Notes from 4/19
- Richard Koshalek, president of Art Center College of Design: “I think the future may be unknowable, but it’s not unthinkable.” (how looking at past futures helps us see present futures)
- “Primitive Hut for the 21st Century” (AZ): basic “hut” covered in tubular cells (6x6cm) that help control heat/heat loss and sunlight; photovoltaic (solar power) cells; skin harvests rainwater; “aims to combine the essential elements of shelter—earth, the hearth, framework, roof structure—with the expediency of digital technology.”
- Sean Godsell
- biomimicry: Jellyfish House (“treats environmental contamination rather than causing it” by filtering water)
- Disney “House of the Future” (from Monsanto Plastics: “Better living through chemistry”); exhibit taken down in 1967
Seoul Commune 2026: Rethinking “Towers in the Park”
- “clip-on architecture”
- most of the modern futuristic architecture showed a desire to commune with nature and other people—open space, a lot of windows, or the suit that controls your immediate environment so the house (as protection from the elements) is no longer necessary (Open the House: “As an alternative to living in closed buildings, Open the House! proposes that residents wear innovative ‘climate suits’ to control their body climate, no longer requiring the house to serve as artificial climatic zone. With the house opened up and expanded to the exterior, its inhabitants escape spatial isolation and rediscover a natural lifestyle.”)
- does openness/community take into account the occasions we want privacy/closed space?
- also most of these show a desire to utilize technology, but not depend on it or have space defined by it
- New Babylon (Constant Nieuwenhuys) 1956-74 “New Babylon envisages a society of total automation in which the need to work is replaced with a nomadic life of creative play, in which traditional architecture has disintegrated along with the social institutions that it propped up.”
Werner Sobek R128 — totally recyclable, produces own energy, all windows/open (Photo: Roland HalbeWerner)
[event details]_______________
Sat 4/14 – Sun 7/1
(Tue-Fri: 12-9pm / Sat: 12-6pm)
Art Center College of Design
950 S Raymond Ave, S Campus, Pasadena
“Open House: Architecture and Technology for Intelligent Living”
In Open House, Art Center teams with the Vitra Design Museum of Germany to present the work of ten teams of frontier-pushing designers, each examining the ways in which evolving technology will alter our lives in the future. Culled from submissions by 100 leading design teams from around the world, these cream-of-the-crop proposals are actualized and displayed at Art Center’s exhibition space in the former JPL Wind Tunnel. Projects ranging from intelligent houses to intelligent materials are sure to get your synapses firing. Be sure to check out the installation by M&A (Materials & Application), local heroes of the Los Angeles experimental architecture and design scene. [from Flavorpill]