Medium: digital
Library of Babel
29 June 2020
Library of Babel29 June 2020
In its most rudimentary form, a LIDAR scan is a simple act of call and response. Thousands of beams of light leave the scanner and receive a measurement based on the distance and intensity (essentially a value of reflectivity) of the objects they collide with. The fascination in these scans… Read More
SUPA Architects: Naked Plans
6 June 2020
SUPA Architects: Naked Plans6 June 2020
– Christian Schweitzer and Ryul Song
This drawing, the first in our ‘Naked Plan’ series, overlaps 107 A3 sheets of construction drawings for House P, a private house in Pyeonchang-dong, Seoul (2013-15). Stripped in Autocad of all information, such as image, text and mtext, line weight, saturation and lightness, only the basic lines remain. Through the… Read More
Calculated Aesthetics
19 May 2020
Calculated Aesthetics19 May 2020
The floor plan of the Losone gymnasium (1990–1997) by Livio Vacchini is a computer drawing made through the repetition of four basic elements: a rectangular black solid, and three types of short lines – one vertical and two diagonals in opposite directions. The black solid is copied with equal distance… Read More
Drawing on the Nolli Plan
1 May 2020
Drawing on the Nolli Plan1 May 2020
Every January, when John and I visit Rome, I bring a set of A3 photocopies of the Nolli plan (Giambattista Nolli’s Nuova Topografia di Roma, 1748). I don’t bring the whole map – it stretches to twelve sheets, each about A2 in size – so before arriving I am already editing… Read More
Scanning Shatwell
30 April 2020
Scanning Shatwell30 April 2020
Every image you see on your screen is known as a raster image. Every image is made up of millions of squares of colour, or pixels. Each file has a particular size, height and width, and within that frame, each pixel has a particular size, colour, intensity and location in… Read More
Allies & Morrison: The Art of Architecture
18 April 2020
Allies & Morrison: The Art of Architecture18 April 2020
Allies and Morrison is an office that has held onto its identity throughout its growth. When I entered the firm, the culture of the office was steeped in a careful, polite and thoughtful style of drawings. The muted drawing style could be observed in the early sketches of the partners… Read More
The San Cataldo Ossuary in the Age of Hyper-Objects
16 April 2020
The San Cataldo Ossuary in the Age of Hyper-Objects16 April 2020
I An abandoned house – a derelict phantom with no roof and no windows – reveals the twofold condition of architecture as image and as form. In San Cataldo, the image and form of death. As image: from afar, a metaphysical de Chirican presence, suspended between Adolf Loos’s project in… Read More
Spaghetti with Meatballs
20 January 2020
Spaghetti with Meatballs20 January 2020
I was born in Berlin in 1943 and came to the US in 1949 when my father got a position at the University of Illinois. I was interested in history, art and mathematics, so I studied architecture there. I interrupted my studies to work in an office in San Francisco… Read More
Imaginal Cloud Spaces
31 December 2019
Imaginal Cloud Spaces31 December 2019
Many hours can be spent on what art historian Mary Berry calls ‘the sheer act of looking’ at the Japanese folding-screen paintings titled Rakuchu Rakugai zu (Scenes in and around Kyoto). [1] Across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such paintings captured a seemingly complete image of the capital city. Through the consistent use of… Read More
John Hejduk’s Axonometric Degree Zero
23 September 2019
John Hejduk’s Axonometric Degree Zero23 September 2019
Sometime in 1981, while I was working on my final thesis project at the Cooper Union, John Hejduk set me a drawing exercise. We had been discussing the spatial implications of the 90-degree axonometric. [1] Hejduk had a very particular understanding of this drawing type, which involved folding or hinging… Read More
Marco Frascari
20 October 2018
Marco Frascari20 October 2018
Architectural theorist and architect Marco Frascari defined the brouillon as a drawing meant to be recopied, times and again. This is a generative drawing, that entices reflections in time and whose value lives up to, and even beyond, a time of making. A brouillon is a counter drawing, which encapsulates the significance of a… Read More
The facade is the window to the soul of architecture: Venice Architecture Biennale, 2018
1 August 2018
The facade is the window to the soul of architecture: Venice Architecture Biennale, 20181 August 2018
– Adam Caruso and Helen Thomas
In response to the Biennale’s theme of Freespace, Caruso St John Architects put together an exhibition that celebrates the historical richness and social generosity of the façade. Whether a building is public or private, whatever its intended use, its façades have the responsibility to make a positive contribution to the public… Read More
elevation presentation commerce exhibition venice biennale (exhibition)