boldtoad blog

Switzerland is a place where a certain appreciation for kitsch coexists comfortably with high design. Still, I was surprised to see this image of the Swiss Federal Council in 3D on the official Swiss government web site.

And, you can request a pair of free 3D glasses! That’s truly thoughtful.

Unfortunately the image is already out of date, following Pascal Couchepin’s resignation. Hopefully an updated version will appear soon.

Last month I was in Savannah for a few days to attend the ACSA Southeast Fall Conference. It was a long trip from Lausanne and I arrived feeling exhausted. Thankfully I had a relaxing layover visit with my sister and her husband in NYC - without that I really would have been a mess by the time I arrived in Georgia.

Unfortunately I made a bad online hotel choice and ended up in a dismal dive with aspirations to hipness - these consisted as far as I could tell in high prices, student art in the rooms and piped-in 50’s rock music throughout the night that the management grudgingly turned down only after multiple complaints (I slept with headphones and Philip Glass quartets, which are remarkably ok to sleep with).

There were a few good talks: the ones that stood out for me were ‘Tabula Aqua’, ‘Architecture as Performance’, ‘In the Realm of Architecture: The Concrete Buildings of Donald Judd’, ‘Learning Through Zoodio’, and ‘Accretion as a means of adaptation: design of the re-mix’ (the papers can be downloaded here). The topics in each session tended to be so disparate though that the discussions lacked focus. I met quite a few interesting people. Sadly there wasn’t time to sightsee. What I saw of the city on my morning runs felt neglected and worn-down by age. A few photos are here, here, and here.

This is an installation by 2nd year BArch students in Dieter Dietz’s studio at EPFL - the pavilion was apparently designed as the setting for a sound performance which will take place on September 20 at 3pm (for more details see http://alice.epfl.ch/).

Really impressive work …

This temporary installation at EPFL is based on a construction idea proposed by Markus Hudert and elaborated by one of his students in the MArch program at EPFL.

Recently I’ve been catching up on the preparation of a literature review for my thesis. This is something that logically should come before the bulk of one’s research is completed, but I’ve definitely found it helpful to do some intensive reading toward the end of my thesis research. This is partly because I have a better understanding now of the definition of the field in which I’m working; also, I keep coming across interesting articles that relate, directly or obliquely, to the work I’m doing … which concerns responsive architecture, architectural ornament, and indoor climate sensing.

As someone who’s working in an interdisciplinary way, it’s always an intense pleasure to come across an article that crosses disciplinary boundaries with rigor, intelligence and style. William Braham’s article on ‘A Wall of Books’ is a study of the natural/neutral color palette in architecture - the preference for natural finishes and neutral colors that he traces to its early 20th-century origins in the unlikely pairing of Henry Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson’s The International Style and Emily Post’s The Personality of a House. The point of entry for this topic is the wall of books as an accepted decorative element in High Modern architecture, and it’s remarkable how many topics Braham is able to address through this narrow focus: the gender implications of the separation between architecture and interior design, the relation of permanent and impermanent elements in architecture, and the origins of the still prevalent preference for natural finishes over ones that are perceived to be applied or artificial.

Here’s the reference (bibref format).

Why do I blog this? My current research involves the communicative function of material finishes and other decorative elements in the interior, and this article helps to explain why many of the sources for this topic are so far outside the mainstream of architectural criticism. Also, it’s a pleasure to see the topic of architectural finishes treated with a scientific eye, while acknowledging the importance of intuition in design.

I’ve been looking forward to the opening of the Learning Center (the last forecast that I heard was for November) with a mix of unabashed excitement and concern. Excitement, because this promises to be a building unlike any that I’ve experienced before, and because I love the concept of a building with topography; I’m also looking forward to experience Sanaa’s signature layering of transparency. I don’t think the building will fail to deliver a truly remarkable architectural experience.

Still, I can’t help wondering how this building will function as a library. Maybe one third of the building’s surface will house functions related to reading, study, and the storage of books; the rest is dedicated to the restaurants, cafes, banks and shops of the new student center, as well an auditorium and offices. I talked this week with an EPFL librarian who confirmed that the square footage dedicated to library in the learning center is substantially less than that of the university’s existing libraries, all of which will be permanently closed when the new library opens. Perhaps some space can be saved by moving the stacks elsewhere, and this appears to be the plan because in the drawings there are few stacks to be seen. I’ve worked very well before in libraries that stored all their books offsite; what’s more of a concern for me is what happens to the collective knowledge of the reference librarians from each of the existing libraries. There are currently 20-some libraries on campus, many of which have at least one librarian on staff with research expertise in a partcular domain. According to their web site the mathematics library has 80,000 volumes and a staff of 8 librarians; architecture has 37′400 volumes and a staff of 5. Not all these people will move to the new library, and without their knowledge it seems very unlikely that the new library will possibly be able to provide services which were available through the old libraries.

Forgetting the library for a moment, I really hope that the architects have resolved the groundplane and the way the building meets the ground. For this unique building to be successful there really has to be as much care given to the groundplane as to the building itself.

The building is currently sitting on a plinth of about 24″ , and where the slab meets this plinth there’s a vertical wall of about 24″ more (see zoomed area below).

Now, this is very different from what the renderings showed, which was a landscaped area under the building which meets the slab at an acute angle:

At the moment the area under the building would have to be filled to a depth of ~48″ to achieve the effect in the rendering, which would be nice … An even nicer alternative could be to create an undulating ground under the building that rises to meet to downward sweep of the slab, mirroring the topographic undulations of the building - this would also be less expensive because requiring less fill.

I’ll be watching to see what happens - and am very hopeful that the landscape under the building will be resolved in way that’s consistent with (and meets the demanding standards of) the architecture above.

I really like this spatial calendar! (photo by dame margot fonteyn)

It is rather stereotypically Swiss (how did they get those lines so straight?), but there’s also a great discovery in this use of a room as a continuous timeline (I’d like to imagine the calendar continuing behind the camera to wrap all the way around the room). It calls to mind rooms specially designed for the display of particular types of information, like planetariums, or ornament that displays information, like sundials. This brings lots of questions to mind like if you could design a room to be a calendar, what would it look like? Or, what would be the result if you emptied the contents of your laptop onto the walls of your office or living room? I often wish I could see all the information stored in my computer at once - and I’d like to think that the method of organization would have to be as idiosyncratic as the contents themselves.

This room isn’t a very efficient use of space, and I’m sure it’s not time-efficient either - you don’t need a spirit level to set up a calendar in Outlook. Why bother with something as elaborate as a calendar-room when you can store the same information on your PC, share it with other people, access it during meetings, etc. But how sad to think of all the unique ways of mapping information that we’re missing out on because we all use the same tools to organize our stuff.

Why do I blog this? Information visualization in buildings is a principal research interest, and it’s interesting to see examples like this of people using their physical environment to make sense of information.

I’ve been working on a new thermochromic panel over the past two weeks with Christian Abegg and David van der Maas. This panel is simpler and smaller than the panels we’ve been working on recently; the aim here is to refine our fabrication techniques in preparation for building a series of panels this fall.

With this board the thermochromic pigment was applied in a silkscreening process. The pigment is mixed with transparent soldermask and applied over a layer of white soldermask, which is revealed when the thermochromic pigment is heated. We’re working now on building the control board for this panel. The advantage of using a silkscreening process with soldermask is that once we figure out the process we should be able to put the ink precisely where we want it, rather than painting the entire board with thermochromic pigment as we have been doing.

This is the first iteration of a panel that will be part of a user evaluation this fall. The ferns are divided into eight circuits, whose brightness can be individually regulated to give the impression of gradual change in response to changes in the indoor environment. We use a sensor network to measure indoor climate and air quality (temperature, humidity, light, VOC’s, CO2), and an Arduino-based control board to regulate the thermochromic panels based on changes measured by the sensors.

Christian Abegg and I made the PCB, and it looks like the thickness of the copper isn’t very consistent - the leaves have a lot of variation in brightness, but if the copper had a uniform thickness they should all have a consistent color when activated. We’ll have to work on this in future iterations - although I also like this effect, it almost seems as though you’re seeing the leaves in dappled light.

Why do I blog this? These prototypes are what I’m spending much of my time on these days, and this blog is helpful for recording design iterations and sharing them with anyone who’s interested.

I participated again this year in a mountain running race from Montreux to the Rochers de Naye, a summit in the Swiss ‘Pre-Alps’ with incredible views of the French and Swiss Alps. The race starts in front of the train station in Montreux (there was a marching band this year to lead the way!), and after a short ascent through town the race follows a narrow stream valley (the Baye de Montreux), followed by a steady climb on the road between Glion and Caux. After Caux there are a few more kilometers on the road, then about 4k on rocky trails leading to the summit. The distance is a modest 18.8k; the fun part is the 1600m climb

Last year this race challenging and fun; this year there was more challenge and less fun   The last three kilometers in particular were seriously un-fun …

I hope to do one more mountain running race this year, hopefully better-prepared than I was for this one …

I haven’t been so active this year with running, with just three races so far: the 20km de Lausanne, Montee du Nozon, and the Rochers de Naye. For the rest of the year: I’m planning to go to local races (Lausanne Marathon, Christmas Midnight Run, Tour de Pays de Vaud), and one more mountain race, possibly Sierre-Zinal again if I’m in better shape by August.