garethace

Good post there reener.

Anything here, that grabs you?

Brian O’ Hanlon.

The whole Archinect thing though, was a nice idea for exchange of ideas – but seems to have developed into a Sci-Arc versus Columbia turf war these days. Oh well!

GL Form and all of that, I would rather learn about Architecture at ground level

Brian O’ Hanlon.

P.S. I am still turning over this statement in my head, and am just wondering if the people representing the use of computeristation and Architecture are really putting forward as bad an image as this one very intelligent poster at Archiseek seems to have gotten stuck with:

In one of your earlier posts you mentioned possiblity of thinking computers but perhaps we should be reminded that this is not the case yet- computers and they’re programs are created by us, written and informed by humanity. Every project developed in this way is coloured by someone elses preconceived notions. So my objection to complete computer design is that intrinsicaly it must breed homogeneity.

I mean, cast your mind back to Post Modernism, and all the other -isms in Architecture. And how the parrots of these ‘-isms’ always managed to spoil the original good the movement or thinking had to offer. You have made an intelligent point several times, about not swallowing things whole, about following up on strands happening around you, but not imitating them. Isn’t it really the slavish imitators who have arisen as ‘spokes-people’ for computers in Architecture. Isn’t it this people who have spoilt it as a movement for all of us?

I am very much reminded of a student in Bolton Street who decided to do his research topic about ‘writing algorithms to design architecture’. I mean that is the kind of opportunities that more conservative tutors standing upon some high moral ground love, to prove how useless computerisation actually is to the profession. Based purely on a very amateur and limited discussion of computers and architecture.

Your opinions on this would be valued.

You would be surprised how many young people your age, hated Busarus too. I.e. Guys/Gals doing Architecture for their degree. I think in cases like this Archiseek does fill a need so that Architects aren’t the only ones with ‘opinions’ about the built enviroment. I thought Busarus just plain sucked myself, until it was explained to me what a revolutionary new and exciting piece of Architecture it was for that particular time. Designing nearly in the early 40s, if I am not mistaken, and only constructed after a delay of a few years I think.

Anyhow, Busarus, love it, hate it,… commands respect for the time it was built in. Considering most of Europe was doing mock classical I mean. The bunkers are perhaps more like mock medieval and designed in the 1960s. That is the tough one really, it was one particular case where 1940s Irish Architectural Design was perhaps ahead of 1960s Architectural design!

You have made this point before about Architecture existing for a long time, and becoming almost a history for the people living in a town or city. Which is pertinent to this debate too. I used to kid with one of my lecturers in BS, about the 1970s and Sam etc, being a time of Letraset people, with James Bond suits! 🙂

Brian O’ Hanlon.

This is the kind of discussion that made Frank famous in the late 1980s and early 1990s I think.

Although, his ideas about Dublin are quite sophisticated now.

The part about Governments as the largest procurers of built projects in Great Britian was the part I zoned in on, as much as doing nice jobs for nice clients.

This Smart Growth debate here is probably important too, since it is very difficult for an Architect to define what is a client, at a Master Planning scale. Plus the fact, that those projects drag on for generations, not like the normal neat, Architect/Client relationship often assumed for small houses, or buildings. In fact, some of the dismal master planning around our cities may be a direct result of Architect’s inability to define problems this large, or to comprehend ‘the client’ on this large stage, which plays on for generations.

More People, Less Land Spark New Planning Direction

Building for Our Commonwealth (Editorial)

Committed Foundations: Smart Growth’s Ace in the Hole

A lot of the recent U2 competition controversy, I think distracted people from the timescale in which the whole DDDA thing happened in. I have a very plush document, done by McInery Construction and Murray O’Laoire, which dates back to the eighties or nineties! To look at that brochure, you would think it was practically ready for building in the early 1990s. I was in the DDDA building one day, back in 1997, and was chatting to a security person there, who produced the document. He said, I found this lying around, it is the last one for sure!

Brian O’ Hanlon.

P.S. I worked on a Belfast Master Plan with MOLA in 1999, and the due limited edition glossy publication was made. But like most of the DDDA stuff is to be found at http://www.stw.ie/ nowadays, I think that Belfast scheme might be the same. So you can see how the Architect, isn’t always remaining at the end of larger, ambitious schemes even. The client, contractor, developer, Architect, consultants can all ‘just come and go’.

I am particularly interested in how Information Technology can deal with this issue.

You mention competitions – say take the Bibliotheque de Paris won by the unknown Perrault fellow. I have seen schemes by Richard Meier, Bernard Tschumi, Mario Botta, James Stirling… a lot of bit names. And all of those Architects do talk about their entries for those competitions with enormous affection. As if those projects, were important for them as Architects. I know that Meier was annoyed at being eliminated from the last 3 I think, in the Paris Bibliotheque competition, and perhaps with some reason too.

Still think you are showing a little bit too much disregard for meaningful inputs of clients in the design process. I mean, a lot of good architects, took it on board themselves to develop a really good productive relationship with clients. Competitions exclude you from all of that. I know that competitions are good for young Architects, trying to build something. But having won a decent competition, would it not be nice to do a job, where you got to know the client a bit better? I mean, a really good client? Suppose for instance Paul Clerkin, had loads of money made from designing web sites in a couple of years time, and wanted to build a nice new office/practice for himself? What kind of architects generally snap up clients like that? Is it the McCullough Mulvins, or the O’Donnell and Tuomeys – or is it the Anthony Reidys. Do good clients find themselves working with unsuitable – business-oriented Architects, and make the mistake of not employing the services of O’Donnell and Tuomey sometimes? I suspect the answer is yes – you cannot get O’Donnell and Tuomey treatment from certain types of practices out there.

I worked for a very business-like firm, where a lot of young 40 something Architects in their prime, felt their skills were being wasted. However commitments to family, mortage etc, meant they were stuck where they were. Now and again, a good client would pass through with a nice job/design problem. Or we might even do a competition – WOW! But ultimately, the process felt very fractured – you never felt you got into the groove of thinking laterally enough, before it was back to the old same-o business-like work again.

Sad.

I think individual young Architects like Bucholtz McEvoy are a bit like this account of warfare: Vietnam War, Guerrilla tactics: use your weaknesses against the enemy. The enemy is larger but also slower. You are small but more mobile. You rob, steal and capture what you can, so the enemy provides you with equipment. The Americans finished up supplying the enemy with tools to destroy them. You are growing stronger as the Americans grew weaker.

(Enemy of the State starring Gene Hackman and Will Smith)

Brian O’ Hanlon.

Talking about D-TOX and strange places to work etc, check out the ‘Space for Civic rituals/4D’ here at this E-Folio. Indeed the idea of strange buildings in strange places for people to work or study or learn etc, is one that arises in many architectural competitions. Check out the guys design, for a public Library too. Quite an inventive approach to a public institution.

Are you you much into those kinds of projects Reener?

I worked in an office once which operated out of a house on its own grounds, right out in the suburbs, beside a big shopping centre. I mean, everyone in the whole place began to fell like it was Gorky park, or some strange Stalinistic nut-house 1930s mental institution for shock treatment, we were all condemed just to rot inside! I have also worked in open plan factories with thousands of other workers, and that can be problematic with ID badges, security checks, cigarette breaks, lack of communication to supervisors, or no supervision…

So I guess, either extreme isn’t really acceptable is it? From my own experience of just walking around the Wood Quay building, I would imagine it is terrible from the later point of view. That there is no proper supervision, it feels like you are just some ID Badge, with a person attached to it. And I would think there is almost no sense of being part of a team, of having an identity, other than the one, some god-awful Human Resources gob-shite gives you. Look at any of the DELL ‘award winning office buildings’, and you will get the picture. Nice to look at, but bad from a point of view of humanity.

JMHO, Brian O’ Hanlon.