Lajja : Web sites that bring nothing but Shame

Providing stimulation and guidance to a profession should be a professional institutions main objective. However, apart from providing a list of rules and regulations to the membership, the SLIA doesn’t seem to budge. At least they should redesign their website in a proper user friendly manner, which would probably only cost them a small amount as compared to what they gain in membership fee as well as other modes.
A website should be an interface which the institute/organization interacts with the public. However if the SLIA website is anything to go by in terms of an interface, it would probably seem like the profession isn’t very interested in interaction. (Note how many “Log in” screens come up) There are so many things left to be criticized in the website, but i don't think I know enough about webdesigning to make any further comments. (check the website out yourself)
Contrastingly note how user friendly the RAIA website is. It has separate sections for different type of users. And it also has a spot to showcase the member’s works. The amount of information available in RIBA and AIA website are very well documented.
At least the SLIA should make an attempt to design a proper website so that the profession has proper interface to the community, since the profession is often being criticized on its attitude towards public.

The Architectural Conendrum : Amendments to the UDA act

In 2009 April the UDA (Urban Development Authority) act was amended so that the Architect gains full responsibility in designing buildings. This new amendment has been welcomed with a lot of criticism, especially by the draftsperson’s guild.
It is true that there maybe a handful of Architects in the country (around 500) since the process in creating an Architect is a strenuous and hard journey, but that does not mean that the amount of Architects in the country is insufficient to feed its needs.
The haphazard developments littering the urbanscape are the product of a society deprived of the services of such professionals, wherein that profession itself is nurtured and nourished by the society itself. The amendment should be seen as the securing of public rights, rather than a hindrance, as a minute few that claim it to be. After all an Architect is a trained professional who has to go through a 7 year arduous educational process where as draftspersons are seen as a facilitating entity to the profession who only are experienced in drafting and not design.
By the enactment of the amended act, not only will the built environment improve but more notably, the bogus professionals who waste public wealth and time will see an end to their charades.

Find an article (in sinhala) on this here ( Use either iExplorer, or install relevant font from Website)

Kedella

Image stolen from here

How to Make an Architect : The 7 year Curse

Like most Architects I too was a victim of the 7 year curse. That’s the 7 years spent in becoming an Architect. (CSA students are even more cursed…they get 7+) To become an architect one must first get the basic degree (B. Sc) which is a 3 year course and then work at an architectural practice for one year to be eligible to enter a 2 year masters course. Then again he/she/it has to spend another 1 year at an architectural practice in order to sit for the SLIA (Sri Lanka Institute of Architect) part III examination. (BSc and Msc exempts SLIA part I and part II)

The first year at University, was more or less a “wandering in the dark” episode for me. The lecturers seem to ooze of a self proclaimed aura of architectural knighthood, and they weren’t really amused with my attitude either. I was never a Marxist (a student who grovels for marks) hence I never did get that many marks.

It is common understanding that once you enter through to the halls of the faculty of architecture that an architecture student completely abdicates his right of sleeping at night. And after sometime when you see your family sleeping at night you begin to think that there’s something wrong with them.

Crits are another amusing little affair that you get exposed to at archi-school. After weeks of designing, endless nights of drawings up pretty looking pictures, and hundreds of cutter knife cuts on your hands, some guy comes and blasts you to Timbuktu. Ah! The joy!....

Sleepless nights inevitably translate as sleeping through lectures, and I really can’t recall a single lecturer that hasn’t made me sleep. I vividly remember how the urban planning lecturer tossed me out of class in lieu of my habits.

If the students survive these three years they then face the ultimate challenge. The CDP (comprehensive design project) a design which in theory should be buildable. (But in reality you only need a bunch of nice fancy pictures, some fancy lingo, and a nice smile.) I recall my CDP with utter hatred. It deprived me of the joys of dining in the numerous “dansals” since CDP is held mostly in the month of May. Answering the primordial call for our colonial affinity to white skin, a sudhdha fellow from the RIBA, (Royal Institute of British Architects) is flown down for this special occasion. Some pass, some fail, some stay indifferent. It’s said that once a student even resorted to commit suicide after failing and another interesting student resorted to chase a lecturer with a knife. Interesting!

The year off at an office is quite a change. You get the opportunity to sharpen you CAD monkey skills and you also get the chance to becoming an architect cum receptionist cum peon cum tea maker. Most of all you get the chance to actually get to see how real architects work. (Then worship the ground they tread upon)

One year there and then back to campus for the two years of M.Sc. These two years seem to drift away faster than the previous three. Lecturers seem to take a different stand on how to treat the students (apparently they think the students have matured by now, goes to show how little they actually know) then arrives again the dreaded CDP. The sudda fellow is dragged back again to the island of small miracles.

Thrown out again to the field, the student labors one year at an architectural practice, this time with a bit more respect added, and then the SLIA part III.

Some are fortunate enough to get through this ordeal in one shot. But this is seldom not the case. There are reported instances of students actually trying to claim the prescripted right to the buildings themselves.

In the end of the whole process, if every thing goes as it should, you end up with a fine architect.

Well maybe not a “fine” one, but at least you get a Chartered Architect.

Fun toys for Archi boyz! (and also girls:) )

City Engine




City Engine

ILoveSketch from Seok-Hyung Bae on Vimeo.

ILoveSketch

Shanghai Apartment Topples Over

In the weekend’s bizarrest news, a nearly finished, newly constructed building in Shanghai toppled over, killing one worker. As can be seen in the photo below, the 13-story apartment building collapsed with just enough room to escape what would have been a far more destructive domino effect involving other structures in the 11-building complex.

The development, known as “Lotus Riverside,” has a total of 629 units, 489 of which have already been sold. Now buyers are clamoring to get their money back, and authorities are making efforts to reassure them. The assets of the project’s developer, Shanghai Meidu Property Development Co., have been frozen and the city officials said the developer’s ability to repay homebuyers was secure, according to a statement on the municipal government’s Web site (in Chinese). A hotline has been set up for Lotus Riverside buyers, and by Sunday afternoon, more than half of them had met with a group of lawyers and officials organized to help them negotiate with the developer, according to the statement.

Meanwhile, the cause of the accident is under investigation and nine unidentified people from the developer, contractor and management company have been detained.

A representative of Shanghai Meidu could not be reached for comment.

The disaster could reveal some uncomfortable facts about lax construction practices in China, where buildings are put up in a hurry by largely unskilled migrant workers, and developers may be tempted to take shortcuts.

According to Shanghai Daily, initial investigations attribute the accident to the excavations for the construction of a garage under the collapsed building. Large quantities of earth were removed and dumped in a landfill next to a nearby creek; the weight of the earth caused the river bank to collapse, which, in turn, allowed water to seep into the ground, creating a muddy foundation for the building that toppled.

The South China Morning Post noted that the pilings used in the Lotus Riverside development, made of prestressed, precast concrete piles, are outlawed in Hong Kong because they aren’t strong enough to support the kind of ultra-high buildings that are common in Hong Kong. But in mainland China, they are often used because buildings there are typically much shorter.

Quality problems have long plagued construction in China, though they seem to be more apparent in rural areas and smaller cities, not in major metropolises such as Shanghai and Beijing. When school buildings were flattened by last year’s massive Sichuan earthquake, a number of parents faulted shoddy construction for creating “tofu buildings” that fell while other nearby structures were able to withstand the impact of the quake. More recently, state media reported that several new dams along the Yellow River are in danger of collapse, a situation attributed to shoddy construction practices, embezzlement and unqualified workers.

Source

How to Build a Temple in 10 Days:The way how Architecture should be taught

I was reading this interesting article in the bussinesweek online. Pretty interesting concept of teaching architecture, through practice rather than by theory.

by Diana Lind

An innovative program encourages students to design and build culturally appropriate architecture

Eight-and-a-half days is barely enough time for most people to get over jet lag when traveling, but for a group of nine students from Catholic University in Washington, D.C., it's a period of intense work in far-flung locations such as Nepal, Machu Pichu, or Ireland. Through a program called Spirit of Place/Spirit of Design, taught by architect Travis Price, the students come to these exotic settings ready to build a project they've spent the spring semester designing. The small structure they erect—whether a temple, a pilgrimage shelter, a sweat lodge, or an outhouse—does not just add to the startling beauty of its locale; it taps into and expresses the location's culture through architecture's symbolism.

Almost 15 years ago, Price had a revelation that great architectural forms are often mystical and mythical. He sought a way to introduce students to the "mythic modern" by enforcing the need for "poetic specificity." Much like Sam Mockbee's Rural Studio, which has made a brand of regionalism famous, Price aspired to "counterattack homogenized internationalism" by teaching students to draw on a site's culture to give meaning to architecture.

From the beginning, students have shown an overwhelming interest in the program: As many as 135 applied for the nine spots in the first seminar. Now the program includes both an undergraduate 3-credit course and a 9-credit graduate studio.

There are three parts to the class: First, students study a site, its ecology, and culture, and write poems and create sculptures in response. "It's metaphor-driven in the initial stage," Price says. Then, the students' ideas are combined until a single architectural model is chosen for them to build as a group. The second half of the semester turns into what Price calls "IKEA mode"—where every single screw for the project is accounted for, so that when the team goes on-site, the structure can be swiftly built.

What makes this program different from other design-build programs is the focus on teamwork, consensus rather than compromise, and the search for metaphor in architecture. According to former student Brendan Rogers, "It was an education in culture, place, architecture, construction, self, and life all wrapped up in the building of a temple in 10 days. This is only possible when the group becomes an organ fundamental to the common goal." Another former student, Jennifer Doney, says, "In one word: transformative. While I learned a tremendous amount of practical/professional architectural knowledge during the design development during the school year, it was the physical construction of the temple on-site in Bellmullet that will stay with me forever."

Price's goal is to expand the program to another six architecture schools and to catalog his ideas about site-specific design into a pattern language. For now, his program will continue to expand students' minds. "After doing this program, how can a student build a phony Tudor house somewhere?" Price asks. They probably can't, and almost anyone can agree that's a good thing.

We asked Travis Price more questions about his Spirit of Place projects, and this is what we learned:

About the floating house the students built in the Amazon: The house is part of an ecological research and resort village up river with canopy walks, sub-aqua septic systems, photovoltaic systems, and modernist indigenous architecture. It is occupied by visiting researchers and eco-tourists. It's an amazing place with eco-activists running around with CIA and replete with smugglers and drug runners up river. Google Iquitos if you can.

About how he finds the sites for the projects: The sites are generally privately owned. Most times it's a private owner. Many of the projects are also on the edge of government involvement, especially in Ireland where art is high on the agenda for particular government leaders.

Most of the projects come to me years in advance through a vast network I have at National Geographic, architects, and world clients. For instance, this year we are building the National Monument for the 250th anniversary of James Hoban (an architect of the White House) in Callan, County Kilkenny, Ireland (a three-part project: 1. in Desart – birth spot, 2. Callan – the nearest township, 3. Washington, D.C., near the White House).

In 2009, our project will be a new Chuwa Temple deep into the Eastern Plateau of Chungpa, Tibet. We'll be working with monks, local villagers, and repatriates, all with Chinese applause and approvals.

About his adventures: There are so many, many amazing tales for each and every project, like being fire bombed by Maoists in Nepal, having Shamans and royalty worship at oursite when finished and then dining with the Crown Prince three days before he kills all the royal family. Or swimming with piranhas in the Amazon by day and dining on them at night with live grubs. Or, building on the spot where River Dance was spawned in County Mayo, Ireland. Or paying off the Mafia in Pantelleria for designing the shrine of Venus where Odysseus lay with Circe. Or tricking the bureaucrats at Machu Picchu to drink at the opening party of the Star Gazing Temple to sign permits after it was built, while watching repressed Incans arrive to have their first non-Catholic all Quechwa wedding at the site. Or …

So much I am writing my second major commissioned book right now, Spirit of Place: Architectural Expeditions into the Ethno-Sphere, to be published by Palace Press. I anticipate it will be published by the end of 2009. There is a mini-chapter about it in my current book, The Archaeology of Tomorrow.

Cultures and Sacred Space, in addition to being a full graduate studio and concentration, is now a two-year graduate program at Catholic University's Department of Planning and Architecture. I am the director of the concentration.

Provided by Architectural Record—The Resource for Architecture and Architects

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