Architecture Archives - Near Future Laboratory

Cinema City

Or…in this case, cinematic architecture. Jonathan Rennie presented a project yesterday that I found most fitting in the vein of design fiction / architecture fiction. For the studio class run by Geoff Manaugh (@bldgblog) called Cinema City, a graduate studio that starts with this brief and asks the students to consider what they may. There were some interesting projects. This one in particular stood out for me. It was an unconventional approach in an architecture class to present a series of fictions about the future of cinema.

Continuous Machinic Cinema

This project explores a particular narrative for the future of cinema and, in turn, it proposes new possibilities for the moving image and its place, content, viewers & screen.

The project proposes a scenario of technological discovery and development where:

** Guerilla film distribution occurs in new places via Lawn Bowl and Shot-put film grenades;

** With anamorphic lenses the perpendicular hegemony of conventional cinema watching is broken;

A shift in content to QR coded cinema is predicted and, in turn..

** A future point where non-narrative images are viewed by post-human machine optics is proposed, with screens affecting the fabric of the city.

The project is a sneak preview for a future of cinema, proposing a continuous cinema that is freed from both the spatial confines of the movie house and the literary expectations of narrative — told by and to non-human machines.

In the first proposal, guerilla film distribution is done by throwing film grenades, a “weapon” first proposed by the Soviets and designed to be surreptitiously deployed during the Olympics. The weapons are found again by Jonathan during his project research, including documentation and some diagrams describing the clandestine Soviet project.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nearfuturelaboratory/5262610888/in/photostream/

In the second proposal, Skynet — an extraterrestrial orbital satellite platform — finds QR codes in the landscape of earth. The QR codes embed stories and films that the satellites share with one another. Over time, as they see the same films over and over again and become bored — they begin to look for QR codes elsewhere, perhaps interpreting barcode-like structures in the landscape at different wavelengths — for instance an infrared folliage rendering may appear to contain QR codes. They seek out new films in this way, perhaps even instructing terrestrial machines, such as the cranes at loading docks or tractors in large farm fields, to construct new QR codes containing new cinema and stories.

Jonathan also ginned up a sort of graphic novella/short story to go along with the proposal so that each QR code that you see in his poster documentation points to a page in the comic. You can see the full graphic novella here: QR Cinema

Why do I blog this? This is one of those architecture projects that plays at the far end of the spectrum of architecture’s inherent speculative nature. The spectrum runs from the pragmatic *planning what will be* (traditional floor-plan stuff) all the way across to *speculating to help think* (architecture fiction), with *proposing (cardboard models, photoshop site renderings, camera-tracked little films showing the space as it would be) somewhere in the middle.

I enjoy considering the spectrum of realizations as things move from idea to their material form. In this case, Jonathan has used the architectural brief to propose a speculation about machines reading the landscape to interpret meaning, or to watch movies that are referred to by the QR codes they (think?) they see. This is using the landscape as an interface, which I find super intriguing.

What does this help us think about? Well — it’s a fun Sci-Fi comic he’s done here, so there’s that on its own. Aside from this, we can start to think about Cyphertecture — embedding machine-readable (or maybe only-for-machine) texts in physical structures. Like, for example, this bit of landscape cyphertecture from several years ago

Space Invaders upper right..Cylon Raider bottom left.

Geoff has the more lucid discussion of this point, but suppose cornice details became machine readable physical cuts and bumps that would represent some meaning for, say…Google Street View cars? I’m not saying this is entirely practical, but I could see a day when bold marks like this that are required to exist (for any number of reasons — local services to identify what building they are at definitively, etc.) on new structures. This then becomes turned into an aesthetic to make it more pleasing as a facade, and so on. In any case — Jonathan’s work certainly gives me things to think about in an entirely fun, imaginative way.
Continue reading Cinema City

Interactive Architecture Crits

So, I just have to say — academic architects? Wow..what a surly bunch. Continue reading Interactive Architecture Crits

Undisciplinarity (essay in book)

The book that resulted from the ‘inter_multi_trans_actions: emerging trends in post-disciplinary creative practice’ symposium at Napier University in Edinburgh, Scotland on Thursday 26 June, 2008 is nearing publication.

The book ‘Digital Blur: Creative Practice at the Boundaries of Architecture, Design and Art’ edited by Paul Rodgers and Michael Smyth will now be published by Libri Publishing following Middlesex University’s decision to close Middlesex University Press.

According to Amazon the book is due on 31 March, 2010.

The book contains an essay by John Marshall and myself that is preambled thus:

Marshall and Bleecker, in their essay, propose the term ‘undisciplinary’ for the type of work prevalent in this book. That is, creative practice which straddles ground and relationships between art, architecture, design and technology and where different idioms of distinct and disciplinary practices can be brought together. This is clearly evident in the processes and projects of the practitioners’ work here. Marshall and Bleecker view these kinds of projects and experiences as beyond disciplinary practice resulting in a multitude of disciplines ‘engaging in a pile-up, a knot of jumbled ideas and perspectives.’ To Marshall and Bleecker, ‘undisciplinarity is as much a way of doing work as it is a departure from ways of doing work.’ They claim it is a way of working and an approach to creating and circulating culture that can go its own way, without worrying about working outside of what histories-of-disciplines say is ‘proper’ work. In other words, it is ‘undisciplined’. In this culture of practice, they continue, one cannot be wrong, nor have practice elders tell you how to do what you want to do and this is a good thing because it means new knowledge is created all at once rather than incremental contributions made to a body of existing knowledge. These new ways of working make necessary new practices, new unexpected processes and projects come to be, almost by definition. This is important because we need more playful and habitable worlds that the old forms of knowledge production are ill-equipped to produce. For Marshall and Bleecker, it is an epistemological shift that offers new ways of fixing the problems the old disciplinary and extra-disciplinary practices created in the first place. The creative practitioners contained within the pages of this book clearly meet the ‘undisciplinary’ criteria suggested by Marshall and Bleecker in that they certainly do not need to be told how or what to do; they do not adhere to conventional disciplinary boundaries nor do they pay heed to procedural steps and rules. However, they know what’s good, and what’s bad and they instinctively know what the boundaries are and where the limits of the disciplines lie.

”

(Via Designed Objects.)

Continue reading Undisciplinarity (essay in book)

Once Upon A Place.. Architecture + Fiction Event

Matthew Malpass turned me onto this curious sounding and intriguing event Once Upon A Place (haunted houses & imaginary cities) — the 1st International Conference on Architecture and Fiction, which might count as a “that’s weird” / “plate of shrimp” moment because I was just describing to Jeffrey Paffendorf, who I just met, why I was interested in architecture — and the answer is because, from my still-limited insights, most architects construct quite lovely fictions of things in the sense that these ideas of theirs will likely be materialized only in imagery and stories and renderings, which I think is a powerful skill and ability.

So.

I love the sound of this event and what it might actually contain. And I’m sure Portugal is lovely in the Fall..

Designed for Transparency

New York City.

Knife shop. Madrid, Spain.

Two curious examples of “everything-ness.” The first is this “Everything Electrical” company which does, well — everything having to do with electrical installations and so forth. They also have these interesting trucks which are made to be easily loaded and off-loaded at work sites or at the warehouse. I like this design, where the “black box” of the normally closed, obscured truck is opened from three sides. Transparency and efficiency of some sort are in effect here. There’s something quite intriguing about this. Similarly, the knife/scissor/tool shop found in Madrid attempts a similar sort of draw, showing all the fascinating kinds of cutters and so forth are displayed in the open, behind glass and in enormous, visual assortment.

Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York City.

Finally, the intriguing architectural frontice of the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York City, with its mechanisms for opening itself up to the street in an atypical manner, with flaps and square portholes raises this question itself. What are the ways that digital contexts can learn from the physical mechanisms of transparency, openness and an ability to draw people’s attention in creative ways? How does openness and transparency translate to frankness and trust.

Why do I blog this? Some visual examples of different strategies for creating physical transparency, something that is strangely absent in digital contexts. Things are either there in front or have to be rooted around for — the “storefront” metaphor in a digital setting hits a number of, err…brick walls when translating these settings. The question here to consider are strategies and tactics for creating digital forms of transparency and display.

Continue reading Designed for Transparency

Urban Historical Infrastructure Layers

A strange reveal within the historical layers of this New York City post office building. Changes in typography standards forced the new layer? Found here.

Another form of layering within the infrastructure and architecture of the city. A new bit of building fitted upon the old. In this case, some fancy condo module plopped on top of an older light industrial building in Brooklyn, err….DUMBO.

NYC Highline Park evolved from an old abandoned stretch of train track that sits one story above the ground. An elevated light industrial infrastructure repurposed for public and pedestrian usage. Found hereabouts. Still a very delicate, very monitored thing. Feels more like walking about a museum exhibit (don’t step there, for godsake! what’re you doing! stop that..!) than a park. Partially understandable, sure, but like china still which turns it from a park into something else.

Three curious examples of a kind of infrastructural sedimentation, found in New York City and Brooklyn. The first one shows a broken portion of a (ugly) sign that had been placed over the original art deco style lettering on a behemoth post office. The next is a (ugly) fancy condominium module that has been plopped on top of an old light industrial / warehouse building in the now Tony / over-the-top section of Brooklyn’s “DUMBO” (down underneath the manhattan bridge overpass) section. Finally, The Highline, a new urban park that was found within an old abandoned stretch of train track that sits one story above ground, along the westside of Manhattan, around Chelsea-ish.

The first example of the Post Office signage feels like one of those things where an old infrastructure is long forgotten and is then revealed and someone in the office of infrastructure, or probably a local resident with a civic interest says — hey, that old art deco chiseled into that building? It’s historical! And, it’s cool type. Lets reveal it all! And someone writes a little pithy, clever blurb in the “Around Town” section of the New Yorker, interviewing someone from the company that’s going to remove the old sign. I’d put a fin down saying that’s what’ll happen within the next 2-3 years. There’ll be some revival of sorts to continue this tendency in NYC of rehabilitating and making more habitable the city and its views. In any case, the layers here are quite a stark contrast it seems. I wonder why the sign was put up in the first place. Maybe it was easier to let the sign be dirty, as it inevitably will become from the street exhausts and so forth, because of its dark background.

This second example of historical and material sediment in Brooklyn shows a Continue reading Urban Historical Infrastructure Layers

Functionally Finished Architecture

Some curious structures and dwellings seen in the very touristy town of Agua Caliente, which serves as the out-and-about place just at the base of the mountain where Machu Picchu rests. The town is under heavy construction for nice, small refined hotel rooms for tourists to stay in comfort. There are many hostels tucked in whatever corner can be found. Mostly an incredible number of restaurants offering up to 4-for-1 drinks specials and Pizza Gigante, both of which were the most tempting things swirling in my head after four dry days on the trail. (Our food was quite good, btw, and hot chocolate from powder after 8 hours of trekking never tasted so good.)

I found the top building the most peculiar. It looks as though it is unfinished by my own standards, but it is clear that it is pretty much done. The top right habitat appears to be a kind of porch, open to the outside. It’s finished, in that it’s been painted and the wall appointed with a nice painting or something. I tried to find evidence of renovation to account for the fact that there’s basically a missing wall with a perilous drop, but this is just how the structure is architected. There is no OSHA standard kind of safety rail or bannister, very much like the Inca Trail where there are no real measures to prevent a loss of balance resulting in a drop down hundreds of meters. Truly a mountain home.

The usual kinds of reconstruction to accommodate the bustling tourist trade, including some new hotel at the end of the road and re-channeling the river for some reason.