8by sounds_sound
by sounds_sound 205 days ago · link · parent · post: The Detroit Rule 
Chili? I'd eat Detroit Crackrock. I think that's what they put in their chili though. Btw, Did I ever tell you how cold it is in the D?
by sounds_sound 369 days ago · link · parent · post: PBS Lists top 10 buildings that changed America...
That's exactly why this building is on the list, because the process is what matters. But not only did the process inform the building as to what it wanted to be, the building most definitely allowed that process to happen, evolve, and ultimately become extremely refined. Highland park was the real testing ground that allowed the River Rouge plant to even be conceived. Forget about the model T, it's all about the assembly line and Highland Park is where that all really took shape. So while I wouldn't say 'It's just a building', I do suggest that it is a really dumb building, but that's kind of the genius of it. It was flexible and open and adaptable. It was like a lab where things could be discovered. Say you need an extra man on the line for whatever reason. Well, you would need to stretch out the existing line to make room for that and the building was designed to let that happen. Say a car part doesn't fit through the door, well you take a wall out, since the concrete skeletal frame and thin glass facade lets you do that - in a few hours. This building is the place where the Model T went from like 20 hours to make to less than 2 minutes to make and it's no question that the building played a major role in letting that happen. And check this out. When they even needed more space than anticipated, they built scaffolding onto the side, essentially extending the machine onto the street. It worked and it was beautiful.
You have to remember that we're talking about 1908 here. Nobody was thinking about buildings in this way before. In a way, the fact that you find this building meaningless is even more telling of its complete ubiquitous power. These types of buildings and their way of thinking about space totally revolutionized manufacturing throughout the world and it happened in the matter of a few decades, which is why it feels so normal, but at the time this was really new and groundbreaking shit. Even Corb's manifesto which says that "Architecture is a machine for living in" wasn't published until 15 years later. And Corb was in fact greatly influenced by what he saw during his visit to industrial America. Architecture was starting to empathize with and incorporate the car. For me, the real interesting thing that this building talks about is how our lives were starting to become compartmentalized. Now (in 1910), you would GO to work, and GO on vacation, and GO to grandma's house. Our lives were exceedingly being dictated by the clock and reduced to schedules. You can read this in the elevation of the building. It's a grid of repetitive rectangles all working together to create the mass of a whole building. I mean, is it just a coincidence that the elevation of the building, as wholly dictated by it's functionality, looks exactly like a calendar? This was also happening in painting at the time too, which of course was equally revolutionary. Cubism was partly about deconstructing the body into parts and reassembling them. It was about, for me, the beginning of the lack of cohesiveness in our daily lives. Highland Park is where all of this started.
by sounds_sound 477 days ago · link · parent · post: Why 3D Printing will go the way of VR
Bit of a rambler, but someone might find a useful moment or two -
I was a bit young during the time that I remember VR being hyped up so I can't really add to its discussion. I do however remember the Power Glove and Lawn Mower Man and I do remember thinking that VR was going to be everywhere in no time. If you asked people in the 50's what kind of personal vehicles we would have by the millennium they would tell you that we would all have flying cars. And when the hoverboard was featured in BTTF II, I could have sworn you would be able to buy one the week after. These days I'm not so easily cajoled. As someone who hears the words 'Master Plan' a lot in my profession, I have to say it's laughable. Predictions of the future rarely come true, yet I understand the temptation. So, in the spirit of argument (and in giving into temptations), let me declare - 3d printers will NEVER be in the AVERAGE middle-class home. The reason is simply because it will never be practical enough. This to me though this isn't even close to what is actually compelling about 3d printing because I do believe that they are revolutionizing the way we design and build and the way we think about design and build.
First off, coupling two technologies like VR and 3D Printing for a discussion is myopic at best and does neither of their virtues any service. I think that VR is WAY more complex than 3d printing in terms of mechanics. Fooling haptics is no easy task. But what is really interesting to me concerning 3d printing is the way is allows us to think about material differently. It's on par in this respect to the recent molecular gastronomy food movement in terms of a complete paradigm shift. I wouldn't really call this molecular gastronomy, but check out MIT's food printer: http://web.media.mit.edu/~marcelo/cornucopia/ as one example. Printing chicken nuggets at home is now a reality even if it it is quite silly. Printing in terms of its architectural merit is more realistic and what I want to focus on...
Printing lets us think of material in terms of its basic components and their propensity to amalgamate and that's really exciting. I once heard someone say that Legos are destroying design because they allow for only additive, i.e. tectonic, making which is the counterpoint to something like carving terracota which is subtractive making, or stereotomic. Printing makes us think about both simultaneously. As we discover ways to 'powderize' more materials, then our horizons will continually expand. Right now on Shapeways, we can order a print in plastic, metal, ceramic, and glass http://www.shapeways.com/materials/ and there are places that can fire or dip anything printed so the question of quality and durability is now irrelevant. Also, I can't believe that wood isn't being printed yet - think medium density fiberboard (MDF). The truth is, entire commodity chains will be affected by the way printing consumes material.
Another important aspect of printing is the way it grants people access to advanced design. I've been actually playing with 3d printing for about 10 years now myself and I can say first hand how incredibly liberating it is to send my rhino file to the printer and watch it bake. Try it and your mind will explode (just like the first time you used Napster) For me, printing allows us to create beautiful designs like people used to spend time doing. I think there is a direct lineage from Louis Sullivan's frieze: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zJpnTu57Koc/TF48wG6rkRI/AAAAAAAAVt... to Michael Hansmeyer's computational architecture: http://www.michael-hansmeyer.com/projects/columns.html#1 decoration is affordable again. And, oh shit, look at what's coming next: http://cosmopolitanscum.com/2011/09/23/the-worlds-first-prin.... In the future this will be no biggie.
by sounds_sound 597 days ago · link · parent · post: Louis Khan - My Architect x 2
x 2I visited the Exeter Library two years ago. Actually slept over night in my car in the parking lot because I didn't have money for a hotel. It's a pretty powerful building. The design is made from a series of concentric squares. The process? It's as different as each individual building and each individual architect. Ideally, there wouldn't be one starting point, but many co-existing starting points. To say that an architect works from the inside out or vice versa is too reductionist. One might typically start with a request of types of spaces needed, called the program. In the case of the Exeter, maybe a lobby, reception, reading kiosks, book stacks, etc. You can see some of his earlier sketches of these relationships here in the lower left http://jtpennington.com/italy/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/lib.... You can see him working out ideas in plan and elevation. Although he primarily works in plan (Le Corbusier famously said 'the plan is the ultimate generator') At the same time though, one should be thinking about procession, meaning how and when do we first arrive to view the building - walking to it from across the street, driving to the parking lot etc. then entering the building, seeing the lobby,and finally, maybe searching for a book on the fourth floor or something. This is all called the architectural 'promenade'. The architect at his/her fullest potential designs these environments - high low loud quiet light dark hard soft public private. The way the spaces work together, cohesively, often takes some massaging. Kahn was known for thinking of buildings in terms of serving and served spaces. The stair well is a serving space, the reading room is a served space. The janitors closet is a serving space, the covered entry is a served space. Really though there are a million ways to approach the design of a building - economic, environmental, political, functional, structural....
