32-floor building planned for Dublin
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Re article originally posted by garretace
Toronto developer
Very much so,
A pretty impressive resume. I like the feature on the interior which looks very livible.
Very interesting trends about the blandness of very diverse suburb types.
I also noted the height limit that this award winning architect builds to of 13 storeys.
I would like to see pictures of the exterior of a few of his buildings. Very original no doubt
🙂
Yeah, there were so specific points I meant to scribble down properly while reading it this morning – I will get back to that again, some specific points worth bringing up in this thread I think. I must read the article again, though to remember.
Any sign of the photos Brian?
I linked it on the other thread a while ago; I wrote a couple of words and posted up some images here:
BTW, you may need quite a fast connection to see all the photos, and a big display would be handy, or else just wait a long while on a slower connection, as I often have to do. 🙁
My ideas about Thom Mayne’s work
It is quite simple actually, that architects should play war strategy games like Shogun Total War, in order to become more versatile with the way that they use computer interfaces.
I have been pretty busy of late writing a Photoshop benchmark, to go into a suite of major benchmarks soon. See how it develops, but I wanted to make sure that how Architects might use a Photoshop system in future should be part of ‘a benchmark result’.
I.e. quite heavy image working.
Basically, while a lot of computer software out there claims to be very suitable for architects because it draws/models doors and windows instead of lines and arcs – I believe that software will only be really useful for architects when it finally becomes to model or draw the kinds of things which architects think in terms of – that is numbers of people who are going to use the eventual structure and get around the institution.
If it is possible to control armies of these little guys running around the screne, then why can’t that notion be applied to architectural design software? Stupid idea, stupid question – but I think now that computers are reaching maturity, it is time for some refreshing and new ideas. Because people seem to have written them off basically at this stage, and people seem to feel a heck of a lot more comfortable now that ‘computers have failed’ to help the way that architects design anything.
Oh well, it just means a few less billion for AutoDesk I guess! 🙂
Maybe someone could start a service where you could send cad-drawings via the net or on a DVD-Rom and a sufficiently large computer could do the calculations.
Behaviour profiling would be very useful in designing large-scale projects.
It would also be very useful to Health & Safety practicioners.
The question is would you use Matt Groonings
profile for the Irish ala the St Patricks day episode?AI, well what Medieval Total war does, is it adjusts the AI for various units of soldiers – like some behave with a lot more cowardice than others do. On the other hand, some stay and fight, when perhaps they should actually run. You are expected to understand this yourself, and as a general you are expected to make the necessary adjustments.
I don’t know if I mentioned this in the past, but WWI relied heavily on improvements in defensive war, which were not met by equal but opposite improvements to offensive war.
I.e.
* Tinned food, soldiers fought through the winters.
* Barred wire, stopped cavalry charges, which broke up dead-locks.
* Hydraulic canon firing – no need to reset aim, meaning continuous rate of fire of heavy artillery.
* Telephone – allowed better distribution and organisation of resources along a long front, making breakthroughs more difficult.Medieval warfare was beautiful – the archers when first introduced could just win on their own – so cavalry was needed to break up the archers, while spearmen were needed to resist cavalry.
PowerRes is something similar to what you said, about submitting work online to do large calculations
http://www.respower.com/news_2004_01_16_max6
I can see, that would be the best direction for rendering and certain AI software like we are discussing.
But in fairness, given the description of Medieval Total War gaming strategy above – I think that the best way to approach something like a building for the public, say it be part of a campus like in UCD, DCU or Trinity – or an extension to the National Gallery of Ireland, or an Olympic Swimming Pool, or a new National COnference centre – is simply to thing of the people using the institution as dynamic units.
Doing so, by using computers to highlight pedestrian flow patterns etc, you could anticipate a heck of a lot more about a design, than simply worrying about the colour of the f*** blinds, mullions, carpets, which are nice to get right, but what architects devote much too large a portion of their time doing.
I can never help when looking at these pictures;
http://www.hughpearman.com/articles3/dublin5.html
how much of the medieval pedestrian narrow street idea has been brought into the architecture there. How people move through the architecture – not like some really static wonder structure like a Mies van der Rohe. I guess people like James Stirling were also instrumental in bringing back some of this dynamic experience of architecture.
Then I see pictures like this one;
http://www.totalwar.com/community/bat9.htm
And I am automatically reminded that the old architecture in those days was much more inhabited, vibrant with lots of characters and busy people. Than the experience you get nowadays of medieval, which is normally something rather desolate and barren, renovated by the OPW! 🙂 Yeah, they had the budget for the nice paving, but something is missing.
Whenever, I come across bits of medieval embedded into parts of cities, that are still in use – I think that medieval architecture, streets and spaces really do still live. I think FIn mentions Italy being a place where that is the case – I know if I ever went there to visit, I would be looking at the architecture from that point of view.
I am not sure what kind of public liability clauses they had in medieval times though, for people falling from ramparts etc, but it was much more fun!
I think the Medievel lords had the odd citizen getting chucked of the ramparts built into their AI strategies!!!!
But it really does beg the question why this type of profiling isn’t done.
If you want certain documentary changes you go to Hackets or Oxwood. They give new perspectives, this if it came to pass would be revolutionary in terms of extending perspective.
A bit like the clarks shoes add of about 10 years ago with the two different conveyer belts of babies.
yeah it was italy. i was there last year for a medieval festival. it was in some small town about an hour outside rome. like paddy’s day but much more interesting. had a play basically played on the street. horses carring knights etc. it was class and to see the interaction between the users and the streets was facinating. i will try and find the name of it for u. the little town came alive. we got to see most of the architecture of it because as i said it was a kinda play that brought u around different churches culminating in a finish in the main square. how even ther large churches interacted with the people and the smaller houses.
Yeah, I really like the connection between medieval war fare, movement of troops etc and Beaux Arts architectural master plans, which was so great an influence on Louis Kahn.
Kahn is one of these very problematic, poetic kind of guys to get into – so most people just do a very large detour.
But my biggest problem with architectural ideas and the way they can be presented in education etc – is that poetic ideas, do not necessarily have to be understood in poetic ways – you can always use some kind of lever to ‘get you into the groove first’, and then just embellish it as much as you like then.
I like the notion of medieval total war game – because it presents in a very no-bs fashion – an idea about space and architectural design I have grappled with for a while.
That small tiny individual people, negotiate the environment around them, on foot, through both space and time – that give the necessary time, energy levels and direction – you can move people around quite a lot.
I am thinking about books by Edmund Bacon here, who tried to deal with Medieval urban planning etc. But the problem is, that when most students hear about ‘Medieval urban planning’ they go ‘what a bore’.
Fin has illuminated the topic quite well too.
I mean, take this argument that architects constantly use – that cities are designed by vehicular traffic engineers – it just begs the question of ‘where were the pedestrian traffic engineers’.
Hiding behind a bush, I have no doubt.
stuck in traffic!!! 🙂
i think that medieval planning they used the landmark as a navigation and street evolved in such a way as to be able to see it from anywhere. this gives the whole street/city a human feel and people could travel through the spaces easier with a knowledge of where they were.
Actually you really have to get out and about around Dublin city, to really see how things like St. Patrick’s cathedral do provide that orientation function within the city of Dublin, even still today.
I mean, St. Pat’s probably isn’t true medieval, medieval no more than ChristChurch. But the function it does in the urban fabric is quite similar.
There is a nice Church in Dawson street, that really marks it spot quite well too – even if in years to come, it became a bank, or an office, or headquarters for a company – it would still function architecturallly within the entire city, in exactly the same way.
So maybe there is an important lesson in studying religous architecture – for doing commercial projects.
yea the urban planning took that idea into even now with out “landmark” buildings. not quite the same cos the idea just got a bit mangled but u can see it’s ancestory.
St Annes Church an Dawson St has many admirers, it is a fine building.
When people talk about true Medievel landmarks they are talking about buildings such as the Cathedral in Milan which can be seen from a great distance.
Where the cathedrals of Commerce came in as that the Church(es) no longer provide the lead when it comes to landmark buildings.
Where the skyline was once dominated by church steeples in most cities people must look to property developers to provide new landmarks.
As time has gone on these landmarks have tended to get ever higher. Given the problems with open balconies most cities tend to build their tallest buildings as offices.
Tall buildings are in essence the pinacle of our built environment it is therefore essential that they are perfect.
I have a couple of images lashed out in the computer recently, but I forgot the damn disk again today – so tomorrow maybe.
Computers are really a top alternative, when looking for ways to design those things to be ‘as perfect as you say’.
It looks like Ireland is going the ‘Earth Simulator’ route soon, with the Science Federation Ireland thing.
http://www.sfi.ie/content/content.asp?section_id=226&language_id=1&publication_id=1085
My best guess, is that some heavily fortified bunker out in Sandyford industrial estate will house a big computer for scientists around Dublin to log into and run calculations.
Apparently, this is a very lucrative area indeed – Japan currently lead in this field, beating the USA for a number of years now.
Maybe, they could get a few little ‘Total Architecture’ games to work for us. 🙂
Do you remember the begining of Robocop when the news broadcaster spoke of all the corporate HQ’s moving to Iceland to avoid urban chaos?
But back to simulators, definitely the way to go the addition of more perspectives can only be a good thing.
It is good to see investment going into this area, the biggest problems with the blunders have the past have involved insufficient calculations.
A little overcalculation would be great!!!!!!
Well how many calculations do you want? Earth Simulator can do roughly a thousand, thousand million sums per second.
Basically it can simulate all the weather systems around the world, as they happen in real time.
I have a bit of a talk going on here;
http://www.aceshardware.com/forum?read=105065626
about supercomputing too.
But the whole area of digital storage technology is getting really interesting too.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=13688
So it will be possible to actually store a lot of high quality info.
Couple of more images at the bottom of this thread, just click the links.
http://www.cgarchitect.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=8&t=000061#000009
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