Good Afternoon Everyone! For those who don’t listen to the podcast anywhere else, I have switched up my release day after several conversations and advice from mentors and friends. From now on, the podcast itself will come out Tuesday Mornings at 5AM ET, while the blog will be scheduled to be released at noon ET, on Tuesdays as well. Just to give me time to sync everything up.
I don’t know about everyone else, but I am starting to really feel the end of the year. I am gearing up for the holidays, getting excited to see how the landscape changes with the seasons. And also to catch up and planning out the next part of my life. I am almost all signed up for classes next semester, and my application to graduate deadline is fast approaching. It seems like it was just yesterday I was opening photoshop for the first time, and now I literally cannot image not opening it at least once a week. But, without further ado, here is the sources used in today’s episodes, as well the full transcript.
Photos by H. Conrad
Photo by H. Conrad
Transcript
Bleak, cold, empty, warm, filled, and inviting-it’s time for Architecture, Coffee, & Ink
30 second Intro song
Hello, this is Hollywood C. and you’re listening to Architecture, Coffee, & Ink. A podcast dedicated to introducing concepts, detailing out designs, and tackling the architecture you might not realize the meaning behind. I’m your hostess and I am here today to start introducing you to the designs that make you wonder why.
tag line: So I ask you to brew your coffee, grab your sketch book and pen, and let’s begin.
Hello everyone, welcome to the podcast! If you are a new listener, a recurring listener, or just dropped into say hi! You may have noticed that this episode came out on Tuesday at 5am ET instead of an admittedly random time during Sunday. For now on, this is going to be my new episode release time. For a variety of reasons, but in large part for consistency and also do to some advice and encouragement from the listeners and a mentor. And grading. A lot of influence from grading and my schedule next semester. So, Tuesdays at 5AM, you can start getting your dose of Architecture, Coffee, & Ink! So In addition to that, the blog post will now come out at noon ET on Tuesdays. There will be a slight delay, just to allow me to add the link to the Spotify episodes to my posts.
Altogether, this has been an absolutely crazy week, and as we are moving into the next one, it is not going to get any less crazy for me. Finals in America are fast approaching, or if you are in Architecture school like me, you might be starting yours this week like I am, so I would like to take a moment and be encouraging, that you are going to do great! Don’t listen to the nagging doubt you are probably feeling. Just concentrate on your designs-because let’s be honest, no one will know them as well as you do. Remember that drawings are of a bridge and expression of your design. Sometimes, I think we forget about it, because in the field, we have two distinct types of drawings. The pretty, photoshop, theoretical explorations, that we use to convey our concept, and the technical construction documents, blueprints, however, you may call them. And sometimes, I at least, get so caught up in getting the technical details into the theoretical that I genuinely forget to take a moment and remember why I love doing the drawings and the field, in the first place. So my unsolicited advice to you, it is to take a moment, it can be only 30 seconds, to remember why you love design and the field in the first place.
So, those who know me are probably going to be laughing at me giving advice, because when I was writing and researching this episode, I was actually sitting in front of a CNC at my school fab lab. For those who don’t know what it is I actually am posting a picture of it on the blog, along with the usual episode notes and transcripts. But to be honest, it’s basically just a giant drill that carves away from a material, in this case foam. It always looks great, but cleaning up, leaves you looking like, well… Genuinely, I think if I just laid down and rolled in mud, I would have had less stuff on me. Maybe take a whole mud bath, and still been cleaner. I am personally using it to model some topography and show my project in the landscape, in a more abstract, representational way. If my whole presentation actually turns out, I will be possibly sharing some pics to the insta, which I genuinely haven’t had any time whatsoever to update or play with this week. I strongly suspect my winter break will be filled with me playing a lot of catch up on personal and fun projects. This week after my presentations and reviews, I will actually be heading out to the ASLA-American Society of Landscape Architects, conference. So like I said in a previous episode, since I study and am apart of both schools, I try-try- to be involved in both colleges, so I am pretty excited to hear and list to several of the speakers and presentations they have. If any other listeners see me, please stop by to say hi! I would love to meet others in the field this week.
But otherwise, on to the show! And as always, check your facts, source your sources, and check me!
So, in this week’s episode, we are going to be continuing our discussion on space, which again, I maintain, that while it is one of the most basic units of design, it is also, the most important aspect to have a firm understanding on. Or maybe, a firm enough understanding that you can learn how to manipulate it. Because architects are at their cores masters of manipulation. Using space and form within a building, we can craft the experience, express our values-make people feel, influence the way they think and experience a place, and so much more. There is a lot of overlap with story-telling, however, instead of our voices, we use our designs to create place and take you away on a journey. There is so many amazing curious things we can do with space. Now last week, I did a bit of an experiment with my listeners. And if you want to go check that out, you can check out part 1 first before continuing this episode. And I paired it that way on purpose. I wanted to start out with describing instead of defining, because I want that experience and understanding to strongly influence this episode. Like any piece of construction, I want my podcast to grow and build off of itself.
So last episode, I defined space as having 4 overarching definitions:
To directly quote myself: Space is defined as 3 different things on google, either the encumbered area, free of debris; the dimensions, height, width, depth; or finally positions between objects. And of course, the 4th is just as intangible, all-encompassing beyond, beyond earth. It’s what us humans refer to as the final frontier- a part of the beyond, to clarify, I am referring here to outer space, the in-between bits of area. Between the planets, and comprised of a vacuum. And if anyone ever wants to sit down with me and talk about astrophysics or any other space science, please hit me up. I was actually in a club when I was in primary school, in partnership with a space program. One of those super cheesy, amazing programs that is actually still around, so I won’t name drop. But I am not have studied it formally, but I absolutely love to attend lectures and hear other speak about it. And we will get to why this is relevant in a second, so just hold that thought.
Now in addition to the four definitions I also briefly mentioned about 2D, 3D, etc. So for those who know what it means, please bear with me a moment, but I am going to explain what those actually mean. So the D means dimension, and dimension will mean the measurement-at its most basic. So a 2D object is normally flat, it has height and width, but not depth. So drawing on a paper. 3D will have height, width, and depth. Which is humans, pencils, etc. Really, anything you see around you. I once hear two people argue for several hours about why paper should/shouldn’t be 2D/3D. It was surprisingly hilarious. 4D, however, is an abstract idea. It’s when you throw in dashes of time, etc. recently we started throwing in spacetime. I also believe motion can be considered a part of this as well. However, all together 4D is the most difficult to explain, which is probably why we as architects love to try and inhabit it. I feel like I need to take a moment and make a disclaimer that I am going to mention relativity, so if you suffer or are triggered by that, please skip ahead like two-ish minutes. So to break this down into the simplest of terms, in 1907, Albert Einstein, with the greatest hair known to mankind, had his “happy thought”. He realized that to two items in motion, one would not appear to be moving to the other. Basically, if you are on a roller coaster, and the roller coaster next to you is also falling, you can’t really see how much gravity is going on. Verses, the people in line-standing stationary, can see just exactly how fast/what the effects are. They are ‘removed’ from it. To be totally honest, it is way more complicated than that, and if you want to get into the principle of equivalence there are some really great papers out there. BUT for our sake, and the sake of the podcast, that’s roughly as deep as we are going to be going at the moment. So most of the papers I was reading, and even when I was being introduced to physics, used balls being dropped from a tower, etc. and the idea is more, if you are jumping off a roof, as he originally described it, verses being in a closed elevator. HOWEVER, for the sake of architects, this subtle explanation works pretty well in at least where and what we can manipulate. Now, it goes on further by someone called Hermann Minkowski, who is actually the one who tied it all together with the fourth dimension. He is the one who created the light cone diagram, which is basically where time is the x axis on a graph, y is space, and the present is the origin. And if you ever want to have your mind really blown, read H.G. Wells, and realize it was written before both of them.
So, what does all this have to do with space, and 4D?
So, there is both drawings and designs that are projected to only exist in 4D, but also, there is something called building information modeling, wherein the designs and diagrams exist with the fourth dimension of time. Additionally, like in the very simple example I described, architects designing things like roller coasters and elevators can be aware and manipulate the experience of the individuals using this idea. Now, my example probably wasn’t technically correct. Because, again, I am not an astrophysicist by any means. But, it is an extremely important idea, to understand that you can change the perspective with something as simple as changing the speed. But this also goes into the idea that some people think the 4th element is actually emotional, intellectual, or sensational-to clarify, the 4D movies, like at the Disney World Animal Kingdom are good examples but not technically actually 4D. It’s one of those topics that more people can agree on what it is, than can agree on what it is. But at its simplest, it has to have 4 ‘measurements’. And I really hope you can hear the quotations around that word. I have had some spiritualists I have met even call it the spirit world or Astro world, based on the idea that it has be/exist beyond the 3D world we all currently live in. Astro as in astro plane-like Astro projection. Basically, no matter who you ask, you can probably find a new definition and a new way of looking at it.
So, now we have a pretty basic understanding of the technical parts, let’s get into the design parts. Because this is not a physics podcast, and I will probably embarrass myself if I stray too much further into those topics. Naïvely, assuming I haven’t already. So space in architecture, is basically the entirely of the structure. As architects we attend structures class, and will sometimes, discuss positive and negative space, or live and dead loads. So live loads is the combined weight of the living things-people- in space, or moving temporary furnishings etc. It’s how you get occupation limits. But can also be books, or moveable weight. Dead loads will often combine the floors and other inanimate objects-walls, permeant furnishings etc. The best way to think between the two is, can/will it move-then it is live, or is permanent/semi-permanent-dead. Some people will call them applied and static loads respectively. Now just like in our other definitions, space can refer to the entire building or the in-between open areas that the Dead loads define, and the living loads inhabit. And I know someone is going to write in arguing this one, but I have had teachers from several different generations change the way that they were using the word and why. And to complicate everything even further, the term space is also used to describe the layout of the building and overall layout of the area. Now, recently I have noticed more and more books switching to referring to it as an aspect of urban planning and trying to make a distinction between whether they are referring to a radial grid in a city plan, vs the radial design in a building. And as long as you take into account the context clues and focus your understanding on the moment, most people I have spoken with manages to keep these concepts separate.
Remember last episode when I said that everyone was like describing colors without using the words? This is the clearest example for me of being able to do exercises like that are paramount to understanding architectural concepts. It’s all relative. And if you want another big mind trip, think about the fact that we are on a moving planet, on a moving system, in a moving universe.
So in space planning, whether that is a city or a building, the possible organizations are centralized, cluster, linear, radial, and grid. As I am sure several of you can guess, centralized means that there is a key, core element in the center of the design, while clustered has everything grouped together in one area, and radial spreads out from a central point. And finally grid, is of course, organized rows. If you don’t know what that looks like, you should google either Grids and Cities. But make sure you consider every source carefully. And that’s really all I am going to say about that, because I am actually considering eventually doing another BONUS episode one day about conspiracies and architecture, because some of them are hilarious.
But, some further readings I would likely recommend if you have the chance, and I have only read some of them, others are actually ones that I have been recommended and just haven’t gotten to. But the top three is “Lessons for Students in Architecture”, “The Social Logic of Space” and “Buildings and Power”. It pretty funny, I don’t think the person who recommended them realized I would try and look it up together, but those three books are listed together with the others on a reading list in Places Journal, and the ones I mentioned are the top three entries. So I will drop the link for that as well on the blog. And if next week I offer a weirdly worded retraction, it’s because the person who I just called out finally listened to the podcast.
But overall, space is important in how we control it. How we as architects define the movement, use colors to affect the moods and understandings, and overall, how we functions within spaces. Often times, we will allow programs to define and decide spaces for us. Sometimes the void is what defines it. And other times, we get into cool things like SPACE ARCHITECTURE, like in outer space. And other times, we take the positive and the negative space, the spaces linked by common areas, the space within spaces, the adjacent spaces, and the interlocking spaces, and we mix them all up to combine into a building. English is hard. If you can, I would always encourage you to add or consider a spatial study to your standard toolkit of design. Learn how you inhabit the space. Picture and describe the experiment from last week. Chances are, the depth of your project will massively grow.
Thank you once again for tuning in, Once again a big thank you to all my listeners! A quick call to action: Please rate and review, share with your friends, neighbors, and family, your professor-whomever you think needs some architecture in their life. We again have a Facebook page and private group, both of which are under the same name: Architecture, Coffee, & Ink. The answer to the question-who is the host-is Hollywood, like the city. And second question is just your opinion, and I might just use it as a recommendation for a show with a little shout out. If you want to either be featured, or have a case study suggestion or perhaps just want to share a story of your favorite design or experience, you can either find me at Architecture, Coffee, & Ink the website is: https://architectureink.design.blog/ .
Insta is now architecturecoffeeandink! Just like the email address! Everything will be linked in the show notes. You can also email me at architecturecoffeeandink@gmail.com all spelt out without the ampersands or commas. I know that I am forgetting something, but oh well. I will probably, possibly be adding the pictures from my reviews, and everything else, while I am working this week, But thank you again for joining me-
May your coffee mugs be full, and your ink wells never run dry.
60 secs end song re-looped.
Sources
Cresswell, Peter. “Architectural Mini-Tutorial: Ceiling Decks.” The Organon Architecture Blog, October 21, 2009. http://organonarchitecture.blogspot.com/2009/10/architectural-mini-tutorial-ceiling.html.
“Dead Loads.” Dead loads – Designing Buildings. Accessed November 16, 2021. https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Dead_loads.
“Form and Space in Architecture.” Your Own Architect, June 29, 2020. https://www.yourownarchitect.com/form-and-space-in-architecture/.
“Google Scholar.” Accessed November 16, 2021. https://scholar.google.com/.
Google search. Google. Accessed November 16, 2021. https://www.google.com/search?q=4d%2Barchitecture&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS910US910&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwicw8uP5pv0AhXMSDABHT3SAgQQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1920&bih=937&dpr=1.
Google search. Google. Accessed November 16, 2021. https://www.google.com/search?q=washington%2Bdc%2Bgrid&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjogKG17pv0AhUmQkIHHXTqB30Q2-cCegQIABAA&oq=washington%2Bdc%2B&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQARgBMggIABCABBCxAzIECAAQQzIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMggIABCABBCxAzIICAAQgAQQsQMyBAgAEEMyBAgAEEMyBAgAEEMyCAgAEIAEELEDOgcIABCxAxBDOgYIABAKEBhQqQlY5ixgnz9oBXAAeACAAaABiAH3DZIBBDE3LjOYAQCgAQGqAQtnd3Mtd2l6LWltZ8ABAQ&sclient=img&ei=_hqTYeiJKKaEieoP9NSf6Ac&bih=937&biw=1920&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS910US910.
“Gravity Probe B.” GP-B – Einstein’s Spacetime. Accessed November 16, 2021. https://einstein.stanford.edu/SPACETIME/spacetime2.html.
Stein, Emma Rowden and Jesse, ***, Herman Hertzberger, Julienne Hanson and Bill Hillier, Thomas Markus, Philip Thalis and Peter John Cantrill, W. M. Mitchell, et al. “Reading List: Public Architecture.” Places Journal. Accessed November 16, 2021. https://placesjournal.org/reading-list/public-architecture/?cn-reloaded=1. _ This is the source I mentioned having a reading list of additional works that also divide into Space. I recommend checking it out!
“What Is 1D, 2D, 3D, and 4D? How Is It Easily Understood by …” Accessed November 16, 2021. https://www.quora.com/What-is-1D-2D-3D-and-4D-How-is-it-easily-understood-by-a-beginner.
“What Is 4d Construction?” VIATechnik, September 9, 2021. https://www.viatechnik.com/what-is-4d-construction/.
