Wednesday, October 31, 2007

MX. Conference. Universidad Iberoamericana. Mexico

Gabriel Esquivel participated on tuesday October 30th in the International Design Conference MX, with the topic "AEffect". Gabriel Esquivel would like to congratulate Jorge Meza, Dean for the Design School at the Universidad Iberoamericana, for a magnificent and provocative conference. If you are interested in checking the paper, here is the link. http://www.dis.uia.mx/conference/2007/ponencias/Gabriel_Esquivel.pdf

Thursday, October 25, 2007

SUCRE SCHOOL. Mexico City. 2007

Concept
Design Team:
Gabriel Esquivel
Antonio Creixell
Margarita Gomez Galvarriato
Construction Company: MARNHOS.
Description:
The Sucre Elementary School proposes an architecture that is direct and pragmatic and visually exuberant. The school designed the school for 1,000 students. The design was based on a concept of using a surface that will lift part of the project off the ground. The site previously housed a Mexican Hacienda with beautiful gardens. The house was demolished to make room for the school. However, it was part of the program to keep a soft court area that would preserve the original garden as well as most of the trees. The main entrance to the school is located along Ave. Taxqueña in the South of Mexico City. The area is extremely urban with high traffic patterns. This structure is divided in four different components, an office bar suspended on piloti, the first courtyard building on the east side that is the kindergarten. The long three-story bending bar that corresponds to the Elementary school and the multipurpose room and library that divide the hard court from the soft court. The architectural showpiece is the library and multipurpose room in the upper portion corresponds to the multipurpose room with a rounded concrete surface, this space is completely transparent and opens to a north terrace covered by a tent structure facing the hard court. The multipurpose room and terrace are the social and cultural center of the school, where students mingle between classes and return in the evenings and on weekends for special events. Introducing natural light into this building’s interior was of utmost importance. This was accomplished with sun control louvered windows for eastern exposure and large windows along the west corridor. There are large opening in certain part of the roof surface to let natural light filter through. The openings are left uncovered; noises dissipate into the sky, and fresh air and light are present at all times.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Critical Surface Hotel

Operations
Technique
Analog Model
Cody Davis. Knowlton School of Architecture. The Ohio State University
4th Year Studio Critic: Gabriel Esquivel.
The goal of the “critical surfaces” is to create a point of departure into “performance surfaces” to give insight into the role of digital media in architecture that goes beyond its use for representation and to give a better understanding of the full implications that the incorporation of digital media has for architecture in the broadest sense. The purpose was to address specific ways in which experimental architects make use of digital media, what effects this has on architectural production and architectural form, and how this relates to today’s rapid and complex cultural transformations. The purpose was to address specific ways in which experimental architects make use of digital media, what effects this has on architectural production and architectural form, and how this relates to today’s rapid and complex cultural transformations, moving into the territory of the emotive.
The technique was to start with an image as a new diagram, interpret the image in different ways looking for conditions of motion, the image selected here was the opening credits for the movie “North by Northwest by Alfred Hitchcock. After this drawing study an analog model was built in which three different material systems would interact two hard and one soft. Through a series of photographs with different types of lighting, a series of effects were produced that were used a starting point for the production of specific affects.
The next step was to begin an analog investigation of effect and technique, then the investigation of digital techniques into an architectural precedent. Using poché as the architectural subject of investigation.
The decision was made to interact with an existing building, the chosen building was Hotel Crozat in the Place Vendôme in Paris, the point where the technique would be reapplied was using the poché as the irregularity or as the possibility for figuration. The production of a series of surfaces from the poché was how this project was developed; a new interpretation of the hotel using a digital technique. The quest after that step was to develop an atmosphere using the effects that were studied during the analog phase. By looking at the photographic effects we began to look into an atmosphere that incorporated new possibilities for inhabitation for hotels wher the surface becomes not only performative but also emotional where the hard and soft surfaces could interact producing a specific continuity.

Friday, October 19, 2007

GE. Nome

Generative
Indexical
Floor Plan
Lazarus Store
Megan Casey. Senior Thesis. Department of Design. The Ohio State University.
Critic: Gabriel Esquivel
DNAX Studio.
The course was a specific study on the behavior of the DNA virus to generate a design process to convey the importance of this cellular element and reflect it on the design product. The project is to design a research lab, with a product development area and retail-marketing-education area to sell and promote the importance of this research. The proposal was to insert this genetic code to an existing building, in this particular case the old Lazarus Department Store was selected.
Architecture is traditionally classified in terms of building typology derived from the conjugation of program and form where the notion of form is drawn from the history of the languages of architecture. The morphogenetic approach that is proposed here would require a novel theory of species for architecture that may be related to the notion of genus and species within biological evolution. It is an experiment in morphogenesis based on an abstract formal system that is autonomous and deterministic once the rules are set and defined. The project reflects an emphasis which searches for morphological complexity whereby the construction and selection of rules that produce specific morphological effects is partially motivated by aesthetic and plastic sensibilities of the architect. The project therefore calls into question traditional methods of architectural design and proposes a design process in which the architect becomes an inventor or constructor of formal systems as well as takes on the role of a navigator of the system's behavior over time. The project is to design a research lab, with a product development area and retail-marketing-education area to sell and promote the importance of this research. This class was a research and design workshop. The first part focuses on the research of DNA virus in different situations followed by generation diagrams. And the second part focuses on the design of the labs and the products for this specific client. This studio is an attempt at developing an alternative approach to architectural design capable of engendering a new type of biomorphology. Architecture is traditionally classified in terms of building typology derived from the conjugation of program and form where the notion of form is drawn from the history of the languages of architecture. The morphogenetic approach that is proposed here would require a novel theory of species for architecture that may be related to the notion of genus and species within biological evolution. It is an experiment in morphogenesis based on an abstract formal system that is autonomous and deterministic once the rules are set and defined.

Office Baroque

Homage to Gordon Matta Clark
Department Of Design The Ohio State University
Project By Clint Zehner
Critic Gabriel Esquivel
Office Baroque, Inspired by overlapping teacup rings left on a drawing, the carving was organized around two semicircles that arced rhythmically through the floors, creating a rowboat shape at their intersection, the idea was to take the geometry that Matta Clark used and take it to a next digital level introducing a new type of topological geometry. Matta-Clark described the piece as “a walk through a panoramic arabesque.“ This concept led to the production of a high tech highly sensual atmosphere. The idea was to develop a specific digital technique based on Matta Clark's premises.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

High Risk Affect Studio.

Yeh Chung Tzu
Joel Burke
Laura Rushfeldt
Joe Durda
Samantha Popa
Kevin Smith
Brandon Hedrick
Highrise. Columbus, Ohio
Knowlton School of Architecture. The Ohio State University.
4th year studio
Critic: Gabriel Esquivel
The goal of this project is to produce High density on a specific downtown area in Columbus, Ohio, located between W. Rich St. and Cherry St. along Civic Center Dr. The site is currently occupied by the Columbia Gas Building. The program was offices, apartments and hotel rooms.
Artists create affects and percepts, "blocks of space-time", whereas science works with functions, and philosophy creates concepts. On various grounds, however affect in a common use of the word, does not involve anxiety or excitement, that it is comparatively inert and compatible with the entire absence of the sensuous element, it is generally and usefully distinguished from passion. The quest of this studio is to challenge this particular notion that affect is separated from the sensual the erotic, how can we incorporate the sensual element into the work? For a consideration of these and similar problems, which depend ultimately on the degree in which the affections are regarded as voluntary, when you affect a situation, you have an effect on it. Architects and technologists have largely ignored emotion and created an often frustrating experience for people, in part because Affect has been misunderstood and hard to measure. This studio would attempt to develop by the use of technology and specific theories that could advance basic understanding of affect and its role in human experience. The aim would be to restore a proper balance between emotion and cognition in the design of technologies for addressing human needs. This affect in culture needs to offer an argument of sensibility that implies a much more careful understanding of the rejection of mood and atmosphere. My inclination is an argument from Deleuze in relation to what Nietzche analyzes about Wagnerian Opera. Within my appropriation of the Deleuze argument, this “violent or radical surface” is part of the interiority , it is real movement not opposition of mediation in this sense the theatre of the comic and the tragic produces a new theatre, a theatre of repetition, a theatre of movement , where we experience forces, dynamic lines in space which act intermediary upon the spirit. This is the claim for this new operative emotion, the production of active and reactive in the pursuit of affect, what we would call the conatus. This new condition I will refer to it as theatricality, it links you directly to nature and a history with a language that speaks before words’ where new uses of metaphors is possible. Al so called “terrible power” an Affect. Theatricality is a spectacle of movement but not of representation.
The radical surface of affect deals with its technological components but is not simply performative, it operates at different levels, offers the same emphasis on plasticity, continuity and dramatic effects evident in the work of the Baroque, these surfaces suffused with theatricality, producing a radical aesthetic environment where the dramatic use of light, opulent ornamentation inspired by floral iconography, and the application of frescos produced an undeniable affect. The comparison between the baroque surface and its affects and the Wagnerian opera relies on the fact that both included the idea ornamentation, exoticism and opulence but through the notion of theatricailty of the affect has to have more violent implications. The employment of pattern and ornament is crucial to produce new architectural affects. This surface is an architectural device whose architectural affects come from its microsection and the fact that it erases a tectonic history of the discrete elements of the wall, network or landscape. It has a complex geometric qualities. These adaptable surfaces resulted in part from the creation of an experimentation with the behaviors of heterogeneity and diversity. The objective is to produce an emerging, adaptive architectural surfaces derived from shifts/transformations produced by systemic hybrids.
The thesis of how you can develop new tectonic and material systems using analog experimentation first and combining them later in the process with digital interpretations. The focus is to develop techniques of “affecting” form derived by the study conditions of culture, geometry, color, etc. and “nurturing” or the application of movement, growth etc. What we have earlier referred as conatus. towards a hybrid and “mutual integration”. But what binds them together? Let’s go back to Wagner’s composition, particularly those of his later period, which are notable for their contrapuntal texture, rich chromaticism, harmonies, opulence, orchestration, and elaborate use of leimotifs. A leitmotif is a recurring musical theme, associated within a particular piece of music with a particular person, place or idea. Although usually a short melody, it can also be a chord progression or even a simple rhythm. Leitmotifs can help to bind a work together into a coherent whole, and also enable the composer to relate a story without the use of words, or to add an extra level to an already present story. The operative qualities in leitmotif are required in the contemporary architectural work where there is the condition of integration for different ontological constructs. Today those leitmotifs have become digital technologies that can assist in that integration not only through systems of image production, but with new parametric systems that can bind and explore those philosophies with construction technology.