Thursday 12 November 2009
a book/journal thing we need to find somehow
Artículo: 2G Nº6 Ushida Findlay
Autor: Nexus
Editorial: Gustavo Gili, S.A.
Precio: 21,15€
Entrega: aproximadamente 30 días
4% IVA no incluido
'Labour of Love' Architect Katherine Findlay, London, Blueprint Magazine
In June most architects were shocked to read in the trade press that the highly respected and seemingly successful firm Ushida Findlay had gone into voluntary liquidation. Best known for a series of imaginative private houses completed in Japan in the early ‘90’s the practice appeared to be winning work all over the place—notably in the small country of Qatar, where it had several interesting projects underway. But financial issues with one of the projects, the Doha Villa, forced Kathryn Findlay to lay off her 23 staff. It was the vast scale and contractual complexity of the villa that landed her in difficulty, after two years of fantastically labour intensive work during which the office produced 25-30 handmade models of the project. Meanwhile, a 2sqm plaster model of the villa, which looks like it has been carved out of stone like a sensuous Brancusi sculpture, is on show at the Venice Biennale. Ironically, this could be the building that really makes Findlay’s name after a series of false starts. Read more in Blueprint Magazine no.224, October 2004.
They have it in the library, i'll scan and PDF it tomorrow
xx
some small pictures of projects
although i cant really work out what this website is about
http://works.mosaki.com/?eid=13484&target=trackback
can anyone make these pictures bigger?
http://works.mosaki.com/?eid=13484&target=trackback
can anyone make these pictures bigger?
The best website i've found so far
in terms of pictures and a breakdown of some significant projects
http://www.archilab.org/public/2000/catalog/ushida/ushidaen.htm
checkitout yo
http://www.archilab.org/public/2000/catalog/ushida/ushidaen.htm
checkitout yo
Friday 6 November 2009
some background info the "the hill"
16 May 2007
Students aim to be Kings of `The Hill'
A striking design for a unique building being planned for the heart of London forms the centrepiece of the Degree Show exhibit from three students at the University of Dundee this week.
Fifth-year students Lesley McIntyre and Michael Williams, together with third-year Sarah Brown, have all worked on the latest project from acclaimed architect Kathryn Findlay, who is a Professor of Architecture and the Environment at the University.
`The Hill’ is a new public building focusing on sensory experiences which is planned for a site at Potters Field, next door to Tower Bridge. Created for a client, theatre expert Simon Elliot, the plans for the building include a zero gravity room, a mutating maze and slow food restaurant.
Professor Findlay’s new practice, Fieldwork, has a unique position within the University’s School of Architecture. When the practice was commissioned to work on the design for The Hill, Professor Findlay didn’t hesitate to involve her students, who have responded to the challenge in brilliant fashion.
"This has been a fantastic experience for us as students," said Lesley McIntyre (24), from Portstewart in Northern Ireland. "This is not just a piece of theory we are working on, it is a real project which may well come to fruition, which adds an extra edge to it."
Michael Williams (23), from Ballymoney in Northern Ireland, added, "The plans we have worked on are for a very complex, pioneering building which offers all sorts of new challenges for us as architects. It has been great for us to be able to bring our ideas to the table for a major project right in the heart of London."
Professor Findlay said the students were benefitting from the unique positioning of the Fieldwork practice within the University.
"Our set-up here is very unusual in that we have a full working architect’s practice inside the University’s School of Architecture," said Professor Findlay.
"The work we do as a practice throws up great opportunities for research and teaching, so it makes sense to involve the students in what are real, live projects."
Sarah Brown (26) from Dundee has visited London and New York on scholarship programmes developing specialist skills in `smart geometry’ through her work on the project, which she has carried out on a year-out from her course.
Professor Findlay said `The Hill’ could be used as a park on the outside and an arts space on the inside. "We’re trying to create free-floating spaces, a very permeable relationship between inside and out," she said.
Plans for The Hill are on display at the University of Dundee School of Architecture Degree Show 2007 this week.
Degree Show 2007 takes place at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design and the University of Dundee School of Architecture from May 19th to 26th. Opening times are 9.30 am to 8.30 pm Monday to Friday, 9.30 am to 4.30 pm at the weekend (closes 2 pm Saturday May 26th). Entrance is free and all are welcome to attend. www.dundee.ac.uk/pressoffice/degreeshow07/
NOTES TO EDITORS
Professor Kathryn Findlay was been appointed Chair of Architecture and Environment at the University of Dundee in 2006. She was formerly Principal of Ushida Findlay Architects and Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo.
Her appointment at Dundee was based on her international reputation as a practicing architect working in Japan, the Gulf and the UK. Her work has received international acclaim for its originality and influence since the realisation of her Truss Wall House in 1993.
At the University, she has established a new architectural practice, Fieldwork, centre for architecture, in partnership with her existing practice, Ushida Findlay Architects.
In addition, she has establishing a research unit, Field architecture design research, to explore and expand on ideas that develop from her live practice.
She is currently heavily involved in plans to embark on a feasibility study to examine the prospects of the Victoria & Albert Museum establishing a presence in Dundee (see: www.dundee.ac.uk/pressreleases/2007/prapril07/linkup.html)
Professor Findlay has a special commitment to the environment and environment is the primary focus of her design. Her ideas and projects have drawn the attention of politicians and environmental policy makers. In particular, her New Grafton Hall project, a prize winning country house, gained international publicity after it was identified as a seminal case study in the development of the new UK Planning Policy Guidance on the development of rural buildings.
Students aim to be Kings of `The Hill'
A striking design for a unique building being planned for the heart of London forms the centrepiece of the Degree Show exhibit from three students at the University of Dundee this week.
Fifth-year students Lesley McIntyre and Michael Williams, together with third-year Sarah Brown, have all worked on the latest project from acclaimed architect Kathryn Findlay, who is a Professor of Architecture and the Environment at the University.
`The Hill’ is a new public building focusing on sensory experiences which is planned for a site at Potters Field, next door to Tower Bridge. Created for a client, theatre expert Simon Elliot, the plans for the building include a zero gravity room, a mutating maze and slow food restaurant.
Professor Findlay’s new practice, Fieldwork, has a unique position within the University’s School of Architecture. When the practice was commissioned to work on the design for The Hill, Professor Findlay didn’t hesitate to involve her students, who have responded to the challenge in brilliant fashion.
"This has been a fantastic experience for us as students," said Lesley McIntyre (24), from Portstewart in Northern Ireland. "This is not just a piece of theory we are working on, it is a real project which may well come to fruition, which adds an extra edge to it."
Michael Williams (23), from Ballymoney in Northern Ireland, added, "The plans we have worked on are for a very complex, pioneering building which offers all sorts of new challenges for us as architects. It has been great for us to be able to bring our ideas to the table for a major project right in the heart of London."
Professor Findlay said the students were benefitting from the unique positioning of the Fieldwork practice within the University.
"Our set-up here is very unusual in that we have a full working architect’s practice inside the University’s School of Architecture," said Professor Findlay.
"The work we do as a practice throws up great opportunities for research and teaching, so it makes sense to involve the students in what are real, live projects."
Sarah Brown (26) from Dundee has visited London and New York on scholarship programmes developing specialist skills in `smart geometry’ through her work on the project, which she has carried out on a year-out from her course.
Professor Findlay said `The Hill’ could be used as a park on the outside and an arts space on the inside. "We’re trying to create free-floating spaces, a very permeable relationship between inside and out," she said.
Plans for The Hill are on display at the University of Dundee School of Architecture Degree Show 2007 this week.
Degree Show 2007 takes place at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design and the University of Dundee School of Architecture from May 19th to 26th. Opening times are 9.30 am to 8.30 pm Monday to Friday, 9.30 am to 4.30 pm at the weekend (closes 2 pm Saturday May 26th). Entrance is free and all are welcome to attend. www.dundee.ac.uk/pressoffice/degreeshow07/
NOTES TO EDITORS
Professor Kathryn Findlay was been appointed Chair of Architecture and Environment at the University of Dundee in 2006. She was formerly Principal of Ushida Findlay Architects and Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo.
Her appointment at Dundee was based on her international reputation as a practicing architect working in Japan, the Gulf and the UK. Her work has received international acclaim for its originality and influence since the realisation of her Truss Wall House in 1993.
At the University, she has established a new architectural practice, Fieldwork, centre for architecture, in partnership with her existing practice, Ushida Findlay Architects.
In addition, she has establishing a research unit, Field architecture design research, to explore and expand on ideas that develop from her live practice.
She is currently heavily involved in plans to embark on a feasibility study to examine the prospects of the Victoria & Albert Museum establishing a presence in Dundee (see: www.dundee.ac.uk/pressreleases/2007/prapril07/linkup.html)
Professor Findlay has a special commitment to the environment and environment is the primary focus of her design. Her ideas and projects have drawn the attention of politicians and environmental policy makers. In particular, her New Grafton Hall project, a prize winning country house, gained international publicity after it was identified as a seminal case study in the development of the new UK Planning Policy Guidance on the development of rural buildings.
Friday 30 October 2009
Good website-lots of info
http://www.e-architect.co.uk/architects/kathryn_findlay.htm
Kathryn Findlay - Background
Kathryn was the daughter of an Angus sheep farmer but went on to great things, invited to the Venice Biennale, and Professor of Architecture at Tokyo Unversity.
Findlay graduated from the London AA in 1979. Recently Kathryn made her name with a starfish-plan design for a country house in England - Grafton New Hall. Ushida Findlay gained this project by winning the Royal Institute of British Architects’ competition in 2002 for a proposed English country house. The developer of Grafton New Hall intends to use the starfish design with a new architect.
Kathryn Findlay became an honorary architecture professor at Dundee University in 1999. Kathryn received an architecture scholarship from the Japanese Ministry of Education for postgraduate research at Tokyo University.
Apart from Wishaw and Granton, Ushida Findlay were working on projects in Doha - a Museum and two grand houses, one for Quatar's Minister of Culture.
As well as the problems in Quatar, Ushida Findlay Architects’ £4m arts centre was halted by Bury St Edmunds Borough Council in April 2004. Ushida Findlay had won another Royal Institute of British Architects’ competition converting the Corn Exchange in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Ushida Findlay also lost the Plymouth University Competition in 2004 to design their Faculty of Arts & Humanitites building. An English project Stade Maritime Landmark project - visitor centre and restaurant - in Hastings, West Sussex was won in 2002 but Kathryn Findlay was dropped in 2003.
Kathryn Findlay interviews in AJ Sep 04 & BD w/e 27.08.04
Scottish Architect
Kathryn Findlay is the Scots-born half of architects Ushida Findlay. Over the last 13 years Kathryn, along with her partner Eisaku Ushida, has been responsible for designing some of the “most appealing visions to emerge in some decades” as well as also enjoying a spell as the first women Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Tokyo. Kathryn Findlay has an intuitive intelligence for what she calls 'poetic space' for the possibilities inherent in translating the idea of landscape into buildings and interiors. Kathryn will explore the journey of discovery from concept to completion in Japan, the UK and around the world.
Penny McGuire in AR1257 describes Ushida Findlay buildings as all being "products of a quicksilver originality", drawing on "dream-like, poetic impulses to unsettle and delight"; they have a "habit of borrowing ordinary materials and using them in ways that challenge perception of them".
Kathryn Findlay - Background
Kathryn was the daughter of an Angus sheep farmer but went on to great things, invited to the Venice Biennale, and Professor of Architecture at Tokyo Unversity.
Findlay graduated from the London AA in 1979. Recently Kathryn made her name with a starfish-plan design for a country house in England - Grafton New Hall. Ushida Findlay gained this project by winning the Royal Institute of British Architects’ competition in 2002 for a proposed English country house. The developer of Grafton New Hall intends to use the starfish design with a new architect.
Kathryn Findlay became an honorary architecture professor at Dundee University in 1999. Kathryn received an architecture scholarship from the Japanese Ministry of Education for postgraduate research at Tokyo University.
Apart from Wishaw and Granton, Ushida Findlay were working on projects in Doha - a Museum and two grand houses, one for Quatar's Minister of Culture.
As well as the problems in Quatar, Ushida Findlay Architects’ £4m arts centre was halted by Bury St Edmunds Borough Council in April 2004. Ushida Findlay had won another Royal Institute of British Architects’ competition converting the Corn Exchange in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Ushida Findlay also lost the Plymouth University Competition in 2004 to design their Faculty of Arts & Humanitites building. An English project Stade Maritime Landmark project - visitor centre and restaurant - in Hastings, West Sussex was won in 2002 but Kathryn Findlay was dropped in 2003.
Kathryn Findlay interviews in AJ Sep 04 & BD w/e 27.08.04
Scottish Architect
Kathryn Findlay is the Scots-born half of architects Ushida Findlay. Over the last 13 years Kathryn, along with her partner Eisaku Ushida, has been responsible for designing some of the “most appealing visions to emerge in some decades” as well as also enjoying a spell as the first women Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Tokyo. Kathryn Findlay has an intuitive intelligence for what she calls 'poetic space' for the possibilities inherent in translating the idea of landscape into buildings and interiors. Kathryn will explore the journey of discovery from concept to completion in Japan, the UK and around the world.
Penny McGuire in AR1257 describes Ushida Findlay buildings as all being "products of a quicksilver originality", drawing on "dream-like, poetic impulses to unsettle and delight"; they have a "habit of borrowing ordinary materials and using them in ways that challenge perception of them".
Guardian Article - The rural renewal of Kathryn Findlay
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/jul/19/kathryn-findlay-ushida-poolhouse-2
The rural renewal of Kathryn Findlay
She made a name for herself in the 1990s with eerie, alluring buildings like the Soft and Hairy House. Now Kathryn Findlay is back – and shaking up the slow-moving, bureaucratic world of rural architecture
Steve Rose
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 19 July 2009 21.35 BST
Article history
A mowable roof ... Kathryn Findlay's Soft and Hairy House. Photograph: Ushida Findlay
If there's a market to be cornered in poolhouses, especially thatched ones, then Kathryn Findlay is ahead of the pack. It's not a particularly lucrative seam, admittedly, but for a small domestic building tucked away in a village, Findlay's latest poolhouse is disproportionately significant.
For one thing, it marks the return of one of British architecture's most intriguing and influential figures. Ushida Findlay, the practice she ran with her now-ex-husband Eisaku Ushida, turned heads in the 1990s with a succession of wildly imaginative houses in Japan and the UK that seemed to have come from a different planet. But the rising practice somehow went bust in 2004. Secondly, this comeback project, Poolhouse 2, isn't just a fascinating collision of traditional craftsmanship and computer-aided design; it could also contain the germ of a new aesthetic for 21st-century rural architecture.
You don't have to be an expert to glean both influences in Poolhouse 2. Usually, when you see a thatched roof, there's a hefty cottage beneath it. Yet here, the walls are glass. Furthermore, this thatch curves and undulates in ways traditional structures don't. Although that wavy roofline brings to mind flowing water, or the back of a mythical creature, it was determined less by fancy than necessity: the poolhouse had to join two buildings, a 17th-century barn and a 16th-century farmhouse, that sit at an angle to each other, on different levels – and provide a handy place to swim, of course.
Findlay's friend Peter Cook, a pioneering British architect and her former tutor, calls her marriage of tradition and technology "digi-thatch". But why bother with a thatched poolhouse at all? Not, primarily, to make a quirky architectural statement. The real driving force behind the project, it turns out, was the local planning committee. The house is situated in the sort of village in the Chilterns that wouldn't look out of place in a National Trust calendar. Any remotely modern building would look out of place here. In fact, the planning committee objected to any new building on the site since it would block views from the village to the Teletubby-ish vales beyond. So the poolhouse's glass walls preserve the countryside views and the thatch preserves the village character. Findlay had to bring in various experts to win the committee over, including neo-classicist Robert Adam (an unlikely ally if ever there was one) and TV historian Dan Cruickshank. Altogether, the planning process took eight years. It's not easy being innovative in the great British countryside.
The result, though, is the perfect place to bathe away the stress of a lengthy planning battle. On the inside, the undulations of the roof give a rounded softness to the white ceiling. The overall impression is of monastic stillness. And that watery roundedness is picked up in other details: the columns supporting the roof, the tubular ventilation ducts, the curving balustrade of transparent rods running along the terrace outside.
The ramifications of Findlay's approach extend way beyond one wealthy client's swimming pool, though. Her ideas are in step with today's expectations of architecture, especially in terms of regional authenticity, low environmental impact and energy efficiency. And they could point the way to a compromise between the polarities of rural and urban, or traditional and modern. (Not that a swimming pool is the ideal standard-bearer for eco-buildings, however.)
Findlay, a Scot, first went to Japan in 1979, straight after she graduated from London's Architectural Association. There she worked for Arata Isozaki, a creator of extraordinary buildings who won Riba's gold medal in 1986. She set up practice with her husband in 1986, making a global impression with two small but memorable townhouses. First was 1993's Truss Wall House, a smooth, white object that seemed to be made out of one continuous, complex curve. A year later came the Soft and Hairy House, a cosier, more tactile home wrapped around an internal courtyard, with a planted rooftop garden that gave it a shaggy appearance. Both are beguiling and otherworldly – benevolent fantasies that bring to mind anyone from Gaudi to Salvador Dalí to Dr Seuss.
Ushida and Findlay's work is often bracketed in the nebulous category of "green" or "organic" architecture; but to Findlay, it was more about catering to their clients' practical and sensual needs, allowing the environment and the building methods to dictate the outcome. While she acknowledges that green tends to mean measuring energy consumption, she says there's also an eco-architecture "that's about a sensibility, a relationship to the landscape". Findlay likens her design process to a worm eating through an apple: carving spaces out of a solid mass, rather than making an object and filling it with something: "The shape is an outcome of the spaces and movement inside."
Findlay's progress looked set to continue on her return to the UK in 1999, despite the husband-and-wife team's separation shortly after they set up base in Edinburgh. Designs in the pipeline included a starfish-shaped home in Cheshire, which won a Riba competition, and a spectacular villa in Doha for Qatar's minister of culture, both of which gained a great deal of attention in architectural circles. Sadly, the practice went bust before they were built.
"It wasn't a lack of orders," she says of her bankruptcy. "An awful lot of companies go belly-up just because of cashflow problems. Trying to run an office in this country was quite different to being in Japan, and I didn't have the credibility that you need because I was new. And we had all our eggs in one basket – the Doha house – and no bread-and-butter stuff to keep us going." Having been a rising star, Findlay now found herself an unemployed mother. She got a teaching post at Dundee University and put her children in school near there.
Findlay resists playing the gender card, but she admits that being female in such a male-dominated profession has rarely put her at an advantage. "The Scottish architecture world is quite macho," she says. "You find you get overlooked by your peers, or when it comes to competitions or expressions of interest. I think it makes a massive difference, but one isn't supposed to say that."
She relaunched her practice on a more businesslike footing, in collaboration with Geoff Mann, a director of RHWL architects, and currently has a number of irons in the fire: a promising low-rise apartment building in Preston (with an undulating turf roof); a cultural institute in Kyoto; a school; another poolhouse. It's not exactly perfect timing for a comeback, when architects across the country are losing their jobs. But having already been through that, and survived the Japanese recession of the 1990s, Findlay is undaunted.
"In Japan after the recession, there was a kind of guilt. Everyone went back to being more minimal and simple. I think people here are going to be more careful about what they would like. And I think shape for the sake of shape will come under scrutiny. People will expect more value. They'll question more. It won't just be, 'That's cool' or 'That's interesting'. I think they'll wish for more than just material success. So maybe it's a good time to be starting again."
The rural renewal of Kathryn Findlay
She made a name for herself in the 1990s with eerie, alluring buildings like the Soft and Hairy House. Now Kathryn Findlay is back – and shaking up the slow-moving, bureaucratic world of rural architecture
Steve Rose
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 19 July 2009 21.35 BST
Article history
A mowable roof ... Kathryn Findlay's Soft and Hairy House. Photograph: Ushida Findlay
If there's a market to be cornered in poolhouses, especially thatched ones, then Kathryn Findlay is ahead of the pack. It's not a particularly lucrative seam, admittedly, but for a small domestic building tucked away in a village, Findlay's latest poolhouse is disproportionately significant.
For one thing, it marks the return of one of British architecture's most intriguing and influential figures. Ushida Findlay, the practice she ran with her now-ex-husband Eisaku Ushida, turned heads in the 1990s with a succession of wildly imaginative houses in Japan and the UK that seemed to have come from a different planet. But the rising practice somehow went bust in 2004. Secondly, this comeback project, Poolhouse 2, isn't just a fascinating collision of traditional craftsmanship and computer-aided design; it could also contain the germ of a new aesthetic for 21st-century rural architecture.
You don't have to be an expert to glean both influences in Poolhouse 2. Usually, when you see a thatched roof, there's a hefty cottage beneath it. Yet here, the walls are glass. Furthermore, this thatch curves and undulates in ways traditional structures don't. Although that wavy roofline brings to mind flowing water, or the back of a mythical creature, it was determined less by fancy than necessity: the poolhouse had to join two buildings, a 17th-century barn and a 16th-century farmhouse, that sit at an angle to each other, on different levels – and provide a handy place to swim, of course.
Findlay's friend Peter Cook, a pioneering British architect and her former tutor, calls her marriage of tradition and technology "digi-thatch". But why bother with a thatched poolhouse at all? Not, primarily, to make a quirky architectural statement. The real driving force behind the project, it turns out, was the local planning committee. The house is situated in the sort of village in the Chilterns that wouldn't look out of place in a National Trust calendar. Any remotely modern building would look out of place here. In fact, the planning committee objected to any new building on the site since it would block views from the village to the Teletubby-ish vales beyond. So the poolhouse's glass walls preserve the countryside views and the thatch preserves the village character. Findlay had to bring in various experts to win the committee over, including neo-classicist Robert Adam (an unlikely ally if ever there was one) and TV historian Dan Cruickshank. Altogether, the planning process took eight years. It's not easy being innovative in the great British countryside.
The result, though, is the perfect place to bathe away the stress of a lengthy planning battle. On the inside, the undulations of the roof give a rounded softness to the white ceiling. The overall impression is of monastic stillness. And that watery roundedness is picked up in other details: the columns supporting the roof, the tubular ventilation ducts, the curving balustrade of transparent rods running along the terrace outside.
The ramifications of Findlay's approach extend way beyond one wealthy client's swimming pool, though. Her ideas are in step with today's expectations of architecture, especially in terms of regional authenticity, low environmental impact and energy efficiency. And they could point the way to a compromise between the polarities of rural and urban, or traditional and modern. (Not that a swimming pool is the ideal standard-bearer for eco-buildings, however.)
Findlay, a Scot, first went to Japan in 1979, straight after she graduated from London's Architectural Association. There she worked for Arata Isozaki, a creator of extraordinary buildings who won Riba's gold medal in 1986. She set up practice with her husband in 1986, making a global impression with two small but memorable townhouses. First was 1993's Truss Wall House, a smooth, white object that seemed to be made out of one continuous, complex curve. A year later came the Soft and Hairy House, a cosier, more tactile home wrapped around an internal courtyard, with a planted rooftop garden that gave it a shaggy appearance. Both are beguiling and otherworldly – benevolent fantasies that bring to mind anyone from Gaudi to Salvador Dalí to Dr Seuss.
Ushida and Findlay's work is often bracketed in the nebulous category of "green" or "organic" architecture; but to Findlay, it was more about catering to their clients' practical and sensual needs, allowing the environment and the building methods to dictate the outcome. While she acknowledges that green tends to mean measuring energy consumption, she says there's also an eco-architecture "that's about a sensibility, a relationship to the landscape". Findlay likens her design process to a worm eating through an apple: carving spaces out of a solid mass, rather than making an object and filling it with something: "The shape is an outcome of the spaces and movement inside."
Findlay's progress looked set to continue on her return to the UK in 1999, despite the husband-and-wife team's separation shortly after they set up base in Edinburgh. Designs in the pipeline included a starfish-shaped home in Cheshire, which won a Riba competition, and a spectacular villa in Doha for Qatar's minister of culture, both of which gained a great deal of attention in architectural circles. Sadly, the practice went bust before they were built.
"It wasn't a lack of orders," she says of her bankruptcy. "An awful lot of companies go belly-up just because of cashflow problems. Trying to run an office in this country was quite different to being in Japan, and I didn't have the credibility that you need because I was new. And we had all our eggs in one basket – the Doha house – and no bread-and-butter stuff to keep us going." Having been a rising star, Findlay now found herself an unemployed mother. She got a teaching post at Dundee University and put her children in school near there.
Findlay resists playing the gender card, but she admits that being female in such a male-dominated profession has rarely put her at an advantage. "The Scottish architecture world is quite macho," she says. "You find you get overlooked by your peers, or when it comes to competitions or expressions of interest. I think it makes a massive difference, but one isn't supposed to say that."
She relaunched her practice on a more businesslike footing, in collaboration with Geoff Mann, a director of RHWL architects, and currently has a number of irons in the fire: a promising low-rise apartment building in Preston (with an undulating turf roof); a cultural institute in Kyoto; a school; another poolhouse. It's not exactly perfect timing for a comeback, when architects across the country are losing their jobs. But having already been through that, and survived the Japanese recession of the 1990s, Findlay is undaunted.
"In Japan after the recession, there was a kind of guilt. Everyone went back to being more minimal and simple. I think people here are going to be more careful about what they would like. And I think shape for the sake of shape will come under scrutiny. People will expect more value. They'll question more. It won't just be, 'That's cool' or 'That's interesting'. I think they'll wish for more than just material success. So maybe it's a good time to be starting again."
'scottish architecture' article
http://www.scottisharchitecture.com/article/view/Kathryn+Findlay+leads+new+design+research+unit
Date: 07 March 07Author: Simon Unwin Email this Article Click to Print
Kathryn Findlay leads new design research unit
Kathryn Findlay of Ushida Findlay Architects has become Professor of Architecture and Environment in Dundee University. Kathryn has set up a design research unit within the School of Architecture; it is called Field: architecture design research. The unit is concentrating on design-led research, mainly through live projects and postgraduate studentships. The aim is to bridge the divisive tension that commonly afflicts schools of architecture – i.e. that between teaching and research – and bring the focus firmly back onto what should be any school of architecture’s prime concern – the quality of architectural design.
Ushida Findlay Architects came to prominence in the 1990s with internationally acclaimed designs in Japan such as the Truss Wall House (1993), the Soft and Hairy House (1994) and the Kasahara Amenity Hall (2000). Her Doha Villa (2002, photograph) took the ideas of non-orthogonal space and elegant shell-like form, that had emerged in the Truss Wall House a decade earlier, to new levels of sophistication and subtlety. In Britain, Findlay’s designs have included Grafton New Hall (2003), which, though not built, influenced government planning guidance on new houses in the countryside, and a Poolhouse in the Home Counties (2004), which, in reinterpreting the traditional material of thatch, blends her sensitivities to ‘vernacular’ Japanese and British architecture to produce an engagingly poetic intervention in a delicate context. In the Puerta America Hotel in Madrid (2005), alongside (or sandwiched between) contributions from eighteen other international architects (including Zaha Hadid, John Pawson, Norman Foster, Arata Isozaki, David Chipperfield, Oscar Neimeyer…), Kathryn Findlay designed the 8th floor as a flowing composition of white curving forms.
Field:architecture design research brings Professor Findlay’s talent and experience right into the heart of the school of architecture in Dundee. Taking on live commissions and competitions it offers the potential for exploring a variety of research agendas through the methodology of design. Field:adr currently has projects in Lancashire and London, as well as in Scotland. Kathryn’s current personal research, within Field:adr, is focused on reinterpreting ‘vernacular’ materials and craft techniques in exploring the creation of new formal morphologies. This research extends a line of enquiry established with her earlier Poolhouse, and exploits the complex geometric potential of traditional and sustainable materials such as thatch to produce sensuous curving forms. Research in Field:adr is also extending Professor Findlay’s long-term research interests in complex curvilinear ‘shell-like’ forms and associated explorations of non-orthogonal space configurations and innovative construction technology. Key issues in this research include: overcoming the problems of compound curved concrete construction; the use of digital technology as a design generator; the complementary virtues of high-tech and craft-based construction technologies; and the development of new procurement methods for construction. A third strand to Professor Findlay’s research involves issues of sustainability and environmental design. While she was teaching in the school of architecture in Tokyo Kathryn developed notions of conceptualising and visualising sustainable architecture that broke free of conventional expectations. It was this work that produced the ‘Kasahara Community Centre’ in 2000; in Dundee it is developing further to generate new forms for ecologically sensitive architecture.
Field:adr is essentially a workshop for research pursued through the medium of design. It is exploring design methodologies, particularly those that exploit advances in computer software. But with its studio embedded amongst those of the architecture students, Field:adr is also a locus for undergraduate and postgraduate tuition. Field:adr offers opportunities for senior undergraduate students to contribute to live projects, working closely with Professor Findlay, and for postgraduate students to pursue MPhil and PhD theses through the medium of architectural design. Combining live projects with teaching, research with architectural design, Field:adr is a factory for ideas.
Since the days of Margaret Thatcher ‘research’ has been the ‘prime directive’ for all disciplines in Universities. But during the last twenty years in schools of architecture it has often seemed that ‘research’ (the research recognised in the government Research Assessment Exercises by which University funding is set) can involve anything but what should be the prime concern – the quality of architectural design. Architectural science and history have long been acknowledged as fields for research, but architectural design, until recently, has been excluded. This has meant that schools of architecture have stretched themselves to continue the design teaching to which they have always been committed, but at the same time tried to build strengths in research areas that, though important, are only supportive or tangential to architectural design itself. But if in philosophy an argument or proposition is ‘research’, and in music a composition is ‘research’, then, in architecture, design should be too. Architectural design is, after all, a matter of argument, proposition and composition expressed not in words or musical notation, but through the language of architecture. Amongst all this, Field:adr is not only providing a factory for ideas, but also addressing a problem that has afflicted schools of architecture for two decades.
Date: 07 March 07Author: Simon Unwin Email this Article Click to Print
Kathryn Findlay leads new design research unit
Kathryn Findlay of Ushida Findlay Architects has become Professor of Architecture and Environment in Dundee University. Kathryn has set up a design research unit within the School of Architecture; it is called Field: architecture design research. The unit is concentrating on design-led research, mainly through live projects and postgraduate studentships. The aim is to bridge the divisive tension that commonly afflicts schools of architecture – i.e. that between teaching and research – and bring the focus firmly back onto what should be any school of architecture’s prime concern – the quality of architectural design.
Ushida Findlay Architects came to prominence in the 1990s with internationally acclaimed designs in Japan such as the Truss Wall House (1993), the Soft and Hairy House (1994) and the Kasahara Amenity Hall (2000). Her Doha Villa (2002, photograph) took the ideas of non-orthogonal space and elegant shell-like form, that had emerged in the Truss Wall House a decade earlier, to new levels of sophistication and subtlety. In Britain, Findlay’s designs have included Grafton New Hall (2003), which, though not built, influenced government planning guidance on new houses in the countryside, and a Poolhouse in the Home Counties (2004), which, in reinterpreting the traditional material of thatch, blends her sensitivities to ‘vernacular’ Japanese and British architecture to produce an engagingly poetic intervention in a delicate context. In the Puerta America Hotel in Madrid (2005), alongside (or sandwiched between) contributions from eighteen other international architects (including Zaha Hadid, John Pawson, Norman Foster, Arata Isozaki, David Chipperfield, Oscar Neimeyer…), Kathryn Findlay designed the 8th floor as a flowing composition of white curving forms.
Field:architecture design research brings Professor Findlay’s talent and experience right into the heart of the school of architecture in Dundee. Taking on live commissions and competitions it offers the potential for exploring a variety of research agendas through the methodology of design. Field:adr currently has projects in Lancashire and London, as well as in Scotland. Kathryn’s current personal research, within Field:adr, is focused on reinterpreting ‘vernacular’ materials and craft techniques in exploring the creation of new formal morphologies. This research extends a line of enquiry established with her earlier Poolhouse, and exploits the complex geometric potential of traditional and sustainable materials such as thatch to produce sensuous curving forms. Research in Field:adr is also extending Professor Findlay’s long-term research interests in complex curvilinear ‘shell-like’ forms and associated explorations of non-orthogonal space configurations and innovative construction technology. Key issues in this research include: overcoming the problems of compound curved concrete construction; the use of digital technology as a design generator; the complementary virtues of high-tech and craft-based construction technologies; and the development of new procurement methods for construction. A third strand to Professor Findlay’s research involves issues of sustainability and environmental design. While she was teaching in the school of architecture in Tokyo Kathryn developed notions of conceptualising and visualising sustainable architecture that broke free of conventional expectations. It was this work that produced the ‘Kasahara Community Centre’ in 2000; in Dundee it is developing further to generate new forms for ecologically sensitive architecture.
Field:adr is essentially a workshop for research pursued through the medium of design. It is exploring design methodologies, particularly those that exploit advances in computer software. But with its studio embedded amongst those of the architecture students, Field:adr is also a locus for undergraduate and postgraduate tuition. Field:adr offers opportunities for senior undergraduate students to contribute to live projects, working closely with Professor Findlay, and for postgraduate students to pursue MPhil and PhD theses through the medium of architectural design. Combining live projects with teaching, research with architectural design, Field:adr is a factory for ideas.
Since the days of Margaret Thatcher ‘research’ has been the ‘prime directive’ for all disciplines in Universities. But during the last twenty years in schools of architecture it has often seemed that ‘research’ (the research recognised in the government Research Assessment Exercises by which University funding is set) can involve anything but what should be the prime concern – the quality of architectural design. Architectural science and history have long been acknowledged as fields for research, but architectural design, until recently, has been excluded. This has meant that schools of architecture have stretched themselves to continue the design teaching to which they have always been committed, but at the same time tried to build strengths in research areas that, though important, are only supportive or tangential to architectural design itself. But if in philosophy an argument or proposition is ‘research’, and in music a composition is ‘research’, then, in architecture, design should be too. Architectural design is, after all, a matter of argument, proposition and composition expressed not in words or musical notation, but through the language of architecture. Amongst all this, Field:adr is not only providing a factory for ideas, but also addressing a problem that has afflicted schools of architecture for two decades.
background info -bbc
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/architecture/nwp_findlay.shtml
Kathryn Findlay[Broadcast on 30th June]
Paul Finch introduces Findlay's workKathryn Findlay in conversation with Sarah Dunant
Kathryn Findlay was born in Scotland and graduated from the Architectural Association in London in 1979. She received a scholarship from the Japanese Ministry of Education for Post-graduate research at the University of Tokyo and worked for Arata Isozaki and Associates before establishing the Ushida Findlay partnership in Tokyo with Eisaku Ushida.
Kathryn is an Associate Professor of Architecture at Tokyo University, where she supervises a design research laboratory, (the first foreigner and first woman ever to hold such a position). She was also a Visiting Professor of Architecture at UCLA in 1999, and has recently been made an Honorary Professor at the University of Dundee. She has been a Visiting Professor to the Technical University in Vienna during this Spring. Kathyrn Findlay is currently based in London, and has recently completed her post as Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo.
Kathryn Findlay[Broadcast on 30th June]
Paul Finch introduces Findlay's workKathryn Findlay in conversation with Sarah Dunant
Kathryn Findlay was born in Scotland and graduated from the Architectural Association in London in 1979. She received a scholarship from the Japanese Ministry of Education for Post-graduate research at the University of Tokyo and worked for Arata Isozaki and Associates before establishing the Ushida Findlay partnership in Tokyo with Eisaku Ushida.
Kathryn is an Associate Professor of Architecture at Tokyo University, where she supervises a design research laboratory, (the first foreigner and first woman ever to hold such a position). She was also a Visiting Professor of Architecture at UCLA in 1999, and has recently been made an Honorary Professor at the University of Dundee. She has been a Visiting Professor to the Technical University in Vienna during this Spring. Kathyrn Findlay is currently based in London, and has recently completed her post as Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo.
Video from Youtube
I can't tell what she's saying, there's no speakers here. Is it even the right woman?
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