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Portfolio of Undergraduate Architecture Work
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BRYAN MOCKIowa State UnIverSIty
Bachelor of archItectUre
This document is a representation of five years of undergraduate architecture work while attending Iowa State University. It portrays an understanding of architecture as an expressive medium in which science and ideas are employed toward developing the world into a more sensing and sensitive place. Revealed within is a desire to create built environments and objects that are well conceived from the scale of form to the scale of detail, and engage the user community on multiple experiential levels.
Recent work in Environmental Studies and Urban Studies has situated design in ecological, social, and economic terms. I continue to learn from these experiences and look forward to synthesizing new engagements in the future.
Thank you for viewing
B R YA N D . M O CK
104 8th st.Springville, IA 52336319.651.9433
[email protected]@bmock
burningthelibrary.wordpress.comhttp://issuu.com/bryanstmock/docs/bryanmockportfolio
Education
Iowa State University [Ames, Iowa]Bachelor of Science in Architecture, 2013
AwardsGeorge Washington Carver ScholarAIA Iowa ScholarshipMichal J. Greenlee ScholarshipRohrbach ScholarshipDean’s List [‘08, ’09, ‘10, ’11, ‘12]Architecture 240 Masonry Competition, [2nd]Focus Grant Exhibition Award RecipientLCC Flack Student Assistantship [’12, ‘13]Math Award, ISU Math DepartmentCargill IT Book ScholarLive Green! Award for Excellence in Sustainability
OrganizationsDesign Across BoundariesDesign Mentor ProgramUSGBC Research to PracticeAIAS Iowa ChapterAlpha Kappa Lambda
Professional Skills
RevitVirtual Reality EnvironmentsIllustratorRhino InDesignSketchup Adobe PhotoshopAutoCAD
Research InterestsHuman Computer InteractionTangible User InterfacesAugmented Reality in DesignMultisensorial Design
Familiarity WithJava Programming LanguageWeb Design, HTML, CSS
Parks LibraryLearning Connections Center, Student IT Helper
College of DesignBuilding Manager Assistant
Craig Carroll Photography StudioDigital Artist
Ames, IowaAugust 2011 – Present
Ames, IowaSummer 2010, Summer 2011
Ames, Iowa
May 2008 – June 2009
Employment
C o n t e n t s
Studio Work
A Garden of SoundNorth End Music CenterBoston, MAFall 2012Collaboration with Lauren Deshler
Life Not LawnsIowa State University Cemetery ExpansionAmes, IowaSpring 2012
An Exchange of GiftsLyman G. Bloomingdale Music Exchange New York, NYSpring 2011Collaboration with Hoang Tran
4096 FT3 Pressed Against the VoidElevated Line InfillChicago, ILSpring 2009
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
Explorations
Between Page and StoneFocus Grant ExhibitionSpring 2012
Multi-Touch TableAn Exploration in Human Computer Interaction
Mini Thermal PrinterAn Exploration in Human Computer Interaction
Cedar Rapids Infrastructure MapArch 597
The BurningShort Story Based on Jorge Borges’ Fiction The Library of Babel
Studio Work
Home to the Boston Symphony Hall, a top tier orchestra concert hall, Boston is a world center for music and culture. The North End Music Center builds on this recognition with a new center of music dedicated to experimental and electronic music.
With a focus on sound brought to every element of the design, the NEMC’s ultimate goal is to heighten the community’s awareness and appreciation to the sonic environment that surrounds their daily life.
N o r t h E N d M u s i c c E N t E r
AGARDENOFSOUND
©2012 Microsoft Corporation
TICKET WINDows
EXPERIMENTAL HALL
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LOBBY VIP SUITES
RETAIL CONCESSIONS
STAGESMAIN HALL
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OFFICES SECURITY
PRODUCTION SERVICES
STORAGE TRASH HANDLINGRECEIVING
GREEN ROOM
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42-21.646N, 71-03.499W
42-01.670N, 93-38.741W
42-58.733N, 70-56.979W
42-21.730N, 71-03.459W
42-01.772N, 93-38.707W 42-01.717N, 93-39.175W
42-01.925N, 93-38.928W
42-21.370N, 71-02.974W
42-01.960N, 93-38.887W
42-01.960N, 93-38.887W
42-21.073N, 71-03.000W
42-21.312N, 71-03.011W
TICKET WINDows
EXPERIMENTAL HALL
CAFE VIP LOBBY
LOBBY VIP SUITES
RETAIL CONCESSIONS
STAGESMAIN HALL
LIBRARY REPAIR SHOP
OFFICES SECURITY
PRODUCTION SERVICES
STORAGE TRASH HANDLINGRECEIVING
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42-21.432N, 71-03.164W 42-21.448N, 71-03.145W
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42-58.729N, 70-56.964W42-21.652N, 71-03.472W
42-21.653N, 71-03.095W
42-21.646N, 71-03.499W
42-01.670N, 93-38.741W
42-58.733N, 70-56.979W
42-21.730N, 71-03.459W
42-01.772N, 93-38.707W 42-01.717N, 93-39.175W
42-01.925N, 93-38.928W
42-21.370N, 71-02.974W
42-01.960N, 93-38.887W
42-01.960N, 93-38.887W
42-21.073N, 71-03.000W
42-21.312N, 71-03.011W
“BEING FUNDAMENTALLY ORIENTED TOWARD VISUAL
COMMUNICATIONS, MODERN CULTURE HAS LITTLE APPRECIATION
FOR THE EMOTIONAL IMPORTANCE OF HEARING, AND THUS ATTACHES
LITTLE VALUE TO THE ART OF AUDITORY SPATIAL AWARENESS”
“AURAL ARCHITECTURE INCLUDES THE CREATION OF SPATIAL
EXPERIENCES WHERE A PHYSICAL SPACE DOES NOT ACTUALLY EXIST, SO
CALLED, PHANTOM, AND ILLUSORY SPACES”
“ON THE ONE HAND, JUST AS LIGHT SOURCES ARE REQUIRED TO
ILLUMINATE VISUAL ARCHITECTURE, SO SOUND SOURCES (SONIC
EVENTS) ARE REQUIRED TO ‘‘ILLUMINATE’’ AURAL ARCHITECTURE”
- BARRY BLESSER, LINDA-RUTH SALTER
SPACES SPEAK, ARE YOU LISTENING?: EXPERIENCING AURAL
ARCHITECTURE
“I HAD SIMPLY BECOME INCREASINGLY CONCERNED ABOUT THE
DOMINANCE OF VISION AND THE SUPPRESSION OF OTHER SENSES IN
THE WAY ARCHITECTURE WAS TAUGHT, CONCEIVED AND CRITIQUED,
AND THE CONSEQUENT DISAPPEARANCE OF SENSORY AND SENSUAL
QUALITIES FROM ARCHITECTURE.”
“INSTEAD OF CREATING MERE OBJECTS OF VISUAL SEDUCTION,
ARCHITECTURE RELATES, MEDIATES AND PROJECTS MEANINGS. THE
ULTIMATE MEANING OF ANY BUILDING IS BEYOND ARCHITECTURE; IT
DIRECTS OUR CONSCIOUSNESS BACK TO THE WORLD AND TOWARDS
OUR OWN SENSE OF SELF AND BEING.”
“THE INHUMANITY OF CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE AND CITIES
CAN BE UNDERSTOOD AS THE CONSEQUENCE OF THE NEGLECT OF THE
BODY AND THE SENSES, AND AN IMBALANCE IN OUR SENSORY SYSTEM.”
- PALLASMAA, JUHANI
THE EYES OF THE SKIN: ARCHITECTURE AND THE SENSES
Rather than bias vision and light in our design, we sought to find ways in which sound might illuminate the space.
Initial mappings and programming were entirely focused on sound. This involved making recordings of the site and mapping acoustic environments onto the site’s aural districts. This was done by comparing spectrograms and waveforms made from the site to others made in existing spaces from Boston and back home near the university. This research is summarized in the previous spread.
Observations made on site led to the discovery of three existing spatial zones which filtered ambient city sounds out in the center of the site. We made use of these by placing program spaces into their acoustical niche. These zones served to help locate acoustical interventions on the exterior site as well.
For instance, the outer rim interacts with ambient city sounds, the second zone with people moving through the site, and the inner zone interacts with musical performance.
In order to present the acoustical nature of the project we provided viewers with an immersive and acoustically spatialized game-like environment using the Unreal Development Kit (UDK) which allowed viewers to operate a game pad to walk the site and experience it acoustically as well as visually.
The facade was developed so that the surfaces would interact with the sounds in ways appropriate to their respective zones. In the inner zone the waves become tighter and the facade becomes more separated in order to capture sounds to silence the space. Outer zones loosen and play with the ambient sounds.
Experimental Hall Layouts
Zone 1
Zone 2
Zone 3
UP
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CRAMPED SEATING SPACE, NOT OVERWHELMING AS A SPACE, VERY PERSONAL, BALCONIES FACE EACH OTHER – DIRECT VISUAL CONNECTION WITH AUDIENCE ACROSS, VERY WHITE AND BRIGHT, GOLDEN, SOUNDS ARE IMMERSIVE, SECURE, NEST-LIKE, VISUALLY INTERESTING, A FEW TALKERS ACOUSTICALLY DOMINATE THE SPACE,
VERY DOMESTIC SCALE, WHILE WALKING AROUND YOU FEEL DIRECTED AWAY FROM THE BUILDING, ALTERNATES FROM DEEP MECHANICAL BACKGROUND NOISE TO SILENCE @ CORNERS, SLIGHTLY ECHOEY
EATS SOUND, FOOTFALLS DO NOT INVADE STACKS DISPITE VISUAL OPENNESS, AMAZING EXPERIENCE TO BE IN SUCH A LARGE SILENT SPACE, DEFIES EXPECTATIONS OF LARGE SPACE ACOUSTICS, SCALES ARCHITECTURE WHICH FEELS QUITE HUMAN WHEN IN THE SPACE, EXCELLENT DETAILS
ARCHES ALLOW VISUAL AND ACOUSTICAL CONNECTION, THERE IS NICE BALANCE OF WALL TO OPENING WITH MORE WALL THAN OPENING, OPENINGS RELEASE SOME SOUND ENERGY AND LESSEN REVERBERATION, HIGH PITCHES DOMINATE THE SPACE, MORE EXPANSIVE THAN EXETER CLOISTER BOTH ACOUSTICALLY AND VISUALLY
VERY OPEN ON ONE SIDE, RUSTICATED STONE DIFFUSES SOUNDS, HIGH CEILING CREATES SOME REVERBERATION, VISUALLY PRIVATE, BUT PERHAPS NOT ACOUSTICALLY PRIVATE
THE SWEEP OF THE ARCH EXITS HUMAN SCALE AND THERE IS LITTLE DETAILING WHICH RETURNS IT TO HUMAN SCALE, NOT AS REVERBERANT AS EXPECTED, COULD MAKE A GOOD THRESHOLD INTO ANOTHER INTERMEDIARY SPACE BUT NOT A GOOD THRESHOLD BY ITSELF
EXCELLENT SPACE, PROPER PLAY WITH SCALES AND ACOUSTICS TO CREATE A LEARNING SPACE WHICH IS VISUALLY AND ACOUSTICALLY PRIVATE IN A VERY SENSITIVE WAY
HIGH REVERBERATION AND HIGH MECHANICAL BACKGROUND NOISE, ALL HARD SURFACES WITH VOLUMES WHICH ARE VARIED BUT REPEATED, HAS A FEELING OF UNLINGERING AND MOVEMENT AXIALLY, SPACE DOES NOT ALLOW FOR CONVERSATIONS
EMBRACING BUT WITH A FINALITY OF REACH, NOT A SWEEP UNDER BUT A SWEEP THAT IS INTERRUPTED, REVERBERANT BUT ACOUSTICALLY PRIVATE DEPENDING ON LOCATION, ALL HARD SURFACES, VERY ACTIVE BUT NOT SOCIABLE, LARGE CIRCLE HINDERS CIRCULATION THROUGH THE PLAZA
STRANGE SPACE, BOTH ACOUSTICALLY AND VISUALLY PRIVATE WHILE BEING CONSPICUOUS ON THE SITE, UNIQUE SPATIAL SITUATION, ALL HARD SURFACES, A WELCOMED ESCAPE
ANGLED CLOISTER POSTS ALLOW FOR UNIQUE PRIVACY OPPORTUNITIES, SCALE IS BOTH NONHUMAN AND HUMAN AND SEEMS TO BE A DELIBERATE ACT, REVERBERANT, ALL HARD SURFACES, AGING OR POOR CONCRETE WORK
PRIVACY OFFERED IS DECEPTIVE, ALL HARD SURFACES, SEMI ACOUSTIC SEPARATION, PLAYFUL SPACE INVITES PHYSICAL AND ACOUSTICAL INTERACTION
THE SPACE FOCUSES SOUNDS FROM OUTSIDE, ESPECIALLY LOW TONES FROM PASSING VEHICLES, HIGH VISUAL CONNECTION BOTH INWARD AND OUTWARD, ONLY ACOUSTICAL CONNECTION IS TOWARD THE INWARD
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42
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The historic Iowa State University Campus Cemetery is filling up. Within 10 years there can be no more new internments. This expansion proposal seeks to allow continued internment in one of America’s few on campus cemeteries while reassessing the practices of laying our community to rest.
The expansion has no gates and no lawns. Instead, elevation serves as the filter medium. Lawns are replaced by fields and woods. The expansion is not a cemetery of exclusion where only mourners and lawn mowing machines are welcome.
The expansion is dedicated to returning the right to the cemetery to its whole community; an ecosystem of renewing life, and a thriving campus.
I o w a S t a t e U n I v e r S I t y C a m p U S C e m e t e r y
L I F E N O T L A W N S
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The cemetery on the Iowa State University campus is within Pammel Woods on the north edge of campus. The woods are unique to Ames, Iowa as they are the most pristine woods in the city. There is a diversity of life which is unmatched, but it is under threat due to recreational activities. By expanding the cemetery the woods will be better protected.
Clear Creek runs through the woods and floods seasonally. For this reason, burial grounds are located along the top of two ridges opposite each other. One of these ridges already contains the historic cemetery and will contain the expansion for more faculty burials, the opposite ridge will contain student and alumni burials.
The flood plain and the rest of Pammel Woods will be kept for student and instructional use. By separating the cemetery grounds and everyday grounds through elevation the need for gates and fences is eliminated. This means that the cemetery will not have the ominous exclusiveness common in many cemeteries and will help to lift the stigma of death. All communities, including herds of deer living in the woods, will be able to pass freely.
The earth bound Alumni Chapel sits at the far entrance of the Water Chapel. An arcade surrounds the chapel, filtering light as well as curious ramblers. Though the chapel has the ability to seat ninety of the deceased’s companions, it maintains an intimate atmosphere by a low, sloping roof.
The body rests on a plinth surrounded by a cavity filled with water from the cistern of the Water Chapel. This cistern is sized so that it will release water constantly during four months of the year. The pooling of the water around the body reflects the individual’s act of gathering knowledge over a life. This water then flows out of the cavity and begins its journey through the cemetery, acting as a connection between all students of Iowa State University.
An investigation of the site uncovered previous student activity in Pammel woods. These activities often involved lighting small gathering fires. These fires were accompanied by attempts to shield themselves from an authoritative other. Rather than remove a vital communal activity, and in the interest of providing a safe location for gathering, the Students’ Chapel provides a fire pit next to a large scattering garden.
The Students’ Chapel, or Fire Chapel, is dedicated to student gathering. Students are invited to remember a fallen friend and celebrate in life. Water from the Alumni Chapel flows into this Student’s Chapel as a means to bond all students of Iowa State’s student body
The bridge brings together the faculty and student sections of the cemetery. The connection and exchange which takes place between learner and teacher is strung out along this 500 ft. path through the Pammel Woods canopy. Along this path the two waters finally meet, one from the Faculty Cemetery, the other from the Student Cemetery. These two waters come together and fall into Clear Creek below.
Faculty take the knowledge they have gained and cast it out into the world. They are the Givers. They work with an institution, ensuring its continuation and evolution. The Faculty Chapel then is a chapel of air and wind. The structure is light and simple with an expansive roof that seems to disappear.
Here the body rests on a plinth which floats above a cistern below. This cistern also releases water continually for four months of the year. This water forms a stream which meets up with water from the Alumni Grounds.
The chapel has a detached relation to the ground and reaches out over the Pammel Woods ridge, gesturing toward the alumni grounds. Plantings on the faculty grounds include Cotton Woods, and other trees which have wind borne seeds. Prairie grasses surround the burial ground, and every few years a memorial burning takes place which rejuvenates the soil for continual growth.
A music residency program is sited in the SOHO district of New York City. Here, a mentor is charged with three mentees to guide and further their craft. Their relationship is built around a symbiotic exchange, each giving what the other takes, who in turn gives back. The residency program required practice spaces, performance areas, living dorms, and a cafe. High end condos were also required in order to fund the program, and the condo owners receive the benefit of living near noted musicians. There were in fact many levels of symbiotic exchange taking place - musician to city, condo to residency, and finally mentor to mentee.
L y m a n G . B L o o m i n G d a L e m u s i c e x c h a n G e
A NE X C H A N G EO FG I F T S
The site features a Bloomingdale’s department store to the north. Research revealed that of the two founding brothers, Lyman G. Bloomingdale had a disposition toward charity and music. Another symbiotic exchange presented itself. For the opportunity to build above Bloomindale’s, the residency would become the department store’s charitable outlet. The music residency would then take the name, Lyman G. Bloomingdale Music Exchange.
With access to space above Bloomingdale’s the residency could afford giving valuable building square footage to large gathering voids along the exterior of the building. The city would be invited into these voids and large public interiors to share in the community of music.
Prior to work on the music residency project a preliminary project was undertaken in order to understand the nature of a musician’s daily ritual and his relationship to music. A “spare house” was designed based on their ritual of living.
This musician which the spare house was designed for had a strong orientation toward the external life. He was a Political Science student whose musical passion was jazz. He could be seen on warm nights out on sidewalks near bars playing jazz to passing people free of studies enjoying their night out.
The spare house reflects this musician’s democratic attitude to the street space. Living in the spare house is to live within the wall of the street. Entrance is through a tall narrow slit. From here he ascends to his semiprivate living area. As he rises, the walls of the neighboring building bulge out, compressing him further along the wall of the street. Finally, the musician’s living space is dominated by a large window. From here he stands and plays his instrument, making his offering of music from within the space of the street.
A plaster print was inked in create the drawings for the project. This allowed the method of drawing to participate in the idea of residing within an in-between space.
F O C U S G R A N T E X H I B I T I O N
B E T W E E NP A G EA N DS T O N EThe spaces of Louis Kahn evoke the words of Jorge Borges, and the words of Borges evoke the spaces of Kahn. The two are connected in their eloquent and primal works. Between Page and Stone is a memorial sculpture exploring their ideas and any connections in thought which may exist.
The fi nal object is not just a memorial to two great thinkers. It is also an exploration of the leap which happens between idea and object. Issues of constructability, and the extent to which an aura can be intended into a physical mass were studied.
The project was complete with the help of the Karen Bermann and the Focus Grant program at Iowa State University.
4 0 9 6 F T 3
P R E S S E DA G A I N S TT H EV O I DNamed 4096 ft3 due to the restriction on the final volume allowed, this project is an infill project in which a site was chosen within the city of Chicago. Each student searched the “L” district for a small, undeveloped space between two existing buildings. The site was to be developed to include a theoretical living unit and facade system which expressed the condition of living in Chicago.
The site for this project is situated between the spectacle city of attractions such as Millennium Park to the east of South Michigan Ave., and the everyday working city to the west of South Michigan Ave. The tension between where development money was focused or withheld was very evident along this transition zone.
E l E v a t E d l i n E i n f i l l
The tension was carried through the design for a typical unit of the infill development. The project was given the feeling of a larger volume by the placement of a large, inaccessible void in the center of the living space. This void acts as a light well and also visually connects neighbors above and below.
The void thins out the surrounding living space however, pressing acts of dwelling along the walls of the city.
The void can never be entered and so gets the paradoxical nature of being “inside space” - something to be looked into but inaccessible, a common condition of many interior urban spaces which tend to be restrictive to outsiders.
The paradoxical flip extends to the living space which becomes the “outside space.” Exiting this, one enters the city, another “inside space.”
To express the paradoxical nature exterior facades are treated in ways typical of interior walls. A lace-like imprint gives the impression of wallpaper, while wall sides facing the living space are left as bare concrete.
Habitation takes place mainly out in the city with few living activities accommodated by the unit. This is an extreme condition of normal city life. The hope is that as the exterior life of cities becomes more domestic the city will become a more habitable and welcoming environment.
In the Chicago of today however, the solitary dweller lives pressed up against the void and lives in a state of flux. Between inside and out, the dweller never really resolves and attitude toward either.
Explorations
F O C U S G R A N T E X H I B I T I O N
B E T W E E NP A G EA N DS T O N EThe spaces of Louis Kahn evoke the words of Jorge Borges, and the words of Borges evoke the spaces of Kahn. The two are connected in their eloquent and primal works. Between Page and Stone is a memorial sculpture exploring their ideas and any connections in thought which may exist.
The fi nal object is not just a memorial to two great thinkers. It is also an exploration of the leap which happens between idea and object. Issues of constructability, and the extent to which an aura can be intended into a physical mass were studied.
The project was complete with the help of the Karen Bermann and the Focus Grant program at Iowa State University.
The goal was to use a Borges’ tale to generate a Kahn-esque form. In order to do that I looked at the similarities between the works of the two. An earthbound sense of place, where a part is seen in reference to the whole, is felt in many of their works. In fact, it seems that both men created works which as a part are strange and fantastic but fi t reasonably well with the whole (some better than others) and are able to make a comment about the whole. They are rooted in the real. Yet they reside in between the expected order and the bizarre. Perhaps something closer to a greater order.
Exeter Library by Louis Kahn was chosen as a spring point for the form of the sculpture because of it’s hulking timelessness. It is a space which feels like it is right out of the Library of Babel story. Kahn’s building plays with void, and in the sculpture what was void above fl oors is now mass. It expresses Kahn’s ability to give void mass and give it a life of its own. It is also interesting to mention that Borges visited the library during his life, the only record of any meeting between the two, if only indirect.
I also had a chance to visit the library and was astonished by the void’s ability to swallow sound. A space of the same volume using the same materials would normally return a lot of reverberation. Kahn’s use of void keeps the library acoustically intimate.
I tried to make the structure the sculpture. This is something Kahn felt strongly about. I spent an obsessive amount of time trying to fi nd the right looking nuts for the bolts. Every bolt in the piece is cast to sit perfectly oriented on its fi nal turn
I would like to thank all that helped, especially Karen Bermann and the Focus Committee at Iowa State University.
E x p E r i m E n t s i n H u m a n C o m p u t E r i n t E r a C t i o n
M U L T I -T O U C H D R A F T I N G T A B L EThe hand has been separated from the design medium. Current CAD and BIM programs are clunky and more time is spent adapting to new methods of interaction than designing.
The multi touch drafting table is a stepping stone into developing better digital tools for designers. Designers are able to physically draw on a Photoshop canvas so that sketches are natively digital, and plug-ins and programs allow multi-touch gestures and controls within SketchUp, Revit, etc, to reintroduce the expressive hand to design.
E x p E r i m E n t s i n H u m a n C o m p u t E r i n t E r a C t i o n
M I N I T H E R M A LP R I N T E R
Arduino is a powerful tool. Active facades, advanced user control, responsive systems, a truly living building are all things which Arduino makes possible.
This thermal printer is a first step into this world. Using the GoFreeRange Hello, Printer as a precedent the Detrius grabs messages sent to it from a web interface. Digital notes or ebook excerpts are quickly printed onto small slips of paper.
Eventually the Detrius will print bitmap images of sketches made on the go with a smartphone and clips of web pages.
This map explores disconnected infrastructure systems in order to see what story they may be able to tell.
Our center of investigation is the neighborhood near the bottom right of the Wednesday border.
What we found was a neighborhood underserved, especially by educational opportunity where it lies on the outskirts of a major axis formed by schools. We found that city council members tended not to live near the area as well.
Following the historic 2008 floods Cedar Rapids began an aggressive acquisition program. The areas of concentration of these acquisitions tended to be areas where levees protecting investments across river forced water into lower priority, and coincidently lower income land. Many residents feel animosity toward this physical practice and following response. They observed many homes being falsely marked as unsafe and being purchased for city use.
The city plans to turn this once tight knit community into a new greenway.
C E D A R R A P I D SI N F R A S T R U C T U R E
S h o r t S t o r y B a S e d o n J o r g e B o r g e S ' t h e L i B r a r y o f B a B e L
T H E B U R N I N GLike all men of the Library, I have traveled in my youth. I have journeyed in search of a book, perhaps of the catalogue of catalogues; now that my eyes can scarcely decipher what I write, I am preparing to die a few leagues from the hexagon in which I was born.
-JLB
There are those among us who, having contemplated the Library and the various natures of other libraries, decided long ago to burn the Library. The smoke, they conjectured, would contain all the same characters and forms held between the library’s many walls. The only difference being that the information will be transformed into air. A great many more people than can possibly have visited the Library than all the lifetimes of the world will be able to pick from this new air the various symbols and patterns once locked in the vast volumes of the vast halls of the vast and great Library1. In support of this new medium of access the Burners proclaim, “in order to take in, one only needs to inhale,” or, “touch is all that is needed.” Some Burners with a more religious mind made the pronouncement that both are wrong, “it is in the air, always around us. The great mixture does not need to be ‘taken in’ as you say. It is there, glory to the Burning, available for all.”
The three arguments of the three Burners touch the paradox of the Great Mixture. While the vastness of the Library has been transmogrified into air and has become the Great Mixture which is around us all – how does one access this limitless knowledge?
There exists in some far flung places a rumor of a contraption. Descriptions of the device suggest that one seeking to gain some knowledge simply hold it towards the air and a picture window displays fragments of the Great Mixture for viewing. Early reviews make note of its fantastic accuracy of procuring totally irrelevant information. A game has been invented by those owning the device which involves seeing who can get the most irrelevant fragment and remember it for later use. The game is won when an excelled player announces during conversation that he had seen information on the topic of discussion before within the Great Mixture. The winner is always featured in the local paper and is made into an instant celebrity. I hope to hold this device and try my hand at this game.
Some innovators have taken this device and made several modifications. Through the picture frame, the user would see phantom spaces constructed out of the Great Mixture. These phantom walls and rooms are intangible and undetectable to any without the device. Walls bar passage to rooms once familiar. The projection of a phantom room through a solid wall has prompted several users to stand front-wise to an empty wall, longing to enter the room beyond. Due to this recent advancement some have begun to wish the whole world was torn down and remade with the stuff of this new, phantom world. Bricks, plaster, wood, and glass would all be made to rubble and reconstructed out of the Great Mixture. Information would be their
structure, their window, their door, and their roof. What more is needed to provide one with shelter?
Another device has been the talk lately. Unlike a picture window you hold, this device is worn around your head like a helmet. It translates the Great Mixture directly surrounding within a ninety foot radius and feeds it directly to the mind. Early adopters report a rush of emotion similar to joy but closer to ecstasy and still yet closer to dread. Suddenly, overwhelmed by the sensation, these adopters would remove the helmet and set their mind to sitting near a window or scratching rocks into fine powders, such is the insight they receive from the great contraption. I am told the inventors hope to expand the radius to one mile by the end of the month. What a profound amount of knowledge which seethes all around us within the Great Mixture will soon be available to every single person then! Certainly more knowledge than all the librarians of the past could encounter in all their combined lifetimes of wandering within the vast Library. Imagine the advancement of our humanity!
Some of us would blaspheme against the Great Mixture. They reject these and other augments for accessing the knowledge now borne upon the winds. They claim to be Followers of the Book, no doubt remnants of the same group which once searched the now charred Library for that total book which held the secrets from man for so long. Perhaps they are jealous! The search is no longer limited to dusty men searching dusty shelves. The great paces at which the mixture is now being combed grows daily. It won’t be long before this book is found in its entirety. You would think perhaps that with such prospects as these the Followers would be the most adamant of early adopters of these new augments for accessing the Great Mixture. Instead it may be that the discovery happens upon the school teacher, the alcoholic, or some young person. Such fantastic times we live in!
1 It was once thought that the Library was infinite. Having seen what remains I can tell you that it is in fact infinite with time, but finite in time.
Update:We have heard of some developers who call themselves skeuomorphologists who make it their task to rebuild the library within these new devices. They have come to accept the burning as a great event and see themselves tasked with bringing all those books perfectly replicated to these new augments. Some see these developers as shortsighted, that the library is something of the past and we should instead learn to deal with the Great Mixture in its own way.
structure, their window, their door, and their roof. What more is needed to provide one with shelter?
Another device has been the talk lately. Unlike a picture window you hold, this device is worn around your head like a helmet. It translates the Great Mixture directly surrounding within a ninety foot radius and feeds it directly to the mind. Early adopters report a rush of emotion similar to joy but closer to ecstasy and still yet closer to dread. Suddenly, overwhelmed by the sensation, these adopters would remove the helmet and set their mind to sitting near a window or scratching rocks into fine powders, such is the insight they receive from the great contraption. I am told the inventors hope to expand the radius to one mile by the end of the month. What a profound amount of knowledge which seethes all around us within the Great Mixture will soon be available to every single person then! Certainly more knowledge than all the librarians of the past could encounter in all their combined lifetimes of wandering within the vast Library. Imagine the advancement of our humanity!
Some of us would blaspheme against the Great Mixture. They reject these and other augments for accessing the knowledge now borne upon the winds. They claim to be Followers of the Book, no doubt remnants of the same group which once searched the now charred Library for that total book which held the secrets from man for so long. Perhaps they are jealous! The search is no longer limited to dusty men searching dusty shelves. The great paces at which the mixture is now being combed grows daily. It won’t be long before this book is found in its entirety. You would think perhaps that with such prospects as these the Followers would be the most adamant of early adopters of these new augments for accessing the Great Mixture. Instead it may be that the discovery happens upon the school teacher, the alcoholic, or some young person. Such fantastic times we live in!
1 It was once thought that the Library was infinite. Having seen what remains I can tell you that it is in fact infinite with time, but finite in time.
Update:We have heard of some developers who call themselves skeuomorphologists who make it their task to rebuild the library within these new devices. They have come to accept the burning as a great event and see themselves tasked with bringing all those books perfectly replicated to these new augments. Some see these developers as shortsighted, that the library is something of the past and we should instead learn to deal with the Great Mixture in its own way.
There are those among us who, having contemplated the Library and the various natures of other libraries, decided long ago to burn the Library. The smoke, they conjectured, would contain all the same characters and forms held between the library’s many walls. The only difference being that the information will be transformed into air. A great many more people than can possibly have visited the Library than all the lifetimes of the world will be able to pick from this new air the various symbols and patterns once locked in the vast volumes of the vast halls of the vast and great Library1. In support of this new medium of access the Burners proclaim, “in order to take in, one only needs to inhale,” or, “touch is all that is needed.” Some Burners with a more religious mind made the pronouncement that both are wrong, “it is in the air, always around us. The great mixture does not need to be ‘taken in’ as you say. It is there, glory to the Burning, available for all.”
The three arguments of the three Burners touch the paradox of the Great Mixture. While the vastness of the Library has been transmogrified into air and has become the Great Mixture which is around us all – how does one access this limitless knowledge?
There exists in some far flung places a rumour of a contraption. Descriptions of the device suggest that one seeking to gain some knowledge simply hold it towards the air and a picture window displays fragments of the Great Mixture for viewing. Early reviews make note of its fantastic accuracy of procuring totally irrelevant information. A game has been invented by those owning the device which involves seeing who can get the most irrelevant fragment and remember it for later use. The game is won when an excelled player announces during conversation that he had seen information on the topic of discussion before within the Great Mixture. The winner is always featured in the local paper and is made into an instant celebrity. I hope to hold this device and try my hand at this game.
Some innovators have taken this device and made several modifications. Through the picture frame, the user would see phantom spaces constructed out of the Great Mixture. These phantom walls and rooms are intangible and undetectable to any without the device. Walls bar passage to rooms once familiar. The projection of a phantom room through a solid wall has prompted several users to stand front-wise to an empty wall, longing to enter the room beyond. Due to this recent advancement some have begun to wish the whole world was torn down and remade with the stuff of this new, phantom world. Bricks, plaster, wood, and glass would all be made to rubble and reconstructed out of the Great Mixture. Information would be their
BRYAN MOCK
319.651.9433
104 8th STSpringville, IA 52336
@bmock
burningthelibrary.wordpress.com
Iowa State UniversityCollege of DesignBachelors of Architecture, 2013
