Landscape/Site/Time

Carol Burns, "On Site: Architectural Preoccupations" Drawing Building Text, ed. A. Kahn (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1991) 147-65

John Brinckerhoff Jackson, "The Word Itself" Discovering the Vernacular Landscape (New Haven: Yale University Press,1984) 2-8

Rafael Moneo, "The Murmur of the Site" Anywhere (New York: Rizzoli, 1992) 48-53

John Brinckerhoff Jackson, "A Sense of Place, A Sense of Time" A Sense of Place, a Sense of Time (New Haven: Yale University Press,1994) 24-26

Question:

Site and Landscape are terms that we have over used to the point that many of us no longer know the meaning of the words. Carol Burns defines site to mean the local position of a building, town, or monument, and landscaped is defined by this author as the portion of land that the eye can comprehend in a single glance. Having read these definitions I got to thinking, What is it that we are architects do to the 'site'? How do we treat the 'landscaped' that surrounds our given site? Have architects completely forgotten about the meaning of these words and thus have they forgotten their purpose?

Proportion

Readings:

Primary Readings

Aldo van Eyck, "place and occasion" (reformatted excerpt) Team 10 Primer, ed. Alison Smithson (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1968) 101(also available in other publications)

Aldo van Eyck, "Wasted Gain" Architecture in the Age of Scepticism; compiled by Denys Lasdun (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984) 234-236

Aldo van Eyck, "The Interior of Time" Meaning in Architecture; edited by Charles Jencks and George Baird (New York: George Braziller Inc., 1969) 171

Aldo van Eyck, "Building a House" (excerpts) Hubertus House (Amsterdam: Stichting Wonen, 1982) 43-65

Samuel Mockbee, "Rural Studio," Architectural Design : A.D Volume: 68 Issue: 7-8 (July 1998) 72-79

Samuel Mockbee, "The Role of the Citizen Architect," Good Deeds, Good Design: Community Service Through Architecture, edited by Bryan Bell (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004) 151-156

Secondary Readings

Robert Venturi, "The Inside and the Outside," Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1966) 71-89

William Willoughby, "'. . . place and occasion mean more.' -- Contested Divisions between the Inside of Occasion and the Tempo of Place" ACSA West Regional Conference, October 11-13, 2001 (Bozeman, Montana)

Question:

Proportion is something that is instinctual for so many people, we immediately know when something is off, or does not look right. We recognize symmetry, and use it to determine if something of someone is beautiful. However there are many measures of proportion, we could probably count forever trying to get an exact number, some of the more well know proportioning systems architects refer back to are the Vitruvian Man, Golden section, and the Fibonacci Spiral. That's all well said and done, but what is proportion?

Proportion is often said to be relevant. Out of context would you recognize the worlds smallest man, or the worlds tallest man? Probably not, but as an architect or a student of architecture shouldn't we have our own individual proportioning system or the ability of 'guesstimate' with in a reasonable degree? Architects that actually sketch freehand, may have the ability to make rough drawings that are nearly accurate (meaning a bathroom is proportionate in size to a living room or bed room), but in that process does the proportioning or measuring of the drawings need to come in before or after the sketching starts? And if proportioning and freehand, creative sketching must be separate in the initial design process when should they come together?

Video: smallest man, and tallest woman. (when you watch the smallest man look for his shoes on the window sill.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dJCfzyxTEY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSQ0PHHFHOs

Global vs Local

The Question:
Having listened to our class discussion and reviewing our readings I have come to the conclusion that we as citizens have been tricked into becoming consumers. (I am defining citizens as individuals that are aware and actively taking part in their environment and consumers as people with no regard to the limit availability of resources, who want what they want when they want it.)

As citizens we chose to move to the suburbs where we thought we could safely raise our two point five kids in our perfect houses with perfect lawns framed by that good old white picket fence. By moving to the suburbs we left the convince of the city, the shops that were located around every corner, the public guards and squares, and the social gatherings that we so crave. However as citizens of the USA we want convinces, so we allow the big businesses (like Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Chiles, etc.) to move in. Mind you, I have nothing against these or other companies, it is just that with the development of these businesses our suburbs become more urban, little cities of themselves.

Haveing established the perimeters for my question, I ask: How do architects, who have been trained to builded globally, return tothe local small twon environment and build structres that maintain the identiy of the local town?

Electronic Worlds

Readings:

William J. Mitchell, "Prologue: Urban Requiem" e-topia (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999) 3-7

Marshall McLuhan, "Decline of the Visual" Looking Closer 3: Classic Writings on Graphic Design (New York: Allworth Press, 1999) 174-176

Albert Borgmann, "Virtuality and Ambiguity" Holding On to Reality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999) 179-192

Question: We have established in our readings and class discussion, that the digital world is one that requires only two senses, sight and hearing, and both of these are not truly required to navigate the digital world. Example legally blind individuals can still 'see', a deaf individual can still 'hear' with a hearing aid.

As technology continues to develop we are able to access the digital world from anywhere at any time. We are continuously attached to some form of technology that allows us to access our digital circles, weather it is to check email or to find out what a friend had been doing since we saw them last, twenty minutes ago. And as technology continues, virtual reality devices, devices that will allow us to see the digital world could gradually take over to become our reality.

With the way technology is going, we know more about our neighbors than our selves. SO where does the disassociation of self end and the association with the unit or masses began? Or rather with the use of the Internet and the ever increasing availability of digital sources and forms of information gathering, when or where does the individual fit in?