C-Lab 2005-20011 by Betsy Medvedovsky

C-Lab

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, ARCHITECT V13_FINAL.qxd:Opmaak 1

Jeffrey Inaba, Director From its inception in 2005, C-Lab has relentlessly explored experimental forms of architectural communication. Its mission as a research think tank is to generate new observations about cities and to develop informative, provocative channels to broadcast its findings. The lab’s work provides insights on the contemporary city through the lenses of architecture, the global economy, culture, and government. It gives context and overview to the dynamics of urbanization, describing complex exchanges and relationships in concise summarizations. It processes diverse types of information to reveal connections between organizations unaware of their common interests or shared risk. The lab organizes this knowledge into presentations that are crafted to communicate in accessible and immediately relevant terms. It addresses the concerns of decision makers from the public and private sectors, architects, arts and culture professionals, and urban development experts, bringing attention to architecture issues of public consequence. Reinventing the way architects portray ideas, the lab conveys its harvested intelligence through a range of formats, including widely acclaimed installations, urban plans, awardwinning publications, video, and public events, using every occasion as a creative opportunity to design aesthetically resonating works. C-Lab gives form to content. The lab’s six years of output center around three operative obsessions – uncontrollable practices undertaken to intensify public and architectural debates: Bond, Harness, Leak. This special edition presents a sampling of C-Lab projects through these trajectories, drawing connections and new relationships among the works themselves. VOLUME 24 COUNTERCULTURE

Theo Botschuijver Stewart Brand Richard Doyle Todd Gitlin David Greene Lloyd Kahn Aleksandra Kasuba Kevin Kelly Chip Lord Winy Maas Geoff Manaugh John Markoff Cyrus Mody Jorge Otero-Pailos Jason Payne Roberta Price Felicity Scott Brett Steele Jay Stevens Tony Tether Eugene Thacker Fred Turner McKenzie Wark

Archis 2010 #2 Per issue € 19.50 (nl, b, d, e, p) Volume is a project by Archis + amo + c-lab…

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THERE WILL BE BLOOD

POSEIDON

DANTE’S PEAK

WAR OF THE WORLDS

TWISTER

THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN

THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW

SYRIANA

28 DAYS LATER

THE PERFECT STORM

A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

TWO-MINUTE WARNING

THE CONSTANT GARDENER

RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION

Unfriendly skies A compilation of skies from crisis scenes in Hollywood catastrophe movies shows that cinematic crisis can happen under any condition — not just a dark, looming sky. [Urban China Bootleg]

Filmmakers have given us memorable antagonists who single-handedly level large-scale devastation. Less appreciated, however, are cinematographers’ skill at evoking systematic failure through atmospheric devices: innocent and fluffy clouds part, darken, and hell fire descends. A quick inventory of disaster film-skies reminds us that in the movies--and in real life--crisis may strike anytime.

Gum No matter how fancy a building is, it will still have a gum problem. [Volume 10]

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Order Cards Restaurant order cards, presenting the material palette of the Breuer museum building. On the front and back of the cards, the materials of the corresponding surfaces are shown. Front on the front, back on the back. [Soft Opening, Whitney Biennale]

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Donor Hall, Detail

Donor Hall Who gives to the arts? Follow the money for The New Museum. It turns out military bodies, governments, private foundations, media conglomerates, populist movements: all are united in their belief in the power of culture and implicit desire to have influence on it. [Research Study, New Museum]

DIY power kit Assembles and analyzes the attributes, clothes and accessories used as references of power. Reassemble in new ways to create new political figures, needed for, or created by new global political hotspots. [Volume 5]

Kazakhstan It is unlikely that you will go to Kazakhstan any time soon. With more people leaving than coming, Kazakhstan broadcasts a golden architectural self-image of great space with great detail viewed from great distance. A desire for people and a resignation towards their absence is the country’s urban dogma. [Volume 13]

05-10-2007 12:16:16

The archive is a site of espionage, a rich field of deep knowledge ripe for intelligence gathering. C-Lab finds pleasure in evidence collection and pattern recognition. By compiling related but discrete elements, unforeseen causations emerge, charging previously benign scraps of information with complicity in broader schemes. Arrangement transforms these pieces into narratives, unearthing hidden relationships that comprise urban EARTHQUAKE conspiracies.Here, research is a two-way street. Extract to abstract; abstract to extract. Spies, like storytellers, dig deeper into the details of the matter in order to harness their constructive potential.

unfrienDly skies

By c-laB

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD THE HAPPENING

CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR

AIRPORT

ARMAGEDDON

BABEL

JAWS

WATERWORLD

WALL STREET

WALL-E

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Photo REUTERS

In diplomacy, details matter. During the 1968 peace talks with the North Vietnamese, we had famously wasted more than two months arguing [with Hanoi] over the shape of the negotiating table, while the war continued. Richard Holbrooke, EndOctober A War 12, 1995 Frontlines immediately beforeTo Dayton, HOLBROOKE

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Z-Top Sixty linear feet of required table surface is compressed into thirty-five feet of available floor space by designing a Z-shape table. A reduction in the distance between diners, informal discussion areas take shape and encourage greater amounts of interaction. [Park Avenue Armory, Architecture for Humanity]

TUDJMAN

IZETBEGOVIC

Holbrooke Conference Table A custom table seating nine people strategically removed the combatant parties from the negotiations. Instead, a narrow selection of chosen parties were kept in, asserting the power of the NATO countries while minimizing the national identities of the Balkan diplomats. [Volume 13]

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ISCHINGER

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DKNY Table Instead of the classic round gala tables, a fixed diagram of social interaction, or more democratic long tables with their awkward layout and limited guest communication, this setting maximizes the number of positions of interaction, and thereby increases casual conversation. [Donna Karan Urban Zen Foundation: A Tale Of Two Systems]

NEVILLEJONES

Z-Top

Donna Karan Urban Zen Foundation: A Tale Of Two Systems Event, Using DKNY Table Architecture for Humanity Event at the Armory, using Z-Top Table

Zenica

BAS GRAHOVO

F E D E R A T I O N O F B O Z N I A & H E R Z E G O V I N A

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The Dayton Agreement Map

FOREST ARABLE PROPOSED URBAN CONCENTRATED URBAN

Chengdu Crescent

A source of unbound inspiration is the work of the late Richard Holbrooke who is perhaps best known as the ‘Architect’ of the Dayton Peace Accords. As the US special envoy to the Balkans, Holbrooke crafted an intricate environment that facilitated the successful negotiation of an end to Bosnian War. He employed urbanistic strategies, drafting the future political boundaries to incorporate multiple, often conflicting, demands concerning access to transportation routes, the distribution of infrastructure, the locations of resources and populations, and the physical management of urban centers. Just as importantly, Holbrooke orchestrated the space of the talks, using his spatial knowledge to design the relations of power among the negotiating parties. He worked through multiple scales of intervention, from the master plan of the geopolitical divisions in Bosnia, to the composition of the buildings at Dayton’s Wright Air Base, to interior details such as the table at which the treaty was signed, asserting his position through spatial relationships and symbolic power. C-Lab too believes in architecture at all scales and seeks to find effective vehicles to shape the built environment and space of geo-politics ranging from regional plans and visions for cities to urban furniture.

Saemangeum Urban Plan A proposed city equivalent to seven Manhattans in a deficient 3-kilometer sea dike. Instead of decreasing the development plan due to lack of pollution filtration, extensive urbanization increases the area of development and environmental improvement. [Fill The Lake]

Tuzla

World Of Giving Gifts form the foundation of all kinds of human interaction. Instead of reaching maximum personal wealth, giving is a powerful act that affects both recipient and the greater community, contributing to an environment of positive global change. [World Of Giving, Lars Müller Publishers]

TESLIC KIJUC

Chengdu Crescent For Chengdu to retain its status as a modern-day ‘garden city’, development must be channeled and contained so that green space can be preserved. In a formal move that is realistic, if not pragmatic, the Chengdu crescent is proposed as a strategic agriculture reserve that will limit the city’s expansion toward its forested lands to the west and secure the long-term viability of farming in the city. [Chengdu Biennale]

BIJELJINA DOBOJ

THE PLAN

Banja Luka

S R P S K A

Fill the Lake / Views

R E P U B L I K A

The Dayton Agreement Map In order to solve the Balkan disagreements, Richard Holbrooke drew a line. ‘The Egg’ and the ‘Clark Corridor’ were a result of that line, giving the countries a 49-51 percent division. Both the length of the line and Holbrooke’s insistence on its provisional nature has created greater interdependence between the Federation and the RS. [Volume 13]

D I S T R I K T

PRIJEDOR

Big Leaks Create an infrastructure of small leaks to avoid a big leak. Building leaks, information leaks, pollution and radioactive leaks: all prone to massive failure and the need for immediate design response. An overview of large-scale destructive leaks reveals a world map of insufficient designed leaks. [Volume 4]

Leak Leaks infiltrate. They cause chronic disruption in the everyday streams of consciousness. In urban planning there is the idea that you have to let go of some things – to accept small leaks – to retain control of others. The line between risk management and loss of mental control is fine. Speculation is not an idle waste, as it’s meant to seep in and trickle into discourse through informational osmosis. Leakage allows subversive thoughts to infiltrate normative situations or dormant ideas, planting the status quo with pools of doubt that may ultimately bear elegant mongrel thoughts. Here, a slow subterranean stream flows below the currents of global transmissions. Knowledge is spread and debates are spurred, which like all leaks, can’t be traced back to their original source.

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Urban Recovery Timeline

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1955

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C RE AN B AC UR RE

1945

Trash Understanding society by understanding its trash. A redesigned trashcan celebrates suburban trash culture and describes the use, disposal, and management of the things we throw away. [Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes, Walker Art Center]

The Urban Conspiracy Senior citizens have been plotting to take over mankind. Raised in the aftermath of World War 2 and coming of age during the paranoia of the Cold War, they reacted to the hostile battles for power by banding together behind a purpose that has been hiding in plain sight for decades — the reshaping of public spaces within the city. [Volume 29]

THE URBAN CONSPIRACY

POST

Urban Recovery Timeline The five stages of grief based upon Mwalimu Imara’s diagram of the Kubler-Ross model overlaid onto the frequency of the term ‘city’ in Google Books archive. [Volume 29]

Archis 2011 #3 Per issue €19.50 (NL, B, D, E, P) Senior discount rate €13.00 Volume is a project by Archis + AMO + C-Lab...

Volume

Make Believe The most convincing explanations have a clear narrative arc. Like children’s stories, all real world circumstances follow familiar storylines, based on Gustav Freytag’s form structures, from a problem’s point of origin to its ultimate resolution, making public narratives less definitive ‘happily ever after’ tales. [Volume 20] Alibi Island The island in the sun appears as an ideal getaway destination. But upon closer inspection, the isolation forces a lone society to deal with global warming and energy supply. [Domus: 914]

Learning From Venice Acknowledge the uncontrollable dimensions of planning. Venice is all about controlling water, both in the macro-engineering of the Venice lagoon and in localized efforts to save buildings. Instead, isolate areas to save and let the rest of it go. [Perspecta 41]

2. Anger

Trauma

3. Bargaining

5. Acceptance

4. Depression

1980

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Bond The Technostrich A diptyc of technology and nature in a fairytale of two ostriches. One, a regular ostrich, the other, a robo-bird. Only a new breed, the technostrich, a hybrid cyborg, can respond to the downsides of both poles — the dangers of the the misuse of technology and the disadvantages of technophobia. [Volume 20]

Droopy Chair Rather than designing a sleek chair, a generic plastic chair is provided with a highly customized piece of upholstering, establishing a composition simultaneously enhancing and questioning the given. [Soft Opening, Whitney Biennial]

A concept generator in a surrealist mode, Bond is a key operation in C-Lab’s work. In a paranoiac cum ecstatic gambit, fresh ideas are tied together to achieve unknown pleasures, turning one-night conceptual stands into relationships with meaningful connections. Drawing parallels between seemingly unrelated phenomena bares alternative strategies, forms, points of view. Bringing instant legibility to these connections through an economy of means pries open new spaces for intervention; new grounds for initiating projects.

THE TECHNOSTRICH by

C-Lab

C-LAB 2005-2011 C-Lab acts as a kind of training camp and energy source for incubating new communication streams, led by its current and past collaborators operating throughout the world. c-lab.columbia.edu Aaron Bowen Alan Kwan AlfonsoOGarcia del Ray Blanco nce upon a time, in a far away land, there was beautiful palace by elaborate gardens. The gardens contained all the flora Allynsurrounded Hughes and fauna of the kingdom. Amanda Shin One day, the King received an encyclopedia of his kingdom as a gift from a neighboring ruler. The book was perfectly complete, so much Amanda Vincelli so that it contained one thing the King had never heard of, let alone – an Ostrich, a gigantic bird that cannot fly, but could run faster Amyseen Campus than a lion. It looked and sounded so strange that the King nearly Anabelle thought itPang was a lie, but he knew his neighbor was wise. Andrew Shimomura April Lee Arielle Assouline-Lichten Ashley Couch Aurelien Gillier Benedict Clouette Benjamin Cohen Betsy Medvedovsky Björn Ehrlemark Bridget Hanna Cameron Woods Robertson Clara Klein Claudia Gerhaeusser Cody Companie Dana Karwas Daniel Koppich Day Jimenez Deb Grossberg Diana Martintez Elizabeth Krasner Elizabeth Nichols Eric Barr Evan Erlebacher Evan Litvin Evelyn Ting Forrest Jessee Genevieve Rainsaberger Gerrell Wilson Greg Bugel Greg Evans Harmony Murphy Ian David Volner Jamison Guest Jason Causton Jean Choi Jeffrey Yip Jenna Barclay Jennifer Broutin Jennifer Milliron

Jesse Seegers Johann Schweg Juan Pablo Alcalde Julia Molloy Julianne Gola Justin Fowler Kamal Farah Kate Meagher Katherine Means Kathryn Mearns Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan Lauren Turner Leah Whitman-Salkin Lee-Ping Kwan Liz Stetson Lucienne Canet Luc Deckinga Lukas Pauer Luke Daenen Marcello Del Signore Maria Kowalska Mariela Alvarez Maryana Grinshpun Matt Shaw Matthew Clarke Matthew Hoffman Maurizio Mucciola Monica Datta Nathalie Janson Nicholas Kothari Nicholas Solakian Noah Sherburn Rebal Knayzeh Shumi Bose Simon Battisti Stephen Mueller Susan Park Taka Sarui Talene Montgomery Tatiana von Preussen Tiffany Wey Troy Therrien Wayne Conger Winnie Lam Yukiko Bowman Zach Heineman

Acknowledgements C-Lab gratefully thanks Mark Wigley, the faculty at Columbia University’s GSAPP, and C-Lab Advisors Barry Bergdoll, John S. Johnson, Jiang Jun, Lewis H. Lapham for their generous intellectual support.

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