To borrow David Reddy's term "techne" to denote the
translation of ideas into physicality, we have noted that
language -- in textual, verbal and graphic forms -- fits
that definition. And, that designers produce such
technical guides, "paper" construction documents, for
workers to build or manufacture.
We add that in this spirit we search for physical sites and
structures to use as another form of design language to
communicate ideas to those who may not comprehend paper
documents but will readily respond to environmental signs
and symbols, as the plastic artists well know, and as we
have found in communicating with workers on our projects.
So we go around NYC looking for artifacts that energize our
language of the environment, collections of structures,
vacant sites, ships and docks, toxic dumps, sewage plants,
historic landmarks in dishabille, people using objects and
buildings and streets and open spaces in weird ways,
overflows and misuse and underuse and impermissable pilings
and scrapings. Temporaries, illegals, shameless abuses.
Takings and undertakings without manifestos or licensure.
This helps us prepare for the dumb arch questions that come
our way in professional practice and on racy high-brow
juries, to answer them unexpectedly with vivid tales of
incognita
rips and tears and lumps in the landscape, to raise in turn
our
questions about insufficiencies of modish architectural
language to convey richness of experience, to demonstrate
that enthralling performance is livelier than canonical
non-fictional.
We hope this choreographs more corporeal performance,
dances of landscape language, well beyond what might be
mistakenly mastered at toy scale -- drawings, specs, models
-- so
that this studio superiority is kept on its tripping toes
and
manifestos, so that it has to prance faster to keep ahead
with its vaunted beckoning lures. To show that we who are
more comfortable wallowing in the built-environment are
waiting impatiently for the dawdling peripatectics to get in
front of us
if they want to tell us where to go next, or step aside and
applaud.
Now hurry up, everybody, don't hold back waiting for
someone in authority to lead us the wrong way. Dance your
techne jig. More off-site rambles and cakewalks on the
factory floor,
more entrancing tales here of out-of-mind flights from
sleight of hand.
translation of ideas into physicality, we have noted that
language -- in textual, verbal and graphic forms -- fits
that definition. And, that designers produce such
technical guides, "paper" construction documents, for
workers to build or manufacture.
We add that in this spirit we search for physical sites and
structures to use as another form of design language to
communicate ideas to those who may not comprehend paper
documents but will readily respond to environmental signs
and symbols, as the plastic artists well know, and as we
have found in communicating with workers on our projects.
So we go around NYC looking for artifacts that energize our
language of the environment, collections of structures,
vacant sites, ships and docks, toxic dumps, sewage plants,
historic landmarks in dishabille, people using objects and
buildings and streets and open spaces in weird ways,
overflows and misuse and underuse and impermissable pilings
and scrapings. Temporaries, illegals, shameless abuses.
Takings and undertakings without manifestos or licensure.
This helps us prepare for the dumb arch questions that come
our way in professional practice and on racy high-brow
juries, to answer them unexpectedly with vivid tales of
incognita
rips and tears and lumps in the landscape, to raise in turn
our
questions about insufficiencies of modish architectural
language to convey richness of experience, to demonstrate
that enthralling performance is livelier than canonical
non-fictional.
We hope this choreographs more corporeal performance,
dances of landscape language, well beyond what might be
mistakenly mastered at toy scale -- drawings, specs, models
-- so
that this studio superiority is kept on its tripping toes
and
manifestos, so that it has to prance faster to keep ahead
with its vaunted beckoning lures. To show that we who are
more comfortable wallowing in the built-environment are
waiting impatiently for the dawdling peripatectics to get in
front of us
if they want to tell us where to go next, or step aside and
applaud.
Now hurry up, everybody, don't hold back waiting for
someone in authority to lead us the wrong way. Dance your
techne jig. More off-site rambles and cakewalks on the
factory floor,
more entrancing tales here of out-of-mind flights from
sleight of hand.