Victoria Meyers : Invisible Buildings

Victoria Meyers architect featured in Concepts Magazine, Turkey, for her talk, 'Hack Make - Architecture at the Scale of the Hand' in December 2013

 

Shown above: the magazine cover, featuring the entry area, into hMa's Won Buddhist Retreat in Claverack, NY.

Victoria Meyers architect, of hanrahan Meyers architects, is featured in Konsept Projeler (translates to Concepts Projects), Turkey's premier design magazine, in their December issue.  Meyers was in Turkey, as the International Juror for the 2013 Turkish Archiprix.  After judging the Archiprix, Meyers gave a public lecture, describing her firm, hMa, and how she and her partner, Hanrahan, have developed new typologies, studying ideas for Hacker-Maker spaces.  Meyers is currently studying Hacker Maker in her design studio at the University of Cincinnati's School of Architecture, where she is teaching a design studio, with the concept of a Hacker-Maker.  Meyers is the David Niland Chair at the University of Cincinnati School of Architecture

Meyers also discussed her upcoming book, Shape of Sound, during her interview with Concepts interviewer, Baran Danis, and the effect that the study of sound as a formal issue, has also affected the development of hMa's designs.

The article is reproduced below.  I hope they had nice things to say!  They gave hMa a beautiful spread, including extensive views of Won Buddhist Retreat, Holley House, DWi-P, and Infinity Chapel.  You can find out more about the magazine, here:  www.konseptprojeler.com.

Shown above, hMa's DWi-P, a new public building by hMa, featuring a first, Digitally Interactive Facade.  The building had a soft opening in November 2013.  The building is planned to have a formal opening, in 2014, after the DWi-P App is published, and the facade comes 'online' as an interactive public space.

Above:  More images of hMa's DWi-P (Digital Water i-Pavilion).  During her talk at the conclusion of the Turkish Archiprix, Meyers discussed the work of hMa, and how the firm's investigations into contemporary space include Bio-Morphism, and self-replicating systems.  DWi-P is a building that shows this research, as it is a self-replicating system, repeating details that hMa developed in earlier projects, mostly at Infinity Chapel.

Above:  hMa's Infinity Chapel.  Infinity Chapel investigates Sound, through the firm's concept of Snd.BX-2 sound boxes.  Infinity Chapel includes five Snd.BX-2 sound boxes, which act as sound and light transmitters, connecting a lower level Sunday school to the upper level Chapel and Reading Room.

Above:  hMa"  Snd.Bx-2 Diagram, showing how sound and light form the sequence from MacDougal Street to a rear, outdoor Garden Chapel.

Another detail shot of the entry sequence into the meditation hall at Won Buddhist Retreat.  Again, hMa applied ideas that the firm has developed around sound as a formal design element.  The Meditation Hall is designed as a space of 'silence'.  The Hall features state of the art sound dampening details.  If the Buddhists close the doors to the hall, the main hall is completely sound isolated from the surroundings.

Above:  hMa's Holley House.  Holley House is two Pavilions that float in a landscape, separated by a walled structure.  The walled structure acts as a primary support wall for both pavilions, but also creates a separate zone of entry to the two pavilions. 

Holley House:  two pavilions floated in a landscape;  a Stone Wall (inspired by artist Andy Goldsworthy) creates a zone of Entry and Circulation between the two pavilions.

Above:  more images of Won Buddhist Retreat.  hMa won an AIA Honor Award for this project.  The project included a 550-acre site, where hMa designed the Master Plan, as well as the design of five buildings.  hMa designed the site (which was a Brownfield site), and the five new buildings, to have zero-carbon-footprint.

Above:  Won Buddhist Retreat:  All woods in the project are FSC woods.  The image, directly above, shows the Buddhists in morning meditation practice, at sunrise.

 

The mirror analogy above, is from Meyers' lecture, discussing how hMa uses the concept of 'mirror' on hMa projects.  By replicating details and ideas from earlier designs, hMa projects form an eco-system, based on principals similar to concepts of design in the work of Skylar Tibbits.  hMa's work is a 'self-replicating system'. 

 

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Won Buddhist Retreat featured on designalmic.com, Victoria Meyers architect

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Architecture and Green Ecological Urbanist Diagrams, Victoria Meyers architect

Sound Urbanism: How the Infinity Chapel is related to DWi-P, a community center for Tribeca // Victoria Meyers architect

Sound Seminar 5: 'Thelonious Monk, Jazz, and Emergence from Calculus to Cage, and from C.Parker to O.Coleman

Credit for much the contents of this lecture goes to the insightful writing of Martin E. Rosenberg - an Independent Scholar, living in Pittsburgh, Pa..  I highly recommend that anyone who is interested in the contents of this blog post, go to Martin E. Rosenberg's posting on Inflexions:  www.inflexions.org/n4_rosenbergthml.html. 

For session 5, we look at the works of Xenakis and Le Corbusier, and contemporary influences on their works.  This would include the incredibly rapid changes that occurred both socially technologically, fueled by World Wars I and II.

The music of that time reflected many of these changes, especially Jazz, and the work of artists such as Thelonious Monk.  Martin Rosenberg relates many of these changes not only to technologies of mass production demanded by the wars, but also to concepts of 'complexity and emergence' in physics and cognitive science.

Le Corbusier and his atelier, including the amazing Iannis Xenakis, could not help but be strongly influenced by these changes.  This would include Le Corbusier's direct reference to factory produced cars such as the Citroen (Maison Citrohan). 

The fascination with the machine is also reflected around the same time, in the sound works of Pierre Schaeffer, who invented the idea of 'Musique Concrete'.

In addition to changes in architectural design related to industrial practices, Le Corbusier and Xenakis spent a great deal of time trying to solve issues related to climate in their buildings.  Thus Le Corbusier's fascination with the development of new ideas about windows and window design (the brise-soleil;  the aerator;  the vision area of the glass).  This compares to today's practitioners who are focusing on the development of several new ways of conditioning space, with hvac technologies asserting strong influence on the language of architectural design.

Le Corbusier and Xenakis study the 'climatic grid', above, at the Villa Shodhan in India, above.

Rensellaer Polytechnic's CASE (Center for Architecture Science and Ecology, above.

Scientific advances, in turn, have affected sound, and composer's interpretations of sound and music. In 1967 composer Istvan Anhalt composed the 'Symphony of Modules'.  In 2008, architect Steven Holl used Anhalt's base composition as the determining geometry for a new house in Seoul, South Korea.

Again, we return to the original piece that I referenced by Martin Rosenberg.  Rosenberg also references the composer John Cage's decision to foreground the interdepences between music and noise in a careful considered deconstruction of the calculus of music notation in the 20th century.

These formal overlaps and references that connect music, architecture, and culture in the 1950's are the subject of lecture 5, for architect Victoria Meyers' seminar:  Sound Urbanism/ Sound Ecology.

 

 

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Sound Urbanism// Sound Ecology: Prof. Mara Helmuth selected to present sound urbanist concepts from Cage, Partch, and other modern composers

Sound, Sound Urbanism, Formal investigation, and architecture: Sound Ecology // Victoria Meyers architect

Sound Urbanism // Sound Ecology: Stochastic Patterns and Neumes: Victoria Meyers architect

Harry Partch, Gerhard Richter, Le Corbusier, Xenakis, and Johanees Itten: Color and Light affect Sound Urbanism

Work (1954). Thelonious Monk /swinging from another planet/

Sound Urbanism Class #3: Mara Helmuth to present her work: UC Students propose to create a new 'Boite-en-Valise' for Dr. Helmuth

Shape of Sound: Introductory Essay: Shape of Sound:: publication date: May 2014