ArchiParlance

Willie Smits and Dr. Dickson Despommier, what geniuses

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 23:29:00 +0000

When I was studying Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture, an issue arose in my mind that had been unresolved up until today. Having been familiarised with the planning theories, I found that nobody had thought of integrating settlements and nature in a seamless unified theory. Probably with the exception of Ebenizer Howard's Garden City theory but then Parks are not what I was interested in.

The need for such a design...

When Sir Howard was coming up with his theory, there were just 1.66 billion human occupants on this planet. Most of who lived in non urban settlements, living a relatively sustainable life.

Today, the population has grown 6 times over and Urbanisation has become the new mantra. Yet with the growing exodus of people to the city, somebody was still responsible to grow all that food in the hinterlands. Yet all this was coming at a cost.

This growing demand added with unscientific methods of cultivation, turned most of the land barren. To meet the need for fertile land more forest was cut and the process continues. This is exemplified in the poorer regions of Africa and Asia, where the higher population demands more and the unscientific methods of cultivation yields less.

So what has happened to the planet since...

All this was alright until about 50 years back, when we understood the implication of our actions, rainforest depletion, endangered wildlife, droughts due to a changes in micro climate and the all so famous Global Warming phenomenon.

Our cities are ever expanding, growing endlessly without control bringing a stark contrast to how things were up until a couple of centuries back, when our settlements were like islands surrounded by forests, but now we have to put a fence around the forests. Reminds me of what Agent Smith tells Neo, about how humans are like viruses.

What may be the solution to this problem...

More recently I read that the Kerala government has made the study of agriculture compulsory in all state run schools. The intension of which is to motivate more people to take up agriculture despite the risks, hopefully with better knowledge. Simultaneously, they have made it compulsory for all owners of agricultural land to use their land for cultivation, since many left their former occupations for more profitable ones. Although this maybe a good initiative, wouldn’t it be better to leave the old, possibly flawed system and move to a newer more inclusive and more profitable one.

And then I wondered if we could in fact regrow all the forest around us, and put ourselves into cities, possibly with tall skyscrapers, put a fence around ourselves this time around hoping that this would reverses the changes we have made to the climate. I might not have had all the information to contest any critics of this idea until I saw this video of Willie Smits and his project.

Although my thoughts remained thoughts, Willie Smits seemed to have acted upon his thoughts a good 20 years ago. In the following video he talks about how he started off looking for a place to rehabilitate an orphaned orangutan to how he came up with a thoroughly remarkable system to regrow the rainforest.

I would also like you to take a look at a project by Dr. Dickson Despommier, of who I have had the privilege to meet at Natcon 08. His idea of vertical farming was featured by the Discovery Channel recently. (Click here to view the video) If at all we could somehow integrate the two ideas we may be on the path of reversing the damage to this planet. Throw out the ideas of blocking the sun or dumping tons of iron into the sea, we may after all just have to hug the tree.

Doshi: The Movie

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:12:00 +0000

Doshi is a documentary by Bangalore based Ar. Bijoy Ramachandran and his film-maker brother Premjit Ramachandran. The subject of the movie is the greatest Modern Architect of Indian origin, Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi.

Here is a trailor and the link to the movies home page

The movie was screened at various Cities in India and has lately been doing the rounds in International locations. If the movie's blog is anything to go by, people have rated the movie higher than "My Architect", a movie on another legendary architect, Louis Kahn.

I'm not sure how the brothers intend to distribute the movie post the initial world screening. But I sure hope they have some plans of getting it to hundreds of studends and architects who've missed the screening, and are eagerly waiting to get their hands on a copy of the movie.

Movie: The Fall

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 07:11:00 +0000

Tarsem Singh of The Cell fame, released yet another fantastic movie in May 2008, The Fall. The movie is set in a hospital in 1915, where an LA stuntman, bedridden by a stunt gone wrong, narrates a fantastic story to a young girl with a broken arm.

This movie finds mention here, due to the sheer brilliance of Tarsem's art direction and the exotic locations the movie is shot in. Shot in more than a dozen countries of which I'd like to bring attention to some of the Indian location that have blown my mind.

Agra, Fatehpur Sikri and Jodhpur.

Having seen Agra and Fatehpur Sikri once before, I was surprised at how Tarsem's use of costumes, colours and the lack tourists in those locales, transports us into believing that what we see was infact a page out of his fantasy and not something that has existed for a few centuries.

The movie in its entirity seems wanting in the real substance of a movie, a story. At times, where the story is lacking, the director seizes the moment to dazzle us with his amazing art. Another notable aspect of the movie is the excelent acting by a cute little 9 year old, Catinca Untaru. Over all its a great movie to watch and feel amazed.

2008 and What it means, to me.

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 23:35:00 +0000

I would first like to wish all a Very Happy New Year. I would think that along with this an applogy for the delay in blogging would be just apt. A month of exams sent my brains into a state of recession. But never mind all that. We have lots to look forward to this year and thats what I intend this post to be. A preview.

2008 brings a lots of varied and important events from US Presidential Elections in November, Beijing Summer Olympics in August and locally the opening of Bangalore's very own International Airport sometime in Mar/April. It is doubtless that after some interesting work in the Athens Olympics by Santiago Calatrava, which of the previous topics would most interest us. No Olympics would disappoint in the Architectural sense and definitely not if China is involved.

There are three important projects that I would like to look at,
The "Bird's Nest" - the National Stadium by Herzog and de Meuron;
The "Water Cube" - the National Aquatics Center by PTW + CCDI + Arup and
The "CCTV" building and its sister the "TVCC" building by Rem Koolhas's OMA - the most expensive building in the world.

Ok, lets face it, these buildings are definitely engineering marvels. China is looking to prove its Economic Prowess, and what better means to showcase it than in the Olympic Games. Which brings me to a slightly disturbing thought, "Do the Chinese really know what the Rem Koolhas and Herzog de Meuron are trying to achieve in the large canvas they have provided?" Probably not.

Brad Pitt Rebuilds New Orleans

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:05:00 +0000

Something few people know about Brad Pitt is that he is an ardent follower of Architecture. Though formally educated as a journalist, his interest has driven him as far as taking an informal internship at Frank Gehry's Los Angeles office.

But why is it that I talk about it now? It is because today he is involved in one of the most important reconstruction projects in the world, that of New Orleans, affected by the furious Hurricane Katrina in mid 2005.
In Dec. 2006, Pitt and a group of experts, explored the possibility of building green, affordable houses for the displaced residents.

A competition was organized, to develop ideas on rebuilding this community in a sustainable manner.
The result of this is the Make It Right (MIR) Project.
The goal of this project is to build 150 homes in the Lower 9th ward, which was one of the worst hit by the hurricane.
Brad Pitt commissioned 13 architectural firms, that includes the 2005 Pritzker Winner Thom Mayne's firm Morphosis, MVRDV and Shigeru Ban, to create a 1,200-square-foot house for about $150,000.
The MIR team created a set of guide lines for the designers such that important goals of the organisation were met.
The four main guiding principle for the designs were

Safety
Affordability
Sustainability
High design quality

Last week Brid Pitt made public the 13 architects designs. Some of the visually interesting designs were that of

Adjaye Architects London, England

Concordia

Morphosis

Trahan

MVRDV
Wah?!! Is that before or after Katrina? I guess that was the idea.

One of the concerns that the residents raised was that many of the designs are on stilts. The stilts are provided for obvious reasons, but it also drives the cost of the building up by a lot, making it, lets say, not so affordable. But then hey, you dont get to rebuild a town everyday, make it good when you have the chance. "Make it RIght". So long as its done quickly.
Right now as I right this blog, 27 of the 150 houses have been sponsered for.

Comic of the Day: The arch.Maaik Network

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 18:42:00 +0000

The arch.Maaik Network

BlobWall

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 05:58:00 +0000

This is Blob Wall. A modular wall system made of lightweight honeycomb material, designed by architect Greg Lynn. Its a free standing wall that has Interior/Exterior applications.

Blob Wall, made by Panelite was initially designed for Greg Lynn's home. The material is a low-density, impact resistant polymer. The weird shape was achieved with the use of a CNC machine. A machine which has a 6 axis Robot arm!

Each piece fits into each other like a jigsaw blocks, to achieve a whole range of 3d configurations.

Grey Lynn with Robot arm(behind) of Machineous.

Bolb Wall as seen in MOCA Skin + Bones Exhibition, now travels to Miami. It will be on display at the T-Concepts showroom at Design Miami, through the 6th to 9th Dec, '07.

Algae the New Bio Fuel

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 18:07:00 +0000

With the depletion of fossil fuels and the search for a alternative, Hydrogen was hailed as the savior. Abundant in nature as water. The only issue is that the scientists haven't figured a way of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen in a relatively cheap manner.
Its turns out, a primitive life form, seems to have succeeded in doing just that. The solution it seems lies with Algae. Yes algae. Primitive chlorophyll-containing mainly aquatic eukaryotic organisms lacking true stems and roots and leaves.

This is a project originally intended for a design competition. It calls itself Icelandic New Energy.

The designers say :
It has long been known that algae produce small amounts of hydrogen as a byproduct of photosynthesis. In 1999, researchers in Berkeley observed that algae alternate between hydrogen production and normal photosynthesis depending on the chemical environment. Depriving algae of oxygen and sulfur, the researchers greatly increased the hydrogen production and triggered the algae to produce hydrogen for an extended period of time. Another research group also discovered that algae will sustain simultaneous production of hydrogen and oxygen from water by illuminating the algae and depriving it of carbon dioxide and oxygen. Researchers estimate that a small pond (1.5 acre or 10 meter diameter) will produce enough hydrogen on a weekly basis to fuel 12 cars.

You can find out more about this project on the still under construction site of the 202 Collaborative

BusinessWeek recently ran an article that seconds this view point. Algae can potentially deliver 10 to 100 times the energy as current energy crop, it says. As it grows, it sops up green house gases and leaves behind small globules of fat, that can be used as oil.

At the Think Tomorrow Today conference held this year, GreenFuel CFO Guillermo Espiga says that algae grows rapidly and grows constantly, which means that algae ponds can produce more oil per hectare in a year than traditional plant crops. He gave some figures that where quite amazing - A hectare pond filled with algae can produce 15,000 to 80,000 liters of vegetable oil a year. Only about 6,000 liters of palm oil can be squeezed out of a hectare a year. Corn is only good for 120 liters per hectares of oil a year.

Some of the companies that have started up algae business units include - Boeing, Chevron and Honeywell.
There are also companies that are working to genetically engineer algae for much better productivity.
Green Future indeed.