cpd normative position

Warwick ManleyRFS 720

Constructive Normative

Warwick Manley27105955

Construction Normative

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This argument seeks to establish a normative position, with a specific constructive emphasis, as an extension to the authors Normative Design Position. The essay is divided into two sections the first establishing a theoretical premise that then informs the second section of realisable tactics.

A LiMiNAL APProAChThe design position sets the stage, arguing for a Liminal Architecture, which is situated to occupy borders, being both-and not neither-nor, it occupies spaces of threshold and transition, seeking to be the means by which differences are mediated.it is argued that an architecture of landscape becomes a primary means of exploring this position, in which the field is privileged over the object (Allen 1985), as distinction becomes blurred.

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DefiNiNg DesigN: Design is a term derived from the Latin disegno meaning drawing (hill 2006), this implies both the drawing forth of a line on paper and the drawing forth of an idea. Design thus links an idea to a thing. The thing acting as a sign (the Latin signum, being the root of disegno) or signifier of the idea. Architecture then has the potential to convey ideas, because it informs actions and creates responses. Meaning however can only be created by the user. The architect can thus create a concept (idea) to act as the generator of meaning.

CreATive users: users of a design should be considered as active participants in the formulation of meaning (hill 2003), the creation of space, and adjusters of building environments. This in turn creates a relationship between the users, the building and the architect.

eThiCs of ArChiTeCTure:As architecture informs actions and creates responses, it inherently affects real people, it thus has social as well as ecological responsibility. These systems must be considered beyond design interventions.

sPeCifiC iNvesTigATioNs specific investigations are necessary because learning from the Dispersionists we find universal rules are unlikely to gain much purchase on reality detailed attention to specific contexts is necessary to make any progress in knowledge. (schroeder 2004)

MAN iN A LANDsCAPe Design should consider man within a landscape, rather than man contained by space, this fosters a change from Western to African spatial models.

CiTies As skiNs:The landscape of the earth is like a skin or a veil, wrapping the globe in its different guises. Cities are like skins of this skin; second skins. Architecture

uses the skin of the earth, it makes it inhabitable. - (Bunschoten 2010) Architecture is thus seen as an extension of the city, as interventions upon a larger fabric, designs should seek to extend this pattern. The thinking argued in urban flotsam becomes a key way of examining cities.

exPLoriNg ThreshoLDs:The outside is not a fixed limit but a moving matter animated by peristaltic movements, folds and foldings that together make up an inside: they are not something other than the outside, but precisely the inside of the outside (Deleuze and foucault 2004). interiors, exteriors and landscapes are not individually defined but rather become extensions of one another.

urBANisM: The global urban population as of 2014 is estimated by the World health organisation at 54% (this up from 34% in 1960) of our 7.2 billion populace .The global increase in urban populations necessitates an increased focus on urban dwelling. urban environments should be strongly considered by developing pedestrianism, increased densities, mix, production and experiential urbanism.Pedestrian urbanism creates environments that relate to the human scale, are lived into, walkable and active.

Density generates the critical mass required for cities to function effectively, whilst reducing the strain on the natural environment created by sprawl.Mix is to be understood as the diversity of options, Productive cities are not purely places of consumption but support themselves, reducing their extended footprints (for food, goods services, material and energy).urban environments should also be considered as places of being, not just realised as functional ordering systems of engineering, transport and services, but should also be considered and designed as experiential places.urban sprawl contributes to the high numbers of cars, distances travelled, length of paved roads, fuel consumption, alternation of ecological structures and the conversion of rural land into urban uses -- all of which are environmentally unsustainable (Who 2014)

sTuDio LABorATory The university studio offers the unique chance for as if projects. These projects carry with them the force and ambition of being actual, achievable proposals. And yet, simultaneously, they also do the opposite - which is to fully understand that the true context of the university and the studio is not to mimic the world of real developers, real money, real sites, real people, for to do so could (and perhaps necessarily would) constrain the possibility of imaging and proposing something more innovative. hence the kind of project which makes a virtue out of this unreality, works in relation to the real and enacts a critical and propositional tension between the two. (Borden 2009). The university studio might be seen as a design laboratory, for exploration of the potentials of architecture.

image 01. Diller scoffido and renfro, Blur Pavillion. This pavillion design challenges thresholds of border through mist, which blurs distinction between architecture and the natural.


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xThreshoLD siTessite determination should seek threshold places, the intention to find spaces in which differences might be mediated. Threshold spaces might be considered as: boundaries (e.g.: the urban and natural), overlays (e.g.: infrastructure and habitation), transitional spaces (e.g. gateways, porticos), or disruptions (e.g. disasters, nature overcoming buildings).

BuiLDiNgs As LANDsCAPesThe conventional figure ground may be challenged so as to blur definition (hensel 200), this entails a change from the mass and space of conventional Nolli and figure ground diagrams, to layering of systems, forms and programmes.Landscape alone seems theoretically prepared and practically capable of collapsing the divide between planning and design. This also entails a compression of divisions between architecture and landscape, between fields and objects, between instrumentality and art. (Waldheim 2005)

The BuiLDiNg As A hyBriDBuildings should host cross-programming informed by contextual need. Cross-programming differs from multiple programming in that it is not programmes that occupy proximate space, but rather are buildings in which typically distinct activities are functionally and operationally tied to one another, so that each informs the other symbiotically. facilitating the creation of new

types, forms, programmes and meanings. This might foster systems and activities feeding off one another, in which flows and reservoirs of energy/resources (groaks 1992) are shared, or in which by products are used to feed other purposes.

MiMeTiC forMProgramme should generate form, this collapse entails that programme and form are indistinguishable, and an inherent part of one another. The aesthetic of the building determined by its function.

sTreeTs NoT roADsstreets should be treated as places of human habitation, spaces to be lived into and not simply moved through. it is thus imperative that buildings relate to the streetscape as active interfaces, encouraging urban activity. similarly circulation spaces should be activated with programmed use and not serve only as vacant access corridors.

image 02. foreign office Architects, yokohama interntaional Terminal. A building as landscape, in which surfaces merge and space becomes an extension of form.

image 03. Author, Des Baker - An extra-ordinary Machine. in this project the mobile building not only hosted the process of print, but itself became a printer, collapsing programme into form.

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sTruCTure As forMin a challenge to Le Corbusiers Domino structure, structure and form might become indistinguishable. structural elements are treated as form making devices.

exPoseD sysTeMs AND serviCesThe building becomes comprehensible and understandable, the services and systems become part of the aesthetic, as they seek to facilitate an understanding of the building. systems and services can then be engaged by creative users in adjusting environments and space.

A quoTiDiAN sTAgeArchitecture sets the place for everyday rituals and events, these should be considered through an architecture of the everyday (Berke and harris 2007), this challenges architectural placement and programming, i.e. housing and taxi-ranks not museums and art galleries. it is an architecture of the ordinary not the avant-garde.

sCreeNs AND skiNsscreens and skins should be employed as design elements that mediate space, reveal/conceal, connect surfaces, extend thresholds, moderate environments and blur definitions.

BuiLDiNg The DrAWiNgMost architects do not make buildings they make information for buildings. They turn ideas into drawings, models, texts and data, where many results inform the production of buildings and others do not. (sheil 2008)Drawings and models should not be considered simply as representations of an idealised design, but rather should favour a process of building the drawing (hill 2008). Whereby representations contain the qualities

of the idea/building. The architectural idea and design process is then explored through making, much like architecture is made by physically making.

AN exTeNDABLe ProCessDesign and construction should be implemented in stages, this might allow for successive additions to be specifically responsive and adaptive, rather than a singular construction event, restrictive to future needs. This facilitates thinking of buildings as having extended lives in which future adaption and change is both inherent and necessary.

MATeriALiTy AND AesTheTiCThe choice of material should be relevant to the context, local methods, resources and aesthetics are thus enabled, generating architecture that is: able to be built because the methods are known, ecological sound (with low inherent energy cost), climatically appropriate, and inform a known aesthetic.

DeTAiLiNgArchitectural details should become microcosms of the liminal design philosophy. Details as such should become parts of other elements, or serve multiple uses.

MuLTiPLiCiTyArchitecture should allow for a multiplicity of use in space and routes, so that freedom becomes a form of practice (Dovey and Dickinson 2002). This allows for a diversity of use and experience.

iNTerACTive BuiLDiNgsBuildings should be considered as operable and changeable armatures, not static objects, adaptable (by interaction or technologies) and informative of users responses.

image 04. Tonkin Liu, shi Ling Bridge 2009, an example of how structure and form might be combined.

image 05. herzog and De Meuron, Basel signal Box. This example of infrastructure as architecture, has a screen as a skin, manipulating what is revealed and concelaed.


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Allen, S. (1985) From Object To Field: Field Conditions in Architecture and Urbanism.

Berke, D. Harris, S. (1997) Architecture Of The Everyday. Princeton Architectural Press: New York.

Bordden, I. (2009) Bartlett Designs. In Bartlett Designs: Speculating With Architecture, edited by Allen, L... {et al.} Sussex: John Wiley and Sons.

Bunschoten, R. (2010) Urban Flotsam: Chora. Edition. 010.

Deleuze, G. Guattari, F. (2004), Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia . Continuum Impacts Edition. Bloomsbury Academic.

Dovey, K. Dickinson, S. (2002) Journal of Architectural Education. Pg 5-13. ACSA

Groak, S. (1992) The Idea Of The Building. First Edition. London. E & FN Spon, Imprint Of Chapman Hall.

Hensel, M. (2011) Type? What Type? Architectural Design. Volume (Issue 81, January/February). Pg 5665. Wiley.

Hill, J. (2003) Actions of Architecture. First Edition. London: Routeledge

Hill, J. (2006) Immaterial Architecture. First Edition. London: Taylor & Francis.

Hill, J.(2005) Building the Drawing. Architectural Design. Volume 75 (Issue 4, July/August). Pg 1321. Wiley.

Schroeder, W. R. (2004) Continental Philosophy: A Critical Approach. First Edition. Wiley-Blackwell.

Sheil, Bob. (2008) Design Through Making. Architectural Design. Volume 75 (Issue 4, July/August). Pg 1321. Wiley.

United Nations. (2012) State of the Worlds Cities 2012-2013: Prosperity of Cities. First Edition. United Nations.

Waldheim, C. (2005) Landscape As Urbanism. In Waldheim, C (ed.) (2005). The Landscape Urbanism Reader. First Edition. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

Weller, R. (2005) An Art of Instrumentality: Thinking Through Landscape Urbanism. In Waldheim, C (ed.) (2005). The Landscape Urbanism Reader. First Edition. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

World Health Organisation. (2014) Global Health Observatory (GHO). [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.who.int/gho/urban_health/situation_trends/urban_population_growth_text/en/. [Accessed 23 September 2014].

Image 01. Unknown. (2012) Blur Pavillion by Diller Scofido and Renfro. [Online] Available from http://c1038.r38.cf3.rackcdn.com/group1/building2465/media/media_3.jpg[Last Accessed 24 March 2015]

Image 02. Unknown. Foreign Office Architects, Yokohama International Terminal, Image 03. [Online] Available from http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4986/984/1600/basel_signal_box_four.jpg [Last Accessed 24 March 2015]

Image 03. Manley, W. Taljaard, C. Steyn, S. (2010) An Extra-Ordinary Machine.

Image 04. Tonkin, L. (2009). Shi Ling Bridge. [Online] Available from http://tonkinliu.smartdesigns.sk/files/9613/3181/3515/ecc_process_shi_ling_bridge.jpg [Last Accessed 24 March 2015]

Image 05. Unknown. Rail Switch Tower by Herzog and De Meuron. [Online] Available from http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4986/984/1600/basel_signal_box_four.jpg [Last Accessed 24 March 2015]


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