things can affect the urban scale with a very big impact – I think that is one of the very exciting points where we can touch the city. Not by the huge urban plan, but in a different way. Thank you - this was very interesting for me. Yeah, me too! Yeah. It’s kind of a discussion beyond my usual thinking, so it’s inspired me a lot. Really? That makes me happy. Yeah, it’s… there is a wide range from the very small scales to the urban scales, the furniture scales, maybe installation scales, architecture and urban and landscaping… I think your theme is covering every scale, every range of the scales. So it’s very… in that viewpoint, it’s very interesting. Hands down, bar none, sports metaphor, etc., having the chance to visit with Sou Fujimoto is one of the highlights of my trip to date. He met me at the door,... http://spacehacking.net/berlin-the-great-world-s-fair http://spacehacking.net/following/spacehacking.net/berlin-the-great-world-s-fair Wed, 11 Jul 2012 08:20:06 +0000 spacehacking//citytactics 3671834 <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-1_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-1_o.jpg" data-mid="19309278" caption="festivalzentrum | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.umschichten.de/index.html&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;umschichten&lt;/a&gt; (peter weigand + lukasz lendzinski)" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-2_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-2_o.jpg" data-mid="19309285" caption="apocalypso bar at the festivalzentrum | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.umschichten.de/index.html&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;umschichten&lt;/a&gt; (peter weigand + lukasz lendzinski)" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-3_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-3_o.jpg" data-mid="19309290" caption="pavillion of world's fairs | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.berlinerpool.de/?profiles=Artists&amp;id=120&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;erik göngrich&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-4_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-4_o.jpg" data-mid="19309294" caption="&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.raumexperimente.net/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;institute for spatial experiments&lt;/a&gt; | daniel pascual of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.deconcrete.org/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;deconcrete&lt;/a&gt; cooks a geopolitical paella" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-5_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-5_o.jpg" data-mid="19309302" caption="institute for imaginary islands | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.studiolukasfeireiss.com/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;lukas feireiss&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-6_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-6_o.jpg" data-mid="19309308" caption="camp of renegades | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.workworkwork.de/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;dellbrügge + de moll&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-7_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-7_o.jpg" data-mid="19309312" caption="camp of renegades | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.workworkwork.de/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;dellbrügge + de moll&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-8_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-8_o.jpg" data-mid="19309326" caption="the world is not fair | &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracey_Rose&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;tracey rose&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-9_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-9_o.jpg" data-mid="19309328" caption="unable to see | &lt;a href=&quot;http://chelfitsch.net/en/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;toshiki okada&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-10_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-10_o.jpg" data-mid="19309331" caption="unable to see | &lt;a href=&quot;http://chelfitsch.net/en/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;toshiki okada&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-11_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-11_o.jpg" data-mid="19309336" caption="field post 2012 | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.goethe.de/kue/the/pur/kro/enindex.htm&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;hans-werner kroesinger&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-12_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-12_o.jpg" data-mid="19309344" caption="world freud center | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.andco.de/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;andcompany&amp;co.&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-13_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-13_o.jpg" data-mid="19309350" caption="52.4697°N 13.396°E | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0947975/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;tamer yiğit&lt;/a&gt; + &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.brankaprlic.net/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;branka prlić&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-14_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-14_o.jpg" data-mid="19309354" caption="tempelhof field | map of the pavillions + ticket offices" border="0" align="left"/> Tempelhof Field sits comfortably at the apex of the lengthy (and frequently surreal) list of Berlin's leftover, vacant, abandoned and forgotten spaces. A long-functioning, now-defunct airfield, it was the site for a number of historical events, the Berlin Airlift and Nazi rallies among them. Now, it is a thousand-acre public green space, a pebble-shaped hole in the map of the city that no one seems quite sure what to do with. The vast runways swallow weekend cyclists without a trace, the greenswards accommodate hundreds of barbecuing locals with room left for thousands more and the former terminal plays host to a seemingly endless succession of events: festivals, biennials, conventions, concerts. It is, strictly speaking, immense. That immensity became the physical and theoretical backdrop for a provocative event organized by the crew at Raumlabor during the first of three weeks of June; fourteen interventions into this strange context were realized by a varied roster of artists and designers, under the moniker The World Is Not Fair | The Great World's Fair 2012. Working from the premise that the very scale of Tempelhof renders it immune to the monumental form-driven strategies beloved of contemporary architecture and city management alike (plop a MAXXI in the middle of this place and we'll see how well that works out, they seem to be saying), the organizers instead curated a path through the field and populated it with a coterie of small oddities. <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-11_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-11_o.jpg" data-mid="19309336" caption="field post 2012 | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.goethe.de/kue/the/pur/kro/enindex.htm&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;hans-werner kroesinger&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> field post 2012 | hans-werner kroesinger In their best moments, the interventions were ambiguous amalgams of artistic intent and the layers of meaning inscribed in the site; this blurring was furthered by the astute decision to employ as a leitmotif the broad-banded red and white stripes to be found on many of the remaining pieces of original airfield infrastructure. My favorite work by a wide margin was Hans-Werner Kroesinger's Field Post 2012, which consisted of a sound installation in the overgrown grass behind the former radar station, emanating at low volume from a series of monochromatic grey speaker housings that hid in plain sight, falling into the background as simply more inscrutable battered objects in a scene filled with the same. Treading through the weeds towards a cluster of people witnessing a performance piece at the back of the lot, in which a middle aged man in black evenly reads from a sheet the story of the site, it took several seconds for it to register that a new soundscape had been overlaid onto the ambient one. The effect, once it took hold, was somewhere between spooky and sublime. Inside the radar station itself, one found a room at once carefully preserved and oddly incised - a series of apertures had been cut into the walls and floor, some revealing the underlying technological apparatus, others featuring quaint dioramas. The sum of these parts was an experience that was both didactic and alive, simultaneously presenting the history of the place and playing host to an unmistakably contemporary aesthetic experiment. <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-5_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-5_o.jpg" data-mid="19309302" caption="institute for imaginary islands | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.studiolukasfeireiss.com/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;lukas feireiss&lt;/a&gt;" border="0" align="left"/> institute for imaginary islands | lukas feireiss In another noteworthy effort, the artist Lukas Feirass presided over an intervention that was a startlingly successful mashup of "high art", an installation piece, and a community space; it featured a video loop of a choppy ocean beneath a grey sky played against the board-formed concrete wall of a dank, unlit munitions bunker, a whimsical series of colorful models that transformed the grassy swell above the bunker into a notional island full of visiting Gullivers, and a (well used) space for the creation of handicrafts and kid-art. At the scale of the intervention, these two pieces (along with a few others, such as 52.4697°N 13.396°E, in which a Turkish actor and a German film director set up a camp and invited Romani to park their trailers and live there) began to show signs of the site-specificity and urban purposefulness that I have been hunting for. Each had their flaws (ham-fistedness and a questionable sensitivity to agency and voyeurism, in the latter case), but each also seemed in genuine pursuit of a construct which was at once spatial, provisional and site-conscious, and which responded to a specific program. Running within (and alongside) the broader fair, the Institut für Raumexperimente hosted a series of talks and symposiums featuring a wide range of artists, writers, activists, and architects. The Institut is Olafur Eliasson's weird and wonderful fiefdom within the UDK, a Berlin-based art school, in which students work from Eliasson's studio space rather than the school, and which expects its participants (according to Eliasson) to do "fifty percent of their work in the street rather than the studio." The programming provided by the Institut was an exciting corollary to the interventions, providing a forum for the earnest and enthusiastic discussion of the issues underlying the Fair (it helped that there was a bar located roughly a hundred feet away). <img src="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-4_760.jpg" width="760" height="507" width_o="1200" height_o="801" src_o="http://payload68.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3671834/grosse welt-4_o.jpg" data-mid="19309294" caption="&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.raumexperimente.net/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;institute for spatial experiments&lt;/a&gt; | daniel pascual of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.deconcrete.org/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;deconcrete&lt;/a&gt; cooks a geopolitical paella" border="0" align="left"/> institute for spatial experiments | daniel pascual of deconcrete cooks a geopolitical paella The goings-on there deserve (and may yet receive) a post of their own - highlights included a roundtable on art in public space featuring Eliasson himself, and the two-day Performing Politics event. This was memorably concluded by Daniel Pascual's powerpoint lecture-cum-performance piece, in which a 150lb. "geopolitical paella" was cooked in front of the audience, each ingredient sourced from a specific town or region of Spain and placed in the enormous pan one by one, as Pascual spoke about that locale's relation to the ongoing economic crisis. Zooming out to take in the event as a whole, I was encouraged to find in it many of the ideas for which I advocate: it consciously situated itself as a collection of experiments, brought together as part of a larger experiment in search of meaningful ways to engage with Tempelhof. It took place within a framework of economic austerity (its already small budget was severely slashed, from the rumors I heard), yet managed to provide a forum for a range of young practitioners to test their ideas. Some of those ideas were better than others, but I would hope that the organizers were as unfazed as I was in the presence of the failures - failures which signaled the genuine taking of chances. The larger experiment, which drew consistent crowds over the course of my half-dozen visits, will, I hope, be judged a success. Tempelhof Field sits comfortably at the apex of the lengthy (and frequently surreal) list of Berlin's leftover, vacant, abandoned and forgotten spaces. A... http://spacehacking.net/fotoroll-tokyo-vol-2 http://spacehacking.net/following/spacehacking.net/fotoroll-tokyo-vol-2 Tue, 19 Jun 2012 12:00:26 +0000 spacehacking//citytactics 3593622 <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-1_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-1_o.jpg" data-mid="18601210" caption="view of a scuttled spaceship // yokohama port" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-2_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-2_o.jpg" data-mid="18601214" caption="view from an alley (asakusa tourist center) // asakusa" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-3_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-3_o.jpg" data-mid="18601218" caption="view of a park (quiet hours) // kuramae" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-4_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-4_o.jpg" data-mid="18601220" caption="twinned strangers // kyoto" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-5_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-5_o.jpg" data-mid="18601223" caption="view to the rear (meiso-no-mori) // kakamigahara" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-6_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-6_o.jpg" data-mid="18601226" caption="view of architecture behind glass (prostho museum) // kasugai" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-7_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-7_o.jpg" data-mid="18601230" caption="view of a house (tokyo apartments) // setagaya" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-8_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-8_o.jpg" data-mid="18601237" caption="view of facade (musashino art university library) // musashino" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-9_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-9_o.jpg" data-mid="18601239" caption="he's going for distance, he's going for speed // tachikawa" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-10_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-10_o.jpg" data-mid="18601241" caption="view of children // asakusabashi" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-11_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-11_o.jpg" data-mid="18601245" caption="view of a man walking away // osaka" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-12_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-12_o.jpg" data-mid="18601246" caption="view of the things that happen // uno port" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-13_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-13_o.jpg" data-mid="18601247" caption="view of a man riding away // osaka" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-14_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-14_o.jpg" data-mid="18601249" caption="view of a cafe (teshima museum) // teshima " border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-15_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-15_o.jpg" data-mid="18601252" caption="view from a train platform // nagoya" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-16_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-16_o.jpg" data-mid="18601255" caption="view of a relic (nakagin capsule tower) // shinbashi" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-17_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-17_o.jpg" data-mid="18601259" caption="view of a blank surface // osaka" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-18_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-18_o.jpg" data-mid="18601260" caption="view of almost parallel lines // kyoto" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-19_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-19_o.jpg" data-mid="18601261" caption="view of almost parallel lines, part two // kakamigahara" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-20_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-20_o.jpg" data-mid="18601264" caption="view of a frame // osaka" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-21_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload64.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3593622/tyo_fotoroll_2-21_o.jpg" data-mid="18601266" caption="view of an escape route // asakusa" border="0" align="left"/> Images from the latter half of my time in Japan, which included a series of strange architectural pilgrimages (one of which is covered in depth here). In the wake of these small adventures, I have reached the (perhaps obvious) conclusion that making an absurd journey to see something that might or might not be worth the effort is a great way to discover scenes which are very much worth the effort. As a set of vignettes, I hope that these can begin to convey a sense of Japan as I have found it - one of the most piquant and transcendent visual environments on the planet, without exclusion or exception. Images from the latter half of my time in Japan, which included a series of strange architectural pilgrimages (one of which is covered in depth here). In the... http://spacehacking.net/interview-kengo-kuma http://spacehacking.net/following/spacehacking.net/interview-kengo-kuma Mon, 11 Jun 2012 08:53:19 +0000 spacehacking//citytactics 3540992 <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/kuma2_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/kuma2_o.jpg" data-mid="18448151" caption="kengo kuma // at his office" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/1_casa umbrella_2_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/1_casa umbrella_2_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448159" caption="casa umbrella // exterior view // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/1_casa umbrella_3_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/1_casa umbrella_3_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448163" caption="casa umbrella // interior view // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/1_casa umbrella_1_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/1_casa umbrella_1_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448157" caption="casa umbrella // night view // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/2_water brick_moma_2_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/2_water brick_moma_2_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448169" caption="water block house // module detail // moma new york // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/3_water brick_gallery ma_2_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/3_water brick_gallery ma_2_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448175" caption="water block house // prototype interior view // gallery ma tokyo // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/3_water brick_gallery ma_3_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/3_water brick_gallery ma_3_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448178" caption="water block house // prototype night view // gallery ma tokyo // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/4_prostho_1_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/4_prostho_1_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448179" caption="prostho museum // exterior view // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/4_prostho_3_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/4_prostho_3_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448183" caption="prostho museum // interior view // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/5_starbucks_2_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/5_starbucks_2_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448188" caption="starbucks fukuoka // interior view // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/6_teehaus_1_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/6_teehaus_1_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448196" caption="teehaus // mak frankfurt // exterior view // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/6_teehaus_2_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/6_teehaus_2_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448199" caption="teehaus // mak frankfurt // interior view // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/7_floating_3_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/7_floating_3_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448207" caption="floating teahouse // perspective view // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/7_floating_1_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/7_floating_1_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448202" caption="floating teahouse // ceremony detail // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> A few weeks before I left Tokyo, I was fortunate enough to have the chance to spend some time speaking with Kengo Kuma. In addition to being (in my totally unbiased opinion) one of the most consistent hit-makers in the architectural firmament, Kuma-san also indirectly kick-started this research when I saw his Casa Umbrella project in a book. As you can imagine, my expectations were high; happily, Kuma-san's answers to my questions proved as thoughtful as his structures themselves. nj :: So, some of the inspirations for my research are your installations, like the Casa Umbrella and some of the teahouses you’ve done in the last couple of years – the temporary structures. I’m interested to hear your thoughts on installations: why you make them, if you enjoy them, and we can just kind of go from there. kk :: Hmmm… Yeah. Can I start with the Casa Umbrella project? Sure. So that project was for an exhibition, titled “Casa de Tutti”, “The House for Everybody”. And I’m very much interested in the democracy of architecture; democracy means that the daily life and the construction of the building are integrated. In the case of Casa Umbrella, the umbrella is basically for daily use, but… If one can have this special umbrella in front of the house – if an earthquake happens, you can bring the umbrella without anything else. And if fifteen people can come together with fifteen umbrellas, they can build the house by themselves, in a few hours. That is the system of Casa Umbrella – the umbrella is part of daily life, and also it is part of the disaster kit. So one special umbrella can belong to two different contexts: that is my idea. <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/1_casa umbrella_2_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/1_casa umbrella_2_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448159" caption="casa umbrella // exterior view // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> casa umbrella // exterior view // image courtesy of the architect Also, it is a kind of criticism to the Buckminster Fuller dome. The Fuller dome is also a self-made dome, but from our experience, it isn’t so easy to make a Fuller dome by ourselves…. [laughing]. And so, mathematically and structurally it is a very futuristic plan, but Fuller’s proposal… for a disaster, it doesn’t work so well, because you should prepare it before the disaster! In the case of Casa Umbrella, there’s no need to make preparations. Is that kind of idea about engaging with a social process present in a lot of your designs, or your installations? Yes, yes… this umbrella is a little bit different from a standard one: it has an extra piece of material, you know? The normal umbrella is shaped like this [gesturing], but this special umbrella has an extra triangular sheet, and people could understand that this means it is for disasters, and then the communication happens between the owners of the umbrella. And also it can send a message: earthquakes can happen any time. If people see the umbrella they think, “Ah! The disaster can happen anytime!” That is a strong message to the people. <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/1_casa umbrella_3_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/1_casa umbrella_3_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448163" caption="casa umbrella // interior view // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> casa umbrella // interior view // image courtesy of the architect So in a sense you’re trying to design a social interaction as well as a physical structure. Yes, exactly! The second example I want to speak of is the Water Block House. The beginning of the idea is the poly tank, which is usually used for construction sites. It is this kind of big tank, it is light when it is empty; if it is filled with water it becomes heavy. I think it is a very good example of new flexibility: in the 20th century, flexibility was the positioning of the element. But the poly tank can change its essence, and this is very different. So I decided to use this material for building. The first poly tank [we looked at] is just a poly tank, but the second version of the poly tank, the Water Block, has two caps. If we connect two caps together, water flows between them. And then it’s like a human body: a human body is cells and water flows, liquid flows. When this happens, we can control the temperature of the body, we can control the movement of the body; it is becoming very easy, with this kind of flow. And so we designed the Water Block house for an exhibition at the Gallery MA, three years ago. <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/3_water brick_gallery ma_2_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/3_water brick_gallery ma_2_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448175" caption="water block house // prototype interior view // gallery ma tokyo // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> water block house // prototype interior view // gallery ma tokyo // image courtesy of the architect It was at the MoMA in New York as well, right? MoMA New York just showed the part, but in Gallery MA we completed a house, with the bathroom, kitchen, bed, lighting fixtures – people could actually live in that house. In that sense, the Water Block House is realizing the autonomy of the house. Autonomy means not depending on the infrastructural system, because if we can have a solar heat gain unit, we can warm up the house, without gas, without electricity. And also that house has a solar generator. It’s like the human body: it’s very independent, we are not connected with the… the… To the grid? Yeah, to the grid. And that experimental house happened three years ago, but after the earthquake people understand how necessary this autonomy is. Because infrastructure is totally unreliable. In the 20th century, people believed that the infrastructure, the government, is perfect, will never stop. But with such natural disasters, it is a very weak, fragile system. We finally know the weakness of that system. <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/2_water brick_moma_2_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/2_water brick_moma_2_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448169" caption="water block house // module detail // moma new york // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> water block house // module detail // moma new york // image courtesy of the architect In both of the cases we've talked about, it seems like part of the interest for you is in new structural units. Yes, and in the Water Block House the block itself is a structural system. I want to break the vertical separation of the disciplines: structures, air conditioning, piping systems… I want to bring it together. The human body is… all the systems are tightly, tightly combined. It is impossible to separate those systems! But in the architectural academy, the professors are separated and the studies are separated; and also construction sites, beginning from the structures, and the piping…all separated! I want to mix it, meld it. You’re quite well known for innovative use of material, and it seems like that’s also present in your installations – are there things you have discovered from an installation that have been useful to you later on? For us, those experimental projects are not [just] for experiments. The ideas from those projects can be adapted to bigger projects. For example, our chidori project - our chidori project started as a small toy. It’s a very unique joint, without any nails or any metal. We started from a small pavilion in Milan, but in seven years time we realized that idea for a real building [the Prostho Museum], and also that idea is going to a Starbucks project in Fukuoka. Now the idea is going from the Starbucks to a new project for a Taiwan client. Using the same system, but much developed from Starbucks. And project by project, it goes to the next step. <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/4_prostho_3_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/4_prostho_3_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448183" caption="prostho museum // interior view // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> prostho museum // interior view // image courtesy of the architect Is that in your mind when you make these small things – is it in your mind that maybe the idea will become bigger next time? Hmmm…. When I’m doing these, it’s just for that project. But after seeing that project, we get some new inspiration, and so then we can go on to the next step. You seem to make quite a number of installations: is that because people offer them to you, or do you look for opportunities to make them? People… basically people come with offers. And some I refuse and some I accept, because for business, those installations don’t make money at all! [laughing] But! If we can achieve something in a small installation, we can go to the next step, and its very good for our office. Also the people, the energy of the office can be brought up by those installations. Because they’re kind of exciting… Exciting, and the result is very unexpected [laughing]: you think “Wow! Yeah, let’s go to the next step!” Architecture is too slow, but an installation… You’ve returned to the tea house several times with your installations – is that a personal interest for you? Yeah, the teahouse… I think that the teahouse, as a building type, was invented by Sen Rikyū in the 17th century – he utilized the teahouse to present his philosophy to the people. And he was a very smart guy! Because the teahouse itself is very small, but the architectural design, with the activity inside… at first, he brought some flowers from the field into the teahouse – the selection of flowers means something. And then he brought some scroll from somebody else… the selection of those things is a great presentation to the people, and also the manner of serving tea itself is presentation. <img src="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/7_floating_3_edit_760.jpg" width="760" height="508" width_o="760" height_o="508" src_o="http://payload62.cargocollective.com/1/5/167056/3540992/7_floating_3_edit_o.jpg" data-mid="18448207" caption="floating teahouse // perspective view // image courtesy of the architect" border="0" align="left"/> floating teahouse // perspective view // image courtesy of the architect Basically, his ethics came from the Zen religion, but for the people Zen religion itself is too far, too difficult to understand. But through those experiences in these small buildings, people can know, can understand the essence of the philosophy, the essence of the Zen religion. And in that sense, he uses the teahouse as a form of communication, as a very wide-range communication between him and the people. And I would like to do the same thing. My small pavilion is a very good media to show our idea, to show our philosophy. And so in that way it becomes part of a tradition, as a way to present a set of ideas. Yes! And often we are serving tea in my pavilions. So for example, our Floating Teahouse, in Washington, D.C. in the National Building Museum, we did a tea ceremony. Also our Teehaus in Frankfurt is a pavilion for the tea ceremony; once a month, that museum is organizing a tea ceremony school. And then, the experience of this tea and this space, they can work together to give an experience to the people. A few weeks before I left Tokyo, I was fortunate enough to have the chance to spend some time speaking with Kengo Kuma. In addition to being (in my totally...