Dan Graham

Daniel "Dan" Graham (born March 31, 1942) is an American artist, writer, and curator.

 

From wikipedia:
"Dan Graham’s artworks are said to blur the line between sculpture and architecture. Since the 1980s, Graham has been working on an ongoing series of freestanding, sculptural objects called pavilions; they represent a hybrid between a quasi-functional space and an installation that serves to expose processes of perception and certain expectations."

Beatriz Colomina - Double Exposure: Architecture as a Machine to See

This lecture by Beatriz Colomina, hosted at the Architectural Association in 2011, explores architecture and photography as machines to see. The lecture was part of a series which addressed the photographic rationalisation and depiction of architectural space and its role as a tool for deciphering the urban environment. i think it would be highly relevant to several of your projects. 

Please have a look by following this link: Beatriz Colomina - Double Exposure: Architecture as a Machine to See

You can check out more great lectures from the AA archive online here:http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/public/audiovisual/videoarchive.php

Tract House - Wes Jones

Below are a selection of drawings and models which describe the 'Tract House'. A project completed in 1987 by Los Angeles based Architect Wes Jones. Jones' work is widely published and a vast amount of information is available on his website:http://www.jonespartners.com/ . This project and others by Jones are featured in the seminal Building: Machines  edition of Pamphlet Architecture.

 

  

 

 

 

  

 

The work of Wes Jones explores a highly technological architecture and suggests technology is a means to enhance our engagement with the world. Consider how mechanical and instrumental architectural components might interact with and respond to the animate site conditions you have observed and the dynamic processes of occupation associated with the use of your buildings. How could such an architecture engage with the  processes of change and transformation which characterise your sites?

Neil Denari

Below are a selection of early works by Los Angles based Architect and former Director of SCI-ARC Neil Denari. More of Denari's early work can be found in the seminal Building: Machines edition of Pamphlet Architecture as well as the monograph Gyroscopic Horizons. Examples of Recent work can be found on his website: http://www.nmda-inc.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Images from here 

Olafur Eliasson

 

Here are a selection of works by Olafur Eliasson. From wikipedia: "Olafur Eliasson (born 1967 in Copenhagen, Denmark) is a Danish-Icelandic artist known for sculptures and large-scale installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer’s experience. In 1995 he established Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, a laboratory for spatial research. Eliasson represented Denmark at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 and later that year installed The Weather Project in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern, London."

 

Check out more works here: http://www.olafureliasson.net/works.html

 

 

 

Consider how the spatial implications of these material investigations might relate to your own studies. How might ideas explored in these works inform the experiential characteristics of your propositions?

The Blur Building - Diller & Scofidio + Renfro

The Blur Building was designed by Diller & Scofidio + Renfro for the Swiss Association Expo 2001 in Yverdon-les-Bains. More information can be found on Diller & Scofidio + Renfro's website: http://www.dsrny.com/

"The Blur Building was a temporary media pavilion built for the 2002 Swiss Expo in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland. Rising out of Lake Neuchatel, a system of rectilinear struts and diagonal rods cantilevered over the water. The rods were fitted with over 30,000 fog nozzles shooting a fine mist pulled from the lake and controlled with a complex weather system. This fog created a man-made cloud that encompassed the metal framework to create the illusion of a vaporous building measuring 300 ft. wide and 65 ft. high."
From here

Consider how your propositions might imaginatively appropriate the phenomenological, spatial and experiential qualities of materials not ordinarily associated with conventional building construction

Slow House - Diller Scofidio

The Slow House, a weekend retreat on the Long Island waterfront designed in 1989 for a Japanese Art Investor, is a seminal project by New York based Architects Diller + Scofidio 

'Our client came to us and said he wanted a house with a view,' Diller recalls. That request provoked them to explore the very notion of a view -- for instance, the evolution of the picture window and the terminology in real-estate ads. 'Why is architecture a technology that creates a view?' Diller recounts. 'Because it mediates it with a window frame.' The couple argued that the picture window represents a more advanced technology than the video display -- 'because it strips away the hardware that you have on a TV monitor and leaves only the effect'
From here

 

 

Above, TV in Picture Window Apparatus
"In this drawing, the architects juxtapose images of the view with the plan of the house - a house that captures the view in both the real and virtual senses. The architects how the "view may be recorded and deferred.. day played back at night, fair weather played back in fol. The view is also portable; it can be transmitted to different locations in the house or back to the primary residence in the city."
From here

Consider how ideas related to the occupants passage through the architecture and the associated mediation of visual relationships with the building's context might be relevant within the context of your own design work.
 

Rintala Eggertsson Architects - Element House

The Element House by Rintala Eggertsson Architects. From the Architects website:

 

" The larger main space is a cubical space made of steel. It leads to four smaller wooden rooms situated in four different levels, from a cellar to an attic. Each small space includes a suggestion for use and the symbolic presence of one of the basic elements (fire, water, air, earth). The chosen main materials, rusty steel and wood, imitate the colors of the surrounding nature. The project wishes to create an inner world where memories and even dreams may have their moment and place. It is bringing together an archetype of a house, movement in space and the expression of four basic elements into a three-dimensional collage."

 

Consider how ideas expressed in this structure might relate to the conversations we had on Thursday regarding the different material and experiential potentials of your propositions, the thresholds between internal and external conditions, the manipulation of natural light, the visual and physical relationships between components of your proposal and the sequential experience of progressing through the building...