UCLA randome exhibit
Dick Fischbeck
based on the randome. Here is some info regarding the status of the
project. Huge thanks to Oscar!
Dick
1st pic:
http://groups.msn.com/BuckminsterFuller/
shoebox.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=170
Here is Oscar's original proposal. We later decided using 0.019
aluminum instead of cardboard.
Oscar wrote:
Wight Biennial
Project Proposal
temporary, Oscar Tuazon
A geodesic randome erected outside the Wight Biennial
exhibition extends the exhibition outside-- at the
same time, it creates an autonomous area outside the
exhibition.
The structure, large enough for 2-3 people to sit
inside, will provide a comfortable place for a private
conversation. Inside the dome, the address of the
temporary listserv will be available to anyone
interested in participating in an ongoing conversation
about experimental shelters.
Randomes, developed by dome builder Dick Fischbeck, are
a class of spherical geodesic domes using shingled
conical panels. Requiring no math in their
construction, randomes can be quickly and intuitively
assembled into regular or irregular spherical domes.
One of the primary applications of randomes proposed
by Fischbeck is for use as transitional refugee
shelters. Fischbeck's randomes belong in the sphere of
experimental practices at the margins of architecture
and planning. Unrecognized beyond a small community of
interest, the work of Fischbeck and others like him
explores the practical and political potential of
small-scale, adaptive housing strategies. The
temporary randome, constructed from cardboard, will be
a full-scale model and prototype for simply-produced
shelters.
The temporary listserv aims to address the community
of interest that exists around the design and
deployment of temporary shelter. Initiated by
invitation to online communities devoted to temporary,
emergency, and shelter architecture, the list will
generate a space of collaboration and exchange. The
listserv, which sends member emails to all other
members of the list, produces and distributes specific
knowledge among a group of participants.
The aim of the project is to create and sustain a
system of closed circulation that is both available in
the context of the Wight biennial and independent from
it. Alongside the realization of a functional
prototype, the project aims to establish new networks
of interconnection and activity.
Technical Requirements
Linux or OSX hosting capacity for listserv.
Recycled cardboard (approx. 200 boxes—randome 8ft.
diameter)
Listserv Invitees (working list)
Dick Fischbeck
Icosa Village
Joe Moore, Buckminster Fuller Institute
Genesis Project, Los Angeles
LOT-EK
Einar Thorsteinn, Kingdome
Steve Baer, Zomeworks Corp.
John Belt, SUNY Oswego Design Dept.
Lloyd Kahn, editor, Domebook 1 & 2
Simon Velez, architect
Clark Richert, painter
----------------------------
----------------------------
Oscar Tuazon reports on UCLA randome construction. More pictures when
they
arrive.
Oscar wrote:
"When I arrived, the panels were all painted blue and ready to go. I
started building according to what we discussed: a randomized
arrangement of six spirals from the top. I had a little help painting,
but during the riveting I was basically on my own. The riveting was
actually more difficult that I anticipated-- just reaching inside to
hold the washers in place was sometimes tricky. But it was incredible
how quickly the skin rigidified as I moved around the center, adding
more panels. And I thought it looked really amazing-- the blue was
very
nice, and the shape of the cones gave a nice texture."
"As I neared the end of the construction, I realized that the
structure
as I was building it would be approximately 4 meters across, but with
a
height of only 4 feet or so-- less than the 6 feet I had anticipated.
I'm not sure if this had to do with the way I was building,
overlapping
the edge of one cone about 4 inches from the center of the next cone.
But it seemed that if I overlapped the cones closer together (edges
touching the center of the next cone), the diameter of the structure
would obviously shrink. So I split the difference, and undid two of
the
seams running the length of the dome to tighten them. The final
structure stands more than 4 feet at the apex, and is still 4 meters
across, so several people can hang out inside comfortably.
Finally, I cut a nice semi-circular doorway into the dome and
reinforced it with conduit, laid a new blue tarp over the floor, and
placed a small solar-powered garden light by the entrance for good
measure, so that you can see inside at night. I came back the next day
to find that someone had been hanging out in there reading the paper.
Cool."
"Even as I was building it, I was afraid that the structure wouldn't
support itself-- and I don't think I was the only one. People kept
coming by and asking "what is this thing" "when will it be finished?"
But it was truly amazing to build a completely random dome!! Parts of
the dome are pretty haphazard, somewhat distorted looking blobs, and
to
me that is what makes it so amazing-- these panels will form into a
dome no matter what you do with them!"
"So there it is, a big blue randome at UCLA! I'll send pictures as
soon
as they're developed, and they made a catalogue for the show which has
a nice picture of our proposal inside. I hope you're happy with how it
went, and I hope you like the pictures. For my part, I had a great
time
working with you and learned first hand how amazing the randome idea
is. I can't wait to do more!"
Dick Fischbeck
list again someday. Thoughts?
http://listserv.buffalo.edu/archives/geodesic.html
Anyway, I already posted this writeup on the Buffalo list. Here it is
here.
Dick
Excerpts from "After the Utopian Reflex" by Kirsten Everberg from the
2003 Wight Biennial Catalog-UCLA
In this dynamic rivalry between house and universe, we are far removed
from any reference to simple geometric forms. A house that has been
experienced is not an inert box. Inhabited space transcends
geometrical space.
-Gaston Bachelard, "The Poetics of Space"
In the place that exists between efficiency and idealism, versions of
imagined spaces are made viable with some idea of perfection failed.
For Marc Handelman and Oscar Tuazon, the intersection where
serviceable becomes transcendent and the transcendent becomes
serviceable is where their interests lie. Concerned with the object
and its utility, in the sense that it is a measure of the amount of
satisfaction or pleasure that somebody gains from consuming a
commodity, the product or service, the artists begin to judge the
utilitarian in relationship to the utopic - where utopia is the best
of all possible worlds, an ideal and perfect place or state where life
is harmonious. The distance between what is real and what is imagined
is measured in Handelman and Tuazon's investigation into place,
steeped with historicity and creative social force and non-place,
where individuals are connected in a uniform manner and where no
organic social life is possible.
(paragraph about Handelman deleted)
In another investigation of utopian principles, Dick Fischbeck and
Oscar Tuazon's autonomous social unit, Randome (2003), operates
simultaneously within and independent from the context of the Wight
Biennial. Situated in a landscaped area just outside the gallery, and
constructed of conical panels of recycled aluminum lithography plates,
Randome gives structural expression to ideals of nonhierarchical
living. A temporary structure, the dome can be erected quickly
anywhere, and can accommodate up to three people. Inside, the address
of a temporary listserv is provided, producing and distributing a
specific knowledge among the participants while generating an online
community. A democratic space of collaboration is engendered,
beginning in the space of Randome itself, and continuing into the
virtual realm by means of the visitors' personal computers in the home
or office.
Fischbeck, the original developer of the randome structure, and
Tuazon, an artist living and working in New York City, collaborated to
create this temporary structure to serve as a full scale model for
simple shelters. In its exploration of the political and social
aspects of small-scale adaptive housing strategies, Randome both
criticizes current social norms and attempts to generate new ones.
Yet, as historical criticism has shown, spaces born from this kind of
utopian ideal are largely perceived as fantastical and unrealistic. By
all accounts, the original geodesic dome failed to germinate utopian
communes in the rural West for those seeking physical and spiritual
freedom outside the system. The dome was to be an escape from the
oppressive environment of a rigid society caught up in modernist
preoccupations with legislating order and breaking from history but
for all its popularity, it neither inspired new cities, nor made its
way back to the cities it escaped from. Historic attempts at idealized
urban habitats relied on spatial concepts of isolation, enclosed
cities and self-sufficient housing. Le Corbusier's La Ville Radieuse
in Marseilles, for example, was built on urban visions that were
authoritarian and inflexible, and mandated discrete zones for working,
living and leisure, rather than embracing a more radical integrative
philosophy. Randome operates as a more permeable construction,
encouraging drift and embracing rupture and renewal. Organic and
porous in its desire and ability to create new networks of
interconnectivity between people and space, Randome exists between a
real and imagined expanse of community.
The builders themeless move between the functional and the ideal -
Fischbeck operates on the margins of experimental architecture in the
the real world development of small scale, hand-made housing
structures of simple materials, while Tuazon's larger dome project,
City Without a Ghetto, explores them as an artist, examining our
collective desire for a new utopian city by attempting to actualize
the political, economic and structural relations of disparate sites
throughout the city. The temporary nature of Randome's listserv and
structure underscore the transitory aspect of prioritizing social
issues as a site for artistic engagement. In her survey of practices
that variously constitute site-specificity, Miwon Kwon similarly asks
if public service, as Postion provided by artists, might be part of a
nostalgic move that seeks to restore authenticity to the site in face
of the commodification and serialization of places. So while Randome
at first appears to operating from a sense of nostalgia, Tuazon
asserts that "by reconstructing the ruined objects of an outmoded
utopia, the repressed relations between institutions, communities, and
spaces become intelligible. . .the ruined utopia, more than revealing
the promises of the past that were never delivered, demonstrates the
dynamics of fear and desire that structure the utopian proposals of
the present." By demonstrating a presence or awareness of these fears
and desires, Randome begins to articulate that the distance between
society and community is cultural.
As construction between the real and imagined, the objects and spaces
created in. . Tuazon and Fischbeck's dome installation function as
compromised idealist space. Neither offers a clear image of a new
utilization of space. After the disappointment of the modernist
utopia, revisiting the myth of the dome - has allowed the examination
of the framework supporting our current sense of trepidation and
aspiration to the utopic.
> Recycled cardboard (approx. 200 boxes?randome 8ft.