Thoughts on Minamlism

Jil Sander couldnt have said it better:

 “L for luxury, language, lightness” or “G for garden, gender, glasses”. Among them is a rallying cry for simplicity in the letter M.

“My roots are in the Bauhaus movement, which applied functional rationality to the design of practical everyday life,” the designer explains. “Streamlined beauty, clear structures, reduction to the essential and free movement. But functional rationality is only the backbone of my work. I always look for contemporary forms of sophistication and sensual simplicity. I want fashion to be liberating in a subtle way… If there is such a thing as my own signature, it lies in a sense of structure, in quiet beauty and serenity.”

Rem Koolhaas on minamlism:

"Minimum is maximum in drag," wrote the architect Rem Koolhaas: a consciously inflammatory comment, but all too true, I think, where simplicity is crudely translated into a decorative effect. Drag implies spectacle. There is of course a place for theatre, but for architecture of this type, theatre is not the principle on which everything else is hung.

John Pawson as guest editor:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2004/apr/19/guesteditors1

This is definitively not about creating the architectural equivalent of the hair shirt, but about making the best possible contexts for the things that matter in life, on paring back the accretions of surface and behaviour to what is essential: the glory lies not in the act of removal, but in the experience of what is left. Profound - and pleasurable - experience is located in ordinary experience: in the taking of a shower or the preparation of food.

On Limestone:
"Honey colored limestone"
"Halila limestone", " York Stone"

favorite Pawson design detail that celebrates the gap between wall and floor.

D07 Saturday

signed up for 2A class
met J for coffee
went to browse bicycles, and found perhaps the one. a giant tcr sl2.$1800
beautiful aluminium frame with 105 shimano gear set
came back
dinner w S
went to supermarket and bought BKT
chatted w L

started reading a book called Heidegger for Architects. interesting book, well placed, acknowleged his fascist involvement and also his undeniable influenced to scores of architect after.
One of the concepts he had was the state of being. that architects r the few professions in the collective of people that put a building together, in which this concern for this being should be of importance.

D06 Friday Night

my word account is expiring: thoughts from googling on minamalism
Today was a day in learning about strategy.
whether to waiver the carparking requirement or green requirement. which is the lesser of 2 evils?

Minamalist

-Nicolas Schuybroek architects:

Type of minimalism where monastic appearance is lifted by the raw textures. eg: wooden beam ceilings, distressed oak floor, honed marble, furniture pieces

Linear and geometric. simple honest and well proportioned

*no ceiling light fittings

Magdalena keck:

white walls, monochrome furniture.herringbone pattern floor.

light fittings: http://michaelanastassiades.com/collection

grey and scout:

neutrals

-Flooring Douglas Dinesan
-Even John Pawson uses it. Douglas fir wood grows 80-100m. patterns of the sawn grain
-Architect Tommie Wilhelmsen. designs many houses/cabins. nice feel
-jenalkema: https://jenalkema.com/works/

D06 A Thursday

Heard earlier that a fellow team colleague has tendered his resignation.
even though we were not close, i feel a small sadness somehow.
all the rushing, calling , updating of tender drawings. what is there that cannot be solved, that one feels stress enough to resign.

so today, the retender drawings went out. M, and B will be quiet for now.
at least then i can focus a little more on JTK

had a breakfast of noodle soup kwai teow with fishball today
seems to have been the routine for the last 2 days, just that i need to catch the 7.50am bus for this.
the noodles are just so smooth and soft.

today one thing about work i ve realised, is that sometimes, don't be too smart to solve a problem.
and maybe it is better to let things take its course.
when you offer a solution, then the problem becomes yours.
and once so, you cannot stop halfway, or blame anyone for not appreciating as it was yourself who deciding to take it on in the first place

D05 midweek

today was a productive day, sent a copy of the tender drawings of the park to the client.
quite a few things to coordinate. a strange state as in, sometimes the thing that actually gets built, is the attention to detail at the last stage. not so much the first pump of effort to get it right.
guess this is the difference in an overall mindset as well. no point, or yes point to get so upset/ wound up about something as sometimes it doesn't matter. from the design to actual building stage.

as an architect, sometimes i wonder how daring we should be.
even in terms of lifestyle, like in Andos' famed house of making the client walk across 2 sides to feel the rain. here, for this house, it feels too safe. too cocoon. and then i think of Alex Honnald; when he said no one actually achieves anything by being too safe. too comfortable.

perhaps one of the quote each day is to do something to feel alive.
to remind oneselve of it.

D04_Ate a magnum icecream

had portugeuse class earlier
sent out the retender for BBNP
chatted with L on skype. glad to see L warm and getting alot of things done. though this video skype used up 2.4GB of the 9GB already

Listening to a john pawson interview now.
He talked about having to define the notion of simplicty for Phaidon in architecture.
One of the things, he mentioned was " repetition"
spaces that people feel good. somehow i need to read more.

going to brush up and sleep now!