READING LISTS
Aran goyoaga's space via sfgirlbybay

One of my favourite internet past-times is collating lists of books to read. Like all good internet past-times, this one is dangerously time consuming, and I am fairly sure I would get an equal amount of enjoyment out of actually reading some of the books occupying the vast lists. That said, I have just finished marching my way through Salman Rushdie's 'Joseph Anton', so am on the lookout for a new (perhaps slightly shorter) read.

 So I have many reasons to be thankful to the New York Times for publishing a comprehensive annotated reading list, of their  100 Notable Books of 2013. Because what's the new year for if not to catch up on last year's books.


YOU & ME & THIS CITY

“The city is a place where the self is confronted most brutally with the other, and where it is also most detached from it. The city is history, and it is an Orwellian “double think” where history is abolished quickly and without notation. In the city, “time challenges time, time clashes with time: habits and values carry over beyond the living group, streaking with different strata of time the character of any single generation. Layer upon layer, past times preserve themselves in the city until life itself is finally threatened with suffocation.”

- Lewis Mumford, The Culture of Cities (1938)

PROJECTS

 

The Space that Performed: Music and Film Campus and Public Facility for Newtown 
- 2010



Architecture, Writing, Prosthetic: An Installation for Wellington City Art Gallery
- 2010

  Here & There : A Critique : Investigating Subject Generated Space through Drawing-2009
 
Designing Here: Application of the Here & There Critique to Building Regeneration
- 2009


Chronotope Archives: A New Library for Johnsonville
-2008


 
The Invisible Body: New Zealand Pavillion for the Venice Biennale-2008

CLOG: DATA SPACE

Over two billion people across the world use the Internet regularly.
Every second, 2.8 million emails are sent, 30,000 phrases are Googled, and 600 updates are tweeted.
While being absorbed into this virtual world, most rarely consider the physical ramifications of this data. All over the world, data centers are becoming integral components of our twenty-first century infrastructure. These facilities can range from small portable modules to massive warehouses full of servers, from sleek new constructions to the reuse of existing infrastructures. 
CLOG : DATA SPACE examines with the significance of this bridge between the virtual and the physical. CLOG explores how this new typology affects the discourse of architecture and the shaping of our built environment. 
DATA SPACE includes articles on data centres, clouds, informatics, and the evolution of data storage. Also included is an article entitled “Data Case,” by Shannon of Words in Space. "Data Case" explores the material exoskeletons and physics container forms of data.

DEAR NEW ZEALAND


How about a lovearchitecture festival all of our own? The festival, which finished a week ago in Britain, was run by the royal Commission for the Built Environment, whose aim was to 'bring architecture alive' through a host of activities. 




One of my favourites, the Threshold Architecture Hub, described itself as
a pop up architecture and built environment centre demonstrating how architects and associated creative professionals can adapt, reuse, transform and re-invent the spaces around us, presenting an exhibition and programme of public events on the theme of inhabiting un[der]-used space(s).
Their programme included site-specific installations, exhibitions, workshops, films, and talks - the transcripts of which are published as 'essays' on their website, including this visual essay gem, which has me all inspired for another semester of tutoring. 


Gem Barton

GEOGRAPHY OF WAR



Le Quesnoy. 
In 2004, I went on a school trip to France, which included a visit to the incredible fortified town of Le Quesnoy in Normandy. Our visit coincided with ANZAC day - the day when Australian and New Zealand troops who fought and died in the First World War are remembered. Being in Le Quesnoy on this day was particularly special, given that New Zealand soldiers climbed the towering town walls to re-take the town from the Germans in WWI. New Zealanders were the only willing troops to take on such a tremedously difficult attack. In gratitude, the people of Le Quesnoy celebrate ANZAC day to this day, marching down streets such as 'Rue Aotearoa' and gathering in 'Place des All Blacks.'

With a lot of literature about geographies of war popping up at present, I have been looking back at Le Quesnoy and considering just how remarkable the small town is architecturally.




The extent of the foritifications as visible on Google Earth.

KAHLE'S SEED VAULT FOR CULTURE

Lianne Milton for The New York Times 
A few days ago, Charlotte van de Hout published an article on the Longnow blog about Brewster Kahle, who is devoting his life to creating a physical repository of the world's books in case of digital disaster or drastic progress - a thought that made me look at my own books all the more tenderly. So far, his collection is house in 44 shipping containers in California, but if it is going to grow from the current 500,000 to 10 million, space - and how to locate books within that space - is going to become an issue. Since I read the article, and becoming enthralled by the idea, I have been having recurring dreams about designing a space for his collection. For our collection. 


A real dream project. If only.