OSA
PHILOSOPHY AND CV
Practice: Office for Sustainable Architecture
Channing and Robert; pole tree house from across the canyon
OFFICE FOR SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE
PHILOSOPHY AND CV
Monster Houses, Cafes, and Dogs: Purpose in Eco Design
Abstract
When, how and why are there theories of architecture? To be pondered along with their life, effect, and accuracy, is purpose. Perhaps the purpose of a theory of architecture is simply to structure complex projects with an order imposed from a design idea. Introduction. This notion of changes in contemporary rural and urban ecology is based on observation. Many of the great cities are experiencing venetian sunsets. (Kaplan 1997) Their usefulness as production centers is limited. Post-urban pods like Orange County (without a city center yet ranking in the top thirty countries in the world as an economic entity), Newmarket, Auckland, and many others can act as city states. Given this succession in the ecology of people and the natural environment, monster houses (and abandoned neighborhoods), cafes and dogs, with what might our built environment be regenerated?
"Instead of castle or town protected by a labyrinth, we have the city as a labyrinth. The convolutions have moved within, and are threatening rather than protective.... The labyrinth is no longer a special dwelling constructed for a particular monster, but rather a house where everyone lives." (Faris 1988)
Discussion
A conclusion is a beginning in generating ideas. What constitutes a satisfying and useful embryology of built form? The assumption of interconnectedness, ecology and architecture, landscape, and urban place and realm as figure and ground, openness and enclosure, inside and outside, and memories and desires, is a start.
The following six posturban projects are a suggestion. 1. Rural conservation reserves. 2. Rural agricultural collectives. 3. Parks, gardens, atriums, plazas, forums and passages are timeless. 4. Restoration, revegetation, and reclamation are ideal but costly. 5. Post-urban pods like Orange County (without a city center yet ranking in the top thirty countries in the world as an economic entity) and many others can act as e-commerce city states. 6. Formless projects might allow dwelling (the essence of human being) and community. Cafes are a popular icon and museums contain the odyssey into the hypertextual poetics of virtual reality.
"What happens when we go to the museum?" (Joyce 1997)
Monster houses. In 1991 the worst urban forest fire in history destroyed 3,910 houses in the Berkeley Hills. Today- "The middle distance is filled with architectural contraptions risen crazily from the ashes, their variegated roofs (flat and mansard, bowed and peaked) overshadowed, a bit farther up the hillside, by the immense backsides of the boxy new constructions commonly called "monster houses."
"Boxes," "monster houses," "motels," "houses on steroids," "mushrooms springing up in charcoal," "factories," "trailers," "visual indigestion," "kitschitecture"...Much of what has happened since 1991 bears witness to the triumph of selfishness: immense and ugly structures designed without a care for context or consanguinuity..." (Kirp 1997)
The huge significance of the cafe in dwelling (the essence of human being) and community is well illustrated. From MFK Fischer, The Art of Eating, to Bill Holm, The Heart May Be Found Anywhere On Earth, To Bunuel, My Last Breath.
"Chairs in Paris spill out of cafes, redefining the edge of buildings. A corner cafe will, during its working hours, arrange outdoors an undulating skirt of chairs and tables, a shifting landscape fluttering and cluttering in response to climates meteorological and conversational. Particularly wonderful about the Cafe Costes chairs was the way they appeared to be talking to one another before they were occupied....The art of the cafe is to sell time. Historically, these public spaces of Paris have acted as literary salons in whose spiralling smoke, to the clink of glasses, theories artistic, philosophical and political have been elucidated. Campbell, Barbara-Ann 1997 Paris: A guide to recent architecture. Koln: Verlagsgesellshaft.
Dogs. In Terminal Architecture Martin Pawley argues that art history is what stops us understanding architecture. He believes that the real barometer of the value of buildings today is not their aesthetic pedigree, but their usefullness as terminals in the maze of communications and distribution networks that sustain modern life.
Pawley contends that because we use the wrong system to value our buildings we send the wrong signals to the people who plan our cities. As a result urban life is being destroyed by politicians, planners, art historians and the heritage and tourist industries, all of them ignoring network thinking if favour of fake historicism, crumbling infrastructure, phantom populations, no-go areas and increasingly restrictive security measures. As a result authentic architecture has become disurbanized. It survives only in the shape of buildings like distribution centers, factories and petrol stations that are designed as instruments [dogs], not monuments. (Pawley 1998)
Later that summer on a road trip, I listened to the abject music of failure in the abandoned former centre of that cold (or hot) California town. The hotel has been torn down, the lot fenced to prevent the homeless from moving in. The big letter sign across the highway now connects the former hotel with a rest home occupancy. Down the way several small African-American girls played jump rope behind the standard chain-link fence, with guard dogs, to keep the homeless out. A dusty nadir point of the West, a neighborhood with an "ecstatic form of disappearance" (Baudrillard 1988), and a human touch.
Purpose. The theory of architectural design work is a semantic theory and not a scientific theory. Such a theory has to do with experienced order and meaning; direction; and purpose; assessment and evaluation - all non-scientific terms. Such a theory cannot satisfy those who seek an architectural theory framed along scientific lines.
...many problems of architectural theory stem from a search for meaning and intention in design over and above the meeting of immediate human shelter needs. Architects as a group are prone to philosophies on the nature of man in society; and a man's relationship to his built environment and on the nature of his perception of the world in which he lives. They are forced by the nature of their task to do this in the attempt to match social needs with an appropriate personal vision in order to make a design.
...the environment of human beings is multi-dimensional. ....raw nature ...society, an economy. a civilisation and a culture. If therefore we are to create an intelligible order in our comprehension of universal space ...within our technological age, civilisation and cultural space. A humanising architecture will be of necessity be devised by reference to all these dimensions of human environment. Following this line of thought then architecture as an activity is seen to be the art of bringing order to our spatial environment - in all its dimension.
...For architecture represents a "world". We know that man experiences his environment along two channels - through the immediate sense reactions of his body and through the eyes (or spectacles) of his culture. Architecture concretised both experiences into one totality. As this it is more total activity than either the pure sciences or the fine arts. The coherence of a work of architecture stems not from the objective organisation of clear description, as does the work of science, nor solely for the effect of presentation and symbolisation as do the fine arts; but from the simultaneous organisation and revelation of the character of an enclosed and structured place in physical, social and cultural space. In a work of architecture man/time/place/activity/materials/technology/science/beliefs are resolved and dissolved into plastic organisation, form and image.
...Architecture is best understood as an association of intentions resulting in a work.... (some intentions) permeate the designer's thinking either consciously or unconsciously or unconsciously and relate to ideas of the nature of reality, nature of the physical world and man's relation to it.
"...Purpose and context thus shape the design world." Oakley, D.The phenomenon of architecture: in cultures of change, Permagon, Oxford 1970.
Personal Biography and Selected Works 2008
Robert D. Hotten
B.Arch, M.Arch(Hons), MLA(Berkeley), AIA(Former), ANZIA, ANZILA (Chair Auckland Branch 1999-2000), ASBPA Hawaii Architect #6540, CA #C01281, NZ #6420, NV #275-P, NZ Landscape Architect
Biography
Robert was most recently a guest "Professeur Associe" in Paris, and formerly a Teaching Fellow at the University of Auckland. With a Joint Program in Urban Design Masters from the University of California, Berkeley, he has practiced and taught architecture, landscape, urban design, film, and CAD/CAE/CAM/GIS as a Registered Architect. He presented a paper "From Dreamtime to Quicktime: Panoramas" at the ACADIA conference in Washington, October 2000. See http://www.aloha.net/~laumana/post.html and etc., for recent work "Posturbanism: Eco Design From Norm to Form" (Presented at the SFIA Eco-Wave Conference, July 2002, Berkeley). He continues to develop sustainable alternatives at his eco living community project in Hawaii and has a highly rated web site in "sustainable architecture", www.aloha.net/~laumana. His personal interests include toying with a "virtual professor" status.
PO Box 626, Lawai, HI 96765 USA
001 (831) 229-5976, doghotten@gmail.com
Education
1967-1969 Bachelor of Architecture,
University of California, Berkeley
1970 Master of Architecture,
University of California, Berkeley
1970 Beatrix Farrand Fellowship,
Joint Program in Urban Design
1971 Master of Landscape Architecture,
University of California, Berkeley
Practice of Architecture and Landscape
Architecture and principal teaching activities:
1975 Assistant Director, Planning
Department. VTN Consolidated,
Irvine, California.
Huntington Beach Master Plan
1972-1974 Research Specialist,
Department of Architecture,
University of California, Berkeley,
Environmental research and modelling
1995- 1999 Casual Lecturer, University
of Auckland, ArchPropPlan Department
in Planning and Architecture
1999-2000 Teaching Fellow,
School of Architecture,
University of Auckland
1999-2000 Chairman, NZILA,
New Zealand Institute of
Landscape Architects, Auckland Branch
2000-2001 Professor Associe, l'Ecole
d'Architecture Paris a la Villette,
and guest of the University of Paris
Selected realised projects:
1978-1981 Mission Beach Precise
Planning Group, San Diego, California
Elected representative
1981 McLean Residence, La Ribera,
Baja California Sur, Mexico.
600 sqm tropical thatch dome
1983 Leslie Residence, Wrightwood,
California. Passive solar,
earth-sheltered house
1984-1991 Board of Directors,
Installation Gallery,
a non-profit visual arts space
1984-1991 Advisory Board,
San Diego County
Board of Supervisors
1987 "60 Watt Dollie", sculpture,
"Furnitura", group show, Vorpal Gallery,
San Francisco, California
1988 Topanga State Beach, California.
Analysis and policy plan to preserve an area
of the beach by inclusion of a low-impact
site plan into the Los Angeles County Plan
1989 Putnam Residence, Hollister Ranch,
California. High technology earth-sheltered,
passive solar concrete house
Since 1989 Hawaiian Native Plants LLC,
native plant propagation, ecological
revegetation design and landscaping in California
and Hawaii and New Zealand. GIS
ecological inventory
1991 Mimran Guest House,
Montecito, California
Since 1993 Sustainable Houses, Kauai, Hawaii.
Designed and built two energy-efficient,
low-cost houses, integrated with the landscape
1993 Sustainable Plan and Development
Kokee State Park, Kauai, Hawaii,
A "Growth by Chunking" experiment
1995 Earhart Residence, Kauai, Hawaii.
Sketch ecological revegetation design,
planning and landscaping
1998 "Wave Festival", land art installation,
Piha Beach, Auckland, New Zealand,
for Lopdell House Art at the Beach, 100 x 50m
1999 Jones Residence, Newmarket, Auckland
garden design
2000 CRECA (Center de Recherches d'Esthetique
du Cinema et des Arts Audiovisuals)
Conference, Universite de Paris 1,
Sorbonne, December 2000, Paris.
Collaborated in urban force field
mapping by Knowbotic Research.
Austrian Exhibition at
Biennale di Venezia
2000 Hotten, Robert, and Dr. Peter Diprose.
"3XL Garden City", in La Biennale
di Venezia 2000, 7th International
Architecture Exhibition Competition
of Ideas: Citta: Third Millenium.
Venezia: Marsilio. pp. 182-185
2002 Sunset Makai Hale, Kauai, Hawaii
Modification of landscape to maximise near ocean views
2004 Grinpas Residnece, Kauai, Hawaii
Interpretation of Japanese country style
2005 Steuck Residences, Monterey, California
Site Plan, Grading Plan, Landscape Plan,
And conceptual design of 2 houses, 2 guest-houses,
and 2 employee houses for site plan and design review.
2005 Cumming Residence, Gaviota, California
Site Plan and conceptual design of ranch and
employee house
2006 Lawaiuka Road Residence, Lawai, Hawaii
Site Plan and design of a sustainable community
International awards and successes in competitions including:
1969 Finalist, Trondheim, Norway
New Town competition
1988 The land art project "Fault Strike Light",
$5,000 Design Development Award
in San Diego, California
1988 Hamel's Action Sports Center,
Mission Beach, California.
Renovation which after subsequent upgrade
won an "Onion Award"
1998 Two "Awards of Merit" for
California Energy Commission,
"Leading Edge 98", student competition
1999 Invitation to join collaborative cyberspace project,
10_Lavoro Immateriale, La Biennale di Venezia,
1999, Austrian Booth
1999 La Biennale di Venezia 2000, Selected Architect
entry in Third Millenium City: "3XL Garden City"
2000 "Road Trip 2030", student work selected for
competition International Festival for Architecture
in Video, November 2000, Firenze
Selected Bibliography
1988 Sand Mining on Mission Beach,
San Diego, California. Shore and Beach
Journal, April 1988, and presentation to
National ASBPA, (American Shore And Beach
Preservation Association) Conference
1992 "Shore and Sea Boundaries or Private Versus
Public Areas on the Beaches of Gaviota, CA."
Research for Hollister Ranch
Homeowners Association
Since 1995 Sustainable Architecture: Eco Design
Landscaping and Planning.
Top rated archive web site,
http://www.aloha.net/~laumana,
1996 "Greenhouse Effect and Sea Level",
draft monograph
1998 "Mysterioso: The Getty Center Garden
and Other Buildings"
1999 "From Paris Texas to the Road Warrior:", refereed
keynote paper, ACADIA, Association of
Computer Aided Design in Architecture,
October 1999, Salt Lake City, Utah
1999 Led Urban Design Study Tour to Australia
1999 "Vulcan Lane" in Landscape New Zealand,
November 1999, AGM Publishing
2000 "From Dreamtime to Quicktime", refereed paper,
ACADIA, Association of Computer Aided
Design in Architecture, October 2000,
Washington, D.C.
2000 CRECA (Center de Recherches d'Esthetique
du Cinema et des Arts Audiovisuals)
Conference, Universite de Paris 1,
Sorbonne, December 2000, Paris.
Collaborated in urban force field
mapping by Knowbotic Research.
Austrian Exhibition at
Biennale di Venezia
2000 Hotten, Robert, and Dr. Peter Diprose.
"3XL Garden City", in La Biennale
di Venezia 2000, 7th International
Architecture Exhibition Competition
of Ideas: Citta: Third Millenium.
Venezia: Marsilio. pp. 182-185
2002 Hotten, Robert, and Dr. Peter Diprose. 2002
Posturbanism: Eco Design From Norm to Form.
Monterey: Seadog Press
first edition ebook at:
http://www.aloha.net/~laumana/post.html
ISBN 0-9728097-0-8
Ecological Design The Unstoppable Wave,
SFIA (San Francisco Institute of Architecture)
Conference, July 2002, Berkeley
2003 "Monster Houses, Cafes, and Dogs: Purpose in
Eco Design", with Dr. Peter Diprose,
Ecological Design The Unstoppable Wave,
SFIA (San Francisco Institute of Architecture)
Conference, August 2003, Berkeley
2004 "Meaning in Eco Design", with Dr. Peter Diprose,
Ecological Design The Unstoppable Wave,
SFIA (San Francisco Institute of Architecture)
Conference, August 2004, Berkeley
2005 "Anarchy and Eco Design", with Dr. Peter Diprose,
Ecological Design The Unstoppable Wave,
SFIA (San Francisco Institute of Architecture)
Conference, August 2005, San Francisco
2007 "Posturbanism and Paradise: Real gardens, vicarious
landscapes or virtual arenas for stillness and spectacle",
with Dr. Peter Diprose and Kelly O'Meara, The
Paradox of Stillness, CADE (Computers in Art
and Design Education) Conference, Curtin University,
September 2007, Perth
Virtual Tour Gallery, Biennale di Venezia 2000
http://www.aloha.net/~laumana/officeforsusarchintro.html copyright 1988-2008 robert hotten - all rights reserved