2008年4月10日 星期四

活潑建築之旅第十站_華梵大學

4/8星期二晚上開始了這學期接續的活潑建築之旅,目的地來到華梵大學。
華梵大學位處石碇鄉,從深坑交流道下來經北宜連絡道路,穿越北宜高速公路(國道5號)下方後,右轉上山約略再行駛30分鐘車程,才能到達華梵大學。一路上行駛在山區,車身隱沒在一整片青綠色之中,的確是一種享受,這或許是位處在偏僻校區所能獲得的正面效應的其中之一吧!

到達時,會長、副會長正在佈置場地,我也趁此時間先簡單解決我的晚餐,順便逛逛校區。校區處在山坡上,我來到的之安館4F建築系,因山坡的關係有另一個接地的獨立大門出入口,簡言之即是出入口層是另類GF,4F以上都屬於建築相關系所直到頂層,3F是工業設計系,以下應該是另外的設計相關學系,基本上是以樓層垂直分割來界定系所範圍。之安館與鄰棟建築物銜接,透過銜接又到達另一個垂直分割,我從工設系銜接走過去,如果沒記錯的話好像是中文系。其實當我在其中迷走時,從摸索到拼湊出各式地圖時,過程是充滿驚喜的。山坡地斜坡一直都是建築空間設計藉機發揮的好題材,玩弄高度的遊戲,但在此我看到了契機,又感受到該棟建築設計讓她溜走。

東海學生宿舍落在斜坡上,設計應用高度的落差,以若干空橋、步道、小空間連結彼此,創作出空間感活潑的性質。許多大學雖座落在斜坡上,但是規劃以獨立而單棟的建築物為觀念,因山坡腹地有限而僅在高度上延伸彌補其空間需求量,各棟建築物各自垂直起落,彼此僅以地面做為聯繫,而沒有其他的溝通,空間上比較單調。雖說之安館相較於其他單棟建築物,銜接了鄰棟建築物,比較可惜的是,有銜接的動作,卻沒有銜接的觀念與銜接之後能創造的空間可能性。

這讓我想到有關垂直都市的研究,想到了第五元素,當布魯斯威力與蜜拉墜落在都市的高度中,所經歷的種種差異性,想到了銀翼殺手對於未來都市的想像,想起了Koolhaas的論文「瘋癲紐約」提及的紐約高層建築,以及他因此所設計的巴黎Le Parc de la Villette的競圖案。

演講完,照例有問答的時間。雖說有十人出頭的聽眾,但其中有七八位是大一生,且聽說演講到場被點到名的同學有加分之類的嘉許,所以一時之間擠不出什麼問題。不過最後還是由會長、助教以及一位研究生提出了若干問題。分別是對大一的建議(會長),助教問了一個數位建築設計過程中的問題,礙於時間拖太久,我實在喚不回來記憶,真的抱歉。研究生提及未何這樣的建築在台灣比較少見?

關於大一的同學,我很真誠的說了一番話,關於對於建築系一個全新的環境所可能遭受的挫折與]煎熬,以及應該保有的熱情與興趣,健康的工作習慣(如不要熬夜)等等。說者真誠告白,我並不想用崇高的夢想以及教條恫赫這些菜鳥,刻意去製造一些傳奇與傳統,但我真的懷疑他們是否聽的明白我的苦心。致於台灣為何比較少這類建築?這是個複雜的問題,不容易解釋的清楚。首先全世界關於這樣的建築類型,在所有的建築物數量裡,都算是少數。畢竟形體多變的形狀,以目前的施工技術而言,都算是昂貴、成本偏高的,不能算是以經濟效益為主流的市場產物,經濟成本自然約束了它的擴散,也說明為何都很少的情況下,國外當然在數量上比台灣多。另外就是技術上的問題,不管從設計過程到實際的施工方法,台灣一直都是處於下游。另外就是政府對建築的文化政策是虛弱的,尚不知建築對於都市、文化甚至非常實際的金錢市場有相關聯的機制,不知如何利用建築、都市的魅力造就更大競爭力。撇除有機形體的案例,台灣的建築物連量體的變化上,都處於相對保守的狀況,集合住宅都在柱深那幾十公分內做假的造型量體。我想這其中必定糾纏著許許多多扼殺奇怪空間的枷鎖,讓我們無法呼吸。

會後,助教非常的客氣向我購書一本,而且他是要轉贈給系上圖書館。我上車前,他告訴我,系上的方向跟我演講的內容是截然不同的,也因如此,他更珍惜這次的見面,留住不一樣的想法。他的話,他的眼神、語氣,讓我打從心底知道這是一次真誠的互動。

2008年4月5日 星期六

數位工作營之我見

星期四去了一趟東海,首次了解這次工作營的內容。
工作營的目標是想在水湳機場的基地上規畫博覽會,一方面藉博覽會的舉辦,展現台灣或blabla的精神;另一層級上,在博覽會之後, 這些將不似其它博覽會般被拆除,卻轉化為都市成長的一部份,成為適當的新功能,鑲嵌在都市裡。

題目大致上是有趣的。不過工作的執行上,似乎運作細節上還有些不順暢,需要調整。

學生的心態與工作營的性質還沒調整好,絕大部分的工作營都屬於快速設計,最終都需交出「像樣的成果」。如何快速抓住重點,給出意見是重要的。心態的調適是重要的。

同學的設計想法跟我的設計理念的落差。雖說雙馬都認為說各位是我的學生,其實各位從開學至今只單獨跟我上二次課,大家也都還沒混熟,我也還沒傳遞太多的訊息或"理念"給各位。所以當下各位的設計概念有點讓人窘,我怕人家誤認是我教出來的。不過算了,何必太熱真,與各位有緣相聚比較實際,我願意概括承受各位的過去。至於另一組的同學,有些案子外貌看起來不錯,有在某些雜誌似曾相識的感受,但畢竟是快速設計,我無意苛求,但是講解的邏輯跟如果是仿效的對象(也或許是原創,無關模仿)相差很多,想法上還是用比較傳統的方式在論說,是比較可惜的事。

另外叫人驚艷的是一位逢甲的女同學,電腦模型的技術相當不錯,徹底擊潰東海的學生。好像去年的遠東數位獎也有一位逢甲的學生入圍前十。雖說這兩位對於建築有關"數位"或"前衛"的想法,似乎還未臻成熟,還有生澀的部份,但是做外形的能力絕對是高人一等,而這也是相當吃香的,特別是在這個只講包裝,要快速消費的時代。反觀東海,數位時代的想法掰不出來,手上功夫比輸人家,是很令人憂心的。我特別問柯老師難道逢甲電腦都這麼強,她說這個女孩比較特別,自學很多事情。好像可以暫時為東海鬆口氣,但事實就有二位對於數位工具相當熟稔的逢甲學生擺在眼前,我想東海的數位時代,還有一段長路要走。

2008年4月2日 星期三

【消息】東海數位建築設計營

Convoluted Flesh
A synthetic approach to analogue and digital architecture

The convoluted (i.e. overlapped, intertwined and blurred) nature of contemporary architectural design, as we understand it, goes beyond the functions of opulence and intricacy, of technique and simulation, of module and optimisation. It invokes something ranking above notions of beauty, style, and elegance - it evokes the sublime, the blissful and the mysterious even within the digital domain. The concept of Convoluted Flesh, which is central to our design investigations in the practice of marcosandmarjan and our diploma units at the Bartlett UCL (Unit 20) and Westminster University (DS10), entails an organic spatial and strategic vision that includes the significance of atmospherics and bodily experience, in conjunction with the designer’s technological and poetic awareness.

Simultaneously, our understanding of Flesh in architectural terms stands in opposition to the common, yet reductive metaphor of skin as a flat and thin membrane that denies the virtue of inhabitable thick walls. In a time when a lot of the mainstream digital discourse is essentially surface-bound - risking flattening and disembodying the architectural ‘skin’ ever more, at the same time, depriving it from its human and material content, the aim of Convoluted Flesh, on the contrary, is to stress the urgency of a Thick Embodied Flesh that encompasses new ornamental, sensual and corporeal qualities in architecture.

Our endeavour is then to establish a debate in which experimentation, technology and progress does neither exclude the intuitive and poetic freedom of designers as truly creative thinkers, nor the inherent relationship between the user and the depth of the architectural flesh. Hence, we consider a poetic, as well as ‘corpological’ approach that complement a typological and topological understanding of architecture. A lot of leading discussions in the digital realm are still very much the result of an initial period of discovery of disembodied virtual realities, data-scapes and cyber-realities that culminated in an almost quasi-religious myth of total liberation from physical limitations. Such processes, it seems, have focused more on generating architecture from outside via formulated methodologies towards structural, engineered tectonics. The notion of Convoluted Flesh, on the other hand, implies an approach that develops from inside out, involving experiential qualities, inhabitation and use. Rather than following the structural ‘truthful’ efficiency of the Gothic and its parametric revival, phenomena of Convoluted Flesh are intrinsically associated with a sense of formal, structural and spatial complexity, borrowing from a plethora of Baroque binary conditions, such as the dichotomy of rational and empirical thinking, along with the morphing of classical architectural semantics into playful theatrical tectonics and typologies. It involves the body in a variety of arguments that aim for the synthesis of techniques, technics and technologies, and the performance (understood both as task and as staging) of the architectural flesh.

Our previous professional and academic design research spirals away from the apparently unquestioned and rather predictable version of what we consider as the contemporary emergence of a new ‘digital modernism’: the unspecified whitewash (or often just ‘greywash’) of 3D surfaces, the universal Sachlichkeit [objectiveness] of parametric design techniques, and the mechanistic concept of the computer as a purely generative utensil. In turn, in this workshop we want to explore different notions of Convoluted Flesh as a way to challenge such approaches, envisioning experimental, and thus unpredictable conditions in design that are the result of the individual’s eccentric, yet informed understanding of architecture. By looking into advances within a wide range of manufacturing technologies and working methodologies, we aim for an open-minded and creative interpretation of such processes, simultaneously pursuing a synthetic model of design that convolutes the technological with the poetic, the visionary with the historic, as well as the ornamental and tectonic within the architectural flesh.

An example of this is our NURBSTER series, which combines models and 1:1 prototypes conceived as exhibition installations, and their implications on larger-scale constructs. They create an analogue/digital repertoire by utilising 2D/3D modelling software, in addition to CNC, CAD/CAM and RP technologies that allow the easy assemblage of a large amount of components. The size and scale of the majority of NURBSTERs locates them into the domain of interior and urban furniture design, which considers modularity and mass-production, structural stability and tectonic presence. The results are assemblages featuring a high level of formal complexity that nonetheless fit programmatic and ergonomic requisites. Different NURBSTERs have been exhibited in a variety of places, including the Bartlett in London and Fragner Gallery in Prague; Venice Biennale; Feng Chia University, Taiwan, TU Braunschweig and iCP Hamburg; ExperimentaDesign in Lisbon and MEIAC in Badajoz, Spain.

In the end, the concept of Convoluted Flesh will be used to re-addresses the relationships of façade (expression, reception, materiality) and interior (effect, action, space), of fixedness (stasis, corporeality of matter) and festiveness (movement, celebration of space), of below (matter, function) and above (manner, vision), of being (manifestation) and bogus (magic), of body and architecture. It sees a great potential in sublime, blissful and mysterious conditions as potentially opening up new aesthetic, spatial or material possibilities that are less limited than its technologically-driven and form-generating counterparts. Above all, it allows creating visions in which the depth of the architectural flesh is, more than anything, convoluted, poetic and synthetic.

related website:
http://home.so-net.net.tw/baroque2004/