The Twilight Zone [Episode 1: Paju (“Book City”): Architectural utopia or hell?]

Our story begins in Paju “Book City,” South Korea, where a young man awakens to find himself in a world unfamiliar to him.

“Where am I?” Chris asks himself, strewn upon the ground with an aching pain in his head. He can’t seem to remember how he found himself on a lawn in front of what looks like a traditional Korean dwelling.

“It has to be Korean,” he thinks to himself as he observes the tiled roof and the thin white window screens that let light into the home.

But as his attention fades away from the old home, he becomes more unsettled, as he sees building after building, block after block of these marvelously designed pieces of architecture.

“I’ve died and gone to architecture heaven,” Chris manages to says, stunned by his good-fortune and taken aback at the sight that has befallen his eyes. He’d only been a student of architecture for 4 years but never in that time had he visited a place that seemed to have such a crispness and cleanliness about it. There were no dilapidated liquor stores or abandoned warehouses or “cookie-cutter” suburban homes.

No, these buildings were all carefully thought out and designed. Not simply dropped onto their sites because it was the most affordable option. There was surely a long planning process in place to make sure such quality buildings were erected here.

“What am I doing just standing around for, I must take this all in!” he exclaims as he began running up and down the street, taking in the majestic elements of each structure. He briefly stops at one, a dynamic concrete building with an exterior staircase that moves Chris to the core.

“Now this is what a staircase should look like. I need to see more!”

One after another he took in a building and it’s components, each one differing from the other.

But then it begins to dawn on Chris. The buildings that started off looking so unique and different from each other start looking more and more alike. A cold chill runs up his back as this thought occurs to him.

“No, no, it can’t be. I’m sure one of these buildings is addressing its context or at least contains an elevation that gestures to an adjacent site. There has to be at least one!” he cries out as he runs from building to building, trying to find one element, one material move that would prove his theory wrong.

He finds nothing.

The dream scenario quickly turns into a nightmare for Chris, who cannot seem to escape this collection of randomly disassociated pieces of architecture. He runs down one street, only to be confronted by more buildings.

Soon they’re everywhere, surrounding Chris until it’s as though they are right on top of him, stifling his breath, choking the life out him. He can’t breathe. He can’t think.

“GET ME OUT OF HERE!” he screams sitting up in his bed, beads of sweat drip down his face.

“Dude, what’s wrong?” Christian, Chris’s roommate, worriedly asks.

“I-I don’t know. I had a dream I was in this architectural utopia, where it was as if everything were designed by Gehry or Koolhaas…it was all crashing down on top of me. Ev-everywhere…” replied Chris.

“How could that be bad? That would be amazing!” says Christian.

Chris replies, “You would think, wouldn’t you?”

-Christopher Glenn

Filed under: "Book City", architectural utopia, contextual relation, objects, Paju, planned city, south korea, Uncategorized

Unused space: What a Waste?

The adventure thus far: Tokyo – Sendai – Yokohama – Kyoto – Seoul – Hong Kong.  Although each of these cities has unique characteristics, three specific locations have been more prominent in their urbanistic ideas: Tokyo, Seoul, and Hong Kong.  These three locations are fundamental cities to our urban quest throughout Asia, with relationships and distinctions becoming apparent in each of the cities.  While some of the cities do not have many evident relationships, I think all relate to each other in some way, be it architecturally, urbanistically, culturally, or all of the above.  As I sink myself into Hong Kong, I am becoming aware of the similarities that occur between this city and that of Tokyo.

Arriving in Hong Kong was hugely overwhelming!  Residential towers that are look as if they are grazing, skyscrapers that go on for miles, and an atmosphere that allows people to perceive it as a never-sleeping city, one could only imagine the visual overload that happens when stepping foot into this city.  The first (and most obvious) aspect of Hong Kong I saw was the extreme density.  This was not similar to the density in Tokyo, however.  Solely through looking out the window on the bus ride from the airport to Hong Kong Island, the buildings seem to be never-ending – neither vertically nor horizontally.

During these first few hours of becoming acquainted with this tremendous density of not the most aesthetically pleasing buildings, the article we read, “Made in Tokyo”, came to mind.  This article asserts, “In such a situation, then suddenly architectural design holds no interest anymore; the future appears depressing.  If we can’t try to turn ‘disgusting’ buildings into resources, then there is no reason to particularly stay in Tokyo.  Shamelessness can become useful, so let’s start by considering that these shameless buildings are not collapsible into the concept of ‘chaos’, but are in fact an intricate reporting of the concrete urban situation.”  I thought this quotation was relevant to the architectural circumstances in Hong Kong at first glance.  The residential towers and even many of the additional buildings are not “designed” or visually satisfying which presents chaotic scenery, whilst also expressing the “concrete urban situation,” in terms of the necessary abundance of housing structures.

While Tokyo’s density occurs virtually all over the city, the density in Hong Kong occurs almost in sudden eruptions.  For example, I will see an area that looks impenetrable due to the buildings, while right next to this mass of buildings is beautiful, lush, green scenery, completely contradicting these high density areas.  As we found out today during a lecture with Laurence Wie-wu Liauw from Hong Kong University, 75 % of Hong Kong is currently devoted to greenery.  I found this especially shocking, since upon arrival in Hong Kong, it looks as if it is five times the density of Tokyo.  The preservation of green space is extremely important here, as the conservation of green space is continually regulated by the government.  This forces the extreme density that is surrounding the greenery. The proximity between buildings, the height of skyscrapers, and the herds of people put off a façade that the density is enormous.  It is not until one begins to dive into Hong Kong more fully, that he or she can really come to terms with the actual density in Hong Kong as a whole.

_sunny.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Kenneth Frampton’s Urbanism Lecture Conclusion at Hong Kong University

We had the privilege to see Kenneth Frampton at Hong Kong University, and the following is his main points about urbanism and the megaform. Frampton critiqued, analyzed, and demonstrated many different forms of megastructures located within larger city plans, and what their role will be in the future of urban development. These last ten points help summarize the ideas covered throughout the lecture, and give an understanding of the challenges for urban designers and architects.

Ross Renjilian

Filed under: Architecture, China, cities, development, Frampton, Hong, Kenneth, kong, mega structure, megaform, points, Renjilian, Ross, ten, University, Urbanism, Architecture, Urbanism

Automotion

In Tokyo, the unfamiliarity of such extreme cultural organization and efficiency allowed me to observe the Japanese from a very removed perspective.  Because of the language barrier, my observations were limited to sights, sounds, and smells.  While this limitation made it difficult to communicate at times, it also provided a more focused lens with which to observe the efficiency of movement, space, and time that the Japanese seemed to have mastered.  The people moved with intention, the streets were immaculately clean despite the peculiar lack of trashcans, and the subway cars were never a second late.

Transitioning from Tokyo to Kyoto, I expected a slower pace, more rural scenery, and a sense of history within the architecture.  That is what I got.

Intrigued by temples I had only studied in school and by a culture so foreign to my Hawaii-born, LA educated eyes, I began to film everything that caught my attention, even if I wasn’t sure quite why.  The clouds billowing behind a stoic roofline, the cicadas relentlessly chirping their songs, a monk chanting words that have been pasted down for generations.  Our Kyoto visit concluded with the Heian Temple, which provided a perfect opportunity to let the mind synthesize, draw conclusions, and absorb the serene surroundings.  Unfortunately, my mind and body were too exhausted and decided to take a nap.

Dropped back into Tokyo for one night, I had the chance to upload all the video clips from Japan.  Flipping from clip to clip, I again expected to see a calm, historic Kyoto.  However, within this temple-filled city, I found hints of the organized and clockwork culture that I thought was native to Tokyo. Just as the red torii gates in Kyoto provided a set path of movement up the mountain, the bright yellow pathways in Tokyo outlined the most efficient line of circulation through the subway station.  Perhaps the repetitive and ritualized culture of ancient Kyoto has translated into the metropolis of Tokyo.  Zen gardens are replaced by pachinko parlors, while the act of beating a gong has become the ritual of swiping a subway pasmo card.  Tokyo is not simply an urban metropolis, just as Kyoto is not simply a historic city of Zen.  Rather, the organized nature Tokyo is a result of the ritual culture that originated in Kyoto.

~Samantha

Filed under: kyoto, Machine, Movement, Ritualization, Subway, Tokyo, Torii Gates, Video

Paju Book City and the Case for Mediocrity

In the early 20^th century Ebenezer Howard proposed the Garden City, a community designed in such a way as to strike balance between the natural environment and the built environment.  There would be space, there would be order, and there would be greenery.  His premise was a utopian city, a new take on urbanism that would remedy the faults of existing cities once and for all.  Thirty years later Le Corbusier pursued a similar urban theory based on replacing the chaos of haphazard urban development with simple, rational order.  This time the city would also be expressive of modernity, and therefore built around the automobile.  He called his plan The Radiant City.  Neither was built as designed, but the concept of a utopian city inspired countless planners and architects whose derivative visions materialized in places as far away as Brasilia and Canberra.

South Korea’s Paju Book City, which was begun in 1999, is one such development and is an example of the latest incarnation of utopian urbanity.  The city is located on the northern outskirts of Seoul and was designed to house all of the major publishing companies in Korea.  Its grid of streets is filled with exquisite but unrelated object buildings designed by the most talented young Asian architects.  One cannot walk a few blocks in less than an hour because each publishing office commands attention to its structure, skin system, circulation, materiality, or some combination thereof.  Brochures describe the development as a wetland-city, where great care was taken to preserve natural features such as streams and ponds between each building.  Traffic signals are synchronized, the streets are clean, there are no commonplace buildings, there is ample parking, and ostensibly no crime or transients.

Yet the city’s flaw seems to be that it is that it is too perfect.  Paju Book City is so polished and pristine with its designer architecture on every block that avoiding desensitization is difficult.  With no commonplace buildings to act as filler, standout architecture no longer stands out and thus forfeits its power.  Moreover, because the city is carefully planned to avoid unpredictable development, there exist no moments when contrast or surprise capture our attention.  Moments like walking down New York’s Wall Street and suddenly encountering Trinity Church in a canyon of otherwise bland highrises, or settling into the repetitive fabric of Paris and then being jolted to life by the façade of the Pompidou Center.  These experiences of organic juxtaposition are the essence of city life, and prove that the exceptional requires the ordinary to flank its side.

Fifty years ago a small group of urbanists led by Jane Jacobs leveled these and multiple books worth of other critiques against the idea of utopian cities comprised of single use object buildings.  These assessments slowly gained traction over the years, and citywide schemes of preconceived urbanity seem to have mostly fallen out of vogue.  Paju Book City has become a tremendous showcase of innovative architecture and seems to be appreciated by the publishing offices located within it, but its urban concept was anachronistic before the project even broke ground, and for my part I would rather see its tremendous architecture spread around the urban fabric of Seoul amongst ordinary buildings where it would truly stand out.

Matt Luery

Filed under: Garden City, Korea, Radient City, Uncategorized, Urbanism, Utopia

Tokyo By Night

-Taylor

Filed under: Japan, Tokyo, Video

Hyperfunctionalism

As we begin to settle into Korea, many differences between our new environment and Japan make themselves evident. Soon after arriving at our new home, we began to notice that – though we are surely still within a dense urban environment – Seoul presents a markedly different approach to urbanism than does Tokyo. Though Seoul exhibits a fascinating juxtaposition of building types and uses, the dense layering of circulation, program, and infrastructure (which at points approaches absurdity) abundant in Tokyo seems markedly diminished. Likewise, the immaculate joinery and building quality of Japan is replaced with a less pristine attention to detail. Seoul runs less mechanistically than does Tokyo, instead comprised of individuals who operate as mortals rather than as an extension of the city itself.

Perhaps the most intriguing difference, however, was alluded to in a class reading entitled Aesthetics Of The Self, written by John Clammer. Within, Clammer discusses Japanese consumerism, and in so doing, sheds light on cultural values and aesthetic predispositions common throughout Japan. Regarding the Japanese conception of beauty, Clammer eloquently states that “function is beauty,” an observation with which I immediately identified. In contrast with some Korean (and to an even greater extent, North American) aesthetic tendencies, the Japanese appreciate form developed through the hyperfunctionalist urban environment typified in downtown Tokyo, an approach predisposed to simplicity and effectiveness of the built environment over an approach which favors disguise and manipulation of function.

This appreciation of functionalism leads to incredibly unconventional forms, which by Western conceptions of beauty would be labelled as ugly, unappealing, and unrefined. Such an examples are abundant both in Tokyo and elsewhere in Japan – three smokestacks combine to form a mutated tower, a car park consisting of a massive, windowless box-tower supported by a diminutive entry barely large enough to accommodate a compact car, a blank metal-caged apartment facade punctuated only by tubular fire stairs. These forms are documented at length in the book Made In Tokyo, which chronicles a seemingly endless series of bizarre formal resolutions. While many would regard such buildings with distaste, I appreciate not only their honesty, but also their unconventionality. This aesthetic is a far cry from many polished, “modern” structures which, though claiming to derive form from function, present a highly edited and dishonest representation of their constituents. When efficiency and cost drive an aesthetic which must operate at a highly performative level, there is no room for edit, for massage. The results are unconventional, perplexing, exciting.

Such aesthetically blunt designs (which are most often “undesigned”) stand in opposition to many contemporary architectural formal ideologies and trends – seen in projects which exhibit endless complex curves and a decidedly “Rhino-generated” aesthetic. While fashionable aesthetic philosophies have a beauty unto themselves, the starkness and unconventionality of many of the structures seen throughout Japan deeply interests me as a style of formal syntax often overlooked in a world of formal acrobatics. Though often at odds with Western conceptions of architectural beauty, they are proof that prevalent notions of aestheticism are not a requirement to provoke intrigue and fascination. Rather, the anonymous, undersigned, and hyperfunctionalist structures of Tokyo present a blunt resolution which presents an architecture brimming with unconventional ideas and unorthodox interpretations of classic typologies.

-Taylor

Filed under: America, Architecture, Japan, Korea, Tokyo, Urbanism

Micro City in a Macro Metropolis

Tokyo is a city of extreme density, which forces architects to not only consider the x and y plane for circulation, rather they are forced to realize the complexity of the circulation layers found within the city. This has led to atypical design moves that form a more adaptive building typology. The understanding of the base of the building, and I will use the term base for it is not as simple as the ground floor/ bottom, is predominantly given to the public to interact with the urban. By doing so the typological lobby of buildings have been replaced with multi-layered pedestrian streets and mini plazas that have successful businesses and life weaved throughout the spaces. These bases actively engage the many layers of Tokyo’s infrastructure including subways, street fronts, and above ground rail lines.

By stepping back and looking at the larger urban plan, one can start to understand this complex network of bases plugging into the city grid. Each of these bases creating connections in the x, y, and z plane. Series of connections are what allow Tokyo to successfully delaminate their ground plane, which requires the architecture to adapt to its surrounding context.

With all of the above-considered one can start to analyze the urban conditions as a woven fabric. The entire city is connected by built environment. This uniformity typically consists of many small objects being brought together by the series of connections. In most cities circulation is dictated by automobile circulation and these connections typically represent an organizational grid. The voids created with the street grid are divided into separate properties allowing for many smaller objects to occupy the single void. Another way of looking at urban manipulation is creating larger objects that embody smaller programs. This method in some ways looks at creating a micro city coexisting within the larger metropolis.

One example of this methodology is the midtown development in Tokyo. By acquiring multiple properties, SOM (Skidmore Owings & Merrill) was able to demo a larger area of land to replace with a micro city. This urban strategy looks at a hybrid program solution, which incorporates retail, business, residential, hospitality, food, art, and transportation in one complex. The diversity of the program required specific attention to adjacencies and circulation to public and private spaces. Midtown’s solution was to create a complex base plug-in that addresses the complex public domain, and allowing three individual towers to rise out of the base to better support private spaces.

The base system for Tokyo Midtown is focused around a public plaza, which is the predominant driving force for the organization of the different programs. The outdoor plaza provides easy pedestrian access to the major program components from the street level, while providing a core to organize the many pieces. Although the plaza is pulled away from the main street the diversity of programs feeding off of it provide enough foot traffic to keep the space lively throughout the day. Off of the plaza are several lobbies that feed to the towers. These lobbies create thresholds that restrict circulation into the more private spaces. In the Ritz Carlton the ground lobby is predominantly used for vertical circulation, which opens to grand lobby on the 45^th floor. Other means of linking the different programs together is a series of underground halls that have been scaled to act as pedestrian streets below street level. These streets are primarily driven by subway transportation, and are lined with street vendor style food and general shops.

On one end of the project the galleria anchors two of the towers, and allows the public to engage with the complex in the z-axis. This sectional manipulation provides more hierarchy and exclusivity to the shops that occupy the space above, giving visitors a more intimate relationship by simply pulling the shops off of the “street level”.

Car transportation for the complex is underplayed, and more geared for the wealthier clientele. Side streets provide access to the complex and are predominantly used by the Ritz-Carlton and private residences. This environment follows through to the garage where it is broken up into several small lobbies for valet service for each program component.

The green space is wrapped around the other side of the complex creating public walkways. Setting it off to the side and creating few circulation connections from the main complex, allows the space to maintain a semi private feel creating an oasis in the larger urban context. Towards the back of the complex is an expansive green space that allows for larger events and crowds to enjoy the open sky.

Delaminating the circulation paths in combination with clustering different programmatic elements together helps create a series of diverse sectional environments. The complex has many qualities of a larger ecosystem, which mocks the urban lifestyle. Most of these conditions are represented in the base of the project, which acts as a larger base that plugs into Tokyo’s urban fabric. This different urban strategy so far has proven to be successful, and has been a model for other urban developments including LA Live in Los Angels and The City Center in Las Vegas. With the lack of transportation networks in The United States it will be interesting to see if the complexes maintain their popularity and vitality. In contrast, Midtown has the advantage of plugging into a larger system that has been prevalent in Tokyo for quite some time. The different developments share similar programmatic overlaps, but I would argue that Midtown’s success is largely in part of it’s well thought out arrangement of public spaces and it’s connections to it’s surrounding contexts. When a development successfully connects urban infrastructure and its surrounding context the single project becomes a piece of the collective metropolis.

Ross Renjilian

Filed under: AAU, Architecture, City, Fabric, Metropois, Micro, Midtown, Renjilian, Ross, SOM, Tokyo, Uncategorized, Urban, Architecture, Tokyo

Ryoanji // A Sensory Provocation

Poetry // Written Sensations

The perfect moment.

Inner peace, a reflection of oneself.

Willow, gravel, stone, moss,

All in harmony.

Smell of the wood, squeak of the floor

Every blink, a slightly different image.

Wind blowing, leaves shuffling amongst the trees.

Sun casting shadows on every pebble

Calm euphoria overtaking souls.

Audio // The Journey to Ryoanji

Bonobo_Recurring

_Joyce

Filed under: Japan, Journey, Psyche, Self Reflection, Sensory, Uncategorized

All Wrapped Up

John Clammer brought up an interesting point in our most recently assigned reading entitled, Aesthetics of the Self:  Shopping and social being in contemporary urban Japan.  “A Japanese is as likely to give as much attention to the wrapping – the material, the way it is folded, the ribbons used to secure it – as to the contents of the package.”  This cultural attribute became crystal clear to me on our last night in Kyoto, after we stopped at a carryout burger joint for dinner.  This place did not have anywhere to sit, so you had to place your order through a window and wait on the sidewalk until it was ready.  We watched through the glass as the burgers were delicately prepared, all of us salivating with hunger.  As soon as the final bun was placed atop the last burger, we were all ready to bust through the window and devour them instantly.  But to our disappointment and confusion, we had to wait another ten minutes.  Each burger was then wrapped in tin foil, followed by a label-bearing paper wrap, then stickered shut, and finally placed neatly in a bag, before being presented to us.  During this entire process, we kept on asking, “Why can’t they just give us the food, I don’t care about the wrapper, I just want to eat.”

I thought more about this concept of the packaging being “intimately linked… and part of the same philosophy as the service”, and began to understand how it elicits a fundamental cultural difference between Americans and Japanese.  We as Americans are often only concerned with the product, and not the process or the wrapper.  We are a culture of instant gratification.  We are only focused on the burger, and could care less about how it is presented to us.  The Japanese are religious about their presentation.  Even the smallest and most trifling details of everyday life are thought about; the packaging of shaving kits and soaps in the bathrooms of our hotels, the wrapping of rice pockets from a convenience store.  They care as much about how you arrive at a product, as the product itself.

Thinking architecturally, I feel the same cultural attribute can be applied to Japanese design philosophies and histories.  While many architects, and especially students of architecture, are more concerned with the “aha” moment of their design, the Japanese take great care in the wrapping of their projects.  This is especially applicable to many of the gardens and shrines we have recently visited in Kyoto.  Walking through the winding garden of Heian for nearly an hour, the garden culminated at a bridge overlooking a small lake, arguably the group’s favorite moment of the Kyoto leg.  But it was the process by which we arrived at this point that made it so special.  The sequencing, the compression and expansion of spaces, the careful and deliberate procession to finally arrive at the “burger”.  Without this wrapping, the end wouldn’t have had the same affect.

– Alex

Filed under: America, Clammer, Japan, kyoto, Shopping, Wrapping