Groundless Sites

patti

2005-07-28T18:28:00.000-07:00

If you can find the may Architecture magazine (p. 20) notice Tschumi's lattice
approach is in a sense a project that might be viewed as adding an "habitable roof" to an existing substructure.
Its spider-like form allows light to reach the enclave of shops below.
Proposal to save a mixed-use enclave of artist's studio , lofts, and gallerie at ground level proposes a horizontal city 80 feet above ground in Beijing.

rooftop envy

2005-07-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

In today's New York Times, an article about how the competition to build the tallest building continues today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/27/arts/design/27tall.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1122481874-oKnQL/F07IeL3S0E6dDW5w

H.A.C.K.

2005-07-22T14:01:00.000-07:00

High Altitude City Kulture
what type of culture are you defining at the top...a stratified sytem or a reflected city plan?

just wondering how many people have access to their roof top or actually can stand on top of their roof or any other roof in the city?
Documentary= the roof top chronicles: what goes on beyond the sight of vision?

what about a roof top as a flock of heliocopters one giant landing pad...horizontal wind machines, that would be a lot of thrust the roof tops could be mobile and interchange with other roof sytems.

good luck with your presentation
keep up the good work

[raf]ael

I 280

2005-07-14T07:38:00.000-07:00

back in the usa
to paraphrase audioslave
i like the rooftop because
...it doesn't remind me of anything

an under used terrain
a linkless landscape
a disconnected plane
a deconstructed state

wasted talent
under utilized potential
flowerless garden
semiotics of the non referential

back in the americas
north south migrations
i like the rooftops
defined by square foot per capita

-mike-

"topography"

2005-07-13T17:50:00.000-07:00

In considering topography of rooftops, we are interested in the history of visual dichotomies, how people develop such systems of representation and how we learn to read them. (Pre-existing systems worth studying might include what we traditionally think of as maps, as well as the periodic table of elements and the base ten number system.)

In our discussion of what mapping rooftops might mean, we found ourselves using metaphors that dealt with various geological/natural sciences phenomena. This inclination to view the constructed city as natural landform suggests that our attempt to map the uncharted topography of rootops should incorporate a range of tools, theories and methods grounded in the earth sciences.

We also found ourselves using mathematical jargon and visual representations to explain the relationships between rooftop heights, current land elevations, and pre-urban land elevations. We hope to expand on this observation as well.

- Emily and Marcela

invitations posted

2005-07-11T20:37:00.000-07:00

This evening I posted blog invitations to the academic friends of the McCall Design Group Summer Studio, including representatives from UT, Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard, and the ACSA. Keep an eye open for their input!

I'm looking forward to quarantined chatrooms tomorrow!

What is the language of the rooftop?

If language is a system of thoughts, signifiers and linguistic signs involving two or more people which transmits conceptual material from the mind of the speaker to the mind of the listener, I believe that you are defining, perhaps creating, the semiotics of the rooftop. I believe that you are establishing new ways to talk about the rooftop just as much as you are establishing new ways to utilize the rooftop.

-Kathy

subversion cont'd

2005-07-11T15:39:00.000-07:00

Breaking up advertisements on multiple buildings so that they come together from certain ground level viewpoints but appear fragmented (and therefore ineffective) to rooftop viewers:

-- Emily

anti-advertising: sanctuary through subversion

2005-07-11T15:12:00.000-07:00

Last week, I looked at rooftops as a site where urban dwellers can find sanctuary from all of the commercial images and messages that bombard us at street level. I first explored directly changing the rooftops to make them feel more like sacred, "apart" spaces. I ultimately decided, however, that such approaches, which included using vegetation and sculptural elements to edit views, did not do enough to address advertisement specifically.

I decided to focus instead on ways to change urban advertisements so that rooftop observers could not see them straight-on, in their entirety, or at all. Such fragmentation and distortion would render their rhetoric ineffective, and rooftops would become a safe space where city dwellers could take control.

I explored two different ways of creating this sense of rooftop sanctuary. The first involves limiting the heights at which any advertisements, corporate logos, signage, etc. can appear so that no such images or messages could appear in rooftop occupants natural fields of vision. Examining advertisements would require standing at the edge of a rooftop and looking down, and even then the distant advertisements would appear at sharp, distorted angles. The result would be an urban "treeline" similar to the mountaintop zones where forests abruptly cease above certain altitudes.

I then experimented with breaking up vertical advertisements so that different sections appeared on different buildings but appeared connected into a single, unified advertisement when viewed from specific point(s) at ground level. From rooftops, however, these images would appear fragmented once more.

(Images of the second approach to follow.)

-- Emily

Bastille Day

2005-07-11T10:45:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure my other message went through. I look forward to meeting with you on Thursday (14 July).

In case any of you would like some light reading, there is a trilogy by William Gibson relating to various expropriations of urban topography (not necessarily rooftopography) in a post-apocalyptic Frisco (I know — don't call it Frisco!). The books are — Virtual Light, Idoru, and All Tomorrow's Parties (after a Velvet Underground song I think).

— Larry Doll

Belfast

2005-07-11T03:05:00.000-07:00

Dear groundless,
Thanks for the images and texts. I am intrigued and pleased. Thanks also for your care and concern. I've concluded that history is advertising.
Nick and I are having a series of great adventures, learning about place and self. London, Cambridge and Belfast bracket the liminal day of tube terror. We continue to explore the groundlessness of travel, "whilst" contemplating a new objectivity. This postmodern relativity grows weary.
Peace,
Mike

highly covert operation

2005-07-08T15:01:00.000-07:00

Thank Em, Jamba, and Jerm for helping out with the intervention last night. I took some pics this morning from the top of the Bank of America, and the rooftops look great good work...

-marcela

on rooftop advertisement

2005-07-08T12:27:00.000-07:00

Posting on our blog for the first time.
This is a summary of some of the research and final images of the work i have done on the issue of advertisement dealing or related to rooftops.
As the 4 o'clock dateline for our presentation gets closer, i am intrigued and amazed to see how the methodology and schedule frame that we set up earluer as a parameter for our research has yielded extremelly positive results.
Our 4 mini-interventions are about ideas of possible and plausible action and discourse, which i now think it is more beneficial and open to choices of encounter and multiple interests.
Just wanted to say - excellent job guys!!! Thanks for your great imput

Javier

Media as Message:

Advertisement as a medium is unavoidably present in our lives.
This medium carries a message, but it is the way that this message is delivered (the medium) that creates effects on its receiver and produces consequences that absorb, engage or affect our daily routines. The content of the message is secondary to the medium that it is exposed in.

The word “media” was coined and defined by Marshall McLuhan as “any technology that creates extensions of the human body and senses”. This broad definition seems to expand its concept to being an effective mechanism that interacts in several ways with a receiver (a person) to create links in the form of information between him/her and the message at hand. These links are established by means of sensorial effects with specific targets that work simultaneously to absorb the message brought by a given medium.
The direct correlation existing today between medium and message was not always so. McLuhan proposes that the message that a given medium brought in past time was not as effective as it is today since it did not address or manipulated multiple sensorial layers at once. He proposes that the electronic age has restored man’s sensorial balance since it instantaneously collapses all senses into an effective tool of communication, unlike the age of speech or print media which only exercised a particular one.
With the arrival of electronic media as a new medium type that offers a fusion of all senses into a condensed experience, man’s sensorial system is extended to its fullest potential.
McLuhan’s thesis is an emphasis on the medium over the message, on media over its content.
He proposes that historically when people have thought about messages, they have concentrated exclusively on what they were saying (content) and ignored their media. Media or the medium of communication, has played second role to its content, the form of expression has given way to the expression itself.
The delivery system of the message (the media), radically impacts and shapes the content. The content never changes and it is not increased in value or scope by a way of representation. On the other hand the way of representation or delivery of the content, the media, becomes responsible for adapting to the content is an appropriate manner for its proper usage. Some types of media are hostile while others can be beneficial to the same message; therefore it is “how” the message is delivered rather than “what”, what’s important.
In our current society the medium has become the message, the way the content is delivered, portrayed and examined has become our standards to view and evaluate that content.

In regards advertisement, the medium has also become the message. The way and how something is delivered has become the standard to categorize it in our mass-consumed, image driven and global marketed world.
If advertising and the effects it produces have become the message, and its content are secondary to its delivery and implementation system. Then it is helpful to view advertisement as a medium, as a mechanism of delivery and not by the message that it might be attached to. It is essential to view advertisement more specifically and less abstractly, to convey a message that it’s a strategy and approach, instead of a content or concept.
In our sensorial and virtually instantaneous world of results and images of consumption it is more imperative to focus on advertisement as a medium or media of use, and let that notion become its own message.

Advertisement as media is the objective of my research and proposal for intervention. It is extremely interesting to me to explore the idea of advertisement as a medium that takes precedence over message. I plan to explore “how” strictly advertisement could be used to address the rooftop phenomenon and its future potential, letting the exercise create its own environs of speculation and message though abstraction.

test pic

2005-07-08T11:49:00.000-07:00

Just trying out the image posting tool - the image is a possible prototype for a rooftop ad-campaign. hope this works

-jeremy

7/6 morning meeting

2005-07-06T16:08:00.000-07:00

After spending much of yesterday researching different advertising strategies, exploring ethical questions concerning advertising, and looking at ways in which rooftops have been utilized for advertisement in the past, the groundless interns sat down this morning and outlined the distinctive qualities of a rooftop that make it an appropriate site for advertising as well as those qualities which could designate a rooftop as a sanctuary from advertisement.

rooftop as site for advertisement:

-reaches a broader/specific audience
-height suggests authority
-height suggests permanence
-increases shock factor
-encourages voyeurism
-provides different vantage points
-new venue creates new forms

rooftop as sanctuary from advertisement:

-provides seclusion
-physically separate

some ideas that we will address in our designs:

-advertisement FOR rooftop usage
-rooftop as a viewing platform
-rooftop as advertisement
-ads visible from above rooftop
-rooftop as an extension of ad.
-rooftop as a sanctuary from ad.

see you this afternoon with your drawings and design ideas...
also, type up your research summaries and images so i can compile them.

-marcela

ethics

2005-07-05T11:34:00.000-07:00

Considering all of the social and environmental implications of consumerism, is it ethical to design ways to expand advertising's power? And if it's not ethical, is involving rooftops/the rooftop landscape in such a pursuit an act of disrespect or defacement?

on the ethics of advertising:
http://klempner.freeshell.org/articles/advertising.html

(Mike: I just typed in the URL and pressed enter. And thanks for the baseball tickets!!!)

-Emily

over the atlantic

2005-07-03T12:32:00.000-07:00

flying to the uk
to paraphrase u2
the roofs have no names
(and when i go there?)
if things with no names are taboo
[totem & taboo in the 21st century city of your desires]
and the roofs have no names,
are they taboo?
is that why they are a preferred site for the exchange of graffiti?
a culture of the other, the night in opposition to the day commerce.
stealth and silence, appearing with out the presence of production.
graffiti marks the taboo site, challenging while illuminating the unnamed regions of the city.
mike

Go Fly a Kite, Please

2005-07-01T21:30:00.000-07:00

http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/kap/

kate and i both know chris he is a great guy, he is a potential source and or critic.

further development of topics

2005-07-01T17:41:00.000-07:00

To determine which topic to address first, we discussed the advantages of the following topics (listed below as well as in our previous entry). We decided to begin with advertising, as it is interesting, conducive to lots of visual exploration, and related to ideas of marketing and voyeurism, which we've already discussed. Nor are any of us so personally invested in advertising as a topic to oppose using it as the guinea pig for our methodology and ambitous time scheme. We plan to spend Tuesday researching and beginning to make proposals and will use Wednesday and Thursday to represent our proposals, analyze, and conclude.

le list

transportation systems
transportation is a problem
increased transportation would facilitate increased urban density
a network between connected downtown buildings could facilitate transportation routes
pedestrian versus vehicular, mass transportation

natural resource collection
environmental need
direct access to the elements: fog, water, wind, sunlight all become amplified from the roof
potential for food production

shelter: housing, homeless shelter, animal shelter
roofs provide square footage needed to build housing
views
enables people to experience the roof

chat room – creating social networks
a web of rooftops rather than PCs
If people encountered each other across rooftops, they would come up with a way of relating to each other in a way that is totally different than, for example, neighbors on front porches or in a plaza. We could push and engineer the types of human relationships and communication systems were formed by this new spacial relationships.
control and vulnerability

sports complex – the site of an original sporting event
basing a sport primarily on the topography of the playing field
Jeanine Gang – rooftop baseball park
Relationship between a rooftop’s sports function and the building underneath
Look at the New York athletic club!
The idea of exhilaration relates to both athletics and rooftops (height!)
Could also include the amusement park idea (same connections to exhilaration and entertianment)

art space (production and/or exhibition)
a unique location to be adapted to could lead to unforeseen installation pieces, works in totally new media
a whole new “rooftop school” with philosophies drawn from roofops’ conditions

advertising
rooftops create a flat canvas
relates to voyerism…who is the voyeur?
painting rooftops as billboards would require all kinds of anamorphic perspective
add in access—create intertactive rooftop adds

topography
emphasizes the connections/potential connectivity between buildings à looks at rooftops as an integrated system
conducive to studying materials to conceive of a geology of the rooftops
ecosystem

quarantine
a marginalized roof for a marginalized population (of organisms or objects)
Could some of rooftops characteristics facilitate rehabilitation

tourism
could be tacked onto another use (we’d design a way for tourists to observe another use)

wellness center
health benefits to being up on a roof (sun, fresh air, views, connection to the outside world but still safe separation)
palliative care connection?

religious/ spiritual/ worship space
might relate to wellness (yoga, tai chi, healing)
OR adapt a theology (even create a new theology) for worship/practice to occur on roofs

summary of morning's meeting

2005-07-01T12:12:00.000-07:00

thanks to all for a very productive meeting.

The methodology we have decided upon will be the following:

EXPLORE a topic.
-this includes but is not limited to research, visual experimentation, and first-hand observation.
PROPOSE an intervention. such as a new usage, a mode of representation, or event.
DOCUMENT the process and the end product. through drawing, model, writing, performance, installation, film, etc.
ANALYZE the intervention. could be in terms of quantifiable data or qualitative observations.
CONCLUDE. what are possible future directions for this line of inquiry? what did we learn? how are the lessons significant?

Potential topics that we will explore together:

transportation systems
natural resource collection
homeless shelter
chat room
sports complex
creating social networks
art space
advertising
natural topography
quarantine
food production
tourism
amusement park
sanitorium
art production
exhibition space
location for infrastructure system
religious/ spiritual/ worship space
shelter
energy production

these are only initial brainstorms. we will narrrow down the list by evaluating how closely each topic relates to rooftops inherent qualities. we will address each of the topics we select by following the methodology we outlined above. we anticipate addressing at least one topic every week.

bff,

marcela, javier, emily, and jerm

more metaphors + musings

2005-07-01T00:15:00.000-07:00

So many interesting metaphors here...I think a lot could be pushed further and made into maps/systems of representation. Some related musings:

What about somehow combining the two music metaphors that came up today? At Borders, Marcela mapped a cross section a city street onto a staff, changing pitches and note lengths to correspond to different heights and lengths. Back at the office, we likened rooftops to percussion instruments based on what kinds of sounds arise when wind and precipitation hit them (linked to materials). Combining the vertical analysis and the horizontal metaphor, we would have both a score and performers. Perhaps we could overlay the two to come up with different sound bytes to represent different streets or parts of the city.

I also really like the rooftops as islands metaphor because I think it speaks to the visceral (and thrilling) "apartness" you feel when on a roof. So another direction I might go in, research-wise, would be to look at tectonics and land formation. Continental crust, which sits much higher than oceanic crust (obviously), is also much thicker and extends much deeper into the earth. It's depth (or, rather, the subsurface mass that creates that depth) must equal the mass of whatever is protruding, so what you have under islands and land masses is this massive root (think of a molar, maybe). Thus, one way to explore rooftops would be to map out the magnitude of whatever "roots" support certain types and heights of rooftops. This could be the amount of downward force different rooftops exert (which, as with land masses, would be a function of height, volume, and material properties); how deep their foundations must extend (a whole other topography); how much energy it takes for a human to reach the roof, etc.

Or, pushing the roots metaphor farther, what about rooftops as treetops? I like that because it brings in the concept of an ecosystem...how could San Francisco's network of rooftops become a complex ecosystem like tropical rainforests' canopies?

So sorry this got so long...writing really got me thinking!

- Emily

defining a rooftop

2005-06-30T17:53:00.000-07:00

rooftop:

a rooftop is a 2 or 3 dimensional plane; flat, angled or curved; a shelter that shields one from the elements (rain, hail, snow, sun); a shade; home to HVAC systems and pigeons; impermeable, tough, resistant; a 6th wall; a horizontal asymptote; an unobstructed viewing platform; hidden though exposed; above though below; the outer shell; the percussion section; a topography, the underside of a fast car; hot and heavy shingles; a stage; an architect's afterthought; an extruded floor plan; an extension of the walls; a hat; the symbol of communism; a barrier; an escape; a destination; a home; a water basin; a picnic blanket; a ceiling for the sky; a topography; a burden to be supported; a cliff; a precipice; a bridge between walls; a floor; a canvas; a beach; the island; a crib; a cooking pan; a receptacle; a pedestal; a diving board; a deep breath; a groundless site...

...marcela
thank you to all who contributed. please keep adding to this. i envision a scroll

Links from Mike

2005-06-30T09:04:00.000-07:00

Please read:

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/nauman/

http://home.sprynet.com/~mindweb/page41.htm

situationists

2005-06-29T21:24:00.000-07:00

http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/

the essential guide to situationist writing

2005-06-28T15:24:00.000-07:00

Check out Javier's LA Times article on growing rooftop use in downtown LA (and related social issues). I also found the websites of two of the apartment buildings that are utilizing their roof space.

http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-rooftop16jun16,1,4409505.story?coll=la-headlines-home

http://www.santeecourt.com/

http://www.toyfactorylofts.com/

--E

Potential Deliverables

2005-06-28T10:26:00.000-07:00

thesis/conceptual statement
18 july presentation to office critics
step 2 presentation to office critics
book
web site
lunch presentation to the community

Words from the Wise

2005-06-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

An inspirational "haiku" by Mike and Kathy:

toward a groundless site

we will form a unique response to our condition at this location on the edge of the continent now
art architecture
movement stasis
temporal spatial
it is not that i don't believe in time, i just do not understand it
duration perhaps i understand a little
a trail is not a path as much as a marked site
duration
change
mutation
we will mark a site perhaps
a rooftop

Welcome

2005-06-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

After a series of meetings and conversations where we and our mentors, Mike McCall and Kathy Cogan, discussed possible directions for our rooftop study, we decided that we should instead allow our project to evolve organically. Rather than setting a strict initial objective and program, we are beginning by visiting and documenting rooftops all over San Francisco with open minds.

Some notes and guiding ideas from those meetings:

"By exploring the rooftops of San Francisco, we endeavor to develop a methodology for evaluating the rooftop as a site."

"We will 'map' the topography of San Francisco's rooftops in a new and original way, without preconceived rules, using intuition as a guide, to determine a purpose or intention for our exploration."

Based on our experiences, we will develop our own rules and methodologies for documenting our observations and expressing our ideas.