Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Pragmatic vs Avant Garde

Title: Pragmatic vs Avant Garde
Bjarke Ingels Group

Historically, the world has seen architecture that resides in both extremes; the avant garde and the downright pragmatic. This phenomenon becomes increasingly distinct in the light of the global ‘green’ movement, with no clear direction on the future of ‘green’ architecture. From mega environmentally sustainable structures to the humble container house, promises of self sustaining housing seemed almost imaginary. This report investigates this movement and compares the design approaches of BIG and how they sit in the middle of this equation.

BIG believes that being environmentally friendly does not equate to less fun, less beautiful. In both the mountain dwellings and Taipei City Wall project, a simple manipulation and overlaying of programs resulted in interesting spatial interventions, relative and specific to the environmental considerations, site conditions and quality of life. Their design approach is a 'bottom-up' process which ensures all ideas go through a process of elimination, amalgamation and adaptation before the mutant product is derived.

Mountain Dwelling, Copenhagen, Denmark
Taipei City Wall, Taipei, Taiwan

This is BIG’s underlying principle of their pragmatic utopian philosophy. Comparatively, firms like Frank Gehry with a ‘top-down’ approach follow the vision and signature of the architect. While there is no right or wrong way, BIG’s approach appear not to be constrained by any form of style or signature.

The direction of BIG somehow sits between both extremes; the avant garde and the pragmatic as they seek to manipulate simple forms to achieve a revolutionary product through a given set of principles and environmental considerations.

Keywords:
Specific
Interventions
Avant Garde

Bibliography:
Website-
Bjarke Ingels Group Official Website - http://www.big.dk
TED Talk Bjarke Ingels s - http://vimeo.com/13058392
Project Reference -http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/big-views-taipei-city-wall-as-green-pixilated-urban-tower/
Project Reference -http://www.archdaily.com/15022/mountain-dwellings-big/
http://www.archi-ninja.com/interview-with-bjarke-ingels/
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC29/Kasprzyk.htm
www.ambottawa.um.dk/NR/rdonlyres/.../0/CanadianArchitectarticle.pdf

Books-
Herausgegeben von, F.Ferguson & Urban Drift; Talking Cities: The Micropolitics of Urban Space, Birkhauser, Basel. Boston.Berliin, August 26th to December 3rd 2006; pg 50-87
Manfredo Tafuri; Architecture and Utopia Design and Capitalist Development; Laterza & Figli, Bari, Italy; 1973; pg 72-75
Bjarke Ingels Group; Yes is More; An Archicomic on Architectural Evolution; 2009

Images-
http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/big-views-taipei-city-wall-as-green-pixilated-urban-tower/
http://www.big.dk/projects/mtn/mtn.html

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