Constructs Yale Architecture Fall 2009 Constructs Fall 2009 Table of Contents 02 Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang/ nARCHITECTS 03 Lise Anne Couture/Asymptote 04 Reconsidering Rudolph by Brad Walters 06 James Stirling: Architect and Teacher by Enrique Ramirez Views on Stirling by Everardo Jefferson, Alexander Gorlin, Raymund Ryan 08 Worlds Away exhibit reviewed by Andrei Harwell 09 Spatial Illiteracies reviewed by Michael Abrahamson Hines Fund for Advanced Research 10 Modern Times and Palladio by Dietrich Neumann 11 In the Field Unspoken Borders reviewed by Kian Goh One Perspective from New Orleans by David Waggonner A Matter of Opinion reviewed by Michael Abrahamson 12 Sustainable Urbanism with Ljiljana Blagojevic, Alex Felson, Keith Krumwiede, Tim Love, and Ed Mitchell 16 Book Reviews Modernism in the Middle East reviewed by Tala Gharagozlou Alvar Aalto reviewed by Ken Tadashi Oshima Twenty Minutes in Manhattan reviewed by Ed Mitchell Greg Lynn Form reviewed by Pierre Alexander de Looz 18 Fall Events Symposium: Constructed Objects by John Stuart Gordon Exhibitions: The Green House What We Learned: The Yale Las Vegas Studio and the Work of Venturi Scott Brown & Associates New YSoA Books: Kahn Assistant professorship: Vol. 2 Building (in) the Future Bass, Vol. 4: Nick Johnson/FAT 19 Kroon Hall assessed by Mike Taylor, Patrick Bellew, and Mark Simon 20 Spring 2009 Lectures 22 Spring 2009 Advanced Studios 23 Vann Molyvann Project by Bill Greaves 24 Faculty News 26 Alumni News, Where and How to Work Charles Gwathmey: A Eulogy 2 CONSTRUCTS YALE ARCHITECTURE FALL 2009 ERIC BUNGE AND MIMI HOANG Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang of nARCHITECTS are the Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professors in fall 2009. They will be giving a lecture, “Control,” on Thursday, September Eric Bunge & 3, and were interviewed in their nARCHI- Dumbo, Brooklyn, studio, by Nina TECTS, Rappaport for Constructs. Unpacking, Car Launch for Lexus, Mimi Hoang New York, 2006. nARCHI- bend and sway with the wind and change TECTS, Canopy color with the temperature. This influenced P.S.1 Young the design we are working on for the Buffalo Architects Niagara Medical Campus. We are focusing Program, on one street that will be a new green spine Long Island and public space for the campus—a new City, New York, 2004. linear park. We are using the crosswalk as a unifying design element along the park’s 3,300-foot length—varied widths of crosswalk bands slow down and speed up the pace. NR Like Burle Marx’s landscapes in Brazil? MH Yes, we are obsessed with him and know all the patterns. For Ordos, the environment is the catalyst for the build- ing concept and its morphology. It was our way to minimize the amount of thermal energy consumed, given that the houses are huge. We created a compact, fully condi- tioned inner house wrapped by a partially conditioned, protective outer house, which nARCHITECTS, Windshape, Savannah College of Art and Design, Lacoste, addresses how to deal with the harsh nARCHITECTS, scheme for the Ordos Villa-Villa, Inner Mongolia, China, 2008-10. France, 2006. desert climate. EB And our guilt. NR How is everyone dealing with Nina Rappaport How did you form NR When you make things out of repetition, we wanted to create variability. that aspect of the project? your partnership and come together as a components and assemble smaller pieces The switching bay windows and rear balco- EB It’s perhaps not surprising, but working team, in terms of dividing up the to form a larger whole, how is your method nies produce different light and view condi- the architects who have gone there have different roles in the office? different from other architects who use tions in each apartment, though their layout very different opinions about the context. I Eric Bunge We met at Harvard’s computer fabrication? How does the material is the same. The cladding also switches from think we began to see nuanced conditions GSD at the photocopy machine. .We are choice become a result of construction floor to floor and in front of the AC units to in China. .But there is some guilt, which very cagey about that last question; no one constraints? separate intake and exhaust air. The choice is why we made a smaller house within has yet succeeded in extracting that from us, MH A few projects share the desire of metal panels is tied to the switching the larger, required house. We have some mainly because there’s no simple answer. to use non-architectural materials—such as concept at the scale of cladding, whereas the misgivings about the urban plan, but at the Any idea that can survive the other’s brutal green bamboo or string—in a precise and bay windows and balconies operate at the same time what everyone describes as a criticism is the result of a shared debate, so engineered way or to develop a very simple scale of massing. zoo, we feel is the most powerful thing about the division of roles is naturally blurred. structure that in its experience and interactiv- NR How did the freedom of the the project. In fact, the unreal scale of large Mimi Hoang We started nARCHI- ity is varied and complex. In making models Ordos project ultimately provide you with houses in close proximity somehow allows it TECTS in 1999, soon after moving to New for Party Wall, we started with formally the restraints you normally seek out to to surpass the suburban. York. I was still working for Steven Holl at complicated flat surfaces that created guide a project? Was the design freedom NR How did you approach the the time. In 2001, I left Holl’s office, and we topographies when pulled apart from each overwhelming? design of the building envelope for your latest moved into a shared space on Essex Street other. We decided the interactivity was what EB At the larger scale, the variety project, the ABC Dbayeh Department Store with Lewis Tsurumaki Lewis and others, was interesting. So we opted for simple of experience within a limited palette of in Beirut? The lightness of a lattice in front of which helped us engage with New York archi- bands of foam that registered dynamic ideas is still operative. For the Ordos villa, a cavity embodies many of the same aesthet- tects and academics more easily. change rather than using formal complexity we designed a very simple brick box after ics as your other projects. NR I am fascinated by some formal as a departure point. we saw what Ai Weiwei and his group Fake MH The building is like an enormous threads in your work, from the more ephem- EB I think the process is organic Design are building in Beijing. We designed billboard on a highway, and we naturally eral installation pieces to the larger-scale since we are interested in making things real. a building within a building, what Kipnis worked through options that are about the projects. Many have the appearance of built We quickly sketch ideas and are fluid in our called the “ontology of the double.” There are differences between north- and southbound drawings, with strong gestural lines that are design process. One thing that ties this all three stacked volumes, each calibrated by traffic experience. It became a programmatic also structural. How does your interest in line together is that, in practice, we are not that different views, orientation, and use, so they and branding idea. We are doing everything as an element of structure or as a singular interested in process itself; we don’t have have different shapes. What is interesting is we can to stop them from putting up a sign; form to direct a project become three-dimen- an obsession with CAD/CAM and computer the intermediate space between them and so we’re integrating the logo into the façade. sional, especially in projects such as Canopy tools revolutionizing the world. We are inter- the envelope. It’s not heated but performs NR How do you combine teaching (PS1), Party Wall, and Windshape? ested in them insofar as they can help us, but passively and reaches the climatic and and practice, and how do they inform each EB There are a few things that we don’t want to be constrained by them. We experiential variety we seek in our projects, other? Why do you devote so much time to connect the projects: one is the desire to fill are very opportunistic: what is much more with very limited means. teaching in general? as much space as possible despite limited important is the effect, the economy, and NR The commonality between EB It’s challenging and interesting constraints, so there is a question of concep- the speed with which we can build things Canopy, Windshape, and the Ordos Villa- but very different from practice. We teach tual and material economy. This can lead to and how we get there. And we are critical Villa indicates an interest in the performance studios that unite political and tectonic an emphasis on a single material—a kind of about the legibility of the computer in our of architecture and working with climate. issues. This usually results in discrete archi- self-imposed rigor that sometimes results work. For instance, neither Windshape nor Climate has become a moniker in some tectural programs that have implications at in an assemblage in which I suppose you Canopy would have been possible without architectural projects: buildings don’t need an urban scale. We don’t focus on materials notice lines. the computer. In addition to all the laser-cut to fight nature but rather work with it.