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l ast summer, when this issue was being planned, it seemed that one of the characteristics of the new century was going to be unpredictability. How does architecture respond to abrupt change when buildings come out of a tradition of stasis? In a brilliant book by Jane Loeffler about US embassies, she tracks their increasing defensiveness, built to withstand attack. In the 1950s they were transparent, inviting local populations to view the open buildings of an open society. The bunker against change may be compared to a long tradition of de-mountable, moveable structures — whole populations can pack their tents and steal away in the night. Instantaneous change where environments can be destroyed in seconds and the slow erosion of peaceful territories both have implications for architecture. Does it become resistant or supple, nimble or a strong front? One thing is certain — the picturesque, the scenographic and the ironic revision of architectural verities no longer seem very interesting. Life is being trimmed a bit closer to the bone. In a war and a recession what service is it that we provide? Buildings measure the shifting planes of economics, politics, culture and technology. During the Depression and the Second World War buildings were monolithic, monumental bulwarks posed against the turmoil of the 1930s and 1940s. Something is different now; Gehry’s Bilbao Guggenheim, built in a city engaged in a war of its own, dashes about its site, mobile and flamboyant. The articles in this issue of On|site take movement, it its widest sense, as the general theme. This ranges from movement within buildings to moving away from conventional practice; from moving building components to economic change. Boundaries between disciplines, between practices and between geographies are re-examined.
5 movement, change, unpredictability Spring 2001
publisher Field Notes Press
editor Stephanie White
contributors Deborah Ascher Barnstone Robert Barnston Peter Bogaczewicz
David Hernandez Ivan Hernandez Matthew Jalicec
Al Donnell Tom Emodi Deborah Gans Carmel Gatt Geoffrey Gibson Tod Grant Deirdre Harris
George McCutcheon Andrew Macpherson
Frances Mikuriya Asheshh Saheba Tom Strickland Adele Weder Stephanie White
design & production Black Dog Running Syntax Media Services
Stephanie White editor
printer Makeda Press, Calgary
advertising sales Field Notes Press t: 403 266 5827
subscriptions per year (two issues): $15 (individual)
$10 (students) $20 (institutions) $25 (two year individual) make cheques payable to On Site 1326 11th Avenue SE Calgary Alberta T3G 0Z5 Canada Post Agreement No 1754327 ISSN 1481-8280 copyright On Site Review and Field Notes Press ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior consent of the publisher is an infringement of copyright law, Chapter C-30, R S C 1988.
A most immovable building: pilgrims move past it. Santiago de Compostela.
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Peter Bogaczewicz real places
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contents
letters A l D onnell sends another report from Las Vegas C armel G att goes home to Malta
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real places On the bus with P eter B ogascevich
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projects I van and D avid H ernandez -Q uintela of M anoo A rqui - tectos find work at the side of the highway in Morelos D eborah A scher -B arnstone and R obert B arnstone build an Indiana sukkah out of their dance and sculpture pasts. A dele W eder dances in Baker McGarva Hart’s refur- bished CPR roundhouse in Vancouver. S tephanie W hite considers ARCOP’s Assembly Hall in Iqualuit and CPV’s Call Centre in Calgary. work in progress D eborah G ans and M atthew J alicec propose some basic survival hardware for refugee camps and urban home- less. observers G eoffrey G ibson interviews an inhabitant of Airport City. G eorge M c C utcheon flies into Hartley Bay. T om S trickland visits three southern Alberta Hutterite colonies and finds changes. F rances M ikuriya finds the other side of Ellis Island from the schools T od G rant at the University of Detroit-Mercy designs the base unit for a completely mobile interior environ- ment. A sheshh S aheba of the Kinetic Systems Lab at MIT intro- duces a variable volume detail. T om E modi takes us on a tour of the Atlantic Rim. A nthony M ac P herson at University of Toronto trans- forms a jacket into a tent. hey presto!
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vernacular buildings S tephanie W hite looks at dancing in central Texas.
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S INCE I’ve moved to Las Vegas, one compensation has been the walk along the three and a half mile boulevard that loops around the development in which I live. Its gentle ups and downs have the rhythm of a children’s roller coaster. At its heights I can see the mountains that rim Las Vegas, their khaki colour greening in the spring, browning in the fall. The dips focus attention on the concrete blocks that wall in the houses, the alternating patches of desert, dirt and gravel and the plants at the tips of the irrigation drips. Water here is parcelled out a drop at a time, once or twice a day, and at the end of each drip is a tree, a bush or a flower. There are none of the stately elms and oaks of my childhood, secure in the knowledge that the rain will always fall and the sun with always shine. The trees here are more modern, their limbs going first this way, then that as if never sure they will ever be in the right place in the right time. Many of these trees are bushes trimmed to look like trees: you can see their cousins out in the desert in the places where water gathers, uncut and in all their shrubbiness. Sometimes along the walk there will be a row of broad leafed plants. Leaves of the desert are thin, often lacy in order to limit the loss of moisture. These broad leaves seem almost vulgar, certainly extravagant, like cows where coyotes should be. They are as out of place as the lawn and petunias located at the entrance to each neighbourhood; plants watered not by drips but by sprays. Occasionally, too occasionally, the desert has been left alone: volcanic rocks almost an equal distance apart, looking like those first photographs from Mars, only the hills are greener, the boulders bolder (this is America, after all). My walk ends in a long descent, as I suppose all good roller coasters should, with a view of the entire Las Vegas basin: a million and a half people, at night every one with their lights on.
Al Donnell letter from Las Vegas
Al Donnell is an architect, recently moved from Calgary to Las Vegas.
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can still sabotage the best laid procedures. A polarized two-party political system filters public input along political lines — the party that did not come up with the idea is against it no matter what it is. There is much agitated debate and gesticulation with little action. Satellite TV, CNN, the Internet and travel bring new desires to these Islands. Entry in the European Union is seen by some as the way of the future; olonialization will then be complete and permanent. Like the proverbial dog who sees its own reflection in the pool, Malta is giving up its bone, its heritage, for something else. What then will the visitor see?
Visiting the Island of Malta for the first time, one is in awe of its history. Situated between Gibraltar and the Middle East, Europe and North Africa, it was settled or visited by the Who’s Who of Mediterranean power. Everyone left their mark, from eighty prehistoric sites to Roman ruins, to Renaissance monuments of the Knights of St. John.
letter from Malta Carmel Gatt
O VER the last fifteen years Malta has developed almost uncontrollably. On the surface, there is growth and prosperity the likes of which have never been seen here. The tourism industry is now building second generation five-star hotels and resort villages, too many to fill. Untrammeled residential construction has buried the old villages behind a dense barrier of poorly designed terrace houses, semi-detached homes and villas. Eighteenth century houses have been demolished to make way for ugly condos facing the sea. Much heritage has been destroyed in the name of progress. Malta now has its first high-rise office tower. Imagination is scarce. Although Malta has been politically independent for thirty-seven years it will take many generations to eradicate the colonial mentality ingrained in the culture after six thousand years of political overlording. There is still the us/ them divide, although the us now elects them. As a consequence there is little sense of ownership of the public domain. Roads are poorly constructed, sidewalks are driven over and broken soon after they are made, bus service is abysmal, the list goes on. The us wait for them to fix the problem. Most public environmental and planning policies are the master plans of foreign consultants, executed by local officials. The processes may be exemplary on paper, but whom you know (and on a small island everyone knows everyone!)
above:Three generations of street building in Sliema: the centre vitrine is probably original and early twentieth century. The one to the right is a 1960s renovation — that slight arch is a copy of a Richard England detail. England, a Maltese architect, studied in Milan in the 1960s, bringing that very influential era in Italian architecture back to Malta. The bay on the left is from the 90s. In Malta, any piece of building over 60 square feet requires an architect, this balcony of aluminum and tinted glass most likely falls below that. Sliema is a resort: such eighteenth and nineteenth century houses, once the summer places of the middle class from Valletta, are being replaced by tourist hotels and condos.
above left: the Balluta Building in St. Julien, late nineteenth/early twentieth century. Such buildings are increasingly flanked by or worse, replaced by, buildings such as the one in the centre picture, built in the 1990s. With the fall of the 20 year old socialist government in 1987, there was little planning infrastructure in place to handle the subsequent 10 year building boom. The result is the wholesale demolition of Malta’s urban history in favour of fun in the sun Mediterranean development.
Carmel Gatt is an architect working in Calgary who recently visited his homeland.
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citizen airport: an interview Geoffey Gibson T HE following are excepts from an interview I conducted with my longtime friend Sean Denny in May
GG:What would some of the qualities of its citizens be? Is there an ‘airport citizen’? SD: There are groups of citizens, just as in a city. There are business citizens, who are very efficient, functional, and move through it with ease. They are experts. They know exactly how to check-in, how much baggage they can or cannot
GG: So if the city was being designed for a certain group of citizens, it’s the business travellers? SD: Absolutely. It’s definitely being designed for them. I was behind some tourists the other day. I knew they were going to be slow, and stop to see aunt so-and-so or their sister
2001 on the subject of the civic qualities and life of airports. Sean is an advertising planner for a large advertising firm in San Francisco and typically travels for business 2-4 days per week. I would like to thank him for his candid and revealing comments about contemporary airport culture.
have, what they will have to take out of their pockets when they get to security check-in points, how to live within their city. They know how to use it, as opposed to the tourists, just like a regular city. If I’m a tourist in San Francisco, I don’t know where things are. I don’t know how the trolley works. I don’t know how much the BART costs. I don’t know the local customs. I guess there are three groups of citizens: the employees who run the place, the business people who are truly part of the community, and the tourists. Because all airports are alike, if you’re a citizen of one airport, you’re a citizen of all airports.
or whoever. They weren’t being functional about it. They were being emotional about it. They were in the way, but there was no reason to flip out. It’s not their fault that they’re not thinking like I am.
GG: Imagine all the airports of North America being amassed into one conglomerate city or metropolitan area. What characteristics would you use to describe this city if you had to? SD: That’s tough because, while there are different neighborhoods, the thing about airports, at least good airports, is that they’re all the same...It’s like the invasion of the Gap and Starbucks in neighborhoods that once had a lot of character and no longer do.They are not designed to be different.
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GG: Do you think there is a cultural life to Airport City? What do you think of all the public art in airports? SD: I think if you are a business traveller, public art just flashes by. The only time it doesn’t flash by is if you’re stuck somewhere. It’s something to kill time, but it’s never a reason why you’re there. There used to be no choice other than the cafeteria and the newsstand. And now with the invention of the air mall, and bringing in branded restaurants and fast food chains, you actually have a choice. That’s great because you can do shopping on the way. If I forgot a shirt, now I can pick one up at the air mall. You could live in an airport. I wouldn’t recommend it, but you could probably get away with it. Especially in the modern ones: Denver, Chicago, Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, one of the two has a really well-done mall.
GG:What distinguishes one airport from another for you? SD: The newer airports take into account certain built-in conveniences. The whole idea of getting you somewhere as quickly and cleanly as possible. It’s basically the ability to avoid tourists. You want to be able to get around them. You want to be able to expedite yourself. GG: What kind of spatial qualities correspond to that? SD: There are double moving walkways, so there’s one where people can stand and herd their children and one so the rest of us can get past them. A lot of airports have dual both directions, so it’s like a four lane highway. Also they have very wide open areas, where you can just walk. It’s about sheer volume. You need to have space to move around. Families gang up in a row 5 people across, with their arms stretched out—it’s like ‘red
GG: What might you propose if your were mayor of Airport City? SD: Maybe some sort of educational program of how to get through an airport. It’s funny because you can buy a ticket, but you don’t have any idea of what’s going to happen.Travelling at Christmas for business is hell because there are lots of people who don’t travel except for that one time of year. It’s not just them; it’s them and their three kids and Grandma. So they’re trying to figure out the social dynamic of keeping that group together while they have to deal with security and check-in. It’s weird to see them try to stumble through it. And I feel sorry for them, because it’s not their fault they don’t understand how to do this. They almost need a how-to guide. It would be like being thrown into downtown Mexico City and not speaking Spanish.
GG: Have you ever made a friend in an airport or met the same people more than once? SD: Airline crew. I’ve met the same airline crew on their regular flights. I take the same flights on a regular basis. It is like going to the same coffee shop on a regular. As for friends, even though you might be a business traveler and I’m a business traveler and we’re sitting 3 or 4 seats away, I might go so far as to ask “May I borrow your newspaper?” but we’re not going to strike up a conversation because, again, it’s a functional thing. You’re not there to meet people. You’re there to get on a plane. You’re in your own space and you don’t mind interacting to a certain degree but you don’t want to get involved in a deep conversation. That’s not generally why you’re there.
GG: Does the sheer number of citizen effectively make this Airport City a civic entity? SD: I don’t think we view it as a community that we need to give back to. The airlines and the service staff are there to service us; they’re not there as a community. They go home to their real communities at the end of the day, and we go home to our real communities at the end of the day. Sometimes I might spend 24 hours in an airport, if I have a lay-over and I am stuck there. Some airports even have hotels so you can sleep there. But it still never really becomes a city.
rover’. Make it bigger and I’m happier. I want facilities on a regular basis. I want a washroom every 2 gates because I don’t want to have to leave my gate. It’s even how the washrooms are laid out; how stalls are now extra wide so I can keep my baggage with me. Doorways need to be bigger because I’m carrying luggage. At home you can just put your luggage down and walk through a regular door, but when you’re traveling you have to keep everything with you, so you’re expanded. It’s not just you; it’s you and your stuff.
Geoffrey Gibson is a Canadian architect working in San Francisco.
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B etween Kilometre 103 and 108 of Mexico City/ Acapulco Highway, a number of people have set up a series of extremely basic, provisionary structures adjacent to the highway from which they sell roses to tourists on the road.These structures are mostly made out of two garbage barrels with a wooden board on top of them as a table to put the flowers on.The more extravagant ones have four wooden poles connected with string and a plastic tent to protect themselves from the 32 degree heat. This temporariness results from the fact that these people are invading federal land and therefore are vulnerable to removal at any time. Such an action would put the venders in an even more precarious situation for the average vender has a family of 6 to 7 members, hardly speaks Spanish, and selling flowers is the only income. Thus, their invasion of the highway edge is a movement towards survival. We decided to get involved, to move into the territory. We contacted the Governor of Morelos to propose a plan to him. If we designed a prototype, got sponsors to provide the material and the vendors provided the manual labor, would they allow the permanent settlement of these structures?
As we approached the first vendor, we recognized the importance of getting the vendors involved and made responsible for the construction, for these are hard working people who become suspicious of any action done for them with nothing asked of them in return.Their involvement in the process creates a sense of personal responsibility and that in turn creates a sense of dignity. The construction consists of a carpet of local stone, eight steel poles that create a box connected with wire where six ivy plants begin to grow to create a skin.The vendor therefore can dictate how dense the wall and ceiling might become and where openings occur. Only the two facades perpendicular to the highway remain completely open to allow the merchandise to be seen by drivers on the move at 100 km/hr, while still providing shade to the vender. The Governor of Morelos has agreed to the plan and the first prototype has been built. Another move within the process of architecture has been made. Must continue…
Manoo Arquitectos work in Mexico City
tecnicas de expresion arquitectonica: moving into architecture Manoo Arquitectos:
Iván Hernández Quintela David Hernández Quintela
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O wnership in M ovement : from how one moves to generate a project, to who owns the construction, to who takes care of it. P erception in M ovement : people being able to perceive the flowers in a structure that is also trying to protect the user from the sun while the potential buyer is driving at 100 km/hr. C onstruction in M ovement : how the structure becomes a simple system for the vendor to construct himself.
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real places:looking at Hartley Bay George McCutcheon
i. I N my work, I have had the good fortune to travel to and do work in Hartley Bay, a small village of 200 people loca- ted at the mouth of a small river at the junction of the Greenville and Douglas Channels, Prince Rupert 150km northeast along the Greenville Channel and Kitimat 100km along the Douglas Channel. The village is only accessible by water or, as I have arrived by float plane. Regular flights leave Prince Rupert at noon, land at about one, and return to Rupert immediately. Usually I travel with other consultants and we charter in, leaving when the sun rises in the winter months and returning before the sun sets. In the winter this allows us about 6 hours in the village. The float planes have no radar, so if you are unable to see through the air to where you are going then you do not fly. We have the float plane wait for us, we know that if we get in then we will get out. This is a strange way to travel, the economics of business dictate how much time we are able to spend here. We are greeted as returning old friends as we rush around, nosying into one space or another. With the charter we are always the visitor passing through. Sometimes villagers travel with us, there is always business to do in Rupert or beyond. Occasionally, work dictates an overnight and one experien- ces a different pace to village time.
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Riding out around an island into the Greenville Channel. Once in the channel I feel the smallness of the boat and the four of us. The ocean is narrow but deep and in the calm we trawl along with 2 lines 50 feet down waiting for salmon. We see a cloud, streaking the sky ahead, come toward us and we rush to reinstall the roof. The clouds that touch the water pass and the wind that drove the clouds leaves a stream of small waves. A ferry passes.The waves from the wake roll the boat. Each swell from the ferry contains 4 or 5 of the small waves from the cloud. After the boat has passed the sky clears and the ocean grows calmer and calmer. I am acutely aware of the great peacefulness of the ocean. Where comes our focus on storms and disaster. Considering the power contained within this huge body wrapping the planet, the ocean is at peace.The tides move inconceivable masses with great gentleness. I am dumfounded in the presence of this power and honoured to be in this strange unfamiliar place.
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george mccutcheon
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iii.
The boardwalks constructed today allow for the movement over the bog of ATVs, bicycles, pedestrians and small scale construction equipment.You must think differently when considering the movement of anything over this terrain.The boardwalks hearken to the village established in this location years ago. In pre-contact time the boardwalks ran parallel to the clam beach with connections between the houses. Now the boardwalks loop and curve to suit the suburban housing plan. Even with the newer winding boardwalks, the houses inevitably focus on the open bay.
The village is located on a peat bog. The maritime mode- rated northern climate ensures that even in winter, the bog does not freeze to any significant depth for any significant period of time. The amazing thing about the peat is imagining the constant flow of water through the saturated ground. A footprint in a soft spot becomes a puddle, the water fill all depressions. Wherever construction has taken place the flowing underground becomes apparent. A temporary road not removed creates a swamp with skunk cabbage in its wake.The interruptions to the natural landscape are readily apparent as are building problems due to a lack of unders- tanding and respect for this watery terrain. The buildings and connecting paths in the form of board- walks are all on piers. This is are the most practical way to deal with this terrain. The river divides the village as it is now settled. It is a salmon river and the delta and adjacent foreshore beach was a source for shellfish. Major enginee - red changes such as the rock breakwater, the barge landing and power plant constructed beside the river mouth have changed the pre-contact linearity of the village and trans- formed it, destroying the reasons for the shape of the old village. The longhouse village has expanded from a linear pre-contact form to an almost suburban village. The long- houses are gone and have been replaced with smaller stick framed houses. The way of life, together with the associated forms, has changed superficially. The longhouse remains a strong symbol of the recent past and is often, if not always used, typologically, for community and recreation halls that serve for feasts, drumming, singing and dancing
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This is a small village, only about 200 people currently. However, there is a lack of housing for people wishing to move back to the village. People move away, mainly just to Prince Rupert (a village of about 20,000 people) and some come back for various reasons. One of the problems is being resolved by an addition to the school. Currently the school handles children up to grade 10.When children reach grade 11 families must decide if they will remain in the village or move to Prince Rupert to be with the child entering grade 11.The move means pulling the younger children as well from the village school and moving them to Prince Rupert until they all have finished this cycle of their lives. The school is the heart of the community, the same as any small town. It is the focus of weekly activity.
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People are linked deeply to the ocean. One overnight visit on a calm evening I experienced people taking their boat out for a ride. There was the practicality of going out for food together with the need to feel the freedom of the open ocean expressed in one action. The short fishing trip served much the same as an urban promenade. Dropping the line, slowly trawling, hoping for something, though everyone knew it was still early for the spring salmon to be running, and it will only be good luck that will bring a catch.The pace is meditative, the water is dark and deep, the tide draws the boat along, the dimming sky and ever- changing clouds are a sharp contrast to the stillness of the land.
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The ocean at the mouth of the Skeena is muddy olive green darkened by the cloud cover above. Gradually, I become aware of patches of a lighter green in the ocean below, looking like the side of a camouflaged fish. It looks like underwater sand dunes close to the top of the water until I realize, as we fly into the sun, that I am seeing holes in the clouds blending with the ocean.
George McCutcheon works in Vancouver with David Nairne Architects.
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embodied movement: the indiana sukkot project Deborah Ascher Barnstone and Robert Barnstone
paul taylor
william barnstone
T he design for the Indiana Sukkot project was our response to a call for reinterpretations of the traditional Jewish harvest pavilion, the Sukkah. From the start, it was clear to us that we had to try to understand the traditional structure, materials used, construction methods, and functions, in order to invent something new—a Sukkah with unexpected twists and turns and delightful details. The ancient Sukkah was a portable structure built in the fields for the harvest period. Farmers usually camped out and ate in the Sukkah until the harvest was over. Scholars are not quite sure what the original structures looked like—they may have been tents or huts, the Sukkah may be a reference to the tents Jews dwelt in during the Exodus—but it is certain that they were lightweight and portable. Today, the Sukkah is constructed for a week at harvest time as a place to celebrate bringing in the crops. In order to symbolically recall its historic use, the Sukkah is used as a dining pavilion and a place to sleep. We felt that because of the annual assembling and disassembling, the actions of reaping, eating, sleeping and dressing, and the passage of the seasons, the Sukkah is the embodiment of movement both implied and actual. The rules for building a Sukkah are clear: 1 The Sukkah must have at least three sides. The fourth side can be left open. 2 The sides may be of any material, while the roof has to be made from growing things. You must also be able to see the sky through them. 3 The Sukkah must be big enough for at least one person to sit at table.
Since the Jewish Federation of Indiana commissioned the design we decided that our Sukkah should use materials related the harvest that were indigenous to Indiana. We chose to work with the wood from local forests: poplar, maple, walnut, cherry, and oak, and to deck the structure with cornhusks, an icon of the Indiana landscape. We also decided to make the structure quite transparent to views from the inside to the Indiana landscape, and from the outside, to the ritual being performed within. Again, our goal was to anchor this particular Sukkah design in the natural environment of Indiana. The walls for the Sukkah are at once opaque and permeable, giving a sense of enclosure and privacy, yet permitting people standing outside to peer in to witness the ceremony as it transpires, or permitting those inside to observe the surrounding landscape. The visual connection to the landscape reinforces the spirit of the Sukkah as a symbol of the harvest and earth’s bounty. The walls are plastic, fluid entities that push and pull the interior space emphasizing the ebb and flow of natural forces. A unique feature of this Sukkah is the use of built-in furniture, benches and a table, which are used for the daily feasts. The furniture is designed to fold up and leave the space free so that people can sleep anywhere inside. At one end of the structure, there is an opening through which food can be passed directly on to the table. On the other facade there is an open shelving unit on which utensils and the ritual objects can be stored. The placement of the furniture offers the potential for action to take place, the furniture pieces are set pieces for an ancient ritual, traces of human activity in space.
The Sukkah is raised off the ground on two large wooden beams so
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Robert and I bring unusual and varied backgrounds to architectural design. Robert was trained as a sculptor and painter before studying architecture, and I worked as a professional dancer, occasionally dabbling in choreography as well as set and costume design. Robert’s experience in making things has profoundly influenced the materials we choose to work with and the ways in which we construct. In his sculpture, Robert explores the relationship between frame and infill, plastic form and rigid material, solid object and mysterious void. On the other hand, my experience as a dancer heightened my sense of space as a physical presence while instilling in me a bias towards movement as the generator of architectural design.
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walnut and maple dining table is suspended from the roof structure on one side and rests on a wall panel on the other—so that it appears to be cantilevered in the space, ready to fall at any moment. The users move in and out during the daily ritual celebration. The food is delivered, passed over the table, eaten and removed. The entire structure comes apart in sections small and light enough for two people to work with. The floor is made of two panels, vertical posts peg into the floor to support a series of wall panels that, in turn, support the roof. Connections are all formed either with simple pegs or with bolts making the Sukkah like a giant tinker toy.And like a tinker toy, anyone can assemble or dismantle it. In only a couple of hours, the entire structure can be taken apart and moved elsewhere so that it disappears without a trace.
that it appears to be suspended above the earth, allowing it to hover on the edge between the present and the past, between stillness and motion. The entire structure comes apart in sections small and light enough for two people to work with. The floor is made of two panels, vertical posts peg into the floor to support a series of wall panels that, in turn, support the roof. The table is suspended from the roof structure on one side and rests on a wall panel on the other. In only a couple of hours, the entire structure can be dismantled, and moved elsewhere. Because one of the meanings of the word Sukkah is ‘to weave,’ we decided to devise a construction technique that would literally use weaving and interweaving to form enclosure. We milled the lumber to 1/8” thickness so that it would be pliable. The strips vary in width from 3/4” to 1 1/2”. We used pneumatic tools to fabricate the Sukkah. Because pneumatic tools shoot many small nails at regular intervals, they operate almost like sewing machines and allow a more plastic construction than traditional hand tools. We nailed wooden strips on the inside and outside of a larger frame which is itself plastic. This construction technique creates the illusion of a woven surface.The weaving technique also gives the illusion of movement across the static façade structure since pieces move forward and backward in space. We worked on the notion of embodied movement in every aspect of the design.The Sukkah is raised off the ground on two large wooden beams so that it appears to be suspended above the earth, allowing it to hover on the edge between stillness and motion. The walls are plastic, fluid entities that push and pull the interior space emphasizing the ebb and flow of natural forces. Perhaps the wind blew part of the façade in—or perhaps a passerby bent it? Because it can be assembled into small, light weight parts, the entire structure can be moved from place to place. The ten foot long
Deborah Ascher Barnstone and Robert Barnstone teach at Washington State University and Delft University of Technology, and live in eastern Washington State.
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news from the schools
Todd Grant, University of Detroit-Mercy
T HE project here is to develop a living environment that allows the user to create different spatial configurations based on their own wants and desires for habitation. Each component has one atypical seating position. Five other orientations form arches, walls and places to lie. The different components are connected with two spliced bottom brackets (axles and bearings) from a BMX bicycle. these act as a pin, creating a freely rotating connection. The pin is set-screwed inside a precision milled aluminum block. These aluminum blocks are held in grid coordinates by laser-cut mild steel. This enables the building components to be in any orentation and to form load-bearing structures.The latticework of bending plywood joins one of the laser-cut pieces (nodes) to another, making fragmentary pieces of a negative space, seats or a climbing apparatus in lieu of stairs. Once fully assembled the whole structure is free to move, minus one point of anchoring, like a giant mobile spinning on the ground.
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ON SITE review 5
Adele Weder rond des jambes
A t the edge of Vancouver’s West End stands a paeon to motion, an 1884 turning-track and repair-shop for the Canadian Pacific Railway.Today, this jumble of brick stands resurrected, renovated and rechristened as the Roundhouse Community Centre, almost two decades after a gaggle of activists stopped demolition vehicles from razing most of the original buildings. At this year’s Lieutenant-Governor’s Awards for Architecture, Baker McGarva Hart’s refurbished Roundhouse was acknowledged with an Award of Merit. Then, as now, the structure was all about moving: trains shuttling in, engine car pirouetting 180 degrees to be redirected back east. But now the movement has been turned inside-out: everything lively happens inside the building, and the outside is dead as a doornail.The principal locomotive sits inert in a glass hall known as Engine 374 Pavilion, like a reconstructed dinosaur skeleton in a museum; not so much a tribute to train transport but an affirmation of its demise. The cryptically quiet circle of pavement around the turn-track could have been--should have been--a vibrant Beaubourg-like piazza animated by buskers, strollers, toddlers and lagabouts. But inexplicably, the concave wall of doors on the north façade--the logical choice for the main entrance--is sealed off.According to Baker McGarva Hart, it was the developer who vetoed the use of this suite of doors as a main entrance. Perhaps the intention was to preserve the sense of peace and stasis for the residents of the developers’ freshly built condos across the street.Whatever the motive,
the decision was in keeping with Vancouver’s growing reputation as No Fun City, where budding street life tends to be asphyxiated by the ruling powers. Yet inside, basketball, belly-dancing and drumming workshops shake up the house every day and evening, as the locals make use of this fusion of old brick and gleaming new hardwood.And, on Wednesday evenings, perhaps the most shameless body-space encounter of all: the Ballet course with the oxymoronic classificiation of Adult Beginner. The class happens within the slickly renovated hall — an unusually rich environment for attempting classical ballet, for better and worse.The principal instructor, Janet Clarke, will tell you that you shouldn’t design opaque storage-room doors smack in the middle of the mirrored walls. She will also tell you that it’s the best space she’s ever taught in: sunny, airy and floored with gleaming, forgiving hardwood.And big, with those gloriously high industrial ceilings.“If you dance in a small space, you tend to dance small” She means this literally: you get used to making tight pirouettes and abbreviated jumps.“If you dance in a large space, you dance way out there--you dance really big.” I thought about this as I walked home: we Roundhouse users are all jammed into puny apartments in the surrounding West End, False Creek and Yaletown districts.We tend to move small: we walk small, we gesticulate small, perhaps we even think small. It’s nice to go somewhere once a week where we can move big, even if our form is wanting and our time is limited.
Not that we, the hamfooted Adult Beginners, require a National Ballet-calibre rehearsal hall.The hope is more for something elusive that you might call grace, the quality which allows the human body to control and define the space through which it moves. Ballet, as Janet Clarke advices us, is a motion leading up to a single point. Certain other forms of dance suggest an attempt to negate space, to break out of it. Classical ballet, by contrast, seems to create space, as though the dancer were generating an invisible and ephemeral architecture in her wake. The basis of all movements in classical ballet begin at that long bannister called the barre. From this two-dimensional starting point, we carve out motions with irresistible French names: grand plié, croisé rond-des-jambes, soubresauts.Then, warmed up, we penetrate the broader, three-dimensional space of the room, with jetés, pirouettes, tour enchaines and sissonnes. The hall’s design imperfections neatly echo our own: even the unfortunate placement of storage-room doors provides periodical reprieves from the side of a galumping body. And the aging joints that still manage to quit the earth, if only for a moment; even while anachronistic and abandoned old Engine 374 stands forever still in its tracks.
Adele Weder is an architectural critic living in Vancouver.
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ON SITE review 5
This is an open dance floor next to Pat’s Hall in Fredericksburg, Gillespie County. It is a concrete floor, 120’ in diameter, under a live oak tree in the centre. This is the link, in my mind, between the very early settler dances on wagon sheets and the wooden platforms built in the shade under the trees, and the octagonal halls. Did the big, wheeling two-step circling around the halls come from dancing around a tree? Is the developmental history of the dance hall actually dependent on the developmental history of dancing, rather than on construction technology?
inventing a building typology Stephanie White
T exas dance halls were in their heyday from the 1890s to the Second World War; every small rural community had one. While many are still in use for vast country weddings, church suppers and dances, an equal number can be found storing hay on a farm, or boarded up and rotting, or gone — just a trace on the map: at the end of Tin Hall Road is just another muddy field. A typical hall is a large single room, about 6000 ft2 with a tall roof volume ventilated with louvred lanterns. The floor is raised off the ground on piers, shuttered window openings are without glass. Interior walls are unlined, uninsulated, a bench runs around the perimeter often up on a step, the exterior is painted white. Outside is a beerstand with deep eaves shading counters made by the let down shutters. There is a substantial barbeque pit, often roofed. Sometimes there are shade arbours over picnic benches. Once in a while there are separate kitchens. All this sits in a field, with companionable live oak trees nearby. Dance halls were the sites of courting, weddings and wakes — the milestones in a rural community’s life. Stories of bands that played till 4am and by 5 everyone was out in the fields offer brilliant sun- filled slices of a rural Texas life almost completely dominated by nature, the seasons, climate, weather and the agricultural calendar. Early German and Czech settlers danced on canvas stretched out on the ground. A bit more permanent was a moveable wooden dance floor in the shade of an oak tree. Then came a roof to keep the rain and sun off the floor, then the walls. Two shapes: rectangular and polygonal; a bit barn-like but with clear spans for
untrammelled dancing. Trusses spanning 70’ made of 1 x 6s, the odd 2 x 6, inventive, lightweight, elaborate, decorative, home made. Vernacular buildings manage a tight fit between function and form with the most ingenious construction ideas. They really do make us question the over-engineered standards to which we have to build simple wood frame buildings today. Few halls have airconditioning, floors wear out, roofs need attention; increasingly old halls are replaced by modern metal buildings with HVAC plants. The 20th century obsession with revolutionary progress must be set alongside evolutionary vernacular building practices. Architecture and architects’ desire to be instrumental in social, cultural and political change, rather than mere accommodation marks the difference. These community halls are, above all, accommodating. Perhaps the cultural revolution that is the act of emigration, with all the difficulties that face the immigrant, extinguishes the desire for revolution in architectural form. The building at the heart of these communities evolved in small clear steps, never exceeding the grasp or the capacity of that local pool of builders. Dance halls in central Texas evolved over about fifty years until the point where American society began to change rapidly: television, the emptying of the rural hinterland, changes to farming practice that needed fewer people, rising education levels — tight rural communities loosened their hold on their territory.
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ON SITE review 5
Turnverien, Bellville,Austin County. 1885. Turnveriens were gymnastic clubs started by German settlers in the 1850s. This hall is twelve-sided and rests on a stone foundation. I cannot think how this was laid out – a system based on three, 60* angles rather than octagonal halls based on 90*. 12 devided by 3 = 4 quarters, then divided in 3 again. And every side is exactly 21’-2. From corner to centre is 42’. Their measuring unit appears to be 21’. Below is the central queen post, supporting the roof and ventilation lantern at the top.
Baca Pavilion,Warrenton, Fayette County.
Is the 1935 Baca Hall, now used exclusively for antiques fairs, still a dance hall? Formally, yes: pivoting shutters, cross breezes, ventilated floor. Functionally, no. It is not the centre of a local, geographically defined community. It maintains the now fictional landscape of these huge bell- like volumes in fields of grass and stands of oak, while actually servicing a dispersed community from Houston to Dallas bound together only the quest for patchwork quilts and primitive furniture. Is the green metal shed out on the highway a dance hall? Functionally, yes. It has a stage, a dance floor, a beer stand inside, a barbeque pit out in the back. Formally, no. It could house machine shop equally well, and in many places, does. The disjunction between form and function is characteristic of the hybridizing late twentieth century. It is not unconnected that the great discussions of typologies that occurred over the last twenty years established a sentimental affection for the look of the past divorced from use. The erosion of a vernacular building type happens as much from this detachment of function from form, as from wind, weather, termites and desertion.
Stephanie White, editor of On Site review, is an architect living in Calgary.
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ON SITE review 5
variable volume architecture Asheshh Saheba
M AKING spatial propositions has a great impact on the inhabitable environment. As our surroundings are built, shelter is created both physically and socially. The construction of space and its use is regulated by the life span of occupation: volumes are renovated, reprogrammed, or torn down placing substantial demand on the boundary condition. The enclosure that defines occupation is an important interface that initiates the act of making architecture. Living is a dynamic enterprise. Space is sculpted with response to variable parameters. Architecture becomes a living entity, and as such must be adaptable. Using this framework, one can use movement as an essential component in building research. In reaching equilibrium between the external and internal environment, the components of architectural assembly must also maintain structural integrity. Here, a two dimensional surface is transformed and broken by movement. This fractured skin is splayed, physically, to produce a three dimensional spatial structure. Through this manipulation, the planes that create the membrane begin to overlap and create gaps between the skin and the structural frame. As changes in geometry take place, loads on the skin continue to be transferred to the frame. The structural change of the surface in the expanded condition increases the depth of the opening. This depth change allows lateral forces (wind loads) to be transferred more efficiently to the frame from the skin. Also, positive pressure that is present when the surface lies flat breaks up as the surfaces shift out of plane with each other. Negative and positive wind pressure are present in the expanded condition. The characteristics of the boundary are integrally dependent on its form. Permeability of light and air are dependent on the configuration of the system. The potential of this relationship is that the fine tuning of the boundary brings about a greater awareness of external conditions and efficiencies in performance. Using geometric change to design an adaptable system creates the basis for a transformable architecture. The performance of this system is not only measured in terms of quantitative values, but also in terms of the spatial quality achieved. The digital environment is critical to the design of the pieces: the movement of the assembly depends on a high level of accuracy. A minimum tolerance level ensures that the pieces will interact in a precise and predictable way. Also, movement can be tested within the digital environment before physical production. The software gives us an assembly model showing the degree of movement for each piece. Then the components go through a design refinement process before final production.
hinge component
system movement model
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ON SITE review 5
Moments are envisioned and sequenced to show the spatial configuration of a variable volume architecture — the images of such an imagined landscape act as a catalytic shift of paradigms, for the development and deployment of this architectural stance pivots on the hyper-collision of design and construction processes. The discussion of spatial constructs identified in the work presented cannot exist without the consideration of flexibility at each level of architectural investigation. Within existing material, volumetric and structural frameworks lie the untapped resources towards an enriched occupation of space.
landscape 01
Volumes fluctuate. Boundaries dissolve. Architecture lives.
landscape 02
landscape 03
Asheshh Saheba is an architect working in New York City. More of this work can be found at http://architecture.mit. edu/~asheshh
landscape 04
prototype - collapsed
prototype - expanded
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ON SITE review 5
T HE North is Canada’s periphery and one of the major buildings in it is Arcop’s Assembly Hall in Iqualuit. Peripheral to the architectural terrain in urban centres is the industrial hinterland at the city’s edges — warehouses, industrial plants, transport depots. Unlike the high-profile urban condition, this industrial hinterland is known almost entirely by people who actually work in it and by truckers. Just as one doesn’t drop by Iqualuit, neither does one drop by a call centre out where the coyotes roam and the snow blows. Sites on the edge of developed cities are practically virgin, close to agriculture in the most romantic way and seem to invite a kind of clarity without urban reference. So to what do they refer? Bruce Allan of Arcop says that Iqaluit was a box city of ATCO trailers in a white desert. The form of the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut, 1999-2000, was inspired by the wind which scours the snow off of and from around the building. This is not a case of a building looking like a snowdrift, but rather being a shape that conspires with wind and snow to provide shelter. It is, Allan says, a large building specific to the far north, not informed by the south. moving to the edges Stephanie White
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ON SITE review 5
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