School of Architecture and Planning

SENSING SPACE Immateriality in Architecture

?The senses do not only mediate information for the judgment of the intellect; they are also a means of articulating sensory thought.?
- Juhani Pallasma

It has been stated that Architecture, more than any other art form, engages the immediacy of our sensory perceptions. Every interaction we have with the built environment is multi-sensory. Qualities of time, light, matter, space and scale are measured equally by the eye, ear, nose, skin, tongue, and muscle. Architecture involves many realms of sensory experience which interact and infuse with each other; thus becoming active participants in the complete experience of our surroundings.

While the architect is responsible for the conception of space through a careful consideration of material and detail; so to must he/she integrate the ?immaterial? (light, sound, air, smell, etc) into the spatial configurations of their work. The perception of space and the impression it makes on us continually engages us in the subconscious phenomenon of architecture. By exploiting all of our senses, it becomes possible for the architect to choreograph a multilayered experience that evokes a transparency of time, space, memory and feeling.

The Catholic University of America?s 2009 Summer Institute for Architecture will investigate the ?immaterial? in architecture as a means of identifying various phenomenal and experiential potentials that contribute to the way in which we conceive of space. Working at various scales and informed by our personal experiences and associations to place, students and faculty will rigorously examine their own design methodologies through the act of design and making; attempting to understand more fully the relation between architectural form and experience through the immaterial.

CLASS SCHEDULE
Download SIA2009 Schedule HERE

LECTURE SERIES
Wednesday, June 3, 2009, 6:00 pm
Toshiko Mori
Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture, Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Principal, Toshiko Mori Architect
New York, NY

Wednesday, June 10, 2009, 6:00 pm
Kazuo Kawasaki, PhD
Professor of Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University
In collaboration with the Japan Information and Culture Center, Embassy of Japan

Wednesday, June 17, 2009, 5:30 pm
Kristin Jarmund & Eva Madshus
Kristen Jarmund, Partner, Kristin Jarmund Arkitekter AS
Eva Madshus, Senior Curator for the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design
Held in conjunction with the Royal Norwegian Embassy

Wednesday, July 8, 2009, 6:00 pm
Hadrian Predock
Partner, predock_frane architects
Los Angeles, CA

Wednesday, July 15, 2008, 6:00 pm
Bridgette Shim
Principal, SHIM/SUTCLIFFE ARCHITECTS
Toronto, Canada

All lectures are held Wednesday evenings (unless otherwise noted) at 6:00 PM in the Koubek Auditorium, Edward M. Crough Center for Architectural Studies, The Catholic University of America

Metrorail: Brookland / CUA, Red line All lectures are free and open to the public.
Reception following each lecture.

Toshiko Mori
Toshiko Mori, FAIA is the Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture and was the chair of the Department of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design from 2002 to 2008. She is also principal of Toshiko Mori Architect, which she established in 1981 in New York City. Mori taught at the Cooper Union School of Architecture from 1983, until joining the Harvard GSD faculty with tenure in 1995. She has been a visiting faculty member at Columbia University and Yale University, where she was the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor in 1992.

Mori's strong research-based approach to design has been commended in awards and invitations to lectures and exhibitions around the world. In the fall of 2005, her work was exhibited in "Renewing Wright" at the Heinz Architectural Center of the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh. Her profile, "Postscripts: Building on Sacred Ground", appeared in The New York Times in May 2005. She has edited a volume on material and fabrication research, Immaterial/Ultramaterial, and is currently preparing her next publication: Textile Tectonic in Architecture.

In 2003 Mori was awarded the Cooper Union Inaugural John Hejduk Award. In 2005, she received the Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Medal of Honor from the New York City chapter of the AIA. She has served on the board of trustees of the Van Alen Institute and the Storefront for Art and Architecture, and has been an advisor to the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is currently an advisor to A+U Magazine and serves on the President's Council for the Cooper Union. Mori earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the Cooper Union and an Honorary Master of Architecture degree from Harvard University.

Kazuo Kawasaki
Kazuo Kawasaki specializes in the design development based on the theory of Topology, with media integration method utilizing 3D-CAD/CAM and optical polymerization. He studies the method of design on media integration and medical science and applies his study on domains such as artificial organ, robotics and new energy engine. As a design director of industrial design and product design, he works on traditional crafts, eyewear, domestic and commercial appliances, mechanical tools, and computer development, winning numerous national and international awards. His wheelchair, currently on display at MOMA in New York has won critical and popular acclaim, as have his eyewear design, some of which are worn by such well-known figures as Sarah Palin and Colin Powell. He is also the founder of the NGO Peace-Keeping Design, which aims to contribute to the resolution of humanitarian issues through creative design.

Kristen Jarmund
The practice of Kristin Jarmund Arkitekter AS, established in 1985, is renowned in Norway, confirmed by a series of awards and 1st prizes received in both private and open competitions. Today the practice maintains disciplines of Architecture, Planning and Interior Design.

The practice's best known works are Justervesenet laboratory and office building, for which the office received the Houens Fond Award, the Nydalen Metro Station in Oslo, the Fokus Bank and Eitzen Group headquarter buildings in Oslo, a large group of schools, and several interiors designs such as the Natianal Gallery Café and the Hotel Grims Grenka in Oslo

Kristin Jarmund was educated at the Norwegian Technial University in Trondheim and at the Architectueral Association (AA) in London. Besides receiving many architectural awards, she has had a prominent post in city development as leader of the City of Oslo Board of Urban Architecture. The practice´s design approach is within a modern tradition, aimed at solutions that reduce complex problems to simplicity in form and function, yet still allowing for a sensitive awareness to context and the human dimension.

Among the practice´s latest projects are the first prize project of the Westerdahl School of Communication and the new Norwegian Embassy building in Kathmandu, Nepal

Hadrian Predock
Predock_Frane Architects was established by Hadrian Predock and John Frane in the year 2000 as a collaborative research and development design studio. The work of their practice ranges from small scale installations to large public venues. Seeking to open new territories for locality and specificity, they utilize a process of ?generative repetition? - a methodology that focuses on mapping specific existing morphologies, actions, systems, and material conditions, then generating and forecasting new architectural results based upon their findings. Their design process seeks to enliven a rich dialogue between craft and computation. The sensate realm plays an important role their work - with an emphasis on atmosphere and experiential understandings.

Predock_Frane was named one of ten emerging international architects in 2002 by Architectural Record, and in 2005, as one of six emerging firms by the Architectural League in New York. They were selected to represent the United States in the US Pavilion during the 2004 Venice Biennale, and were recently invited to participate in the 2006 Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial - Design Life Now.

John and Hadrian have both held invited teaching positions recently at UCLA, Tulane and Berkeley. Predock_Frane?s work has won numerous awards including a national AIA Award for the Center of Gravity Foundation Hall. Their work has been published internationally, and they have lectured widely.

Hadrian Predock was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and received his MArch in 1993 from Harvard?s Graduate School of Design.

Bridgette Shim
Brigitte Shim was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1958. She was educated at the University of Waterloo where she received degrees in Environmental Studies and Architecture. She has worked on the west coast of Canada with Arthur Erickson and Associates and in Toronto with Baird/Sampson Architects. She is a tenured professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design where she has taught a broad range of architectural design studios and lecture courses since 1988. In the spring of 2002 she was a visiting professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and in the fall of 2001 she was the Bishop Visiting Professor and the Visiting Bicentennial Professor of Canadian Studies at Yale University?s School of Architecture. She has also been a visiting professor at Harvard University?s Graduate School of Design in 1993 and 1996, teaching advanced option studios in the master?s program in architecture.

Brigitte Shim and Howard Sutcliffe are partners as well as collaborators. They have created a firm and a life around their shared passion for architecture, landscape and furniture. Their interest in the construction and fabrication of buildings, sites, and their intersections has forced them to question fundamental relationships between object and ground, building and landscape, man and nature. Though their backgrounds and sensibilities are very different, their similar education and architectural journeys together offer a rich starting point for their work.

Their studio, Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, is located in Toronto, Canada. The city?s diversity and ethnicity make it a vital metropolis reflective of both global and North American sensibilities. The work references both the city and its landscape within the urban core of Toronto and the many particular landscapes around it. The studio works in an intense and probing way, sharing ideas through drawings, models, and discussion with the numerous remarkable clients who have put their faith in them over the last fifteen years.

ACTIVITIES
In addition to the Summer Institute for Architecture?s intensive scholastic emphasis, the program provides an environment of camaraderie fostered by its myriad of activites and events. Field trips to neighboring cities combined with the academic agenda of visits to some of the Southeast?s most significant architecture and landscape design projects along with an opportunity for pure extracurricular fun.

CRITICS
Over the years The Summer Institute for Architecture has drawn critics from a wide geographic area representing a diversity of interests and design philosophies. The encouragement of independent thought and experimentation in the design problems, along with a small student faculty ratio, are unique features of the program. A climate of collegiality among all of the Summer Institute?s participants is fostered.