semester exhibition

Thank you to those of you that stayed for setting up the exhibition. HERE are a few images from today, will add some more tomorow -(more images added on the 19th). Individual semester evaluations will be sent to you at the start of january. Prior to that remember to send ind the written course evaluation including the revised Barcelona study trip evaluation. 

Best wishes for a happy, inspiring and   productive new year to all !

reviews 12 & 13 december & exhib

Thank you very much for the arduous work pinning-up (and down again, and vice-versa) during the two days of reviews. It was certainly worth the time and effort to see all your projects unfold, and having some more informed conversations around some projects.  Also, thank you for the feed-back on the course (when it was productive and appropriate)

With the following links you have the opportunity to see some pictures of the works and the situation in the studio spaces from week 50 by clicking HERE, while picts from Thursdays reviews are available HERE, and Friday's pictures can be seen by clicking HERE. (all pictures in unsorted batches though, please bear over :-)

Merry season greetings to all, and all the best for your trips to the sites for your history papers. For those of you willing to set up the material in the studio spaces for the end-of term exhibition, a great thank you. 

review(s) schedule / batch distribution in spaces

> consult the black board on 6th floor click on image to enlarge

schedule for end of course reviews

Here is the latest revised  (18:13) schedule for the reviews.
We have 4 walls on the 5th floor and 3 walls on the 6 th floor. Consult evt. pictures from last year's curse on the Nordnesmuu.blogspot.no blog. for knowledge of spaces for both reviews and end of semester exhibition.

For precise placing(s) consult the black board on the 6th floor.(should be ready by 18:00) Black board ready at 18:15 > consult it

For those of you that would like to try to show your work via pp/indesign/pdf , or supplement with, please test all presentations previously on the projectors available, and collect all the day's presentations on one memory stick.

Remember to set some time asside tomorow evening for your group meeting for your course evaluation.

last week(end) before final presentations

Enjoy the last week(end) of the SandvikensExtrasUrban project. Try to re-view most of your material from the course, and scann all those A4 and A3 works into a continuous .pdf file. (you are also welcome to divide that material up into more than one .pdf /or divide the material up in chapters/sequenses, for more coherent understandings.
NOTE that this material is considered compulsory, and will be requested before your presentation.

Remember that the course is an urban course, so do not spend much time in the last week designing new complex interiors or other new fancy/arty installation in the last minute. Keep the overall urban view(s) on how the site (and the buildings) merge into a new coherent whole context, that also includes architectural material about your personal embedded space. All the work(s) from the course should be considered and should be testimonials of each project urban architectural discourse for Sandviken.

While it is expected that all projects would include an overal map of sandviken before and after, the various scopes of each project might be quite different and thus allow for different strategies for each of the participants.

It is expected that most works should be finished by late tuesday /early wednsday. The day before presenattions should be used for pin-ups and for manufacturing of eventual PP presentations. Remember to give the projects a title and subtitle and include a descriptive text of about 100 - 200 words.

More on the procedures and schedule of presentation(s) in a blogpost early next week.

In the meantime: HERE are some picts from week 49.

Pataphysics lecture on 4.12.

Of all the French cultural exports over the last 150 years or so, ‘pataphysics–the science of imaginary solutions and the laws governing exceptions--has proven to be one of the most durable. Originating in the wild imagination of French poet and playwright Alfred Jarry and his schoolmates, resisting clear definition, purposefully useless, and almost impossible to understand, ‘pataphysics nevertheless lies around the roots of Absurdism, Dada, futurism, surrealism, situationism, and other key cultural developments of the twentieth century. In this account of the evolution and influence of ‘pataphysics, Andrew Hugill offers an informed exposition of a rich and difficult territory, staying aloft on a tightrope stretched between the twin dangers of oversimplifying a serious subject and taking a joke too
seriously. 

Drawing on more than twenty-five years’ research, Hugill maps the ‘pataphysical presence (partly conscious and acknowledged but largely unconscious and unacknowledged) in literature, theater, music, the visual arts, and the culture at large, and even detects ‘pataphysical influence in the social sciences and the sciences. He offers many substantial excerpts (in English translation) from primary sources, intercalated with a thorough explication of key themes and events of ‘pataphysical history. In a Jarryesque touch, he provides these in reverse chronological order, beginning with a survey of ‘pataphysics in the digital age and working backward to Jarry and beyond. He looks specifically at the work of Jean Baudrillard, Georges Perec, Italo Calvino, J. G. Ballard, Asger Jorn, Gilles Deleuze, Roger Shattuck, Jacques Prévert, Antonin Artaud, René Clair, the Marx Brothers, Joan Miró, Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, James Joyce, Flann O’Brien, Raymond Roussel, Jean-Pierre Brisset, and many others. 

Andrew Hugill MA PhD (b. 1957) is a composer, writer, Professor and Director of Creative Computing at Bath Spa University, UK. He is also an Associate Researcher at the Université de la Sorbonne, Paris, and a National Teaching Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. In 2006 he was Highly Commended for the Most Imaginative Use of Distance Learning by the Times Higher Education Awards.

Keep on (producing)

Thank you for having cleared up the studio space. Keep the work flowing, and remember to pin-up (and re-pin-up) frequently, so as to have an a live environment for creative thinking that also is inclusive for new thoughts and inspirations from fellow students.
Here is a link to some picts from thursday.

Keep the workflow alive and concentrate on each of your individual competencies, meaning that you should not use the last part of the course to (also) learn new skills. Hone the skills you are good at, and combine with simple tools, so that you always have the fastest way(s) to produce. Otherwise, share your knowledge(s), and keep informed of fellow students work(s).

Thomas is back on Monday. If there is enough interest (also ask students from other floors) there might be a recap of the onetoone lecture on Tuesday over lunch time. (takes about 1,5 h).

this week / next week

The next 3 weeks should maintain a fine and investigative workflow with your projects, building on all of your produced material to date. To do this, it is of great impoprtance that the studio is a place that is inspiring to work in.

For the moment, unfortunately it looks like a dump. By tomorow evening , latest thursday morning it is expected, that ALL material from your previous years taken from 6 1/2 are out of the building, and that the studio space on both floors is re-established as worksspace for the course. You are all expected to pin-up your latest material on the walls. Remenber the brief. No other material than course material should be on the premisses.

ALL are expected present, thursday morning, 9:00 for group crits with thomas. Should you be unable to attend, send mail to Ane at adm. NOTE: Full attendance is expected for the rest of course period.

Remember the lecture tomorow at 14:00. Thomas will be in studio from 11:30 - 14:00 on wednsday.

MSA reviews 19.11.13

The Stehgreif/charette Sandviken exercise for the MSA students concluded with a presentation in the MSA foyer with attendance of Thomas W and prof. Martin Weischer. You can view some picts HERE. All the MSA students send their best regards and are now on to their next short assignment in new locations, but are looking forward to see the BAS student's  end of senester results :-)

Reminder for next week

Post-midt_term presentations

Thank you for participation at the midt-term presentations. Images from the day on dropboxlink HERE and schedule for presentations below. More on next week's work on blogpost tomorow; Expect more or less continuous work activity the next 3 weeks. Thomas is attending the presentations of the MSA students in Münster Tuesday next week..

Brief for next week

Brief for next week below. Enjoy.

Some quotes while waiting for the brief

 













"Some architects see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not." —George Bernard Shaw
"The aspects of a thing that are most important to us are hidden to us because of their simplicity and familiarity." —Ludwig Wittgenstein
" The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift" _Albert Einstein

"The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution." Igor Stravinsky

PS: see some movies by Jim Jarmusch : ie: try " Down by Law" or "Mystery Train" or Stranger than Paradise" 

This week, until the midway-presentations:

Thank you for showing your work(s) on thursday and friday at the informal group desk crits. Fine moments of inspiration(s) and openings for Open Form debates, on a multitute of topics.

Undoubtablely, all of you would have noticed the following:

1/     the more work there was to see, the more there was to talk about
2/     the more there was order in the material(s), the more free the inspiration(s) to take a walk on wild side(s)
3/     the more there was repetition(s), the more one could discern pattern(s) and possible translation(s)
4/    the more there was apparent "meaning(s)", the more one could discern closed cliché patterns
5/     the more the was to "wonder" about something, the more possible "meanings" could be explored openly
6/    fill in your own observation(s) here….

This brings us to this weeks work: (for each individually)

On top of collecting ALL your material(s)  [ you might as well produce some (much) more, please] , use some time to order the material(s) in appropriate plastic chatecs (Per Jansson had apparently found a fine one, albeit more expensive. Ask him were to buy it) Just collecting the material in black paper will NOT do. (reason: the plastic chatecs keep the work more dynamic, and thus open to re-shuffling). Keep the duplicates from group work in the green covers

For the midway crits on Friday , you are free to produce the following (personal) architectural material:

Comming up in next post :-)  > in the mean time,  here and here are some inspiration links...

Post MSA_BAS workshop / this week's work

Thank you all for fine and arduous work during the workshop and inspiring discussion during the presentation on Thursday . HERE are some pics from day 3 and the review/presentation.

Below is the brief for the assignment for both groups. The BAS group will have some alternate ways to proceed, as they have a different time schedule and thus work phases.

For this week, until Thursday/Friday the BAS students are to concentrate on the following:

A/ group work:

completion i:  complete/correct material from workshop, print one copy of each (houses/ground/sections/), publish on ISSUU (consult cristian on procedures).
completion ii:  complete/ collect all material in respective "booklets"/"Folder" with green covers assorted in themes
completion iii:  complete/correct model (Elsoro part ) check for discrepancies.

B/ individual work(s):

scans:
each student to have scanned all (individual own) produced work until date as individual PDF scan (300 dpi); collect all scans (with same orientation i.e A4 portrait A3 landscape) on A4 (A3 would then be 2 A4 pages)
archive:
each student to collect all individual/own produced work until date in personal black TGR  folders and continue to do so the rest of the semester.
personal embedded space: produce 4-6 pages A4 of your personal location, as done with the site house inventory( i.e wire frame of building/situation , plan excerpt, short description, 4 photos (place /abduct) and a series of personal images.

Thursday and especially Friday will be used for group/individual consultancies. (Cristian present Thursday, Thomas both days)

MSA/BAS workshop day_two

Thank you for the fine and arduous work during day two. Promissing and very inspiring indeed.
Click here for a dropboxlink to some pictures from the late day_two_presentation.

We talked a bit about collecting most work in some publications/pamphlets. You already had some fine proposals for layout. Here is (a link) another one, from a master course at BAS last year.  Notice also the reduced colour sheme.(if the link does not work try : http://issuu.com/nadavkochavi_1985/docs/nature_culture_parks_compendium_bas/1)

Regarding the axonometrics: you might like to try/test the "japanese" variation, i.e referr to the Pamphlet #9 issue  (see post below for excerpt views). It consist of 90/30 views, meaning that one front(facade) is always in real scale.

On capturing the ordinary down to earth

"Photographer Andreas Gefeller sees the world through a strange lens, offering the viewer pictures that at first glance seem composed of abstract, color-saturated elements and only later resolve into something completely familiar--chairs on a beach, lines on pavement, grass on an urban plaza--but yet not In Supervisions, his most recent series, Gefeller employs a complicated photographic technique to scan the surfaces of urban spaces, creating extraordinary images more akin to hard-edge abstract paintings than landscape photography. Composites of hundreds of individual shots, these puzzling, striking works appear as bird's eye views or observations shot from fantasy angles. A testament to Gefeller's interest in the twilight zone that becomes ever denser between reality and fiction, Supervisions reveals itself to the viewer in stages, offering up elements that appear first as abstractions, then as familiar elements of our environment, and finally as impossible visions of the world that surrounds us."

More on how Gefeller works on a videoclip available here.

Sandviken digital map

click here for three Rhino files and a AutoCad .dwg file

Workshop assigment MSA/BAS

 
Thank you to both BAS and MSA students for a fine intro day and visit to the site in almost dry weather. Below is the assigment flyer for this week with schedule for the reviews. During the introductory lectures two projects were mentioned: The Pamphlet Architecture #9 ,  and the Pamphlet Architecture # 13;

[click HERE for download of extracts ]

[click HERE]

Short workshop with MSA students next week

Thank you for the well focused work on Eva's one:one course this week. We will be reviewing your material together with our guests fro next week, 14 master students from MSA the Münster School of Architecture in Germany starting at 9:00- 11:00  in the big Auditorium. The Workshop task(s) will be presented from 11:15- 12:15. A flyer will be posted on the blog. We will be working in the whitebox and the studio spaces together. We will have a review of matrerial(s) on Thursday afternoon in Whitebox. (as MSA sudents leave on friday morning)

one:one workshop next week

The specifics of Eva's workshop for next week are available below. click on images to enlarge and print out your own copy. Start: Monday 21.10 at 9:00 in studio space.

Remember also to notice/read the two new blogsposts under this post. 

Regarding link(s) mentioned during crits

«ATLAS» is the ongoing, encyclopedic work by artist Gerhard Richter that was mentioned by Thomas and Kalle during the presentation. The work is composed of approximately 4,000 photographs, reproductions or cut-out details of photographs and illustrations, grouped together on approximately 600 separate panels. The images closely parallel, year by year, the subjects of Richter's paintings, revealing the orderly but open-ended analysis central to his art.
 

You can access the works on Richter's immense and encyclopedic web-site HERE. 

Regarding stop-motion recordings: the web site of EMBT architects was mentioned. View it by cliking HERE

Post pin-up and presentation

 

Thank you for the well executed pin-up(s) and the presentations. It was both inspiring and instructive listening to all your Sandviken texts and re-figuring out the architectural material(s).

Images from the pin-up in the whitebox on Thursday (click) HERE and from the presentations on Friday HERE.

Some reminder of themes/topics discussed during the presentations:

A/  what does constitute ugliness; how to capture it
B/  how to delineate zone(s)
C/  how to capture conditions of water
D/ remember to include all possible historic conditions
E/ catalogue and classify your stuff
F/ make series with scientific rigor (or pataphysic logic)
G/ produce, produce, produce

It was great to experience the small pocket Sandviken models. Try to constantly make more of those (zoom evtually in -or out ) and be aware of the scale(s) and check the topography  while in Sandviken.

Re-pin_up in studio and place green booklets and model(s) appropriately as to have the material visible (and re-shuffle) at all times (remember to have the studio space ready for when the students from Münster architecture school MSA come  on the 28th.)

Material from now on : green folders and material used from groups is COLLECTIVE. You can re-shuffle copys of it in your own black folders (buy some more) where you would accumulate your architectural material(s) from now on.

Re: individual embedded locations: more on the topic after the one:one workshop with Eva.

Phase One presentation, friday 18.10.13

Presentations start at 9:30  (!) sharp, in white-box

By 9:15 ALL material to be pinned up, space cleared, 3-4 tables in middle for models and green booklets, adequate chairs for 35 persons. lights checked, (as kjeld-vidar) best to start pin up thursday afternoon in whitebox

The following is expected:

GROUP presentations:

Group material on wall: keep same top and bottom for all material, ca. same m2 for each group. one wall area reserved for individual "spaces" (see location on blackboard in studio) , pinned up same way as group work. (copy as booklet)

ALL materials to be present in original and copy. (applies from now on)

Each group's member to prepare 100 word text (norwegian or english) describing the Sandviken site + very short info on group material exhibited.  text(s) to be read individually, (5m each) with comments and discussions to follow after all members are finished.

Time allotment: 40 minutes per group max.  > including comments on group work and individual recommendations.

Individual space presentations:
(individual space material will only be noticed, not debated- so expect to view material wordless)
 Max 6 A4 sheets, containing:
- text (title, subtitle, 100 word)  one page 
- plan(s) 1:500 /1:200
- wireframe aksonometric
- photos (one max two per page)

text and all material to be matter-of-fact, characterising the space/place.
collect material evt. in small booklet.

Guests at presentation: Eli Goldstein, Kalle Grude, Eva Kun

We expect all to be present at presentations latest til 16:30.
Expect to have some time to pin-down from white box and pin.up gain in studio. (important)

On the nature of architectural material(s)

Keep up the workflow(s), yet keep it sharp and ambiguous: do not dwell on the production of romantic images that depict, but manufacture more representations that assess the site architecturally; get out what you can from the digital sources. (consider them as data, not images to be re-drawn- print. Use Bing more precisely (N,S, E and West) or: go out to the site take more pictures.

That implies that some work should be done in manufacturing material, conveying the following: precise plan(s), section(s) and elevation(s) wireframe axonometrics of all sides of the Sandviken site can be done as either free hand drawing(s), on scale with straight edge/ rulers, cut-out photo collages, etc., (on scale 1:1000, 1:500 and evt. 1:200 or other scale(s), just note),  along with the more subjective work(s).

Here are some images from this morning and some of the work(s) on the walls. (we missed all of you that where not present, though) Thomas and Cristian will be in the studio the rest of today and tomorow. 

More on what is expected for friday and pin-up requirements in next blog post later today.