A decade ago , the dream of virtual space was about to be realized, or so it seemed. Videoconferencing promised to eliminate the need for travel; the “glove” and VR glasses were ubiquitous features at malls as were elaborate 3D simulation pods. I remember architecture students at the time speculating about the end of architecture–who needs spaces for conferences,meetings, social interaction when all that can be done virtually. Oddly enough as the web has grown , virtual reality has become less about hardware and more about software ie social media 2.0. Seems virtual reality is getting more virtual. One major exception is the military use of virtual reality to wage combat at a distance.
Unexpected consequences are emerging :
On its face, it seems like the less stressful assignment. Instead of being deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq, some pilots and other crew members of the U.S. military’s unmanned Predator drones live at home in suburban Las Vegas and commute to a nearby Air Force base to serve for part of the day. They don’t perform takeoffs and landings, which are handled overseas. But the Predator crews at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada “are at least as fatigued as crews deployed to Iraq,” if not more so, according to a series of reports by Air Force Lt. Col. Anthony P. Tvaryanas. The [reports] also showed that Predator crews were suffering through “impaired domestic relationships.”
Why is this? Part of the problem lies in what Tvaryanas calls the “sensory isolation” of pilots in Nevada flying drones 7,500 miles away. Although there are cameras mounted on the planes, remote pilots do not receive the kind of cues from their sense of touch and place that pilots who are actually in their planes get automatically. That makes flying drones physically confusing and mentally exhausting. Perhaps this helps explain the results of another study Tvaryanas published with a colleague in May, which examined 95 Predator “mishaps and safety incidents” reported to the Air Force over an eight-year period. Fifty-seven percent of crew-member-related mishaps were, they write, “consistent with situation awareness errors associated with perception of the environment” — meaning that it’s hard to grasp your environment when you’re not actually in it.
Aaron Retica New York Times December 14, 2008
Although these studies were limited, it does conform to our sense that seeing is not being. By working with concepts, plans, sections and other instruments, Architects are constantly looking at the third dimension as an equivalent of the other two. We move around, through designs, we make models, hold materials in our hands, look at architecture spatially. This effort to “be” in the world to inhabit “the flesh of the world” as Merleau-Ponty famously wrote about the third dimension, joins the haptic with the visual, or so we hope.
Over the past decade the explosion of design publications, print and digital, and the advances in 3D rendering have placed a premium on the image. One hallmark of our times is architecture as a spectacle; if it looks spectacular it will get press, regarless of it’s virtues or weaknesses. This creeping emphasis on the visual brings us back to the virtual. If pilots are losing their minds because of the loss of the environment and architecture is reduced to image–at least in publications, shouldn’t we give pause to how we consume and produce architecture.
It’s interesting that computer models, as wonderful a tool as they are, do not replace physical models. Could the touch, texture, light qualities and spatial nuance of physical models be what allows us to “grasp the environment’ in a way those pilots can’t? And as abstract as a plan or section is could it be that at a fundamental level these kinds of drawings allow metrics and order of the environment to be cognated, something the drone pilots were missing.
STIX and CIRCA have both been published in the current issue of SPA-DE (Space and Design Vol.11) as part of the magazine’s “International Review of Interior Design” issue. The inclusion of these projects in SPA-DE, a Japanese publication, follows our recent features in the Korean magazine, PLUS Architecture and Interior Design. (February #262 / May #265)
A project’s design gets launched by a diagram, a sketch that somehow holds together everything that is known about the project and can absorb what is coming. The sketch for the design of a chapel for Shepherd of the Valley, of Hope R.I., came out of many conversations and interviews with the parishioners, the two pastors and the building visions committee…their needs and aspirations for the church. SOV is the product of two churches, the Phenix and Hope Methodist Churches merging together in the seventies. Shortly after their merger they outgrew their prefab building and when we met them, we found that they outgrew their building again. The chapel is a part of a much larger master plan, also conducted by 3six0..which set the chapel’s footprint shape, size and location…a semi-attached pavilion that is a northern extension of the existing education wing. The western wall was determined not to be parallel to the eastern wall, but instead it would swing in, forming a trapezoidal plan. This would define a more open space on the exterior of the west side of the chapel.
The diagram gained insight as a kind of accident. In one of our presentations to the church, we realized with embarrassment that we had forgotten the spire on our model of the existing church. Then, after adding a spire to the model, we found that it kept being knocked off. So I thought, “what is a spire anyway?” and looked the word “spire” up in the dictionary. What I found addressed the purpose, history, aspirations of openness, expansion and the specific diagram of the chapel.
I found that the word, “spire,” comes from the Latin root, “spirare,” or “spirit.” “Spirare” is also the root of “inspire, ” “respire,” and “spiral,” a geometry that is always expanding and contracting like breath.
At the same time, we were starting to work on the chapel’s design, with the narrowing trapezoidal plan and its supporting perimeter walls. We found that if the ceiling’s geometry is square to each supporting wall, instead of being a compromised geometry in between the two walls, the lines of the geometry continue to spiral around like a string wrapping the space. This became a convincing order for the design of the chapel: the geometry of the ceiling/roof and floor spirals north setting the structure, windows, and ceiling/wall acoustic fins.
Now looking back at the facades of the historic churches…the ones that formed Shepherd of the Valley, you can see something that is very interesting.
The Phenix Church is on shown on top. It has its structure out of sight, within its skin of siding. The Hope Church, shown second, has its structure poking out from the skin of siding and its roof is sucked in. It is as though the two churches where inhaling and exhaling: the body carving a cavity, the skin taut, revealing structure on the inhale and the body and skin relaxing on the exhale.
The perimeter of the original walled city of Shanghai is still evident from aerial photography. The city wall was initially constructed in 1553 during the Ming Dynasty to protect the fishing village from Japanese pirates who were pillaging the coast. It is quite unusual for a village of such little importance to have an extensive city wall as the one that was constructed. This construction is testament to the strategic location of Shanghai on the Huangpu River just south of its convergence with the Yangtze River. The city wall was 8 meters high with a total length of 4.8 km.
After Shanghai became one of the treaty ports in the second half of the nineteenth century new urban development occurred to the north and west of the walled city. These European and American developments were referred to as the Concessions. Foreign residents in the Concessions lived and operated under their own governments and were exempt from Chinese law. The native Chinese population withdrew to within the city wall and the area became know as Old Town. The traditional Chinese character was preserved within the wall while the new architecture of the concessions was of a European style with traditional Chinese accents.
The city wall was eventually demolished and the moat was filled after the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912. The wall was replaced by two curving roads, Renmin Lu to the north and Zhonghua Lu to the south. Replacement of medieval city walls and moats with modern ring roads was a common occurrence in twentieth century Chinese cities. Nowhere is this as strongly recognizable as in Beijing, where the square city wall was replaced by the Second Ring Rd in the 1950’s.
Location of original Shanghai city wall shown in red
Locational of Beijing city wall and its southern extension
Today much of the architecture in this portion of the city retains the traditional scale and density of Old Shanghai. Many of the buildings are well over 100 years old and are in deteriorating condition. Electricity has been brought to the structures as evidenced by all of the overhead power lines, but most of the structures lack plumbing. Public latrines and sinks are located along the lanes. This lack of infrastructure and the low rise/high density nature of the neighborhood have created a truly active street life. Shops and markets line the lanes and the distinction between private and public is blurred.
Traditional housing within city wall
Traditional housing within city wall
Currently there is much debate on how to handle these historic neighborhoods in quickly expanding Chinese cities. Activists are now speaking out against the widespread razing of the traditional urban fabric and are pushing for preservation. Preservation in the strictest sense is not a feasible option since much of the fabric is in such squalid condition and the needed infrastructure improvements are overwhelming. Turning the area into a “museum” is not a solution either since it would merely preserve the structures and not the active civic life.
Traditional building of Old Town
Portion of neighborhood being razed
With its transition from a production economy to a consumer economy, China is realizing its great potential as a tourism destination – both to domestic and foreign visitors. This opportunity has not been missed in Old Town with the development of Shanghai Old Street, a new shopping district created in the traditional architectural style complete with Starbucks and Pizza Hut.
Shanghai Old Street - modern recreation of traditional structures
The preservation/development situation in Shanghai is considerably different than in Beijing where the medieval urban fabric extends across the whole city and is quite expansive (although quickly disappearing). Since Shanghai was a village until fairly recently its area of old urban fabric is rather small and concentrated and is definitely of a manageable scale.
In any case it will be interesting to see how Shanghai responds. We will certainly have our answer within the year as the Shanghai World Expo 2010 site is a short walk to the south of Old Town.
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