Indesem 2013: Scale Matters, Pre-publication

1 9 – 2 6 A P R I L 2 0 1 3

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Pre-publication for Indesem 2013: Scale Matters, to be held on 19–26 April 2013 at Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture.

Printing run1000 copies

Editorial BoardSoscha Monteiro de JesusLaurens van der Wal

ContributorsIzabela SlodkaSiriluck SongsriArnoud StavenuiterMax Verhoeven

Copy editingRaphael Bourdon

Graphic designMichael L.K. Tjia

PrintingNewspaper Clubwww.newspaperclub.com

Indesem Board 2013Soscha Monteiro de JesusRobbert VerheijSteven OttenRobin GringhuisBarend A-TjakLila AthanasiadouNiek van Laere

FreelancersSido CherelYasser HassanHinke MajoorIzabela SlodkaMichael L.K. TjiaLaurens van der Wal

OfficeBG+.Oost.210Julianalaan 132–1342628 BL DelftThe Netherlands

[email protected]/indesem

Made possible byTU Delft BouwkundeD.B.S.G. Stylos

DisclaimerIn producing this publication, we have used a small number of images and texts for which copyright hold-ers could not be identified. In such cases, it has been our assumption that these images belong to the pub-lic domain. If you claim ownership of any of the images or texts present-ed here and have not been properly identified, please contact Indesem 2013.

W h A TI S

I n D E S E M ?International Design Seminar, shortly Indesem, is held every two years at the faculty of Architecture at TU Delft in the Netherlands. For one week 80 students follow a full programme packet with lectures, excursions, exhibitions, debates, documentaries and more.

Since its founding in 1964, Indesem has had the honour of hosting internationally acclaimed architects and theorists, such as Aldo van Eck, Adriaan Geuze, Jean Nouvel, Rem Koolhaas, Michael Speaks and Ben van Berkel. In the past, Indesem was supervised by Wiek Röling, Herman Hertzberger and Winy Maas. For some years now Dr. Machiel van Dorst has been involved in Indesem as a supporting teacher. He is currently working as an associate professor at the Chair of Environmental Design UR at the Faculty of Architecture of the Delft University of Technology.

Every edition students from all over the world will tackle an important current issue that has influence on our profession. The fundamental idea of the seminar is to create an environment where students and professionals can debate about the position of an architect. The outcome contributes to the current architectural discussion.

I n D E S E M 2 0 1 3 W I L L T A k E P L A C E 1 9 – 2 6 A P R I L 2 0 1 3

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T h E g L o b A L S C A L E h A S A L T E R E D I D E n T I T y

Infrastructures keep on expanding, improving and becoming more and more accessible. High-speed Internet and budget airlines allow us to both communicate globally and travel globally. With almost no effort at all we are able to span these great distances, both physically and vir-tually. Therefore the value of distance has changed. Knowledge spreads faster, which stimulates developments all over the world. Fast large-scale developments have a big influence on every scale. For some part this is because the knowledge about them is being spread by the same fast infrastructures. Because of the spreading of knowledge the traditional local identity of place is lost, or has the identity just altered? What is the identity of a 21st century city?

T h E A R C h I T E C T S u R v I v E S I n C R I S I S b y S h I f T I n g T o A n o T h E R

L E v E L o f S C A L E

The impact of globalization in economics has reached its limit in 2008, resulting in a worldwide financial crisis. To survive the crisis architects have responded in two ways. The first is the architect, with whom we mean every designer of the built environment, shifts to work on a global level: He travels from country to country, seeking opportunities in thriv-ing economies. The second response is the architect who shifts to work on a local level: he actively explores his physical surroundings for new possibilities, seizing his own commissions. He brings clients (who are willing to invest) and audiences (people with needs) together to create new jobs. These are two different approaches to survive in a time of cri-sis, both on a very different scale. The message of both of them is that you need to be aware of your position! We need to actively ask ourselves the following question: what can I do for the current society? On which scale am I needed?

T h E A R C h I T E C T I S A M A S T E R o f S C A L E

Building and designing has always been done at the same time. It is only relatively recent that we have learned to plan our designs using different levels of scale. Now, technical developments allow us to intensively use even more levels of scale. We have developed ourselves into scale-shift-ers. Zooming in and out, we plan a building or a whole urban area in models, in drawings, and on our computers connected to global net-works. We scale it. While moving from one scale to another, architects try to deal with a wide range of problems. We are continuously being pushed back and forth between the local and global scale. Therefore, it is necessary to become conscious of these different levels of scale. You can-not learn about the magic of a place if you are not master of every scale: global, local and everything in between.

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Twenty-first century urban pedestrians are the re-sult of an evolution over millions of years. Man has evolved to move slowly and on foot, and the human body is linear in orientation. While our feet can walk or run forward with ease, they move backwards or side-ways with great difficulty. Our senses have also devel-oped to allow slow, forwards movement on largely hor-izontal surfaces. Our eyes, ears and nose face forward to help us sense danger and opportunities on the route ahead. The rods and cones in the photoreceptor layer of the eye are organized to match our horizontal, earth-bound field of experience. We can see clearly ahead, peripherally to the sides, downward to some extent and much less upwards. Our arms also point forward and are well positioned for touching something or pushing branches aside along our route. In short, Homo sapi-ens are a linear, frontal, horizontally oriented upright mammal. Paths, streets and boulevards are all spaces for linear movement designed on the basis of the human locomotor system.

One of the most memorable moments in life is the day a child stands upright and starts walking: now life is about to start in earnest. So here is our client, a pedes-trian with all his attributes, potential and limitations. Basically, working with the human scale means provid-ing good city spaces for pedestrians that take into ac-count the possibilities and limitations dictated by the human body. […]

[The shattered scale] Traditional, organic cities grew on the basis of everyday activities over time. Travel was on foot, and construction was based on generations of experience. The result was cities on a scale adapted to the senses and potential of human beings. Today urban planning decisions are made on the drawing board, and little time is lost between decision and realization. The

speed of new forms of transport and the often massive scale of building projects pose new challenges. Tradi-tional knowledge about scale and proportions has grad-ually been lost, with the result that new urban areas are often built on a scale far removed from what people perceive as meaningful and comfortable.

If we are to encourage pedestrian and cycle traffic and realize the dream of lively, safe, sustainable and healthy cities, we must begin with a thorough knowl-edge of the human scale. Understanding the scale of the human body is important if we are to work purposefully and appropriately with it as well as address the inter-play between the small slow scale and the other scales also in operation. […]

Put simply, urban design and city planning can be described as work involving several very different lev-els of scale. There is the large scale, which is holistic treatment of the city including quarters, functions and traffic facilities. This is the city as it is seen at a distance or from an aerial perspective. Then there is the middle scale, the development scale, which describes how the individual segments or quarters of the city should be de-signed, and how buildings and city space are organized. This is city planning from a low-flying helicopter per-spective. Last but certainly not least is the small scale, the human landscape. This is the city as the people who will use city space experience it at eye level. It is not the large lines of the city or spectacular placement of build-ings that are interesting here, but rather the quality of the human landscape as intuited by people walking and staying in the city. This is working with 5 km/h–3 mph architecture. [...]

If cities and buildings are going to invite people to come and stay, the human scale will require new and consistent treatment. Working with this scale is the most difficult and most sensitive urban planning disci-pline. If this work is neglected or fails, city life never stands a chance. The widespread practice of planning from above and outside must be replaced with new planning procedures from below and inside, following the principle: first life, then space, then buildings.

o P E R AT I n g

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f o R

S PA C E S h I P E A R T h

b y b u C k M I n S T E R f u L L -E R . I travel between Southern and Northern hemispheres and around the world so frequently that I no longer have any so-called normal winter and summer, nor normal night and day, for I fly in and out of the shaded or sun-flooded areas of the spinning, orbiting Earth with ev-er-increased frequency. I wear three watches to tell me what time it is at my home office, so that I can call them by long distance telephone. One is set for the time of day in the place to which I am next going, and one is set temporarily for the locality in which I happen to be. I now see the Earth realistically as a sphere and think of it as a spaceship. It is big, but it is comprehensible. I no longer think in terms of weeks except as I stumble over their antiquated stop-and-go habits. Nature has no weeks. Quite clearly the peak traffic pat-terns exploited by businessmen who are eager to make the most profit in order to prove their right to live caus-es everybody to go in and out of the airport during two short moments in the twenty-four hours with all the main facilities shut down two-thirds of the time. All our beds around the world are empty for two-thirds of the time. Our living rooms are empty seven-eighths of the time. […]

Each of our four billion humans’ shares of the Spaceship Earth’s re-sources as yet today amount to two hundred billion tons. It is also to be remembered that despite the fact that you are accustomed to thinking only in dots and lines and a little bit in areas does not defeat the fact that we live in omnidirectional space-time and that a four dimensional universe provides ample individual freedoms for any contingencies.

You may very appropriately want to ask me how we are going to re-solve the ever-acceleratingly dan-gerous impasse of world opposed politicians and ideological dogmas. I answer, it will be resolved by the computer. Man has ever-increasing confidence in the computer; wit-ness his unconcerned landings as air transport passengers coming in for a landing in the combined invisibility of fog and night. While no politician or political system can ever afford to yield understandably and enthu-siastically to their adversaries and opposers, all politicians can and will yield enthusiastically to the comput-ers safe flight-controlling capabili-ties in bringing all of humanity in for a happy landing.

So, planners, architects, and engi-neers take the initiative. Go to work, and above all co-operate and don’t hold back on one another or try to gain at the expense of another. Any success in such lopsidedness will be increasingly short-lived. These are the synergetic rules that evolution is employing and trying to make clear to us. They are not man-made laws. They are the infinitely accommoda-tive laws of the intellectual integri-ty-governing universe.

Complete article: http://www.thevenusproject.com/downloads/ebooks/Buckminister%20Fuller%20-%20Operating%20Manual%20for%20Spaceship%20Earth.pdf

f I R S T L I f E , T h E n S P A C E ,

T h E n b u I L D I n g S .f R A g M E n T S TA k E n f R o M ‘ C I T I E S f o R P E o P L E ’ b y J A n g E h L

The natural starting point for the work of designing cities for people is human mobility and the human senses because they provide the biological basis for activities, be-havior and communication in city space.

h u n D E R T W A S S E R h A u SFriedensreich Hundertwasser (1986)Vienna, Austria

Austrian architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser was not at all amused by the architecture of the Moderns, condemning it dictatorial, sterile, cold, anonymous and unromantic. His reaction to this ‘first act of architectural globalism’ was radical. In his designs there was room for a tree inside the building and the inhabitants of his dwellings had the so called Window Right. Whatever part of the façade they could reach by leaning from out of their windows, they were allowed to change. Pimping avant la lettre, on a very local scale.Fl

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So far this collective consciousness has been shaped for the better. Although only a small handful of individ-uals have witnessed these sights first-hand, the wide-spread dissemination of these images of the Earth from space has variously been credited with catalyzing the environmental movement, global action on policy, and spurring transnational collaboration. [...]

In the last issue of Volume tech guru and former editor of the Whole Earth Catalog Kevin Kelly gave a surprising answer to this question, asserting ‘one of the biggest agendas we should have is to get a picture of the whole Earth.’ [4] Now hang on, surely we already have one of those. Stewart Brand’s famous campaign of badges asking ‘why haven’t we seen a photo of the whole Earth yet?’ led to the publication of the Blue Marble, a definitive picture of the whole Earth if ever

there was one.However, the Blue Marble is a photograph, and

nothing more. Its impact on our collective conscious-ness was driven by aesthetics alone, and therefore its usefulness beyond that of an icon is limited. As the es-timated threat of global warming becomes larger, our need to thoroughly understand our planet’s climate system becomes increasingly critical. Kelly is not ask-ing for a photo, but a global atmospheric monitoring system.

Such a system was once almost realized. As Stewart Brand explains, Al Gore as US Vice President in 1998 proposed DSCOVR, ‘a space camera that would pro-

vide a constant real-time, high resolution video of the Earth turning in the sunlight, both for inspiration and for science.’ [5] Although ridiculed by Congress as ‘Al’s screensaver’, the project found support in the Nation-al Academy of Sciences who proposed loading up the satellite with instruments to measure ‘variations in the Earth’s ozone levels, aerosols, water vapor, cloud thick-ness, and the reflected emitted radiation “the total en-ergy budget” of the whole planet.’

The module was built and ready for launch in 2001, but was blocked by the incoming Bush administration who were hostile to Gore and climate science in gen-eral. If ever launched by the Obama administration, as promised, the information it generates could lead to a new understanding of the interconnectedness of our global ecosystem. More importantly, it could expose the hollow ignorance of climate change denialists and drive a more constructive convergence of global efforts to head off catastrophic global warming.

When it comes to generating new images, architects too can help. We are the image-makers for Earth, but rarely do our images inspire shifts in collective con-sciousness. We need to work on creating compelling images of our future here, to ‘sell’ our planet back to ourselves, by creating visions that both allow and invite us to stay home and care for our planet. Like the hoped-for composite data relayed from DSCOVR, we need to produce images with depth; multiple layers that both offer inspiration and enable a path toward a tangible solution.

Some projects reach for this illusive objective by si-multaneously capturing a future narrative and provid-ing the infrastructure to achieve it. What most architec-tural propositions lack is a global perspective, a barrier most famously transgressed by the quintessential global thinker Buckminster Fuller. Fuller’s Whole Earth Game and global energy grids examine the crises we face on the scale required to deal with them. This spirit has been most recently evoked by OMA/AMO in the Road-map 2050 plan for a distributed energy creation and transmission network stretching across Europe between Norway and North Africa.

OMA’s plan assigns specific regions to be equipped with the infrastructure best suited for local renewable energy generation – such as wind turbines in the Neth-erlands, tidal generators in the North Sea, hydroelec-tric dams in the French Alps, and solar power plants in North Africa. The energy generated is subsequently shared based on seasonal demand, an infrastructural collaboration that would transform Europe from the collection of nations with competing interests it is to-day into an integrated organism. It is Spaceship Earth in practice, deployed to head off one of Earth’s greatest challenges.

One need not have global reach to convey a global perspective. A single building, MVRDV’s Dutch pavilion for expo 2000 in Hanover, offered a compact, stacked ecology of diverse landscapes and inhabited spaces. This mini-ecosystem is an optimistic sign for the capac-ity of architecture to recast itself as a generator of sus-tainable energy and agriculture rather than merely a drain on resources. Despite its limited size and impact, it is clear how such a prototype could be expanded. What unites both these projects by MVRDV and OMA is the capacity to exploit the narrative potential of the image to reinforce their claims.

Yet projects of this sort are difficult to spot among the wasteland of excess and consumption, leading to the question of whether architecture really is up to the task. Perhaps, as Stewart Brand has argued, we need a new kind of designer, one who transgresses disciplinary boundaries to look for the shortcuts to action and re-sults. A planetary architect, who can bridge the worlds of image making and global thinking; to create images with the instrumental and inspirational depth to con-vince and enable us to stay here on Earth.

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A n S W E R S . . .

What is the effect of globalization on your daily life?

I live in Amsterdam, and yet I am rarely confronted by this fact, co-cooned as I am in the warm blanket of globalisation. I watch American TV, read British newspapers, and listen to Australian radio. My in-ternational credit card is preferred by my local retailers. All attempts to integrate and learn the language have been stifled by the upmost gen-erosity of the Dutch and their per-fect English. I do blame myself for this, but now I see it – and even my being here – also as a symptom of globalisation.

What does local mean to you?To be local is to not need a map.

It’s where I’m understood and un-questioned; where I can slip into the crowd unnoticed. On the one hand it’s a nice thing: it’s local communi-ty, it’s local produce, it’s local pride. But it’s also a deeply problematic term today, as this implied inclusion necessarily implies the exclusion of others. As Fuller said, we all live on Spaceship Earth, and fuzzy distinc-tions like ‘local’ stand as barriers to global cooperation.

Do you think globalization is still a growing tendency or are we head-ed towards a world more focused on the local scale?

I think we’re headed toward a new kind of globalisation, which is – paradoxically, perhaps – more local. If globalisation is defined by the dominance of corporations, pooling resources and monopolising markets, then this new kind of glo-balisation will see micro producers – makers, DIYers, hackers, creatives – exploiting their newfound access to a global market. The big networks will remain, but their supremacy will be challenged by a more diverse set of players.

Because of the crisis designers are forced to seize their own commis-sions; what role should education play?

Design, as it is currently taught today, still revolves around this quaint concept of the ‘design brief’, the idea that a client comes to you, asks you what they want, and you create it. In the real world, this reali-ty will soon be nothing but a dream. Design schools need to anticipate this by training entrepreneurial de-signers, to take responsibility for the development of the city, and to be pro-active in creating these visions and assembling the teams to see them through.

W h o L E E A R T hR I S E S

b y R o R y h y D E

( C o n f I R M E D S P E A k E R )

Images of the Earth from space hold a profound ability to illicit philosophical reflection. They lead us to position ourselves within the vast timeline of the universe and to question our place within it. They force a big-picture view of human-kind’s achievements and contri-butions, and prompt speculation on the future of our species. These images contain a radical power to shape our collective consciousness, acting as a mobilizing force for the shared beliefs and moral attitudes of society.

b R A S I L I ALucia Costa (1960)Brasilia, Brazil

Built as a capital to replace Rio de Janeiro, the plane-shaped urban plan of Lucia Costa was meant to stimulate inland development. Also the glory and progress of ‘Grande Brasil’ were to be proven through this design. It is one of the most striking examples of Interna-tional Style architecture in Brazil, containing also buildings by Oscar Niemeyer. It is from Brasilia on that Brazil has taken the course of modernization and is on its way to become one of the world’s economic superpowers.Fl

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5 0 y E A R S o f I n T E R n A T I o n A L

D E S I g n S E M I n A Rb y S o S C h A M o n T E I R o D E J E S u S

For 50 years Indesem has been a platform of knowl-edge contributing to the current architectural debate. For one week it provides a home for renowned archi-tects, urbanists, theorists and students to have the op-portunity to discuss, criticize and debate. Indesem is a base where open-minded, multidisciplinary discussions are being stimulated to get on top of the current trends. Together, we are exploring the future of architecture.

In 1964 the first seminar was held. It took place in Delft from April 7th until April 17th. Among the orga-nizers were Bakema, Coderch, van Eyck, Giancarlo di Carlo, Hansen and Woods. The organisation also con-sisted of some students, among them Peter Jonqueiere, at the time president of Stylos, the study-association of the faculty of Architecture.

Since then, Indesem has inspired a lot of people. Es-pecially when from 1985 onwards the seminar was held regularly after Herman Hertzberger and an indepen-dent group of students reinitiated it. From that moment on, Hertzberger has supported every edition.

This year, we are happy to an-nounce the 50th anniversary of the International Design Seminar!

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n I n g b o h I S T o R I C M u S E u MWang Shu (2008)Ningbo, China

90 to 95% of China’s traditional buildings are being demolished and replaced by new de-velopments, eradicating much of its ancient history to keep up with the quickening pace of Globalization. Wang Shu, 2012 Pritzker Prize winner, criticizes this through his work. The Ningbo Historic museum by its shape and materials refers to Ningbo’s geographical features and history. Arguing that Chinese culture is not an abstract concept, but that it comes from the land and the local tradition. Fl

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A n n A M I S h A R I n A

Russia,participated in Indesem 2011I think Indesem brings diverse people

and approaches together that can pro-duce an amazing result and things that are explored open up more and more with the time even when Indesem is already finished.

J E R o E n v A n L I T h

The Netherlands, participated in Inde-sem 2011

[What did you learn during Indesem?]Various ideas on how the digital realm

could be incorporated into the physical build environment. How architecture could win some terrain back after losing it to facebook, twitter and foursquare.

[What is, according to you, the value of Indesem?]

Each seminar it seems a rich and diverse brainstorm session for architecture stu-dents. Besides making a design, we were also able to think about broader questions within the topic, such as the role of the ar-chitect. The tutors and lecturers engaged us by their provocative and various positions. I strongly encourage students to apply.

S I D o C h E R E L

France, participated in Indesem 2011 & is part of the organisation Indesem 2013

I was deeply interested in the topic. Participating in the workshop helped me understand the limits and possibilities of certain aspects of the profession so of course it was a life changing experience also because it made me want to see and share more during my studies.

I believe that a great value of indesem lies in its shortness, focusness. As a work-shop, an international one, it allows a va-riety of reflection upon a given theme. The outcome should confirm or surprise some peoples thoughts. But the process of shar-ing is always a benefice.

Indeed, I believe Indesem is also les-son to work and think together for the fu-ture. By doing so it might reveal to each one of us a hidden interest, talent of sim-ply new directions in our architectural experiences...

M E h D I g h I yA E I

Canada/Iran, participated in Indesem 2011

Lectures, workshops, and hangouts with mentors and students were really fruitful in my thesis process, but if I want to mention one main observation was the fact that learning in architecture starts with communications with your colleagues and friends and revolves around discussion and collaboration.

P I E R R E E S C o b A R

France/Belgium/Spain, participated in Indesem 2011

[What did you learn during Indesem?]“If you don’t change direction, you may

end up where you are heading.”—Lao Tzu[What is, according to you, the value of

Indesem?]Openness towards an actual and undis-

covered yet subject related to architecture. Joining people from very different back-grounds from everywhere in the world to tackle together a new problematic. An extremely rich environment for thinking different, learn and debate. A very rich so-cio-cultural experience.

W I k A S o k A L S k A

Poland, participated in Indesem 2011The greatest to me was to share expe-

rience and skills with students from all over the world. So many lectures started great discussion between participants and tutors, not that frequent during academic year at universities. Each student had the feeling everybody is opened to have small talk around Indesem theme while eating breakfast, during lecture, waiting together at the line for dinner or just drinking beer.

D A P h n E b A k k E R

Surinam, organizer Indesem 2011Besides gaining new knowledge, it

[Indesem] offers a unique opportunity to work with talented and passionate tutors.

n I n A A A L b E R S

The Netherlands, organizer Indesem 2009

With indesem ’09 - A Point of View, we centralised the user’s experience of architecture in the design process. We looked beyond the borders of the concep-tual design in our profession, to see how other disciplines - such as art, psychology and literature - deal with multi-sensory perception.

Indesem brings a lot of different people together. Students and professional archi-tects with various backgrounds examine a certain topic through workshops, lectures and presentations. I experienced the in-desem week as an intense, cooperative research into our topic. To me, indesem perfectly reveals that cooperation leads to creativity.

I z A b E L A S L o D k A

Poland, participated in Indesem 2011, now organising Indesem 2013

Thanks to Indesem ‘Losing Ground’ I realized that architecture is indeed a huge topic and can incorporate all aspects of people’s lifes. There is important question: ‘where is architecture going?’ and it can-not be answered without consideration of the changes in society including social media and all the newest devices. Inde-sem is great opportunity to meet and work with people from all over the world, to exchange ideas, to confront with different ways of thinking and to debate on relevant current topic with other students, great ar-chitects and professors.

I n D E S E M 2 0 1 1

We asked Joris Hoogeboom (Chair of Indesem 2011) a few questions on his edition of Indesem. Could you explain what Indesem 2011: Losing Ground was about?

The 2011 edition of Indesem dealt with canonical architectural issues recontextualized by the no-tion of a digital network society. The emergence of these elements called for a paradigm shift, in which it was necessary to critically re-evaluate both practice and theory.

How do you reflect on Indesem 2011: Losing Ground in relation to current society.

One thing that worked out fair-ly well with this edition of Indesem was its sense of timing. Just before and around the event date the Ar-abic spring was happening, which illustrated that what we were deal-ing with was not only some abstract notion, but something out there in reality. It demonstrated for example that, the widespread use of devices that are always online connected to the world, change the game. But it also showed that for a political pro-test you still need a big square and specific spatial conditions.

What is the greatest thing you gained from your Indesem experience?

Well this is an interesting ques-tion, because my Indesem experi-ence consists of both participant and organizer. As a participant it’s the rush of seeing so many eye-open-ing lectures and meeting interesting people. It’s such an intense week that it will not be forgotten easily. However being part of the organiza-tion, it’s more of a gradually unfold-ing process, setting the conditions for this intense week. Realizing that with a group of dedicated people, you can actually make a difference if you sit down and do it, is one of the most valuable experiences I’ve had.

What is, to you, the value of Indesem?

What I think is interesting about Indesem is the paradoxical way it handles its heritage. On the one hand it’s a prestigious event that has an interesting history of influential speakers and subjects. But this nev-er led it to be a pompous institute that is not on top of its game. On the contrary, the value of Indesem I think is the ability to act swiftly and critically. This is also what it needs; it’s known for its refreshing take on architecture, being able to maneuver in-between the positions of studios, departments and it sometimes even flirts with tangent professions.

J o h n R u S k I n

A r c h i t e c -ture is the work of nations

E L I E L S A A R I n E n

Always design a thing by consider-ing it in its next larger context – a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an envi-ronment in a city

J A n g E h L

Only archi-tecture that considers hu-man scale and i n t e r a c t i o n is successful architecture

h A R R I h o L k E R I

What we can do as individuals may not be very much on the glob-al scale, but we have to start the change by living as we are teaching.

k E n z o TA n g E

Architects today tend to depreciate themselves, to re-gard themselves as no more than just ordinary citizens without the power to reform the future.

A n D R E M A L R A u x

Man knows that the world is not made on a hu-man scale; and he wishes that it were.

J o h n S u M M E R S o n

There is a kind of play common to nearly every child; it is to get under a piece of furniture or some extem-porized shelter of his own and to ex-claim that he is in a house […] This kind of play has much to do with the aesthetics of architecture.

R u T h S T. D E n I S

We can scale the heights of moun-tains and see the world rayed out before us, but we fail to recognize that which is before us.

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C u LT u R E

b y A R n o u D S TA v E n u I T E R . Popular belief amongst us architects is that our profession has lost its meaningful voice in the loud storm of Globalization. Its meaningful voice that is considered to produce space and mass with an aesthet-ic value that will last throughout time. A Time marked by Globaliza-tion. Globalization is regarded as the most powerful eroding force of cultural identity. It isn’t new and it’s widely understood that this phe-nomenon renders unique and local architectural traditions across the globe into one generic sameness. The statement that Globalization is changing architectural design worldwide is one that of course cannot be denied. Its influence on our thinking, our position on what is beautiful, and our current expe-rience of reality is profound. And therefore, by definition it finds its way into contemporary architectur-al expression. That this is a develop-ment we should embrace instead of arrest is a position I hereby wish to defend. The question what Global-ization is exactly remains one with many facets. For one it is a terrible evil that must be restrained and rendered harmless. For another it is the funny taste that remains when you check your Facebook page in a Starbucks branch, or maybe the phenomenon you see abstracted in endless rows of architectural proj-ects on websites like Archdaily. As for me, Globalization is a blissful progression; it generates wealth, peace and integration on all scales. This process was initiated a very long time ago and I think and hope it will culminate into a Culture of Global Citizenship. All of it signi-fied by a global architectural rep-resentation. Architecture is always probing and expressing the spirit of the age and therefore it is both log-ical and inevitable that it will and should respond in this manner to the unstoppable globalizing forces.

T h E b L I S S o f g L o b A L I z AT I o n

Architecture has always been a celebration of its time. Or as Lud-wig Mies van der Rohe so eloquent-ly put it: ‘Architecture is the will of an epoch, translated into space’. It is a mirror image for cultural iden-tity, being partly the reflection and partly the source of that resulting image. The moment we grateful-ly submitted ourselves to the de-lights of full-scale global economic and social integration, it was only natural that this integration would mould the exponent architectural reflection. The ingredients for this reflection are nothing to be afraid

of and are in fact to be applauded. Specifically because Globaliza-tion is professionally associated with spectacular economic perfor-mance, reducing poverty, and the availability of welfare commodities for large parts of the world. It has been recognized as a pathway to peace and social stability. Wherev-er you go on the face of this planet, you will find its effect. Whether it is in the biggest city or the smallest village. Globalization in short, is an unstoppable geopolitical motion. It has been unstoppable since Marco Polo’s travels to Central Asia and China and it is just as unstoppable today. It is true we now face a te-nacious financial crisis also associ-ated with Globalization, but I am convinced this crisis only shows us the Globalization process is still in-complete. It is the result of not ac-cepting the consequences of earlier decisions. The course of Globaliza-tion should remain steady and we will prevail.

A R C h I T E C T u R A L I M P L I C AT I o n S

Elaborated full scale Globaliza-tion is no future dream or gloomy dystopia, but our daily reality for the last five decades. Economical and cultural integration worldwide has without a doubt led to profound streamlining of the lives of the ma-jority of Earth’s citizens. We culti-vate shared knowledge of our uni-versities, and spend shared money in the European Union, mostly to great effect and mutual benefit. So why the architectural reflection of this integration is met with so much hostility is beyond me. We warmly welcomed economic welfare, peace and mutual benefit into our daily lives, and yet animosity towards the built expression of this unified in-ternational citizenship continues to persist within the architectural dis-course. A perplexing difficulty be-tween gratefully accepting the joys of Globalization, but on the other hand not be willing to be confront-ed with the architectural implica-tions is the disturbing issue that lies before us.

An architect willing to accept the Global commodities of the pres-ent day but at the same time isn’t able to tolerate its consequential architectural representation is like a father of six, telling you that over-

population is killing the planet.

A R C h I T E C T u R E ’ S R o L E

Embedded within the dislike for the contemporary worldwide archi-tectural vernacular of for example the Starchitects, lies the hunger for novelty and delight. A deep desire for feeling rooted in the generic city. The Global architectural aes-thetic vocabularies are somehow victimized by the accusation of them being a prime cause for this absence of a rooted feeling. It is true that the architectural idiom of for example OMA and Frank Geh-ry can be found widespread across the planet, making cities look alike. But is this truly the cause of this lack of civil entrenchment? Or is it indeed merely a cultural reflection of a shift in geopolitical structures? Structures whose influence on the disturbed collective disposition dwarfs the effect architecture can potentially have?

I believe it is the latter. There is no way architecture by itself can stage such a global discomfort to people in their own cities and cul-tures. Something bigger is going on. What we experience could possibly be identified as a transition phase where we begin to comprehend the sheer power of Globalizing forces in full strength, feeling uncomfort-able, unsettled and confused at the prospect of what it might do to our places and identities. Globaliza-tion, however, is a ride we hitched long ago and now there is no turn-ing back. It is a dialectical sequence of events with the conclusion of a Global Culture as the only possible outcome. It is architecture’s job and duty to support and amplify such a development by joining the fast track of change, and a sense of feel-ing of being connected to time and place.

‘ L o C A L’ A R C h I T E C T u R E

There’s a lot of talk about the ‘Localization’ of architecture. The Globalizing forces of our time should be reversed and the inde-pendent manifestation of local culture restored through build-ing design. Will this really nourish the hunger for a sense of place in a world permanently changed by Globalization? Will Localism tru-ly remedy the lack of place in the generic city? That may be so for a little while perhaps. But the way I see it, the truth in this sentiment for Locality is dangling on the brim of credibility. It is only a natural re-flex to the aforementioned transi-tion phase that was inevitable. Fear of a changing future is an integral part of being human and I am aware that change on a global scale is in-deed terrifying. But if we wish to embrace our common future cou-rageously, we should let the global

forces have their way. Let us em-brace them and make the most of it, stretching them to the point of a spectacular collapse. Let’s cele-brate the logical sequence of events and stop suppressing the natural way. In the end, a Global Culture sustained through architecture will be the only thing that will grant us identity as a human species.

Allowing Local Culture to re-establish itself would be nothing short of a regression. It would be a suppression of forces so much more powerful a Local Culture can take on. Allowing this to happen to a so-ciety would be irresponsible and I dare say anti-Darwinist. Therefore we have to say yes to a unified ar-chitectural structure as the embod-iment of Globalization. We have to say no to the fear of the loss of cul-ture. There will always be culture. One might think the Local Scale of it might be of lesser importance.

g L o b A L I z AT I o n ’ S C o n C L u S I o n

If Globalization is allowed its conclusion architecture could be a worldwide vernacular. It will over-step the irrational fear of the fu-ture and will function as a symbol of welfare and fruitful cooperation amongst the nations of the world in a Global Culture. The world will move as one body under one archi-tectural representation. There is still a long way to go but we are making progress. Take for instance Zaha Hadid’s manifold purposed build-ings. All bound together through a similar architectural language they roam the planet, besting the attrac-tive force of more frugal architec-ture inspired by local tradition and materials. Whatever the academ-ic discourse on the matter, mostly abhorring it, Local chooses Glob-al with full conviction. It chooses Global because it represents inte-gration, quality of life and cultural advancement. If Localist architects are allowed to have it their way, a scattered landscape of ambivalent cultures will be our part. A Local Culture based on local values will always be placed in the context of a world changing at breakneck speed. The result will be neither, unsatis-fying nor unsettling. Architects, we can’t go back, we will not go back, and truly, we don’t want to go back.

Zaha Hadid’s Guangzhou Opera House – This could be

anywhere. This should be everywhere.

Abu Dhabi – erosion of Arab culture or

blissful progression?

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b y M A x v E R h o E v E n . The 2012 Pritzker prize created quite a commotion when it was awarded to the relatively young Chinese archi-tect Wang Shu - founder of Amateur Architecture Studio. Why amateur architects? Wang Shu has often said “…Architecture is spontaneous for the simple reason that architecture is a matter of everyday life. When I say that I build a ‘house’ instead of a ‘building’, I am thinking of some-thing that is closer to life, every-day life. When I named my studio ‘Amateur Architecture’, it was to emphasize the spontaneous and ex-perimental aspects of my work, as opposed to being ‘official and mon-umental’.” (Cilento, 2013)

Some think he is too young and it is too early in his architecture career to grand him this ‘lifetime achievement’ award; all the more reason to take notice of such an unusual decision. In the comments on the article The Local Architect/Wang Shu, a Chinese architecture student Chang writes he finds it the most inappropriate but also the most meaningful award. ‘’Wang-shu struggled to evoke the public and government’s awareness of the modernized and flattened Chinese cities for years. The price given to Wangshu means the positive recog-nition from the judgement panel to encourage more Chinese local ar-chitects to rethink the ‘internation-al’.’’ (Cilento, 2013) And rethink the international we should. Not only in China, but anywhere we should adapt architectural design to the vernacular, the dialect of a specif-ic population. Vernacular architec-ture is based on localized needs and construction materials, to reflect the environmental, cultural, tech-nological, and historical context in which it exists. Paul Oliver offers the following simple definition of vernacular architecture: “the ar-chitecture of the people, and by the people, but not for the people.”

This is important to first of all

create architecture that matters. Because when you consider the his-torical and cultural conditions in which a building is placed, the ar-chitecture that flows out of this will have meaning to the people using it. And when a building has meaning

to its users, it will be appreciated, taken care of, and thus be durable. An example of a contemporary ar-chitect that designs in such a local context is Dutch born architect Anne Feenstra, founder of AFIR in Kabul and Kholm and winner of the 2012 Global Award for Sustainable Architecture. The so-called ‘moth-er guardhouses’ project, commis-sioned by UNICEF and the Afghan Ministry of Health, takes him across almost all of Afghanistan. The de-sign of the mother guardhouses dis-tinguished three zones: the public space, the ‘house’ with garden (for the women), and a buffer or tran-sitional zone in which the kitchen and space for the nurses is incor-porated. The heavy walls are inter-rupted by low windows which gives the woman leaning back a view of the world outside. The model was then adapted further to local con-ditions, height, climate and local materials. The local building tra-dition determined the differences. In Herat, close to the Iranian bor-der, a special light yellow Iranian brick was used. In Feyzabad, they used the local flat rock and warm terra colours. The commission was particularly interesting in that it was a search for a new typology that, according to Feenstra, could not be found in the Neufert. That is how he introduces his definition of sustainability. And this is always

based on available local knowledge. Local people are familiar with soil conditions, climate, available ma-terials, and natural threats such as earthquakes (Righton, 2012). Feen-stra’s story about working together with the local community and ex-perts, and going further than purely the design in a traditional way, fit’s into Autodesk’s Vice President, Phil Bernstein’s idea on how the role of the architect will change in the next decade. ‘’The relationship between those who design, those who build, and those who own and operate projects–and the process by which all that stuff happens–is evolving, and the days of strict separation of church and state (design and con-struction) are ending. That creates lots of challenges for architects to define what they are good at and what they care about (versus the imperial authorial role that we are train for) but also opportunities to reposition the profession in a way that solves the broader problems of building rather than just design.’’ (Quirk, 2013)

Beside the significance of local architecture it is also important to consider its sustainable contribu-

tion. It is probably preaching to the choir if I would stress the impor-tance of sustainable architecture, whether it is by the C2C or Plan B principles, we are all probably looking for solutions concerning finite resources, global warming and social inequality. But I do like to advocate the impact of a vernac-ular architecture on sustainable aspirations. Obviously the use of local materials means a minimum in transport-related greenhouse gas emissions and the materials are used to the local climate. But vernacular architecture of these days doesn’t only concern materi-als and construction; it has to do with systems. Water systems, en-ergy-systems, mobility-systems, climate-systems, you name it. It is impossible to create one universal sustainable standardized systems

that can be implemented anywhere. It has to be adapted to the local cli-mate and local needs. Never before has there been so much information available on specific locations and climates. The use of thermal, wind or sun energy are all solutions that have to be considered on a local scale and to go a step further, local systems can be connected thereby helping each other. For example, existing greenhouses can heat near-by living areas. It is these systems that can create a self-sufficien-cy of an area, meaning that they don’t have to depend on sources from outside. Besides, the climate aspects of locally build structures also boost the local economy (for which the building is often intend-ed). Building locally means that workers in the surrounding area will have a job and therefore will be able to spend money. The people who will use the building (whether public or private) will be more en-gaged with it because they had the opportunity to share their thoughts on their needs and problems. This way we can learn from the project ‘openarchitecturenetwork.com’. This project was set up to help build up places in third world countries or that are hit by natural disasters. Instead of collecting money and building a new establishment, like a school or housing project, they ask architects from all over the world to share design ideas. Then they will include the community in the design process and will only work with local builders and mate-rials to create the most desired and most economic building. Only by including the community is it tru-ly possible to fully understand the needs and problems they are coping

with, and thus create a building that meets these needs (Rigthon, 2012).

The topic of contemporary ver-nacular is as essential to architec-ture as trains where to travelling. Since the industrial revolution ar-chitecture had to become ever more standardized to meet economic fea-sibility. Even though movements like the Arts and Crafts tried to re-trieve the craftsmanship from the past, it couldn’t stand up to the mass production as a result of the modernistic movements, especially after the great need of housing in the aftermath of the Second World War. In this process of standardiza-tion, all local meaning, historical context or adaption to the natural environment, was lost. And even though we are very critical now, when put in perspective, it was a logical product of that time. But now we are not restricted anymore to Neufeurt standardized minima or Ford’s assembly line. In an epi-sode of Zomergasten of august 12th 2012, Lidewij Edelkoort described the situation as follows. Recently, people tend to produce more prod-ucts themselves and by this means influence the creative process. This is called renewed craftsmanship. This way the craft seems to beat the industry. But in the meantime, the industry has been renewed and it has worked on innovative processes where the beauty of the hand-skilled can be produced me-chanically; a ‘hyper industry’ says Edelkoort. This hyper industry oper-ates on a smaller scale, so it returns to the local level (Edelkoort, 2012). You can think about the emerging industry of FabLab, 3D printers, and laser cutters. It is these emerg-ing technologies that make it possi-

ble to omit standardized solutions. Any design can be adapted to local needs and printed with or cut from local (used) materials. The young firm DUS Architects recently cre-ated a supersized 3D printer that they used to experiment in creating parts of buildings. The ‘Kamermak-er’, translated from Dutch as the ‘room-maker’, is made of a 6-meter long container. A printing machine is inside the pavilion and is capable of producing another pavilion in-side its four walls. Turned vertically on its side, with a garage-style door, the pavilion can generate tall 3D printed buildings using very little space (Metz, 2012). This is a peek into the nearby future in which it might be possible to transport the factory instead of the goods.

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12

k A R L L E h M A n n

For the future, I would suggest avoiding subjects of too vast a scale. It would be useful to make out a list of fundamental questions on the matter to be dealt with, and discuss only those.”

A L A I n D E b o T T o n

A city laid out on apparently rational grounds where different specialised facilities are separated from one another across a vast terrain connected by motorways, deprives its inhabitants of the pleasures of incidental discoveries and presupposes that we march from place to place with a sense of unflagging purpose.

f R E E M A n D y S o n

The technologies that raise the few-est ethical problems are those that work on a human scale, brightening the lives of individual people.

M I E S v A n D E R R o h E

God is in the details

A L D o v A n E y C k

Right-size is at the same time both large and small, few and many, near and far, simple and complex, open and closed.

J A n E J A C o b S

Cities have the capability of provid-ing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.

g E o R g I A o ’ k E E f f E

I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ig-nore its beauty.

T h o M M Ay n E

Large-scale public projects require the agreement of large numbers of people.

Image credits

• The A

ncient of Days (W

illiam B

lake, 1794) • M

ilky way seen from

Nevada desert (Steve Jurvetson, 2007) •

King Kong (W

arner Brothers, 1933) •

Giant C

lothespin (Flickr-user mm

arsupilami) •

Shortest & Tallest 2 (w

ww

.loyalkng.com20100114w

orld-tallest-man-sultan-kosen-m

eets-w

orld-shortest-man-pingping-opposites-attract) •

Gulivers Travels (Jonathan Sw

ift) • B

ird Houses (London Fieldw

orks, ww

w.photoblog.nbcnew

s.com_new

s201104016390060-birdhouses-inspired-by-palaces-and-other-well-know

n-works-of-architecturelite) •

Modulor (Le C

orbusier, 1958)

L I v I n g b R I D g E S o f C h E R R A P u n J ITribe of War-KhasisCherrapunji, India

In a place credited to be the wettest on earth grows the Ficus elastica tree. Its roots are be-ing cultivated by the local people in such a way that they grow to the other side of a river. After a period of ten to even five hundred years, a bridge with the strength to carry the load of fifty people emerges. Some of them are over thirty meters long. A perfect example of a synergy of local demands, available materials and techniques creating added value with what is already there.Fl

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C y C L I C A L S C A L E

A n E x C E R P T f R o M ‘ S C A L E ‘ b y g E R A L D A D L E R

Hermann Muthesius’s famous saying, that he designed ‘Vom So-fakissen zum Stadtebau’ (‘From the cushion to town-planning’), might be reversed today, so that the first term denoting the largest scale takes precedence. Indeed, ‘Vom Stadtplan zum Essbesteck’ (‘From town-plan to cutlery’) was how Christof Wieser put it, echoing the title of an exhi-bition on contemporary Swedish de-sign held in Zurich in 1949 (Wieser 2008). Wieser identified the tenden-cy towards small or large scale in architecture as a cyclical matter that lingers on today: the same issue of the Swiss journal that detailed Wi-eser’s thesis also featured the Zoll-verein School of Management and Design at Essen, an enigmatic cube designed by SANAA (Kazuyo Seji-ma and Ryue Nishizawa 2003–6). It also looked back at MVRDV’s Am-sterdam housing block ‘ Parkrand’ (2002–7), a massive ‘superblock’ that reiterates, in scale terms at least, the ‘supersize’ of housing develop-ments such as Sheffield’s Park Hill flats (1957–61) a generation earlier. When the architect Ralph Erskine designed a similar extent of pub-lic housing a decade later at Byker, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1969¬–75), the scale characteristics of the fa-mous ‘housing wall’ were reversed, and inhabitants were able to iden-tify their own dwellings within the superblock and neighbouring low-rise housing. We are familiar with representations that are (usually) scaled down: drawings or models. Architect and teacher Paul Emmons reminds us of that absurdity: the full-size map. This is one of Jorge Luis Borges’s celebrated fictions, where he discusses a map ‘whose size was that of the Empire, and which coin-cided point for point with it’ (Borges 1998). For Emmons, Borges’s surre-al map ‘helps us to understand the delirious condition of scale draw-ings gone awry that occurs in CAD where buildings are represented at “full scale”. (Emmons 2005: 227) The limitations of CAD, that it ‘fore-go[es] the senses to assume scale is solely in the mind’ is a reminder that phenomenologically based cri-tiques and tactics have their place in architectural production (Emmons 2005: 232). This ludic attempt to lo-cate scale between the twin poles of the real and the virtual is not new: in 1931, the Polish scientist Alfred Korzybski (Gubler 2008: 10, 27n; citing Korzybski 1973: 38) stated that ‘a map is not the territory’. In order to draw a distinction between the scaling apparatus (in architectur-al terms, the drawing or model) and the territory to be scaled, he went on, ‘If the ideal of the map could be correct, the map would include, at a smaller scale, a map of the map, a map of that map, and so on ad anfinitum’. Jacques Gubler, author of a monograph on the work of the Swiss architect Jean Tschumi, draws on Korzybski’s insights in identifying the technique of zooming, one bor-rowed from cinematography, finding it aptly descriptive of the scaling design processes in the twentieth century, from the time of the Neues Bauen onwards (Gubler 2008: 10). [continued on opposite page]

Under his leadership Urban.nl works on the devel-opment and execution of projects, plans and strategies for improving the environment in cities and regions in Europe and around the world in a sustainable manner. Tjeerd has global working experience, having partici-pated in and having led commissions and projects in-cluding for the WHO, on behalf of the European Com-mission, and has worked on projects in Saudi Arabia and China. Besides that Tjeerd Deelstra is president of the White Rose Foundation. The goal of this foundation is to inspire, inform, support and advise residents of Delft and the Netherlands about sustainable living. As an architect he is also responsible for the restoration

of the listed national monument called “Huis de Witte Roos” (The White Rose Mansion).

The sustainable restoration of this building is an ini-tiative, embedded in the Livinggreen Partnership. This

partnership has the following goal: “Nine organisations and municipalities in five countries help to create the conditions for a ‘living green’ life style in North West Europe’s beautiful and characteristic cities. Together they will renovate heritage buildings, demonstrate in-novative technologies, train house owners and crafts-men to renovate in a sustainable way, develop sustain-able products and methods to promote knowledge on sustainable renovation, at the end of the project in 2013, release a toolkit.”

The White Rose is thus a local part of a bigger whole. The Livinggreen Partnership works on a global prob-lem, a world that’s exhausting it’s resources, with local means, buildings and people. They work throughout the scales. We ask Tjeerd Deelstra about his part in this and how this method helps the White Rose Foundation in achieving its goals.

So what’s the value of all these connections and working globally? Does it help to work on a large scale as you do opposed to for instance if The White Rose was just a local foundation?

We could have done it on a local scale. But the larg-er scale has some advantages. First of all, you can get more resources, like the EU funding. Besides that and maybe more important, you share more knowledge, the entire project is accelerated: you learn more from each other; you don’t have to invent the wheel on your own.

We learned a lot, for example, from a project in Antwerp: The Ecohouse Antwerp. From them we learned about different techniques that have to do with exhibitions and also other forms of public communication. And the British for example are way further in their in choices for the use of building materials and public participation. So you really learn a lot form everybody.

Is there a lot of attention for sustainable building?Yes, attention is growing. But people are mostly late

when it comes to asking advice. They ask for funding if they run out of money while commissions are already signed. You have to start earlier in the design phase to gain more profit. With this in mind we organise Open Days where people can visit and see what we do here.

The theme of Indesem 2013 is ‘Scale Matters’. We want everybody involved to be conscious of scale and to act responsibly. We see the architect and urbanist as the primary person that shifts through the scales. From little details to big general policies, what do you think about this?

I have been very active in the world of architecture. I was part of the board of the Genootschap Architec-tura et Amicitiae and it’s magazine Forum. However over the years I withdrew myself from the architects circles, a little because of the growing importance of the trend of star architecture (“Starchitecture”). Yes! I think there is an enormous amount of talent and there should be space for that. But I think that in practice the

T h E W h I T E R o S E

E x C E R P T o f I n T E R v I E W W I T h

T J E E R D D E E L S T R A , W R I T T E n b y

L A u R E n S v A n D E R W A L

Tjeerd Deelstra is an architect, ur-ban planner and former teacher at the TU Delft. He’s also the director and founder of the International Institute for the Urban Enviroment (Urban.nl).

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I S S S PA C E S TAT I o nThe International Community (1998)Space

If there ever was a piece of architecture produced with global effort it would be the ISS space station. Here global became universal, literally. Pushing through the scales, micro-scopic technology through the hands of international scientists and designers arrived at results that exceeded the frontiers of earth by light years. And now there it orbits above our heads to remind us mere earthlings what human effort on all levels and scales can achieve.

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He asks:

“[…] doesn’t architecture pro-ceed from an empirical model - one that nevertheless does not renounce the use of theoretical models? Euclidean geometry and its graphic emanation, per-spective, constitute a theory of representation linking Vitruvius to Alberti and Piero de[lla] Fran-cesca to CAD software. (Gubler 2008: 10)”

Has there been a similar swing in the size of books on architecture? As doorsteps go, S, M, L, XL (Koolhaas and Mau 1995) takes the biscuit, fol-lowed not far behind by MVRDV’s KM3 (2005). (The penchant for long strings of letters to denote titles of books and magazines, or indeed firms of architects, is itself an index of burgeoning scale in the public re-ception of design practice.) Perhaps the size of countries is in inverse proportion to that of their books? Michael Benedikt not only made his argument succinctly, but also did so in a format that allows the book to be carried in a jacket pocket. Per-haps today’s proliferation of internet images, where pictures come cheap, accounts for such publishing sen-sations, to use the word in its phe-nomenal sense. Having said that, the recent publishing ventures of the Architectural Association (Architec-tural Words), Routledge (Thinkers for Architects) and RIBA Publishing with the Twentieth Century Society and English Heritage (Twentieth Century Architects) represent a welcome re-turn to the pocket-format paperback. This brings us to a consideration of the literature on architectural scale.

architectural profession and even more so the profes-sion of the urbanist was reduced to mere decoration, to put it bluntly. An urbanist makes a nice sketch, presents it to the City Council, it hangs on the wall and some-body else executes it. The original plan is compromised. In my opinion the main cause is that architects and ur-banists have not enough technical skills and knowledge about innovative sustainability technologies. I think the perseverance and the going-through-with-the-plan-un-til-the-end mentality, as I do with the White Rose Man-sion, is essential. Then you must have the desire to learn on the job and be prepared in new technical fields and other disciplines. I have always thought that.

In the past the architect was a coordinator and lead-er of building processes. I remember Rietveld, who was a guest-teacher in my time, who told us how he saw his profession. When he designed a family home, and a lot of his commissions were family homes, then he went to sleep for some nights at the home of his client. He said that he was a sort of family doctor: you have to know someone well to be able to make a design that

fits.. Nowadays the doctor’s practice has changed a lot, as did the architectural practice, but I grew up with dis-cussion and images of an architect as a family doctor, a confidant, or as it was sometimes described: as a con-ductor in a specific process of performing music with a group of actors - and it had to sound right.

Now I don’t know that much about the building practice today, because I don’t have an architecture of-fice. But I guess that for example an office like ARUP, which I think highly of as an engineering office, does have a key-role more than the regular architect. So I don’t know what the possibilities are for architects nowadays. But I know that many architects are people who are curious and interested in new things, and they can think in images, and that they can come up with integrated solutions because they think visually with a look at the overall picture. But I think that they should be really familiar with the current state of the art of sus-tainable technology, on every scale. This opens up new

perspectives for the profession.

Architects sometimes seem to love to make state-ments and icons; these often have got nothing to do with technology or sustainability. A lot of postmod-ern architecture tells about the cultural story, is this equally important as using sustainable methods and technologies?

I like that. Nowadays, culture has to promote val-ues of this age. It is very intriguing. For example the way a building is touchable, the tactility, has got to do a lot with sustainability. Material, how does it feel, the acoustics, the light? How do you move through a building, how do you approach it and enter? With daily things like that an architect can create a lot of value. It can be very nice spatially, but at the same time it’s about how a building affects people.

What about the focus on making iconic buildings?Well, I think a building should have beauty. I don’t

know if beauty always has to be innovative. You also need to learn to be modest. A building can stir because of its beautiful workmanship, even if it is only a little bit different than another previous project. I don’t like a focus on more and more icons. For instance there are a lot of great restoration architects that do beautiful work but are totally unknown. It’s good for the position of the architect to sometimes be servant and work just as a good craftsman who knows his profession.

So one more question about urbanism and bottom up. We have also invited Gert Uhrhan. He wrote the book The Spontaneous City, in it he says: The era of large scale urban planning is over. What do you think about this?

Yes, that is what he says. It is an observation and I think that’s too limited. I think Uhrhan is a great pro-fessional. He has also written a book about typologies, called A Pattern Image. But I think one should fix the larger infrastructures. I miss the direction of higher hand in the collaborations to which Uhrhan now refers. You can’t do everything bottom up. I think he’s right in the part about freedom and creativity to do things bottom-up, but I don’t think it is enough: It has to fit in a spatial pattern that sets the long-term form of a city. Long term planning also helps in creating a good cli-mate for investors. They know what they can expect so they have faith and trust in a good outcome. This is very important when creating value.’

This interview is an excerpt. For the full interview with Tjeerd Deelstra please visit www.indesem.nl. After the interview we found out that Tjeerd Deelstra partic-ipated in the first ever International Design Seminar in Delft!

For more information on The White Rose or Livin-green visit:

www.witteroos.nl/ www.livinggreen.eu/

u n I T E D ’ h A b I TAT I o nLe Corbusier (1952)Marseille

Le Corbusier thought big. He had big plans for Paris and big plans for the future of the dwelling. The Unite d’habitation is the materialization of these ideas. On the other hand he thought small. His famous modulor system of the human scale for example is inter-woven through this building as well. Also details like the path of sunlight are taken into account. Le Corbusier proves that the use of one scale does not cancel out the use of the other. They can in fact be complementary. Fl

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What is the effect of globalization on your daily life?It’s important to remember that glo-balisation has really been made vis-ible by antiglobalisation movements in the 1960s which were and still are about, amongst other things, a critique of international corporate capitalism. Much has happened since to unmask these operations of deregulated financial markets and propose alternative ways of doing and making things. If you ask me how it effects me, you imply a pas-sive position: something is being done to me by a powerful and dif-ficult to visualise force. Instead, I’d like to think more about how I, both professionally and personally, can affect the underlying mechanisms of these forces.

What does local mean to you?Local is a promise, an antidote

to the incomprehensibility and seemingly impenetrability of the global. In this understanding of the local we know exactly, for example, where our food comes from, how materials are sourced or produced, that money doesn’t disappear into multi-country businesses and com-panies but instead benefits econo-mies directly around us. Local seems to come with this hope of agency or empowerment. At the same time, I think it is important to put the local and micro-political not in opposi-tion to but in the context of forces that shape global politics.

Do you think globalization is still a growing tendency or are we head-ed towards a world more focused on the local scale?Recent neo-liberal policies, cer-tainly in the UK, are putting a lot of emphasis on the local. It has come to represent an ideological shift away from the welfare state towards self-provided or locally produced goods and facilities. In this model, under the guise of transferring power and decision-making to a local level, the state is no longer accountable for caring for the vulnerable, but shifts responsibility to regions, cities, indi-viduals. But, the fragmentation into small, local units, is dangerous. It is and will remain vital to make strate-gic connections beyond this scale: on a trans-local level.

Because of the crisis designers are

forced to seize their own commis-sions; what role should education play?Yes, it is right that designers have increasingly begun to initiate proj-ects – especially since the recent economic downturn. However, I’m dubious about many practices that have used the crisis as a moment of reinvention of themselves and their ways of operating and solicit-ing projects. In my opinion, a more fundamental rethinking of practice as critical spatial praxis is necessary: one which is not linked to and de-termined by the booms and busts of global markets but one that is linked to social and collaborative mecha-nisms of production and finance.

Tatjana Schneider was a founder member of the workers cooperative Glasgow Letters on Architecture and Space (G.L.A.S.) and the Shef-field-based research centre AGENCY.

She is a confirmed speaker for In-desem 2013.

A M A P o f T h E W o R L D

A n E x C E R P T f R o M L E W I S C A R R o L L’ S ‘ S y Lv I E & b R u n o

C o n C L u D E D ’

“What a useful thing a pocket-map is!” I remarked.“That’s another thing we’ve learned from your Nation,” said Mein Herr,

“map-making. But we’ve carried it much further than you. What do you consider the largest map that would be really useful?”

“About six inches to the mile.”“Only six inches!” exclaimed Mein Herr. “We very soon got to six yards

to the mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!”

“Have you used it much?” I enquired.“It has never been spread out, yet,” said Mein Herr: “The farmers ob-

ject: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well. Now let me as you another question. What is the smallest world you would care to inhabit…?”

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· In Memoriam ·

Urbanism* 5400 BC, Eridu † 1995 AD, New York

According to Derrida we cannot be WholeAccording to Baudrillard we cannot be RealAccording to Virilio we cannot be There

We were making sand castlesNow we swim in the sea that swept them away

We have to take insane risksWe have to dare to be utterly uncriticalWe have to swallow deeply and bestow forgiveness left and right

The certainty of failure has to be our laughing gas.More than ever, the city is all we have.

What ever happened to Urbanism?

—R. Koolhaas

T h E C I T I z E n S

W I L L D o I T

T h E M S E Lv E S

The new ‘civil economy’ seems

to be the logical consequence of

the withdrawing government and

nostalgia towards a past when ev-

erything was small and manageable.

But according to socio-geographer

Joost Beunderman the opposite is

true: “Most civil initiatives are fun-

damentally practical and inspired

by great global developments that

now can be shared due to internet.

This Youtube-generation is full aware

of the satisfaction of being able to

set things in motion themselves and

seeing what it is able to do. This

constitutive civilian has been able

to develop him or herself from a

slumber of a couple of decennia. An

important motive is the dislike of the

market. Many initiatives by civilians

are a reaction to the many years in

which there was a tendency for up

scaling by the manager’s protocol,

targets, efficiency goals, and respon-

sibility mechanisms. People do not

want to be an anonymous link in an

over-regulated system. They want to

be an acknowledged benefactor.

[This is an excerpt from ‘Dan doet

de burger het wel zelf’ written bij

Carlijne Vos, published in ‘de Volksk-

rant’, 05.01.2013]

b u R J k h A L I f ASkidmore, Owings and Merrill (2010)Dubai, United Arab Emirates

The Burj is the tallest building on the planet since 2007. It enriches the Dubai skyline with apartments, office space, a hotel, a nightclub and a mosque. The tower shaped like a Hy-menocallis desert flower steered our western attention to the east, thereby connecting two distant cultures firmly together. It symbolizes a healthy relationship between them and brought all the cultural richness and wonder of the emirates to the western attention. This is what modern global architecture can do. Fl

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b A C k g R o u n D

We are ever more moving towards a globally in-terconnected world. However, in 2008 economic globalisation was stretched to its limit, resulting in a worldwide financial crisis. This has affected building production, making it necessary to rethink our role as architects and urbanists. With fewer clients approach-ing designers to initiate projects, we need to actively explore our physical surroundings for new possibilities. By seizing our own commissions, we bring clients (who are willing to invest) and audiences (people with needs) together to create new jobs.

Simultaneously, infrastructures keep on expand-ing, improving and becoming more and more accessi-ble. High-speed internet and budget airlines allow us to both communicate globally and travel globally. With almost no effort at all we are able to span these great distances, both physically and virtually. This creates a tension between the local scale and the global scale.

A S S I g n M E n T

Indesem 2013 will explore the tension between the local scale and the global scale. In what way does scale matter? While moving from one scale to another, ar-chitects and urbanists try to deal with a wide range of problems. Architects are continuously being pushed back and forth between the local and global scale. Therefore, it is necessary to become conscious of these different scales. Ask yourself the following questions:

What is local to you? What is global to you?In this first round, you will explore the meaning of

the different kinds of scale in a design by exploring the physical space you encounter every day. We will refer to this as your personal backyard. What you choose to explore can vary from a place close to your house, to a place on your way to your university or to your whole

neighbourhood. Choose your scale carefully.Is there something in your backyard that desperate-

ly needs to be changed? Is there a place that has been bothering you for years because it’s not user-friendly? Respond to this with an architectural intervention, keeping the idea of local and global in mind – and ev-erything in between.

E n T R y

Format: 297 mm × 297 mm .pdfDescribe your solution in words and images, adding

a title/motto to your entry. To ensure impartial judg-ment please do not put your name on your submission. The jury will consist of speakers and workshop tutors.

Include in a separate .pdf file:· Entry title/motto· Full name and address· Date of birth· Email address· University and faculty (if you are a TU Delft student please add your student number)· Motivation of application (ca. 200 words)

Package these two files as: .rar, .zip with a maxi-mum total size of 5MB. Name your file as: surname.name_indesem2013competition (for example: smith.john_indesem2013competition).

Please email your submission to [email protected] before the 21st of February 2013. Winners will be announced one week after the competition deadline.

R I g h T S

All copyrights for submitted work will remain in the possession of the author. By submitting, the author grants Indesem permission to publish and exhibit the work.

S u b M I T y o u R E n T R I E S b E f o R E 2 1 f E b R u A R y 2 0 1 3

P o W E R S o f T E n

The picnic by a lakeside in Chi-

cago is the start of a lazy afternoon,

early one October. We begin with

a scene one meter wide, which we

view from just one meter away. Now

every ten seconds we will from ten

times farther away, and our field of

view will be ten times wider.

This square is ten meters wide,

and in ten seconds the next square

will be ten times as wide. Our pic-

ture will center on the picnickers,

even after they’ve been lost to sight.

One hundred meters wide. The

distance a man can run in ten sec-

onds. Cars crowd the highway, pow-

er boats lie at their docks. Colorful

bleachers are Soldier Field.

This square is a kilometer wide,

one thousand meters. The distance

a racing car can travel in ten sec-

onds. We see the great city on the

lake-shore.

Ten to the fourth meters, ten ki-

lometers. The distance a supersonic

airplane can travel in ten seconds.

We see first the rounded end of Lake

Michigan, then the whole great lake.

[...]The Earth diminishes into the

distance but those background stars

are so much farther away. They do

not yet appear to move. [...]

As we approach the limit of our

vision we pause to start back home.

This lonely scene, the galaxies like

dust, is what most of space looks

like. This emptiness is normal, the

richness of our own neighborhood is

the exception. [...]

As a single proton fills our scene,

we reach the edge of present under-

standing. Are these some quarks in

intense interaction?

[This is a summarized transcript

of the Eames’ Office film ‘Powers of

Ten’. For more information please

visit www.powersof10.com]

g R A n D S h R I n E o f I S EUji-Tachi, Japan (4 BC)Every 20 years the Grand Shrine of Ise is disassembled and reassembled again by the local people. In the fall of 2013 this will happen for the 62nd time. By doing this one generation of builders passes on ancient building techniques to the next. The lead-up to the reassem-bly is marked with several special events such as the Okihiki festival, where villagers drag enormous logs through the streets. This act of perpetual preservation of local architectural tradition is unique in the world.

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€89,-Including workshop,accomodation

and most meals!

W A n T T o P A R T I C I P A T E ?

Do you want to take part in Indesem 2013? Due to the limited amount of participants we can receive, we’ve set up a small assignment for you

Andreas G. Gjertsen Matthias Böttger

yyyyyyyyyy yyyyy yyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Karsten HuneckAnne Holtrop

Ergün ErkoçuRemko Remijnse

Panos SakkasKersten Geers

yyyyyy yyyyyyyyyyyy

Tony Fretton

Tatjana Schneider

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyy yyyyyyy

Gerald Adler

Jan-Hendrik Bakker

Rory Hyde

yyyyyyyyyyy yyy yyyyyyy

Michiel Mulder*

Andreas Rumpfhuber

Greg Sharzer

yyy yyyy

Tom Avermaete

Wouter Vanstiphout*

yyyyyy yyyyyyyyyyyy

Herman Hertzberger

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy yyyyyyyyyy

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyy yyyyy

yyyyyyyy yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

*UnconfirmedNote that this list is subject to change; more will follow.

Keep an eye on www.indesem.nl and our Facebook-page for updates!

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