Proposal of Color

Above is the color palette to be used for our pages.

The two relatively "clean" colors on the right are not good as gradients. We should use these two sparingly, as they are not very Wes Jones like. However, there are understandably times when a relatively cleaner red or yellow is absolutely necessary, and that is what these two are for.

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12/09/11

Posted by: Mark Wang

Primitive Huts Throughout History

It is always interesting to study how the social and physical needs of our daily lives are met in buildings. While researching On Adam’s House in Paradise by Joseph Rywert, I found different opinions on how the role of fire shaped the primitive hut. The concept of a primitive hut has been linked to growth in technology and the formation of community through communication. Traditionally, primitive people were thought to be ones who salvaged and lived in the wilderness. Fire would have been the most advanced piece of technology that the primitive people would use. Hence, huts would be designed around the use of fire.

Around 15 BC, Vitruvius was the first to describe the primitive hut in detail in “The Origin of the Dwelling House” in Book Two of the Ten Books of Architecture. In his account, he describes the origin of both architecture and communication using information based on circumstantial evidence. He noted that “men of old were born like the wild beasts, in woods, caves, and groves, and lived on savage fare”. According to Vitruvius, the first primitive person lived in the wilderness until fire was discovered when trees rubbed their branches against each other and people because terrified when they caught fire. After the flames died down, the primitive people became comfortable around it and drew near it for warmth. A community was formed as people tended the fire together and gathered more people around. Eventually the house was formed through communication and the desire to protect the fire. Vitruvius describes the fire as the first act of communication and spatial expression.

During the Renaissance, the primitive hut was seen more as a shelter for people rather than for the fire. Alberti argued that the primitive hut was initially intended to be a roof to shelter from the sun and rain. As a result, loadbearing walls were built to support to roof. Then windows and doors were built to allow entry and social gathering; let in sunlight and breezes; and let out moisture and vapour. The house was built as a response to sheltering human needs, as opposed to the fire.

In 1735, Abbe Laugier published Essai sur l’Architecture and proposed that the primitive hut was not only the origin, but also the personification of all that was right in architecture. He depicted the primitive man as one with nature. The primitive man salvaged fresh water from the stream, food from the fields and trees to provide his shelter. His house was formed directly from nature, without using clay or stone, and was an extension of forested glade. The hut was built from “column-like tree trunks” with branches for a roof.

Towards the end of the 18^th century, Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand argued that the primitive hut was used to escape nature. Contrary to Laugier, Durand believed that the primitive man sought shelter under trees and in caves to escape weather conditions.

In 1923, Le Corbusier published Towards a new Architecture and represented his version of the primitive hut as a sanctuary turned into a dwelling. He describes the primitive man as one who was riding in the woods on a chariot and stopped to set up a tent to rest.

In 1986, Nell Denari applied the ideas of a primitive hut into a design. He was invited to design a structure for public housing based on Corbusier’s primitive hut and Rywert’s work. The project, named Adam’s House (in Paradise); New York City No. 8407, would be placed on a hypothetical garden between Stanton and Rivington Streets and facing Eldridge Street in the South East side of New York. Its purpose was to “provide a maximum number of low-cost housing units while preserving” the park. Similar to Corbusier’s idea of a sanctuary, Denari also proposed that Adam’s House should be a monastery in the city, a place of home and sanctuary. The house combined features from New York apartment buildings and modernist residences. Its structure was perched on pilotis and it had a roofscape garden dedicated to “witnessing nature’s productivity”.

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Bibliography:

Ostwald, Michael, and John Moore. Architecture Australia, "Adam's House in Cyberia." Last modified 2011. Accessed November 12, 2011. http://www.architecturemedia.com/aa/aaissue.php?issueid=199703&article=13&typeon=3.

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12/09/11

Posted by:Joanne Yau

Origin of Architecture

In the '80s, Wes Jones (Paul Holt, Marc Hinshaw, Peter Pfau) attempted to reconsider the futile search for the origin of architecture. The four men claimed the "concept of the origin is the fulcrum on which architecture teeters." The impossibility of the search frequently returns architecture to the battleground of precedence. Without precedence, which confers the "status of origin," architecture constantly returns to the pursuit of mediocrity. They saw two meanings to their purpose. (1) To elevate the machine and its role as dwelling to the status of architecture (an extension of the modernist project) and (2) to subvert conventional architectural and urban form. In their project The Origins Of Architecture, they simultaneously question the validity of the mythical origins of architecture in the primitive hut and undermine the spatial structure of suburbia. They claimed that:

The beginning of architecture is complicated by architecture's simultaneous existence as abstract institution and physical fact. Both claim the origin for themselves; many stories have been told to promote one over the other. The primitive hut story suggests, for example, that building preceded architecture-that there was a hut which became architecture-but the story betrays a prior sense of architecturality by which the hut is recognized. Which came first: the hut or the idea? We recognize that the story is a myth, retro-figured into the history of architecture to provide an origin from which the present condition could be logically, scientifically derived–Holt Hinshaw Pfau Jones.

Holt Hinshaw Pfau Jones attempted to challenge suburbia by reinterpreting the mythical origins of architecture. They have described this process as akin to "souping-up" a hot rod ('Soup/s up-' in Bill Lacy and Susan de Menil's Angels And Franciscans: Innovative Architecture From Los Angeles And San Francisco, Rizzoli, 1992, and 'Origin Verses Existence And Language' in McCarter's Building Machines, 1987).

The architects suggest that this strategy of "interventive reuse" is "critical" but "carries none of the negative sense that we expect from critique." The architects do not propose to attack suburbia, but instead consider a fresh way to manage the sprawl. An attempt to ‘soup up’ must include foraging the required items form the surrounding area (scavaging) and completely revitalizing the outer body. "In this way, many otherwise forgotten vehicles" and works of architecture "have achieved a classic status." The process of souping-up is only successful if the object is a commonplace commodity"... with expectations encouraged by lowest-common-denominator marketing and realised through the universalisation of mass production." The aim of souping up is to take the essentially meaningless and repetitive and to make a statement about the "importance of the individual in contrast to the anonymous conformity of the assembly line."

In The Origins Of Architecture, Jones Holt Hinshaw Pfau reassessed suburbia and concluded that Adams primitive hut should be removed from paradise. Furthermore the hut should be souped-up to lead architecture out of the fugue state engineered by its association with suburbia. They claimed that the future of architecture is in technology and the machine-the "primitive hut should not be celebrated as a link to nature but as a step to man; as the first building, not the last tree." In their transformation, the primitive hut is no longer the "font of nature but of artifice; it is not a natural spring but an electric water-cooler."

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Bibliography

http://www.architecturemedia.com/aa/aaissue.php?issueid=199703&article=13&typeon=3&highlight=architect

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12/08/11

posted by: Alex Martin

Industrial Structures

Crane Structure

Beams :

H-Beam

I-Beam

Industrial Handrail

Counterweights:

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12/08/11

Posted by : Alexandra Martin

Urban Scavengers Under Las Vegas

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12/08/11

Posted by: Julia Morrissey

A Particularly Jonesian Slum Dwelling, Mumbai

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12/08/11

Posted by: Julia Morrissey

The New Primitive

The name "Primitive Huts" conjures images of simple dwellings made from sticks and mud, perhaps in the woods. By 1986, when Pfau and Jones presented their version of the primitive hut, nearly 75% of the population of the United States lived in urban areas. Their models reflect the new primitive, the houses that could be built by scavengers living off of the city instead of nature. We have only to look at the vast expanses of slums that lie on the edge of cities to realize the urban scavenger is real and not just a concept introduced by Pfau and Jones in 1986.

Pfau and Jones' idea has only become more relevant two and a half decades later. In 2008, for the first time the world's population was split 50/ 50 between rural and urban dwellers. One billion people now live in slums, and that number is expected to double by 2030. In 2007 Matt O'Brien published a book titled Beneath the Neon describing the lives of hundreds of people dwelling in makeshift homes in the underground tunnels below las vegas. Their homes of crates and milk cartons are yet another version of the primitive hut realized.

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12/08/11

Posted by: Julia Morrissey

The Beast

Bucket Excavator

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11/28/11

Posted by: Alexandra Martin

screwjack

11/23/11

Post by Julia Morrissey

Industrial stair similar to that on Hut 2 (counterbalanced log hut)

11/23/11

Post by Julia Morrissey

Billboard- framework and lights similar to that on back of hut 1

11/23/11

Post by Julia Morrissey

shipping container

11/23/11

Post by Julia Morrissey

Components

What intrigues me about the Primitive Huts project is the apparent paradox of creating models of buildings made from "found" objects without the intention of building them at full scale. The act of recreating these components in detail at a small scale shows a remarkable reverance for the individual parts.

The parts themselves are taken from their industrial context, where they were purely functional, recreated, and put on display in a museum where people stop to look at them and perhaps see the dock leveller or the screw jack in a new way.

I have begun to look at the websites for manufacturers of shipping containers, scaffolding, industrial stairs, etc. I never thought about the many companies devoted entirely to making and selling scaffolding before, and now that I have I wonder why I didn't think about it before. Scaffolding is everywhere, but for some reason purely functional objects can have a tendency to disappear or be seen through.

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11/23/11

Post by Julia Morrissey

Edited by Celia He

Born and raised in San Francisco and established a passion for design and construction early in his childhood through training in the fine arts, and later, working as a woodworker, carpenter and contractor. He started his college studies in fine arts at the California College of Arts (CCA) and earned a B.A. with honors in Architecture from U.C. Berkeley and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University

1986, Peter left New York City to return to the Bay Area. Became a painter with the new office of Holt Hinshaw Pfau Jones. The company became very successful and won architectural awards and competitions.

1991, Peter established his own small design practice, Pfau Architecture, which was founded on the premise that a more atelier-like organization can do the highest quality work by focusing intensely on selected projects.

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Bibliography

http://www.pfaulong.com/

http://www.pfaulong.com/about-us/people/peter-pfau

http://remodelista.com/posts/office-visit-pfau-long-architecture

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11/22/11

Posted by Alexandra Martin.

On Adam's House in Paradise

Wes Jones’ Primitive Huts were based on the original ideas found in Joseph Rykwert’s On Adam’s House in Paradise, which was first published in 1971. On Adam’s House in Paradise presents the conventional ideas about architecture during the 20^th century and throughout history that Jones rebelled against.

Rywert’s is an established authority on architectural ideas and studies ideas froms the past 500 years about the first hut. He believes that the primitive hut provides a “point of reference for all speculation on the essentials of a building” and that the “speculations intensify when the need is felt for a renewal of architecture”.

Rywert proposes that the first traces of a house in the creation account found in the bible. In Genesis, God had made Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, and placed them in the Garden of Eden, which is full of trees and plants that are “pleasant to the sight and good for food”. They are intended to keep and sustain their paradise while living “in the cool of the day”. Rykwert believes that the account infers that Adam had built a house in the Garden.

He also studies ideas from architectural theorists throughout history and looks how the hut relates to culture. He studies theorists and practitioners who are concerned with the future of architecture and the search for authority in the origins of architecture. The people Rywert studies in his book include: Vitruvius, Alberti, Laugier, Perrault, Vollet-le-Duc, Ruskin, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, who have all studied the primitive hut by either finding its site, reconstructing it or studying its form.

On Adam’s House in Paradise was written at the end of the 20^th century when architecture was in a state of transition and confusion. Virtual technology was challenging the conventional concepts about architecture; televisions and computers were changing life at home and altered spatial perceptions in the house. Modernists believed that the idea of the home was “a machine for living in” while postmodernists considered the home to be an “extension of the body”. Jones had tackled the problem of changing culture through designing his primitive huts.

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Bibliography

Hermitary, "Rykwert, Joseph, On Adam's House in Paradise: the Idea of the primitive Hut in Architectural History." Last modified 2007. Accessed November 19, 2011. http://www.hermitary.com/bookreviews/rykwert.html.

Ostwald, Michael, and John Moore. Architecture Australia, "Adam's House in Cyberia." Last modified 2011. Accessed November 12, 2011. http://www.architecturemedia.com/aa/aaissue.php?issueid=199703&article=13&typeon=3.

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11/19/11

Posted by Joanne Yau

More Pictures~

Drawings

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11/14/11

Post and Drawings by Ronnie Kataki

Don got me thinking today, who exactly is Wes Jones, what's his goal, why does he do what he does?  

So from what we know, Jones went to a military college, then Berkeley and graduated with "Highest Honors, giving the commencement speech (built around writings found in graffiti around the college), then Harvard to study design and eventually wrote an extremely successful thesis (that payed homage to Le Corbusier's Unite D'Habitation) which allowed him to graduate with a Master of Architecture with Distinction.  He went on to create a bunch of extremely stylized and unique buildings, buildings you wouldn't expect to see in the 80's and 90's.  If I were to describe his buildings, I'd say that they're broken down to the basics, exposed, naked.  He does away with the fancy cladding, no fancy bow ties and blazers for Mr. Jones's buildings.  What you're left with is structure, pure structure, and technology.  His buildings are ugly in their nakedness.  He designs these buildings in a postmodern era of architecture, where the norm was to design unique, geometrically puzzling buildings that are aesthetically pleasing, clean, well-clad.   Who is he trying to appeal to?

It feels to me like he's trying to appeal to those with an open hand (referencing what Don said on the 9th, closed fist vs. open hand), those who can appreciate the creation of something functional and stylish from primitive parts.  Wes Jones isn't an idiot who creates primitive architecture because he doesn't know what he's doing.  He's a well trained professional designer, he knows what he's doing.  What exactly is he doing?  

Well, lets take a look at Mr. Jones's shitty website.  "Home of BOSS Architecture".  Odd, he uses slang to describe his buildings.  He's also been known for using the term soup up", as in to "soup up a building", a term commonly used in the hot rodding community. Wondering what BOSS Architecture is, I take the "Taste Test", a horribly designed multiple choice quiz that reveals a little more about what BOSS architecture is.  Here's an answer I found kind of useful:  

"BOSS architecture relates to its occupants like an America’s Cup boat does to its crew: it’s always cool, and you could just cruise and enjoy the scenery, ignoring the boat itself, but it is there for you when you choose to pay attention—and when it's time to tack, it comes into its own, demonstrating why all those doohickies and thingamajigs are there, why the hull tapers as it does and what the color differences in the panels of the sail are all about. Everything is there for a reason, and it’s all tinged with the affect of purposefulness, even if it’s not doing anything at the moment."

Wes Jones is fascinated with the idea an interactive building.  He doesn't want a building that's designed to sit there and look pretty, or a building that's built with one single purpose; Wes Jones wants a building that engages its inhabitants, every part of a building has a function, and he wants to show the inhabitants what that function is, he wants to expose the purpose of each structural component of the building.  This results in unique, almost skeletal designs. 

So let's recap, Wes Jones is a well trained, top-of-the-class man with quite a few distinctions.  He's heavily influenced from non-conventional, gritty forms of art (graffiti, hot rods).  He loves stripping down a building to show it's purpose, so he designs heavily stylized, naked, primitive, buildings in an era where almost all buildings were designed to be pretty and clean. 

Wes Jones isn't ignorant, he's not just making primitive buildings because he wants to stand out, he's not doing it without a purpose, he's not... "modern art" (as Mark would say, no offense Mark).  He has a clear vision, a purpose, a mission.  He's going up to those closed-fisted Harvard and Berkley preps and showing them a new way to do something.  He's annoyed at the fact that the world of architecture at the time jumped onto this postmodern band wagon which preferred form over function.  He wanted to show the world that you can find a balance between both form and function, and he did this by designing stripped down buildings that were visually and physically engaging.  He's trying to show people that architectural beauty isn't only skin deep, it's not all about how elaborate and fancy, or twisted, contorted, geometrically challenging a building is.  He wants us to see that a Hot Rod can be as beautiful as a Benz, a graffiti artist is just as much of an artist as da Vinci was.  

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10/14/11

Post by Patrick Cheung

Ed “Big Daddy” Roth: Hot Rodding

Ed “Big Daddy” Roth was a genius and a visionary as he was responsible for so many “firsts;” he Ed "Big Daddy" Roth was a genius and a visionary as he was responsible for many "firsts;" he literally changed the world of hot rodding. He purchased his first car, a Ford Coupe in 1946, shortly after WWII ended. He attended college and majored in engineering so he could advance his knowledge in automotive design. He did well, but got bored quite quick because engineering just didn’t have anything to do with cars, so he joined the Air Force in 1951. He went to bombsight school in Denver where he learned to make maps. He was discharged in 1955, by which time he had already owned several vehicles and was married with 5 children. He began working at Sears in the Display Department and started pin striping cars after work. Soon after, he went to work full time with “The Baron” and his grandson Kelly. Using junkyard parts and a newly developed product called fiberglass, Ed created automobiles in his garage. His first car was called “Little Jewel.”

Little Jewel, 1958

Shortly after came the "Outlaw", which showed the world that anyone could design and build a car without being a certified automotive engineer. All you really needed was imagination, some motor head know-how, a lot of elbow grease, and initiative.

Outlaw, 1959

His garage then became his studio where other creations came to exist, such as “Rotar:”

Rotar, 1965

Ed became Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, a hot-roddin', gear head, mad scientist, and struggling artist who financed his inventions by selling drawings and t-shirts at drag events, fairs, and car shows. Big Daddy Roth would draw cartoons of monsters that he created and pictures of cars, but when he personally airbrushed t-shirts with the monsters driving the cars, people went crazy and would line up at his booth. The most popular Ed "Big Daddy" Roth monster was Rat Fink. Rat Fink started as a drawing that Ed had put on his refrigerator. Ed "Big Daddy" Roth was a genius at designing cars, but it was Rat Fink that brought him fame. By 1963, teenagers across America were buying Rat Fink model kits and mass-produced Rat Fink T-shirts by Ed "Big Daddy" Roth.
When there was a point where Ed “Big Daddy” Roth got so busy that his garage couldn’t handle the work, he moved his operation into a new shop in Maywood, California and hired employees to help him build and produce more custom cars and t-shirts. There were also several Ed “Big Daddy” Roth record albums produced. The band was called “Mr. Gasser and the weirdos.” Featuring Ed “Big Daddy” Roth.

More Works by Ed “Big Daddy” Roth:

Mail Box, 1967

Mega Cycle, 1967

Secret Weapon, 1976

Yellow Fang, 1976

Globe Hopper, 1987

Rubber Ducky, 1995

Stealth 2000, 1999

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11/16/10

Post by Emma Halenko

First Attempts

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11/10/11

Posted and Drawn by Mark Wang

Short Lived Pen Pals

So after casually searching the internet for information on these 'Primitive Huts' we immediately realized that the amount of graphic information available to the public was...lacking. So acting upon Don's earlier advice we decided to email the architect, Wes Jones, to see if he could give us a helping hand.

So, with the email sent, we waited...

...

Two hours later, we get this reply:

...

and so this story is to be continued...

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11/10/11

Posted by Celia.xH

Emails sent by Julia Morrissey

Wes Jones Primitive Hut Picture

From The New York Times...

“The descent from postwar optimism to outright nihilism ends with one of Wes Jones’s militaristic Primitive Huts (1994-98). A rigid steel frame on which mechanical shutters are mounted, the hut is covered by a pitched roof made of uneven wood logs. The heavy shutters look like protective shields; it could be an ideal hideaway for a recluse, Unabomber style, suggesting American individualism taken to its darkest extreme.”

Read the rest of the article here

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Source:

Ouroussoff, Nicolai. New York Times, "Instant Houses, Then and Now." Last modified July 18, 2008. Accessed November 10, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/arts/design/18dwel.html?pagewanted=1&hp.

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11/10/11

Post and Research by Alexandra Martin

First Impression on Research

THERE'RE NOT ENOUGH PHOTOS!!! 

that is all......literally... 

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photo from: 

"# INTERVIEWS /// Conversation with Wes Jones about the notion of Machine" The Funambulist, accessed November 10th, 2011, http://thefunambulist.net/2011/09/06/interviews-conversation-with-wes-jones-about-the-notion-of-machine/  

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11/10/11

Post by Celia He

Research by Alexandra Martin

Container House and Primitive Huts, an excerpt from Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling by Berry Bergdoll

"Architect Wes Jones's Fascination with the ubiquitous shipping container goes back to the early 1990s... [he] saw immense potential to use them as elemental units for refurbished homes. In his designs, the standard container would be dissected, articulated, added onto, and otherwise modified depending on the needs of the client.

...

Four years later, Jones articulated these ideas with a series of proposals, built as models, called Primitive Huts, a reference to the seminal concept of Marc-Antione Lauglier's 1753 Essay on Architecture. Laugier argued that architecture must derive all its forms from the most basic requirements of structural solidity, an ideal embodied in the primitive hut.

...

Jones's proposal is architecture for the hunter-gatherer, for persons who seek to scavenge materials, recycle them, without depending upon market infrastructure for their livelihood."

This gives us a general direction. We know a little more about why he built the house and his inspirations. Maybe we should take a look at Mr. Lauglier's essay? 

Read more here

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Source:

Bergdoll, Berry. "Home Delivery: Fabricating The Modern Dwelling, Part 1." Accessed November 10, 2011. http://tinyurl.com/excerptfromhomedelivery

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11/10/2011

Post by Patrick Cheung

Research By Alexandra Martin