The stitching together of materials, spaces, landscapes, literally and figuratively. Guest editors: Deborah Ascher Barnstone and Robert Barnstone.
Architecture and Sewing
8 Canada $7.50 Mexico 50MXN USA $7US Australia $7AUD UK £3 Europe 5
Barnstone/Ascher Barnstone: Studio, Rossland BC, 2001
Architecture and sewing Deborah Ascher Barnstone and Robert Barnstone, guest editors
On Site review issue 8 2002 publisher
The Association for Non-Profit Architectural Fieldwork (Alberta) guest editors Deborah Asher Barnstone Robert Barnstone editor Stephanie White contributors
welcome to issue 8, Architecture and Sewing. Our guest editors are Deborah Ascher Barnstone and Robert Barnstone, who wrote in On|Site 5 about their portable dining room, called a sukkah . for harvest workers in Indiana. It was an elegant structure made of many hundreds of thin wood strips nailed to make a series of shifting screens, panels and ribs. More of their work can be seen here, in this issue – all with the same sensibility where thinness, fragility and provisionality combine to made robust structures. We encourage you to send us your comments on this issue, and to continue to send us news of interesting work in your region that we can include in future issues.
Kevin Alter Deborah Asher Barnstone Jill Bambury Robert Barnstone Philip Beesley Hansy Luz Better Sarah Bonnemaison Tali Bucher Edward Cullinen Architects Al Donnell
Clodagh Latimer Christine Macy Christine Maile Office dA Tonkao Panin Dean Russell Angela Silver Tom Strickland Shawn van Sluys Barbara Todd Martha Townsend Mark West Stephanie White
Ward Eagen Mitchell Hall Filiz Klassen Andrew King
translations Nathan Golden, ACSA design & production Black Dog Running Syntax Media Services printer Makeda Press, Calgary
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comments, ideas, proposals editor@onsitereview.ca
Steel mesh veils a crumbling cliff face on the Trans-Canada Highway east of Golden, BC.
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real places 1 las vegas
real places 2 near rimouski, quebec
Al Donnell
T he mechanical palm tree: actually a mast for cell phone transmission. I’ve only seen one so far, but I’m sure they’re the wave of the future. No need for water — which is in increasingly short supply here — and no danger of freezing. though the way things have been going, global- warming-wise, this is a small worry.
Photographed while driving the long way to Halifax, in April of 2001. Can anyone tell us who did this?
Al Donnell is an architect exiled to Las Vegas through every fault of his own.
Une lettre de Las Vegas :
aucun risque de gel. Bien que, la façon dont les choses vont, du point de vue du réchauffement de la planète, il s’agit là d’une bien petite inquiétude.
Le palmier mécanique : il s’agit en fait d’un mât servant aux trans- missions de téléphones cellulaires. Je n’en ai vu qu’un seul jusqu’à présent, mais je suis certaine qu’il s’agit de la vague de l’avenir.Aucun besoin d’eau – qui est de plus en plus une pénurie par ici – et
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Call for Articles: Issue 9
Contents
introduction D eborah A sher B arnstone and R obert B arnstone introduce the conjunction of architecture and sewing. real places Las Vegas: A l D onnel finds the ultimate 21st century tree. Rimouski: as seen from the highway.
On the Surface What you see is what you get:What you get is not what you see. The question at hand explores the power of architectural surface to shape and reshape the identities of both archi- tecture and place. How architecture as it appears in direct experience —be it in its immediacy as a given texture or in its remoteness as an image— gives us references and clues to the work of architecture itself and of the larger social, cultural and natural framework of its location.This two-way movement towards an inner and outer horizon endows architectural surface with the capacity to generate meaning —or ide- ology— and locates it in the crucial juncture by which it seems capable of transcending its own superficiality in many possible directions. This inquiry into the depth of archi- tectural Surface (Skin-Covering-Dress- ing-Cladding) touches upon its visible and non-visible manifestations, i.e. upon its practical, material, constructional, and representational aspects.Addressing var- ious examples and innovative ways of thinking and building architectural sur- face in contemporary practice, the pro- posed subjects may include but not be limited to the relation between Surface and— materials construction production transformation weathering appropriation meaning (cultural, social, economic) form occupation space location — the dialogue between architec- tural surface and its surroundings image —the representation of architectural images Send ideas immediately to Tonkao Panin at tpanin@dolphin.upenn.edu All submissions due February 28 2003. Go to www.onsitereview.ca for specifications.
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letters Shawn van Sluys revisits Lethbridge Modernism. Dean Russell writes from Edmonton.
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projects Quilting with glass, cedar and fir. R obert B arnstone dis- cusses his studio in Rossland, BC. H ansy L uz B etter looks at economy, quality and fit: sewing in the work of Office dA. The Lazlo Files, Harvard Graduate School of Design. E d C ullinen ’s Weald and Downland Museum Gridshell. The Hardouin House in Austin,Texas by K evin A lter . Arachne: a myth for our times, informs the work of S arah B onnemaison and C hristine M acy . Like Nothing — the drawing investigations of M artha T ownsend . Adam’s Boat — B arbara T odd traces images of boats and quilts. work in progress A ndrew K ing and A ngela S ilver design The Thread House in Calgary, Alberta Sheer Equilibrium: M ark W est clarifies a few points. F iliz K lassen introduces Pro-fusion : an online design forum. So, who needs to live in Toronto? landscape P hilip B eesely shows two installations in Nova Scotia. Sewing the landscape. C hristine M aile finds small, wild gardens in the streets of New York. observers T onkao P anin looks at the Postparkasse in Vienna and its rippling stone walls. W ard E agen discusses the stitching of space and time in the work of Frank Gehry. Weave: a look at Bruce Mau’s Life Style , and other things by S tephanie W hite . Ask her what she makes — J ill B ambury sews a tale of architecture, fashion and making garments. details T om S trickland interviews M itchell H all of KPMB about the steel tapestries on the Genome Centre at McGill Uni- versity. back page bridges Brooks Aqueduct — exerpts from W alter H ildebrandt ’ s long poem called Coming Home .
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dean russell
kevin alter
christine macy and sarah bonnemaision
andrew king
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mark west
filiz klassen
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christine maile, undercover
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tonkao panin
tom strickland
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Lethbridge Modern Shawn Van Sluys
I nnovative techniques and inven- tive materials, intense luminosity and gridded patterns— these are the essential elements that create transparent, free flowing and engag - ing modernist space. Lethbridge is particularly striking for the applica- tion of modern design principles to a vernacular architecture in a city that experienced rapid postwar growth. The well preserved exam- ples of modern buildings featured in Lethbridge Modern, an exhibi- tion that opened October 19, 2002 at the southern Alberta Art Gal- lery, demonstrate that architectural integrity and style were not for- feited in the rush to develop Leth- bridge as a regional centre after the Second World War. Modernism was strategically deployed at many scales. Elements of standardisation and new con- struction were promoted by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, established in the 1950s, for the efficient construction of houses to meet the post war demand. These houses blended openness and a gridded order with new prefabricated construc- tion materials. The office of Meech Mitchell & Meech, Architects balanced a series of primary coloured panels on the facade with adjacent walls of trans- lucent glass. These enclose a mini- malist garden reflecting the spare prairie landscape. Contrasting the vernacular and the domestic with the universal and the international results in a unique vocabulary of design and architect in Lethbridge. Also the extreme Lethbridge moderne D es techniques novatrices et des matériaux inusités, une luminosité intense et des motifs grillagés – voici les éléments essen- tiels qui viennent créer un espace moderne transparent, fluide et attirante. Lethbridge est particu- lièrement reconnue pour son appli- cation de principes de conception modernes à l’architecture vernacu-
climate, the interruptive coulees, the agricultural economy and the diversity of cultures and religions influenced the application of the modern aesthetic to local buildings. Lethbridge Modern as an exhibi- tion, a symposium and a catalogue, is intended to expose the local, regional and national communities of Canada to the often neglected history of modern architecture in their midst. As more and more examples of this architecture are disappearing from our communi- ties, exhibition so of this nature are critical for the preservation and understanding of our cultural land- scape. Lethbridge Modern is curated by Gerald Forseth FRAIC and Victoria Baster of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Lethbridge.
OFFICE BUILDING 1953 for MEECH, MITCHELL AND MEECH ARCHITECTS Architect: Meech, Mitchell and Meech Two of the best Lethbridge modern archi- tects, George Robins and George Watson, worked within this office building on 529 - 6th Street South.The building is charac- terized by its front facade grid of glass and steel, its exposed steel staircase vis- ible from the street, its interior partitions of floor-to-ceiling glass and steel and its custom door handles and period sus- pended light fixtures. Today, the second level interior is occupied by the Chamber of Commerce, preserved with only minor renovations over the past 50 years.
ravines interrompues, l’économie agricole et la diversité des cultures et des religions sont venus influ - encer l’application d’un esthétisme moderne aux édifices de la ville. Les conservateurs de l’exposition Lethbridge moderne sont Gerald Forseth FRAIC et Victoria Baster de la Faculté des beaux-arts de l’Université de Lethbridge.
été affectés par le développement hâtif de Lethbridge comme centre régional après la Seconde Guerre mondiale. On y trouve un con- traste entre le vernaculaire et le domestique, mariés aux résultats universels et internationaux. Il en résulte un vocabulaire particulier de conception et d’architecture. De plus, le climat extrême, les
laire d’une ville qui a connu une croissance après-guerre rapide accélérée. Les exemples bien préservés des immeubles mod- ernes de Lethbridge moderne, une exposition qui a ouvert ses portes le 19 octobre 2002 à la Southern Alberta Art Gallery, démontrent que l’intégrité et le style architecturaux n’ont pas
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Edmonton - newly urban, again U rban design, in theory, strives to attain a multitude of ends simultaneously, from the provision of shelter for activities, to the creation of a sense of place, to the technological soundness of the built environment, to the health of fiscal and biological elements. The Modern movement and our post cultural information age have generally ignored climate and culture in the making of architecture, relying instead on technological solutions to keep out weather and provide state if the art environmental controls.This has given us placeless cities with buildings that could be in Edmonton,Toronto or Shanghai, compromising the integrity of architecture as a cultural expression. For decades Edmonton has taken infrastructure and placed it in the suburbs, enabled by fifty years of automobile culture. For every car in the downtown there are two parking stalls — an automobile graveyard! Edmonton’s Planning Commission has recently begun to reclaim the open spaces of downtown for infrastructure to anchor both residence and amenities to bolster Edmonton’s presence as a city. Philip Lofts is a project of mixed-use, turn of the nineteenth century spaces in Edmonton’s warehouse district that main- tains both commercial and residential components. As the need for downtown employees and professionals increases, the need for infill projects such as the Philip Lofts will also expand and building typologies will evolve, recolonizing the downtown core. Louise McKinney Park, on the North Saskatchewan River is part of Edmonton’s protected green belt. At the moment the river front is not as defined as it could be. Year-round events have spurred a long-term community initiative to give a harder edge and a primary entry to the river valley. This includes public single story buildings with a river walk, spinning off smaller public centres that are still tied back to the downtown. The most controversial of these urban renewal projects is the early twentieth century Rossdale Water Treatment Facility, located on the flood planes of the North Saskatchewan. The architectural community proposes a mixed use building incorporating seasonal and year round uses, with a residential component. Its presence on the river sustains a natural con- nection to the valley’s pedestrian and bicycle paths, while maintaining the hard edge of the downtown core, a quality that Edmonton needs to exploit. Decipher this place. Convert these underused artifacts of a superseded infrastructure and link them back to the working downtown. Edmonton’s sense of urban place with its extreme winters and summers, its river and its valleys will start to re-validate its placeless downtown core. Dean Russell
de hausser la présence d’Edmonton en tant que ville. Le projet Philip Lofts est un projet à multiples usages. Il s’agit d’espaces datant du virant du IXXe siècle dans un district d’entrepôts d’Edmonton, qui garde des composantes com- merciales et résidentielles. Le Parc Louise McKinney, sur la rive de la rivière Saskatchewan-Nord et une partie de la ceinture de verdure pro- tégée d’Edmonton développe un con- tour à caractère nettement délimité,
avec des immeubles publiques à un niveau, un sentier longeant la rivière et de plus petits centres publics qui sont reliés au centre-ville. Le projet le plus controversé est celui d’une instal- lation de traitement des eaux naturel- les de Rossdale, datant du début du XXe siècle, se trouvant sur les terres inondées de la rivière Saskatchewan- Nord. Sa présence sur la rivière vient assurer la continuité d’un lien naturel aux pistes pédestres et cyclables de la vallée, tout en assurant la délimita-
tion du cœur du centre-ville, une qual- ité que la ville d’Edmonton se doit d’exploiter. Venez décoder cet endroit! Conver- tissez ces artefact sous-utilisés d’une infrastructure supplantée et reliez-les au centre-ville du travail. Le sens d’Edmonton d’une place urbaine, avec ses hivers et ses étés extrêmes, sa rivière et ses vallées, viendront remettre en vigueur son centre-ville dépourvu d’endroits.
Urbaine, une fois de plus P endant plusieurs décennies, Edmonton a pris son infrastruc- ture et l’a placée dans ses banlieux, ce qui a été possible en raison des cinquante dernières années de culture automobile. La Commission de plan- ification d’Edmonton a récemment commencé à rapatrier les espaces de bureau du centre-ville à des fins d’infrastructures et pour ancrer rési- dences et commodités dans le but
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Architecture and sewing Deborah Ascher Barnstone and Robert Barnstone
B y tying architecture and sewing together in this issue of On|Site magazine, we intended to bring into focus a relationship we believe lies at the silent core of architectural design practice, a relationship that is always present but rarely discussed or highlighted as the subject of discourse. Gottfried Semper identified textiles as a primordial art (Urkunst) that serves as a source for architectural types and analogies. But Semper was mostly concerned with notions of cover and binding rather than full range of potential real and metaphoric associations. In his writing, cover refers to the thing unifying a collective by wrapping it from the outside; binding refers to the action of joining disparate parts, traditionally in a sewn joint. Semper pointed to costumes and cladding, elements of the cover, as the two historical ways textiles affected architectural design. By costumes Semper literally understood the clothes people wear, or materials, and their aesthetic relation to contemporane- ous buildings while by cladding he meant the clothes that buildings wear! We believe that Semper was ahead of his time in foreseeing the potential in the textile arts, or sewing, for architectural analogies. Today the analogies go farther and, perhaps, deeper but certainly include Semper’s categories. We understand sewing to refer to constructive, compositional, ordering, and conceptual techniques, and to metaphors for urban, landscape and building design at the spatial, material, and constructive levels. A metaphor is a word that transfers or carries meaning over from one object to another; suggesting a connection between two dissimilar things or two objects not usually associated together. Analogy, on the other hand, is a way to reveal the similar aspects of two objects that are other- wise dissimilar. Sewing therefore is both analogous to some aspects of architectural practice and a metaphor for others. The essays in this issue sometimes examine sewing as metaphor, other times as analogy. Sewing itself is a way of connecting two things, usually pieces of fabric, along a seam. Sometimes the seam joins two similar entities and sometimes it joins two very different ones — for example, a patchwork quilt is made of many pieces of different fabric, while a shirt is made from several pieces of the same fabric. Sewing can suggest any number of interpretations depending on the context -- from the city to landscape, from individual buildings to instal- lation pieces and construction methods. At the urban scale, sewing can suggest a strategy for reading urban conditions as disparate objects stitched together at seams. The seams might be visible elements such as streets, blocks, and landscape or invisible ones such as planning zones and neighborhoods. Sewing can suggest similar readings at the scale of landscape, especially in an urban setting, or it can propose a strategy for inserting landscape elements into the built environment. Gottfried Semper,‘Prospectus: Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts or Practical Aesthetics (1859)’. The Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings. Trans. Harry Francis Malgrave and Wolfgang Hermann. (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989) p. 175. E n reliant l’architecture et en cousant ce numéro de la revue
Arcitecture and sewing in action with techniques of pneumatic construction —sewing building components together, along with complex spatial layering —sewing space, in a third-year design studio project at Washington State University. Here we are working with the new wood/plastic composite materials being developed at the university. The wood/plastic was donated by Louisiana Pacific. The projects were part of an exhibition here at the university -- they are large scale, on average 6 feet high by 8 feet wide.
compositionnelles, d’ordonnancement et conceptu- elles, qu’aux métaphores de la conception urbaine, de paysage et de la conception d’immeubles à des niveaux spatiaux, matériels et constructifs. Le fait de coudre peut insinuer un nombre d’interprétations, selon le contexte – de la ville au paysage, d’immeubles individuels aux pièces d’installations et aux méthodes de construction. À
l’échelle urbaine, le fait de coudre peut avoir trait à une stratégie ser- vant à interpréter les conditions urbaines comme objets disparates cousus les uns aux autres aux cou- tures. Les coutures comme telles peuvent paraître comme étant vis- ibles, notamment en tant que rues, blocs et paysages, ou comme étant invisibles, notamment en tant que zones de planification et voisin - ages. Le fait de coudre peut aussi porter à des interprétations sem-
blables à l’échelle du paysage, surtout en milieu urbain, ou à une stratégie visant à insérer des éléments du paysage dans l’environnement de construction. Cette collection d’essais présentés dans ce présent doc- ument n’est pas un examen compréhensif de la couture et de l’architecture, mais elle représente plutôt une introduc- tion aux possibilités intrinsèques à ce sujet.
OnSite, nous faisons une mise au point sur la relation qui se trouve au centre silencieux de la pratique de conception architecturale, une relation qui est toujours présente mais qui fait rarement l’objet d’une discussion ou d’une mise en évidence comme sujet de dis- cours. Le terme « coudre » a trait tant aux techniques constructives,
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Quilting with glass, cedar and fir: a workshop and studio in Rossland, BC Robert Barnstone
I t is unusual to think about architecture in the same terms as we would think about making a quilt — sewing together patches of unrelated materials, often scrap, in a collage-like juxtaposition — but quilting describes the ways in which the workshop/studio project in Rossland, B C was designed and constructed. The project took a ramshackle, collapsing old truck workshop and trans- formed it into a winterized, habitable artist’s studio. The original structure was a wood post and beam, wood clad shed with fourteen-foot high ceilings, a flat roof, mostly dirt floors, and two plywood panel barn doors on the front. Many of the rafters and much of the exterior wood siding was rotten; the entire building was leaning at a 10-degree angle to one side. The first challenge was to decide what could be salvaged and then to decide how to incorporate new construction into the existing structure. The technique was, from the start, the sewing together of old and new, collaging of found and salvaged materials with pre-existing ones. The concrete foundation walls, the large supporting posts and the ridge beam were all in fine condition and could be saved. After closer inspection, we discovered that the rafters were rotting at their outer edges.We realized that if we removed the rotten ends, we could use most of their length. We also realized that the rot was being caused by the excessive amounts of water rolling off the flat roof during the spring melt. By stitching rafter extensions onto the ends of the old rafters, we made the roof overhangs much longer so that when the snow melts, the water does not fall against the shed. The front façade is made of recycled glass and surplus windows pur- chased from a local custom window fabricator. Both the steel frame for the two glass doors, and the façade, were designed like a quilt whose outer dimensions and component parts were fixed. The challenge was to make a coherent looking design from disparate parts. The deep red color used both on the steel and a wood frame helps stitch the pieces together visually. Because the façade is facing southwest, it acts as a passive solar collector. The side and back walls were constructed using salvaged, cast glass, door fronts from old Herman Miller furniture, with occasional cedar lattice inserts. The glass and cedar panels are wrapped around the supporting building volume like a large blanket suspended a distance from the tar paper underneath, forming an air pocket that heats up during the day and helps keep the building warm at night. The cedar was used for visual relief and in places where cutting the glass would have been difficult —
Le studio Barnstone I l est inhabituel de voir l’architecture comme on le ferait pour un piquer – le fait de rapiécer des brins de tissus non reliés, bien souvent des rebuts, en juxtaposition – mais la description d’un piquer définit bien les façons dont on a conçu et construit le projet de l’atelier et du studio de Rossland, en Colombie-Britan- nique.
Dans le cadre de ce projet, nous avons pris un vieil atelier de camions délabré sur le point de s’effondrer et l’avons transformé en un studio d’artiste hiverisé et habitable. La façade est faite de verre recy- clé et de fenêtres de surplus que nous nous sommes procurés d’un fabricant de fenêtres person- nalisées de la région.Tant le châs-
sis d’acier des deux portes de verre que la façade ont été conçus comme un piquer dont les dimen- sions et les composantes externes ont été rapiécées. Le défi était le suivant : de concevoir une struc- ture cohérente à partir de pièces disparates. La couleur rouge foncé a été utilisée tant sur l’acier que sur la structure de bois pour tenter de relier les pièces les unes
aux autres, visuellement. Puisque la façade fait face au sud-ouest, elle agit comme capteur solaire passif. Les murs latéraux et celui de l’arrière ont été construits à partir de devants de portes de verre coulé récupérées d’anciens meu- bles Herman Miller, avec des inser- tions de treillis en cèdre. Les panneaux de verre et de cèdre
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around the beam/wall connections for instance. The patchwork pattern developed here, as on the solar façade, out of necessity. Although the panels had originally been one uniform size, some had broken, chipped or cracked, and had to be cut down. Even the application method is reminiscent of quilting techniques; strips of Douglas fir form the seams onto which the glass and cedar is fastened. As on quilts, the seams are visible. Plus, the glass, cedar and battens are layered spatially like woven cloth.
Even the interior was made using sewing and collage techniques. The building was designed to function as both a sculptor’s workshop and living quarters. The columns march down the center of the interior space making a natural division into two. We inserted one new volume housing the bathroom, a closet, the water heater, and a kitchenette. Atop this box is a loft sleeping area separating the one side of the workshop into two smaller spaces. We mounted barn door tracks on the ceiling, next to the columns, and fabricated a 6’ by 12’ gypsum wall to suspend from the tracks. By moving the wall forward or backwards along the tracks it is possible to alter the spatial configuration of the studio to accommodate different uses. The hanging wall therefore is simultaneously a stitching device and spatial divider.
sont enveloppés autour du volume d’immeuble de soutien, comme dans le cas d’une grande couver- ture suspendue à une distance du papier goudronné se trouvant en dessous, formant une poche d’air qui se réchauffe pendant le jour et aide à garder l’immeuble chaud pendant la nuit. Le cèdre a été utilisé à des fins d’atténuation visuelle et, à certains endroits où
méthode d’application nous rap- pelle les techniques du piquer; des bandes de Douglas taxifolié for- ment les joints auxquels le verre et le cèdre sont attachés. Comme dans le cas d’un piquer, les joints sont visibles. En plus, le verre, le cèdre et le liteau sont espacés par couches, comme du matériel tissé.
la coupe du verre aurait été dif- ficile – autour des jonctions entre les poutres et les murs, par exem- ple. Le motif de mosaïque a aussi été élaboré dans ce cas, comme pour le cas de la façade solaire, par nécessité. Bien que les panneaux étaient, à l’origine, de la même taille, certains s’étaient brisés, étaient écaillés ou craqués, et ont dû être abattus. Même la
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Deborah Ascher Barnstone and Robert Barnstone teach at Washington State Uni- versity and Delft University of Technology, and live in eastern Washington State.
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Haystack Veil représente un paysage de coupures d’arbrisseaux, trente mille branches coupées et reliées dans une voile flottant sur la mousse et le lichen qui couvrent une pente le long de l’océan Atlantique. Haystack Veil suit la topographie primordiale et vient agir comme mante pour la terre.
Haystack Veil is a landscape of cut saplings, thirty thousand twigs cut and bundled into a knit veil floating over a moss and lichen covered cliff alongside the Atlantic Ocean. Haystack Veil bears on the land following primordial topography, a cloak over the earth.
Then Jacob rent his cloths . . .liminal membranes. Philip Beesley
emotion, with poignant implications in the way textile flexes and moves with us. When we grieve, we grasp and caress and tear cloth… The blurred psychic boundaries between our bodies and other ‘transitional objects’, for example between infants and their toys and blankets, their ‘lovies’ 1 explains that when we read in Genesis that “Jacob rent his cloths”, we may understand that Jacob’s clothes were part of his anatomy, and that he was in effect tearing himself apart. 2 Textiles have always acted as second skins. Similarly building envelopes can be tuned precisely to work as layers of our collective bodies. This expanded definition of the hand of textiles relates to the projects here in several ways: flexible draping finds a subtle skin for the land; a porous, ephemeral space opens boundaries; an intimate prosthetic relationship between living functions and fabric — here the hand is active, flexing and recoiling. The projects here can be understood as an extension of the ordinary
I have been making a particular kind of architectural textile for several years.The fabrics described here have immersive and reflexive qualities. Reflex is a response that suggests the textile being touched touches back. Immersion goes beyond the familiar sense of being clothed and surrounded by a fabric. Here the term implies animated space expanding and dissolving boundaries. In these fabrics boundaries of our selves — body and psyche — are questioned. The hand of a fabric (the particular interaction of nap, bias and weave that combines to give every fabric a specific quality of movement and interaction when it is handled) is often referred to in descriptive reviews of textile art. We know that handling textile has a particular link to human
Membranes liminales L es tissus décrits ici ont des qualités immersives et réflex - ives. Le réflexe est une réaction qui propose que le textile que l’on touche nous touche aussi. L’immersion va bien au-delà du sens familier que l’on accorde à ce mot, notamment celui d’être vêtu et entouré d’un tissu. Dans
le manipule) est utilisée dans le cadre d’examens descriptifs de l’art du textile. Nous savons que le fait de manipuler des textiles a un lien particulier à l’émotion humaine, avec les implications vives liées à la façon dont le tex- tile se plie et se déplace avec nous. Les textiles ont toujours
agi comme une deuxième peau. De même, les enveloppes immo- bilières peuvent être syntonisées précisément pour agir comme couches à nos corps collectifs.
le présent cas, le terme implique l’expansion et la dissolution des limites de l’espace animé. La main d’un tissu (l’interaction particulière entre la couche pelucheuse, le biais et le tissage qui, combinés, donnent une qualité précise de mouvement et d’interaction à un tissu lorsqu’on
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Erratics Net (right) is a complex interlinked wire fabric mounted on a glacier-scoured terrain in Nova Scotia. Layers of new strata floating just above the surface of the land are developed within the foam-like filigree of this textile installation.
Erratics Net est un tissu fabriqué de réseaux complexes de fils interreliés de façon complexe, monté sur un terrain brossé par les glaciers en Nouvelle-Écosse. Les couches de nouvelles strates qui flottent juste au-dessus de la surface du sol sont développées au milieu du filigrane mousseux de cette installation de textile.
of dissociated identity-specificially, the assimilation of insects into space through mimicry:
industrial practice of reinforcing landscapes using geotextiles. At the same time, the projects tend to question boundaries of psyche.Their large-scale field structures offer immersion, an expansion rendering our physical bodies porous and offering wide-flung dispersal of identity.This might remind us of a long mystic tradition. A recent example from modern European culture could be the mid-century writing of Georges Bataille, pursuing ecstatic alterity: This work shares common interests with early strains of psychoanalysis. In a passage presented to a surrealist circle in 1937, Bataille’s associate Roger Caillois studied insect behaviour as an analogy for a psychopathy
Then the body separates itself from thought, the individual breaks the boundary of his skin and occupies the other side of his sense. He tries to look at himself from any point whatever in space […] And he invents spaces of which he is ‘the convul- sive possession’[…] Caillois explores a vertigo, an attraction by space,… by the effect of which life seems to lose ground, blur- ring in its retreat the frontier between the organism and the milieu… 4
The anima which is treated in these works as a sacred quality is a product of geometry and material synthesis. Making a new nature.
…I stood up, and I was completely taken… Only my legs— which kept me standing upright, connected what I had become to the floor— kept a link to what I had been: the rest was an inflamed gushing forth, overpowering, even free of its own con - vulsion. A character of dance and of decomposing agility… 3
1 Genesis 37:24, NRSV 2 D. W. Winnicott, Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena , 1951. 3 Georges Bataille, Ecstasy, Inner Experience . [1943] Leslie Anne Boldt, trans. New York, 1988. 4 Roger Caillois,‘Mimicry and Legendary Psychas- thenia’ [1937]. John Shepley, trans. in October: the First Decade , Cambridge, 1987 Erratics Net, Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia, 1998, with DalTech Faculty of Architec- ture students: Kelly Chow, Chris Ferguson, Nicola Grigg, Sandra Lee, Beth Lewis, Sunil Sarwal,Vicco Yip,Thomas Wright.
Haystack Veil, Haystack Institute for Crafts, Maine 1997, collaboration with Warren Seelig and students: Judith Botzan, Sophie Hammond-Hagman, Emily Haris, Mi-kyoung Lee, Dale McDowell, Kelli Phariss, Stephanie Ross, Michele Rubin, Kristine Woods.
Philip Beesley is an architect in Toronto, Ontario. He teaches at Waterloo and lived in Rome in 1997 having received the Canada Council’s Rome Prize. This text was originally presented at the Subtle Technologies Conference,Toronto, May 19, 2001.
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Economy, Quality, and Fit: Sewing at Office dA
All operations in the textile arts seek to transform raw mate- rials with the appropriate properties into products, whose common features are great pliancy and considerable absolute strength, sometimes serving in threaded and banded forms as binding and fastenings, sometimes used as pliant surfaces to cover, to hold, to dress, to enclose … Gottfried Semper,The Textile Art
Hansy Luz Better S ewing, through its various techniques and by virtue of the body it is tailored to fit, resists mass production, commodification and homogeneity. The art of sewing is self- indulgent, labor intensive, and thereby excluded from the material processes of industrial pro- duction. The stitch exposes labor; the value of textile art lies precisely in the human labor required to craft the product, making it anti- thetical to the logic of mass production and wholesale consumerism. As the construction industry conforms to its internal logic of infla - tion and recession, based on the availability of labor and materials, historically the sewing industry has proven itself to be contracyclical to major economic trends 1 . Throughout history, sewing has been perceived as an alternative means of creating higher qual- ity clothing. Off the shelf, ready to wear gar- ments are perceived by those who sew as being of lesser quality in detail and aesthetics. The sewer reconfigures garments to personal - ize the expression of each piece. Office dA collapses the craft of sewing with the logic of prét-â-porter through a form of architectural tailoring that allows for a flexibility and mutabil - ity of materials which avoid classification by type. Blending techniques of customization with computer-aided manufacturing, they par- ticipate as ‘prosumers’ in the ‘becoming’ of a product -- avoiding commodification by simul - taneously producing and consuming economic goods and services. The tailor’s insistence upon quality resists the numb consumption of off the shelf products. Of fice dA’s domestic operation on aluminum panels and woven rope employs the analogy of home sewing towards contemporary archi- tectural craft. To domesticate, in this sense, is to operate on the ready made material and transform it into a product attuned to both the human scale and to a tactile experience of the material.
Museum of Modern Art Waterfall
1 Sherry Schofield-Tomschin’s article ‘Home Sewing: Moti- vational Changes in Twentieth Century’, in The Culture of Sewing by Barabara Burman, Oxford: New York, c.1999, describes how the sewing industry does well when other industries are in a recession, and is contra-cycli- cal to major industry trends.
Office dA L ’opération domestique d’Office dA en matière de pan - neaux d’aluminium et de cordes tissées applique l’analogie de la couture-maison au métier de l’architecture contemporaine. Le
fait de domestiquer, en ce sens, implique d’avoir à travailler avec du matériel prêt à l’usage et de le transformer en un matériel adapté tant à l’échelle humaine qu’à l’expérience tactile du matériel.
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Sci-Arc Installation
to create a web. The knot connection is exploited to allow the net to connect and adjust to various conditions within the space. Office dA maintains flexibility in the knitting, twisting and reconfiguring the subsystem to the whole. The stitch transforms residual space into a tailored fitting of the space’s formal and material irregularities, refocusing attention upon the ephemeral nature of the installation.
At the installation at SCI-Arc, the logic of the net is employed to subvert traditionally per- ceived distinctions between compressive and tensile forces within structural systems. An implied surface is created by the tensegrity system. The woven net is constructed from a combination of flacid rope tensile members and resin impregnated rope forming compres- sion struts; the two are loop-knotted together
créer un réseau. Ce réseau de nœuds est exploité de façon à lui permettre de s’embrancher et de s’ajuster aux diverses conditions de cet espace. Office dA maintient une flexibilité de tricot, tordant et reconfigurant ainsi le sous- système de façon à ce qu’il se
conforme au système tout entier. Cette couture vient transformer l’espace résiduel en un raccord sur mesure des irrégularités formelles et matérielles du bureau et, en conséquence, porte notre atten- tion sur la nature éphémère de l’installation comme telle.
soriel. Le réseau ainsi tissé est construit à partir d’une com- binaison de corde flasque constru - ite d’éléments résistants et d’une corde imprégnée de résine, ce qui vient former des entretoises. Ces deux cordes sont reliées par nœuds à plein poing de façon à
Dans le cadre de l’installation SCI- Arc, on a recours à la logique du réseau pour renverser les distinc- tions traditionnellement perçues entre les forces de compression et de traction au sein des systèmes structuraux. Une surface implicite est créée par le système de ten-
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The ceiling at Upper Crust, for example, was created using digital modeling and CAD/CAM technology to reconfigure common aluminum plate into a panelized unit.With interlocking seams, the ‘break-formed’ sheet is transformed into a tailored membrane consisting of a gradu- ally mutating pattern. Each facet is supported by its perimeter tabs, and the stitching of indi- vidual pieces forms an aggregated fluid metal fabric.The stitched membrane is a hybrid structure, integrating building trades through its accommodation of HVAC equipment, fire suppression system, and lighting. It spans verti- cal and horizontal distances and is both self- supporting and space making.
Architectural sewing, as demonstrated in the ceiling at Upper Crust and in the installation at SCI-Arc, relies upon the conceptual and struc- tural pliability of the stitch and the technological reductions of the loop stitch in the production of discursive form. Sewing produces a form that bears the traces of human labor and craft- work, while working within the logic of digital production.The stitch is a strategy for combin- ing materials as well as a formal expression of technique. The strategy of the stitch suggests a critical attitude toward the role of craft in contemporary culture. Custom tailoring that works within the existing market relationships between commodities and consumers serves a cultural function by resisting the status quo and embracing difference.
Upper Crust Restaurant
Hansy Luz Better,Visiting Faculty at Rhode Island School of Design and Lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Le plafond de Upper Crust, par exemple, a été créé en
en une membrane taillée qui con- siste en un motif graduellement mutant. Chacune de ses facettes est supportée par des onglets de périmètre, et la couture de cha- cune de ces pièces forme un agré- gat de tissu métallique fluide. La membrane cousue est en fait une structure hybride, intégrant les
métiers du bâtiment par sa capac- ité d’adaptation à de l’équipement CVC, à un système extincteur d’incendie, et d’éclairage. Cette membrane s’étend tant à la verticale qu’à l’horizontale; elle est autoportante et génératrice d’espace.
ayant recours à la modélisation numérique et à la technologie CAO/FAO visant à reconfigurer une plaque ordinaire d’aluminium en unité industrialisée. Avec les joints à agrafage, la feuille de décrochement est transformée
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Office dA with Daniel Gallagher The Laszlo Files
T he design of the Laszlo Files are based on new possibilities afforded by the use of computer numerically controlled (CNC) technology. There are two cabinetry types.They are both conceived as mono- lithic objects --like butcher blocks -- that are carved out of massive pieces of stacked plywood. Accordingly, traditional distinctions between functional and symbolic elements – tops, fronts, hardware, structure, surface -- are eliminated in lieu of a smoothed and singular strategy; all aspects of the design are accounted for through the act of routing into the depth of the wood. Both pieces of cabinetry are designed to accommodate both repetition as well as variation, an option easily afforded through digital modeling processes. So too, each piece capitalizes on three-axis milling techniques to produce artificial and invented graining as a result of the striations latent within laminated plywood constructions. Th e first cabinet is composed of a stacked laminate counter top whose lines run parallel to the cabinetry front. Consistent with the top, the cabinetry front laminates appear as extensions of the end-grain.The front is routed out in a fashion to create a smooth transition from the counter top extending the end-grain down the cabinetry front -- turning the corner, as it were. The routed front is subjected to various undulations that perform in a variety of ways.Their depth is maximized in the center so that two pulls are created for the opening of the drawers fronts.They are recessed and compressed at the edges to create a reveal when two cabinetry fronts are put side by side.The profile of the bottom is also left to undulate as if draped like a piece of fabric, countering the static and monolithic image of the stacked wood piece. The second cabinetry type is composed of stacked plywood that run perpendicular to the cabinetry fronts.The end-grain turns the corner and descends the fronts in a continuous fashion so as to enhance the monolithic nature of the piece. Similar to the other cabinet type, the front acquires undulations that enable the design of cabinetry pulls at the seam between the top and bottom drawers.The undulations are flattened at the edges to enable flush connections between two adjoining cabinet fronts.The resulting appearance acquires a paradoxical reading as the solid nature of the wood block confronts the taut and fluid nature of the fabric-like surface.
The Laszlo Line: Filing storage units Office dA with Daniel Gallagher Project Design
Monica Ponce de Leon, Nader Tehrani, R. Shane Williamson
Project Team Fabrication
Jeffrey Asanza, Richard Lee
R. Shane Williamson
Fichiers Laszlo L a conception des fichiers Laszlo est axée sur les possibil- ités qui s’offrent à nous par le biais de la technologie de la commande numérique par ordinateur (CNC). Il existe deux types de meubles. Tous les deux sont conçus en tant qu’objets monolithiques, comme
à une stratégie plus lisse et singu- lière; tous les aspects de la con- ception sont désignés par le biais du toupillage dans les profondeurs du bois. Les pièces de meubles sont conçues pour s’adapter tant à la répétition qu’à la variation, une option qui est facilitée par les processus de modelage numérisé.
De même, chaque pièce vient exploiter trois techniques de frais- age à trois axes pour produire un grainage artificiel et inventé qui résulte des striures latentes se trouvant dans les constructions de contreplaqué laminé.
des blocs de boucher, qui sont sculptés à même de pièces mas- sives de contreplaqué empilé. En conséquence, les distinctions tra- ditionnelles entre les éléments fonctionnels et symboliques, soit les dessus, les devants, les ferru- res, la structure et la surface, sont éliminées pour laisser place
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Gridshell at the Weald and Downland Museum,West Sussex
This text has been assembled from the architect’s project statement and the proj- ect description in the British Construction Industry Awards, October 2002.
Edward Cullinan Architects T he Weald & Downland Open Air Museum in West Sussex contains a large collection of ancient timber framed buildings, relocated from all over Britain, often salvaged from development sites. The Down- land Gridshell by Edward Cullinan Architects, London, is actually two buildings stacked verti- cally: one for the processing, analysis, documen- tation, restoration display of artefacts, which is partially underground and the other, in a lightweight timber grid shell, for the repair and construction of timber frames for use within the museum’s many historic buildings. The total area is 1200m 2 and the project sits on what was previously a museum parking lot, conserv- ing the open air landscape.
remain thin and flexible. Laths are paired and spaced using a node joint that allowed sliding and scissoring of the layers during the building process and which was locked when the shell had settled into its final form. Oak is extremely strong and supple when freshly cut. 10.4km of 35mm x 50mm green oak laths were cut into short sections, knots removed and then glued together into long lengths. The form of the roof is a tunnel 50m long and varying in width from 12.5m to 16m. Heavy oak sections form stiff boundary portals at each end. The constantly changing double curvature cross section of the tunnel is essential for overall stability of this very thin shell. All the laths and joints needed for the roof
The artefact storage is the antithesis of the loose-fitting, lightly insulated workshop above it. Cut into a hillside, made of reinforced masonry walls with heavy ash beams forming its roof and the floor of the workshop above, it is a well-sealed, earth protected structure. The surrounding earth mass and a series of concrete pipe earth tubes allow the the entire building to be heating with a domestic propane boiler located in a small mechanical room. Because framing carpenters need large amounts of open space to move and erect large timber frames, the workshop has long spans and a high ceiling. A double layer timber grid shell is used. A single layer system, such as found in geodesic domes is best for short spans. The long spans needed here used a double layer so that each member could
Grilles et enveloppes L e Weald & Downland Open Air Museum de West Sussex contient une imposante collection d’immeubles en charpentes de bois, relocalisés de partout à travers l’Angleterre. Ces immeu- bles ont souvent été rescapés de divers secteurs de développe-
grille de bois d’œuvre, sert à la réparation et à la construction des cadres de bois d’œuvre servant aux divers bâtiments historiques du musée. La superficie totale est de 1 200 m2. L’entrepôt pour artefacts représente une antithèse de l’atelier déstructuré et légèrement isolé qui se trouve juste au-dessus.
Coupé à même la colline et con- struit de murs en maçonnerie ren- forcis avec de lourdes poutres de frêne qui forment son toit et le plancher de l’atelier se trou- vant en dessous, il représente une structure bien scellée et pro- tégée par la terre. La masse de terre environnante, de même qu’une série de tuyaux de ciment
ment. Les Downland Gridshell de Edward Cullinan, architecte de Londres, consistent en fait en deux immeubles empilés à la verticale : un qui sert au traite- ment, à l’analyse, à la documenta- tion et à la restauration relative à l’exposition d’artefacts, qui se trouve en partie sous la terre, et l’autre, dans une enveloppe en
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