construct a minimally invasive, low impact, and simply constructed, although not prefab, clowder of 31 dwellings in the back country of teddy roosevelt national park in north dacotah.

context

site

client: department store owner, his wife, and adult son
program: master bedroom, 2 bedroom, 2.5 bath, kitchen, office, lounge, patio, garden; guest house w/ bedroom, bath, kitchenette

site photos:

gordon matta-clark didn’t die from pancreatic cancer, he had consumption. in his last days he moved to this stone house in the monument valley to convalesce. this indexical monument was his last work; it is still being created.

hails to wikipedia: A weather house is a folk art device in the shape of a small German or Alpine chalet that indicates the weather. A typical weather house has two doors and two automata, side by side. The left side has a girl or woman, the right side a boy or man. The female figure comes out of the house when the weather is sunny and dry, while the male comes out to indicate rain.

In fact, a weather house functions as a hygrometer embellished by folk art. The male and female figures ride on a balance bar, which is suspended by a piece of catgut or hair. The gut relaxes or shrinks based on the humidity in the surrounding air, relaxing when the air is wet and tensing when the air is dry. This action swings one figure or the other out of the house depending on the humidity.

sandstorm

ventifact

im sorry in advance for the vague similarity to house 26. this is not a home for a man and his pets. this is a habitat nexus that must be constructed to avert trophic cascading as humans homogenize the planet’s surface.

1. On land, where biological diversity is generally far less than oceanic environments, the third trophic level lions can be the final trophic level and the local top predator.

2. In many land biomes, humans and dogs effectively share the role due to their co-operation.

3. Size is an obvious advantage in having no larger animals that might prey upon them as adults, as with a sperm whale.

4. Inaccessibility of its home makes such a hit-and-fly predator as a bald eagle an apex predator.

develop the constructed nexus of dens and shelters that occur in the same geographic point but allow each tenant to maintain his or her reign over their outlying habitat.

Any biologist can tell that our body’s cells are constantly dying and being replaced by new ones and every seven years we change the complete set of cells that means we change our body every seven years but this change is so gradual that it’s imperceptible. So, each of us has a number of “different” bodies in this very life. The body of an adult is completely different from the body the same person had as an infant. Yet despite bodily changes, the person within remains the same.
http://science.krishna.org

dead load:
two to three bedrooms, 1.5 baths, living/dining area, kitchen, roof deck

live loads:
recording studio, bakery, dentist, garage, tax assistance, airbrush shoppe, darkroom

each live load is utilized for seven (7) years, then replaced or abandoned to decay. live loads normally occur sequentially, but two live loads may be briefly simultaneous. live adaptations may invade the dead loads.

in the spring of 1861, two roommates, one for union and one for secession, unfortunately share a two bedroom house.

and the war came.

rather than break a lease and lose the deposit, each side must modify the dwelling so as to carry on the conflict, each praying to the same god, and each invoking his aid against the other.

program: 1974 preuss’s program

tifs in /31-file-list

hhumbert said: to any other type of tourist accommodation i soon grew to prefer the functional motel – clean, neat, safe nooks, ideal places for sleep, argument, reconciliation, insatiable illicit love.

please appoint a nook for humbert to enjoy with the nymphette of his choosing.

although the archetype is strict, i have proven that there is endless possibility within the type!

detail

be site specific!

as young architects rake in the cash on fast-track chinese signature design work, they find the freedom to express themselves locally with more exquisite building materials. design a small home outside of marfa built entirely out of donald judd objects.

client

and donald judd? well hell, you know who he is!

former bachelor pad taken over by a detached father with his dissatisfied second wife and frustrated daughter.
program: staircase, attic, rusty nails.

in honour of david hemmings, we continue the week w/ more stories from cortázar. i don’t know if you have time to read ‘the bestiary’, so we will marry a bit of that piece w/ todays narrative.

guide: house taken over pdf.

context.

psychological context.

program: dining room, library (french literature), living room w/ tapestries, 3 bedrooms, bath, kitchen, 2 master bedrooms, vestible vestibule, corridor, large oak door.

reconstruct the scene. noted celebrity obituarist, gary kisser, limps through the portal in the broad glass wall, the san diego sunlight shows all the colours of the vomit running down his chest, his gait is uncertain and he falls to his knees multiple time, staggering, he looks directly into the clear sun, and falls into the pool, face down. pan up to long view of pacific ocean. in his boudoir is found a small phial later to be identified as an emetic, a tube of model airplane glue, a glamour magazine, and a bodyglove full wetsuit with traces of blood around the collar. the trail of vomit drips traces an erratic pattern through the home, not directly from the boudoir to the pool deck. was he killed, or was it the desperate experimentation of a man whose life was death?

exhibit A: Ambiguous Obit.

exhibit B: Kisser’s last vision

continuing our movie themed weekend, reflect on the notion that all of our favourite romance-dystopias end with our dear couples getting f’ed up before they get where they are going. winston and julia are busted by the thought police (and most probably executed). james cole is shot in the back before he and kathryn can get to key west. and who knows wtf happens to deckard and rachel.

let’s pretend that we are the studio who is breathing down gilliam’s neck over the happy ending to ‘brazil’; jill isn’t killed and sam lowry doesn’t lose his shit, but rather than have them live in a fucking trailer, they drive into the hinterlands and, with the materials available on their truck, they construct the following house:

considerations include: winter gardening, sam’s ability to fly, and their pursuit by the ministry of information.

tifs in 31-file-list

program: seven bedroom anarchist co-op. roof garden. one toilet.

Punishment in Hell for the Deadly Sin of Pride is to be Broken on the Wheel

Pride (Vanity), is excessive belief in one’s abilities, such that you don’t give credit to God. Pride is also failure to give others credit due them – if someone’s Pride bothers you, then you are also guilty of Pride. Aquinas argued that all other sins stem from Pride, making this one of the most important sins to focus on: “inordinate self-love is the cause of every sin…the root of pride is found to consist in man not being, in some way, subject to God and His rule.”

Punishment in Hell for the Deadly Sin of Envy is to be Immersed in Freezing Water

Envy is a desire to possess what others have, whether material objects, like cars, or character traits, like a positive outlook or patience. According to Christian tradition, envying others results in failing to be happy for them. Aquinas wrote that envy “…is contrary to charity, whence the soul derives its spiritual life… Charity rejoices in our neighbor’s good, while envy grieves over it.” Non-Christian philosophers like Aristotle and Plato argued that envy leads to a desire to destroy those who are envied so they can be stopped from possessing anything at all. Envy is thus treated as a form of resentment.

Punishment in Hell for the Deadly Sin of Gluttony is to be Force-Fed Rats, Toads, Snakes

Gluttony is normally associated with eating too much, but it has a broader connotation that includes trying to consume more of anything than you actually need, food included. Thomas Aquinas wrote that Gluttony is about “…not any desire of eating and drinking, but an inordinate desire…leaving the order of reason, wherein the good of moral virtue consists.” Thus the phrase “glutton for punishment” isn’t as metaphorical as one might imagine.

Punishment in Hell for the Deadly Sin of Lust is to be Smothered in Fire, Brimstone

Lust is the desire to experience physical, sensual pleasures (not just those which are sexual). Desire for physical pleasures is considered sinful because it causes us to ignore more important spiritual needs or commandments. Sexual desire is also sinful according to traditional Christianity because it leads to using sex for more than procreation.

Punishment in Hell for the Deadly Sin of Anger is to be Dismembered Alive

Anger (Wrath) is the sin of rejecting the Love and Patience we should feel for others and opting instead for violent or hateful interaction. Many Christian acts over the centuries (like the Inquisition or the Crusades) may seem to have motivated by anger, not love, but they were excused by saying the reason for them was love of God, or love of a person’s soul – so much love, in fact, that it was necessary to harm them physically.

Greedy: Punishment in Hell for the Deadly Sin of Greed is to be Boiled Alive in Oil

Greed (Avarice) is the desire for material gain. It is similar to Gluttony and Envy, but gain rather than consumption or possession is key. Aquinas condemned Greed because “it is a sin directly against one’s neighbor, since one man cannot over-abound in external riches, without another man lacking them…it is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, inasmuch as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things.”

Punishment in Hell for the Deadly Sin of Sloth is to be Thrown into a Snake Pit

Sloth is the most misunderstood of the Seven Deadly Sins. Often regarded as mere laziness, it is more accurately translated as apathy. When a person is apathetic, they no longer care about doing their duty to others or to God, causing them to ignore their spiritual well-being. Thomas Aquinas wrote that sloth “…is evil in its effect, if it so oppresses man as to draw him away entirely from good deeds.”

-source

somewhere there are some George Pencz prints that depict animals exacting the required punishments. i haven’t found them, so i don’t know which animals do what, but here is a list written by some random person – i am sure it is authorative:

Pride - Horse – Violet
Envy - Dog - Green
Anger – Bear - Red
Sloth - Goat - Light Blue
Greed - Frog - Yellow
Gluttony - Pig – Orange
Lust - Cow - Blue

this is a house for a crone who lures german hipsters into the forest with the smell of her vegan baked goods. as we all know, nobody actually likes to eat cookies, they just like to smell them baking. this house needs to project its fragrant contents out across the black forest.

leave a trail of breadcrumbs.

the house may or may not be made of edible materials. program: kitchen.

the midden house, or the architectural mixup, requires you to generate a massing study in elevation and plan. please draw from the following sources, you may use alternate imagery from each hombre.

speer

scarpa

pugin

neimeyer

maybeck

leonidov

kulper

scale house.

program: see: home house

client: barry lyndon (né redmond barry)

program: music room, dueling chambre, mistress quarters, promenade, wet bar.

you know what a trompe l’oeil is, so finding provocative pix is nigh impossible.

program: drafting studio, pasta kitchen, sleep tank, giallo theater, magnifying glass, trivial pursuit kiosk, corkscrew.

am wrote:
mobile doesn’t mean pre-fab,
and vice versa

jt wrote:
they are both useless

am wrote:
obviously you’ve never been to burning man

jt wrote:
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=TC3PVt1_Jyc&feature=related

am wrote:
do i need to watch that?
i don’t know who that is?

jt wrote:
you might like it, he talks about prefab

am wrote:
since when do i like prefab!
i think those hold-punched trailers like that stan guy promotes are the
biggest scam since ‘naked lunch’

jt wrote:
who is stan?

am wrote:
stan allen?
maybe i am thinking of someone else.
i know it was one of those denari or lotek type of guys.

jt wrote:
xxxx xxxxxx

am wrote:
probably him.

why doesn’t coa have their new house on their site?
that blog only has construction pix;
surely they have some dwgs or renderings?

jt wrote:
architects websites are useless, at least coa isnt flash based…

Instant coffee is a beverage derived from brewed coffee beans. Through various manufacturing processes the coffee is dehydrated into the form of powder or granules. These can be rehydrated with hot water to provide a drink similar but generally regarded as inferior to conventional coffee. At least one brand of instant coffee is also available in concentrated liquid form.

…

Drying

This step is a very important one and two different methods are used in plants all over the world, freeze and spray drying, each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Freeze Drying

The basic principle of freeze drying in the process for producing instant coffee is the removal of water by sublimation.

Since the mass production of instant coffee began in post-WWII America, freeze drying has grown in popularity to become a very common method. This is often because, although it is frequently more expensive than other methods of drying, it generally results in a higher quality product.

The Freeze Drying Process

1. Agglomerated wet coffee granules are frozen. For instant coffee this is a very important stage. Freezing too fast leads to large ice crystals and a very porous product and can also affect the colour of the coffee granules.
2. Frozen coffee is placed in the drying chamber, often on metal trays.
3. A vacuum is created within the chamber. The strength of the vacuum is critical in the speed of the drying and therefore the quality of the product. Care must be taken to produce a vacuum of suitable strength.
4. The drying chamber is warmed, most commonly by radiation but conduction is used in some plants and convection has been proposed in some small pilot plants. A possible problem with convection is uneven drying rates within the chamber, which would give an inferior product.
5. Condensation – the previously frozen water in the coffee granules expands to 10⁷ its volume, the removal of this water vapour from the chamber is vitally important, making the condenser the most critical and expensive components in a freeze drying plant.
6. The freeze dried granules are removed from the chamber and packaged.

Spray Drying

This method of drying is preferred to freeze drying in some cases because of its cost effectiveness, short drying time, usefulness when dealing with such a heat-sensitive product, and the fine, rounded particles it produces.

Spray drying produces spherical particles of size roughly equal to 300 µm with a density of 0.22 g/cm³ (ref 2). To achieve this, nozzle atomisation is used. Various ways of nozzle atomization can be used each having its own advantages and disadvantages. High speed rotating wheels operating at speeds of about 20,000 rpm are able to process up to 60,000 pounds (27 t) of solution per hour (ref 3). The use of spray wheels requires that the drying towers have a wide radius to avoid the atomised droplets collecting onto the drying chamber walls.

Typical Spray Drying Characteristics

* Completed in 5-30 seconds (dependent on factors such as heat, size of particle, and diameter of chamber).
* Moisture content change, IN = 75-85% OUT = 3-3.5%
* Air Temperatures, IN = 270 °C OUT = 110 °C

One drawback with spray drying is that the particles it produces are too fine to be used effectively by the consumer; they must first be either steam-fused in towers similar to spray dryers or by belt agglomeration to produce particles of suitable size.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

spatial arrangement

look up ehopper’s ‘automat’ to see full image (girl’s legs)

tsurjan: “…and if you don’t like it and want to go back, you can hit ‘undo’ or ‘control-z’. there is also a history palette, where you can go all the way back to where you started”

pkulper: “question. where do i find the moves that were just undone?”

tsurjan: “they are gone. you lose them completely if you make a new step after undoing.”

pkulper: “they are deleted, but there are no erase marks or fragments left?”

tsurjan: “not on a computer, p.”

pkulper: “whoa.” [exits room to contemplate]

a house for winston smith, 2008.

geometric strategy

site

contemporary reference

thanks to privacy international

make sure to provide a spot for winston to write.

A Knight’s Tour In cimmeria

After Perec: 11 Rue Oulipo is the subject of the problem. 11 Rue Oulipo has been frozen at the instant in time when Conan dies. People are frozen in different rooms, on the stairs, and in the cellars. Some rooms are vacant. The design moves like a Knight in a chess game. In each room we learn about the residents of the room, how they live, what kind aesthetic garbage they surround themselves with. Some rooms may occupy several cells.

after Calvino: The country is described as having existed as an independent state between World War I and World War II. The capital is Örkko, and its principal resources are peat and by-products, bitumonous compounds. In successive territorial divisions between her powerful neighbors the young nation was soon erased from the map.

Cimmeria

Knight’s Tour

A deranged man, Josh Frank, hides out in the attic while an unsuspecting couple (Morton & Garcia) and their family carry on their life in the house below. Once Frank stops just hiding out and becomes involved with the family and, in particular, the wife, the problems begin.

Holly Sargis: How is he?
Kit Carruthers: I got him in the stomach.
Holly Sargis: Is he upset?
Kit Carruthers: He didn’t say nothing to me about it.

bison proof.

this house is for a blind pauper and his gyrfalcon. his sense of smell has become his directional sense and the house helps him move about with aromatic materials. additionally, he is oriented around the house and to his environment by (aromatic) connections back to the landscape. His house has no windows, only sieves and filters.

Due to its rarity and the difficulties involved in obtaining it, in falconry the gyrfalcon was generally reserved for kings and nobles. Very seldom was a man of lesser rank seen with a Gyrfalcon on his fist.

saltair ‘view’ to the west

delicate balsam and pollen ‘view’ to the east

The lunatic is on the grass
The lunatic is on the grass
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs
Got to keep the loonies on the path

The lunatic is in the hall
The lunatics are in my hall
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
And every day the paper boy brings more

And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon

The lunatic is in my head
The lunatic is in my head
You raise the blade, you make the change
You re-arrange me till I’m sane
You lock the door
And throw away the key
Theres someone in my head but it’s not me.

And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear
And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon

Whilst waiting to destroy the Nazi’s heavy water facility, the Norwegian saboteurs responsible for the task shelter in a single, secluded cabin in the mountains. The house shelters 10 men and their skis, climbing equipment, and Sten guns, yet maintains a low profile so as to avoid being spotted by the Heer and the Luftwaffe.

“There were four things that needed our constant attention those winter months in the mountains. Number one was to stay alive. We hunted soybeans, and used every part of them for food. Husks included. We hunted for moss to use in the baking of bread. Our second task was unrelated to the house program. Third, we had to keep radio contact with England. We used car batteries for this operation. Lastly, we had to make sure we had enough wood for heating. Our camp was located above the tree line so obtaining wood included long walks where you had to be careful so nobody would see us.”

-Kjøll Syyverlssennlund

Ski access only.

† continue reading house 05 – norwegian wood (heidi-) house

For more than a year, ominous rumors had been privately circulating among agitated loner proles that the United States had been at work on what was darkly hinted to be the ultimate weapon: a doomsday device. Intelligence sources traced the site of the top secret project to the perpetually fog-shrouded wasteland below the bear infested peaks of western Carolina. What they were building or why it should be located in such a remote and desolate place no one could say.

this bunker is an incubator for a new society. make sure to have lots of pillows.

Publius/3: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn’t that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?

Amsterd’m Houston: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious… service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.

Vermilion Girl: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.

† continue reading house 04 – guns, germs, pink steel seraglio

[bldyrctm]: Guy Pearce looks like an ape in that shit
[bldyrctm]: + everything else
[xxxftgxxx]: are you going to joes soon?
[bldyrctm]: hmm
[bldyrctm]: i just poured some coffee into a mug
[xxxftgxxx]: $85 for a dossier?!
[xxxftgxxx]: jc
[bldyrctm]: you are working until 11pm?!
[xxxftgxxx]: no!
[xxxftgxxx]: christ
[bldyrctm]: do you think that is too little?
[xxxftgxxx]: i will probably leave at 5
[xxxftgxxx]: hmm
[xxxftgxxx]: doesnt seem like a very populist price
[bldyrctm]: i figured that $100 seemed too arbitrary
[xxxftgxxx]: picture looks good
[bldyrctm]: do you think we should charge for that pic?
[xxxftgxxx]: haha
[xxxftgxxx]: maybe for the d/l of the pdf
[bldyrctm]: no one is going to buy one; what do you think we should charge?
[xxxftgxxx]: hmm
[xxxftgxxx]: i think that you should be req’d to make a comment on the site before you can d/l it
[xxxftgxxx]: the price is fine because it is a joke
[bldyrctm]: hmm..you made me disable comments
[bldyrctm]: i reckon we could force someone to email us first?
[xxxftgxxx]: nah
[xxxftgxxx]: i like that you can just break it off
[xxxftgxxx]: shit

h’okay, let’s try this?
you can use ftp to drop your tifs/jpgs/other large files into the top-level directory ‘31′, and they will show up in the list below:

napoleon (perhaps apocryphally) called the piazza san marco “the drawing room of europe.” what if it actually was? where would the rest of the house be? travel-time, convenience, and privacy be damned, we’re drifting.

program: drawing room (venice), kitchen/dining (?), chambre (?), porch (?), attic (?), studio (?), fruit cellar (?).

a house for ralf und florian and their respective robots. Robots should live in visible space that mirrors the enclosed false/’secret’ place that ralf und florian live. ralf und florian do not have contact but their robots may. karl bartos is not to gain access to the house.

include bicycle storage.

still having trouble posting images larger than 2.5mb in the vault. i will email you the missing file for this haus.

In 1994 a boy from Trooper, PA, was attacked by a bear while sleeping on the porch of his family’s cabin.
Remains indicate that the boy had been eating cake in his tent and had spilled sweet sauce on his sleeping bag. The boy’s left arm was removed at the shoulder.

(find larger tifs of these images in the ‘vault’. if you have trouble find them, i can send directs link to them.)