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Memories in Space
Julie Beckman’s lecture covered the journey that her design firm went on in 2002 from proposing a design for a 9/11 Pentagon memorial to constructing the site in Washington D.C. The lecture conveyed that space can be used a vessel to save and secure memories through interaction. Since the U.S. government and the families of the deceased were immensely invested in this project, Beckman’s firm, KBAS, had to ensure that each detail communicated a sense of remembrance, and they convinced the U.S. government that they were best team for the job. The memorial is comprised of an array of benches, each one signifies a victim of the D.C. attack, that aligned in the exact angle that the Pentagon was struck. For each bench, there is a small pool of water underneath the part that you sit on. The presentation of each bench offers a tangible representation of what was lost so that visitors can gain a perspective that shows that the fallen are now part of a great creation. Even the material that people walked on was heavily considered, and Beckman’s team chose gravel so that people could hear every single step they make to promote a sense of awareness. The image that grabbed me the most was actually the overhead shot of the memorial because I could the lines that the benches formed, and as Beckman mentioned, the benches were aligned according to the flight path of the plane that crashed into the pentagon. It’s this detail that KBAS was not afraid of addressing what happened on 9/11 since they literally drew lines leading to where the Pentagon was struck that day. KBAS’s work interested me because they put so much careful consideration into a rather neglected event since people think of what happened in Manhattan instead of what occured in Washington D.C. Never in my life have I ever seen a structure that comforts and yet informs people about a tragic event through honesty about what happened that was manifested through thought design choices.
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Theater + Boutique + Cafe = New World
The article “Lukstudio Creates Theatrical Shop for Chinese Brand” shows how a design studio addressed a major problem for small businesses. How can an upcoming clothing brand flourish when tech giants such as Amazon and Alibaba dominate the online shopping experience? Lukstudio’s answer was to create a space where the Chinese brand Dear So Cute can put forth its identity by encouraging people to have a performance of their fashion taste. It’s the shop’s influences that let it shine to its fullest. Although the Dear So Cute shop is in Haining, China, it gets the concepts of a cafe embedded inside of a retail location from stores in Korea. In addition to this, it is inspired by theaters in the way that they garner attention and interaction from their audiences. The shop’s features are evident due the shop’s use of stages and seating. It has a cafe that seats an “audience” which allows patrons to grab refreshments while they’re shopping. Each section that has clothing on display is elevated on “stages” so that people can be captivated by the clothing pieces. For every stage, there are dressing rooms that are setup as “runways” so that people can show off their clothes to their friends in order to enhance the group shopping experience.
This article grabbed my attention, initially, because I’m interested in fashion, but it was the unconventional approach to a making a clothing store that kept me. Lukstudio’s focus on the user experience of the shop inspires me because I’m a web designer, and I’ll admit that they’ve created an experience that cannot be replicated online. By bringing together the three worlds of fashion, theater, and food, Lukstudio has eliminated borders between these interests in this single space. This results in the space having immense power over the user experience for the people that choose to visit it which is exactly what Dear So Cute wanted in the first place.
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Greenhouse in the Sky
In the years to come, the world population will be vastly larger than today’s population. Yet, the land area on Earth will not change at all in the future. That begs the question, how can food be grown without using the Earth’s surface. Natasha Hitti’s “Greenhouse of the Future” covers an example of a greenhouse that does just that. Designed by Marjan Van Aubel, this greenhouse is designed to combat world food shortages that could affect people in the future. The design hosts a transparent glass exterior with a set of colored LED on the inside that promotes plant growth.
Aubel’s design grabbed me because, like most of my favorite designs, it utilizes unused space to improve the world. In addition to this, the shape of the greenhouse’s glass panes flows seamlessly into the aesthetic of a modern building’s design. Designs of this nature embody the true nature of architecture, turning the ideal into the real, because it allows the optimistic view of the future to come true. An optimistic view being a future without famine, war over food supplies, and the downgrade of civilization.
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Open Offices Open for a Change?
Open Offices Discourage Face-to-face interaction by Natasha Levy offers a conclusion to the debate of whether open offices increase productivity or if they hinder it. Harvard conducted a study on an anonymous Fortune 500 company by putting sensors on employees. That allowed them the researchers to know if people were communicating in close proximity while facing or if they used other means. The study found that people relied on email and instant messaging since the open floor plan left people feeling exposed when they collaborated.
This issue draws my attention because I aspire to be an entrepreneur that owns a company with an office space. On a deeper level, I’m also interested in the nature of how an environment can affect behavior. The outcome of the study is evidence that successful human interaction in small groups requires boundaries. In closed or restricted office plans, the borders of communication, but in an open office plan, the borders is the void between physical space and virtual space.
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House in the Sky
Houses can come in many varieties. Some are tall with many levels, and others can be wide and vast, but what brings most houses together is that they are limited to the being on the ground. That’s why “Yoki Treehouse” by Bridget Cogley caught my attention. The article covers a treehouse in Central Texas that is named “Yoki” after a Native American tribe’s word for rain. The house is accessed through the roof that’s also an observation deck. It has spacious rooms that you would find in most houses such as a kitchen and multiple bedrooms, but what separates this from most houses is that you have to walk across a suspension bridge to get to the outhouse. The materials used on this house are concrete, pine wood, birch plywood.
I was personally interested in this article because, as a kid, I’ve always wanted to live in a treehouse since I thought they were so much more interesting than normal houses. In addition to that, I admire how treehouses are intrinsically integrated into nature, and their elevation allows you to reach areas that wouldn’t be able to be touched on the ground.
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From Piping to Seating
Most furniture is made of typical materials such as wood or plastic, but other materials could prove to be more durable and cost effective. To explore what materials could make an effective substitution, Phan Thao Dang, a designer from California, made the concept of using sewage pipes as a means of furniture. He used durable ABS pipes from a local hardware store welded together to make a bench and a stool. Dang preferred to use sewage pipes since they could withstand large amounts of pressure and erosion.
I’m interested in this design because it’s another example of a design utilizing something that is usually overlooked or discarded so that it can make a new object that has a reinvented purpose. Before, the pipes would’ve most likely been used to carry drain water or sewage from one place to another, but after Dang modified them, they have the role of sitting surfaces that can contribute to the aesthetic of a room.
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Bridge Gets New Life
Tom Ravenscroft, Stockholm, Sweden (12 October 2018)
In Stockholm, Sweden, the Gamla Lidingobron bridge originally built in the 1920’s is set to be demolished due to its old age. Instead of producing a large sum of trash by completely disposing of the old bridge, Urban Nouveau has a nonconventional approach towards renovating the bridge. They plan to install 50 apartments below the bridge, and they want to include a linear park on the bridge’s deck.
Their motivation for this project is to maintain the bridge’s historical significance to the nation’s capital. Personally, this interesting because I enjoy designs that reinvent the use of space so that it can be used conservatively and efficiently. I noticed that in order for Urban Nouveau to save the structure of the bridge, they had to change the structure’s purpose to meet the needs of the people that are using it. This is an exceptional example of future development that offers spaces the chance to dynamically address the needs of the people that use them so that more can purpose can be added to the spaces’ role.
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Constructed Way of Life
Constructed Way of Life
Tricia Stuth
Stuth’s lecture was concerned with urban planning, city zones, and transportation in Knoxville. Her main point was that people are able to take up less space in a city as long as the surrounding infrastructure accommodates for it. The image that conveyed this main point the most was the picture of a map that showed the current population density of Knoxville in one color that covered a considerable amount of area and the map showed a dot in a different color that showed the proposed population density if changes to the city were put into place. The changes that Stuth showed included integrating bikes, trains, and pedestrian routes in more areas of the city, renovating old houses and lots, and reducing the footprint of the highway in Knoxville’s center. Since I’m personally interested in introducing products and services that may influence the lives of a multitude of people, the picture of the map of Knoxville with the two different population densities intrigued me the most because it showed how a few carefully considered urban planning changes can cause people to use the space around them in a more safe, efficient way.
Bryan Cantley
Bryan Cantley’s lecture primarily consisted of him showcasing how he uses drawings and models to form an abstraction of the structures that he plans. The point that Cantley was trying to push was that space can be represented on a spectrum ranging from real to abstract. Cantley’s description of he works in between reality and abstraction reminded of Plato’s Theory that we covered in lecture. Plato’s Theory of Forms covers the distinction between reality, what is in the world, and abstraction, what is in the mind.
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Blog Post 6
Blog Post 6
Landscape
Nature
Isolation
Comfort
Shelter
Warmth
Green
Convenient
Brown
Seperated
Smooth
Organized
Sharp
Hard
Rigid
Reflective
Green Mountain
Moving train
Moving clouds
Walking bison
Wooden box
People watching
Curved walls
Wood’s burning
Hanging furnace
Vast landscape
9/13:
Train
Travel
Nature
Beasts
Grass
Fields
Mountain view
Snow
Tourists
Sunset
Rocks
Dawn
Dusk
Warm
Fire
Shelter
Reflection
Furnace
Meeting
Vantage point
clean
9/18:
White mountain
Black train
Brown bison
Green grass
Blue sky
White cloud
Brown wood
Grey rocks
Green landscape
Red fire
Black furnace
Black floor
10/2:
Train station
Blue buildings
Slow motion
Bison
Clouds
In the landscape
Rocky hill
Wooden cabin
Glass front
Wide windows
Warm furnace
Large bench
Weather changes again
Darkness again
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Blog Post 5
“Sense emerges when I succeed in bringing out the specific meaning of certain materials in my buildings, meanings that can only be perceived in just this way in this one building.” - Zumthor
When I read Zumthor’s quote, The first thing I thought of was this streetwear boutique in Tokyo since the materials of the building are minimal which means that there is an immense meaning amount of meaning in each type of material used. The glass offers a clear view of clothes that are displayed, and the white exterior and interior encourage the eye to focus on the color of the clothing and not the color of the building.
Although, Zumthor was talking about how materials affect the sense of an object at the scale of a building, the same sentiment still applies to objects at the scale of the hand. Personally, I could relate this to one of my favorite pairs of shoes. A few summers ago, I purchased a pair of Diadora running shoes in a fashion boutique with best friend. I remember observing the build of the shoes while I held them in the store. I noticed the construction offered panels made of tan suede, white, breathable mesh, and red detailing. The materials of the shoe made this model unique from any other shoe since the materials affect the silhouette, color, durability, and weight of the shoe. These factors determined what role the shoe could fulfil sense this a shoe that offers the mobility and comfort of a running shoe; yet, the materials are , in my experience, ideal for matching a well dressed outfit instead of being used for performance. This is because the suede is used a premium luxury material as opposed to Nike’s Flyknit which is optimized for performance. This shows that the sentiment that the materials determine an object’s purpose regardless of the objects scale.
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Blog Post 4
Cities & Eyes 1
As also described in the entry, this image shows a city that is accompanied by another version of itself in the reflection of the water. All of the actual inhabitants live above the water; yet, the water is what gives the city functionality of hosting docks and ports for ports which enables trade. What’s interesting about this city to me is that every space in the city that can be occupied by man was created by man since the city sits on water. The reflection in the water shows a false representation of the city that is entirely vain compared to the city the people actually live in.
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Blog Post 3
Cities and Sky 3
This image relates to “City & The Sky” because it shows how the entire space is occupied with the task at hand. The people are occupied with using the materials to build what they’re responsible for. The space of the construction site is occupied by scaffolding, improvised walkways, and cranes. Similarly to the city in the story, this place is in a transitional phase since it can’t yet fulfil the purpose that it was designed to due to the fact that it is not yet finished. Personally, I got the impression that the city is in an adolescent phase since it’s in a hurry to grow so that it can be the city it was designed to be.
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Neyland Stadium, University of Tennessee, Knoxville TN, 1934
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Ayres Hall, University of Tennessee, Knoxville TN, 2011
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Two Landmarks of UT History
Ayres Hall, named for former UT president Brown Ayres, was first completed in 1921, and it would go on to be renovated in 2008. It is a large, brick building that spans horizontally in a rectangular shape with a clock tower in the middle of the structure. Ayres Hall was built with the intent to house classrooms, teachers’ offices, and study areas since it is an educational building. It’s position on top of “The Hill” allows for the sound from the clock tower can easily be heard from a distance. Additionally, students are able to see much of the campus since the view from Ayres is elevated. As a result of Ayres Hall’s features, it functioned as physical source of information in the form of: information from classes and teachers, visual information about the campus, and information about time. The latter of which was quite important at the time of the building’s construction since it helped people get to where they needed to be in age before smartphones. Ayres Hall was built for UT’s students so that they could strengthen their connection with the campus so that they could have an improved learning experience by providing a space of learning and observation while helping people get to their classes on time.
Citation: AYRES HALL AT THE DAWN OF TWO CENTURIES - Torchbearer
Neyland Stadium, named after former coach Robert Neyland, completed its construction in 1921, and it was expanded several times over the decades that it has existed. Neyland Stadium started out as a flat, rectangular playing field with a track circling the field. On both of the longer sides of the field there were bleachers for fans of UT on one side and fans for UT’s opponents on the opposite side. Neyland Stadiums purpose was to create a space for two types of people. The first is the athletes that played football and ran track, and the second was for the masses of spectators that wanted to be entertained. The athletes would be concentrated at the bottom where the track and field were, and fans surrounded the athletes in the bleachers. By fostering a space where the athletes that represent UT and the fans that support UT meet at the same time, Neyland Stadium shows off and amplifies UT pride to the fullest extent. Due to what Neyland Stadium had to offer for students and visitors, it acted as the primary source of entertainment and college pride on campus. This because it was functionally a battleground where UT athletes pushed themselves to overcome the might of opposing schools’ athletes in front of a crowd that was there to cheer them on. What Neyland Stadium has accomplished was providing an area that ultimately created a means of bolstering UT’s image to the students and the outside world as well.
Citation: A Facelift for the Future - UT Athletics
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