Artfully Planned Ambience

A Daily Dose of Architecture
http://archidose.blogspot.com

"2 Sites"

Here's a couple cool sites worth sharing.
Gaaleriie
The third installment on gaaleriie.net features SANAA's Zollverein School of Management and Design (2007) in Essen, Germany. The documentation of the project includes 42 1/2 minutes of video, many images, and some clever navigation.

archiCULTURE
"Archiculture is a feature length documentary that examines contemporary issues surrounding the realm of architecture through the perspective of university students during their final thesis semester." This Friday the Center for Architecture will host a trailer debut party, from 6-8pm.

"AE2: Highway Noise Barrier"

One product of the two main components of sprawl -- dispersed living patterns and the high-speed roads that allow access to them -- is all too often relegated to engineers and manufacturers instead of designers, and therefore is all too often an eyesore. I'm talking about highway noise barriers, those walls erected along the sides of highways where development occurs, and where those in the development do not want to hear (or see) the cars speeding by.

Here's an example of a barrier frequently found along North American highways, basically steel piers with precast infill, the latter in this case treated to resemble a stone wall:
[A small portion of the 7 million square feet of noise barriers installed by Durisol | image source]

This wall surely won't be winning any design awards, but it will continue to be installed by developers and jurisdictions that don't want to pay too much for what's becoming more and more required, as highways and dwellings creep ever closer together.

A couple projects previously featured on my weekly page show that the best case for raising the bar on the design of these barriers is to make them part of a building; in other words bring the architecture to the road, don't use the barrier to separate the two.
[Acoustical Barrier + Hessing Cockpit by ONL | image source]

The Acoustical Barrier + Hessing Cockpit by ONL is easily the most high-profile recent project to tackle such a proposition. The one-mile stretch of highway that the wall parallels is treated to a lattice-work of steel structure holding up glass panels in a concave section, reflecting sound back to the highway. The "Cockpit" of the project's name -- a car showroom -- inhabits the center of the barrier's one-mile distance, a suitable use for a structure so wedded to its merchandise's favorite surface.
[Acoustical Barrier + Hessing Cockpit by ONL | image source]

A few years before ONL pulled off that feat in the Netherlands, Jean Nouvel proposed a similar solution in Italy for Brembo, a manufacturer of automobile brakes. The Brembo Research Office, for good reason, also goes by the monicker "the Red Kilometer."
[Brembo Research Office by Jean Nouvel | image source]

Completed last year, the facility's long red wall is an even stronger statement than the Dutch lattice-work, something appropriate to the land of Ferrari. Like the ONL design, Nouvel's barrier has a presence on both sides, in effect making something that is usually an afterthought the most important element of a building...and perhaps even the most important element of a highway.
[Brembo Research Office by Jean Nouvel | image source]

BLDGBLOG
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com

BLDGBLOG in Baltimore

With the BLDGBLOG Book still on my plate here, it might be another slow week on the blog – maybe not – but I do want to announce something else before it's too late: and that's that I will be giving an hour-long lecture next week in Baltimore, hosted by the American Institute of Architects.

Specifically, it's this year's Michael F. Trostel Lecture, sponsored by Preservation Maryland.
I'll be speaking about everything from the historical preservation of American highway infrastructure north of Baltimore to the curatorial problems associated with underwater archaeological sites in the Mediterranean Sea.
There will be stabilized ruins, abandoned prisons, a post-human Detroit, the architectural reuse of war debris, gene banks, epoxy-sealed Utah arches, and the slow fossilization of cities over eons of geological time. There will be liquid silicone, plaster casts of famous statuary, and old Hollywood film sets preserved by the desert sand.
You have to pay to get in, unfortunately – it's $15 – but I think it's free for students, and there might be some kind of discount if you are a member of the AIA. It's on Wednesday, March 19, at 6pm. It's in this building, which is located here.
So please come out! Keep me on my toes. Look at weird images. Laugh at bad jokes.
Somewhat incredibly, meanwhile, the lecture series only includes myself, Gregg Pasquarelli, Teddy Cruz, and Daniel Libeskind.

Finally, the AIA-Baltimore webpage says, incorrectly, that I am the founder and editor of Archinect – but that is Paul Petrunia, who founded Archinect nearly 11 years ago, in the fall of 1997. I am just one editor among more than a dozen there – and I'm not a very active one, at that! Apologies to Paul for the confusion.
Hope to see some of you next week in Baltimore! Seriously – it should be fun.

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Maybe I am an Escapist

I was born and growing up in Wuhan, a gigantic city upon the Yangtze River, which is divided by two huge rivers into three districts. The population of Wuhan is as big as the population of entire Minnesota but it is only as big as the Twin Cities area. Feeling lost in the crowds is the most common sense you are going to get in ï¼·uhan - there are just so many people everywhere cramped, rushed and stuffed. I remembered when I was little, my family hasn't got a car. So every time when we are going out, we have to call it a "journey" - the whole city transit system could confuse a intelligent economist like my mother. I would always be worried about getting lost in those days. The crowd of innumerable people truly scared me like a monster. As a matter of fact, people, even sophisticated Wuhanese get lost in transportation, all kinds of places within Wuhan due to the chaotic urban plan. The situation is much harsher than the Tokyo in Lost in Translation.

Maybe it is the the hustle and bustle of Wuhan that shapes Wuhan citizens' temper - Wuhaneses are famous for being easily irritable. The other part is, the strong sense of getting lost in Wuhan also has given birth to many artists, poets, underground filmmakers, sentimentalists and of course, illegal arty movie-DVD dealers. My father is one of the "arty" people, who is an installation artist and smokes five packs of cigarettes every day. He is never happy and my mother says she thought that was my father's charm. Throughout my adolescence, Wuhan provides me more sentimentalism than optimism or maybe I was deeply influenced by my father. Unlike when I was little, I was not afraid but got sick of the rushy crowd in Wuhan. Many times, I would lock myself in my room, blocking out the real world - indeed, I was anti-society as a young adolescent.

The whole city rolls like a permanent mechanic rotation and that frightened me.

Definitely, I am a Naturalist?

"Morning, Wuhan" taken by me in 2006

Wuhan is a city of blaze and glaze. In the summer, it is like a gigantic steamer, in which millions of people are burned with the temperature of 100 F. As the extremely hot weather last for the entire summer, Wuhaneses' bad temper could be worse. People tend to hide in there air-conditioned room and everyone becomes irascible. It is also a season of crime and rapists because too many impulses have no place to release.

When the summer comes, I would flee away. I know Wuhan's summer has the power to change a person's temper. And, summer is the only chance for me to get away from the city scene. But unfortunately, I was still remained some rushy and short-tempered side in me, which emerges out when I feel hot or anxious. For many years, I have been seeking ways to clam me down and eventually I found God.

Chutian Golden Paper 2006-08-05
Failing in stealing, a thirteen-year-old girl set fire to classmate's flat, Xiao Qian (an anonym), a thirteen-year-old girl, copied the house key of her classmate, LinYu (an anonym) and stole in the flat many times. On April first, Xiao Qian entered into Lin's flat again and stole nothing. Getting irritated, she actually set fire to the bedroom. Yesterday, the two families came to terms. Xiao Qian's family paid Lin Yu's family ï¿¥30,000.

When it comes to Wuhan' winter, everything is doomed to die and the weather will be cruelly cold. People say, the winter of Wuhan is the season of mythicism. I'm pretty sure that the mythicism of the winter in Wuhan comes from millions of massacres from ancient time till WWII. Wuhan used to be a huge burial site, where tons and tons of dead people were buried. When I was little, mother always warned me about ghosts and spirit might appear suddenly and I was once in deep fear. Later, I grow up to be a skeptical person and I still respect ghosts.

"Wuhan, winter" taken by me

My City Forced Me to Hear Absurd Stories

Absurd Story 1:
2006-12-31
A young girl drowned in Yangtze River Bank
A young girl walked slowly into the Yangtze river at Dadikou, 6:30 p.m. last night. And she's already drowned when people found her. The reporters were soon on the scene after the accident. She looked about seventeen years old. Subsequently, the policemen found out cellphone and keys from the body. At present, the identity of the dead and the cause of death are under investigation.

Absurd Story 2:
2007-01-19
A scientist's statue sawed in Wuhan Optical Valley Square
Three masked men were found sawing the famous mathematician, Li Guoping's statue in Wuhan Optical Valley Square at 3:00 a.m. yesterday. The security man went to stop them and was wounded by the steel tube but the statue's left hand and the equation in its hand have been sawed off. Soon, other security men came to help and the three men fled away.

Absurd Story 3:
2006-8-15
Alike in face, Unlike in weight
It’s hardly to tell apart the twin sisters at first sight for they are alike in face but unlike in weight. One is plump while the other is slim. This startling change dates from March when the younger sister was sent to Beijing for two-month advanced study. She took Paiyousu diet pills and lost 14 kg in the staying.

Honestly, part of me enjoy reading these ridiculous stories, almost like jokes for me. Being absurd, weird and ridiculous might be an obvious cultural characteristic of Wuhanese. I used to feel horrible about these nonsense things but later I figured the satirical meaning and the propaganda context in them. Then being weird and satirical becomes my quote and life philosophy that I should not and could not do pretend to believe or compromise. I have to be sharp, tough and conscious. Do art, but not for art's sake; being weird, but not for weirdo's sake.

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2008

Minneapolis, USA.

Like I said before, I'm never a optimistic person. Fear is part of me, and probably the best thing inside me. Henry Moore said, "to be an architect is to is believe in life." But sadly, I don't. I don't quite believe in anything. I almost drowned myself in a world of idealism before, by avoiding the reality. So I simply could never be a good architect. That hurts.

I have a room of my own, it is a cave only belongs to me, where I sit is a small oasis in a desert of
darkness. And eerily quiet. But that is what I like after the hard classes, in which I give willingly and unsparingly of myself with no apparent return. I love this tranquility, this quiet, following the strain of the long hours spent on faking myself. This is my rest, this intentional isolation for a while in the evenings, this little time in my room with my pencils, brushes, camera plus tipsy craziness and honesty - all pretense brushed aside, the dominant one, I suspect, is relief.

Then I decide to quit, to escape the constraints of architecture school program.

"Blue is the color I wanna bring to my room 2008" by me

"To the Lighthouse 2008" by me in my room

2010

Duesseldorf, Germany.

There is a voice within me telling me that I should flee away from the American scene, the Chinese scene or whatever life style that I'm familiar with. A long moment I lie puzzling under the sun streaming in a golden flow through the blue curtains in my room. I have made my mind to leave and to start out everything in Europe. That's it.

I like it, this new life in Germany. I have a studio underground, where is my refuge to survive with my art, design and architecture. Not like United States, Germany is a country in which art is more tolerated, fantastic dreams of designing could be fulfilled and exoticism is celebrated. In this sense, I thought I could set free all my imaginations and finally realize all my dreams about art, architecture; I thought I could make an impact on the enigmatic sky of Germany; I thought I could do whatever I want to do. The reality is I failed. I failed to make a different with anyone's life. Nobody appreciates my artistic design and profound dream of architecture. I was turned down by thousands of architecture firms by a simple same reason - "It is impossible to be built". Of course, it is impossible to be built because all you care about is how to save money, all you want to get is profit. Compromise, maybe you can give up your dream and design ugly commercial skyscrapers. But, compromise for me is to kill my soul and live like a corpse ever after. My life will be meaningless without creativity and fantasy.

Finally 2016, in the midst of speculation and frustration, I determined to leave again. I packed everything and emptied my studio, I used to call my studio "my shell". At the same, I packed my dream away again. This is the last time I look around my doomed studio. I was once colorful when I was enthusiastic about future. But now, it is dead, dark and gloomy.

If there is anything I change and adopted with my own persona, that is my studio. That comforts me because after all I influenced something. For me, my studio is not micro then - it became all my memories about Germany and Europe.

"Der Neue Zollhof, Duesseldorf" by braesikalla on flickr

"My studio in Duesseldorf, Germany 2010"

"My studio in Duesseldorf, Germany 2016"

2021

Osaka, Japan.

Jade is my name now, believe or not. I have spent years on planting seeds of grasses in Osaka, green and peaceful grasses. Years later, these seeds came out and grow into a green ocean, waving, roaring and flowing. My body is almost receded in this green ocean. Like Claude Debussy's impressionist piano music, lonely and pure. I really enjoy standing in the midst of the grass, listening to the wind plus Debussy, feeling the nature. Many years later, when people walk through the grass, they see a jade statue and that is me.

But why Osaka? Why nature?

Listen, after years of drifting all around the world, I still could not find a place where I belong and I could make an influence. I accidentally stopped in Osaka, Japan, a deserted city. My imagination was brought back to life when I saw the decaying desert and heard the roaring wind. So, my passion to create came in bad nature and white books. Not picture nature in a dozen bird names, but road kills, white pine in eagle nests, fleas in rabbit ears, the last green flies in late autumn, and moths that whisper, whisper at the mirror. That's the truth of nature, brutal truth. Nature voices, crows in the poplars, not plastic bird mobiles over a baby crib. So, nature becomes my big book, imagination is still my teacher.

Then I planted the entire grassland and I built a tower. A steel-made tower in pure nature? You'd better take that as my satirical, almost biased hatred towards urbanism.

Listen, there are words almost everywhere. I realize that in a chance moment. Words are in the air, in the green ocean, in my blood. Words are in snow, trees, leaves, wind, birds, beavers, the sound of ice cracking; words are in fish and mongrels, where they've been since we came to this place with the animals. My breathe is a word, we are words, real words.

For the first time of my life, I feel free. I feel my soul is pure. I feel I could talk to the nature. I feel I am truly released and relieved.

"I planted the grassland in Osaka 2021"

"My tower 2023"

2046

Hong Kong, China

I die in the year of 2046. I'm glad that I'm able to come back to my hometown. Nobody knows me and I'm nobody to everyone. I always believe that I was an artist, architect, naturalist and dreamer.

"2046"

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