Charlottesville, Va

Architecture, Urbanism, and the Design of Dying

As humans we have a strange relationship with death. The only species known to bury their dead, we approach the matter the only way we know how, and that is the same way we approach life. We each mourn our own way, perform the appropriate ceremonies, and then we adorn the newly departed with their own structures and architectures of stone, granite, plaster and metal. We shelter them from the elements by placing them in a tomb, then marking their location and memory with headstones, crypts, monuments or placards. Architecture may be the only thing we can take with us. In Paris, these burial plots combine to form districts of the cemetery, which are divided by boulevards, streets, or pathways. These in turn are given identification, and street signs are erected. At certain intersections, a large obelisk or sepulcher may be placed in the center, declaring itself a landmark from which visitors can get their bearings and migrate in the right direction. By applying theories of architecture and urbanism as understood by the living to places inhabited by the dead, cemeteries become places where two worlds meet and occupy the same space, both in the physical sense and symbolically. Although used for many activities in a densely packed city of bustling vibrancy these cemeteries, with their urban organization and architectural exonerations are still places of memory, of respect and somber reflection on our own mortality.

Charlottesville, Va

It's been a while since I've updated this thing, though not much has changed. As is inevitable, studio projects and everything else have kept me from doing much to advance my research, but in the last few days I've been able to pick it up again and have been running ever since. In a meeting on Thursday, I spoke with Bill Morrish about where I could head with a paper focusing on mobility infrastructure and the formation of place. I suggested my idea of doing an addition to Union Station in Washington, D.C, and he suggested taking the project outside the Federal Triangle to Tyson's Corner, VA. Tyson's is halfway between D.C. and Dulles International Airport, and is currently in the works to get a subway line connecting the two. That, and the proximity of Interstate 66 and other local train services make this location an ideal place to let each of these transit types make their impact. Best part yet, Bill suggested using my original nine essays and interview to frame the parameters to which the project will be shaped. This just might be the first intermodal transit hub designed around the homeless or technology.

So the project will be broken into a few parts:
The first will be a preliminary review which I will give in 2 weeks. This review is our final presentation for Design Research, but really just an opportunity to have some feedback from others to see how we are approaching the ideas and where we can head from there.
The second part will come early next semester, when I present one or a few of my essays from the summer, for the Nix Fellowship presentations.
The third and final part will be my thesis presentation, right now shaping up to be an intermodal transit station located outside Washington, D.C, with urban parallels between D.C. and Paris (to justify not doing a project there, really).

Stay tuned for more. As I continue to get more information / visuals in the next two weeks I will try to post them. The net 4 weeks will be rather busy, so it may not be until then that I update again. Hopefully a few short posts will suffice.

Amsterdam Realtime

Charlottesville, Va.

Heading to New York City for the weekend. I am currently working on the Nix Fellowship within the Design Research seminar. This means that the paper is shifting continuously and rapidly. Right now I'm paring down on an exploration of the concept that a place's unique urban characteristics can be interpreted into design drivers for new construction through an understanding of the "personality of place". I'm beginning to look at the if and why aspects of the existence of this idea. Theoretically I'll develop a loose methodology of reading "context", which I will then put to the test next semester in a thesis project.

I'm coming to the realization that in order to make a strong case for Personality of Place and its design implications I won't be able to use my original essays as planned. In a way it's okay, since they have been very helpful in forming this idea, but also sad because I won't be able to use them as I had intended. Still, I have plenty of contributions for the Lunch publication in the spring.

A Tale of Two-Cities

There are these beautiful places: beautiful because they are exotic and exotic because they are mysterious. They are famous places and rustic secrets; Paris, Vienna, Rome, Siena, and each brings its own charms to the table, creating a persona either real or imagined, that is portrayed to the world via film, literature, art, music, and spoken tales.

It's possible to visit these places we hear and read about, although our experiences will differ from those of Shakespeare, Moliere, Thoreau, or Charlie Chaplin. But where their stories end our own can begin. When we travel to visit these places we develop our own narratives, create our own characters and plots and are anxious for the day we return to normalcy and relive our own narrations, while adding to the fantasies of others who have not been, and rekindling the fond fires of those who have.

Unfortunately for my kind, these fantasies are but one side of the story. It's in the fiber of my body, like lungs or eyelids, that when I find one of these magical places I want to know why it works, how it's made, why it feels so special, and how I can bring this experience to everyone. This brings a course of analysis and critique. I do what I can to find the source of this enchantment and unfortunately for myself in the very process of understanding its beauty I destroy that which I sought to understand. Paris for me is no longer the city of love and lights; it is a city of sewers and bloody revolution, of immigrant populations in dire social housing. It's graffiti. Venice is no longer the romantic city by the sea where canals run like streets and fresh vegetables are sold by boat side. For me now it is a city fallen from grace, forced to pander to foreign tourists or die. Each city is a tale of two cities, one which is the reality of a living, working city and one that is the facade of what the city would like to be, projected onto other cities so that they might be able to compare their favorable assets. If we wanted to we could stop the charade and present our cities as they actually are. But that wouldn't really change anything, and would leave us all a little depressed.

Charlottesville, Va.

41 Days in Paradise: Considerations of the culture of context in Paris, France.

Thesis abstract:

Contextual attributes exemplified by syntactic, social, political, infrastructural and technological considerations are examined in their physical manifestations in relation to contemporary Parisian architecture. Explored examples reflect the reality of the constructed pre-conditions of any site in the dense urbanism of Paris.

Research Description:

Paris is well known for its grandiose urban schemes and historic architecture, but still fosters intelligent and relevant contemporary architecture rarely seen against its more distinguished forbearers. At the same time, this new architecture is relying heavily on its context to inform and deform its design process. In such dense and architecturally homogenous surroundings, “context” can quickly become limited to urban issues and historic narratives of the neighborhood. Though these aspects are important to the development of the built environment, other issues contribute to the unique definition of place. These issues range from socio-economic conditions to public and urban infrastructure, to the technologies available to solve complex syntactic problems. This definition of context has yet to be defined or categorized, or even analyzed for its relevance and potential, yet it has already been manifested in the physical environment, in some cases, for over a century.

Goals and Aims

The goal of this research is to identify attributes and qualities which, along with historic and built context, contribute to the context of a specific place. Of these attributes, several will be chosen as case studies and explored in greater depth.

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This is where we are right now. I'm falling dangerously behind on my writing because of a design competition I'm working on which finishes later this week. I'm hoping that next week I'll be able to get a solid start on these essays. On that note, I'm having to rewrite or refocus just about all of them because of the subtly shifting sands of my theses. Considering they're each running between 3,000 and 4,000 words this is quite the undertaking, but as I go I may be paring a few of them down to the 1,000 word range, to make them shorter and more concise, and so that it's not page after page of my rambling. Also, it allows me to give priority to the ones that uphold what is now the main thrust of my paper, and letting some of the peripheral essays (those that don't really have anything to do with context or architecture, but are still interesting) fall back a bit. I should have one or two near completion by next week, so be on the lookout.

Charlottesville, Va.

Original Thesis:

Develop a series of patterns that define the architectural interpretation of contemporary built works of the historic urban fabric in Paris, France.

41 Days in Paradise:

6 Memos for any Millenium: The language of architecture can be distilled into a series of elements (structure, light, circulation, proportion, and surface) which, regardless of their aesthetic form, play an important role in the formation of coherent architecture in all styles and time periods.

Souterrain: The role of transportation infrastructures, specifically as they apply underground, continually inform and deform our understanding of the city as a continuous logical landscape, as well as a series of event spaces and flows.

Cities and the Dead: Past creative uses of the intricate latticework of voids underneath Paris can be reinterpreted to find creative solutions to current issues facing Paris, and in doing so can explore the prospect of an inverted city below.

In-Tent-City: Subcultural movements exist within the Parisian homeless community, defined by community cooperation, creative solutions to survival techniques, and nomadic tendencies. These groups challenge contemporary practices of urban living while simultaneously raising awareness for their own plight.

Monu-Mentality: The Grands Projets serve as monuments spread across Paris and present a paradox in contemporary Parisian architecture of scale; the monumental size of the Projets seems to defy the largely human scale of historic Paris, but at the same time draws from a long line of larger-than-life monuments found in French architecture for the last 400 years.

Old Ideas, New Constructions: Haussmann was able to apply earlier urban concepts in new ways to transform Paris to what we know today. Likewise, many contemporary architects are using old concepts and applying them in ways that appear innovative, but are in fact deeply rooted in practices developed in earlier periods.

The Francophone Candidates: Many of the contemporary projects around Paris are not within the historic confines of the city. Instead of seeking interpretation of the surrounding historic context, these contemporary works focus on technological and social considerations when designing new projects.

Interview with Christophe Lab: Designing contemporary works in forgotten places, and the role of context in Paris’ outer arrondissements.

The thesis for "41 days in Paradise" will be the overarching thesis which ties each of these disparate essays into a coherent string of thought. Given that enormous task, I am not sure just what that thesis is. I do think that it is not so far from my original plan, in that it draws significantly from the contextual, cultural, and infrastructural zeitgeists surrounding contemporary Paris, instead referencing these as the starting points for architectural conception. The other problem is, and this one I never really defined, is whether "architectural conception" is aesthetic, functional, social, etc., in nature. This is something I will need to address in "41 days".