Columbia University GSAPP Core Studio II S2013

Karla Maria Rothstein, Critic Jennifer Preston, TA

LHE N I A W I LY H B A B E E N G T C L AVE N K W E
Heatherwick studio, UK Pavillion for Shanghai Expo 2012 Seed Cathedral - a manifestation of its content 15 m wide x 10 m tall. From every surface protrude silvery hairs, consisting of 60,000 identical rods of clear acrylic, 7.5 metres long, which extend through the walls of the box and lift it into the air There are 250,000 seeds cast into the glassy tips of all the hairs

A bank is both a repository and a site of calibrated transformations. Time regulates and is precisely measurableit sequences events and structures our lives. Time is also illusive and preciousoscillating across states of compression and expansion. Money, time and memory slip between material and immaterial significancephysical, worldly substances and ephemeral, even misleading, impressions. This studio will explore intersections of banking, time and the legacies we leave behind, where the exactitude of accounting will be balanced with the imprecision of selective cognitive memory. Projects will navigate and re-shape the present with an awareness of remembered pasts and a persistent drive for anticipated futures. Memory alters time. Gaston Bachelards concept of compressed time will here be understood as decidedly embedded in the public flux of urbanity.
I n t he t heat r e of t he p a s t t h a t i s c o n s t i t u t e d b y m e m o r y w e t h i n k w e k n o w o u r se l ve s i n ti m e , when all we k now is a s e q u e n c e o f f i x a t i o n s i n t h e s p a c e s o f t h e b e i n g s s t a b i l i ty a b e i n g who does not w ant t o me l t a w a y, a n d w h o , e v e n i n t h e p a s t , w a n t s t i m e t o s u s p e n d i ts fl i g h t. I n it s c ount les s alv e o l i s p a c e c o n t a i n s c o m p r e s s e d t i m e . T h a t i s w h a t s p a c e i s fo r. - T h e P o e t i c s of Sp a ce , 1 9 5 8 .

Time is measured locally, in classifications as small as the radioactive decay of atoms, and the slow progressions of our mortal finitude which connect us universally. But circadian rhythms are sometimes unsettled, and as we approach the speed of light, time dilates. The theory of relativity intertwines space and time. It is within this four-dimensional universe of modern physicswhere systems are qualified by context and experiences are individually out-of-syncthat we will intensively explore ideas and their spatial consequence. Work will exhibit the capacity to contribute to, if not radically alter, the public landscape of the Cityboth collective and individualized, established and in flux. LEGACY is the impact of investment. It is what is left behind, and what enables the future. Lenses of duration and ARCHIVE will filter our work. We will explore the nature of accumulations and disbursements, and define the type and mechanisms of deposits, retrievals and transactions. We will debate what is worth keeping, why and how it is honored, and for how long.

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The CELLULAR nature of the private vault and storage archive will be interrogated programmatically, materially and experientially. Spanning the scale of minute, individual deposit boxes to a robust urban forum, a dialog between intimate retreats and opportunities for collective urban EVENT will be informed by individual positions on the public and private nature of legacies. The grammatical tense of the archive is the future perfectwhen it will have been. Always operating in the present, our ambitions are aimed at the futures we may construct. Precise thinking and articulation of CONCEPT are essential to the critical positioning of your work. RESEARCH is both abstract and scholarly in its discipline. It will include vigorously iterative, yet highly constrained, catalytic material experiments and exchanges, diverse critical analyses, and
Enzo Mari: Struttura 895, Omaggio a Fadat,1967 A machine for producing volumes through light 64 lamps, 64 switches, plexiglas and steel support, 87,5 x 74 x 203 cm Shown at Milans Galleria dellAriete Luce e Movimento [Light and Movement] Exhibition

rigorous assessment of pertinent data. Meticulous, even obsessive, exploration across diverse media and territory is required and will be mined and translated toward tectonic specificity and environmental performance. Metrics of duration, scale, and capacity will be tested, analyzed and calibrated to hone precise innovation. Work will be intense whether in structuring a debate, detailing formwork for concrete experiments, or defining the variables of a grasshopper script. Projects will explore visceral, territorial, urban manifestations of place and exchange. VALUE will be defined in a context of both finite and compounding resources, giving new agency to notions of leverage, profit, assets, and liabilities. Each student will explicitly define the REGULATORS of their banks organizational systems, re-qualifying the studio program through individual conceptual and operational INTENT. Projects will understand, and where necessary, re-write zoning and public policy to support critical aspiration. We have an obligation to the FUTURE. While intimate experience of space and perception will be palpable, projects will be decidedly metropolitan, global even, in their awareness of context and potential impact. The work of the studio will explore fluctuating boundarieszones in which physiological and phenomenal effects are enabledcalibrating the intervals and margins which accommodate changing states, conditions, or actions. Propositions will be CIVIC in nature, crafting a physical, social, and psychological terrain constituted by public sanctuary, accessible archive, and open-ended OASIS for spontaneous urban activity; choreographing the delicate intersection of private memory and public space. We will invent systems of transformation, imprinted by lives expired, and supporting a future of your making.

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KARLA MARIA ROTHSTEIN, critic Karla Rothstein has taught design studios at all levels in the GSAPP for the past 15 years. [Link]/ project_category/6/ She is a registered architect and the Design Director at Latent Productions, a design practice operating at the nexus of architecture, real estate, finance, and research. [Link]/capacities/ In 2011, based on her professional and academic work related to spaces of death and memory, Karla was appointed as a member of the Columbia University Seminar on Death. She most recently presented at the seminars 2012 Conference, addressing the contentious and evolving environment of death studies in the 21st century. In addition to a bakery-bar-restaurant and apartments in Gowanus, and a carwash on Long Island, her firm is currently designing a 10,000 SF techno dance music venue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Rothsteins first single-family house is included in Kenneth Framptons American Masterworks (2nd ed., Rizzoli 2008). [Link]/projects/ She most recently presented at the seminars 2012 Conference, addressing the contentious and evolving environment of death studies in the 21st century. She is currently completing a chapter for Praegers 2013 publication, The New Realities and Controversies of Dying in America, Vol. I: Trends in How and Where We Die and Grieve.

JENNIFER PRESTON, ta Jennifer Preston has taught with Professor Rothstein at GSAPP for five years. She is the Director of Sustainability at BKSK Architects, an architectural practice in New York City. In her professional work she leads the research, design and practical integration of high-performance building ecologies. Jennifers ongoing research combines emergent science, simulation modeling and shared resource mapping to inspire future solutions in urban food production, global waste networks, micro remediation landscapes, comprehensive redlist development, and net positive architecture.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
In addition to th e studio- wide Bibliogr aphy, t he f oll o w i n g s u g g e s t e d R e a d i n g / R e f e r e n c e / R e s o u r c e s m a y b e u se fu l to yo u r resear ch an d th e spe c if ic c r it ic al pos it ioning of y ou r w o r k .

Allen, Stan. Notations and diagrams: Mapping the Intangible in Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation, 2009 Appiah, Kwame Anthony. The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen, 2010 Balmond, Cecil. Informal, 2002 Burdett, Ricky and Deyan Sudjic, eds. The Endless City: The Urban Age Project by the London School of Economics and Deutsche Banks Alfred Herrhausen Society, 2008 Cadwell, Michael. Strange Details, 2007 Colomina, Beatrice. Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media, 1996 Corner, James, ed. Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Architecture, 1999 Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation, 1981 Derrida, Jacques. Archive Fever, 1998 Dickinson, Greg, [Link]. Places of Public Memory: The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials, 2010 Deutsche, Rosalyn. Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics, 1998 Foucault, Michel. Of Other Spaces (1967), Heterotopias. [Link] Harvey, David. Spaces of Hope, 2000 Johnson, Steven. Emergence: the Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software, 2001 Kubler, George. The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things, 1962 Reiser + Umemoto. Atlas of Novel Tectonics, 2006 Sorkin, Michael. Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space, 1992 Steedman, Carolyn. Dust: The Archive and Cultural History, 2002 Tanizaki, Junichiro. In Praise of Shadows, 1977 Vidler, Anthony. The Architectural Uncanny: Essays in the Modern Unhomely, 1994

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