pdf - Viktor Timofeev

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Spring/Summer 2012
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The production and publication of PLAT would not have been
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possible without the talents and generosity of:
Joseph Scherer, Eileen Witte
Sarah Whiting, Dean, Rice School of Architecture
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Lars Lerup, Dean Emeritus, Rice School of Architecture
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Farès el-Dahdah, Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Studies, Rice School of Architecture
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GRANT DIRECTOR
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PLAT
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Joseph Scherer,
Eileen Witte
EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION
05
Jonathan Massey
TEMPLE KABBALAH MADONNA
06
IN CONVERSATION WITH ANTOINE PICON
14
IN CONVERSATION WITH JOHN MAY
16
James Witherspoon
LOOKING THROUGH YOU18
Robert Yuen
LANGUAGE OF THE INSTANT26
Jeongsun Oh
THE PRODUCTION OF SPACE28
Michael Banman
RE-VISIONING: ACTIVATING THE PICTURE PLANE34
IN CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL MALTZAN
David Dewane
VIKTOR TIMOFEEV IN CONVERSATION WITH DAVID DEWANE40
Jansen Aui
HOUSE FOR ROTHKO50
38
DRAWING: Eléna English
Jessica Rossi-Mastracci
LANDSCAPE ATMOSPHERES58
56
IN CONVERSATION WITH ANTOINE PICON
60
IN CONVERSATION WITH JOHN MAY
62
Dimitri Kim
FUTURE PROOF66
Charlie Morris
YOU ARE SEEN... PARTLY72
IN CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL MALTZAN
74
DRAWING: Ian Searcy
76
Braden Engel
NEBULOUS TERRAIN78
IN CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL MALTZAN
94
DRAWING: Eunike
96
Jack Murphy
COMMAND R: THOUGHTS ON DIGITAL RENDERING98
Jonathan Crisman
READING JULIUS SHULMAN106
Alex Tehranian
MEGASTRUCTRE IN MANHATTAN114
Jessica Cronstein
OUR FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE122
IN CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL MALTZAN
126
DRAWING: Sam Jacobson
128
Andreas Kalpakci,
David Rinehart,
Jimmy Stamp
SPACE, CRIME, AND ARCHITECTURE130
Noam Shoked
THE URBAN AS PROJECTION OF DESIRE140
Marcin Kedzior
SERIES URBANISM148
Carolyn Sponza
CARTOON URBANISM152
Allison Newmeyer,
Stewart Hickes
P.L.O.T.S156
Thomas Hillier
THE EMPEROR’S CASTLE160
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FOREWORD
Sarah Whiting
Already in 2004, long before proposing in its pages the September 17, 2011 occupation of Wall Street that
led to today’s still-powerful popular campaign against the inequities of global wealth, the anti-consumerism
magazine Adbusters was advocating that the media was not necessarily a public pacifier, but instead a
potential public catalyst:
Know the media. Change the media. Be the media.
Adbusters’ promotion of culture jamming as a strategy of popular political activism dates as far back as the
organization’s founding in 1989, but it’s this three-part slogan that best captures the contemporary relationship between the public sphere and the visual. Countering the lament that visual culture is controlled by
capitalist empires and has reduced attention spans, intellectual depth, and political acuity, Adbusters offered
the possibility that the media could be co-opted tofoster its own audiences and ends.
Architecture culture has long been aware of the impact of representation: Beatriz Colomina’s 1994 book,
Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media (notably the most frequently cited reference
across this issue of PLAT) compellingly illustrated that the manipulation of visual media is part and parcel
of architectural representation (and has been, throughout architecture’s history). This issue of PLAT helps to
extend this now-familiar refrain of manipulation (whether that of capital or that of the author) to engage new
topics engendered by representation. As the editors note, PLAT 1.5 focused on new techniques of representation, whereas this subsequent issue turns its attentions to the effects of those techniques in creating new
interfaces between architecture and the public.
Technique is, of course, still very much at play in this issue (techniques of anamorphic projection, techniques
for “incorporating the intangible,” techniques taken from the commercial and the comic, techniques for exhibitions…), but framing the issue in terms of the public effects of these techniques is extremely provocative.
No singular effect or overarching redefinition of the public emerges from the collection; instead, the reader
has to form his or her own thesis about representation after reading through this potent combination of innovative representational strategies (hand-drawing that avoids nostalgia, sculpture that allies with photography,
media that embraces without dumbing down the masses…) and topics (forging a “language of the instant,”
the potency of the scale figure, the risk of reconstructing Rudolph…). Like the still inchoate, but clearly
potent effects of the collective strategies underlying the Occupy movement, representation is in the midst of a
not-yet-defined paradigm shift that not only engages, but forms an entirely new collective audience, and this
issue does a terrific job of capturing this flux without prematurely fixing it in place.
PLAT
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REPRESENTATION VOL. 2:
IF YOU SEE SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING
Joseph Scherer and Eileen Witte
In the late 1970s, Dr. Harold “Andy” Hildebrand invented the world’s first stand-alone seismic data interpretation workstation. With carefully placed charges, he sent sound waves into the earth’s crust, recording their
reflections as images. He used his device to map oil trapped deep below the surface – much to the delight of
his employer, Exxon Mobil.
He’s better known for ruining music.
After realizing that the same technology for collecting seismic data could be used to detect, analyze, and
modify pitch, Dr. Andy created his second major invention: Auto-Tune. Unfortunately for our prolific inventor,
this breakthrough proved to be more controversial within its target industry, as evidenced by Jay-Z’s song
“D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune).” Its “artful” calibration of pitch was widely perceived as cheating.
But what is “cheating” exactly? To a third grader, it’s not cheating if you aren’t caught. To an inventor, it’s
not cheating, per se, but rather innovating. Auto-Tune is part of a long legacy of technological developments that augment vocal performance. Its capacity to invisibly adjust wayward pitch effectively removes
“good-pitch” from the talent equation, allowing other aspects of vocal performance – timbre, emotion,
range – to be foregrounded.
It’s one thing to use technology to conceal flaws; it’s another to use it visibly toward new ends. Beyond its
intended use, Auto-Tune can convert held notes into trademark vibratos or news reports into stylized operettas. Similarly, technological and social changes prompt architects to find ways of leveraging representation to react to – and design with – these developments.
But Auto-Tune hasn’t just changed vocal performance, it has changed the way we judge performance.
Whether you call it cheating or inventing, the development and exploitation of technology initiates new
public understandings and interpretations. In this issue, we consider the visible and invisible effects of
new representational interfaces between architecture and the public.
The recalibration of the components of architectural representation creates new emphases and legibilities.
Relinquishing their traditional performances, representational techniques find new, ulterior motives. Analysis
of the utopic, heterotopic, and dystopic lifestyles portrayed by representation reveals narratives, both intended and unintended. The composition of affect and atmosphere through techniques of abstraction can create
immediacy or add depth. New ways of curating existing forms of representation illuminate the conceptual
and process-driven aspects of architecture for new audiences. Engaging extradisciplinary interpretations and
mediatizations of architecture suggests alternative strategies for operating in familiar territory.
We might never win by cheating, but by making up our own rules we’re putting an entirely new game
on the table.
5
Spring/Summer 2012
VIKTOR TIMOFEEV IN CONVERSATION
WITH DAVID DEWANE
Viktor Timofeev is an artist living and working in Berlin, Germany. Despite
having never formally studied architecture, Viktor’s work confronts the basics
of architectural drawing, renegotiating its techniques in the invention of
symbol-laden or gratify-defying spaces. In the following conversation, former
RSA student David Dewane asks Viktor about eight works, discovering the
motivations and considerations behind the synthesis of abstraction and
representation inherent to his fantastical landscapes.
July 8, 2007
This drawing is just one from a torrent
of drawings you produced in a short time. Could you
tell me something about this piece and that period
in your life?
started pulling out forms from some of these works
into the old city outside. So you get giant Architekton
shapes floating in the sky, casting shadows onto
these really old buildings with gothic windows and
onion domes. In this particular drawing, Venice
is reduced to a square block and turned into an
inverted piazza, where the buildings are clustered
together, surrounded by a void. The cluster is made
from of all the Venetian archetypes I was looking at:
the piles, the arcade, the gothic arches, and even a
reductive version of Palladio’s Redentore church.
david dewane:
viktor timofeev:These
drawings were done at a time
when I was doing a drawing a day, each one building on top of the last one. There was never time for
stopping to look back, just going forward at that
pace for a whole year. This one in particular came
during my second month in Venice. I was working there as an intern in the Peggy Guggenheim
museum, and was getting up super early to draw the
streets and buildings around town, before they were
overrun with tourists.
August 18, 2007
dewane: What about the image with the ink blot over
the line drawing? In this series, there were a number
of two-dimensional plans and three-dimensional
solid extrusions. How were these constructed?
The Peggy Guggenheim collection is really strong in
early twentieth-century painting. Since one of our
duties was guarding, I ended up spending a lot of
time with Malevich, El Lissitzky, Kandinsky, Vantongerloo. It was a really strange experience being
with these works on a daily basis in such a dead
city. They look forward in time and are still brimming
with futurity, but are kept in a place where nothing
new has actually been built in a very long time.
The blobs came first, and I don’t even
remember how they exactly happened. Basically, I
ended up with a bunch of stains on my papers, and
I thought I should work with them, incorporate them
somehow – map a city around them to give them a
context or give them a house, a shadow, or imply
some kind of movement.
timofeev:
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July 8, 2007
August 18, 2007
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I was still in Venice, so I was pulling from the same
archetypal forms, but this time I made them wireframe. I think there is something really interesting
about viewing an old city through such a contemporary device. One would be able to pull back the
layers of history and see that the city was not preplanned, but rather just accrued over centuries of
living. So I tried to mimic those layers when housing
these forms.
content – a system of containment and a system
of existence within that containment. As a starting
point, I was looking at El Lissitzky’s Of Two Squares,
though I tried to remove it somewhat from its
original Socialist agenda. The book is a tale of two
squares flying through space, attacking this chaotic
world, and the red constructing on top of the black.
The narrative grows out of weird parameters, almost
a kind of narrative abstraction. So I made my own
narrative, which consisted of starting simply and juggling more and more variables as I went.
I am surprised to know that the ink came
first and the lines came after. I always assumed the
underlined drawing came first. There is something
interesting about the reverse reading. If you look
at this from the perspective of someone trained in
architecture, you recognize and relate to the digital
wire frame. However, when you start a digital model,
you typically start with a completely clean space.
It’s incredible to imagine modeling space around an
amorphous form, especially something this aggressive. Have you ever worked with three-dimensional
modeling programs?
dewane:
There is a linear growth happening to the black
system of containment – the walls slowly multiply
and the whole thing slowly grows in complexity.
I guess they’re permutations, though I can’t say
they’re exactly rational. It makes its way down to
the Terragni building, which I think is the only real
building referenced in there. There is a box on piloti,
but that’s really just a combination of Corbusian
elements that doesn’t really exist. Anyway, complexity grows around existence, and then it reverses,
implying an infinite loop.
I did a long time ago, but it was, like, CorelDRAW. [Laughs]
timofeev:
dewane:
192.128.1.2. [RTVLD444]
dewane: What does this image mean in terms of how
our generation looks at or responds to the city?
But none of the contemporary programs?
timofeev:
No. I made a decision not to do that. I
really wanted to have an original trajectory to push
off of. It might look like a rendering program, but it
is just super rational space. You don’t really get anywhere mimicking software, you don’t really learn –
you actually make yourself more dependent. This is
a conscious mimicking of the wire frame technique,
which itself becomes part of the content of the work.
Or experiences the city. There is a two-year
difference between this drawing and the previous
one, so a lot changed in my approach to representation. At the very beginning, I was doing direct observation and then redrafting the built environment,
meditating on what’s already out there. This Rietveld
drawing, on the other hand, is about entering a
world that is totally invented. It takes some lessons
from what is on the street, but it is ultimately a
fantasy world where I invent the rules and the architecture involved.
timofeev:
RED/BLACK
dewane: In the Red/Black pieces, you move from the
purely abstract to inserting recognizable references.
What was the concept behind this series?
The two garbage containers that are jutting together
started out as paper models, which I forced together
and set up on this kind of stage/table thing I have
in my studio. I basically decorated this house in the
drawing with my own objects, some of which clash
from different stages of history, and other things
It came on the heels of a year-long drawing
project, which taught me the basics of how to craft
space on paper. Red/Black began with just four
pictures that set up a very simple binary of form and
timofeev:
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RED/BLACK
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which I am simply attached to – maybe things you’d
find on the street, and some symbols that might
belong to some distinct community, real or fictional.
It becomes a portrait of an invented village that
generates a narrative out of these combinations.
dewane:
Does it have to do with a different sensibility
toward possession?
dewane:
It’s more about re-functioning. Basically, it’s
a different way of looking at the city and figuring out
how to have fun with it. It really works to reduce all
architecture to a hedonistic activity where you don’t
care what’s in a building; you just care what the outside surfaces are like. Iain Borden writes about this
in Skateboarding, Space and the City. Any Mies van
der Rohe building – like the marble outside the Seagram building, or the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin
– is a dream spot. You obviously don’t intellectualize
it while you are doing it though; it’s more primal
than that. And I’d hate to see it any other way.
timofeev:
What is the narrative in this image?
Well, the protagonists here are the Z chairs.
I populated the landscape with four of them: inside,
outside, and in various orientations. They exist in
this desolate space that looks a little post-apocalyptic and thrown together, but it’s also pretty luxurious.
The wallpaper is pretty decadent, and there is a spiral staircase. So the Z chairs are kind of just hanging
out there, talking to each other.
timofeev:
192.128.7.1 [OST_LAN]
timofeev: This is one of my favorite drawings from
this series.
It does seem like there are decadent elements, but it also seems like things are in a state
of decay rather than a state of flourishing. There is
an interesting juxtaposition between the modernist
artifacts and the elements of the street (dumpsters,
telephone poles, wires). How is this influenced by
the skateboarding culture?
dewane:
dewane:
Why is that?
There were a few ideas I had in my head
that I put off for a long time because I didn’t know
what to do with them. The previous drawing is the
second of a series of line drawings of communities
that I constructed on my desk out of solids and
then decorated with various things. The landscape
actually could exist in this way – it was still relying
on a good amount of gravity, for example. There is
no transparency or hovering. It’s fragile, but it holds.
I broke away by the sixth or seventh one, where I
started to get deep into pattern and started to focus
on inhabiting the pattern itself and less on decorations. It developed in a linear way from one to the
next. This drawing is much weirder, less resolved,
and more irrational.
timofeev:
Skateboarding has been central to me for
over half of my life. It’s something that I incorporate
without even thinking about consciously...I mean,
it’s in my blood at this point! So it is there whether
I want it to be or not. I have an extensive collection
in my studio of photographs I take from the street.
It’s a whole atlas of things that I’ve found that are
curious. I photograph them, print them out, and put
them all around my studio. That goes together with
things that are out of books or magazines or video
games. I wouldn’t say that my work is influenced by
skateboard culture, because it can seem contrived or
exploitative, but, like a skater, I am always scanning
the street looking for new spots – interesting things
that I can use and make my own. I’ve caught myself
doing this even when I was injured for a few months
– it’s not something you can just stop doing. I don’t
know if this form quest led me to making my own
worlds in the studio. Maybe it has something to do
with it, but I’m hesitant to say that’s exactly where it
comes from.
timofeev:
It feels more atmospheric. The pattern adds
a level of abstraction that frees your mind up to
think about the forms in different ways.
dewane:
You are hovering over the landscape and
you don’t actually know if you want to land because
you might fall into the pattern. It gives you less to
hold onto. It is an embrace of the irrational and the
timofeev:
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192.128.7.1 [OST_LAN]
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LPZG_84
timofeev: There is a housing project in Berlin, in
Lichtenberg, which is an East German neighborhood
where there is a lot of block housing. I guess after
the wall came down they tried to make some of
these buildings less depressing by painting rainbows
on them, right across the façade. But the rainbows
were four colors: the primaries plus green. What
was weird was that the rainbows actually made the
building more depressing. The first time I visited
it was in November and the sky was grey and
everything was dead and the trees had no leaves. So
everything, even the architecture, was completely
desolate… but then you have these rainbows. It was
totally insane.
comfort of the flat picture plane. The pattern has no
perspectival distortion, and you have a triangular
grid over that with deep voids. If you were to flip it
upside down it’s the Yale Art Library ceiling by Louis
Kahn, which is where I got the idea for this drawing.
Maybe all you have to hold onto is the triangular
beams, or the upside down rope and trees, to
prevent you from collapsing into the deep void. Or
maybe it would be nice to fall into the void, who
knows?
192.128.13.14 [WEAVER_OF_DREAMS_84]
dewane: Could you tell me about texture in
this image?
The larger idea in the piece is that you
are surrounded by this cavernous space made from
triangulated surfaces. Each facet is textured and
“points” in a different direction, going from light to
dark without any real rationality. My strategy here
was to make no attempt at rational space.
So I had an idea of making something with the rainbow. I used standard worker housing units stacked
to form a pyramid with the Rietveld open corner
window, which is kind of luxurious. That is my
contribution to worker housing. Here is a monumental arch made of weird, gravity-defying architecture
that I guess could exist if you forced it to work,
but they can’t do it naturally without falling down.
Each container has a segment of the rainbow in a
slightly different way, so you get a sense of identity
preserved through the modules of worker housing, like the Lithuanian flag becomes a Rastafarian
flag downstairs. And then I used a Malevich textile
pattern as the wallpaper in the foreground trailer.
Everything is rendered very crisply and, in a way,
imitates a cheap rendering.
timofeev:
In the distance there are these other mountains that
are also crystalline surfaces textured in the same
way. You get the feeling that you are existing in a
landscape where patterns rule. Once you start to
get into it, you see the patterns are actually eating
other parts of the composition. They are attacking
the garage dumpster and feeding on its insides. In
the immediate foreground they are reaching out with
claw-like fingers. So the whole thing becomes this
anthropomorphization of texture. I was also into
the idea of inventing my own vegetation that has
hexagonal leaves and grows in these really weird
and twisted lines.
What are the advantages of working with
paint versus working with pen?
dewane:
Painting gives you the advantage of color,
texture, and surface. It allows you to access a
completely different level of reality. For example, the
wood surfaces in this piece are made to look simulated, like textures on a mid-90s three-dimensional
model or like computer games from that period. It
tries to imitate something, fails, and in the process
creates something completely new and better. It’s a
hybrid reality that both imitates and creates.
timofeev:
The vegetation seems very impotent. It feels
like weeds that grow up through concrete or trees
that grow through a chain link fence.
dewane:
Yeah, the vegetation is kind of pathetic. It’s
certainly not a heroic depiction of nature – it feels
like it’s failing and weak, but then again it’s my own
invented vegetation.
timofeev:
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192.128.13.14 [WEAVER_OF_DREAMS_84]
LPZG_84
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Rothko in his East Hampton Studio, 1964
dewane: There are a lot of clear 20th-century references in your work as a whole, but this was piece
was totally unique. What is it?
doesn’t make sense, but I feel like they completely
transcend the definition of flatness.
My paintings have to have real voids painted in. It
speaks to how I see things changing and what the
definition of a void is fifty years later. This drawing was a simple move and also kind of funny. In
the photo, he’s just sitting there looking at these
rectangles, these portals. We are conditioned to look
for so much more because of how intense things are
with the general information overflow of modern life.
I’m curious if Rothko would have painted the same
way in the 21st century.
This is apparently a really famous picture of
Rothko in his studio staring into his painted voids. I
got to thinking that maybe we don’t see these paintings in the same way now. I can’t help but feel that
the logic of the screen has changed something in the
collective perception of space. So in this drawing,
his biomorphic voids transform into authoritative
spaces – these tunneling grid holes that point to a
space outside of themselves. I’ve always seen his
soft rectangles as portals into hidden dimensions, so
maybe this was my way of trying to tap into them or
rationalize them. On the other hand, it’s also about
my own attempts at appropriating those spaces,
that extra-dimensional platform that his paintings
can channel. It kind of gets to the heart of morality
in painting – the issue of flatness versus illusion. I
think that the two can unquestionably coexist at this
point, and maybe that speaks to an image-saturated
world. But for me, crafting with perspective is both
about the medium’s history as an illusionistic window into another world, and its relationship to the
infinite space of a computer monitor. It’s funny actually, because I often feel like Rothko’s paintings have
a ton of perspective in them. Maybe this actually
timofeev:
dewane:
Rothko is also from Latvia, as are you?
Yes, I believe he was a Latvian-born Jew
who immigrated when he was very young. I just got
back from Latvia, actually. I just had a show there
at Riga Art Space, which was my first show in my
hometown of Riga. I moved away from there when
I was thirteen and immigrated with my parents to
New York. Since moving to Germany, I found myself
reconnecting to the Latvian community here in
Berlin and reconnecting with my identity. I was really
happy to do the show because I feel like I was finally
able to tap into the Latvian art community a bit, not
as an outsider, but as a Latvian artist.
timofeev:
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Rothko in his East Hampton Studio, 1964
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
Jansen Aui is an architectural designer located in Mel-
Thomas Hillier is a trained architect who practices in
bourne, Australia. He graduated from Victoria University
London and teaches undergraduate architecture at London
of Wellington, New Zealand with a Master of Architecture
Metropolitan University. His interests go beyond the built
degree, having completed his studies there and at the Uni-
environment, with a particular interest in how literature can
versity of California, Berkeley. He is currently working in
be translated into urban and architectural space. He attempts
practice at the design office Elenberg Fraser.
to look at architecture from a different perspective, using
unorthodox narratives and programs to create original and
Michael Banman is currently an Associate at Stantec
surreal observations.
Architecture, in Winnipeg, where his work explores the role
drawing conventions play in developing architecture, the re-
Andreas Kalpakci is a Swiss architect living in New
lationship between drawing systems and material assemblies,
Haven, Connecticut. He is currently completing his studies
traditional construction practices and emerging technology,
at the Yale School of Architecture as a Master of Environ-
and the local economy. Also interrogated by his work is the
mental Design, class of 2012. In his research, Andreas ex-
embodied productive role inherent in architectural presenta-
plores the project for a World Capital between 1899 and 1914,
tion over the symbolic and often reductive show of architec-
focusing on the role played by Paul Otlet, Belgian forefather
tural representation.
of information science. Andreas can be found on twitter @
dotcitizen.
Jonathan Crisman is the editor of Thresholds, the
Journal of the MIT Department of Architecture. He is also
Marcin Kedzior teaches Interior Design in the Bach-
the executive director of 58-12 Design Lab and can be found
elor of Applied Arts Program at Humber College. He cur-
at jonathancrisman.com.
rently lives and works in Toronto and is a founding editor of
the critical journal Scapegoat: Architecture, Landscape and
Jessica Cronstein is a designer and writer interested
Political Economy.
in the point where the social, cultural, and physical growth of
a city intersect. She is currently a project associate at Urban
Dimitri Kim is a founding member and principal of
Omnibus, an online project of the Architectural League of
xmanifold applied research design laboratory (LA, NY, HI),
New York. She lives and works in New York City.
a cross-disciplinary design and research outfit dedicated to
critical understanding of emerging issues in architecture,
David Dewane is currently a design architect at
urbanism, and media. Prior to creating xmanifold, Dimitri
Gensler, in Houston. As Founder and Executive Director of
worked for Testa/Weiser and LAR/Fernando Romero, and
Libraries Across Africa, his current research focuses on how
has worked with Eric Owen Moss, Elena Manferdini, and
anticipatory design can be applied in a developing world. He
Greg Lynn in Los Angeles. Dimitri Kim received a Master
also enjoys ecology, prisons, and Charlie Rose.
of Architecture from Southern California Institute of Architecture and a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural
Braden R. Engel is Senior Lecturer in Architectural
Design from Columbia University.
History and Theory at the California College of the Arts, San
Francisco, and Lecturer in Architectural History at the Uni-
Michael Maltzan is an AIA Fellow and principal of
versity of California, Berkeley.
Michael Maltzan Architecture in Los Angeles. Building on
his background in the arts, he is committed to creating ar-
Stewart Hickes is Co-founder of Design With Company
chitecture that is a catalyst for new experiences and an agent
(www.designwith.co) and teaches architecture at the Univer-
for change in our cities. This work has been recognized with
sity of Illinois Urbana Champaign. Design With Company
numerous accolades, including five Progressive Architecture
practices “Slipstream Architecture,” which reveals latent con-
awards, 23 citations from the American Institute of Archi-
ditions of reality through design narratives and fictions. tects, the Rudy Bruner Foundation’s Gold Medal for Urban
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Excellence, and as a finalist for the Smithsonian/Cooper-
Jack Murphy is currently an architectural designer with
Hewitt Museum’s National Design Award. His designs have
Dyal and Partners in Austin, Texas. He received his Bachelor
been profiled in over 100 national and international publica-
of Science in Architectural Design from MIT, where he com-
tions and featured in exhibitions worldwide. He is the author
pleted a semester on exchange at TU-Delft.
of No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los
Angeles and Beyond, published in 2011. He lectures inter-
Allison Newmeyer is Co-founder of Design With
nationally and often serves as a design instructor, lecturer,
Company (www.designwith.co) and teaches architecture at
and critic at prestigious architectural schools, including Rice
the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Design With
University, where he was the Visiting Cullinan Professor dur-
Company practices “Slipstream Architecture,” which reveals
ing the spring 2011 semester.
latent conditions of reality through design narratives and
fictions. Jonathan Massey is Associate Professor in the School
of Architecture at Syracuse University, where he has chaired
Jeongsun Oh is a freelance designer based in the Unit-
the Bachelor of Architecture Program and the University Sen-
ed States. She graduated from the Southern California Insti-
ate and co-founded the Transdisciplinary Media Studio. His
tute of Architecture with a Master of Architecture degree in
research addressing topics from ornament and modernism
2010. Her graduate thesis was The Production of Space. She
to sustainability and risk management has appeared in many
has previously worked at design offices such as Asymptote
journals and essay collections, including the books Crystal and
Architecture.
Arabesque (2009) and Governing by Design (2012).
Antoine Picon is the G. Ware Travelstead Professor
Jessica Rossi-Mastracci is a landscape and ur-
of the History of Architecture and Technology at the Har-
ban designer located in Philadelphia. She graduated from
vard Graduate School of Design, where he also co-chairs
Washington University in St. Louis with a Bachelor of Arts
the doctoral programs. He holds simultaneously a research
in Architecture degree, and is currently enrolled in the
position at the École nationale des ponts et chaussées. He
Master of Landscape Architecture program at University
has published numerous books and articles, mostly deal-
of Pennsylvania. Through her work, she gravitates towards
ing with the complementary histories of architecture and
infrastructural, remnant, and other weird landscapes, where
technology, including French Architects and Engineers in
site-specific qualities can be engaged as urban landscape
the Age of Enlightenment, Claude Perrault (1613-1688) ou la
organizations.
curiosité d’un classique, L’Invention de L’ingénieur moderne,
L’Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées 1747-1851, La ville territoire
John J. May is Assistant Professor in the John H. Dan-
des cyborgs, and Les Saint-Simoniens: Raison, Imaginaire, et
iels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the
Utopie. Published in 2010, Picon’s most recent book, Digital
University of Toronto, and founding partner in FirstOffice, a
Culture in Architecture, proposes a comprehensive interpre-
Los Angeles-based design practice.
tation of the changes brought by the computer to the design
professions.
Charlie Morris is a visual artist currently residing in
Houston, Texas. After receiving his Master of Fine Arts de-
Noam Shoked is an architect based in New York. Noam
gree from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana,
studied architecture in Israel and holds both a Masters de-
he has actively shown his artwork in the United States,
gree in architecture from The Cooper Union and a Masters
Mexico, Iceland, Spain, and Scotland. He is currently an
degree in architectural history from McGill University.
Adjunct Professor at the University of Houston School of
Art. More information on his works can be found at charliemorrisart.com.
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Spring/Summer 2012
Carolyn Sponza, AIA, LEED BD+C, is a practicing
architect and urbanist in the Washington, D.C. office of
Gensler.
Jimmy Stamp is a writer living in New Haven, Connecticut. He graduated in 2011 from the Yale School of
Architecture with a Master of Environmental Design and is
currently working with Robert A.M. Stern on a book about
the history and influence of Yale’s architecture program.
Jimmy also writes the architecture blog Life Without Buildings (lifewithoutbuildings.net) and can be found on twitter @
lifesansbldgs
Alex Tehranian is pursuing a Master of Architecture at
Rice University. He has interned most recently at Thomas
Phifer & Partners in New York. Prior, he worked with Rawlings architects pc on the curation of the exhibition and led
the model reconstruction of Paul Rudolph’s Lower Manhattan Expressway in collaboration with Cooper Union and
hosted by The Drawing Center.
James Witherspoon is a designer at Hamilton
Anderson Associates in downtown Detroit. He received an
Americorp Award for a collaborative program he developed
with Young Detroit Builders to design and build sustainable
homes in Detroit. His work was selected for the AIA Descours 2010 Exhibition in New Orleans, and he is currently
designing a high school for the Recovery School District and
Orleans Parish School Board school construction program.
James lives and works in Detroit.
Robert Yuen is an architectural designer located in Ann
Arbor, Michigan. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies, a Master of Architecture from the University of Michigan, and is currently enrolled in the University of Michigan
inaugural class of the Master of Science program with a
concentration in Digital Technologies at Taubman College of
Architecture and Urban Planning. He has previously worked
at design offices such as HolaBird & Root, Wilkinson Blender
Architecture, and PLY Architecture.
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