Bnieuws 53/03 - Dialogue (2019/20)

B 53/03

Colofon

Bnieuws Volume 53 Issue 03 November 2019 Contact Room BG.Midden.140 Julianalaan 134 2628 BL Delft bnieuws-bk@tudelft.nl Editorial Team Aimee Baars Jan Pruszyński Nicole van Roij Chun Kit 'CK' Wong Christopher Clarkson Federico Ruiz Contributors Nathalie de Vries Inez Margaux Spaargaren Cover Federico Ruiz Printed by Druk. Tan Heck 1,250 copies © All rights reserved.

Although all content is treated with great care, errors may occur.

WELCOME 02

#Bnieuwd

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Talking Spaces

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Language and Design Cognition: Toward a theory of Language Based Design

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OdeonAclimate schematic

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Emotional Space

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Exquisite Cadaver

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Interview: Raquel Rolnik

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Writing Urban Places

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If not now, then when?

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When actions speak too loudly

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Artefact: Nathalie de Vries

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In your own words

Editorial

DIALOGUE In our previous issue's interview with the dean, Dick van Gameren, we briefly touched upon the subject of cooperation between students and different master tracks. This has inspired us to create an issue about different kinds of dialogue that students, tutors and employees can encounter while within and beyond the walls of BK. Dialogue implies a two-way kind of conversation, where people taking part in it have a purpose and build (towards) something together — cooperate. However, can there be dialogue between people and spaces? How do spaces influence the kind of conversation that we are having? Do they allow for dialogue to exist?

We have critiqued architectural jargon, or the 'archispeak', many times in Bnieuws.

However, specific jargon is also used to communicate efficiently between professionals.

In extremes, these terms are converted into symbols to enable diagrammatic dialogue.

Deciphering this from an onlookers perspective can be quite a challenge, which Christopher covered in his poem (good luck!).

Federico wrote about the importance of spaces for dialogue. Playing such a central role in Republican states and cities, but strangely absent from the BK, are they perhaps a lost opportunity?

In an interview with Raquel Rolnik, Aimee and Nicole asked about her professional and academic experiences. How does dialogue between urban citizens and institutions look like nowadays? What about students' and professors' dialogue with local citizens? Is there enough engagement with the local situation and residents?

Jan checked if dialogue can be created through the means of the game of Consequences.

People around BK City were asked to add the next part of the conversation. Can the outcome be called dialogue? Or is it just an exquisite cadaver?

Nicole talked with Klaske Havik about Writing Urban Places, a new European research network, which is aiming to understand how dialogue, and other forms of language, may influence the built environment You will find this and much more in this issue. Moreover, in response to some of our readers' suggestions, we left one of the last pages free for your notes, so if you have any comments about any of the articles, write them down and send us a photo or just tag us on Instagram! We would love to hear what you think! bnieuws-bk@tudelft.nl

#Bnieuwd in BK To do / LECTURE ON CIRCULAR DESIGN The Hague architect Jan Brouwer gives a lecture on his work in the context of creation, the topical agenda of circular building and the ongoing transformation of the Binckhorst, The Hague. The oeuvre of Jan Brouwer shows the pleasure of creation and expression of technology. His works always anticipate future extensions, changes, and re-use. He is the founder of ‘unconventional structural engineering’ and initiator of public debate on architecture in The Hague.

9.12.2019, 12:45-13:45 Location: Bouwkunde Faculty, Room B

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To do / BERLAGE SESSIONS: JOOST GROOTENS The Berlage Sessions is a thematic seven-part lecture series focusing on scholarly research and critical approaches to contemporary architecture and urban design. This semester’s theme, ‘The architect as generalist’, explores how architecture practice is and has beeninherently expansive and cross-disciplinary, from the Renaissance to the present. On 13 December 2019, Joost Grootens, graphic designer and principal at Studio Joost Grootens in Amsterdam and Biel, talks about 'The Architecture of Books'.

13.12.2019, 12:45-14:00 Location: Bouwkunde Faculty, Room K

To do / THE BERLAGE KEYNOTE: GRAFTON ARCHITECTS Grafton Architects was established in 1978 by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara. They directed the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, entitled ‘Freespace’. Their edition of the Biennale focussed on “celebrating generosity and thoughtfulness, and a desire to engage.” Their built work includes the widely-acclaimed Universita Luigi Bocconi School of Economics building in Milan.

23.01.2020, 18:30-20:30 Location: Bouwkunde Faculty, Oostserre

#Bnieuwd outside To do / DISCUSSION NIGHT ON SELF-BUILT HOUSING For the Dutch among us, The Architecture Centre in Amsterdam is hosting a discussion night in relation to its exhibition on self -built housing. The past 10 years, self-built housing has become very popular in Amsterdam, resulting in experimental and diverse constructions, especially on the northern side of IJ-river. What does the future hold for this movement now that the housing crisis is over and the city faces the challenges of densification? Three installations by architecture offices SLA, LOA and KRFT are on display as well.

3.12.2019, 20:00 Location: ARCAM, Prinshendrikkade 600, Amsterdam Price: 7,50 www.arcam.nl

To do / THE VERTICAL ATLAS: CHINA.AI Vertical Atlas is a series of five events that attempt to develop a techno-political cartography; it aims at investigating specific geozones where the entanglement of different sovereignties surface and different stacks clash. This final event focuses on the implications of AI developments for Chinese city management, political and economic governance, as well as its place in the current Chinese cultural imagination. With presentations by Harvard University anthropologist Shuang Lu Frost and Chen Qiufan (aka Stanley Chen), renowned sci-fi writer.

5.12.2019, 20:00 Location: NAI, Museumpark 25, Rottedam Price: 7,50 (3,75 for students)

To do / INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) offers a high quality line-up of carefully selected fiction and documentary feature films, short films and media art. The festival's focus is on recent work by talented new filmmakers. However, within the four sections the Festival presents, there is also room for retrospectives and themed programmes. IFFR actively supports new and adventurous filmmaking talent through its co-production market CineMart, its Hubert Bals Fund, Rotterdam Lab and other industry activities.

22.01.2019-02.02.2020, 20:00 www.iffr.com

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Create

TALKING SPACES Words Federico Ruiz

Dialogue lies at the core of any republic; it is not a coincidence that congress chambers, where highly sophisticated forms of dialogue take place, are constantly depicted and glorified by states that represent themselves as open and inclusive, even if they are not.

Similarly, cities produce spaces where more informal kinds of conversation happen. On sidewalks and plazas, we all interact and establish different kinds of dialogue, verbal and not. Eventually, these small interplays generate all kinds of cultural manifestations.

However, these are also the spaces of resistance, where we exercise the right of free speech, and its corollary right of protest. That explains why, with a sinister sense of symmetry, public plazas and streets have also been the scenarios of repression - think about Tlatelolco in 1968, or Tiananmen in 1982.

These may be the reasons why contemporary architects are constantly searching to create successful and meaningful places for dialogue, where all kinds of people can express opinions, confront positions and try to find a common ground. In the “highly sophisticated� jargon of our discipline, these spaces have been defined differently: informal, hybrid, condensers, etc. As future designers of the built environment, we are encouraged to take part in that search; teachers are continuously asking us to think about the consequences of our designs over the public realm and on how people interact and, therefore, talk.

And yet, ironically, we might be missing these kinds of places in our own BK building.

Think about it: is there a place where you can talk to people from different programs and departments, including teachers and staff, at any given time? Let’s say somebody wanted to organise an informal debate among students for discussing possible improvements of the faculty: where would that be? Perhaps the Model Hall, where everybody is passing by, acoustics are bad, and people are working? Or the Orange Hall, with its auditorium layout? That could be the right pick: it is used as the faculty aula and frequently shown in media as an example of the open and diverse environment of BK. However, the spaces where a large audience of anonymous spectators listens to one single protagonist defines a clear hierarchy of interaction, an unbalanced kind of communication.

In short, everywhere in BK we find rooms that have very specific programs, both spatial

< Sorbonne occupied by students. Paris, May 28 1968. Eric Koch. Nationaal Archief.

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and temporal. However, paraphrasing what Richard Sennett wrote in The Open City, dialogue, as a democratic exercise, requires less ceremonial spaces. We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see any of those at BK. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that our building is a product of an emergency, a moment when the priority was to fit a whole faculty into a pre-existing structure, with limited resources at hand and within a limited period of time. This is not a criticism to what was done, no one doubts it was impressive. But urgent need is the enemy of the unprogrammed. In addition, institutions, guided by their inherent need for control, will rarely provide the platforms for free and uncompromised speech.

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At this point it could be argued that, as mentioned before, these spaces might be necessary in cities, but not at a university. In response, it must be recalled how selforganised students have been a driving force of social mobilisations for decades. For example, the Provos counterculture movement of Amsterdam, founded by students in the 1960s, continuously provoked public authorities with humorous and non-violent happenings. They were even elected to the city council, where they defended their own urban visions for the city, known as the White Plans. Later, in 1968, both students and teachers played fundamental roles in the movements in Prague, Paris and Mexico.

Today, students from all over the world still lead massive demonstrations, from Chile and Colombia, where they have been demanding for a better education and more opportunities for young people for the last decade, to Hong Kong, where their fight for political rights is still going on.

Thus, spaces for dialogue play an important role in education; their impact can transcend the borders of the university and influence society. When missing, it is in the hands of students to act and reclaim those talking spaces: they would be the first parties to benefit. Not only would they have a place for integrating their points of view into a single voice, but also a platform for producing a new kind of knowledge, away from the dogmas and rigidities that academies perpetuate.

In BK, the claiming of those spaces could perhaps start with small scale actions and interventions that could escalate with time. Student collectives could be organised, each one composed of and by people interested in talking about similar preoccupations and interests. Then, they could start finding those strange corners and residual areas that have not yet been colonised by functions and schedules: a happy marriage of lack of form and lack of function where dialogue could fit in.

The tower that everybody sees but nobody has entered could be the talking tower. The ceiling in the urbanism studio, big enough to fit a whole new floor, could become the talking ceiling. After a makeover, those small and weirdly decorated rooms next to the canteen could be less of an Instagram set and more like two talking chambers. The possibilities are endless.

Do you have any ideas for these talking spaces? Send us a photo via Instagram! @bnieuws

Explore

LANGUAGE AND DESIGN COGNITION: TOWARD A THEORY OF LANGUAGE BASED DESIGN Words Christopher Clarkson

I want you to imagine this red bicycle I’ve been thinking about designing for a while. It has some fluid curves in the frame, and the wheels are going to be green – wait scratch that, too Christmassy, make the wheels cream. And actually, it really ought to be Pantone 2035C and 7499C colour paints.

The fascinating thing about this bicycle that I’ve just described, is that whatever is in your head is likely to be completely different to the design I have visualised in my head. Furthermore, as I kept describing it, your idea of this bicycle likely changed and shifted. And once I mentioned the pantone colour codes, you likely didn’t even know what colour to imagine, due to its abstract specificity. So, what’s happening here? How is it that with the use of words suddenly you can visualise a bicycle, and why is it that your bicycle is completely different from the person’s next to you, and how does language allow for ambiguity and also extreme precision that seemingly limits your imagination?

Language has a powerful ability to represent the real world and, at the same time, let you colour the meaning of things like ‘red’. However, it also appears to be capable of giving you zero creative freedom by way of its ability to be incredibly precise and, as such, almost polarising. This begs the question: What does language do to the designs that you make?

Language is a rather strange concept. It allows us to tell stories to our friends, create logical narratives to create new ideas, to insult, to forgive, and to make

jokes. However, most bizarrely, it has almost no real connection to the real world. This brings into mind Henri Magritte’s painting titled The Treachery of Images, in which a pipe is painted, and beneath it is written “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.” The idea behind this artwork is to make you aware of the fact that you are looking at a representation of a pipe, and to say that it is a pipe would in fact be wrong. In much the same way that you immediately understand that there is a pipe represented in Magritte’s painting, when you read or hear a word, you can’t help but instantly understand the concept that the word signifies. This works in tandem with designing, because when you describe a red bicycle that doesn’t even exist yet, people are able to conjure an image of this thing, and then go on to build it. This provides a foundation for the interaction of your subconscious mind (psychological understanding of words and the generation of these words) and the language itself; however, this does not necessarily mean that language can enact change on the physical design itself, and it seems reasonable to assume that it can’t… or can it?

At 4 minutes past 9 o’clock on the morning of

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September 2nd, 1945, Japan signed the official Instrument of Surrender. Interestingly enough though, the state of war for WWII officially ended in 1952 with the signing of the treaty of San Francisco (shown above). The speech act of a declaration is a powerful thing. In this case, the action of language had real consequences for the whole world. This proves that language has the capability to affect the real world outside of language itself. This is known as a performative speech act, and was proposed by philosopher John Austin. As opposed to merely describing and observing the world outside of language, the borders of their respective universes collide, and what is said suddenly impacts reality.

This is an exciting prospect because it suggests that language could impact, if not enable, the realisation of a design.

Up until now, the assessment of the design process, labelled “Designerly Thinking” has led to a model-based definition of how designers do what they do: solve badly-definable problems by creating solutions out of seemingly nothing. These models base their structure on the biological understanding that we have of the brain; that is to say, the divide between the function of the left and the right hemisphere. Due to the strange and complex nature of designing, it is clear that one needs to operate using both analytical, logical skills, as well as creative, irrational idea generating skills. These skill types fall into the opposing hemispheres of the brain, and as such, the models of Designerly Thinking propose a sequential flip-flopping between these skill types, and therefore, the hemispheres of your brain. However, I feel that language is rather quickly overlooked in this biological model.

Different aspects of language allow for different

styles of thinking. For example, the construction of a joke is almost always a creative act. That is to say, by way of changing the order of words, or using combinations of words that are taken out of context, suddenly the meaning of these words can become different – essentially, you can play with the semantics of words. However, in contrast, language can provide some of the driest, most logical and analytical tools that we have after mathematics. In these designerly thinking models, language is taken for granted as a purely analytical tool. This is based on the research of Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory which suggested that language’s control centre was placed firmly in the left, analytical hemisphere of the brain. The problem with this, is that since 1983 when this research was done, the position that language takes as its own singular logical intelligence has been brought into question.

Gardner has also conceded that the different aspects of language, such as syntax and phonology lie truer to language’s assumed position as an analytical tool, whilst things like semantics and pragmatics involve other intelligences.

Language facilitates ambiguities allowing for further creativity and interpretation, as well as being able to be much more specific and analytical than things such as sketching. As a result, language manifests itself in almost every aspect of the design process, bridging a gap between creative and analytical thinking. Considering my own experience in design projects, depending on the rhetoric of the rubric, people produce completely different results, and design in completely different ways. The first design course is focused on ambiguous terms that speak about a house in relation to its surrounding garden and landscape. In turn, questions such as ‘how do

<

Treaty of Peace with Japan (with two declarations). Signed at San Francisco, on 8 September 1951

you determine the border between garden and landscape?’ and ‘What does it mean to create a landmark?’ arise. These questions provide room for endless discussion, and really, depending on your interpretation of the word ‘landmark’ you can design something completely unique. The second design subject of the bachelor’s programme focusses itself intensely on the technical quality of your building. ‘Is my building stable?’ and ‘Does your building control a comfortable climate?’ and ‘How much energy does your building require to function?’ are the guiding questions of the design. Here, the questions are largely limiting in nature, and require a specific answer – if your design doesn’t support its own weight, then you need to change it. Only by asking these questions, and talking about the design in this limiting manner can it be ensured that the building will function, however, it serves no room for speaking about the potential symbolic meaning of the library you want to design in an impoverished neighbourhood. In this way, the eventual product that you produce will be based on the way that you choose to talk about your design, because your

language will bias and prioritise your thinking about the design. I believe that by combining these ways of talking about architecture and the built environment the best results can be achieved, allowing you to play with the meaning of words to generate interesting and creative ideas, and then to use words as tools to strictly define that which has been created, and impose limits on it using rational language.

And so, I propose a different model for design cognition, in which language is the driving force behind your actions and your design. By eliminating the duality of former models, the creative and analytical powers of language are unified across the spectrum. While moving vertically over the spectrum, the designer is always creating while analysing, and continuously evaluating while making.

Depending on the task at hand, the designer moves from a more analytical state of mind, to a more creative and vice versa, to reach a design solution. I suggest that the manner in which this is done in the proposed model is by means of changing the way that language is used.

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A language based Model of Design Cognition, Christopher Clarkson

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Speak

ODEONACLIMATESCHEMATIC Words Christopher Clarkson

Below is a parody on the first stanza of John Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn. This Poem, (see title above) aims first and foremost to critique the language used in written conversation between construction workers, architects, and technicians.

The symbols used normally to represent the flow of sewerage and electricty have been transcribed to the latin alphabet to the right, this will be your guide in translating the below poem. Beware, some symbols are similar to others... Some of them might not be used... in fact, the guide might be out of date with the poem.

Good luck.

Thou uncaring nurse of permanency, Thou time tempered beast of sandstone 10

and fire, Chimeric tableau who with transparency Creates an ugly account of steel and wire: What arrow shaped legend strikes through your heart Of ventilation, or heating, or of both?

What water or sewerage are these? What lines dash?

What dotted breath? What emergency to alarm?

What pipes and tubes? What crazed electricity?

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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Source: Baars, 2014

Source: Baars, 2016

Source: unknown

Source: Sander Sloots, 2019

Source: TU Delft, 2019

Source: Jansen, 2018

Source: Studio Libeskind, 2019

Source: Ounseli, 2008

source: Jason Brown, 2011

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OBSESS/INSPIRE

EMOTIONAL SPACE Words Aimee Baars

Images Flickr

These past years I can recount several moments when I was moved emotionally by a space. In fact, I admit that two months ago I shed a tear when I said goodbye to the village in Southern France, where for several years now, I have spent careless and liberating summers. One could argue that my emotion is not sparked by the surroundings; it is instead triggered by nostalgia, the realization of fleeting time, the 'return' to normal life. This is true, but more than anything else, I feel a connection to this space specifically. In the words of Swiss architect Peter Zumthor: "There is magic in the real".

In regard to my annual French tear, for this issue I have been conducting a self-reflective process in which I question and search for the emotion of space. Another example: last month I went to the cinema to watch Joker. I held my breath the entire 122 minutes, frozen in my seat, occasionally grasping and bruising my poor friend’s arm in fright, who must have instantly regretted inviting me along.

Afterwards my back hurt from the nervous, strained position I had sat in.

As soon as I came home, I obsessively watched an embarrassing amount of Youtube interviews to gain insight in the directing and cinematography tools used to convey the narrative so intensely. I discovered that the backdrop city, Gotham, had been appointed as much a main role as the music and the choreography. While we follow Arthur (the Joker) running on the sidewalks in the opening scene, chasing the boys who stole his advertisment board, the director Todd Philips explains how in every shot the team had made sure that hardly any sky was visible, at times achieved by special effects.

“I wanted it to feel really overpressive, and over Arthur, so I didn’t want any blank spaces in the skyline.” Architecture here was used to create an

< References can be found in the online edition.

imposing and distressing atmosphere.

In Joker, the architectural decor immediately transports you to an imagined world infused with negative thoughts, darkness, bipolar lighting and claustrophobia, representing not exactly the most serene spaces. On the other side of the spectrum, Peter Zumthor in his book, Atmospheres, discusses soft, harmonious spatial senses in his search for "quality architecture". Quality architecture to him is when a building moves him. Often this happens at first glance, the first step inside, in a fraction of a second: “We are capable of immediate appreciation, of a spontaneous emotional response, of rejecting things in a flash.”

We thus interact, and construct relationships and dialogues with our surroundings. The built environment talks, not in an alphabetical language like humans do, but it nonetheless provokes, unsettles and triggers us and our imagination. I asked several friends which space or place had moved them and in what way. The answers were diverse, globally scattered, but appeared to have two architectural concepts in common: scale and monumentality.

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First of all: scale. Zumthor refers to scale as "level of intimacy", because this description encompasses a concept of space more than mere calculated dimensions. It refers to a sense that the space is larger than oneself, which either overwhelms and gravitates you to a humble presence or lifts you up, makes you float and breath freely.

Second: monumentality. Although widely interpretable, the Cambridge dictionary tells us the following definition: â&#x20AC;&#x153;an object, built to remember and show respect for a person or group of people, or a special place made for this purpose.â&#x20AC;? The nine spaces mentioned below by my friends are all related to actions and thoughts of worship, of contemplation, of hope, of belief, of liberation, of memory, forming a collection of deep emotions. The additional text explains the feelings the buildings evoked.

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From top left to bottom right on page 12: 1. Sainte Chapelle, Paris The stained glass windows 2. Santa Maria Maggiore church, Rome The mozaics 3. The Statue of Liberty, New York The idea of people leaving home, arriving to this entrance of the USA 4. Erasmus bridge, Rotterdam The feeling of liberation and vitality 5. BK Faculty, Delft The intimidating and inspiring presence when you walk up to the entrance 6. Akropolis, Athens When lit at night, it rises up above the city conveying a certain power 7. Jewish Museum, Berlin It truly captures the horrors of the Holocaust 8. Mosque of Beysehir, Beysehir It seemed heroic, resisting all the years and still standing 'strong' 9. University of Utrecht Library, Utrecht The power of silence to relax you and focus your

thoughts.

In most modern societies, we are increasingly engaging with distracting activities of entertainment.

They take up a lot of head space, leaving less room for thoughts of our own and shortening our attention span and patience. In response, we are designing spaces that must immediately, without deeper meaning, be regarded as 'iconic'; buildings have to take us by surprise, grab our attention quickly, otherwise we supposedly lose interest.

Thus, we are moving down a spiral in which buildings are created as 'temples' for quick, superficial satisfaction, rather than sparking deep emotion. To be clear, I am not a religious person; neither are the nine people who, for this article, defined their emotional space. Paradoxically so, most spaces are spiritually embedded. Perhaps we need these spaces now more than ever to clear our mind, to contemplate, to be silent every once in a while.

From a broader perspective, the generic loss of our faith to rationality has perhaps brought us further technologically, but I am not sure if we as designers have optimally used the wide range of innovative building methods to create emotionally responsive architecture. Lingering senses and feelings have often been eliminated in exchange for productivity and efficiency, which results in new and shiny, but superficially monotone environments.

In his book In Praise of Shadows, written in 1933, Junichiro Tanizaki explains this westernised neophilia - being excited and pleased by novelty - in contrast to the Japanese aesthetic attitude.

"Rather than fetishizing the new and shiny, the Japanese sensibility embraces the living legacy embedded in objects that have been used and loved for generations, seeing the process of aging as something that amplifies rather than muting the materialâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inherent splendor. Luster becomes not an attractive quality but a symbol of shallowness, a

vacant lack of history.â&#x20AC;?

Within my personal search for an architectural style of expression, however hard at times, I try to visualise the emotional power of design - envisioning my personal journey of movement and senses through a building, the surprise of an unexpected curve, a stroke of sunlight seeping in. More and more I realise creating emotional spaces demands a continuous process of refining and reconnecting with your design, playing with the power of anticipation and emotion that a space can embody.

This takes patience, effort and care; real temples can't be built overnight. In the words of Libeskind; "In buildings that move us, there's an element of care.

What we feel is the sense of intensity, passion and involvement. To me, that is the emotion of architecture."

Books used: In Praise of Shadows, 1933, Junichiro Tanizaki Atmospheres, 2006, Peter Zumthor

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Hey! Haven't seen you in a while! What have you been up to about you? Fine, dealing with bad weather. Back home it like the sun? I love the sun; it fuels my energy immensely, What makes you happy? Nothing makes me happier than knowin It sets the right tune to the rest of the day! What is your favourite m model... What do you think is the best kind of pasta sauce to spill on virtually impossible to clean stains (checked it myself). That got me hu of Dutch cuisine. Unless you have other suggestions? No, I'm alright with P1s are coming... Or did you have anything else tempt me... How about we go to a gym instead? Don't forget it's a leg for Legs, Bum, Thighs, so I guess I did my leg day already... How ab cinema at the moment? Frozen 2! It comes out sometime around no why not! However, how do I even contact you? Well, considering tha my number. Maybe tell me something about yourself first - are you been ok too, if I wasn't super allergic to them... :( would you ever try consider it? Because you promised! You said you would do every you! Why are you always like this? Because I want to be. Should we jus Fatten'em and eat'em, apparently they taste like chicken. What for d or we can just grab an ice cream around the old town. What do you pr to go on a date? Suuure? What does 'naomi' mean however? I think it's a guy called Jesus, seriously. How about you? Well, that's some g think about it. Do you think you deserve it? Of course, I do!Why would you eve was your task! Why do you keep forgetting to name? I am not completely sure, I think it sta

lately? I'm well, recently been employed by Bnieuws! How t is always nice and sunny. Speaking of which: do you y, I try to soak it in as much as I can, as it makes me happy. ng that I have nothing on my schedule when I wake up in the morning. morning tune? My favourite morning tune is making the group urban your urban model? I'd suggest carbonara sauce, very fatty and leaves ungry, what should we get for lunch? Kapsalon. The greatest invention h that. What should we do afterwards? Back to studio, I guess, in mind? Dunno, perhaps a beer? Bouwpub is open ;) Please don't g day! Are you still so keen on going? I did LBT yesterday, it stands bout some exercise for the mind? Are there any good movies in the ow, perhaps it's already in the cinemas! Want to go together? Sure, at I have no idea who you are, I am not sure if I want to give you a dog or a cat person? Dog all the way! And btw cats would have y cat or dog meat? No way! They're our friends! Why would I even ything for me, if I only asked! Is it that hard? It is not my fault, it's st break up? Wow, yes, obviously. What should we do with the kids? dessert? I make a pretty decent tiramisu (even though I am not Italian) refer? Please marry me... What's your name? Tom. Yours? Naomi. Want name. Do you know anyone with an unusual sounding name? I know a good connections you've got there! Do you want to introduce me? I will en ask? I don't know, isn't it what you're supposed to do? I thought it o feed our dog? Sorry, didn't realise I had one! What is it's arted with a K. Do you have any idea? Kapsalon?

Each font is a different person from the BK who contributed in creation of this Exquisite Cadaver. Editor Jan went around the faculty asking people to answer a question from the previous person and to follow up with a new one to continue the chain. Each person could only see the previous person's contribution. Can the outcome be called a dialogue? Was there anything you found surprising?

We left some space, so you can continue the chainwith your frends! Fill the rest of the page and send us a photo on Facebook or Instagram @bnieuws

SPEAK

INTERVIEW: RAQUEL ROLNIK Words Raquel Rolnik, Nicole van Roij & Aimee Baars

Image Nicole van Roij

In context of the promotion of her new book Urban Warfare: Housing under the Empire of Finance, we had the honour to talk one-on-one with Brazilian author Raquel Rolnik. As architect and urban planner, she has been deeply involved in policies concerning social housing for several decades. During 2008-2014 she was the UN special reporter on the Right to Adequate Housing. We asked her about her drive, her ideals, and the current global challenges the social housing sector is facing.

How did you develop your passion for housing justice?

It is indeed quite a topic and devotion in my life.

When I was an undergraduate student at the Architecture school at the University of Sao Paolo, during the 70s, Brazil was under a dictatorship. In this period, social movements started to reunite, reorganize, and remobilize. This included student movements, and also social housing movements. The housing movements specifically emerged in metropolitan areas which had grown madly from the 1940s in a pattern of self-built housing. These houses were built in precarious conditions without infrastructure, social equipment or diversity. The residents of these neighbourhoods sought to reclaim the right to the city, to be connected to networks of infrastructure such as the sewage system and electricity. As students, we became engaged with these social housing movements, in order to build a shared knowledge in the existing conditions and possible solutions. This movement lasted for many years, comprised of favelas and slum residents, students, architects, urbanists, and lawyers. I too became engaged, in researching the peripheries, but also as an activist in the field of urban planning and housing.

After that, I fulfilled different positions related to urban reform, in government agencies and the UN. In addition, I have been a university professor my whole professional life.

Were your professors engaged in these urban reforms as well?

Our architecture school in Sao Paolo was always progressive, it has been one of its characteristics until today. There were some professors who engaged themselves [with the movement] and through them, we were able to meet the residents and organisations. Those professors were very influential at that time.

Do you feel that architects nowadays still engage sufficiently in the political scene and policy making?

Less and less. From the 60's up to the 80's, there was big engagement, especially in urban planning, but also in architecture and design. By then, neoliberalism had also arrived in urban policies in Brazil. Additionally, there were very few schools of architecture in the country - there are more than 400 now. The political profile of the school and architects have since then widened and redirected mostly to the market.

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Having said that, many other professors other than me, held positions in city councils or engaged in research directly related to urban reform policies in municipalities over time. In the 80s, a large number of municipalities became laboratories for urban policies, implementing new instruments, such as participatory planning and the zoning of social interest. Today we clearly observe a regression, at the national level, as well as the local level. We are currently having a government which is identified with the mantra: state and planning should serve to promote business.

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In context of the Qatar 2020 World Cup preparations which has been in the news many times due to the precarious working conditions of builders, do you feel that as an architect you have a responsibility of how a building project is executed?

Absolutely. More than that, the way we build is not morally innocent; it is part of the design process which is an essential part of the production process on the construction site. Sergio Ferro, an influential architect in Brazil, who was exiled in France for political reasons and never returned, wrote a book on design in relation to economics and power relations on construction sites. His main argument: depending on the way you design, you orchestrate work on the building site. As designers, we should also question the function of landmark architecture, especially in the process of financialisation of urban space. These brand architects are responsible of creating real estate financial complexes, causing destruction of neighbourhoods and the creation of unaffordable and inaccessible cities.

Do you think design students should be better educated about policy implementation?

Yes, the education system now, both here and Brazil, are causing alienation from social issues.

Many students complain that they are taught too many abstract themes, unrelated to reality.

Compared to the 70's and 80's, have you noticed contemporary movements which concern public space and housing justice?

Absolutely, in Spain for example, there is an increase in tenant unions, and in the UK and US, a movement around rental housing has emerged; there is definitely a new a wave of housing movements and this is a global process. Of course, this is a response to the big wave of financialization, of private parties controlling urban space; it has become difficult to access the housing market in many countries. We are witnessing a regression in housing policies in for example the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and UK. Sweden had one of the most secure housing systems in the world which is currently being dismantled, resulting in a housing crisis. However, the above-mentioned movements are becoming a focal point on the agenda of political parties. For example, in the UK elections, housing became a topic in the agenda and Labour Party wants to build 1 million social homes. This is true also for the US. Many cities cope with urbanisation processes; cities have to expand to new areas or densify the existing built fabric. Both are leading to debates on inclusion and exclusion. What are your thoughts on the dualism between densifying and expanding cities?

We should be careful with this debate. It is tricky to perceive this issue merely from a formal point of view, in terms of urban morphology. You should insert the social dimensions of class and race. Why? In principle it makes sense to densify cities, to create walkable neighbourhoods and to limit further destruction of the environment.

However, empirically, what I have observed in cities is that most of the densification operations are massive evictions; groups of marginalized people are displaced, replaced with high rises which are not for them. Thus, as an urban form, densification or expansion can both be radical instruments of

gentrification and displacement. I am not criticizing density per se, it is an approach to answering the needs to grow, but the thing is, for whom? It is important to have an urban policy that addresses those issues, and that is possible.

Do you think, ideally speaking, another economic model would work better for our society than the current neoliberal model?

I think that, empirically, not theoretically, neoliberalism did not fulfil its promise: the promise was to accommodate everyone, ownership for all, universal standard of living, and this has all failed.

Neoliberalism is absolutely incapable of coming with good answers for the pressing questions today such as the environmental crises, the political crises and the cultural crises. In my opinion, neoliberalism is dead in its capacity of solving its problems, but it is still dominant and hegemonic; Europe is a superexample of that.

Would you advise disciplines to have more collaborations and discussions, in order to create responsive and responsible architecture?

This appears to be a challenge in many education systems, also in my school; we are located in the same building but we act separately. It would be much more productive if we could integrate these perspectives and share knowledge to develop a new relationship with the territory we work with.

Nowadays we are increasingly dealing with transformations as opposed to designing from scratch. This entails a certain respect and need to listen to other solutions towards the existing situation and the voices of people who are living in these territories. The heavy hand that rips out everything is disrespectful and fails to listen and understand the real needs.

A completely new dialogue is badly needed in the field of planning. This is true in Europe, but it is

even more true in the Global South; it is rare to come across a project that engages with the existing territories, not as formal landscapes but as landscapes for life.

With regards to the alienation of architects and designers from the reality of society, do you think language is an important bridge in connecting the design discipline with reality?

All the building codes are instruments for communication, but simultaneously for exclusion. In design the language spoken and used is that of the building industry. Terms like ‘floor area ratio’, what does that mean for ordinary people? Absolutely nothing. So, why shouldn’t they be the indicators and the metrics in urban planning language? This is definitely a challenge in Brazil. The movement of urban reform made serious efforts to overcome the exclusionary nature of urban planning. However, the whole idea was to insert the ‘other’ in our way of thinking, measuring and talking, but never the other way round: to really listen and open up this system for alternative ways of organizing space. There should be a balance of proposing, inventing, and discussing. Our main challenge is on how to imagine together. It not just a question to consult and ask people: “What is your opinion?”. No, it is the exercise of imagining and creating together.

Raquel Rolnik (1956) is a Brazilian architect and planner, graduated from the University of Sao Paolo (USP). Currently, she is promoting her book Urban Warfare: Housing under the Empire of Finance, and teaches at USP.

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Recommended reads Writing Urban Places

I. Writingplace Journal for Architecture and Literature. Issue #3 II. Writingplace Journal for Architecture and Literature. Issue #2 III. Writing place: Investigations in Architecture

LEARN

WRITING URBAN PLACES Words Klaske Havik & Nicole van Roij

Image Nicole van Roij

How can architecture and urban design understand narratives? And, do our design methods consciously choose to react to or ignore existing narratives? The new European research network, Writing Urban Places, addresses these issues.

This article opens up a dialogue on the aim of the research with the Chair of this network, Klaske Havik (chair of Methods & Analysis, department of Architecture)

Dialogues can be therapeutic; you make yourself heard, share your thoughts, experiences and frustrations. Most of the time dialogue takes place in the built environment. However, the built environment is not just the material backsplash to our dialogues. Of course, dialogues may take place in our built environment, and the built environment can be subject of dialogues as well. Another take on this would be to understand how dialogues, and other forms of language, may influence the built environment, or how they may contain valuable information about how communities understand, experience and value the spaces and places they live in.

The new research network Writing Urban Places, New Narratives of the European City aims to create a deeper understanding of narratives of the European City. The European network grant (a so-called EU COST Action) offers budget to organise exchanges between scholars from different disciplines and countries for a period of four years.

As part of this, conferences, meetings and training schools will be organised, and a number of publications will be produced. The thorough exploration of urban narratives will be exercised in a series of site-specific studies, that will focus on developing scenarios for urban transformation in

selected medium-size cities. In order to expand on the ways in which narratives can be interpreted the following targets will be explored theoretically as well as in case studies: 1. Meaningfulness: offering local communities and professionals the ability to improve their understanding of their built environment. The target explores historical narratives, oral history and literary cultural heritage in the (re)construction of urban identities.

2. Appropriation: empowering communities by improving their ability to project their hopes and feelings on their built environment. The role of local actors such as users, inhabitants and other stakeholders becomes crucial in urban processes â&#x20AC;&#x201C; precisely because they are the ones who experience, appropriate and develop their environment.

3. Integration: offering concrete tools and methods for the construction of common grounds among communities, based on relations of meaningfulness and appropriation of their built environment. This section draws attention to architectural design processes, regarding architecture also as the transformator and communicator of narratives.

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These projects will be developed within academia and will be published in a series of project reports.

Also, three training schools will be organised once a year. The research network will continue for four years. The following dialogue between Bnieuws and Dr. Klaske Havik aims to create an understanding of the relationship between researching narratives and design practices.

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Narratives and dialogues have always been present in society, still it is not a very familiar research topic in the fields of architecture and urban design. What has triggered the attention towards a better understanding of narratives?

The interest in narratives did not come out of the blue. For instance, the interest in narratives, by architects such as Bernard Tschumi in 1970's, can be seen as a reaction to the tabula rasa attitude introduced by modernism. At that point the social dimension of the city needed to be re-addressed. Out of this reaction various architects, landscape architects and urban designers explored dealing with narratives in one way or another. This also triggered the interest in literature as a field of research in relation to the built environment. The skill of literary writers to portray social issues and distinctive communities is insightful for understanding the social life and communities in cities.

Narrative is addressed as a way to empower communities in medium-sized cities. Could you explain why medium-sized cities are chosen and name an example of a city that the research is aiming for?

Indeed, one of the reasons to do this work is to strive for more socially inclusive developments. The network hopes to offer useful approaches to understand how urban space works socially and spatially.

We focus on medium-sized cities because there is already so much work done on the metropolis.

While, if we look at Europe, we see many problems

of demographic change and immigration that also have an effect on smaller cities. For instance, with colleagues of the network, we are working with the graduation studio of Methods and Analysis on Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. Skopje is a city that faces a lot of challenges in relation to different social groups, extreme effects of neoliberalism and complex political issues related to identity. In the past year, an aggressive narrative about Skopjeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s identity has been imposed upon citizens by means of architecture: a huge transformation of the city center, with poorly designed neo-classical buildings.

The students are exploring narratives at different social scales, to look at the impact of such aggressive narrative strategies, and to look at other narratives beyond these: the stories of everyday life in the city.

They have collected narratives on different social scales: not only the political, but also the scale of the bar-owner, the fisherman and the inhabitant. By understanding the perspectives of a diverse group of people, the students discover that there are different ways of relating to spatial and social transformations.

In that sense a narrative becomes a crucial tool to investigate issues of meaning and appropriation in the city.

It sounds like a sensible research method for analyzing urban areas. Can urban narratives also have use after the analysis, in the design stage?

Yes, it is exactly our intention to explore the potential of narratives in the design stage. For instance, when you are designing and move to a more narrative mode, you can try to imagine how different stories can unfold. In a design project, you might identity different possible characters and start adapting your design towards these users.

For instance, you could look at what happens to your design if you start to look from the perspective of children. Your entire visual field would be different, but also the way of using and appropriating space would be different. In that way, voices of different characters would help you become

empathetic to future users. Designing from such a position allows for the inclusion of different voices and by that design becomes more dialogical or inclusive.

If we are talking about design becoming dialogical, some spatial designers and artist are known to tell environmental stories with their design or works of art. Do you think architecture also is a medium to express narratives, or, would you say the expressive side belongs more to installation-art and land-art?

Often, the role of art is to tell a story. With an artwork you can convey a story and as an audience you can choose whether to relate to it or not. As architect, you are designing an everyday environment for people, so you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to scream a message all the time. I would be careful with saying that architecture should always tell a story. In architecture it also depends on the aim and function of a project; a housing project has a different role than a museum or a ministry. In public buildings it can make more sense to have a stronger narrative present than with other buildings. It is a matter of being responsive and responsible. Moreover, it is good to understand that there are always multiple stories and multiple ways to react to them.

What kind of advice would you give to students that are interested in researching narratives in their design studios?

I would recommend reading more novels and consider these literary works seriously as sources of information in how we experience our built environment. Also, there is a growing body of scholarly work on the relationship between architecture and literature. The book Writing place: Investigations in Architecture and Literature was produced here in Delft after a conference we held in 2013. Also, we started a journal called Writingplace Journal for Architecture and Literature, of which we expect the third issue in December 2020. Furthermore, there is my book Urban Literacy, Reading and Writing Architecture,

and the book Reading Architecture. Literary Imagination and Architectural Experience, edited by our new colleague Angeliki Sioli.

Taking this knowledge to the field of architectural analysis and design, the challenge is how to develop methods that are applicable on multiple sites and at the same time are locally responsive. This is an issue we are exploring in our research network: how can narrative methods, such as the use of characters, and the analysis of local stories, be meaningful for very different urban realities? In our network, we will be working with cities all across Europe, and we are very curious if after four years we could identify both a shared methodological frameswork and very specific approaches to the studied sites.

For colleagues interested to join the network: it is possible to get involved with the research network for academics and scholars. The research network will continue for the upcoming 4 years.

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SPEAK

IF NOT NOW, THEN WHEN? Words Inez Margaux Spaargaren & Gigi Altman

From the 19th to the 27th October was the Dutch Design Week (DDW) in Eindhoven.

An architecture student, like me, went there to be surprised and inspired. After seeing a selection of different exhibitions, my thoughts started to focus more and more on my doubts about the implementation and feasibility of these projects. The presentation techniques used and the execution of the concepts were completely different from the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Architecture projects in BKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.

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For me, the biggest noticeable difference was that this young generation of designers no longer designs for the product, but the achievement of a goal. They are committed to the society and no longer just make chairs, tables, and vases. Almost all the projects I've seen from these Design Academy Eindhoven students were socially engaged.

If you google for "engaged architects", then you get few results. Could the next generation of architects take an example from the reversal of these young designers, who focus more on a future social problems? Or are young architects ultimately only asked for housing or for 'rigid' architecture to create more and more iconic designs; ever higher, more spectacular and more extroverted?

There are two different ways of designing: The design way (creative thinking) in which importance has arisen for the awareness of contemporary problems. And the architectural way in which the need for design comes from the question of functionality. Can these disciplines reinforce and influence each other to design in a more abstract way and thus break patterns in order to get a new movement within architecture? To get a clearer picture, I entered into a dialogue with Gigi Altman, Design student active in The Hague.

Inez: After the Dutch Design Week I got the impression that functional design has been pushed into the background by designers. Is this the case?

Gigi: Within a design study, the focus is less on functional design, but more on problem-solving. We are looking at a problem that may occur in the future, which even the user may not be working on yet. In the first year, we don't learn to build a box, but we learn to code a website. The study is now being done much more from a technical point of view.

A nice case is the future of the train. How will people travel in 20 years? As a designer, we will not be designing the product, but we will come up with a proposal on how people will travel in the future and what kind of changes this will require of a train.

Nine out of ten projects are about future design.

We first examine the question and who asks the question, who are the users, what are their needs now and, in the future, what is changing around us, what are the trends, etc. For example, after thorough analysis we arrive at three strong points of change.

We work this out in a business model and provide a visual image of the future, which does not have to be a concrete product. It is challenging to design problem-solving and we hope that we will give clients

a trigger that the design process can also be put differently, by giving more freedom than by determining the process in advance. So, what we learn is that you need innovation to look ahead and this is not achieved with frameworks or requirements that influence the design process.

The bachelor's degree in architecture is mainly focused on functional design. We certainly also do research, but no research into how society is going to change. Whether the house we are currently building will still be suitable for these people in 20 years. How do people want to live, what is the family composition, will people become more social towards other family members, what form of living together is desirable? These questions are not asked within architecture. Our assignment is to make a floor plan with windows and doors for a certain target group with specific wishes that are now there.

How nice it would be if we took these questions into account. And take on a different, social role from an architectural point of view.

What I experience is that it is a big step for many companies and governments to already tackle a problem that could arise in the future.

Unfortunately, it's always about money. The great thing is that we do sit down with our clients at the table for problem-solving design. As in the case of HTM. We have sketched a picture of tram stops taking on a multifunctional role. Instead of only using the space for waiting for the tram, we also suggested charging and parking bicycles and a green roof to purify the air in cities or being used as a vegetable garden for the residents. With this vision of the future, HTM can now respond to the new use of tram stops.

How wonderful would it be if architect students were now being asked by clients to research future developments in society. Architects are no longer always used to design a building, but also to think along, to anticipate possible social developments and

problems. This means that not every design needs to be built. And eventually, the money will be spent more sustainably.

It would certainly be nice from the perspective of the (Industrial) Design and Architectural studies if we were to make the business community and governments realise that creative thinking is necessary for innovation, to anticipate the future; that not everything is about money, but mainly about society and the well-being of the people.

Inez: To include the bachelor of architecture in this line of thought, there will have to be some changes concerning creative thinking. It could be very interesting if there is a creative hub between designers and architects. Designers already have experience in creative thinking. To involve architects in creative thinking would create a change in ideas about sustainable places in society. Not only the functional design of products and buildings but an added value for society.

Whether or not this article can achieve something is the question. Do you also see these design differences between the disciplines? If you do, please respond to have a dialogue with me. And perhaps a dialogue leads to interesting conclusions.

Inez Margaux Spaargaren completed the bachelor program at BK last year and is currently an intern at Benthem Crouwel architects until February 2020. Next September she will start her master degree.

You can contact her about her article via her email inez.spaargaren1@gmail.com or reach out to her via instagram @inezmargaux..

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SPEAK

WHEN ACTIONS SPEAK TOO LOUDLY Words CK

As human beings, words form an integral part of who we are and reflect us as sentient beings. When we call for action and advocate that it triumphs over words, it fuels our impulse for showmanship and display. In the case of design, talk is certainly not cheap. The repercussions of design without extended period of dialogue often to lead to dire results, evident in many design case studies.

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The idea that “actions speak louder than words” suggests that talk is cheap. It implies that the conveying of intentions and thoughts through words does not suffice in convincing the other party of what we are attempting to portray. While in social settings, there is strong reason for believing that actions speak louder than words, talk is not always cheap. In fact, in the realm of design, bypassing the processes of using words to navigate through expectations and discussions is imperative. Often, we rush to produce the end product as a gesture of our intentions without giving pause to converse and discuss. We imagine that the culmination of our desires as designers in the “action” of designing would weigh more than words. To buy into the idea that there is less value in words than in the final product would ultimately be erroneous. This is succinctly curated through Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck’s documentary named “Fatal Assistance”, who critiqued the situation surrounding foreign aid offered to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. The film portrayed the detachment in the use of funds on infrastructure, without sensitively considering the needs of the environmental refugees. Dialogues with the refugees were absent, and it was evident that in a bid to take action post disaster, resources that could otherwise provide necessary and practical aid were diverted.

In a world where we are forced to navigate through countless situations, we carry with us the need to appeal to each other, and to attempt to communicate our intentions. However, to build our interactions based on the thought that, “Actions speak louder than words” is narrow minded. Homo sapiens have developed in a much more sophisticated manner compared to our counterparts, or the other species that coexist with us today. Our interactions with each other and the evident ability to make up stories and imagine things is built upon the one tool that we uniquely have - our language. In that, it is not simply vocalisation or mimicking of sounds that conveys warnings or desires that one may have. Rather, our human minds and social systems have developed a highly robust vocabulary of expressions to describe situations that goes beyond our primal needs. We manage to rely on a finite library of words to communicate a whole myriad of stories and information, shaping the ways we interact with each other and to cope with situations in our everyday life, as well as on a larger scale such as navigating through diplomatic situations. The ability to communicate on this level allows us to meet an entirely new stranger and to decently converse with each other, sharing topics of interests or gossip subject matter requiring a diverse use of language.

The sophistication of human communication is highly unique to the human species, and distinguish us from other organisms.

In 1977, the Voyager Golden Records was sent out

by NASA into space, which included selected sounds and images to reflect what the life on earth was like.

Apart from everyday sounds, greetings in 55 different languages were also included. It appears that communication in the form of words form the bedrock of our social relations. Yet, the thought that “actions speak louder than words” implies our tendency to be impulsive in our actions, and reveals our underlying disregard for dialogue and conversation.

We assume that acting upon something would serve as a more powerful tool than conversing in order to prove our intentions. We arrogantly believe that the product of our actions is a clear indication of what we want to convey, and we unreasonably prescribe that same expectation unto the receiver. We presume that the other party would understand our intent, without first consulting their beliefs and practices.

Aggression that manifests as a show of anger and impulse, physical affection representing one’s love for another, the buying of a gift for someone who we think would need it; these, to name a few, are ways in which we express through action, our beliefs to someone else (and similarly impose our beliefs on them). We rush into arriving at a solution without taking the time and patience to converse and to understand each other. My scepticism on actions being louder than words is not to be misunderstood.

To put it across bluntly, to discuss and debate without acting upon the solution is not a viable option either. Rather, it is the notion that we are more capable of arriving at a conclusion without understanding each other that is so sinister about that idiom. What makes us so quickly believe that there is a straightforward manifestation of sending a message to someone?

The idea that actions speak louder than words reveals the desire for showmanship, a demonstration of our intentions that go beyond words. In the field of design, the flaw in that idea is that we attempt to show and actuate something without first processing it. There is virtue in words - the processing of ideas

through conversing with others, and taking the time and effort to discuss can result in a refined outcome.

Oftentimes, our actions are a culmination of our emotions and impulses with which little thought is given, and doing that in design is problematic in that we act without thinking. In effect, it could cause more harm rather than resolving the issues that design was meant to have solved.

As designers, we come to believe that the product of our thoughts are the end in itself. Deadlines and briefs fuel us to strive for the completion of something that is a culmination of meeting the expectations of clients, tutors, as well as the need to express ourselves. But to arrive at that work without the conversations and dialogues with people would be meaningless. Those are the processes that empower us to create something as a culmination of the outcomes of such conversations. In the case of the Haitian earthquake crisis in 2010, if we were to look at an issue of homelessness and rush into designing houses in our bid to show concern about the situation, it is unlikely that it would do much help at all as we assume the kinds of needs and outcomes that are required to resolve the issue. With regards to creating a product or a final piece of work, acting without dialogues and conversations results in an incomplete narrative, a design and experience that is not fully resolved. Though the idiom “actions speak louder than words” extends a call to act upon the intentions and beliefs that one might have, misunderstood, however, it can have severe detrimental effects.

Talk is not cheap, certainly not for designers. The participation of stakeholders in conversation contributes heavily to the outcome of a project which sometimes even has an extensive impact of society, and actions under the influence of impulses could manifest from wrong judgments and irrational behaviour. Should we so narrow-mindedly believe that our actions as designers are more valuable than words, then I fear we may be left with designs that serves no one.

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Artefact

THIS 'ARTEFACT' IS A MUJI Words Nathalie de Vries

This ‘artefact’ is a Muji 0.38 Black Gel Ink Pen. It is great for sketching as well as writing. This is important. The amount of ink that comes out is constant and does not shine through on the next page. The cap is attached tightly to the pen itself and never goes off unexpectedly, no matter how many items I stuff into my bag.

I buy this pen in packs of six. Because there are no Muji-stores in the Netherlands I’m buying when I’m abroad or ask other people to buy them for me. Since I always have a large stock, I can put one in each of my bags. Like most architects I am a bit of an office stationery fetishist. For me, Muji-stores are almost like heaven.

They sell elegant business card cases and minimalist sketch and notebooks in various sizes. On top of that they also sell beautiful folders and storage boxes. I like my pen because it’s very reliable, functional and long-lasting, and it really is, but of course, I also like it because it looks very good. With its translucent case and Japanese signs on a little sticker, it radiates the coolness associated with the years that formed the development of my taste: the eighties. In the meantime, my favorite artefact, with its polypropylene holder, no longer radiates coolness, but plastic waste. In my defense I can report that I also often use found pens that I encounter in all kinds of places. So, I’m afraid I’ll have to say goodbye to my favorite pen soon. Just like SUV’s and disposable coffee cups it will quickly disappear into oblivion. Until then I hope that Muji will come up with a rechargeable version.

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CREATE

IN YOUR OWN WORDS We left this page free for your notes, so if you have any comments about any of the articles, write them down and send us a photo or just tag us on Instagram!

We would love to hear what you think!

BECOME A PEN PAL! We are always searching for new voices to join and contribute to Bnieuws. Whether your talents are in writing, drawing, photography, graphic design, or you’re filled with a range of skills, we would love to hear from you if you have any ideas for the faculty periodical. If you would like to be on our contributors list, simply send an email with your ideas to bnieuws-BK@tudelft.nl

NEXT ISSUE: 04 TRACE Everything that is, and everything that happens, by virtue of its happening, leaves evidence of its existence. Be it the lines you draw to investigate someone else’s design, or the muddy footprint you’ve left on the faculty doorsteps, you are constantly leaving a trace, and following one made by someone else. Where does it lead? And what do you leave behind? Aware of this or not, your life is one long TRACE. Bnieuws 53/04 due January 2020.

Bnieuws INDEPENDENT PERIODICAL OF THE FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT TU DELFT VOLUME 53 ISSUE 03