Half Space 1.0

Half Space 2.0

Mannequin_2.0

Mannequin_1.0

City Pasture 3.0

City Pasture 3.0 from Jun ZHU on Vimeo.

“Transparente”

Metro de Madrid: “Transparente” from Shinichiro Matsuda on Vimeo.

There are so many film recording the city in a bird's eye view to demonstrate the scene of the urban. This is a totally opposite one which only exist in imagination. Once the floor is made by glass, the actions of people at both upstair and downstair floor would be changed. And the interaction of above and under may make the two floors combine into one, or become ½ each. Maybe all floors would no longer exist. everyone is flying.

7 ½

[Film: 'Being John Malkovich']

7 ½ floor- a floor hidden between 7 and 8, where people need to keep bowing and be unable to walk upright as usual. There is no button for the 7 ½ in the lift. The lift has to be forced to stop by fire alarm and opened by an iron stick. For these using the unique space, the explanation that the strange floor is especially built for dwarves is just a silly lie. The space is kept secret to the public for some dark reasons.

It just like the society for many people’s living nowadays. Staying at an indefinite level, they could not go straight but give away to others.

In the plight of our existence, there is always this kind of space clipping or suspending in between. They are not in the right size in horizon or vertical for man’s use, working as a transitional part or for special using. For example, thieves always crawl in the ventilation channel showed in many movies. What’s that feeling? The viewing position is different and men would be possible to staring at these things ever ignored or even never found before. Once be focused on, these uncommon spaces maybe could perform in its own way and bring about some new.

Garden City

[Left Images: "Lorategi-hiriaren eskema, 1902.,"by Ebenezer Howard]

The Garden City Movement was founded by Ebenezer Howard in 1898 as an urban planning system, which made the central city, the garden cities and the country in between to be a self-sufficient unit generating under a specific rule. Howard believes that this rule, which carefully balances area of residences, industry and agriculture, would solve the problem of city’s growth.

Containing advantages of both town and country, these organized garden cities would withdraw the magnetism of the central city. Once the magnetism is reduced, there would be no longer endless expansion of the central city with population inflation.

Two garden cities were designed according to garden city principals which also influence the United States. The idea of ‘garden city’ is transferred into ‘garden suburb’ which is more practical. Without the commercial and industrial components of the garden city, the garden suburb is just a residential area. The quality of living is improved without the magnetism decreased.

According to the United Nations, more and half of world’s population live in urban areas since last year, which shows cities still keep attractive for most of people. In some developing city such as Shanghai Parks and gardens become more and more precious while the land price is rising. The enlargement of city could not be avoided. High-rises are always used to broaden the central of the city in vertical.

In the same way, a city could get to be a high-rise. When the country is laid above the town or the city, a new kind of garden city comes up. Elevators or tunnels will be substituted for highways, which quickly connect city and country.

'Underground'

'Underground' from Jun ZHU on Vimeo.

Digital Materiality?

[Image: 'Private House, Riedikon, 2004-2009', by Gramazio & Kohler]

In tonight's lecture, Matthias Kohler maintained that they just design the process but not the form, shape or geometry. The Digital Materiality is more like 'Digital Construction', but the robot as the main role in all their projects does extend the possibilities of ordinary material's use. Even these common bricks could perform so impressive, what about these new materials?

The facade of Private House, Riedikon not only gives different appearance in different position, but also provide changed transparency inside and outside. There isn't any hi-tech stuff, but just normal wood.

PARK(ing)

[Image: "Forest on Foot", by Interstice Architects]

How to combine the city with countryside? In the project PARK(ing) Day, the metered parking spaces inside the city are temporarily transformed into temporary public parks as ‘PARK’ spaces. It aims to find out the range of possible activities for this short-term lease.

This project seems to be same as the Rockplug I mentioned before. However, they actually use the opposite ways to combine the city with countryside. One is bringing countryside to the city; the other is bringing the city to countryside. In PARK(ing) Day, although these are only short-term lease, the experience of nature is real. In Rockplug, there are trees surrounding you, but you still have to answer a phone call or type a file on a notebook.

People cannot totally get rid of city in countryside or on their vocation, they could be pulled back at any time instantly by the 3G network through a single iphone. Once they get back from the countryside, it is also impossible to throw the countryside away, because all the soil and seeds stick to your boots or coat are the extension of nature. Therefore, man become the media between the city and countryside.

City - Nature

[Images: "St Pauls- A late afternoon plunge,"by Jonathan Glancey]

[Images: "Aqualta: Times Square at Night, NYC,"by Studio Lindfors]

[Images: "Terminal 2 - Fryderyk Chopin International Airport,"by Kobas Laksa]

The common point of these pictures, which illustrate a future flooded London, New York City after a catastrophic flood and Terminal 2 at Warsaw airport when there are few flights, is all the artificial city space goes back to nature.

People always have a dream of living in a garden city or countryside in order to get in touch with nature. This kind of dreams do come true in these pictures and many science fiction films such as ‘Twelve Monkeys’, ‘I’m a legend’, in which plants grow out of the concrete while lions wander in a library. However, it is cruel to tell the differences between these scenes and people’s dream, that is people have to live in another way.

Factories would be abandoned once a city is no longer an industrial city, while airport would be out of use due to an unaffordable price of oil. Then wild cats appear together with weeds in these man-made buildings. In the same way, after some catastrophe, the city would be reshaped by the nature while human could do nothing. That time the city space will be occupied by nature really.

The conversion from city to nature is in conjunction with the break down of the contemporary system. Once the usual city working style doesn’t exist anymore, people will be forced to change the mode of living. In my opinion, if men really want to be close to nature while they are still inside the city, they need to change the living way, which could result from a new viewing way of the environment.

Back To City

Back To City from Jun ZHU on Vimeo.

'Oxford Pasture'_1

'Oxford Pasture'_1 from Jun ZHU on Vimeo.

Rockplug - David Greene

Modern city life is strongly influenced by the impact of Industrial Revolution. Once people become unsatisfied with the present situation and expect to make it better, one would choose between looking forward or looking back. David Greene trys to pull the city scene back to nature by his project Rockplug and Logplug.

In Rockplug, 'the fake lump of rock that hide a high tech network node and power supply', David intends to make people still enjoy the modern life with electricity and other technology in a man-made wild environment. This project aims to get people out of those architectures designed mostly from the aspects of engineering and structure.

As a result, people would live in a city which looks like pasture or forrest, in another word, the city would pretend to be nature. However, it is not changed into nature but still a city, because it's merely a visual but not virtual nature, where people freed out of these iron prisons yet live in the usual way. The imformation they get passitively is in conflict with what they're doing. In my opinion, only when one believes a space as nature in his mind subjectively, would the space become wild to him. So what I attempt to do is just on the contrary, finding the place pretending to be dull, where man could act free and simple like a horse galloping on a pasture.when he believes as nature in his own will.

Wheatfield-A Confrontation

These two acres of wheat, known as Wheatfield-A Confrontation, 1982, were planted and harvested in Battery Park landfill in New York by Agnes Denes, an environmental artist. Denes believes her "decision to plant a wheatfield in Manhattan, instead of designing just another public sculpture, grew out of a long-standing concern and need to call attention to our misplaced priorities and deteriorating human values." (Oakes, 1995, p.168)

There are stark contradiction and strong contrast between the wheat and the surrounding environment in color, material, height etc. While the golden wheat was softly swinging in the wind, showing the beauty of life, the cold iron skyscrapers stood statically without emotion. The coexistence made the differences between countryside and city obvious.

Long before financial exchange in New York Stock Exchange or World Trade Center, Being self-sufficient is the original life style for human, which could be partially found in countryside now. Dislike in city as the battle for modern life, living in country doesn’t need to face the pressure and has a gentler pace and a more peaceful attitude. That’s why city people always have an illusion that country life is somehow superior to town life and look forward to it.

Agnes with two assistants and some volunteers represented the circles of growth and regeneration, “After harvesting, the hay was fed to the horses stabled by the New York City Police department and some of the grain traveled around the world in the exhibition” (Matilsky, 1992). But if she invited real farmer to join the project, behind the French window, what would appear in an office lady’s mind with the scene of cultivation? What’s more, if a farmer peddled the hay and grain in the Wall Street, what kind of the communication would be between he and a suited manager? It would be more interesting to see people’s act and thoughts in a real ‘City Pasture’. The contradiction and contrast in this act would be illustrated as the key points of my project through imagining these unusual feelings of city people.

PS: As Stuart said, actually the two acres were so small that were no competitive with Manhattan. It’s the photo that makes it exaggerated.

Outside or Inside the City__Brief 2.0

My project is about the space that is inside the city but could be regarded as outside.

In the first term, I focused on a crossing and illustrated a certain walker’s trace and the space which was created by the other walking people in the certain walker’s perception.

Then I found that people who were crossing the street wouldn’t walk into each other just like a flock of sheep wouldn’t run into each other. And of course the trace of man’s walking looks mundane because there is little social communication during the walking. The man is like the sheep and the crossing is like the pasture.

As said in Space and the Architect by Herman Hertzberger, ‘city means space for trade, culture and entertainment and therefore the best possibilities for social exchange. The more people, the fuller the city, the better.’ But the people living in city have to face pressure, pollution, noise and so on, they always dream of getting out of the city. People need a place to ‘clear your head, take a break from networks and congestion’. They ‘ want to be alone’. We describe this kind of places as ‘nature’, that is partly because we don’t have to face unnecessary social communications as in office.

In Wheatfield-A Confrontation, 1982, by Agnes Denes, a pioneer of environmental art, two acres of wheat were planted and harvested in a battery park landfill in New York. The existence of both swinging golden wheat and static iron high building in the same frame showed strong contrast between countryside and city. The work not only shows the damage which people have done to the nature, but also reveal the citizens’ eager for the nature.

It is not difficult to figure out that there is similarity between a crossing inside the city and a pasture outside. So if we could regard the crossing as a place where we may relax and be alone in our mind, in another word, a new kind of ‘nature’, there are several ‘natural’ places hiding inside the city. I’m interested in these places as ‘City Pasture’ and try to find them out and draw them down.

Term 2__Brief 1.0

I’m interested in the interaction between man and the surrounding environment. In the first term, I focused on a crossing and illustrated a certain walker’s trace and the space which was created by the other walking people in the certain walker’s perception. As a result, I found both man and the surrounding environment were shaping each other.

Therefore, I try to create or regenerate a space which would renew automatically according to the actions of people inside. And the change of the space brings people a more comfortable spatial experience. The changes of people and space would move circularly.

For example, I’ll add equipments including a receptor system and an output system in some crowded places, such as plaza, crossing and lobby. The receptor system could record the space by visual, auditory and thermal data. Then in light of the man’s social sense in the particular environment, the output system would transform into screens, walls or chairs of different sizes in order to reconstruct the space and influence man’s behavior.

In conclusion, the project is to find a method to control the interaction between man and environment and lead the molding of each other to a direction which may result in a better spatial experience.