Bjarke Ingels at Parsons

Bjarke Ingels spoke at Parsons and presented his amazing works as well as a vision for the future.[singlepic id=646] See chunked notes for details.

Bjarke Ingels proposing that we're "not designers of 2d or 3d objects" but rather "designers of ecosystems" that "channel not only the flow of people, but also the flow of resources through economy and ecology."

Hedonistic Sustainability dragon symbolic of China swan of Denmark

Comparison between Shanghai and Copenhage relating Shanghai to Copenhagen, but Shanghai is not your typical Chinese city and has a history of being cosmopolitan with it's large expat community and growth from a port city. [singlepic id=642] World Expo collaboration with Ai Weiwei on the installation of the "Remote" installation for Little Mermaid

-Environment -temperature, natural airflow "creating a draft" using evaporative cooling from the pool inside

-Energy "entire system spent less energy than the coffee machine" "half art and half architecture" emphasis on how to "increase art quality"

-Tony stark's mad science expo (using a similar image as the first photo of the Danish Pavilion from the world expo)

"If hollywood starts ripping off sustainable architecture," maybe "we're moving towards hedonistic architecture"

Designing for Personas and Psychologies (my words) You can bike thru the whole thing in 2 minutes w out missing a thing. It's like desinging for Type A and Type B personalities [singlepic id=648] Architects "Architects are @ the center for [discussing how] to redesign the service of our planet so that it fits the way we want to live"[singlepic id=643]"The public discourse [has architecture] reduced to contemplating the final results" Maybe it is about process, process to build and post build, process to exist...instead of perish.

He looks at "coming back to the way the building is created for people." [singlepic id=649] Yes is more "Less is more." Mies van der Rohe - minimalistic aesthetic "Less is bore." -Robert Venturi "I am a whore and am paid very well for building high-rise building." - Phillip Johnson [singlepic id=660] Evolution "Rather than revolution against society, ... evolution with society" [singlepic id=669]-Drawing Darwin's evolutionary tree

evolution "a process of designing through excess in each generation." "a functional model and beautiful model" relating each evolutionary iteration to a "design meeting."

subspecies that spin off. his studios never throw anything out. it's an archive of architecture biodiversity you never know when [a previous project can be the answer to something new]

[singlepic id=652] Architectural Alchemy Similar to Jason Severs of frog reffering to some clients viewing design as "the dark arts" (see notes), and Valerie Casey of Designers Accord noting “the myth of designers as magicians” (see those notes) I am seeing that as a theme that keeps popping up in presentations, the mystique behind, or rather infront of, design.

Project in Denmark "Lively and diverse when you're building a city from scratch"

New York a vision with "an oasis in the city" [singlepic id=659]an animation of what New York can look like in the future.

Public Participation he notes most of his work is private commissions

ex 1: project for the Danish maritime museum

ex 2: city hall in capital of Estonia [I hear the US Embassy there is a palace.] [singlepic id=664]

created a "public service marketplace" -it contained 11 different departments - so they created a prous organizattion [architecture based off of the organization] -condensed village of public administration -the roof "invites the citizens" into what looks like a roof top lounge. -instead of a tower they proposed a "political reflection" -containing a giant mirror that shows an overview of the city -this "democratic parascope." also allows the people outside to see what the politicians are doing inside.

work in Kazakhstan

"linear library - the ideal sturcture" "so a circle combines linearity with efficiency" "a continuous loop of public programs warpped around an ideal archive" the exterior was created to be a mobius strip somewhat resembling the Yurt of the Kazakhs the center of which is a coutaryd which is entered before you enter the actual library.

when meeting with the president they saw a work of contemporary art that looked errily like their proposal. "rational and rigorous argument to create the most compelling argument"

greenlandic national art museum

on the waterfront of Nuuk, the capital city a loop that receives an imprint of the ground it sits on. "integrated withe the nature and the topography" the presnts an "unfoled section" view showing a singley linear view [realtes to concept of time experienced through a subjective path]

The  Big Picture [singlepic id=667]Loop City "what we need to do is not focus myopicly on the danish side, we need to focus at the Swedish side.."

"A holistic master plan" "We can connect the most desnly polulatted part of metroplitant scandifanvia" which also an area under extrem growth."

Binational metropolitan region connecting universities, resources.

[singlepic id=666]"The same size as the San Francisco bay area" [singlepic id=654]"The train system serves as an an energy spine for charging electric cars" (which are tax free in Denmark costing a 3rd of normal cars)"

Energy infrastructure

Social infrastructure [singlepic id=655]synergies - ex: excess energy from industry becomes heat for the public baths.

A waste to energy plant [singlepic id=673] Since there are extreme sports like race-carting around in the vicinity, BIG proposed a ski resont ontop of the power plant. You can use normal ski equipment on a to allow for a "hybrid of bikini skiing" In the winter snow can be "created by blowing air [or moisture] through the system with no energy expense." Excess water is drained thru the facaces to fill planters on the windows. He then presents the initial vision [see fist cellhpone pic] to design cities as ecosystms of buildings.

The chimney smoke isn't toxic, but does have CO2. 1/10ths of a ton of CO2 "One of the main drivers for behavoir change is knowledge." "If they dont know they cant act."

Pragmatic Utopia "Economically and ecologically sustainable" "You make it socially sustainable because it gives the city a public space and social function that would otherwise be nonexistent." "The vision of future cities." "Pragmatic utopian master plan for the future."

This is the slide he opened with, as well as the slide he closed with.  I think effective presenters plant a seed a the beginning of the talk and then refer back to it at the end.  This allow them to loop to a conclusion that you already knew but has grown. [singlepic id=671] [singlepic id=672]packed house. [singlepic id=674]more than 970 slides

More Bjarke Ingels Group - http://www.big.dk/

Many of his projects he presented you can see on TED.

Other pieces presented: the parking + apartment peice in Denmark -"the facade turns into a rasterized image by the holes drilled into the aluminum"

Thoughts As an architect he looks at multiple domains to develop metrics to create qualitative experiental and places. That is something most service designers don't do very well.

Space is gorgeous, has an emotinal impact. Service design we don't place emphasis on the changing the physical space. So there is a need to emphasise the emotion of the experience.

Q's [singlepic id=657]What more can we do? How unsustainable Chinese architecture and development is The emphasis for China to become a consumer culture. Green Energy in China. [my general Q's to expand on]

Guest Lecture by Bjarke Ingels at Parsons Original event information: March 10, 2011 6:30pm Kellen Auditorium Sheila Johnson Design Center 66 Fifth Avenue [singlepic id=640]Thanks to SCE The MArch program presents a lecture by Bjarke Ingels of BIG- Bjarke Ingels Group. Bjarke Ingels started BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group in 2005 after co-founding PLOT Architects in 2001 and working at OMA in Rotterdam. Through a series of award-winning design projects and buildings, Bjarke Ingels has created an international reputation as a member of a new generation of architects that combine shrewd analysis, playful experimentation, social responsibility and humour. In 2004 he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for the Stavanger Concert House, and the following year he received the Forum AID Award for the VM Houses. Since its completion, The Mountain has received numerous awards including the World Architecture Festival Housing Award, Forum Aid Award and the MIPIM Residential Development Award. Recently, Bjarke was rated as one of the 100 most creative people in business by New York based Fast Company magazine.

Original event information via: http://sce.parsons.edu/2011/03/04/guest-lecture-bjarke-ingels/

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Atlantis - Urbanism of Inclusion

URBAN@PARSONS PRESENTS:

URBANISMS OF INCLUSION: ATLANTIS TRANSATLANTIC EDUCATION PROGRAM

Pecha-kucha presentations followed by a panel discussion with:

Teddy Cruz, Bruno De Meulder, Kelly Shannon, Glenn Smith, Brian McGrath, Miodrag Mitrasinovic

[singlepic id=601] CITIES, NATURE & URBAN DESIGN: CASES IN BELGIUM AND VIETNAM Lecture by Bruno De Meulder & Kelly Shannon, KU Leuven University, Belgium Kellen Auditorium 66 5th Avenue, Sheila Johnson Design Center Friday December 17, 12:00 – 3:00 PM, 2010 Find more information about the Atlantis Program here. [singlepic id=602]

[singlepic id=599] My Chunked Notes: Image of stakeholders diagram showing relationships and influence mobilepic 1 patchworks mobilepic 2 social ecological structure

Miodrag Mitrasinovic "These schools got together because we share two things in common. One of which is social inclusion the other of which is design."

3 lenses of design 1. Human centered approach-  not top down, not formal But from middle out 2. Process orieted approclav not driven by form or driven by interaction. But driven by socio enivonrmental and political action 3. Nexus of teaching, researh, knowledge and action

"How we can uneaeth new bodies of knowledge and codefiy them across the differnt types of action in the spectrum?"

Threads that went through all of the presentations: -Social inclusion -Designs' capacity to bring about change -Promiscuous areas

[singlepic id=600] Teddy Cruz "The right circle concept of cities is a sociological concept organizing data.  Cities are based on permiscuois systems. Like la la didn't have a grand plan." "Designers are schizo by nature." "We can create new social relationships." "Without alterting the very rigid economic policies and political framework." "Design can become a service to rethink the economic policies and political frameworks"

"The science of the city and interieing in the city. The designer can be the one to intervene with the problems in the city. Design can come to a resolution of the conflict that words could no longer don. The power of negotiation through design can create a spatial solution" (But I think that it also provides solutions that are not just spatial). "Design can "do more than talk but [actually] create agency."

Not just "spatial relations and visual representations. But also the ability to is not led by buildings or systems but by the reorganized social systems. Corporations and co-managers of resources. My own cirticq of my own process...we lack the tools. Drawings are limited. What other devices allow us to translate those new roles of entrepreneurship."

Kelly Shannon Relationships of people to their own environment. Space and interactions with space. Translate it so those actions can redefine the tip down legislation. [singlepic id=601] [singlepic id=598]

_________________________________________________________________ addy thoughts: I really appreciate the way architects organize their work.

Crafting Hybrid Design

Definitions.We shouldn't let definitions limit our discipline.  Our actions, tools and methods should define our discipline, not vise versa.

Siloing Definitions Apparently in Silicone Valley, introducing yourself as an "interaction designers" denotes that you know how to code. But that on the east coast, it means you are a visual designer possibly without the ability to code.

Someone else told me that "User Experience" is online, but "Experience Design" isn't exclusively online.  But isn't the design of a service also supposed to be user centered? It makes sense that the pathways must be well designed for the provider as well, which is why some companies like Kaiser Permanente prefer the term "People Centered," since they also design for the nurses that take care of patients.  There is the theory that experience cannot be designed, only the parameters for the experience. But that doesn't mean outcomes are totally out of our control. We need to influence specific prompts of the experience at the right times.

There's the threat of being overly specific.  I've also heard that if something becomes a discipline it is no longer integrative, making the institution of learning a "tradeschool," or the firm "industrialized and mechanized."

Defining by Differentiating Oreilly gives four definitions of what IA may be and then states what is not IA. "*Graphic design is NOT information architecture." "*Software development is NOT information architecture." "*Usability engineering is NOT information architecture." Some architects say that information architecture isn't actually architecture, because most IA practitioners don't have BArch or MArch degrees, nor are they certified by an association like RIBA, The Royal Institute of British Architects. You can now find the term Interaction Architects popping up.

There are designers fighting for new ground, and designers fighting to defend their current titles and current methods. Maybe we currently we exist in the "gray areas between disciplines" fighting for future methods.  (Oreily).

Design Future Another way to put this is that we're "hybrid designers [that] re-design, re-think," and are "better suited to a complex physical/non-physical world" (FastCo). While we may get caught up in defining new disciplines and titles, we should focus on defining new methods and media.  Not new media as in tv, web, mobile but new media as in Robert Fabricant's concept that "behavior is our medium."  Fast Co emphasizes "Being a thought-leader (or a design-thinker) is nice, yet also being a craftsman," who can create functional outputs is important.  I find the concept of being a "Hybrid Designer" very fitting.   There can be different types of hybrid designers, but they will all rely on specific craft.

[singlepic id=267]Robert Fabricant leads a team of Hybrid Designers at frog design

Well, what is craft?  Richard Sennett believes craftwork to be "highly refined, complicated activity [that] emerges from simple mental acts like specifying facts and then questioning them."

As humans we place concepts into hierarchies and then apply labels terms to them.  This allows us to understand ideas and share them.  But these are all abstractions.  When the lines begin to blur, we begin to freak out.  Lines themselves are abstractions that do not exist.  We just use lines as means to define an actual space.  In imagery like painting or illustration a line is just used to define an edge, but if you zoom in it's not a line, just more space...gray space.  Even vectors are something we cannot directly engage with.  Let's create the fine grain detail, develop new craft and then zoom out to decide what specific type of designer we are.  For now, maybe a Hybrid Designer is a nice, loose umbrella term.

Even if you are an architect there is the chance someone will define you as someone who "builds buildings."  It's not just buildings or construction sites, or website.  It's communities and empires.  The communities and empires of the future are those of the mind.

sources
Orielly Information Architecture for the World Wide Web http://www.oreilly.de/catalog/9780596527341/toc.html

Fast Co on Beyond Design Thinking: Why Hybrid Design Is the Next New Thing http://www.fastcompany.com/1656288/beyond-design-thinking-why-hybrid-design-is-the-next-new-thing

Robert Fabircant - Behavior is Our Medium at IxDA http://www.ixda.org/resources/robert-fabricant-behavior-our-medium