Apparently people will pay for these words

Excitingly I found out today that I have succeeded in getting a job as a student writer for the RIBA. However anyone reading this gets to enjoy my words for free (lucky you).

Here is the piece that I submitted when applying.

This is what an architects dream looks like.

A Parisian street lined with cafes and shopfronts, stretches through the rosy afternoon sun several blocks into the distance before turning ninety degrees and heading vertically into the blue sky, folding back on itself and coming to rest with each exquisite Haussmann block fitting exactly roof-to-roof with its new, gravitationally opposed, neighbour below. 

This is the world of Christopher Nolan’s hugely successful summer blockbuster Inception. A lucid dream built by architects, where time, money, even physics pose no limits on what can be created. The appeal is obvious, but the film also draws attention to the dangers. Why would one choose to live in the real world when the dream offers so much possibility? Given to the option to build perfect, endless, radiant cities or to toil within the confines of reality, might one lose track of which world is the purer, of which is the most true. The plight of these characters, creators lost in the imagining of their creations provokes a question of all designers. Are we more interested in the drawing or the finished product? The idea or the reality?

Inception

The single not from the brass section, which crashes with metronomic regularity is the basic unit from which the soundscape of Inception is constructed. It is a derivation of the first note of Edith Piaf's Non. Je ne regrette rien, the song used in-film to signal the transition into the dream world. From this single note the rest of the soundtrack is created using subdivisions and multiplications of the Piaf track. 
It provides a rational framework through which the soundtrack weaves and twists.

Embossing... (Embedding)

Melun-Sénart masterplan by OMA

Nollie plan of Rome

One of the recurring themes in rationalism is that of rules or guidelines which are set out a priori and which subtly influence the development of whatever subject they apply to.

In the case of the city these rules/paradigms/directing-forces can be direct restrictions on zoning, such as in OMAs Melun-Sénart plan or they could be indirect factors such as the economic, political, historical and technological context which guided the growth of Rome.

In every case the influence of these forces is tacit, not overt. These pieces of paper now contain information of a sort. Someone drawing upon them would struggle to avoid responding to that information. Their hand might tend to follow the paths marked out. Their plan of Edinburgh or Dundee might start to take on some of the characteristics of a French new town or renaissance Rome.

p.s. Is this why no one can draw properly on lined paper?

Light and Stone

stairwell with light from adjacent room

One of the most interesting things about Scottish tower houses is that despite (or perhaps because of) being military in origin, the spaces created are rather sculptural and beautiful. Rooms are often lit from several sides, at various heights and through a variety of openings. The practical requirement to build thick walls has led to strikingly deep reveals for daylight to wash over.

multiple window types in great hall

Claypotts Castle Plaster Model

the cast

This is the first attempt at modelling one of the spaces from Claypotts Castle. The chosen space is a small room in one of the round towers just off the great hall. I decided to look at this particular space because of the way in which the more or less square room is contained within the round form of the tower.

the pour

Also of interest are the two windows and the door to the stairwell which are fairly evenly spaced around the circumference of the room, allowing light from different directions at different times of the day.

the final model

Claypotts Castle

plan showing great hall and ancillary rooms

section through one of the circular towers

These drawings were produced after visiting Claypotts Castle. They demonstrate basic characteristics of the tower house typology, showing the large rectangular element in the centre which contains the main functions and the two smaller circular forms containing circulation and secondary spaces. 

Urban Artefact and Connective Tissue

This was my slide from Friday's group presentation to the rest of the year. The aim was to briefly outline your chosen area of study and to show how it fits into a coherent theme running through the whole group. The diagram at the top of the page illustrates the area being investigated by each group member and places them relative to each other in terms of scale and context. My subject area is the City (highlighted).

The images below are the Nollie plan of Rome (left) and a photograph of OMA's model of their masterplan for Melun-Sénart. The Nollie plan demonstrates how in Rome there is a clear connection between prominent civic buildings and useable public space. This creates a series of strong urban artefacts (focal points which give a sense of order to the city) surrounded by a mass of solid, unremarkable private and residential space(which can be thought of as filler).


In their masterplan for Melun-Sénart OMA acknowledge this relationship between urban artefacts and filler by giving absolute priority to the former. Key roads, parks, public spaces and civic buildings are mapped out as a series of voids, land which is reserved. Everything else is given over to filler (which they refer to as flotsam). In the model the flotsam is unarticulated, merely represented by card stuffed into the areas surrounding the voids.


This understanding of the relationship between urban artefacts and the rest of the city is where I proposed to begin my investigations for the year.

There remains a trace

There remains, a trace of some directing force.

This is a model which I made out of balsa-wood matchsticks, using an over turned bowl as formwork. Once the bowl has been removed we are left with this structure, seemingly random in its individual connections, yet when taken as a whole it clearly has some logic and order to it. I like this as a simple analogy for rationalism in architecture. The bowl imposes, a priori, a set of rules and constraints upon the balsa-wood structure which, even once the bowl is removed, are still implied. 

A quick note on the title

Quixotic.
adjectiveexceedingly idealistic; unrealistic and impractical

The rationalist approach to architecture is always going to be a fated endeavour. Rationalists seek a purity and truth to things which is forever being undermined by the imperfections of reality. They place the highest value on ideas and concepts which come to us a priori, without reference to the outside world. Yet architecture requires that ideas be made physical, constructed and exposed to the mores of society. It is in this struggle between the fixed and the flux, the eternal and the eroding, that rationalism's quality is realised.

The starting point may be idealistic or impractical, but that doesn't really matter. Its a process and a worthwhile one.

Beginning

A blog following the exploits, adventures and weighty philosophical reckonings of the Rationalist Traces M.arch unit at the University of Dundee. Will include such soon-to-be historic events as; thesis proposals, sensual exploration models and the field trip to Amsterdam.

More to follow...