ABSTRACT is the yearly publication of work and research from the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation. Produced through the Office of the Dean Amale Andraos, the archive of student work contains documentation of exceptional projects, selected by faculty at the conclusion of each semester. The 2015 edition includes the applied research of the school's laboratories and projects from design studios taught by Benjamin Aranda, Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang, Juan Herreros, Steven Holl, Jeffrey Inaba, Andres Jaque, Laura Kurgan, Jing Liu, LOT-EK, Reinhold Martin, Kate Orff, Jorge Otero-Pailos, Hilary Sample, Bernard Tschumi, Nanako Umemoto and many others. This encyclopedic volume is conceived as both an organizational model for the school and a testament to the global distribution of the work included within.
Architecture needs mechanisms that allow it to become connected to culture. It achieves this by continually capturing the forces that shape society as material to work with. Architecture's materiality is therefore a composite one, made up of visible forces (structural, functional, physical) as well as invisible forces (cultural, political, temporal). Architecture progresses through new concepts that connect with these forces, manifesting itself in new aesthetic compositions and affects. Ornament is the by-product of this process, through which architectural material is organized to transmit unique affects. This book is a graphic guide to ornaments in the twentieth century. It unveils the function of ornament as the agent for specific affects, dismantling the idea that ornament is applied to buildings as a discrete or non-essential entity. Each case operates through greater or lesser depth to exploit specific synergies between the exterior and the interior, constructing an internal order between ornament and material. These internal orders produce expressions that are contemporary, yet whose affects are resilient in time.
Cultural Cues is the sixth book that features the work of the Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professorship, an endowed chairmanship to bring young innovators in architectural design to the Yale School of Architecture. This book includes the advanced studio research of Joe Day of Deegan Day Design in NOWplex, Tom Wiscombe of Tom Wiscombe Architecture in The Broad Redux, and Adib Cure and Carie Penabad of Cure & Penabad in Havana. Housing in the Historic City Center. Sited in Los Angeles and Havana, these studio projects explore contemporary interpretations of the implications of cinema, the museum, and the house taking cues from their complex cultural and urban context. Along with the student work, interviews with the architects about the work of their professional offices, and essays framing the Yale studios are combined with insight into the pedagogical approach of these practitioner-educators.
Platform 8 catalogs a curated selection of work generated in the past year at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Alongside final products of design education, Platform 8 places particular emphasis on collecting and documenting the people and artifacts that shape research-driven design practices. Here, design is presented both as process and as a final product. The book's indexical structure, punctuated with a collection of portraits, presents a comprehensive picture of the school. Platform 8 shows the intention, direction, and passion seen and experienced every day at the GSD.
