EDGEcondition Vol.1 'the seams' (April 2014)

EDGECONDITION

V o l u m e 0 1A P R I L 2 0 1 4‘ t h e s e a m s ’

O N T H E C O V E R

‘cloud veil’

byPerry KulperBS Arch, M Arch

Associate Professor of Architecture, Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning, University of

Michigan

CLICK HERE FOR EXCLUSIVE BEHIND THE SCENES PHOTOS OF

THE IMAGE MAKING PROCESS.

EDGEcondition

issue 01

published online

April 2014

UK

Editors:

Gem Bar ton

Cara Courage

Cover ar twork:

Copyright Perr y Kulper

Ar t Direction:

Gem Bar ton

@EDGE_CONDITION

www.edgecondition.net

[email protected]

W E L C O M E

Editors’ note

We had the idea for EDGEcondition

when talking about the Architecture

Journal Women in Architecture awards

(WiA). We both consider ourselves

to be ‘women in architecture’ but

the categories on a surface reading

excluded us, and the survey that

ran alongside the awards was

geared to those in practice. We

consider ourselves to be ‘women in

architecture’ but we are not ‘architects’

in the strictest term; Gem is qualified

to RIBA Par t II but for a variety of

reasons and circumstances chose

not to pursue the protected title;

Cara came into the sector from an

ar ts background. Neither of us work

in or run an easily recognisable or

conventional architecture practice;

does that mean we can’t call ourselves

‘women in architecture’?

Of course not. But the question-

posing made us think of all those work

in architecture and the wider sectors

around it, those like us that have a

por tfolio of experience that play with

the role and function of architecture

and gain our job satisfaction this way.

We are par t of that current wave

of built environment professionals

that work on our own and as par t of

myriad teams; teams that change with

every project and projects too that

may challenge a prescriptive definition

of architecture. What would the sector

look like without those who work on

the periphery of the architecture of

‘building buildings’? Those of us that

are using conventional architectural

knowledge in different and subver ting

ways, or that are bringing in

knowledge from other sectors?

The AJ WiA awards are essential for

the sector, for reasons of equality

that have been well-repor ted in the

media, and it was wonderful to see

the variety of WiA practitioners

celebrated by the awards; and it gave

us the stepping point into launching

EDGEcondition.

EDGEcondition was thus begun to

examine the condition of those that

work in the wider built environment

sector, and those in architecture

that have a horizontal model of

working rather than a ver tical career

path, operating from a role that

can lead and exercise power across

and between their remits, be hands

on with projects, see the tangible

results of their work beyond the

material object. EDGEcondition is

a continuation of our conversation

in publication form, talking with

others who work on the fringes of

architecture; who have used their

architectural training in unconventional

ways; who work in the professions

that encircle architecture. You don’t

have to be called, or call yourself, an

architect to have impor t or impact in

the built environment.

An industr y as diverse as ours needs

to be aware of its internal make up

to fully coordinate and showcase its

capabilities. For architecture to be

socially and politically relevant to

urban change, it needs to recognise

the many voices and skills needed

to produce place, the community,

the ar tists, the policy-makers, the

planners, the designers, the teachers,

the placemakers, the conservators, the

curators… This moves architecture

beyond a binar y professional/

non-professional demarcation of

knowledge to acknowledging the

multiple stakeholders and processes

necessarily involved in urban design,

moving architecture fur ther away

from a top-down versus bottom-up

approach to instead view the terrain

as one of multiple stakeholders in

collaborative par ticipation.

The foundations of this approach

lie in a discourse-building process

to frame issues and construct

meanings collectively, a process itself

that engenders new and shared

understandings of the multitude

forms of practice we see now that

come under an architecture and built

environment banner. EDGEcondition is

par t of this discourse.

As an introductory volume this

first issue, the Seams, talks to those

that join architecture to a wider

world; the next issue will focus on

ar t and architecture, and we have

subsequent issues on, amongst others,

placemaking, teaching and education,

design and planning and policy.

We invite your comment on

the ar ticles published and your

contributions too, by way of a lead

or comment piece, photo essay,

letter…our forward features and

more information can be found on

our website and contact us if you

wish to contribute. Issue 2, Presenting

Architecture, will be released in June

2014.

Gem Bar ton, Cara Courage

L I S T I N G S

LETTERS:04Greg Cowan explores the ‘roads’ and ‘streets’ of King’s Cross in KX

06Graeme Brooker tell us what he thinks about the use of mood boards in design presentations in SWATCH IT, MATE.

07Alex Smith talks management and strategy in WHAT IF SIR ALEX FERGUSON WAS AN ARCHITECT?

FEATURE:08Laura Mazzeo from MUDstudiosgives us 5 top tips for surviving in the field of architecture as a female in WOMEN IN ARCHITECTURE = IMPOSSIBLE

FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE:14Jenni Barrett tells us about her experience of existing on the kerb of architecture and landscape in BEYOND THE GREENWASH

16Claire Potter discusses the hard-to-explain-job-title-of-a-multi-diciplinar y-designer in SHADY LABELS

OP-EDS18GRADUATEHOODRonan O’Boyle tells us of the peculiarities of the architectural graduate and how their unique skill set might be better utilised.

20FROM PERIPHERY TO CENTRE: A case for re-centering the position of urban designPeter Laurence interrogates the position of urban design in the academic pyramid.

21STUDIOARTECA photo-essay by Civil Engineer Bruno Tonelli bringing together his practice and theoretical thinking across the archi-engi threshold.

K X

L E T T E R

Dear EDGEcondition,

A tourism research colleague at my university recently showed me a newspaper ar ticle which outlined a competition calling for improvements to London streets. The Mayor of London adver tised a call for ‘registrations of interest’ in an incubator fund for ideas to “nur ture and advance ideas for the future London street”. This is a topic I have researched for over ten years since I moved from my native Australia to live in London. An Australian-qualified architect with experience living and working in continental Europe and the developing world, my par ticular interest is central London and in par ticular the international station area where I live in King’s Cross. The station area is a focus of the field based street design research I completed in the last five years, and which I recently submitted in the form of a PhD thesis.

London’s “roads and streets are under pressure from population and employment growth” according to the mayor’s announcement. This has always been the case - and is an inseparable par t of the appeal of London. Only the ways in which streets and roads have been designed and managed in London have varied over time, from the Romans to the Great Fire to Hogar th’s time, then the introduction of bicycles, then motor cars and road freight. The Mayor of London became involved in managing roads and streets in the ear ly twenty-first century, but inherited a post-war attitude to street and road design. Despite his reputation as a ‘cycling

L O N D O N ’ S ‘ S T R E E T S ’

04 Image created by the author

fromGregory CowanBArch, MArch(res) PhD(cand) PGCer t, RIBA, AHEAConsultant

about.me/gregorycowan | [email protected] | @BesetzteStrasse

streets, which systematically plagues his transpor t authority Transpor t for London. Roads are generally for movement, while streets have a ‘significant’ public realm function. The transpor t authority uses the terms road and street interchangeably, constantly confusing movement priority roads with public realm streets. Although the Depar tment for Transpor t and the Char tered Institute for Highways and Transpor t have produced professional guidelines on these issues, roads continue to have priority, and the transpor t

authority’s principle of ‘smoothing traffic flow’ which incorporates calculating “journey time reliability” seem to be being misused to worsen the pressure on London’s streets by applying them as though streets were roads. The stated aim of the new initiative, to collaboratively nur ture and trial innovative ideas is laudable, but inevitably political, and the competition acknowledges this by suggesting proposals are explored ‘while local authority elections are under way’.

The recent histor y of King’s Cross has been very poignant, where the transpor t authority for the public transpor t routes, TfL, is out of touch with the two local authorities Camden and Islington and the big corporate landlords Network Rail and the King’s Cross Par tnership. In a place where a Central St Mar tins student on a bike was killed in a collision with a lorr y, TfL recently proposed new separated cycle lanes reducing the already inadequate footways, while maintaining the deadly additional road lane – ostensibly justified by the desk-based computer modelling rather than on-bike testing.

For almost a century, default design speeds for major streets in built-up areas in London have remained at 30mph, although the actual average speed possible with the myriad traffic controls and limited road capacity is as low as half. that. Engineering and signal technology has a huge investment in this ‘aspirational speed gap’. Meanwhile cyclists and pedestrians are being forced into dangerous lanes and being told to be more visible and to be more careful around large motorised vehicles with their blind spots. The potential for London to design future streets for improved movement and create ‘world class spaces’ is great – however there is much at stake for the mayor and the transpor t authority.

mayor’, the difference between cycling on roads and streets in central London is not clear ly understood, let alone for walking, and the mayor does not experience the everyday street environment most Londoners experience. Research found that neither do those who design roads and streets, who spend much more time modelling streets as systems (at a computer) than testing ideas in full live three dimensional form.

A key issue is the mayor’s inability to distinguish between roads and

05

Dear EDGEcondition,

For something to have the condition of an edge, it must have a centre. In practice, what isn’t cutting-edge is to be found in the mainstream. In this letter I explore a conventional aspect of the design process that has been unquestionably accepted as par t of the lingua franca of practice: the mood board.

fromGraeme Brooker

Head of SchoolFashion, Textiles & InteriorsMiddlesex University

S ’ W AT C HI T

In a recent set of presentations on some new interiors projects, by a number of well-known design practices, their use of reference material was troubling. There was an unquestioning attitude towards precedent imagery; it’s assembly and communication on the page. The primacy and apparent impor tance of the mood board was absolute, its par ticipation in the exchange between client and designer was crucial, yet it’s full meaning was never interrogated. The mood boards were copyright free, with images and words prised from their moorings, and released of their meaning to become symbols, effigies of an idea, totems of material identity. They were a reflection back to their client of their aspirations and wants. They were messages of affirmation, ‘we get you, and here is a mixture of what you want’, shot through a mirror, albeit through some poorly tinted glass.

I am bored with mood-boards. How might a discipline move forward if it perpetually self-references itself through images from other boards of mood? As a tool for communicating broad-brush stroke ideas, to a non-visual client, it offers a way in, a swatch of colour, a swish of atmosphere, a piece of furniture, a touch of scale and an ironic wink, provided (frequently) using an image of a celebrity in a nice chair. From a collage of ideas a new story is told, yet the narrative is of convention attached to a piece of A2 foam board. A diagram or sketch might not do the same job but how can designers tell the story of the beginning of a project in a more sophisticated way?

06

L E T T E R

Dear EDGEcondition,

I’ve recently been considering the link between the work we architects produce and the way in which we do it. In shor t, management and strategy. As architects we diligently develop and describe complex strategies for our work but we often neglect the creative process of organising a team effectively. Do we really utilise the tools we have and our collective skills to their maximum? What if Sir Alex Ferguson, the most successful football manager of all time had retired from football to become an architect, how would he get the maximum from his projects, clients and collaborators?

The approach of successful spor ts managers and including Sir Alex Ferguson has been analysed recently at Harvard business school (HBS Cases: Sir Alex Ferguson-Managing Manchester United) but what can architects learn from this study? There are some key traits which defined his managerial approach. According to the authors “his willingness to develop young talent lies at the hear t of his long-run success” often willing to cut out older team members to make room for precocious young talents who went on to become the best. They explain his innate ability to judge accurately when a player was in decline, making tough decisions and reorganising team after team over the years to win.

He also relied on an autocratic system to succeed, “You can’t ever lose control, if anyone steps out of my

control, that’s them dead.” (Speech at Trinity College Dublin, 2009). Arguably this tough approach potentially scared players into playing well. However despite his uncompromising personality the environment he cultivated over years is said to have had a family atmosphere. Architects may well prefer a more relaxed style but does it work to propel a project in the right direction?

Ferguson also had a sharp knowledge of a variety of tactics which he modified throughout his tenure, var ying team shapes, and inspiring his teams to work ‘till the final minute.

Perhaps surprisingly there are plenty of occasions when an understanding of managing successes can aid architects and architecture. Career progression in the built environment will inevitably at some point transform you from being a ‘do-er’ to a manager of ‘do-ers’. Be that a student becoming an architect, an architect becoming a teacher or an architect star ting their own practice.

As both a teacher and an architect I have seen how things can go wrong. A great student working on the wrong drawing in deadline week can easily misjudge the balance, waste time and drop down a grade. Talent alone is not enough to succeed. Tactics are essential.

As a manager of professionals Alex Ferguson was fiercely competitive,

uncompromising, and more successful than any other in histor y. Unfor tunately success is much more difficult to define in the built environment and the goalposts are usually moving, but as architects we must make our aims simpler and better defined. We must truly consider whether the aspiration for a project is achievable and if not assess how we can modify and question a brief to make it solve the real issues. Once the rules are set, we will succeed by utilising tactics and strategies like Sir Alex in sophisticated ways to squeeze everything from our young teams and get the best results.

Management is not often discussed with the same vigour as architectural theory about representation or spatial organisation. The days of the traditional master builder are gone and we are increasingly working in larger and larger teams to deliver complex collaborative ideas. The architects we credit for the buildings we admire are more likely to be skilled managers of teams or skilled editors, than skilled drafts people. We must acknowledge and discuss how we really work to better define how we might one-day work.

fromAlex SmithBA/hons, MA(RCA), PgDip, ARBCo-Founder of [Y/N] Studio, 3rd year tutor at UCA Canterbury

www.ynstudio.eu | [email protected] | @alexsmithdesign

W H A T I F S I R

A L E X

F E R G U S O N

W A S A N

A R C H I T E C T ?

07

L E T T E R

Image created by the author

F E A T U R E

WOMEN IN ARCHITECTURE

= MISSION IMPOSSIBLE?

With inflexibly long hours and a still largely male dominated industr y, is it really surprising that women in architecture are still not getting equal pay or reaching senior positions? So is it really Mission Impossible? Here are five tips collected from mine and my friends’ experiences to make it alive.

Almost 10 years ago, I had just graduated from architecture school. I was finally an Architect with a big A: an agent with a mission should I choose to accept it, to change the world for the better. Back in my

class of 2006, 50 per cent of us were female and the top students were equally mixed. The fact that my gender might impact my career prospects was therefore not even something that had occurred to me.

At least not until I star ted working as an architectural assistant in London and later on moved to Hong Kong to work as an urban designer. That’s when I really began to notice that most of the people I worked for or with (although the latter group was just a little bit more varied) were White or Asian (being in Hong Kong by

then), male and over 35. I would join a meeting with an array of quantity sur veyors, economists, proper ty developers, public ser vants, engineers, cultural specialists, environmentalists, architects… and would end up being the only or one of only two female professionals at the table out of a 12 person group. Where were the other female graduates/professionals? Did we even have our place in this mad fast-paced world of construction and development where us architects were already the weak link?

byLaura Mazzeo

MArch, AA MAUD, ARB, RIBA, LEED AP NDFounder & Director of MUDstudios

www.mudstudios.net [email protected]

@MUDStudios1

5 tips to make it alive

08

In 10 years as an architect and urban designer, I have yet to meet a female mentor that represents the exact model I would like to emulate. However I have met and I know amazing women in other fields and in architecture that have shown me how you can be a leader in your field and I have also met male mentors who have taught me a great deal about how to excel in my job but also about

appreciation for others. Recently I came across this video on Urban Times which talks about “The Media, Our Society And The Objectification Of Women”. A quote in this film: “You can’t be what you can’t see” by Marian Wright Edelman par ticular ly resonated with my experience in architecture. Female networks or role models in architecture are not quite so common

1B e w h a t yo u c a n ’ t s e e

yet, and I never had a direct senior person to look up to, learn from, take advice from, have drinks with and share doubts and passionate conversations about what we do. However, I have been able to form a clearer image of what I want to achieve and be as a professional: to be what I can’t see (yet?).

I am not saying that it is not tough for male architects out there: the design world is admittedly a ruthless one. It is well documented that our profession offers bad pay; arbitrar y bashing at design reviews; sometimes-unnecessar y long hours; and extreme

competitiveness, all in “punishment” for the fact that “our work is our passion”. Ten years on I am still just as passionate about what I do and am still working in architecture. So are most of my female architect fr iends. And although conditions could be a

lot better for women in architecture as the Architects Journal analyses in their comprehensive survey [see below as well], there is hope and here are five tips collected from our experience to make it this far.

POW, Dave Weiss

09

2F o r g e t a b o u t s t r a i g h t l i n e s

There was a time when I thought a career was a linear path, a straight-ish line moving slowly upwards. But that was before I realized there are life choices/events that alter that path and you just forget about straight lines. Having grown up overseas in places var ying from French Polynesia to Gabon in Western Africa and moving places every three years, I have developed a strong need to “belong” to a place made even stronger by practicing as an urban designer, designing cities, neighborhoods and public spaces.

After three years working in Hong Kong on local and international planning projects, I felt something was missing and also that I was not getting the recognition for my hard work. I quit my job not having a plan B. It was

towards the end of the year and no one was hiring. Everyone kept telling me: why don’t you star t your own thing? Then it hit me: it was time I got involved in making change happen in my own backyard.

So I embarked on an attempt at making change happen at the scale I am most familiar with: the city. Among a few other ideas, I set out to put together a proposal that would help regenerate Hong Kong’s waterfront with a simple but radical idea: to introduce a new tramway line linking an existing project in the east to one in the West. (see map above) With the tram, the proposal includes new cycle paths and a promenade right on the edge of magnificent Victoria Harbour and reclaims it from cars and traffic to be enjoyed by us the people.

This idea I went to present to local activists Designing Hong Kong who in turn directed me to the local tramway operator, HKT. HKT got interested: “It is a ver y utopian project” they said ”but we do believe this should be done in Kai Tak”. It is now being presented at the Kai Tak Public Consultation and gradually gaining suppor t from local residents and some government depar tments as an alternative to the much controver ted monorail proposed by the HK government.

It was this that set me on the path to entrepreneurship and to found MUDstudios, something I would have found unbelievable a year ear lier.

10

3E m b r a c e t e a m ( i f n o t t e e n ) s p i r i t

Since founding MUDstudios, I have had periods of boom and times of doom. I have won on my own projects as MUDstudios, then been hired by HOK Hong Kong. Working at HOK as lead designer for a large global American architectural practice, I found out that sometimes when it’s the right people it can feel like a tight knit family. But what I really learnt on the professional as well as personal front is that true team spirit is powerful. Although as female professionals, our leadership skills are more than often questioned, hard work, perseverance and a will to pass on knowledge and passion as well as qualities to listen, understand and build consensus do pay off. What a gratification to have achieved great work as a team, it is the best kind.

When I went back to MUDstudios about a year ago, one of the things I learnt as the owner of a ver y small practice is to ask for advice, listen to it and to find the right par tners to team up with. You cannot do it alone. You need other people’s exper tise

and if you do want to be professional and competitive in the market place you need to make strategic alliances with people who have skills that complement yours but share your philosophy.

That’s the way to combine doing what you love with doing what you’re good at and what pays well. And funnily enough, that’s when you realise that you do have a strong network of female leaders in your

Delacroix, La Liberte(public domain via wikimedia commons)

life ready to help. I don’t necessarily mean in the business sense, although it is true that people who helped me and encouraged me the most at the beginning were female entrepreneurs themselves. I learnt that although I feel weird when I hear there is a feminine “management style”, I didn’t quite always fit in among the young entrepreneurs my age and in my field - again most are male - with their loud-music-playing-intensive-video-gaming-beer-drinking world, extensively depicted and promoted by tech companies like Google or Facebook. But hey when you share the same passion and business interests, you do find some common ground and have a pretty good time working together.

However, sadly, when it comes to get funding for fab ideas, it seems gender still matters, as this study by Fastco seems to prove your-star tup-is-more-likely-to-get-funding-if-youre-a-man so par tnering with male par tners that share your beliefs might still be on the agenda for a long, long time to come...

11

4Tu r n t h e b i o l o g i c a l c l o c k yo u r w a y

To every female architect one day comes the question: what happens if and/or when we decide to have children? Architecture studies are some of the longest in the world with an average of six years, which makes us about 24-25 when we graduate and that is excluding any gap year, change of orientation, economic crisis… So with the big 3-0 looming very ear ly in our careers for female architects, don’t we have to rush? Will our time not be over ver y soon as some of the results from AJ survey on Women in Architecture show. Won’t we be relegated to junior positions, refused promotions and pay rises because we are not as ‘available’ as our male

counterpar ts? Or will we? This is something I have yet to answer myself but many of my friends have shown me that everything is possible. You just have to find the formula that works for you and your par tner of course. I have a fr iend who has embarked onto a PhD at a top architecture school whilst raising her two boys between Santiago and London. Another married a restaurateur and both set up and is now successfully running her own architectural practice Sfaro in Tel-Aviv. Yet another became an entrepreneur in a completely different industr y in Sydney when raising her daughter with her IT husband before divorcing

Persistence of Memory,Tony Hisgett

and coming back to being a director of interior design in Hong Kong to have and raise her little boy, now three years old. Another stopped working for a while to raise her two gir ls before moving to Morocco and now has a senior architect role there. Finally, one waited before she was in a lot more senior position until she had kids and no one questions her absences and late arrivals, after all she is the boss and as long as she brings the jobs in for the practice, does it really matters if she takes the afternoon off to bring her son to the doctor’s? It goes to show that whatever your story, there are ways to be an architect AND a mum.

12

5“ S t a y h u n g r y, s t a y f o o l i s h ”

Steve Jobs might have been a jerk if we believe Walter Isaacson’s biography but he probably had a point here: don’t give up on your dreams and don’t ever think that being foolish is a bad thing. That’s

Don’t be sorr y to ask a question, for a pay rise, for a promotion, to be

excused

Don’t hesitate to speak your mind,

push forward your own ideas

Admit when you’re wrong and find

solutions to correct the trajectory when

you’ve made a mistake

If you believe in something, just do

it. It might take time but if you don’t tr y it how do you know

it will not work?

Fail and learn and fail again, until you

succeed

Keep learning, stay curious

valid for male architects of course but that’s probably even more relevant for female architects as the AJ survey shows that women’s professional opinion is more likely than men to be disregarded or to the very least

questioned in the workplace. I know that not all women want to have a really intense career but for those who do and there are lots of us out there and even more who would if they could:

The Son Of Man, jstvndrr

13

In my time as a practising landscape architect, I existed in the shadow of those who design buildings – ‘minimising the impact’ of their work, which had forgotten its place, and assuaging planners with hor ticultural garnish. Despite my training, which had explored the soul and sediments of time and place, my practice involved a retrospective design process around a disconnected ‘building’– an object floating in a Car tesian vacuum to be coloured in green at a later date.

This retrospective stance is a symptom of traditional contracts and commission programmes. However, these cross-disciplinar y barriers could be influenced if ‘landscape’ performs as an integral par t of the architectural proposition. Landscape must be given a priority in the education of the architect. So, here I am now, as an architecture tutor, working with architectural students to not to resolve the featureless dimension that surrounds their building plan, but to derive and drive design from the soil.The term ‘landscape’ derives from the

Dutch ‘landschap’, the suffix deriving from ‘ship,’ holding the same root as ‘par tnership’ or ‘kinship’ suggested a living and layered state of being which connects us intangibly and inextricably. It is these layers (not plans) that we must explore and understand if we are to solve and envision a sustainable architecture and urbanism. Landscape is not the space between the buildings, it is the space that contains them, suppor ts them and provides their infrastructure. Landscape is where we live.

byJenni Barrett

MA(Hons) MSt. CMLI FHEA Lecturer & M.Arch Course Leader, Grenfell-

Baines School of Architecture, Construction & Environment, University of Central Lancashire

[email protected]

@Meme_Cloud

Image: Fahim Adam,

Masters in Architecture student at UCLan. The image was produced in a work-shop

inviting architecture students to direct their attention to detail and diversity in landscape

forms.

14

F R O M P E R S O N A L E X P E R I E N C E

Architectural education must embed ideas of landscape and place in a way that defines a whole urban infrastructure which fuels and shapes architecture and urbanism, using their immediate regions; its metropolises and their hinter lands, as the field of operation. This will be increasingly impor tant as we attempt to apply restorative solutions to environments challenged by climate change. Superficial engagement with landscape as an adjunct to building must be replaced by a deeper understanding of the scientific , aesthetic and

philosophical wisdom which defines it and in turn, can influence architectural response.

The great scientific contributions of Linnaeus and Darwin emerged from

their sketchbooks, not as summative representations of their ideas, but as formative recordings from which their theories flourished. Architectural education needs to get serious about providing students with the knowledge and skills to connect with landscape through dedicated study of landscape ecology, place and pattern from the ear ly stages. From these studies spring concepts and propositions which elevate proposals beyond the greenwash, towards dynamic, contextual and sustainable urban futures.

“Landscape, like architecture, is a bi-cultural

field, deriving scientific understanding of the natural world through artistic endeavour.”

15

It’s the question that generally I dread at par ties and networking events. ‘So, what do you do?’ Of course, I know what I do – I do it every day and it consumes every thought in my waking hours, but putting it into a couple of words is quite hard. In fact, it is near impossible. Why? I don’t really have a job title.

‘I run a design studio in Brighton’ sounds like I sit behind a desk all day overseeing an empire. I don’t, on both counts, for which I am very grateful. ‘Multi-faceted designer’ sounds quite ridiculous and like the stuff you see on an over designed CV, but is possibly preferable to the truth – ‘well, I trained as an Interior Architect and have worked in both interior design and architecture, but I now run my own studio that does both interior architecture and design, landscape design and product design. We do events too, plus I teach product design at Sussex University and I’m also a freelance design writer. Oh – and we make our own range of products and also do construction management for both commercial and private clients’.

Snappy.

But what I have found is that this is no longer unusual. True, the studio does take on a lot of diverse work, but I believe that gone is the day that we stay solidly within the perceived boundaries of what our ‘job titles’ are, whether imposed or self labelled. We flit between roles and knit together skills and passions on a daily basis depending on the requirements of a project. We are not one thing.

We all work within and on the periphery of multiple areas within our sector. We have our core specialism but we are all far more than this at any one point. Plus, the work that we all produce can be seen to skim between sectors. There is no defined boundary to what any project is, rather a personal response to what is created through both sociology and psychology – architecture is both a solid entity and an experience that shifts with the inhabitants within. It sways with the light and the seasons. It is performance as much as it is construction.

byClaire Potter

BA(hons) Int ArchFounder and lead designer of claire potter design

[email protected]

@clairepotter

S H A D Y L A B E L S

16

F R O M P E R S O N A L E X P E R I E N C E

These junctions can be conceptual and they can also be physical – how do we join the old to the new, the natural to the manmade, the solid to the transparent? The materials and colours that we choose to use can link into vernacular skills and language so we talk in a historical sense as much as we do a contemporary application, but often it is in these varied and distinct connections that the truest beauty lies.

Perhaps it is because my own job role does not have a solid edge that I have become personally obsessed with the area of details and junctions within both my own projects and those of others. How do the boundaries work? How does one thing star t against the next thing that has ended?

I would never dare to call myself a photographer in the same way that I would not dare to call myself a runner. I run, but I am not a runner. So, I take endless photographs of material changes, colour changes, texture changes, file them, use them as inspiration - but I am not a photographer. It is just another over lap into the various shades of ‘designer’ that makes up my day. It is just that the subjects that I take photos of are often distinctly defined. Beautifully defined. The one thing that do not have as a label myself.

Would I have it any different? No. Creative people do not sit in boxes, despite what their job roles might say. We all wander about the world linking into things that interest us - blurring

the edges and over lapping into different spheres of work and play. I once had a tutor that told me that if you can design one thing, you can design anything. True, there are refined and advanced knowledge pools needed for each disciple, but really, are we not all creating something? We need to understand why we do it, for who, how and with what, but essentially we are all designing things.

So, perhaps we are all multi-faceted designers who just major in different things. We just design.

17

‘Graduatehood’ is a peculiar state. One belongs neither to the profession nor to the student body, yet remains connected to both. One foot on campus, the other creeping in the office door. The temporal nature of this transitional period fur ther isolates the graduate. Why would anybody suppor t something that could cease to exist at any moment? They have none of the guidance which they have known through their student years and also lack the security that will come with their careers.

And so there exists this ‘Limbo Zone’. Here some drift along, daunted, unsure of what they should really be doing or what they really want to be doing. For others, quite the opposite - only able to claim overnight graduate

status. Snapped up by firms without the time to consider what might be the best fit for them. Perhaps it will be the perfect role, making the best use of their talents and setting them up for the future.

It does seem a shame though; What would these top graduates achieve given a little time and suppor t to explore their talents? Without structures in place to convey the diverse range of oppor tunities available to them we risk losing our best to slavish tasks and many more to wasteful meandering.

Young architects emerge from university as acutely tuned creative and abstract thinkers. They’re highly capable in a wide range of software and media which they use to test and express their design capabilities. They’re however rather under equipped in the specific practical skills required by employers. Therefore, many of the unique skills advanced at university are left under utilised as graduates acclimatise to the working world.

There would seem to be two clear responses to this current situation:- Firstly we can produce a graduate better prepared for the real world role they will fulfil. This doesn’t necessarily need to be an obsessive overhaul. It’s aim is simply to give

‘GRADUATEHOOD’by

Ronan O’BoyleB.Sc.Arch., M.Arch.

Freelancer/Contractor, Co-founder of Stew

Stew is a platform that connects all three generations of architects through informal

interactive events that help encourage communication collaboration and skill sharing.

The graduate acts as the bridge between university and practicing architects.

[email protected]@stewdiodub

“We currently produce young architects that are probably initially of better ser vice to

other disciplines.”

18

O P - E D

a period of continued exploration, diversification and collaboration. Let us activate the graduate to legitimise their concepts, commercialise their ideas and fully pursue their burning desires. They will come back. They will continue to contribute to their field. Graduates are primed to bring new

mentalities to practice but suffer due to a lack of definitive suppor ts and representation to guide them. Postponing the entrance to the

graduates confidence making the transition.- Secondly we can attempt to harness the raw energy of graduates whilst their diverse skills are most present. We currently produce young architects that are probably initially of better ser vice to other disciplines. Skills are wasted in transition to the workplace as they go unused and unvalued. We congratulate graduates on their achievements by asking them to put aside some of their most unique attributes. Graduates should have confidence in the new skills and thinking that they bring. Through fur ther exploration the relevance of these new methods can be proven and effectively make the transition into the workplace.Let us find the resources to encourage

“In a profession becoming increasingly strangled by

regulation we need to ensure that boundaries are always

tested.”

workplace isn’t the best move for all, but it should be a clear and open possibility. Not all graduates are alike. The traditional model does not suit all and might not even suit the profession as it evolves. Undoubtedly mechanisms need to be made available to assist individual graduates in finding their most suitable path. Too much talent is wasted and allowed to drift undirected through the limbo zone. Let this period instead be a stepping stone and a spring board into the role that best fits the graduate and ultimately best ser ves the entire culture of architecture.

‘GRADUATEHOOD’

19

Since the 1950s, when ‘urban design’ emerged as a term and a field of study, urban design has been generally considered, at least in the US, as an advanced course of academic study—an advanced degree program primarily for those who have completed a professional program in architecture or landscape architecture.

More than a half century later, urban design remains a pedagogic edge condition, or, to use a different spatial analogy, it remains the apex of an educational pyramid rather than its base. For example, while the accrediting standards for US architecture programs (and other programs in Canada and around the world that use the US National Architectural Accrediting Board standards) mention urban design in a historical context, the study of the design of cities does not rise to the level of a primary criterion in a

byPeter L. Laurence

M. Arch., Ph.D.Director of Graduate Studies, Assistant Professor of

Architecture, Clemson University School of Architecture

https://clemson.academia.edu/PeterLaurence@peter laurence

A case for re-centering urban design’s edge condition

list of 24 key student performance criteria. Even the ‘site design’ criterion makes no mention of urban design or urban (or suburban) environments, and any mention of studies of ‘place’ is wholly absent—which is similar ly the case in US landscape architecture accrediting standards. While it is true that accrediting standards are professionally specific, and while lessons in urban design are communicated to architecture and landscape architecture students by their thoughtful instructors, isn’t it time to turn the urban design pyramid upside down? In an increasingly urbanized world, shouldn’t urban design be a foundational study, the Bauhausian grundlehre ‘preliminar y course’ of our age? For a world in which so many live, and will live, in cities, it seems rather preposterous that urban design should remain an edge condition of design education.

20

FROM PERIPHERY

TO CENTER:

O P - E D

byBruno Tonelli

Master in Civil Engineering (specializing in Architecture)Head of architectural design at Studioar tec

www.e-ar tec.it [email protected]

@brunotonelli

S T U D I O A R T E C

Studioartec was born in 2005, when four

designers with different skills met to

accomplish the entire process of building

design, regarding both architecture and

engineering. The author of the following

article is head of architectural design in

the studio. Artec means architecture and

technique, a name that highlights design

as a series of processes that require

different skills and knowledge. We aim

at a high design quality with great care

for sustainability and for a balance with

the landscape and preexistences.

We’d like to design authentic architectures for the 21st century, architectures that go beyond both modernism and post-modernism, defining a new approach to design that tries to transcend and include all the lessons of the past, while remaining absolutely contemporary.The main theoretical basis of this approach are Peter Zumthor’s buildings and thoughts, the concept of critical regionalism as defined by Kenneth Frampton, the contemporary research on sustainability, the work of Juhani Pallasmaa on architecture and perception and of Peter Buchanan on the need to redefine the discipline as a whole.

21

P H O T O - E S S A Y

I like to say that:

This is a phenomenological approach which highlights that it is not form for form’s sake that engages us more, but the ability of architecture to create a place with a strong

Madonna della Rosa Sanctuary extension / balance with the landscape STUDIOARTEC

identity, to house our lives in beauty, in the most proper and most apt atmosphere for our gestures. This is the aim of architecture and in this way architecture is the ar t of life . A complete ar t (not just visual) that expresses itself through light, forms and materials reinforcing our deepest feelings and gestures and giving them a home. An ar t which enhances our awareness of the present moment and of our actions.

“Architecture is the name we give to all the physical and mental feelings we have for being in a man-made place”

22

A wooden chapel for Padri Maristi / a study on nature of light and archetypeSTUDIOARTEC

Gambero Rosso Restaurant / the vault archetype revisited STUDIOARTEC

A good way to find a new ways to define architecture is to star t from scratch for every idea or task, to ask ourselves why we build and how we associate functions (physical and psychological) with forms.

Archetype as a way to interrogate ourselves on the deepest meanings of architecture.

Archetype as a way to build a new architecture without mimicking the past (ancient or recent) but transcending and including it.

I’d like to think each new building is an archetype that hosts human activities and

defines functions.

23

Villa II / natural and local materialsSTUDIOARTEC

22

The relationship between architecture and place is not just about perception and social interactions but also about culture. It requires an appropriate approach to the use of materials, the critical re-invention of typologies, development and enhancement of ancient building techniques in a contemporary way are elements which add depth to a new building and that anchor it in the cultural fabric where it is located.

Architecture is always related to a specific site, it is born in a place and is in relationship with an environment, with other buildings, with the landscape. A good and simple rule is to always intend to enhance the quality of a place with a new building. Like all simple rules it can be difficult to put in practice. To do this an architect must be able to put himself in discussion, be patient and perseverant.

Restoration of Comezzano’s Castle / balance with historical buildingsSTUDIOARTEC

25

Both the words city and civilization originate from the Latin word civitas. Is it really possible to separate the civic values of a community from the urban quality of the cities where it lives? Or the two things are inextricably bound and inter-dependant? One of the roles of architecture is to build and reinvigorate the civic values of human life through a strong influence on the quality of the spaces where human actions take place. Good architecture has to tr y to integrate with theexisting city, to build it, to connect and physically interrelate with it.

It’s been too a long time that urbanism has actually forgotten the ar t of designing places, as it’s too a long time that we limit ourselves to

planning different areas in our cities instead of designing in detail our urban realms, thus we have lost the ability to create pleasurable public spaces comparable with the urban quality of historic cores of our towns and cities.

A new approach is needed for architecture and for governance systems that regulate architecture. Without mimicking the past we should tr y to learn from the great lessons of urbanism the past teaches us.

To transmit a culture to the next generations essentially means to transmit them all we know about what it means to be human. It is therefore not possible to give them a know-how and a culture unless this is sustainable,

School extension, new auditorium and piazza STUDIOARTEC

for present and future times.

The years we are living in and the next ones will be crucial for radical re-thinking of an approach to architectural design which has to be sustainable, and not just in terms of energy efficiency. To fall in love with the place we live in is a necessar y condition to desire that this place endures in the future.

The role of architecture can be a role of resistance. Good architecture has still the possibility to tell the impor tance of maintaining a value. Good medieval buildings, or of the renaissance, of the XIX century, post-bellic or contemporary will remain such forever.

26

FORWARD FEATURES LISTINGS

Vol. 02 // June 2014 - "presenting architecture" (submission deadline 16.06)

Vol. 03 // Sept 14 - "art and architecture" (submission deadline 15.09)

Vol. 04 // Nov 14 - "teaching the future"(submission deadline 17.11)

Vol. 05 // - "placemaking"Vol. 06 // - "design"Vol. 07 // - "policy"Vol. 08 // - "planning"Vol. 09 // - "digital"Vol. 10 // - "heritage"

When submitting a letter or pitch please email it to [email protected] with the ‘Vol. number and title’ in the subject line.We work approx 1-3 volumes in advance.

We are currently on the hunt for cover ar tists for future issues. To contact the ar t director please email [email protected] with ‘cover ar tists’ in the subject line.

For fur ther information about content, to suggest future topics and themes for discussion and for media collaboration please feel contact the editors, with a relevant subject line header to [email protected]

C O N T R I B U T E T O E D G E c o n d i t i o n ?

27

V o l u m e 0 2O U T J U N E 2 0 1 4‘ p r e s e n t i n ga r c h i t e c t u r e ’