T24.5 Start Again #1

In the first of the 'Start Again' half of the lecture series, Peter Carl returned to give a summary of his initial 'rip up' of the contemporary city. He addressed how through our 'duty of care', we as architects are preoccupied with 'doing good', creating salvation through social engineering, when in reality the city needs its proportion of 'bad' and conflict to function. Though I agree that architects shouldn't merely insert pretty pieces into the city and hope that solves a problem, the work seen later in the lecture by Studio Weave was of a very aesthetic nature, yet was well received by the public. (Though these pieces look to be mainly set in the better parts of the city in the first place), ie Somerset House:



Maria Smith from Studio Weave presented using the metaphor of bridges to convey ideas. the most prominent idea being the disconnection between an architect's social conscience and their need to make a living. Why are they mutually exclusive? Can a project be playful but also make money? An interesting point was raised at the end of the lecture of whether small practices can take a bigger role in their 'playful designs' and design buildings that are less invisible but equally as carefully designed. Why should mainly big practices with the higher PI cover get the more high profile jobs? There should be a bigger push in the profession to share big schemes between smaller practices rather than tackling all design scales of a big project within one office. Money shouldn't be the only motivator in making a team work, personal and team motivation is important (sometimes seen in the creation of stories to aid in a schemes selling).

Maurice Mitchell continued the theme of ethics in architecture, questioning how we should practice, with narrative courage, modesty and wakefulness. 'Sometimes great design occurs where there are no architects', accommodating particular design rather than 'throwing the baby away with the bath water.'

David Kohn's presentation of the situation in art gallery design was very current, questioning how local communities will be able to involve themselves in the art world if there is no funding in it anymore. His sensitive and grounded response in promoting green spaces and art cohesively seemed effective, where the woodlands cut to accommodate a new art centre would be constructed using the felled wood and also used as fuel to run the facilities, so that the parks themselves are not purely there to be enjoyed as recreational spaces but have an active use. This part of the lecture seemed very relevant to our unit work as we focus on the difficulty in designing to conserve our city's green spaces, doing so in an appropriate way. This approach seemed appropriate.

Kohn's diagram of a collaboration way of working rather than the traditional divides between consultants, contractors, commissioners etc was also intuitive and seemed to echo discussions regarding consultation held in our proposition seminars of working with others and our role as designers.

Particularity rather than general was important to this lecture, though every presentation and project shown contained a more particular approach to design, from unique schools in india, to never ending benches on beaches by Studio Weave.