remembering through copying
Jan 15 - Feb 13, 2010 @ BEB Gallery
QR (“quick response”) code is a 2d bar code that allows users to quickly access information & websites, hardlinking the physical world to its digital avatar with the scan of a cell phone. The disembodied structure of technology is disconcerting, but its use-value is not predetermined. Though the digital revolution is no longer a question of maybe or “if,” our future is now, so put on your gloves, get back in the virtual saddle & claim this world.
This show marks the reverb of a show RISD|architecture organized for a conference on the role of the digital in architecture schools in July, 2009, in Florence, Italy, called Beyond Media: Visions // Spot on Schools. Copying, an act facilitated by the digital process, can never reproduce an identical. The copy of the copy of the copy becomes distorted as it loses fidelity. In honor of the previous show, we are here to celebrate that distortion. Mimesis is creation; there can be no original.
We are architects: we own stock in the corporeal; the concrete; the visible. And we are planners: we design; we posit; we hope. So let us use both hand + chip: bringing lo-fi back to high-tech, we hope to re-insert the hand in digital representation. Whether worked digitally & reworked manually or vice versa, understanding & controlling both processes affords the maker the greatest authorship. We stick our tongues out at our beeping, twittering, hyper-voyeuristic universe, all the while keeping the latest gizmo in our back pocket (alongside our sketchbook). Wielding both weapons, we are looking to roll with the punches & come out on top.
To access the code, pull out your iPhone, go to the App Store & download the free “qr app.” Now snap away.
ctrl+C/ ctrl+V//
Laura Blosser + Alexander McCargar
(An update from Laura Blosser, M.Arch 2010 who is on exchange at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland this semester). > Additional posts and updates from LB on DBL.
Time passes quickly.
Moreover, the time for completing all I desire has passed. Now I’m all judgment and edit, weighing ambition against sanity, overthrowing regulation and making time for guilty pleasures.
Projects continue. French forces my mouth to move in new directions. Language delights: ‘chuchoter’ sounds just like the whisper that it is, and ‘profond’ brings new depth (haha) to the English relationship between ‘profound’ and ‘background’ or ‘towards the back.’ I have a language buddy, and we get together and go halfies on English+French. It’s brilliant, really; we both get practice and have fun along the way. This week we wandered amongst the market stalls, picking up bouquets of tulips but turning up our noses at the frog thighs.
I made time, the weekend before last, for a journey to La Chaux-de-Fonds, the birthplace of the 20th century architectural titan Le Corbusier. Here, spring has arrived: crocuses are peeking up and daffodils are standing proud. Yet a mere hop and a skip down the tracks I was greeted with several inches of snow, high in the Jura mountains. I headed up hill towards the Villa Schwob, only to discover it’s available to the public a mere two days a month. This was not one of those two, so I placated myself with my brownbag lunch, staring at the curving yellow brick and questioning his formative years. How did Corb become the master of modernism? Was it all Paris and sheer brilliance, or did La Chaux-de-Fonds play a role? Burned to the ground at the turn of the 19th century, its tabula rasa was filled with a rational street grid, making it the only Swiss village to eschew Medieval meanderings. Art Nouveau balconies dot the town, and it seems clear that a penchant for the new infiltrated his bloodstream. I made my way towards some of his other first projects, the Maison Blanche, his house for his family. Though recently renovated for public access, I was the only person visiting. The guide gave me blue booties, but otherwise I was free to roam. Sunlight was streaming in the windows - the quality of light was so Palladian - so I took up a nook in the bay. And I just sat. I sat and thought and thought until finally I stopped thinking and just was, just enjoying the room. The guide prepared (free) coffee for us and told stories, and I stayed there until it was getting late.
The digital design course is taking form; we’ll be designing a pavilion for a film festival in June with aluminum paneling. I’ve been
learning how to computer program complex geometries, which is BrandNew for me. I’ve always shunned it, preferring chthonic forms. Light, material, and gravity, critical to architecture, remain firmly outside the computer screen. Yet, it’s hard to deny the raw power of the computer in managing data, and this course forces me to bridge the tactile and the abstract. I’ve been geeking out on the idea of
‘aperiodic tiling,’ where panels have an order but never repeat. Most are based on pentagons, the smallest polygon that can’t “fill” an area, but I think there’s a lot of potential in heptagons. Whoa, whoa! This gets too technical too fast! I’ll spare you the details, but just know that I think it’s cool.
Also! Today I was lucky enough to eat lunch with Kazuyo Sejima, half the force of the Japanese architectural darlings, SANAA. Well, before you get all jealous, it wasn’t one-on-one; there were 20 of us. SANAA is building a “learning center” for the university here (see
http://www.eikongraphia.com/?p=2647),
so she came to give a lecture. Decked out in the typical black uniform, her eyes were lively and kind as she struggled to find words in English. Next month she’ll give us a private tour of the building, I can’t wait!
So, as someone ever-sensitive to unwanted messages, I think I’m going to switch to blog-form, which you can find here:
http://laurablosser.wordpress.com. For those who prefer the tried-and-true epistolary exchange, just shoot me a message + I’ll keep ‘em coming straight to your inbox.
Oh, and I finally uploaded the final Costa Rica images to my flickr account (along with some of the Maison Blanche):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10200482@N05/?saved=1
with love,
laura
Laura Blosser (M.Arch ‘10), on exchange at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland this semester, keeps us posted about her semester. She and Miya Buxton (also M.Arch ‘10) will be there until June:
“Hoo boy! What a week! Nothing like “complete immersion” as an adjustment tactic.
After nearly a week of homework in the hostel, my trans-atlantic doppelganger (let’s call her Miya) and I finally moved into our new apartment last weekend. It’s a simple student apartment with only one bedroom, but it’s cheap and does the trick. We reserved half of Saturday for a trek to the nearest IKEA. IKEA is one of those strange places in the world, a real black hole. It seems amazing from the outside but once inside it just sucks you in and you feel like you’ll never get out of there alive. Half-way through you begin to hate all the pregnant cradle-shoppers and their screaming entourage. But you get out and once again it’s all smiles and amazement at the sheer quantity of cheap silverware you were able to purchase.
For some reason I had this romantic image of European students; since all stores close on Sundays they must not overwork themselves. So that is completely false. Architecture students are the same everywhere, so naturally sleep is removed from the agenda. The studio is set up differently from what I’m used to — there is one professor with four assistants, and the students have access to a studio but often work from home. The entire set up is different, really. The course objective here runs the gamut of the design process — from choosing and analyzing a site, through schematic design, and into full-scale mockups of potential details. Generally in school we stay stuck in schematic development, so I’m excited to see the process through a little further. We had a big push for studio this Friday to complete a “feasibility study” for our proposed interventions — lots of maps and diagrams on powerpoint — a far cry from the ‘process’ oriented RISD presentations, where trace paper is an acceptable medium. The thought process here is direct and (dare I say it?) conventional, with an emphasis on efficiency and clarity. The intelligence comes from time management and an ability to produce, not from innovative ways of reinterpreting geometries. My partner is a real live Swiss person + knows all the background info on the area, which is helpful (plus I get to practice my French!). The skills I’ll learn this semester seem especially pertinent to the job market, but not necessarily to my <capital D> Design Sensibilities; hopefully I’ll be able to integrate the two. I’ve attached a photo of our psychotically grey site model, along with the lampshade I whipped up from our laser-cut scraps — I love ‘non-designed’ mini-projects borne out of necessity. Our studio project is working to transform the watchmaking industrial zone of Geneva into a more vibrant area, especially after the work day has ended. Our professor wears pin-stripe suits to class (!) and suggested that instead of our proposed theater, we’d do better to design a brothel. We may compromise with a casino.
… I spent yesterday recouping from the week’s work — pajamas and tea until after noon, when I went exploring. Topographically Lausanne is simple: it’s one big hill. You’re either walking uphill or down, always, with the exception of an additional valley running parallel to the lake, the valley of an ancient stream. It makes for pretty dynamic sections of the city, with bridges and level changes everywhere. I’m kind of in love with it. I hiked up to the top of the city, where there is a giant park with ramparts unfurling down the hill, overlooking France + the Alps. The nearby museum had an exhibit on Christo + Jeanne-Claude and even though I don’t find their work especially revolutionary, I’m impressed with their ability to manifest large scale landscape interventions by garnering private support. It’s curious; Christo still does project propaganda by collaging over photographs, which seems locked into a 20th century view of technology. Admittedly I appreciate the aesthetic, but the acceptance of photography but not computers strikes me as odd.
Alright, gearing up for the next week!”
(Thanks to Laura for the thorough update; AL for the contribution)
Hello all,
I’m cozy in Providence, remarking on the wonders of dry clothes and
the crackling smell of winter, lamenting the necessity of
moisturizers, baffled by the astonishing variety of milks in the
supermarket, and throwing toilet paper in the wrong basket.
You’re all probably wondering how the project ended. Well. The rains
never ceased. After I last wrote the gods continued to dump buckets
and buckets of water on our hamlet. I’m not talking about the
occasional drizzle; I’m talking about relentless twelve-hour
downpours. We couldn’t use power tools in the rain, and thus were
rendered powerless to the rains. Each morning we grew more glum, our
hopes of finishing washing away with the rains. We edited out half our
bleachers, knowing they’d be left with foundations only. The water
rose and rose over the week, so much so that one morning our abode
flooded. Two inches of water slowly crept past our patio and into our
kitchen until our floor glistened with a disconcerting sheen. All was
calm, but ill at ease until finally the slow watery ache began to
dissipate.
Monday broke the spell, gracing us with sunlight. (Never have I been
more thrilled with a forecast of ‘partly cloudy.’) We began to work,
as tirelessly as the previous rains. Within a day the main structure
of the community center was up, renewing a modicum of faith. The
threat of rain loomed, yet we allowed ourselves to dream a little, to
wonder what could be done if the rains could be staved off. So we cast
our dice and decided to go ahead with the full set of bleachers. Luck,
finally, was on our side and after two clear days, working sun-up to
sun-down, we finally hit the full potency of our thirtysome.
Throughout, the learning process has centered on ways to maximize
efficiency among 30 students, knowing when to stay mum and how to
dance between authority and obeisance. Both the community center and
the structure for the second set of bleachers went up faster than
anyone had imagined, so we began to put pressure on the bleacher crew
to install the wood bleachers. It was our final working day, Thursday,
and the bleachers were the only element that remained unfinished.
Though the boxes for the bleachers were constructed, they resisted
installation, citing the recent pour of the footings. We went ahead
and tested the footing with an expansion bolt and sure enough, the
back end sheared off. So, much to our chagrin, we were forced to leave
the final bolts unbolted. Local contractors have committed to
finishing the job, and it should be a simple half-day’s work, weather
permitting.
Thursday evening (our last night in Costa Rica) we had the
‘ribbon-cutting ceremony,’ so to speak, with the local community. The
whole southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica is basically one small
town, pulled and stretched along the coastline. Everyone showed up,
from the soccer coach to the masseuse to the mayor. A friendly soccer
match started off the night, followed by a huge pot of stew. We danced
the night away on our new boardwalk, grins and thankyous all around.
It was our first chance to catch our breath in a week of hard work,
and we had the opportunity to see first-hand how our structure was
used — where people congregated, which bamboo poles were used as a
playset, what we’d omitted (showers and changing rooms would have been
good). I will post more photos as soon as I have the chance.
Now I must jet off to the next big adventure, I myself can hardly
believe it — I leave tomorrow for Switzerland, where I’ll be spending
a semester abroad at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
(EPFL). Updates to follow!
love,
Laura
Hello all,
Every day there is rain. Clothes mildew; books seal themselves shut; fruitflies gather in droves. But this is normal, this is the rainforest: plants grow rampant, big, vibrant. Rain is no reason to call off a plan.
Rain does, however, impede progress. I was, perhaps, a bit over-zealous last week when I said that we’d be pouring foundations within a day or two. We dug our foundations, only to see them filled back up with water the next day. Finally, we poured the footings on Saturday, working into the night with a borrowed mixer and a gaggle of locals. The soccer field spotlights guided our way and we finished with cheers all around, triumphant that the beginning signaled the imperative of the end.
Yesterday morning, however, our high had vanished. Beyond the droning rain, our inability to self-assemble, and your average Monday malaise, we found bugs; insects boring holes in the bamboo, greatly diminishing its structural integrity. The bamboo had been treated with diesel fuel, which, beyond any environmentalist nay-sayers, had already been discouraged by bamboo experts as an inferior insect deterrent. A moment of panic washed over us: we had taken down the town’s only bleachers but were in a position to replace them with bamboo that would last two, maybe three years at most. Without the funds in hand to purchase proper bamboo and the unknown lurching into the present moment, we did the only responsible deed: we returned the bamboo. We will scale back the project if we must, but there is no sense in investing energy in something that will decay in a matter of months. This is only a hiccup in the lifespan of the project; we will gulp water and press on, the stronger for the knowledge.
(A little shout-out to Obama: on inauguration day we all took a mid-day break and huddled into a Tico bar, swilling Imperial and ushering in our new president. Hurrah!)
On our day off we donned our ponchos, as sticky as they are dry, and headed towards Cahuita National Park for a hike through the rainforest. I’d love to study ecosystems someday – the symbiosis of it all fascinates me, like the way nature responds to context: a tree does not ignore his neighboring obstacles, he merely accommodates them, absorbing them into his sphere of reality. I imagine architectural interventions could approach urban contexts similarly, responding to the confluence of local forces rather than blindly imposing their will.
“The jungle” was a point of departure for so many of my childhood daydreams, and the real shebang did not disappoint! We let our imaginations run wild, knowing full well that this was the land that had spawned Swamp Thing and other such monsters. Even without my sci-fi fantasies as a crutch, danger seemed to loom behind every bend. And monkeys attacked us! White-faced capuchins ran after us, attempting to capitalize on the tourist shtick by jumping into our bags and rooting around for food. Unsure of what to do, we screeched and stomped louder than they could, proving our domination in the most primal of ways. They scampered off, luckily, but we stayed alert. Later we came across a venomous yellow snake, coiled in the crook of a branch, inert yet watchful. So many animals: another snake – no, a branch! – no, a snake! and herons and furry caterpillars and flowers shaped like molars and parrots! The parrot was high in a tree, wrestling for its fruit, nearly falling but finally using the weight of the fruit to propel itself back upright – physics at its finest.
Okay, must run. The days are packed, but day by day we are learning the ropes, and our learning curve has yet to plateau.
Much love,
Laura
Hello again!
The start of another week looks promising. I am happy to say that
we’ve finally broken ground on our project. The backhoe tore through
the site Friday, and though we have yet to finalize the upper portion
of the design, the foundations will be poured within the next day or
two. By no means the ideal method of construction, our time
constraints require us to always be operating full steam ahead. In
some ways this course is an exercise in restraint: getting 30 people
to come to consensus requires us all to pick our battles wisely.
(Smile and nod). Late last week we met with the officials of the
municipality to request donations; we were quite the sight, arriving
in a crammed bus to the hilly one-restaurant town of Bribri. It’s the
primary town of the indigenous Bribris, and I bought homemade hot
chocolate mix of powdered cacao and cane sugar from the local stand
that turned out to be more flour than any of the former.
I’ve been working on the budget, which is never as fixed as we pretend
it is, but number-crunching forces us to reassess our design
priorities. We’re still over-budget, but I think we’re getting closer
- scaling back and wasting less material. The area is rapidly becoming
over-run with tourism, which is a shame except that there are several
shady developers and politicians who are willing to help finance our
project in exchange for brownie points with the locals.
Nature is impossible to avoid; it infiltrates everything here, like it
or not. Recently I heard someone say, “An abandoned house will not
stand,” and it holds true here: within five years a house will easily
succumb to the surrounding vines. There is an impermanence that
flutters through the culture, with vernacular housing that is rebuilt
on a four-year cycle. Western culture (and therefore our project)’s
yearning for longevity seems misplaced, but without the guarantee of
constant maintenance it still seems the best option. The local thatch
roofs take a week for material collection but only two days to build.
With such a quick, simple building it does not become a burden to
rebuild it every so often. The bamboo here must be cut when the moon
is full - though seemingly superstitious, like all legends it contains
nuggets of truth: the poles are most full of water at this point,
which keeps the nefarious termites away.
Sunday is our “free day,” and I’ve been adventuring (and spotting
wildlife!) right and left. Our first free day I trekked with some
buddies on a muddy trail meandering between the ocean and the jungle.
A craggy bluff emerged on the horizon and we made a beeline for the
beach. We eclipsed the shoreline in a magical moment of low-tide and
“discovered” a cave on the other side, getting sopping wet on the way.
I love exploring! This week we headed off to the Botanical Gardens
just past town. I posted pictures, which you can see here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10200482@N05/ There were so many funky
plants and animals, everywhere I turned I was surprised and amazed.
Poison red dart frogs everywhere! And I saw the strangest animal ever:
it loped like a deer, haunched like a rabbit, ate like an anteater,
and stood like a kangaroo. Any ideas as to what it might have been?
Hasta la proxima,
Laura
p.s. Best food of the week: “rondon,” a local soup with fish stock,
coconut, and root vegetable like yucca and cassava (the name
supposedly comes from the English “run down,” because it uses
leftovers).
Hello everyone!
We arrived last week, and still, everything is new. New new new.
I woke up today right before sunrise, and was too excited to lay in bed — our cabins are right on the beach!! I spent an hour walking along the shore, each minute a new discovery: big birds, bright flowers, chunks of coral, palm trees, etc. I´ve never been anywhere tropical before so even the humidity is a big surprise.
The wildlife is everywhere! As a city girl from farm country, I´ve adopted a practical attitude: if you can´t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Let them infiltrate my daily life. The most exciting wildlife so far has to be the howler monkeys. They sound like angry lions and threw banana leaves at us from The Road. “The Road” is exactly that; the only link between us and the next town over. It is sometimes paved, sometimes not, and certainly never adorned with sidewalks. Everyone walks in the street but ducks into the ditch when cars come screaming by. Today I also saw a sloth! A SLOTH! Photos will never do it justice; the magic was all in the way it moved. Somewhere between a grandmother and Yoda from Star Wars, its movements were primeval - lethargic yet determined.
As for the work, combining the ideas of 30 opinionated people has been surprisingly seamless thus far. We are still attempting to gain a better grasp of the parameters of the project, which may or may not include showers for the team, market stalls, community space, and a bus stop. With the tropical climate, anything exposed to rain will rot; on the other hand, walls only serve as an impediment to air flow and are (relatively) unnecessary. We will be constructing with bamboo, which is a completely new material for me. The challenge is to address these concerns with a structure that is both elegant and efficient. Compared to the adobe house in Mexico last year this project has less of the social imperative (hard to beat building a home for 11), but much more flexibility in the design of the project. Hopefully in the next week or so we will agree upon a final design and begin the construction process.
Well, I hope you all are happy and enjoying the new year.
(Pardon me while I head back to my hammock with a frothy piña colada)
Laura
p.s. I will send photos as they become available. Also, below is a link that appeared in the LA Times awhile back regarding the work we did last winter in Mexico:
http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-casita29-2008nov29,0,5853439.story
remembering through copying
Jan 15 - Feb 13, 2010 @ BEB Gallery
QR (“quick response”) code is a 2d bar code that allows users to quickly access information & websites, hardlinking the physical world to its digital avatar with the scan of a cell phone. The disembodied structure of technology is disconcerting, but its use-value is not predetermined. Though the digital revolution is no longer a question of maybe or “if,” our future is now, so put on your gloves, get back in the virtual saddle & claim this world.
This show marks the reverb of a show RISD|architecture organized for a conference on the role of the digital in architecture schools in July, 2009, in Florence, Italy, called Beyond Media: Visions // Spot on Schools. Copying, an act facilitated by the digital process, can never reproduce an identical. The copy of the copy of the copy becomes distorted as it loses fidelity. In honor of the previous show, we are here to celebrate that distortion. Mimesis is creation; there can be no original.
We are architects: we own stock in the corporeal; the concrete; the visible. And we are planners: we design; we posit; we hope. So let us use both hand + chip: bringing lo-fi back to high-tech, we hope to re-insert the hand in digital representation. Whether worked digitally & reworked manually or vice versa, understanding & controlling both processes affords the maker the greatest authorship. We stick our tongues out at our beeping, twittering, hyper-voyeuristic universe, all the while keeping the latest gizmo in our back pocket (alongside our sketchbook). Wielding both weapons, we are looking to roll with the punches & come out on top.
To access the code, pull out your iPhone, go to the App Store & download the free “qr app.” Now snap away.
ctrl+C/ ctrl+V//
Laura Blosser + Alexander McCargar
(An update from Laura Blosser, M.Arch 2010 who is on exchange at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland this semester). > Additional posts and updates from LB on DBL.
Time passes quickly.
Moreover, the time for completing all I desire has passed. Now I’m all judgment and edit, weighing ambition against sanity, overthrowing regulation and making time for guilty pleasures.
Projects continue. French forces my mouth to move in new directions. Language delights: ‘chuchoter’ sounds just like the whisper that it is, and ‘profond’ brings new depth (haha) to the English relationship between ‘profound’ and ‘background’ or ‘towards the back.’ I have a language buddy, and we get together and go halfies on English+French. It’s brilliant, really; we both get practice and have fun along the way. This week we wandered amongst the market stalls, picking up bouquets of tulips but turning up our noses at the frog thighs.
I made time, the weekend before last, for a journey to La Chaux-de-Fonds, the birthplace of the 20th century architectural titan Le Corbusier. Here, spring has arrived: crocuses are peeking up and daffodils are standing proud. Yet a mere hop and a skip down the tracks I was greeted with several inches of snow, high in the Jura mountains. I headed up hill towards the Villa Schwob, only to discover it’s available to the public a mere two days a month. This was not one of those two, so I placated myself with my brownbag lunch, staring at the curving yellow brick and questioning his formative years. How did Corb become the master of modernism? Was it all Paris and sheer brilliance, or did La Chaux-de-Fonds play a role? Burned to the ground at the turn of the 19th century, its tabula rasa was filled with a rational street grid, making it the only Swiss village to eschew Medieval meanderings. Art Nouveau balconies dot the town, and it seems clear that a penchant for the new infiltrated his bloodstream. I made my way towards some of his other first projects, the Maison Blanche, his house for his family. Though recently renovated for public access, I was the only person visiting. The guide gave me blue booties, but otherwise I was free to roam. Sunlight was streaming in the windows - the quality of light was so Palladian - so I took up a nook in the bay. And I just sat. I sat and thought and thought until finally I stopped thinking and just was, just enjoying the room. The guide prepared (free) coffee for us and told stories, and I stayed there until it was getting late.
The digital design course is taking form; we’ll be designing a pavilion for a film festival in June with aluminum paneling. I’ve been
learning how to computer program complex geometries, which is BrandNew for me. I’ve always shunned it, preferring chthonic forms. Light, material, and gravity, critical to architecture, remain firmly outside the computer screen. Yet, it’s hard to deny the raw power of the computer in managing data, and this course forces me to bridge the tactile and the abstract. I’ve been geeking out on the idea of
‘aperiodic tiling,’ where panels have an order but never repeat. Most are based on pentagons, the smallest polygon that can’t “fill” an area, but I think there’s a lot of potential in heptagons. Whoa, whoa! This gets too technical too fast! I’ll spare you the details, but just know that I think it’s cool.
Also! Today I was lucky enough to eat lunch with Kazuyo Sejima, half the force of the Japanese architectural darlings, SANAA. Well, before you get all jealous, it wasn’t one-on-one; there were 20 of us. SANAA is building a “learning center” for the university here (see
http://www.eikongraphia.com/?p=2647),
so she came to give a lecture. Decked out in the typical black uniform, her eyes were lively and kind as she struggled to find words in English. Next month she’ll give us a private tour of the building, I can’t wait!
So, as someone ever-sensitive to unwanted messages, I think I’m going to switch to blog-form, which you can find here:
http://laurablosser.wordpress.com. For those who prefer the tried-and-true epistolary exchange, just shoot me a message + I’ll keep ‘em coming straight to your inbox.
Oh, and I finally uploaded the final Costa Rica images to my flickr account (along with some of the Maison Blanche):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10200482@N05/?saved=1
with love,
laura
Laura Blosser (M.Arch ‘10), on exchange at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland this semester, keeps us posted about her semester. She and Miya Buxton (also M.Arch ‘10) will be there until June:
“Hoo boy! What a week! Nothing like “complete immersion” as an adjustment tactic.
After nearly a week of homework in the hostel, my trans-atlantic doppelganger (let’s call her Miya) and I finally moved into our new apartment last weekend. It’s a simple student apartment with only one bedroom, but it’s cheap and does the trick. We reserved half of Saturday for a trek to the nearest IKEA. IKEA is one of those strange places in the world, a real black hole. It seems amazing from the outside but once inside it just sucks you in and you feel like you’ll never get out of there alive. Half-way through you begin to hate all the pregnant cradle-shoppers and their screaming entourage. But you get out and once again it’s all smiles and amazement at the sheer quantity of cheap silverware you were able to purchase.
For some reason I had this romantic image of European students; since all stores close on Sundays they must not overwork themselves. So that is completely false. Architecture students are the same everywhere, so naturally sleep is removed from the agenda. The studio is set up differently from what I’m used to — there is one professor with four assistants, and the students have access to a studio but often work from home. The entire set up is different, really. The course objective here runs the gamut of the design process — from choosing and analyzing a site, through schematic design, and into full-scale mockups of potential details. Generally in school we stay stuck in schematic development, so I’m excited to see the process through a little further. We had a big push for studio this Friday to complete a “feasibility study” for our proposed interventions — lots of maps and diagrams on powerpoint — a far cry from the ‘process’ oriented RISD presentations, where trace paper is an acceptable medium. The thought process here is direct and (dare I say it?) conventional, with an emphasis on efficiency and clarity. The intelligence comes from time management and an ability to produce, not from innovative ways of reinterpreting geometries. My partner is a real live Swiss person + knows all the background info on the area, which is helpful (plus I get to practice my French!). The skills I’ll learn this semester seem especially pertinent to the job market, but not necessarily to my <capital D> Design Sensibilities; hopefully I’ll be able to integrate the two. I’ve attached a photo of our psychotically grey site model, along with the lampshade I whipped up from our laser-cut scraps — I love ‘non-designed’ mini-projects borne out of necessity. Our studio project is working to transform the watchmaking industrial zone of Geneva into a more vibrant area, especially after the work day has ended. Our professor wears pin-stripe suits to class (!) and suggested that instead of our proposed theater, we’d do better to design a brothel. We may compromise with a casino.
… I spent yesterday recouping from the week’s work — pajamas and tea until after noon, when I went exploring. Topographically Lausanne is simple: it’s one big hill. You’re either walking uphill or down, always, with the exception of an additional valley running parallel to the lake, the valley of an ancient stream. It makes for pretty dynamic sections of the city, with bridges and level changes everywhere. I’m kind of in love with it. I hiked up to the top of the city, where there is a giant park with ramparts unfurling down the hill, overlooking France + the Alps. The nearby museum had an exhibit on Christo + Jeanne-Claude and even though I don’t find their work especially revolutionary, I’m impressed with their ability to manifest large scale landscape interventions by garnering private support. It’s curious; Christo still does project propaganda by collaging over photographs, which seems locked into a 20th century view of technology. Admittedly I appreciate the aesthetic, but the acceptance of photography but not computers strikes me as odd.
Alright, gearing up for the next week!”
(Thanks to Laura for the thorough update; AL for the contribution)
Hello all,
I’m cozy in Providence, remarking on the wonders of dry clothes and
the crackling smell of winter, lamenting the necessity of
moisturizers, baffled by the astonishing variety of milks in the
supermarket, and throwing toilet paper in the wrong basket.
You’re all probably wondering how the project ended. Well. The rains
never ceased. After I last wrote the gods continued to dump buckets
and buckets of water on our hamlet. I’m not talking about the
occasional drizzle; I’m talking about relentless twelve-hour
downpours. We couldn’t use power tools in the rain, and thus were
rendered powerless to the rains. Each morning we grew more glum, our
hopes of finishing washing away with the rains. We edited out half our
bleachers, knowing they’d be left with foundations only. The water
rose and rose over the week, so much so that one morning our abode
flooded. Two inches of water slowly crept past our patio and into our
kitchen until our floor glistened with a disconcerting sheen. All was
calm, but ill at ease until finally the slow watery ache began to
dissipate.
Monday broke the spell, gracing us with sunlight. (Never have I been
more thrilled with a forecast of ‘partly cloudy.’) We began to work,
as tirelessly as the previous rains. Within a day the main structure
of the community center was up, renewing a modicum of faith. The
threat of rain loomed, yet we allowed ourselves to dream a little, to
wonder what could be done if the rains could be staved off. So we cast
our dice and decided to go ahead with the full set of bleachers. Luck,
finally, was on our side and after two clear days, working sun-up to
sun-down, we finally hit the full potency of our thirtysome.
Throughout, the learning process has centered on ways to maximize
efficiency among 30 students, knowing when to stay mum and how to
dance between authority and obeisance. Both the community center and
the structure for the second set of bleachers went up faster than
anyone had imagined, so we began to put pressure on the bleacher crew
to install the wood bleachers. It was our final working day, Thursday,
and the bleachers were the only element that remained unfinished.
Though the boxes for the bleachers were constructed, they resisted
installation, citing the recent pour of the footings. We went ahead
and tested the footing with an expansion bolt and sure enough, the
back end sheared off. So, much to our chagrin, we were forced to leave
the final bolts unbolted. Local contractors have committed to
finishing the job, and it should be a simple half-day’s work, weather
permitting.
Thursday evening (our last night in Costa Rica) we had the
‘ribbon-cutting ceremony,’ so to speak, with the local community. The
whole southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica is basically one small
town, pulled and stretched along the coastline. Everyone showed up,
from the soccer coach to the masseuse to the mayor. A friendly soccer
match started off the night, followed by a huge pot of stew. We danced
the night away on our new boardwalk, grins and thankyous all around.
It was our first chance to catch our breath in a week of hard work,
and we had the opportunity to see first-hand how our structure was
used — where people congregated, which bamboo poles were used as a
playset, what we’d omitted (showers and changing rooms would have been
good). I will post more photos as soon as I have the chance.
Now I must jet off to the next big adventure, I myself can hardly
believe it — I leave tomorrow for Switzerland, where I’ll be spending
a semester abroad at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
(EPFL). Updates to follow!
love,
Laura
Hello all,
Every day there is rain. Clothes mildew; books seal themselves shut; fruitflies gather in droves. But this is normal, this is the rainforest: plants grow rampant, big, vibrant. Rain is no reason to call off a plan.
Rain does, however, impede progress. I was, perhaps, a bit over-zealous last week when I said that we’d be pouring foundations within a day or two. We dug our foundations, only to see them filled back up with water the next day. Finally, we poured the footings on Saturday, working into the night with a borrowed mixer and a gaggle of locals. The soccer field spotlights guided our way and we finished with cheers all around, triumphant that the beginning signaled the imperative of the end.
Yesterday morning, however, our high had vanished. Beyond the droning rain, our inability to self-assemble, and your average Monday malaise, we found bugs; insects boring holes in the bamboo, greatly diminishing its structural integrity. The bamboo had been treated with diesel fuel, which, beyond any environmentalist nay-sayers, had already been discouraged by bamboo experts as an inferior insect deterrent. A moment of panic washed over us: we had taken down the town’s only bleachers but were in a position to replace them with bamboo that would last two, maybe three years at most. Without the funds in hand to purchase proper bamboo and the unknown lurching into the present moment, we did the only responsible deed: we returned the bamboo. We will scale back the project if we must, but there is no sense in investing energy in something that will decay in a matter of months. This is only a hiccup in the lifespan of the project; we will gulp water and press on, the stronger for the knowledge.
(A little shout-out to Obama: on inauguration day we all took a mid-day break and huddled into a Tico bar, swilling Imperial and ushering in our new president. Hurrah!)
On our day off we donned our ponchos, as sticky as they are dry, and headed towards Cahuita National Park for a hike through the rainforest. I’d love to study ecosystems someday – the symbiosis of it all fascinates me, like the way nature responds to context: a tree does not ignore his neighboring obstacles, he merely accommodates them, absorbing them into his sphere of reality. I imagine architectural interventions could approach urban contexts similarly, responding to the confluence of local forces rather than blindly imposing their will.
“The jungle” was a point of departure for so many of my childhood daydreams, and the real shebang did not disappoint! We let our imaginations run wild, knowing full well that this was the land that had spawned Swamp Thing and other such monsters. Even without my sci-fi fantasies as a crutch, danger seemed to loom behind every bend. And monkeys attacked us! White-faced capuchins ran after us, attempting to capitalize on the tourist shtick by jumping into our bags and rooting around for food. Unsure of what to do, we screeched and stomped louder than they could, proving our domination in the most primal of ways. They scampered off, luckily, but we stayed alert. Later we came across a venomous yellow snake, coiled in the crook of a branch, inert yet watchful. So many animals: another snake – no, a branch! – no, a snake! and herons and furry caterpillars and flowers shaped like molars and parrots! The parrot was high in a tree, wrestling for its fruit, nearly falling but finally using the weight of the fruit to propel itself back upright – physics at its finest.
Okay, must run. The days are packed, but day by day we are learning the ropes, and our learning curve has yet to plateau.
Much love,
Laura
Hello again!
The start of another week looks promising. I am happy to say that
we’ve finally broken ground on our project. The backhoe tore through
the site Friday, and though we have yet to finalize the upper portion
of the design, the foundations will be poured within the next day or
two. By no means the ideal method of construction, our time
constraints require us to always be operating full steam ahead. In
some ways this course is an exercise in restraint: getting 30 people
to come to consensus requires us all to pick our battles wisely.
(Smile and nod). Late last week we met with the officials of the
municipality to request donations; we were quite the sight, arriving
in a crammed bus to the hilly one-restaurant town of Bribri. It’s the
primary town of the indigenous Bribris, and I bought homemade hot
chocolate mix of powdered cacao and cane sugar from the local stand
that turned out to be more flour than any of the former.
I’ve been working on the budget, which is never as fixed as we pretend
it is, but number-crunching forces us to reassess our design
priorities. We’re still over-budget, but I think we’re getting closer
- scaling back and wasting less material. The area is rapidly becoming
over-run with tourism, which is a shame except that there are several
shady developers and politicians who are willing to help finance our
project in exchange for brownie points with the locals.
Nature is impossible to avoid; it infiltrates everything here, like it
or not. Recently I heard someone say, “An abandoned house will not
stand,” and it holds true here: within five years a house will easily
succumb to the surrounding vines. There is an impermanence that
flutters through the culture, with vernacular housing that is rebuilt
on a four-year cycle. Western culture (and therefore our project)’s
yearning for longevity seems misplaced, but without the guarantee of
constant maintenance it still seems the best option. The local thatch
roofs take a week for material collection but only two days to build.
With such a quick, simple building it does not become a burden to
rebuild it every so often. The bamboo here must be cut when the moon
is full - though seemingly superstitious, like all legends it contains
nuggets of truth: the poles are most full of water at this point,
which keeps the nefarious termites away.
Sunday is our “free day,” and I’ve been adventuring (and spotting
wildlife!) right and left. Our first free day I trekked with some
buddies on a muddy trail meandering between the ocean and the jungle.
A craggy bluff emerged on the horizon and we made a beeline for the
beach. We eclipsed the shoreline in a magical moment of low-tide and
“discovered” a cave on the other side, getting sopping wet on the way.
I love exploring! This week we headed off to the Botanical Gardens
just past town. I posted pictures, which you can see here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10200482@N05/ There were so many funky
plants and animals, everywhere I turned I was surprised and amazed.
Poison red dart frogs everywhere! And I saw the strangest animal ever:
it loped like a deer, haunched like a rabbit, ate like an anteater,
and stood like a kangaroo. Any ideas as to what it might have been?
Hasta la proxima,
Laura
p.s. Best food of the week: “rondon,” a local soup with fish stock,
coconut, and root vegetable like yucca and cassava (the name
supposedly comes from the English “run down,” because it uses
leftovers).
Hello everyone!
We arrived last week, and still, everything is new. New new new.
I woke up today right before sunrise, and was too excited to lay in bed — our cabins are right on the beach!! I spent an hour walking along the shore, each minute a new discovery: big birds, bright flowers, chunks of coral, palm trees, etc. I´ve never been anywhere tropical before so even the humidity is a big surprise.
The wildlife is everywhere! As a city girl from farm country, I´ve adopted a practical attitude: if you can´t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Let them infiltrate my daily life. The most exciting wildlife so far has to be the howler monkeys. They sound like angry lions and threw banana leaves at us from The Road. “The Road” is exactly that; the only link between us and the next town over. It is sometimes paved, sometimes not, and certainly never adorned with sidewalks. Everyone walks in the street but ducks into the ditch when cars come screaming by. Today I also saw a sloth! A SLOTH! Photos will never do it justice; the magic was all in the way it moved. Somewhere between a grandmother and Yoda from Star Wars, its movements were primeval - lethargic yet determined.
As for the work, combining the ideas of 30 opinionated people has been surprisingly seamless thus far. We are still attempting to gain a better grasp of the parameters of the project, which may or may not include showers for the team, market stalls, community space, and a bus stop. With the tropical climate, anything exposed to rain will rot; on the other hand, walls only serve as an impediment to air flow and are (relatively) unnecessary. We will be constructing with bamboo, which is a completely new material for me. The challenge is to address these concerns with a structure that is both elegant and efficient. Compared to the adobe house in Mexico last year this project has less of the social imperative (hard to beat building a home for 11), but much more flexibility in the design of the project. Hopefully in the next week or so we will agree upon a final design and begin the construction process.
Well, I hope you all are happy and enjoying the new year.
(Pardon me while I head back to my hammock with a frothy piña colada)
Laura
p.s. I will send photos as they become available. Also, below is a link that appeared in the LA Times awhile back regarding the work we did last winter in Mexico:
http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-casita29-2008nov29,0,5853439.story
