Datum: KL 2009 "Basic Design : The New Intelligence?"

For Datum: KL 2009, PAM have lined up an interesting mix of established and up-and-coming architects from around the world to share their works and philosophies with us and to deliberate on issues related to the theme of “Basic Design: The New Intelligence?”

Their participation in the conference is an attempt at drawing together a disparate group of individuals from dissimilar backgrounds, seemingly unified by the common basic objectives of doing what they say and saying what they do. What the speakers were selected for was the belief that they understand what it takes to make true architecture and not mere statements, what it means to think critically about the “hard” and “soft” issues of our profession in arriving at built form, both rich in aspects of function, material and detail!

The selected speakers include:

- Hud Abu Bakar (Malaysia) http://www.rspkl.com/
- Han Tumertekin (Turkey) http://www.mimarlar.com/
- Stephen Pimbley (UK/ Singapore) http://www.sparchasia.com/
- Alastair Hall (Ireland) http://www.hhmck.com/
- Winy Maas (The Netherlands) http://www.mvrdv.nl/
- Eric Howeler & Meejin Yoon (USA) http://www.hyarchitecture.com/
- Zhang Ke (China) http://www.standardarchitecture.cn/
- Junya Ishigami (Japan) jnyi.jp
- Marina Tabassum (Bangladesh) mtarchitekts.com
- Roman Delugan (Austria) http://www.deluganmeissl.at/

Despite all these, we still understand the value of the simplest fundamentals which, when wielded with intelligence and the integrity of process, produces remarkable works. With this, we could then understand the inventive nature and new intelligence of getting back to basics. A simple, yet thought of form can be equally as interesting as any other forms, depending on how you manipulate and manoeuvre even the simplest ideas into something interesting! What’s more, all the speakers did enlighten us about their own perception on what basic design really is!

One of the issues that struck me was how emotions and intelligence relate to each other! Not total opposites though...and yeah, architecture and design is not that simple because we’re designing a person’s mindset instead; how the dweller, the user and the client feels in different spaces; how the architect moves the person through a space, intelligently carving in emotions and thoughts at the same time, letting the architecture speaks for itself.

In line with, Eric and Meejin broke down “intelligence” into three categories; intelligent technology, intelligent techniques and intelligent ecologies where they utilize and incorporate interconnective systems to create and innovate their designs! As “basic” is the integration of the complexity and the simplicity, thus featuring intelligent as the new Cineplex basic! So what about the future? It is true to say that the world is currently moving towards technological globalization, so why not make use of technologies in our designs? The art of engaging the virtual to the actual, giving it a spark, a new essence to architecture.

White Noise White Light!

"White Noise/ White Light" is an interactive sound and light field that responds to the movement of people as they walk through it. What appears at first to be a static, neutral and transparent grid of vertical markers dissolves into a luminous sound-scape by night! Awesome! P/s.. It was an installation done for the Olympics; Athens, Greece back in 2004!

Low Rez - Hi Fi
Sound and light respond to human intervention to activate the interface between the interiors and exteriors of 1110, Vermont Avenue in this highly interesting public installation!

Urban Instrument
An interactive light and sound public artwork sets a new tone for Washington DC's streetscape.

The project explores imagery, levels of transparency, and interaction. Because the LEDs are addressable, specific patterns can be programmed, in this instance the building's address digits—1110. Added to this is a background image of scrolling ones and zeros. As Eric Howeler explains, “When a viewer approaches the vitrine, a surveillance camera captures his or her image, adjusts the contrast and send the signal to the LED net. The ‘live feed' will broadcast the image on the net, forming a ‘digital shadow' in real time.”

link: http://www.archlighting.com/industry-news.asp?articleID=526787&sectionID=1333

I ponder upon this all the time, whether can architecture from being just a medium and a translation of ideas (rumi..LOL!) began to interact with society! It is definitely a challenge that every architect should opt for.

Can architecture be an interaction with the designer? The public? Being something instrumental that requires one to utilize all the senses that he has? Unfolding thoughts? Creating diverse perceptions? And so on. It is merely how architecture is able to activate the public realm, forming a link and creating a sense of belonging not just to the site, but among the public. Being able to feel the presence of the building itself, sensing its every movement as one strolls down along its path.

Furthermore, I really liked how Marina Tabassum expresses her poetic measures, her ideas and thoughts of what architecture is all about. She mentioned that silence is religion, thought is philosophy and mind is the actual. Taking a mosque as an example, she talked about the present and the infinity, today and eternity, crafting a feeling of all as equals and the transition towards the divide. Random slits creating a sense of timelessness, continuity, and a movement that expresses freedom. This shows how deep one could go about in design.

She was the only solo female architect who presented during DATUM! And guess what, she only used one of her works to sum up the theme for DATUM. And this building is the Liberation War Museum. Going towards experiential architecture, she plays alot with natural lighting in space. The amazing part was the “devil’s hole” (that’s what I called it!) where light shines through it, vertically down onto the underground path, forming the only light source from above, looking as if it is a waterfall. The view was miraculously beautiful. How a simple idea can seem so rich in experience. Simple and yet straight to the point.

Liberation War Museum!

link: http://mtarchitekts.com/home.php?o=noflash

Zhang Ke

Beijing-based Standard Architecture’s projects reveal an investigative and provocative approach to design. Their practice is developing intelligent new forms of specifically Chinese designs, even if they do draw from the west from time to time, bringing in more of the contemporary essence to the Chinese tradition! He speaks of Standard Architecture as the new generation of architects – a generation that no longer feels the need to consider differences between China and the west and that is not looking for a modern reinterpretation of traditional Chinese architecture as an answer to outside influences. It is more of an inspiration to him, combining both styles in one architecture.

“I think what is common in our generation is that we are no longer interested in any specific style,” says Zhang Ke. “We are no longer interested in blending East and West. Nor are we interested in copying Western architecture. We are no longer interested in following or imitating any big names, and we are not even interested in defining a new Chinese architecture. For us, the old frameworks of Western architecture and Chinese architecture have already been broken! We are pursuing our own autonomous global perspectives.”

Standard Architecture’s design principles are definitely not common in China, where everything needs to be fast, cheap and simple! His Wu Yi Primary School Auditorium in Beijing is an example of a building which has a very simple programme, consisting of a single hall for an audience of 520. Making a building stands out on its own, bringing life back into the rather dead area, with the dull facade of the existing school next to it. This architecture shouts as it expresses boldness and brings back the essence of FUN in schools!! Thus, creating a statement rather than neatly fitting the building into its surroundings.

And his favourite sentence – “They don’t care, the government don’t care, so we don’t care too!” hahaha!

Winy Maas

Architecture: Didden Village, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

This house is yet another house that makes me dream a little. Designed so that the roof is part of the sky and filled with angles, curves and great modern spaces it goes on my ever growing list of houses I'd love to live in. And it's even in the Netherlands, a place I've been dreaming of visiting recently.

Impressive, how he thought of the idea of creating a whole new mini village right on top of existing monumental houses and ateliers!!!! I seriously thought it was photoshopped onto the monuments but its REAL!!! Seriously....!!! WOW! Something like a pent house though! Parapet walls with windows surround the new village. Trees, tables, open-air showers and benches are added, optimizing the rooftop life. By finishing all elements with a blue poly-urethane coating a new “heaven” appears. It creates a crown on top of the monument.

The addition can be seen as a prototype for a further densification of the old and existing city. Pretty interesting! It adds a roof life to the city as well. It explores the costs for the beams, infrastructure, and extra finishes, and it ultimately aims to be lower than the equivalent ground price.

The DIDDEN Village is a built project where Winy was testing on a rooftop extention to counter land issues and reusing of space. Maas's deliberate childlike house shapes combined with the dazzling blank blue planes create the impression that you are living inside a CAD drawing rather than a real house; it's as if the house is still in a constant process of being imagined. 「Exactly that,」 Maas says, delighted at another's interpretation. 「No more, no less.」

Just as delightful is the fact that the building is currently grabbing more headlines than any of his firm's multimillion-dollar projects. 「It's so funny,」 Maas says. 「The smallest project has the widest attention.」and I believe so..! haahah

Link: http://www.forgemind.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=14285

Junya Ishigami

Architecture: The Facility of Kanagawa Institute of Technology!

His white forest in the fields was designed to almost disappear, camouflaging with nature, constructed with pillars of columns! Sounds familiar? Columns, quite commonly seen in designs nowadays but listening to how he designed each and every of his 300+ columns, it’s just simply awesome. This young Japanese designer explains the evolution of the design as a painstaking investigation of the relationships between the columns – a task for which he developed custom-made software.

“I wanted to make a space with very ambiguous borderlines, which has a fluctuation between local spaces and the overall space, rather than a universal space like that of Mies,” says Ishigami. “This allows a new flexibility to emerge, revealing reality rather than shaping it.”

The pavilion-like forest comprises 305 slender steel 5m-high columns, irregularly orientated and distributed throughout the space, while the field from which they rise is a distorted square bed of concrete, 47m by 46m, slightly raised above the surrounding bitumen. A flat roof caps the space with linear roof lights, and a frameless glass perimeter seals it, blending in with the environment because the only thing that distinguishes the inside from the outside is the raised platform. The architecture ends there; its animation then takes over with furniture, potted plants and people!

That all for now =)! HAHAH! weeeeee...

by marie~