STARTING UP - the notion of 'GIFTING' in Architecture

Following on from the 'gathering' brief for which we produced an A1 sheet of process drawings and created an animation from this drawing to show the process we use to design a space.


Continuing the theme of an architectural office space but this time with the theme of 'gifting', thinking about what the notion of 'gift' means in an architectural sense, what gifts can buildings give to us? This project will be mainly carried out digitally in second life and will allow us to look back on the design from our previous project and change previous ideas (successful or unsuccessful) and re-develop them, re-purpose them.


The idea is to "renovate" the office you have previously designed to improve every aspect for the users. Reactive architectural aspects should be considered more carefully. Ergonomic design...


Gifting Brief:


             "Ah the heady days of 2011, when you used to worry about the problems of climate change and what the new digital practices in architecture would be... Though you know you shouldn't complain, because getting it right, as you did, meant you saw the opportunity and took it. Now as you reflect on that success you are able to see that it was the day you walked into that first office building. When you went back in after the renovations. The impact of that moment when you first achieved something more than just a building - there it was - a new and extraordinary moment. It was generous in the way it shared the space with the public. It held all the surprise of a beautiful gift but most of all it was architecture that inspired - inspired others to be architects."






This idea about the first moment of walking into the a space and the experiential element, the performance, this reminded me of the reading we read while doing the lasercutting project which brought up the unpredictable nature of architecture, below is an excerpt from my previous blog about this reading: (http://eken017design2.blogspot.com/2011/08/digital-carnival-lasercutting.html)


David Leatherbarrow 'Architecture oriented otherwise' chapter 2 'unscripted performances' - This reading was really interesting and easy to read, the main points that caught my attention were the idea that a building is a performative object. That successful architecture can be measured as a building's ability to react and adapt to both predictable and unforseen curcumstances. Architecture sets the stage for the "event" and often unpredictable events are the most exciting and memorable and therefore successful architecture needs to be able to be open to the unpredictability of these events. This led on from the idea that a building's physical actuality is not something that can be understood at the time of design or construction, only when the building is complete and it's physicality is present can you experience it properly, all the things that were predicted and some aspects of the experience that are unpredictable. 
I also liked the idea that a building's "performance" is not necessarily a 'movement' but can be it's LACK of movement, it's resistance to movement. this tied in quite nicely to what we're learning about in tech at the moment about material's ability to resist the forces impacting apon it all the time and to stay STILL. I like the idea of this great resistance to movement, and all the strength and effort that the building is "exerting" to make it's resistance to movement look effortless, to stay still. 

Tasks:


- place yourself within a tradition and invent a new word. In the future the architectural critics will write about our architecture as what type? (look at Charles Jencks diagram 'the evolutionary tree' 2000. 


http://www.flickr.com/photos/archidose/3088862107/lightbox/







Contribute something inspiration to the facebook page digital carnival to do with the notion of gifting (then look at what others have posted and find something similar of different and discuss):


My post: 
‎- An interesting article about the increasing amount of information available to us (gifted and shared) and the need perhaps to re-cycle this information in new ways as a means of making it relevant and useful to us again instead of 'producing' more and more:

http://chronicle.com/article/Uncreative-Writing/128908/

Was also thinking about gifts that nature gives us in the form of energy and recycling of the environment we use. Nature is almost 'selfless' but we are beginning to understand that it's gifts are not infinite. 


Someone else's post that I found interesting, was mainly because it was 


relevant to the office I have designed previously and I need to look more into 


this area to take this idea further:

Jihye Lim

‎'gifting' a sense of privacy within an open floor plan: creating a collaborative working space

Dezeen » Blog Archive » Meguro office space by Nendo

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Ideas from Judy's monday talk on 'gifting':


-Gifting can include the sharing of ideas so allow for these processes to be encouraged in my design for the office building. 


-Renovation of the office should be an iterative process, designing and redesigning, reevaluating spaces and making all aspects more successful. 


-Interior spaces are the spaces that mostly give us the 'wow' factor rather than the exterior spaces so focus on the atmosphere of the interior and how we experience those spaces. 


-Pretend we're already in the future, so the problems of climate change etc have been dealt with and we're in a time where there are new concerns.


-www.galinsky.com -> Liebeskind's war memorial museum, same architect as Jewish Museum, Berlin which I should was really interesting in terms of interior spaces and use of light and their relationship with the exterior, solidity and absence etc, so will have a look at this building also. Projections were used on the walls to bring light in to the building in different ways and transform the spaces.  - Ideas of the digital world being incorporated into architecture and manipulating light to create architectural space.  Interesting how we "create" spaces for digital work (ie. dark rooms, no light allowed in, no interior lights on), like a cave with a fire burning, the projection as the fire. Going back to ancestry almost, an interesting that judy touched on. 


Materials in SL - colour and materials need to develop alongside the design (the formal structure and geometry) not as an applied afterthought. The potential and limitations of materials will affect the design right from the start. 










DISCUSSION:  Architectural gifting: what types of architectural spaces are giving and what sort of gifts do they give?


-think of a building as having an attitude or personality. 


-the gift of relaxation spaces? - spaces that give to the occupant a sense of calm, peace and security, those feelings are a gift. 


- the gift of spiritual spaces - an experience that makes you say "wow" ie a huge beam of light coming through the ceiling gives inspiration or hope in a symbolic and physical sense. 


- the gift of shelter and security. solidity in architecture offers the gift of protection from the elements.


-the gift of new perspectives, architecture can direct our attention to new points of view and make us interact with new types of people and spaces, challenging us. 


- the gift of direction - architecture can give us cues about where to go , and when and how, and how we should interact with spaces most efficiently, the flipside of this is that architecture can be domineering and too directive which can be intimidating and oppressive.