FOCUS VI

Out of The Ordinary: Spectacular Craft @ the V&A

Anne Wilson, 'Topologies' 2002 - ongoing

Catherine Bertola, 'Everything And Nothing'
I don't know if I have become brainwashed by landscape architecture but some of the pieces shouted 'map' at me. What exactly the pieces were mapping is open for debate but you could say the artists mind... Also interesting to look at photos of the artists studios.
Out of the Ordinary: Spectacular Craft here

Fusion Now! @ the Rokeby

Roger Hiorns, Untitled, 2007

http://withyou.co.uk/
"At a time when we are told that our excessive use of fossil fuels threatens the environment itself, environmentalism advocates that the only solution is restraint and reduction. FUSION NOW! asks what art and society might look like if we thought positively about a world based on more energy, not less."
Rokeby here

Breaking The Rules @ the British Library

De Stijl

"Chaos is the score upon which reality is written"

Henry Miller

"Mainly through the medium of print, Breaking the Rules throws new light on Cubism, Expressionism, Futurism, Dadaism, Suprematism, Constructivism, Surrealism and other movements; on the artists who changed the face of modern culture for ever; and on the cities that experienced their work, from Brussels to Budapest, Vienna to Vitebsk."

How many 'Isms' can the avant garde produce? 129783619283198367770222222. Maybe an exaggeration but it seemed that at the turn of the last century society was rebranding itself with unabashed enthusiasm. Graphic design especially was explored, manipulated and challenged creating styles that are still in use today. Personally I liked the "two fingers to the establishment" attitude at the turn of the century and how that became a catalyst for change.

De Stijl. Edited by Theo van Doesburg. Leiden, 1917-1932. 8 volumes (90 numbers). All online here

Full film online here 'Things to Come', HG Wells here

FOCUS V

Crack @ Tate Modern, 27/10/2007

Doris Salcedo Shibboleth. Anywhere else this would cause serious concern. Architects, Surveyors, Engineers would be desperately trying to fix this massive structural fault... But it's in a gallery so people just trip and fall over it.
Tate Modern here


S333 @ NLA, 29/10/2007

Dutch architects practice with a heavy lean towards urbanism. Interesting to see there approach to analysis and how they represent it.
S333 here
NLA here


Forms Of Inquiry: The Architecture Of Critical Graphic Design @ the AA, 29/10/07

(AA facade)
How far can a story be expressed, changed and animated on a sheet of paper? Can Graphic Design aid Architects? Well, yes, however this exhibition didn't engage with me. Some of the pieces were too abstract and dare I say it felt as if I've seen it before. I guess its a delicate balance between information and design.
Forms Of Inquiry here


Vladan P. Lighting Designer, Kardorf, 29/10/2007

(reso-net)
Light as a material? A great glimpse into what Lighting Design has to offer. Interesting how stories can be told and experiences affected by lighting. Nocturnal landscapes given depth by picking out elements within the vista.

ERCO provide engineering hardware and software for architectural lighting. Check out the guides section for some 'illuminating' information...
Speirs and Major Associates are a big UK firm with some interesting projects.

(Lumiere at the serpentine pavilion)
Two big questions the industry is asking itself:
+ How are we can we be sustainable in the 21stC?
+ When is lighting design light pollution?

Professional Lighting Designers Association here
ERCO here
Kardorff here
Speirs and Major Associates here
reso - net here


In-House Trend Meeting by The Future Laboratory @ MLT Knights Park, 30/10/2007

The job of The Future Laboratory is to bring the future to you.
A great presentation by Chris Sanderson the creative director of The Future Laboratory. He covered several areas that the company had been investigating, areas that particularly interested me were, Slowtopias and the Design Notebook.

Slowtopias

(Tino Schaedler airship concept)
The idea that we are changing our attitudes to travel. We want to shrink our carbon footprint and rediscover the joy of travel. What does this mean to Landscape? Creating destinations, transition zones, remediate areas polluted by extravagant 20thC travel, new routes for as yet unrecognised forms of travel...

Design Notebook.
Speculation on trends in design for the next few years (according to The Future Laboratory). Three themes coined by the future lab -

SUPER SYNTHETIC
SUPER SURREAL
HYPER - NATURAL

these are the umbrella under which the following subdivisions exist.

+ Tranplastic: mixing synthetic & natural materials.

(Transplastic by the Campana Brothers)

+ Neo Nonsense: surrealism the return...

(Dutch Embasy in Berlin by OMA)

+ Tribal Tech: oversize, pattern.

(Facade Art Academy, Boxtel, The Netherlands by FAT)

+ Prime Eval: fresh subversive organic guts.

(Tea Pot by Wieki Somers)

+ Metallica: weight, lustre, metal!

(Link Table by Tom Dixon)

The Future Laboratory here
Tino Schaedler here
Campana Brothers here
OMA here
FAT here
Wieki Somers here
Tom Dixon here


The Serpentine Pavilion 2007: Olafur Eliasson & Kjetil Thorsen, 31/10/2007


The 'spinning top'. For me this structure did have the immediate wow impact when first seen. This is rectified when you climb the first section of the ramp and enter the internal area/cafe. Light, theatre, tectonics and views all mix to form a great experience. Continue up the ramp and look down from the 'Romeo, Romeo' balcony and observe movement bellow of people and above through the sky light. Well worth a look.
Olafur Eliasson here
Kjetil Thorsen @ Snøhetta here


Mathew Barney: Drawing Restraint @ The Serpentine Gallery, 31/10/2007

?I mean what the f**k?
Drawing Restraint here
Serpentine Gallery here


The Stirling Prize @ RIBA, 31/10/2007

Don't go the exhibition is not worth it, just look on the web.
The Stirling Prize 2007 here


Richard Kelly: Selected Works @ RIBA, 31/10/2007

Pioneer in architectural lighting. I particularly liked the sketches on display. Always interesting to see initial thoughts.
ERCO here


Shell Wildlife Photographer Of The Year @ Natural History Museum, 31/10/2007

(Ice Creation by Robert Knight)
I find amazing photographs of our natural world truly inspirational. I left this event wanting more than ever to leave the UK and go on an adventure.
Shell Wildlife Photographer Of The Year here
Natural History Museum here


The Wildlife Garden @ Natural History Museum, 31/10/2007

Looking a bit tired, it is October and 12 years old. A great resource for inner city education. Also provides scientific data on pollution levels since it was constructed in 1995.
Natural History Museum here


The Turner Prize: A Retrospective @ Tate Britain, 31/10/2007

(Anish Kapoor, Untitled 1990)
Cool. I wouldn't have thought beforehand that some of the best pieces there were moving image.
Tate Britain here

SUMMER2007

TOWNSHEND LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS

TLA gave me a job for the summer! This being my first excursion into the professional field it was quite a jump from student life. However the team at TLA were all friendly and patient, learning CAD on the job being the challenge. I had the opportunity to work on a major London project, Kings Cross.
All in all a fantastic experience, challenge and education. CHEERS TLA!
Townshend Landscape Architects here

LORENZ VON EHREN

While working at TLA I had the opportunity to go to the Lorenz Von Ehren nursery near Hamburg, Germany.

View of some of LVE crops.

Green manure.
Lorenz Von Ehren here

HAFENCITY PUBLIC SPACE



Miralle/Tagliabue in Hamburg.
EMBT here
Hafencity project here

MTB


Afan in the summer...

project I, semester II, year II

VOICIFERATE
North SEAfaring
site - Vlissingen.
selection of slides from final presentation.

Degree Show 2007

Third year and Post Graduate students exhibiting. Plus, this was done without my knowledge, a huge print of me in the hallway outside the studio!
Also helped put together portal for students online portfolio here.

landscapeis.org

FOCUS IV

The Higher Education Learning Academy Assessment: 'Students Supporting Students' @ The New Connaught Rooms, 21/03/2007

Left to right, Kaori, me, Tom and Emma.
Pat Brown the director of Landscape Architecture and the Landscape Interface Studio at Kingston University hosted a workshop named 'Action Learning Sets' with 'us', (Emma, Kaori, Sarah, Tom, Paul and I, all second year landscape students). It was a great experience, made even more interesting as Pat had to leave us in the afternoon. This created a odd situation for the afternoon workshop. Students teaching tutors how to teach students. Maybe that was the whole point? Anyway some of the tutors seemed interested in the learning community that we have in Landscape Interface Studio and how that could be applied to other disciplines. Best phrase of the day "YOYO, FOFO" (your on your own, f**k off and find out).
The Higher Learning Academy here

Shifting Sands 2: Good Design In Seaside Regeneration, 26/03/2007

Heatherwick's East Beach Cafe, Littlehampton. View looking inland.
A day of seminars by various speakers involved in seaside regeneration. There seemed to be two general directions policy and design were going. One was creating sustainable communities that would regenerate an area themselves therefore creating a more vibrant area that would attract more people/wealth. The other was creating 'Icons', these being a symbol of the area that would attract interest/wealth. I believe that an 'Icon' approach is flawed as it potentially creates structure with a short life expectancy that becomes redundant when the community/fashion move on. However it is a lot more complicated to create or more aptly reinvigorate a community. I particularly enjoyed the speakers Mark Cannata, Thomas Heatherwick and Maria Smith.


Bexhill-on Sea, January 2006
Mark Cannata of McAslans architects is involved with the renovation of the De La War Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea. The project has been running for sixteen years now. It is trying to reestablish Bexhill-on-Sea's heyday as a tourist destination. Mark also made some amusing comments on peoples perception of architecture. How certain era's (60's, 70's) had a negative sentiment attached to them.
John McAslans + Partners here


Interior of East Beach cafe. Notice the section lines.
Thomas Heatherwick talked about his new cafe. Still not convinced of the form of the structure. The only factors seemed to be the width of window shutters and a want to create an interesting 'back'? The construction was interesting as it involved sectioning the structure so it could fit inside the steelworkers workshop. It seems to work and hopefully draw some attention to Littlehampton upon completion.
East Beach Cafe here.
Construction pictures here
Thomas Heatherwick Studio here


Maria Smith talked about her studios proposal for Littlehampton, 'The Longest Bench'. A ceramic serpentine form that drapes itself across the existing structure. Very cool indeed.
Studio Weave here

Colchester Charette Costing

My proposal was one of ten chosen by the Colchester North Sea Faring partner in a studio competition, 'Colchester Charette', to be costed. This is my first contact with the delights of the Spon's manuals, only being a second year student. Interesting how going through the costs can highlight areas of a design that one had overlooked or not considered previously. A good exercise and hopefully the proposal will get built!
Precedent images taken from 'Contemporary Public Space Un-Volumetric Architecture' by Aldo Aymonino and Valerio Paolo Mosco, p244, 245, showing structure built by the Cooperativa Amerida.

Helena Rivera: PHD review
Help contribute to her paper here

Blogging tutorials


Dreamweaver

Definitely going to have to spend more time learning this piece of software. However the one day course I attended was a useful introduction.

New Rural Assault Machine

Giant Reign O.
Let the carnage begin...