Open Lecture Series 10: Oliviv Lugojan Ghencru

Creative Director of Neutral digital [focusing on augmented, hybrid and virtual realities]

The content of the lecture was highly complex and at times very difficult to understand however visually compelling as you were taken on journeys through each of the projects shown.

Project 01: Transient environments that explore a narrative. Air space concept, looking at military projectile missiles and studying black air space and the creation of these propelled robot jets that track through space. overlayed footage given the viewer a sense of reality and lost in whats real and whats speculative. working across physical and digital platforms to test ideas. Using principles in military take off, flying architecture that responds and works with thermal hot spots across Australian mountains and dessert space. Mapping trajectory through paper airplane models. using this data to determine if some structures would return and some that would get lost in the landscape.

Project 02: Interactive design in collaboration with a piano player. Producing a visual display that responded to the keys being played. the concert involved the player sandwiched between two screens, one cinematic and one showing augmented digital footage.

Project 03: A fusion between nature and digital. 3D scanning the location. The scanner only takes 1 single view point [cannot see/scan beyond solid materials] time was spent mapping the forest and reconstructing it digitally. shots stitched together to enable a landscape that was movable within. The work was then re-projected back into the existing site. using the platform Datum viewers could move around and view the digital whilst being in true location.

The work clearly signifies boundaries between a mixed reality. there is an idea of presence yet unknowing what realm. Questions towards the end of the lecture raised what the impact and use of the virtual world was? do we as humans want to get lost within an augmented reality? and how far does it go before we question what is real? There was that simple thought and connection towards inception [dreams cape] and questioning the boundaries of these cross over realms.

Drawing Spaces Lecture 03: Ontology of the line

Ontology: Types, properties and interrelationships 

Ontology of the line 'Drawing communicates much deeper level"

The line tells a story and notates real and imagined space. Drawing provides a personal level of sensitivity [Expressing thoughts and ideas]

Peter Cook: Archigram "AD Drawing" book 'The transformation of an idea is a process'

Bernard Tschumi: Strategies in drawing

How one constructs space. A relationship and interplay to create a dialogue between literature and architecture. Hybrid levels and forms of space. The abstraction of the grid as an organising device suggested a disjuntcion. Program vs Architecture Cause vs Effect. The artistic production of space.

Big: Yes is more publication [Architecture & POP culture]

Cartoon narratives. Break down the complexity of the work

ETH - Herzog & De Meuron: Proposal about how to communicate a city [Metrobasel comic book]

A mixture of fiction vs speculation vs reality

Considering the portfolio and the relationship to drawing within the folio. Where? What? How? being selective and showcasing the process of design.

Alexsandr Brodsky & Ilya Utkin: Paper Architecture

Speculative proposals. They use the components of architecture to communicate context. There is sensitivity behind the work.

James Wines: Home of high rise

Drawing through plan & section. The drawings carry an atmospheric quality. Complex orthographic drawings start to communicate the program.

Gottfried Bohm: 

Textured drawings that support light and levels of different spaces. They provide drama and atmosphere. The drawings are produced by drawing the materials and texture only. 

Lebbeus Woods:

Technological yet abstract work. "by drawing, the architecture is complete". Fractured, Deconstructed spaces. A space of light - the light pavilion -  An adoption to an existing building. The breaking up of an existing space.

Julie Mehretu: Between place - The landscape of protest

Petra Kempf: You are the city

Constructing narratives. Conducting your own rules. A loose fluidic document that allows one to construct a city.

Francois Roche: Spider House

Tactile, intangible, biological systems. Inwards spaces and exterior cladding systems influenced by spider web patterns [reference to moire' effect] explosive technical CAD drawings that start to define the complexity of the proposal.

Museum of the Ordinary

Welcome to the museum of the ordinary, a 50 square foot double floor art gallery that exhibits the content of Unit 01. The work exhibited discusses the possibilities of extending the temporal nature of walking around space by developing these movements into a series of architectural structures that are then placed back in situ. Work on display includes contextual links, research, exploration of ideas, experimentation, development and the proposal of whats to potentially come. Below is a list of works being exhibited and some additional information about them. 

01. Context - Just like any museum or gallery has a map that guides you around the space, from a-b the context map does exactly this with information. Mapping both macro and micro contexts and branching out to precedents, case studies, books and other definitions that have supported the initiation of my project and the language to be obtained and used moving forwards.

  

02. Gallery Conduct - Partially influenced by Grayson's playing in the gallery and considering how I have been acting within the gallery spaces since starting my project, made me consider how we as the audience behave. The word conduct arrived to me when reading about Michael Asher's work, and so I considered reflection on my own experience of walking around the gallery, what I was doing that was the norm, what I was doing that was different, and have placed this into a small book that a light hearted, and suggestive of perhaps getting others to reflect on their conduct within the gallery.

03. Transcripts - Transcripts showcases all the work displayed during the week 6 critique and is in reference to Bernard Tschumi's Manhattan transcripts. each page guides you through the project from initial references, to process, result and consideration to next stages. The format of the transcript, expanding on Tschumi's rules was to ensure that there was something that photographic, diagrammatic,  text based and something technical relating to space and architecture. The narrow book allows you very quickly flick through and become suggestive of the ideas and propositions being explored.

04. A typology of space - One of my early interest developed from looking at the architectural fabric and material of the gallery spaces I was visiting and soon I found myself forever looking down at the floors. In particular expansion lines set within the traditional cast concrete floor, where materials joined and were exposed for the public to see and where lines started to play a part in dividing the floors into planes. These become highly linked to one of my initial references 'Mondrian' and presented as a stack of loose postcards enables you to create your own configuration of space and examine the lines that dissect these planes.

05. A line is a dot that went for a walk - Through my project where walking has become the primary act, so to have I found research and key sources and text that have helped me attempt to explain what my project is. This small fold out is an opportunity to share those highly considered quotes and also guide you to my reflective blog that has documented lectures and progress since the start of the unit.

06. Anecdotes of the gallery space - Interested in contemporary writing and with a small reference ot poetics of space, I took the opportunity to examine from a conceptual and some what philosophical point of view the spaces that I had en-counted. The book guides you from entering the gallery around the different spaces and to the point where you have forgotten what the outside world was like. 

07. The frame - A selection of drawings and paintings that are influenced to Tschumi's narrative sequence list. each illustration is based on one of the routes taken during unit 01: and  holds characteristic of one of the sequences mentioned. Drawing spaces has become an important aspect and will remain a fundamental in projecting the conceptual qualities of the project.

08. Working drawings - The main body of work showing the process of work explored during unit 01: The book itself exhibits qualities of still incomplete and is a body of work in progress. all site information, key text, development through both physical and digital model making and propositions of term two are all outlined in this book.

09. My step - A homage to Stanley Brouwn in mind who was one of my initial precedents on the act of walking and step counting. Brouwn has been a huge influence in my work, approaching the project with a conceptual head, the idea of artists books and having seen the simplicity in his working practice I wanted to exhibit something of a similar nature. This fold-able metal ruler is designed as a concept tool for measuring space but with only limited measurements available that refer to the measurements of my own body. Any space can now be measured in 'Fardell inches, feet, heel to toe or steps'.

Drawing Space Lecture 02: Instructing matters

"Drawing is a tool for production" - Matteo Pericoli

Virtual moving drawings: Jan Rothuzen

Reyner Banham: Theorist [architecture and spatial production]

Robin Evans: Translation from drawing to building - drawing is a form of projection & the model is a 3dimensional drawing.

Didactic: Intention to convey instructions and information

The process of understanding space - understanding drawing [Louis Khan - depth of integrity in drawing work]

Paul Rudolph - client based drawings

Andrea Branzi: Archizoom and no-stop city 

How one can question and speculate space. How does one occupy space? - modular urban scale of a new infrastructure

Giuseppe Terrangi - The Danteum

The physical structure of the after life. speculative drawing work communicating how space is occupied.

Daniel Libeskinds: Chamber works 

A new material language - shards of fabric and building material confuse the architectural structure. Proposals consist of dissections and interjections into existing buildings.

E-studio Teddy Cruz:

Drawing spatial proposals that have a conversation. drawing consist of plan/section and elevation. Collage and appropriation are used with existing cut up fragments of space to create a new language.

Rem Koolhaus: AA Graduation project

Appropriation of the existing landscape to create new volume and textured schemes. Mixed media is adopted from other precedents and architectural styles. Exploded volumes of the proposal are communicated through axonometric drawing.

 
Philippe Rahm: Airscape

Using geographical systems an diagrams, how do we communicate immaterial? Adopting and adapting existing systems. This has become the evolution of the digital drawing age. Architecture as a drawing of wind - digital renders allow no room for thought and are stuck with the definitive answer.

Junya Ishigami: Architecture as Air

So Fugimoto: Exploring the way you see through material. Use of models that present the drawings of spaces. the level of sensitivity enables the client to understand the lifestyle before the scheme is complete.

Portfolio Development . . .deadline approaching

Its fair to say I have been working overtime since returning to uni and although I had a slight set back with having three days of fever I have made up those hours. I have also push myself into some new skill sets that has seen me design and make my own fold-able metal ruler as part of my measuring space works and I have taught myself how to book bind [would still benefit form a short course] but it is a start. I also feel a lot more confident in using Adobe Indesign as I have really challenged myself with the production of multiple books.

 

The ruler was spot welded together with a central piano hinge. On the inside face it has a series of in script marks and initials that relate to bodily measurements. The use of own measurements was in reference to both Stanley Brouwn and Antony Gormley.

For an individual that cannot sew, I am really impressed with my efforts. My main book consists of a range of paper and I felt that having the graph paper [of which I had used to produce to my original drawings on] added a consideration to the process of my work and what i have gone through this term. All that remains left is to attach a canvas dust jacket.

The portfolio has really started to come together now with all of the small elements creating a rather large body of work. The range of different forms situated within the portfolio really supports the context, some may find parts of it gimmicky, but I believe overall they are all relevant and selective design decisions. There has been a lot of conversations in the studio and throughout the most recent tutorials about the format, with many planning on similar styled books. I personally think taken the risk I have will at least enable me to get some different feedback and if it is a book that they want then there is Unit 02 and Unit 03.

Giving feedback on each others work the week following assessment is going to be interesting, it will be great to have a look at others approach and use it as perhaps a skills based discussion. I know me and Piera have been in the studio every day and have been working late, also in constant discussions with each other via whatsapp about the aesthetics relating to both our projects.

It would be so easy now to flick through my work and want to change elements, everyone could. I think for me I want to really consider a robust POA for term two that perhaps takes me into a new direction. I need to learn the basics of CAD and need to get back on the reading band wagon [especially the morning train routine].

Open Lecture Series 08: Wayward

Wayward focus of narrative environments, landscape art and architecture and community based projects

Wayward set up a plant adoption agency 'what makes a good plant parent?"

Project 01: Union Street Urban Orchard: Series of different shed structures, each with a different function. Plant exchange and community based build. projects are all temporary

Project 02: Helsinki Plant Tram: Influenced by the culture of the tram and roller coasters, the plant adoption scheme become mobile and moved around Helsinki via its tram network. A timber framed plant bed named the "Plantacoaster" become the new home for a variety of plants. Their projects are both educational and adventurous.

Project 03: Borough Market: A multi-functional space that included plant schemes and the use of recycling

Project 04: White Chapel Plant Exhibition: Project based around sc-fi plants and included botanical stories influenced by children. This project was collaborated on with illustrators who brought the children's ideas to life.

Project 05: Spice pavilion: architectural structure that housed and educated people about spices form around the world.

Project 06: Farmopolis: Recent project based in Greewhich. Focus on urban farming and public green space, what this should entail and how it should operate. A sustainable scheme that has just received its largest ever  plant adoption form Chelsea flower show [15,000] 

Wayward are certainly a quirky company and seem to have fun involved in every stage of the project, who ever knew adopting plants would become so trendy.

MAISD - Course meeting

1. New term time table available of C-cat

2. New series of evening open lectures arranged by Wayward [Linked with the transient social environments sign up project]

3. ICA lectures to continue on Wednesdays [Cannot attend due to work]

4. Wednesday 25th - Guys Hospital [place-making project exhibition form last year] go and visit as this project may be running again

5. Tutorials Thursday - Bring a POA of portfolio and work made ahead of unit 01: deadline

6. Monday 30th Portfolio review with peers 14:30/16:30

7. Pete involved in Tate Modern symposium events [Digital VR environments]

8. Kens live project this year will be working with the the special collections and archive material in the library and looking at a spatial proposal [portable archive] There will be budget and funding available for a proto-type

9. 6th February for the official launch of unit 02:

Drawing Spaces Lecture 01: Lines with weight

This terms shared history and theory lectures with focus around the elements of drawing spaces, looking at both historical and contemporary references and the importance of drawing. 

Plato's space: Drawing is a transformation of space, a re-presentation 

"The process of producing a drawing involves understanding the history of drawing spaces"

2Dimnesional drawings are the ideas that communicate 3dimensional spaces. it is a tool used to project our ideas onto others

Expression: Aesthetics is a form of cultural transformation. Our selection in aesthetics impacts on those who understand and those who don't. The form of drawing can be manipulated [expanding the known vocab of drawing] what are we attempting to say and how.

Case study 1: Yves Klein - Fire paintings: Trying to physical draw energy - the intangible and the idea of movement is expressed within the work through the use of the media and the process. The use of collage work supports the creative intention. Within the drawings there is a sense of scale and human presence. Kleins works is a boundary between architecture and art, the architecture of air.

Architectural drawings propose a dialogue between space, they exhibit qualities of how one can move around.

Case study 2A: Mies Van der rohe - Casa Urich Lange: 2 house proposed [identical in plan, section & elevation] yet both support a different function. A:Living B:Gallery. The drawings provide a dialogue of activity intentions, the program of events and the routes between spaces. Ideas are tested between audience and sculpture with the inclusion of art objects in the drawings. There are conscious modernist thoughts and control within the scheme studying view points, thresholds and textures.

The outcome is an overlap between the spatial production of art and architecture. Living in the gallery and exhibiting the home?

The spaces have now become and institution where selected artists in residence can occupy the space and produce a site specific proposal. 

Case study 2B: Christo Jeanne Claude - Covered windows and wrapped walkways: Their proposal for the Cassa Lange was a series of propositional drawings that have a very direct relationship with the architecture. There is a fine art approach through perspective collage and the use of site photographs and tangible fabric sampling within the drawings. The outcome becomes somewhat a living painting and their proposed dust sheet covers the interior floor. As you move through the space the insertion of yellow tints covering some of the windows provides a glowing set of preconceived gallery type spaces. The installation plays its role within the space on both an exterior and interior level, supporting the space throughout day and night.

Case study 2C: Richard Serra: His response to the Urich Lange house involves the proportions of the architecture being used within his work. His sculpture situated within the landscape could be considered a 3Dimensional drawing with his array of edges, almost depicting drawn lines. His work exhibits the process very much in the same way as the process of drawing and the material of both are in sync. [Having seen his drawings up close at the Gagosian on Davies Street, there is a connection between media, the translation and process of mark making and it is almost a suggestion that these drawings are produced while thinking of ideas] 

Case study 3: Pete Zumphor - 3D dreaming: Overlaying time onto architectural drawings that exhibit an understanding of context, sensitivity and the complexity behind making space.

Case study 4: Brunder Klaus - Charcoal drawings: 

Note to self: produce more drawings, consideration of collage and working into existing photographs/images.

 

Plan of action

It is fair to say I have taken a full Christmas break and although I was delving into books and still thinking about my work, I took the time to relax. It is now plan of action time, what is my 'museum of the Ordinary' portfolio going to look like and what does it contain? Although this project will extend past unit 01: I really want my submission to completed responses that can be used throughout term 2 to develop. I don't want to be re-looking at the same work and recreating the same exercises. I have therefore set myself the task to produce a rather large body of work that really strips each component and feature of the project i have initially explored. Term 2 for me will be to focus on the development of my trajectories into frames and start to situate these into the spaces via manipulation so that I can reflect on the effects they have. Cost and time bound I may even attempt to produce a half scale model so that I am fronted and faced with the impact. for now here is my POA.

Unit 01: Theory submission

And so the new year brings with it deadlines, with the first scheduled for the 11th January and what a good feeling it is to submit both required pieces of text way before the deadline. Perhaps all these years of telling students about the importance of meeting deadlines is paying off, as I remember being awful as a BA student.

1. The research study plan has really started to come together as a project proposal and has really challenged me in putting my practice into words that 'make sense'. I think given the nature and context of the project, there is theory that can be discussed and related to and I consider the practice to have constant questions attached to it, which I am hoping will be the drive, but, it is a conceptual project and when formatting that into a question or concern it does have it complexities.

1.Project Question or Proposition – Articulate your areas of interest through the formulation of a question or proposition to be explored.

Unit 01: The museum of the Ordinary

Would you visit an exhibition about the space it was exhibited within?

-        Taking the concept of walking and tracking my own movement through the spaces that are then developed into a systematic measured architectural frame that extends the temporarily of previous exhibitions

-        Developing conceptualised mapped routes into architectural projected structures that Intersect the existing space. Using a juxtaposition of overlapping routes that produce new approaches to moving around and through the gallery space

-        3Dimensional trajectories that re-design the internal layout of the identified gallery space [Creating and formulating dialogues between space and space]

[wider areas pf research relating to the future art gallery]

2. The critical research paper has been a highly reflective exercise placing all the notes and information I have collected during the previous term into a piece of considered text. With only 500 words to play with at this stage, it has been an editing exercise to say the least. I am extremely pleased with my CRP submission and look forward to the feedback. The writing side of the course was one of the elements I most wanted to tackle and improve as I personally feel and part know that my English is terrible [hopefully my blog does it some justice?]. I really have found Kens' lectures helpful with his awareness of both content and language and how he often expands on the language element. I do hope that this is taken further during term 2 and that upon receiving feedback on my critical research paper that they can start to discuss and teach more in-depth skills and knowledge in writing about architecture in the language of architecture.