对Plato's Cave的解读

今天Situated Knowledge课上大家对Plato在the republic中的cave进行了各自的解读，觉得很有意思，等有空的时候再做一些详细的解释。

下面这个是我的：

这是这门课程里面和建筑联系最紧密的一堂了，其余的基本是看Latour, Foucault之类。当然就算在这里建筑也显得很难说上话，其实只是个理解方式而已。这些图虽然都只是5到10分钟的diagram, 但在我看来很体现了Princeton一直标榜的intellectual式教育。我支撑着希望不要完全被洗脑，目前而言还活着。

（附：这些图其实就是描绘他所说的cave，就是captive在洞里看到（听到）由火映射的虚幻世界，这个世界是是由影子（或者其他歪曲的东西）组成的，他们被困在里面。而智者（哲学家）则尝试走出这个洞穴，去了解真正的idea、真实的世界是什么。而这个走出见到阳光的过程（从迷惑到了解）再到富有责任的走回洞穴，是他所赞扬的过程。火堆是文化和政治（可能，政治是我自己觉得的）的象征。其实有几种解读的方向都很有意思：一个是urbanism，一个是视觉和听觉的interpretation，一个是visual和physicality的，或者还有很多）

被遗忘的住宅

经同事推荐，去了一趟港口小城Helsingor。此行主线任务有三：参观莎翁写哈姆雷特的城堡，考察正参与施工图的Maritime Museum的地段，以及BIG的某一已建成的神经病医院。然而印象最深的却是不经意找到的另外一个房子，Utzon同志设计的Kingo House。
印象深，不是因为它野，而是它太不野了。
乍一看，感觉就像老家的农民房，正面沿街是一堵实到不能再实的墙，后面才是私密的花园，我跟做贼一样绕了很久终于从一个破栅栏处翻进去，看到确实像老家农村的一幕，家家户户开放的院子种满花草，合围起中央广阔的草地，极其生活化，就差喂鸡喂猪了。
回家后，才认真坐下来查这个房子，发现建造时间和他中标悉尼歌剧院是同一年，1957年。最初想法是在当地乏善可陈的affordable housing项目里做一个范例，于是Utzon和他爹投资先盖了一个，找了媒体，拉了赞助进行推广，然后就一口气盖了63个院子，房子当时确实卖的很便宜，直到他一夜成名。具体设计上，Utzon学习了伊斯兰不开窗的沿街立面，吸收了中国式庭院和山墙，外紧内松，别有洞天，暗合了北欧人的趣味。虽说是个一点也不出人意料的设计，可相比起当今美国人住的那些傻不拉几的独栋别墅，感觉还是要舒适很多。
不能说这种房子有多生猛，但是起码是在认真探讨普通人生活的空间，而不仅仅是视觉冲击，这完全有异于我对Utzon的无知性曲解。其实放眼外国这些名家，都或多或少和住宅沾点关系。哪怕别着荷兰标签的丹麦小伙Bjarke也知道在形式生猛之外研究住宅Typology，研究停车，花园，公寓的相互关联，就像Mountain House。更不用提柯布，赖特这些大师各自在住宅领域的探索。近来在欧洲小城，大城胡转，名义是看野房子，记住的却是那些不起眼住宅和街道。
回想起来，我所受过的建筑教育却几乎完全是公共建筑的教育。层出不穷的所谓当代中国建筑杰作更是证明了这一点，从上海令人骄傲的摩天楼群到鸟巢鸟腿鸟蛋，我们有空就去现场看公建，抄杂志上的公建，全方位体会视觉冲击。本科里我接触到的唯一关于住宅的设计课是别墅，而天知道有多少中国人是住在别墅里的。
不知道中国建筑的历史是不是可以说就是住宅的发展史，从草屋到高堂，从平民住的院落到帝王住的宫殿，再到供奉死者的祭坛，以及为神盖的庙宇，无非是不同类型的人住的不同尺度的住宅。一脉相承的空间结构，构件组成，构造逻辑，祖辈相传，不断革新，这才有辉煌灿烂的城市。
然而短短的一个世纪，我们就把住宅抛在脑后了，至少是做设计的人。我们开始学会做酷的房子，欣赏酷的空间，却往往不知道那酷的空间该用来做什么。或许，在不经意间，我们把盖房子和给人盖房子分开成两件事。我们开始鄙视做住宅的人，觉得那是为了钱才和地产商勾结。却没有想过城市里大多数的建筑物是住宅，如果我们害怕市场害怕地产商，长此以往，怕是他们而不是我们在塑造城市。
不得不佩服吴先生还是很有眼光，即使说菊儿胡同建成后问题多如牛毛，可至少是住宅类型上的尝试，可惜后来有魄力的建筑师几乎没有。住宅是个禁地，让花拳绣腿一心成名的建筑师们望而却步。住宅也仿佛成了座金矿，想捞一把的就来做住宅吧。
于是更佩服谢英俊，因为他知道他为农民们盖的是住宅，却不仅仅是住宅。

Two Books for the winter holidays| 寒假讀書

以下兩本書是寒假計畫要讀的，urban generation評析第六代導演對於城市的解析，一帶生長、生活在城市中的導演、其題材更多的關注城市發展。The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century，edit by Zhen Zhang. 另外一本是前些日子Princeton這邊一個老師推薦的：The Concrete Dragon: China's Urban Revolution and What it Means for the World by Thomas Campanella.

Build a City

Hope my awful English could inspire you by ambiguity - Hang

How to build a city? We can start from a road grid; start from some monumental points; start from a social hierarchy or even from some sudden ideas came from the mayor. These are all talking about the physical city, which is always occupying a specific location. However, we are still experiencing another city's existence which is in people's mind.

Like this:

this


And this
These city's names are showing anywhere, on shirt, on mug, on key ring, on post card, even on condom. They are definitely famous, but not only famous, they are also standing for some style, some meaning. People in these cities are happier, feel more pride about their hometown. People out of these cities are desiring to visit them.

But how about these cities:

鹤壁市 濮阳市 南阳市 漯河市 新乡市 济源市 登封市 新郑市 禹州市 巩义市 永城市 长葛市 盐城市 淮安市 宿迁市 镇江市 泰州市 兴化市 东台市 通州市 邳州市 海门市 大丰市 溧阳市 泰兴市 固原市 石嘴山市 青铜峡市 中卫市 吴忠市 灵武市兴义市 都匀市 凯里市 毕节市 清镇市 铜仁市 赤水市 仁怀市 福泉市 南平市 三明市 龙岩市 莆田市 宁德市 建瓯市 池州市 黄山市 滁州市 安庆市 淮南市 淮北市 蚌埠市 巢湖市 宿州市 宣城市 六安市 阜阳市 铜陵市 明光市 天长市 宁国市 界首市 桐城市 ........

This list can be very very long. It includes hundreds of cities which are even hard to be pointed out in China map. My hometown is also among them. So, for the people come from "invisible cities" , like me ( actually my hometown is not totally invisible, since we are famous with thieves and cheaters in south China) are very "jealous" of the people who have their own soccer team, have their own national famous historical tale, have their own university or art museum. Especially when a old man in front of NY MOMA said this to me: "Come on, boy, be happy, this is New York." It sounds like" what an illogical reasoning!" A city's name can be the reason to make you happy！ But it really works.

Ok, I also have an illogical reasoning here: if these famous cities keep being famous, my hometown stay to be invisible. A population's centralization will be our destiny. Beijing won't be able to get rid of heavy traffic jam. NYC will be always the terrorists' first assault aim.

I do not think this means we need a socialism revolution in Cities' world. To make every city to be the same unimportant and poor. Actually what I want to say is: to build a city in mind is as important as build a city on the physical earth. To have a local team in national soccer league for people to follow to support sometime is much more important than to build a high-rise in our poor town.

And I believe in design really can change many things. How about design some high quality shirts like " 我爱濮阳” --“I love PY" Or some better designed package for local brand food? Just not as bad as this
Just like some public squares or some green parks can improve urban life. A well designed souvernier or some local artist exhibition also can help people to know more to love more about their own places.

Revisiting Automobile Dominance1

text by RUAN Hao

In some cities in developing countries, urbanization is arbitrarily taken as expansion. It is true and understandable that with an increasing population and economic demands, efficiency is set as the utmost priority. This is particularly prominent in some Chinese city like Suzhou, with its well-known expansion of the Suzhou Singapore Industrial Park (SIP) area. Twelve lane expressways, sixty storey office building and luxurious gated communities unaffordable to the average are what composed the Central Business District of SIP.

Though seemingly prominent and efficient, public accessibility into the area is at large level neglected. This master plan design focuses on the solution of inaccessibility by suggesting a green grid interactive with the old part of the city. First, inaccessibility is studied through the aspect of contradiction between pedestrian and car which leads to astonishingly horrible data of death from car accidents in Suzhou, and the aspect of community being gated thus rejects public uses. A study of the grid system and its block scale was carried out as the basic cell of the new green grid. Further an ideal unity of green grid which avoid intersection with existing road grid, embedded with new branches of vehicle roads is designed. This unit is further developed into an entire green grid mapped onto the site, fragmentizing the existing huge blocks and breaks the gated communities for sharing by implementing a pedestrian scale grid with similar scale to the old city. The generation of the green grid involves the refinement of existing road grid, branching new domestic vehicle roads, demolish small part of the existing building that contradicts to the green grid and eventually allocate public spaces such as community facilities, urban and regional parks, waterfronts and sports fields within the current vacant blocks created by this green grid. The allocation of public spaces is designed with consideration of its distance to the residential areas in each unit, the overall network of commercial centers in entire Suzhou and the recalling of gardens in the new site area. Later the design goes into one particular section of the site to study the morphology and prototypes of the green grid in interacting with the existing buildings. A generation diagram, section and perspectives are made to exemplify the idea. Such a resistance to the car-dominant area is aimed at providing pedestrian with the infrastructure of their scale which they deserve, to live in a city that truly for its people.

Urban Chopsticks, the name.

text by RUAN Hao

Unlike the westerns using forks and knifes with both hands, we single-handedly use the chopsticks. It is where you hold it, how much freedom space you leave it and the balance and counterbalance of the two chopsticks that matters. The motions of controlling and balancing through juxtaposition had inspired us in dealing with urban issues, particularly in developing countries, where development might have been the overwhelming single-handed power. This bi-lingual blogs envisioned to keep track of our perspectives and understanding on urban issues in this aspect, to how we work and more importantly how we think.

Urban Chopsticks

Hello World!