Bucket Excavator
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11/28/11
Posted by: Alexandra Martin
Monday, 28 November 2011
Wednesday, 23 November 2011
Industrial stair similar to that on Hut 2 (counterbalanced log hut)
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
Tuesday, 22 November 2011
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
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11/22/11
Posted by Alexandra Martin.
Saturday, 19 November 2011
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 20th 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 20th 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
Thursday, 17 November 2011
Monday, 14 November 2011
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
Sunday, 13 November 2011
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.
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
Thursday, 10 November 2011
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
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
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