Reef Pattern is an installation I finished working on a couple of weeks ago. I'm in the COP -- the KBH -- (Copenhagen, Denmark) working at a relatively small architecture office called MAPT (Mediating Architecture Process and Teachnology). They work on a large range of projects from competitions to small built projects to large built projects to furniture and also workshops and "design research" a term I hadn't really heard before I got here. This project began with a workshop they ran two years ago at the Copenhagen Academy of Architecture along with an institution affiliated with the Academy called CITA (the Center for IT and Architecture). The subject of the workshop was "developable surfaces." Developable surfaces are 2d surfaces that are developed into complex 3d forms. These surfaces are designed on the computer in 3d and flattened into 2d. CITA is a research institution and all of their projects are based on production and design experimentation. They are supported by the academy and grants. After the workshop, they got a grant to do developable surface research in stainless steel sheet metal with MAPT. By the time I arrived the design phase was pretty much complete, so I mostly worked on the fabrication of the units and their installation at various places around the city. The idea of the system is clever. They cut two different shapes in the metal. depending on which side is on the inside and the outside each shape makes a slightly different form. There are thee pieces of the bent metal for each unit, and there are nine units. We first installed at the Charlottenburg Museum which is an old museum affiliated with the art school, and then at a skatepark warehouse. At night they projected those crazy lasers on it. The metal bent the light and looked pretty nuts. It's living above the door to our office now.
I personally think it looks kind of cool, but I'm not sure that simply being research about this type of technology makes it sufficiently interesting or exciting to me. I've been thinking about this trend in new architecture where a lot of work that looks cool and seems exciting to me is explained and supported by research as a design process. Because there are so many new technologies all the time, it is essential that this sort of research occur to even begin to figure out what we can do with them. But when do we start using these tools to create things that are really incredible? MAPT and CITA are kind of based on new ways of using new and tranditional technologies. But I'm personally not sure how interested I am in the technology for its own sake. I was thinking about a similar thing when looking at the MOS website (which - as a website - simultaneously think is weird and kind of bad, but I actually love and think is really cool) -- winners of the PS1 young architects pavilion this summer. Their projects look so interesting to me, and then the explanations are often just "playing with software we developed." I would like to hear what you guys think and know if you've talked with anyone about this. Check this project out on our website MAPT.dk got to LAB and then go to WORKSHOPS. While you're there check out some of the other workshops in the LAB, some are way cooler than this one. Generally I'm interested in a lot of the projects that come out of 'research," but I feel like there must be a better way of explaining some of these projects ... but maybe I'm wrong.
-C
1 comment:
i can say that i find 'design' most satisfying when there is thoroughly effective and purposeful end. I think design research in this sense (if I'm understanding you correctly) is interesting and probably important, but leaves me wanting a bit. Developing a new process for manipulating a sheet material is certainly a design goal, but doesn't seem to tangibly solve a known problem or improve any current situation. I think what I'm getting at is that there is tons of experimentation that can be done, but unless you have a decent reason to use some wild new process or form, then you probably shouldn't use it. Architects that experiment with some code or script to create some wild shape should probably not use that shape unless they explicitly say its because it looks dope.
Its like a mathematician studying some abstract, (currently) purpose-less field of mathematics (which many mathematicians do). someday these well-developed fields of math may find some great use for some astronomer or something, but for the time being it is really just for the fuck of it.
This led me to think about differentiating art and design. I think I might argue that (at least with as much as I'm understanding right now), these guys made a sculpture, cameron. Similarly, Matt and I talked to some mathematicians this weekend who were studying some purpose-less math. They told us they considered what they did art. making up new math.
Cameron, I think you helped make up new math. I think its important for human beings to keep trying to understand and explore as much as we can.
This is a ramble. I could keep going, but I won't. I'd like to continue this conversation, though.
I miss you, cameron.
Post a Comment