Lift: A film about a vertical community in a London tower block

video url:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FJNAvyLCTik

"Filmmaker Marc Isaacs sets himself up in a London tower block lift. The residents come to trust him and reveal the things that matter to them creating a humorous and moving portrait of a vertical community."

Dir: Marc Isaacs / UK / 2001

On Play in the City

Some inspirational projects, books and blogs on play in cities... 






















The Child in the City by Colin Ward






















Skateboarding, Space and the City by Iain Borden

Aldo Van Eyck - Playgrounds in Amsterdam

Aldo van Eyck transformed urban spaces (and bombed sites) in Amsterdam into more than 700 playgrounds between 1947 and 1978. Beyond the sites' spatial designs, van Eyck also developed a whole series of sandpits, climbing frames, and other equipment in his radical, charming recreation of the city into a space for play. This book considers the importance of the playground in general and more specifically within the international postwar developments in city planning. Van Eyck's sources of inspiration, from Kurt Schwitters to Jacoba Mulder, are surveyed. The playgrounds themselves are examined on the basis of how they were received at the time of construction, through letters from neighborhood residents, memoranda by public officials, and the reactions of contemporary architects. A separate essay traces what happened to the playgrounds after 1978, and how van Eyck's ideas resonate in the design practices and spatial planning policy of today.

Playscapes is a comprehensive blog on play: http://www.play-scapes.com

Tim Gill London play consultant: http://rethinkingchildhood.com

How to use film to show complex spatial relationships: Section through a Banlieue

La Haine (1995), dir. Mathieu Kassovitz

video url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4qo3EwozH0Y

A classic scene from La Haine which gives an overview of a Parisian ‘banlieue’ through an excellent panning shot which is almost like a section through the housing estate. If any of you get to the top of one of the blocks consider how you can use film to show the experience of being up there... and the relationship between neighbouring blocks and the public spaces below.

public / private

relationships between inside and outside, between the individual and the public

section through a housing estate

communities

How to study a public space?... ask William H. Whyte the father of public space analysis

The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces - LINK TO FILM - WATCH ME!

The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces - LINK TO BOOK

Today there were many conversations on public space, how to analyse it, how to know if it is successful, loved, used, or not working well enough... and what ingredients make a public space successful. We discussed developing criteria for this kind of analysis; desire lines, demographic  routes, opportunities to sit, sunlight, activation, overlooking, play,.... the list could go on and on.... This is the sort of thing William Whyte tackled over many years studying public spaces in NYC. 

The book is very well structured and will give you great advice on how to analyse public spaces. The film too.. I highly recommend this to anyone! 

"Les glaneurs et la glaneuse" / "The Gleaners & I" (2000); dir. Agnes Varda

Agnes Varda presents a view of Paris and France from the point of view of those on the fringes of society...a must watch

 

Illusion/Distortion Exhibition Film

ATMOSPHERES: Esther Attrup, Minerva Mariotti and Oscar Von Claer

P02: CIVIC INTERVENTION: DESIGN A SCENE

“Whatever time and space mean, 

place and occasion mean more.” 

Aldo Van Eyck

Overlay ‘Cinema Paradiso’ onto Earl’s Court: you are now Alfredo, the projectionist, what will you do to create a magic moment?

The purpose of this project is to design your own 1:1 moment in the city. Working in groups the project will consist of 3 experiments. Keep in mind that this is an area undergoing change. Get to know about it through your experiments.

Exp 1/ Social engagement with the city
Each group will be given a starting point. From there draw a long section and engage with your site within your section. Explore if to draw a section in a circle, square, line or in zig zag through the site. Cut through buildings, streets and public realm. Participate in cultural /local activity in your section. This can be anything from gossip chats, to more formal events. Compare scenes in Earls Court to the scene in Cinema Paradiso and use techniques developed in P01. Draw propositional ideas from your experiences. Use film as analytical tool

Exp 2/ Material engagement with the city
Develop your propositional ideas at 1:1 with film as a key design tool. Also develop a material exploration at 1:1 as part of your analysis of the site and your 1:1 proposal. Explore the cultural and connotational potential of material. Make and test ideas. Prepare for your intervention by inviting people, get permissions from council or police if this is necessary. Map your hurdles as well as successes.

Exp 3/ Social & Material relationships
Host your 1:1 intervention. Film the intervention, draw the intervention. Take some stunning photos of it. Critically reflect on the material and social relationships. Post intervention conclude the project individually by drawing your own territory of interest/drawn manifesto which will act as a starting point for your work in the final project. Consider site, interventions, social layers and material interests. What is your civic aspiration for the site?

Eadweard Muybridge

Zoopraxiscope slide: Spinning glass disc with elongated
 printed images that when in motion self corrected

Illusion: Play in Sienna

George's model reminded me of this temporary playground in Sienna: 

If you want to find out more on this it's all in this book: Design and Landscape for People

Smoot's Ear by Robert Tavernor

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Smoots-Ear-The-Measure-Humanity/dp/0300143346

"Measures are the subject of this unusual book, in which Robert Tavernor offers a fascinating account of the various measuring systems human beings have devised over two millennia. Tavernor urges us to look beyond the notion that measuring is strictly a scientific activity, divorced from human concerns. Instead, he sets measures and measuring in cultural context and shows how deeply they are connected to human experience and history.

Robert Tavernor is professor of architecture and urban design and director of the Cities Programme, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He is also a practicing architect and leads an influential London-based consultancy that advises on buildings that will affect the future skyline of London. His previous books include On Alberti and the Art of Building, published by Yale University Press. He lives in London and Bath." 

"The smoot /ˈsmuːt/ is a nonstandard unit of length created as part of an MIT fraternity prank. It is named after Oliver R. Smoot, who in October 1958 lay on the Harvard Bridge (between Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts), and was used by his fraternity brothers to measure the length of the bridge. One smoot is equal to Oliver Smoot's height at the time of the prank. The bridge's length was measured to be 364.4 smoots plus or minus one ear, with the "plus or minus" intended to express uncertainty of measurement. Over the years the "or minus" portion has gone astray in many citations, including the markings at the site itself, but has now been enshrined in stone by Smoot's college class.

Draw EVERYTHING: ScanLAB Projects

Check out ScanLAB Projects for some beautiful 3D drawings, animations and models which they create by scanning spaces using the latest 3D laser scanning technology to conduct point cloud surveys. In their own words; "This allows us to digitally map the world in 3D: everything from large scale cityscapes to small industrial components" 

I've put some images from their website below, but do go to their webpage for more information on what they do and how they do it.. it is fascinating. 

http://scanlabprojects.co.uk


Arctic climate impact tour: 

 

Noise: Error in the Void:

3D Building Surveys: 

All the images are for reference only, copyright ScanLAB Projects. 
Refer to their website for more information. 

Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture

louis kahn, on til 12 october design museum, go see it... excellent tech

http://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/louis-kahn-the-power-of-architecture

Staging by Steven Soderbergh

Hello all, 

Here's something from Freddy, unit H-er from last year, who kindly showed us his portfolio yesterday. 

____

I saw this post this week about film and staging by the director Steven Soderbergh and thought it might be of interest for the Unit H's, maybe in terms of how they think about staging their videos, filming models and cutting them together. Watching the film without the soundtrack and replaced with a minimalist piece really changes how you view and experience it.  Hopefully its of interest!

http://extension765.com/sdr/18-raiders

See you tomorrow,

Freddy

Some samples of Georges Perec's wonderful writing...

Yesterday we mentioned Georges Perec whilst discussing the possibility of drawing everything that happened in the square during the whole of Cinema Paradiso or the lifetime of the space... Perec has written some wonderful texts in which he tries to capture absolutely everything that happens in a space over a huge expanse of time... 

Check out "Life a Users Manual" 

"In this ingenious book Perec creates an entire microcosm in a Paris apartment block. Serge Valene wants to make an elaborate painting of the building he has made his home for the last sixty years. As he plans his picture, he contemplates the lives of all the people he has ever known there. Chapter by chapter, the narrative moves around the building revealing a marvellously diverse cast of characters in a series of every more unlikely tales, which range from an avenging murderer to an eccentric English millionaire who has devised the ultimate pastime..."

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Users-Manual-Georges-Perec/dp/0099449250

And "Species of Spaces and Other Stories" for some mind-blowing reading: 

PROJECT 01: A CIVIC MOMENT / INITITATIVE

scene study 

The magic of the moment: the power of the individual 

to transform a space and create an event 

We will begin the year with a study of a scene taken from Cinema Paradiso. In the scene Alfredo, the projectionist, moves a glass frame to reflect the projected image from inside the cinema into the square outside the cinema, where a crowd has gathered. In doing this he transforms the square, he creates a special moment in an everyday space. 

Draw the magic of the scene, capture the action, the movement of the projection and the transformation of the spaces. 

You will have to watch the scene over and over again. Take stills, collage them to recreate the spaces. Draw the physical spaces and their relationships to scale. Use your own judgment, your surroundings and places you know to estimate and draw a measured survey of the scene to scale. Draw your impressions, analyse abstractly. 

You could document and explore: the camera movement / the relationship between interior and exterior spaces / the projected light / light and darkness / the movement of the projection / the 3 dimensionality of the projected light / the surfaces touched by the projection beam / trace the ‘positive’ and the ‘negative’ of actual and perceived space / the movement of the protagonists and the crowd / time and space. 

Express your understanding of layers, time, and expressions in the scene. Experiment, study and test techniques to represent your observations through drawing and or model making. Allow your working lines, proportional rules, measurements & geometry to be included in the final drawings as an integral part of them. 

Capture the magic of the moment in your drawings. Make it a beautiful and a comprehensive piece of work, which clearly demonstrates a creative and individual approach to drawing. Pay attention to line weights and study good draftsman ship. Challenge yourself, test, experiment and set the tone for the year. 

WELCOME TO UNIT H!

...welcome all unit H students to the unit Blog.
Treat this blog as a key resource for the Unit. We will update and add briefs, precedents, images, texts, films and other resources, so do visit regularly! You are welcome to comment, add work and images and get involved... 

What is a work home?

The building type that combines dwelling and workplace has existed in a multitude of different forms for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.  But, strangely, very little has been written about it.  It seems to have resisted collection and classification. 

The following website is a research platform by a PhD student at London Metropolitan University.

http://www.theworkhome.com

Use it as a resource - it is informative and will enrich any projects looking at live/work spaces. Pay particular attention to the pattern book which should shed some light on useful spatial considerations.

London...

Glimpses of London - via Andrew Holmes

The Human Scale

A fantastic film, focusing on the work of Jan Gehl and Gehl Architects and the role is making cities happier places to live in. It would be worth grabbing a copy and screening it in the studio. It is good fuel for our work in Earl's court….

 

video url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BxywJRJVzJs