http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zT7iKmfrCU&feature=channel
Look at this guy's work!
I WANT ONE.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Transparency
Transparency is the primary concept behind my building, so I'm going to rant about it here.
Actually, first off, let me rant about my ranting process. Always at the start, and usually throughout my design process, I write about my building. I go through my mental "experiences" with the building's forms and spaces, certain emotions I want to feel while experiencing the building inside and out, etc. Writing helps me to ground my ideas and distill the useful bits from what would otherwise remain fuzzy and therefore useless. In terms of it's effect on my final design, my building writing is probably the most important part of my design process.
So, transparency. I think this work will be (with any luck) a hallmark of the 21st century. I define transparency as a lack of friction when apprehending what exists. To put it more bluntly, what you see is what you get. Usually a person or object with this quality "simple". Anything complex or convoluted is proportionally more difficult to apprehend in full. For some objects, such as a car engine or a cell phone, this is a design requirement; lots of what is going on is hidden from view because of metallic seals and, waterproofing, the small scale or lack of moving parts, etc.
I don't believe this has to be the case for a building.
A lot is happening behind the scenes in a building, namely mechanical systems and structure. Structure can be made beautiful, and there is plenty of precedent. Mechanical systems can be ordered and painted to be at worst half-decent looking, at best an integral sculptural element to the building.
A building that encapsulates transparency should be, in spirit, like the human hand. A hand is an entirely practical device (much like the rest of the body). Specifically, though, a hand is mostly transparent. Veins and arteries, bones and joints are visible through the minimally thin layer of skin to protect the inner workings. There is nothing superfluous in a hand, a purely mechanical, practical tool, yet it is one of the most drawn/painted body parts. There is something elegant and beautiful with an unafraid, totally transparent, yet unimaginably complex form. If a building is elegantly designed and unified in it's strategies, and then left as transparent as possible, it would then become true and beautiful.
Also, the nature of this project warrants the use of a spiritually transparent building. Learning is an act of exploration, and the environment should feel as "explorable" as possible to encourage this mindset from the first few moments of approaching the building.
HOW to actually do this is the hard part. I'm thinking lot's of glass, mitigated by strong, clean structural elements fully exposed. If something is concealed, there needs to be a very obvious reason for it, readily apparent and accessible to any curious patron. Utilities and mechanical should run around like veins and arteries and be as clean and directional as the structure. Passive systems should move and change with the day, so the interior condition is variable but smart. This moving adaptability (self-adjusting louvers, for instance) has some practical reasons, but it's mostly for aesthetics, keeping with the spirit of a transparent, growing and changing experience. Sharp edges, rectilinear forms, clean cut and fully connections.
That's all for now.
Actually, first off, let me rant about my ranting process. Always at the start, and usually throughout my design process, I write about my building. I go through my mental "experiences" with the building's forms and spaces, certain emotions I want to feel while experiencing the building inside and out, etc. Writing helps me to ground my ideas and distill the useful bits from what would otherwise remain fuzzy and therefore useless. In terms of it's effect on my final design, my building writing is probably the most important part of my design process.
So, transparency. I think this work will be (with any luck) a hallmark of the 21st century. I define transparency as a lack of friction when apprehending what exists. To put it more bluntly, what you see is what you get. Usually a person or object with this quality "simple". Anything complex or convoluted is proportionally more difficult to apprehend in full. For some objects, such as a car engine or a cell phone, this is a design requirement; lots of what is going on is hidden from view because of metallic seals and, waterproofing, the small scale or lack of moving parts, etc.
I don't believe this has to be the case for a building.
A lot is happening behind the scenes in a building, namely mechanical systems and structure. Structure can be made beautiful, and there is plenty of precedent. Mechanical systems can be ordered and painted to be at worst half-decent looking, at best an integral sculptural element to the building.
A building that encapsulates transparency should be, in spirit, like the human hand. A hand is an entirely practical device (much like the rest of the body). Specifically, though, a hand is mostly transparent. Veins and arteries, bones and joints are visible through the minimally thin layer of skin to protect the inner workings. There is nothing superfluous in a hand, a purely mechanical, practical tool, yet it is one of the most drawn/painted body parts. There is something elegant and beautiful with an unafraid, totally transparent, yet unimaginably complex form. If a building is elegantly designed and unified in it's strategies, and then left as transparent as possible, it would then become true and beautiful.
Also, the nature of this project warrants the use of a spiritually transparent building. Learning is an act of exploration, and the environment should feel as "explorable" as possible to encourage this mindset from the first few moments of approaching the building.
HOW to actually do this is the hard part. I'm thinking lot's of glass, mitigated by strong, clean structural elements fully exposed. If something is concealed, there needs to be a very obvious reason for it, readily apparent and accessible to any curious patron. Utilities and mechanical should run around like veins and arteries and be as clean and directional as the structure. Passive systems should move and change with the day, so the interior condition is variable but smart. This moving adaptability (self-adjusting louvers, for instance) has some practical reasons, but it's mostly for aesthetics, keeping with the spirit of a transparent, growing and changing experience. Sharp edges, rectilinear forms, clean cut and fully connections.
That's all for now.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Brave New World Paper.
Ignoring, for the purposes of this discussion, the obvious evil of the endeavor, controlling an entire society is a complicated problem to solve. Millions of people need to be coordinated in a unified motion, rebellions squelched or prevented all together, yet with all the needed productivity and wealth of a free society. Countless variables need to be carefully massaged to keep things flowing smoothly, or else total collapse.
There are various methods to achieve this goal of molding an entire society like clay. Abject fear is one. But, like a cornered animal, fear of a man with a big stick will only get you so far before one of the animals lashes out in self defense. Most people will fall victim to rule by an iron fist; they just don’t have the cast-iron moral fortitude to know they have the right to fight back. But a handful of individuals with cunning means and a little luck can catalyze a total societal shift. However, opportunity for a rapid collapse of this kind has to already be in place for this sort of revolution to work.
Another, and more successful, option for controlling an entire people is propaganda. Once you can rally people on their own “terms” around a few infectious ideas, the inevitable rebellion of the handful of naysayers is scolded, not by a higher power with a threat, but from their peers. Fear of punishment and alienation from friends, family and loved ones is vastly superior to fear of a punishment from above. If one respects the opinion of those they love more than they respect themselves, they will smoothly fall in line and do their part. Those that are true individuals, with a fully independent vision are quickly rationalized and alienated at the local level. The real challenge is planting the correct ideas into the memetic landscape to get – and keep - the engine running.
The fictional society in A Brave New World demonstrates several feasible, overlapping strategies to keep society in line and “stable.” One of the most powerful strategies employed is the manufactured obsolescence of the nuclear family.
Family relationships are among the closest humans can have, and are generally built upon the emotional bonds resulting from the raising of children. With technological advances, the “family” is obsolete. Carefully tuned machines raise children from a fetus, using audio recordings during incubation and sleep, and brutal conditioning as young children. Because children are mass-produced like cars, on a literal assembly line, the particular fears implanted put their minds enforce a steep philosophical and emotional landscape. Their worldview becomes impossible to escape, especially without the support of the tight knit societal microcosm of a family.
Because it is assured that the entire society is on the same wavelength, the helpfully redundant self-correcting mechanism of pervasive taboo keeps people in line if they manage to climb out of the mental sand trap. It’s important to note again that, once these societal mechanisms are set in place, they take care of themselves. Only tweaking from a higher authority is needed.
A subtler, and more perilous mechanism in place is the taboo against working or living alone. It’s seen as unproductive and at best frowned upon, in the book’s society, to be without the company of others. One can privately and honestly desire to spend time alone in this society, but despite the strong desire to confide in others, it’s a great risk. One has social standing to lose, the last true value in a society where all productivity is completely controlled and moderated.
But social standing isn’t the “goal” of this self-reinforcing meme. People are most likely to be themselves, to think creatively, independently and without fear, while alone. Immunity to independent, self-righteous thought is the keystone for all of the aforementioned mechanisms, the one wedge that could drive the system. As independent thought is private by nature, a publicly run society is eaten away at from the inside once isolated sects can bud a revolution. With a variety of overlapping and self-regulating mechanisms at the local, personal scale, people stay in line and do their part to maintain social stability.
It’s important to note the true strength of the nuclear family, and the myriad phenotypic effects of its absence. A tight knit family dynamic is far more robust than the individual with no intellectual leanings, if only because a family has it’s own social self correcting mechanisms tucked into it’s own steep valley. A close family is all but impenetrable once established. The taboo against exclusive relationships and friendships, promiscuity encouraged, prevents “families” budding up in the society. A family can move as one, brutally strong entity and act as a strong root for outside individuals to seek solace and hope in, if they privately share an independent philosophy. It’s for this reason that destruction and prevention of family in a controlled, self-stable society is an absolute necessity.
Self-reinforcing taboos can moderate and reconfirm themselves without much outside influence. Evidence for this phenomenon exists everywhere in any society, and can be cultivated into a mechanism of macro-societal control if the right technologies are employed. Warning signs of this are taboos against independent, self-confirmed thought, and acidic decay and prevention of closed, tight knit family and friend units. One might observe these phenomena happening around us in the modern age, mostly escalating on their own. With a knowledge of how memes take root and continually confirm and fight for their existence, societal change for the better is possible.
There are various methods to achieve this goal of molding an entire society like clay. Abject fear is one. But, like a cornered animal, fear of a man with a big stick will only get you so far before one of the animals lashes out in self defense. Most people will fall victim to rule by an iron fist; they just don’t have the cast-iron moral fortitude to know they have the right to fight back. But a handful of individuals with cunning means and a little luck can catalyze a total societal shift. However, opportunity for a rapid collapse of this kind has to already be in place for this sort of revolution to work.
Another, and more successful, option for controlling an entire people is propaganda. Once you can rally people on their own “terms” around a few infectious ideas, the inevitable rebellion of the handful of naysayers is scolded, not by a higher power with a threat, but from their peers. Fear of punishment and alienation from friends, family and loved ones is vastly superior to fear of a punishment from above. If one respects the opinion of those they love more than they respect themselves, they will smoothly fall in line and do their part. Those that are true individuals, with a fully independent vision are quickly rationalized and alienated at the local level. The real challenge is planting the correct ideas into the memetic landscape to get – and keep - the engine running.
The fictional society in A Brave New World demonstrates several feasible, overlapping strategies to keep society in line and “stable.” One of the most powerful strategies employed is the manufactured obsolescence of the nuclear family.
Family relationships are among the closest humans can have, and are generally built upon the emotional bonds resulting from the raising of children. With technological advances, the “family” is obsolete. Carefully tuned machines raise children from a fetus, using audio recordings during incubation and sleep, and brutal conditioning as young children. Because children are mass-produced like cars, on a literal assembly line, the particular fears implanted put their minds enforce a steep philosophical and emotional landscape. Their worldview becomes impossible to escape, especially without the support of the tight knit societal microcosm of a family.
Because it is assured that the entire society is on the same wavelength, the helpfully redundant self-correcting mechanism of pervasive taboo keeps people in line if they manage to climb out of the mental sand trap. It’s important to note again that, once these societal mechanisms are set in place, they take care of themselves. Only tweaking from a higher authority is needed.
A subtler, and more perilous mechanism in place is the taboo against working or living alone. It’s seen as unproductive and at best frowned upon, in the book’s society, to be without the company of others. One can privately and honestly desire to spend time alone in this society, but despite the strong desire to confide in others, it’s a great risk. One has social standing to lose, the last true value in a society where all productivity is completely controlled and moderated.
But social standing isn’t the “goal” of this self-reinforcing meme. People are most likely to be themselves, to think creatively, independently and without fear, while alone. Immunity to independent, self-righteous thought is the keystone for all of the aforementioned mechanisms, the one wedge that could drive the system. As independent thought is private by nature, a publicly run society is eaten away at from the inside once isolated sects can bud a revolution. With a variety of overlapping and self-regulating mechanisms at the local, personal scale, people stay in line and do their part to maintain social stability.
It’s important to note the true strength of the nuclear family, and the myriad phenotypic effects of its absence. A tight knit family dynamic is far more robust than the individual with no intellectual leanings, if only because a family has it’s own social self correcting mechanisms tucked into it’s own steep valley. A close family is all but impenetrable once established. The taboo against exclusive relationships and friendships, promiscuity encouraged, prevents “families” budding up in the society. A family can move as one, brutally strong entity and act as a strong root for outside individuals to seek solace and hope in, if they privately share an independent philosophy. It’s for this reason that destruction and prevention of family in a controlled, self-stable society is an absolute necessity.
Self-reinforcing taboos can moderate and reconfirm themselves without much outside influence. Evidence for this phenomenon exists everywhere in any society, and can be cultivated into a mechanism of macro-societal control if the right technologies are employed. Warning signs of this are taboos against independent, self-confirmed thought, and acidic decay and prevention of closed, tight knit family and friend units. One might observe these phenomena happening around us in the modern age, mostly escalating on their own. With a knowledge of how memes take root and continually confirm and fight for their existence, societal change for the better is possible.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Legs!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG5X31CDg_g&NR=1
She's a cyborg, and can run way faster than I can!
And she's hot. 'nuff said.
She's a cyborg, and can run way faster than I can!
And she's hot. 'nuff said.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Oy!
I'm preparing for another long blog post, I swear.
A friend of mine ended a letter hilariously, so I'll end this post with what he said.
I think I'm turning into one of those whacked out artists that we read about, with a few bright glimmers of productivity punctuated by a ridiculous circus of self destruction. I can't help but find it hilarious, and I think that's a bad thing.
Slippery when wet,
~The Floor
A friend of mine ended a letter hilariously, so I'll end this post with what he said.
I think I'm turning into one of those whacked out artists that we read about, with a few bright glimmers of productivity punctuated by a ridiculous circus of self destruction. I can't help but find it hilarious, and I think that's a bad thing.
Slippery when wet,
~The Floor
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