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2017
נובמבר
111
אדריכלות ישראלית
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- קטגורית מבנים
2017
פרויקט השנה
31
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While human beings have undergone no
evolutionary change, including first and
foremost their metabolism, contemporary
architecture is too busy planning instant
buildings that strive, in the name of aesthetics
to eliminate any organic expression that
“might spoil the picture”.
This mismatch between human needs
and their buildings has established a new
species that I call “Conflictual Architecture”.
When necessities are undefined, attempts
are made to create adaptable buildings
for unpredictable uses. Within that,
dynamic solutions are invented to increase
compactness.
This problematic situation is well expressed
by Mumsnet - a blog intended for house
wives that asked its subscribers where they
store the vacuum cleaner. The answers
received might highlight the problem: “inside
a computer mouse-like bag located in the
living room as an environmental statue”;
“the question has bothered us ever since we
moved to our new house and we decided to
store it in the attic… but who has the energy
to climb up there…”; “the best solution is a
conventional brush and dust pan”; “when
we redid the kitchen we made a special unit
for the vacuum, but my husband prefers to
store his folding bike there”; “the vacuum
cleaner is plugged-in and always ready for
use.”
And, in fact, this is the prevailing answer,
until the vacuum cleaner, and its robot
successor, provided with a proper storage
solution, or alternatively manages to store
itself under the bed and emerge with a click
on the mobile.
And more practically, an enlightened
example of computerized space organization
control is the automated warehouse, where
objects are stored – not by pre-defined
categories but according to momentarily
available space, similarly to a hard disk
operation, where parts of the files are
stored in various places. The idea is based
on the computer’s capability to ”remember”
where things are put, and instantly pop them
out when needed.
cinema detective
where do you hide your
vacuum cleaner
Ami Ran
Approximately 70% of the architectural profession today is
devoted to fulfilling daily invented building instructions. The
remaining 30% is left for the dreams of the client, the dreams
of the computer and the selfish aspirations of the architect. In
recent years, this yields sterile buildings that eliminate all signs
of life, hiding everything we are looking for behind doors and
cabinets, including the washing machine the refrigerator and -
worst of all - the vacuum cleaner, which used to rest in peace
under the stairs, until the invention of the hovering stairwell.
The abandonment of space organization in
the computer’s “hands” is logical as long as
it is within defined limits. However, it might
constitute a problem for someone who has
not yet undergone a brain chip implant,
especially in crowded places, where the
key situation is “getting lost”, until we find
somebody with a yellow shirt, make sure he
isn’t a Caribbean tourist, and ask him how to
exit the maze.
In the gap between frequently conflicted
interests, no wonder many still long for
conventional architecture, which developed
patiently on the drawing board, proving
its efficiency for thousands of years. Yet,
one has to admit that there are still some
advantages to computerized architecture,
especially with regard to efficiency.
Although inventions such as folding tables,
staircases and even beds have been in
use for many years, nowadays we can
witness folding houses as well. Such
solutions based on changing boundaries,
may cause a transverse space function (a
characteristically, confusing post-modern
program), as opposed to linear solutions
offered by the modernist approach,
whereby structure supports function - an
extreme example is Frank Lloyd Wright’s
Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan, where
the visiting route consists of a spiral corridor
lined with exhibition spaces.
Between these two extremes, one should
relate to the need to “nourish” the sustainable
trend, the principle of which is to extend the
life of the building through recycling; that is
– to adapt it to new uses, once its original
purposes are no longer relevant.
Hence, many of the buildings that were
meant to house anachronistic functions
have to be reinvented, like, for instance,
architectural firms once based on enormous
drawing tables, today make do with several
computers; public telephone boxes, some
of which are still on the street, yearn for a
passerby whose mobile has been stolen;
and particularly all those institutional
offices with orphaned waiting areas due to
computerized answering machinery.
However, the need to expand the building
according to changing circumstances was
already expressed in “The Growing House”
project, initiated in 1931 by Martin Wagner -
head of the Berlin Building Department who
organized a team of leading architects, such
as Walter Gropius, Erich Mendelsohn, Hans
Scharoun, Egon Irman and Hans Poelzig.
His goal was to resolve the post WWII
housing shortage through a conceptual
model of changing buildings intended to
serve necessary functions of various socio-
economic groups. Later proposals were
presented at a 1932 exhibition titled The
Growing House (Das Wachsende Haus).
The central question was how to expand
internal spaces of a house for a growing
family.
The proposed solutions were no different
from those proposed today, apart from
the fact that it was one directional, while