STUDIO ARC300: THIRD YEAR DESIGN
University of Kansas, School of Architecture and Urban Design
Nils Gore, Assistant Professor
To see and read about each student's work, click on the names below:
Melissa Brown
Enjoli Dixon
Nathan Freise
Aaron Harte
Jennifer Morris
Marshall Morrison
Micki Prinster
Tyler Robertson
Angie Stutte
Chris Walla
Branden Warden
Ashley Whitham
Kristin Winters
The purpose of this project was to study issues of craft and making as the students designed and constructed devices which would respond to wind in some meaningful way. A primary reference for the studio during this project was David Pye's The Nature and Art of Workmanship (Cambium Press, 1968). Several important ideas emerged from this work, and helped guide class discussions and thinking:
Pye (p. 17) says: "(N)o conductor can make a bad orchestra play well; or rather, it would take him years to do it; and no designer can make bad workmen produce good workmanship."
Pye (p. 20 ) says: "The essential idea (in the workmanship of risk) is that the quality of the result is continually at risk during the process of making; and so I shall call this kind of workmanship the ‘The workmanship of risk’….With the workmanship of risk we may contrast the workmanship of certainty….In workmanship of this sort the quality of the result is exactly predetermined…."
Pye (p. 23) says: " The workmanship of risk has no exclusive prerogative of quality. What it has exclusively is an immensely various range of qualities, without which at its command the art of design becomes arid and impoverished" Here, Pye seems to argue that the art of design is dependent on the "immensely various range of qualities" engendered by the workmanship of risk.
Pye (p. 30) says: Rough workmanship may be excellent while precise may be bad….Good workmanship is that which carries out or improves upon the intended design. Bad workmanship is what fails to do so and thwarts the design."
A second source of ideas was Massachusetts artist, Arthur Ganson http://www.arthurganson.com and his film of kinetic sculptures, Arthur Ganson Presents a Few Machines.
A third source of inspiration was the film, The Beauty of Questions, about artist Robert Irwin.
This project begins the end of the semester, where the class focuses on the use of stabilized earth as a building product.
In this project, the studio was divided into teams which would develop a research agenda for issues surrounding soil/cement construction. After visiting a strawbale house under construction near Tonganoxie, Kansas, the class attempted to speculate on issues addressed in the strawbale system which might be applicable for stabilized earth construction (or any construction one might propose).
Water
Issues
How does a system of earth blocks deal with water?
How does an earth block as a single thing deal with water?
Aesthetic
Issues
How does one develop the aesthetic dimensions of a single earth block?
What implications does that have for an entire assembly?
Structural
Issues
What are the structural forces at work in a single block?
What are the structural forces at work in an assembly?
What are the structural implications for the entire system?
Thermal
Issues
What are the thermal issues at work in a single block?
What are the thermal issues at work in an assembly?
Humidity
Control Issues
What are the thermal issues at work in a single block?
What are the humidity control issues in an assembly?
Systems
Integration/Constructibility Issues
How do systems become integrated at the single block level?
How does one think about integration at the assembly level?
This page presents student speculations for stablized earth block building assemblies. The assemblies were developed through testing planned in the previous round of work concerning natural forces.
