Br_cks #03

BR_CKS #03

BR_CKS #03

ON ABOVE 3 WEEK M-TERM WORKSHOP

Very few architectural ideas are unique. Chasing novelty distracts from the meaningful, emotional cores of the work. Design does not happen in a vacuum and every work contributes to a canon much larger than any number of singular projects.

ABOVE, as a response to the fourth facade, the ceiling, begins its study amidst a wealth of previously developed knowledge. The precise, mathematical understanding of acoustics intersects with the emotional labor of design. Such a technical framework relies on the utilization of work done by others. In this way, while formally differing from traditional images, the work produced mirrors the system by which vernacular design can be understood and applied.

Early study revealed both that program dictated a synthesized response to the ‘coded mist’ while simultaneously, the site warranted a response to the foundational forms of the barn-house typology. The BDA Studio, much like a barn, is at its core is composed of a long, relatively narrow hall. In this hall, structure is pushed to the extremes to utilize limited available space. This organization speaks to the needs of a limited user with a large functional need. However, as the original user base grows, the space must adapt. Historically, this meant subdividing the hall into separate rooms, where additional living areas are created by displacing functional considerations to other, more specialized structures.

. . .while formally differing from traditional images, the work produced mirrors the system by which vernacular design can be understood and applied. . .

Architects, as a profession, should strive to more consistently view their work through the emotional and functional lens of those who will occupy their projects

A studio space like the BDA Studio can be thought about in much the same way. While the barn-house develops in a fairly linear fashion, the studio environment swells and contracts in a dance of changing programmatic needs. Yet, the ideas expressed in barn structures are still applicable. A contextual modulation of vernacular organizational strategies begin to form an intervention that responds to complex, contemporary design needs while avoiding becoming obtuse and disconnected from the ways in which emotional people inhabit space.

It’s easy to lose sight of the ways in which designers differ from the average person when it comes to understanding the built environment. While it’s hard to argue that designers shouldn’t have a clearer, more nuanced impression of space, it’s important to acknowledge that there is a cognitive gap. Architects, as a profession, should strive to more consistently view their work through the emotional and functional lens of those who will occupy their projects. Admittedly, this endeavour is more easily applied to theory than practice but conscious attempts seriously need to be made if Architects want to continue to pitch themselves as being critically important in the age of large scale development firms and municipal interests.

The increasing use of synthetic material detailing in architecture denies us, as human beings, the ability to understand the built environment with our senses or collective understanding. They blatantly lie to the user. They celebrate a technical obsolence of history, tradition, or craft.

They tell us that building cost and performance are more valued here than the human occupants.

At the same time, they give us some insight into the materials they attempt to replace. Once we begin to ask “why?�, the importance of the represented material becomes evident. There can be few answers other than memory. Replication points to the original. The shared cultural memories of vernacular architecture drive desires to continue to participate in this historical continuum, in spite of contemporary capabilities.

ON MEMORY 1 / ?? [further thoughts expected]

“Not a single tree has leaves, the sun is warming but not enough to relieve the cold in the shadows or wind. The ground can’t be warm, children, cars, bad music interrupt any hope of peace. A small number of benches are available and even less are in the sun. . .They sit on the ground, accept the fountain’s inability to fufill its function, try their best to tune out teenagers singing + swearing. Because what came before was another week of work. Grey, cold winter hasn’t let up much yet. It’s a weekend, they’re with family or friends or not. They remember pleasant times in gardens or in sun or in springtimes past which they’ve been eager to experience again. . . This will not be remembered as discomfort”

I remember a lot of things from that day, and even with a detailed description of my surroundings, I can’t remember any discomfort.

Memory makes the final determination in the questions of quality. I’m not interested in comfort, beauty, form, function, structural integrity, or any other measures of quality until there is a memory we can use to find meaning in the work. Memory is nearly absolute.

That day I wrote about my surroundings in Copenhagen was still far too early to “enjoy” that park for any measures of “comfort”. Driven out to see the sun they’ve nearly forgotten in a long, grey, rainy winter, people crowded the park. I was lucky to have a seat on a bench, and many others were content to sit on the still-cold ground. People gathered around a fountain which wasn’t running but instead had collected months of dirt and garbage at its bottom. The sun was out, but I was happy I wore a sweater under my winter coat. The trees had no leaves and the grass was the only green in the park. Also true, however, is that people were in a beautiful garden, on an early spring weekend, with family and friends.

I don’t really think there’s much use in breaking down all the “discomforts” of that day in the park; only to make the point that there was a lot of happy people in that park which - by any of the measures of quality typically used in design - was an unpleasant environment. I can describe a lot of stuff that brought discomfort to the park, but I don’t remember any feeling of discomfort. I didn’t feel any, I didn’t see any. The truth is that people were happy to be out there because they remember sitting in the grass in summers past. They are far from forgetting the grey, rainy antithesis of a day like this. They dream about the coming summer and how they’ll enjoy this everyday - their fantasies being a sort of memory of the future, a memory of experiences which have not been had but are known, expected, hoped for.

I’ll even propose something beyond my belief that memory transcends any other measure in determining quality. I’d suggest that if all of those potentials for discomfort in the King’s Garden that day were “solved” [to use a design term] - so as to be opportunities to create physical comfort, to make experiences positive regardless of memory - that the experience would not be strengthened overall. The meaningful memories of those things that cannot be designed is stronger for the failures of the other contributors to the situation. [Think of how often the argument of positive/ negative association with something is used in a debate over something being good or bad. “Well, it brings back good memories” is immune to rebuttal in just about any argument].

There are both elements that can meet design interventions, and those that can not, both informing the experience of the park that day. Those which are not designed are the first thing, the complex webs of specificity that lead to the very basic realities of that space at that time. Those which can meet design intervention are the second thing; these are the things that we blame or praise, they create or lack comfort. We like to evaluate the second as the basis of quality, but we can’t forget to provide a space for the first to exist. The two are not unrelated, but anyone could understand if I told you that I have some bad memories in excellent parks, and good memories in terrible parks.

So how do designers work within this? If it’s true that memory rules absolutely, doesn’t that mean that any work by a designer to ameliorate or “problem-solve” is in vain? And even those who approach with the best intentions - who want to create spaces or objects which allow us to live happy, comfortable lives - what hope do they hold against the unknown, arbitrary, and intensely unique memories of the countless users for which they’re designing?

I think one answer to the questions above involves realizing the relationship between us as humans and design that fails us. [For now, I’ll qualify this to be design that fails us minorly. . .] To encounter [minor] resistance from the objects and environments around us gives us the opportunity to make use of one of the great skills humans possess - our ability to inhabit. Design which seeks to iron out all of the bumps or “painpoints” might be at risk for washing away the opportunities for human life to enter. In order to persevere in the face of problems, problems must exist. When we are being in spite of something, we begin to access the emotions, memories, and fantasies that come with inhabitation. On the scale of something small - like an uncomfortable park bench or the cold ground we sit on - this means that our non-physical experiences can transcend the physical ones. Memory filters out the resistance [the discomforts of the “second thing”], but it was the resistance which gave memory a reason to do this. As Gaston Bachelard writes, “Inhabited space transcends geometrical space”.

insta: @br_cks BR_CKS zine is. . . ruled by memory