179prs_The Games of Architecture: Photography

Photography is vital to our understanding of architecture. Whereas in the Renaissance, for example, we understood architecture through painting, today we understand architecture through the image that arrives to us via a camera lens, typically your smartphone. It is thus plausible that architecture is now only understood through the immediacy of the photographic image and that publication, not building, is the legitimate contemporary expression of architecture. Architecture is being wham, bam, instagrammed! Dave Cowlard, who shot 012hil_Rooftop Nursery, set some of his 2nd year BFA students the task of reading Walter Benjamin’s essay ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’. David’s short film was made to help the student’s contextualise Benjamin’s life, his work and friendships and what it meant to be a cultural producer in Germany in the 1930s. TBC

WHAT_architecture 19-Nov-2014
Category: 179prs_practice based research | WHAT_projects
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238myk_MYKONOS POOL

The Agean is an idyllic pool which embraces Thessalonoki to the East, Gallipoli to the North, Smyrna to the West and Mykonos to the South. It thus embraces both Greek and Turkish cultures and was the world’s original archipelago, or sea-based island cultures rather than land masses. The ebb and flow of tides erase difference. In Mykonos this could result in a pool that services an emergent type of family. One that is free from societal strictures of: nationalism, religion, sexuality and age but drawn together by a love of sun and water. SPF15 and H20, good-to-go.

WHAT_architecture 18-Nov-2014
Category: WHAT_projects
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179prs_I AM AN ARCHITEKT

Recent discussions here on blablablarchitecture about the empire call to mind the colonisation of the architectural profession. This is a game of architectural registration regulated by EU rules. In order to practice in the UK as an Architect (a protected word under ARB regulations) one must transfer acceptable qualifications to Britain (RIBA Parts 1-3). This transference however merely exposes the divergence between EU Member states whereby in some EU countries, TBC, an academic qualification simultaneously confers professional registration whereas in other EU countries, say Poland, one has to undertake 3y of professional experience in order to merely sit the registration examination. EU laws attempt to regulate thereby make equal but some countries are more equal than others in the registration of an Architect. Or Architekt. WHAT_architecture thus operates a performance based metric in the determination of qualification. You aren’t what you say you are, you are what you demonstrate.

WHAT_architecture 17-Nov-2014
Category: 000off_WHAT_process | 072hin_Hinemihi | 179prs_practice based research | WHAT_projects
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048per_GOOGLE EARTH FLIGHT 048per TO AUCKLAND

WHAT_architecture 17-Nov-2014
Category: 048per_Villa XX | WHAT_projects
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048per_BOOK RELEASE AS FILM TRAILER

Peter Walker is a writer and his book The Fox Boy tells the story of Ngataua Omahuru, a Maori child remade as a mini-English 19th Century gentlemen. Emily Perkins in her review of The Fox Boy for The Guardian wrote: “The title suggests one of those books about a feral child abandoned by its parents and raised by surprisingly tender beasts: a fairy-tale mix of the salacious and anthropological that strikes a chord as far back as Romulus and Remus. Peter Walker’s book tells a different version of this story: not of abandonment but of abduction, not of survival despite the forces of wilderness but survival despite the forces of “civilisation”. His story is that of the child taken as hostage of war, as trophy and potential slave – with the British-empire spin of improving it through exposure to an allegedly superior culture.” I, personally, have always interpreted artist Lisa Reihana’s Dandy (from her Digital Marae series) in the mould of Walker’s Fox Boy. Bloomsbury Publishing now presents Peter Walker’s Some Here Among Us. In doing so, the publisher presents us with a book release as a film trailer! We start to wonder if with the imminent inauguration of 048per_ in Auckland in January 2015, an architectural opening could be transformed away from the cutting of ribbons towards the animated story of ‘how a building come into being’.

WHAT_architecture 17-Nov-2014
Category: 048per_Villa XX | 072hin_Hinemihi | WHAT_projects
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179prs_GAMITECTURE

Gamitecture. The ramification of game thinking and mechanics to architecture/. 179prs: is a practice-research project/ Gamification: is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts to engage users in solving problems and increase users’ self contributions. Though the term “gamification” was coined in 2002 by Nick Pelling, a British-born computer programmer and inventor, it did not gain popularity until 2010. (Wikipedia). Gamification in its narrow sense is used in a non-game context, is built into the service system, and is aiming at an infinite experience. It does not aim at creating a game but offering a gameful experience. Techniques: Gamification techniques strive to leverage WHAT_architecture’s natural abilities for:

Socialising / Fun
Learning / Skills
Creativity / Intelligence / Ideation…
Team Play / Responsibility /Status / Ethics / Diligence
Health / Finances
Competition / Results / Performance

References: http://www.gameofwork.com Criticism: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/gaming/gamification-is-taking-over-our-lives-and-it-all-came-from-video-games-9779149.html

WHAT_architecture 16-Nov-2014
Category: 179prs_practice based research | WHAT_projects
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128art_Chiba FOR UNIQLO

WHAT_architecture 15-Nov-2014
Category: 128art_shoreditch underground | WHAT_projects
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128art_VIDEOKE COMING TO SHOREDITCH STATION!?

Following from the success of Maorioke, Maori culture through waiata (songs) in a karaoke form, comes Videoke, song and dance, at Shoreditch station… www.blablablarchitecture.com

WHAT_architecture 12-Nov-2014
Category: 128art_shoreditch underground | WHAT_projects
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241mer_WHAT_MERZBAU

WHAT_architecture 11-Nov-2014
Category: 241mer_MERZ BAU | WHAT_projects
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000off_HI-TOP SPIN: A USER POV MODEL FOR TURKMENISTAN

Sometimes ideas come from the strangest places. In this case the connection between a Nike hi-top and our Turkmenistan Merry-Go-Round was not immediate to anyone besides WHAT_ricardo. Spin-videography of the 3D printed model using such basic tools such as our office microwave allows for new ways of understanding the project… genius! wwwblablablarchitecture.com

WHAT_architecture 10-Nov-2014
Category: 000off_WHAT_process | 236tur_Turkmenistan Pavilion | WHAT_projects
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