Condencity_15 empty space

As the long shadows of winter set in we are reminded that empty public space is often full of urban hope. Really, the 2008 completion and opening of the New Jewish Museum in San Francisco offers precisely that. Its emptiness striking; seldom unused at times, well designed benches stoically face Mission Street; awaiting. Having said this, it really is an inviting space. I’ve crossed this newly crowned plaza on a number of occasions over the past year since its grand anticipated opening. A hopeful public place and for once, a recently completed Daniel Libeskind project that doesn’t completely dominate context.

Importantly the argument for public accessibility over architectural form cannot be denied. Of course we need continued ‘building’ additions to our cities but we also need vacant, open spaces. Moments of silence where one can contemplate the perfection in not being something.

Architecture is important but so too is nothing being there.

The Education of an Architect

Adèle Naudé Santos, dean of the school of Architecture and planning at MIT, set to receive 2009 Topaz Medallion for excellence in education

Flashback to the summer of 2000.

It was the height of the dot com boom in San Francisco. Our small office at Adele Santos' studio was enjoying a momentary flurry of work for a dot com start up eager to build a clustered campus of buildings at the edge of South San Francisco. We were busy and happy. From time to time I remember us lamenting the displacement of small local businesses for pioneering internet start ups eager to cash in on the promise of quick profits. Looking back, everything as we new it then, was a temporary bliss.

I sat alongside Berkeley classmates Alice Roche and Jake Watkins that breezy SOMA summer. Every morning I was greeted by Petey the talking parrot. That bird hated me. Basking in morning courtyard sun, days spun by with great memories alongside. It was a balanced experience of critical design debate and creative production fueled with homemade tamales wrapped in banana leaves. We were nothing short of a professional family and Adèle was at the center.

Every young architect deserves a great intern period where skills develop and confidence is fostered. The summer of 2000 did just that for us ( I feel confident in writing). Adèle let us go to do what we did best. We built models by hand and computer, drew wildly free by hand. Feedback was critical but we were ultimately supported in our academic perspectives. At the end of the summer we had compiled a convincing schematic proposal for a series of buildings destined to forever live on paper.

It was an experience I will never forget.

The Gray between digital and manual

Graphic representation: 2001 Combined digital and manual technique, e. reeder Thesis

I spent the morning today as a critic reviewing design work by students at CCA (California College of the Arts) in San Francisco. The foundation of this introductory studio considered digital and ‘hand’ methods of drawing representation. The students were asked to compose an architectural spatial experience via computer modeling. Supplement to the task for many were hand drawn perspective studies and sketch diagrams. At such an early stage in architecture-design education students can easily be torn between process and final representation. To complicate matters the struggle arises of what tools to use. It seems endless the possibility of manual technique, digital, or a somewhere in-between production.

Unfortunately, to first year design students something is lost; either mired in computer application with the goal of "slick" graphic outcome or a lack of rigorous attention to craft by hand. Don’t get me wrong, some of the work I reviewed today was quite good. In fact the students were in some cases able to quickly grasp complex concepts in architectural space and possibilities for convincing representation on paper.

The question for me ultimately stands at a crossroads in time. Traditions of how we work and represent through manual ‘making’ (i.e. hand drawing and model building) and current trends in the digital realm should be carefully considered. Wonderfully there are institutes and classes, as devised by my friends Antje Steinmuller and Lara Kaufman at CCA that, critically question these two disparate modes of working. One could argue that pushing both methods ensures an understanding of concept and technique while at the same time developing needed skills for professional aspirations. Even more compelling though is how these methods might overlap and inform the maker of greater possibility in reading and understanding design process and architectural invention.

Let’s hope the students carry forth the idea that methods for representation, now more than ever, have multiple trajectories for working, with the opportunity to combine various ways of presenting design. 

Condencity_14 compact

Hong Kong Image courtesy K. Lau: colleague at archengine

Compact

The world around is that much closer to a fictional 'center'. New opportunities take shape where the condensed form has made space available. I've always appreciated the lessor of more; an efficiency of space, use and overall size. In essence the state of being compact.

Of course compact can be made extreme as exemplified above. Senses are forced to overlap, edges of privacy tangled. Moreover a repetitive redundancy by nature of proximity transcends what could easily be a deathly banal. What is to become of the tattered in-betweens?

The state of being compact presents the opportunity to combine. Boundaries are dissolved and flexibility becomes requisite. The chance of environment and constructed object to unite in intimate ways, through a careful and thought out interaction of all elements. There is plenty of room in the city to be compact.

The willingness to accept things and places of such form is definitely a cultural one. Consider in many parts of the world where geography and space limit the expansive tendencies common in many consumerist societies. For example, places in the far east are forced to reckon with limited land and available urban spaces. The results are denser realities and the social acceptance of such conditions.

There will come a time when compact is a necessity everywhere.

La Jetée_1962

Architects and Painting

Nature morte à la pile d’assiettes et au livre, 1920

Painting courtesy of '-46 The Paintings and Sculptures of Le Corbusier', Published Feb. 1988 in Architecture SA (Johannesburg)

Recently, I've been reading about Charles-Edouard Jeannerets double life as Painter and Architect. In fact many disciples of Architecture might be surprised to know that Jeanneret was a painter foremost and throughout his illustrious career dedicated at least one day per week to painting. As a 'student' of the highly acclaimed painter Ozenfant, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret began his career as artist and writer critic. He completed hundreds of works of both brush stroke and then later sculptures of various mediums. His painting had a profound impact on his career as Architect and his split identity prompted him to adopt the name Le Corbusier (his Architect alias) while maintaining his birth and painter name, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret.

Le Corbusier was at the forefront of the 'Purist' movement. The Purists proclaimed the potential and importance of geometric form. His painting (and that of other Purists) explored and even exploited everyday industrialized objects of early 20th century development. Many of his paintings are analytic dissections of basic instruments such as bottles, tools and other mass produced items of the day. There is clear objectification of formal, scale and functional qualities through an abstracted geometric analysis. It could be suggested that a profound intuition of formal manipulation, as observed in Le Corbusier's paintings, had tremendous influence on his designs as a practitioner of Architecture.



Why the significance of painting?



Today, there are a handful of architects who paint as exploratory component in their process as practitioners. This is an incredibly important thing in light of the trajectories in current digital practice as we see it unfolding now. The loss of tactile hands on work given way to the amorphous digital realm. To be certain, the possibilities and rigor of investigations through digital media can lead to exciting possibilities, but something remains missing; that highly personal investigation the artist brings in the physical actions of hands and at times intuitively free discovery.



History has shown it is commonly the artist at the forefront of idea, be it through chance or deliberation. Charles-Edouard Jeanneret as Painter is testament to this claim.

Condencity_13 Education outside of class

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the new Campus Complex at Ehwa Women's University in Seoul. The day I visited was a rare opportunity as the renowned Architect Dominique Perrault was speaking about this newly opened building. Before the lecture began, I took an hour exploring the contours of this nearly invisible project. It is what I consider to be a non-form in architecture, submerged in its contextual disguise. The length of the building extends as two subterranean halves, linking the primary campus entry gate to the historic Main Hall center of the old campus. It has been dubbed the 'campus valley' although this moniker, in my opinion, is a bit simplistic for what the building expresses and achieves.

Six floors of 66,000 m2 space are configured as a newly grafted landscape. Building and landscape fuse to form an experiential plain; roof as traditional campus quadrangle and promenade path as primary link. The internalized facade and entries are tucked away along a pedestrian road; "the valley". It is a kind of anti-quadrangle when evaluated against the traditional campus 'quad', however when the surrounding roof landscapes mature, it will function as a desired outdoor campus amenity bound by the historical structure of campus form.

The Campus Complex is in an elite class of new environmentally efficient buildings. Interior programs of assembly, dining and administrative functions are conditioned by an energy efficient geothermal heating and cooling system. The earth acts in part as climate moderator against the weather extremes of local conditions. The long glass and stainless steel facades allow natural light to flood the interior space entry corridor. Little artificial lighting is required of internal spaces during daylight hours.

The unpretentious silence of this project is it's defining poetic moment. Architecture too often relies on a 'vocal', or more explicitly visual form to be successful. As counterpoint to this statement, this student center exists as a paired consideration with it's immediate context both visually and functionally. A newly formed building and landscape pairing to be discovered through tactile experience.

Ewha Campus complex images

Paul Strand_Manhatta 1921

I came across this short film on a blog I read from time to time and wanted to share it. I knew of Paul Strand as a painter but not film maker, so I was particularly intrigued by this shift in medium. There is a scene in the clip that references back directly to a painting he completed in 1915 titled 'Wall Street'. The painting for me represented all that is vacant in American urban life; a kind of cold autonomous silence.

While the film appears to dismiss this 'silence'. it extends to illustrate Strands gift for observing the American metropolis from a uniquely fringe point of view.

Condencity_12 pier 15

At the margins of San Francisco, time has an explicit way of overlapping. The penchant for concealment is suppressed and what surfaces are unlikely relationships; motion and static side by side.

San Francisco's waterfront has more than 70 piers lining the bay-side of the city. Many in recent years have been converted from their working day industrial pasts to quick economics of today. Pier 15 is no different, now serving as a self-pay parking lot. In recent times Pier 15 was a MUNI depot and storage warehouse. I explored the pier on a bright, blue-skyed Saturday morning to find a cold silence. I couldn't seem to shake the blatant juxtaposition of urban time then and urban time now.

View more of pier 15

Local re_action-2

Clearwater studio students are at it again. This this time salvaging lumber from a mid-century barn in rural Manitoba, Canada. The massive arching, laminted beams are soon to be the newest addition to the clearwater community in their yet to be determined regenerative form and function. Check back for future pictures of final student projects. The barns deconstruction process through time-lapse photography can be viewed on flickr.

East of Western

I have known Graham Robertson for the better part of twenty years. Graham is a script writer, film director and most recently actor in his current work. I remember some of his earliest film creations back in high school of collaged image and animated themes. It was a special craft of truly being 'hand made.' Through the years his work has carried this craft of compiled and layered media and his latest work is no different.



Script without set, Los Angeles exposed

East of Western is real and yet it is TV all at once. A collection of textual words, music, and images which cross generations and time. It's production is something of today and in a moment where media flexibility shows us mobile possibility. Rough at the edges, it exposes a life like reality of being in LA unlike most film and television depictions. Street shots and urban panorama's remind us that Los Angeles exists outside of Paramount and other big production lot's.

Graham is currently producing the next Episode of East of Western

http://www.eastofwesternshow.com/

Condencity_11

My year delayed review of the 'newer' San Francisco Federal Building is probably more timely than most. It was the talk of the media some months back when it first opened, but that has all faded. It's position as an architectural intermediary; somewhere between homelessness and exclusivity is clear on a deserted Sunday morning. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate its place for inciting words of controversy. I have overheard time and again passersby decry its alien presence and stark materiality. It's raw and imposing, but it is honest in material form.

The Federal Building is arguably something of an experiment. Beyond it's prescribed energy efficient planning and radical form, the Federal Building resides at the edge of a social class. Parts of San Francisco's South of Market district are transitional areas for the urban poor. The site on which the Federal Building was constructed is adjacent to the more destitute reaches of the city. As has become evident, the buildings benches and folded corners shelter the cities neighboring homeless population. On this particular Sunday morning visit, traces of the night before 'party' linger on sidewalks and adjacent streets. The tragedy unfolds as the building turns it's social back out of security reasoning.

I like to think this building will age well. Shed it's architectural pop-culture, 3-D intensive baggage. So far so good. Galvanized appendages, perforated screens and exposed concrete leave little to be cared for. Weather as they will in the dry summer, wet winter, San Francisco climate.

More images on flickr

Urban Negotiations: Gwangju

Mundane days often give way to stimulating nights. It's odd how that unfolds like opposing autumn lovers. With certain frequency it just seems to happen. Boiled Abalone, Soju, and laughs quickly erase boundaries. Gifts are exchanged and conversation reaches with the lengthening shadows of twilight. The air is thick but my mind is at ease.

Does America know this_?

Condencity_10 surface awakening

_San Francisco

Walking home recently I was struck by the surface under my feet- a rather strange awareness. A smooth black stone lining a nearby office building, a textured relationship soft on the foot and easy on the step. With each contact between shoe and stone a perceptibly cushioned connection; such contradiction to what we normally consider an unforgiving surface. It brought me a moment of satisfaction. Reaffirmation that deliberate design choices consider the sacredness of 'ground'; not only in visual regard but that of experiential.

Rarely do most think of 'ground' being sacred. I use the word ground here in the broadest of terms. Ground is usually defined as "the solid surface of the earth; firm or dry land: to fall to the ground." I propose 'ground', for the purposes of this article, as a generic horizontal surface be it floor, sidewalk, land etc. Our determinacy to separate ourselves from this, dirty, to be conquered surface is most common. Considerations beyond aesthetic appeal in western culture are few unless functional requirements warrant more.

_Seoul

Ground and ritual are intertwined in eastern culture. Transition from indoor to outdoor is just one instance where constructed environments are planned to incorporate a place of transformation. The simple act of removing one's shoes prior to entry in dwelling and select places of public gathering brings heightened awareness to surface or 'ground'. Uniquely though is everything axillary to facilitate this transition. Steps, cabinets, material considerations combine to prompt expectations of behavior. Actions of transition become an instinctive way of life.

Anatomy of Travel

I am forever amazed with international travel. One moment the silence of your home and a few hours later it is possible to be halfway around the globe. When traveling I tend take slow means (as a measure of economics and simplicity) in transportation. The reality becomes multiple modes of linked transitions. I just arrived in Seoul after more than 16 hours of global transitions- sequence as follows:

15 minute walk to BART Station
30 minute BART ride to San Francisco International
___2 hour layover
11 hr30min flight to Incheon Airport, Seoul
5 min train ride from Incheon Concourse to Terminal
___30 min layover
50 min bus ride to Seoul city center
15 minute Taxi ride from bus Terminal to Seoul Apartment

Condencity 08_8_8

It's days like this that come but once a lifetime.

Condencity_9 city time

Not far from where I live in San Francisco is a magazine shop. A section of it's storefront exists as a memorial time piece, honoring those who have recently died. Images are placed, frequently changing as a reminder of our own temporary place in city and life. The images are of people who have made impressionable impact on society through fame or otherwise. I'm fascinated with each passing in my own brief time and the seemingly time unchanged of this city neighborhood. The pictures are framed in the city unmoving; a resistance to change while projecting a face of temporality. This is the contradiction of the city; side by side.

Condencity_8

Sometimes...

silence in Architecture matters.

Condencity_7 room anywhere

'Rooms' can exist anywhere.

The room anywhere is ubiquitous in Seoul. For purposes of rest, pleasure, entertainment; the singular room has multiplied to a barrier free position. One can argue the need for a framework in which to house these varied spaces but is such a structure really necessary?

Architecture and memory

"If you could see what I've seen, with your eyes"

R. H., Bladerunner 

Local re_action

photo credits: L. Coar

As the saying goes "think locally" truly takes root in actions which do just that. My good friend and colleague, Lancelot Coar guided his University of Manitoba students in the re-use of materials from an abandoned school house in the rural town of Clearwater, Manitoba. Over the last two academic semesters students demolished and preserved wood planks and boards from the early century school house, slated for demolition. Through recent months students then designed and constructed from the salvaged lumber various installations which, were relocated within the community of Clearwater. Students devised a bridge, gazebo and community space, giving back to the small town where the empty school house had left off years ago.

Urban_voice

June 6, 2008

As many as one million protesters have erupted in the city of Seoul in direct response to recent trade policy changes with the United States. Korean citizens have been incensed by the national governments bow to US trade policy by admitting US beef older than 30 months into Korea for consumption (which by the way is not allowed to be consumed in the US under FDA guidelines). The newly elected Korean president is currently under intense pressure to renegotiate the deal with US trade policy makers.

What has grabbed my attention is the collective Urban voice (not new to Korea) and passion about standing firm for social safety and well being in a concious society. The city of Seoul has become in recent days grounds for change and action against the decisions of few.

The streets can speak.

In_Memory

Rauschenberg was a master of making dense.

An assembler of life's 'things' transformed in historical collections of artifacts. For me his work is both simple and immensely complex. He inspired a generation of artists and will undoubtedly continue to do so for generations to come.

Condencity_6 abandoned form

Ewha Women's University Student Center: Dominique Perrault, Architect
Subterranean form- invisible- given way to a new cultural landscape

Le Fresnoy: Bernard Tschumi Architect
An anti-form born of site driven circumstances. Reuse of existing buildings combined under a unifying roof shelter: combining space, function and experience.

Architecture [what we might consider environmental design] requires a kind of pervasive permeability; a seamless relationship of the greater natural and constructed environments. Building must be an active participant in the environment in which it exists.

'Co-existent' architecture is against style- anti-form. Arguably, deconstructivism has uncovered what has become a need to reconnect the fragments of city/ place and a desire to go beyond formal design language and image; more specifically architectural 'style'. Outcomes predicated upon ideas and theories, extended to challenge the processes by which architecture is conceived. Our generation is challenged to take a step further in creating architectures which, in effect, are one with place; where form making is purely a product of analytic search and spatial necessity. 

How might we go further to dissolve 'image making' in order to promote a seamless connection within the environment at large?

Condencity_5

As designer's of the built environment we have the incredible responsibility of acute contextual awareness. Beyond that we must seek to predict future conditions that anticipate new and yet to be seen environmental and urban conditions. All of this sometimes seems impossible to incorporate in a project and yet without broad dimensional considerations architecture falls well short of it's potential as a contributor in the environment.

My partner and I began this modest student housing project in South Korea with the intention of an expanded typology for student living given the realization of current residential practices in the region. Each dwelling was designed as self sufficient and autonomous spaces within a collective sustainable building 'unit'. The macro planning of each residential 'unit' is positioned between what we considered unconditioned spatial 'buffers'; corridor and patio space. Each plan takes advantage of site solar orientation as well as serving basic functional needs for student occupants (cooking, laundry, storage etc.) 

The layout of the building intended for a sequence of experiences as one passes from street side entry to dwelling space. A long, straight stair at the flanking west side of the building connects to each of three floors of studio apartment units. A single loaded corridor off of the stair establishes an informal entry and internal seasonal buffer. Each exposed end of the studio unit is 'padded' with enclosed patio space providing necessary environmental and privacy insulation for each apartment. The corridor and patio spaces function as  previously mentioned 'buffers' in both intense summer heat and cold winter months.

The growing urban area in which the apartment is located will soon be a major urban center for the city of Gwangju. It is projected that in the next decade much of the vacant ground around the site will be developed.

Gallery Opening

Currently on display at Gensler- San Francisco through July 25th 2008 are a few of my recent paintings alongside some impressive works by professional colleagues.

This 80th year the 25th of April_08

In honor of Cy Twombly

80 years of creating history
Thank you.

Un_Condensed: Vegas

The hardest of 'On's'. An American climax of double standards.

It exists as our truest and most revealing of feelings on consumption and contempt for a planet. With the planets acceptance of course, Vegas is more global than anywhere. There is no need to look beyond. It all exists in Vegas as a replicated experience of what urban experience can be; reconstituted in one linear 'strip' for the sensational gratification of immediate pleasures.

What is the future of this place so completely unsustainable yet growing uncontrolled in such a delicate environment? More significantly it's impact on the planet as a model for place making strategy in other global locations (specifically Macau-Cotai in Asia-the Vegas of the far east) ?

Condencity_4

Photo credit: B. Trannel

Somewhere between Asia and North American time is form making. Nothing more or less. The process of my 'making' has little to do with place, culture or even reason. Just because we can, there you have it. A fast made architecture for ultimate consumptions. Sometimes as Architects this is what we are faced with, like it or not; a commercial expectation that feeds us. 

As environmental designer's we must argue for compulsory connections (in the very least) to context and to nature. This should be fundamental in going beyond building commodity exclusively. I like to imagine our architectures now as multi-generative; energy producing (renewable sources), mixed-function structures of entertainment / trade/ multi-social class living opportunity. An amalgam of functions extending beyond singular objects, while acknowledging greater social and environmental concerns. What form would this take in the city? First considerations must look beyond form-making as a generative foundation for architecture and the city.

Space, experience and environment need to be intertwined.

[12 Meters and stalling] City Vertical

Vistas can be limited at 3 to 4 floors above city streets. Momentarily this is where I am. It is approximately 12M up where days catch light, filtered between adjacent buildings. Window to window, adjacent is just a glimpse through the pane. At moments attaining higher elevations, I remember what I miss most about views; about being able to see beyond the immediate.

Condencity_3

City Vertical

Glowing

PM hours San Francisco

10 minutes of notice

Step back to obscurity

Beige

Condencity_2

Tokyo Photo: e. reeder

The city is always reminding us what we already know;

building upon itself.

A form of reductive layering, continuously cancelling what was previously expressed to expose an ever evolving position.

Condencity_1

I sometimes imagine time collapsed.

What if possible to catch a glimpse of the city in overlapping, successive moments of occurrence? An amalgamation of the infinite variables which transform the city from day to night, year to year, and back again. For example, a light on in a window in an instant may at the next moment be off. A partially cracked door in place where once stood a solid wall. Each of these and any 'position' of things, in relation to everything else, is constantly shifting and changing our perceptions of experience in the city. If only possible to view all of these instances collapsed in one momentary vision; a single point in time. Although as impossible as it seems the city is never truly the same twice on any given occasion.

So why the unwillingness to change? After all, the city is about change on an infinite scale.

Political Space

Just five years prior to 1995, Prague was still living in it's protective shell. The Czech Socialist government retreat in the late fall of 1989 still seemed so close to my summer in Prague; that summer in 1995. This was evident in a hush of silence and secrecy surrounding parts of the city and Czech life, even though my perceptional experience at the time seemed far more liberating than much of my life back in the States.

Politics can preserve a city and in the case of Prague, nearly forty-five years of self containment promoted a documentation of urban history in the making. Prague was fortunate to have escaped most of the early 20th century wars that decimated other European cities. Communism went a step further to petrify the city, keeping in tact its vibrant history while allowing selective insertions of socialist 'modern' buildings. The beauty of Prague lies in tolerance, or so it seems an acceptance of side-by-side discontinuity. Time cuts through Prague in sharp contrast. Five hundred year old villas stand next to modern department stores in casual dialogue.

Much of what Communism did in Prague, looked beyond it's central history. Rings of development creating 'accessible' housing were common at the urban fringe. Whether intentional or by virtue of available land space, development skirted the historic city center in non-invasive ways. Where new development did occur, it was selectively inserted, and as a result, preservation prevailed. The old historic city in large part remains intact. Clearly though, communism failed to successfully promote quality public space, even going so far as neglect in certain instances. Parks, monuments and streets often fell in decayed misuse and neglect under the socialist government.

Our urban planning and design class spent the summer of '95 looking at the derelict city. Unused and forgotten behind factory walls and overgrown vegetation, we imagined masterplanned scenarios for reintegration. It was a summer when boundaries dissolved.

San Francisco

It has been a record for me to be stationary in one city for nearly five years. My life, through youth, my twenties and early thirties, has been based on constant change and new places to call 'home'. There have been times when restlessness has gotten the best of me and I felt the only thing to do was try someplace new. San Francisco is now home.... although at times I feel that restless urge again to be some place else; some place new. This is a great city by many accounts and I continually ask myself why I feel the urge to leave. Nearly a decade ago I discovered and became intrigued by it's secrets and diverse districts.

San Francisco is a story stalling to be re-written. There are histories of many stories here both literal, penned and those that are more obscure however, like many American cities San Francisco yearns for more. Reading Jack Kerouac's essay 'October in the Railroad Earth' to me is one of the more poignant accounts of San Francisco in term's of a social and physical divide; while bringing to light the marginal places of the city. The essay is a poetic 'behind the scenes' glimpse of San Francisco's working class and SOMA industrial district that propelled the city through industrialization. Kerouac wrote this essay through first hand experience; indulging as much as possible South of Markets shadowy seam. His experiential visions from a foggy night bar visit fade to suppressing grey work mornings, commuting through the social layers of a divided city and relay a story often overlooked in bourgeoisie culture.

The image of avenues from Kerouac's essay have hardly changed in parts of SOMA, (San Francisco's South of Market district). Desperation of passage; a fast transitional state to someplace else. Even today as you walk down Hyde street at Mission, form and function give way to the quickest way out. Wide auto dominated streets leave a barren place for someone out of car, and feeling out of place. It is the down-and-out population who brave it on foot to make it from one block to the next.

I see San Francisco's marginalized neighborhoods daily as I walk through the city streets. Chain linked lots bordered by a relentless flow of fast moving cars is an all too common experience. There is a clear distinction between what is 'front' and what is the derelict 'back' side of the city. Arguably, this aptly applies in most American cities. A willful separation of urban space that dis joins a continuum of experience physically and socially. The interstitial disjunction survives only as transitional and forgotten space. Our cities here in the US, even San Francisco, unfortunately expose this segregated function and social reality.

2x_way of Berkeley

Lancelot Coar (left) Eric Reeder (right)

In 1999 I had the opportunity to meet and work with some of the most intellectually gifted people that I will ever know. It was my first semester at the University of California at Berkeley in the Masters program for Architecture. As part of the Architectural education course requirements the studio options that first semester were diverse and selecting my first core studio class seemed a daunting task. In the end I chose a studio taught by visiting instructors. They were a group of well known practitioners from Los Angeles who proposed to take turns rotationally visiting our studio in Berkeley. The other non-conforming aspect to the studio was the requirement to be paired in a team. At first this seemed to challenge the very solo spirit that architecture schools always promote but I took to it quickly and soon realized the fortunate situation I had chosen to take part in.

My partner, Lancelot Coar, and I immediately made a connection in thought and dialogue. Our work evolved complimentary through disparate yet common languages of art, perception and an eagerness to explore the world around us. I was immediately inspired by his commitment to place making through use of found things- reconstructed - to challenge the way we look at the world around us. I was always one to be tied to the drawing board, or at least feeling like I needed to be. It was Lancelot who was eager to explore around us and seek out the unexpected. It brought a uniqueness to our project that semester and frankly what I saw as reverence from our peers and instructors alike.That first semester at Berkeley will always be a pivotal moment in history for me. As we move forward, foundation can mean everything and can always be a place to return to.

Rural House

Architectural design for me has come to represent everything learned prior to any design at all. In other words, the act of design cannot truly begin until thorough observation of what exists on site-(potentially a past, present, and projected future), in addition how the site is to be used by the owner/ inhabitant, and ultimately a relationship within the greater environment has been critically examined.

Prior to the onset of design for a rural South Korean residence, I spent days observing how the owner's currently live on site (fortunately for me). The importance of outdoor activities in the landscape, even beyond what normally transpires within their existing house, provided a foundational organization for a new house proposal. Each space in the new residence is planned with reference to the outside landscape, even if only through visual connection or the admittance of natural light in clerestory configurations.

A central indoor-outdoor space marks entry and delineates between the 'public' and more 'private' spaces of the home. It's function, symbolically beyond entry, will certainly come to be a place of central gathering for eating, resting and entertaining. This mediating space interstitially divides between a painting gallery and dwelling space. How does one account for years of history and and cultural traditions without repeating an expected architectural language? It was the design intent of this project to balance significant historical 'memory' while maintaining an interpretation of momentary life today.