"Architecture is too important to be left to architects." - Giancarlo de Carlo.
I think it's Giancarlo. Haha. Please correct me if i m wrong.
I figured to use this quote as the title for my latest blog posting after my site visit (again) and the aftermath of friday's studio. Realised I have only been posting comments and left most of the blogging to ohaiz, sio, yaoks and of cos our solvent_d!
I will attempt to summarize the studio session and pls forgive me if i get carried away later.
My studio is working on the old dutch city of Dordrecht. There are 3 sites to choose from. The program is to build low budget housing. My course is hybrid building which means mixed functions, old+new (well more or less, they didnt really say why its hybrid bldgs exactly) It is more like our urban core in nus. The sites are existing city "blocks" and we are supposed to intervene in these city blocks and improve it. And of cos to have low cost housing.
So for the 2nd wk of sch we went to Dordrecht as a studio with our tutor. Took a retarded touristy boat ride along the canals of Dordrecht thks to our tutor. (Hope she will not read this b4 i leave Delft) Then the studio was split into 3 groups and each group a site to work on the 1:500 site model.
The site model took another 2 weeks with a ridiculously brief precedent study exercise on student housing.
On friday, everyone was supposed to come up with 4 massing models. 2 design iterations each for 2 sites of choice. So that we can fit on the site model to compare and discuss. Come friday, u see pple that made models purely on concept. Scale-less. Not to scale. U see ang mohs that cant be bothered. They come with retarded, ridiculously small foam cubes. U also see people who jus make u wonder whether u r attending studio with masters students or year 1 students. This is not the worst. Then the angmohs started arguing and debating over nonsensical stuff. They debate when their models are not to scale and when they have no fucking idea of the site!!! The majority of the studio has only been to the site they have been working for the site model. They started discussing machiam they know dordrecht inside out. Only 3 pure dutch students, 2 dutch based foreign students and the rest exchange students in a studio of 12. U get my idea. Nobody knows Dordrecht. Not even the dutch cos Dordrecht is such a ulu town. Its like asking Singaporeans abt Ulu Pandan. Then finally the worst thing. My tutor. She is damn jialat. She made me lose all respect for her as a tutor overnight. First there is this austrian that is damn jiao gei. He will comment on every dude's design machiam he is damn expert. Then he will be supported by this french dude. Then the whole din will go on and the tutor has to ask everyone to let her speak!! Then when somebody else was presenting his/her model and the austrian guy was not ard. Guess wat she said? She said we shld wait for Mario to come back cos he gives good comments. Wtf? Is she a tutor or not? Her comments are either usually boring/meaningless/unnecessary. Then this dutch guy did a ridiculous design and she thinks its good?!?? (Let me explain, the 3rd site is an empty site surrounded by modern 4 storey residential blocks and what he did was a "city wall with all the apartments within the city wall" bcos the surroundings is too bad and he wants to protect the students (student housing) from the surroundings. Si-me-lan-jiao?????????????????? And then she says, i think it is a good proposal. I almost died that instant. Then when its my/ zada's turn to present (zada from yr 3 is in my studio too), nobody gives a shit. Nobody comments. Maybe they are tired. Maybe they think that Asiatic people are not people.
Me and Zada decided to visit Dordrecht yest (Sat). We visited all 3 sites once more. None of the designs the angmohs came up with will work in my opinion. Not that I m damn expert. The simple reason? They don't even get their freaking facts right about the site!!! The shopping street they talked about is on the other side!! The pub they said at the corner was opposite! The so called dead corner in the courtyard was just pure imagination. My tutor has the Dutch mindset that open spaces are bad. That people like to walk in intimate streets. That Corbusian block raised on piloti will not work. We visited the open field site and u see children playing running across big open spaces.
Disillusioned and also at the same time more fired up. The next time the studio is going to be so full of nonsense, I will speak up. I didnt cos i was not aware of the facts myself. I did not comment on anybody's design cos no one knows what they are talking about or simply their designs were not to scale.
All they did was to draw plainly on the maps and look at the contextually neutral site model to design. What's the fucking point of a site visit? Architecture is not from the brain, it is not jus from the doodles on the site map or a few lines on a napkin. Architecture should be from the eyes, the ears, the nose, the hands and the heart.
Monday, October 10, 2005
Architecture is too important to be left to architects.
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8 comments:
scary... but true...
recounting how shane was telling me how architects in singapore usually do that too. visit site once, take photos, make runners do up site model, draw on butter paper, first design come up, build it.
also remind me of the retarded times SW made us do 2 weeks of site studies (only za, me and cheehong really went down alot of times), how LBG studio made that site model and arguing abt where is where and they too dun get their facts and directions right, ruzica studio spent entirely on discussing who is ur favorite architects and wat u have researched abt environmental architecture (when evidently everyone did not but bedek their way through. notably debbieloo and soomeng damn power)
that is one part of academic architecture that hurt me most is such postulating on airy matters when the site is not grounded. we see power site analyses but in the end the context machiam forgotten to chut some chichi country resort style architecture.
knowingly u guys will sure expect me to whine again. lol. i have to. i've been through so much crappy studios mates i wonder if it ever was fair.
btw, i'm really touched by the kind words by wuks and oahiz at my entry. tks a lot guys! :`)
as for wuk's predicament, all i can say is: humility.
to be honest, i really am just as clueless as anyone else. which is why i truly believe and appreciate discourse. i also work better in a group setting where many different people are working on the same subject.
u*p was the place where i learnt to speak my mind. it was quite a shock to me that these "scholars" were constantly on edge and ready to latch onto your every word as weapons with which to rip you apart; i kid you not. it seems that 20% class participation is nothing if not important to these people.
but it isn't so much the tearing apart that i picked up. quite contrarily, i learnt to listen, digest it before offering my own personal insight with a belief that maybe my thoughts might matter. most importantly, i hold it in me that my opinions might not matter and prove to be even lacking. so i'm ever willing to admit to a bad argument/ idea/ concept/ thought, and correct myself accordingly.
how else does one learn?
invariably then, any thought posed is one that is surrendered to the audience on a platter. it doesn't seek to humiliate, enlighten, snub or necessarily challenge. it does, however, try to make us reflect a little more. sometimes it works, on other occasions it doesn't. in any case, you'd be pleasantly surprised by how a politely phrased and sincerely considered criticism/ opinion goes a long way for your subject/s.
like to share one more thing that happened in my last year with u*p.
seeing as how i'm terribly fallible, i did grow impatient with the comments that some--often the freshies--had to share. at this point, i was apt at rolling my eyes or making faces at the discussion group. once, i even told my moral philosophy class--much to their chagrin--that they ought to "stop this meaningless dicussion because it. is. just. so. not. the. point!". everyone gave me a good incredulous stare lasting a whole minute, before they promptly returned to where i had interrupted them.
now, i understand that people often need to experience round-abt discussions simply as an exercise of working out their ideas. i too have experienced it, often asking a question one second, then realising my own folly after the vocalising.
hmm...
i guess the word isnt humility bah...humility suggests a sort of repression of some sort...
just take it as amusement that some views are indeed so guilable and come to pass while maintaining their own views as a more professional take on what u value more lor. if one chooses to stick their mind into the framework of comparison, of meaningless discussions, of such, one gets intertwined and get their shoes dirty.
if one takes a decidedly hey, they arent that great after all, but hey, i m not comparing myself to them at all, i m comparing myself with ME, make a show out of presenting, appear at their freak show and smile happily. ur ego wld get less hurt, u will be happier recounting how much a joke it was.
that is not pride nor humility becoz u chose detachment, and from detachment u get choose what u WANT to learn from these arguments rather than to destroy it totally. it is a difficult social skill, but it is one worthy to master.
i know i'm not part of this wuks_dee_chez thought exchange session but i'd just like to say that:
Humility is NOT repression of ANY sort.
being humble doesn't mean u keep behind the scenes and not speak up. its about HOW you speak up. and humility only comes when you're worthy enough to demand genuine respect, which i feel in deyi's case is that way.
statements like these make me so frus and angst.
i guess its come to a point where i have to speak up (after which i might regret but heck), and judging from the nature of this post, i'd say its quite fitting for me to "speak up" here.
this comment is generated for our dear chez. i really do think you are a nice person, and perhaps its just by the way you structure your verbage but i always feel a tinge of disagreement when i read your posts.
this disagreement comes from the way you express you views which forms a picture of false sense of self autority in that your unhappiness over the past 4 yrs comes from the fact that you know better than everyone else.
i guess deep down we are two very different people, but that does not make you better than me or me better than you. wisdom does not come across snobby nor should it involve self-love more than a normal amount.
i hope you understand why i have to speak up. such that anyone outside of our circle reading our blog would not think of you less than who you really are.
having said that, you'd probably just continue posting the way you do now because this is a blog and anyone is free to do anything he or she chooses. yaoks and i were discussing how tough it is to determine what is appropriate to be posted on blogs. but for me to just let out a bit of steam here is all i'm asking for, becos, it is also my blog and i'm free to do whatever i choose.
hey~ nonono thats not what i meant sioz...hmmz...bites fingers for a better explanation...
u see... i am a blunt talking person, i strip out all niceties to relate to pple whom i really care abt and in this i mean it, i criticise pple hard coz i think they are worthy and deserve some perspectives that relate to them deep down. and u see, u are nice too, but u relate to pple u are close to in different ways... i look forward to ur posts becoz i know u wld stand strong against me and i totally respect that~
u see, if i am proud and above all that, i wldnt respect ur views wld i? humility does not come from appearances, it comes from the heart and i have every right to respect the upbringing and the context the person is arguing with. in my examples with KS, we are talking abt pple who are really making a show out of studio time and wasting others so explicitly that there is little room to have respect for their views. in dee's case for intellectual discussion in UP, those dudes perhaps had some discussions more worthy and respectable. see? thats where the difference for the context of humility lies.
my words drive to the point at the instances i describe perhaps it is overtly portrayed with some element of dramaticism bah. if i am truly so proud, i wldnt be sitting 2 hrs with sandy drawing up her designs so patiently even i hate her totally, and if i was indeed so self important, i wld deem myself so crucial for the operation of scalebar i wld close it down and make pple THINK i m THAT impt. shucks even by stating these old egs make me feel a tinge of boastfulness but i hope i am driving a point across.
and of coz, i never make it a point for comparison against pple WITH respect with myself. i respect hard work more so than talent, i respect pple who turn up at site studies earnestly wanting to learn something rather than to impress tutors. i remembered u were in qiaoz studio showing me how u did ur 3D cad and u are happily putting ur light source light infinitely away with a line extruded, so innocently happy at the mastery of 3D cad and i respect that jubilance in ur work really. i dun go ard thinking, chey, u only did a little 3D thing and theres nothing worth to be proud abt did i? (lol u never know if i did anyways, but seriously i dont, *earnest look*, i was telling lingxin who was in ur studio then how much ur enjoy ur work)
i guess it is only fair for u to be judgemental abt the way and the things i say becoz i deliberately choose to hit out at things that i feel that are overly glossed in happiness that i feel uncomfortable abt. i dun say nice things all the time becoz they have been said by others. i mean i respect ur views totally man but i hope u understand what and where i am driving at.
i dun mean to offend anyone or to appear egoistical to any context. if i do, its my style of talking. i have a very close knit of frens i treasure most that understands this and gives me equally harsh comments. i hope in time to come we cld be closer liddat too.
wow after i read your reply and after re-reading my own harsh comment i feel guilty! and precisely so the more i understand how sometimes writing about something you feel strongly of can in the end come out so different.
i did not mean to imply you are excessively proud. pride is something i feel people must have, with respect to their own views and work.
the truth is i'm just beginning to know you better. i guess we've never really talked in school and i was quite taken aback by your expressive feelings over the past few entries. to me, you were always the very happy and hardworking chap who's always ready for a laugh. i guess i was trying to relate this seemingly unhappy chez on outofscale to the dedicated scalebar chap over the past 3 years.
like i mentioned before, i meant no offense with my last comment. it seems now this comment is overly harsh as i was only trying to figure out why you are so unhappy. and i'm sure you know i'm the sort of person who wouldn't give a damn to people who don't mean shit to me. you do mean something to me. :)
people always say sio is a sweet, happy and nice girl. haha i'm actually quite a bitter sad bitch 80% of the time.
let's just put this past us if you kindly can - but i don't regret anything cos at least now i know where you're coming from.
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