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.