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ISLAND IN THE NORTH
22 júl. 2008 - 05:40
We went to an island on the Norwegian coast. It is so beautiful that someone should get a crystal bowl for designing it! We were invited to a disused school that is located in Herviksbygda on Sula island in the Solund cluster of islands. The school is owned by Lars Sture , an artist educated as a jeweler in the earlier State Arts and Crafts school that is now my employer KHiO . Lars is a meticulous artist with a warm heart. We were invited by the company of friend Elisabet, who runs the Nordic Artist’s Centre in Dale , where we are in project residency at the moment trying to find out the best ways to communicate and synchronize projects with web solutions. The sublime nature, the humility of the people and the stimulation of great artists and conversationalists helps one realize how little we can manage. On this link are some pictures.
SPACE FOR DESIGN
10 júl. 2008 - 08:00
I went to an interesting conference at the Chelsea College of Art and Design about the space that is needed for thinking, reflecting, doing and teaching art and design. Thanks to the invitation of Professor Chris Wainwright, Head of Colleges it was great to get to know the work done for the planning of the various new school buildings in London University of the Arts, Colleges . The Chelsea College has moved into the military barracks next to Tate Britain and the planning process is in full momentum for Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design to be located in the Kings Cross area, opening in 2011.
Keynote speakers discussed the room for artistic practice from various angles.
Architect Paul Appleton from Allies and Morrison architectural practice in London discussed how the architect deals with the task of creating spaces for interaction, for reflection etc. Paul displayed one of mine all time favorite painting St Jerome in his study to demonstrate how it should be possible to be focused and individualistic while located in a large space with various qualities. They have designed buldings for many of the London arts colleges like Chelsea, Goldsmiths, College of Communication etc. It was inspiring to listen to a visionary architect discuss the fundamental emotional aspects of space and building and not just square meters, fire precautions and all those practicalities that are necessary for good architecture but not the essense.
Alexi Marmot, from her own firm Alexi Marmot Associates discussed spaces for learning: Art, Design, Fashion. She went through the more emotional prerequisites that are needed when creating art and design colleges. Through her company she runs a program named: WORKWARE that combines building measurement and techniques of social science to define for briefing of buildings. Her information was, yes interesting but not wholly clear, - something that a scientific method sometimes boils down to.
After that was a discussion led by Chris Wainwright, head of colleges and David Garcia, the new dean at Chelsea. This started a discussion in plenum about the various issues for art and design. One thing is always clear when listening to academics, wherever in the world: there is always fighting for turf and bickering. It is up to the leader to use this energy in the right direction.
Fiona Duggan is a specialist in strategic briefing, user research and building analysis and gave an account of the work done for the briefing for the new premises for the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design She has written a paper on educational space in The Journal of the Centre for Education in the Built Environment, I can recommend it to those that are planning space for creative people.
The last speaker was Andrew McDonald from the University of East London. His talk was named: Libraries and Social Learning Space: Central Stage in the 21st Century. He is a head librarian and went through the key qualities of good learning space, whether in new or refurbished buildings. He suggested that, ideally, learning space should be functional, adaptable, accessible, varied, interactive, conducive, environmentally suitable, safe and secure, efficient and suitable for information technology. He also maintained that new space should also have “oomph”, capturing the minds of users and the spirit of the university. These indicative issues should be discussed in the brief and throughout the planning process, and the priority given to them will depend on the mission and culture of the library.
The conference was important because it is good to meet others and discuss how to plan and build art and design environment, not only for the building purposes, but also to think about the planning of every year and the changing demands in design education. I am of the belief that we are running an out of date system in design education and our ways of adapting to the digital natives and the totally different world of needs, services and environment are too slow. I will continue to work on this in the coming years.
In the evening there was an opening event for the outside space in the school (see picture). This space is for outside installations and events. The Bombay born British artist Anish Kapoor officially opened the space that is called “the Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground” since it used to be a parade ground for the military school.
The lit up lines represent the geometry of the golden section .
GEHRY AND SERPENTINE
01 júl. 2008 - 17:10
Cities compete to do have a GEHRY , the most famous of which is probably BILBAO . Signature architecture has become for cities something like a LOUIS VUITTON bag for the wags. I remember a lecture by EISENMAN , with him telling about the Japanese business man during a pre-briefing meeting for a building in Tokyo asking for a COVER. And Eisenman said “Yes, architecture is about providing a cover”. But the business man wanted a building that would be on the COVER OF MAGAZINES! He was not so interested in function, use or the coverability of the building.
The Serpentine Gallery in London houses every summer a project made by signature architects. This year they are building a GEHRY . In an interview with the Guardian he and his son explain the inspiration being a catapult plus butterfly wings. Gehry says “We passed the model around the office like we were playing ball and ended up with this”. The building is a reflection to his own house in Santa Monica of the early PoMo years in the late 70’s. I kind of like the project, especially with the contractors fence and building cranes. It reminds me of a trip to Paris with 1st year students from the School of Architecture in Portsmouth. We followed the tour leader, our ‘senior’ teacher (I was just a ‘junior’ senior lecturer at the time). Drove around Paris with 3 coaches full of students with sketch books to look for the newly built AMERICAN FOUNDATION building designed by Gehry. This, our teacher was usually over-enthusiastic on study trips, trotting ahead to find the ‘gems of new architecture’ to photograph and document in a hurry before jumping on the coach for the next building. He strode ahead of the gang, gasped in awe at the constructive amalgam of wooden sheds with fences and structures pointing out Gehry features to the newcomers to the great discipline of architecture. Then suddenly someone picked his shoulder and told him: “Hey Jay! These are the cabins of the builders! The Gehry building is on the other side of the street” pointing to a marble clad block. A great architectural experience!
END OF WINTER FASHION SHOW
06 jún. 2008 - 10:20
One more time we end a hard working winter in our faculty of Design. Here are some images from the fashion show. It gets better every time, I say, but that is also something I should say. We can still do better and outdo this one next year. There is great potential in the young people in KHiO and I hope we manage to motivate them even further.