Week 4

Afternoon: lecture on how to write PDP. This almost immediately proved fruitless when it was announced Leslie did not know what was required of the PDP and there were not enough handouts for group activities that had been planned so the lecture was cut short. Conclusion continue to write my PDP in this way

Wednesday- 2nd dissertation meeting in preparation for 1000 word submission, Result of which; Good title, much more focused than previously, notebook should be typed up in an effort to condense my notes and provide clarity.
Rest of the night spent experimenting with models for my anchor

Thursday- Tutorial- assessment of idea; using perspective and mirrors to create selective illusions for the different users of the anchor.
Idea was good but needs a lot of work doing to catch up and develop, Gary gave me a Journal ( AR oct8 09) which gave me several ideas for how to outline and present the scheme as a whole. 1 week until Crit and Germany trip need to be organised; week plan:
- Friday; revisit site in York for photos more specific to idea,then further development of idea
- Saturday; A0 Planometric of entire scheme
- Sunday; write up 1000 words of plan for dissertation
- Monday; Review and correct 1000 words before submission. Rest of the day spent on measured drawing
- Tuesday: Lectures, rest of the day on measured drawing and constructing presentation sheet
- Wednesday: Finish Sheet and build model, pack for Germany
- Thursday: Presentation and depart for Germany

Friday- Site Visit to York, went well, good weather got most of the photo’s needed (in future don’t buy cheap batteries that only allow 5shots per 2)

Saturday- Morning spent in studio attempting to print A0 map in preparation for planometric drawing, rest of the day spent learning to draw the planometric.

Sunday- Notes condensed and typed up. The rest of the day was spent writing up the 1000 words: a plan of the dissertation broken down into chapters in a logical progressive order.

Week review:
Beginning of week wasn’t as productive as hoped but making plans on Thursday and the realisation that there was very limited time to prepare for crit, Germany and submit 1000 words meant that at the end of the week making a timetable and having no option but to stick to it allowed me to be much more productive.

Book Review:
THE Virtual Dimension- architecture, representation and crash culture.
- John Beckmann
Architecture in the age of it virtual disappearance - an interview with Paul Virilio by Andreas Ruby
- architecture in a primary sense has to deal with statistics, resistance of materials, equilibrium and gravity.
-architects work with mass and energy of a building and its structure
- architectural features being replaced by technology i.e stairs with escalators, the architect being replaced by engineer.
- architecture takes place in the 3d. virtual allows for expansion into new dimensions.
-'virtuality... haunting architecture'
- new fictional dimension should be built just as one builds houses.
-architecture in :realspace materiality of architecture :virtualspace transmission of electromagnetic signs.
- architecture no longer subject to gravity but instead electromagnetism.
-architecture will continue to exist but in a state of disappearance, there but unseen.



ANTItechtonics: the poetics of virtuality - William J. Mitchell
Architecture in the real world: physical construction, mass, tactility
architecture of the virtual
*no material to transform- no weathering
*forms and relationships of space are not necessarily stable
*not rooted in the ground
*consist of a light weight enclosing membrane
*joints dont matter
*surfaces have no thickness, fitted together with mathematical precision
- No room for ingenuity in the details
- structural expression and honesty lose all meaning
- no distinction between vertical and horizontal

Retired: tectonics, craft, handtools, local tradition, facade, ornament, helevetica, parti, permanence, learning from luxor(stone)
Rewired: electronics, CAD/CAM, software, global organisation, interface, electronic display, emigre, genome, reconfigurability, learning from luxor(VR)

Week 3

Tuesday- lectures with Keith Basements.
-overview of basement types.
typeA- external tanking
typeB- Monolithic
typeC- drained cavity
-overview of pile types
contiguous
secant
alternatives : sheet steel piling, Diaphragm walls
-overview of underpinning
jack piles
needle beams
cantilevered needle beams

Case Study of Ryland library Manchester Uni.

Lecture was concise, gave clear diagrams of how each type works, photographs where relevant, and details of the case study.



Afternoon - situationists

The Situationists

Phase 1
- some influence on a few groups,
- held several exhibitions,
- all about politics and opinion,
- ideas published through magazines
- hated modernists
- New Babylon, an inhabitable container that could be infinitely expanded for mass produced environments.
- Didn’t like technology and consumerisms as saw it as stifling creativity
- Didn’t think houses should be ugly just because they were cheap.
Phase 2
- The drift- large groups wandering around cities; psycogeographical surveys. Combination of chance and planning
- New ways of mapping on paper; collages of old maps, photos etc. in attempts to make maps with feeling.
- Liked to trespass and attend warehouse parties, explored in aimless hitch hiking
- Liked being drunk
Phase 3
- Aspired to reconstruct the city
- Construct ‘situations’ – combinations of environment and people to produce a transcendent revolutionary consciousness
- 2 approaches – New Babylon and “detournement”



Thursday- Tutorial, Bridge idea reject and new approach was suggested, Not to completely open up the area as I had suggested but instead find a middle ground between that leaving the residential area sealed off, Allow the residents full access between both sides but then use the anchor to filter out tourists.
Saturday – Alexisonfire played Leeds Refectory

Week review-
Somewhat unproductive, no progress made on dissertation, design work was made invalid after tutorial although the practice on CAD and 3dsmax was useful as well as the practice sketching.
Need to be more focused and task orientated so that I can achieve more in the week and also have much more of my designs resolved for tutorials, also need to set aside more time for dissertation

Book review
title: Out of Site: Fictional Architectural Spaces
Publisher: New museum of contemporary art (2002)
Summary and analysis:
-Artists creating fictional architectural spaces and topographies using architectural constructs to investigate how the growth of digital culture virtual reality and global expansion.
-represent exploration of navigating space, both physically and digitally
- no longer distinguish 'real' from 'virtual' or dont find the distinction meaningful.
- urban reality is not single but multiple 'city in a city, secret cultures and societies.'
-architecture of internet and tech. mediated extension of transparent architecture of Michel Foucault .

Week 2 Review

Week 2-

• Tuesday- Lectures

Keith, Structures of roofing Systems, with emphasis on not using flat roofs.



Dan, Synergistics; selective and exclusive systems also CHP.

Book Review
title: Hybrid Space - new forms in digital Architecture
author: P.Zellner
publisher: Thames & Hudson (1999)
Summary & analysis:
Introduction; looks at cultural and social revolution in relation to digital technologies and how they are transforming the field of architecture.
Digital infrastructures inscribed on our mechanical and urban patterns. Architecture becoming an experiment in topological geometries, kinematic sculpting of space.
Blurring relationships between matter and data, real & virtual, organic & inorganic.
Buildings approached from both visual & non visual. users are becoming static, only able to visualize and interact through workstations.
Co-terminus Territories, the real and the virtual. Virtual is Real but not actual, ideal but never abstract. twinning of virtual and real in architecture isn't specific to our time or tech.- i.e. mirror galleries.
Unification of disparate spaces. topology - applies to torus but not a sphere...-relationship between man made and natural

Examples and Case Studies:
NoX: -develop dynamic, mutabke ad evolving design techniques
-design as highly plastic, flexible art in which the building evolves.
-liquid architecture
-'digital genetic engineering'
-forms that exist in the transitional area between biological life and metallic & electronic fauna of modern tech.
- 'matter and space are fused with thier representation in media, where all form is blended with information'
-'soft architecture'
Two trends in arch.

• softness of form, physical turbulence literalised and understood as a phenomenological model of spatialization
• fluidity within the program, softness experienced indirectly through systems of circulation and internal spatial arangement.

Stephen Perrella
Mobius House-
- exploration of hypersurface and how we dwell in relation to communications media
- neither interior space nor and exterior form
- intermingling of; tech. , consciousness, instrumentalities(form and space),economy, representations(images), identities.
to form a deep, dense swirling topology of real and mediated human affiliations: known as Hyperspace theory
-new heterogeneous interactive realms of human experience that bridge real and virtual
- rather than use another dimension it is suggested that the virtual folds into our 3
-cartesian notions of space-time are no longer relevant to architectural development.
- 'real and ideal aren't separate realms, the divisions sustained by transcendental metaphysics, both divisions now impleat'
Hypersurface Panel Studies-
-attempts to create physical representations of the hypersurface

Decoi
Aegis-
- exterior 'skin' to translate the interior of a theatre to the exterior as a fluid pattern
Hysteria Protera Electroglyphs-
-trapping lines derived from the rotation of animated amorphous forms.

The Attila Foundation (Kas Oosterhuis)
transPORTs2001-
- capture intertwinning of physical and virtual
- spaceframe formed of pneumatic bars individually controlled like muscle tissue.
- Co- evolving Sentient technologies, techno-ecologies and body buildings.

Reiser and Umeoto
-relationship between theory, tech. and architectural practice
- binary opposition between; structure and ornament, programme and form, topology and performance.

Macros Novak
- mathematical modeling of dataspace
- how physical space is being transform by virtual space
- 'liquid architecture'
- 'transarchitectures'

• Wednesday; Dissertation tutorial

Went well, discussions about virtual tech. and experiences of reality.
Results of Tutorial: Possibilities for subjects/titles
-What is reality?/What is Architecture? - is too vast for dissertation
- comparison of real and virtual hierarchies - virtual has a hierarchy based on programming ability
- investigation into illusions and whether they are obsolete in a virtual world
Next tutorial on the 21st; should have
-title/question and outline
- precedent and background
(look into International Journal of Architectural Computing)

• Thursday; Studio day

Presentation of photo-montage:
did not go well, poor presentation and montage was not what tutors had hoped for. need to verbalize ideas better. Need to write down and practice what i am wanting to say/convey.

Results of photo-montage:
start presentation with a verbal/visual hook.
redo photo- montage with aim to use it as a diagram showing strength of the link and the insignificance of the wall.

For next week:
Landscape strategy
measured drawing; Anchor 1:50, Site
Group: 1:50 model of wall

Week 1 review

Week 1 -

• Tuesday- Intro to lectures; Keith doing Structures, this week reviewed structure types
  
  
  
  . New lecturer Dan on synergistics, this week was an intro to synergistics.










• Thursday- Site visit to York for 1st part of AD3.1;
  

City walls divide city into 3 distinct sections- inside the wall, outside the wall, on the walls.

Intention: enriching the City
Reaction: Photomontage to show personal interpretation of the issues of the site and the historical context.

Action Plan

Skills Assessment:

• Drawing: needs improvement on accuracy, speed and style? especially regarding drawing of facades and perspectives. Can be achieved through practice on whilst developing design projects.
• Sketching: needs improving in style and depiction of life. Practice is required, can be done as part of design work as well as in spare time.
  
• Handwriting: Generally needs improvement also need to learn to write in varying fonts. Mainly can be achieved through exercises in free time as well as on design drawings.
• Computer Skills: Typing and Photoshop are ok and will be maintained through continuous use. AutoCAD and 3D studio need practice and improvement, which can be achieved by using them along side drawings during design process. Need to relearn ArchiCAD and Revit and practice on them, possibly select preferred program to continue practicing because of time constraints.
• Reading: Skills are Fine just need to find more time to read.
• Research: needs to be more efficient and use more Books and journals with less reliance on the internet, also need to learn to pick relevant sources with more ease. This will be achieved through practice whilst researching dissertation and Tech. Case study.
• Time Management: BiG problem with time management and making best use of my time. I will need to make a weekly timetable and stick to it as much as possible, it will need to take into account uni work, deadlines, free time and social/living requirements.

BA(hons) Arch, 3rd year: PDP- intro....

I have chosen to use this blog for my PDP. So far i am on week four of 3rd year and have decided to move my pdp online so that it is easily accessible and harder to lose.
The 1st several post will be catching up with the previous weeks and the corresponding dates may not be correct.