office interior design norwich

thanks for coming out. i know it's a very, verybusy time of the term and you all have papers toright and projects to finish. but thanks for comingout to see the finalists for the third annual wheelwrightfellowship competition. and we started--this is actually, for those of you who don'tknow, the first time that we've presented the finalists. in the past, we've hadfinalists that come down.

and then we've skype'dinterviews and things for the finalists. but this time, ben[inaudible] and [? kathy ?] decided that to actuallyhave the finalists present their work to the schoolwas a way of, kind of, soaking them even further fortheir energies and efforts after a very robustapplication, as we know. but it was a way tobring-- because part of what the wheelwright does isemphasize design as research.

it brings to the school examplesof what, technically, should be, obviously, some of thebest examples of architecture and design as research. so we decided to bringthe finalists out to cambridge to present theirwork, which they'll do here. i just want to mention brieflythat, for those of you who don't know, thewheelwright prize is a very, very old prize. it's one of the oldestthat the gsd has.

and it has always been themost important in the sense of prestige but also income. it's a traveling prize. and though it doesn'tsay this, we all suspect and feelfairly confident that it was modeled on, youknow, the idea of a grand tour. it was only for americans. only for the departmentof architecture. and you can't travelin the united states.

it was assumed youwould go to europe. that sort of thing. so it was a veryold, and a prize, and a way to legitimate theidea of the architect as, sort of, an intellectual,cultured, worldly person, rather than just a kindof technical training. and in that spirit, itused to be only for alums. but three years ago, [inaudible]decided to open it up globally. it's completely open.

the endowment hadrisen to the point that the incomefrom the endowment is over $100,000 ayear, which makes it the equivalent ofthe pulitzer prize. ben was saying though, if youread the terms of the pulitzer prize, it says the winner gets$100,000 and a gold medallion. bronze. bronze! so we have to work on that.

we have to work on that. sorry, gia. you didn't get the medallion. we'll work on the medallion. but yet, it's very,very different because this is forsomeone who, maximum, is 15 years out of school. so it's reallysomeone who's entering a point in their careerwhere $100,000 could really

make a difference in the kindof practice that they can have. and this is thewhole peer that these are people who havepractices who usually are in their own studio or theyfounded their own practices. and we hope that this prizewill really make a difference. i'm going to not goon because i'm going to introduce them quickly. but just before, i didwant to say-- sorry, cathy, i've lost-- here we go.

we had 200 submissionsthis year-- ish, right-- becausewhat happens, cathy and ben screenedthem that they're absolutely complete beforewe actually get them. so there probably weretwice that that weren't complete in one way oranother or were inadequate in one way or another. but the committeesees 200 submissions. more important, theywere from 51 nations.

though, for all threeyears, they've been global. but this time therereally were places represented that werethere for the first time. our finalistthemselves are very, let's say,ethnically, nationally and otherwise, i'm sure. but to keep it withthat, in american based in singapore, eric. in israeli, dutchbased in amsterdam.

vietnamese americanfrom richmond, virginia who think she's southern, butshe actually lives in london. so it doesn't count. but eric l'heureux, theamerican in singapore, is currently anassistant professor at the nationaluniversity of singapore where he teachesbuilding envelopes in equatorial climates. i know i'm notsupposed to go on.

but i do want to say that thereason these finalists are here is that they have practicesout of which grows organically a research project. we saw many, many examplesof people who have a reasonably good practice. but then, what wasregarded as research, was something completelydifferent than design. something more technical, moresocial, and, in whatever ways, outside of the designpractice itself.

in all three ofthese, you see there's an organic relationshipwith their research projects and their design practices. and it's that designas research, which i think we were really after. malkit shoshan, theisraeli dutch in amsterdam, is a founder of the amsterdambased architectural think tank fast. it stands for foundation forachieving seamless territory.

and her work exploresthe relationship between architecture,politics, and human rights. many of you will know her atlasof conflict israeli palestine. it was the 010 publicationin actually 2010. and quynh vantu is, again, asi said, a vietnamese american, an architect, and an artist witha studio based practice devoted to spatial experimentationand, in particular, issues of thresholdand welcoming. this is how i knowshe was southern.

this hospitality thingthat we mentioned of her work that's reallydrawn, in some ways, i think, from her childhood. and you'll see her work. so the installation projectsrange from, sort of, architecture and art practices. but always issues of, sort of,deeper and more fundamental issues of spacial practice. so what we're going to dois ask each of the speakers

to come up in alphabetical orderand make a short presentation. i'm just going to let themfollow one after the other and save the questions anddiscussions until the end where we'll have some time. and we really would like foryou guys to interact with them. through yourquestions, bring out of the dimensions of theirwork and compare and contrast. and i just think thisis a very special time to see these finalists.

i'll mention just one more thingbefore i turn it over to eric. gia wolf, our firstinaugural wheelwright winner will be here. well, she's here right now. but she'll be speakingtonight at 6:30, as always, showing some of thethings that she's been doing this year withher wheelwright prize. eric, would you begin? eric l'heureux.

[applause] thank you, michael. and thank you to harvarduniversity for having me here. i'm delighted to be among sucha talented group of finalists. and i hope i brought alittle warm, equatorial air to the auditorium. last i checked, the weatherin singapore where i'm based was 92 degrees withthe 83% humidity. this afternoon, i willshow a small sampling

of my design work followedby an abbreviated summary of my wheelwrightapplication illustrating how i hope practicedesign in research are one larger continuum for me. i begin hot and wet. the equatorial cityand the architectures of atmosphere with a quotefrom maxwell frye and jane drew from 1956. the rapid increase in populationover the area of the tropics

presents itself to the worldas a problem of utmost gravity. let me just getused to this here. what was a pressingconcern over 60 years ago has become an issue of critical,if not dire, importance today. as a large portion of theworld's growing population occurs in the tropical belt,the resulting urbanization, dramatic territorialtransformation, and rising temperaturesare altering the equator in substantialand unforeseen ways.

operating in thisregion, as i do, demands an entirely differentset of architectural strategies from the temperate. leaky rather than sealed. dark rather than light. deep rather than thick. perforated rather than closed. i'm going to onlyshow two projects today that i've completedin southeast asia.

for each one takes onquestions of atmosphere, increasing urbandensity and perception under the rubric ofdeep veils, which is, for me, a loose andconvenient metaphor that frames the ambition of my work. in simple terms, a deepveil is a hazy screen that uses depthand solid materials to wrap the architectureto reconfigure the relationship with thehot and wet environment

into one that engagesatmosphere itself as the prime mediumof architecture. i'm especially interested invisual, thermal, and atmosphere qualities that destabilize ourexpectations of architecture through spatialand material means. for example, inthis self portrait by gertrud arndtfrom 1930, the veil interrupts and gets betweenour expectations of her face and the understandingof her features.

we see a double imageflattened and distorted from one vantage pointand deep and full of contour from another. the first product that i willshow is for a house located in the southern shore ofsingapore in a plant housing development with amazinglyclose building proximity's. in this project calledstereo scope accounts, i asked two questions. how can a hot an wetenvelope, a deep veil,

be used to test the relationshipbetween building and climate? can the veil perform thermally,as well as optically? the house was commissionedby three older, single, singaporeanchinese sisters all in their '60s and '70s. located on the flat, reclaimlandscape of singapore, the house is sandwichedbetween an ocean view, a golf course view, andtwo neighboring units that are just two meters awayto the left and to the right.

the architecturemanipulates the relationship between atmosphere,water, landscape, and view through four levelsof optical and thermal calibration. a tight [? side ?]drives a stacked approach to living and looking witharchitecture as a lens to both. a basement plinth containsvarious support functions of the house. the main living levelsituated on top of the plinth

is surrounded bytranslucent channel glass. the upper volume isprotected by two verandas. here, the westernveranda is composed of interoperable screens,while the eastern elevation is more transparent withthe veranda set deep within the building volume. when so desired,the entire wall can be opened allowing the inside totransform to an exterior space. there's a dramatic framing ofa view to neighboring islands

from a third story bedroom. from there, lookingout to the sea is a perfectlyframed experience. the bedroom also overlooks anelongated second story terrace, which is here. the view forward is extendedwhile the views left and right are completely internalized. a large four story air well. a spatial void operates as anatmosphere of positive bringing

light and ventilation to aclimactic center for the house. you can see the terrace here. then it connects downinto this air well. looking up from thebasement plinth. a kaleidoscope play ofreflection and screen twists as a stackaffect cooling device is at the heart ofthe architecture. about the longitudinalaxis, the house inverts itself to its interiorcreating an acoustic, thermal,

and visual funnel drawingair from the cooler sea in, while providingprivacy from the surrounding neighbors in close proximity. the verandas areattenuated pulled deep into the houses interiorlinking perimeter to center as acontiguous thermal space. a veil of 30 by 80millimeter regionally sourced iron woodcreates an air gap between the innerand exterior skin.

it minimizes thethermal transmittance to the building, whileallowing for rain water runoff. the veil ventilates leaks andbreathes through its surface. the herringbone pattern iscoupled with the timber's ability to age to a silver tone,amplifying the veils ability to reflect solar radiation. a long overhang drainsthe roof creating a double veil of sorts. one of timber and theother of raindrops

during the ubiquitousequatorial storm. while on the western elevation,which receives the greatest amount of insulation,aluminum screens allow the house tooscillate between screen to transparent, closedand open, sealed and ventilated as an extensionof the veil metaphor. or as rainer [? bannon ?]would describe, the selective modeof climate control. angular skylights doubleas literal chimneys.

in this case, thermaland tropical ones evacuating the buildup of hotair rather than smoke or soot. these protrusions amplifythe dramatics of light, even on the largely overcastdays on the equator, creating an atmosphere of lightand temperature modulation. skylights are alsofound in the plinth with a series of c and ccut trumpet shaped apertures bringing reflected lightto the lower level. low [? e ?] glazing,solar hot water heating,

and rain harvesting systems arerendered discrete and invisible while they are combinedwith the typologies of the tropical veranda and thesingapore shop house courtyard in a composition of formand environmental function. the result was anarchitecture of passivity that doesn't fall into thetypical gadget like traps of environmental architectureand research atmosphere itself as the primarydriver of the design. the second project i will showis a simple factory building,

which confronts mostdirectly the problematics of the densifyingequatorial city. can a deep veil reconcileconflicting atmospheric demands? can it interferewith the perception of normative architecturalform and the challenges of increased urban densities? a simple factory buildingaddresses these questions while confronting the mitigationof tropical solar radiation.

and the openness viewsand transparencies sought by the clients foran often neglected building typology. the 11,000 squarefoot building is located in a rapidly growingindustrial area of singapore. found in a mid block,party wall arrangement, the design synthesizes a seriesof simple, yet important, atmospheric strategiesthat, in it's totality, is both open and closed,durable and adaptable,

passive and active. the hope is that thedesign is a resistance to the symbols of thetemperate and the transparent. the architecture utilizesa simple 1.4 meter deep veil fabricated in lightweight eifs or affectionately known here in the usas [? drive it, ?] that wraps thebuilding in section and a bronze, fullheight window wall to reconcile this conflictbetween thermal opacity

and visual andbreeze transparency. the overall massingis of 24 meters. six meter floor tofloor heights ensure that warm air rises whilekeeping the workshop floors cool. and open, cross ventilatedground floor and covered entry operates as a thermalstraw bringing ventilation, smells, and soundsfrom the city beyond through to the innercourtyard linking

exterior to interior, streetto foyer, sun to shade. a western facing corealong the party wall deflects solar thermalloading, especially in the western afternoon sun. the design samples much from theubiquitous straight settlement shop houses found throughoutsingapore and malaysia. high ceilings, a courtyard,trellis components of the facade and, ofcourse, due to it's plot, party wall construction are allsimple yet important influences

for this much larger project. the profile of the veiltapers from 50 millimeters to 100 millimeterson its inner surface and is angled up to 10 degrees. the complexity of theresulting geometry is fabricated in cnc milling,while it's profile increases the performance of the veil byproducing significant shading and the shedding of rainfrom the building proper. plans are purposefullykept extremely simple

while thearchitectural effort is put into thesection in elevation reasserting the verticalplane as the site for architectural innovation inhe densifying equatorial city. this approach toanamorphic pattern is purposely designed torestrict views from the street obliquely. it obscures sight linesat the lower level while allowing visibilityout to the surrounding

landscape on the upper floor. simple, off-formconcrete construction and minimum petroleum membranesmakes the building almost fully recyclable in the near future. an important considerationfor the context of singapore's oftenshort building lifespan. the roof terrace is screenedminimizing heat gain to the main architectural mass. while looking up throughthe central courtyard

spatially avoid whileatmospherically a positive, we find three fresh airterraces penetrating within while being flanked byoperable awning windows that allow light and fresh air toventilate into the building interior mass. greywater collection from aseries of rooftop collection areas flush the toiletsand irrigate the property. the overall resultrecalls debris [inaudible] of [inaudible] in the[inaudible] or a sun shade,

though maybe temporarilymisplaced carpenter center, just down the street. closer to singapore, the facadealludes to the experiment subtropical building recallingjames ferry and partners wing on lifebuilding in singapore from 1975, which isone of my favorites, yet made relevant todaythrough digital simulation and lightweight fabrication. this is a rough building.

concrete is crude. algae grows on it. dirt accumulates onthe off white facade. but for me, it looks good. it feels good. and most importantly, itbelongs on the equator. i've been in singaporenow for over a decade. that small yet dense citystate on the equator. an asian city washed from it'sgritty, equatorial stereotypes,

and a perfect place for me topractice as, both, an observer and a participant. with my arrival, i was struckby a particular equatorial conundrum. being that buildings ofsingapore and [? buy ?] and large appeared the samefrom my temperate origins, [? cheese ?] and prophylacticglass skin's transparent in symbols for businessfriendly and open state. yet, the architectureis located in a climate

of ubiquitous heat,humidity, and rain. a climate thatdrives people indoors rather than out,undercover rather than exposed, and toward theartificially conditioned rather than to a monsoon breeze. singapore's architecturalscene and much of the developing tropics todayis entirely dependent not only on air conditioning. but more precisely,on an entire mindset

of the eradicationof the tropical. this history of climacticerasure in singapore can be traced tothe very particular developmentalstrategies of the city. we're on the cusp ofsingapore's independence from british colonialrule in 1959. the city realized that oneof the most endemic issues was that if thetropical was going to perform and to develop,then singapore itself had

to be made to appear temperate. the logic of such ambitionis that if the city looked like an urbanized europeor america on the exterior and felt, at least, thesame on the interior, so too would singapore reapsimilar economic benefits. in an almost cool housingand retroactive manifesto, lee kuan yu, theformer prime minister, stated air conditioning wasa most important invention for us.

perhaps, one of the signalinventions of history. it changed the natureof civilization by making developmentpossible in the tropics. the first thing i did uponbecoming prime minister was to install air conditioners. the aspirationalgoals for the city would then manifest throughtemperate crystalline modernism in the embrace ofindustrialization and machine precision as a symbolthat singapore, too,

had made it to the developedand, more importantly, temperate world. today, much of thedeveloping equatorial region suffers fromsimilar aspirations. and in so doing,decapitates itself from its own atmosphericcontext erasing the knowledge that architecture not only canmodulate climate as powerful as technology, but can alsoembolden the experience of space in the city itself.

i attempted to reconcile thisparticular atmosphere conundrum by resisting thisclimactic amnesia returning to a wonderfullyinventive history of tropical calibratedarchitecture in mid century modernism. i return to the canonicaltext tropical architecture in the humid zoneby maxwell frye and jane drew in the biblicallike manual of tropical housing and building byotto [inaudible].

climate control inthese text is primarily done through atomisation. maximizing the distancebetween buildings ensured that theywere properly cooled, that breeze blewunobstructed, and sound was mitigated through space itself. in short, these arelow rise, low density, approaches toarchitecture and urbanism. today, the challenges are verydifferent in the hot and wet

environment of urbansoutheast asia. the buffering openspace, traditionally, between buildingshas been consumed by congested urban environments. verandas have all beeneliminated by floor plate efficiency demands. and increasebuilding heights have displaced the role ofthe overhang in the roof to that of the elevation.

in this milieu ofdense urbanization, the primacy of theelevation takes hold with a verticalplane, rather than the horizontal becomes thecrucial architectural element. this is singapore. and my office issomewhere right there. the importance ofthe elevation can be found in the fantasticcollection of mid century buildings rapidly being erased.

they were produced at the adventof large scale air conditioning where passivity andmechanical demands had equal sway whereatmosphere calibration was manifest through materials notthrough mechanical conditioning alone. the work represents, for me, thefinest of modern architecture along the equator. a language adapted to context,prioritizing shade, opacity, and materialityover transparency

in d materialization. these are heavy buildings. opaque. and for me, theybelong on the equator. my proposal, hot and wetin the equatorial city and the architecturesof atmosphere builds and expands uponthis design research into the urban realm. as the equatorial city'srelationship to climate

becomes an increasingimperative, the program will researchthe atmospheric mediums of hot and wetarchitectures cited in five dense cities along the equator. three features guide the work. saturated urbanisms, deepenvelopes, and thick grooves. the focus is directed at nodesof atmospheric calibration at the urban scale traditionallyoverlooked by representation in drawings and photography.

the idea is to makefive short films. humidity, temperature,breeze, sound, smell, rain, and their impact on thecity in architecture alike forms thebody of research. following the winds of thenortheast monsoon east to west, i depart from singaporeto jakarta, koalampor, pondicherry, lagos,and [? sompolno ?]. rapid population growthabout the equator has led to tighter buildingaggregations, closer building

proximity's, and a large[? prop ?] coverages, which change the equatorial city andarchitecture in profound ways. these are the very issues iconfront in my own design work and are ripe forfurther research. the intent is touncover and enbold an arrange ofatmospheric gradiance through the knowledgeof spatial depth and the deep zone of interfacebetween buildings in the city found about thedevice of envelope.

if atmosphere is theglue that permeates both the city andarchitecture alike, then in equatorialurbanization, it is imperative to think of the city,architecture, and atmosphere as a continuum as a climacticand cultural medium that, indeed, underpinsliving on the equator. the travel begins inindonesia commencing in the enormous asian megacity of jakarta located in the larger urban region ofclose to 30 million people.

the program will makevisible the relationship between urbandensity, atmosphere, and the deep envelopesof the [? wijudo ?] center in the heart of thismassively growing city. a short excursion to the heavyroof of the [? johora ?] market in the low rise, highdensity city of semarang. a city beingradically transformed from overlappingroofscapes to the primacy of the elevation as the cityembraces its vertical future.

i travel to a region of parallelatmosphere of quality to kuala lumpur in the klang valley . a hybrid of british colonialand malaysian influences. with a populationclose to eight million, it's there thati have a research in film [inaudible]general hospital complex and aggregation of lowrise buildings in a campus arrangement from the 1960s, aswell as the dayabumi complex. a high rise tower withscreen as envelope.

both projects are beingradically encumbered by a quicklyurbanizing surround. the research program picksup [inaudible], raymond, and george nakashima's[? galcone ?] dormitory in the smaller scale,yet growing city, of pondicherry, india. it is there where i plan totravel during two distinct time periods. the cooler wet monsoonseason in november

and the hotter dryseason in april to capture the architectureand their surrounding city in its varietyof climactic states. tracing further westward,the african experiments of john goodwin ingillian hopwood's work in the super densecity of lagos, nigeria. africa's largest at21 million people. we'll prod the groundfor a study of atmosphere in an entirely differentcontinent and cultural fabric.

focusing on goodwin andhopwood's bookshop house, their eponymous lagosessbase studio and building. and the unicinsurance headquarters will focus the workwhile allowing excursions to other mid centuryexamples in a city grappling with greatpopulation growth, as well as the challengesof climate envelope and the demands forbasic infrastructure. the research will concludewith the latin american

manifestations of atmosphere insompolno, a city of 12 million. researching both theimpacts of elevation in the growing cityand the big roof found in work of[? arteaga's ?] at the faculty of architecture and urbanismat the university there. specific attention will focuson the contrasting devices of the hot and wet deepelevation as an urban figure and the big roof as aclimactic, cultural, and architectural condenser.

i will then travelto [? juah ?], a lower rise peripheral city. it is there at[? arteaga's ?] bus depot that i will focus thefilming on ventilation, acoustic dampening, and thesurrounding urban form all conditioned by theheavy concrete canopy. the choice of this largelymid 20th century work is purposeful. the architecture ideasare simple and direct

while being located incities of rapid densification with five distinct culturalan atmosphere of qualities. the travel itineraryoffers a vibrant blend into the hot, wet,and dense future of the equatorial region. the methodology isto make and edit five films, eachabout eight minutes in length, to use theprotagonist atmosphere to structure the narratives,especially looking

at the depth ofenvelope to review architectures relationshipwith its urbanizing context and its ownconstruction of climate. tools are shown. umbrella, cap, andsunscreen included. as an architect having beeneducated in a temperate climate and now only practicing ina saturated hot and wet one, understanding the challengesof the rapidly densifying equatorial cityis an imperative.

a topic of most gravity. at the same time,the wheelwright prize will lay bare thedeficiencies of the ever present and powerfultemper prejudices that percolate fromnorth and south alike. the research, for me,is a direct extension on the full preoccupationsof my design practice and my interest with the spatialand atmospheric potentials of deep envelopes.

the wheelwright prizewill offer necessary space outside thepressures of practice to produce new forms ofresearch and to develop representational techniques thatwill underpin novel approaches to architecture and tothe design of atmosphere through space and material. for me, the wheelwrightwill produce a more nuanced understandingof the multitude of equatorial atmospheresin the city's proposed

within to impact my own work,to practice in general, i hope, and to the larger discourse ofthe hot and wet equatorial city and the architecturesatmosphere will be most valuable for allhot, wet, and dense future. thank you. hi. well, thank you forbringing me here. i'm a very happy and honoredto be here and present my work. and let's just begin.

imagine having a miniaturizedinternational coalition forces invading yourcity in the name of peace and on behalf of the un. they occupy an enormous amountof space in close proximity to your neighborhood. the un facilitiespollute and generate immense amount of waste,and noise, and traffic. trucks with supply comes inand out crossing and jamming the city day and night.

the constructionof these facilities used up local resources. civic and communal constructionprojects like schools, medical clinics, and homes haveto be put on hold because you cannot getconstruction material. the compound is surroundedwith walls and barbed wire. and in no time, it becomesthe most prominent element in the landscape of your city. these type ofmissions and compounds

are already in place in morethan 150 african cities located mostly in the sahara. cities that can not providetheir inhabitants with access to water and electricitynor to help the inhabitants to survive the armedconflict or the famine that is closed by long periods ofdrought and climate change. the global forces, althoughthey are to bring peace, increase resentmentand conflict. at the end of themission, they strip away

their facilities ofall valuable materials and leave the rest behind aswaste for the local to resolve. these missions shouldtransform into catalysts for local development. they should fightpoverty in the same way they fight militarizedgroups or facilitate extraction of resources. providing 150 citieswith basic infrastructure should be the departure pointof the new type of missions.

this is the focus of my work. to bring alternative thinkingand alternative methods to the way we designour surroundings. in the past year, i'veintroduced urban design and architecture tools to thepolicymakers and the engineers at the dutch ministries offoreign affairs and defense trying to make themthink differently about their involvementwith un missions. and explore withthem possibility

to actually help the localcommunity that lives next to their compounds. oh, sorry. yeah. today, i'm going to talkabout two projects that i've been working on in the past. atlas of the conflict israelpalestine and village. i'm going to talk aboutmy current research on the architecture andlandscape of war and peace

and my future plan to go to malito study the impact of the un mission and its baseson the local community during the implementationphase of the mission. i studied architecturein italy and in israel. in italy, i learned theimportance of history. after moving backfrom italy to israel, in one of my firststudio assignments, we have been askedto design a shopping mall in the south of tel aviv.

as a good italian student,i went to the archives to research thehistory of the site. and i discovered palestine. i found aerial photos thatwere taken in the 1930s during the britishmandate in palestine. the photos depicted a completelydifferent city in reality than the one i knew. i decided that instead ofdesigning a shopping mall i should learn thehistory of my country.

i began to research theterritorial transformation of the country. as an architecture student,i had to illustrate and give scale to my findings. so positioned them on the map. it was very easyto find materials about the evolution ofthe israeli landscape. every land acquisition,every new locality that has been founded, wascelebrated, documented,

and placed on the map. one by one, theselocalities created a territorial continuityand, eventually, a country. however, it was verydifficult to trace back the existence of palestine. as we all know, maps andterritorial representations are powerful tools. they provide strategicunderstanding of the reality on the ground.

they are mostlycontrolled by the state and by power institutions. the palestinian community wasunder occupation for centuries. before israel, they were underottoman and british rule. these colonial powersconducted land surveys. but after thecreation of israel, these surveys whereshoved deep in archives. step by step, i managed touncover with my research these unrecognized landscape.

by finding the rightshelves, i spent hours in archives and by usingthe help of local ngos. eventually, theterritorial analyses and the maps that theyput together not only showed me this strikingemergence of israel. it also showed the shrinkage andthe disappearance of palestine. architecture and specialdesign are powerful tools that can alter or createa desired reality. this can have major impacton the way community lives.

it took me 10 years to find,draw, and compile the maps and turn them into a book. why did i create this book? i did it, firstof all, for myself because i wanted to understandthe history of my country. it wasn't part of mycurriculum in schools, during the military training,or in the university. it was a completelyinaccessible information. a history that was not told.

eventually, ipublished it because i thought it should bea public knowledge. the atlas of theconflict is divided into 10 chapters in a lexicon. the atlas illustratesdecade by decade a century of special transitionsin more than 500 maps that appears like time frame. israel is depicted in blueand palestine in brown. the two national entitiesshape one another.

they exist next to andon top of each other. while working onthe atlas, i read about a type ofpalestinian localities that, until that moment, ididn't even know existed. these places were notdocumented on the official maps about 100,000 arabcitizens of the country are living in villages thatare not deliberately drawn on the map. localities without an address.

having no address ina modern state result in a bureaucratic nightmare. the inhabitants of theunrecognized villages cannot have access to states services. a quarter, electricity,education, or medical care. this unrecognized landscapedemonstrates, once again, the power of visualrepresentation of mapping. it shows how anentire existence can be overlooked by aseemingly minor action,

not drawing avillage on the map. i wanted to include the mapof the unrecognized villages in my atlas. at that time, no onehad an inclusive map of these villages. it was before thetime of google earth. luckily, i discoveredthat in [inaudible] where i was born, and grew upand lived, at that point, there was a smallngo that helped

the inhabitantsof these villages mostly by providingthem a legal assistant and representing them in courtagainst home demolitions. i knocked on thedoor of that ngo and met muhammad [inaudible]. mohammad was born andlived his entire life in an unrecognized village. he was also thefounder of that ngo. and he helped meto draw the map.

and in the process, webecame very good friends. his personal storywas mind blowing. and it became the departurepoint of another project that i documentedin the book village. village came outa few months ago. and i consider it asa complementary work to the atlas. village is like divinginto one pictogram, into one dot on the map.

and from that place, i tryto extrapolate as many voices and as manynarratives as possible in order to get abetter understanding of the complexlivelihood in israel. the village is called ein hawd. it was said that mohammadand sister was [inaudible]. a [inaudible] helped [inaudible]to defeat the crusaders. and in return, he gavehim lands in palestine. one of these piecesof land was in hawd.

a few hundred yearslater, it resulted with a prosperous communityof 9,000 inhabitants living in a beautiful village onthe foot of mount carmel just south of [inaudible]. during israel warof independence, the village of einhawd was confiscated by the israeli army. and it's inhabitantswere forced to leave. most of the villagersended up in refugee camps

in the west bank and in jordan. however, mohammed'sgrandfather, [inaudible], with his wife, daughters, andson decided to stay nearby. he hoped to be able togo back to his village at the end of the war. but he was never allowed. his village was confiscated,fenced, and guarded. and he was considereda trespasser. he had no choice but torebuild is house elsewhere.

one kilometer awayand in a viewing distance of his former home, hebegan to build a new ein hawd. after 1948 war, theconfiscated village of ein hawd was used by the israeli army asa training facility for urban [? warfare. ?] in early 1950's,[inaudible] an avant garde data artist and an architect,discovered ein hawd. [? yanko ?] was one of theinitiators of the data movement and of [inaudible]. he originally came from romania.

he moved frombudapest [inaudible] during the first world war. he dreaded historyin the old world. he was eager to reinventhimself and the arts. during the second worldwar, he fled a nazi program and arrived to palestine,forced to start a new life. in israel, he was hired bythe new government planning authority together with[inaudible], an architect who was trained at the bauhausschool, who also ended up

in palestine. the two modernistavant garde figures used architecture and arttools to create a new country. while [inaudible] was conceivingcities to be [inaudible] down, [? yanko ?] was appointedto draw the plans of the future national park. this is [? yanko ?]and this [? sharron ?]. during an excursion--sorry-- one was building up the country.

and the other one wasnarrating the unbuilt. during an excursion tothe north of the country, [? yanko ?] discovered theold palestinian village of ein hawd. it reminded him of [inaudible]and his old artistic experimentation's in europe. he fell in love andasked the government to give him the village. he wanted to turn itinto an art commune.

the government agreed. and [? yanko ?] invitedhis artist friends to join. together, they startedan arc experimentation that led to the invention ofthe modern israeli identity. they changed thename of the village from [inaudible], a placeof [inaudible] arabic, to ein hawd the placeof splendor in hebrew. some of them wanted to changeit to [inaudible] or picasso. but ein hawd passed.

they regarded the villageas a found object. and 30 years later, [? yanko ?]admitted that ein hawd was his last [? data act ?]. there are still realities of einhawd and ein hawd the israeli and the palestinianvillages still exists next to each other. mohammad helpedme to draw the map of the unrecognized villages. and we remained friends.

after delivering my graduationproject at [inaudible], almost [? the ?] same day i leftisrael and found it fast. an amsterdam based architectureand [? think tank ?]. my first projectdealt with ein hawd where i also tried toexperiment with the use of art and architecture inorder to raise awareness and to create alternativedesign solutions that deal with unrecognizedsituations like ein hawd with complex reality.

i'll just show quicklysome images of the projects that i created during fouryears of working and dealing with the unrecognizedvillage of ein hawd from an architecturalcompetition, exhibitions, and publications. four years afterworking on the project, we brought it backto the village to ein hawd from abroad. and we exhibited someof the processes there.

and we turned the villageinto an artist village. we invited artists from allover the world to join us and to start working togetherwith the inhabitants. create alternative spaces. we made a master planwith the villagers. and we used[? location ?] to lobby it with the israeli authorities. this is a map of theart installations that were meant to bringthe master plan to life.

it was part of thelobbying strategy. this is a work by [inaudible][? friedman ?] in [inaudible] who joined us there. one architecture[? burn streak ?]. thomas [? sarachano ?] madea beautiful installation. and then graham joined us there. and for me working on theatlas, meeting mohammad and the community einhawd changed the way i practiced architecture.

it made me realize the strongrelation between architecture, politics, and ideology,and the impact of war and armed conflictson people's livelihood. war and territorialconflict are not to be found only inisrael and palestine. the institute ofeconomics and peace issued, recently, areport saying that out of 162 countriesaround the world, only 11 countries arenot involved in conflict.

almost the same as it was atthe end of the second world war. in his book warand peace, tolstoy described two type of spaces. the ballrooms, the livingspaces of the people, and the battlefields. a faraway militarized zonewhere the battle was fought. this dichotomy andseparation between ballrooms and battlefieldsis no longer there. after the collapseof the soviet union

and increasingly after9/11 and the war on terror, we witnessed major shifts inthe conduct of war and peace. if the wars of the20th century were between nations mostly fightingover territorial sovereignty and a long disputed borderlines,the wars of the 21st century moved to the city. they are internaland borderless. there are fault betweenlarge international coalition of security regimesand insurgent networks.

but not only the warmoved to the city. the security of [? pareto's ?],the peacekeepers and all their infrastructure,moved with it. un peacekeeping operationsstarted in 1948, just after the establishmentof the un. the peacekeeperswere representatives of world nation. they are working togetherto reduce armed conflict and the devastation of war.

in fact, the first peacekeepingmission took place right after the creation of israel. it was meant to stabilizethe border of the new country with its neighboring nationsand to stabilize the situation with the palestinian refugees. since 1948, we can divideevolution of missions to three generationsof peacekeeping. the first generation ofmission took place from 1948 until the collapseof the soviet union.

these missions were modesty insize, budget, and footprint. we operated mainly alongdisputed national border lines. and they werelightly militarized. the second generationof missions started at the end of the coldwar and lasted until 9/11. from operatingalong border lines, they moved to operateinternally inside countries. their infrastructureand bases got inserted within thelocal civic environment.

the most distinctmoment of change was in the mission in kosovo. there, the unpeacekeepers performed outside the traditionalboundaries of the mission. they operated onmilitary, political, social, and humanitarianlevels simultaneously. the internationalcommunity experimented with a comprehensiveapproach in order to reconstruct thelocal environment.

they introduced new laws,trained judges and police officers, built courtroomsand new prisons. the introduced neweducation systems, trained teachers, andbuilt new schools. they put into place neweconomic infrastructure to open the local marketto the global economy. the un peacekeeper executedthe ruthless project of social engineering. as the scope of thesemissions expanded,

so did their physical footprint. in 2006 and 2007, itraveled to kosovo. at that time, itseems that there are more foreigners in thecountry then local inhabitants. foreign presence andcompounds were everywhere. it looked as if kosovo hostedolympic games every day in the past decade. despite the fact thatthese compounds were built for temporaryuse, they were

made of long lasting materials. at the end of the mission,most of these foreign spaces were left behind like[? quiet elephant ?] after the olympics forthe locals to figure out. the third generation ofpeacekeeping missions emerged after 9/11 and thelaunch of the war on terror. these missions are even bigger. and they are muchmore militarized. mega peacekeepingmissions that operate deep

inside inhabited areas. they deploy huge logistichubs in the countryside to feed the missionand its forces. the mission in afghanistanwas the most expensive mission in history. now it is being withdrawn. its bases are strippedof valuable equipment. and the rest that'sleft is waste. the general funding ifun missions per year

increased from $4 millionus dollars in 1948, to $8,700,000 usdollars in 2014. more than 2,000[inaudible] and this growth doesn't seem to end there. the global missions arehappening whether we want them or not. it would take decades,and even more, to restore and integratethe un occupied spaces back to the local fabric.

at the same time, we all knowthat conflicts are mostly weak and are in desperateneed for resources. design can play hereand important role. it can help turning the foreignwaste into local resource. the close relations betweenmilitary engineering and city planning is not a new idea. in the netherlandsduring the 16th century at the engineering facultyat leiden university, faculty members, like [? simon steven ?]and [inaudible] planned forts.

they designed them for timeof war and for time of peace. the peaceful scenariodepicted the fort cities with churches and towers,town folks, and farmers busy in daily routine, whilethe worst scenario depicted great [inaudible]soldiers and heavy armor. many of these forts grewinto prosperous towns that exist untilthis day, similarly, to even older romanmilitary bases that play the foundation ofprospering cities for centuries

to come. can architecture designand design thinking stimulate a paradigmshift making the un forces think differentlyabout the impact of their bases on the local context. in the past year, i'veinvited to the new institute, or what is known as thenetherland architecture institute as a fellow there,the dutch partners of the un peacekeeping operations.

i brought togetherengineers and policymakers from the ministry ofdefense, development aide, and foreign affairs to joina design experimentation. it was the first timethat they actually talked with one another. i asked them if they everthought about the waste that they leave behind atthe end of the mission. actually, this guy was the headof the mission in afghanistan of the dutch forces.

and he was one of thebrainstorming group. i tried to introduce tothem the notion of legacy. i asked if we can worktogether to change the legacy of the mission footprint. at first, i suggestedto design and advance the future use of the baseby assigning its element to be either traceless ortransform their use, such that they can be takenover by the local. as reference, welooked at our cities

where element are constantlybeing recycled and transformed, or precycled, oradjusted to a new use, or precycled in advancefor multiple purposes. the second step ofthe exercise was to modify the plan of thebase to change its typology. identifying elementsthat could be shared with the local populationalready in the beginning of the missions. elements like hospitals, sportand recreational facility,

workshops, andmarkets that are now located in thecenter of the base should move to the peripheryand allow the local population to use them in the verybeginning of the mission. the third step elaboratedthe possibility of using the intelligencethat exists in the base, like the engineeringknow how, the machinery, and the foreigncapacity to improve the basic infrastructure ofthe entire city, especially

when these operations aretaking place in cities that have no basic infrastructure. the military engineersadmitted that they have never thought about the legacy whiledeveloping their designs. they realized that thesocially aware attitude can, in fact, reduced conflict. they were inspired and hey arestill enthusiastically onboard with this experiment. the diplomats weremore skeptical.

but they werecurious enough to be the host of the nextworkshop at the ministry and, possibly, with the presenceof the minister of foreign affairs. and they are ready to startdeveloping a pilot for the un. in fact, they suggested to startelaborating further the idea using a specific case study. they suggested to testthe designed for legacy approach under acurrent mission in mali,

which brings me tomy future plans. in the recent years,the un has initiated nine large peacekeepingoperation in africa. mostly in the sahara regionbordering the sahara. life in the saharadesert and in the sahel is dynamic and inconstant flows. the harsh climate forcesa completely different use of space than the one weexperience here in the west. the borders of thedesert are not national.

they are seasonal. the nomadiclifestyle is embedded with nature and with whatthe desert has to offer. and it's not much. people in theirharried move from one place to another lookingfor water and food. their homes are notgrounded to one place. they extend overa large territory. and it's the only wayto survive the desert.

in the past years,the sahara was subjected to many conflicts. from all over resourcesto national uprising in the conduct of manyinternational missions. it resulted with an intensifyinginternational presence, including manypeacekeeping missions. one of these missionforces is based in camp castor in gao thatis built and controlled by the dutch peacekeepers.

gao is an old city locatedalongside the [inaudible] river and majorcontinental cross roots. it is a city of flows. throughout history, differentculture came together in gao. the sahara dwellersand the emperor's. the slaves andthe slave traders. it's ethnic and religiousconfiguration is diverse. and culturally, it is very rich. in gao climatological andgeopolitical transition

drive many people toseek refuge in cities. gao is a second tiercity in the region. and it is expected to tripleits size in the coming 20 years. currently, 90,000people live in gao. 10,000 of them are refugees. and 1,000 of its formertwo [inaudible] dwellers were forced out because ofthe conflict and currently inhabiting refugee campsin neighboring countries. the inhabitants of thecity rarely have access

to water and electricity. after the conflict, most of thengo and development aid agency left town. it is only their localinhabitants, the conflict, and the un peacekeepersthat remain intact. a design intervention herecan have a large impact on the local livelihood. imagine if you could change thelegacy of war and peace in gao. not only by recycling thebase such that no waste

will be left behind but touse the mission and the base as the catalyst forlocal development, and prepare the city toabsorb the additional 160,000 inhabitants that it will needto house in the coming 20 years. we can collaborate witha missions engineer to make sure that the wellsthat are dug by the peacekeepers will start supplying water tothe local inhabitants as soon as possible. making water infrastructuremay have the effect

of the old roman aqueduct. but not only water, but alsowaste, treatment, electricity, and medical care can be madeavailable in a very short time. innovative economicstructures can be used to [? mediate ?]between defense, development aid and, luckily, refurbishment. in fact, the citycan and should be reconstructed notby the foreigners but by it's local inhabitants.

a successfulpiloting [inaudible] can be replicated toother bases in mali to cities liketimbuktu and mopti. sorry. yeah, i'm almost there. a successful pilot ingao can be replicated to other bases in mali tocities like timbuktu and mopti, and even furtherto other 150 cities in the rest of the saharathat are currently subjected

to un peacekeeping operations. in my work, pilot andresearch runs parallel. ai i seek to makevisible large scale and phenomenaltransitions in society exploring and highlightingall sort of processes for militarization station toborder mobility, immigration, [? normalism, ?] rapidurbanization, et cetera. in order to engagewith these topics, we need to first make themvisible and accessible.

that is why i proposeto go to mali. the information that we haveabout conflicts in general and about the [? sahara ?]in africa is very limited. and a wheelwright prizecan give me the freedom to conduct an independentresearch, which is very important independentresearch because i don't want to go as an ambassador with anagenda to visit cities in mali, like [? bamako ?],timbuktu and gao to document the influence andthe impact of the un mission

on the local context earlyin its implementation phase. and i think i shouldjust end here. i had another part. but i think i said most ofeverything i wanted to say. so thank you. you can barely see mebehind the podium, right? well first of all, i'dlike to say thank you to the wheelwright committee andharvard gsd for having me here. it really is anhonor and pleasure

to be able to share mywork and proposal with you. let's see. so i call myself anarchitect/artist. but often thesedays, i feel like i'm more interested incontemplating the slash. my proposal is onmovement, the threshold, and it's shaping of cultureand spatial experience. not only is my researchabout considering the architecturalthreshold and our movement

between spaces butalso my very practice is between the thresholdof architecture and art. i'm interested in architecturethat intersects art with the idea thatarchitecture is not only something that welook at but something that we look through. in a way, it'salso the foreground in the backgroundof our, kind of, every day experiencesand engagements

in a way to filterand view the world. i'm also interested in how thebody engages with our built environment taking cues from thearchitecture that we encounter. this is an earlierinstallation that i did made of ceiling planes thatwere hung at my height, which is five foot. so anybody encounteringthis installation having to traversethis lobby space had to altar and maneuvertheir body in order

to confront this ceiling planethat was hung at five foot. and i feel it wasless about, i guess, a self portraitof myself but just kind of displaying that we allare different heights in this. my research investigates thethreshold as an active space and architecture. and i'm seeking to employmovement as a design element as it is a generator fora spatial experience. the threshold is ofparticular interest to me

because i feel like it'sthe most active space in architecture. it's a space that we movethrough and go from inside to outside, public to private,and it ushers us in and out of spaces and offersopportunities for engagement with a built environment. the threshold is aphysical manifestation of movementsignifying transition from one space toanother becoming,

both, a place for spatialand social negotiation. i recall one of myfirst considerations of the potential oftransitional space from a memory as anarchitecture student. i remember the images of oscarschlemmer's 1932 painting, bauhaus stairs, andtheodore lux feiningers 1927 photograph of the weaverson the bauhaus stairway. and through traveling andvisiting the bauhaus firsthand for study abroad while asa student at virginia tech,

i envisioned this momenton the grand staircase and the many creative mindsthat must have encountered and past each other here. chances for engagementand interaction. the notion of movement throughthese transitional spaces of great importanceto my consideration of endeavoring this research. i'd like to look atthese transitional spaces as a more mode of spacethat brings us across places

in rooms and, therefore,promotes or, at least, provides an opportunity foran interaction and engagement to occur. i'm looking at an expandednotion of the threshold that includes a prolongedpassage through space and the transitional zonesof corridors, stairways, and passages that alsoprovokes social interactions. and this is, probably, oneof the most recent works just happened maybefour weeks ago.

but it's a stairway withvarying tread heights. so you have to be mindful of howyou step across these stairs. but i worked with two performersto choreograph a performance on the site of thesestairs and the stairs in a way because of justtheir physical nature of how you haveto move across it also became a choreographerof the dance, as well. for my wheelwrightproposal, i'm using a japanese andkorean architecture

as my departure point. there's a richhistory and tradition in the design of a morearticulated threshold condition that incorporatescultural ideals, as well as functional designand the engagement of the body in space,such as wabi-style tea houses with a smallerand narrow opening asking for one to humble thebody in order to enter. in kengo kuma's essay towardsa japanese style architecture

of relationships, [? kuma ?],explains that japanese architecture is both aboutboundaries and relationships and also further talks aboutthe notion of the japanese term [? keokay ?] meaningboundary and threshold. although [? keokay ?]refers to a boundary, it is more of a techniquefor articulating space and is considereda vague boundary between inside and outsidecreating layered procession as a means for design, such asin the architectural elements

of the veranda, which acceptsboth blessings and adversity equally connectinginside and outside. this vague boundaryis deliberate and contributesinto a relationship that one has with thearchitectural space through a movementacross these zones. i'm also interested in the ideasof choreographed architecture, as well. the layered entry, conditions,and processional path

of this [? saso ?]swan garden in demyung, south korea and katsuraimperial villa in kyoto, japan. here, the architectureof the threshold becomes a choreographedsequence that draws one through the space,such as the large stepping stones that one mustbe mindful to walk across these largestones creating a particular rhythm of walkingas it is important to engage the body with this process.

i would like to experiencethese places with my own body and space. i'm also interestedin these ideas as they have evolved inmore contemporary works, such is in junya ishgami's[? kanagawa ?] institute of technology and as anarrangement of an irregular grid of columns that allowsfor a meandering space to form as movementscreate across this space. different zonescross each other.

and the spaces are allowedto fluctuate with need. also, atelier bow-wow'stread machiya's house that situates thelife of the household within a threshold of a stair. life revolvesaround and functions through this threshold as itis a constant state of proposed movement. these are just afew examples of what i'm considering looking atat the japanese and korean

architecture. yeah, i have to, kindof, admit that i'm more of a practitioner and a maker. i like to get my hands dirty. but in my own work, i havea studio-based practice and utilize interventionsand installations to explore spatialconcepts and questions. it's been away forme to experiment with architecture and spaceon a one to one condition.

and i find also that i'vegot licensed in virginia. so i did practice in offices. but i felt there werestill things lacking for myself in the practice. so i left after igot licensed and just was looking for myself for analternative way of practicing so i'm going to show you aboutfour more recent past works that i did. so the first work is inflated.

and this was done ata cranbrook academy of art designed by the finnisharchitect, eero saarinen. and here, this is calledthe [? peri ?] style. it's a very kind of formalspace on the campus of cranbrook and it's in between thecranbrook art museum. and the cranbrook library. it was more of a thoroughfarekind of outdoor room. no one really gatheredin this space. but it was such a kind of iconicplace on the cranbrook campus

that i wanted to try to dosome sort of intervention here. so i proposed to do this. there are eight 13 foot indiameter inflated spheres. and they're too largeto escape the columns. so essentially, they'retrapped within it. and they're freelymovable inside. and anybody passing throughcould push them around and engage with them. but they kind ofhad a life of their

in a way because i thinkonce you have something, or eight somethings, thatare 13 foot in diameter, they definitely have ascale that's beyond yours. and no, it was actuallyreally nice to see people be very playful with it. but it was also interestingthat the spaces would fluctuate inside to be more intimate,or more large, or more active as morepeople or less people were engaging withthese spheres.

and in a way, i kindof looked at them as these are round,movable walls. so it became, kind of, creatingthese architectural spaces with inside. and another projectis variable measure. and this project wasdone at the mccoll center for art and innovation incharlotte, north carolina where i had an artist residencythere the winter of 2014. and here, thisproject is a series

of three light projections. and when, first, the visitorwas to encounter the room, it was a fairly empty spacewith only the visible evidence of this lightprojected on the wall. so that naturally drewvisitors into going, especially in an art institution, tolook at works on the wall. so i think i hada lot of people, kind of, scratchingtheir heads like there's his empty room with light.

but then, as they wouldcome into the room and turn to go and see theother like projections, they would discoverthat they were within the installation itself. so is created withlight and haze. and really, i waslooking at these ideas of how can we definearchitecture or space through these ephemeral meansof light and error, in a sense. so the grid patterncreated these tunnels

and corridors, walls andceilings in this space that you could move through. and the third project iscalled courtesy bridge. and this was done in september,2014 in norshwopin, sweden, part of an exhibitionthat i called inconvenient architectures. and here, i dida series of works that were both placedwithin a gallery space and then also out in the cityin the public sphere, as well.

but i'm going to showyou this one opening piece from the exhibition. the area that it was atwas an old industrial area in norshwopin, sweden. and the gallery was aformer factory building. and off to the side, i wasdoing the construction work and planning of thework in the gallery. but there was also this littlebunker room that i had found. and they had told methat it opens out also

to the public street outside. so i asked if i could use thatroom to do an installation. so when you enter this,kind of, subterranean room, you're greeted with a verynarrow walkway or bridge that could lead you across and out. maybe it's about 40 centimeters. so a little bit larger thanthe width of the shoulders. and then the room was flooded. and the water was dyed black.

so the depth of thewater was quite obscured. but you got this beautifulmirror finish surface that reflected the room around. so you really canjust confront it with this voidthat was below you. and of course, thevisitors didn't know how deep the water was. but because thewalkway was so narrow, i created thesepockets off to the side

that if others were topass in both directions that you had these momentsthat you can show courtesy to the other and let theother pass by and that nod to courtesy. the last project that i'll showyou is humility threshold wind. and this was part ofthe fun tide festival in blaavand, denmark,which is on the very west coast of denmark. and it was a verybeautiful sight.

almost daunting to workon such a beautiful sight. but they invited 15international artists to participate in this. and it was, in a way, acelebration for the area because it had just been nameda unesco world heritage site. but i got this wonderfulsite on top of a dune that overlooked the sea. so i created thesetwo walls that, in a way, where agateway to the sea beyond

and they had thesesmaller openings that you had to have a nod to humility topass through as they were quite low and short. but as you humble yourbody and pass through, you're granted the beautifulview of the sea and the horizon beyond. in addition, thecurators told me there that they were warning allof us about the weather that was unpredictable and,also, the winds that were

quite strong there, as well. so working with the weather,i wanted to experiment what i could do with thiswind and created the walls to be an aeolian harp, as well. so it's a harp that resonateswith the wind to passing through just the nylon cord. so it just resonates, but thewall in between-- sandwiched between-- becomethese sounding boards. and i actually havea little sound clip.

hopefully, that canwork in the mouse. the mouse is, like, invisible. there. it's kind of quiet. [harp sounds] should i start it again? ok. yeah, and through thiscontinued research in the built works and exploration ofthe articulated threshold

traditions of japanand korea, i hope to gain a better understandingof how the threshold allows us to engage with thearchitectural experience, as well as with each other. thank you so much. those were wonderfulpresentations all. i'm going to veryquickly ask for questions from the audience. i have one question.

and i promise you'll makeyour two o'clock class. but i do have one question. and my question has to befrom one of the jurors. i mean, there couldn't bemore different projects, in some way. and one of the things thatwe've seen every year, what's happened is thatthe finalists come down to really good proposalswith really good back up projects.

but they're very,very different. there haven't been projectsthat were two variations of something that was similar. they've been verydifferent projects. and it makes iteven more difficult. but the one thing aboutthe wheelwright, there are a lot of limitations that,at first, seem very peculiar. but it seems to usthat it's quite clear that the wheelwright expectsthat you have to travel

and that through the travelitself and the experience that you encounterin those travels. and if you think if it'sbased, if we're right, that it was really basedon the idea of the grantor. you know, you go to[inaudible] and you sketch, and you do watercolors. and that, itself, issupposed to change your life and change your career. you know, it's notthe money that you

need to buy tools, necessarily. it's not the money you needto fund an installation or another kind of[? project. ?] it's the experience itselfthat's supposed to change your life in your career. and if this isn't unfairof me to ask you so abruptly and quickly, what willbe different in your careers, in your practices,in your lives? what will be differentbecause of the wheelwright?

what will it enable? and you can't say the ticketto korea because, of course, that's what it'sgoing to pay for. but what will it enableabout your practice, about your career,about your life that would not happen otherwise? can i start with you, eric? well i think, speaking frommy own proposal, in a way, and dare i say this, iskind of like the grantor

in reverse along the equator. and the proposalhas a certain kind of focus, which is basedaround particular pieces of architecture. but at the sametime, i think or i hope that i've embeddedwithin it a kind of openness to explore these kind ofrapidly densifying cities that are populatedalong the equator. but clearly, they have verydifferent cultural backgrounds,

even variations of equatorialclimate in each one. and for me, thehope is to, kind of, go in with a sharpframework to keep me focused but to allow then a largerperipheral vision to happen. and i hope thatthat would really change the way that ithink about atmosphere and the production ofarchitecture on the equator. so it's to be narrow but alsovery wide at the same time. and that's i think my work willbe really fundamentally changed

for that. [inaudible], you'vedone atlas of conflict. i mean, [? this is ?] amazing. our students usethis all the time as a kind of paradigmfor a mapping of conflict but also other-- asa tool, our students use it for other kinds ofmappings, not just conflicts. i mean, you've done that. what will be different?

well, this type of tripthat i'm proposing. it's a very rare occasion. and this [inaudible]. i'm going toexplore a space that is very dangerous to go there. it's almostimpossible to document what is happening atthis moment in this hour. most of the documentationabout this space are made, created,by interest groups.

this means ngos that are fundedto explore one specific thing or western government that'ssponsoring certain type of exploration of the place. it's still a land that isunknown in many, many ways. so that [? is of ?]the conflict is israel. palestine, it's done. it's one country. it's one place. it goes to depth into one place.

i think here there isthere an opportunity to explore something that,potentially, can have the impact to changenot just the research to show research methodology. but it can have theimpact to change the livelihood ofmany, many people because i'm backedwith-- or i think i said [? at a ?] certain momenti don't know if i can do it, unless i have the support of thedutch ministries such that they

can actually go to these placesbecause these trips are highly expensive and very dangerous. so i need to go with theembassy and to know the partners on the ground andto this exploration. and now i have the support. so i think it's quite rare. and it's quite unique. and it can create[? the ?] nation that is not existing at this moment.

[inaudible], one ofthe things-- gia, i don't know if you're goingto agree with this-- but one of the things i thought aboutgwen's projects, what you have in common with gia inthe work that you did up to the wheelwright application,a lot of it, it felt like, were projects thatyou had just created that you were going to do. no one asked you to do them, butyou were just going to do them. and gia had someof those, as well.

and it's really, i don'tknow, kind of refreshing. but having said that, what wouldthe wheelwright make possible? how will it changethose projects? no, i mean, you're right. they were, kind of, moreself-initiated projects. i mean, i'm also workingthrough the institutions of arts to do artist residencies. and those have allowed me tofurther doing some of the work. but with that, i'vebeen fortunate to travel

to some of these placesand do the projects. but they've been, kind of,this aim to do a project. and then, i leave. so there is not thatmuch time of being able to be there and reflectupon the places that i visited or what i'm doingbecause there's this other agenda ofhaving to make something for an exhibition. but really, i think itwould be, like, next level.

so i think that the wheelwrightwould really be a fortune opportunity for me to go andspend some time in a place that i've been influencedby through books, and photographs, andanecdotes but have never spent any time really there. mostly, in thewestern world is where i've grown up and then alsonow living within europe. so i definitely thinkthat it would be something that i could expand upon andexperience with since these

works that i feellike are so related to the body in thecontext of the place and really seeing whatthat is [inaudible]. you guys have questions[? for ?] this further? one of the things i wastrying to think of-- i'm giving you time. you realize this iswhat a moderator does when he doesn't get a question. one of the thingsi did, i was trying

to think of the commonalities. and this maybestretching it too far, and quinn's mademe think of this. [? quinn is ?] workingwith something very, very basic aboutarchitecture, which is this kind of kinesthetic sensethat you walk along a plank surrounded by water. and you have to let someoneelse by and that sense of body but also a kind ofethic, in a way.

that kinesthesia also has a kindof ethics and is very basic. but i realize also that eric's--even though your practice is the most-- i mean, you haveprojects that other architects your age would kill for. they dream aboutbuilding, actually building, these projects. but in anothersense, they're also very basic just becausethey deal with whether. the they dealfundamentally with weather.

and all of asudden, when you add to these basic things ofgravity, movement, wind and water, and then youadd to that conflict. and conflict enters in. or, more generally,just living together. different people,radically different ideas about ethics living together,what they have in common is something. they each treat somethingvery, very basic,

even though the basic waras fundamental as gravity to architects, in a sense,because it's a spatial thing. and gravity affectsconstruction. but war also affects space. so there's somethingthere that i like. i think we picked the rightones [? and ?], somehow, they're veryfundamental, in a way. ok guys. [inaudible]

you get to give themadvice at the end. ok, you can go ahead. [inaudible] formulatethis question. and it might bereally unfair, too. so after havingbeen on the ground and confronted time and againwith situations where michael's had completely shiftedbecause whatever being in it changes your objectives. i guess one thing i wasreally impressed of all three

of your projects is how muchof a project they are already. so i guess thequestion somewhere lies is are there any unknowns? i mean, i know the projectitself isn't unknown. like, a big, huge unknown. but in the kind of constructionof what the project is, is there anythingin there that's an unknown that youcan begin to foresee might shift what theproject could become

or where it might go thatcould be something else. but i guess it's a littlebit of an unfair question because you might not knowthis until you're out there. i have somethingto say about it. i initiated this conversationwith the dutch ministries trying to explore the footprintof your [? admissions ?]. i don't know still. it's very difficult for meto formulate my position in this research.

at this moment, i'mnot critical toward it. i just take in allthe information that i can have and tryto do get an overview. but i think that if i goto mali, for instance, then it will be much easierfor me to formulate a position where i stand as a person, asa creative person, as a human being, if i want to approachit as someone who really wants to work with the foreignforces or someone who wants us to describethe impact of what they do.

so i a trip willallow me to formulate where i want to standin this research and to understandbetter the complexities. gia, i know you're goingto talk about this tonight. and i'm not asking you togive your presentation now. but answer that for yourself. i mean, [inaudible] unexpected. did the project radicallychange as it unfolded? yeah, it actuallycontinues to change.

even from last year,the thoughts and ideas that i had when i was puttingthe presentation for tonight, i was throwing all thoseaway because there's all these new ones thathave emerged out of it. but i think part, for me,a lot of the issues that have altered mythinking of the project has been how i've been able toinsert myself into the culture. and the kind of thinking--like, the cultural thinking that happens-- thequestions that i ask,

i don't getstraightforward answers. i get these reallylong, layered answers that take a lot of unpackingbefore i can get an answer. so part of it of ithas been the research. i guess, part ofit has been to try to figure out how to get theinformation i'm looking for. and the other part of it iswhat comes to me in the way that it comes to me because ofthe different cultures shifts my own thinking about it.

i wonder if eric would discoveran ethnographic dimension that you're probablynot thinking of now but that there's something therethat's actually interacting with the peoplethere, as opposed to just studying the buildings. and i think that'sonly something that travel will afford. so even though i'mlooking at it from a very, kind of, architectural pointof view, the point of travel--

at least the waysee i see it-- is to open up how thatarchitecture then is utilized, howit's inhabited, how it's rendered withcertain values, or even discarded with value. maybe what i'mlooking and i just deploy certainvalue systems maybe are completely irrelevant tothe people that are there. so i'm hoping thatmaybe that friction

is a really good thing. and maybe i will be[? coming ?] back or imagining comingback in two years and having a completelydifferent vantage point of view in terms of climateand architecture then one that i,kind of, set out. oh, yeah, rosetta. if i can try to furtherthat conversation, of course we're very busy here talkingabout design research

very often at the gst indifferent departments. fundamentally different is,of course, design research is trying to imagine somethingthat doesn't yet exist. and scientific research tendsto reflect upon the existing environment. scientific research hasgreat precedent, right. but design research has less. perhaps, a kind of invitationto talk about methodology, how one goes aboutdesign research,

and articulates a method outsideof just i'm going to go and see what happens. i think i try todo similar things. i think i know more ashow i do my own research. it's not based onprevious methodology. but at first, you try toget open as much as possible and to absorb as muchinformation and input from other things. so if it is frominterviewing certain people,

like, going to the contextand actually listen to who lives there and whouses a certain environment because i think theyknow the best to describe where they are living. and another thingthat i try to do is to make this informationaccessible through maps, through, visualization,diagram, et cetera. so we translate theinformation that you get into a language thatcan be accessed easily

by different audience,student's, academic, policy makers, et cetera. again, of course it'sbuilt on previous methods. but constantly, you define yourown methodologies as you go. and another thingthat i always try to do when i workon my projects is to see if it's possible tocreate pilots to actually turn the research because i thinkwith architecture and design, at the end of the day, youhave the scientific research.

but we are also makersof an environment. so we want to participatein either improving it or to create. so i try to see how thisresearch and the results that i got can be implemented backinto the physical environment. either throughintervention in policy making space for itto be implemented or to actually make it. and it can be alsoexperimented like the project

that i've done ininhoud, which was a top down and bottomup approach trying to work with the community. and we [inaudible] master plan. so it's not pure research. you learn through theinvestigation and find ways. i think, for myself, i havea very much practice based research. and i'm actually currentlya ph.d. candidate

at the bartlettschool of architecture doing a practice led phd. and we're havingthis conversation all the time betweendesign and theoretical, if you want to say, researchbecause we also have history and theory track, as well. so it's always somethingthat i've been, kind of, trying to negotiate. what does this mean withresearch and practice

at the same time? but i look at practicealso being research. so for myself, i feellike embarking on this. i still would continuemaking these installations because, being anarchitect, i think i was always slightlyfrustrated with working through means of representationof drawings and models. to be able to do somethingone to one, full scale, was something spatial thatwe're going to experience.

and then test it outin the real environment and see how peopleactually engage with it. yeah, so i look at thesekind of installations as these small portionsof architecture that i can experiment with. these last few comments,and we'll close with this, made me think--rosetta and scott, i don't know if youagree with this-- that one of the difficultthings we have in this school

is at the point of thesis. everyone gets all balledup and wringing their hands about thesis projects. and especially, asrosetta was saying, as we start to emphasizedesign research, is part of what thethesis should do. but i'm realizing what thewheelwright application process is are like reallygood thesis projects. and i wish morestudents had come to see

how do you take your work. how do you look back atthe work you've done, which sometimes ishighly contingent. i mean, some of you,you're more motivated and self-defining your practicesmore than most people do. but even so, youhave to look back at what are oftencontingencies in the practice. and systematize it,and theorize it, and make a kindof coherent frame.

and then out of that frame,you devise an extension and a project forfurther research. it's a really good wayof thinking about thesis. so for that we appreciate it. and we look forwardto gia tonight. and we wish youguys best of luck. and thanks very much forcoming and presenting. it was really fun.

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