Street furniture in downtown Tampa. Two with a curvilinear /
organic aesthetic. The third rigidly tied to the minimalist logic of straight
lines, evenly spaced. You could be forgiven for preferring the freedom of
curves to the tyranny the rectangle. Irregular = natural = healthy right?
In practice however that third option is the only one to offer me meaningful
back support. So that's the one I chose to sit in for a while. It works despite
being strictly rationalist. Perhaps the designers of the other two didn't want
people to linger too long. "Go sit in a proper chair and spend some money!
" Who knows?
The skewed egg-crate is a popular motif in 21st century architecture. If we'll done it decieves the eye into seems more irregularity than is actually there. You get the structural and economic benefits of a regular grid while keeping the casual onlooker guessing. Balcony space and sunshading thrown in for good measure.
I have to say the streets of downtown Tampa, close to Harbour Island, are very pleasant at this time of year. Not too hot. Not too busy, but people and dogs enough to feel alive. I enjoyed being left to my own devices here for a couple of hours.
I have to repost this article about the practice where I have worked for the
past 20 years.. What a tribute to my boss Brian Johnson who founded the firm 35
years ago. There are a couple of projects in there that I am very proud to have
worked on, developing most of the Revit content used during detailed design.
Those were great teams to work with, from the lead designers down to the
document controllers. Our office has always felt like a family. There were
times when I worked very long hours under pressure to deliver, but I don't
regret a moment of it.
Special memories. Special projects. Special people
Chatting with Mark and Paul at AU, the idea of scanning some
Trulli came up. These are traditional dwellings found in a particular part of
Italy and very distinctive in appearance and construction. I first came across
them as an undergraduate at the Bartlett school in London, liste to an
illustrated talk by Paul Oliver. What a fascinating guy he was.
He had parallel lives as writer and researcher in two different topics that
have also held a special place in my heart for more than 50 years. He wrote
several books about Blues music, a style that I have come back to repeatedly in
my own playing and singing. Apart from anything else, it allows you to play
straight from the heart and to remain extremely loose and flexible so that no
song need ever come out the same way twice.
His other are of research and expertise was indigenous architecture or rather the way people build houses for themselves following certain evolved traditions, without the interference of college-trained professionals. That talk more than half a century ago was probably the beginnings of the personal project I now call "The Way We Build"
These sheets are from a Revit model that I began way back in 2008 when I first got the idea of using BIM as a research tool for my own investigations into the history, culture and technology behind all the wonderful buildings around the world, be they past or present, individual or typical.
It's all about the process. Hands-on modelling driving the asking of questions and gathering of data. Journeys of the mind and journeys around the world. It never ends. 🙂
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