CASA Seminar: Parameterizing land use planning by Talia Kaufmann



Image1.Talia Kaufmann gave the presentation at CASA Lunchtime Seminar. The image was taken by Networking City.

 On 10^th July 11, 2013, CASA Lunch Seminar was commenced in The Rockefeller Building. Talia Kaufmann, who is a visiting student from MIT Master in City Planning, provided her current research ‘Parameterizing land use planning’. After she finished her bachelor degree in Architecture Tel-Aviv University, Israel and worked as an urban planner for the Tel Aviv-Yafo City Planning Department.

Throughout the presentation, she showed brilliant ideas and cool images. Also, some arguable points were emerging in her presentation, and the considerable discussion between audiences and Talia was continued.

For example, one of her main idea is to randomly capture Google Street View images from several targeting cities and ask people to answer their sense of images. And it becomes the score of each city. The audiences questioned about the precondition of the idea. Can we measure the feeling of the city by just watching some images? Would there be the gap between the feeling of Street View images and the true feeling of cities? Is there any delicate setting for cultural backgrounds and individual subjectivity of participants?

This seminar could be a good opportunity for her to listen others’ comments, articulate the ideas and develop many possibilities of her research.

 

 

SHOW RCA 2013

 

 

Image1. The entrance of the exhibition (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

The architecture students’ works of Royal College of Art revealed at their annual exhibition ‘Show RCA 2013’ from June 20 to June 30. Except fashion design which already opened its show on May 29, there are two exhibition areas where are Kensington and Battersea for 10 departments of RCA. The department of Architecture has its own exhibition place in Battersea with Applied art, Fine art, Photography and so on.

The exhibition place looked an old warehouse, therefore, the weird tension between rough feeling of the old building and innovative works of the students generates a marvelous atmosphere.

 

Image 2. The exhibition place of RCA (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

As I looked around six studios’ works, it was coming to me that the works of RCA students are pushing beyond the realm of architecture with the imaginary and creativeness of the students rather than being sustained in it. Some students show very architectural drawings, some works might suit to consider as fine art or sculpture, and it would be possible to meet some works at the exhibition of video art.

Image 3. The exhibition place of RCA (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Image 4. The exhibition place of RCA (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Image 5. The exhibition place of RCA (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Image 6. The exhibition place of RCA (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

 

 Like the exhibition of The Bartlett which this blog introduced before, (http://networkingcity.blogspot.kr/2013/06/bartlett-summer-show-2013.html )

this exhibition gave an opportunity to clearly understand that architectural thoughts can be shown with multiple media including videos, 3d displays and installations which were set up in the exhibition place as the works and rooms for watching videos.

 

Image 7. The exhibition place of RCA (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Image 8. The exhibition place of RCA (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Image 9. The exhibition place of RCA (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Image 10. The exhibition place of RCA (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Image 11. The exhibition place of RCA (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Image 12. The exhibition place of RCA (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Alexander Turner (http://alexander-r-a-turner.tumblr.com ) suggests the simple and strong ‘wall’ for East Sussex against indiscreet urban sprawl. This plan of housing and public space for 2000 inhabitants, which might fall under the influence of Dogma (http://www.dogma.name/index.html ), is outstanding among many works.  

 

Image 13. The work of Alexander Turner (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Environmental issue is spotlighted here again. One student provides an interesting idea to purify air pollution of London by transforming BT tower into a filtering facility in the worst polluted area in London. This work was introduced on Dezeen last week and has been paid attention from international readers.  http://www.dezeen.com/2013/06/24/synthetechecology-by-chang-yeob-lee/

 

Image 14. The work of Changyeob Lee (The image is taken by Networking City)
 

In fact, it was more impressive when we visited other exhibition areas after the department of architecture. The quality level of the works of fine art, photography and sculpture students is easily over the normal level of masters’ students, therefore, it would not be strange if we meet these works at museums in London with professional artworks. In addition, buildings and working facilities for students look very nice to do something creative.     

 

Image 15. The exhibition of Applied Art (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Image 16. The exhibition of Sculpture (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Image 17. The exhibition of Fine art (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Echo Morgan’s works (http://echomorgan.com/ ), which were displayed in the area of printmaking, are distinctive to provide multiple and complex faces that can be variously interpreted. She intended to show the vital force of vulnerable human body when a fragile woman’s body is accompanied with brutal metal balls. Furthermore, the photo, which captured the scene of a tree with the same metal balls in ruined industrial landscape, is planned to illustrate the vulnerability and vitality of nature as well as the coupling of the human body and nature. When it comes to me, the metal balls, which were firstly close to the sight, underline the human body and the ruined landscape, which are actually the background of the photos, therefore, the tension between figure and background creates the enormous power for being these photos lively.  

 

Image 18. The work of Echo Morgan (The image is taken from Echo Morgan's website)

 

Image 19. The work of Echo Morgan (The image is taken from Echo Morgan's website)

 

 

Image 20. The work of Echo Morgan (The image is taken from Echo Morgan's website)


 

Bartlett Summer Show 2013

 

The School of Architecture, The Bartlett at University College London opened their annual exhibition ‘The Bartlett Summer Show 2013’ on June 21. In this year, around 500 students participated in the exhibition and there are hundreds of drawings, architectural models, videos and installation works in Slade Galleries where the exhibition place is.

 

Image1. University College London (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Image2. Barteltt Exhibition place (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Image3. Barteltt Exhibition place (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Image4. Barteltt Exhibition place (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Image5. Barteltt Exhibition place (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Image6. Barteltt Exhibition place (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Image7. Barteltt Exhibition place (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Image8. Barteltt Exhibition place (The image is taken by Networking City)

 More than previous years, lots of students and units try to show their ideas by using not only models and drawings but also multi-media tools and installations. And it could be understood that the focus of the school is shifting to the architectural-urban reactions against complex social aspects of contemporary cities from the traditional architectural studies. For example, the impacts of social media on cities, Environmental problems in the near future and the revisiting urban contexts by modern artists’ views.

 

Image9. Barteltt Exhibition place (The image is taken by Networking City)

Image10. Barteltt Exhibition place (The image is taken by Networking City)

Image11. Barteltt Exhibition place (The image is taken by Networking City)

 

Among many great works, the works of Diploma unit 22 and Diploma unit 10 were mightily impressive to me. In the case of Diploma unit 22, they understood the volumes of architecture and cities as the formation of multiple layers of flat surface, and studied the meaning and the possibility of the layers and the gap between layers.   

 

Image12.The work of Diploma unit 22 (The image is taken by Networking City)

Image13.The work of Diploma unit 22 (The image is taken by Networking City)

Image14.The work of Diploma unit 22 (The image is taken by Networking City)

Image15.The work of Diploma unit 22 (The image is taken by Networking City)

Diploma unit 10 rethink the relationship between human and nature based on environmental problem, which is getting serious, and imagine new urban contexts adapting to the thoughts of previous architects and artists with the title of ‘Imaginarium of urban ecologies’. Particularly, the drawings of this unit are outstanding and exceptional. These made an exclamation by in detail, in depth, imaginative and implicative lines. I’m especially interested in European Union: The Gardens of Fantastica, the work of Steven McCloy who conceptualise new Paris with the view of Surrealism.  If you want to see more images of Steven McCloy, please visit the blog http://stevenmccloy.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Image16. The work of Steven McCloy (The image is taken by Networking City)

Image17. The work of Steven McCloy (The image is taken by Networking City)

Image18. The work of Steven McCloy (The image is taken by Networking City)

The Bartlett exhibition will continue to June 29, 2013.
In this week, AA School and RCA open their annual exhibitions as well. Networking City is going to the exhibition and will update the posts for them soon.