Saw this video the other day and it got me a little riled. (Two architecture posts in a row! I promise not to make a habit of this.)
When I first started architecture school, early Eisenman writings in Oppositions really inspired me. Now he (and the rest of these old men) aren’t so cool. Beyond the fact that the person they are talking about is standing right there, Eisenman says a few key things that I think might represent a bit of a schism in architecture. (And because this is essentially what my thesis was about: judgement.)
Peter says he “has nothing to say” and doesn’t know how to judge this work because the student doesn’t know the difference between Palladio and Borromini. (This from a guy who said of his extensive personal library:– and I quote from my secret source!– “I’ve read the introduction to most of these books.”) Now the work may indeed be awful, but the tragedy isn’t the work, it’s Peter’s and the other critics inability to critique the work at all, to give any sort of judgement.
I contend that all you have as a designer (or a critic) is judgement, and once you abdicate that responsibility, you can slip quietly into irrelevance… where Eisenman has been headed for many years anyway.
Instead they talk about pedagogy, a topic that comes up in any review in which the reviewers don’t have anything to say about the work (again, this could also be because the work is, in fact, boring… but they should just say that and get on with it). In school, critique culture exists to give students access to the judgement of more experienced architects, as soon as that has evaporated from the learning experience, students will look elsewhere for inspiration and for meaningful criticism.
Finally, the reason I think Peter and the rest find themselves in this awkward situation of having no tools or faculties to accommodate new work is that they’ve let their judgement be a static object instead of a living thing. What was once good might be bad and vice versa. Updates are ready for download.
There’s something so provocative, even more so here than for a game like Fracture whose demo I also think is pretty cool for landscape-ers, for architectural design. Design and play could be more synonymous.
This is slightly different than something like this:
And on screen it looks like the “ribbons” replay from AceCombat 4. (Sorry for the shitty video, it was the best I could find.)
In my humble opinion, the greatest thing that computation can do for architecture isn’t to reintroduce “calculus”, “parametrics”, or “generative algorithms” (these quotes are bullshitty airquotes), but to bring the fun back into the process of making a building.
Right now, I’m using feedly, a feed reader with a more newspaper like feel– if that’s what you’re into. And it pretty much delivers everything I’ve asked for in a reader. I won’t go into detail here, but two important points:
1.) It imports everything straight from google reader, so no harm no foul.
2.) The API looks robust enough for everything from skinning to “plug-in” modules.
Delicious and some neat sharing and comment features are also there! I’ve only been using it for a couple days and I’m still un-readering some of my habits to see if there’s something else I’m missing here. I’m johnsnavely if you’d like to follow or ping me on feedly.
Feedly is a firefox plugin. I’ve been hitting more and more of these. They are pretty useful. For example, the above image is made with abduction, a plugin which allows you to save any webpage as an image…
Even though most people at Microsoft getpositively frothy when talking about Facebook as a “social networking platform” (ew), I’m still a skeptic.
A few reasons:
- Facebook is as helpful as adware or spam bots when it comes to my information.
- Facebook isn’t a particularly innovative piece of software. You can get the same functionality in many other sites. Right now, I basically use Facebook for the friends who can’t be bothered to twitter.
- And the kicker, Facebook isn’t “indie” enough. The counter culture impulses that I express to define my identity (as a “maverick”!) aren’t part of facebook.
- Boredom might also play a part.
That said, I do spend a lot of time using the site. Mostly, to play chess.
I am waiting anxiously for what the next Facebook-like thing is. Will people return to Friendster (ironically)? Maybe get on board with twitter? Or will an iPhone app be the next Facebook? If only people with iPhones can join, the resulting culture might be richer (or poorer, depending on what you think of people with iPhones). I’m a believer that differences and separation produce richer culture. Homogeniety and inclusiveness are lovely, but they don’t make jerks and geniuses (who are cut from the same cloth).
There’s an interesting dicussion going on in the comments, that I think should be elevated to a post.
Basically, it revolves around Google Reader, a nifty web app T introduced me to a couple years ago, which basically changed my life. I use it everyday.
The question (for you Reader users out there) is this: If you were to redesign Google Reader? What would you add/remove? How would you change it?
More importantly how do you use it? I’ve been using it to filter all my status updates from flickr and facebook, and as a shopping “bot” on craigslist and ebay (that’s how I found my current apartment)
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One feature I would offer is the ability to repost an item from reader as a blog post using google sites. I’m not exactly enthusiastic about encouraging recycling, but it’s basically what we do a lot of now…
An old project that I’d worked on with a very talented bunch at MIT (Kaus, Tom, Simon) is being was shown at the Venice Biennale. It’s an urban design videogame with multiplayer wii action!
Hopefully, Kaus will send me some more pictures and maybe a gameplay video. Here’s a cool pic in the meantime.
Got back from Cambridge earlier this week. It was a bit of a whirlwind; I wish I could have stayed longer there were people I wished I could see and people who I saw who I did not spend enough time with.
Anyway, I’m up late and sleepless. I enjoyed making those posters so much before that I thought I would give myself a little exercise. 2 hours + quotes (taken from the Epic of Gilgamesh).
Great words, I just gave them a font. (Close ups are here.)
Hello! I am recent graduate of the Masters of Architecture program at MIT, now a UX Designer at Microsoft. I write about design, architecture, technology and whatever else strikes my fancy.
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