For this years Nuit Blanche in Toronto we are looking for donations of old knitted sweaters, hats, anything made from yarn that could be recycled. We are collaborating on a project and part of the exhibition requires us to crochet sculptural pieces. Please contact us if you have any yarn.

LW

Well stated point by Lebbeus Woods, we cant undermine the validity of innovation that lies within the experimental projects especially in architecture.

Robert Venturi in Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture addresses architecture as the only place where redundant and simple construction, in thinking and in material reality, takes shape. All other art forms indulge and promote complexity in their art form especially in the multiplicity that occurs in poetry, fine art and even mathematics, which build on the multitude of possibilities to creating the art. Architecture is different because it does not adapt to the opportunity of variety. Venturi suggests that architecture is rationalized through rejecting and excluding the complexities that emerge in architecture because the building is essentially comprised of a multitude paradoxes, from dealing with outside and inside, movement and immobility and so on.

Venturi finds great value in embracing the complex layers that have emerged from previous and old methods of architecture that have rendered architecture complex. In Venturi’s time of practice and older defined philosophies of architecture recognized complexity in thinking and building in architecture from, ecological conditions and expanding scale, such as skyscrapers, as well as fitting with the city context leaves architecture to be caught in a theoretical vortex of multiple necessities. “I welcome the problems and exploit the uncertainties.” Venturi criticizes modernism for rejecting the complexities and being exclusive as oppose to accommodating.

Ventrui focuses on embracing contradiction and complexity by recognizing the various paradoxes present in architecture and the society that architecture accommodates.  A visually complex, constructed, environment is necessary and can exist between regimented order and barren architectural forms. Venturi recognizes the work of Mies van der Rohe in his statuesque pavilions that are recognizable by their simplicity. Ventrui is hesitant of the oversimplification of architecture especially when he elaborates on Mies’s infamous statement on modernism in “Less is more,” to “Less is a bore” because the complex behaviour of people and how they move through their environment is not reflective to one unified, simplified form. Although, oversimplified architecture is able to make selective decisions and create a building that is successful in use and memorable in appearance, it is bland for a program of living. The program of living is referring to how people congregate differently in architecture because people are varied so they respond to an environment that accommodates for this instinct that responds to change and chaos. Such features of architectural nakedness helps the architect to make evident judgments on what works for the building but this oversimplification is also the down fall for the architecture because it ignores the desire for visual stimulation that is achieved through variety.

The complex architecture, Venturi says, has multiple meaning, which at the same time takes part in a fluid system. The meanings contradict one another when analyzed side by side but Venturi suggests that they should be addressed together, not excluding one or the other for the sake of clarity in simplification. The clarity can lead to a bare and bland architecture that stands alone separate from the people it accommodates. Even separating elements of architecture, such as the idea of outside versus inside or window from wall creates levels of importance. The ranking system fosters a tense existence for simplified bland architecture, as Venturi says. The separations of elements create a hierarchy between the components of architecture. Worse, when the rules of order are not followed, the order breaks producing negativity through anxiety and rejection of the disruption of order. Venturi suggests each part has their place in architecture and should be recognized for the complexity by addressing the architecture as a whole.

Venturi sees an obligation toward the difficult whole. “It is the difficult unity through inclusion rather than easy unity through exclusion,” acceptance rather than rejection is ideal to achieve a rich architecture. The “difficult whole” is the challenge to unify the numerous components that encompass an architectural form. The challenge to achieving a more valuable architecture is through consciousness off all the potential parts and finding a way to bridge them all into a cohesive mass. The whole is the “sum of its parts” as a result a complex equation creates a more interesting and valuable result that is incomparable to previous solutions especially in architecture. An architectural work can be richer by reevaluating the complexity and the all the parts that function as the architecture.

Imagine the Mississippi

Great lecture by Stan Allen on looking at adaptable architecture and landscape design in a largely urban setting.

Portlands Design Intervention

-A.C.

Portlands article

-AC

Environmental Design at OCAD needs that, perhaps as a permanent and affordable fixture.

-AC

For your entertainment.

-AC

Dembroski Centre and the TGB

If we disregard the fact that the Toronto Botanical Gardens lies in between naturally tailored habitat and a cemented parking lot there is high potential for a system that is giving back rather than trampling on natural habitat. The environment is thriving due to the systemic interrelationship between the cistern that collects rainwater that connects back into the irrigation and nourishes the organisms at the surface. This cyclical pattern is an example of eco-effectiveness, acting like the cherry tree in Cradle to Cradle, by enriching the resources that are essential for its survival through a production and waste pattern. TBG is eco-effective in this way because the water collection and distribution method is creating a dynamic living environment for plants, insects and animals.

The TGB allows an industrial environ to become an ecosystem for a dynamic blend of organisms. It is apparent that in an industry driven system such as the industrial symbiosis in Klaundborg in Denmark the cyclical relationship is inclined towards eco-efficiency by C2C terms rather than a more thriving system like eco-effectiveness. The exchange of water waste is managing one aspect of waste and working towards reducing emissions to be “less bad” but still the companies must remain productive. Kaldunborg produces waste that is reduced to a different form, like downcycling the wastewater takes on a different construct but the nutrients from the element are further and further reduced till there is little left. The wastewater that is reused acts like paper moving through the recycling system. The paper pulp fibers get shorter and less strong eventually ending their life in a dump. TGB uses it resources in a different way by taking the water and feeding it back into a rich system that makes the water into nutrients by feeding the cycle.

A better example of “collocate companies” that Kalundborg is modeling is the systematic nutrient flow of a forest. This is similar to the cherry tree but on a larger scale and in richly dynamic ecosystem where every waste becomes a nutrient that feeds the forest and the creatures that survive within. TBG is essentially replicating the effectiveness of the forest by absorbing nutrients and releasing back into the environment. The cycle benefits the soil and the organisms on land that are drawn in to create a dynamic environment.

OG