Author: Murrye Bernard, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP - Contributing Editor

Event: TOWARD “ANARCHITECTURE”: A Conversation between Architects and Artists
Location: Center for Architecture, 09.16.09
Speakers: David Ruy — Co-Director, Ruy Klein; Ferda Kolatan — Director, su11 architecture + design; Oscar Tuazon — Artist; William Menking — Founder & Editor-in-Chief, The Architect’s Newspaper
Moderator: Farnaz Mansuri, Assoc. AIA — Principal, De-Spec
Organizer: AIANY New Practices Committee

Biaxial Bouquet.

RuyKlein

“Architecture doesn’t start with function; it starts with an idea. It’s something you have to live with, and that takes a commitment,” stated artist Oscar Tuazon at the second of a multi-part series of discussions about the gray area between art and architecture. Moderator Farnaz Mansuri, Assoc. AIA, principal of De-Spec, contemplated whether contemporary artists and architects are too comfortable in niches, which didn’t exist prior to the Renaissance when architect and artist were often one in the same. It’s hard for architects to say they are artists, she claimed, and pondered whether artists are more “in the now,” while architects are “in the future and disengaged from the present.” Ferda Kolatan, director of su11 architecture + design, disagreed, explaining that his firm is interested in the past, present, and future: “It’s crucial to go beyond the systematic in order to explore current ideas and technologies.”

Kolatan, who founded su11 with Erich Schoenenberger, AIA, defines his firm’s work by “features, expressions, and character.” In su11’s work, underlying systems guide surface conditions and spatial relationships. “Our work is based on experimentation, but I wouldn’t really call it research,” Kolatan explained. Rather, like sculptors, they carve out a project from an initial condition. Digital renderings of projects included Chromazon, su11’s finalist courtyard design for MoMA/P.S. 1 Young Architects Program in 2008 that transformed floral and faunal forms into digital hybrid modules that combine into a canopy, and Scaled Skins, a prototype roof structure comprised of a skin and armature derived from the cellular structure of armadillo skin and dragonfly wings.

Most clients aren’t willing to pay architects to experiment, said David Ruy of Ruy Klein. In between real-world projects, his firm, which defines itself as “an experimental design practice,” indulges in research to hone their creative skills. The partners also moonlight as artists creating sculptures for a gallery in Washington, DC. They hide that they are architectural designers, as the gallery feels that buyers might be less interested in their work.

Tuazon, the only artist and non-architect of the group, began: “I want to live, somehow… I want to survive.” His work reflects primitive needs, and many of his installations focus on the simple concept of shelter. He described an art piece where he and his brother traveled to a remote island near Kodiak, AK, with only a chainsaw and guns in tow. “We tried to live and build something from what was there.” While he prefers to build into the earth, Tuazon typically creates installations in stark white gallery spaces, which, because of the pre-defined space, he criticized as “hard to create function or necessity.”

William Menking, editor-in-chief of The Architect’s Newspaper, served as commissioner of the U.S. Pavilion at the 2008 Venice Biennale. He worked with 16 architects to create the exhibition, which was challenging in such a historically significant venue for art. “Venice is a spectacular show all the time,” he said. Showcasing designs for underprivileged populations, which was the theme of his show, seemed out of place in a city known for decadence. Perhaps architects could learn something from artists. And they may have the chance — next year, AIANY New Practices New York, which is hosting this series, will be open to non-licensed architects and other designers, including artists.

Murrye Bernard, LEED AP, is a freelance architectural writer and a contributing editor to e-Oculus.

Event: Time Based Architecture
Location: Center for Architecture, 10.19.09
Speaker: Hilary Sample, AIA — Principal, MOS
Organizer: AIANY Technology Committee
Sponsor: ABC Imaging

Afterparty, designed by MOS for this year’s MoMA/P.S. 1 Young Architects Program.

Jessica Sheridan

If you attended Warm-Up at P.S. 1 this summer, you lounged in the shade of furry, cone-like structures. The courtyard installation was designed by MoMA/P.S. I Young Architects Program winner MOS, a New Haven/Cambridge-based firm founded in 2003 by Michael Meredith, AIA, and Hilary Sample, AIA. Sample recently discussed the firm’s projects at the Center for Architecture.

Thanks to a wrong number, MOS was commissioned to build a family retreat on a small island in Lake Huron. Inspired by the vernacular architecture, the designers clad the home with cedar siding, creating both privacy and a rain screen. The simple box form is capped with a sloped, double layer wood roof. But the tradition ends there: the home floats on the water, supported by a system of pontoons. The Floating House adjusts to the ever-changing levels of the lake and absorbs energy from the water to keep the home warm or cool.

With a gently sloping roof and exterior walls clad in zinc panels, the Winters Studio blends with the countryside of upstate New York. However, the design brings a little of the city to the country: “It’s an expanded NYC loft typology,” Sample explained. A parallelogram in plan, the structure is stabilized by moment frames at each end to allow for open studio space divided by a central core. The roof is constructed of prefabricated wood trusses, and the ceiling is smoothed and rounded on the interior, reflecting the abundance of natural light that emanates from large windows at each end.

MOS was invited to design a house in the middle of the Mongolian desert as part of Ordos 100. For Lot 06 they designed a triangular courtyard house with a 10,000-square-foot footprint. As a passive cooling strategy in an extreme climate, they developed vertically extruded cone shapes to create a “solar chimney effect.” The cones’ construction is based on vernacular building methods: cast-in-place concrete covered with brick.

After entering — and losing — the MoMA/P.S. 1 Young Architects Program a couple of times, MOS finally won this year. They applied lessons learned from their Ordos design to turn the hot concrete courtyards of P.S. 1 into a comfortable, festive environment. The cone shapes made sense contextually, Sample stated, as they reference the surrounding factories in Long Island City. MOS intentionally limited the number of parts required to build the installation so it would be more affordable. The name Afterparty was also a commentary on the state of world at the time it was designed.

Sample describes MOS’s work as “time based architecture” because each project takes cues from its site and local construction methods, but is implemented with modern construction and technologies. MOS posts everything on its website even as projects are being developed, which is an effective way for the partners to communicate since they teach at Harvard and Yale Universities. For several projects, MOS produces “time based films” that speculate on how the spaces will be used, especially when they don’t know the client.

Aside from Sample and Meredith, MOS employs six staff including a programmer, art historian, an accountant-turned-architect, and a mathematician — self-described “state-of-the-art weirdoes.” Sample acknowledges that the extensive research work and the low-budget projects MOS often takes on present “a financially bad model. That’s why we teach full-time. But it’s rewarding.”

Murrye Bernard, LEED AP, is a freelance architectural writer and a contributing editor to e-Oculus.