Tuesday, February 26, 2008

that is the question

First of all, don't miss this Friday's presentation by Bjarke Ingkel of BIG (http://www.big.dk/) at room 1100 in the Art and Architecture Building at UIC at 6:00 p.m.

In the spirit of the axiom "the dumbest question is the one never asked," here are the questions that were never asked of the discussants. As with most axioms, the penetrating wit and seductive eloquence of these questions truly debunks the aphorism that unasked questions are necessarily dumb. Therefore since brevity is the sole of wit and tedious the limbs and outstretched flourishes......


The questions will follow this post

11 comments:

Sam said...

a few questions to pose:

Questions to the Conference

Do you feel the chair you are sitting in reflects your personality, and/or your own design sensibilities? Was your choice of seat conscious? Additionally, what are a few of your favorite chairs?

Would you agree that you all are, in essence, curators? On the point of collaboration and co-authorship, where do you see the role of the curator? Do you see curating as a form of art/design as relevant as any other?

Anonymous said...

If everything is design, what is good design and why?

Design is the idea, the invention, the process, the materials, the product, the visual, the effect, the usage, ect. Does the overall health of the design, environmentally and physically, make it good or bad? Does the functionality, or ability to problem-solve make it good or bad? Does the appeal and emotive response to it make it good or bad? Is it the harmony of all three? Is good and bad subjective to personal opinion? If so, to who’s opinion, the audience, the designer, or the outside critics of the design world? Does aiming at a specific audience make a design elitist or better functioning?

Collaboration?

What is collaboration? Is it intentional team-work? Is it the osmosis/zeitgeist idea of complex systems of human interaction? Can one individual come up with a design? Do so many things effect design that an individual’s idea is just a reaction to it? Just how great do you have to be in order to stand out? Does a designer have to encompass all aspects of design or can a person concentrate on one and still sleep at night? Is collaboration always about working together, or can healthy competition for money, power, fame, ect., fuel new, possibly better, designs? Is an individual’s desire to work alone a bad thing if in the end every action has a reaction?

why debate? Designing is just a job!

Whether design is everything or nothing, is it not alright if a designer makes, does, and thinks in his or her own way?

Jk architecture and public said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Alexander Pena said...

-How did Bruce come up with the conclusion that we need 4 worlds to support out consumption?

-What would you say design is, and do you think design is being denied?

-if design is denied, why do you say is denied, and what do you classify as denying design, and who do you think is withholding design.

iSMITH said...

To Bruce Mau:
What is it that you do? How does it fall under the cloud of design? Would it be appropriate to ask if you are really a designer, or is your practice as yet unnamed, maybe "pre-apocalyptic-engineering" would be more apt... Would you feel more comfortable at another school? Your definition of design seems to be more based on a process or a series of material selections and manufacturing decisions. What implications do you think your design process is supposed to have on the practice of invention in design?
To Zoe Ryan :
You've been attacked several times; but you seem to be refusing to defend yourself without aligning with a member of the panel. If you were to assume that none of these characters are on your side or willing to back you up, what would you say?
To Mr. Kipnis:
If design exists in order to affect the way that people understand the world, what are successful examples of this affective design?
To Aaron Betsky:
Your comments about design seem to threaten the practice in an almost opposite method from Mr. Mau; but with the same effect, mainly, that architecture, design, as a medium driven by realization and commodity could cease to exist if it becomes only an ephemeral grouping, in miniature, of what could be, or with the passing of time, what could have been. If your intention to demote architecture to an artistic medium in order to free up the thinking of the practice was regularized, how would you sleep at night?

eden said...

so here are some domb questions:

so what do you think is "good" design?
what should be though, sought, and taught?
what do you think young designers and yet-to-be designer's task?
what do you think you have in common?

meeker_makedo said...

1. should an architect always feel a responsibility to change the way people think?

2. then is it ok to build architecture that is merely a temporal manifestation of current thought?

3. i ask this question because i believe that many architects are struggling with the idea that their work should stand the test of time. isn't that what theorists are most concerned with, and commercial architects give up on?

Jk architecture and public said...

- Can you relate your unique outlook to the sustainability?
- Why do you keep the beard? Or Do you believe in sustainability of your beard
- what kind of personality of yours that you think attract other away from your famous?

Sang_y4 said...

Do you think you're genious through the world?

Joon Yang said...

If design serves the intention, is it good design? (ex, starbucks chairs to make customers uncomfortable)

What is the most important value/role/responsibility of designers in this era?

eneme said...

What is the opinion of the panel of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn by Frank Gehry, Forest City Ratner, et al?

http://www.atlanticyards.com/