no2self.net

• Program | Situated Technologies
  Podcasts of recent Architecture and Situated Technologies symposium
  (tags: architecture technology podcast)

Friday’s tutorials with my post-graduate students from BSA introduced me to a new, influential figure in contemporary architecture. I met him some time ago, but until now hadn’t considered his importance.

Say hello to 2D_Man_Backpack:

He’s one of the default figures in the industry changing software, Google Sketchup. I’ve used him myself in models before, but it wasn’t until I started to see him appear in student’s work – in multiple locations across a model – that I realised what his key attribute was.

He’s entirely passive. Culturally, politically, ideologically, you name it, he hasn’t got a thing to say. He doesn’t have a single opinion about the spaces you force him to inhabit.

Is that a shirt or a roll-neck? Are those jeans or Farrar trousers? Hush Puppies or Merrells? Is he just passing by or will he stop and say/do something? Is the bag full of business or pleasure?

What’s he looking at and what does he look like? I can’t tell you because he’s programmed to always present this 2D surface to the camera. He doesn’t have the balls to look you in the eye. His glances bounce off your building without leaving an impression and with the seemingly unstoppable rise of Sketchup I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more of him.

The lack of people inhabiting spaces is a long standing criticism of architectural photography. Photographers will tell you it’s about long shutter speeds and the subsequent time-lapse blur, but let’s not deny the fact that many of us like to picture our creations before they get sullied by the one thing we can’t control. My building would be perfect, if only it wasn’t spoilt by the people using it.

This isn’t a new phenomenon. His ambivalence reminds me of the qualities I listed in the entry about the blackbeltjones sketch comparing figure drawing techniques: Architects vs. Interaction Designers. Keep your hands in your pockets.

Whilst the Letraset guys I uploaded during the Architectural Advent may not be politically correct in the 21st Century, one thing’s for certain, they’ve got an opinion and by gosh old chap, they’re going to tell you.

The most worrying realisation about this entry? From the back, 2D Man looks just like me.

• Submit Response » Separated At Birth – Hyundai + Gazprom
  From the traffic jam I was stuck in at the start of the day, to my mobile, into Twitter, on to Jack, onto his blog, back to me in my RSS feed, on to my del.icio.us linklog, to my blog at the end of the day
  (tags: architecture libeskind hyundai plagiarism twitter)

Update: (Jack did the leg work with the images for me)

• EcoCentric Electrisave monitor
  ‘…Designed for use in the home or small office, the Electrisave shows you how much electricity you’re using at any one time…’
  (tags: environment home)

• Archinect : Features : Architecture’s Second Life
  ‘…When it comes down to it, from an architectural perspective, Second Life just sort of replicates suburbia…’ I’m slightly embarrassed that the only thing that’s prevented me from making some spaces in SL is that I’m too mean to pay for the land.
  (tags: architecture gaming software virtual)
• UK Defra | e-Digest Environment Statistics, Environment in your Pocket
  ‘…The Environment in your Pocket is a distillation of key statistics and facts from the e- Digest of Environmental Statistics…’ (via Nick from hockertonhousingproject.org.uk)
  (tags: environment pdf statistics)

• MailBucket
  ‘…a public email-to-RSS gateway: forward your email to slurp@mailbucket.org and have your news reader pick it up at mailbucket.org/slurp.xml…\’ (via kryogenix.org)
  (tags: rss tools utility web email)

A final collection of archive links before accepting the need to get on with 2007 and write something new.

The podcast (which so far contains only two episodes):

• Episode 2 – ArchWeekWalk
• Annotated walk to my office
• Episode 1 – Jencks and Erskine
• Erskine puts the world (and critics) to rights

And other topics…This is the journal of an architect, rather than an architecture journal, so occasionally you get entries like the ones below:

Recipes

• Spoon the mix into the ring
• Integral part of book-coffee-cheesecake maneuver
• Eves Pudding
• Domestic goddess Be-Ro style

Misc.

• Rodeohead and John Peel
• The mighty Peel uttering my humble name
• More Tea Mr Bond?
• The key to MI5
• Flash Mob Birmingham
• ‘Twas me
• We note, you blog
• Art baton
• Diagramming, Climbing
• Diagrams, mapping and me with my shirt off

• Clip/Stamp/Fold
  THE RADICAL ARCHITECTURE OF LITTLE MAGAZINES 196X–197X (via thingsmagazine.net via anothercompany.blogspot.com)
  (tags: architecture art design magazine history)

• Flickr pool: Instructional Drawings
  ‘…You know, the kind where the drawing tells you what you should or shouldn’t do, but really makes you laugh and stare (in bewilderment) instead of learn a lesson…’
  (tags: drawing flickr diagram graphics illustration)
• THE 59 SMARTEST ORGS ONLINE on Squidoo
  ‘…These charities were chosen for their excellence in online storytelling and collaboration with their donors…’ (via Podnosh)
  (tags: web charity)
• Birmingham Mountain Film Festival
  25-27 January 2007, UK
  (tags: climbing film birmingham)

Some more entries chosen from the archives. Influential ideas from people and pages…

People

• Enthusiasm for tomorrow (RIP Tony Goodall)
• Memorial speech for my friend and mentor
• Concrete Ideas (Denys Lasdun)
• Chairs and the architects that sat in them
• Letters on meditation (Matt Webb)
• Learning how to let go
• Wayne Jacobs (Wayne Hemingway)
• Letter to the AJ about Wayne Hemingway lecture
• Death of a Drawing Board (Tony Goodall)
• Accepting the fate of the parallel motion
• 1977 AD (RIP Ralph Erskine)
• Scan from 70s magazine
• 3 part entry on OMA lecture (Ole Scheeren)
• Thoughts of presentation about CCTV
• John Tulsa interviews Edmund de Waal
• Highlights from fascinating interview with potter
• Cueva Man (Tom Booker)
• Cave renovation in south-east Spain
• Lesson of movement (Oscar Naddermier)
• Notes from my year 1 history class
• Terrible Architect (Joe Satriani)
• There’s no space, man

Books

• Book Baton
• The only useful blog meme in history
• Chambers for a Memory Palace
• Charles Moore and Donlyn Lyndon
• Waking up to Nemo
• The web works – finding out about Windsor McCay from fellow bloggers
• What is Architecture?
• Review of book by Paul Shepheard
• Time and the Hunter
• Joint review with Peter at tesugen.com
• How to look at buildings
• Thoughts from the wonderfully named, Darcy Bradell