January

Traditions

I'm a stranger
in my own land
My place has become strange

53$
counting too much
Sacred heart(s)
St Mary's 
Cathedral of spending
Shuffling plastics

"Its a lot of testosterone all over the place,...
20 million combat troops."
And he continues on:

"Where a leader could rest in an area like disneyland."
So, said the man with cadence.
Over and over
and I listen

There is a longing for the past as we return to our yesterdays.
The people, faces once in life, absent.
Gone.
The place is, Just as it always was. Though

I've sat in this very spot without emotion; as flat as can be.
Stirred only to think of what i could do
If i could walk away.

condenCITY_104 opposing cities

A city built on preserving its yesterday time, one with little waver from the past and its roots deeply entrenched in memory. Expectations and demands suspend it as a place of permanence- if there ever was such a thing in the modern metropolis. 

A city opposite, constructed not of yesterday but only of progress. A stations stop away yields more of the same replicated identity. Haste has no time for quality- after all, the notion of build quick and rebuild faster are now foregone conclusions. The new city is more temporary than ever before. This is the future of manufacturing cities. 

The products we now live in. 

Condencity_40 slim

San Francisco is attractively slim. It's the narrow lots wedged into city gaps and my memory that make it un-American; slim. Zero lot lines squeeze in to a nearly 'zero lot'. City often surprises us most when it reveals the least. An efficient use of space leaves much to the imagination. Stairs, Elevator, could it all be there?  The memory of yesterday simply exists for what is possible today. 

Condencity_39 Beige

Returning to the scene of the crime, I recently made a brief appearance in San Francisco. From a new perspective at the 17th floor the city is not what I remember. I remember a 4th floor lifestyle from my apartment and office. Rarely did I go outside of that vantage point of the city.  17 was new for me and a reminder of how 'beige' San Francisco is. Cast against a cloud strewn blue sky and the occasional colored tower, the city exists banal in a colorless resistance. Variable identity is manifest only through ornament and time dependent details.


Beige gives way sirens and horns from below that remind me of a return home. San Francisco, frozen in its time remains as it always has. 

Departure time_in between

Rift between here, then
now, there
easing moment
casting destiny

memory

Saturdays

At the edge
somewhere between
east and west dreams
San Francisco

Familiar
washed away with
a late day rain
of futures
to come.

Spire at Cities Edge

You may of heard by now of the recent work by renowned artist Andy Goldsworthy titled 'Spire'. Along San Francisco's distinctive northern edge, where city gives way to defunct military quarter is the Presidio and here you will find his latest installation. The sculpture is a collection of trees; literally. Fallen and slated for removal as part of a reforestation project in the heavily wooded terrain, Goldsworthy collected these gentle giants and has carefully fastened them together. Not soley in the name of nature, but rather city as the name should suggest.

What appears now as distinct, naked form in the landscape will gradually transform over time. As Goldsworthy describes "taking root" in context both physically and metaphorically. Projecting forward some twenty or thirty years from now one can only imagine the disguised relationship between the 'Spire' and a rejuvenated coastal forest. It is as though this latest work, and undoubtedly it was in its creation, had the foresight of incremental change through time.

Spire speaks gracefully of structure and permanence and yet exhibits the fragile reality of natures vulnerability. We view its dialogue with city towers peeking over distant hills and we are also witness to its place among trees. It is the delicate balance between these two conditions that so appropriately defines this work at the cities edge.

To visit 'Spire' travel west on Pacific Avenue along the Presidios southern border. From the southeastern most corner of the park proceed west about 3/4 of a mile to Arguello Blvd. Go right and a foot path to 'Spire' picks up approximately 200 feet from the intersection of Pacific and Arguello just past the parking area of the Presidio golf course. Traveling there on foot (even from the center of the city) is most satisfying.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Window

Eyes to the City

Revelation of being the double constituent; feeding imagination and perception from inside and out. Curiosity nourished through interrupted acts, scenes and translations. Nothing more animates the space of the city. A facade can never be the same twice on any given night; faces always changing. It is life and death after all, that ultimately become exposed through the window.

Commute

Time is amplified by the intersection pause.

Everything else is purely motion.

My commutes are measured by intersections. A pause, a glance, and proceeding steps...accelerated. Motion is life; to pause would be fatal. Morning and evening experiences are rarely the same twice. There is always a factor to obscure or alter what was present on the street the day before. Sun, precipitation, sounds, smells, amplified by the direct sensational connection that binds us to the environment. Immediate choices limited only by the tendency to repeat the familiar. Routine habits can shape and dictate what often becomes our limited experiential path.

I have commuted by foot for the better part of the past decade. The streets and sidewalks of diverse cities have been my trade routes. Denver, San Francisco and Seoul have all played backdrop to my daily pedestrian experiences. It is a choice really, that more could make but time is always a factor. In San Francisco I currently walk just over two miles each way to and from my office. Most wouldn't think of doing it, although personally I have come to rely on it as the most meditative moments of my day.

The streets exist as infinite options. Any number of directions prompt rediscovery of what was once forgotten; that hidden place in memory of experiences past. I seek that rediscovery daily, tempted by trails of sunlight that stream through parted buildings and walls that shield from driving rain. The city protects from and exposes me to the environment, lifting its form to reveal a desirable crease; passage.

I enter places yet undiscovered and am satisfied by space worth longing for. There is so much to uncover walking.