Reply To: New Urbanism.
To be honest with you guys, whenever i was asked to do these ‘left-brain’ projects in college I shyed away terribly. But I find, that when I base my arguments, ideas and assumptions on real sort of architectural foundation principles – people circulation, light as an element of architecture, degrees of spatial enclosure, open public spaces and so forth – that sometimes some useful observations can be brought forward into the basic framework stage for a good ‘left-brain’ kind of project idea.
What I cannot understand personally is why someone would want to do ‘left-brain’ projects without basing the exercise upon the opportunity to really sharpen one’s own perception of very basic architectural problem solving skills and guiding principles. The last thing I want to do here is to insult any party, but using my knowledge of DIT as an organisation over the years, is just a way of learning, more about cities. A map of architects practices in dublin, would also reveal just as interesting a result, or observations. You could distinguish how one Architects wants the big Georgian building on Baggot St, while another wants a small discreet office development off Mount Pleasant Ave, in Rathmines. Similarly with solicitors, accountants etc, etc. Cities aren’t made up of buildings and streets – but of people and circulation systems – that is what I have learned from my many years of education in DIT college.
Now, what really bugs me, is people who use new 3DS VIZ technology, without using some guiding principles and vocabulary similar to that of architects. I don’t want to design a building on a computer using terms like ‘Polyline, extrusion, UVW map modifier, parametric cube object’. Because it is not architectural vocabulary, and cannot ultimately lead to any architecturally defined solution. But there again, DIT with all the investment it has put in, still probably haven’t some invested in anything other than a typical AutoCAD/VIZ geek teaching computers to architects, with no clearly defined ajenda on how to pull it back into design studio.
