Iterative or meditative?
Parametric or phenomenological?
Iterative meditation
or
meditative iteration?
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Ted Flato at NBM
Went to Ted Flato's lecture in National Building Museum. It's been a long time since last time I attended a NBM Spotlight on Design series. A snow day, but the temporary auditorium was full at 6:30pm when the presentation started. And it is well worth it.
Lake/Flato's name is associated with an honest regional yet contemporary type of practice. A couple of other names in US come to mind - Miller/Hull at the northwest, maybe to a lesser degree KieranTimberlake at the east (KTA is more artsy than vernacular). All of them embrace sustainable architecture, as sustainability "encourages" vernacular forms. The focus is on rational and thoughtful place making, straightforward and efficient use of (a variety of) materials, artful integration of structural systems, and slender display of structural members. To name a few examples of this structural aspect, just think of the purlins under thin roof overhangs, the exposed wood beams, the turnbuckles at the airy steel cable crossbracings, the slightly angled shape of the concrete column.
Ted mentioned the heritage from Ford O'neil. I have been to one of O'neil's building in Dallas, and it is a good piece of architecture. According to Ted, he and David Lake only started their own practice after O'neil passed away.
An interesting thing Ted mentioned is his encounter with Fumihiko Maki at a competition jury. Maki perhaps questioned Ted's preoccupation with context, which is perfectly likely. Ted didn't say how he responded to that, but in the lecture, he said it's about "stiching together" when you are working in an American city like Houston. It's different than Tokyo where the more vibrancy is better. This makes a lot of sense although I don't know if there's necessarily a right or wrong side here. Think regional or think global? It definitely reminds me of Kenneth Frampton's "critical regionalism".
Ted didn't talk about form at all during the presentation, and one audience member asked him about that during Q&A. He acknowledged that they paid a lot of attention to forms. In the end, it's "architecture". Indeed, their work is dangerously beautiful.
One more interesting thing Ted talked about is how much effort they spent on the program - pre-architecture stuff. They usually try to downsize the space, that's consistent with the sustainable approach. In the same time they try to get the building footprint narrower - for natural light. One example is at Rice, the school ended up building the pool outside so the massing doesn't get too huge. --- Both Koolhass and Lake/Flato "edit" the building program, but to what different ends!
Lake/Flato's name is associated with an honest regional yet contemporary type of practice. A couple of other names in US come to mind - Miller/Hull at the northwest, maybe to a lesser degree KieranTimberlake at the east (KTA is more artsy than vernacular). All of them embrace sustainable architecture, as sustainability "encourages" vernacular forms. The focus is on rational and thoughtful place making, straightforward and efficient use of (a variety of) materials, artful integration of structural systems, and slender display of structural members. To name a few examples of this structural aspect, just think of the purlins under thin roof overhangs, the exposed wood beams, the turnbuckles at the airy steel cable crossbracings, the slightly angled shape of the concrete column.
Ted mentioned the heritage from Ford O'neil. I have been to one of O'neil's building in Dallas, and it is a good piece of architecture. According to Ted, he and David Lake only started their own practice after O'neil passed away.
An interesting thing Ted mentioned is his encounter with Fumihiko Maki at a competition jury. Maki perhaps questioned Ted's preoccupation with context, which is perfectly likely. Ted didn't say how he responded to that, but in the lecture, he said it's about "stiching together" when you are working in an American city like Houston. It's different than Tokyo where the more vibrancy is better. This makes a lot of sense although I don't know if there's necessarily a right or wrong side here. Think regional or think global? It definitely reminds me of Kenneth Frampton's "critical regionalism".
Ted didn't talk about form at all during the presentation, and one audience member asked him about that during Q&A. He acknowledged that they paid a lot of attention to forms. In the end, it's "architecture". Indeed, their work is dangerously beautiful.
One more interesting thing Ted talked about is how much effort they spent on the program - pre-architecture stuff. They usually try to downsize the space, that's consistent with the sustainable approach. In the same time they try to get the building footprint narrower - for natural light. One example is at Rice, the school ended up building the pool outside so the massing doesn't get too huge. --- Both Koolhass and Lake/Flato "edit" the building program, but to what different ends!
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