Tuesday 11 October 2011
Digital Urban: Crowd Sourced 3D Modelling?
Digital Urban: Crowd Sourced 3D Modelling?: At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Intel CEO Paul Otellini demoed how the company's processors are being used to render a 3D ...
Wednesday 5 October 2011
24 hour economy - Smithfield Market
4am at Smithfield Market
It would be too easy to slip into an analogy of the city as a body when studying sites such as Smithfield. The stomach of the city. 800 years as the meat centre of London, it still transforms into a thriving hub each night, butchering huge carcasses that arrive (the live cattle used to be driven down the Farringdon Road into the heart of the city for the slaughter), now in refrigerator lorries, and trimming them down to manageable parts to be sold "front of house" in the aisles running axially through the market. Buyers come direct from their restaurants around London, and further, after they close - purchase the meat and the whole area shuts down again just in time for the commuters to start arriving at 7am. The blood splattered men in hard hats and welly boots are only disturbed in their work by annoying photographers and trashed clubbers stumbling out of Fabric.
Saturday 1 October 2011
Friday 30 September 2011
Olympics behind the scenes
I was lucky enough to get a behind the scenes tour of the Olympic Park with the head planner from the Olympic Delivery Authority, and a bunch of planners and reps from major sponsors (me and Joe snuck in around the back)... not quite as impressive as some of the press shots, because access and security limited everything but here are some of the views.
Above - the power centre, turned out quite nice
Above - the media centre, 10 full size film studios over 1m sq ft of space. Unfortunately the elements which distinguish it from a warehouse are the cooling units for all the equipment (below) which will all be removed after the Games as it will be turned into standard office units.
Above - Berlin, 1947
The Pringle
Media Centre from afar
The centre of the site is taken up with a valley and gardens around the existing route of the River Lea
West Ham?
Blurgh
Olympic site official blurb
Coverage of the Olympic site - couldn't agree more about the athlete village... they seemed to be designed completely in the opposite sense of the Hopkin's architect talking about the velodrome... "its all about after the Games"... They're very unimaginative and boring. Should have got that mad Danish bloke from BIG to do them...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15116027
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15116027
Wednesday 7 September 2011
Rosteague, Cornwall
Tuesday 6 September 2011
London from up high
One of the best locations to look at London, and not a single other person there... amazing. Paramount at lunch on a Sunday
Friday 2 September 2011
'The City in History'... the Romans
Wow, Mumford sort of hates them... he grudgingly acknowledges their technical brilliance at engineering and the manipulation of huge masses - of people, commodities and cultures, but his vitriol for the Roman state and the moral collapse that went with it is aggressive.
The early Roman city was not so different from other conurbations at the time, among the many Greek colonies spread through Italy and the Etruscan settlements they followed. It was later that the might of the Imperial Empire had spread around the Mediterranean that Rome really developed it uniqueness and originality in the ancient world - the city of the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus.
Rome acted as a huge magnet, dragging in people, ideas, food, commodities and even victims for the gladiatorial shows. Mumford says that it quickly became a parasitic relationship, with Rome - the focus of the Empire - leeching from the productive gains around its regions. The population of Rome, the mob, were largely housed in horrific tenements up to 10 stories high, the product of profiteering land owners. Mumford argues that as the metropolis grew, engorging itself on the feast of Empire, the conditions for many of its inhabitants worsened as the density increased. These vast tenements blocks fermented anger, resentment and revolt periodically and the ruling elite, rather than solve the fundamental problems with social equality, better housing and genuine justice, (predictably) opted to buy the population off with bread, circus entertainment and glamourous shows of military might.
Mumford's argument is that the brutalising affects of the urban metropolis lead to a culture that revelled in seeing other's humiliation, torture and death as a distraction from their own. While your life may be horrific, at least you're not being torn apart by lions... It was also a visceral experience which allowed the population to experience a touch of the 'real' as a distinction from the shallow materiality of Roman existence, which glorified the body and little else. He also likens this to today's culture - again considering he was writing in the 1970's - of searching for visceral experience in sport, violent films, porn... and the gratuitous and hypocritical exposition of people in tabloid press. We all love to hear and read about people's humiliations and failings..."they deserve it"... why is that?
So, as with the decaying Greek cities, which increased in grandeur as their moral life collapsed, Rome glorified itself with stadia and circuses, and other incredibly dominant public buildings as the vitality and energy which had originally propelled it to expand, died away.
The early Roman city was not so different from other conurbations at the time, among the many Greek colonies spread through Italy and the Etruscan settlements they followed. It was later that the might of the Imperial Empire had spread around the Mediterranean that Rome really developed it uniqueness and originality in the ancient world - the city of the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus.
Rome acted as a huge magnet, dragging in people, ideas, food, commodities and even victims for the gladiatorial shows. Mumford says that it quickly became a parasitic relationship, with Rome - the focus of the Empire - leeching from the productive gains around its regions. The population of Rome, the mob, were largely housed in horrific tenements up to 10 stories high, the product of profiteering land owners. Mumford argues that as the metropolis grew, engorging itself on the feast of Empire, the conditions for many of its inhabitants worsened as the density increased. These vast tenements blocks fermented anger, resentment and revolt periodically and the ruling elite, rather than solve the fundamental problems with social equality, better housing and genuine justice, (predictably) opted to buy the population off with bread, circus entertainment and glamourous shows of military might.
Mumford's argument is that the brutalising affects of the urban metropolis lead to a culture that revelled in seeing other's humiliation, torture and death as a distraction from their own. While your life may be horrific, at least you're not being torn apart by lions... It was also a visceral experience which allowed the population to experience a touch of the 'real' as a distinction from the shallow materiality of Roman existence, which glorified the body and little else. He also likens this to today's culture - again considering he was writing in the 1970's - of searching for visceral experience in sport, violent films, porn... and the gratuitous and hypocritical exposition of people in tabloid press. We all love to hear and read about people's humiliations and failings..."they deserve it"... why is that?
Wednesday 31 August 2011
'The City in History', Lewis Mumford - part 2, The Greeks
He leaves the walled citadel cities of Mesopotamia and the riverine open cities of Egypt behind and moves on to Greece. Among an incredible array of references and concepts, he analyses how and why the Greek poleis of the 6th and 5th centuries were able to create such a wealth of exceptional figures, which he points out, has probably only been equalled by Renaissance Italy.
It is very difficult to summarise the analysis of the Greek poleis in such a short piece, but among the points he makes is that, as the cities grew, and the connection of the citizens to one another began to break down through sheer weight of numbers, certain reforms failed to materialise which would have allowed the society and the city to adapt. This allowed despots and tyrants to assume power and led to the ancient predilection for monumentalism and kingships to creep back in. Knowledge and learning shifted from active experience, face to face aggressive discussion and argument, testing of ideas through practice to theoretical development, the natural sciences and mathematics. Classifications and technical possibility.
This meant the death of a fulsome communal life in the later Greek cities, while the appearance of the cities grew in monumental appearance and style. Mumford basically says that the vibrant, organic hotchpotch of 6th/5th century BC Athens was the ultimate apogee of Greek culture, over the hollow moral shell (but outwardly far more advanced and impressive) of Periclean Athens.
He builds these points brilliantly and very succinctly and introduces absolutely killer comparisons to today's (writing in the 1970's) Western culture. You can't help but agree with his images of moral wasteland but technical mastery of environment that we now live in - a society flapping beneath the surface for a firm foothold to get some direction.
The sense you get from him of the inevitability of the rise and fall of societies is genius, and the connections to how the city can shape this, and also how this shapes the city is brilliant.
It is very difficult to summarise the analysis of the Greek poleis in such a short piece, but among the points he makes is that, as the cities grew, and the connection of the citizens to one another began to break down through sheer weight of numbers, certain reforms failed to materialise which would have allowed the society and the city to adapt. This allowed despots and tyrants to assume power and led to the ancient predilection for monumentalism and kingships to creep back in. Knowledge and learning shifted from active experience, face to face aggressive discussion and argument, testing of ideas through practice to theoretical development, the natural sciences and mathematics. Classifications and technical possibility.
This meant the death of a fulsome communal life in the later Greek cities, while the appearance of the cities grew in monumental appearance and style. Mumford basically says that the vibrant, organic hotchpotch of 6th/5th century BC Athens was the ultimate apogee of Greek culture, over the hollow moral shell (but outwardly far more advanced and impressive) of Periclean Athens.
He builds these points brilliantly and very succinctly and introduces absolutely killer comparisons to today's (writing in the 1970's) Western culture. You can't help but agree with his images of moral wasteland but technical mastery of environment that we now live in - a society flapping beneath the surface for a firm foothold to get some direction.
The sense you get from him of the inevitability of the rise and fall of societies is genius, and the connections to how the city can shape this, and also how this shapes the city is brilliant.
'The City in History', Lewis Mumford - the bible of Urbanism
Part 1 - Prehistory
The book begins with an exploration of the absolute depths of human history, a collection of pre-historic assumptions that he puts in an extremely plausible way with the little or no evidence available... he admits that there are such vast gaps in the historical record that it is impossible to judge correctly but he seems to 'reverse engineer' human society. Using contemporary (and known ancient) examples, institutions and structures, he tracks back, creating suppositions as to how human society developed, in the very first instances of settlement and transition from ranging animal hunter packs.
He examines what kind of a situation must have occurred for the very first people to settle and develop a fixed abode, and what kind of society would develop from such early sites. The development of kingship, which he supposes comes from a kind of hunter/shepherd figure who would protect the agrarian farmers from wild beasts and other dangers, springing from an original physical prowess, is examined and how it would become necessary to entrench power through the development of a religious mysticism.
One of his fundamental theories is that these early leaders, developed the first citadels which would necessarily predate the first cities. Villagers would initially pay a powerful hunter to protect their crops/herds from dangerous beasts with food, and this exchange for services - 'protection' - gradually developed into a tribute, and finally into a tax. The institution of kingship would also predate cities as this powerful elite established citadels. A focal point for their power.
He also makes the point that cities predate war. Organised, state warfare can only follow the development of urban centres he argues, as the 'original' village lifestyle (even under the 'protection' of an early king) would have been too dominated with the importance of generating enough food and shelter for the community to worry about others. Such small communities would have enough commodities around them to satisfy their own needs, but not enough man power to spare for other activities, and their use of these commodities would be so low as to not impact on other communities, say, in the next valley. It required the development of a city, with spare population capacity, wealth generation and religion to create war, he argues.
The link between kingship and religion is fundamental to the development of the ancient city, but also the relationship which most damaged its advancement, limiting it to thousands of years of internecine warfare. To a certain extent this is still the case.
The book begins with an exploration of the absolute depths of human history, a collection of pre-historic assumptions that he puts in an extremely plausible way with the little or no evidence available... he admits that there are such vast gaps in the historical record that it is impossible to judge correctly but he seems to 'reverse engineer' human society. Using contemporary (and known ancient) examples, institutions and structures, he tracks back, creating suppositions as to how human society developed, in the very first instances of settlement and transition from ranging animal hunter packs.
He examines what kind of a situation must have occurred for the very first people to settle and develop a fixed abode, and what kind of society would develop from such early sites. The development of kingship, which he supposes comes from a kind of hunter/shepherd figure who would protect the agrarian farmers from wild beasts and other dangers, springing from an original physical prowess, is examined and how it would become necessary to entrench power through the development of a religious mysticism.
One of his fundamental theories is that these early leaders, developed the first citadels which would necessarily predate the first cities. Villagers would initially pay a powerful hunter to protect their crops/herds from dangerous beasts with food, and this exchange for services - 'protection' - gradually developed into a tribute, and finally into a tax. The institution of kingship would also predate cities as this powerful elite established citadels. A focal point for their power.
He also makes the point that cities predate war. Organised, state warfare can only follow the development of urban centres he argues, as the 'original' village lifestyle (even under the 'protection' of an early king) would have been too dominated with the importance of generating enough food and shelter for the community to worry about others. Such small communities would have enough commodities around them to satisfy their own needs, but not enough man power to spare for other activities, and their use of these commodities would be so low as to not impact on other communities, say, in the next valley. It required the development of a city, with spare population capacity, wealth generation and religion to create war, he argues.
The link between kingship and religion is fundamental to the development of the ancient city, but also the relationship which most damaged its advancement, limiting it to thousands of years of internecine warfare. To a certain extent this is still the case.
Tuesday 30 August 2011
All the P's
Since my brother's wedding on the 16th July, every weekend has been off 'doing'. Now don't get me wrong, I am not complaining, it's been great, but by the end of the 'city break' in Prague I was just looking, not taking in. A brief respite follows but after that there's Portugal then Paris. I'll grit my teeth.
However, all this moving around is giving me a chance to finally get to grips with the epic "City in History" by Lewis Mumford, a tome that no normal person would have the chance to read from cover to cover without some serious time spent sitting in airport lounges. This is not a book to read on the loo, you need to spend some serious time on it, but so far its been worth it, and I'm only just up to the Romans.
Disturbingly for my architecture career, I had more enjoyment just building a log stack in my back garden just now than trying to take in all the long and varied history of Prague, in all its gothic glory. It was either the total swamping of the place in Starbucks, H&M, even Marks and Sparks, or it was just a very well constructed log stack.
However, all this moving around is giving me a chance to finally get to grips with the epic "City in History" by Lewis Mumford, a tome that no normal person would have the chance to read from cover to cover without some serious time spent sitting in airport lounges. This is not a book to read on the loo, you need to spend some serious time on it, but so far its been worth it, and I'm only just up to the Romans.
Disturbingly for my architecture career, I had more enjoyment just building a log stack in my back garden just now than trying to take in all the long and varied history of Prague, in all its gothic glory. It was either the total swamping of the place in Starbucks, H&M, even Marks and Sparks, or it was just a very well constructed log stack.
Bit of a pile
Friday 26 August 2011
Tuesday 23 August 2011
Monday 15 August 2011
Thursday 11 August 2011
Tuscany
Scenes from Tuscany,
July 2011
View from Gianpietro's house, Assisi
Assisi
Piazza del Duomo, Firenze
July 2011
Monday 8 August 2011
Friday 8 July 2011
Westminster End of Year exhibition
I just managed to sneak along on the last afternoon (some work was just starting to be taken down, so if you haven't seen it yet, you missed your chance)...
Predictably, the vast quantity of work, from so many students from such a big school gives an impressive show, but I was really unimpressed with the overall quality and the actual presentation provided. They've relied really heavily on the little white cube exhibition spaces they have up there, with little or no effort to adapt the venue to best display the work (hey, I say unimpressed, but the is NOT comparing it to LSBU).
The work generally itself was massively reliant on rendering software from almost every design studio, and the quality just wasn't there. Lots of post-apocalyptic monochrome skyscapes with Hitchcock-like flocks of birds menacing the skyline... typical student images.
Models weren't up to that much either, and the scale of the presentations was just weird. Rather than present focal pieces of work as a single panoramic or something, often it was divided up and printed on maybe 3 bits of A3... it just looked a bit tacky in places.
Predictably, the vast quantity of work, from so many students from such a big school gives an impressive show, but I was really unimpressed with the overall quality and the actual presentation provided. They've relied really heavily on the little white cube exhibition spaces they have up there, with little or no effort to adapt the venue to best display the work (hey, I say unimpressed, but the is NOT comparing it to LSBU).
The work generally itself was massively reliant on rendering software from almost every design studio, and the quality just wasn't there. Lots of post-apocalyptic monochrome skyscapes with Hitchcock-like flocks of birds menacing the skyline... typical student images.
Models weren't up to that much either, and the scale of the presentations was just weird. Rather than present focal pieces of work as a single panoramic or something, often it was divided up and printed on maybe 3 bits of A3... it just looked a bit tacky in places.
Monday 4 July 2011
RCA master show
AA summer show
UEL
Architecture School's Summer Shows
The AA's got a great show this year, especially some diploma work on the ground floor. One particular project is an epic collection of models, drawings, video, soundeffects... Creating the entire environment of the site specific to an Australian outback missile testing range in the corner of a Georgian terrace... amazing.
The work was good, and there was a good depth and breadth to the projects, but there was also a huge evidence of the support the school gives the students in terms of presenting the work they produce. Custom-built rooms within rooms, lighting, new spaces... all are provided to best show off individual projects and sometimes even individual drawings. A huge range of media and focus on the quality of the finished article was obvious. You don't get that at South Bank. There the lecturers were still haphazardly pinning up bits of work to old, whitewashed boards 5 minutes before the start of the Show. No differentiation, no attention to detail - an unreferenced splurge of work. Don't get me wrong... they didn't have much to work with.
The work was good, and there was a good depth and breadth to the projects, but there was also a huge evidence of the support the school gives the students in terms of presenting the work they produce. Custom-built rooms within rooms, lighting, new spaces... all are provided to best show off individual projects and sometimes even individual drawings. A huge range of media and focus on the quality of the finished article was obvious. You don't get that at South Bank. There the lecturers were still haphazardly pinning up bits of work to old, whitewashed boards 5 minutes before the start of the Show. No differentiation, no attention to detail - an unreferenced splurge of work. Don't get me wrong... they didn't have much to work with.
Tuesday 14 June 2011
Factoid
Currently China has more than 200 buildings over 500ft (152m) tall under construction – equivalent to the total number of existing skyscrapers in the United States.
Friday 18 March 2011
wtf?
so all of a sudden we are going to have UK jets bombing Libya? Stopping attacks against civilians? And how exactly are they going to identify a jeep full of Gaddafi's soldiers driving along a motorway from 35,000 ft? totally pointless...
We ostracise Gaddafi's terrorist state, then, when his oil infrastructure improves and he realises just how much money he can make by towing the line a little, we let him into the international club - with no improvement in the political freedoms or lack of internal repression in the country. But he's stopped bombing airliners, which is nice and given us the guy he ordered to do it, to sit in prison. And then all of a sudden it looks like we might get a democratic, non-Islamist revolution there - whoohoo - so we jump behind that and the whole thing implodes, back to square 1. Well done us, nice consistent morals we displayed there and propped up his regime as he made a few quid from the oil in the meantime.
And what about other countries that are committing human rights abuses, which we are not hearing anything about? I don't see Cameron pushing for a no-fly zone over Yemen or Bahrain. The double standards are incredible, and yet... its probably a good thing to see. It makes you realise that the world is not a nice place and that our government, along with EVERYONE else's, is looking out for their own interests.
You won't see a similar reaction in the Gulf, with Bahrain, because it would put too much pressure on Saudi, and we need the Saudis. We need their oil and we need their Sunni stability to counterbalance the threat of Iran. And if we think Gaddafi is not a nice guy, then don't it only gets worse with the Iranians government.
If there's anything to learn from this whole fucking mess, its that if we had maintained a consistent, principled stance the whole time and continued to demand political reform and freedoms for everyone in each of the countries, through the UN, with everyone using that as the proper channel, as we're supposed to do, we probably wouldn't have such a totally screwed up situation right now. We are half to blame for this whole thing and Cameron standing up there, saying "we won't stand for this kind of thing..." is just a total load of hypocritical shit.
We ostracise Gaddafi's terrorist state, then, when his oil infrastructure improves and he realises just how much money he can make by towing the line a little, we let him into the international club - with no improvement in the political freedoms or lack of internal repression in the country. But he's stopped bombing airliners, which is nice and given us the guy he ordered to do it, to sit in prison. And then all of a sudden it looks like we might get a democratic, non-Islamist revolution there - whoohoo - so we jump behind that and the whole thing implodes, back to square 1. Well done us, nice consistent morals we displayed there and propped up his regime as he made a few quid from the oil in the meantime.
And what about other countries that are committing human rights abuses, which we are not hearing anything about? I don't see Cameron pushing for a no-fly zone over Yemen or Bahrain. The double standards are incredible, and yet... its probably a good thing to see. It makes you realise that the world is not a nice place and that our government, along with EVERYONE else's, is looking out for their own interests.
You won't see a similar reaction in the Gulf, with Bahrain, because it would put too much pressure on Saudi, and we need the Saudis. We need their oil and we need their Sunni stability to counterbalance the threat of Iran. And if we think Gaddafi is not a nice guy, then don't it only gets worse with the Iranians government.
If there's anything to learn from this whole fucking mess, its that if we had maintained a consistent, principled stance the whole time and continued to demand political reform and freedoms for everyone in each of the countries, through the UN, with everyone using that as the proper channel, as we're supposed to do, we probably wouldn't have such a totally screwed up situation right now. We are half to blame for this whole thing and Cameron standing up there, saying "we won't stand for this kind of thing..." is just a total load of hypocritical shit.
Thursday 10 February 2011
After Effects...
intimidatingly complicated at the start, but I'm gradually getting to grips with it... I don't know if I want to be an architect or a director at the moment... both very easy careers obviously...
Wednesday 9 February 2011
The Shard
Is anyone else filled with an impending sense of doom by the inevitable rise of the Shard? It seems too massive, too dominant, to not have some kind of supernatural power attached to it... I sort of imagine the last double-glazed plate clicking into plate, and some kind of bad-CGI cloud effect emanating from the finished pinnacle, Zuul reborn and the end of the world or something...
Apart from the ridiculous film-set of it, when its finished, it is going to be like some massive Archimedes Heat Ray, the sun reflecting a beam of light grazing over south London... or more appropriately the Eye of Sauron. Surely with the full sun reflecting off it, and into your window, it'd be a like being under some kind of blowtorch...
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