Raimund Abraham

Below are a selection of works by Austrian Architect Raimund Abraham (1933 –2010). Consider how the tactile qualities of the drawings could inform the ways that you describe the material and experiential qualities of your proposal. Here are some of Lebbeus Woods' thoughts on Abraham's work.

Gunther Domenig - Steinhaus

Gunther Domenig (6 July 1934 – 15 June 2012) was an Austrian Architect.

From Lebbeus Wood's blog:

"More than twenty years ago, Günther Domenig began to build a house for himself on a narrow sliver of lakeside property in the mountains of Carinthia, Austria. He conceived it as a work of architecture limited only by his imagination and skill, at once a manifesto and an experiment, the outcome of which he could not be sure of at the beginning. The structure grew year by year, piece by piece, following an ever-evolving set of sketches and technical drawings, and was financed from his own architectural practice in Graz. When he had a little extra money, he put it into the construction. While the building is called a house, it was never intended as a residence. In fact, Domenig, when he lived at the site over the years, stayed in a small, box-like metal trailer away from the house, not wanting, perhaps, to confuse its purposes. It’s sole purpose was to be architecture."

All photos from here

Enric Miralles - Scottish Parliament

Below are some images of the Stirling Prize winning Scottish Parliament building by Enric Miralles. Please familiarize yourself  with this building and Miralles' other works. Consider how ideas explored and expressed in the design might relate to your own propositions. Think about how the form of the building relates to, expresses and engages with its physical context. Consider the variety of spatial conditions which the architecture generates, the use of various construction technologies, the buildings material and experiential qualities and the resolution of detailed design. 

Plan above from wikipedia

Diller + Scofidio - Flesh

Here a few drawings from Diller + Scofidio. Check out their seminal publication - 'Flesh'.  The book describes a selection of fantastic projects including the Slow House (posted earlier on the blog). Please take a trip to the library and have a look....

Mark West & C.A.S.T

"Mark West has taught architecture at a number of universities throughout North America since 1981, while working as an artist, inventor, and independent researcher. His inventions of flexible formworks for reinforced concrete construction have been central to establishing this as a new field of architectural and construction research. He is the Founding Director of C.A.S.T, the Centre for Architectural Structures and Technology, at the University of Manitoba (Winnipeg MB) where he is an Associate Professor of Architecture."

 

"The Centre for Architectural Structures and Technology is an architectural research laboratory that embraces both the poetic and technical dimensions of architectural design. The work of C.A.S.T. seeks new boundaries for creative thought, design, and building technology. We do this work through physical explorations of materials, tools and building methods, the study of natural law, and the free play of imagination"

"Work at CAST generally begins with relatively small physical models made with “analog” materials (plaster to model concrete, paper or plastic sheets to model sheet metal, etc,). These models allow us to play with combinations of materials, tools, and processes, and to think about how the forms and ideas found might be extended to full-scale design and construction. This method relies on the “intelligence” of the materials themselves for clues to the architectural potential they may hold. This is a fertile and practical method of invention and discovery, particularly well suited to architectural research aimed at real constructions"

DRAWINGS:

 

"These drawings by Mark West are selected from a larger body of work done over the past 30 years. Along with allied speculative works of art, these drawings are an integral part of the fabric formwork research. These graphite drawings, sometimes made on top of photo-collages, and sometimes made on white paper, follow original techniques of discovery and invention where form and space are found rather than strictly “composed”. The article, The Arrival of Form describes some of these techniques and their bearing on the technical research which owes its existence to this exploratory drawing practice"

All text ans images from the C.A.S.T website