An Idea of Architecture (2) – Focusing on the Fundamentals (An Afterthought on Bronowski’s Film) / July 1, 2014 by Shang Chen

“Architecture appears on all objects.”

Our seminar’s recent viewing of the film The Grain in the Stone of Dr. Jacob Bronowski’s documentary series The Ascent of Men has reminded me about the fundamentals of architecture. By introducing the material characters1 of stone and its application in masonry structure of Inca civilization, Bronowski leads us a historical tour from ancient Greece to the high Gothic era. The comparison and development of the Greek post-lintel system, Roman round arch and Gothic pointed arch with buttress is a lucid analysis about how men construct their monumental structures. The process (evolution) from straight beam to round arch and then from round arch to pointed arch with buttress reveals the improvement of men’s understanding of the material. Each steps of structural development is an endeavor of cumulating our rational understanding of mathematics and physics as well as the empirical experience of engineering and construction. The built results, (the Parthenon, the Pantheon, the Reims Cathedral, etc.) are monumental and autonomous. Despite their religious and political significance, they are monumental because they are built to challenge the limits of the materials; they are autonomous because their forms demonstrate the understanding of the physical characters of the materials and the very honest ways of construction.

The complexity of contemporary architecture requires architect to understand the characters of the project and its context (physical, cultural, political, economical, environmental, etc.). As I have mentioned in the previous blog piece, I am always interested in searching for answers about “how does one approach and design a contextual and autonomous project so that it can formally better serve its function and convey its embedded cultural, philosophical, spiritual, political, artistic and scientific concepts to people?” What are the fundamental characters (or the keyed parameters) about each project? What are the driving forces that lead us to generate the forms? How can the form be contextual (localized) and autonomous?

The whole world is under the process of globalization. From the food that we eat, to the furniture that we use, a lot of them can be found on the other side of the world. When we skim through an architecture magazine of today, we can see many projects that are so alike. The characters of vernacular is diminishing. How can they be not diminishing? Our construction techniques, design software, and building materials are all similar. As an individual, we know that each one of us is different from others. Can we still find the ways to design each building so that it is unique and autonomous to its context. If we can, I believe we are getting closer to the “timeless way” of building described by Christopher Alexander2. Since what we use in design and construction are similar, maybe it is the time for us to investigate in the earlier stage of architecture, its design process. Can the architecture of design process act as a Cartesian coordinate system to inform us the fundamentals of the project so that we don’t get lost in the labyrinth of creation?

Louis Khan once said, “A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be unmeasurable.” Focusing on the fundamentals of the design process may be is an alternative way to re-think architecture.

*"Structure of Thought" by Mike + Doug Starn*

1. Stone is strong for compression and weak for tension.

2. More information can be referred to Alexander’s books The Timeless Way of Buildingand The Pattern Language.

An Idea of Emotion – Gratitude to Our Education / November 18, 2011 by Shang Chen

Six months ago, when I was trying to make a decision on selecting the architecture school for graduate study, I chose the Cooper Union, an renowned institution with a vision of providing its whole student body full scholarship for higher education. I have always been grateful to the education that I have received since I was a little child. Having the opportunity to learn is the second most important thing in my life. Education is not free and we should not take it for granted. Even when our parents were teaching me to speak my first word, they were working hard in their jobs in order to make a living for our family. Therefore, we should be grateful to the high quality free education that we have at the Cooper Union.

The recent announcement about the school’s substantial deficit and the possibility of charging students tuition should not surprise anyone. We are living in a time that the global economy condition is at risk and nobody wants to take the responsibility of working out the problems. Before the academy year started, I already asked myself how was it possible for the Cooper Union to remain tuition free? President Bharucha had mentioned that charging tuition will be the last resource to save the school from the annual $26 million dollar deficit. Chairman of the board of Trustees Mr. Mark Epstein had pointed out that the “problem is a systemic deficit, nobody, no one person’s fault… we made an investment in a lot of students that are now alumni, and only 20% of them donate back to the school so I think that is a failed investment as far as that’s’ concerned for development.” Whether his address is true or false, we should be first feel grateful to what we have been granted. Our gratitude to Mr. Cooper and his family, as well as our gratitude to all related people who made CU great and possible should be the foundation for us to maintain a school-wide unity with good spirit. This unity should be built by students, faculty, administrative staff, alumni and trustees. Our energy and discussion should be focused on how to face the situation and solve the problem. As a member of the Cooper Union, below are some of the ideas that came across my mind:

Provide more continuing education courses for the public in summer and winter breaks.
Develop a system that helps students (both undergraduate and graduate) to find internships and require them to contribute a certain percent of their internship income to the school.
The eight floor lounge of the foundation building should be rent out as a café.
Further enhance the connection with our alumni. Financial information should be more transparent so that our alumni can know the needs of our school.
Develop an outreach teaching program which the senior CU students can teach in high schools during weekends, summer or winter breaks. This program can help preparing prospective high school students in the field of arts, architecture and engineering. In this case, senior students can gain teaching experience as well as income. Their partial income should be also donated to CU for its own sustainable development.

As part of the Cooper Union community, feeling grateful is the first step toward helping our school going through this difficult time. We, the former and current students of the institution, who were all selected based on merit, shall act as one living body to carry on Mr. Cooper’s trust and belief: “I trust that the students of this institution will do something to bear back the mighty torrent of evils now pressing on the world. I trust that here they will learn to overcome the evils of life with kindness and affection. I trust that here they will find that all true greatness consists in using all the powers they possess to do unto others as they would that others should do unto them; and in this way to become really great by becoming the servant of all”. CU students should serve our institution with heartfelt gratitude so that we can contribute and continue the institution to provide high quality free education to the future generations.

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An Idea of Time – The Measurement and Representation of a Second / November 3, 2011 by Shang Chen

In 1967, the specific frequency from the emission spectrum of caesium-133 was chosen to be used as the definition of the second by Le Système international d’unités (SI, The International System of Units). With the help of the advancement of atomic clock, this definition clearly stated that a second is “the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom”. However, long before the SI, the duration of second had been first demonstrated in clocks dated back to the early second half of the 16th century.

As the technology and craftsmanship of clock-making and watch-making further developed, time becomes to be more tangible to men. The following drawings show the assembly of a typical mechanical watch. This small simple mechanism has revolutionized human’s relationship with the universe. Ever since then knowing time is no more the privilege of the Roman Catholic Church, but all normal citizens began to have the tools to measure time and sense time lucidly. This small duration of a second, as one of the fundamental units of measurement, helped human to understand the material world in a more accurate and scientific manner.

*3D Model of Simple Mechanical Watch Movement*

*Atomic Clock Assembly (1955, Britain's National Physical Laboratory)*

An Idea of Energy – Perceived the Unseen / October 19, 2011 by Shang Chen

In physics, “energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems.” Energy cannot be “destroyed or created”. But it can be “transferred or transformed”.

However, in arts and architecture, energy can be created. The following photos of the works by London artist Kate MccGwire and Spanish engineer Eduardo Torroja have enchanted the viewers the haunting energy empowered in forms.

MccGwire’s feather sculptures and Torraja’s bus station are all “still” artifacts. Not any types of energies (like heat, sounds, etc.) are released from the forms. But they gave us a kind of visual impression that create reverberation in our mental perceptions. The unseen magical power seems to be incarnated into the fluid forms through the expression of feathers and concrete. The overall visual impulses are furthered enhanced by the directional arrangement of the feathers and the joint lines of the concrete shell. In these cases, we can say that energies are generated by the artists’ pure efforts of creations with struggles of maintaining their original concepts and aesthetic preferences. I think both MccGwire and Torroja’s works meet historian Simon Schama’s description on arts. They have “the power to shake us into revelation and rip us from our default mode of seeing. After an encounter with that force, we don’t look at a face, a colour, a sky, a body, in quite the same way again. We get fitted with new sight: in-sight. Visions of beauty or a rush of intense pleasure are part of that process, but so too may be shock, pain, desire, pity, even revulsion. That kind of art seems to have rewired our senses. We apprehend the world differently.”

An Idea of Space – An opportunity for internal emptiness to freely assert one’s identity and pursuit / September 29, 2011 by Shang Chen

To discuss an idea of space, I believe it is critical to understand its definition even though we use the term often. Since we are living in the 21st century in which our planet Earth is considerably small and communication is easy, I hereby list the definition of “space” and images of space (1st image by Google) searched by 15 languages below in order to get a more comprehensive understanding of what space is in different cultures under the perpetual update of human knowledge.

Space (English): A period of time; a limited extent in one, two, or three dimension; an extent set apart or available; the distance from other people or things in order to remain comfortable; one of the degrees between or above or below the lines of a musical staff; a boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction; physical space independent of what occupies it; the region beyond the earth’s atmosphere; a blank area separating words or lines; a set of mathematical elements and especially of abstractions of all the points on a line, in a plane or in physical space; linage; broadcast time available especially to advertisers accommodation on a public vehicle; the opportunity of assert or experience one’s identity or needs freely; an opportunity for privacy or time to oneself.

空間 (Chinese): Emptiness; void; sky; space; room

Χώρος /Khôra (Greek): Room; space

अंतरिक्ष/Antarikṣa (Hindi): An interval, intervening time or space, gap; inner space; space; sky;

الفضاء (Arabic): Space; outer space; empty area; gap; sky

Raum (German): Ambient; area; cave chamber, cave room; cavity; chamber; compartment; district; range; region; room for training course; scope; space; volume; zone

l’espace (French) : Space; fact; moment

מרחב (Hebrew): Open space, wild, wildness, wilderness; space, expanse, scope, roominess, vastness, breadth, capaciousness; region; freedom; wide, broad; large; spacious, roomy; comprehensive

Spazio (Italian): room, space

空き容量 Aki yōryō (Japanese): Empty; sky; vacant; vacuum; void; contain; form; looks; amount; consider;estimate; measure; quantity; surmise; weight;

Nafasi (Swahili): Space; place; time; opportunity; chance; respite

공간 gong-gan (Korean): Void space; vacancy; room; area; the air

Пространство (Russian): Area; field; range; room; space; spread; stretch; reach; extent; expanse; expansion; amplitude

Spacio (Spanish): Space, capacity; distance between objects; space, interval of time; lowness, delay (tardanza), procrastination; recreation, diversion; musical interval; in printing, space, type which separates words

Espaço (Portugese): The unlimited 3-dimensional expanse in which everything is located; (mathematics) any set of points that satisfy a set of postulates of some kind; space for movement; an empty area (usually bounded in some way between things); opportunity for; a blank character used to separate successive words in writing or printing; blank area; one of the areas between or below or above the lines of a musical staff.

From these different definitions and images about space, some of them gave me a better insight about how space is related to me: The opportunity of assert or experience one’s identity or needs freely; an opportunity for privacy or time to oneself; emptiness. This is not to say that I don’t care about the space “beyond the earth’s atmosphere”, nor I don’t pay attention to the “boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction”, but at this stage of life in the world that images and information are flashing around me I need to find this “space” or “opportunity” to re-assert my identity and life pursuit. This reminded me of René Descartes, who had constantly traveled during his youth to experience and learn as well as to search for his primary interest in life. Even though I don’t have the luxury to travel recently, but I hope being back to school gives me this “space” as an empirical environment for exploring ideas in architecture. This “space” might be tangible and visible. It seems to be a physical atmosphere based on the external environment with the relevant people associated to it. However, if my mind has the emptiness to contain and has the time to think, this “space” can be also much less independent from the external environment.

Immanuel Kant has once written in his Inaugural Dissertation: “Space is not something objective and real, nor a substance, nor an accident, nor a relation; instead, it is subjective and ideal, and originates from the mind’s nature in accord with a stable law as a scheme, as it was, for coordinating everything sensed externally.” In other words, this “space” is created within one’s mind with the interaction with the external world. Since I am constantly trying to find this “space” or “opportunity” to identify myself and lifetime pursuit, is it better for me to look back into my mind and find the void in order to put me staying on the track that I would like to continue? If yes, then what is this track and where is this track? This track is indeed coming from the external world and going to the external world. So when one tries to find this “space” to freely identify oneself and pursuit, this space seems to be private in the mind but still strongly connected to the outside world.

Inside of my mind I see a translucent cube within a fiber-weaved sphere. Inside of the cube there is myself looking for an opening. Connecting to the opening there is a bridge like a track toward the bright light in distance. I try to get into the opening, but the opening is moving faster than me.

September 11th – The Presence of the Absence / September 14, 2011 by Shang Chen

On September 11th, 2001, I woke up as usual and walked down the dormitory corridor. Outside the window is the tranquil morning landscape of Ithaca. Then I stopped by the lounge and saw a couple classmates were sitting in front of the TV. Some of them used both their hands to cover their mouths. I turned my head and watched the scene of the collapsing towers on the flat panel screen.

Ten years later, I still remember two sentences that I said before I left the lounge to call home. ” That is crazy. Do they know people can get killed by doing that?” I guess I couldn’t speak a word logically at that moment. I hope this poem below can comfort my mind for this special date.

The presence of the absence forever sounds.

Ten years of emptiness resonate minds.

What to touch our dark souls have to be found?

Should our memories be remained and combined?

Hate and love both can burn slowly into ashes.

While one has to be sunk and the other soar.

But for human being these two are crashed.

These mingled doublet need to be dividedly sawed.

From this vision lives remain and extend.

From that moment of crash another sprout emerges and sings.

And I would like to tell you my dear friends,

This sprout is not growing by root but by wings.

The holes of the absence should not be cold.

The hopes from the presence should be ever hold.

ARCHITECTURE MEANING STUDIO C