Graphic image for Parc de la Villette, Paris
Graphic image for State Government of Victoria, Australia
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Sunday, 29 July 2012
Saturday, 28 July 2012
THE DILEMMA OF PRACTICE
Concerning Formations: the plasticity of practice
see
http://architectureau.com/articles/formations-the-plasticity-of-practice/
This article on practice in architectureau was copied
and handed out to become the subject of a conversation over lunch. The promise
made to colleagues to find ‘three words’ to clarify this messy and puzzling
blurb has turned out to be ambitious. A quick summary has been made here and a
commentary has been appended, as the article provokes thought and stimulates a
response to its haughty, linguistic games.
The basic idea is that the practice of architecture is
being changed by others, and other situations and circumstances outside of
architecture; that practice itself has to change into an open, more flexible,
collaborative structure, using its broad expertise more generally, generically,
rather than remaining as isolated individual, design specialists creating
‘iconic’ buildings for glossy publications and awards. The proposition is that
the traditional image of the architect is being perpetuated, perhaps with
perceptions being limited, by habit, Acts, boards, Institutes, and insurance
and other companies, while the world around it is changing dramatically and
quickly - Google, Facebook, etc., making it appear obsolete - an anachronism.
If one were forced to provide three words for this synopsis, they would be TRADITIONAL
PRACTICE REFORMS.
It is what we all know. Questions about what and who is an
architect have already been asked - see http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/who-or-what-is-architect.html The real problem is getting others to
understand the situation. Articles like Formations: are indulgent and
self-important. They help fill up CVs. The question is: what has to happen for
real change? Any self-satisfied delight in a complex array of confusing words
is not useful. Articles like the plasticity of practice only enhance the
separation of architects from others in the community, isolating by reinforcing
the cliché. Texts like this are self-defeating. It is the professional academic
world communicating with itself.
We need to convince insurance companies, corporations and
governments, and the like, that architects have a unique expertise that can
offer ideas and shape outcomes that can be important in any situation. Indeed,
we have to persuade the ‘man in the street’ that architects have these
significant skills, because basically companies, etc. are only a collection of
such folk. To highlight ‘capabilities’ like Brown’s, as the article notes, we
need to earn respect, not ridicule, from those in authority who manipulate
power. This can be achieved with recognisable, responsible outcomes that erase
the memories of the truism that defines and declares an architect’s arrogant
disregard for expectations, results and their implications: c.f. ‘I thought I’d
like to do a concrete house this time as I haven’t done one before’! Or: ‘I had
a crumpled paper vision for this building.’
The situation brings to mind the student studying koalas. He
enthusiastically sought and obtained the support of a well-known and popular
singer/song writer to create what he spoke of as the necessity for government
to act on the protection of koala habitat. This student had a grand plan to
empower the public and embarrass the government, to make sure that this outcome
could be achieved. The argument was persuasive, supremely logical and rational.
The only thing he lacked was real power itself; and power was not moved.
Nothing came of his plan - it just faded away, jaded, as others kept doing
whatever they wanted, paying no attention to him. Power has the ability to
ignore, discard, dismiss and forget, regardless of the evidence.
One can scream and yell, but power is required - one’s own
power, or the recognition of the circumstance along with an appropriate
co-operative response from another authority. How to get this power? How to get
this power to take notice? How to make this power discover the importance of an
architect’s involvement in a myriad of circumstances? How to get others to
think: we need to get the architect in, instead of: we need to sack him/sue
him; I could have done better than this expensive, foolish dilettante? These
are the concerns that need consideration, not just the smartly clever, academic
redefinition/rendition of ‘architecture’ or ‘practice’ and the timeless call
for others to be ‘educated’ to admire unique talent and difference.
We know that architects can assist in many situations
outside of building design, but how do we overcome the cliché that sees architects
as costing one time and money - wasting it - while still demanding big fees for
fantastically impractical, fanciful visions? How do we overcome the perception
that architects design for themselves and create problems with their elitist
visions; that architects should be shunned to steer clear of problems; that one
should never have an architectural competition, as there are always problems
with outcomes and costs: the ‘opera house’ problem? We all know it: one has to
keep away from architects or have them carefully managed by some responsible
person if they have to be used. Sadly the cliché is rooted in and feeds on
ever-recurring facts.
Articles like this ‘plastic blurb’ text do not help. They
reinforce the idea of the exclusive, snobby, elitist side of the profession.
The use of ‘academic’ language only reinforces every prejudice that is
currently held. We must start using ordinary language if anyone is going to
start listening, just as we must start generating ordinary outcomes that are
extraordinary if we seek any recognition and understanding of our potential
role - the role of our potential - from others. Our continued delight with
extreme difference will only aggravate matters. Architects continue to drool
over and promote the unique, ‘creative’ original - the bespoke concept - as
their ideal.
Then there is the ‘local’ problem: this is Australia, with
the ad hoc, DIY, ‘wouldn’t you have thought’ culture of disregard for things
‘learned’ and subtle; where the irony is that success means that one is
sidelined rather than seen as holding a useful skill/expertise to be harnessed.
Instead, achievement screams out ‘avoid’ and sets the stage for trampling.
Potential clients are encouraged to seek talent elsewhere - interstate;
overseas. Things are always better otherwise and in other places: (see the
Central Park development in Sydney and its promotion; and the new School of Architecture at Bond University). Only actions
and outcomes will change these things.
What is important is that the profession has to start
supporting itself. The idea of the unique genius - that any other architect
always could/would have done better and will challenge for all future work on
this basis - is embedded in our own vision of ourselves: well, it seems, in the
majority of minds. The stories are astonishing, as are the brazen lengths that
this throat cutting will go to. It is rare that an architect is promoted or
praised by another. The norm is the undermining of one another; and the
demolition of all other ideas, and fees - cost-cutting - with seeming conceit
and delight: of course, ‘colleagues’ apart, as awards show. This is the country
of ‘mates’ - ‘g-day mate’!
If the profession cannot show respect for others inside it,
what chance is there of others outside it holding any respect for it? One has
to ponder what the cathedrals might have looked like with this nasty,
competitive streak! Still, it helps us understand why we have the outcomes we
are currently living with today; and why the profession is seen as it is. It is
not merely a matter of what ‘practice’ has become or might become to those
‘academically’ disposed. We need to overcome the ‘smarty pants’ hero image with
‘good work,’ as Fritz Schumacher knew it and spoke of it in a book with this
title, and in other writings too, like Small is Beautiful.
Thursday, 19 July 2012
ON COMPETITION IN ART
I have often in the past made
comparative and competitive claims for an individual artist, saying for example
that X is the most important European artist since Y. It is a not entirely
meaningless formula and it offers a tempting short-cut to the reader’s mind.
But I now believe it to be profoundly mistaken: not because there is the danger
of the judgement being a wrong one - there are no absolute and eternally right
judgements: but because the notion of competition has become alien to the
spirit of art.
When the social position of an
artist was that of an artisan or a super-craftsman, the spirit of competition
acted as a stimulus. Today the position of the artist has changed. He is no
longer valued as the producer of his work, but for the quality of his vision
and imagination as expressed in his work. He is no longer primarily a maker of
art: he is an example of a man and it is his art which exemplifies him. This is
true at an appreciative and philosophical level even under capitalism, where
works of art are treated on the market like any other commodity. In the artist’s
new role there is no place for comparative competition. One cannot properly
compete to be a representative of Man. It is the contradiction between this
truth and the dominance of the art market over all production which destroys so
much talent and creates so much confused desperation among artists in the
capitalist countries.
Wednesday, 18 July 2012
PAIRS 5 - 1956 : 2012 OLYMPIC POOLS
Melbourne 1956 Olympic Swimming Pool Peter McIntyre Architect
Building of the Year 1956
London 2012 Olympic Aquatics Centre Zaha Hadid Architects
UNNECESSARY?
UNNECESSARY?
One example that officials are keen to highlight is the new velodrome, which uses natural light and ventilation to reduce consumption of energy.
McCarthy* says it is "a fantastic example of a sustainaable building as it uses only half the materials of the Beijing velodrome and overshoots all the goals for reducing energy consumption."
But he concedes London's "star" venue, the Aquatics Centre, is at the other end of the sustainability spectrum. Its spectacular wave-like roof required 3000 tonnes of steel, "which in turn required a lot of concrete to support all that steel."
"Its beautiful but a little bit unnecessary and not exactly a low-impact building."
HIGHER, FASTER, GREENER The Australian, Wednesday, 18 July 2012, page 11.
(* Shaun McCarthy, chairman of the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012.)
A quick comparison of the construction photographs suggests that the 1956 builidng was greener than the 2012 structure, in spite of the intent of 2012 games to be the greenest Olympics ever - 'more environmentally sustainable and lower carbon than any previous games.'
One has to ask: Less is more? Was the concept of the wave so important as to wave goodbye to all concerns on green matters: style rather than content? Is this why it has been called "a little bit unnecessary"?
By way of comparison, the British battleship, Westminster, is 3500 tonnes of floating steel. Astonishingly, the 'wave' roof of the Aquatic Centre is almost the equivalent of a battleship suspended over the pool, in dry dock as it were. Unnecessary? All for the sake of an image? The 1956 roof structure was an integral part of the whole support system, not just some randomly added form to intrigue.
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One has to ask: Less is more? Was the concept of the wave so important as to wave goodbye to all concerns on green matters: style rather than content? Is this why it has been called "a little bit unnecessary"?
By way of comparison, the British battleship, Westminster, is 3500 tonnes of floating steel. Astonishingly, the 'wave' roof of the Aquatic Centre is almost the equivalent of a battleship suspended over the pool, in dry dock as it were. Unnecessary? All for the sake of an image? The 1956 roof structure was an integral part of the whole support system, not just some randomly added form to intrigue.
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WIRELESS?
Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE HITS WALL?
While browsing the Internet, the question about events at the Univeristy of Queensland School of Architecture came to mind. What was going on there these days? It had been some time since I had been there. So the site was opened. Mmmm . . . the Venice Biennale. Interesting.
http://www.architecture.uq.edu.au/
I remembered when a Queensland University of Technology staff member - now at the U of Q - arranged an exhibition at the Biennale some years ago. He used the local corrugated iron as the theme to show things Australian. One assumes that this is the intent of participating at the Biennale. Russell Hall played an important part in this exhibition with his unique corrugated iron designs - or is it corrugated 'steel' these days? The exhibition was truly something unique to this southern island country - the antipodies. Even the iconic Southern Cross wind mills played an important part in the display that was well received by visitors.
This time there was something different by Dr. Anupama Kundoo: a 1:1 model of the Wall House. Does this mean a full-sized replica of the house? The text concealed the image of what one assumed might have been the Wall House - possibly the replica? - but it was difficult to see. So the Wall House was Googled in order to find out more about this place that had been selected to represent 'UQ Architecture on (the) International stage' and become the headline item on its' web site.
'The Wall House by Anupama Kundoo, Architect at Auroville, India, 2000' opened up. (Another site records the house as being finished in 1999?) So it was in India; and at least twelve years old too. What did this place have to do with the U of Q School of Architecture - Australia: now? The images were perused:
Yes, this seemed to be the building illustrated behind the text in the U of Q School of Architecture masthead. The other photographs told more:
The images reminded one of Le Corbusier's Maisons Jaoul in Paris, with some lingering touch of Louis Kahn in Dacca; and the empty Harry Seidler architectural interiors that were always photographed with a strategically located unique item placed 'architecturally' just for the shot.
The adjacent text was read:
Here the innovation lies in the definition of the building program for a residential house, as well as the transition spaces between the inside and outside. Borders and transitional spaces are defined in a new way. The attention paid to these spaces creates a deliberate and, if desired, flexible buffer space that can change the territorial enclosure according to the changing time of day or climate.
Trees are integrated to create further spatial compositions and a smoother transition to the nature at large.
The stepped terracing continues from the surrounding terrain, penetrates through and through the house and continues on to the other side. The outside penetrates the inside so to speak. The program for the transition spaces is larger than the enclosed spaces.
The window shutters are a series of options that can be seasonally regulated just as we do with our clothes for providing climatic comfort. The result is a skin that is alive and breathes, and an architecture that is dynamic and responsive to the changing human needs and comfort.
An example of an activity in the transitional space is the dining area. The dining table is built out of a single log of rosewood, which nearly extinct now, and by using no other material even for its joinery. The table is formed so that it can be reassembled to gain the whole log with no wastage.
The floor slab above is also innovative. Terracotta pots used in the local area for cooking, with their use diminishing, has been used as a form work for concrete in an area with no tradition of form-work.
The already reduced energy demands of the house through application of solar passive principles are entirely met by solar photovoltaics for electricity, solar water heater as well as solar pump for water pumping.
I don't know if I really understand some of this blurb, but it is interesting. Just why the reassembly of a log is useful is as puzzling as some of the other concepts. But what has all of this to do with U of Q School of Architecture? There is no mention of the U of Q School here. Did it have an involvement?
A look at the School of Architecture list of academic staff members seemed to explain things.
Dr Anupama Kundoo, Senior Lecturer
BArch Univ of Mumbai, PhD TU Berlin
L: Zelman Cowen (51), 318
T: 3365 3957
E: a.kundoo@uq.edu.au
So the Indian Architect, Anupama Kundoo, is one of the staff. This clarified the link to the twelve-year old house in India, but it did not help understand how this building had become the icon of this school, sufficient to have a full-szied copy of it erected to showcase the school to the world. Has Australia nothing to talk about? Has the school hit the wall? Hopefully we are not indulging in the old perception that things from elsewhere are always better - even old things?
Then another matter occurred to me: there was a time when the prerequiste for undertaking an architectural course included the requirement for english, maths, science and art. Over the years this got whittled down to just english. One wonders now if the requirement has become only to have a tablet - of course, this would have to be an iPod: cool dedsign, as the judge said.
Still, the first question lingers: just what is happening at the school? Surely something interesting has happened in the last twelve years?
Tuesday, 17 July 2012
MOUSA BROCH
On the small island of Mousa just off the east coast of the southern island of Mainland in the Shetland Islands, stands the world’s only intact broch. Well, it is nearly complete. The thirteen-metre high stonewalls have survived the centuries without too much desecration. The other, possibly more transient or portable parts, have gone. Astonishingly, what remains is all dry stonework, stones stacked on top of one another without any cementing infill. It has been constructed using the same techniques as those that build the dykes, the stone walls that surround the fields and jigsaw the hillsides. Stone sits on stone, holding stone with stone, interlocked with the skillful organisation of the ad hoc geometry and form of stones found nearby. The dry stone waller’s rule is: once picked up, a place - the right place - has to be found for the stone selected. That any smooth surface can be created out of a heap of rubble is always astonishing - more so with Mousa because of its’ size: its’ diameter and height.
How was this space used? This void is so small, yet so large. It has the same puzzling reading inside as the outside form of the broch has in the landscape, where the simple shape of the mass belies its’ true scale in a constant ambivalence of belief and doubt as to its’ real size. The theory tells of timber structures in this central void that is surrounded by the patterning of rock recesses. Timber is scarce in Shetland, with marine debris from wrecks having being collected for structures and furnishings in the past. Older pasts must have known trees, as the islands have their peat beds, but this possibility of forested hills is now difficult to recreate in the mind's eye with today’s naked Shetland - treeless. Was there really such an interior structure?
The rock recesses that make dark patches on the inner curved surface, enhance the reading of the height of this pace with their articulate, tapering stacks stretching to the circle of light above. Their pattern surprises. It steps up to the opening over with a self-consciously organised proportional reduction in size that looks familiar to the post-modern eye. Evidence of timber supports is not immediately obvious. One moves carefully across the rough and uneven pavement of this central court - was there a reservoir, or a fire pit here? - a little lost, until what looks like a crude stair that can be discerned in the disorganisation of the rubble, beckons one into a larger void that eventually becomes a doorway. After stepping up into this opening opposite the tunnel entrance, with a questioning intrigue, rising stairs between walls materialise in the torchlight and confirm the guess of the purposeful approach. A handrail rope is felt as one fumbles and gropes carelessly - tentatively - for some stability on the uneven stones set between the twin layers of questionable wall - unseen but felt as cold, rough and solid.
Retreating back through the door flap into the dim of the stair, making sure that the door was closed to prevent the entry of birds eager to use the place as shelter, one manoeuvred carefully backwards down the shambles of the spiral rock steps. Now, with one’s attention able to notice matters other than how one might negotiate the height of the black path to the top, the eye was attracted to the glimpses of the central court through the openings in the inner stair wall. The walls increased in thickness as they got closer to the ground, making spaces of various sizes in their width on various levels. What were these used for? Strangely, these openings did not offer much luminance for the interior of the stair. When the fine drizzle of the day came with the frequent adjustment of the weather once the centre court had been reached, these edge spaces proved to be good shelters from the rain, offering height sufficient for one to sit in, very comfortably.
Those stairs had seen many a movement; been touched by many
a foot - the walls by many a hand. The broch of Mousa’s power gives it a
certainty and mystique that one accepts because it is there. As one walks away
from it, one is constantly turning around to see it - to see how its’ scale and
size is transformed from the known and sensed massive walls into the Legoland
model on the slopes. Then Lot’s wife’s view slowly becomes only glimpses of parts - still
very interesting parts - until the whole is lost behind hills. It says something of
the scenery of Shetland that what appear as gentle undulations in the
landscape can hide such a huge mass so quickly. Scale is disguised in the
bareness of this weathered land, where even the huge development of the oil
terminal at Sullom Voe appears from the distance as child’s trinkets scattered around a croft.
Saturday, 14 July 2012
SEEING PRESENT AS PAST
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation - known as the ABC -
broadcasts an interesting radio programme on design matters, nicely called By
Design. The web site reference for the programme delivered on Wednesday 6
June 2012 gave the following text as a summary to introduce the programme - a
cryptic note:
In The Field - NGV Street Studio
In The Field visits Melbourne’s National Gallery Victoria
‘street’ studio - NGV Studio.
The architects were briefed to consider Federation
Square’s heritage.
Federation Square is a 3.2 hectare mixed development in
Melbourne that was opened in 2002. It is ten year’s old. In the scale of things
old, even in Australia, it is almost the present - nearly new. It is not as
though buildings are motor vehicles that seem to have an extremely limited life
when it comes to value. It is not unusual with a vehicle worth $70,000.00, to
turn into a listed $12,000.00 in only five years. The briefing for the NGV
Street Studio asked for the heritage of this square to be considered.
NGV Studio is the newest addition to the National Gallery of
Victoria. It is located at the corner of The Atrium at Federation Square, with
the aim of presenting exhibitions, installations and events that engage younger
audiences. The first initiative showcased street art, with Everfresh Studios
taking up residence.
So what is this heritage that the architects were asked to
consider? Is there one? When did it get this? Has the wrong word been used? Is
the use of this term some attempt at trying to be clever with the concept of
the origins, inspiration and roots of this development? Federation Square does
work extremely hard to be different with complex frames and claddings detailed
to appear chaotic like the Jewish Museum in Berlin, even though it has nothing
to do with this. It all looks like just too much effort to be
fashionable. If the brief is not referring these qualities, is it seeking to
say that the building has heritage significance now - matters to do with time?
Why not leave the future to be what it turns out to be instead of predicting or
formalizing future past qualities now? Why should we even try to analyse the
present to make it someone else's past in the future?
We seem to be too close to this place for us to start
determining its role in the future. Are we scared of losing it? Embarrassed at
our naivety as we seek to justify it? This ‘heritage’ is new. Are we seeking to
define future heritage, extracting items from our most recent past as future
substance that we believe to be representative of our era - as we see it, of course.
How could it be otherwise? One could suggest even today that Federation Square
is less than representative of our times, perhaps illustrating only some
extreme perversion of the norm. It does work extremely hard and very
self-consciously to convert a simple Corbusian slab and column grid structure -
the Domino system of 1914 - into something skinned with a complexity of
multiple layers that appear to have their own necessities for smart patterning.
A close look at the detailing reveals the problems with this effortful
struggle. On closer inspection, slick distant images become crude and messy -
just too tricky for any elegance; too complex and too expensive to be managed
into an intimate, cohesive whole with refined resolution, remaining only a collage of bits and pieces in a shambles of awkward juxtaposition.
But are we so starved of interest in our time that we have
to turn our minds to declaring what today’s ‘heritage’ is? Are we so lacking in
confidence - so screwed up intellectually - that we purposefully analyse
projected mysterious qualities into our recent past for our inspiration and
guidance? Are we so arrogant and self centred? Inbreeding has its’ own inherent
problems that most are aware of. This referencing seems to have the same
senselessness, and, one might presume, the same problems as inbreeding. It is a
little like universities that train staff to become staff, that train staff to
. . . . Even the most basic of cultures, (well, ‘basic’ to our eyes, but
possibly ‘richer’ than ours in the same way), had rules to overcome inbreeding.
Ours seems to have condoned it, particularly in our upper classes and royalty.
Is this why we seek heritage now? Are we so self-conscious, so self-aware; so
self-important, that our understanding of past outcomes is so quickly imposed
onto the present for our immediate referencing and consideration? If we could
but concentrate creatively on our present issues and stop examining immediate
pasts as ‘heritage,’ then we might be doing more for the future - something
more fertile and meaningful.
The matter of ‘heritage now’ seems to be mere babble, a play
on words and meanings. Anticipating what the issues for any future will be is
simply rude. It displays a lack of self-belief; perhaps simple
superciliousness. Why should we worry about this? It has little to do with us,
even though we are a central part of it. We are it! Should the briefing to the
architects have been: to respect the innate qualities of this new place, rather
than its’ ‘heritage,’ just as any one should do - to show it respect? This does
not mean any weak matching repetition of place or detail. It can also
accommodate contrast and allow criticism, as well as an amorphous fuzziness of
reproducing whatever qualities might be sensed.
If art and architecture have anything to do with their
times, then they need to concentrate on just what this means, rather than to
drool over what might become distilled as ‘heritage’ with time now, without any
nonchalance or respect being shown for others not yet being. There is
offensiveness here. It is like a ‘hyper-intellect’ brooding on its own
droppings: anal teacup reading; palm reading - but these have a more rigorous
logic and rationale. Is it really a matter of build today, heritage that
afternoon?
Are we playing silly games with the word ‘heritage’? What
is heritage? The dictionary (dictionary.com) defines heritage as:
her·it·age[her-i-tij] noun
1. something that comes or belongs to one by reason of birth; an inherited lot or
portion: a heritage of
poverty and suffering; a national heritage of honor, pride, and courage.
2. something reserved
for one: the
heritage of the righteous.
3. Law .
a. something that has
been or may be
inherited by
legal descent or succession.
b. any property, especially land,
that devolves
by right of inheritance.
Origin:
1175–1225; Middle English < Middle French, equivalent to heriter to inherit + -age -age; see heir
1175–1225; Middle English < Middle French, equivalent to heriter to inherit + -age -age; see heir
There is this quality of passing on - of being handed down;
across; over. Time and others are involved, and culture - cultural change:
other lives. Heritage is for the receiver to decide, not the giver. But what is the scope of this scenario: two days; two years; two
people? There is a distance that allows difference to be identified, assessed.
Interpretation varies with this separation. We need to trust our future – to
give it time - not seek to determine it now. We should be prepared to hand
matters on to others for them to determine their ‘heritage,’ just as we do now
with our past.
There seems to be a cringe factor here, a concern with our
own creative confidence needed for us to be what we need to be. It seems that
we are unable to do anything without some mental anchor or rationale; unable to
act as free resourceful beings; unable to love. We need to assess who and what
we are. Are we becoming as beasts feeding on ourselves? Is the digital world
making everything just too logical? Oh for analogical times when things were
neither black nor white - not just on and off, but in between, that haven of
creativity.
http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/heritage-story-of-tapestry.html
MESSAGE AND MEDIUM
The process of designing an object, be this a chair, church, chime or a carriage, eventually reaches the stage where the various parts, their materials, sizes, relationships and fixings need to be documented in order to allow the concept to be communicated to others who are to be involved in the making of the object. In architecture, this process is carried out in the preparation of the working drawings. What is critical is that the message is clear and certain. Any ambiguity merely casues dealys and complications as further information is requested of the designer or the team involved in the documentation.
Just how the information is communicated is critical. It needs to be accurate and complete. The method used to record this data can have an impact on the efficacy of the communication. CAD systems are used in architecture. These have their own formal logic and rigour, just as tradition has too. Techniques for documenting information have been established over time - plans, sections, elevations, details, etc. Yet there is a host of information, thoughts and understandings that never get recorded. These often lie latent behind the formal presentation of the information without ever really being exposed until a problem arises.
There is frequently a story to construction that formal techniques of documentation cannot record. While the drawing might show items aligning, dimensions and tolerances could give other results, even though this alignment might be critical. Here a simple note telling of this important relationship would overcome the problem and highlight the deisgner's intention for the builder. Just too often it is found that the formal technique cannot accommodate the story as an informal note, clarification or an aside. It just does not fit the format being used. A frreehand sketch can include all kinds of information because it is less inhibited, more casual, than a CAD document, but it is seen as too informal - sloppy - therefore unreliable. Appearance - aesthetics - takes control of what is being recorded and how, irrespective of what is known and shown.
In this regard, the drawings for the construction of the plastic toy in the V&A Museum of Childhood, (see above), are worth looking at more closely. The drawings are to scale and show everything as it is intended in exquisite clarity, but freehand details and notes have been added to the formal sections and elevations to further highlight critical issues. Precise intentions at various joints have been detailed in 3D sketches around the main scaled diagrams. A schedule of particular problems has been added in one corner as notes to myself:'July 13 PROBLEMS: 1. Joining wheels; Joints snap off; Jingle ball. 2. Elastic fixing. 3. Legs fixing. 4. Arm pivots. 5. How to fix elastic during assembly.' Other notes have been added as a warning: 'TAKE CARE that these ribs do not jam under the feet!' Other notes ask questions: 'Surely ends should be covered? How to fix. Maybe elastic can be fiixed to covers? Remember they will be "small parts".' There is a rich depth of communication here that lies between enquiry and seeking.
These informal notes raise issues that seek to overcome surprises. The sectional details are all beautifully drawn, complete with screw fixings, sleeve connections, plastic profiles, fine edge radius dimensions, and the location of seams, but more information has been added. This is the story of the parts that tells more than the main formal images can illustrate, even though they seem adequately complete. That 'This centre section can have a diagonal extension to hold down the weight,' is infromation that is not in the shop detailing. It is clear that the designer not only knows the object in all of its intimate piecing, but he is also thinking of its making and its' use, and is communicating his thoughts on all aspects of the object, including performance matters.
Even though the traditional sections and elevations are illustrated with an explicit clarity, there is much more information that needs recording. It is a little like DIY directions that make everything appear so simple until the first step is taken and the first question of many arises.The freehand details and notes add this thinking, raising issues, highlighting intentions, and seeking the assistance of the fabricator who inevitably does have a role in the making and the assembly of the parts.The designer spells out the rationale of the design and its working in case the fabricator has to make some adjustments. Parameters are set. It is an interesting study to see such issues exposed so clearly.
Making is an inherent part of any design. Just drawing an end result without considering the process of its making can create conflict when there need be none. It can 'force' an outcome too, by demanding selfconscious distortions in logic and process. The lead soldiers are a surprise and have their own beauty in the concept of their casting.
So too does the making of the wooden animals. The idea for their fabrication is more amazing than the simplicity of the object itself. Here a doughnut form is profiled into the sectional shape of the required animal. This doughnut is cut radially to give the animal as an object that can then be worked in more detail as required. It is a clever piece of shaping and cutting that shows how the process of making can be just as significant as the 'design' itself.
Architecture can learn from these toys - their documentation and their making. Design is never merely just a pretty shaping of images and colours for others to battle with. It holds its own integral rigour and necessity that has just as important a role in the concept as the original idea has. There is a nexus here where one is informed by the other. Once one becomes more important than the other, there is stress and conflict. Once the rigour of the documentation becomes more important than the message, there is a problem, just as there is if the design becomes isolated from its making.
These are not rules, just matters that ask for each others' recognition and respect, for once the conjunction has become explicit - when message and medium meet - there is a double, integral delight. True creativity is never blind, unique or arrogant.
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