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erjavi
Joined: 10 Jan 2009
Posts: 229
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 Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 4:27 pm Post subject: general productivity and standardised architecture 2/2 |
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I´m sorry I had problems downloading the image, you can see at the web referred
I´m sorry
thanks
Javier
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WalkerARCHITECTS
Joined: 25 Sep 2007
Posts: 105
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| Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 9:28 pm Post subject: |
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I object to the syntax and the semantics only. Standardization is obviously deployed by both artist and architect.
Building product is mass produced and standardized according to the economic constraints of such process. Organism is driven by a living pattern inherent in each species, each organism comes to form according to that pattern yet with infinite variability.
Freedom and control are therefore manifest in both the living environmental world and the built environment world, Architecture is typically made of product and according to building types, living organism is made of bio-molecular building blocks or living cells, both are unique expression explicitly of what they inherently are intrinsically.
The term standardized architecture makes as much sense to me as standardized art............that is to say, conceptually an intellectually bankrupt term. However, standardized component has long been analogous to specialized living cell of an organism. Lego's are a toy block set that children build an infinite variety of configuration from standardized pieces. Architecture is not prevented or standardized when children build with Lego's and neither is art. Only the blocks used in the making of a unique creative expression are standardized. Big difference!
Response to each site where we build architecture, should be discrete, optimized by design intelligence to the problem constraints, to fit the site and place. No two sites are identical. No two architectural responses should be the same.
Yet, housing product is made affordable by mass production, a compromise is made to the economic system of constraints imperative to house the work force. Built environment is driven to form by such compromises, by the speculative nature of capitalism, to build market oriented buildings for sale.
Standardized building is a term that is useful where "standardized architecture" is a term that is useless.
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djswan
millennium club
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
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Location: Montana, USA
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| Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 11:01 am Post subject: |
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Form is compromised by capitalism. I agree.
If the form is the architect...?
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erjavi
Joined: 10 Jan 2009
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| Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 4:21 pm Post subject: antipodesarchitectures |
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¿Crisis, what crisis? Probably the canary island of El Hierro is going to be the first in the world to be self-sufficient thanks to renewable energies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Hierro ) using coastal dams that carry up the sea water thanks windmills for get after hydroelectric energy. Some hundred of thousand of new employments were created recently in Europe thanks to renewable energies, reducing fossil fuels payments, getting new productivity from underestimated “local” resources like sea water, wind, sun, etc, and developing in addition new branches in industry that now exports knowledge.
Productivity appeared!
During years some lost university departments of Israel, Germany, Denmark, USA, Spain, Japan, etc, advanced hardly for get only a little bit more of productivity, with pilot programs, international conferences to talk about the state of the art and so. And suddenly, 15-10 years ago, some few regulatory and promotional initiatives that helped overall the small producers launched the sector in Europe; i.e. Freiburg in Germany is considered the green capital in this country thanks to the factories of solar cells, the construction of energetically superavit new neighbourhood to proportion energy to the rest of the city too -Solarsiedlung -.
And inefficiencies, like always, appeared too, last year a significant percentage of the 6.000 million euros invested in Spain in solar installations was made for get collateral benefits thanks to an ambiguous legal initiative (this numbers is only part of the Spanish sector one, of the healthy of the world, which employs now 190.000 workers and is expected arrived to some 600.000 in 2020). Unproductive speculation arrived when most of the rest of the world is still launching real economy with real needs…the next financial crisis born slowly.
You can repeat the initiative of El Hierro i.e. in some located points of the Australian coast, Texas or California for get energy and water (in last case avoiding throw brine to the sea investing double in energy during the process), enriching the possibilities in the territory. I.e., one of Obama administration priorities is adapt million of houses for get them more energetically efficiently, tunning them.
Standardised architecture appeared again!
In this occasion the standardization wants arrive with colours, not all the “Ford” T are blacks (like “Ford” desired view it for win money?) economic media class each time is stronger and “human landscape” becomes richest…
But not “nicer” (or more or less natural), landscape each time is more expensive because scarce (see previous post about organization and productivity of cities respect nature management, a spiderweb, cobweb)
1) http://resseny.blogspot.com/2008/06/aletas-del-viento.html Translating whale power into wind power, biomechanist Frank Fish helped design turbine blades with tubercles (nodules) inspired by the flipper of a humpback whale (above, from a deceased animal). The flipper’s scalloped edge helps it generate force in tightly banked turns.
The whale-inspired blades are being tested at the Wind Energy Institute of Canada to see if they can make more power at slower speeds than conventional blades, and with less noise.
2) http://ecotality.com/life/2007/11/08/wind-dam-looks-like-a-giant-spider-web-may-actually-be-built/ (Architects Chetwood Associates
3) but always powerful,
http://www.metaefficient.com/news/new-record-worlds-largest-wind-turbine-7-megawatts.html#more-117
Then, new standardised architecture is really new?
Well, in this occasion comes too with a greened look…, begin forget the sub primes because soon many houses will be considered more valuable in a wet atmosphere, real economy steps with financial economy and nature!
And future discussions about the architectural aesthetics of the change will be the new fashion…and architects will forget new standardization defending liberty through their performances.
What there is new, then? Is the same pendulum always, except for low scale sustainability.
Rien ne va plus…the fossil fuel machines begins to be reconverted in eco-machines finishing a gap of 200 years, (i.e. http://www.toddecological.com/ecomachines/design.html) ,
and soon will form part of our daily aesthetics in construction, factories or landscaping, like renewable energies installations are (i.e., http://www.greenfuelonline.com/technology.html ). And even biological structures will form part of houses and infrastructures (i.e.
http://www.interactivearchitecture.org/mit-smart-cities-group-greden-arbona-fab-tree-hab.html
http://51pct.com/ (Tree Canopy)
or will learn from nature in a different form: it is said that columns in architecture maybe are inspired, in trees, maybe the growth of the same tree will inspire new urban aesthetics (i.e. http://www.softroom.com/ Tree House). To see more about the subject, you can check state of the art - personally I am working on fractal mathmatics applied to an elastic atomism discussion with implications on dynamic architectures, you can check but the site it´s a mathematical one, and the subject proposed there is developed in a bigger scenery, http://rinconmatematico.com/foros/index.php?topic=18805.0 . (Sorry, the forum is in spanish, like you can see I know only a little bit more than Fresh Water English level, I mean the imitation of English sounds when you sing in the shower).
Biological sciences proceedings are different respect architectures one?. Now consider a house of “stone” with an external “pre -living layer” – i.e., http://www.italcementigroup.com/ENG/Research+and+Innovation/ ; soon the termal effects of the Water Cube of Beijing will be extended to fachades through microorganism capsules, film, etc, and the “and” of buildings will expand from simple mineral (stones and so) walls to complex mineral like the example, and too mixing of mineral and vegetal, mineral or animal, vegetal and animal walls…, in fact we´ll design walls like sandwich or hamburgers, with all ingredients you want. And, and this is astonishing, you can manipulate nanotechnology to create “real virtual” buildings thanks to materials that make the walls always invisible, or temporally (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080903073016.htm , http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080912091730.htm )These extraordinary recombination of architectonical possibilities was theorically developed in 1938 or before, in Scandinavia, like I wrote in previous replies – in spanish, http://legislaciones.iespana.es/influencia.htm -.
And finally, if we think “like” an animal, we can redesign many landscape objects including housing, cities, dams, infrastructures and more with animal behaviour criteria too, avoiding little scale conflicts between human and natural plans of the territory. I can say by my experience in the work of Ronda that try to reconcile both give an amazing source of creativity because the framework you use to make questions is new, and answers, if do not arrives directly, can be easily investigated i.e. in the web using new keywords in the searches. What is more, is a relax stop heavy or futile discussions because you know that there is always some person in the world who got a solution – or an interesting approach - respect each conflictive point and implement it, normally without have been sufficiently announced in media, academics, web, etc.
So, economic productivity appeared, traditional new standardised architecture appeared, and new standardised architecture appeared too (using more the compass developing biological sciences in the buildings).
Consecuences?
If you consider that a single handle cube toy, Rubik´s cube, has 43.252.003.274.489.856.000 possibilities, imagine nature. If the history of the technology is the history of our growing capacity of transform our territory, we must take in to consideration that we are getting more productivity from renewable energy that soon will be applied to ecomachines - these are composed by live components that, like computers, needs relatively few energy, or even can proportion ecoffuels - and the number of industrial final products possible from the potential interactions of the microorganisms, including architecture, are largely bigger i.e. 1.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000……
than the number of products existing now ( there are “only”100.000 chemical manufactured products in nature, and “now” the UE is going to tested the long term effects of 30.00o of them, through the Reach program, http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/reach/reach_intro.htm ).
These percentage of human “conscious” activity is very small respect the “unconscious”, practically nothing respect the total activity on Earth, almost nothing respect universe, almost almost nothing if you consider other ways to explore our reason capacity different respect reductionist theories, almost almost almost nothing if you consider that may be reason is only one part of human person, almost almost almost almost nothing if you consider that may be human reason is not the main part of a person, and so.
Then, debates about the idea that standardised architecture can reduce human liberty, spontaneity or else could be referred to these or other sceneries for “adjust” real importance of the subject. Hollywood pictures about “big brothers corporations”, illuminated or similar that control all belongs, in my opinion, to the kingdom of nonsense, forgetting like first prerequisite human ignorance. A machine can built houses with thousands of combinations depending local culture, or even fabricate them with or without errors for be solved by the self house after, but this is only a little part of human liberty possibilities.
In this proposed context, economic booms or cyclical crisis maybe responds more to collective hysteria with hard social consequences than to reality. Without forget the fact, talking about architecture now again, the so serious fact that some single standardised industrial products like cars, cement, air conditioned or computers moved the architects from urbanism in first case , and to almost homogeneity after in the rests confining “rebelion” to a corset, I mean some details construction or sculpture icon – buildings with a expectancy of life so small - like the time needed to build another near, something like build a chalet in second line of the beach, somebody soon will built in front of you-. Architects are isolated in the global village, city and suburbia, fearful of advances that in theory limit their increased knowledge into a single scientific-economic view or art isolated performances. In the same line new advances of standardization will make the corset each time more irrespirable This fact hardly suggests that even with some media torchs standardised architecture is not used like maybe it always as it is, both a very very limited & small and valuable tool.
Some years ago I read a monumental work written by somebody called Chandler, I don´t remember his complete name, the title and the name of the non profit institution that supported his research 10 or 20 years. After II World War the golden age in USA for long term sabbatical research. I supposed Chandler was an economist or academic that studied industrial standardization and management in USA from the end of 18th century to present. After see how the new know how was expanded he got some conclusions, and finally suggested the idea of exchange information with colleagues who wanted make similar works in other countries. Nobody did.
In the case of architecture and urbanism, it lacks an active dialogue for exchange perspectives in order to get that global village, global city and global suburbia can be a heritage too for future generations. Dominate nature doesn´t means destroy it. In a limited rationalist perspective, standardisation could be represent in a graphic like decreasing creativity form infinite to 0 through simplification, in order to get usually short term benefits in a non stop race looking for homogeneity through a continue common fashion. Standardisation, at least for me means more possibilities like I exposed, and taking in account other considerations even infinite could be a limited number, and what is more a limited measure.
In the relationship between standardised architecture and landscaping each country or society has peculiar connotations:
I.e., USA refuses frequently maintaining old buildings in a downtown area if somebody wants construct a skyscraper, in this sense the culture of use and throw should be throw itself in order to get richness of shades, non the loneliness of unique urban landscape or the loneliness of “new” (building, fashion, etc) itself. On the other hand, some traditional countries or areas don´t want many new skylines or forms. Talking of other perspectives, if you travel by France you feel even the “wild” countryside or nature are majority ordered like a chess game, practically no options for spontaneity. In the biggest part of West Europe you practically cannot find free human construction landscapes, and it is not only a question of % of human density, priorities are different, only in north Scandinavia and Spain you can lost frequently in nature…even if in the last 10-15 years we built 25% of all built form roman times, destroying the big part of urban landscapes, the construction – residential&$turistic – Spanish machines is in %of GNP one of the bigger and faster of the world now (in tourism is first in % of GNP, accompanied by a strong financial, telecommunication, transport and infrastructure system)…so each country has an own heritage for share with the rest more intensively if standardised architecture grow together with sustainable landscaping.
Which instrumentals guidelines offer new standardised architecture tools and which absent ones we still could be need immediately?
Let me introduce to some answering world websites from some local points I know better: Malaga´s painter Picasso said that “I don´t look for, I find”. The same does the inhabitants of andalusian Pueblos Blancos, 200 years ago, year more, year less, king Carlos III, who came from Napoli, ordered paint villages with cal for higienic measures – if not their aspect could be similar to that of the Rift mountains, in Morocco – and fantastic, oniric, organic realities appeared together with the hippodamic guidelines, the irregular proposal of orography, the Arabic schemas, and more. Once I readed that Italy was the first world country in construction material diversity, and Spain second, a helping tool for landscaping…but in their astonished variety a big part of Italy has a monotone roman-classical-renancentist style, or is radically 60´s block building, or the new architectonical performances doesn´t talk too much , like in the rest of the world, with the old aesthetic…or i.e. in the case of andalusian pueblos blancos final result is a lovely and bored almost white village surrounded by a variety of surrounding coloured landscapes and almost wild nature? How many variations is possible suggest in a festival of architectural creativity without lose tradition, character and over all hospitality, spontaneously, a spontaneously smile when other human person appears?
How is possible mix a London architectural festival with all diversity you can find in a Edinburgh Fringe Festival, in an Avignon Festival, in a non Eurocentric or Wetscentric Festival, for collectively co-design continuously human landscapes in nature getting the better of old and new? There are other standardised architectures too that want be reshape concepts, http://www.arquitecturatropical.org …architectural answer is done, the rest depends of attitudes, and latitudes. Is an art combine routine and creativity, excitation and boring, long time visual references and permanent innovation, accepting that we can´t assimilate all the liberty from the others we can receive. If we are not able to choose i.e. between a single spoon because it´s impossible look all the models – the ideal customer doesn´t exist -,how are we able to select other matters more complex?
Like Jorge Dragón, other Malaga´s artist suggested, “if educate is let learn, make architecture is let live, and this is not a few thing” (http://jorgedragon.net/)
The studio of Ronda area let me found answers of sustainable landscaping tools at big scale, and some of medium. Now I am downsizing them and incorporating news I found in the last month. I am organizing better the material for better understand and write it in English, willing share it with you and follow the explanation of the maps of my previous reply. I hope in one or two days I will write last reply for begin a better dialogue, and referring better other replies, with names and precise ideas. I´m not out dialogue, it was only that I am taking land slowly, sorry for my limitations. Following a long time tradition in architecture, I add now a file with a some more general vision of the world and the implications for architecture and landscaping. Unfortunately is written in Spanish, you know my fresh water english level…
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erjavi
Joined: 10 Jan 2009
Posts: 229
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| Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 6:15 am Post subject: Aladeforl |
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I am sorry, I reply late respect I expected!
Sometimes the dessert is not empty but full of answers. Unusual correlations between rain and vegetation in Sahel show us that nature has levers for accelerate process or breaks to stop them, a little cup we add to the process can origin unexpected scale results, both in one or another direction.
Like NASA says, http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Desertification/desertification2.php
“Despite its evocative name, desertification isn’t the march of sand dunes through inhabited areas. Rather, it is the permanent degradation of previously fertile land. Human causes of desertification include overgrazing, the build up of salt in irrigated soils, and topsoil erosion. Permanent changes in climate, particularly rainfall, are responsible for natural desertification. Extended droughts may mimic desertification, but vegetation may recover when seasonal rains return. Scientists compare long-term satellite measurements of vegetation with rainfall data to help determine where desertification is occurring.”
http://www.mapjourney.com/sahel/veg/veg_001_.htm
These little human efforts,
http://www.mapjourney.com/sahel/rue/rue_001_.htm
have unexpected results, even in “lost” places,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/world/africa/11niger.html
Are we using standardised architecture for turn landscape? It is being used in Sahel? The matter is not only do not call dessert while we build but use precisely building for throw far the dessert.
The challenge I suggested in previous reply means that, for first time in modern architectural history, we can be just conscience that dominate nature do not means destroy it, because able, we always have been able to manage nature better. This is one part the history, do not be fearful of nature.
The other is stop be fearful respect the others with walls, alarms, keys, etc, note than most of world architecture has many of a inverse jail – in fact a jail itself is only the extreme situation - and real architecture and landscape is still waiting to burst. And standardised or not standardised architecture cannot help in this subject.
Coming back to the first half, studying Sahel and other areas is possible find not only the places with more spontaneously biodiversity appear, but too these from which other are easily covered by vegetation, attracting more water. In addition, traditionally mountains are water columns and near them there are important underground water reserves.
Some initiatives for change the colour of landscape like windam, windmills with solar cells in the arms, solar front covering irrigation ditchs for pump dripping water to crops - avoiding evaporation and helping wildlife corridors that help themselves the restoration of soils - , fog screens (http://www.fogquest.org/projects.shtml ), moving solar installations (in Spanish http://www.diariosur.es/20080809/malaga/campo-girasoles-fotovoltaicos-20080809.html ), fog screen for stop fires (in spanish www.eldia.es/2008-08-11/palma/palma5.htm-18k ), self-moving machines that can be adapted to previous works (http://www.strandbeest.com/, this subject will be tried better in next reply, together with huge standardised machines, and precision low-scale ones), maybe can incorporate an intensive technology,
but others are really traditional, i.e. those related to bring air waste in all climates, a question each time more important in climate change sceneries: the instruments range from Indian Johads http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bawdi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CatchingHillRunoffwater.JPG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainwater_harvesting
in India Rajasthan Dessert 700.000 people benefited from them
http://www.tarunbharatsangh.org/about/abouttbs.htm, to the tropic humids (http://travel.webshots.com/album/551876210zEYmRR )
Considering together with many others initiatives, exist the possibility of manage nature at big scale in a different form than usual, getting too flexible and very big wildlife corridors, a concept that implies give new functions to city planners , in coalition with civil engineers, farmers, etc.
We can walk together with animal without fences (i.e., http://www.- abuse alert - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingo_fence, http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/programmes/tv/monsterswemet/) and even design places thought for disappear without leave any rest (www.sevenspirit.bay.com Ecosystems Landscape Architects, in Ecourbanism. Sustainable Human Settlements:60 case studies, Miguel Ruano, Publishers Gustavo Gili, 3 rd ed., pp.142, Barcelona 2005 )
If in countryside areas some selected measures are taken ( i.e. in mid Scandinavian Alps is found the biggest proportion of roads/square kilometre in bear habitats in West Europe, and in Spanish Sierra de la Culebra is founded the biggest proportion of wolf/square kilometres in West Europe too), the countryside will be stronger for climate changes, and even profiting climate changes (i.e. there are 2 bees highways in Ronda, one in forest area and other in agricultural one, and in both cases no bees colony collapse disorder - http://www.beedisorder.com/ , The Pennsylvania State University, with a strong focus on wildlife corridors, leads an important research program about this subject - was reported, probably because still there is not transgenic, intensive agriculture, and there are 2.000 variety plants, in Israel recently was designed first bees highways crossing a motor highway, Sal Emergi, Netania (Israel), http://www.elmundo.es/suplementos/natura/2008/27/1215813610.html.
Similar initiatives can be applied too in the sea like New Zealand marines reserves with fisher participation that even includes solutions for end with fishing problems through selected ocean reserves (http://www.marine-reserves.org.nz/pages/ballintine.html ), or initiatives like selected fishing (http://www.slowfood.com/sloweb/eng/dettaglio.lasso?cod=3E6E345B0c41f1BCC3tGM428D3BD) or with cheap standardised fishing methods (in Spanish, http://www.ecofueguino.com.ar/articulos/articulo.php?id_not=7810 ), or even using standardised sails again in the sea, specially in biodiversity or natural highway marine areas (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4A0B_-aQK4 Beluga cargo ship)
Why not design city planning with wildlife corridors?
(i.e. architectonical criteria used in the Australian Olympic Villa (Australian Olympic authorities and Greenpeace, p.56, in Ecourbanism. Sustainable Human Settlements:60 case studies, Miguel Ruano, Publishers Gustavo Gili, 3 rd ed., pp.142, Barcelona 2005)
or with water and vegetation natural roads,
(i.e. Riesefeld, Freiburg, Germany, 1992, Atelier Lucien Kroll, John Tillman Lyle, Jörn Coppijn, pp. 92, in Ecourbanism. Sustainable Human Settlements:60 case studies, Miguel Ruano, Publishers Gustavo Gili, 3 rd ed., pp.142, Barcelona 2005)
with cultives,
(i.e. and olive eco resort in Alger, Alhambra Club des Pins, in spanish http://www.perezguerras.com/Cursos%20y%20Conferencias/Conferencias/Resorts%20Turisticos.pdf, or new quarter in Toledo, Spain, designed by Jean Nouvel http://www.fundacionsuma.org/ )
with coasts,
(i.e. www.tropicalmarina.com in Panamá,
or the unfortunately, unfortunately do not sufficient valued architecture collage suggested in Civilia in 1976 for Montecarlo - and by extension for the Mediterranean coast, which combines warming different styles leaving some parts of the coast free of constructions,
in Architectural Design, Septembre 1976, pp. 536, “Civilia is the Architectrural Review´s revenge on architecture. A graphic collage of buildings taken from 10 years of the Review´s reviews – an in camera tours de force of what townscape could have meant. Learning from Port Grimaud, it is a kind of Welfare Monte Carlo in which my thought for its social and economic reality are noticeably absent...”, article of Robert Maxwell about François Spoerry performances (http://pagesperso-orange.fr/atelier.crabe/fp/accueilus.htm ). Architecrural is not the real word used, it´s just that I mistake but final results sounds suggestive in the context of beautiful Mediterranean coastal villages than still remains. Please just note that Spanish province of Girona (Catalonia) is the only that designed the highway (A-7) out the coast making access uncomfortable, and thanks to that landscape and quality of life still is valuable. I´d like add that collage of Spoerry do not include empty blocks inside the composition for avoid fires, like some buildings, few, does. In part this proposal can be considered too like massive and relatively sustainable non standardised architecture. China and SE Asia has the opportunity to develop a sustainable coastal tourism in harmony with the mangles barrier that want develop after the tsunami of Indonesia…and construct the first sustainable piece of his natural framework. Suggestions for the rest, and for India too are given in the following lines and in Ronda study (both countries represent 40% of world population).
Like landscape or wildlife corridors, soil is each time more valuable – and fortunately are not real excuse for conflicts (http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/NavigatingPeaceIssue1.pdf
in previous post indirectly is suggested that cities began over the better agricultural lands and nowadays they grow (downtowns, suburbia, malls, industrial areas and week end residences) following infrastructures designed near the rivers. So the crop lands each become more pressed worldwide.
In Ronda study is analysed how manage a glaciation produced in three days respect people, and subsequent impacts over agricultural soils, too. From 2000 to present 40% ice sheet disappears each summer and most of this lost is produced in the area between Russia and North America, if tendency continues but in direction to the Atlantic the Gulf Stream could be temporally sufficient revolved bringing danger in Autumn; it can happen may be in 10-15 years, nobody knows (http://nsidc.org/ ). There are less than 100 marine bio indicators changes observed in contrast with more than 20.000 in air but mostly in land (http://www.ipcc.ch/ ), so if any change is coming maybe we yet are not perceiving it at all. Evacuation of persons and questions like food and others are analysed like hypothesis – Malthus is always wrong, even in these cases – together with developing urban and architectural tools; but these new tools can be used be used daily, not only in such extreme situations. It is like developing flexible architecture – standardised or not - and eco-machines for get present benefits.
I.e. sand blocks, waste recycled blocks, construction waste blocks, vegetation or crop rest blocks, can be enveloped in eco-architextiles sizable modules and form part of the pulley system of an flexible and aesthetic entrance of a city, or a crop area, or a valley, etc, redefining guideline visual perspectives, and moved practically without energy like is moved a heavy stone of a windmill. Like Allianz Arena or Water Cube buildings, winds can turn temperature and force before enter city, and micro organism capsules over them can proportion useful information changing of colour in function of weather, helping urban wildlife corridors too, avoiding pollution with unicellular weeds, forming aerial rail for dismantle skyscrapers when they are over, etc
Sand blocks can be used to protect crops in the Sahel, and manage with flexible architecture sails and tunnels anchored to the block sands the reorientation of sand dunes to studied places. This solution could be applied in the South American high plateau helping at same time to re-landscape the suburbia ordering common services, with the participation of residents. And in this cases heavy machines can be substituted by human force for built land roads employing three times more workers with the same budget like U.N. did in Madagascar, improving too the communal relationships.
Aesthetic windmills with solar cells panels can proportion electricity at popular prices, in the surrounding of Buenos Aires and other cities is estimated that three million persons get food in this way, subsistence vegetable gardens http://www.eco2site.com/News/hueta-orga.asp, and like the history of gastronomy suggests probably the reserves of natural seeds will keep there, in the poor areas, in contrast with an each time more dryer argentine-brazilian countryside absorbed in eliminate biodiversity due to transgenic soy for food cows in the north; and fog panels can get humidity from the air – each time more on times of climate change – and be applied to ameliorate subsistence gardens following Arabic ideas about irrigated management lands. Local media can help these expand new practices (i.e. http://www.anf.org.br/ ).
Flexibility also can be applied to i.e. a city looking for design a cover over it: flexible and optional (during the day) elements can be installed and adapted into the urban design, for be automatically inflated like an aerial design forming a final screen over the city in case of storms, hyper arid winds, snow (with some gas or liquid susceptible to be frozen creating and igloo, this is useful in an hypothesis worst than I imagined, the case of a storm that seems friendly and get worst without time to reaction, hovercrafts with optional inflated textiles extensions forming a ball and moved thanks to a sail can evacuate soon the people too), etc, final form of city cover sheet can incorporate colours if material is intelligent and adopt forms like palaces of 1001 Nigths over Bagdad, typical chinese buildings over Beijing when sand storms of Gobi dessert arrives to the city, or Boomerangs, Kangaroos? etc over Sidney. More hard is the wind or storm, more big is the structure that is formed rolling like fractals looking constantly new stability.
Use the whole agricultural landscape for diminish or change direction of monsoons is an idea developed by some architects, i.e. in Bangladesh (Asaduzzaman Rassel - blocked - “Housing in the delta”, pp. 302 in “Self – sufficient housing”, Institut d´Arquitectura Avançada de Catalunya, 1st Advanced Architecture Contest, Barcelona, 2006, http://www.iaac.net/web/en/publicationsAdvanced.php )
The idea can be applied to tornados, etc. Should be nice if standardised cheap construction materials obtained from illegal tree felling in Borneo stops, in order to let that sea and trees continue moderating storm winds in South East Asia.
Really flexible structures can be applied everywhere, for instance linking the basis of some houses to get a collective weight against typhoons that throw houses in Pacific islands or Southeast Asian villages, tornados in U.S. southern states or hurricanes in Caribbean sea. And the houses i.e. of the SE Asia can be reformed themselves, with respect to local architectural tradition, like modular parts designed to be linked like a net too with the lightness of the bamboo Japanese walls - in this case the house doesn´t fall without danger in case of earthquake but remains moving all the time inside a limits - so the entire village forms a flexible block that even obtain energy. This is not a case of standardised architecture and in the context of Ronchamp question can give many many ideas. I would like mention the book “Shelter”, Shelter Publications, Bolinas, CA, U.S.A., 1973; it is made by hippies qualified students of architecture mixing flexible domes with traditional architecture worldwide and success and failure of people experimenting worldwide too. These ingredients, qualification, border vision need for experiment, humility, traditional architecture, and dynamic-net traditional architecture has been particularly useful for me in the sense of get general concepts for sustainable landscaping.
There is a post in architectural week about the job satisfaction of architects, I still did not read it but some suggestions are given now. Farmers, shelters, hunters, fishers, mine workers, railway and road workers, dam workers, etc, can find totally different their jobs working with flexible wildlife corridors, in fact working like artists too. There is place both for standardised and not standardised works, and urbanism and architecture visions too.
I refer to the job of Ronda to further information because it has not sense repeat now 220 pages of text, map explanations and bibliography, and upload 90 maps and photographs. If you consider that in theory you are moving together with the countryside then the corset disappear for architects, reversing situation.
In Spanish region of Castilla – La Mancha some of the better design universities and researchers of the world are working together for develop sustainable urbanism for the next 20-25 years; in this time is expected that Madrid, which is out of the region but in the border, will grow from 6 to 10 million persons (http://www.fundacionsuma.org/ ) …at the end of XIX century thousands of mules were necessary for the logistic of the city, and cities smaller like Granada needed a hinterland of 50 km for get wood of daily use, etc.
But this think tank is on the top of fix standardised urbanism and architecture. Maybe if you add big scale tools of sustainable architecture in addition, maps like The Atlas of Real World and others proposed in previous reply, together with Sahel experiences, can reshape big scale landscaping.
So again, and finally, “which instrumentals guidelines offer new standardised architecture tools and which absent ones we still could be need immediately?” Absent ones refers to previous paragraphs. Medium and small sizes ones are going to be reported now so I divided the following section in seven parts.
1. Big scale sustainable urban sustainability,
This part just repeats previous comments in part.
Some years ago I coordinated a book about Spanish ghost towns abandoned in XX century (“Pueblos abandonados. Los tesoros ocultos de España”, VVAA, Ediciones Defín, Madrid, 1999, unpublished) and many houses were made with traditional materials – we call it “una de cal y una de arena” – that forms a chemical reaction that gives each time more consistence to the house through millenniums, so the entire house became a block, and stable block. Except the roof. Roof elements were valuable then and even today so when the village is abandoned materials are recycled, water enters and house take an aspect in same cases similar to roman ruins, only 30 years after. When it did not happened, you must convince yourself that the village is empty because houses are perfect.
Some scholars which participated on the book, Luis Bartolomé and Ignacio Duque, made an study about ghost towns in Madrid area for the last 1000 years ( in spanish, http://www.ucm.es/info/adeh/obras.html ). Conclusions for Spain and West Europe was that percentage of abandoned was similar everywhere, I do not remember now if 30% or 40% of total urban sites till XX century, due to several factors. What is typical for Spain – second mountainous country in Europe after Switzerland - is that for 9 centuries the abandoned sites occurred mostly in plateau areas, and in XX century it happened in mountains due to attraction of industry of cities, abetter life could be obtained.
I asked Luis what happened in mountains the previous 9 centuries respect plateaus, and he argued that exist some theories. Some suggests than life in mountain is hard, frugal, but stable, and in plateau there are more peaks.
A study of some scholars about urban sites in andalusian province of Almería during some millenniums suggested different correlations, and GPS locations was studied too ( in Spanish, http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=1419617 ). My “personal” translation in colloquial language is that when people meets real needs with real work ends in general tends to deserting the surrounding but they live well, eating well and good health (some individuals were 1.80 metres high millenniums ago, talking now about the book of brothers García Latorre about Almería too referred in previous reply).
After arrived people with new technology that is focused on organised territory – and landscaping - in new forms, usually simplifications for control better surplus of some food product and control better people…agricultural standardisation appears and the model expands in the hinterland or neighbourhood, and the model for deserting is exported, people live worst and under pressure of a hierarchy, real needs begins to distance respect real economy. Population burst. After some violent or natural crisis population falls sharply and a new “civilisation - empire” get the torch incorporating some of the past with something new, and the model is repeated for millenniums, with few exceptions dealing with turning back to origins. Sometimes little climate changes can influence too. (Brothers García Latorre explored intensively relation between civilisations and nature management , that finally results in landscape perspective).
This history sounds familiar to you, it is happening now somewhere?
Which is the expectancy life of your continent, your country, your city, your village of your suburbia? Are you working for you, for your sons too, for your grandsons too, for somebody more? Which urban landscape perspective manages you, which sustainable urban landscape perspective manages you? I live in a country were still you can easily be alone in nature without urban constructions near and is possible think that some perspectives are far away but that is not true. I live in a country seen from antiquity like El Dorado, that after export that model to America with conquerors, and that even today is looked like a good place for live, and that can be a new El Dorado in case of glaciation, so I live in a country which is historically mostly overvalued or undervalued which did the same out and now is deserting very fast, following a tradition of millenniums. The challenge I suggested in last reply was dealing with solve this for first time in history worldwide.
Some countries have refused to the concept of city, like turning back from urbanisation, i.e. Costa Rica. San José or other cities are not references points, this mission is leaded by suburbia in Central Valley and north Pacific tourism resorts continue line. City like symbol of liberty is lost precisely in a country that do not need have an army for feel free, so from this point of view nothing is lost. But it is true that cultural life begins to be re-ruralized supported by TV, internet, etc. Can be a global tendency? In most countries people goes from countryside to city suburbia to live, but the function of city like cultural centre and official and business downtown remains; what is true is that industry is dispersing through all the territory, like it happened some millenniums ago with agriculture, so it is possible see continue urban waves. And big scale sustainable urban landscape make surf on them.
2. Urban references points, longer buildings expectancy life
“Project with nature”, nice phrase of some architectural books in last decades. Is it true?
Should be nice if each time a new big part of a city is built somebody represents it in 3D before: usually you see a map with some lines in different colour detailing new constructions and 3D representations of some private/s house/s for sale, but people can see the whole plan in 3D so new city perspective is unknown, and urban landscaping too. I did it in Ronda study and if many people could see how is going to finish one of the last Spanish nice cities not absorbed by speculative construction, may be a rich dialog could be initiated.
It is true that most of Ronda city is literally designed in harmony with nature, mountainous areas helps frequently, but what is suggestive for me ids how the city skyline continue the natural one without confusion. This is a prerequisite for integrate city in surrounding wildlife corridors. Where it do not happens, may be the challenge is recover lost terrain.
Two or three times I talked about concrete expectancy life. These short term material –from historical perspective – substituted others longer like wood, stone, etc. Talking first about traditional buildings, the big ones like churches, public buildings, palaces, etc, in the case of Europe gives the perspective longer points to painters. These construction gives new orography to the city – it practically do not happen in the case of Ronda – changing tunnel winds, bird flights, night lights, new warmer or coldest areas, moving vegetation, etc, in estimable proportions. It forms artificial valleys surrounded by stones inside the city and architectural bio climatic ideas coming from Matmata (Tunisia), Capadocia or central Anatolia (Turquey) subterranean or in rock carved cities could be applied. If you turn of a urban landscape full of skyscrapers disseminated in the city you can apply it again with some differences.
After map the longer “talking buildings”, that who propose a collective dialogue looking for modern collective aesthetic of the city instead of actual chaos, it is interesting heard the local melody they proposed. Mapping by centuries, decades, or years the rest part of the city buildings a proposal of chorus can be dialogued by city, village or suburbia inhabitants, but these time accepting the differences of styles, colours, etc, now liberty is higher and aesthetical expression too.
In 2000 there was in Madrid an exhibition focused on art society in three periods, 0.A.C., 1.000.A.C. and 2.000 A.C. Roman empire aesthetic, European Romanic aesthetic, and all avant - gardes of XX century coming from all the “ism” (dadaism, cubism,…till the end of century). Independently of personal elections the first visual result was order, order and confusion; and monotony, monotony and creativity; and intuitive, intuitive and non-intuitive in the sense of search of common beauty (I was living in Munich near of two years and frequently talked with students of art in the KuntsAkademy but which planner architects goes to the Dokumenta of Kassel for get ideas, or which artist there is looking for an exhibit collective beauty guidelines for a city i.e. of 4 millions persons?).
So, may be the important of “talking buildings” is that initiate dialogue, but I think nobody knows how it flows.
Modern sculpture icon-isolated buildings I talked in previous reply begins to talk too but without hear longer talking buildings or the subsequent long-map of the rest of the buildings of the city; and they looked more like art objects or performances that wants promote new ideas or concepts, even like the “ism” of XX century, but because they are relatively isolated from the rest, or even this intention is consciously persecuted, anyway without satisfactory results like recent history shows, finally are not sufficiently valued. In fact when a new modern icon-building is built at 20 metres of distance most of the original intention begins to be forgotten. Maybe too because is in front of the sea, in a nice atmosphere, and not immediately surrounded by skyscrapers, the Opera of Sidney building is the more photographed – and valued – of XX century, and Australia has not precisely easy connections.
In the specific case of skyscrapers the reaction tends to concentration, and maybe that is why “verticalism” talks only with verticalism, there is not one city, village or suburbia in the world that planned emplacements of their skyscrapers thinking in beauty collective perspectives: downtowns grows moving without piety the surrounding buildings (i.e. New York, the Chinese or SE Asian cities) or beginning a new half / downtown everywhere, without perspective. A third possibility consists in fabricate a main avenue of skyscrapers, or more, i.e. Dubai or Madrid, coming back to a certain perception of order with a new visual perspective line, but without see longer talking buildings, orography, etc. Probably if more factors are taking in account the emplacement geometry of skyscrapers into the city would be different. Once I was flying near New York coast and I tried to see the city at 10.000 metres. It was cloudy. After some minutes a quartz Rubik house appeared because sun was suddenly reflected, the downtown was there. Each skyscraper inside the downtown usually is not conceived to talk like minimum with the rest of similar ones, no nicer combinations of Rubik cube are looked for, so final results is like Madrid millennium art exhibition, creative, nice, but confusion…and a isolated performance too.
What happens with painter perspective if the city is moving? . Could be happen that buildings stop climb to the sky for keep there. The proposal of Ma Architect for Beijing (http://www.i-mad.com/?go/#/projects/location/32/ ) consists in a skyscraper in form of cloud supported by tiny pillars. When I was in Munich I heard the city was reconstructed in the same emplacement only because the waste water tunnels were intact. So if you install more pillars in form or arch in eco-strategic emplacements and connect the Ma buildings upper part through them the entire downtown can moved; in case of typhoon it can follow designed itineraries while rice plantations are down, working together for diminish wind forces like was designed by Rassel for Bangladesh countryside. Maybe SuperMa skyscrapers are a Damocles sword over the city, but opens new ways to architecture if you downsize his fantastic idea, idea cab be successfully applied in Egypt, were fertile lands diminish constantly, building 3 floor high palafites connected in closed circuits (for avoid awake up in other village!)
Even in diagonal a city, village or suburbia can move. Fix an structural axis like a wave in an urbanization and by collective gravity you will see a house like the Fisher moving skyscrapers (http://www.dynamicarchitecture.net/home.html ) advance rolling to the other part of urbanization for eat barbecue with a neighbour, or moving the entire gardening position of the place like if green parts of Yeang skyscrapers (http://www.trhamzahyeang.com/profile/yeang.html ,“The green skyscraper: the basis for designing sustainable intensive buildings”, Ken Yeang, Prestel Pub, 2000) flows over the concrete structure.
This introduce to the last question of this part, where are the talking infrastructures? Again moving.
Some years ago a typhoon blow over two skyscrapers, one had an iron scaffolding and the other was made of bamboo, only the last remained, the flexible net was stronger. Inspiring in this structure, a proposal of moving elevated road is made in first part of Ronda project which proportion electricity and water in a mountainous area, like alternative to a conventional payment highway proposed.
Where fix concrete is already installed, is possible maintain it with lower cost and destiny the difference to fabricate new overlapping roads.
In cities is possible covering fix ones with an 50 cm-1 meter high of eco - designed architextile continue conveyor belt moved in a closed circuit by inertia and supported by pendular air force over present skyscrapers in downtown – the two Kio towers in Madrid (http://googlesightseeing.com/2005/10/08/kio-towers/ ) are linked by an underground cable to diminish air wind in both – and other renewable energies. Drivers could access to it stopping the car and paying with equivalent to oil consume or less, following the initiative of out city roads developed by http://www.betterplace.com/ (In Madrid it could be applied to the bus/vao access in Spanish http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=977270 )Can you imagine a city of some million people without practically car noises or smog in main streets?
In Ronda has been proposed too the coexistence of walkers, cars, buses, trams and...riders and carriages, restoring human dimensions in the city through urbanism.
Curitibá in Brasil grew following infrastructures directions and using massively public transport; first idea is ok if promote at same time the surroundings wildlife corridors, the second option is an alternative to massive cars in cities (Curitibá, State of Paraná, Brasil, 1974- Town Hall of Curitibá, p.38, in Ecourbanism. Sustainable Human Settlements:60 case studies, Miguel Ruano, Publishers Gustavo Gili, 3 rd ed., pp.142, Barcelona, 2005).
So which is the idea, enrich standardised architecture giving “ forms and colours” thanks the movement? Where is the artisan, the thinker, the artist, the craftmen/women then, is the architect just a multi machine operator? Now the professional corset is smaller?
Once I was looking in Ronda a nice quarter called Padre Jesús and a big crane in the middle destroyed the panorama. Because many things in Ronda are white, I was thinking myself, why not is painted in white? A tourist group was in front of me and a man told spontaneously “could be Romanic” and a woman answered “or white”, so conclusion is that not only final product of architects can be art, but the art of construction itself can form part of urban landscape. Few years ago there was a spot of construction workers smiling dressed with white uniforms and a melody like that of lifts. Following scene was a real car operating in real construction world, a dirty one. And I remember this famous photo of an elegant construction worker of beginning XX century with a brick yoke. I worked putting merchandise in trucks some years, installing or repairing many things, so I know some matters are possible and others not, the point is find the correct equilibrium.
Move a whole city is an art, using standardised architecture or not, or both. Move it with nature, i.e. getting a dark city while light looks dim to the floor increasing intensity using unfurl mirrors when a person, car or a rider pass, or even profiting the light of cars when enter in the city without disturb birds or migrations… these a real urban art, and first is needed public dialogue and design, afterwards comes the architectural tools to fit it, whether non standardised, standardised or not, or both; final idea is just use tools like tools and leave standardise metal-mental routines for improve the quality of life to us and our descendents.
(P.D.: I need some days more to share the rest of downsized urban tools, now these related with quarters, streets, one-to-one hose craft dialogue and house itself I-m desolated, sorry. I changed the mathematical forum to exchange information about general concepts first, and proposals of 3D touché screen computers for represent dynamic architecture tools between others, now is in http://classpad.mforos.com/1659031/7788624-matematica-de-fractales-aplicada-a-un-atomismo-elastico/ and http://classpad.mforos.com/1659031/7792420-en-los-limites-de-las-matematicas-no-hay-leones/ and my nickname there is marino314 ) Sorry to the rest of participants, in next and last downsizing reply I will comment your replies. Thanks).
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erjavi
Joined: 10 Jan 2009
Posts: 229
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| Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 5:15 am Post subject: space´s architect |
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…Move a whole city is an art, using standardised architecture or not, or both. Move it with nature, i.e. getting a dark city while light looks dim to the floor increasing intensity using unfurl mirrors when a person, car or a rider pass, or even profiting the light of cars when enter in the city without disturb birds or migrations… these a real urban art, and first is needed public dialogue and design; afterwards comes the architectural tools to fit it, whether non standardised, standardised or both; final idea is just use tools like tools, and leave standardise metal-mental routines for improve the quality of life to us and our descendents…
3.moving building itself
Like sand blocks connected by pulleys can transform constantly the entrance of a city a house can be conceived like a net of elements linked by pulleys and moved with few efforts like the stone of a windmill. Even all a rolling city can be conceived for be moved in case of severe climate change to a better place taking care with crops and wildlife corridors located in the way.
Like these desk games that constantly moves the balls by gravity and inertia, a road moving circuit can be installed in the cities for get a silent and clean traffic, sometimes helped with renewable energies and pay with part of fossil fuels consumer bill.
With flexible and moving eco-machines ( the building of Andrea Banzi and Toyo Ito of construct it with a single membrane suggests that moving it or overlaped with others innumerable combinations of space and productions can be achieved, if you look the eco-machines of John Todd or the installations in Arizona of Green Fuel Technologies, they have the aspects of plastic recipients games, the building is the factory itself) the deteriorated urban surroundings can be restored (i.e. some germans vineyards goes to south looking for clean soils because their national authorities raises constantly the legal minimum of a soil for be considered “eco or bio”, a sort of inverse trade dumping, imagine the situation of underground water) in higher scales that present standards (info@ser.org), and the walls itself can be composed of a mix of fix and living components.
So landscape is changing, is it desirable? If car moved architects from city planning, if cement moved architects from line mass-productions house design departments, if temperature machines -tv-telecommunications moved architects from roofs design, if in some places still telephone lines moved architects from street design (together with traffic lights), if malls moved architects form the plaza and other public spaces, if computers-internet-handy moved architects from daily urban effervescence proposal and relationships making them more virtual and isolated, if suburbia, second residence and tourism cities moved architects from the sense of community criteria, if living walls, moving cities, new intelligent skin facade that extents the empire of screen worlds, flexible architecture that changes the aspect of even the fix traditional architecture moved architects from public design favouring artists and publicists, if so hard industrial installations aspects of renewable energies or Fordian aesthetics of plastic agriculture moved architects from the painter perspective in countryside, if…what is next?, so final result can be that architect is an operator in the big standardised factory that proportion skeletons of building, make temporal and isolated icon-sculpture buildings and, this is the way out, can give non lineal house designs due to the fact that a building is a very expensive consume product, and there is time sometimes for avoid a compulsive and standardised buy. This is the theory, but practise goes in other way.
Standardised world accepts creativity if variety can be standardised (“satandardised” can think someone, an absurd conclusion because standardize is only just a tool more, a even if tools have “plastic or golden” handles are just tools), but standardised mental routines are a symptom of laziness and oppression-repression of liberty, and these routines are chosen daily for all us.
The architect is enormously favoured by an open mind academic tradition in faculties worldwide because mix science and art, so humanistic background is supported from beginning, and from this point of view is relatively easy for an architect leave but promote standardised mental routines talking with society through construction, sceneries and spaces, knowing that is a privileged member but not more than a member more. And this is a very comfortable perspective nowadays, make surf with successive standardised waves enjoying with them and after come back to the beach for the barbecue, may be this is a nice paper for architects in society today, not say how is making surf but just do it, and other people may be can benefit from such practise. This is my real answer to the rest of participants of this forum, I did not saw it clearly till now, so at least for me good question Ronchamp!
Still I am going to send soon a new post sending new webs related with ideas about moving buildings, publicity, use of machines, golf camps and other. Now I want enjoy the moment, I am on the beach again.
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djswan
millennium club
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 1119
Location: Montana, USA
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| Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 10:28 am Post subject: |
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ahhhhhh, the beach... 
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erjavi
Joined: 10 Jan 2009
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| Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 7:01 am Post subject: fiesta |
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4-5-6 Street festival
In 1998 – 2000 an enormous cement factory was working and simultaneously was in process of be dismantled, it was a dangerous operation managed like a chess game due the circumstances (Operación Vicálvaro, http://www.valderrivas.es/Portland/homeport.nsf/wfInicioPortland?ReadForm&Curriculum) innovative big scale machines and methods were employed like a surgeon instrument and it was the first time I saw in construction use baseballs sticks for play pool. Usually big machines are used for move big quantities mostly in an indiscriminated way but in this occasion I perceived thecement treated – and recycled – in a soft or elastic, no rigid, way. It flowed from one point to another like water.
We produced around 2.500 millions tons of cement in 2007 worldwide, and in theory the proportion of concrete per person is around 1.5 cubic metres (in spanish http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concreto#El_siglo_XXI:_la_cultura_medioambiental
(I mistake using in previous replies concrete instead of cement, for see world banks of cement and concrete useful life see i.e. http://www.ietcc.csic.es/index.php?id=183 )
I argued in previous replies that many consume products had a expectancy of life of 20-30 years if they were not eco-designed, i.e. in Spain our ecological footprint now is around three times the natural resources production. Of course mines have longer expectative but their present impact in pollution invites to consider alternative materials, and probably architextiles or some product from eco-machines will share the scenery.
Meanwhile the urban infrastructures corset (and a moving city is too a corset because the Leucipus – Democritus paradigm of fix atomism is changed after 2.600 years by the Parmenides – Heraclitus one, an elastic atomism, I mean change a piece of metal for a piece of water) can disappear slowly looking for new equilibriums out of both paradigms, still unknowns.
Conciliate urban with nature through sustainability could be a first and necessary guideline, employing flexible engineering applied to architecture and city planning (i.e. http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/aadrl/ ) using sustainable and self-moving crafts machines(i.e http://www.strandbeest.com/) for get more integrated developments ( i.e. in parks IGA Island 2003 Master Plan Submission, Dresden, Germany, 1995, SITE, pp.48, in Ecourbanism. Sustainable Human Settlements:60 case studies, Miguel Ruano, Publishers Gustavo Gili, 3 rd print run., Barcelona 2005)
If these parks emigrate to the suburbia maybe it can begin reconcile the mall with the city. One of the first Spanish malls was constructed in the middle of Madrid by architect César Manrique (http://www.enlavaguada.com/index.php?lang=es&ids=1433 ), but he fell in heresy because in some parts nothing was sold, I mean he tried integrate the plaza into the mall: some years after the mall changed the plan and the free person encounter was forbidden, the market did not negotiated. And the same tension can be appreciated in the canary island of Lanzarote, but there the forces between the depredator tourism – really standardised - and local architecture and art performances are by moment equilibrated (http://www.fcmanrique.org/?fl=1 , http://www.cesarmanrique.com/indexi.htm ); conclusion is that one or few persons are sufficient in long term to promote changes but not to maintain them, and this is correct because the search of common beauty must be dialogued before.
Parks are free, put mall into green for recover plaza means delineate wildlife corridors into the city, designing new building works or redesigning old with them, and that means more than promote dispersed parks into the city.
Golf camps can negotiate too with wildlife corridors i.e. with prizes like the blue flags for clean beaches (http://www.blueflag.org/) I mean, those golf camps that let pass all the food animal chain & without pollution underground waters get the better score, an eagle, I only one, birdie, if % of success is lower, 5 sticks for better, 4 sticks, 3 sticks…if a camps do not get sticks, then is urgent search for new ideas both in humidor dry atmospheres (in Spanish, http://www.cafedelasciudades.com.ar/ambiente_51.htm , http://www.eleconomista.es/mercados-cotizaciones/noticias/53258/08/06/RSC-El-campo-de-golf-de-Quijorna-en-Madrid-apuesta-por-la-ecologia-al-regarse-exclusivamente-con-agua-de-lluvia.html ).
Could be interesting develop new urban tools for balance wildlife corridors in urban areas (cities, suburbia and villages) i.e. % of houses&roads / square kilometre-mile, %humid/dry wildlife corridors/square mile-kilometre, % highbiodiversity wildlife corridor/ square kilometre-mile, %climatechangeresistant wildlife corridors/square mile-kilometre, etc.
There are monographs about functional buildings respect the city and their emplacement in the urban plan (i.e. Food & City, in Architectural Design), but others urban habits answers to unexpected origins.
During Franco dictatorship Spanish banks were not let operate abroad and foreign bank was forbidden, so for grow banks and saving banks opened filial in each corner through all the country, and the competence was so huge. And this meant standardised house banking everywhere. Afterwards practically nobody entered in practise because make banking meant invest in housing, so the Spanish financial system launched without internal foreign competence and now is one of the healthy of the world (i.e. 1st and 5th bank in euro zone). So some buildings developments are initiated due standardised new products, but other are developed by urban new habits. Even with internet people uses buildings banks, maybe money is a special product, maybe people loves go to street thanks to climate, maybe the urban habit can be more traditional that we expected....
In fact is curious that other big building branch are bars, cafeterias, restaurants, discos (around 200.000, there are more in Spain that in the rest of European Union together, including other Mediterranean countries). Thanks to the ghost towns book I referred I know that 50 years ago many little villages had not a single building for a bar, this was included inside a shop or something similar because the economy – and the habit of consume many times -was weak. In some moment spontaneously this local shops & bars divorced, a new urban habit was initiated. Some years after, in the beginning of 80s, and thanks to the general growth, more products arrived to the new bars: the slim codfish introduced in these village by Portuguese was supplanted by Galician trucks (Spain region at north of Portugal) with ice bars and running during the nights, offering a wide variety of sea products…an indirectly it facilitated at same time the promotion of logistic tourism services through all the territory, so new buildings in form of hotels, etc, appeared more easily. I am talking only of peripheral rural areas, other parts of the country were highly urbanised and industrialised (i.e. the Basque country had an income per capita in the 60s higher than the media of West Europe, and this do not means dictatorship is more rentable than democracy, but just signal the industrialization made there in a liberal context from the end of XIX century was really high) or “touristed”.
What is interesting about these ideas is that modern architecture not always has a standardised origin. If in Spain just three sectors have been developed – not initiated – thanks to unusual factors, how many are in the world? The urban dialogue about cities, villages and suburbia can be enriched if this type of dialogue is promoted, and final result can be more interesting that expand a monotonous - and almost medieval by simple - standardised way of life. The festival begins…(I said festival or fiesta, not carnival because this is different and sometimes can be useful in times of repression, but there are many democracies in the world so the context is more mature).
Painting new cities landscapes can proportion astonishing perspectives. Talking about skyscrapers and trying explore more than squared or spherical Rubik ´s cube possibilities the downtowns can initiate new social races:
Downtowns of skyscrapers, despite their dangerous (for fire) and molest (when concrete gets old), can be meanwhile reshaped. The towers can partially “move their skins” incorporating architextiles in form of sails (with adhesive solar cells or not, with colours or not, with intelligent plastics that serves like multimedia sceneries or not, with temperature city regulators like Alllianz Arena, Water Cube or not, etc) that give the building the aspect of a ship race or other animation, helping too redirection seasonally urban air for manage routes for allergic/asthmatic people, for diminish global dimming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming ) or guide omnipresent dust to waste construction blocks…
Or more important, for protect better homeless that unfortunately wants refuse social services if exists, for instance points adapted with flexible elements in corners or other architectural elements; this idea could be complemented with many initiatives I saw in the past but unfortunately I did not collected, dealing about portable houses for homeless. (Please note that these ideas in any case do not justify such situation, European countries destinies 10% of GDP for sanitary cover of all their population,
i..e. China developed a monumental plan for new houses for the people coming from countryside, some hundred of millions in the last decades, an initiative to imitate for avoid these images than brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado show us. But shantytown exist too underground, and people lives literally like ants like a foreign journalist who lived me reported me. Under the soil near the factories lived many workers like in catacombs, a secret few times reported. So architectonical ideas for a daily better life for people that officially do no exist should be promoted, in part I mentioned the experiences of Tunisia and Turquey in previous reply thinking in new urban orography due human behaviour, not only skyscrapers but too underground skyscrapers; there are many solutions showed in webs that could be transmitted to under-residents via handy,
i.e. http://www.subsurfacebuildings.com/
http://www.theundergroundhouse.org.uk/ , http://www.williamlishman.com/underground.htm in Spanish http://vivirbajotierra.blogspot.com/ etc
So maybe invisible intelligent architextiles materials can mitigate temporally an invisible trouble in terms of hygiene, space, horizontal tunnel winds…In the case of U.S., this country destinies 15% of GDP for not cover 40 million people so each year they dispose of a little Fort Knox for leave the crisis earlier)
Additional support to these situations or normal ones can be considered if the roofs are green and the architextiles sails, balloons, etc, get raining water and distribute to crops in selected points. The initiatives are numerous,
“Halifax EcoCity Project”, Adelaide, Australia, 1992- Paul Francis Downton, RAIA, Centre for Urban Ecology, págs 90, in Ecourbanism. Sustainable Human Settlements:60 case studies, Miguel Ruano, Publishers Gustavo Gili, 3 rd print run., Barcelona 2005.
www.greenroofs.org,
“Rooftop forest”,Yukio Minobe, Etsushi Yamada, Shinri Takano, Chiaki Noto, Sinichi Takahashi, Hiroyoshi Matsumoto, pp. 266., in “Self – sufficient housing”, Institut d´Arquitectura Avançada de Catalunya, http://www.iaac.net/web/en/index.php , 1st Advanced Architecture Contest, Barcelona, 2006, yukio.- blocked due to abuse - (building in this way in the brazilian favelas could be very useful because the roofs are easier to work immediately there in comparison with other city planning elements.
“Hybrid tower”, Esther Rovira, Josep Maria Guito, Rubén Ferez, María Campos, pp. 154, in “Self – sufficient housing”, Institut d´Arquitectura Avançada de Catalunya, http://www.iaac.net/web/en/index.php , 1st Advanced Architecture Contest, Barcelona, 2006, estherrovira@coac.es,
“Ecosystem injections” Daniel Ibáñez Moreno, Rodrigo Rubio Cuadrado, Alberto Alvarez Egea, pp., in “Self – sufficient housing”, Institut d´Arquitectura Avançada de Catalunya, http://www.iaac.net/web/en/index.php , 1st Advanced Architecture Contest, Barcelona, 2006, - blocked -,
“Industrial garden house”, Simón Banka, pp. 308, in “Self – sufficient housing”, Institut d´Arquitectura Avançada de Catalunya, http://www.iaac.net/web/en/index.php , 1st Advanced Architecture Contest, Barcelona, 2006, szy_ban@interia.pl
“Hills on the beach”, Bouslaw Witkowski, Marek Morawski, pp. 314, in “Self – sufficient housing”, Institut d´Arquitectura Avançada de Catalunya, http://www.iaac.net/web/en/index.php , 1st Advanced Architecture Contest, Barcelona, 2006, witkowski@skynet.be
Programa San José Posible, 1994 www.arquitecturatropical.org, (in spanish http://www.skyscraperlife.com/noticiascr/14912-arquitectos-proponen-transporte-en-gondola-aerea.html)
And always is possible find new emplacements for old tools, including highways (http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/05/01/highway-wind-turbines-to-capture-energy-from-passing-vehicles/ ) and why not skyscrapers?, and may be the urban windmills can move alone, www.strandbeest.com
May be the use of precision machines, both in architecture and industry, could progress in parallel to the miniaturization and eco-colonization advances for manage a higher complex environment at minimal scale, coexisting with the big machines for some detailed works and supporting both manual jobs. And touch things show us how pleasant is reality.
Tendency of loose the contact with reality in times of increasing digital screen representation can be even a symptom of decadence if is not balanced with other initiatives; the primary perception of where the productivity is really increasing is very useful for real prospects:
Day by day in the last decades we see in media new advances in micro-machines - most of the real world economy advance - I mean chips and others, but the easier manipulation of little things recombining them for get more productivity (it is a net-manage productivity in contrast with ) is contrasted by increasing complexity of total net possibilities (i.e. in internet very few of printed culture is indexed and this is only one type of culture, but there are many mathematic-robotic produced irrelevant data - I mean for people general purposes – that collapses or even pollutions useful ways in the information highway, i.e. personally I am tired to find in big internet searchers 0 -1 or irrelevant results) so the real advances of productivity that expands into the rest of economy tends many times to confuse economic prospects.
Last crisis was due to some exponential advances of micro-machines (not yet micro-eco-machines) to some industrial and over all services branches, but entertainment and other sectors can not entertain the real economy from reality. So if cities, suburbia and villages wants to be real is important avoid use them like digital representation reality masks.
In fact the villages are closer to reality in the sense they are closer to our environment, and from the point of view of urban theory the balancing paper of them could be very important in next future, supported by suburbia in his continuous search of city-countryside balance. It can help the city burble world do not fall in periodical crisis promoted for a growing economic media class that always desire more without limits with a distance nature, thinking that money means a vote, that a relation of boss-customer and “something for something” presides human relationship, and where there are increasing rights with decreasing duties lost in anonymity of stressed mass consumers, a childhood perspective without mature growth I mean the unconscious media class dictatorship acting as a capricious “baby”, supported for a present global predominant violent-economic political ideology (in U.N. the veto is a guetto).
May be is important have a physical representation of liberty and in this sense cities are landscape historical and present leaders, may be actual world population do not need such representation, I do not know what people are looking for, but it is true that traditional geographical patterns are changing and there is a growing tendency to urban “ghettisation” in search of liberty supported by some standardised products associated to liberty like cars, and some times houses, instead of the feeling of common objectives not sufficiently reinforced for a physically distant media. I am referring to what many people has named the loss of human dimension of the cities. And the urban ghettisation model acts like a dryer spider web over the territory cutting and cutting wildlife –and wet – corridors at industrial scale through the world.
From representation to reality, a flexible house can incorporate the geothermal energy sources over the floor through the sand/waste blocks avoiding loss the valuable soil (i.e. combining wastehttp://www.bestpractices.org/ , aerial geothermal, or “living” panels inspiring in the know- how of i.e. www.habidite.com and connecting them through pulleys and finished by workers construction craftsman: millions of defect houses can be object of tunning according sustainability and local/global art criteria, both if you want keep a fix house, a moving one or a mix. So standardised architecture reveals just like a simple tool, and ecological productivity burst real economy because in a more wet atmosphere the activity possibilities are real-ly bigger. Crisis, what crisis?
Then, in house to house dialog, in street and plaza perspectives, which urban landscapes could be dreamed?
If artisans are everywhere and urban festival begins, let´s go to the party.
In Masdar (http://www.mist.ac.ae/ , Abu Dhabi) wind towers follows i.e Pakistani Hyderabad experience and proportion refrigeration to the city, together with other initiatives like zero-carbon emission and zero-waste, and avoiding cars using public free energy internal transport, http://www.fosterandpartners.com/News/291/Default.aspx ).
In Germany Freiburg combines traditional quarters with new ones energetically supplier to the rest of the city, and a potent solar cell industry. Both cases can be complemented, traditional fix solutions together with dynamic ones slowly will offer new patrons of urban landscape, standardised or not or both, depending the intention and participation of individuals.
But it means too that for first time in architectural history materials like the architextiles can be dominants at long term, avoiding the architectural economy that “digs” soil (material construction, fossil fuels) that is on the basis of the biggest part of the productivity we get daily, together with the machines obtained with these materials (there is not any national census of machines in the world, including cars, coffee machines, computers, etc, to appreciate the real growth of economical productivity through the recent history, in order to get new econometrics tools that can define betters when the economical burbles put in risk the real – and sustainable – economy).
Psychologically many people do not feel sure in a house if there is nothing similar to a stone, a brick, cement or so. That is the theory. Like I referred in other reply, a typhoon arrived to Hong Kong city and blow over two skyscrapers in construction, one of them had a scaffolding iron and the other was made of bamboo. The last one remained, some times a flexible net is safer than a rigid structure. But the tree is longer that the bird nest (http://www.thelocal.se/11054/20080411/ ) , even in Beijing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_National_Stadium, and it is easier that wind uprooted a big tree than a artificial mountain like a pyramid (but even the Aegyptian has cracks), and a natural mountain looks safer if earthquake do not arrives...
The Lissabon earthquake of 1755 destroyed till now the peak fame of the city, crashed the bridge built by Caius Julius…Lacer in Alcántara (the names came form Al Quantara. Literally “the bridge” like the Arabs claimed astonished after view the bridge after the Tagus river designed to keep always, but he was destroyed too by war after http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/virtual/c_alcantara.html) some hundred kilometres far, and doubled forming S some Romanic and Renascentists buildings in Salamanca, far away.
Looking the last case is possible redesign or tunning present collapsed urban areas looking for communal nets looking new common structures and crafts in the context pf present liberty of individuals respect styles. So the party will run ok if liberty is tolerated till limit, proposing in any case alternative games or drinks, but not forcing.
Houses situated over exploited underground water reserves (usually near mountains are underground reserves, rivers, dams and cities) can be affected by seismic movements (in spanish, http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/ciudad/86700.html , http://www.comunicacion.amc.edu.mx/comunicados/predicen-cientificos-mas-hundimientos-en-iztapalapa-hasta-el-2025/ ) like is the case of Mediterranean Spanish coast. Mostly if there are not free spaces between them (in Spanish, http://www.alicantevivo.org/2008/04/los-terremotos-de-la-vega-baja.html) So tunning here is more urgent than in other areas. A Japanese engineer than I saw in a TV program, unfortunately I do not remember the name, developed the idea of install a swimming pool over the roof for diminish lateral movements of earthquakes. This could be a solution for collapsed tourism places, reinforced by the idea of get water from marine night air or fog thanks to aerial screens, promoting too the biological swimming pools in order to re-green easier the dry coastal mountains (a better and complete develop can be seen in Ronda study).
In any case fix houses can incorporate new common structural axis in order to tunning them: these architectonic new highways, visible, camouflaged, integrated (like Chinese bird nest), without beginning or end, painted, Escherised (http://www.mcescher.com/ )adapted, changeable, partially invisible, invisible or else can be the speaking way of individual houses in the chorus city context.
Some structures look confusing, i.e. the arabesques, or the Guggenheim museum at Bilbao (because there was not straight lines operators frequently was confused at work with plans); well, really even an invisible city is dangerous for animals, i.e. birds. But not always for people. Once I was looking by hazard a ghost town while I was in a car in a sinuous road; after 30 minutes my head was broken, I saw again landscape and other hill appeared, I saw again and I found a village instead of the hill! Because material construction is that of land many traditional villages disappear in landscape when are abandoned, a perfect camouflage. The unexpected village I found is named Rodén, in Zaragoza province (http://www.fuentesdeebro.es/ click in Rodén), and has a nice neighbourhood history: there is a Nuevo Rodén (New Rodén) built near and an old inhabitant told me that the aspect of Rodén was due to the fierce Battle of Ebro happened during the Spanish Civil War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Ebro ). Oh no! But her continues…nobody died and there was not battles in the village! (the aspect was typical of a bombing attack). Then?
An injured horse appeared up to the hill and in his –was written “Viva Rusia”. Literally in five minutes all the population including old people were running down to the river, so the Republican army arrived with guns and an official asked?
-Who are them?
- Do not worry, they are good people, let them. So they followed running without persecutions and the village including the castle was dismantle for get material for trenchs…and everybody in the village kept the sonorous secret that the person who stopped the army was a man born in Rodén that belonged to forces with different ideology. So humanity was stronger than ideas.
Fix, changing or mix perspectives, standardised or not, visible or invisible urban perspectives, it is possible go far than Greek philosophers in the perspectives of nature and landscape (in example using Escherised - contradicted perspectives instead non linear-logic ones like fix - or elastic - atomism, permanence or mutation, etc), even if sometimes the way is not easy (I introduced in a mathematical forum the idea that number pi has not exact or even periodical results because there are not absolute references for measure, so mathematics could be in part just never ending infinitesimal painters, and argue that I saw mathematic half undressed so I dressed her with graphic cost me censure, the aura of infallibility was in danger, and indirectly some aspects of machinery and standardization too, so I had to change to a democratic mathematic forum to follow the crossing to liberty http://classpad.mforos.com/1659031/7792420-en-los-limites-de-las-matematicas-no-hay-leones/ ), but are just tools for decorate and enjoy the party, what is important is intention and participation.
The unfortunately recently died, Anita Roddick, founder of Body Shop, talked about laws for change the contents of public spaces for publicity into poetry, ingenious texts and art ( you can have quarters or streets free of publicity, but force the party by laws could mean the end of it respect a mature context, we are a reality not a permanent project) painting cars freely or covered by grass, putting pianos protected from robbers and water in public squares, promoting the Day of Italian Sidewalk, or comments like that prospers places in Earth are nice, and if they are not soon they begin stop be prospers (http://www.takeitpersonally.org )
Communication has many happens or aspects: in the common urban axis described for i.e. some houses you can use too flexible mirrors, textile, flexible architecture components, low scale moving green plants and green screens (Dominique Perrault job “Las Teresitas” and RCA students (Joanna Kay Lewis, Anne-Laure Carruth and Laura Perryman) both in Architextiles, Architectural Design, pp. 30, 34 and 80, Nov-Dec 2006) others for diminish the contrast between building styles, turning them even several times per day depending of solar light, public noises, quarter music or designing urban silences, changing graffiti and other aspects. And squares can talk too (in spanish, http://www.tecnologiaverde.com/textil/index.php?fun=encurso.php&id_proyecto=24) You can temporally extend the gutters in andalusian Pueblos Blancos for connect them with some urban element in the middle of the street in order to get a water umbrella to stop the rain, and after conducts water through surface canals; and in cities you can use water rain too for talk with the rest of the city forming symbols (http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/waterbuilding-0711.html) - or in case of natural catastrophe to help rescue teams find were people are - using too waste water but the popular jokes will come soon like “messages de merde” and so. In the Noche de los Teatros in Madrid (http://www.lanochedelosteatros.com/index_madrid_org.php) I saw a skyscraper with the windows of different colours, in other circumstances I saw another with a plastic facade for maintaining that proportioned a different visible face to the building, overall with the sunset, and I saw too other with a publicity of a car covering it while the wheels were moving and some lights seemed the road signals and the lights car (I do not remember if it was Renault, PSA, ?) ; and you can make the same effects with intelligent facades where workers express daily how the job ruled this day, or public computer presentation screens could be composed only by downsized composed touchable photos - forming part with harmony of public landscape- that introduce to you to written text or others, etc…(public videogames for ameliorate urban situation in low income quarters worldwide could be proposed, with more score if more players agree in a solution) Problem is avoid that buildings can be a publicity jail (personal, institutional, non-profit or commercial) that goes against health of residents and walkers I mean visual, aesthetical, forced atmospheres including heat, water, air, etc…and architaboos should disappear talking about them, each time is more and more dangerous the telecommunications influences on our health (i.e. in Spanish http://www.gea-es.org/libroselectromagnetismo.html , http://www.avaate.org/article.php3?id_article=621 ) so the impact of this pollution could be diminish and redirected i.e. through aesthetic coloured public intelligent curtain/drape with adhesive solar cells up and robotic membranes down, so the people can connect the handy with cable while walks, avoiding wi-fi at least in some urban areas with children (the children presence has been practically lost in many “developed” cities, like smile, tell jokes, sing and others) etc,
a party is for enjoy, and when most participants enjoy with each personal participation which is too enjoying with the rest, better will be the party.
So in a good party “talking buildings” are everywhere, even in Andalusian Pueblos Blancos you can paint the white with colours if collective beauty is looked for collectively, and white houses can incorporate i.e. black or blue holes for heat ceramic tubes in order to play with skin buildings getting new architectural effects, more sustainable, etc. All the world traditional architecture can be kept while can be enriched, and is the same for the new one, maintaining tradition and modernity.
This world is fortunately multicultural so is very difficult that even with better urban tools the multiform standardised architecture can be a solution: the party will be so boring and sad, and if security is the excuse for make the party boring is better remember that enter into the Green Industrial Middle Age could be a nightmare (in agricultural Middle Age many people suffered with injustices and oppressions, in the architecture and city planning aspects to, and the society considered it normal, and today some people thinks that if children dies of famine in shantytowns that must be normal too…that is always the Middle Age, be in middle of no where).
When I began design in Ronda I must stop because I did not knew what happened in the territory, so I interview a biologist with a 3D map asking where was located the anima paths. So he signalled the points where he view i.e. roe deer, but when I asked how these points were linked he stop the conversation and looked like a mad the map: literally thousand of data compiled with patient during 15 years were suddenly dynamics(do you remember http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97338308 ?) So after interview 50 persons of different professions I got a preliminary map of both natural and human plan, and this is why I examined after the urban landscaping priorities of all civilizations presents, and actual and future urban main initiatives, in order to understand better the context of the soil I was stepping. What is more, I learned make surf with climate tsunamis in Ronda, there exists one of the most complex dynamic of soils of the Earth, including Mediterranean weather with Atlantic water falling in tropical measures, and too snowed mountains and a pre-dessert, so an extreme job hypothesis –it is only an hypothesis - like a galciation in 10-15 years or present tendency to dessert can be analysed and solved even together, and general solutions for Europe and other parts can be proposed. (The argentine architects, strongly formed in landscaping, were the first in recognise this initiative that follows those implemented at regional level in Central America http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_Biological_Corridor and national level http://www.mnp.nl/en/publications/2005/NatureBalance2005-NationalEcologicalNetwork.html designing both human and natural plans, and step more that mere wildlife corridors,
http://www.cafedelasciudades.com.ar/ambiente_economia_74.htm
http://www.caapaisajistas.org.ar/noticias/propuesta-del-territorio-como-corredor-ecologico-movil/
http://www.arqa.com/index.php/esc/boletines/cafe-de-las-ciudades-diciembre-de-2008.html
http://www.congresodearquitectos2009.es/index.php/Table/Comunicaciones-presentadas/
it looks that language it is gap here, may be this explain why Spanish speakers filial of some architects, consultancy and telecommunication firms are first downloading the project)
Some years ago a meeting about social economy law figures (cooperatives and so) was held in Madrid, and an construction executive (http://www.larcovi.es/ ) was finishing a round table. Then a man in wheelchair asked him why the % of housing for disabled people was not sufficiently promoted. And he asked with an standardised answer, something like “it is more expensive and not always is possible…”. Then the first man gave an example about how adapt a house with “less” cost of habitual. Everybody was surprised, but people wanted stand up and the executive answered quickly giving thanks for the idea, but the man gave other and other architectonical solution for adapt a house with less standardised cost. So everybody was cross-eyed looking the door and the man. So finally visit card were exchanged.
Now imagine the situation, a customer talks to you about a new building with a general idea, and you begin to show him/her your folder archphotos while asking: do you want it with or without standardised architectonical save good practices? Of course probably you will have only some hundred or may be some thousands of good ideas. Probably then him/her will look you with a nervous tic in the eye like inspector Dreyfus did in Pink Panther movies. After you can proportion new folders to fit the project about standardised and local non standardised architectural ideas ( I am going this week to see again new non standardised architects solutions in http://www.ifema.es/ferias/climatizacion/default.html, we will see how the folder came back home), and when you begin open the folders about talking buildings and non fearful architecture initiatives hin/her may be will continue with other inspector Dreyfus symptoms like “mmmm” “mmm”. Then should be nice if this moment you offer a soft drink or even a hard one, may be for you too, while you follow the conversation “ok, let´s go talk about your dream” (I am not promoting architects & psychologist/priest alliances ja ja, not talking seriously I do not believe a job of architect must be architectural therapy, it is supposed architecture is for enjoy).
So, somebody knows where the party continues?
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erjavi
Joined: 10 Jan 2009
Posts: 229
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| Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 8:03 am Post subject: Comments and maps Figures 14 and 53 Project Llley |
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Hello again! Now that I finished my introduction I tried upload again the two figures I tried some weeks ago. Figure 14 describes both present natural plan of the territory, and present and future infrastructures for bring new buildings to the area. The solutions collecting architectonical international good practises are in the following figures.
Figure 53 describes the nature without us. The impressive dynamic of soils and senseable areas is just preliminary showed, with a low scale is possible determine building areas better without interrumpt the potence of nature for manage of dessert, galciation, tropicalization and polution waves satisfactory. There are other areas in the Mediterranean basin with vegetation of past times, but maybe the tropical vegetation is absent (in some areas on the map there are peaks of 4500 annual mm of water, and in the past must beeven higher becuse it lacks 7 million trees, million more million less.
Note that in terms of vascular plants mediterranean basin is near to highest world levels I mean with Andes mountanous areas and the Islands between Asia and Australia, but here the subject must concile too with migratory birds between Europe and Africa and the Strait of Gibraltar, one of the marine biodiversity hotspot of the Earth.
http://www.biodiversityhotspots.org/xp/Hotspots/pages/map.aspx
So if you can design and build here, and you can adapt with the territory surfing with climate change tsunamis (and it includes too receive people moved), you can do it everywhere. (I tried relation new cartographic dynamic maps useful for architects and others with Figure 53, so I mentioned http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/ for introduce it but I was not able to upload it before, I tried once but I was concentrate on text, I am sorry)
If you try download al the project (is free) you will see a logo with a heart with glasses (it is a personal web not a institutional one, the heart is inspired in the famous book "The heart seen from heaven", about human and natural landscapes) then click on Paisajismo Sostenible (Sustainable Landscaping),and then in Proyecto Llley (three parts, 100 Megas). Some authorities, proffesionals and companies, particulars or academic enter in the page and do not continue, and some weeks after they enter again just because other person or institution invite them continue clicking.
So, that is all.
Javier
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djswan
millennium club
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 1119
Location: Montana, USA
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 9:05 am Post subject: |
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The beach works wonders it appears, the mountain are good too.  Hmmmmm, a wildife corridor connecting New York to Boston? Start at Central Park and go both ways. Plant a golden tree when they meet. I love it. Trees on rooftops might gain some width for anything you don't want to bulldoze. Live under the canopy, count me in.
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erjavi
Joined: 10 Jan 2009
Posts: 229
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 5:27 pm Post subject: Why not Central Park? |
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Hi Djswan,
It is not difficult design big scale wildlife corridors. The best is begin is initiate efforts in strong points, usually mountains, studying conflictive points and measures for solve them. By instance click on (http://obrasocial.caixacatalunya.es/osocial/redirect.html?link=http://obrasocial.caixacatalunya.es/CDA/ObraSocial/Home/0,3423,3x2y,00.html then click on “Biological Corridors Cantabric to Alps---http://donosti.geodata.es/clients/ftp/c2a/ , and then click on Great Mountain Corridor (Initiative presentation) - Apeldoorn, September 2005 (English)
Netherlands is an important exception respect mountain corridors http://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/2006/NB2006NationalEcologicalNetworkAndNatura2000.html, ant there are other initiatives at continental level http://www.eeconet.org/eeconet/peen/factsheet5.pdf , http://www.ecnc.org/completed-projects_37.html?action=detail&id=52 , http://www.countdown2010.net/archive/paneuropean.html
In Ronda study I focused first in the wildest area, located between Ronda and the sea, it is a mountain corridor between Gibraltar and Pyrenees following the coast. Afterwards I focused in how linked this mountain corridor with the parallel one of Sierra Morena, crossing many agricultural lands between cities, and the final idea was consider all the territory like a flexible wildlife corridor; in Spain we exploited from milleniumns the Mediterranean forest opening and closing it continuously without destroy it, so we have agricultural lands, ranching, pigs exploitation, hunting, mushrooms, migratory cattle, etc, without loss general dampness. When forest is opened we call it dehesa (pasture, meadow). In Ronda study the final idea consists in convert the dehesa into an open-air greenhouse mixing the dessert agricultural techniques developed in Almería and others (the biggest European vegetable garden) without use chemicals or transgenic, promoting a Mediterranean jungle irrigating it like a dessert. So once you know the surrounding of the city you already know the areas where the wildlife corridors continue and the different levels of complexity. My conclusion is that dynamic of soils micro organisms is so complex and valuable that no one golf camp must be built there, is one of these Global and European strategic points.
After leave Ronda I came back to Madrid and I got a map of the city region. With the experience I got in Ronda I was able to design a green belt surrounding the city in 30 minutes, completely different than conventional, usually focused in gardening. After three hours I designed some sketches about how let pass a lynx without feel observed. The region has 6 million inhabitants now. You can even do more but, like a golf camp in Ronda, is force the situation.
Between Boston and New York there are many little portions of virgin forests and agro-ecological lands together with marginal rocky areas, rivers of different sizes and others where the potential of soil micro organisms is stronger. Let them work helping them and you will see that your action respect nature is like begin a chain reaction of an atomic bomb of life, the result is not proportional no initial effort (and opposite).
Aprox. in 1530 the Basque fisherman arrived Terranova (http://www.heritage.nf.ca/exploration/basque.html) looking for more possibilities. In XIX century most of the whales at the European side of Atlantic was eliminated (not only for them, http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eubalaena_glacialis ) and people thought the specie was exterminated in North Atlantic. Fortunately some hundred of exemplars continue living and emigrating through the USA coasts, in a “human” corridor not so far dangerous to that described from Boston to New York. Some years ago I proposed some ecologists initiate a media campaign asking public about what was necessary made for eat these whales in a Basque restaurant again, and they looked surprised to me. The idea was not “do not touch these last whales” but how Atlantic societies can promote their development successfully for not only expand their population and habitat but eat selected surplus. Meet with some 20 specialists of different fields and in one month you will see Montana completely different!.
In previous replies I just mentioned some webs of architecture initiatives because for introduce the rest I must upload all the Ronda project, so this is way I invited everybody to download it, because in other way I must coming back to it continuously to initiate a new comment or answer. Just let me suggest that around 80 pages and 35 maps are showed for solve only one of the points signalled in the study referred in the first paragraph of this reply (Great Mountain Corridor (Initiative presentation) - Apeldoorn, September 2005 (English)) before develop general architectural proposals.
So invite the rest of participants to see it before continuing about the possibilities concerning big scale city planning (a friend told me the automatic translators works each time better, and I have not confidence in my English for precise translations).
I´d like add some ideas more to the forum, after I finished my head has been still working even if I wanted stop.
In past times architecture was intensive in human force, now is intensive in heavy machinery and soon will be intensive in precision machinery and technology, the standardising style advances in all human fields of activity from Neolithic together with technology.
My father was aeronautical engineering and I told me that 40 years ago he coordinated 5-10.000 construction workers for build the Libyan Tripoli airport with Dragados company, but Bechtel had 100.000 in others jobs. The island of Malta was the unofficial brothel of North Africa building works for those workers who wanted go due the particularities of such societies, and island troublemakers knew that it was forbidden disturb workers.
Afterwards the big projects began use more intensive machinery and two tendencies can be appreciated: Chinese companies and workers substituted Occidental companies in Africa and Latin America in the 90´s looking at same time for natural resources while French Bouygues was first global company, and in the other hand Spanish companies focused in urban and environmental services too acting like “construction specialized” Japanese sogo soshas or Korean chaebols worldwide and now even with the crisis are first (http://www.pwfinance.net/pwf_major_projects.pdf). Chinese workers lives in temporal industrial Chinatowns specifically constructed for them without contact with the daily life of nationals that received them and West companies operates primarily in developed countries. Local construction workers in less developed countries are not massively recruited in big projects, so there is always a growing dependence not only from machinery but from formation too. This is an astonishing evolution of correlations between machinery and the different ways of integration of construction world.
But the architects did not pay this transition, they were moved decades ago from big construction companies, in the last years financial CV was looked instead of engineers.
So this prepares next urban path, architecture dominated by economists, marketing and publicists like a final consequence of the expanding model of standardising that requires, once the basic needs are meted, manage the over consume mass-machinery production through continue short –time fashions.
A very important % part of buildings and interior houses built worldwide are designed more for be seen that for be used and enjoyed, real needs that helps enable human dignity are not the priority, so decadence is a business too, and in over consume societies in fact is the main business.
So I was joking with a game word for talk about serious squander money in construction world, a high % of consume investment, that many people needs and more in crisis time.
But there is something true when I talked about the necessity of manage increasing standardising historical process, this is a neutral fact itself ( from now I am going to name “standardising” to main present architectonical aesthetic style, I am agree with WalkerArchitects that each house is unique, but if people is stressed or have a big mobility and enter in houses without seriously consider urban quarter and natural landscape then choose a house is not really different than choose between 4-5-6 models of local popular houses (the cars) with different crafts elements (the options), and then the term standardised architecture or almost mass production cities is completely real).
Clearly the human being tends to mental routines that can acquire the form too of standardised routines and from this point of view the process it self is neutral respect architecture and the rest of knowledge fields. Problem is when routine is allied with laziness but this is a social debate. What happens is that construction world (houses farms, industry, offices, energy and communication building works, etc) tends to physically reflect it because we need live and work frequently with some protection respect weather. So final visual impact of architecture and construction is proportionally bigger than % of people directly involved in it. And by the same suggestive building works can just promote (or opposite) this social dialogue through walking friendly obstacles we call buildings.
Then from this point of view is not rare that engineers moved architects from city planning if the human dimension was not a priority, and it was not because the feeling of power induced by machines power “invited” society - and society agree - to jump over traditional limits, even social like extreme ideologies of XX century showed, and shows.
Now that construction is going to be intensive in precision machinery and technology, which tendencies are coming respect standardised? I do not know the future, I just want propose some suggestions not only for architecture but for social dialogue too.
If the majority of present buildings worldwide are adapted to sustainability (i.e. redesigning plan for be more efficient energetically) there will be a boom of new jobs in construction, employing the machines precision and new technologies for adapt houses without look for constant new no sustainable consume urban fashions, I mean it will be a not “prostituted” alternative. And in countries with less possibilities to access to such ameliorations traditional alternatives can be promoted too easily precisely because there is not a previous consume chain construction dependence, I mean many things can be built ex novo because interdependence respect construction supplier is less.
In the field of continue consume fashion there is a growing tendency to use products renting services instead of buying them, this avoid continue consumer investments; the other side of the coin is pay for options that initially were free in the services, options that are not in proportion respect price, but highly proportioned respect the productivity for the business company so benefits came soon (i.e. the handy, independently of other productivities obtained by better machinery product itself). In the reply about Street Festival many industrial initiatives can be launched from this perspective putting distance between real needs and real economy.
Coming back to art and standardised architecture, I mean interior architecture, let me finish suggesting the example of an hotel that mixed standard with artisan elements, http://www.hoteles-silken.com/HPAM/index.php In some aspects can reflect inside a building what I commented in last paragraph. A standard interior building structure, an artisan interior rooms and garage, and a innovative flexible exterior building structure.
By contract rooms can not be modified by some time, so if some element is broken because daily use you must replace it but with an other original ones, and this means mix two different economical times, that typical from hand made and that form machine, a question than is logic because artisan consume products are able for mass public, apparently two contradictory worlds. The difference respect Gaudí is that he worked with the better artisans but the user public was the owner, or even the façade.
Many architects arrived in groups on Saturdays for experience the new challenge, and now many buildings like i.e. Burj Dubai are partially influenced in this initiative. The hotel rooms were mainly designed by famous architects, but not only. Now designers like Armani and others runners took the initiative, and in the next relay economist, publicist informatics and others probably are now balancing economical alternatives for adapt the idea to cheaper hotels and other buildings types, looking for new fashion, this time inside building fashions and soon facades and other urban fashions. The crisis always stands till a new productivity mine is seen, and then social – and subjective - feeling of value of daily things begins to change .In terms of sustainability choose the correct way can be fundamental for our descendents…
So I ´d like think that the game word I mentioned before is only a unseful joke because architecture is nicer without urban totems…architects are coming back to their original place in the tribe, precisely now that more and more specialized people can build the city coming back to an architecture without architects?
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erjavi
Joined: 10 Jan 2009
Posts: 229
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 5:28 pm Post subject: |
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Hi Djswan,
It is not difficult design big scale wildlife corridors. The best is begin is initiate efforts in strong points, usually mountains, studying conflictive points and measures for solve them. By instance click on (http://obrasocial.caixacatalunya.es/osocial/redirect.html?link=http://obrasocial.caixacatalunya.es/CDA/ObraSocial/Home/0,3423,3x2y,00.html then click on “Biological Corridors Cantabric to Alps---http://donosti.geodata.es/clients/ftp/c2a/ , and then click on Great Mountain Corridor (Initiative presentation) - Apeldoorn, September 2005 (English)
Netherlands is an important exception respect mountain corridors http://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/2006/NB2006NationalEcologicalNetworkAndNatura2000.html, ant there are other initiatives at continental level http://www.eeconet.org/eeconet/peen/factsheet5.pdf , http://www.ecnc.org/completed-projects_37.html?action=detail&id=52 , http://www.countdown2010.net/archive/paneuropean.html
In Ronda study I focused first in the wildest area, located between Ronda and the sea, it is a mountain corridor between Gibraltar and Pyrenees following the coast. Afterwards I focused in how linked this mountain corridor with the parallel one of Sierra Morena, crossing many agricultural lands between cities, and the final idea was consider all the territory like a flexible wildlife corridor; in Spain we exploited from milleniumns the Mediterranean forest opening and closing it continuously without destroy it, so we have agricultural lands, ranching, pigs exploitation, hunting, mushrooms, migratory cattle, etc, without loss general dampness. When forest is opened we call it dehesa (pasture, meadow). In Ronda study the final idea consists in convert the dehesa into an open-air greenhouse mixing the dessert agricultural techniques developed in Almería and others (the biggest European vegetable garden) without use chemicals or transgenic, promoting a Mediterranean jungle irrigating it like a dessert. So once you know the surrounding of the city you already know the areas where the wildlife corridors continue and the different levels of complexity. My conclusion is that dynamic of soils micro organisms is so complex and valuable that no one golf camp must be built there, is one of these Global and European strategic points.
After leave Ronda I came back to Madrid and I got a map of the city region. With the experience I got in Ronda I was able to design a green belt surrounding the city in 30 minutes, completely different than conventional, usually focused in gardening. After three hours I designed some sketches about how let pass a lynx without feel observed. The region has 6 million inhabitants now. You can even do more but, like a golf camp in Ronda, is force the situation.
Between Boston and New York there are many little portions of virgin forests and agro-ecological lands together with marginal rocky areas, rivers of different sizes and others where the potential of soil micro organisms is stronger. Let them work helping them and you will see that your action respect nature is like begin a chain reaction of an atomic bomb of life, the result is not proportional no initial effort (and opposite).
Aprox. in 1530 the Basque fisherman arrived Terranova (http://www.heritage.nf.ca/exploration/basque.html) looking for more possibilities. In XIX century most of the whales at the European side of Atlantic was eliminated (not only for them, http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eubalaena_glacialis ) and people thought the specie was exterminated in North Atlantic. Fortunately some hundred of exemplars continue living and emigrating through the USA coasts, in a “human” corridor not so far dangerous to that described from Boston to New York. Some years ago I proposed some ecologists initiate a media campaign asking public about what was necessary made for eat these whales in a Basque restaurant again, and they looked surprised to me. The idea was not “do not touch these last whales” but how Atlantic societies can promote their development successfully for not only expand their population and habitat but eat selected surplus. Meet with some 20 specialists of different fields and in one month you will see Montana completely different!.
In previous replies I just mentioned some webs of architecture initiatives because for introduce the rest I must upload all the Ronda project, so this is way I invited everybody to download it, because in other way I must coming back to it continuously to initiate a new comment or answer. Just let me suggest that around 80 pages and 35 maps are showed for solve only one of the points signalled in the study referred in the first paragraph of this reply (Great Mountain Corridor (Initiative presentation) - Apeldoorn, September 2005 (English)) before develop general architectural proposals.
So invite the rest of participants to see it before continuing about the possibilities concerning big scale city planning (a friend told me the automatic translators works each time better, and I have not confidence in my English for precise translations).
I´d like add some ideas more to the forum, after I finished my head has been still working even if I wanted stop.
In past times architecture was intensive in human force, now is intensive in heavy machinery and soon will be intensive in precision machinery and technology, the standardising style advances in all human fields of activity from Neolithic together with technology.
My father was aeronautical engineering and I told me that 40 years ago he coordinated 5-10.000 construction workers for build the Libyan Tripoli airport with Dragados company, but Bechtel had 100.000 in others jobs. The island of Malta was the unofficial brothel of North Africa building works for those workers who wanted go due the particularities of such societies, and island troublemakers knew that it was forbidden disturb workers.
Afterwards the big projects began use more intensive machinery and two tendencies can be appreciated: Chinese companies and workers substituted Occidental companies in Africa and Latin America in the 90´s looking at same time for natural resources while French Bouygues was first global company, and in the other hand Spanish companies focused in urban and environmental services too acting like “construction specialized” Japanese sogo soshas or Korean chaebols worldwide and now even with the crisis are first (http://www.pwfinance.net/pwf_major_projects.pdf). Chinese workers lives in temporal industrial Chinatowns specifically constructed for them without contact with the daily life of nationals that received them and West companies operates primarily in developed countries. Local construction workers in less developed countries are not massively recruited in big projects, so there is always a growing dependence not only from machinery but from formation too. This is an astonishing evolution of correlations between machinery and the different ways of integration of construction world.
But the architects did not pay this transition, they were moved decades ago from big construction companies, in the last years financial CV was looked instead of engineers.
So this prepares next urban path, architecture dominated by economists, marketing and publicists like a final consequence of the expanding model of standardising that requires, once the basic needs are meted, manage the over consume mass-machinery production through continue short –time fashions.
A very important % part of buildings and interior houses built worldwide are designed more for be seen that for be used and enjoyed, real needs that helps enable human dignity are not the priority, so decadence is a business too, and in over consume societies in fact is the main business.
So I was joking with a game word for talk about serious squander money in construction world, a high % of consume investment, that many people needs and more in crisis time.
But there is something true when I talked about the necessity of manage increasing standardising historical process, this is a neutral fact itself ( from now I am going to name “standardising” to main present architectonical aesthetic style, I am agree with WalkerArchitects that each house is unique, but if people is stressed or have a big mobility and enter in houses without seriously consider urban quarter and natural landscape then choose a house is not really different than choose between 4-5-6 models of local popular houses (the cars) with different crafts elements (the options), and then the term standardised architecture or almost mass production cities is completely real).
Clearly the human being tends to mental routines that can acquire the form too of standardised routines and from this point of view the process it self is neutral respect architecture and the rest of knowledge fields. Problem is when routine is allied with laziness but this is a social debate. What happens is that construction world (houses farms, industry, offices, energy and communication building works, etc) tends to physically reflect it because we need live and work frequently with some protection respect weather. So final visual impact of architecture and construction is proportionally bigger than % of people directly involved in it. And by the same suggestive building works can just promote (or opposite) this social dialogue through walking friendly obstacles we call buildings.
Then from this point of view is not rare that engineers moved architects from city planning if the human dimension was not a priority, and it was not because the feeling of power induced by machines power “invited” society - and society agree - to jump over traditional limits, even social like extreme ideologies of XX century showed, and shows.
Now that construction is going to be intensive in precision machinery and technology, which tendencies are coming respect standardised? I do not know the future, I just want propose some suggestions not only for architecture but for social dialogue too.
If the majority of present buildings worldwide are adapted to sustainability (i.e. redesigning plan for be more efficient energetically) there will be a boom of new jobs in construction, employing the machines precision and new technologies for adapt houses without look for constant new no sustainable consume urban fashions, I mean it will be a not “prostituted” alternative. And in countries with less possibilities to access to such ameliorations traditional alternatives can be promoted too easily precisely because there is not a previous consume chain construction dependence, I mean many things can be built ex novo because interdependence respect construction supplier is less.
In the field of continue consume fashion there is a growing tendency to use products renting services instead of buying them, this avoid continue consumer investments; the other side of the coin is pay for options that initially were free in the services, options that are not in proportion respect price, but highly proportioned respect the productivity for the business company so benefits came soon (i.e. the handy, independently of other productivities obtained by better machinery product itself). In the reply about Street Festival many industrial initiatives can be launched from this perspective putting distance between real needs and real economy.
Coming back to art and standardised architecture, I mean interior architecture, let me finish suggesting the example of an hotel that mixed standard with artisan elements, http://www.hoteles-silken.com/HPAM/index.php In some aspects can reflect inside a building what I commented in last paragraph. A standard interior building structure, an artisan interior rooms and garage, and a innovative flexible exterior building structure.
By contract rooms can not be modified by some time, so if some element is broken because daily use you must replace it but with an other original ones, and this means mix two different economical times, that typical from hand made and that form machine, a question than is logic because artisan consume products are able for mass public, apparently two contradictory worlds. The difference respect Gaudí is that he worked with the better artisans but the user public was the owner, or even the façade.
Many architects arrived in groups on Saturdays for experience the new challenge, and now many buildings like i.e. Burj Dubai are partially influenced in this initiative. The hotel rooms were mainly designed by famous architects, but not only. Now designers like Armani and others runners took the initiative, and in the next relay economist, publicist informatics and others probably are now balancing economical alternatives for adapt the idea to cheaper hotels and other buildings types, looking for new fashion, this time inside building fashions and soon facades and other urban fashions. The crisis always stands till a new productivity mine is seen, and then social – and subjective - feeling of value of daily things begins to change .In terms of sustainability choose the correct way can be fundamental for our descendents…
So I ´d like think that the game word I mentioned before is only a unseful joke because architecture is nicer without urban totems…architects are coming back to their original place in the tribe, precisely now that more and more specialized people can build the city coming back to an architecture without architects?
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erjavi
Joined: 10 Jan 2009
Posts: 229
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| Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 5:27 am Post subject: on holidays |
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I am going to be out of internet two weeks, after Ronda project and further developments in this forum and others I am exhaust. I´d like request moderators for delete one of the two previous replies that are repeated, I ´m sorry I was tired and I did not manage well. Thank you very much.
So just mention about standardism and sustainability the example of Earl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harley_Earl ) . Ceo Sloan recruited this designer for GM and USA cars were deeply aesthetically influenced by this team. Earl growth in family car business specialized on cars for Hollywood celebrities, big ones that remembered the horse-drawn vehicles, like the rest of industry did initially. But other countries have not so easy disposal of oil - in comparison i.e. with Texas resources – and the urban distances and population density were not similar to that of U.S., so slowly they downsized motor capacity and total size of vehicles.
Sustainability works at long term so the increasing bill of oil helped minimize cars and consume, and now this type of vehicles are dominant, and more in a populated world where urban transport methods must reconcile with a collpased urban networks.
The Sloan decission was correct in general terms, some years ago the Wall Street Journal examined which of the first 100 USA companies present in Dow Jones in 1900 were still operating, and GM was between them. Modern industrial companies are measured in decades or even in few centuries, and from this point of view the initiative was succesful ( I read once in Guinness Book of Records than the world older continue company was a british fisherie, around 1.000 years working), even there is a Sloan Management School at MIT.
Ford Motor company remains still strong and after popularized standardism (but not initiated, Chandler talked of Remington and others at the end of XVIII century, and ancient Greeks knew water vapour force through Heron of Alexandria and Romans began used mass production methods in a factory located in the French Mediterranean coast like I read once in Scientific American, but they desestimated because with mass production force of slaves these advances were innecesary) reshaping to green the paradigma can be the next challenge,no black cars, no green, but sustainable and maneuverable in collpased urban areas than still do not talk with wildlife corridors.
If Earl began again, which urban decission could him consider?
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erjavi
Joined: 10 Jan 2009
Posts: 229
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| Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:31 pm Post subject: General movement and standardised architecture |
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Hello again!
Thinking in surfing on climate change tsunamis I do not saw those are collateral effects of the bigger one, the way we manage territory, in other words the way we move on territory.
Some year ago I worked in around 100 companies of 4 continents in Madrid in temporal blue-white collar jobs so I introduced in many buildings usually are not so easy to enter, in these times I was not thinking on architecture and conversation with people was spontaneous an without any intention. Usually people loves break routine, specially with new people, overall in they do not work in the same field. Conversation after conversation and operation of loading and unloading after operation I began obtain some conclusions about general traffic of commodities inside buildings, so I am going now to downsize a little bit more urban tools.
Again the fix an flexible/moving debate. Most of ancient office buildings were designed for move new things installing heavies pieces of furniture in bright ventilate opened spaces connected with narrow corridors, a fix and solid building, just opposite to technology, fashion initiatives dominant today. Because many companies o not want move from centre they focused on interior design getting big standardised pieces of modern furniture dismantled.
Office automation machines have sometimes difficulties for be introduced and in general there is a bigger traffic of commodities inside the building.
This last aspect has relation too with the fact that in modern cities once the basic needs of population are meted new necessities are developed thanks to the growing capacity of all machines presents in the country, so productivity or marginal increase of productivity tends to be secondary respect fashion and marketing and it means that a non stop queue of new materials or accessories are introduced in buildings (both offices and residential) for remain there few time. Maybe the number of machines in a office are similar now respect a century ago, but it is sure in general commodities experiment a shorter period of use; of course the proportion of machines and commodities with destiny to residential buildings is much bigger respect offices and respect past. A increasing % of final products of factories are not destined to basic infrastructures, buildings and general services but they finished in houses and stores.
Together with the traffic and the necessity of employ less time to acquire more things, I mean for manage and increasing traffic of people and commodities in a bigger area the factories and malls went out of the city. Downtowns tends to specialize on flow of people (office, conventions, hotels, in this last case remember that aerial flights and global tourism grows in % always over general economic indicators) focusing on public transport so a part of the cities (the surroundings) tends to be collapsed of things and other part (the centre) ten to be collapsed of people.
But the necessity of permanent image in this growing carnival of appearances help actively to design awfully the interior of building spaces, I mean crazy internal logistic, worst healthy conditions camouflaged of technology and others, so buildings are each time more a permanent mask than a comfortable environment, “To live or survive, that is the question”. It remember this old and known fact that usually many people for dress elegant use uncomfortable garments instead of be natural.
In this sense initiatives that tends to facilitate and simplify general traffic inside a building will be successful if the empty place are not used for introduce new commodities, I mean in a collapsed space the quality of life can have some relation with design thinking in empty spaces more than in occupied. And what is more if the elements used are removable instead of use and throw, better. It is a pity that I worked few time in a enterprise because they built a new headquarter without use paper, a proposal of an architect office, but in the other hand was great because finally was a fraud, Afinsa (dedicated to stamp commerce), and despite the jokes about where the “other” papers gone it is true that was impressive look an office full of people without any paper, including back office.
Which is the feedback that usually receives architects? If I have confidence in the comments of daily users, conclusion is that is really few. You can not imagine how many icon buildings are issued on media just for architects, because interior design is more an obstacle than a pleasure for make daily job, and these office buildings designed in removable modules often lacks of any aesthetic. Is suggest to architects get a white-blue collar costume for introduce a week inside a projected building and hear and balance, it is true that sometimes people is famous but there alternatives to Groucho Marx masks for keep distance, i.e. nauseating eau de toilettes, begin manipulate dirty things and so, and if somebody still suspicions of you just begin talk with passion about the necessity of a general increase of taxes, virtues of rival sport team or similar and soon you will be alone, because like ancient Spanish writer Quevedo said nobody will see you but the evil, but if still there is someone with his/her eyes fixed on you then you are lost: is the competence. Should be nice see again architects inside the city, like engineers adapting machines to people creativity (and not opposite) together with crafts, and the urban coming wave of designers, marketing and others fit the correct atmosphere for each occasion.
General Neolithic - historical blind/neutral Standardised process usually is guided by poor human perspectives but, despite the misunderstandings, the situation is solved generation after generation:
A recent report (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/03/jaguars/white-text ) shows how jaguar needs space (I am thinking too in a cartoon about a animal discussion in a zoo), the Paseo Pantera was promoted in Mesoamerica because wiyhout jaguars herbivorous destroy quickly the jungle, hurricanes are more destructive, plagues appears and general dampness falls. This feline always is moving so there are not subspecies, it is like a continuous cleaner of surplus of jungle. In the issue commented there are maps with continental wildlife corridors to be protected. If you see carefully local, regional or worldwide maps is possible find that luxury real state sector and vineyards are making new maps for future locations adapted to climate change before biologists does…and which architect is going to refuse build a dream? That is way is urgent reconcile both plans, natural and human and I put natural before for stop destroy nature instead of dominate it. If not standardised process tsunami can be worst than natural ones.
Bud oriented standard waves moved – and this is the historical price to pay for all professionals if they refuse their own place -, between others, artisans, architects, engineers, and coming stars, economist, designers, marketing staff and others will be moved too in benefit of operators, maintenance workers and again artisans. In a French movie called the “Castle of my mother”, inspired in XIX or beginning XX century one of the protagonists commented something like a revolution is a complete round so you finish in the place you started, and from this point of view many trips are not productive.
Be out of the wheel of historical human laziness let get a so pleasant perspective of life.
I am political scientist and writer, not architect, I have not idea about architecture with the exception of two-three projects including that of Ronda, many of my urban culture is that of one pedestrian. I ´d like comment than there is a conflictive point near Ronda, a building work recycling plant at 1400 meters over sea level that recycles very things and is over an underground water distributor that affects potentially to three million persons. Finally some people of the city brought water to a Catalonia university and results fortunately was ok, a second opportunity.
But is not an half for leave old countryside dryer attitudes worldwide and solve successfully the architectonical challenge I posted in previous replies; and there are not university or school in the world who teaches big scale sustainable landscaper, there are not manual, and there are many destructives/suicide routines in nature´s management worldwide.
Great. I think if I chosen be elephant fitness trainer I found more opportunities. Despite all I must wait now, but experience shows me that there always people with initiative: I´d like thank to that people of Ronda for their initiative, to Marcelo Corti (http://www.cafedelasciudades.com.ar/ ) and the staff Archis/Abitare (http://www.archis.org/ there is no report because the water analysis fortunately is ok) - specially Arjen Oosterman and Amir Djalali - for be interested not only in the project Llley itself but their interest on social aspects of architecture too like this I mentioned and others like speculation, and to those that already are analysing the work (Foster and Partners, Adif, British Telecom, tourism media, architectural congresses, politechnical universities, regional and urban authorities, particulars…till 220 aprox now) and to those which are open to extend architectonical dialog on sustainability like Alberto Gorbatt (http://www.arqa.com/?p=225892).
Because I am an ignorant already many people pass me once they saw the studio like I suppose you are doing too after see some web I reported. In fact I invited to many professionals worldwide to visit this discussion. For those who want launch similar initiatives about reconcile natural and human plan of territory a good opportunity could be i.e. http://www.countdown2010.net/ because already you can form a route map of populations that are interested in reconcile both, and note than for work in environmental matters the solidarity is bigger than in other fields because if not final result is unproductive. In the oceans could be interesting launch initiatives similar to interrail (http://www.interrailnet.com/?gclid=CIXO4870m5kCFVCS3wodvgqVDQ ) or youth hostel (http://www.hihostels.com/web/about.en.htm ) for better understanding of people, i.e. “yatchhostel” or similars, helping cleaning plastic bags, get bio or climate change data, etc.
Wow! The standardised tsunami was really bigger but now, after drink sangria and eat paella it is time for siesta.
Rrrrrrrrrrrzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Rrrrrrrrrrrrzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Oh! I am sorry, somebody knows where the party continues?
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erjavi
Joined: 10 Jan 2009
Posts: 229
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| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 6:34 pm Post subject: net study instead of case study |
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A Netherlands eco-consultants asked me in parallel forum (my email) the following questions, and because the answers can be interesting for generalize I write some lines here too.
“Are you working with LCA yourself as well?
Which part of the discussion did you think was especially helpfull for us?”
“What you are reading in the forum is the minor part, more focused on house structures in urban areas. The ideas and webs I manage for countryside, soil regeneration and others forms a different paradigm because the wildlife corridors itself are managed and moved too for help soil restoration ( (http://www.caapaisajistas.org.ar/noticias/propuesta-del-territorio-como-corredor-ecologico-movil/), although in extreme industrial conditions the contaminated soil could be treated with ecomachines ( http://www.toddecological.com/eco-machines/). For more information you can see the dynamic of soil microorganisms in an area of 200km north -south and 100km east west in a climate change context, which is explained at Llley Project. (220 pages an 90 maps an fotographs), http://historiadeunrescate.iespana.es Paisajismo Sostenible, Proyecto Llley.
Respect urban areas, tendency like chemical active cements for self cleaning walls are interesting, but in general the biology is going to "colonize" not only machines but concrete too, so each time more LCA will be a net case rather than a study case.
Please pay attention to Countdown2010 if they launch continental real initiatives.”
I add now that like longer “talking buildings” let map the expectancy of life of city, suburbia or village, soil uses can be mapped too. In some cases with gardening and other measures will be sufficient. In others, like the surroundings of cities, wildlife corridors can play a bigger role. When I told in other reply I designed a lynx corridor surrounding Madrid I was not exact, in fact the corridor advances between southern cities-suburbia and the main city, with presence of industry, and following course waters. The idea is expand the potent dehesa of El Pardo for initiate the belt (in Spanish http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_de_El_Pardo ), developing new urban residential forms and public observatories camouflaged, in an area still few developed.
So is impossible and unproductive follow the old paradigm of case study, a fix paradigm. That is way preliminary interdisciplinary job must be launched before, avoiding at same time the continuous unemployment for those professionals that do not adapt to changes or are not sufficiently promoted. Dynamic paradigms requires different team processes.
Please note than even wildlife corridors are mapped but usually are not internally dynamic mapped. If you see the image of the Netherlands wildlife corridors http://www.mnp.nl/mnc/i-en-1298.html try to select only indispensable 10%, the critics ones.
Which criteria use to select?:
first those which keep the general dampness (usually forests in mountains, or jungles, but in this case we are talking of a delta)
second highways of ants, bees, worms, mushrooms, flow of umbrella terrestrial-aerial animals, etc, which promotes internal dynamic of soil micro organisms, and the vegetation associated to them.
Third, those places were traditional interaction between humans and nature produces a mutual symbiosis, but it is rare that these places can be found in the critical 10% (there is map I commented of IUCN but I did not found reference, in which is seen how the locations where cultural-historical and natural places meets are more resistant to menaces, comment now too than although cittaslow initiative, http://www.cittaslow.net/sezioni/Rete%20Internazionale/ is not focused in wildlife corridors, is true than german slow cities in Schwarzwald area try to extend the city philosophy to their hinterlands, like Heike Mayer and Paul Knox of Virginia University reported).
Etc, in Llley Project you can see more guidelines.
But in this exceptional case probably water courses are main guideline, and in fact the bigger risk is the construction of dams (is reported the worrying long term consequences over the soil resistance of lands of Nile Delta some decades after the construction of Assuan dam, try imagine future situation in India and China (8-9 functions for dams are proposed in Project Llley in contrast with 2 traditional, I mean electricity and water irrigation) and the minimal scale dams that forms the little obstacles that do no let progress the fractal structure of the river, the water skeleton of the life.
Once internal dynamic of wildlife corridor are mapped at lower scale and soil deteriorate is mapped too is easy manage the case inside the net case.
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