Yesterday's studio session was devoted to everyone's initial masterplanning and design ambition. A long day of presentations and crits, with the realisation that it's time to get down the the nitty gritty of design. Personally, I've done lots of fluffy, concept diagramming - which has been very useful - however, we have around six weeks left to nail it. That's not long!
Here are a few extracts from the presentation and comments from the panel - my full presentation can be found in the pages section.
So I've finally worked out how to use my camera!
The overriding concept for my site - the 'indelible' can be imagined as the 4th dimensional experience. Benz was interested in my idea of capturing the coastal 'flux'.
Inspired by Robert Smithson, for me this is even more relevant on the coast.
Did a few indicative colour studies on site a few days ago by way of capturing the vernacular of the site.
The activities on the the promenade the pretty much as illustrated - a place for contemplation (beach huts), waking, running and cycling - although the later isn't actually permitted. I suggested fragmenting the promenade in order to dissipate the activities and potentially create new opportunities. Tom Turner interpreted this as destroying the promenade - not necessary, more redefining and reprogramming.
Nick Clear asked what I meant by 'dynamic space'. In essence, this is about spaces that people can appropriate for themselves - the space is unprogrammed and fluid like the elements, hence dynamic.
Tom's initial though was that the masterplan drawing was a little disappointing, however he suggested that this might just be the graphics. I tend to agree. It quite bland, but it is only a schematic, and doesn't convey a huge amount of detail. It's not a masterplan yet my any stretch on the imagination!
I was thinking about the flatness of Tschumi's grid in 3D and Lewitt's deconstructed cubes. Imaging the follies as visual reference points that when connected divide and organise the space:
A grid like the Tschumi's points, but imagined as temporal features. The coastal landscape can drift and drape around the interventions, like sand dunes. As generators of ephemeral moments - therefore having an effect on the program.
Fragmenting, yet organising the space.
I decided to do some quick models to develop the ideas:
The model represents a westerly panorama. The promenade is the central section of card with the sea and land on either side. The matches are randomly placed points in space, connect arbitrarily with lines. Exploring the concept of dividing the space.
The next model is based on a snaking promenade, with intersections that fragment from ground level to a point in space on the both the sea and land. The points are the same height from the ground, but the angles of elevation vary.
I was trying imagine the concept of 'groynes' emanating from the promenade (the black line). The red lines are imaginary lines that when connected to the points at the peak of each groyne mimic and amplify the curves of the traversing path. The void between the groynes could be filled with earth works generated by the sea.
The active shoreline'feeding' the spacial dividers.
Starting looking at Sol Lewitt work while research Smithson and found it particularly useful as a metaphor for articulating certain aspects of my work.
LeWitt's work emerged alongside the Minimalist and Conceptual art movements of the 1960s, and combines qualities of both. Initially he made paintings and reliefs before concentrating on
three-dimensional works based on the cube in the mid-1960s.For these,
he used precise, measured formats such as grids and modules, and
systematically developed variations. His methods were mathematically
based, defined by language, or created through random processes. He took
up similar approaches in works on paper.
The premise of Serial Project (above) demands the combination and
recombination of both open and closed enameled aluminum squares, cubes,
and extensions of these shapes, all laid in a grid. Both intricate and
methodical, the system produces a visual field that gives its viewers
all the evidence they need to unravel its logic. By
presenting an ordered series of objects as exemplars of a personal
but highly logical system of permutations, Lewitt demonstrated the
potentially infinite number of ways in which reality could manifest. Again, a way of organising space.
"The form itself is of very limited importance; it becomes the grammar
for the total work. In fact, it is best that the basic unit be
deliberately uninteresting so that it may more easily become an
intrinsic part of the entire work."
The quote above fits well with Tschumi's system of follies too.
Like the Minimalists, he often uses simple basic forms, in the belief that "using complex basic forms only disrupts the unity of the whole"; like the Conceptualists, he starts with an idea rather than a form, initiating a process that obeys certain rules, and that determines the form by playing itself out.
Each of the 122 sculpural forms is derived by subtracting one or more of
the lines or edges from the cube’s basic unitary form. An idea is
systematically translated and deployed into a variety of media and
scales to become, in LeWitt's words, "a machine that makes the art."
"Serial systems and their permutations function as a narrative that has to be understood. People still see things as visual objects without understanding what they are. They don’t understand that the visual part may be boring but it’s the narrative that’s interesting. It can be read as a story, just as music can be heard as form in time. The narrative of serial art works more like music than like literature. Words are another thing. During the ’70s I was interested in words and meaning as a way of making art. I did a group of “location” pieces that would direct the draftsman in making the art. All of the tracks leading to the final image were to be shown. A person could read the directions and verify the process and even do it." Sol Lewitt
What i particularly like was the the description given about Lewitts open cubes from the Dwan Gallery in 1966...
"Lewitt's elementary skeletal cube is projected into inert magnitude. These progression lead the eye to no conclusion. The high degree of structural organisaton dislocates 'one's point of view'. One looks 'through' his skeletal grids, rater than 'at' them The entire concept is based on simple arithmetic, yet is mathematically complex. Extreme order brings disorder. The ratio between the order and order is is contigent. Every step around his work brings unexpetced intersections of infinity." Dwan Gallery Press Release (1966)
I like this quote - in particular: 'extreme order brings disorder'. For the order you could read Tschumi's grid and follies and for the disorder the programs that happen in the spaces. Similarly, the perception and experience of view the series of cubes become almost cinematic due the layering of simple structures. Also rminded me of an ealier image I blogged:
Disorder. A simple componant, easliy understood (a piece of sawn softwood), multiplied results in complexity. Is there a middle ground?
As I have mentioned in previous blogs, my site, and specially the promenade is a system of linear barriers. I want to harness the chaos that occurs at the waters edge... amplify and fragment the promenade in order to create a public space. The random ordering of interventions could lead to a more fluid and ever evolving landscape.
Reconnection (top) and the 'exposing and realigning'
Organised space from disorganised structures.
“The use of the idea of the random is meant to preclude the conscious placement of elements to form a pattern." Sol Lewitt
An ongoing theme has always been about connecting the temporal coastal rhythms of the sky and sea and creating a more intimate dialogue with the land, as with my string models that tried to distill these elements.
I added a grid to the drawing the above to suggest an exposure of the land due to natural forces manipulating the land.
Actually the my string drawings are about rhythms and sequences - thet actually remind me of Bridget Rileys work:
Riley's work relates to the temporal nature of the site, however they are too regular. The rhythms need to be broken and fragmented to express the ephemeral. The rhythm captured on my site should be more sequential, more cinematic in the Tschumi sense.
Demarcation to catch the rhythms, frame the temporal. Amplifiers of space and programs like the follies at PdlV. In the sketch above the points 'snag' the landscape net, creating scene and changing perceptions of the space.
Hope poles in Kent as sculpture in the winter.
With a layer of snow - love these images!
Smithson would have loved the piles at this Dam construction site - remarkable similarity to Tschumi's superimposition. Demarcation of the land a device to organise space should explored. Not boundary, just indicators that are open to interpretation and continuous reprogramming.
A bit more on Smithson... more about the process of creating art or work and the idea that work being finished. This in landscape terms is 'anti-landscape'. A beautiful formal garden could be argue is anti-landscape as its meticulous maintenance is against the natural order of the wild. Equally, from an interactive point of view, the a formal garden is relatively static.
Smithson believed that gallery artists were separated from their art, somewhat cheated, as the focus was was on the art 'object' If we consider process, and process art, famous protagonists being Jackson Pollock - the work was secondary and the pocess, the artist time and methodology primary.
Personally I think formal, neat a tidy gardens with are akin to gallery art that Smithson denounced. Landscape schemes demand a resolution that at somehow capture the ephemeral and temporal - a space that is adaptable never finished (like Parc de la Villette).
So, if parks are finished landscapes for finished art, what are to processes that I need to employ or maintain in order to amplify and natural and social foces on my site?
In conducting "areosurveying" from a plane) for his site specific works, Smithson found examples of heavy constructions, such as dams, in many ways more astonishing than the intended finished project. The diagrams above are a quick illustration of this in relationship to my site. The digging and excavations expose the land.. the exposed areas are the 'unknow' areas of site that can be explored by the artist (or landscape architect).
North American Dams under construction, the monument scale of the earthworks and engineering was of interest to Smithson. The site mid -construction, in its exposed state is like Tschumi's points, lines and surfaces. I'm interested how I can design a site that is a similar state of flux. Arguably, more interesting before the final imposition (the dam) is finished.
The dialogue between the natural and built environment on my site... how can this be manipulated?
Pile driving at dam construction sites... a bits like Tschumi's follies! Open to interpretation. Organising space.
Looking at the piles, made me think of Mr Serra again... master of space organisation! Also, seems he to agree with the idea of the unfinished:
"Works are only interesting if they don’t reach closure."
A while back I was looking at Smithson, he was fascinated by pictures of Central Park pre-construction, the rawness of the land that would subsequently become the Olmsted vision of the picturesque.
Smithson was interested in challenging the prevalent conception of Central Park
as an outdated 19th-century Picturesque aesthetic in landscape
architecture that had a static relationship within the continuously
evolving urban fabric of New York.
Smithson was interested in Central Park
as a landscape which by the 1970s had weathered and grown as Olmsted’s
creation, but was layered with new evidence of human intervention.
While Smithson did not find “beauty” in the evidence of abuse and
neglect, he did see the state of things as demonstrative of the
continually transforming relationships between man and landscape. In his
proposal to make process art out of the dredging of The Pond, Smithson sought to insert himself into the dynamic evolution of the park
Understanding that the urban landscape of NY was blending into the park is interesting when looking back at Parc de la Villette. Smithson, I think, was basically saying that the pastoral was outmoded, but this was the natural process, the park returning to the earth. Entropy in action. Therefore we can see Tschumi's Parc de la Villette as the starting point for a new entropic experience, that will ultimate be subject to reprogramming and degradation. What I find interesting is that both Smithson and Tschumi talk about the redefinition of the concept of 'park', through forces that are out of the designers control - natural and social forces respectively.
I keep going back to these Smithson quotes:
"A park carries the values of the final, the absolute, the sacred... finished landscape for finished art"
"Nature does not proceed in a straight line, it is rather a sprawling development."
That is what interests me about my site.. it's raw coastal nature, mirrored against the urban grid beyond. A merging of natural and social processes is required. I need to develop a new way of seeing the site, and program it in alignment with both natural and sociological
forces.
The thing that I really like about Tschumi’s Parc de la
Villette is a user-defined space that is
completely open for interpretation. A concept that is appropriate to the 'arty' cultural nature of my site in Brighton & Hove...
Cinema en Plein Air Festival, at the the PdlV. The Park serves an open-air cultural center, conceptualized as one large user-defined space that is
completely open for interpretation. What new programs are appropriate for my site?
Even though most traditional picturesque parks are unprogrammed and
usually mean for user definition and interpretation, there is usually
still some semblance of desired activity.
Frederick Law Olmsted, the master of the picturesque, proposed that "in the park the city if not supposed to exist." 20th C urban parks contradict this notion, with the concept of the park, which can no longer be separated from the city
PdlV is a parks designed as much for urban entertainment and social
interaction as for individual contact with nature. I like the overall narrative of the PdlV concept. I see my project as more of a infrastructure able to absorb and adept to different programs and functions and to interweave these with city life.
As Smithson pointed about in his musings about Central park....
"A park can no longer be seen as 'a thing-in-itself', but rather as a
process of ongoing relationships existing in a physical region - the
park becomes a 'thing-for-us.'"
La Villette is anit-contextural, it has no relationship to it's surroundings, history, or landscape precedent... I understand how this works in a land-locked urban plot, but is it possible to follow this mindset for my project, based on it location (i.e. i can't ignore the sea...)!
I have been looking at Le Parc De La Villette as a precedent study for my scheme. The way I have distilled the landscape layers has some similarities with Barnard Tschumi's concept of superimposition of points, lines and surfaces:
The brief called for the imagining and design of an urban park for the 21st Century:
For Tschumi, Parc de la Villette was not meant to be a picturesque park
reminiscent of centuries past; it was more of an open expanse that was
meant to be explored and discovered by those that visited the site.
A space for activity and interaction that
would evoke a sense of freedom within a superimposed organization that
would give the visitors points of reference.
Parc de la Villette is designed with three principles of organization
which Tschumi classifies as points, lines, and surfaces. The 135 acre
site is organized spatially through a grid of 35 points, or what Tschumi
calls follies (as above). The series of follies give a dimensional and
organizational quality to the park serving as points of reference. The
repetitive nature of each folly, even though each one is unique and
different, allowing for the visitors to retain a sense of place through the
large park.
Tschumi’s lines are essentially the main demarcated movement paths
across the park. Unlike the follies, the paths do not follow any
organizational structure; rather they intersect and lead to various
points of interest within the park and the surrounding urban area.
Of the 135 acres, 85 acres are dedicated to the green space, which
are categorized as surfaces.
The 'sequences' within the park that define its prgrammes are like still from a movie - nice drawings too... pre-CAD!
Parc de la Villette focuses on the contrast between
defined and undefined circulation. The defined circulation is
essentially arbitrary, whilst the paths to the follies are undefined,
but are also direct and have purpose. The follies themselves however,
are ambiguous in function. In this park, the designed space acts a
frame, in which spontaneous events can occur – thus reinventing the
architecture every time it is reinterpreted. It is a hybrid of form and
experience. I find this concept very interesting and relevant in term of 'organising' the space on my site.
The follies remined me of my art in context work... Richard Serra often describes his sculptural works as 'organising space': " a structural element that creates a volume of space within the architectural space that is different in kind..." En masse the follies, allow the space to be redefined and reinterpreted.
The orgaisation of space is going to be fundamental in the development of my masterplan. Dealing with scale , mass and gravity, like Serra - but across my site, like Tschumi.
