James Wines: economy of means · 2009-10-12 19:59

Last week I went to an excellent talk given by James Wines of SITE at the Barbican as part of their Radical Nature season with the Architecture Foundation. SITE (originally standing for Sculpture In the Environment) are responsible for several notable buildings, such as the wonderful BEST box supermarkets (info, videos), and more recently the Shake Shack, a garden residence tower in India, The Fondazione Pietro Rossini Pavilion, as well as parks, water features and public art. It was really great to hear the background and the thought process behind the designs.

I appreciated the starkness of the argument about having to build with an economy of means – there’s no choice now – balanced with running an architecture practice. I’m also becoming more interested in architectural ornamentation, something that (for example) Corbusier did with colour, but has been lost in the churned out glass box.

So, rough paraphrased notes follow, with my bolding:

Interested in narrative and storytelling in buildings.

We’ve been through a flamboyant, Baroque period of architecture.

Big ideas come in small packages.

I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.” – Marcel Duchamp

Economy of means: the product of a reductive aesthetic sensibility. Do more with less.

Modernist / constructivist is now 100 years old.
Everyone’s making sculptural objects, which was all kickstarted by the Tour Eiffel in 1889.

Architecture used to be brought to the building, whereas now the architecture is the building. Sculpture as surface decoration is now the building itself.

Gone from post-modernism to neo-constructivism (1988) – because it’s now all possible to design and build using computers.

Libeskind’s Royal Ontario Museum – used over 70% more steel than necessary to just enclose the space. Unjustifiable, today.

And it’s not just the steel production – more modern surfaces (aluminium, titanium) produces toxic waste in production.

SITE always places the building in context.
Designed the Shake Shack to a very hard brief, situated in Madison Square Park.

Nothing architects do is green.

The best thing you can do is build with local materials.

BEST, their first commission: there was nothing to ‘design’.
Use architecture as a subject matter for art, especially the places you’re least likely to find art (supermarkets).

Don’t just ‘plop art’ (plop a Henry Moore in a pool), a turd in the plaza.

It’s more interesting to see the process than the finished building.

Why does the building stand still and the people move?
Interested in architecture of idea, attitude and context rather than form.

DE-ARCHITECTURE book. Too early.

Architecture/shelter takes 1/6th of the world’s water, 1/4th of the world’s wood harvest, 2/5ths of fossil fuels and manufacturing materials.

Without art, the whole idea of sustainability fails.
But, never keep an inferior building. If people don’t like it, and like using it, it’s a waste.

From answers to questions:

Now, we’re seeing vegetation as decor. Urban agriculture – very important, but the thing to crack is the economics of it.

1885-1955 were the age of industry and technology. Now we’re in the age of information and ecology. If Corb were alive today, that’s what he’d be concentrating on.

With buildings, if you keep abstracting, everything will look good. So why bother? Why use computers to make forms from 100 years ago?

Need to make integrated systems. Integration, fusion, interaction, symbiosis.

Art is best when bringing in all references, all context.

The green movement sold out on optimism, unlike the Industrial Revolution.

“Why build at all? How do you justify it?” Build things to learn from.

When the WTC disappeared, the streets around changed, as all the shadows went away.

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