1997.07.13
new type of building presentation @ Quondam
With the new system of presentation, I have the opportunity to display all kinds of material about the respective buildings, and it will probably allow me to be much more playful with the models as well. I really should start to take advantage of what it is exactly that can be done with computer models. For example, taking the models apart and then taken eye level perspectives where pieces of the building are either up in the air or moved to the side.
In the new display format, I should also start to include more scale comparisons with actual models side by side or I could use certain building models to house some of the composition parts (composition.db) that I have already separated out from their respective models. For example, I could place all kinds of different buildings and or building parts on the plaza at Dusseldorf and call it Quondam at Dusseldorf, or I could turn the Chandigarh Museum of Knowledge into a Museum of Architectural Knowledge by putting all kinds of images on its walls and models in its spaces.
1997.07.16
redux/organization of /usr/museum
I looked at and packed all the databases in arris4 which houses all the /usr/museum data. There is much to be organized with regard to the museum data (along with much data to be purged). There is much discord among the three projects and I want to create a system (like at grusr/berlin) where there is one collective database that has the site plan and the 3D data all in context, along with individual databases for each of the buildings.
My first task will be to collect all the 2D data and organize it into specific databases per building with also a database for site data. Once each building is organized, I will create a master plan (and this will also involve some new designing).
While working on the master site plan, I will also be organizing all the 3D data per each building. Once I reach the point where I have organized all the data, I will copy the 3D data of each building into a master 3D model of the whole site. This means that I should create (design) a fairly substantial model base in tandum with designing the site plan.
Without getting too involved with new designing, however, I should make sure that all the existing data is in order.
In seeing the second Wacko scheme, I came to the conclusion that I should incorporate the design, but in a different area of the site. As it stands now, it is pretty much a ruin and I should approach its design "completion" as a case study of my “ruin/generator” theory. In fact, I should probably do some basic extrusions of the Mayor’s House and the early ICA fragment as well, just to get the model to a point where it more like an actual place.
Along the same lines where I am re-using Wacko 2, I may take the approach of creating the site plan and the site model by manipulating data that I already have elsewhere. For example, I could use the DTM modelling from Media and change the scale and orientation of the grid to create new areas of contour, or I could use pieces of other buildings, manipulate the shapes and scales, and incorporate the parts into the new buildings. (Overall, however, I think I’d rather do my own designing--this should really be my playground.
Eventually, the newly organized and newly designed data will be displayed at Quondam as a continuation of the first exhibit. I was also beginning to see a comparison with the new Getty complex in Malibu, and it might be interesting to have a virtual construction site of/at Quondam. I think I can actually pull such an idea off in terms of making it a legitimate “exhibition” at Quondam.
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1997.07.25
new dexterity - further thinking
All kinds of crazy and easy ideas are going through my head right now. I’m thinking of doing much more investigating with Arris patterning (especially with screen capture and color fill). I’m thinking of how I might be able to pattern square symmetrical plan formations, and then see what other architectural plans develop. I might find it very interesting to use plan examples from the Campo Marzio.
I am also thinking of just plain doing different x&y scale changes to the Campo Marzio plans. I quess I never did this before because my old system was just too slow.
Some of the dexterity work will be through Quondam as well, For example, the kit of parts and the collaging of ideal.db will be perfect examples of their respective new capabilities. The “analogous building” is also a new form of dexterity.
1997.07.30
dom-ino and other paradigm buildings
I have completed the MKOlivetti conference room model and set it among the other paradigmatic buildings. Seeing the five “buildings” together tells an interesting story. We see Le Corbusier’s own development and then we see an inversion of the paradigm in Hejduk and Stirling--an inversion, yet also a further development. Hejduk’s Bye House is like the Maison Dom-ino (and the second composition) without the floor slabs, which have been converted into a gigantic wall--the floor slab inverted from horizontal slab to vertical slab. With the floor removed, only the column grid and the free-form shapes of the “rooms” remain and the circulation elements have also been separated out, and also inverted to an extent.
The Stirling construction takes the Corbusian paradigm a step further. The floor slabs aree also eliminated, and the major component is a space raised on columns (pilotis), yet the space is not a box, but a single room in a free-form organic shape (which seems slightly related to the study of the Bye House). I have to confirm the dates of these two projects. The other major elimination (more a replacement, actually) is the lack of stairs and the new inclusion of a ramp and an elevator instead.
Interestingly enough, the basis paradigm of structure, space, and (vertical) circulation are the same elemental components of each design, and seeing the designs together offer a concise representation of the evolution of a seminal modern (architectural) idea.
Presenting the group together will be the first time (outside of the exhibit) various buildings in the collection will be exhibited side by side. Along with comparative plans and elevations, I am also going to display a series of axons and perspectives. I will say something about each of the projects and also offer specific views (like the Strasbourg stage set in context), but most of the views will be of one building in relation to the others.
This may be the first ime I experiment with the new display approach.
1997.08.09
experiments with the philly model/virtual history
I thought that I could do very interesting things with my Philadelphia model in Lightscape. I could apply patterns and all kinds of photographic imagery to the wireframes of the buildings. I could create a surreal environment...
Part of this idea stems from my working on the Campo Marzio lately, and wondering whether the Campo Marzio will somehow inspire a new theory on urban design. The point is that there might be a way of presenting the same type of graphically evocative urban design “plans” as the Campo Marzio using the C.C. Phila. model and scanned textures attached to the wireframes. I'm thinking that all kinds of zany architectural photo imagery can be applied, such as elevations cropped oddly and saved to unorthagonal angles--a very bizarre cityscape. This has a tremendous amount of illustrative potential. I can build on a real comparison between what Piranesi did with a plan of Rome and what I am doing with a model of Philadelphia.
With the above idea, I now have three items on the phila model agenda:
1. Parkway Interrotta
2. Unbuilt Philadelphia
3. Lightscape/collage city
What all of these projects have in common is, of course, virtuality, and perhaps that is the theme that I will always follow when working with the city model. (Piranesi’s Campo Marzio is not a real Rome, it is a virtual Rome.) Virtuality can here be used to demonstrate a new fork in the road of historiography, and suddenly I am anxious to read whatever books there are on the “unbuilt” because I believe I can begin to make a case attesting to the existence of the virtual realm and to its current manifestation in full force--a phenomenon that can no longer go unrecognized, and must begin to take its place beside “traditional” history.
To the above list I will now also add:
4. rotation/scale manipulation of the philadelphia model parts.
This type of exercise brings with it all kinds of potential commentary regarding urban design in the computer age (or perhaps just in the virtual realm). I am reminded here of my positive impression of downtown Pittsburgh with its collage of street grid patterns, and thus its strong contrast to the ubiquious orthagonal grid of C.C. Philadelphia. This contrast of two cities may be the spring board from which I launch this project. Moreover, the results of such a manipulation of the model data will be exponentially evocative when (and if) I also apply the collage surface “textures” to the rearranged model.
This is truly new dexterity for me to be involved with, and I like the fact that I can relate my exercise directly to Piranesi and the Campo Marzio and a new theory of urban design at the dawn of the virtual/digital age. I also like the fact that I can do all this on my own.
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1997.08.18
Campo Marzio - aerial perpsectives and 3D modeling
Yesterday was the first time I generated aerial perspectives of the Campo Marzio plan data. The results were promising, and I see such perspectives being used within the “Campo Marzio today” section of the book. What the perspectives made most clear, however, is that I really should begin a 3D construction of the plan data. The capability of generating perspectives (of either 2D or 3D) is already something that has not been possible before, and thus a new rendition of the Campo Marzio.
I have thought of a system whereby I begin the model constructions. Because of the standard copy mirror and copy rotate commands, I will extrude each building plan as an orthagonal entity. The extrusions will reach a height somewhere between 10 and 20 feet, and will include whatever building base or stairs are part of the individual building design. I will begin with the buildings already in the typology collection, and the 3D databases will have the same layer structure. Copies of the 3D data will then be rotated into a master model database.
The base of the model will be a separate exercise. I will overlay the Campo Marzio with a new grid (750x810 ft. increments) and I will develop each parcel individually and each parcel will have contours (if applicable), and water depressions, and opaque differentiation of green versus road of paved surfaces. I am hoping that this piecemeal approach makes the work easier and more efficient.
I just realized that I could compare the Philadelphia model witht he Campo Marzio model (at least the buildings and the building footprints from the Phila. model).
1997.11.25
inside-out Altes Museum
Last night I thought of a construction using the Altes Museum model whereby the exterior walls of the Altes Museum are used to create an interior courtyard. This would be a very incredible space and probably lead to the production of some very nice drawings.
If I extend this exercise to include the whole building, I would then have a total inside-out building. My best bet would be to first work on inverting the plan. Once the plan is workable, I will then have a better idea of how to model the whole “building.”
This may be the first example where I begin to create whole new buildings through the manipulation of existing model data.
1997.12.18
more daring @ Quondam
...to be more daring in the displays @ Quondam, which means that I want to be far more manipulative of the model and 2D data in the collection. I want to begin displaying crazy collaged-distorted designs and I want to start really demonstrating the true possibilities of “virtual” space and museums of architecture. In going this route, I may have to make it clear that new definitions of museums are also being created in the process--the “virtual” museum can go beyond the “mission” of a real museum.
1997.12.22
the Parkway Museum Annex as Quondam
Last night I realized that my design for the museum annex within the Parkway Interrotta project is a perfect virtual Quondam construction site (along with the house in Laguna-Wacko House and the ICA). The storyline is simple and apropos to the continually unraveling Quondam saga. I actually have a clear program for the building that I schematically designed so far, and it already has a well prepared virtual context--very conceptually tight.
The best thing about the museum’s design so far, however, is how it follows the Schinkel-Corbu-Stirling legacy and presents a quite viable next step direction. The design is also ripe for inclusion-execution of the promenade architecturale. Additional design development will entail any sculptural & electro-iconic enhancements to the “boxes”. Another wonderful thing about the design development is that I can make legitimate reference to all the museum precedents not only within Quondam and the museum design legacy, but to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Beaux Arts tradition as well.
In terms of programmatic development, I am realizing that I can also be as inventive as possible, and that I really don’t have to worry about things like offices and bathrooms, but then again, I can introduce offices and bathrooms from building designs that were never built (models from Quondam’s collection, etc.). Furthermore, not only is the design of the building itself going to be an exhibit of architecture, but I can design actual exhibits , and again I can and will incorporate actual buildings (life size models) into the building, and the exhibits will be the actual buildings and/or their various parts. This idea is really taking the virtual museum of architecture idea to a fabulous reach--it really will be like a parallel universe.
One of the exhibits could be the Villa Savoye on the roof (or someplace appropriate) and I am just imagining the views from the villa out into Center City Philadelphia.
Overall, the whole idea creates a great narrative that brings together the Center City model, Parkway Interrotta, and the Parkway as a virtual place, the promenade architecturale, the Stirling legacy, the whole notion of virtual architecture, and my own designs.
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