School of Art and Design, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland
May-June 2011

Nordes calls for perspectives on ‘Making Design Matter’. In the 2011 Nordic Design Research Conference, you are invited to present and discuss how design matters today.

Nordes 2011 in Helsinki is the 4th in a series of biannual conferences, which has included conferences in Copenhagen in 2005, Stockholm in 2007 and Oslo in 2009. Organized by Nordes – an open network of people interested in design research in the Nordic countries – the conference is attended by about 200 people and has rapidly been established as an important venue for design research. It serves several constituencies in design, ranging from design studies, history and management to professional design and practice-based research in art, crafts and design.

Participation is also open to people from outside the Nordic countries.

Click here to read the Call for Participation!

Monty Python fans from all over the world are preparing to make a special pilgrimage to Doune Castle in September for the 35th anniversary of cult comedy film, ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’.

Fans of the spoof movie based of the legend of King Arthur have been visiting Doune Castle since it was filmed there; it’s estimated they account for around a third of the 25,000 annual visitors to the 14th century stronghold.

On Sunday 12 September, Historic Scotland’s ‘First Farewell Monty Python Day’ will be the latest special event staged at Doune Castle for Python fans since the first in 2004.

Doune Castle, plans (via wikipedia)

Events manager Nick Finnigan said: “For this year’s Python day, we’re returning to the less structured, more spontaneous format of our early events, and of course, loads of fun and games. We’ve got some of the most popular comic sketches being recreated, prizes for the best costumes, a trail - ‘Monty Python and the Holy Trail’ – highlighting the various filming locations of scenes from the film, a quiz with prizes, singing, and of course, lots of coconut shells!”

Coconut shells have been a fixture at Doune since the Holy Grail film became a cult hit. Visitors use them to mimic horses’ hooves, just as King Arthur (Graham Chapman) and his faithful servant, Patsy (Terry Gilliam) did in the film’s opening scene.

In addition to Gilliam and Chapman, who died in 1989, five years after the Pythons made their last film, the other Pythons who starred in the film were Michael Palin, Eric Idle, John Cleese and Terry Jones. Jones made a return to Doune – at least in voice – last year when he recorded the castle’s new audio guide. The tape begins: “Welcome to Doune Castle. I’m Terry Jones, and in 1974 some friends and myself made a very silly film here called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”

Further info here: http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/index/places/events/event_detail.htm?eventid=26908

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS- ARCHITECTURE OPEN LABORATORY

now/next: performance space at the crossroads

WHAT IS A THEATRE NEXT?

an 11-day open laboratory in the architecture section of the Prague Quadrennial 2011

The Architecture Section of the 2011 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, asking “what is a theatre now and what could it be next?” will include also an Open Laboratory where selected participants will collaborate and work with renowned international experts in theatre architecture, theory, and design to propose alternative models for citing performance. Theatre will no longer be considered art form or built form but a social, cultural, and political venture; no longer a single receptacle of performance, but a civic meeting place that addresses local and global realities.

The auditorium is often considered a static object designed to contain performance. But performance cannot be contained… it exceeds architecture, especially in this age of media spectacles, fluid technologies and uncontainable bodies. So what role does the auditorium now play other than forcing us to perform as well-behaved spectators? If we acknowledge that architecture itself performs, as space-in-action, then perhaps we can explore new strategies for experiencing live performance as a more dynamic, creative and communal spatial event.

Dr Dorita Hannah: Professor of Spatial Design & Commissioner of Architecture Section at PQ11

Deadlines for Open Laboratory:
Applications: 31 October 2010.
Announcement of selection: 30 November 2010

Requirements
Applicants have to be PhD students or emerging practitioners.
Selected candidates must be present during the entire workshop (16-26 June 2011)

Costs:
Workshop fee is covered by the PQ
Travel or accommodation costs or per diems are covered by candidates

For details on Architecture Section of the PQ, the Open Laboratory, conditions of participation, application forms,  click here: http://www.pq.cz/en/architecture.html

Exhibition Focuses on 11 Built or Under-Construction Projects in Locations throughout the World

Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement
October 3, 2010—January 3, 2011
Special Exhibitions Gallery, Third Floor

Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement, organized by The Museum of Modern Art, explores contemporary architecture as a powerful means for improving social conditions, focusing on 11 noteworthy built or under-construction projects in underserved communities around the world. The exhibition is on view from October 3, 2010, through January 3, 2011. Concentrating on a group of architects who confront inequality using the tools of design, Small Scale, Big Change examines the ways these architects engage with social, economic, and political circumstances to develop positive architectural interventions that begin with an understanding of and deference to a community. Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement is organized by Andres Lepik, Curator, and Margot Weller, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art.
Without sacrificing aesthetics, the 11 projects—situated in the United States, Chile, Venezuela, Brazil, France, Burkina Faso, South Africa, Bangladesh, and Lebanon—reveal a specificity of place, with architectural solutions emerging from sustained research into local conditions and close collaboration with communities. These radically pragmatic projects, which include schools, community centers, housing, and infrastructural interventions, signal a change in the longstanding dialogue between architecture and its environs, wherein the architect’s roles, methods, and responsibilities are dramatically reconsidered. The exhibition presents a selection of materials on each project including models, drawings, videos, large-scale photographs, and sketchbooks. Additionally, three Internet-based networks—The 1%, Open Architecture Network, and urbaninform—extend the exhibition’s scope beyond individual projects to include stakeholders in various areas of practice around the world.

Full press release here: http://press.moma.org/images/press/SmallScale/SSBC_PressRelease_FINAL.pdf

10th international SIEF congress in Lisbon, 17-21 April 2011.

The ways in which people construct their views, opinions, values and practices are constantly being re-negotiated and re-interpreted in various creative forms. The 10th  SIEF International congress intends to elucidate and develop perspectives on this topic by focusing on the making of places, and invites colleagues and other scholars to present new perspectives on how people’s lives, memories, emotions and values interact with places and localities. http://www.nomadit.co.uk/sief/sief2011/

Papers are invited for presentation within Panel 106, ‘Mediating the global in city life’, on 18 Apr, 2011.

The general aim of the panel is to discuss tensions and consequences in a changing urban landscape. Papers may address, but are not limited to: discussions of the formation of material and immaterial borders within city life when processes of globalization meet and create local identity.

Convenors:
• Beate Feldmann (Stockholms universitet)
• Birgitta Svensson (Nordiska museet/Stockholms universitet)

The call for papers is now open, closing 15 October. To submit an abstract of maximum 300 words and for more information:
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/sief/sief2011/panels.php5?PanelID=752

…as carved on a table in the Upstairs bistro at the Bluecoat in Liverpool, England.

]]> http://ais4architecture.co.uk/?feed=rss2&p=2658 0 http://ais4architecture.co.uk/?p=2652 http://ais4architecture.co.uk/?p=2652#comments Thu, 05 Aug 2010 09:31:02 +0000 Giorgia Meschini http://ais4architecture.co.uk/?p=2652 AFFIRMATIVE ARCHITECTURE SYMPOSIUM
Friday 20th August & Saturday 21st August 2010
Storey Hall, RMIT University, Melbourne

Affirmative Architecture is a two-day symposium convened by Dr Martyn Hook of the Design Research Institute at RMIT University, Melbourne. The event seeks to define an emergent trend amongst young architects to re-engage with the ability of architecture to make life better.

www.affirmativearchitecture.com

Registration now available on line
$50.00 per day/ $20.00per day Students

Speakers

• Tezuka (Tokyo)
• DSDHA (London)
• Veronika Valk (Estonia)
• NMBW
• m3 Architecture
• muf_aus
• Phooey
• Antarctica
• Terroir
• Pendal & Neille
• Richard Black
• Sue Anne Ware
• iredale pedersen hook.

The symposium draws together international and Australian architects and landscape architects who have demonstrated commitment to a social agenda and have made significant contribution to the public realm. Curated as a series of interactive lectures and panel discussions the speakers will describe their predominately built work and real projects that address real problems. Arguably these young practitioners are revising the Modernist ethos that architecture should provide effective solutions that benefit the community and the individual. In a contemporary context their work deals with positive consideration of social engagement, careful analysis of existing conditions and a deliberate, often challenging architectural response.

Organised in terms of geographic situation the symposium shall explore projects that expand the potential of architectural intervention in the city, the suburbs, the urban fringe, rural towns and remote locations.

Supported by RMIT School of Architecture & Design, Design Research Institute and ar magazine.

Inspired by Mies Van Der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, Lumenhaus has a completely integrated and weather adjusting design:

LUMENHAUS has open, flowing spaces linking occupants to each other within the house and to nature outside. [...] the north and south walls are all glass, maximizing the owner’s exposure to bright, natural daylight. The fully automated Eclipsis System, comprising independent sliding layers, permits a revolutionary design in a solar-powered house, while filtering light in beautiful, flowing patterns throughout the day.

LUMENHAUS does more than literally deliver a brighter day, however. LUMENHAUS epitomizes a “whole building design” construction approach, in which all the home’s components and systems have been designed to work together to maximize user comfort with environmental protection. LUMENHAUS uses technology optimally to make the owner’s life simpler, more energy efficient and less expensive. On the cutting edge of responsive architecture, LUMENHAUS can operate completely self sufficiently, responding to environmental changes automatically to balance energy efficiency with user comfort. LUMENHAUS is a zero-energy home that is completely powered by the sun. Other sustainable features include the use of passive energy systems, radiant heating and building materials that are from renewable and/or recyclable sources.

[via Inhabitat and CubeMe]

(via TED.com — hat tip to nortrepublic and theorosendorf)

This is the venue where I, as a young man, some of the music that I wrote was first performed. It was, remarkably, a pretty good sounding room. With all the uneven walls and all the crap everywhere, it actually sounded pretty good. This is a song that was recorded there. (Music) This is not Talking Heads, in the picture anyway. (Music: “A Clean Break (Let’s Work)” by Talking Heads) So the nature of the room meant that words could be understood. The lyrics of the songs could be pretty much understood. The sound system was kind of decent. And there wasn’t a lot of reverberation in the room. So the rhythms could be pretty intact too, pretty concise. Other places around the country had similar rooms. This is Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in Nashville. The music was in some ways different, but in structure and form, very much the same. The clientele behavior was very much the same too. And so the bands at Tootsie’s or at CBGB’s had to play loud enough — the volume had to be loud enough to overcome people falling down, shouting out and doing whatever else they were doing.

Since then, I’ve played other places that are much nicer. I’ve played the Disney Hall here and Carnegie Hall and places like that. And it’s been very exciting. But I also noticed that sometimes the music that I had written, or was writing at the time, didn’t sound all that great in some of those halls. We managed, but sometimes those halls didn’t seem exactly suited to the music I was making or had made. So I asked myself: Do I write stuff for specific rooms? Do I have a place, a venue, in mind when I write? Is that a kind of model for creativity? Do we all make things with a venue, a context, in mind?

Okay, Africa. (Music: “Wenlenga” / Various artists) Most of the popular music that we know now has a big part of its roots in West Africa. And the music there, I would say, the instruments, the intricate rhythms, the way it’s played, the setting, the context, it’s all perfect. It all works perfect. The music works perfectly in that setting. There’s no big room to create reverberation and confuse the rhythms. The instruments are loud enough that they can be heard without amplification, etc., etc. It’s no accident. It’s perfect for that particular context. And it would be a mess in a context like this. This is a gothic cathedral. (Music: “Spem In Alium” by Thomas Tallis) In a gothic cathedral, this kind of music is perfect. It doesn’t change key. The notes are long. There’s almost no rhythm whatsoever. And the room flatters the music. It actually improves it. This is the room that Bach wrote some of his music for. This is the organ. It’s not as big as a gothic cathedral, so he can write things that are a little bit more intricate. He can, very innovatively, actually change keys without risking huge dissonances. (Music: “Fantasia On Jesu, Mein Freunde” by Johann S. Bach)

This is a little bit later. This is the kinds of rooms that Mozart wrote in. I think we’re in like 1770, somewhere around there. They’re smaller, even less reverberant, so he can write really frilly music that’s very intricate — and it works. (Music: “Sonata in F,” KV 13, by Wolfgang A. Mozart) It fits the room perfectly. This is La Scala. It’s from around the same time. I think it was built around 1776. People in the audience in these opera houses, when they were built, they used to yell out to one another. They used to eat, drink and yell out to people on the stage, just like they do at CBGB’s and places like that. If they liked an aria, they would holler and suggest that it be done again as an encore, not at the end of the show, but immediately.  And well, that was an opera experience. This is the opera house that Wagner built for himself. And the size of the room is not that big. It’s smaller than this. But, Wagner made an innovation. He wanted a bigger band. He wanted a little more bombast. So he increased the size of the orchestra pit so he could get more low-end instruments in there. (Music: “Lohengrin / Prelude to Act III” by Richard Wagner)

Okay. This is Carnegie Hall. Obviously, this kind of thing became popular. The halls got bigger. Carnegie Hall’s fair-sized. It’s larger than some of the other symphony halls. And they’re a lot more reverberant than La Scala. Around the same, according to Alex Ross who writes for the New Yorker, this kind of rule came into effect that audiences had to be quiet, no more eating, drinking and yelling at the stage, or gossiping with one another during the show. They had to be very quiet. So those two things combined meant that a different kind of music worked best in these kind of halls. It meant that there could be extreme dynamics, which there weren’t in some of these other kinds of music. Quiet parts could be heard that would have been drowned out by all the gossiping and shouting. But because of the reverberation in those rooms like Carnegie Hall, the music had to be maybe a little less rhythmic and a little more textural. (Music: “Symphony No. 8 in E Flat Major” by Gustav Mahler) This is Mahler. It looks like Bob Dylan, but it’s Mahler. That was Bob’s last record, yeah.

Popular music, coming along at the same time. This is a jazz band. According to Scott Joplin, the bands were playing on riverboats and clubs. Again, it’s noisy. They’re playing for dancers. There’s certain sections of the song — the songs had different sections that the dancers really liked. And they’d say, “Play that part again.” Well, there’s only so many times you can play the same section of a song over and over again for the dancers. So the bands started to improvise new melodies. And a new form of music was born. (Music: “Royal Garden Blues” by W.C. Handy / Ethel Waters) These are played mainly in small rooms. People are dancing, shouting and drinking. So the music has to be loud enough to be heard above that. Same thing goes true for — that’s the beginning of the century — for the whole 20th century popular music, whether it’s rock or Latin music or whatever. It doesn’t really change that much.

It changes about a third of the way into the twentieth century, when this became one of the primary venues for music. And this was one way that the music got there. Microphones enabled singers, in particular, and musicians and composers, to completely change the kind of music that they were writing. So far, a lot of the stuff that was on the radio was live music, but singers, like Frank Sinatra, could use the mic and do things that they could never do without a microphone. Other singers after him, went even further. (Music: “My Funny Valentine” by Chet Baker) This is Chet Baker. And this kind of thing would have been impossible without a microphone. It would have been impossible without recorded music as well. And he’s singing right into your ear. He’s whispering into your ear. The effect is just electric. It’s like the guy is sitting next to you, whispering who knows what into your ear.

So at this point, music diverged. There’s live music, and there’s recorded music. And they no longer have to be exactly the same. Now there’s venues like this, a discotheque, and there’s jukeboxes in bars, where you don’t even need to have a band. There doesn’t need to be any live performing musicians whatsoever. And the sound systems are good. People began to make music specifically for discos and for those sound systems. And, as with jazz, the dancers liked certain sections more than they did others. So there early hip-hop guys would loop certain sections. (Music: “Rapper’s Delight” by The Sugarhill Gang) The MC would improvise lyrics in the same way that the jazz players would improvise melodies. And another new form of music was born.

Live performance, when it was incredibly successful, ended up in what is probably, acoustically, the worst sounding venues on the planet, sports stadiums, basketball arenas and hockey arenas. Muscians who ended up there did the best they could. They wrote what is now called arena rock, which is medium-speed ballads. (Music: “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” by U2) They did the best they could given that this is what they’re writing for. The tempos are medium. It sounds big. It’s more a social situation than a musical situation. And in some ways, the music that they’re writing for this place works perfectly.

So there’s more new venues. One of the new ones is the automobile. I grew up with a radio in a car. But now that’s evolved into something else. The car is a whole venue. (Music: “Who U Wit” by Lil’ Jon & the East Side Boyz) The music that, I would say, is written for automobile sound systems, works perfectly on it. It might not be what you want to listen to at home, but it works great in the car — has a huge frequency spectrum, you know, big bass and high-end and the voice kind of stuck in the middle. Automobile music, you can share with your friends.

There’s one other kind of new venue, the private MP3 player. Presumably, this is just for Christian music. And in some ways it’s like Carnegie Hall, or when the audience had to hush up, because you can now hear every single detail. In other ways, it’s more like the West African music because if the music in an MP3 player gets too quite, you turn it up, and the next minute, your ears are blasted out by a louder passage. So that doesn’t really work. I think pop music, mainly, it’s written today, to some extent, is written for these kind of players, for this kind of personal experience where you can hear extreme detail, but the dynamic doesn’t change that much.

So I asked myself: Okay, is this a model for creation, this adaptation that we do? And does it happen anywhere else? Well, according to David Attenborough and some other people, birds do it too. That the birds in the canopy, where the foliage is dense, their calls tend to be high-pitched, short and repetitive. And the birds on the floor tend to have lower pitched calls, so they don’t get distorted when they bounce off the forest floor. And birds like this Savannah sparrow, they tend to have a buzzing (Sound clip: Savannah sparrow song) type call. And it turns out that a sound like this, is the most energy efficient and practical way to transmit their call across the fields and savannahs. Other birds, like this tananger, have adapted within the same species. The tananger on the east coast of the United States, where the forests are a little denser, has one kind of call, and the tananger on the other side, on the west, (Sound clip: Scarlet tanager song) has a different kind of call. (Sound clip: Scarlet tanager song) So birds do it too.

And I thought: Well, if this is a model for creation, if we make music, primarily the form at least, to fit these contexts, and if we make art to fit gallery walls or museum walls, and if we write software to fit existing operating systems, is that how it works? Yeah. I think it’s evolutionary. It’s adaptive. But the pleasure and the passion and the joy is still there. This is a reverse view of things from the kind of traditional romantic view. The romantic view is that first comes the passion and then the outpouring of emotion, and then somehow it gets shaped into something. And I’m saying, well, the passion’s still there, but the vessel that it’s going to be injected into and poured into, that is instinctively and intuitively created first. We already know where that passion is going. But this conflict of views is kind of interesting.

The writer, Thomas Frank, says that this might be a kind of explanation why some voters vote against their best interests, that voters, like a lot of us, assume, that if they hear something that sounds like it’s sincere, that it’s coming from the gut, that it’s passionate, that it’s more authentic. And they’ll vote for that. So that, if somebody can fake sincerity, if they can fake passion, they stand a better chance of being selected in that way, which seems a little dangerous. I’m saying the two, the passion, the joy, are not not mutually exclusive.

Maybe what the world needs now is for us to realize that we are like the birds. We adapt. We sing. And like the birds, the joy is still there, even though we have changed what we do to fit the context.

First Archicamp: Collaboration and Innovation in Architecture — 19th June 2010, Paris, France

The first Archicamp will be focusing on how collaboration between practices allows to compare each other’s knowledge and point of view to discover new ways to design and live urban spaces.

Architects, innovators, urbanists, landscape designers, sociologists, citizens and students — all are welcome together with their ideas: Archicamp is free to register!

More info on http://archicamp.org/ (en Français, bien sûr!)