Menu di navigazione
You are in: Home page > Magazine Archive > The usefulness of what seems useless
Gustavo Adolfo Carabajal
The usefulness of what seems useless
Project-Design for a bird house, a kite and a game
Design and construction of a kite. Astegno, WAVe Iuav 2004 directed by Carlos Ferrater.
Abstract
The
workshop experience becomes an occasion to address the theme of the usefulness of what seems useless: What
is obtained in dealing with the design issues of building a bird house, a kite
or a game? An investigation is set forth regarding the techniques of a
project-design and its representation, with the objective of enhancing one’s
knowledge about the essential aspects of the architect’s work: how to begin,
how is the process of design developed, how and what information is to be
obtained, the issue of scale, the role of structure, materials, the natural
elements, and the environmental components that are specific to a place. These
exercises become the place for a collection of materials that can make up an
un-writable encyclopedia of inspired knowledge, imagination, and even the
satisfactory decisions in the true story they tell.“Sólo este lenguaje instantáneo se revela eficaz
para encarar el momento presente.”
Walter Benjamin. Sentido único (1928)
To evaluate the role of a workshop, as a moment for the intensive teaching of architectural project-design in the course of education of students, one should first reflect upon what is intended by the teaching of project-design.
Projects are always generated within a negotiation process between what has been learned simultaneously and what has been learned sequentially. To study, research or examine only one part of them would be a rather reductive and sometimes useless activity to say the least. In the teaching of narrative literature, one learns that it requires the composition of a sequence of events and actions. All description is in fact sequential, while only images – even if only partial – offer simultaneity. What therefore becomes evident is the difficulty in teaching that comes in describing and demonstrating processes of simultaneous education, such as those that are developed within the activities of a project. It is not rare to see or hear descriptions in which architecture is recounted as the fruits of the activities of a single instant, or a present-continuous, which in reality contains a much longer period of time. As paradoxical as it may seem, this is the result of permanent exchange – occurring in all creative activity – between what is assimilated simultaneously and what is instead learned sequentially.
The activities developed for students in the didactic form of a project-design laboratory, which also allows for the integration of different subject matter, tends towards the simultaneity of acquiring knowledge. However, this is only possible if the student has a positive and active approach in generating the right kind of exchange and integration of acquired knowledge. Therefore, throughout the project’s activities, the student is to comprise multiple and specialized sets of information.
The work of an architect is not sequential; and one cannot imagine a certain type of structure as a resulting continuation of principal spatial decisions. Nor is it possible to imagine that dealing with the role and destiny of technological networks can be reduced to providing a few holes where they can extricate themselves, or else leave enough room to address the issues at a later time. Architectural design is a process – driven with a certain intentionality – in which there is a necessary continuous exchange of multiple forms of information and knowledge, giving plural entities to the proposal.
In the specific case of the intensive summer workshops the challenge was two-fold: on one side, there was the work with students who are still acquiring the necessary essential tools to dealing with an architecture project; and on the other, there was the preparing of an educational experience that could be handled by all students – coming from different areas of study – in order to put them at the same level, independently of their previously acquired knowledge and experiences. The challenge of these structured activities became an ex-tempore didactic opportunity to address the topic of the usefulness of what seems useless: “For modern man, as a matter of fact, it is always more complicated to find interest in something that does not imply a practical and immediate use for technical purposes” (1).
What use is Philosophy?
What use is poetry?
What is obtained from a theorem?
In the essay by Nuccio Ordine, through his reflections on great philosophers, what comes to light is the risk of how the obsession of possession and the myth of utility can undermine certain fundamental values such as dignitas hominis and ultimately dry up the human spirit. He explains this by reminding us how in the classical world there was recognition of the difference between a speculative (disinterested) science and applied sciences. He cites an episode involving Euclid, as told by Stobaeus: to answer the question of one of his pupils – who, having just learned his first theorem, asked, "But what will I obtain" – the famous mathematician called upon a slave and ordered him to give a coin to the student "because [the student] needs to get something from what he learns" (2).
So what is obtained by dealing with the problems proposed by a project for a bird-house, a kite or a game?
The proposed exercise tutorials – scheduled at the end of a long academic year, in the middle of the summer – had the vocation of illustrating and almost institutionalizing a seemingly superficial expression, according to which, in conceiving of architectural design, almost anything goes.
The initiative started with a student survey regarding design techniques of projects and their representation, with the aim of enhancing knowledge about the essential aspects of the work of an architect, while reinforcing the individual and original experience of project-design: how to start a project, how does the design process unfold, how to obtain information, the theme of the scale, the role of structure, what materials, natural elements, and environmental components are specific to a given place and so on.
These exercises promote the practice of demonstrating, more than of affirming, and they became a place for the collection of materials that could go into making up a non-writable encyclopaedia of inspiration, imagination, or even the successful decisions that some have mentioned.
There was no intermediary scale in the development and implementation of the project-designs; so all participants in the workshop had to work and build on a 1:1 scale, deciding what materials to be used, what structure to adopt, the finishing touches etc. From the onset, there was a stress on the importance of understanding that everything must be designed with constructive purposes. Designing and building is, in essence, the architectural profession. Moreover, it was understood that this type of exercise would stimulate a sense of self-criticism and discussion among the workshop’s participants, and it soon became clear that the end results would carry an almost automatic evaluation: is the game was fun or clever? can the kite fly? and will the birds come to their homes. For the development of the work-project, and to gather information, we turned to experts whose participation was crucial – beyond their specific contributions – to showing students the importance of research, communication and collaboration with those who have specific skills. On this occasion in particular, these specialists included an ornithologist, an expert of stunt kites, and an inventor of games.
Bird houses
The bird house is not a cage.
This type of experience has illustrious precedents in the realm of contemporary architecture. In 1993, for an exhibition at the “Antonio de Barnola” gallery in Barcelona, Carlos Ferrater, Enric Miralles and Elias Torres, among others were invited to render a project for Una casa para pajaros (A home for birds). The full-scale model presented by the first of these architects consisted of a tetrahedron of tube assemblies with knots invented by Alex D'Acosta. This structure was held together by a single nylon strin that created the texture of the side surfaces of the tetrahedron. This solution provided for access to the inside of the structure, and, at the same time, created an equilibrium between the sides, with a structural consistency that was favoured by the string's tension. The house, which resolved functional issues relating to the topic, also possessed the elegance of a sculpture by Naum Gabo, as well having one other distinct quality: at a smaller scale, the project could be imagined as a nest; and at a larger scale, as an aviary.
Another successful project was that of Enric Miralles. It consisted of a set of three artificial leaves or twigs that would attract migrating birds: one was metal, making up a small water trough; another contained a somewhat perverse neon strip; and the third, lined with bread, showed its condition of being ephemeral, given the structure’s edibility.
Just as the peculiarities that differentiate a large number of species of birds, from their many forms to the infinite patterns of their colours and songs, also their housing needs were reflected in numerous shapes and imaginative solutions. The choice of the place to build the nest, materials, shape and sun exposure are not random factors; rather they respond to specific trade-offs between functionality and availability of resources. The ability to build a nest is not passed down culturally, but it is part of that great wealth of knowledge gained in the long evolutionary path of every species.
Often the presence of man quickly leads to changes in habitats, which does not correspond to an equally rapid biological evolution of the species living there, and this produces serious effects on their ability to build nests and hence reproduce. Exemplifying this phenomenon is the case of the Swallows species.
The kites
The project-design of a kite poses some substantial issues that can be useful to the experiential learning process of doing. It requires the application of specific techniques relating to aerodynamics, which are necessary to master. One cannot proceed without the appropriate choice of materials, and of course the size and measurements of the kite must be taken into consideration. The smaller the kite, the more capacity it has to hover in the air and twirl, as the available winds will suffice at making it rise, fly and move, while larger kites instead require more wind to move. To get the kite up quickly, one has to be positioned with the wind at their backs, and so on. Without such accurate considerations one can likely build a beautiful object that is formally attractive, however, if it does not take the flight, it can be anything but a kite.
The tradition of kites in the East has been known for ages, and it has always held a high degree of popularity and importance. The flying-deer kites of the East evoke legendary or historical episodes with their shapes, names and traditional decoration.
In Japan the kites’ shapes vary: they can have geometric forms or take on a human contour, the shape of bird or any other animal. Custom has it that they are to be kept afloat in the air at night, above the houses to ward off evil spirits.
In Korea and Malaysia there is the custom of transcribing the misfortunes that happened during the year along the back of a kite, which is then flown through the air. When the maximum height is reached the string is burned, so that the kite is far away, and it flies away highly charged with its burdens so its owner can begin a new year with no problems.
In Honduras and Guatemala they fly large kites on the day dedicated to the dead, when changes in the winds bring hope for the arrival of a dryer season.
In various other countries, a popular activity is to have a battle of the kites where one participant tries to lead his flying-deer kite to block the path to other competitors, and when the strings get close, he gives a quick tug to his own so that it cuts the opponent’s string and their kites then fall to the ground.
The game
What there is to learn in developing this exercise is the importance of rules. A game and its rules are the same thing, the rules are the game and vice versa.
Furthermore, to deal with this type of project, one must first of all understand the interacting elements in each game.
Generally speaking, a game is distinguished by the more or less effective fusion of two fundamental components: the mechanism and the setting. The mechanism is the sine qua non of a game. There can be an abstract game, i.e. a mechanism without setting, but there can be no setting without a mechanism. The latter is the engine that drives the game, and it is that rule, or that set of rules, that govern the movements of the players and the conditions of victory.
For example, the driving mechanism of the traditional Snakes and Ladders game is: "At everyone’s turn the player rolls a die and moves his piece a corresponding number of steps." This sensational mechanism, created by a brilliant mind, was thought of for the first time about half a millennium ago.
The setting of a game, however, is often nothing more than a mere piece of clothing. All garments can be interchanged with a certain degree of ease or even entirely eliminated; and the system, in this case, remaining "naked", becomes an abstract game (3).
(Translation from italian to english by Alexander Sera)
Captions
(1) Ordine, N. (2013). L’utilità dell’inutile. Milano: Bompiani.
(2) Ibidem op cit, 152.
(3) Colovini, L. (2002). I giochi nel cassetto. Guida teorica per aspiranti autori di giochi. Milano: Unicopli - Venice Connecion.
Gustavo Adolfo Carabajal is a Full Professor of Theory and Technique of Architectural Project Design, and he is member of the Boar of Doctorate Studies in Architecture at the FAPyD dell'Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina.
Design and construction of a kite. Astegno, WAVe Iuav 2004 directed by Carlos Ferrater.
