PAM Public Lecture | Bart Lootsma : Electrification Takes Command
- OLIVIA TAM SIE WEN 1001540443
- Feb 23, 2016
- 9 min read
The title of PAM Public Lectures on 17th February 2016 is 'Electrification Takes Command'. The lecture was conducted by Prof. Ir. Bart Lootsma from Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Prof. Ir. Bart Lootsma is a historian, critic, and curator in the fields of architecture, design, and the fine arts. He holds the chair for architectural theory at the Leopold-Franzens University of Innsbruck and is also professor at the Institute for History, Theory and Critic in Architecture at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna.
The lecture shows how the elements of building such as wall, floor, ceiling, window, door, lock, fireplace, etcetera- under influence of computing and the Internet slowly evolve to develop a memory and maybe even primitive forms of intelligence. This development is presented as a kind of collective strive, which remains forever unachieved or unfulfilled: a fragmentary universe of very concrete pieces of a Utopia or Dystopia we have forgotten to formulate, think through and evaluate.
He had told us that the studio work will think through the architectural and urban implications of phenomena like pervasive computing, robotics and the Internet of things. They will investigate both the implications for organization and for aesthetics. The results of the studio will therefore be speculative, maybe even bordering on paranoia or science fiction, but always based on real tendencies. As many of the technologies and devices we will be talking about are hidden in architectural elements or wireless and thus invisible by nature.
During the lecture, he also mentioned about how the development of technology brings into architecture. For example the architectural design softwares. The architectural design softwares help to develop higher quality and more innovative projects with tools for design, documentation, visualization, and simulation. There are different kinds of architectural design softwares such as:
Drafting software (AutoCad) 3D modeling software (SketchUp) Rendering software (Lumion).
The invention of 3D printing technology helps to ease the process of modeling a scaled model. 3D printing or additive manufacturing is a process of making three dimensional solid objects from a digital file. The creation of a 3D printed object is achieved using additive processes. In an additive process an object is created by laying down successive layers of material until the entire object is created. Each of these layers can be seen as a thinly sliced horizontal cross-section of the eventual object.
Relation to the Body: Experiments in Posthumanism
Humanism is a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence (rationalism, empiricism) over acceptance of dogma or superstition. It started about the era of Renaissance (Italy).
Vitruvian Man by Leo Da Vinci of human proportion is a great example of humanism philosophy.
Posthumanism is a term with seven definitions which are Antihumanism (critical of traditional humanism and traditional ideas), Cultural Posthumanism ("human nature"), Philosophical posthumanism (human species), Posthuman condition (critical theorists), Transhumanism ("posthuman future"), AI takeover (artificial intelligences) and Voluntary Human Extinction (future without humans).
Villa Capra La Rotonda (Perspectively + Landscape)
The design is for a completely symmetrical building having a square plan with four facades, each of which has a projecting portico. The whole is contained within an imaginary circle which touches each corner of the building and centres of the porticos. The design reflected the humanist values of Renaissance architecture.
From the porticos, wonderful views of the surrounding countryside can be seen; this is no coincidence as the Villa was designed to be in perfect harmony with the landscape. This was in complete contrast to such buildings as Villa Farnese of just 16 years earlier. Thus, while the house appears to be completely symmetrical, it actually has certain deviations, designed to allow each facade to complement the surrounding landscape and topography. In this way, the symmetry of the architecture allows for the asymmetry of the landscape, and creates a seemingly symmetrical whole.
Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier
The Villa Savoye is probably Corbusier's best known building from the 1930s, and it had enormous influence on international modernism. It was designed addressing his emblematic "Five Points", the basic tenets in his new architectural aesthetic.
The "Five Points" are:
Support of ground-level pilotis (elevating the building from the earth and allowed an extended continuity of the garden beneath),
Functional roof (serving as a garden and terrace, reclaiming for nature the land occupied by the building),
Free floor plan (relieved of load-bearing walls, allowing walls to be placed freely and only where aesthetically needed),
Long horizontal windows (providing illumination and ventilation),
Freely-designed facades (serving only as a skin of the wall and windows and unconstrained by load-bearing considerations)
The following is a direct quote about the dymaxion bathroom from The Buckminster Fuller Institute:
"Worried by the poor sanitation, inefficiency, and high cost of bathrooms"
Then, Bucky came up with a solution in 1936. At the heart of Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion concept is the idea that rational action in a rational world demands the most efficient overall performance per unit of input. His Dymaxion structures, then are those that yield the greatest possible efficiency in terms of available technology.
Endless House by Frederick Kiesler
Kiesler used the project to express an elaborate, personal metaphysics based on the concepts of ‘connectivity’, ‘correality’ and ‘biotechnique’. The project was an attempt to merge the spiritual and practical into a new housing typology. Kiesler departed in many ways from the modernist ideals of his contemporaries, objecting to pre-fabrication, rationalism, and orthogonal designs in favor of a curvilinear structure.
Kiesler’s Endless House was intended to communicate his personal views of metaphysics. To show connectivity, Kiesler included curvilinear structure that is built of one material, concrete, with no structural seams in the building. Correalism, the continual interaction between man and nature, meant that Kiesler thought of the rooms of his house as extensions of the bodies of its inhabitants. Kiesler’s design is biomorphic because he intended to create an organic space, rather than a geometric, linear one. Therefore, the concept of 'Endless' is formed.
'A Home is not a House' by Reyner Banham and François Dallegret
“A Home Is Not a House,” an essay he contributed to the April 1965 issue of Art in America, captured the seismic shift in the way architecture’s relationship to technology was understood after the founding myths of modernism fell away. Banham attacks the North-American houses, built without a proper protection from cold and warm weather, based upo a widespread use of heating pumps, a general waste of energy and the production of an “environmental machinery”.
The discourses involved is intended to create a new paradigm for how architects in the twenty-first century think about program by looking at various shortcomings in function and aesthetics resultant from the variety of modernist and post-modernist manifestos. “A Home is not a House,” does a good job of diagnosing the general problem in America (poor quality, lots of upkeep, iterations) by looking at the history of housing in the states. Banham states that the home in America has been a shell to conceal and monumentalize the environmental controllers and technologies. A new kind of Broadacre where minimal environmental adjusters are used in conjunction with an ever movable power source (the automobile) in order to bring families closer to the natural. The most powerful aspect of the argument for the exterior living condition is that of the variable camp fire where a spectrum of complex conditions are produced by the interactions of the wind, fire and light. Because of its simplicity and ubiquity this spatial narrative of the campfire is one that Banham believes is the next move in American living, while relying heavily on new technologies of control.
According to Banham, the modern movement’s form never really followed function. Its leading practitioners were well intentioned but failed to engage with rapidly emerging building technologies in any meaningful way.
The drawing “Anatomy of a dwelling” shows a huge network of cables and tubes, an accumulating “baroque ensemble of domestic gadgets” between the sky (with a Tv antenna) and the earth (a septic unit).
Theories of Reyner Banham today inspire many architects research on the interaction between architecture and its environment through digital technologies.
Yellow Heart by Haus-Rucker-Co.
The concept evolved from the idea that a concentrated experience of space could offer a direct shift in consciousness. This led to the design and construction of a pneumatic space capsule, the 'Yellow Heart'.
"The idea that a concentrated experience of space could offer a direct approach to changes in consciousness led to the construction of a pneumatic space capsule, called the 'Yellow Heart.' Through a lock made of three air rings, one arrived at a transparent plastic mattress. Offering just enough space for two people, it projected into the centre of a spherical space that was made up of soft, air-filled chambers. Lying there one could perceive that the air-filled "pillows," whose swelling sides almost touched one, slowly withdrew, that is to say the surrounding space appeared to expand, finally forming a translucent sphere and then, in a reverse motion, flowed out again. Large dots arranged in a grid on the outer and inner surfaces of the air-shells changed in rhythmic waves from milky patches to a clear pattern. The space pulsated at extended intervals." - founders of Haus-Rucker-Co.
'Bed' by Hugh Hefner
“Bed” by Hugh Hefner is a symbolic of antihumanism. He is a playboy in its own way without considering about the typical humanism moral value.
The human body is a machine consisting of many different, interconnected machines. Each machine (heart, lungs, intestines, etc.) runs at its own individual speed, but all function in a specific, predetermined relationship to each other. In this sense, the body is analogous to the most complicated man-made machines, such as automobiles, tape recorders, or space capsules, which consist of many separately functioning components that are mechanically linked together, each of which, in itself, is a complete machine. In fact, the body is the most complex of all such compound machines.
During the lecture, Prof. Ir. Bart Lootsma mentioned that architecture is not only about building but also has it own fashion way whether it is related to structure or not. As an architect, we must consider everything in our design. There are some example about architecture in fashion way.
'Television' by Walter Pichler
'Pill' by Hans Hollen
Relationship Nature Experiments in Ecology
He also talked about the relationship between architecture, nature and ecology.
The diagram of valley section of civilization shows the different activities carried out at different height of valley to the sea level. In the other hand, the diagram also shows the development of human to solve and conquer environment problem and demonstrated how ways of life or “natural occupations” such as miner or hunter, emerged from their geographical context. This diagram also called as 'The Transect', a diagram which combines the visual language of architectural cross section and analytical approach borrow from the ecology. This diagram showing the environment condition change and suggesting the importance of context to both natural and built communities.
The image shows the Skiing around Innsbruck. It shows us about the relationship and impact between nature and human activity in Innsbruck.
Contemporary battles at Bergisel are fought at the Olympic ski jump with its tower designed by Zaha Hadid is the other important Innsbruck landmark. Zaha’s buildings in Innsbruck emphasize the geographical landmarks and spectacular events that have happened there or happen there from time to time but are absent and thus invisible most of the time. In the case of the ski jump, it even makes the Bergisel, which normally would not be as spectacular as the events that took and take place there, artificially higher. The funicular turns the climbing of the Hungerburg into a touristic event.
Hungerburgbahn Hybrid Funicular Railway Station by Zaha Hadid which is inspired by an amorphous ice formation.
Personal Review
After the PAM lecture, I agree that technology is an important aspect in architecture. This is because technology helps us to work efficiently and save time while doing design and also construction. For example, the architectural design software helps us to draft and render the drawings and models with ease without wasting the time. Besides that, the software can present the final outcome of the building before constructing. This enable us to present the final design to the client in more detail about the construction and services in the buildings. Besides that, technology helps us to do what human cannot do. For instance, the construction plants help us to construct the buildings which are high-rised and complicated in design, and even help to construct a building which is located in a high area such as mountain. Although technology brings a lot of benefit for us, but it also has side effects at the same time. This is because construction brings all kind of pollutions. In addition, people will misuse the landscape and destroy the beauty of nature. On the other hand, it will lead to the extinction of flora and fauna may cause and leads to imbalance of ecosystem. Therefore, we should use the technology in a proper way so that we can create a green and healhty environment. At the same time, the architecture development and the natural ecological balance can be achieved to show a harmony relationship between architecture and nature. Lastly, we should also consider everything as an architect about the use of space, human needs and nature environment so that a good design can be produce and we can bring a better life in the future to our generation.
Group photo with Prof. Ir. Bart Lootsma.