US timber sizes

home depot  = US B&Q

cheapooooo::

2 In. x 4 In. x 8 Ft. Pressure Treated Lumber

$2.29 /EA-Each

The 2 in. x 4 in. x 8 ft. Pressure-Treated Pine Stud is pressure treated with micronized copper azole. It has a smooth texture. It is manufactured from pine.

• Pine wood
• Pressure treated
• Smooth texture
• 1-1/2 in. x 3-1/2 in. x 8 ft.
• Recommended for use with hot-dipped galvanized or stainless steel fasteners
• Paintable and stainable
• MFG Model # : 218458
• MFG Part # : 218458

• Actual product thickness (in.) : 1.5
• Actual product width (in.) : 3.5
• Aluminum compatible : Yes
• Chemical retention (lb./cu. ft.) : .06
• Contact Type Allowed : Above Ground
• Fastener recommendation : hot dipped galvanized or stainless steel
• Item Package Type : No Package
• Item Weight : 17 lb
• Lumber quality : Premium
• Manufacturer Warranty : against termite infestation, fungal decay and rot
• Nominal product thickness (in.) : 2
• Nominal product width (in.) : 4
• Portion of product made from wood (%) : 100
• Primary Specific Wood Species : Southern Yellow Loblolly Pine (US) (Pinus taeda)
• Product Length (ft.) : 8 ft
• Secondary Specific Wood Species : Southern Yellow Shortleaf Pine (US) (Pinus echinata)
• Texture : Smooth
• Type of Pressure Treatment : MCA - Micronized Copper Azole
• Water Resistant : No

Poncho craziness & looking for town making - precedents

precedents in Mexico in San Luis Potosi (only because I have been there - north Mex, suburb)
- shading
- set back
- boundary walls

shading precedent - canopies, overhangs, commercial steps back

walls someties with windows :) surrounding private land - behind: all, even gardens

streets on North - South, East - West grid

NS street looking N - early morning

(one side of the street shaded , apart from dead on noon) 

EW streets - south side walk shaded (early morning & late ev North side walk!!!)

growth precedent - (villages around my home town - czech rep, I believe its like this elsewhere, because it is logical)
villages grow with houses facing main street, secondary streets paralled to main street.
v.
developers sites have secondary streets perpendicular to the main road. 
 (in general)

in red marked up main road , secondary roads are very often an offset

versus: 

MAJOR breakthrough > blocks in texas like haringay ladder rather than grown villages - property developers style. i.e. "Haringey ladder"

Tuto with Robert TUE 19/04

R.M: Focus on Villa Hermosa
Pliny Ville is a rehearsal 
Work out your idea about transplanting factory 
from one colonia to a new one, leaving behind public space. 


Work out how water towers get build around. 


They are great, reminiscent of tipis, tents, umbrellas, sombreros. 


Sombrero 


Use your drawing skills


Think about how you are going to present your ideas. 


If it is a comics, start now. 

The Resourceful Architect NOMINATION

yip yip 


GIFT project made it into the 7 shortlisted of the IDEAS competition 
by RSA. 


with fellow students Sam with his RARA and Vernes with his Sustainable return to Srebrenica. 


CONGRATS TO ALL OF US AND THE FREE UNIT!!! 
out of 56 entries from around the world. 3 nominated are Free unit kids. meow. 

the call


Initial feedback: 

"In the meantime, I am able to give you the following feedback/questions from the shortlisting day:

How has this idea been tested or prototyped? What evidence have you that it will work?

If this is a method, not a product, in what other ways or to what other products could the method be applied? What is the potential scope of the method?

You’re very confident that you will ‘make this happen’ this summer. How?"

timetable

week 1
18-24 APR     DECISION TIME


week 2
28-10 JUN     (@BMA)


week 3
02-08 MAY   (05/05 structural engineers pin up) 


week 4
09-1 MAY    


week 5
16-22 MAY
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


week 6 
23-29 MAY    (Texas?)  (26/05 IDS diary hand-in)


week 7
30-05 JUNE   (02/06 STUDIO HAND-IN) (02/06 IDS REPORT HAND-IN)


week 8
06-10  JUNE  RIBA II






Villa Hermosa
- FINISH HAND DRAWN SITE PLAN
- DRAW OVERALL STRATEGY DIAGRAMS (COLLABORATION WITH MARTA?)
- SHOW HOW FACTORY WOULD BE TRANSPLANTED, DEVELOPPED, USED, TRANSFORMED INTO TOWN HALL/FIRST CIVIC BUILDING/TOWN SQUARE
- SHOW HOW SITE OFFICES WOULD GROW INTO COMMERCIAL FACILITIES. 


Las Lomas - Pliny Ville
- TEST COOLING TOWER MODELS
- SIMPLIFY FOR WHEN JUST SHADE IS FINE 
- FINALIZE INITIAL STAGE
- BIG MODEL OF COOLING TOWER
- STAGE II - CALICHE BUILDING GROWING AROUND 
- SPLIT - DESIGN FOR VILLA HERMOSA (MARTA) 
             - DESIGN FOR PLINY VILLE (DIFFERENT TO 
'STANDARD' FACTORY - ITS A HUB
- DRAW LAS LOMAS TOGETHER WITH THE GIFT

Decisions . BOLD v. DIY

pliny ville

key: 

- DIY

- GENEROUS MARK UP OF PUBLIC SPACE

(Image courtesy of Richard, West 8: Schouwburgplein, Rotterdam)

- CLEVER/EASY/LIGHTWEIGHT/CONTEMPORARY FIRST STAGE

(Image courtesy of Philip Beesley: Meniscus - Champ Libre, Montreal, PQ - 2008)

- STAGES!

Sam's Party at RARA

http://www.r-a-r-a.com/

One can never leave enough messages for Sam. (P.C.)

Crit 14/04

brill externals: Kieran, Hanna - former tutor of FREE UNIT, Raoul - Chora unit, Cambridge tutor
decision time

What I had: 

Mexico (above)

 

 

Pliny Ville, Las Lomas, Tx (above)

 

 Villa Hermosa diagrammatic proposal (above)

Feedback - as far as I remember:
(notes coming later) 


- Hanna: I buy the Pliny idea - that you take things out of the CMPBS and plant them at the Las Lomas. Thats great. What I dont understand is why are you dancing around the architecture desighning these super technological cooling towers. Why arent you bolder and do a proper building there? 
R.M. it is primitive the towers. 
Cambridge tutor: the temperature drops only a few degrees underneath the towers, is it worth it? 
R.M. Iam waiting for you to start working together with Marta. 


so 
DECISION TIME - STAGES
- I shall focus on Las Lomas/ Pliny Ville
- do a stage design, with the first stage super DIY simple - to hold a reminiscence of setting up a new factory in a new subdivision - the importance of public space, the marking could be relatively temporary, to be replaced by more permanent public structures. say timber poles replaced with lamp posts. 
- reduce the number of actual cooling towers for the initial stage. make it SIMPLE! 
- put initial cooling towers strategically, so that they can be grown around with caliche thermal mass 

Tuto with Peter Carl MON 11/04

lookin better
so much to do

Resourceful architect

I have submitted my pavement GIFT project to the RSA (the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) to compete in The resourceful Architect competition. 
This is an ideas call for survival of the profession in current (credit crunch) and post conditions. 
The idea of micro-finance fueled, rapid change sited market seemed like a quite fitting response. 
Lets see. I have sent the submission slightly too    erm on time. 

Y1 crits

Y1 students have schemes! 
well done


some really great ideas 


- weaving factory ( to be) 
- library underneath market roof
- umpf dance school on the corner
- journey for blind and sighted kids to touch things  and listen, cut hill, go under skateboard park, up in the trees. 
- growing veggies on top of market, sell them downstairs. 
- bring light into market and leave as is. 
- cinema and vid editing for skateboarding kids
- bike rental for bmx kids 

AND! 
one of my co-critics, Tania, from Mexico has told me all about how 'Fraccionettas' work (that is how they call them in her part of Mexico, where Tanya grew up, dont know how to spell it!) 


The deal is that in Mexico it is reality that cities grow first by occupation, and with it the services  are installed. 
So for example the fracciomento has a well for water. Landline has never been installed, so they jumped the evolution straight into mobile phones. Septic tanks for sewage. Electricity is easy, cables are extended. 
The developer has to provide a percentage of land to be 'social' (pronounce with hispanic diction and accent - i.e. to socialise, not social in council housing meaning)  The area and uses of Social depend on the size of the fracciomento. it might be school, church, cemetery. 


It is great that Tanya more or less confirmed our guestimates. 
Good job. 
I shall try to get her to come over for crit or tutorial. 






Noone collects

Lecture by Peter Carl

horizonts of architecture


(Dalibor Vesely @ Cambridge) 
Useful skepticism
contest for authority between the house & ...(!?)
distribution of orders & goods (=city) 
statistical stacking of bricks & people
the world happens in the peripheral vision
architecture is at disguise of this peripheral order

(woods versus council housing facade)


ritual is time out of time
enforces the order in temporarity 

(facade of a square as a built up of the rest of the city behind the facades) 

I can save you a lot of reading between early and late Heidegger and say it in one sentence. 
traditions = the deposit the depth
dialog gets born in conversation
I could have a burger here on the screen, but i couldn't eat it. 
Thematises the context as content
FREEDOM_FOR
It is possible to invent language, but dont bet on being understood
This particular construction begun just before the millennium, early 10th century

(window - outlook onto mountains completing murals on the rest of the walls)

Horizont creates the context to which it refers

Horizont above his eyes & below her eyes

Poststructuralism is basically fiddling with a dotted line. 

wall articulation

it invents the gravity (Michelangelos sculptures in church)

Michelangelo overcomes what practically is a digram (the church) 

leap 400 years - early 20th century - the advent of space.

Freedom for which all content has to be supplied. 

Architecture is a hostage to space.   !?

I grew up at architecture school calling the ground the ground p l a n e . 

(spot 7 differences, Ronchamp & Corbusiers love's face)

Put him behind her (line up two people from two different paintings(to get meaning)) !!

Le corb. using symbols, most architects dont do it no more. FORM IS FINE   (:)))) 
Cultural buildings in Vienaa, ALL of them have to be approached by gigantic stair. 
Hedonistic individuals on service grid. 
City gives definitive direction to nature. 


City is about people who only partially get it, or dont get it at all. 


arch as .... - sets horizonts
arch as act -  scenes of hospitality     ???!!


I have no problem moving directly to hospitality or answer some questions. 








No questions

Tuto with Peter Carl MON 04/04

new colonia
FABurb

P.C:


find out water tower size
find out about funnel at the top


FAB urb
- bring up to drawing level
- establish starting point/s - nature
-  city grows out of natural order 
- dont draw the rest of the town, let it happen
- would be interestin to do calculations for buildt up dense city (TED talk) 
- go back to plinyville, dont spread yourself too thin


LAS Lomas
- edge to the west
- conversation with school - good
- road through - OK, logical
- dont follow donkey paths
- lirycs v. utility
- student hostel
- caliche structures
- organic is good, but bring in beginnings of a city
- play between lyrical and straight line
- retaining walls, open class ness
- water, coming from above, below
- hard edges - caliche walls, buildings RE: the sun auditorium email

Desert House

http://news.architecture.sk/2011/02/desert-house.php

 Architecture studio called Platform for Architecture + Research has created this unique residence. Their main aim was not to disturb geological structure, they built the building taking advantage of natural topography and created a compact building. While designing the layout, they took into account local climate conditions. The project is situated on a 15 acres parcel located just few kilometers away from Palm Spring, California. This area offers 18 unique parcels with 18 villas provided with a discrete access. The villa provides a complete privacy thanks to its location, at the same time the local climate provides enough of fresh air. Architects minimized ecological consequences while keeping all conditions of the client. A number of sustainable strategies were used as: photovoltaic panels, natural air-conditioning, layout, form or orientation of the building. 

TED: walkable suburb, retrofit american suburbia

Ellen Dunham-Jones: Retrofitting suburbia

Ellen talks about the cost the rise and fall of american suburb. 

The cheap land that used to appeal to young families, who would buy 

a house in suburbia and drive to all facilities from these residential pockets. 

She says that the transport cost has doubled (with the rise of oil prices) and 

is even more than mortgage itself. 

Nowadays the generation Y living in suburbias do not have children, 

they demand more urban life style. Demanding so called 3rd place

(1-home, 2-work, 3-play)

She talks about successful densification or eco-nomical/logical restoration of 

disused car parks, shopping malls hand in hand with making walkable suburbs. 

I THINK THIS IS THE REVIVAL OF VILLAGE/TOWN

making suburb an independent entity, from where one doesnt 

have to drive every 5 minutes to the big city to buy milk or papers. 

marta was right. 

make it european, enclosed, 2 storey, 

self sufficient. 

maybe not colonias quite yet. but suburbs are going that direction. 

precedents to be inserted promptly

IDS presentations 30/03

Integrated Design Strategy


We have to consider following issues effecting design decisions: