Session 7 MIT 4.370 Interrogative Design Workshop

we are very grateful to V and the V studio for their inspiring and generous Presence at Cs and MIT and we are looking forward to the presentation this season V aoni is one of the most important figures in our architecture today from his days as the poet in the early 60s to his sem performance work in the 70s to the large scale architectural projects in recent years our country has pushed from one discipline to the next approaching each as a kind of challenging new vocation this is perhaps uh a unique occasion in which V will speak present uh uh the work together with the members of from the studio in his presentation uh I assume VTO they tell us among other things this story of his poetic philosophical Journey from art in art gallery through art in public space to art as architecture fashion and to other fields of art of design the three members of his seren Bast G ricardi and Lunes will hopefully speak talk about the project they have been involved with uh the Creative Energy of country studio is driven by an open process that inspires the evolution from one person's project and one person's interest to many from many into many more this is one among many methodological artistic reasons for our interest and joy in hosting V studio in correspondence with Mark Taylor uh VTO AI wrote Because art is desperate it needs to separate itself from all other things that are nonactive it can't survive without a frame or a pedestal or a v or a wall or a floor or a room or a label or a plaque architecture is different architecture survives by breaking the frame or more precisely by melting theame architecture persists when clothing elapses into furniture and furniture furniture elapses into house and house elapses into City and City elapses into this thinking is yet another reason why we're very happy to see all of you here the studio intelligent sensitive and imaginative life perceptive and generous to each place the work they work with is pointing to us whether we are artists Architects or planers what it is to see whom it is to meet and from whom it is to learn in our Institute as in their own public arts and architecture their entry to seemingly familiar place makes this place feel unfamiliar and pregnant with new created cultural and existential potential during their presence the country studio will be meeting and establishing preliminary work in TI with fellows graduate graduate students and Europe students faculty students of our uh Center for Advance visual studies and visual arts program the program Islamic architecture students and faculty from other department and programs in school of art and architecture the two day meeting agenda is incredible it's actually is similar some ways to the agenda of students and faculty and my but when I read this uh it still impresses me they will be uh speaking and uh discussing uh their interest and their ideas with Department of electrical engineering and computer science computer science and artificial intelligence lab including robotic lab department of Material Science and Engineering a microtonic center Department of mechanical engineering short R weaving room section and the ambient intelligence group we have beautiful names here for various programs research groups the human dynamics group The Computing culture group of the media what at CS called our H is that uh with the continued support of the School of Architecture planning MIT counil Council for the Arts who help with bringing Studio here the media uh and others the studio will come back and continue uh their work with our students faulty researchers in our programs laboratory research groups at MIT here at MIT there are materials processes techniques and what is most precious people with their new ideas skills and knowledge here there are those with whom young Architects designers and artists my to work together with whose Knowledge and Skills they might wish to become familiar this is the way to which an informed artistic and design work by cross disciplinary teams can be born our agenda here at CVS is to create intellectual organizational conditions for such a cross disciplinary artistic and design work uh your excellent work work in Art and Design VTO Serena gett andar as well as your open generous and generative approach to creative process is helping us enormously in this agenda we would like to thank you for being here for sharing your work and for your interest in working [Applause] welcome all the occasions of everyday of everyday of everyday of everyday life uh the studio works you know the way the studio doesn't work is uh I start a project I I uh I have an idea for a project and oh I maybe just try a little louder for you have a mic yeah I have a mic is it on doesn't seem to I don't know just speak louder for really if I talk if I speak louder does that help no I think we should sh uh is there a particular light that's supposed to be on here because it's not oh okay that's it okay that again I I I didn't hear only going to the camera can we just get closer okay so so in other words we don't have a mic for this room no okay I I somehow assumed this was the mic uh sorry okay uh the way the studio doesn't work is I have an idea for a project everybody else carries it out the way the studio maybe it'll work better if I stand uh the way the studio does work is maybe I start a project off not always but maybe I start a project off uh with a general method a kind of general idea then we talk a lot we argue a lot we disc discuss we argue we uh uh we whatever that project started from becomes a very different thing once we work once we work on it together uh obviously the the work oops the work didn't start as as as design and I want to give a quick survey of how how work how worked got of design uh my uh yeah I should talk about backgrounds of people uh uh Dario Dario Dario is an architect Serena is Serena is from an art an art background uh a background a background a background of uh of uh being an art an art an art curator kind of interestingly and I I I find significantly that uh design starts to I think infect everybody who's in the studio and I think Serena has probably always been a des designer but maybe didn't realize it enough until we started working we started working to working together at the studio uh my work came my work started not as not as architecture not as art but as but as writing until 1968 stuff appeared in a context of writing context of poetry so stuff of mine did begin with space but it began with a space of a space of a space of a page uh I was concerned with question questions like uh what makes you move from left margin to the page to right margin what makes you turn from one page to the next page next page Etc I felt towards the end of the time I was writing that I couldn't use on the page a word like tree a word like chair because this referred to another space a space off the page whereas I could use on the page words like there then at that time in that place in other words words that directly referred to my activity of writing on the page your your activity of reading the page uh gradually something very obvious became clear to me that if I was so interested in movement if I was so interested in travel why limit that movement to an 8 and a half by 11 by 11 piece of paper there's a floor out there there's a ground out there there's a street there's a city so stuff stuff changed in 1969 changed context from writing context to from writing context to an art context why an art context because at that time uh I think what interested what interested a lot of us in art was that art seemed to be a non-field field art was a field that didn't have any specific characteristics of its own except for the fact that it was called Art so art was a field into which you could import from other fields you could import from Psychology from sociology from from history from news when I started doing stuff in an art context the my starting point was that all my life up until that time I had been used to thinking that I knew what my ground was my ground was this piece of paper in front of me now I didn't have that ground anymore uh so now that I didn't have that ground what gives me a reason what gives me now that I'm in real space instead of on a piece of paper what gives me a reason to be there what gives me a reason what gives me a reason to move one exam one example of early stuff a piece called following piece done in 1969 done for a program called Street Works in which a number of people were asked to do a piece over the period of a month a piece involving the street specifically New York streets the piece I did involved a very simple scheme each day for the month I would pick out at random a person a person walking a person in the street each day then I would each day then I would follow a person follow a person each day until that person entered a private place home office whatever so from page of the space I went to Street space uh the way I was thinking of pieces at that time I was I I think the terms I had was something like I a person an agent attend to it a world considered as if it's out there how do I key myself into that world how do I tie myself into that world gradually it became clear to me that maybe I was cheating I'm using my own person in pieces but I'm not making use of the person of my person I'm using my person as a kind of uh moving integer that's at the service of this external scheme so stuff started started to change in 1970 um uh uh rather than focus on it a world considered as if it's out there I start to focus on me uh uh so the space again changed from page space to Street space to space of space of space of the body uh a piece called trademarks biting myself biting as much of my body as I could reach uh once I had bite mark once I had a bite mark I could apply print ink to the bite mark and make bite prints the way you normally make finger fingerprints uh uh after doing pieces like this for a while and what interested me at first in these pieces was that I thought of themselves I thought of them as a kind of self-reliance I had only myself to work on to work with I didn't need I didn't need I didn't need anything else after a while what I started thinking what I thought what I started by thinking as self-reliance I started to think is probably a kind of isolation self-isolation so I had to bring other people into the piece into pieces more specifically I had to bring you the viewer in so the piece so that again the kind of space changed not the space of the self not the space of the body but a kind of relation space inter relation relationship space one example a 1972 piece called seeded conventional Gallery room about 25 ft wide uh about 45 ft long halfway halfway across the room the floor becomes a ramp the floor Rises to a height to a height of about 3 feet at the at the far wall uh uh the piece is done for a number of days over over a a a two week two week two week period the ramp is a a continuation of the floor person enters the gallery probably without thinking about it too much walks up the ramp as a continuation of the floor uh for the8 hour day from opening time of the gallery to closing time of the gallery I'm underneath the ramp I'm moving around under the space where viewers are walking I'm trying to I'm trying to constantly masturbate in order to do so I use viewers as help help in the sense that I hear viewers footsteps on top of me I can build sexual fantasies on those footsteps those sexual fantasies can keep my masturbation going every now and then the masturbation reaches climax viewer on top of the ramp might be thinking something like oh he's done this with me he's done this for me in retrospect this was probably the beginning probably the beginning of architecture uh in my in my in my work I was part of I was part of the floor I was part I was part of the room uh the reason for example for the 8 hour day the reason I mentioned the 8 hour day wasn't so much to stress the endurance test quality of the piece they'll probably like it or not like it or not it was that it was kind of like a uh an8 an 8 hour job uh each day each day for that two we period did I knew what my task was the reason for the 8 hour day was that it seemed important to me that uh when the first viewer entered the gallery I was already part of the floor when the last viewer left I was still I was still I was still part of the part of the floor uh it was 1972 now I started to worry that where my pieces maybe too connected to another time my pieces were so much about self uh one my piece is part of the language of the 60s the language of finding oneself as if the self was a kind of precious Jewel that happened to be lost somewhere but it wasn't the 60s anymore it was 72 73 74 75 I and a lot of other people had very different Notions of self self wasn't something you could isolate and contemplate rather self was a kind of system of feelers maybe self existed only as part of a social system a cultural system a political system so by the mid-70s work work had changed it wasn't uh it wasn't live activity anymore it was a it was it was in the form of what people at that time was starting to call a very very vague a very very vague term inst inst installations the way I thought of installations were was that a gallery or museum is a place where where people are going to be anyway now that people are there could a piece be used could a piece be used maybe to gather people together form a community one example a 1976 piece called where we are now who are we who are we who are we anyway you enter the gallery you enter the gallery by the elevator around the corner of that black of that black room the black room was usually used as the main room room of the gallery the doorway is blocked is block is blocked off uh next to the black room is a long table long wooden plank stool stools stools on either side on either side on either side of the table uh there's a hanging there's an audio speaker hanging above the table uh oh thank you okay thanks uh okay there's an audio speaker hanging above hanging hanging hanging above the table uh constant clock ticking as the clock is ticking voice comes in now that we're all here together and what do you think Bob now that we've gone as far as we can go and what do you think Barbara now that we're satisfied now that we know we failed Etc it was around this time I think that I started to have a really nagging nagging doubt about about art this piece for example was trying to treat a gallery or Museum as if it was a plaza as if it was a town square and I think I knew then that I was kidding myself a gallery or museum is never going to be a public space it's always going to be a private space if I really thought my work needed a public place a public space I'd better find i' i' I'd better find some way to get there and the way I tried to do it was uh it was obvious to me that there are disciplines that already deal with public space there's architecture maybe landscape architecture product product design so I thought maybe I have to sort of redo architecture for myself my work has always been about about the person about the body can I try to think of architecture in terms of the body AR obviously architecture is always in terms of the body architecture contain the body architecture acts as a kind of platform for the body but I wanted to do it maybe in a slightly different way I wanted the I wanted the body to be the cause of architecture so these first kind of grouping pieces at architecture uh in the beginning of the 80s were probably in retrospect a kind of uh uh rehearsal for architecture uh play architecture a kind of game of architecture this is a 1980 piece called called uh called instant house four Flags uh uh four panels American flag covered on the wall a swing in the middle if a person sits on the swing the swing goes down and the panels start to rise rise around the person sitting on the swing making this instant house and the instant house is American flag house inside Soviet flag house outside so you make one kind of space for yourself and as you're sitting on the swing you make another kind of space as an Ann as an as as an as an announcement for others uh so for me this was a like I said a kind of uh practicing practicing architecture playing architecture uh but I thought that I'm spending so much effort I'm spending so much effort making a demonstration of house building but there's no house left when you got up from the swing the panels went down to their original position I started to think that I needed a place that people could come back to by the end of the 80s the the pieces started to deal with probably uh architectural produ prototypes this is a 1984 piece called uh called bad dream house uh actually done here at MIT in 80 in 8 in ' 84 uh three upside down houses two upside down houses leaning tilted against each other so that they support a third upside down house on top uh the houses on the ground like the houses you conventionally find on the ground brick facing shingled roof they support a glass house house in house in the house in the air you enter at either end at the open Gable you sit at or walk past an upside down table or you go upstairs to what used to be the underside of the house now that it's upside down it's a facing set of seats bleachers or you go further upstairs to The Glass House garden house at this time I think it was kind of clear that my stuff wasn't art anymore if it ever if it ever if it ever was if I was uh if I was making things like houses but again these were playhouses uh you couldn't live there you could possibly use it as a playground but you couldn't really inhabit it so if it was architecture it was the bare be bare beginnings of architecture uh okay so I was thinking if my stuff made made a place of their own made houses maybe they didn't need a gallery space they didn't need a museum space but I think maybe a a more important uh a more important perception uh was was was was operative at that time uh I I think I was getting to realize that I just wasn't interested anymore in an art viewer and Kristoff I think was talking Kristoff was talking the same way in his in his introduction uh and by Art viewer I mean when a person enters an art space that person in effect is saying I am an art viewer by extension I'm separating myself from all those others who aren't who aren't art viewers I realized I was more interested in the Casual passer by the street I was more interested in the person who stops at something not because it's announced as art but because for some reason or other it uh it it uh it means something in that person or it potentially means something at least curiosity interest for that person for that per for that person in the street so uh starting in the mid 80s and I think one thing that that was important to me through the 80s is that I was working with a person who I think is in the audience though I haven't seen him yet I was uh uh a person uh an artist named named to jury D John to jury who lives here uh was working on pieces for me at that time uh and I started to realize that uh the claim is being made by others and probably by me that these people are building pieces for me but but I started to realize that I'm getting ideas from these people uh for example John built pieces like instant house those movable those movable pieces I think I had ideas for those movable pieces for a few years before that but I didn't have the slightest idea how to do them once I met John the possibility of building them became became possible so gradually I realized that this is a collaboration though I'm not though I'm not though I'm not admitting it so so by the end of the 880s uh a country Studio started uh I you know wanted to admit admit a collaboration but not just admit it I wanted to I wanted to announce it I did a show at the end of the 80s I was still I then uh I did a show in 1988 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and I called the show Public Public public places there was a green Banner hanging outside outside the museum with the words vdo public places and I think I felt the way at least the way Jean Paul SRA claims uh Jean Chan the French writer felt when as a child he stole uh I don't remember some money a loaf of bread and somebody called him a thief and according to SRA Jan from that day on said that if I'm called a thief I have to become a thief so when I saw those words public places associated with them with my name I realize there's no turning back you know I have to start dedicating myself to public places and the only way to do that is to start working the way an architect works I had to work with a group of people I had to work with a group group of people for two very for two for two reasons one I wanted to do I wanted to do I wanted to do architecture but I really didn't know how I didn't know I didn't know how to build things I probably didn't know how to design things so I needed people around me who could design let me let me uh backtrack for a minute I think my whole career has been built on the fact has been based on the fact of uh of not being able to do too much uh uh for example I I I think I've always assumed that I really don't have any basic skills uh I I possibly I used to say I know how to use the Yellow Pages I hope I can now say I know how to use know how to use the internet I might not have these skills but maybe I can find people who do have those skills uh in other words if uh when work of mine began in 19 in 1968 in 1969 if it wasn't for the fact that words like conceptual art was starting to be used there would have been absolutely nothing for me to do I couldn't paint I couldn't draw I could couldn't sculpt once the words conceptual art were used I could say to myself well I think I know how to have vague ideas so so there's a so there's a place for me uh okay skip forward again to the end of the 80s there was a just as important maybe more important reason why I felt I had to work with people uh I started to feel that if if something begins private it probably can only end private if I really really wanted something to be to result in a public space it had to start with at least a semi-public and public uh Public public probably starts with the number three one is a solo two is a couple or a mirror image the third person the third person starts an argument and public probably begins when an argument when an argument starts okay so from from from the end of the 80s on uh I can't talk as I anymore I have to talk I have to talk I have to I have to talk as we the work kind of inched its way towards our towards architecture from the beginning the people who worked for me were Architects were from an architecture background but even though that was true you know I wasn't known as an architect so the projects we were asked to do weren't real architecture projects but so-called public art projects uh uh and and the way public art public art projects exist at least in the United States is that when a public building is built 1% of the budget is allow is is allotted is allotted is allotted is allotted to Art one example of uh a public art kind of project this was the site of a project we built in 1995 at Queens College in New York the site is a kind of pass through space in front of the English Department building on either side of the English Department building is a pedestal on top of which is a sphere a 3ft diameter sphere those spheres were were were our starting point starting point in the sense that uh a starting point in the sense that the the Spheres are the Spheres seem to be trying to make a a kind of grandiose entrance to what was only the entrance to an English Department building on the other hand the uh the Spheres seemed uh kind of isolated and lonely in the space so what our project consisted of was to add other spheres to the space uh spheres ranging from very small 1 foot in diameter to uh to a sphere 12et 12et 12et in diameter ranging through the existing sphere uh the Spheres the Spheres are cut are cut are cut into so you can walk through a sphere you can sit inside a sphere uh the Spheres are lit at night uh so they become a kind of they become a kind of Gathering Place I tried to believe at that time that there was a reason for public art that uh uh the uh since most of the money is spent on is spent on the architecture public art go only gets 1% of the budget I Tred to think well public art is marginal maybe it could make use of its of its marginal position maybe it can be the voice of the minority party maybe if you can think that the built architecture acts as the institution Maybe by proliferating the Spheres as in this piece maybe maybe we could provide a kind of disease on a kind of institutionalized architecture in retrospect that think that public art can only be can only be only be a Folly uh 1% of the budget is spent on public art another way of putting it is that the art is worth 1% 1% of the AR of the architecture uh I think more recently maybe our stuff has uh I hope our stuff at least since the year 2000 has probably has maybe I should say possibly or I hope has become has has become architecture everybody in the studio thinks we're doing we're doing we're doing design and design design design and architecture uh so I want to go through uh some examples of the pro of the projects of the of the last four years five years uh we tend to think of architecture as uh I mean what's important to us is that uh architecture architecture is an occasion for people architecture maybe as an hopefully as a kind of activity place for people I think one fear that joins the studio is that uh we're afraid that when we design a space are we necessarily designing people's behavior in that space and we want to obviously we want to we want to try we want to try to avoid that uh uh can a space be can a space you know I mean the great thing about that I I think again you know what drew me more and more towards design and architecture was the fact that everybody knows architecture whether they realize it or not everybody knows architecture because everybody's walked up a Stairway everybody's walked through a doorway maybe people know architecture because they've been possibly oppressed by architecture they walk through a doorway that's too narrow they're under a ceiling that's too low but in any case people know architecture with their bodies they know Arch ecture by traversing it uh we we tend to think of stuff in terms of uh just as we want a place to be an activity place for people I think the way we design is thinking of how can we perform an activity how can we perform a kind of operation on a site so I want to go through even though I don't know if I can read these with the existing light but uh uh but maybe I can remember most we uh I want to go through these projects uh uh by going through a series of operations we seem to do when designing when designing a project some projects will be used as examples of of of uh each oper each each operation sometimes a project will be used to partially demonstrate one project then it'll come one one one operation then it'll then it'll come back later operation number one make a world then poke the world dig into the world an architecture of holes this is a project or the start of a project we're working on now um it's a it's a project for a median in a street in a street in Vienna they asked us to do a kind of Park in this in this in this street thank thank you thank you Joe great it's perfect uh they asked us to do a park on this on on the on this median they made it clear to us that uh you had to be able to see through this park from one street to another very often when we're given a directive we think well maybe we can start in the opposite way if they're telling us to make an open space maybe we can start by making a closed space what if we act as if a kind of spaceship has landed has landed on this on on this on this median so it's a closed spaceship so now we have to perforate it so you can see through from one side to another this project will come back later this is a project we proposed recently um uh for soul in Korea it was a competition uh which we didn't win it was a it was a competition for a Performing Arts Center in Soul uh the Performing Arts Center was going to was going to be on an island uh the island is a flood is a flood is a floodable island uh uh their their directive was the base of the island maybe could be used for for landscaping whereas the uh the Performing Art Center should be raised at the top part of the base but we thought if this base if this base is floodable maybe you know it's it's only going to kill the landscap ape so could we think of this base of the island almost as a kind of alien alien planet it's a place of craters a place of holes so people can find places to be within these holes uh this project too will come back later uh the beginning of 2002 uh like probably many other people we made a theoretical proposal for a new World Trade Center we proposed a world trade Center uh full of holes our starting point was that if a building nowadays is going to be exploded anyway maybe maybe a building nowadays should come pre- exploded already exploded so uh we took the original site of the World Trade Center raised it to a height of 110 stories high so now you have more of a volume more of a mass than the original World Trade Center ever was you have more private office space than any could possibly need so we shoot cones through it making this building full of holes this project will come back we'll come back later uh operation Operation number two overlay screen camouflage a second skin this was a building where we uh did a clothing store in Tokyo in 2003 for a group of designers called United bamboo this modular system is a system that's conventionally used in Japan uh for houses for residences the United bamboo people worried that this was never going to look like a store it was always going to look like a house so we thought our first step had to be to screen it uh put a mesh screening over it the glass facades push in or bulge out through the through the mesh uh the clothing stores on the ground floor upper floors are our offices on the bouldering facade on the upper flooor floor there's a projection screen when you're inside the store if you're trying on United bamboo clothes if you like the way you look you can have yourself photographed you become the model for United bamboo clothes this project too will come back later um another example of a kind of screening system a gallery we did in New York in 2002 the gallery was part of a uh part of uh uh uh the gallery dealer's home a steel wall starts outside the doorway comes inside uh the the gallery dealer said that this was only going to be a temporary Gallery so we thought we can't change the walls we could only screen the walls cover the walls so we cover the walls with with expanded metal panels as a byproduct we we got a kind of universal hanging system you don't have to make holes in the walls the expanded metal is all all all holes uh uh another project we're working on we're working on now a facad in Milan a facade for a building in Milan uh we were asked to do a facade for a building that already had a facade uh which made us think that how can we think of this and uh uh you know the way we thought of it uh was maybe we can reclo the building maybe we can put a kind of drape over the over over the building uh uh unfold a kind of drapery over the building there's a private apartment on the roof so pull the drape down there are obviously entrances on the ground pull the drape up this project two comes back comes back later operation number three uh bubble wave soft architecture and architecture of flow back to the United bamboo Bamboo store uh uh you enter between between two between two mirrors the uh the doorway pushes in hopefully as if to sort of welcome you into the store we tried to make a store that was as soft as clothing as soft as Skin So the the material in the store is PVC the material that's usually used for projection screen rear screen rear screen rear screen projection PVC on the ceiling pull it down to make a wall pull it out to make a counter make shelves by by pulling out pushing back in since it's projection screen material we don't have to light the shelves from outside we can have lights we can have lights within the shelves it's a very the store is in a very small space about 40 ft long about 15 feet wide so we thought we could use all the space all the spa all the space we could get anytime there was a non-structural wall we got rid of the wall and made a curving glass Al Cove outside the store the hanging clothes are in the are in that Al Cove they come in they come in they come into the store operation Operation number four uh uh continuous surface endless space uh a piece done in the a piece done in two in two in 2000 an attempt to make a to make a a a SE to make a bench based on the notion of a m of a m of a Mia strip so the back of the seat twists to become the seat twists twist continuously to become the back of the seat outside twist to become to become inside uh you sit outside this circle you move over you're inside the circle at around the same time we were asked to uh we were asked by by UNICEF World Health Organization to uh uh to design a playground uh that could be produced in multiples we uh just like the Mia strip is a is a is a is a is a figure from from topological math we use the the notion of a Klein bottle uh kind of assuming everybody knows what a Klein bottle is but the way a CL if somebody doesn't the way a cim bottle works conventional bottle neck of the bottle in the case of the Klein bottle neck extend out from the bottle turns around goes back in so it's a kind of three-dimensional version of a Mia strip we try to make a playground uh uh a clim bottle with four necks children children enter enter in four possible ways uh it's transparent it's perforated uh children climbing outside can come face to face with children climbing inside you could slide from outside to inside and VI and vice and vice versa operation Operation number five push and pull uh uh this is a project that was built in Memphis in the beginning the beginning of 2004 it's outside or at the edge of a Performing Art Center in Memphis there's a leftover space outside of the Performing Art Center it was suggested to us that could we possibly turn this leftover space into a plaza a place where people might go out out of the Performing Art Center at intermissions the way we began was uh the Performing Art Center partially extends over this leftover space so we tried to begin as if we were standing under this overhang could we throw something out could we fling something out into the air fling something like a fluid out into the air but whatever we fling has to stand up so we pull it down to make columns at the same time that we pull it down to make columns we push it up push it up to make a funnel sunlight comes in like uh the spotlights on the stage inside at night the sunlight is replaced by artificial light another funnel is pulled down towards the entrance it lights it lights the entrance uh you're you you're going to talk about Fon Street no so let me let me skip over let me skip over right okay uh uh uh another example of push and pull uh we made a proposal for a uh uh basically kind of subway station in New York it was being built by it was being built by uh by uh Nicholas Nicholas Nicholas Grimshaw the Grimshaw space had uh had this Dome apparently the Dome is gone from his face so we're not the only people who are told what to do everybody is uh told what not what not to do um uh inside the Dome is an is an is an is an Atrium uh so what we tried to do was could we take this Atrium space and kind of turn it turn it in on itself uh turn it it turn it in on itself to make a kind of space space space within the space this project this project will come back will come back later back to the sole performing performing art Center on this marsik landscape is this spaceship like performing Performing Art Center uh we thought we thought we would make spaces theater spaces concert Halls by sucking the space into it into it into itself uh so that as this as this surface uh rather a surface sucked into itself to make a space to make a number of spaces um I had mentioned earlier that uh they had they had suggested they had suggested Landscaping the island since we had no Landscaping on the island because it was floodable once we sucked in these spaces the concert hall Etc was in the sucked in space and the concert hall Etc was surrounded by an indoor an indoor landscape so you walked into a theater into a concert hall through the through the landscape operation Operation number six not and not uh not an end but a medium not an object but an instrument an architecture of its surroundings a proposal we made last year for the Atlanta airport uh the proposal was for the transfer Corridor Corridor of the air of the airport uh it was important that uh it separated people who were getting off of plane getting off a plane leaving the airport from people who were getting off a domestic flight switching to an international flight or vice vice versa uh so it had to be a closed wall but we thought it didn't necessarily have to be as closed as all that maybe it could join people even though it was closed so we took the idea of the existing wall and waved it waved it waved it waved it in and in and out so that person sitting for example is sitting next to a person who's sitting on the other side of the wall so they're sitting next to each other even though they're on they're on separate sides of the wall uh we use the combination of transparent material and mirrored material so that as you looked from one one passage to another uh you could see yourself but through the mirror uh you can see yourself through the mirror uh at the same time that you saw that you saw another another person on the other side of the wall so you might see this other person with your head or your feet or your your your your arms uh another example of a mirror space back to the Memphis project uh the surface both inside and outside is mirrored uh the structure folds down at the base of the columns to make seating but you can also enter enter the columns uh again mirrored mirrored both outside both outside both outside and inside inside as you're sitting inside inside the column uh the sky is reflected down on this circular wall around you so it's as if you're sitting inside a room a room a room of Sky uh operation Opera operation thanks operation Operation number seven split separate planes strips strands back to the Milan project now that we have this extra facade it's got to do something that the first facade that the first facade didn't do so the facade can split by uh operating uh by operating a lever inside the office space you can uh you can open you can open this screen covering you can you can give it larger opening to bring in more sunlight smaller openings to bring it to bring it to bring in less back to the uh back to the Vienna gerle project our second step was once we started with this closed space our second step was to make this series of planes the planes were basically sandwiches of mesh planting planting grows inside these sandwiches uh holes Hol H are shot through these planes the holes the holes carry walkways elevated walkways they make an Amphitheater space uh they make a play they make a playground space another example of strips uh a project a project we we proposed for uh the novaris pharmaceutical company uh uh uh three three years ago uh the competition was for uh uh a parking garage for a thousand cars and an entry Gateway for the campus one note about this project sorry one one note or or maybe you can make you want to make note because you brought it up even more clearly than I did okay uh one note about the about this about this project uh one reason we're were interested in this competition is that we were competing against uh some Architects we paid a lot of attention to uh foreign office Architects zaha Hadid uh it turned out nobody won the competition but I think I think nobody should have competed for the competition uh it was a competition for the novaris pharmaceutical company you know a company that spends most of its time uh running campaigns against against against against generic drugs sometimes when you're designing a project you're so desperate to build that maybe you start to forget who you're building for and I hope we never forget that again uh anyway the the uh parking garage the parking garage was going to be under a park a private novaris park um so our starting point was that if a parking garage is under the park uh it's obvious that they were trying to they were trying to consider the uh the the park is being used as is a suppression of the parking garage the park is trying to pretend that the parking garage doesn't exist so our first step is to uh split the parking the the the park into strips like the strips of parking below below ground the strips of Park rise and fall like the like the parking ramps underground so now there's a mix of Park and parking at certain points you can walk out from parking from parking garage to park and vice and vice and vice and vice and vice versa uh operation Opera operation number eight uh an architecture of landscape Contin continuing with the novaris project the no the novaris buildings noard what they call the novaris campus though it's you know it's not a university it's a corporation uh as are some universities but um uh the parking garage the uh the novaris campus is recess from the street we thought maybe the novaris campus should should get more of a street presence now that we had the private park separated into strips we could stretch those strips stretch them uh stretch them out towards the street they're supported by arches made from concrete from the from the public sidewalk so now the Nar buildings come out come out come out to the campus uh another example of stretch is uh a project we're working we're working on now I want to give just a quick rundown of the project then I think you know Dario's worked really intensively on this project he's working on other projects too I mean most of the most of the projects that's what I thought he told me he said no but okay do you want to why don't why not why don't do you want to talk about project I think the reason to showing this project is made as a good example of of something weo has brought brought about brought up before uh when he said that he didn't really know how to how how to do anything and um and and and more and more working with zoo we find ourselves uh working on working on projects which we really don't know how to do uh because uh we've never hold uh uh we we because we we've never we've never done projects like that before and and even even though I studied architecture uh I nothing can really prepare you for for for for working with v uh it's it's it's so but and yeah but also nothing can push me as much as other people in stos so so it's a so we we push we push each other around a lot and um so so this project is is is a good example of that because uh uh Architects tend not to not to design skate parks uh in fact a lot a lot of Architects see to have a kind of an aversion to to to skating uh as it as it seems to to appropriate appropriate appropriate appropriate architecture to um to to skate uh just as as as as a as as as a note uh this happened because uh while skate parks uh uh were were were kind of a big thing in the 70s they they all B but died out in the in the 80s dur during this period um uh skaters didn't didn't have a lot of places to skate besides uh besides some some friends skate uh some some some friends swimming pool uh or a place where they could uh they could maybe invade and and and and and skate so they started uh skating whatever was available and and that was uh primarily streets um public spaces Parks uh in doing so they they probably uh they they they they caused some damage and and made some noise but uh but in in the process they they develop a new kind of new kind of skating uh in in in the '90s now um uh skate skate parks had had res Resurgence probably because uh the the the damage had had had gone to a point in which uh a lot of a lot of municipalities started thinking well maybe maybe we ought to have a space for these people to to do this um so uh we we even though we uh we we uh work uh as I said working on working on something that uh uh we don't know really how to do uh one one of the ways of approaching uh such such a project is to to to to find somebody who knows how to do that and um and and work with them and talk to them uh we we work with a consultant a Skate Park Builder somebody who's in in California uh a guy named Zach wormhout and he's designed a lot of a lot of skate parks um and uh so so the skate park let just just briefly the skate park is in is in sanan in Puerto Rico and the site for the skate park is a park a a a large park in front of in front of in front of the ocean uh we we're going down um in the park uh uh what what when when Le saw saw the site the first time he he he noticed that three three three main features in in this in this in this part of the park where the site was three high points uh one is this uh restaurant that um is a is like a very long long ramp underneath underneath which there is a a restaurant uh the other feature was this mound uh a mound in front in front of the in front of the ocean uh the other one I'm sorry sorry an oval Mound um not in front of the ocean um it has an oal oval-shaped plan and then another Mound uh a high uh a flat top mound in front in front of the ocean so the basic strategy uh uh here here here you can see the relationship of that that that that mount to to to the ocean it's right it's very very very very very close um so the the strategy uh the general strategy was then to connect these three high points uh since uh uh skating Works largely on gravity we we had a set up for for playing with gravity there high points and low points um so how how how it's organized is uh there's there's a part of the skate park on each of those high points uh uh on top of the of the of the of the restaurant there is uh uh two ramps two ramps that uh the kind of ramps are called snake runs uh skaters uh come down from in in in with those two Rams and then decide to turn left left or right if they decide to turn right they'll go okay well before that uh between between these these these ramps um the park uh the existing Park uh Still Still Still functions in a way we we overlaid a skate park over a park uh uh this is different H it's usually done skate parks tend to be shoved in a corner uh because of of of liabilities and issues like that we decided to uh uh try to make a safe Park that could as safe as as is needed to be so that it didn't have to be segre to to to a corner um so so you turn right and you go into the oval Mound the oval Mound now is used uh as an internal space uh you you dive into the the oval Mound inside the opal Mound uh it's a space of bowls a space of caverns uh it's uh a place where which in a way it's it's taking the notion of of of a swimming pool and turning it upside down and and and and inside out um on on the opposite side uh is uh the mountain is in front of the ocean uh in order to get up that mound uh we have a series of of steps of platforms something like what uh skaters tend to tend to use uh on streets they tend to use uh uh steps edges uh uh rails uh anything which uh uh in which they could use the board uh uh without the Wheels actually uh uh uh the the other space is is is more about rolling through this one is about jumping uh and and and and and stepping up up onto the mound um at at the end of these these stepped these stepped platforms are are half pipes the half pipes uh can't lever over over the ocean almost almost trying to deliver the skaters back to back back to the ocean because SK skating started at surfing uh basically uh uh when it was too cold for surfing uh you know and and pools were uh uh young people would would fashion these these boards with with with with with with roller skates and and and sort of keep keep keep having fun dur during during the during during the winter um okay um and so just to give a sense of of of know a little bit illustrate just a little bit what it means of to do something without really knowing how to how to do it uh it the our basic stry is one is is a lot of trial and a lot of error uh probably more error but also a lot of a lot of a lot more more error than anything but but a lot of trial um and and uh I just want to give a sense of of of what what uh what that might look like um and also it's the product of of the way we work uh of those discussions uh uh when when V was talking about U uh where are you where are we now yeah and uh it it doesn't sound like that and what do you think Tom and it it it certainly it doesn't sound like like that we I I I probably shouldn't try to repeat the kind of things we say but um but again there there it's it's never it's it's it's it is confrontational yeah it quite is but it's never about about who's who's right it's it's it's about uh what what what makes the more most sense uh there's ideas sorry this is not coming up uh there's ideas from just about any everybody everybody in the studio uh okay here here here here here here here's a little bit of a catalog of possibility can you hold so for example uh different parts let's let's look at at the M for a second uh these are all studies for what can happen inside this this Mount from B spaces now let's try to connect the bll spaces in a way that you can go from one to the other and here again we're not yet worried about uh pitches and slopes and and heads where're we're trying to determine what what what should happen not how it should happen uh not yet at least uh it's it's as if we we sort of keep this uh keep this sense of of everything is possible uh for for as long as possible um and until we find something that that uh can can exist in both in the space that excites us and the space that can can actually can can actually can actually happen um another uh uh just a just a a little bit the evolution of that that that that space that uh is within the internal space within within within within the mound um as we work on it uh we send our models to to our our consultant who uh tells us uh this radius is wrong this radius is okay uh here you're going to kill yourself here not much is going on um and um and then uh still we we have a a kind a hard time visualizing uh such a space uh sometimes we we I feel are we complicating things too too too too much are we are we setting up something that we don't know how to we we can't predict what the experience will be like so uh so we we resort to to to as whatever basically we can get our hands on that would would tell us what's what's going on so uh for example uh we in order to try to experience what it's like to to actually go through this space uh usually Architects tend to do these walkthroughs and and so we we we came up with a skate through in a way uh it's and it's not a real skateboard it's it's more like a hoverboard uh but I guess it'll it'll work for hover boards too eventually uh and uh and and you can uh we can now get a bit of a sense of what you could possibly do in in in a place like like like this uh the the the game was something we basically cannibalized another game and and replace the skate park um and the skate park part and uh and and and then added a yeah wouldn't that be cool Wai we're waiting for people at MIT to design this yeah but that's just that's that's that's all we need now um but you know uh beyond the the the the the fun aspect of things like that there's there's there's the real the real issues of you know will this be statable how how do how do we know that how do how do we well um we can't uh we can't at least not uh uh without uh probably the help of MIT we might be able to predict very precisely um but uh what so but still we try we try as much as as as as much as we can so we uh we study uh uh we we studied the for example one of the one of the snake runs uh we tried to study what happens if are we seeing yeah what happens is if if you just count account for gravity and you know skating is is a lot more than gravity it's maybe sculpting with gravity if you will but uh so we we basically drop balls in in in in in in in the surfaces and watch how they behave and uh you see on the upper right right corner we have a little problem there uh we would have a big a big a big mashup of skaters um and uh or you know we study it for example like that or we then try let me see if I can find the one with this one might be exactly the same oh no here here's oh yeah there we go uh with more more more like a crowd of of of of marbles this this actually a little bit V visually is is a bit a bit more clear and and here on the upper right corner again we have we have the the suicide Moon that which we we we we we we dealt with and and and now we have a better a better a better simulation than that we changed that area but basically like that um and and and very much all all all projects uh uh are developed this way uh we're not sort of following in a way we're not following a sort of a a vision or or or a direction which sometimes I used to complain to V what what are we doing and and and and and and a lot of times he says I don't know and uh and and and so we keep what we can do is is keep going keep going until I do say we want we want to find out yeah well yeah okay there's more on this project and the panel behind right here yeah this is a a bit of again try try to give a sense of what goes into coming up with with something or and developing something something some something something like that um do do you want to do you want to explain talk a little bit about um about fashion um okay I'll I'll take word that you us you want I'll plug in your laptop yeah needs needs a switch um there was a a no there was a word that g was using which was cannibalizing and talks um depending on some of the subjects um that he chooses to develop um one of one of them he might present um the idea of parasite or the idea of the idea of virus or the idea of parasites um which is a recurring theme in uh the Studio's work and that started yeah you have to I we lost lost I can't oh it's here it is there's another I got it I got it okay anyway um and the sometimes um when we have discussions among ourselves we we think I mean we we do pose a question are we really um are we trying to reflect or illustrate what a parasite is um um is like are we trying to um create a sort of um homology with the way the virus or parasite acts are we aware of the differences between the mode of behavior of a virus or a parasites I mean very often we use these words and um and these words are almost metaphors like when we use the word stretch we're not literally stretching material I wish we could more often and probably the Milan project we are quite a bit um just to pick up on some of veto's categories when like the Su project which is a project that we like very much it's a new project when we talk about sucking in and sucking out a space we're not unfortunately we're not literally sucking in and sucking out of space but so um so we're trying to think about the way we're using these words because words is just I mean at the studio I think that one of the things we can say is that in the beginning beginning there's there's the word um which is which is a great which is a a great way to start um and often we start with a story as well it's a great way to start maybe but I'm starting to think it's a real outdated way I can't help but start by thinking words but I don't think words are part of the 21st century and I think Serena can tell you what's part of the 21st century but yeah I mean I you know the 21st century is about Cod diagrams equations it's not it's not words but anyway so um I'll start with a project that I don't like so much that we presented very briefly and I know it's quite naughty to U bite the hand that feeds you but I hope you'll be indulgent with me it's this Fon Street um project that we've been develop that we've developed um and which looks to me like I mean it's very very phic sort of um result and when we had a discussion about this with veto I'm just flashing through the images veto would say I mean veto would say but no no no it acts like a parasite it's coming and and and sitting on the Dome and and then I was thinking well maybe we should try to think you know to try to define a little bit better some of the terms we're using because we're not acting like a parasite because this is a public art project and we're having the um we're having the the sort of supportive authorities what we're doing really is yeah but we didn't get the project built they didn't support it yeah they didn't support it I okay it is at least be fair and say why some of us thought it was a Paras can you tell us no no no because I don't believe it I mean one of the thing how how do you do this I mean one of the things that interested us was what once we turned this at yeah this Atrium is great it's a beautiful space but people can't people can use it there's all that space up there and no play and no place for people therefore therefore by turning the space inside Itself by turning the space inside itself we now still allow an Atrium space in the middle but we have this vertical park at the sides so people now can at least use the atrium and not just you know stand stand below and look up at look up at it in awe okay yeah so we and we infiltrate um in a very radical and subversive way parks and that grow and develop in these huge trees that grow within the ages subersive um yeah it was just a Point of Departure to say that something that does interest Us and something that um really um that really um left a mark pointy was when Dario said and I think other AR echoing also what some other Architects said you'd like to ideally we'd like to do an architecture that grows an architecture that mutates an architecture that changes um and so very briefly and suly I'm going to just talk a little bit about this idea of growth and try to tie in a couple of projects with some of the more recent design um design products that we're trying to develop right now um and so I'll start with um I'll start with this project which um came um as a k came during one of veto's um came about doing one of veto's exhibitions and there was a night there was this um Dilemma on how to show his sound archives that have that have just been transferred onto um that just been transferred from these old four Channel technology to this new technology and heo didn't feel comfortable with having headphones or that sort of way of of um of showing of presenting the archives so we were thinking together and between all this words like pods came about and and Dario and a couple of other um designers in the studio um were great I mean we were working a little bit together just to to find maybe needs that were in the museum and we developed idea of sound station so I think that what this project would have coming with the Fon is that um it's growth as in expansion um which means that it's a it's the volume or the surface or the mass of the object or the space it occupies that that grows also I think it's that it's like assuming that a person is going to be in here so let's have this space kind of emerge around the spiral around yeah yeah so I took as a centered word for this notion of expansion maybe the word of extension um and then there's a project that we like very much um which is a bilard table that's going to be built by zah for Ma andna and there was this very interesting um element of what would have been a fourth leg that's just it looks like it was stunted in its growth and um in a way I mean of course we could have shown like we could would talk about um the idea of something that sprouts and the idea of you know um I mean all these ideas of of um of growth and emergence that have been much wring about but we thought that there was something almost like an anomaly about this particular um this particular um design which we found kind of inspiring um and so for example in one of the projects that we're trying to develop um today which is a fashion project we're designing these ettes that could be put onto any sort of garment really at the last minute maybe one maybe two and ideally what we would like is that the the extensions from these eets would grow that we could pull on them and that the the length would be variable for example it could pull one way of course it would have to retract after that so this is um just um and the idea of extension is a project of um that of a country Studio what's the date of where go 99 of 99 um where um basically it's a house what kind of General I basically we did a kind of uh W to be wnab be wannabe ARR uh uh project uh uh would be we were asked to do something uh on the notion of a uh micro micro environment so we we suggested a project where uh an external skeleton would be screw would be screwed into your bones uh now that you have this external skeleton you know it's it's made of telescoping parts sming parts so you can move around it Prett free you can move around with freely except that you have the skel the Skeleton on your back uh you don't need Furniture because anytime because you can just pull down the telescoping legs and you can become your own Furniture uh uh you carry this backpack uh you can release the backpack uh uh so that you're wear your you don't just you don't just have a house you kind of are your house now that you are your house other people can come in it's a private house not everybody's allowed in like that person is is climbing on the roof because it's a private house could like could like could have not um so basically you have your private house and you're also like screwed to your own house which is the idea of Prosthetics which um which still we're so we're still in this idea of um extensions Prosthetics so um it was interesting to speak with veto but I'll come back to this later about what he thought were the limits of this even though it was just a sort of theoretical idea and why it was always nagging him but there was something very 19th century about the the whole idea one that and something that I found very seductive but that seemed to to B to bother you a little bit um so the second part of growth um the second dimension um is the one of multiplication um and as a sort of central word we could use the idea of code or seriality and I was very um interested to see that in some of V's earlier work pre ACR Studio there was already this desire to um to explore um the idea of modular furniture for example or something A system that would define a form the ultimate form so I mean I think in here you can see it better where every part is in relation negative or positive to the part that's right next to it the idea of pattern meres and here um four story table which is um basically four tables is that and you take four more tables and then you it's like a a very little table inside a normal table which it turns inside a larger table largest largest at the top the kind of band place so um so recently we tried to develop um well actually again Museum context um maybe I'm showing that because that was that's an environment that I'm more accustomed to but um what thing Museum gives us the opportunity to try things out uh and before we put put put them on the screen in in a way uh they're they're they're asking for art and uh and we don't give it to them we we we give them a space for people instead of a trial of SP so we try seating we try a place for film it's we we we we're pretty good at tricking them into doing that doing these things but anyway so for this we had a problem um trying to figure out what could be a quick easy and um cheap way of design of developing C so here we took we actually the walls of are made out of um acoustic foam and the we thought for why don't we just take um a little section of That acoustic bone blow it up um change the scale so really is something close to four story table but I I just thought about it maybe a couple days like the relation that there might be a relationship between them but and then what's fantast what was a great um what was great about it is that these would fit as mod modular this would become a modular um Furniture where people could actually lie down or sit down or sit sit low sit High Etc so it's basically um the the seating is a reflection of the surface of the uh of the what we call them the layers of the laay this is something that we' like to develop um maybe um with people and MIT hopefully um and it's a system it's a system also of modular Furniture except that here please um quality of the of the renderings they're not we put this up very quickly just as a way of explaining the project but you haven't actually designed it yet but one side would be um a rigid hard surface and the other side would be a soft surface and if we're able to develop to to know more and to apply a system of modular curvature we're can imagine that all of these different components would fit sply within themselves next to other at least from one side and then you could decide which side you wanted to be a table just by flipping them over and you could decide on the size of the table and you could decide on the size of the the seating area which would be soft etc etc so this is something that we're working on right now and within um um I think I think that's oh and so I just wanted to show a fashion project that I think has um really been inspirational to us even I mean it it's actually fed back a little bit into the way we're thinking about design and architecture is this project of isaki and I think it's actually not there's a second name d he present this APO book in which this project is contained and it's quite a revolution within the fashioning industry because everything is um the whole a whole multitude of clothing are made from one from a knitting machine where each individual is based on a Cod on a code on a variation of that code so there's a second dimension to this project at least the second dimension is that the user Cuts up and can um can customize the piece of coding but what interests me particularly is the fact that it's based like one computer feeds off information to a knitting machine which will create this huge huge Loom of clothing and there's something interesting in a in a shift in the mode of production and way we can think about it as clothing um then there's um there's um there's another side of two growth that we thinking about and it's a side of mutation and then the the the word that we're using as a center is metamorphosis um this is a project that Garrett ricardi um introduced to us G at theud it's a a clothing project by ad which is very beautiful as you'll see spreads out like this and um this is um something that's been interesting us more and more and that we're trying to incorporate at least within our fashion um design and it's the idea of mutation which interests us is that it's a change inherent to the identity of the object towards something else so it's growth that because it's a sort of between two states of course um 's metamorphosis is the sort of book that people often think about in terms of um that sort of metamorphosis in you know like um DNE and the L and the lural treade etc etc but this is I wanted to just present this because this is the way we're thinking about um design right now sometimes will say I want us to develop a system of Cutlery where everything will stay on one hand and we we say what would you like it to look like and he goes something that goes like this so it took me ages and a lot of patience to try to understand what veto meant by veto was so articulate by going and then the other day he presented um a exerpt of this film like David kenberg and suddenly I understood what he meant and this was an interesting this was interesting to me in relation to uh the world in your bones project this is the last thing that I'm show right now but it's basically this man takes the gun out of his um bosom and um out of his stomach and the Gun starts growing and mingling with the tendons in his hands like that so instead of like just until his his own hand metamorphosis into this instrument object um organ and this weird sort of thing so I mean I don't think our design is going to look like this but but the the concept of metamorphosis is something that interests us very much right now I don't know it's kind of late I would love to go through uh maybe can we maybe could just I just quickly try to start talking [Music] actually I mean inad I think maybe instead of continuing even though there's other stuff to do I would have loved to have continued with the World Trade project but talked a long time and it might be good if we turn on the lights and see if anybody wants to talk with us say to talk each [Applause] other [Music] yeah please um why fashion I mean you you trace this very of seamless progression from the page through the body do you get one one very basic aspect of it is that think you can think question please sorry question uh he he he he asked us why fashion uh why go he seem to there seems to be a seamless sort of progression from from writing to to our white fashion but you think of it U architecture is is is in many ways a boundary between public and private uh as as your coding uh and in fact we play games with how we reveal and how much we include uh it's the public your Public Image your clothing as is architecture or as this the kind of architecture which we'll probably never do the kind which you know if you spend $20 million the client wants to make sure that it looks like they spent $20 mil so but you know there's other other other other aspects to that too but at a very basic level it it it has a very similar Sim similar function uh you know from from the body to the to clothes to your Corridor to your building to your city to to so it's it's it's it's a step in between it's just really the you know first first first architecture you have a body now you put some cover around it this cover is called clothing you know then the body covered by clothing sits in sits in Furniture sits in a chair that in turn is in a room but I think there's something else too though uh I think that the the architecture of the future has to be not the architecture that you go to but the architecture you carry with you uh the architecture the future is probably for a future in which there are you know no countries No Boundaries so we're all Nomads we carry our house like the like like the turtle you know instead of having to go home uh you just sort of fold up inside inside your shell inside your uh yeah you're you're you're already there uh I mean and I think one of the sure signs that that is the future is is the amazing uh conservativism and nationalism of almost every country now it's a kind of last ditch attempt to you know when we know there aren't going to be countries anymore well let's have a last ditch attempt to keep the immigrants out you just as Maybe you know maybe in a time when we know that we're probably not going to have bodies much longer everybody you know goes to the goes to the gym you always try to keep you always try to keep the old world because you know it's changing you know um so the first the first half of your talk uh say I say that that was an incredible journey that concept of discovery that you're going through but I just felt something stren the way through half through and try to GRA with what that is why I feel and looking at these images and sort of esoteric architectural language we're coming from this place discovering design in this but are we are we using I mean this is so familiar to the architect of and just you a skateboarder I think I mean skate the skateboard ramps of the ' 80s and 9s looked for Story table they did like this I don't think that's insignificant it's actually incredibly significant that the kind of reading of the landscape skateboard is just as one example is is is actually the discovery of a Terrain that's not choreograph it's not um it's not discovered through simulations it's actually a forign condition that is confronted and when you did you said something about the everyone knows architecture that was like a climactic moment for me in your discussion because now we're entering the language of the everyday and we talk about public space and then suddenly we're talking about mut this whole other kind of that's my fault also um I mean I'd like to I'd like to let you finish your question I'm really I'm really impressed with with the discussion it's interesting that we're sitting at this boundary between art and architecture and at spr which was an incredible introduction to the top as well and there's I think a lot of confusion or or maybe a productive confusion about that negotiation between those two and uh I shouldn't any I'm just bobing this thing there it's possible that uh you the work that the work the V did until he started working in a studio context um you know he he asked certain questions and those questions were were were answered uh uh uh you know at at their time I think that we're still in the process of of a answering questions the questions that are maybe raised by by by the Notions that that Serena mentioned but um back to back to you were saying about skating you know I I in in working on this project I I was I was incredibly surprised because I've always uh you know I'm not a skater um then again I'm not a scientist and I'm not a musician and and I love I love music I think our our interest in skating and our interest in science is like our interest in music and none of us can really carry a tune but uh but but uh we we would we we very very very interested in in in in them not so much uh to get a sense of what it should be but maybe to allow ourselves to think of what it could be or what it can be and and and and and specifically in skating uh right now because I mean i' I found some of the most conservative skaters you've ever met you could ever think of and I don't know to to us it skating was about Freedom uh and and and then to find so much about uh no man that's not how it should be uh was was kind of a a let down and a disappointment again we we probably didn't talk to the right skaters and and that's probably probably the reason that actually it could be it could very well be uh you know we're Outsiders in in in pretty much everything we do uh and um and you know we we have we there's it's inevitable uh uh in the the kinds of things we we we try to do at least so there's always that risk uh you know we even if we tried to do a a more you know I suppose the word would be conventional skate park uh we wouldn't know how to do it uh uh any anymore that we know how to do this one um we it's just that this seems to excite us more than than anything let me be clear I'm not talking about a conservative notion what aate no I I me I meant more a state of mind uh about things are this way and you know I don't want to talk about how they could be that's that's all say I say it at all it's just that the discovery of familiar through skate like you see a railing and you think imagine if I could actually late myself on this rail and slide down that's true but but it does it have to be a rail I mean one of the one one one beautiful thing I found out uh you know you know when when I was I was I was talking to to to to people that you know why do you SK why do you need stairs because you know you're jumping basically from the top of the stair to the bottom of the stair uh I mean do there have to be steps in between don't you just need basically a place to jump from and and this guy said something really beautiful he said well you know if there's steps you can count the steps and if I can count the steps you know I can say well I can jump 10 steps uh and you know and there's something perfectly valid about that explanation and and and and humbling and like oh my God we need to you know we we need to account for this in some way and you know I I gave a very very brief you know I didn't want to turn the the the presentation into into into the presentation I just wanted to give a bit of a sense of how we work and the kind of things we we sort of touch on when when we work that's all um you know we're we're we're we're showing the park constantly to skateboarders and you know and and you know initially it's like oh that careful with that and then I go wait wait okay say you walking down this bar and you have your skateboard in your hand and you see this will you skate and they'll say well yeah uh but still you have to you know okay so so I mean that discussion we we we can have and we still do have and and again it's in development and and we listen we listen very very very very carefully um so yeah Sor there's this one that um I found kind of interesting in what you pointed out and maybe there was something there was a jump also that was done within the presentation there's one thing that has remained from 's very early work to now and maybe we didn't present that clearly enough is the idea of having a scheme so some from something like farming P or even torture there's something that's kind of beautiful when you're looking at that period of's work because you can evolution in the scheme um and a certain coherence in this in this Evolution now the scheme still exists it just reached um it just has a and and it's still there and it's still there within the descriptions as well and what's kind of interesting is the way and I think maybe it is a limit sometimes but it's something that characterizes the work the early work info now it's the importance of the plot and um that's why we decided with with Lissa that maybe it was good to show the descriptions of the projects in this room because you have time although they're pretty lengthy and we shouldn't really expect people to have time to read this sort of stuff but you'll see that there's there's still the idea of plot and within I want to maybe mention something about what you said about about the change in language the what you call an esoteric language I I didn't know you were referring to verbal language as much as visual language uh I mean I you know one thing I feel so deeply committed in is that committed to is that you know I want the stuff with design even though I don't think we we' have lived up to this a or can live up to this a I want the stuff with designed to be stuff that couldn't possibly have been built couldn't possibly have been designed and probably couldn't even possibly have been thought of before the the uh 21st century I feel sure that the only way to design now is you know with the with the with the with the computer but I got to find another word than with because I think we haven't quite reached it yet I mean maybe we're using the computer too much we have to we have to I don't we have to nudge the computer I know Dario who knows the computer much more than I do says that doesn't really work that way but I'm not so sure I think we have to we have to learn to not tell the computer what to do but to to nudge and pet until it until it trusts us and uh and is able to you know is able to do something that couldn't have been uh couldn't have been B before could never designed before I mean I I I I think this this is potentially the most incredible time in architecture uh in many many many many years but at the same time it's the time of a you know new invention and it's probably very similar to the way it was in the Renaissance when perspective was discovered you know and everybody's drawing probably exactly the same until somebody made a mistake you know until somebody made you know some incredible flaw and now I think you know yeah when you know when when we have some stuff in the uh in the uh architectural architectural vial in Venice two years ago and all the people we liked you know it was hard to it was hard to it was hard to separate but I wonder if that's if that's necessary now that until somebody figures out how to make a mistake how to make a real still good in stake with the language that uh maybe it's a testing time I don't know yes yes what are your new thoughts about encroachment now through take ability underground SP borders going across parking lots what are the new kinds of directions than you I when when Serena was talking about paraside and virus uh uh I mean I think that's the kind of field the field of approach with never got to never got to some of those projects except the full Street project but I I uh we did a project in s Paulo well we didn't do it we uh proposed the project in s Paulo a few years ago uh based on the elevated highways in South Pao since elevated highways have cut through neighborhoods killed neighborhoods so we tried to make this housing not exactly houses to live in but a kind of community housing that uh clung onto the underside of the highways elevated off the street for people who are forced to live on the street in a lot of ways I think we should you one thing that I love about doing architecture is that we get a program to follow but one thing I I start to hate is that are we always following somebody else's moves shouldn't start to make the first move that we're when we're asked to do a project we're reacting to a program somebody else has you know already given us and I I I think the ideal what I would really like our architecture to act as is a parasite and a virus you know you cling on to buildings where people aren't supposed to go you make places for people where they're not where they're not supposed to be there are a lot of buildings with you know blank walls why not use them for people you know why not if there's a lamp post at a corner why can't there be a spiral staircase somebody can like some to consider the top of a consider the top of a left post you know I I mean I ideally what I want I stuff to do and I know people have come close to this is make places for people where they aren't allow they aren't allowed to be I mean that's why that fton street project interests me I think more than interests Serena because that notion of this extra space for people you know there's all that space up there you know and it's uh I all I hate spaces that lead to all uh I love a lot of Richard Sarah's new stuff I wish there was a hot dog standing time I wish there was something to do there except just feel that you know I am going to look up and feel wow feel wow you felt wow as a child you don't you don't have to feel wow man I mean I want our stuff to libery can it ever do that I don't know but it's the only thing wor worth trying also encroachment was uh when when the work was in the context of public art it's pretty much everything it could be uh because you know it's part of an existing space it's always an add onto an existing space you know it's 1% of the budget so it it almost it's inevitable decision is that to be something that is a parasite something that's attached to and sure you might make an effort to make it appear as it was always there or or it belongs there um but it unless you're building from the ground up unless you're you're you're making a place you're always uh uh uh put in the position of being part of a place and uh and making choices as to how how to be part part of that place maybe you should from arit head towards City Planning predesign one of these cities that disappeared last month do a proposal for one the cities in Mississippi yeah we'd love to do a city but at the same time we' love to do class we'd love to do a school you know I I don't know uh would I love to do a city I don't know I mean s has bought Notions ofia talk about but we don't agree about this within the studio I mean we'll sort it out I love the idea of Utopia as an intention I hate if it's ever reached so if we're going to build a city somebody else going to come in and and uh uh mess it up a little bit yeah oh sorry book book design you know in a way it's funny because uh when we have we're we're in the process of having a new web page now and um one one of the the the critiques of of that we had of of of of web pages is that it's very basically like at least in in in most way versions of what we see almost like these glorified books it's a it's a very Advanced way of turning Pages um and and we try to to think of okay how how how how can this be different I mean here we have uh this amazing landscape with with its own laws and and we're almost forcing it to behave you know we're in Mars and we're trying to make Mars feel like Earth and uh let's just hop around in Mars for a while and so in a way we we that that's the way we approach approach that I'm not sure I mean we we we struggle with graphic design yeah we're we're really we're really bad we're not very good graphic designers I don't think we understand two two dimensional space uh that sounds great when you say oh we don't understand we're just we're just bad we're just bad I understand the space where I can put my feet in I mean the reason I've always hated art was because of two-dimensional space the reason I hated art the reason I hated art was that you the viewer are supposed to stand here and the art is there so you're always in the position of desire and that desire will always be frustrated you know uh the reason you know I like spaces you can touch and you're not supposed to touch art and you're not supposed to touch art because art is more expensive than people uh I like the space where you can't touch it you know but the one of the um only things the only sort of objects or material objects that video has ever shown any interest for are books and in the studio we live on B we eat over books and and CD grow up books CD CDs too and C but CDs are more compax and they're new phenomenon because the collection of books is about your age and um we we're very very interested and very curious in um in this in book of them actually um and we um it's more and more within architecture now um more and more groups of architecture have their own inhouse designers and books architecture of books or some of these Publications are actually mini manifestos and we're actually limited by our inability not to be able to hire someone that we would enjoy working with could design book with us or um or our own limits yeah we would love to have a graphic designer in the studio would' love to have a landscape architect we'd love to have a uh a product designer you know I mean we want to kind of mix of designs I mean I mean what Serena is saying about books is true at the same time I think books Serena and I have admitted to each other that we don't read as much as we used to and I don't think you should read that much in the 21st century it's too fast you know I even don't see movies as much as I used to I would see movies more if they could be projected on buildings down a city street so uh you know why I think we're interested in music more why because you can do other things while you're listen listening to music just as an architecture you're meant to do other things 21st century is about multiple attention things that theand single Focus are maybe a little bit uh from another time you know how many books do you buy a we bu books I buy a lot I I li bu of but but just the fact that they're there is enough I don't have to read them I mean you if I you know I can Sly pass by skim I mean skimming is great you know reading is too much focus and attention uh it seems like more and more the best the books we prefer the most are the ones you can start reading from any page and and they still are significant there's still something some something in them um but um I should actually we we we are getting better on graphic design thanks to Dolly who's an architect she's not a graphic designer but uh uh she's she's helping us a lot she she had she had some more experience than than than than we did um for graph we we would think of Graphics a lot as as part of presentations and I think I think that's wrong I think there's something in it in in in there that uh we could distill you know back into space and uh we just don't don't don't don't know enough about it which doesn't doesn't really discourage yes any sacrifices you said were there any sacrifices uh well yeah I mean yeah in the sense that in art you can do anything you want of course you can because nobody in the world cares and in architecture in architecture you're dealing with an everyday world with everyday rules and conventional rules so yeah you can you know but you can find ways to be invented you know if you're forced to do something if you're forced to do a railing if you have a space that's over 3 ft high but you don't want something to announce as a railing then maybe you can find you could be more invented than than you ever thought you could be CU you can camouflage this this railing sure you give you give up a lot you give up something to be in this world that other people share but I think it's kind of work maybe there's a form of opport also of being able to navigate between different worlds at very much at ease and I think that the fact that either was an artist slash is is still considered as an artist but many people has been beneficial to um his early stages in architecture now you can really say that it's enough to get help us win competitions anymore um and there still are a couple of commissions but I think it was probably helpful ino's early stage of public art yeah I mean one thing about art that now I find it almost impossible uh you know I I I I you know I said a statement that maybe was a little bit exaggerated that in art you can do anything anything you want not necessarily you can do anything you want as long as this is current in C art magazines at a at a certain time uh uh but so I'm not sure if you really do anything uh one thing about AR though is that you have the illusion that you can do something that you can do anything and I find that in position that if somebody says do anything you I me that's one reason why lately we've decided we can't do public our presence anymore because there isn't a program you know and you know all we can do is make places to places to sit down and you know I think we made some nice places but then we think couldn't if few both parents have done have done have done the same uh I a program gives you something to have a dialogue with have a discussion with have an argument with do anything you want uh is a difficult situation for you I mean I think there are some people in the studio and I think V also that better good art than bad Folly than in know public Arts situation and that's the big danger of public art is that sometimes we end up producing folies um because of the restrictions of a of a situation the SCOPE LA yeah or or the lack of restrictions I mean I'm talking about restrictions because once or twice you had a pause on you weren't really able to build architectural so we were basically being constrained to build something that was sculptural that sort of CH almost a demonstration of what if we were really free it be this what it looks like and um again I think we're more interested in in in doing doing something that is is is inherently in by by by by itself uh uh really really existing within public space not just sort of uh making the Contex of public space but being being part of it being being being within it at the same time I think I I I I sometimes think that if we were give programs and follow maybe we would spend more time uh designing a car or you know designing clothes uh designing something and and I means that these are the more the more important spaces for this century and the coming Century this is a time of capsules public space is not a plaza the only reason a plaza exists is that a large number of people in the city are put together in one place so the city can the city can exercise some surveillance system on them you know public space exists in alleys and back rooms it exists uh it exists in in movement and uh you know I every body's notion of public space has changed uh first of all you know by the by the by the computer I know when I first started using computer I thought this is an incredibly Progressive space it's like reading but obviously it's not you know but it's a very different notion of public than than we had before so a mix of that a mix of that at 911 where everybody feels you know you have to have a protection is it leads I think to the notion of capsule maybe public space in the future consists of everybody wears everybody is inside some capsule every once in a while these capsules bump and join for a while but then they separate become capsules again and then they reach join with other capsules it's a very different notion of public I think we ever have thank you thank you thank you