Category Archives: Commentary

Commentary

Comments on Spec Writers Are Always in the Basement; A Case for Changing Specifications.

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Build Blog » Spec Writers Are Always in the Basement; A Case for Changing Specifications. – Build Blog’s perspective on specifications is definitely colored by the types of buildings they design and the process of engaging contractor’s that they choose as a design/build firm. There are definitely benefits to their approach and one that I find familiar in my recent experience in high end residential design.

However as several of the comments bring up, the idea of putting spec information directly on drawings or in schedules tends to break down when addressing public works who require multiple bids and true performance specifications with alternates for all products. Large complex projects have similar obstacles.

That said, in my own work, I find a hybrid approach best. For those products and specifications that require only performance information, a traditional specification is best, however for proprietary products or materials that are integral to the design I like to use a schedule(s) that list out the information in a concise way.

Commentary

Comments on Engineering atomic interfaces for new electronics

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Engineering atomic interfaces for new electronics – Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been exploring the special behavior of electrons at the interface between two different materials. The oxide interfaces that they have been studying have electrons gases that behave more like liquids of vary viscosity depending on the materials used.

It seems to me, that this is fertile ground for an architectural concept. The very idea of treating architectural space as a material continuum rather than the more typical outlook of form that frames space. This is not an argument for the sleek forms of parametric thinking, though it doesn’t exclude them. Rather, I argue that a material thinking is more about exploring contextual relationships, both continuous and discrete, in a way that favors the field rather than any individual piece.

Commentary

Comments on AD Classics: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library / Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill | ArchDaily

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AD Classics: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library / Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill | ArchDaily – The rare book library at Yale is an excellent example of modernism done right. While the building is largely self contained and self referential like most classic modernism, the library's carefully crafted spaces and exquisite materiality of the translucent marble facade, give it a sense of progression and reverence for the functionality of the library.

While the seriousness and sincerity that the library takes for its function seems out of date compared to the irony filled and clever architectural programs that spill out architecture schools and magazines, it is also its greatest asset. While so much modern architecture has lost its ability to affect and instead comes across empty or naive, this library still carries with it a sense self and purpose that is rare.

Commentary

Comments on CHEAP — THE BI BLOG

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CHEAP — THE BI BLOG – As always, Bi Blog provides two different takes on their current post concerning the concept of CHEAP. While Jacob's half is poignant in how it describes the consequences of building cheaply even when it was with good intentions. Thom's thoughts on CHEAP, however, are more aspirational and thought provoking. Thom questions why contemporary Architecture seems fraught with expensive formal devices over the careful balancing material excess with other resources equally as important, such as space. It is a good question, but one that must be asked carefully, while heading the implicit warning in Jacob's post.

Commentary

Comments on Theoretical physics breakthrough: Generating matter and antimatter from the vacuum

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Theoretical physics breakthrough: Generating matter and antimatter from the vacuum – Space is never truly empty. Even a vacuum isn't pure absence. Scientists at the University of Michigan have proposed a theory where using a strong laster, once can generate additional particles from a vacuum. They are now working on ways to prove it experimentally, but the basic concept is mind incredible. A true void doesn't exist, all space is intensely charged with matter.

Commentary

Comments on Hsiangshan Visitor Center / Norihiko Dan | ArchDaily

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Hsiangshan Visitor Center / Norihiko Dan | ArchDaily – The Hsiangshan Visitor Center is spectacular in the way it engages and separates with the earth around it. Like a rock face, pushing up out of the ground, the Hsiangshan Visitor Center has a certain inevitability to it, without falling into banality. With long sweeps of concrete, that twist into openings or sweep out to form vistas to the landscape, the building has a unquestionably contemporary form, yet it doesn't fall into the all to typical foreign object perched in the landscape.

The building is like a continuous field of variation that extends the landscape and focuses it into a building. With its green roofs, the blur between landscape and architecture is further intensified.

Overall, the building is a study in extending the ordinary field and though using the formalisms of the singular, it actually critiques the approach that so many today favor, one of explosive expressionism that favors the object over the field.

Commentary

Comments on New look at relativity: Electrons can’t exceed the speed of light — thanks to light itself, says biologist

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New look at relativity: Electrons can’t exceed the speed of light — thanks to light itself, says biologist – A Cornell Biologist has suggested that it is the viscous nature of ever present protons that act as the limit for why Electrons can't exceed the speed of light.

As suggested in the paper, space is rarely, truly empty, but always contains some intensive structure that determines the capacities of the objects that inhabit it.

Much like how gravity forms the shape and contour of space-time, the Cornell biologist is suggesting that light forms a kind of viscous medium throughout that space.

Fascinating.

Commentary

Comments on Queensland Courtyard House / Plazibat & Jemmott Architects | ArchDaily

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Queensland Courtyard House / Plazibat & Jemmott Architects | ArchDaily – The Queensland Courtyard Houses are row houses with a thoughtful twist. The spatial organization of the house is based around an open alley way that climbs the grade of the site. This opens onto an exterior courtyard near the rear of the building that then becomes the entrance to the interior of the house. This spatial arrangement gives the house a layer often missing from row houses, the exterior and allows for more light and air to penetrate the house. Living in New York City, I see townhouses all the time that are long, dark and narrow feelings. The Queensland Courtyard Houses don't suffer from this problem.

Add in the focus on sustainable, durable construction that at the same time, give the house a materiality beyond a simple contemporary gypsum box and these houses really show off what a row house can be.