Wednesday 25 March 2009

The Spaces between Buildings

In the book The Spaces between Buildings, Professor of geography Larry R. Ford analyses the role of Space. The book encompasses three photographic essays: Buildings and the Spaces around Them, Lawns, Trees, and Gardens in the City and Places for Driving, Strolling and Parking.

Ford focuses on particular aspects of Urban Spaces, highlighting the importance of the Spaces in between buildings, as well as the actual physical buildings themselves. For instance, Ford questions 'when does "space between buildings" become "open space containing buildings?"...


Well worth a look...


Ford, L. (2000) The Spaces between Buildings. London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Thursday 5 March 2009

Centre For Spatial Analysis and Intervention: Follow This Link...

Some broad ideas that may be of interest. We might have only 'touched' on these issues, in the seminar, so here they can be considered further...

Steffi Klenz - Untitled from the series 'Nonsuch' http://www.steffiklenz.co.uk/work/nonsuch/?lang=en&imageID=0

Wednesday 4 March 2009

PCAD 500 Course Content: Session 6 (Click Here)

Sited Art/Sculpted Space: The final session in the series revisits land art; public art; commissioned art for the public realm and the oeuvre of non-galleried, situated artwork.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2007/may/15/art1

Antony Gormley: Event Horizon, 2007
Sited art discourse is murky territory in that it questions a particular artwork's connectedness to site, that is to say, it is often intangible and irrelevant. What are these spaces, then, if not art 'zones' or, critically, 'zoos' for art; the designated, government funded and sanctioned spaces set aside for creative output having neither connection to or empathy with their respective settings. Do we now view the legacy of land/public art as a rethinking of land/'scapes', temporary or permanent, or are they now looked on as mythological places that can neither be visited or experienced unless we embark on pilgrimages to such inaccessible and distant sites? Read Gormley's comments in the Independent and think on...

A Man Made Puddle

Spanish Architects Alicia Velazquez and Analia Garcia created this 8 metre long puddle from "flabby " reflective silicone rubber. They named it Ablando which means softening. The Albe'niz Theatre borrowed it for the Malaga film festival; it was displayed on the pavement on the outside the main entrance. Velazquez said "we wanted to decelerate people, we created a moment of confusion, so people started looking around, noticing buildings and becoming aware of where they are".

This for me is an ideal example of design in the landscape which altered the way in which people interacted with a space. A simple intervention which would have made many passersby aware and take consideration of a space in totally different way than they had previously.

Sunday 1 March 2009

Ghosts in modern photographs


Photographs from WW2-era Russia blended with modern day recreations. An interesting examination of the transitory nature of the lifetime of various spaces/places, and the unseen history inherent to their character.

http://fima-psuchopadt.livejournal.com/2564781.html

[Via Jim Rossignol's blog.]