This just popped up on my blog search for ‘Bercy Chen Studio’:

Beverly Skyline Residence on Bercy Chen Studio mostly G Living, Dark Twisted Space Monkies Go Green
The prepare began as a self-effacing remodel, but turned into a fully master-planning pro the site; including unspoilt inside and extrinsic recycle, an supplementation to an existing 1970’s butter up in, as admirably as re-organization of the garden. As the steadfast brought down was improperly sited, a sizeable motivation of the contemplate was to reconnect the brought down with its place around utilizing the straight topography to acknowledge advance of the effusive views.
One aim was to blend the architecture with the national garden and brook at the patsy of the chattels.

It seems we’ve graduated into the ranks of those whose content has been scraped for link farming.  Maybe we should get a robot to write all our text, the phrase “brook at the patsy of the chattels” has a nice ring to it…

One of the biggest shocks I had after graduating from architecture school and working in an office was that architects don’t generally work at the same scale as we’re trained to in school.  My design eduction emphasized creatively approaching a site and considering what mix of uses would be appropriate, investigating demographic trends, exploring how architecture can influence cultural development, and proposing new types of build environments.  It quickly became clear that most architectural firms do little or none of that; they are hired essentially to provide window-dressing for a project which is dictated primarily by either a developer’s market analysis or an institution’s project brief.  While there are plenty of counter-examples, the majority of buildings seem to be built in a system in which the architect is not the primary decision-maker as to what should be built.

The development ecosystem has become defined by a couple primary actors; clients, developers, investors, institutions, builders and regulatory agencies.  Decisions as to what should be built is made by these actors, then architects and engineers are commissioned to implement these decisions.  I see a lot of benefits to this ecosystem, it is good at responding to market forces, partitions risk to appropriate parties, and works well in the free-market economy.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t do a great job of addressing objectives which are not easily monetized; coherent communities, sustainable building practices, innovation and others.  My feeling is that to change the outcomes of development, we must first change the ecosystem in which development occurs.

Thomas Bercy of Bercy Chen Studio will present SUSTAINABLE STRATEGIES illustrated with work by BERCY CHEN STUDIO. Different aspects of sustainable buildings will be highlighted through built and un-built work of Bercy Chen Studio. The scarcity of resources and the population explosion has created huge pressure on the ecology of the planet. Architecture in the 21st century will have to confront these challenges by creating a new balance between buildings and nature. The presentation will focus on density and the suburban model, materials and recycling, systems and technology, and designing with nature.

Bercy Chen Studio recently competed in the RE:VISION Dallas design competition.

According to the competition brief, “Re:Vision Dallas is a chance to propel design beyond the typical, beyond the norm and to lay the foundation for a future of sustainable development we all hope is inevitable. It’s a chance to create a block that does no harm, to people or place. A chance to encourage and value relationships, while fostering respect for nature and our neighbors, privacy and resources, economy and consumption. It’s a chance to change how we live and connect, how we interact and collaborate—how we live in a space throughout our life and the life cycle of the space.”

The Re:vision Dallas competition requested a self-sustaining city block in a downtown without very many of the things that normally make city centers successful. Our proposal sought to establish an icon for this part of downtown both to draw people to the site but also to serve as an architectural proposition that accounts for the ambition of the competition brief.

The organizers’ request for a realistic proposal suggested a strategy of phasing out the work. Not only may phasing be necessary fiscally, it is a way for the project to evolve over time with respect to its urban viability. Change will bring with it all the complexity of reality, and a proposal which allows for evolution in response to external stimuli should end up being more robust and whole.

Our competition entry explored a range of housing types from single family to efficiency units. In a global perspective such housing typologies are not new. However, the idea of moving a suburban typology to downtown Dallas and arraying it alongside urban sleeping pods is a novel concept in Dallas, Texas.

Our proposal suggested the potential of collaborating with a social service organization. We utilized this component as a way to begin thinking about new modes of housing and shared space (the shared kitchen or assembly space for example). Additionally, such an organization’s focus on training and life skills was a perfect combination with the larger scale urban farming component of the proposal.

Our proposal sought to involve a high degree of systems integration which, when combined with the program requirement of zero wastewater runoff, suggested a development which not only harvested rainwater, but which utilized it as many ways as possible.

Wired reports on some findings in the journal Nature that suggest granular materials (sand) behave as a 5th state of matter (in case you’re wondering, the 4th state is plasma):

In the formation of droplets in a stream of falling sand, scientists have witnessed a dynamic that points beyond the boundaries of traditional physics, and may represent one aspect of a fifth state of matter.

…

Measurements of this phenomena, published Wednesday in Nature, overturn the previous explanation for sand droplets — that grains stick to each other after colliding — and quantify what’s called an “ultralow-surface-tension regime.” It’s entirely new territory for researchers, and just one of many dynamics governing the behavior of granular materials, which for reasons unknown to science act sometimes as solids, or liquids, or gases — or something in-between.

“You walk on the beach, and the sand supports your weight. Pick up a handful, and it runs through your fingers, like a liquid. But you can’t walk on water,” said Jaeger. “In the top of an hourglass, sand is this strange solid. It’s at the verge of being a solid; it flows through the middle as something like a liquid, and then it’s a solid again,” he said.

…

On a less-speculative level, research into granularity could be a boon for manufacturers. Most finished products and foods pass at some point through a granular stage — pellets of plastic, gravel in concrete, corn in a silo, powders in a pill, on and on. A report published by the Rand Corporation in 1986 found that granular industrial processes generally function at about 60% of capacity.

These high-speed videos are amazing:

Who would have thought that a high speed camera and a box of sand is enough to get you published in Nature?

The East Village is nearing completion. Located in the Revitalization District of East 11th Street, this Vertical Mixed Use project will become a unique focal point in a quickly growing neighborhood. The project includes 11 retail stores and offices, 20 residential condominiums, and roof top decks accessible by all residents. The unique shade screen on the south and west facades is just one of the many aspects of the design that contributes to the 3-Star Green Building Rating.

The East 11th Street neighborhood in Austin has seen considerable change since 2001. Once a largely ignored portion of Austin, E. 11th Street is now home to many different retail shops, restaurants, offices, and cultural groups. Block 19 seeks to capture this diversity by developing a dynamic and creative environment for its residents, combining retail shops and small commercial offices with residential units on the upper floors. On the fourth floor are two planted-roofs, each with a wonderful view into downtown.

The project is sold out on all but one of our commercial units and most of the residential units are also sold – a sign that during tough times, the East Village is a one-of-a-kind value for small, independent businesses who desire to connect more sustainably with their communities.

This article has two facinating bits of information: that our planet has a regular cycle of mass extinctions which occur every 65-million years, and that these extinctions may be due to our solar system oscillating above and below the midplane of the Milky Way galaxy.  More from the physicist who proposed the idea:

It’s been a few days, so here comes the first of a few posts I’ve had on the back burner for a while.

The Hubbert Curve is a graph depicting the expected world-wide oil extraction before and after ‘peak oil‘.  Ignoring arguments about the existence or timing of ‘peak oil’ as well as the accuracy of the shape of the Hubbert Curve, let’s look at another frightening aspect of oil extraction: its efficiency over time.  As the ‘low hanging fruit’ gets picked, extracting oil becomes increasingly difficult, which means that more and more energy is required to extract the oil (energy).  Obviously technology can ameliorate this to some extent, but take a look at this graph showing the energy return on investment since the beginning of the century:

This clearly shows that as we extract more and more energy in the form of oil, we waste more and more energy in the extraction process.  Returning to the Hubbert curve, this is a graph showing the net Hubbert curve superimposed on the gross Hubbert curve:

In other words, the oil supply is likely to plummet precipitously once we reach peak oil, due both to the dwindling supply and to the increasing cost of extraction.  Maybe postponing those wind farms isn’t such a great idea after all…

via The Oil Drum

In response to Ryan’s comments below, I will take the second part of his question as he dealt with the first. I come down squarely on the side of CNC production, but I think the interesting bit is not what we produce, but how we produce it.

CNC fabrication allows us to engage the materials firsthand at a 1:1 scale without having the craftsman in the middle. This allows for a direct feedback loop to exist between the maker and the medium. This iterative (rather than algorithmic or evolutionary) process engages the architect to the material and opens up a flow of feedback which one would be hard-pressed to write computer code for (see my comments to Ryan’s post).

Moreover, what is produced is now limited, not by templates, but rather by the designer’s intention and serves to free up making from the mass-standardization of industrial production. Instead we can engage materials and making in a process of prototyping and infinite customization.

Tom, Agustina and I had an interesting conversation over beers the other night about the emerging role of computers in the design and construction process.  To my mind two main questions emerged: what is a useful role for computation in the design process and how does architecture respond to the impact of CNC manufacturing processes on the constraints imposed on the builder.  These are both very expansive topics, so I’ll stick to the first.