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Architectural Design

SUNCHEON CITY, KOREA: HOLDING THE ECO-LINE

By Charles Jencks

American-born Charles Jencks is a landscape architect, theorist and critic best known for his Garden of Cosmic Speculation, near Dumfries, Scotland, and his writings on post-modernism. He has designed landscapes projects around the world, including Parco Portello in Milan, Northumberlandia near Newcastle, England and Wu Chi at the Olympic Forest Park in Beijing. Jencks is also co-founder of the Maggie's Centres - a series of cancer care centres designed By leading modern architects, named in honour of his late wife Maggie Keswick. In this talk, Jencks discusses his recent project Holding the Eco-line, a landscape design for the Suncheon Bay expo in 2013. He explains the development of the design and his Korean hosts' reaction to it, as well as the importance of symbolism in his work, and his latest creation the Crawick Multiverse, inspired By cutting edge theories of the origin of the universe.

DVD-ROM / 2015 / 39 minutes

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BREAKING INTO CHINA: FENGMING MOUNTAIN PARK

By Martha Schwartz

Martha Schwartz first came to prominence with her Boston bagel garden - a radical manifesto for a more artful approach to landscape design. Her recent projects include Dublin Docklands Grand Canal Square in Dublin, Mesa Arts Centre in Arizona and Jacob Javits Convention Center Plaza, New York. In this talk, she describes her project Fengming Mountain Park in the Chinese city Chongqing for a major Chinese developer. The project is a rectangular section cut through a large construction site designed to showcase the sales centre for a series of forthcoming residential towers. Building on the idea of zigzagging movement of water down a mountain, she has created a processional route across the site, marked by a series of monumental orange cut-steel structures - like origami mountains on legs - that glow at night. This is a truly exciting time to be working in China, she says, with construction taking place on an epic scale and developers just beginning to appreciate landscape architecture as art-form.

CD-ROM / 2014

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NEW RIJKSMUSEUM, THE

Director: Oeke Hoogendijk

In 2003, the ambitious renovation of one of the world's greatest museums began. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, home to a glorious collection including masterpieces by Rembrandt and Vermeer, was supposed to reopen its doors in 2008 after five years of construction. But from the start, the project was opposed by unyielding bureaucrats and public resistance. The museum directors battled politicians, designers, curators and even the Dutch Cyclists Union as they struggled to complete the renovation and put its massive collection back on public display. Five years late, with costs exceeding half a billion dollars, the museum finally reopened.

Oeke Hoogendijk's epic documentary captures the entire story from design to completion, offering a fly-on-the-wall perspective on one of the most challenging museum construction projects ever conceived. With its decade-long scope, the film reveals a surprisingly dramatic story that art and architecture lovers will not want to miss.

DVD (Dutch, English, French, and Spanish with English Subtitles) / 2014 / 131 minutes

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STRANGE AND FAMILIAR: ARCHITECTURE ON FOGO ISLAND

Director: Marcia Connelly & Katherine Knight

In a rapidly urbanized world, what does the future hold for traditional rural societies? As Fogo Island, a small community off the coast of Newfoundland, struggles to sustain its unique way of life in the face of a collapse of its cod fishing industry, architect Todd Saunders and social entrepreneur Zita Cobb's vision for positive change results in the envisioning, designing and building of strikingly original architecture that will become a catalyst for social change.

Experience this staggeringly beautiful place and how the community and local workers, together with Saunders and Cobb, come together and play a role in this creative process during a time of optimism and uncertain hope. Change is coming to Fogo Island.

DVD / 2014 / 54 minutes

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SAGRADA: THE MYSTERY OF CREATION

Director: Stefan Haupt

One of the most iconic structures ever built, Barcelona's La Sagrada Familia is a unique and fascinating architectural project conceived by Antoni Gaudi in the late 19th century. More than 125 years after construction began, the basilica still remains unfinished. Sagrada: The Mystery of Creation celebrates Gaudi's vision and the continuing work of architects as they strive to complete the colossal project while delving into the process of artistic creation in a historical context.

La Sagrada Familia was commissioned by the Order of St Joseph in 1882. After conflicts arose between the Order and the original architect, 31 year old Antoni Gaudi was hired to complete the design. A devout Catholic and architectural prodigy, Gaudi envisioned a place of worship that combined elements of classic French Gothic style and the curvilinear, organic aspects of the budding Art Nouveau school.

Despite decades of delays, thousands of artisans, laborers, and designers have contributed to the ambitious and glorious landmark. Inspired by Gaudi's vision, the film explores our fundamentally human search for the meaning of existence, and the quest for creative expression.

In the midst of the hustle and bustle of the Catalonian metropolis, the documentary investigates the structural developments of the Sagrada Familia while allowing the audience time to observe, perceive, and reflect upon the historical, artistic and personal significance of the basilica.

DVD (Catalan, Spanish, French, and German with English Subtitles) / 2013 / 90 minutes

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SUKKAH CITY

Director: Jason Hutt

When best-selling author Joshua Foer (Moonwalking with Einstein) began to build his first sukkah, a small hut that Jews build and dwell in every fall for the holiday of Sukkot, he wanted to move beyond the generic plywood boxes and canvas tents that have become the unimaginative status quo. He discovered that while the bible outlines the basic parameters for what a sukkah should look like and how it should function, it leaves plenty of room for variation and interpretation. Foers thought, 'what if contemporary architects and designers were challenged to design and construct twelve radical sukkahs? What would they come up with?' And so was born the design competition and exhibition known as "Sukkah City."

Sukkah City chronicles the architecture competition created by bestselling author Joshua Foer and Roger Bennett (Reboot co-founder) that explored the creative potential of the ancient Jewish sukkah and created a temporary exhibition of 12 newly designed sukkahs in the heart of New York City. The film goes behind the scenes of the jury day, the construction, and the exhibition to provide an entertaining and inspiring portrait of the project's visionary architects, planners and structures and celebrates an exciting, singular moment in the American Jewish experience.

DVD / 2013 / 67 minutes

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TINY: A STORY ABOUT LIVING SMALL

Director: Merete Mueller & Christopher Smith

What is home? And how do we find it? Through one couple's attempt to build a Tiny House with no building experience, this charming documentary raises questions about sustainability, good design, and the American Dream.

From 1970 to 2010, the average size of a new house in America has almost doubled. Yet in recent years, many are redefining their American Dream to focus on flexibility, financial freedom, and quality of life over quantity of space. These self-proclaimed "Tiny Housers" live in homes smaller than the average parking space, often built on wheels to bypass building codes and zoning laws. TINY takes us inside six of these homes stripped to their essentials, exploring the owners' stories and the design innovations that make them work.

TINY is a coming-of-age story for a generation that is more connected, yet less tied-down than ever, and for a society redefining its priorities in the face of a changing financial and environmental climate. More than anything, TINY invites its viewers to dream big and imagine living small.

DVD / 2013 / 62 minutes

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BREEDING ARCHITECTURE

By Farshid Moussavi (FOA) & Alejandro Zaera-Polo (FOA)

The architects Farshid Moussavi (from Iran) and Alejandro Zaera-Polo (from Spain), husband and wife, met at Harvard, but their collaboration only started when working at OMA in Rotterdam. There they began working on competitions. Then they taught at the AA, London. It was there that they won the competition for the Osanbashi Port Terminal building in Yokohama, and that was the beginning of their practice FOA. Many other commissions have followed. Included here are the BBC Music Centre, White City, London, the S.E.Coastal Park in Barcelona, and a project for the World Trade Center, New York. They are highly inventive designers. No one of their buildings resembles another. To them, style is anathema. They have been exploring ideas of convergence between landscape and infrastructure; and enjoy working with other people in a collaborative situation, where the client is tough and the project grows in discussion. No matter the constraints, they say they have a lot of fun.

CD-ROM / 2007

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ISAMU NOGUCHI

By Shoji Sadao

The architect Shoji Sadao, partner of Buckminster Fuller, met Isamu Noguchi through him and worked with both of them for many years, eventually becoming a partner also to Noguchi. He is now Director of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation in Long Island City, New York. Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988), the world-famous Japanese American sculptor, transformed landscapes and sculpted space into places of symbolism, mythology and abstraction. Sadao describes some of the landscape work they did together. He also relates how Noguchi came to design the bamboo and paper Akari lamps. Noguchi, he concludes, "always wanted to do something timeless"... "eternal verities were what Noguchi looked for".

CD-ROM

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SEVEN THEMES

By Niall McLaughlin

The young architect Niall McLaughlin identifies seven themes underlying his work: the use of light, the history of place; materials and making determining the architecture, buildings as metabolisms or ecosystems; building space in the landscape, landscape providing metaphors for buildings, and collaboration. This last he says is a way of 'ambushing his own imagination' and 'a route into originality'. Each of the themes is discussed in relation to one or more of his projects, each solution unique and innovative: small wonder that early in his career he received the accolade of Young Architect of the Year. Born in Geneva, McLaughlin was raised in Ireland. After his architectural training at University College, Dublin (1979-84) he worked for Scott Tallon Walker in Dublin and London, and in 1991 set up his own practice in London while teaching at Oxford Brookes University and later at the Bartlett School of Architecture.

CD-ROM

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TALE OF TWO CITIES, A

By Kathryn Findlay

After graduating from the AA, the Scottish born architect Kathryn Findlay spent 20 years in Japan. In 1987 she set up in partnership there with Eisaku Ushida. Now she is back in London, faced with the switch in cultures and its influence on her work. The Japanese, she says, see the creation of space as a total design involving all the senses. "What is solid and what is temporary becomes much more gradual and fused, and begins to make you more aware of invisible forces, energy, factors that create spaces." Curvilinear, fluid and flowing forms are the basis of most of Ushida Findlay's work, merged with spiral geometry into one organic object. Continuous primary surfaces link the interior and exterior of a house whose shape is formed around a meandering route generated by the circulation system. Large spaces may dissolve into smaller spaces and merge into the landscape. Familiar materials are used in unfamiliar ways to give a twist to the sense of reality. The invisible is made tangible. Such concepts are illustrated in the projects described by Kathryn Findlay in her recorded talk.

CD-ROM

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DESIGNING FOR CRICKET

By David Morley

The English architect David Morley trained at Cambridge and the AA. Working with Norman Foster on several projects, he set up their French office which was responsible for the Carre d'Art at Nimes. In 1987 he started his own practice in London and has designed a variety of buildings including a hospital extension, housing, halls of residence for two Oxford colleges and, not least, the award winning work at Lord's Cricket Ground, the subject of his recorded talk. Cricket is quintessentially an English game and the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) which owns Lord's is the premier cricket club in the world. In the 1980's it recognised that its leading role should be reflected in the building environment it created. The Mound Stand by Michael Hopkins & Partners, the first example of this attitude, was such a success that they were encouraged to pursue excellence in architectural design in all the subsequent projects that they commissioned; also recognising the importance of unifying and linking individual separate buildings with a clear master plan for the entire grounds. David Morley & Partners were chosen to design three buildings and the master plan while Hopkins, Grimshaw and Future Systems are the authors of the remaining new structures.

CD-ROM

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ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN IS OUR TASK

By Serge Chermayeff

The late Serge Chermayeff was born in Russia and educated in Britain where he became a British subject and practised architecture before World War Two. But in 1940, he emigrated to the USA, became an American citizen and devoted his life to teaching environmental design. Many of to-day's leading architects have emerged from his courses benefited by his informed, analytical and incisive approach. First he was at Brooklyn College, NY. Then, in the 1940's, he went to work with Gropius at Harvard. In the 1960's, he joined Paul Rudolph at Yale where he remained until his retirement in 1970 with the title Professor Emeritus. At which point he felt free to travel and study planning in far-flung countries. All this he describes in his recorded talk. And he concludes: "As a teacher, my subject has always been 'environmental design', not 'architecture'. The experience gave me a clear view that professional involvements are not anything that can be frozen. They are constantly changing, growing, adjusting - a natural process, a constant inter-action between environment and the function. Nothing is ever finished, particularly in relation to planning. Everything obsolesces". Gropius once wrote to his students to the following effect: "Don't think that when you have done something it is of importance. Because what is important is that the thread of action behind your action will be picked up by somebody else. Your worth will be the judgement of those who pick up your work and carry it further".

CD-ROM

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EXPLORING THE BOUNDARIES OF DESIGN

By Peter Rice

The late Peter Rice liked the title by which he was known in France, 'geometre', for he was as much a thinker and strategist as an engineer. He began his professional career with Ove Arup & Partners working on Sydney Opera House, and later formed part of the team that won the competition for the Pompidou Centre in Paris. Since then he has collaborated with Renzo Piano or Richard Rodgers (members of that team) as well as, briefly, with Frei Otto, and recently with Martin Francis and Ian Ritchie at La Villette. He has always been interested in the scale and detail of a building, detailing being a way of breaking down scale. With Piano he had the object of exploring the whole building process; also of working outside the building industry, for example investigating what a Fiat car might be like in the 1990's. He explored the extent to which computers and software technology can be used to predict and control the performance of a building, and the way in which different materials are expressed and how this influences their use in buildings - cast iron, steel, concrete, Ferro cement, glass, polyesters and plastics, polycarbonate. By continuing to experiment with different materials he hoped to maintain his inventiveness and avoid becoming repetitive as a designer.

CD-ROM

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IDEA OF DESIGN, THE

By Alan Fletcher

Alan Fletcher, one of Britain's top graphic designers, was an art student in London in the 50's. But it was not until he studied and worked in the USA that he found his vocation. This in time led to his becoming design consultant to the Time Life group in London. At this point he also teamed up with Colin Forbes and Bob Gill to form the immediately successful partnership Fletcher Forbes & Gill. Later Gill left and the architect Theo Crosby' and the product designer Kenneth Grange' joined them, and the group changed its name to Pentagram and was able to offer a much enlarged range of services. They have numbered most of the world's prestigious industrial companies among their clients. In Fletcher's recording he is concerned with taking out of context the essential idea of his designs. Graphic design being a method of communicating ideas to people, he describes and illustrates many ways in which he has done this, demonstrating his fertile and innovative approach.

CD-ROM

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REFURBISHMENT OF NEW YORK'S LINCOLN CENTER, THE (CHARLES RENFRO)

By Charles Renfro

Charles Renfro joined Diller and Scofidio, founded by Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, in 1997. Since Renfro became a partner in 2004, the firm has been known as Diller Scofidio + Renfro. The practice first gained attention for its site-specific, landscape and multi-media work, most notably the Blur Building, a pavilion at the 2002 Swiss Expo. It completed its first major building, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Boston, in 2006. The renovation of the High Line, a formerly disused elevated railway line running along the west side of Manhattan, has become a much loved addition to the city since it opened in summer 2009. The second phase of the High Line opened in summer 2011. In this talk, Renfro discusses the firm's interventions at Lincoln Centre arts complex in Manhattan's Upper West Side. He discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the original campus, designed in the late 1950s and early 1960s by America's leading architects of the time and outlines Diller Scofidio + Renfro's approach to the refurbishment. He details the various phases of the project, which include opening up the Julliard music school and the Alice Tully concert hall, reworking Dan Kiley's landscape scheme for the North Plaza and re-energising Lincoln Center's front entrance, Robertson Plaza.

CD-ROM

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SELF-DESIGNING STRUCTURES

By Frei Otto

German born architect Frei Otto started practice in Berlin in 1952, but in 1968 moved to Warmbronn near Stuttgart. Since 1964 he has been Professor and Director of the Institute of Lightweight Structures at the University of Stuttgart, and he has been a visiting professor at universities all over the world. Although he trained as an architect, his heart is in natural science. He seeks to understand how structures are made by Nature, how much energy and materials etc. are required, and the process by which these come together. His research has led to the design of tented structures that are remarkable for their diversity and inclusiveness - membrane structures, mesh-steel cable-nets, tree structures, asymmetrical self-supporting shells - built for any climate and in any shape or size. He has revived the tent as a leading species of modern tensile architecture. But, as he explains in his recorded talk, he does not only design 'tents'. The ideas developed for his own all-weather, indoor-outdoor, minimum-energy house have led to the ecological multi-storey housing he designed for the 1984 Berlin International Building Exhibition.. Man, he says, must stop destroying Nature and start to see himself as part of it. His opportunity is a nature-oriented technology; natural structures. Professor Otto adds a short statement in German at the end of the talk.

CD-ROM

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