Abstracts FA12

7/31/2019 Abstracts FA12

1/14

Bad example:

The X project by architect Y has merit, but

how can it be improved?

Better example:

The widespread use of concrete during the

Brutalist period came at the convergence of

advances in formwork technology plus a spik-

ing demand for publicly-funded civic projects

in the post-war years. Ys public housing and

government office building projects exempli-

fied this convergence, but fell out of favor

with the discrediting of these socio-economic

practices and popular dislike of Brutalisms

aesthetic attributes.

Given a contemporary convergence of newformwork technologies and available fund-

ing for public projects, how may Ys project

be continued? What specific experiments in

concrete design could be re-applied to cur-

rent challenges of working at such scales?


2/14

Bad example:

What is the future of computation in archi-

tecture?

Better example:

Over the past 15 years architectural culture

has been animated by a debate over the uses

and disadvantages of digital technologies for

design. In the academy this debate has taken

the form of a split between those designing

processes and others designing objects; in

the profession a distinction can be found,

between those trying to digitize construc-

tion and those digitizing what one might call

appearance--displays, facades, etc. It is not

hard to imagine a truly bifurcated profes-sion in the near future, with crises felt most

acutely within architectural schools them-

selves.

What has architecture learned about the

digital ethos that can help produce new ped-

agogical structures--informed by digital de-mands but not indebted to outmoded spatial

assumptions? Conversely, how can this pre-

dicament serve as testing ground for what

architects have learned about computation?

question the method


3/14

Bad example of a thesis question:

What should housing for small regional cities

look like today?

Better example:

In 2002, city officials in Lubbock, TX, passed

a law mandating xyz for all buildings above

xxxy xyz. This development was in keeping

with a growing nationwide tendency in the

United States since the 1992 passage of

the Federal Land Ceiling Act, which favours A

actors over B actors. In Lubbock, this devel-

opment has resulted in the YYY built form,

a form which tends to keep out DDD from

access to economic privileges located in the

citys exurbs. Can a practice be devised thatmakes visible and questions these asymme-

tries of privilege...... ?

more than just another project...


4/14

Bad example:

Today, more than fifty percent of the worlds

population lives in cities. Nowhere is this

more prominent than in Asia. What is the

future of urban life in Asia?

Better example:

Situated at the confluence of the Yangtze

and Chia-ling rivers, the city of Chongqing is

the largest city of Szechwan province in Chi-

na. In the last twenty years, the transforma-

tion of the city can be said to be symptomat-

ic of a wave of transition seen across several

regions of Asia. Chongqing has drawn in xyz

millions of populations from the hinterland,

specifically from xyz provinces, who now

occupy the ABC area of the city. The ABC

area, as it stands, has evolved into a vastdormitory township, marked by xyz relation-

ships. How do temporal shifts in population

have a bearing on architectural responses

to growth? In turn, how might simulations

of particular strategies for worker housing

catalyze stability or flux within ABCs fabric?Can we extrapolate to new social models

that may emerge?


5/14

Bad example:

How does weather influence architecture?

Better example:

Ever since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit,

there have been increasing pressures on

governments to pass laws restricting energy

usage in machines, including buildings. Slowly

but surreptitiously, new building codes have

been written that determine the form of

buildings and cities, written by scientists, en-

gineers and lawyers, without the input of ar-

chitects. What would it mean for architects,

with their agenda of aesthetic and social

forms, to intervene into this techno-legal pro-cess? To this effect, I will look at the xyz area

of Chicago, a city with xyz consumption of

electric power a day, with abc population and

economic pressures, in order to explicate.....?


6/14

How far can you stretch a type before itbecomes unrecognizable?

There exists a possibility for an entirely

new method of architectural classification,

a minor practice of typology that isdefined much more by its morphogenetic

characteristics (eg: resistance or propensity

for change) than its formal attributes.

Architectural types -- such as the diner -- are heavily reliant upon culturally-reinforced

behavior patterns, which in turn significantly influence how we might inhabit this

architecture. Typology itself consists of a stable collection of parts with the most general

sense of how they relate, a constellation of Dinerness; [This is] a monolithic and immutablesense of the type.

But what about local mechanisms and contingencies of inhabitation, the diverse diners and

subcultures that result from that? What is the tolerance or limit of this Dinerness? And to

what extent can the type be made responsive to local scale contingencies before it becomes

unrecognizable?

thesis (question) hypothesis (hunch)


7/14

Architectural types -- such as the diner -- are

heavily reliant upon culturally-reinforced be-

havior patterns, which in turn significantly

influence how we might inhabit this architec-

ture. Typology itself consists of a stable col-

lection of parts with the most general sense

of how they relate, a quasi-gestalt of Diner-

ness; [This is] a monolithic and immutable

sense of the type.

But what about local mechanisms and con-

tingencies of inhabitation, the diverse din-

ers and subcultures that result from that?

What is the tolerance or limit of this Diner-

ness? And to what extent can the type be

made responsive to local scale contingencies

before it becomes unrecognizable?


8/14


9/14


10/14


11/14


12/14


13/14


14/14

Documents

Abstracts FA12