Flâneur The musings of a wandererDesign Ecologies: Essays on the Nature of Design
[A collection of 18 essays by twenty-one contributors]
Lisa Tilder and Beth Blostein, editors
Princeton Architectural Press, November 2009. ISBN: 9781568987835
Paperbound, 252 pages, including notes and illustrations. US$35.00
Urbanism: Working with Doubt
Steven Holl
Princeton Architectural Press, November 2009. ISBN: 9781568986791
Hardbound, 224 pages, 460 color, 85 B/W illustrations. US$55.00
Installations by Architects: Experiments in Building and Design
[A 25 year survey of architectural installations]
Sarah Bonnemaison and Ronit Eisenbach
Princeton Architectural Press, October, 2009. ISBN: 9781568988504
Paperbound, 192 pages, 170 color, 45 B/W illustrations. US$40.00
With the holidays and then the snow, I have managed to get way behind on my reviews, both in the reading of the books and in the writing of the reviews. At first I was going to write separate reviews for each of these three books, but as I read them, one after another, I realized that the content of each one was relevant to the content of the other, each dealing in one way or another with questions about design as a practice, its theory, and its future.
Design Ecologies presents a series of essays dealing with the nature of design, each exploring the ecology of design and its effect upon environments. Urbanisms: Working with Doubt suggests that there is more to design than a rationalized approach. According to the author one cannot easily dismiss the experiential power of cities in their approach to urban planning. Here both works neatly dovetail.
Installation by Architects: Experiments in Buildings and Designs puts the theories of ecological design to the test. These, as the name suggests, are experiments in design, although not always practical, each challenges the viewers’ experience and perception of the environment. Installations approaches design as an art form that invites the public to touch, enter into, and experience the work, whether it is in a gallery, on a city street, or in the middle of a field. Here, actual installations explore the ecology of design and its effect upon environments and those who move through the environment. Each installation recognizes that its design is experiential, both in the sense of the planning that goes into it, and in the specific end product. Installations acknowledges that no matter how much an architect, or for that matter, anyone, rationalizes his design, ultimately it is the ever-evolving experiential nature of the environment that embeds the design into the environment as an integral part, or makes it stand out like a sore thumb.
Herein lies, I think, the genius of these three books: Rather than talking about whether or not a design works, in the sense of whether or it accomplishes its functional purpose, the discussion is about whether or not the design contributes, as Design Ecologies asks, to the well being, the welfare, of life.
There has been much discussion about "green design," about how architecture goes about offering a sustainable future. Yet, for all of this discussion, little of it has dealt with the connecting, and the meaning of that connection, between design, ecological systems, the environment, and the experiential power of the environment whether it is urban or rural. Design, according to essays in Design Ecologies has a much to do with politics and ethics as it has to do with aesthetics and technology, a point that we often over look. When is the last time that you looked at a building and asked yourself, "What is the socio-political nature of this building? What does it say about the environment where it is placed, or about the world in general?"
Design Ecologies is a provocative collection of never before published essays and case studies from some of today’s most innovative designers and critics. They approach the issue from wide-ranging, and sometimes opposing perspectives yet with a commonality that ties them all together into a rich tapestry that, at least for me, gave birth to one idea after another. However, now that I’m reflecting upon what I just wrote, it occurs to me that it isn’t as much the ideas raised within the essays that stirred me up, it is the questions that authors of the various essays ask, not only of us, but of themselves. These essays are not locked into stone absolutes, but the mind-thoughts and resulting thought-struggles of the authors as they personally grapple with the questions they raise. As I read I felt as if I also was part of the struggle to arrive at tentative answers that make sense within the contexts of varying ecologies, or environments.
Urbanisms draws from Holl’s thirty years of practice of working with rational statistical design and the doubts that began to enter his thinking about design. Holl struggles with many of the same questions raised in Design Ecologies. Urbanisms is a catalog of sorts of both his uncertainties and his struggles to work his way through the doubt. Interestingly, he arrives at the conclusion that the doubts, not only will always be with us, but in fact, must always be with us. Holl writes in the foreward:
Earlier in the foreward Holl writes, "The fusing of landscape, urbanism, and architecture has become a new ground for exploration." Installations is this experimental fusing of design, specifically architectural design, with landscape, or environment. Not just merely experimental design for the sake of being avant-garde, but to raise issues critical to architectural design. Installations asks and seeks to answer in a site-specific and often performance-based way the very questions raised in Design Ecologies and doubts Holl struggles with in Urbanisms. The projects in Installations variously raise questions about tectonics, body, nature, memory, and public space. Critical interviews with project architects, critics, and theorist accompany each installation presentation.
Realizing that I am asking a lot, nevertheless, I suggest that these three books need to be read (in the order reviewed) by all who are interested in the connection, and the meaning of that connection, between design and environment, ecological systems (including socio-politically ecological systems), and the experiential power of the environment. I promise that you will be challenged in ways you have hereto not yet been challenged, no matter how “with it” you may think you are.
I know I was.
About the authors/editors:
Design Ecologies
Lisa Tilder is an associate professor of architecture at the Austin E. Knowlton School of Architecture, Ohio State University. She is a recipient of numerous architectural awards and grants and has contributed to a number of publications and conferences, as well as to a large number of exhibits.
Beth Blostein has jointly practiced and taught architecture as an associate professor at the Austin E. Knowlton School of Architecture, Ohio State University. Her primary interest lies in digital fabrication and its future effect on design economies. Blostein is a partner at Bolstein/Overly Architects and a LEED accredited architect.
Urbanisms
Steven Holl has been recognized with some of architecture’s most prestigious awards and prizes. Holl is tenured professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture and Planning and an author of numerous books in the field, including Anchoring, Intertwining, Parallax and House: Black Swan Theory, which Urbanisms is meant to serve an accompaniment to, another book well worth reading.
Installations
Dr Sarah Bonnemaison is an associate professor of architecture at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia. She has practiced architecture in Stuttgart with Bodo Rash and Frei Otto and in New York with FTL before establishing her own design firm, Filum Ltd. With Christine Macy in 1990.
Ronit Eisenbackh is an associate professor of architecture at the University of Maryland. She has exhibited installations at the Detroit Insitute of Art, the Art Gallery of Windsor, the Graham Foundation for Advance Studies in the Fine Arts, the Institute of Rom Kunsi, Princeton University, the Cranbrook Art Museum, and on the street of Tel Aviv.
[A collection of 18 essays by twenty-one contributors]
Lisa Tilder and Beth Blostein, editors
Princeton Architectural Press, November 2009. ISBN: 9781568987835
Paperbound, 252 pages, including notes and illustrations. US$35.00
Urbanism: Working with Doubt
Steven Holl
Princeton Architectural Press, November 2009. ISBN: 9781568986791
Hardbound, 224 pages, 460 color, 85 B/W illustrations. US$55.00
Installations by Architects: Experiments in Building and Design
[A 25 year survey of architectural installations]
Sarah Bonnemaison and Ronit Eisenbach
Princeton Architectural Press, October, 2009. ISBN: 9781568988504
Paperbound, 192 pages, 170 color, 45 B/W illustrations. US$40.00
With the holidays and then the snow, I have managed to get way behind on my reviews, both in the reading of the books and in the writing of the reviews. At first I was going to write separate reviews for each of these three books, but as I read them, one after another, I realized that the content of each one was relevant to the content of the other, each dealing in one way or another with questions about design as a practice, its theory, and its future.
Design Ecologies presents a series of essays dealing with the nature of design, each exploring the ecology of design and its effect upon environments. Urbanisms: Working with Doubt suggests that there is more to design than a rationalized approach. According to the author one cannot easily dismiss the experiential power of cities in their approach to urban planning. Here both works neatly dovetail.
Installation by Architects: Experiments in Buildings and Designs puts the theories of ecological design to the test. These, as the name suggests, are experiments in design, although not always practical, each challenges the viewers’ experience and perception of the environment. Installations approaches design as an art form that invites the public to touch, enter into, and experience the work, whether it is in a gallery, on a city street, or in the middle of a field. Here, actual installations explore the ecology of design and its effect upon environments and those who move through the environment. Each installation recognizes that its design is experiential, both in the sense of the planning that goes into it, and in the specific end product. Installations acknowledges that no matter how much an architect, or for that matter, anyone, rationalizes his design, ultimately it is the ever-evolving experiential nature of the environment that embeds the design into the environment as an integral part, or makes it stand out like a sore thumb.
Herein lies, I think, the genius of these three books: Rather than talking about whether or not a design works, in the sense of whether or it accomplishes its functional purpose, the discussion is about whether or not the design contributes, as Design Ecologies asks, to the well being, the welfare, of life.
There has been much discussion about "green design," about how architecture goes about offering a sustainable future. Yet, for all of this discussion, little of it has dealt with the connecting, and the meaning of that connection, between design, ecological systems, the environment, and the experiential power of the environment whether it is urban or rural. Design, according to essays in Design Ecologies has a much to do with politics and ethics as it has to do with aesthetics and technology, a point that we often over look. When is the last time that you looked at a building and asked yourself, "What is the socio-political nature of this building? What does it say about the environment where it is placed, or about the world in general?"
Design Ecologies is a provocative collection of never before published essays and case studies from some of today’s most innovative designers and critics. They approach the issue from wide-ranging, and sometimes opposing perspectives yet with a commonality that ties them all together into a rich tapestry that, at least for me, gave birth to one idea after another. However, now that I’m reflecting upon what I just wrote, it occurs to me that it isn’t as much the ideas raised within the essays that stirred me up, it is the questions that authors of the various essays ask, not only of us, but of themselves. These essays are not locked into stone absolutes, but the mind-thoughts and resulting thought-struggles of the authors as they personally grapple with the questions they raise. As I read I felt as if I also was part of the struggle to arrive at tentative answers that make sense within the contexts of varying ecologies, or environments.
Urbanisms draws from Holl’s thirty years of practice of working with rational statistical design and the doubts that began to enter his thinking about design. Holl struggles with many of the same questions raised in Design Ecologies. Urbanisms is a catalog of sorts of both his uncertainties and his struggles to work his way through the doubt. Interestingly, he arrives at the conclusion that the doubts, not only will always be with us, but in fact, must always be with us. Holl writes in the foreward:
Today, working with doubt is unavoidable; the absolute is suspended by the relative and the interactive. Instead of stable systems we must work with dynamic systems. Instead of simple and clear programs we engage contingent and diverse programs. Instead of precision and perfection we work with intermittent, crossbred systems, and combined methods. Suspending disbelief and adopting a global understanding is today an a priori condition, a new fundamental for creative work in science, urbanism, and architecture. Working with doubt becomes an open position for concentrated intellectual work (ed: italics added).
Earlier in the foreward Holl writes, "The fusing of landscape, urbanism, and architecture has become a new ground for exploration." Installations is this experimental fusing of design, specifically architectural design, with landscape, or environment. Not just merely experimental design for the sake of being avant-garde, but to raise issues critical to architectural design. Installations asks and seeks to answer in a site-specific and often performance-based way the very questions raised in Design Ecologies and doubts Holl struggles with in Urbanisms. The projects in Installations variously raise questions about tectonics, body, nature, memory, and public space. Critical interviews with project architects, critics, and theorist accompany each installation presentation.
Realizing that I am asking a lot, nevertheless, I suggest that these three books need to be read (in the order reviewed) by all who are interested in the connection, and the meaning of that connection, between design and environment, ecological systems (including socio-politically ecological systems), and the experiential power of the environment. I promise that you will be challenged in ways you have hereto not yet been challenged, no matter how “with it” you may think you are.
I know I was.
About the authors/editors:
Design Ecologies
Lisa Tilder is an associate professor of architecture at the Austin E. Knowlton School of Architecture, Ohio State University. She is a recipient of numerous architectural awards and grants and has contributed to a number of publications and conferences, as well as to a large number of exhibits.
Beth Blostein has jointly practiced and taught architecture as an associate professor at the Austin E. Knowlton School of Architecture, Ohio State University. Her primary interest lies in digital fabrication and its future effect on design economies. Blostein is a partner at Bolstein/Overly Architects and a LEED accredited architect.
Urbanisms
Steven Holl has been recognized with some of architecture’s most prestigious awards and prizes. Holl is tenured professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture and Planning and an author of numerous books in the field, including Anchoring, Intertwining, Parallax and House: Black Swan Theory, which Urbanisms is meant to serve an accompaniment to, another book well worth reading.
Installations
Dr Sarah Bonnemaison is an associate professor of architecture at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia. She has practiced architecture in Stuttgart with Bodo Rash and Frei Otto and in New York with FTL before establishing her own design firm, Filum Ltd. With Christine Macy in 1990.
Ronit Eisenbackh is an associate professor of architecture at the University of Maryland. She has exhibited installations at the Detroit Insitute of Art, the Art Gallery of Windsor, the Graham Foundation for Advance Studies in the Fine Arts, the Institute of Rom Kunsi, Princeton University, the Cranbrook Art Museum, and on the street of Tel Aviv.
posted by Frank A. Mills, M.Div at
3:14 PM
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