on windows

windows. the first thing that comes to mind is uncertainty. we build walls, but are not so sure of them. not sure that they are supposed to be there. a window is a hesitation. an uncertain commitment to something rigid. an acceptance that our walls are not absolute. dissatisfaction with our tools as incomplete, indefinite, representations of our expression. windows make walls movable. open walls up to, and acknowledge the possibility that walls can always be better. if not at that moment, in that circumstance, some other. the vocabulary of windows exists for a reason, a concession, plea, that walls are indefinite.

on walls

When you build something, you create a channel for human interaction. An interface that allows discrete entities to connect. Walls. People don't talk to walls. People talk to people. Through walls. Architectures embedded with symbols and meaning. Vocabularies. When walls become dynamic transformative structures, what happens to the vocabularies that used to surround them. What new symbols do they express, and meaning do they represent. How do we define, redefine vocabularies. A building facade, a series of nodes, windows. Objects suspended on a two-dimensional grid. Entry points with variables brightness, movement... When a wall becomes a screen, the nodes break free. A new dimension to a structure is added. Where do you draw the line in terms of playing with old meaning, and introducing new. genre film. Using established vocabularies of genre as a starting point, and diverging from there. Short cuts to break free from and surprise. Transformation in media happens all of the time. These conventions have already been addressed, broken, time and time again. It still interests me though what these transformations will look like in architecture, with such an strongly anchored vocabulary.

Speaking of walls and surprise. The other day a member of this class typed his thesis proposal onto my facebook wall. If we were in another time, where facebook didn't exist, and I lived in a wooden shack, I think he probably would have thrown it up on the wall of my shack with a crayon. At least that is what it felt like he was doing. There is meaning attached to the way we move around walls, and talk to people through them. I don't feel this way about other comments on my facebook wall. By that I mean other people wouldn't have written on my shack. Just this person. Everyone moves around walls differently. People make marks on them. You learn about people trhough those marks. SOme walls are more rigid. Some crumble when you touch them. Some walls let you see certain people more than others.

xicui entertainment center notes

some sketches for Xicui entertainment center facade in Beijing. New parameters, an old vocabulary, a new one to define, build stretch. At what point do I start to pull? a wall. delimiter of space. interior, exterior. detached. The facade of a building is a series of nodes. Fixed, suspended in space. Each node grants entry to another dimension. A world within a frame. You cannot get too close, but stand too far and you see nothing but a grain of light. a step behind it is gone. Layering of nodes, x,y,z, fluid, dimension, movement. trapped, a frame, structure. can you step out? light darkness, vision obscured, try to see more but cannot. Step out, in. navigate. move. explore. be curious. ask. step inside.