Wednesday, May 18, 2011

SMALL, BIG, FOG and LEONG LEONG

“Three Glen Small related projects unknowingly and independently conceived by others 25-30 years later” was going to be the title of my short prose but these days I am trying to write less and let the images and statements do the talking.
During the composition of this I thought of these:
Being highly innovative is a relative term.
I enjoyed the uncanniness of the similarities and valued the differences.
It was entertaining
My friend Glen Small is a brilliant architect
At the end, there are countless number of 'alike' things but each fingerprint is unique, would you say so?


Project One

Turf Town
Designed by Glen Small, 1983
Unbuilt
Statement:

“WHEN I WAS DESIGNING IN 1969 AND 1970 FOR DEVELOPERS, I WOULD FIGURE OUT THE MAXIMUM AMOUNT OF VOLUME AND UNITS THAT I COULD GET ONTO THE PROPERTY AND HOW THE BEDROOMS COULD BE BROKEN AWAY TO MAKE MORE UNITS.. THE LAND WAS EXPENSIVE AND THE DEVELOPER WANTED ALL HE COULD GET. I FELT THE UNITS WERE INTERESTING AND CONTROLLED BY TYPE FIVE WOOD CONSTRUCTION THAT WAS LIMITED TO TWO STORIES. I WAS TOLD THE BUILDING DEPARTMENT KEPT A MODEL OF WHAT MY TWO STORY CONSISTED OF. IN REALITY IT WAS FIVE STORIES HIGH, THE LAW ALLOWED TO BUILD UP GRADE ON THE SIDE YARDS, TO BURY THE PARKING ON GRADE AND HAVE MEZZANINE LEVELS THAT WERE 1/3 THE FLOOR AREA OF THE ROOM THAT THEY WERE OPEN TO AND ACCESS TO A SPLIT LEVEL ROOF. I COULD JUST AS WELL HAVE BEEN DESIGNING WITHIN A SET OF CRITERIA THAT PRODUCED ROOF GARDENS, RECYCLING OF WATER AND GARBAGE, SOLAR ENVELOPS, FOLIAGE GREEN WALLS ETC.
THE SITE, THE OLYMPIC PARK AREA WAS AN AREA OF LOS ANGELES THAT WAS A TYPICAL GRID IRON STREET PATTERN THAT IS FOUND THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES. IT WAS SELECTED FOR ITS LACK OF CHARACTER AND UNIMPORTANT CONTEXTUAL BUILDINGS ON THE SITE. ALSO IT OFFERED A CHANCE TO BE IMPLEMENTED IN OTHER PARTS OF THE CITY AND OTHER CITIES.
I HAD A GROUP OF EIGHT STUDENTS TO WORK WITH. I BANGED OUT THE CONCEPT INSTANTLY I PICKED THE FUNCTIONS AND THE PATTERNS OF VISUAL GAME FOR EACH BLOCK. THE STUDENTS WERE INVOLVED AS DEVELOPERS WORKING WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THE ZONING THAT I SET UP. THE SITE WAS FOUR BLOCKS , THAT CREATED ONE LARGE RECTANGLE GROUPING.
MY CONCEPT WAS TO CREATE A SOLAR ZONING ENVELOPE FOR HIGH DENSITY DEVELOPMENT THAT INCLUDED ECOLOGICAL AND MOVEMENT SYSTEMS. ALL HERE AND NOW STUFF THAT COULD BE BUILT. RALPH KNOWLES A PROFESSOR AT USC HAD DONE ELABORATE STUDIES OF SOLAR ENVELOPES THAT THE SOUTHWEST INDIANS HAD INCORPORATED INTO THEY’RE BUILDING GROUPINGS. HE USED THIS AS INSPIRATION TO DEVELOP PRESENT DAY COMPLEX SOLAR ENVELOPE PROPOSALS. I IN CONTRAST WANTED A SIMPLE SOLAR ZONING CODE THAT DEVELOPERS AND PLAN CHECKERS COULD UNDERSTAND AND WORK
WITH.”




Mountain Dwellings
Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) 2006   
Built
Statement/Quote from a Dezeen article by Marcus Fairs :

“How do you combine the splendours of the suburban backyard with the social intensity of urban density? The Mountain Dwellings are the 2nd generation of the VM Houses – same client, same size and same street. The program, however, is 2/3 parking and 1/3 living. What if the parking area became the base upon which to place terraced housing – like a concrete hillside covered by a thin layer of housing, cascading from the 11th floor to the street edge? Rather than doing two separate buildings next to each other – a parking and a housing block – we decided to merge the two functions into a symbiotic relationship. The parking area needs to be connected to the street, and the homes require sunlight, fresh air and views, thus all apartments have roof gardens facing the sun, amazing views and parking on the 10th floor. The Mountain Dwellings appear as a suburban neighbourhood of garden homes flowing over a 10-storey building – suburban living with urban density.
The roof gardens consist of a terrace and a garden with plants changing character according to the changing seasons. The building has a huge watering system which maintains the roof gardens. The only thing that separates the apartment and the garden is a glass façade with sliding doors to provide light and fresh air.”


Project Two




Copy Cat Skyscrapers (see. a+u 09:86 featuring Glen Small for more student work, p.53-60)
Studio Glen Small, 4 th. year, Sci Arc student project by Uri Sally, Fall 1985
Unbuilt
Statement from Glen Small on “Copy Cat Skyscrapers” studio:

“THE COPY CAT SKYSCAREPERS EMERGED QUITE UNEXPECTEDLY FROM A SEMESTER OF TRADITIONAL SKYSCRAPER DESIGN. THE STUDENTS RESEARCHED HIGHRISES IN NATURE, HISTORICAL, PRIMITIVE AND CONTEMPORARY HIGHRISES, AND THE COMPONENTS OF HIGHRISERS. THE CLASS VISITED HIGHRISES UNDER CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECTURAL OFFFICES THAT SPECIALIZE IN HIGHRISE.
THE CLASS WAS UNEVENTFUL, DOWNRIGHT BORING, UNTIL BY CHANCE I SHOWED THEM A XEROX SYSTEM I WAS EXPERIMENTING WITH TO PRODUCE “FIERO TOWER,” A HIGHRISE OF XEROXED CARS. THAT DID IT. THE CLASS CAME ALIVE WITH IDEAS. WITHIN FIVE WEEKS, THEY PRODUCED UNIQUE IMAGERY OF HIGHRISES. THE MORE THEY USED THE XEROX SYSTEM THE BETTER THEIR IMAGES BECAME. THE XEROX WAS THE DESIGN TOOL FOR THE PLANS, ELEVATIONS AND SECTIONS. AVERAGE STUDENTS BECAME EXCELLENT STUDENTS BECAUSE THEY NO LONGER HAD TO RELY ON DRAFTING SKILLS. STUDENTS LOOKED AT OBJECTS IN PERIODICALS FOR INSPIRATION. THEIR EYES OPENED, AND THEY CAUGHT THE SPARK THAT PROPELLED THEM BEYOND FASHION AND HISTORISM INTO SIGNIFICANT EXPLORATION.”


Beekman Tower
Designed by Frank O. Gehry
Built, 2011
An excerpt from New York Times article by Nicoloi Ouroussoff titled,
“Downtown Skyscraper for the Digital Age”

“The power of the design only deepens when it is looked at in relation to Gilbert’s Woolworth building. A steel frame building clad in neo-Gothic terra-cotta panels, Gilbert’s masterpiece is a triumphant marriage between the technological innovations that gave rise to the skyscraper and the handcrafted ethos of an earlier era.
Mr. Gehry’s design is about bringing that same sensibility — the focus on refined textures, the cultivation of a sense that something has been shaped by a human hand — to the digital age. The building’s exterior is made up of 10,500 individual steel panels, almost all of them different shapes, so that as you move around it, its shape is constantly changing. And by using the same kind of computer modeling that he used for his Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, more than a decade ago, he was able to achieve this quality at a close to negligible increase in cost.
But Mr. Gehry is also making a statement. The building’s endlessly shifting surfaces are an attack against the kind of corporate standardization so evident in the buildings to the south and the conformity that it embodied. He aims, as he has throughout his career, to replace the anonymity of the assembly line with an architecture that can convey the infinite variety of urban life. The computer, in his mind, is just a tool for reasserting that variety.”

Project Three

JungleTheater, 1984
Designed by Glen Small, 1984
Statement from Glen Small,

“IN THE SPRING OF 1984 AN INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION WAS ANNOUNCED FOR TIMES SQUARE THEATRICAL AREA. PHILIP JOHNSON (THE LATE PROMINENT EVER CHANGING COMMERCIAL ARCHITECT AND ARCHITECTURAL BROKER) HAD UPSET NEW YORK WITH A LARGE DEVELOPMENT PROPOSAL FOR THE WORLD FAMOUS TIMES SQUARE AREA. THUS, A COMPETITION WAS PUT TOGETHER TO SHOW ALTERNATIVES TO DEVELOPING THE AREA. THE PROGRAM STATED THAT PROPOSALS WOULD BE CONSIDERED FOR THE AREA IN GENERAL, THAT THE TIMES SQUARE BUILDING COULD BE TORN DOWN, AND CREATIVE SOLUTIONS WERE BEING SOUGHT. FOR ME THESE WORDS WERE FRESH MEAT IN FRONT OF A TIGER. I PUT TOGETHER MY SCI-ARC SECOND YEAR STUDENTS AND WE KNOCKED OUT A PRESENTATION IN THREE DAYS. A REAL SHAME, BECAUSE THE CONCEPTUAL IDEAS DESERVED MORE.
THE BIG OVERRIDING IDEA WAS TO CONNECT OLD AND NEW BUILDINGS TOGETHER UNDER A TENSION STRUCTURE ROOF, CREATING A GIGANTIC GREEN HOUSE. GREEN HOUSES HAVE ALWAYS HAD A SPECIAL APPEAL TO ME. THE IDEA OF FEELING LIKE YOU ARE OUTSIDE, BECAUSE OF THE LIGHT AND AIRINESS, BUT ALSO PROTECTED FROM THE ELEMENTS IS THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS. THE CRYSTAL PALACE WAS THE ULTIMATE BUILDING FOR MY TASTE. IT HAD THE COMBINATION OF NATURAL LIGHT, AIR, PLANTS AND PEOPLE. THE NATURALLY LIGHT INTERIORS OF THE AVERAGE SHOPPING CENTER HAS VALIDATED THIS APPEAL. TO MY AMAZEMENT, BECAUSE I AM NAIVE ENOUGH TO THINK THAT OTHER PEOPLE WILL LIKE THE SAME THINGS I DO, SOME PEOPLE ARE OPPOSED TO THE BIG GREENHOUSE INTERIOR SPACE THAT REPLACES THE STREET. IF YOU LIKE TO HUDDLE IN WINTER CLOTHING SIPPING COFFEE IN FREEZING WEATHER YOU DEFINITELY WOULD BE OPPOSED. OR BECAUSE WE HAVE ALWAYS HAD OPEN STREETS THAT ARE EXPOSED TO THE ELEMENTS IS REASON ENOUGH TO KEEP IT THAT WAY. EVEN IN CALIFORNIA, WHERE ALL SORTS OF VARIED WEATHER OCCURS, TO ENCLOSE SPACE IS QUESTIONED BY MANY. DO YOU FIND PEOPLE DRIVING AROUND IN WINTER WITH THEIR CONVERTIBLE TOPS DOWN? RARELY AT NIGHT, WHEN IT IS RAINING, COLD OR WINDY? ”
Below a poem written by Glen Small on the project, Jungle Theater
THE COLD WIND CHILLS OUR BONES AND THE ICY PAVEMENT IS TREACHEROUS.
WE GINGERLY DART DOWN THE SUBWAY STEPS, AND ENTER THE GRAFFITI DRAGONS.
AS WE JOLT TO A STOP AT TIMES SQUARE, WE THAW IN A TROPIC HEAT.
THE ROAR OF WATERFALLS IS HEARD OVERHEAD AS WE ASCEND UP CASCADING STAIRS TO A MINIATURE ELECTRONIC YOSEMITE VALLEY.
CARS SURROUND US, BUT WE CLIMB TO THE ELEVATED PEDESTRIAN WALK.
SLOWLY WE HIKE UP THE PATH ON THE SIDE OF THE BUILDING, STOPPING TO GAZE AT THEATERS AND SHOPS, OR VIEW THE MULTIPLE ACTIVITIES WHICH SURROUND US.
ALWAYS COGNIZANT OF THE EXTERIOR WEATHER PROJECTED ON THE BIG SCREEN,
WE ARE SUSPENDED IN TIME AND SPACE IN A KINETIC MOVEMENT WITHIN THIS GIANT CENTER STAGE.



the Audi Urban Future: Project New York
Designed by LEONG LEONG, 2011
Statement from architects
:
“Our proposal for the Audi Urban Future: Project New York exhibition on the future of urban mobility, on based on Standard Architecture's previous proposal for a metropolis "reclaimed by nature," imagines a city with new and unpredictable relationships with nature. While mobility is an essential part of contemporary life for human beings, it is also a basic necessity for maintaining bio-diverse ecologies in urban settings like Manhattan. As weather patterns become increasingly unpredictable and environmental conditions more dire, increasing biodiversity will maximize the resilience of the city while minimizing disaster risk and aid recovery efforts. In order to capitalize on biodiversity, Manhattan will have to relinquish a certain degree of control. By introducing a new zoning and organizational system that mobilizes ecologies and animal species, the city will benefit from a nature that is not artificial, controlled, or well-behaved. This new development will offer a resilient form of growth for the future of the city by prioritizing the mobility of ecologies as much as human beings.”