Following the WHAT_architecture visit to Ashgabat with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Esteemed President Gurbanguly Berdimukhammedov has decreed to establish a Ministry of Architecture and Construction…

What is architecture when you are a child? The word ‘architecture’ sounds long, is therefore complicated in meaning and thus boring. Not fun. When architects undertake seemingly serious child-as-client consultation, the clean lines of modernism looked “normal”. Yet normality is of little interest to the child, normal sounds like an appreciation of occupation. What do you want to be when you grow up? Normal equals a balance of live-work. For a child work is not good. What is good is live-play. Play is fun. Fun is fantasy. Children pursue an architecture of fantasy. This architecture is not one of flush detailing. The upshot of ‘childish architecture’ means that (even on a tiny budget) architecture must dream. And if your children cannot dream what’s the point of trying to get them to engage in their built context? WHAT_architecture thinks Disneyland Castles and Sponge Bob are probably more relevant to a child’s perception of architecture than Modernism, Post-Modernism, Deconstructivism or shadow gaps. It is not, however, all ‘castles in the air‘ as we accept we have to play a double-game of funding vs fun: one that appeals to all ages: children and adults. 8-88yo. An architecture that’s both childish yet sophisticated. A Square-yet-not-Pants-ism. So let’s play the Game of Anti-Architecture with children…

Above, below, beside and in-between: optimising connectivity and minimising footprint = maximising opportunity.

We don’t need to walk far for Art informed Architecture. Just step out of the office into Shoreditch High Street and one is immersed in art whether you like it or not… the neighbouring gallery next door to our office (Howard Griffin) is showcasing Thierry Noir, the Keith Haringesque French Berliner.

That includes the roof!

This proposal is based upon upon the UK Trade Sector scoping mission to Ashgabat in March 2014. The mission was supported by the Turkmenistan Government, Turkmenistan-United Kingdom Trade & Industry Council (TUKTIC) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The mission involved a series of high level meetings involving the Turkmen Cabinet and including Deputy Prime Minister Toylyyev (Education), the Minister for Education (Ms Gulshat Mammedova) and the Minister for Construction (Mr Batyr Ereshov). Anthony Hoete, representing WHAT_architecture (which holds a Guiness World Record for an educational building), understands the Esteemed President’s requirement to modernise the existing education system. With the advent of new technologies and the rapid development of the Turkmen economic sectors, there is a need to upskill the country’s workforce. WHAT_architecture to establish the new ‘Oguz’ architecture school within the International University of Turkmenistan. The school asks “What is Turkmen architecture?” and what can it do for the Turkmen people? With the rise of the informational age, the built environment is becoming increasingly standardised. Buildings are becoming anonymous and cities are tending towards the generic. Yet nation building doesn’t have to lead to cultural assimilation. The new Oguz school would embrace Turkmen identity (the horse, the carpet, the book, the gas…) so as to develop and generate a contemporary Turkmen vernacular. The School would engage internationally renown architects and educators to bring cutting edge pedagogy. Rigorous teaching methodologies would drill into and mine all aspects of Turkmen society. In doing so specific local design influences would be extruded and applied to tourism, recreational, educational, agricultural and infrastructural projects sited in Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan must be applauded by taking it’s culture and politically conserving heritage as exemplified with The Ministry of Horses, The Ministry of Carpets… and manifest in recent buildings such as The National Library (expressed as a book), The Ministry of Gas shaped (expressed as a lighter). Sustainability would be promoted. This would allow buildings not only to be ‘Made In Turkmenistan’ but, more importantly, to be ‘Designed In Turkmenistan’. Western cultural snobbery might mock the Turkmen approach but what semiotic relevance does the Swiss-Re banking have to a Gherkin? London has it’s own archi-iconography but the form has no relation to it’s function: The Cheesegrater, The Walkie-Talkie, The Shard are all urban objects devoid of meaning other than signposting. Oguz means ‘tribe’ and so the proposed school would form a tribe of partnerships:

• Royal Melbourne Institute of Architecture, Australia
• WHAT_architecture, London
• Rönesans Turkmen
• Royal Institute of British Architects

and would globally promote a positive image of Turkmenistan. Services offered:

• Prepare graduates for the profession of tomorrow by developing the intellectual creative capital and core competencies to shape the Turkmen built environment
• Embrace the latest in BIM and 3D print technologies
• Offer a platform within the industry to transfer knowledge between school and office
• Publish challenging and thought-provoking Turkmen research for global dissemination

Extrude. Copy. Paste. Stretch. Clip. Dash.

WHAT_architecture absorbs the social, economic and ecologic dynamics of a project and frames them as an acute choice. What do you want? What kind of player are you: client, user, occupant, tenant, landlord, politician or architect? WHAT_architecture is an acute choice architecture.

Tyvek came into the office for a Turkish bbq CPD. LIQUIDITY / LAUNDERING: Tyvek, by Du Pont, is a material used in building to control liquid, albeit water vapour or water droplets. However it is another form of liquidity, that of cash, which lead to Tyvek’s pioneering of polymer bank notes…. Certainly the note has great durability, but inkwear/adhesion may not be as good as on a conventional rag paper note. This may however simply be a reflection on the notes’ greater average life. Also there have been some problems with the plastic substrate itself. These aspects may not be so important to a larger country but in the Island the policy has been to recognise our notes as excellent off Island ambassadors and to therefore maintain a clean-note policy. The condition of the bulk of the present Tyvek® notes in circulation is not consistent with this clean-note policy. Polymer banknotes that were first introduced in Australia in 1988 and subsequently in New Zealand in 1999.