Ar.

Ma
UNIT 3
Yansong
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Our Takeaways from the talk:

Ar. Ma Yansong talks about his experience as a child living in Beijing, with
lush spaces surrounding the city, lakes where he learned how to swim,
mountain peaks they would hike. But his changed rapidly due to
globalization, industrialization where modern building started taking
over Old Beijing, he compares the designs of these buildings to
"matchboxes" meaning all the buildings were starting to look the same
with very little distinction, not having any design language on their own.

The cities starting following just one language which is competing for
space, efficiency, height, learning a lot from North America.
He refers to an experience of his own, where he wonders about the
situation of fishes in a cubic tank, which raised the question, which do we
tend to go for cubic spaces be it for fishes or humans. It may be because
cubic spaces are cheaper and easy to build.

Mr. Yansing ended up researching on the movement, where he found

out that fishes weren't much happy with the cubic spaces, he ended up
designing a fish tank where it was more organic and fluid which suited
the nature of the fish movement.

Talking about the architecture of buildings,

He gives out an example of his own design, The Absolute Towers, which
resembled Marilyn Monroe dancing, but also a lot of fluid inspiration
from nature. The idea was not to resemble a simple box.
While designing the second building, a different fluidic approach was
taken, which finally resembled two buildings dancing.

Mr.Yansong ponders on the question if there is a way if we don't

separate nature from the buildings taking inspiration from the old
Chinese paintings which combined the natural and artificial in a dramatic
way.
He talks about another residential project in China, which a natural
setting with lake and forest features surrounding it, the concept involved
considering the contour lines of the mountain site and incorporating it in
the design of the structure.
Hence they are taking shape from the nature surrounding it, he believes
in hand sketching for concept ass it adds a sense of emotion

And talking about the city landscape, he came up with a design inspired
by mountains and valleys which would sit in the midst of the matchbox
buildings. It's on the edge of the parks. Mr. Yansong wanted to make it
a part of nature instead of building a wall separating from our living.

But the architects were challenged as they had to modify to make it suit
the context of the site and surroundings. But ironically it was the context
that faced a problem because in reality that wasn't suiting the context.

Talking about another project, Harbin Opera Centre which was a snow
nature setting next to a lake, with drawing inspiration from the
snowcapped scenery, the design was intended to merge it with the
surrounding such that it would resemble a snow-capped mountain. The
lobby comprises huge open spaces and lighting.

Another example in Los Angeles, the museum, Lucas Museum of

Narrative Arts. George Lucas is responsible for the creation of Star Wars.
The design was resembling a cloud. He intended to keep it mysterious
and adding curiosity to the user adding to the excitement of visiting that
museum. Roof gardens have been incorporated for greener living.

Taking inspiration from Volcanoes, Mr. Yansong talks about a sports

park design, where it resembles mountains with volcanoes with no
distinction between built space and landscape.

Hence, wants to incorporate harmony in between nature and humans

rather than lifeless matchbox design of cubic forms.

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Ar. Ole
Scheeren
UNIT 3
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Our Takeaways from the talk:

Ar. Ole Scheeren starts his talk with the doctrine principle which is "Form
Follows Function" which has been a notion for the creation of most of
the designs of the 19th-21st century buildings.

But Mr. Ole Scheeren wanted to rewrite the notion to "Form follows
Fiction"

He believes architecture is an organizational structure, where we can

generate series of relationships and narratives, how we can create
stories regarding the people who live there, people who work there as
well as the building design itself.

The building design generates ideas of how space of culture, living,

media engagement, physical reality, and conceptual possibility.
Where architecture scripts the stories which unfold as the designs
proceed.
The functional and emotional way is what the architect believes in, as he
proceeds designing any project.

Talking about his projects, starting with CCTV Headquarters, in China, he

talks about how verticality was an important factor in designing, Mr.
Scheeren wanted to change the notion, they wanted to create a loop of
activity circulation of interconnected activities where people who meet to
collaborate, a design can work as a living organism. Hence clusters in
design were created strictly following the circulation pattern. Hence
using a loop design, to better design the circulation, they created
hypothetical characters so as to understand the experience and circulate
better for every individual character, thus improving their experience.

The cantilever design has a glass bottom where the cityscape can be
seen right from above. Four hundred engineers and architects worked
on the project in order to make it successful

.
 Talking about another project,

A residential project in Singapore is dominated by high-rise tall

structures. The task was cut out for Mr. Schreen, a 1040 apartment
complex that would've looked at linear towers with no sense of privacy
and poor quality of living.

Mr. Schreen took the verticality and pushed it to horizontal with huge
horizontal components laced on top of each other, with hexagonal-
based planning.
This type of planning included more green space more terraces for the
public, which were converted to green space living, an example of 13th-
floor roofing which looked as if it was placed on the ground floor.
Sustainable architecture was considered in order to incorporate enough
lighting to every house sector, due to the multiple orientations of the
buildings stacks, this meant that it shaded the courtyard regions making
it usable throughout the year,
Water features were added along the wind direction to improve the
cooling of the microclimate enhancing the space around the apartment.

Talking about architecture in Europe, an example of an Office building

for a company transitioning from the old printing press to digital media.
The client persisted in a question of how digital transition could be
incorporated in the design, which might even help in the functionality of
the building. The architect wanted to infuse a sense of collaboration,
community working and sense shared space working into the building.
Communication would be the epicenter of the office with the
collaborative cloud around it.

Moving to London, where a project proposed by the Prime Minister;

Olympicopolis, the idea was to bring together Britain's greatest
institutions and create a new system of synergies. Historically, King
Albert wanted to showcase human's greatest feats where science and art
were brought together. But in today's day and age, the seeration
between different fields of work is very thin.
The result would look like a huge cultural medium, it would work on a
ring module which were stacked together with multi-purpose use where
spaces could be shrinked and expanded based on the use.

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 With projection spaces in order to interact with the public. The idea was
to create a system where educational systems of their win identity
instead of having the same singular volume.

Lastly, he talks about a small project in which a small modular cinema

platform based on the local fishing pods platform which gently moved
along the water.

Architecture exceeds the physical matter, how we script our philosophies

as well as the life of others.

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