While the break of films and teevee is a dance born of the streets, performed in the streets on scraps of discarded cardboard, as a B-Boy in training, for the last three years (on and off admittedly), I have not once danced outside. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to break into dance on the sidewalk of a sunny afternoon, Rock Steady Crew blaring from the bass-heavy sound system of a nearby dollar store. I just doubt that I could handle the physical pain. Break and the urban environment, while a good aesthetic match—boomboxes, sneakers, graffiti—are a pretty rotten mix logistically. Most break moves require sustained and calculated contact between hands and floor, and soft human flesh is obviously no match for hard gritty, and often frozen, concrete, even after supple skin has transformed into a thick layer of rough calluses. Band-aid solutions such a duct tape and gloves are a distraction, and only marginally longer-lasting when dragged against the sharp, pebbly surface of pavement. Cardboard boxes, while providing a smooth surface, are a poor substitute for a sturdy gymnasium floor, which is where much breaking now occurs, in high schools and community centers scattered across New York City. While traditionally one of the four pillars of Hip-Hop, a culture of the streets, now that break has migrated indoors, perhaps it shares more in common with… more

In some offices, employees take breaks like clockwork. Fifteen minutes at 10:00 a.m., one hour for lunch at 12:00 p.m. sharp and another fifteen minutes at 2:30 p.m. In other offices, where employees work around the clock, flaunting international labor laws, breaks may be contrastingly very brief; they may last for as long as it takes to run outside and inhale an entire cigarette in one single breath or they may be meandering casual affairs. These extended recesses may involve a trip to the gym, or to a nearby cafe to take in a World Cup game and a few drinks, for upwards of two hours. In such instances, these intervals mesh with an employee’s private time creating an endless hybrid state that hovers between an individual’s professional and personal lives. Other such interludes, associated with this genre, may include dinner at a restaurant or a trip home for a nap. These two differing break scenarios demonstrate the opposing ends of architecture’s office cultures; consist versus erratic. Of course, it is important to note that numerous variations exist in between these extremes.

Employee break patterns may reflect the workings of an office and provide insight into where their priorities lie, but whether or not these habits are related to the critical value of an office’s work remains elusive.

E. Sean Bailey

Erandi de Silva

While CNC milling is prized for its capacity to rapidly produce large-scale prototypes of complex geometries, the physical properties of the mill’s construction—it relies on circular drill bits to carve away material—results in residual noise, or grooves, otherwise known as ‘tooling paths’. Although these tooling paths can be smoothed out with coats of Bando or sanded out of existence, over time they have become accepted into the contemporary design language and even celebrated for their ability to map the fabrication process—a marriage between fabrication and ornament, not dissimilar to the work of Process artists from the 1960s.

If Process art was prized for documenting natural organic phenomena, such as movement and gravity, contemporary rapid-prototyping offers a parallel view into the world of digital machines. The width and head-type of a tool-bit or the resolution of a plastic printer reveal the limitations of the technologies that produced them. But while the artists of the 60s were producing sculpture at a one to one scale, architects typically utilize rapid prototyping to produce scale models of objects that are much larger. And while the grooves on Greg Lynn’s Tea & Coffee Towers… more

To ward off bad luck, the more traditional residents of Lancaster County—the heartland of those apocryphally known as the “Pennsylvania Dutch”—mount circles and shapes, colorful geometric compasses and mandalas, on their barn walls. The symbols have been termed “hex” signs for reasons that are now opaque. Whether this name derives from sinister spell-casting—“hexing,” a gerund rooted in the German word for witch, Hexe—or from the more benign formal term, hexagon, is unclear. This ambiguity, however, reveals—despite its inherent confusion—a structural relation and hidden affinity. The distance between these two notions, between geometry and mysticism is, in some cases, not a great one.

The magic circle, imagined in both archaic and popular visions of sorcery, enacts precisely this conjunction of form and witchcraft. Drawn as a ring around its maker and enlivened by an accompanying incantation, it generates a protective realm, a field-like safe haven originating in simple, two-dimensional form. The magic circle forms a semi-architectural plan, the designs for a realm not built but mystically tangible.

E. Sean Bailey

Rachel Engler

One of my very first lessons at architecture school: learn to enjoy tiredness. To aid in this task, studios left open around the clock, impressive amounts of work doled out, impossible deadlines and bottomless vending machines stocked with every sort of caffeinated beverage. While perpetual tiredness is a quality seemingly at odds with the production and communication of complicated projects, it is not merely tolerated within the practice, but encouraged.

Buckminster Fuller was perhaps the most vocal architect in the movement against free sleep. In the 1940′s he developed the Dymaxion sleep cycle, which consisted of 30 minute naps every 6 hours, resulting in a total of 2 hours of sleep every 24 hours. After two years on the cycle, he exclaimed being in “the most vigorous and alert condition he had ever enjoyed.” Unsurprisingly, despite thoroughly mastering the enjoyment of tiredness, a lesson that still evades me, he was unable to convince any of his colleagues to join him in his polyphasic lifestyle, ultimately prompting him to abandon the schedule.

While often positioned as an important… more

In March of 2005, in Paris, Viktor and Rolf showed their fall collection which featured models walking down the runway dressed to appear as though they were laying in bed. These Dutch designers subverted the viewer’s spatial perception by placing pillows behind the models’ heads, fanning their hair out in all directions as though they were in a horizontal position and draping them in dresses suggestive of duvets, layered beneath with luxurious sheets. The duo was able to successfully corrupt the image of a person, barely awake and still in bed, by merely shifting their position from horizontal to vertical. By carefully altering the relationship between any associated elements so that they are dependent on the body to carry them, rather than on a now absent bed, the designers provide a “Front View” which stands in place of a “Top View”.

While thoroughly steeped in fashion, Victor and Rolf may have inadvertently invented the perfect wardrobe to compliment the lifestyle of those who perpetually blur the boundary between being asleep and awake—the legions of architects who never have a chance to get a good night’s rest.

E. Sean Bailey

Erandi de Silva

When Le Corbusier developed the Modulor, he certainly didn’t have an organism of Barbie’s proportions in mind. Perhaps the most anti-spatial of childhood toys, Barbie complicates the simplest of architectural assumptions. Feet sharpened into points, along with weighty breasts and hair, mean that Barbie cannot stand on her own two feet. Refusing the remedy of a wheelchair for its lack of style (nevermind that she cannot sit in anything but a lounging position due to her stiff knees), Barbie’s idea of a “dream home” is a regular person’s nightmare. While Mattel’s Barbie 3-Story Dream Townhouse yells for attention with its hot pink paint job, it is its slender proportions that are most remarkable. While square footage is typically prized in real estate, Barbie is more interested in linear footage. The narrow building envelope, a mere three feet wide, means that Barbie is always within reach of a stable wall to prop herself against—an architectural cane. And while her resulting angled pose requires her to keep her blonde head constantly pressed to adjacent walls in order to maintain balance, at least she looks great doing it.

Barbie has long-inspired my irrationality. As a child she was central in shaping my ideas of glamour, reinforcing, in my imagination, the sorts of ideas about femininity that Muccia Prada might frown upon. I gazed at Barbie for hours, admiring her beauty. For a time, I could not take my eyes off of her.

Fast-forward to 2011: Mattel has announced the release of Architect Barbie. Rather than being blown away by this combination of two lifelong obsessions, I was disappointed by the outcome of a design brief, which in my mind, was poised to deliver something amazing. Projecting my own misguided stereotypes, I was envisioning a vampy hot-tempered glamazon; a serious but mischievous individual, who is dramatic, opinionated and exudes plenty of attitude. The architectural ideal of my fantasies personified! Instead, Architect Barbie projects an image of some kind of complacent (“hot”) girl-next-door, and a white one at that.

Her wardrobe reinforces her implausibility… more

E. Sean Bailey

Erandi de Silva

“Trendy, diagrammatic BS one-liner. Bjarke should go back to Denmark.”

-Guest Comment #40, Curbed, 02/07/2011

“OMA is the most overrated architecture firm in history. End of story.”

-Guest Comment #31, Curbed, 09/11/2008

“I expect better from Herzog + de Meuron… but when it comes to their buildings in NYC… it’s more like Herzog + the Moron. ”

-Guest Comment #17, Curbed, 09/15/2008

Any designer that has ever published work online has undoubtedly dealt with the unavoidable emotional anguish that results from reading online public commentary. More vicious than any graduate school critic, or scrutinizing parent, the anonymous commenter will stop at nothing in their plight to destroy your work and sense of self worth.

The following are a few simple rules to avoid the most vitriolic outbursts and protect your reputation from the inevitable online smear campaigns:

1. Make sure that your building does not resemble something else. In the eyes of the anonymous commenter, snaking forms are piles of shit and anything too boxy is a coffin or tombstone… more

In quantum mechanics, an object such as an electron exists as both a wave and a particle. As a particle, it is a singular object, existing much as any other object we might study, but as a wave, the electron is smeared across a field of potential interactions and its existence is highly dependent on its relationships to other electrons and sub-atomic particles. This field of potential is structured by the singular particles, but is not irreducible to them; even in the emptiest vacuum, far from any other objects the field contains energy. All space is pre-charged with the capacity to affect.

Analogously, even the most indistinguishable and unnoticed piece of the built environment contains a certain pressure to affect the behavior of its inhabitants. In fact, the ordinary, everyday fragments that make up the environment of our lives are often more important than the grand spectacle of singular architecture that demands our attention. Yet almost by definition, this ordinary architecture is invisible and much like the electron, it is smeared across its context.

How many people truly notice the door they open and close each time they leave their house or office? Maybe once, the first time encountered, but more than likely that impression becomes vague from the repetition of use. While architecture may aspire to demand our attention, more often than not, it is lost in the noise of our lives. The ordinary is an architecture of inattention, only becoming distinct when one perceives it but then is quickly lost again. How might an ordinary architecture aspire past banality yet remain indistinct and uncertain, a mere blur that supports and influences our lives?

E. Sean Bailey

Arthur McGoey

For those who have not yet clued in, the title of this post is significant not just for its spatial implications. Implications such as:
-Are we not all born within a defined spatial boundary, be it a nation, a state, a city, a room?
-Do we not all owe our lives to architects and their work? The local maternity ward certainly didn’t design itself.
-Is not every great building at some point born into the world? Either conjured as an idea in a moment of creative inspiration, or else realized through the labored efforts of a team of architects, engineers, clients and builders.
-Is the voyage out of our mother’s wombs not our first experience of time and space and the essence of architecture itself?
-Are some birthday cakes not large enough to inhabit?
Rather than delve any further into these fertile subjects, I will instead divulge the very important reason for this post on birthdays.

THE BI BLOG turns one year old today!

A great many thanks to our legion of writers for their original contributions, and to our readers who make it all worthwhile.

In many ways the annual commemoration of the Buddha’s birth resembles celebrations marking the births of other religious figures with numerous religious festivities, lights, feasting and gift giving. Along with these typical celebratory rituals, large numbers of insects and animals are ceremonially released by the thousands, from confinement, back into the great wide open, in a compassionate act which is all in the name of good karma.

In cities like New York, this ritual emancipation has lead to numerous problems. With stores in Chinatown selling diseased turtles for “cooking or releasing”, their liberation into nearby natural lakes is believed to have had a potentially negative affect on the existing turtle gene pool. Many non-native turtles also end up dead, unable to survive their new environment, a fate met by many birds who have also been liberated for karmic benefit. Like turtles, goldfish are another popular choice for release, being set free in groups as large as 25,000 and threatening native fish populations with their prolific breeding, inciting fears of a territorial takeover. This invasive problem grew to such proportions in New York City in the late 1990s that the Wildlife Conservation Society at the Bronx Zoo stepped in with its members… more

E. Sean Bailey

Erandi de Silva

The rough opening for a standard American bathtub, in 2010, is 60 by 30 inches. The resulting bathing well of a standard American bathtub is 55 by 24 inches. The average American male is 69.5 inches tall. The discrepancy in dimensions, 14.5 inches, allows for a full grown American male to lie comfortably in a standard bathtub with his knees bent and head resting above water. For bodies less than 55 inches in height there is the possibility of total submersion (In the year 2000, 341 accidental drownings occurred in bathtubs in America, making bathtubs one of the most dangerous fixtures in any home).

In 1921 only 1% of homes in America included purpose built bathrooms. The Mathews Flats in Ridgewood, New York, constructed from 1900 onwards, where I currently reside, were some of the first examples of working class row housing in the city to incorporate cold water plumbing and full bathrooms in every apartment. The rough opening of my combination bathtub shower in Ridgewood is 51 inches in length (a normal size by New York City standards, but meager when compared to contemporary norms elsewhere). The bathing well of my combination bathtub shower is 44 inches in length. At 71.5 inches tall, the discrepancy in dimensions, 20.5 inches, does not allow me to submerge more than half of my body at any given time.

The freestanding J-230 Jacuzzi Hot Tub has a rough size of 84 inches by 84 inches. The bathing well is… more

The Cağaloğlu Hamam, located in Istanbul, provides a chimerical setting for some explicit activities.

In the women’s bathing area, a lantern dome is fitted with spherical glass ‘elephant eyes’ which catch and deliver multi-directional light. The cupola sits atop a series of high arches which are supported by elegant columns. The dome illuminates a heated central platform; a marble octagonal extrusion used for washing and laying out. It is surrounded by an offset, slightly more private series of stepped bathing niches which deliver warm water through delicately ornamented fountains.

Female clients, who are nude and variously draped in cotton cloths, languish about the steamy space, bathing and relaxing. Others don the requisite mother-of-pearl embellished sandals and hobble precariously through the mist. Masseuses with robust bodies and relatively skinny legs, tend to the bathers. The bathing attendants are dressed in garish spandex swimsuits variously worn as intended, off one shoulder or with the top-half peeled down to the waist. They aggressively scrub the bathers beneath the lantern dome, under the gaze of the ‘elephant eyes’, until the platform is covered in rubbery rolls of blackened dead skin. Between clients, the masseuses step aside and inexplicably wash their nether regions.

In the Cağaloğlu Hamam romance and reality are juxtaposed.

E. Sean Bailey

Erandi de Silva

In Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, the author attaches special importance to I. M. Pei’s 1989 addition to the Louvre in Paris, which he concludes is the burial site of the Holy Grail. What is curious about Brown’s hypothesis is that it assumes a complicit architectural profession, and in so doing forces us to reconsider Pei’s reputation as a high modernist. While Pei’s work is often viewed as an exploration into the volumetric potential of basic geometries, Brown interprets it as an infatuation with symbology (not surprisingly, basic geometries translate quite well into symbols of other things). While Pei has argued that the pyramid was “most compatible with the architecture of the Louvre, especially with the faceted planes of its roofs” and that his pyramids were not meant to be read as copies of the Great Pyramids in Egypt, for Brown, Pei’s pyramids are foremost wayfinders for members of the Priory of Sion. The pyramids represent a V, feminine vessel (vagina), or Holy Grail (Brown believes that the Holy Grail is… more

In the 1944 film Gaslight, the home, potentially the site of Paula Alquist’s conjugal bliss, is perverted by a husband who is similarly depraved. He’s in it for the jewels, you see.

He, her husband, moves things within the house. Her bag, the table and his pocket watch change position unexpectedly, appearing in the wrong places—the seeming symptoms of her mental degeneration. He flickers the gaslights and the rooms become suddenly brighter and then dark again. This varied dimness convinces her that it is not the physical world that is somehow corrupt, but rather, her mind. For poor Paula, our victim-cum-heroine, the home becomes not only the stage but also an actor in her psychological oppression.

Following the release of this movie, “gaslight” has become an expression to describe intentional psychological manipulation—a quaint noun is transformed into a sinister verb by the eponymous film.

E. Sean Bailey

Rachel Engler

One of my dearest friends recently got engaged. Invited to her family’s home in Jamestown for Thanksgiving, I was treated to a guided tour of the future site of her wedding. The ceremonial grounds teetered on the edge of a craggy cliff, ocean waves breaking twenty feet below. A breathtaking panorama of rugged New England coastline with its ubiquitous lighthouses and seagulls surrounded us. “The guests will sit along that hill and we’ll be standing here” they told me, pointing to a spot even closer the edge of the precipice. They were getting married on the edge of the world. Their edge of the world. It turned out that in choosing the location my friends had declined an almost equally beautiful coastal site a short distance away. “It’s where my mom got married”, the bride-to-be explained.

This desire for unique settings for the fabrication of memories recurred to me as I flipped through the pages of US Weekly on my way back to New York on the Bus. Kate Middleton and Prince William had just announced their engagement and were expected to… more

As one might expect for an old couple, joined by contractual obligations, the relationship between the monarchy and the public in Britain is a complex one. Two recent developments add their weight to the ever-shifting dynamic between the pair. Prince William and Kate Middleton’s engagement narrows the gap between the rulers and ruled as a bride of common stock crosses the threshold into the realm of aristocracy, through marriage. Meanwhile, Prince Charles and the Tories are working counteractively to add depth and breadth to any point which distinguishes the two parties. Amongst a medley of tools that actively serve to separate the Prince of Wales from his subjects, he uses architecture, most recently with the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment’s inappropriate bid to take over where the government’s Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment left off. While the upcoming royal wedding may signify a subtle integration of the monarchy back into the public realm, Prince Charles’ undertakings may push and pull to both reinforce distinctions and perhaps incite the public to further diminish royal authority.

E. Sean Bailey

Erandi de Silva

In 1900, a moderately sized oil field was discovered beneath the future city of Beverly Hills, California. By the 1920s Beverly Hills was quickly developing into one of the most exclusive and affluent regions in America. With the price of oil and land rising at an equally voracious pace, oil drilling operations were forced to adapt to an increasingly urban context. By 1927 this context included Beverly Hills High School, inspiration for 90s teen dramas Clueless and Beverly Hills, 90210. The institution sits adjacent to a drilling island run by Venoco Oil, pumping an estimated 400 barrels from beneath the school per day. Royalties from the drilling translate into roughly $300,000 for the school per year, covering a sizable portion of operational expenses. In a famous episode of Saved by the Bell, inspired by the drilling at Beverly Hills High, Bayside High (located a short distance away in the Pacific Palisades) is offered substantial royalties for allowing drilling beneath their premises, provoking an ethical breakdown in Jessie Spano after she contemplates the environmental implications. In an effort to assuage such fears and to improve frayed public relations, in the 90s, at the height of the teen drama craze… more

Numerous teens in and around Toronto take up smoking in their high school years and find themselves having to appropriate a space in order to light-up while at school. Despite the Smoke-Free Ontario Act which prohibits smoking in and around secondary institutions, outdoor spaces on and off official school property, which are located beyond the sight lines of teachers, are regularly commandeered. Patrols carried out by local Tobacco Enforcement Officers are accompanied by potential fines that may amount to as much as $5000 and may be coupled with suspensions. However, these penalties are often not enough to discourage determined teenagers from laying claim to a space. With names like “The Pit”, “The Bridge” or “The Corner”, these niches can be found situated in an impression along a hill, on a pedestrian path beneath an underpass or in a nearby nook, respectively. They typify the sorts of enclaves which are commonly utilized for underage smoking: singular banal elements of urbanity which are identified as proper nouns, catapulting them to the status of unique entities. These inventions and adaptations of youth are consistently occupied and utilized in defiance of the risks they impose.

E. Sean Bailey

Erandi de Silva