Architecture Aesthetics
and
Space habitats |
click on graphic to go to wikipedia article on Gerard O’Neill |
A n n o t a t i o n s
for 1976 L5 Interview
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| The L5 Interview was posted almost 30 years to the day after it was given and documented. I recently read an interview of Richard Neutra’s son [link: neutra architecture] talking about his father, whom I mention in the L5 interview. He noted that Neutra regarded his architectural production as a body of work [link: neutra life work] and that he was far more focused on this than merely the individual pieces. This was a new tidbit of information - I did not know that about Neutra. It makes sense when you do look at his work from beginning to end. I bring it up here because, as those who have read my web site know, I think of architectural practice [link: basic architectural practice] and projects [link: architectural index] in the same way. To me it is not at all incongruent to publish this interview 30 years later nor to decide to finally design a space colony decades after conceiving of one. In fact, to my way of thinking, it is timely. |
4_semester_design_studios |
| A few years before this interview was given, I was talking to a professor of architecture about his frustrations in getting his students to challenge what I call hidden design assumptions before automatically incorporating them into their projects without even being aware of the existence of these framing ideas. I outlined a two year sequence of studios for him, designed to accomplish the aim of surfacing these thoughts and bringing them to awareness without truncating creativity. The first semester was to design a house for a family of five. The challenge was to make it as modern a dwelling as possible to the state of the art of their time. The budget was to be unlimited. They could employ any and all of the knowledge available to them about materials, technology, methods and prior work as existed at the time of the exercise, 1972. The trick was that the building was to be designed to be built a hundred years earlier, in 1872; however, they could employ any modern technology and design ideas from 1972 as long as they could show that, with the unlimited budget and modern know how, it would have been possible to improvise the necessary technology and construct the building. Imagine that the family had gone back in time a hundred years yet was expecting no significant compromise in their standard of living. The idea was to stimulate a greater understanding of technology and to separate the issues of knowledge, commercial capability, costs and common practices. A thoughtful and creative student would discover that s/he could build a remarkably contemporary environment. |
| The second semester design challenge was the same problem with only two differences: it was now 1972 and the budget was to be generous enough to be adequate for a formidable work but not unlimited. The injunction being, of course, “don’t you dare come up with what you did before!” This would provoke innovation from another perspective: the students would have to “better” their 1872 designs while staying in budget employing the available technology and products of the time. Imagine that the family had returned to 1972 and expected some real improvements in their habitat. Other than the intense study required, by the first exercise necessary to learn about the roots of technology and how to invent with advanced knowledge yet within the physical means of the time, this second exercise would by far be the greater challenge and made so by the successes of the first. |
| The third semester studio project would be - yes, you guessed it - the same family dwelling only this time to be built in space. Now, suddenly, we have to grapple with what is a floor in zero and/or artificial gravity? Why roof? Windows? How does one eat, sleep, exercise, and on and on. The functions of the environment have now radically shifted their context. Everything is up for challenge. Yet, the basic program requirements remain the same. After this exercise, upon returning to Earth, you will think of a floor as a plane predominately required by the existence of a gravity field, that serves many discreet functions each of which actually requires a different geometric solution. You may begin to challenge the the default “flat-plane” configuration of our architecture. Even most skyscrapers are nothing more than a stack of one story buildings with some exterior expression of verticalness. This is an extremely challenging design exercise. |
| The fourth and last semester has two parts. The first is the house - again! - for our family of five, who are by now extraordinarily informed and demanding clients, within a tight budget and building time frame - in other words a typical and realistic set of conditions. The expectation being that they would be provided a fine piece of architecture indeed. The second part is to write a formal criticism (in Elliot’s definition of it) [link: a criticism of criticism] of ARCHITECTURE and the the significance of domestic architecture in the 20th Century. The fourth iteration of the house being the demonstration of the principles elucidated by the criticism. The purpose of this second part of the exercise was to cause the entire process to be brought to conscious awareness as possible and to organize the learning in a systematic way (a useful but dangerous endeavor). |
| I told the professor that this final semester should be the total “grade” for the course and that each semester’s assignment had to be given without a hint of the challenges to follow. This means that the course would only “work” once unless the professor completely changed the circumstances of the assignments each course iteration. Not a bad thing for the professor by the way who, in my perception, had gotten a little stale in his work. The reason for not revealing what is to come prevents the students from “gaming” the entire course. This is why, to this day we do not tell DesignShop® participants what modules follow the one they are engaged in. For this kind of design exercise to work, each iteration has to be done for itself and stand on it own. The ability to do this is actually one of the habits of creative people [link: creative habits]. |
| So... what is the point of this digression? After all we were talking about the design of space colonies and a 30 year gap in that process. Well, you see, there was no 30 year gap - and that is the point. It should be clear that many years of prior thinking were behind the concepts and design ideas expressed in this interview. My notes below will show how the “agenda” embedded in this interview conceptually informed a great deal of the Earth-bound work that Taylor Architecture and AI have both designed and executed over the last generation. Further, this executed work will inform the space colony design that I am now returning to which, in turn, will also be intimately linked to the Master Planning Process for Planet Earth. I hoe, personally, that space habitats turn out to be real. If now, they remain, as a concept, useful. The total work is a cloth - a weaving of ideas, methods and expressions. While iterative, it is recursive, also. A practice degrades when it become too specialized and “expert.” Once, when asked by a prospective client if he had ever designed a mortuary before, Frank Lloyd Wright - who was tuning 80 at the time - replied “no, and that is my best qualification for doing it!” With my work, you can find the space colony in the NavCenter and the NavCenter in the space colony. In recent years, the work has been predominately NavCenters. Yet, Worthy Problems-Projects demand that we, as a society, now look to where all of this is going and start planning the long-lead-time projects that may prove to be critical for our future success as HUMANITY. |
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| With the context set by these annotations in mind a few final remarks are relevant. It will be easy in today’s world of media distractions, wars and AIDS, ecological stresses, the focus on quartery returns and runaway consumptionc to declair ideas such mega cities, planetary architecture and spave colonies as impractical and far too futuristic. In fact, these are not any longer long range issues - they are near term. They are happening only without public discourse, without competent design, without the freedom to evolve naturally. Your future habitat is being bought and sold, and determined by a curious mixture of default and high stakes, behind the sceens, manuvering while the majority watch television. This is no way to run a planet. |
| It is true that these challenges/opportunities cannot be “designed” in the old determinist way. They are too complex for that. They are emergent. The tools exist that support the kind of collaborative design that is required. Using them - or not - is now a choice. Humanity is impacting earth on a planetary scale - much of the consequence of this “design by default” will come to term in the next generation. You are not free unless you can exercise choice and you do exercise choice. What kind of world we and our children and our children’s children will live in is being determined today by billions of decisions being made every day. These decisions, in the arena of planetary architecture, are not informed ones. We face, in our known history, an unique challenge and unique opportunity. Making HABITAT is a critical core competency of any species. If you saw a gaggle of geese building their nest directly in the path of a new super highway being built you likely would shake your head in sadness. This is a human response. Just do not feel superior... |
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| GoTo: Planetary Architecture - The Case |
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| GoTo: A Future By Design Not Default |
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Matt
Taylor
Elsewhere
July 10, 2007
SolutionBox
voice of this document:
ENGINEERING • STRATEGY • PRELIMINARY
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posted:
July 10, 2007
revised:
July 10, 2007
• 20070709.345200.mt •
Copyright© 2007 Matt Taylor
(note:
this document is about 95% finished)
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