“Punch- hole building”, the new vertical courtyard?

by Guillermina Chiu

In an endeavor to challenge the building typology that is simply analyzed in floor plan within the discourse of architecture, this essay attempts to show how the “courtyard typology” has gradually morphed into a vertical scenario, keeping the underlying principle that different forms can belong to the same type, but be constructed dissimilar, reinforcing conventional architectural features in denser urban scales.

Throughout the discourse of architecture the word typology has had different connotation and meaning according to location, density and quality.

Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy, professor of archaeology at the Bibliothèque Nationale (1818) gives a precise definition of “type” in his historical Dictionnaire d'Architecture: “The idea of an element which should itself serve as a model”.

Rafael Moneo considers typology as the inherent, structural and formal order that allows architectural objects to be grouped together, distinguished and repeated. Similar to him, Leon Krier thinks of it as a precise analytical tool for architecture and urban form, which also provides a rational basis for design. On the other hand Aldo Rossi sees it as a repetitive technique of production (closer

to Boulee and Ledoux ideas on the value of the place).

Abbe Laugier believed that the natural basis of design was to be found in the primitive hut; while Le Corbusier believed that the model of architectural design should be founded in the production process itself.

For Giulio Carlo Argan’s, typology is a historically-derived “formal” consensus, found by “comparing and superimposing”. It is an architectural “average” that should be distinguished from an archetype (an ideal form from which one is not allowed to deviate) A type has made possible the rehabilitation of historical meaning in a way flexible enough to allow for those meanings to change when circumstances dictated.

Typology is not just a classifying or statistical process, historical, social and economical factors generate or eradicate them over time, but in the end, the discourse always returns to the problem of form. Today the idea of the third typology raises the question of a city as an operation type, based as well on reason and classification as the guiding principles.

A courtyard is a type of building; like I mentioned a type only analyzed in floor plan. It is an enclosed space that is open to the sky. The earliest courtyards were built in 3000 B.C. in Iran and China. Historically, they have been used for cooking, sleeping, trading, working, playing, gardening, and even keeping animals. Different formal and spatial qualities make them the ideal image of the suburban landscape: A courtyard is a freestanding construction with a permanent landscaped park that offers opportunity for social interaction.

The problem of the courtyard has been dealt by many architects. Perhaps the most famous approach is Peter Eisenman’s figure-ground argument. The relationship of the ground is divided in external and internal. For Eisenman, Bramante lacked of figure ground relationship. For instance, If we take a Nolli map of Rome, Eisenman would address the problem by arguing that the public open space (white) is to be considered as the presence, and the private in black is to be considered as the absence or the partial figure, because it is in the “not present present” (the partial figure or the absence) that affective conditions are created. Perhaps Jaffrey Kipnis would address the same problem as the absence being the site and the presence as being the ground; but ultimately the courtyard diagram is one that has both political and cultural context.

If we take the problem of the courtyard, and analyze it as if it was a section instead of a floor plan; we could argue that the diagram has what Kipnis would call a “new authenticity”, for the diagram to work; it needs a degree of literalness and idiocy. The literalness is given by the obvious analogy between architecture and iconography; the idiocy is given by translating the floor plan diagram into a sectional one.

The “punch- hole building” vertical courtyard possesses the ideal image of the urban landscape; the perfect public isolated landscaped view. A vertical courtyard configuration that offers the opportunity of social hierarchy without mixed interaction. Perhaps population density is the most important factor for the “new vertical courtyards” to be born. Whether or not a symbolic context exists before the creation of this type? Is not to be discussed...

Architecture "is" vs Architecture "becomes"

by Guillermina Chiu

These are my ideas , a response to a set of cultural , social and economical circumstances driving architecture in the construction of my mind.
Architecture is part of society , a nexus of human activity driven by personal politics ; often times, a social experiment which leads the subjects to a set of deliberate choices, choices we as architects make , how far are we willing to make people go ?
I’m interested in what architecture can “become”, not in what architecture “is”; although it seems that architecture “becomes” because “it is”, the “is of architecture” refers to permanent, timeless and unchangeable concepts, opposed to “becoming”. I find the idea of Architecture very different from the experience of Architecture, and I wonder what lies behind the paradox of all t he thinkers in Architecture and their work (i.e. Nouvel, Rotondi, Eisenman, Lyyn).

If Architecture is a morphing creature indeed, it can only “be” if it “becomes” it can only survive if it changes. Eric Owen Moss says in “Who says what Architecture is?” that for Sciarc, there is no surprise; it has no permanent friends or enemies in poetry, time or space.
In “To have or to be” (pp.21) Eric Fromm states the philosophical concepts of “being”. For the “scholastic realists” makes sense only in the idealistic conception that a thought is the ultimate truth , therefore and idea is more real than an experience. Can Architecture jeopardize experience ?

I would like Architecture to “become” a subject in which no one but Architecture would be the spectacle, a place in which space is the subject to be discussed, it could be anywhere: desert, sea, wasteland, wilderness, city, suburbia, virtual land…in the realm of imagination. “A drawing limits as much as it opens possibilities” (Edward Robbins)
from “Fame and the Changing role of a drawing” by Jon Goodbun and Katherin Jaschke (pp 51).

Approaching Architecture

by Guillermina Chiu

A lot of questions come to my mind when somebody asks: What is Architecture? Often times I think of Architecture as a crossroad; its public, as everyone can come across with it, yet personal, as the path taken awakes powerful emotions by intimate awareness.

For me, Architecture has been an unpredictable luscious journey. Its sumptuousness lies in my constant changing perception of the tensions between the forces that drive it.

During my first years as an Architecture student, I believed in the traditional academicism of Architecture, but then I thought that it could no longer have its goal on the transformation its accumulated material. Subsequently my mind was invaded by Hani Rashid’s argument that theory was not a matter of speculation in which the building is the proof. Theory itself becomes the building, in which the computer is manifest.

For a split of a second, I believed that the seamlessness of the architectural process as a mass customization ideal would hold the promise for the profession; but then I thought that true beauty is born out of imperfection. Representation versus Simulation arguments assaulted me last semester. Building Information Modeling almost bought my thoughts and ideals. But then I considered that the limits of parametric automation would constrain my life into a very narrow path.

My constant evolving Architecture has reached a turning point in which perhaps visual and intellectual disappointments are the best words to describe my thoughts. My work has positioned myself off-limits for describing my real time Architecture, leaving me with the question: is the future of Architecture really architectural? Why is it that we have to look into other professions to find the Architecture disclosure compelling?

Today I’m interested in the translation of syntax into actual space. I’m in the middle of another crossroad of my architectural journey…

Shimmering Bubble Glamour

by Guillermina Chiu

As I stood inside the new M&A (Materials and Applications) exhibit enclosed by luxuriously shimmering circular objects, I almost felt like champagne fluid inside a flute in which time had been stopped allowing the unhurried motion of bubble interaction to occur. With roughly slow pulse heartbeats, the silky bubbles and an eclectic crowd chatting on the street was the basis of a new hip-arty commotion.

The breeze night allowed for a perfect “beach like” experience for the spectators this project conceived by FoxLin and NONDesign, a set of linked eight feet pneumatic spherical nylon structures in a sandy sloped box.

To the amateur eye, other than the sparkling effect created by the micro-fluorescent light element, it might look like a group of huge lamps hanging from the sides of two Spanish style houses, with no intention at all. Never the less to the more theoretical Angelino socialite, it means the blow out of the boundaries between art and science. It means the new art installation era.

The creator’s inspiration was taken from the Utopie group of Guy Deboard. Both for which their target was to transgress the frontier separating art and culture and making them part of common life. Aubert, Stingo and Jugmann managed to accommodate a use and a user in their functional structures, from traveling theaters to exhibition halls; and indeed M&A managed to create an ordered structure, in which organization and function where the slightest missing matters, just as in real LA, common traffic life. No matter how bad it is, everybody seems to find their way around it.

The so called “interactive display”, rather than creating freely deflating pathways, generated enormous imposing shapes that guided people’s flow through the confusing exhibition, in which the spectator seemed not to know what to do but either push the bubble away from their way or go with the movement of the flow.

As the viewer made their way through the unexpected sloped sand beach in the middle of Silver Lake, just as a mountain climber would do, cutting through all kinds of adversities to get to the top, a very disturbing sight appeared: A large paint chopped white wall, music apparatus and mechanical equipment that perhaps happened to malfunction that night.

When I got to the top, I couldn’t help but wonder why would they call it an observation ramp for lectures? If M&A are really considering using the space for colloquium purposes, they might want to revise the effervescent bubbles location, which, frankly make it almost impossible to see through.

Indeed “Bubbles” purpose of joining art and science might be a good aim. However this arty-retro philosophers should revisit their inspiration source for better understanding of their intents. Perhaps less arty-bragger structure would be the perfect gorgeous way out since M&A cleverness is not yet fully developed. We shall see in their next outrageous display, for now, their future is still qualm…