UNITE
DES401 - VISIONARY HYBRIDS PROF - MARI FUJITA
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M1 : Urban Study
— MAPPING
— COUNTER-MAPPING
M2
L1 : Mapping
Module 1 of DES 401 serves as the soil/ground for a semester-long project focused on urban study, emphasizing observation, inquiry, and analysis through urban mapping and counter-mapping. Students are tasked with examining a site’s history, current conditions, and speculative futures. The maps and countermaps are designed to challenge conventional representations of land and space. Through this process, we are encouraged to engage critically with the sites (UBC campus, endowment lands, pacific spirit park) and explore creative and responsive forms of representation.
Process
In a group of 5 we are to seek and share insights about the conditions of UBC Campus.
I am responsible for the condition of Social Dynamics & Demographics.
I feel that a map is a living thing and has fluidity. I also feel that there is a lack of continuity between design stage and the monitoring or study of the actual building process. I feel like we could learn a lot from the latter stage. It seems as though a chef preps a menu and never sees or tastes the meal. But these are my perceptions as an architecture student, perhaps the real world is different...
MAP
This summer my friend Cam and I worked with Dankor Architectural Concrete where we spent the majority of the time on this one big house around King Ed and Granville area.
One of the things that stuck with me is the idea of visibility. I am not quite sure how to describe it, but it’s the idea that the construction workers or any kind of builders especially of homes or mass produced objects rarely enter the awareness of the user of those spaces or objects.
So, I want to explore that idea and map the construction zones of UBC campus and perhaps get to know the builders and share their stories.
Petals of life layered in my view.
clouds
birds
mountains
water
trees
garden
fence
concrete
bench.
All kinds of lines.
Proportionally, the ocean takes the least amount of space.
But it's the most important to you.
It knows you so well.
This view would feel foreign without it.
I once came here at night in my first year to see Jupiter.
Built like a human chest, the Chan centre is one of my favourite structures in vancouver.
There you witnessed nils alok and the music students perform a wind ensemble.
First with his organ, then with their mind, and then with their lips.
The space allowed for all of me's and now you, to be seen, and all of life to be heard.
I was reminded and reframed on all three occasions the edges of human performance.
And the edges of material performance.
For a centre such as this does not inhale without its performers
and the performers don't exhale without a space like this.
The flag I notice, but as I invite feelings to emerge
nothing alive or significant shows itself.
And that in a weird way feels liberating.
I guess even what feels meaningless is a meaning of something.
Bench by Laserre
Tall, delicate, golden grass sways.
If the soil had rays it would be them. Taller than me and you.
Other, even taller grass at the edges of the planter with splayed branches move like giant emperor insects with super long antennae.
At least a dozen more species of plants.
Sitting on this bench cocooned by them in all directions. You look around.
"this is architecture" I speak in silence and conviction.
I face the sun.
The elements in this space make room for one another.
Is this good architecture?
Observing the sway of one inhabitant like the tree move in harmony with the swaying of the bird or the shrub or the old administration building with a thick coat of vines.
I wonder if my designs can do that... make the wind the sun the water visible. And how?
And perhaps since we are made of these elements and more, might it apply to us.
We all want to be seen, but exposed.
Touched not violated.
Moved and not traumatized.
Can my designs do that?
To humans, and everything else including the space itself, if they were ever separate.
When groups of two or more move past I frequently hear laughter.
And almost every conversation makes little sense to me.
The slight slope softens their steps. How neat...
Where this spot inspires me due to its lightness, softness and flow
one hundred steps down I feel inspired due to darkness, hardness and no.
The school of music has one of the most emotive and familiar facades,
the recital hall uneasy, the practice rooms dingy, small and isolating.
Designed as though they refused to let any sound escape.
I heard from Letizia and others that it's quite conservative.
Do they make music or do they just train?
Hummingbirds have been singing the entire time I've been here.
On the way to hennings
There is a tree.
I don't think about them as much as other trees.
But you should know them.
I could tell you their proportions, and line vectors, and colour distribution,
but knowing you that would be worse than telling you nothing.
When you're close enough to let them frame your view, you'll believe their not like others.
You'll imagine them to be the first living thing.
Where grace and suffering are one.