Salukitecture

Friday, March 21, 2014

The Museums of Kengo Kuma

By Nicholas Mosher

The Yusuhara Bridge is a very unique structure from a modern perspective. Even though it was built in 2011, Kengo Kuma & Associates decided to use an older style of a structural system the looks just as well as it functions. The bridge is located in Taro-gawa Yusuhara-cho, Japan where it connects two public buildings and supports a facility on top of the bridge. Even though the bridge is small in length, around 27 meters, its short length allows for the structural system to be used with only one major column. The bridge uses a dougong system for supporting itself up along with the walkway and rooms on top of it. The dougong system looks like an inverted pyramid with a column connected to the tip of the pyramid. This column supports majority of the weight of the entire bridge because of the column’s central location¹.

http://www.archdaily.com/?p=199906

When looking at the beautiful structure, it is clear that the pieces of it are not that large compared to modern technology beams and supports. In fact all the pieces are is square timber that slowly gets longer near the top of the structure. It is the arrangement of the timber that gives it its strength. The strength comes from the interlocking of the pieces without any glue or fasteners. The most common shape of this pyramid of interlocking is in a rectangle or square. Each level of timber runs in the perpendicular direction tying in each one treating the whole system as one giant piece. This is very similar to Lincoln Logs even though it was used way before Lincoln Logs ever existed. The Chinese use this style thousands of years ago and it has proved to be very stable in all kinds of situations².

Another one of Kuma’s museums is located in Aichi in central Japan and it is called the Prostho museum Research Center is a wooden building with a very small structural grid which allows for its structure to be the eye candy for the building. The structure is composed of over 6000 cypress rectangular sticks the form several hundred open cubes. This gives the building a shape and yet it is completely open from all angles. The museum inside has no need for much artificial lighting because of how transparent the walls are³. At certain points the 50cm grid in both the X, Y, and Z directions will have no sticks to allow for spaces and doorways to form inside of the system. Inside there is a museum for dental work and history while in the actual encased walls hidden inside of the grid, the dental research department is right above the museum. Kuma based this design off of an old Japanese toy game called Cidori. The game had several sticks that could fit together to make different joints and shapes. This building system is almost identical to the game but on a much larger scale. No glue, bolts or nails are keeping these pieces together. That is the genius part of the system³.

http://sandman-chronicles.blogspot.com/2012/05/prostho-museum-research-centre-by-kengo.html

Kuma explained the interiors as being in a forest where you can see the light piercing through the branches and leaves³. This building represents how structures and walls can be built today without using machinery. Each piece of cypress was placed by hand and did not require and special tool to lock them in place. This has been one of many works of art that Kuma designs to show off the simplicity and elegance of using basic technologies from the older era of his time.

Notes:

1. Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum / Kengo Kuma & Associates. 16 Feb 2012. ArchDaily. Accessed 30 Jan 2014. http://www.archdaily.com/?p=199906

2. Stan Wepundi. Chinese Dougong Structure. Accessed 30 Jan 2014. http://www.academia.edu/3637156/chinese_dougong_structure

3. Stratos Bacalis. (May 27, 2012). Prostho Museum Research Centre by Kengo Kuma. The Sandman Chronicles. Viewed Jan 30, 2014. http://sandman-chronicles.blogspot.com/2012/05/prostho-museum-research-centre-by-kengo.html

Cost

By Ryan Kinports

One factor in a professional program such as Architecture is the hidden cost of learning. I remember when I came to visit there was a joke about how much money models take but there was not a clear remark about the reality of that statement. When we factor that in to the expected costs of learning (tuition, fees, textbooks) and then add the frequent field trips our major becomes unusually expensive. I suppose another expense could be the need to order food because we tend to spend such long stretches in studio. We could buy groceries and pack food but who has time for that. I am always looking for sources to supplement my income:

The American Institute of Architecture Students has frequent competitions that have cash prizes ranging into the thousands of dollars, and sometimes offer paid internships at renowned firms. Perhaps the most beneficial aspect to these competitions is that you may use a project you’re already working on, and if you don’t have time to do it on your own you may work in teams. There are three currently running with a total prize pools over $10,000. These are your best bet as even if you don’t place you still earn IDP hours.

http://www.aias.org/website/article.asp?id=35

Another great way to augment costs is to join the various regulatory organizations as a student. Often membership is free or greatly reduced and we gain access to discounted textbooks, webinars, lunch and learns, opportunities for internships, and even travel vouchers for industry conventions. One such opportunity is the National Steel Conference in Toronto Canada in March. Joining the American Institute of Steel Construction is free for students, and they are offering a $175 travel voucher for members who attend the conference.

https://www.aisc.org/content.aspx?id=33916

Look for an externship or internship in Carbondale. There are six AIA registered firms in the area and it can’t hurt to ask. You could get 10-20 hours a week and since IDP changes went into effect you may count them as hours.

http://architectfinder.aia.org/frmSearch.aspx

I’ve mentioned before but it’s also important to recognize how fortunate you are to have this time to devote to something you care about. Far too many people end up working at something they dislike in order to pay bills. It is rough being a student sometimes but we are allowed to pursue our passion for a time in return for the steep upfront costs. Do what you can to lessen your financial burden but I wouldn’t allow your efforts to distract you from what we are supposed to be doing here. The few thousand dollars you save may not be worth the time cost.

The Rainbow Bridge

By Alan Kirkwood

This is a little bit of information I researched and wrote talking about the ancient Rainbow Bridge, a bridge that was depicted on a Chinese scroll that was later reconstructed by students of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Architecture Department in collaboration with a school in China. The concepts of this bridge can now be seen in many bridges today. It was most known for its little need for nails and bolts but still having great strength due to its interwoven parts.

The Rainbow bridge was an ancient structure of China during the Song Dynasty and was depicted on Qingming Scroll. This scroll has imagery on it showing one of the festivals during this time in the 12th century. It is considered one of the most famous works of Chinese history. The bridge is located in the center of the scroll and appears to be almost floating over one of the town's canals. In the image so many townspeople and vendors are shown crossing it and there seem to be no visible supports. There is no trace of this bridge today outside of what is shown on the scroll and has remained a mystery, studied by many scholars.

In 2000, professor Tang Huan Cheng, who had been studying the bridge for years, made plans to replicate the bridge but limited himself only to what materials would have been available at the time. He joined with a group of students from MIT that were entering into the same pursuit to help execute his recreation of the bridge. They sought out to construct the interlocking bridge with only ancient nails, bamboo ties, and massive abutments and were able to build it after several attempts. They built it over a small canal in Jinze and it was extremely strong. There were two groups of timbers, one having an extra timber than the other, in the longitudinal direction. There were larger members in the transverse direction that helped increase the friction making the bridge impossible to move or damage. They pressed against the longitudinal beams. "The structure in general is an arch structure; the longitudinal members were dominated to press forces. However, not exactly as stone arch, the transverse beam acted on the middle of the longitudinal one will create bending moment in it. At the same time, timber has a great tensile strength than stone material so it is reasonable to carry some bending moments in timber arch." (Y. Yang, Timber arch bridges in China)

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Life of a Saluki Architecture Grad Student

By John Svast

Hello Readers!!

Last night, while slumbering the brief and wonderful sleep of a thousand sleeps that are allotted to an architecture student, I dreamed I was trekking up an enormous shifting paper mountain of books. Each step I took was more perilous then the next and I tested the fate of my health and more importantly… my thesis… as I went on my non-fiction section adventure. Under my feet the ground shook with the same voracious grumble as my stomach after I have been perch for an entirely too long stretch at my studio space. The literature gave way and I plunged to my booky doom…. The rustle of pages subsided and the only thing that was to be seen was the faint smiles of the book authors spread across the many dust jacket covers, laughing in unison at yet another hapless victim…

One of those books is a wonderful piece of non-fiction called “Beyond Culture” by Edward T. Hall.

Link to book provided

One fistful of information that I am finding to be exceptionally useful in life and thesis is something called Extension Transference. The gist of this idea is that Extension Transference is the action of taking things inside of our minds and creating them in real life. This doesn’t have to be physical objects like a baseball, a lamp, or a flux capacitor. Extension Transference could also be your voice, language, written word, rules, and institutions. Everything that makes up your culture is the result of extension transference. The religion you practice, the rules you give to your children, the blog you are reading now are all forms of extension transference.

When you create something, you are adding to the cultural DNA hodgepodge of life… you are contributing to humanity.

You are creating something, aren’t you?

MORE INFO!!

Noh Stage in Forest

By Michelle Harris

One of my favorite pieces of architecture, non-western or western is the Great Bamboo Wall by Kengo Kuma. As I’ve perused other Kuma projects, I was reminded of him talking as a guest lecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Noh Stage in Forest. This project, as I learned from the presentation, may have looked simple but was layered with complexities. Kengo Kuma’s website is a refreshing reminder of the subtlety of Japanese architecture.

Jun’ichiro Tanizaki addresses in “In Praise of Shadows’ the use of darkness in Noh Theater. He says, ‘The stage is left in darkness, in which it has stood since antiquity. A stage has a natural gloss, whose beams and backdrop glow with a dark light, where the darkness beneath the rafters and eaves hangs above the actor’s heads. Tanizaki understands the ‘sheen of antiquity’ to be appealing to the eastern eye. The Noh Stage in Forest is not an exception. The ‘key of mystery’ is in the shadows of the forest. Tanizaki elaborates eloquently on the darkness of the Noh Theater and the ideal world it creates.

The 18^th century in Japan signified a time of change. There was trade between the East and West and with it the beginning of an exchange of culture. Shakespeare in London was reinterpreted to represent significant Japanese cultural figures at the turn of the 19^th century. Noh Theater performed the Japanese interpretations of Shakespeare’s plays. Noh Stage was developed from Kubaki, where faces are painted white. In Noh Theater the performers wear no makeup. They instead wear masks. This began in Toyoma city of Miyagi Province. The very origin of Noh Theater, as Kuma explains, is purely inside nature, where wind travels along with the performance.

In the Noh Stage in Forest there are a few major components. Significant components are the stage and the seating area. Each Portion of the stage has a symbolism in the design. The seating area is a metaphor for life and the stage is a reflection of the past or death. In the darkness of the forest each component takes on its own poetry.

The poetry of Noh Theater as Tanizaki describes, ‘The darkness in which the Noh is shrouded and the beauty that emerges from it make a distinct world of shadows which today can be seen only on the stage. These shadows Tanizaki craves in retreat from the gleaming modern world. The theater represents a step back into traditional Japanese architecture in its design and construction. The patina of age is welcome to the building’s components by exposure to the elements. This exposure is much like the unpainted face of a Noh actor. Taniazki explains his passion for the historical structure as well as the actor in the glowing light of lanterns.

It is interesting as a ‘westerner’ to see the Noh Stage in Forest as sacred to a Japanese man. Western Theater though it has its glimmer of fame is irreverent. The beautiful images evoked by Tanizaki are one of valuing the total experience from all sensory aspects. The sights, smell, touch, sound and even taste of darkness in the Japanese culture is elevated to irrepressible idealism. Of course there is the umami, the sixth sense in experiencing life. Umami is the life force of the Noh Stage in Forest. In the presence of the unknown, the sense of spiritual awakening is tangible. The actuality of the Noh Theater is encountering the forest. The perception of Noh Stage in Forest is tinted with the dulled hue of brilliance.

References:

‘In Praise of Shadows’. Tanizaki, Ju’ichiro. 1977. St. Edmundsbury Press. Great Britian.

Kengo Kuma. Noh Stage in Forest. Accessed January 29.2014. http://kkaa.co.jp/works/noh-stage-in-the-forest/

‘Shakespeare in Japan’. Kishi, Tetsuo. 2005. New York, New York.

Once-In-a-Life-Time Chain of Events

By Randy Thoms

Blanketed by mist and dotted with Llamas this site on the steep mountain ridges of the Andes is an engineering marvel as well as a ghost town. Machu Picchu is a mid 15th century outcropping of buildings, terraces and plazas built by the Inca empire for the royal family. In its fully occupied setting there would have been thatched roofs of red and brown as well as walls of freshly honed white granite contrasting with the lush green jungle all around. So at 8,000 feet why would anyone live here much less take on the engineering difficulties of water and gravity, two of the weakest forces yet over time the most destructive.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/wright-inca-engineering.html

In the Andes mountains of southern Peru, 500 years back in time, the great Inca empire peaked at 10 million in population and Cuzco at its center of power with Machu Picchu as a place of worship and royals. The site was rediscovered in the 1911 by Hiram Bingham an American historian on a Yale Peruvian Expedition and was told of site high in the mountains by local farmers. I had the pleasure and honor of visiting the site in what became an unforgettable chain of events.

The first link in this chain was of course traveling to Peru, the second, a bus and train trip up to Cuzco. This city, with the most beautiful central plaza, the Spanish did some things right, and mix of Inca and New World architecture was hard to pass up. So, the third, after we (my wife and I, but not married at the time, you know, doing the "see if we can travel together and not get on each others nerves" bit, it worked out, whoo hoo!) spent a few days here, we established the fourth link, to hike a portion of the Inca trail and eventually get hike into the citadel from the most photographed point of Machu Picchu. From this fortunate decision, to hike and not travel up to the site, allowed us to get this amazing moment. Unknown to us, the railroad workers whom were in the middle of a labor dispute decided to, the fifth link, have a nationwide strike of all trains on the exact day we were hiking into Machu Picchu, since we had been up there for three days. So the only visitors to the site were ones who drove themselves, walked up the twenty-something switch-back road from Aquas Calientes ( a town at the base of the mountain) or hike in....like us, a group of four and a few other small groups, 20 in all.

As lunch time came and went along with the small amount of visitors, by 3 that afternoon the only inhabitants of the entire complex, originally for 1000 occupants now only 500 are allowed per day by the Peruvian government, were us, eight grounds keepers and ten Llamas. With the sun setting while walking through the terraces down to the main entrance, I knew, we knew this was a .....once in a life time chain of events.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Finding the Form of the Future

By Tim Shotts

When your architectural program requirements can take any form, what will that form be? Or, when there are no requirements, what will the form be? In a world where personal rapid transit becomes the dominate form of ground transportation, busses no longer need to exist, nor will taxis or light rail. PRT capsules will pick you up at your origin;, transport you speedily to your destination, whether that be the grocery store, an office building, a vacation destination, hospital, or airport. But when the station is no longer a mandatory destination, should it be an optional destination? The very minimum requirements for a dual-mode PRT would be a place to transition from the guide-way (either subterranean or above ground). Combining a PRT system, automated vehicles, and high-speed tube-transport, it’s feasible that the terminal – or station – could be replaced with any address you type into your smart phone – or any location you are. For instance, you could make a request for pickup while in line at the grocery store, and five minutes later, a PRT capsule is waiting for you at the store, heads to the nearest tube access point, and zips you to your next destination. This brings us back to the original question; What does an access point look like if its only purpose is to spit out and suck in PRT capsules? If the model of a transit station is endangered, is there a better use for the land? Perhaps it should be a public space with the PRT capsule entrances and exits and not necessarily be a place that is inhabited by people.