ON LUXURY

ON LUXURY
The need to buy and the desire to buy has refined itself over and over again. The past has shown us that the politics of a plan or the spectacle of a ceiling always embedded a specific message. And as the goods created by a tastemaker embodies aspirations beyond the product’s original intrinsic value, so do these spaces for the life of each citizen.
People’s insatiable appetite for the absorption of these images is a measure of society’s investments. And on the scale of the city, it mythologizes people, histories, & geographies into inexhaustible brands. As a communal examination of current notions, by virtue of the pervasive extension of consumerism throughout our culture, deciphering the patterns can formulate an ultimate hypothetical and ironic "kit of parts luxury".

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A Line in Motion

Chinese calligraphy is a spatial practice: a sensibility combining graphic design and kinesis. The Chinese character is a line graph centered within an imaginary square and written in a prescribed way using rules of stroke order, ensuring that the lines of a word are added systematically, and in the same order each time the word is painted. In Chinese calligraphy, the hand moves in the x- and y-axes – horizontally, vertically, laterally, diagonally – and the z-axis – up and down in relation to the paper. Stroke order ensures that no move is repeated successively. When a brush makes contact with a hard surface, the tip flexes, and the brush responds to a downward force; in this way, a brushstroke is a record of a hand gesture. Going beyond a two-dimensioned graphic, the brush makes active the up-and-down axis, the z-axis; writing is a gesture that operates in three dimensions: as one writes, the hand inscribes a physical space, moves circuitously over a spot while pushing and lifting the brush.

1000 Hours of Drawing: Taylor Ohlsson

Drawings are the product that architects actually create, not buildings. Through various drawing exercises, I am exploring the different aspects of architectural drawings. By drawing different building types, with different media, for a variety of purposes. I am looking for some connection between what and how we draw and the design. I am also looking to have a better understanding of what is the best way to go about drawing a project. In addition to these I want to be better at all aspects of architectural drawing. So, I guess I am looking to answer some of the questions I have in this regard to make me a better architect. I feel that, depending on the circumstances, an architect should be able to decide on what type of drawing would be best suited and how to best accomplish it. In some firms there was something missing in the drawings that were issued. An unexplainable lack of certain elements. Be it detail, information, clarity or beauty. All which are elements that are essential to an architects drawings, in my opinion.

Rome's Twin Histories: Sean Irwin

My thesis adviser told me I speak well and have a convincing voice but my writing is shit. Unfortunately I have to agree with him. So I record myself speaking and then transcribe the text. These are the texts, comments, insights, arbitrary slander, and other musings associated with completing an M. Arch degree.

untitled: s neault m3

a search for a thesis through a collection of interests in tools (grasshopper, StarLogoTNG, space syntax), participatory design (from christopher alexander to teddy cruz), and pop science: collective intelligence/crowd wisdom (steven johnson, james surowiecki, malcolm gladwell).

looking at the "granite block" in downtown galt as a source for data on complexity and the affordances of architectural elements.

testing ideas on provocation/participation in 12x12 (http://benchless.blogspot.com)

supervisor: don mckay

welcome to WACblogs

there are an increasing number of students in our school using blogs to further their theses: here is the place to find these blogs!

if you have a blog and want to share it:

• e-mail me (smneault@gmail.com) and i can add you as an author to this blog
• create a new post, and link the title of that post to your blog
• include a small summary of your thesis in the body of the blog
• tag your blog in a way that will allow other students with similar interests to find your post and therefore your blog (eg. materials, sustainability, residential, commercial, cognitive, social, critical, written thesis, design thesis...try to use existing tags when possible)

to add to the slideshow:

• if you use the tag "WACblogs" on your pictures in flikr those pictures will show up in the slideshow on the sidebar of this site

bookshelf? it might be useful to include in your site a list "gadget" which includes the books you are currently looking at

other ideas? let me know...i can add them or let you log in to customize this site to make it more useful