3. ; Architecture/Nature as CONCERNS
As sustainability enters the
mainstream, becoming the
accepted goal if not always the
practice of governments and
architects alike, it seems to be
slipping through our fingers. No
longer an alternative route out in
the cold, green architecture is,
as a result, ever more elusive
and difficult to define
(Castle 2001)
4. John Dewey… “Art is not the same as the art-object”.
“The great appeal of pragmatist aesthetics for anyone
interested in architecture, is that it takes everyday experience
as the basis from which to extrapolate…most often what we
need from a building is for it to give an appropriate frame and support for our
everyday habits”.
Andrew Ballantyne, Architecture Theory, 2004, p.33
“Instead of seeing progress as a matter of getting closer to something
specifiable in advance, we see it as a matter of solving more (local)
problems one at a time”.
Richard Rorty Achieving our Country, 1998, p. 28.
.
Pragmatic Aesthetics
5. fallibalism, a commitment to the continual review and revision of projects.
As Hickman explains, Dewey thought that the
“history of human progress is a history of men and women coming together
to form communities of discussion, inquiry, and activity and then constructing
new tools: new ideas and new habits of action that are based upon careful
experimentation.”
(Hickman 2001: 52).
“Regime of Explorative Engagement” – Laurent Thevenot.
CIties as experimental
projects
6. I have a political opinion and I’m a political artist. . . I do not
explicitly say that, but I hope that my work will shape things or that
I can influence the world and make it a better place through my
work.
Wolfgang Weileder, June 2011
13. “Transfer invites us to engage with a
view of architecture as a flow of
practices both of construction and
consumption. This opens up a space
for a different conversation about
architecture in which design and
development is a process of building
networks and enrolling actors,
agencies, technologies, materials,
legislation, etc. to collectively produce
a stable material artefact” (Guy 2006:
65)
14. STILT HOUSE Singapore 2011
TEAM EUROPE
Professor Wolfgang Weileder The University of Newcastle
Professor Simon Guy The University of Manchester
Dr. Oliver Heidrich The University of Newcastle
17. Aquadyne: drainage panels that are
manufactured from mixed waste plastics
(22cm x 35cm x100cm).
The total amount of recycled plastic waste
used in the installation is 850kg. That is
the equivalent of 28,220 plastic bottles.
Saves approximate 2 tonnes of CO2
equivalent (compared with landfill)and
about 1.5 tonnes (compared with
incineration)
Shipping 1 tonne (2000 Pounds of
material 7000miles is creating 0.26tonnes
of CO2 Plus 0.05 CO2 for trucking it within
the UK (300 miles)
18.
19. Stilt House
hub to hub, ArchiFest
Singapore
Aquadyne, system scaffolding
2012
20.
21. – How far can a temporary public artwork physically manifest debates
about sustainability between diverse stakeholders and can it act as a
catalyst for further dialogue?
– In what new ways can public artwork animate community involvement
in advancing or exploring sustainability issues?
– What is the range of environmental concerns mobilised in the debates
around art and sustainability, and why?
– What is the potential legacy and impact of temporary artistic
interventions?
24. Dunston Staiths, c. 1970
Example image
Image courtesy of Tom Yellowly, Tyne
and Wear Building Preservation Trust
25.
26.
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28.
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31.
32.
33.
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35.
36.
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38.
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40.
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46.
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48.
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50.
51. “And if you think of Brick, for instance,
and you say to Brick: “What do you want Brick?”
And Brick says to you
“I like an Arch.”
And if you say to Brick
“Look, arches are expensive,
and I can use a concrete lintel over you.
What do you think of that Brick?”
Brick says:
“… I like an Arch”
Louis Kahn, Conversation with Brick, 1971
Respecting Materials
58. What could the Staiths be?
Have your say…
You can’t miss the Dunston Coal Staithes. Iconic, massive and in need of tender loving care.
The Tyne & Wear Building Preservation Trust has secured nearly £1 million worth of funding to
bring it back as a visitor attraction. But exactly what should that be?
Let your imagination run wild and post your ideas in the comments
59.
60.
61.
62. Book Contents
Foreword Tim Ingold
Prologue Simon Guy
PART 1: PROPOSITION
Placing Jetty Simon Guy and Angela Connelly
Reflections on the Jetty Project Wolfgang Weileder & Simon Guy
Mapping Sustainability Concerns Simon Guy and Angela Connelly
PART 2: DISRUPTION
Producing a Public Artwork Edward Wainwright
Experiencing Anew Simon Guy & Angela Connelly
Location: The Art of Making Place Marianne Wilde
PART 3: RECLAMATION
Icon of a De-industrialised Site Malcolm Miles
An Open Work Ludovica Niero
Recuperation Michael Tawa
Coda Simon Guy
63. The cosmopolitical proposal
(…) requires no other verification than the way in which it is able
to ‘slow down’ reasoning and create an opportunity to arouse a
slightly different awareness of the problems and situations
mobilizing us.
Isabelle Stengers, ‘The Cosmopolitical Proposal,’ in: Bruno Latour
and Peter Weibel (Eds), Making Things Public: Atmospheres of
Democracy, Cambridge [MA], 2005, p. 994
64. The Cosmopolitical Artist?
Weileder considers himself to be a
political artist. More precisely, he
exemplifies what, following
Isabelle Stengers, we might term a
cosmopolitical artist; the added
prefix refers to ‘the unknown
constituted by these multiple
divergent worlds and to the
articulation of which they could
eventually be capable’
65. Translation
• The jetty project highlighted how the energy of coal
transformed the massive mobilities of industrialisation,which
translated into massive planetary mobilities of micro particles
and CO2, now translating forms of ecological engagement into
political momentum.
• Jetty also allowed translations between social theory and
research, art, anthropology, history, art, different perspectives
like the sustainability paradigms we mapped, communities and
academics, past, present futures
66. Momentum -
• Jetty draw out how many people and actors have worked
tirelessly making the jetty project possible, not in a concerted
teleological project but as an emergent coalescence of shared
interests.
• The multiple dimensions of that gathering - from the aesthetic
attractor qualities of the structure itself and the cone, gap,
bridge to the practical relevance of it for the birds and the
passion for heritage - mapping those attractions, movements
and their gathering and momentum.
• A commitment to ‘Commonality’ (Laurent Thevenot) through
the visual…
67. Mobile methods –
• Jetty followed a mobile, inventive approach, tracing how
actants moved with each other, with the structure as it is now,
its past, futures, how we as researchers were moved by it and
things along the way, and moved to make/do what the project
team did and how this played out for the many actors involved.
