'Four Degrees of Separation'

In this post, we have been asked to relate four new items to each other and to our readings and lecture. This week the subject topic was about how weather can affect a neighborhood, community, and even a culture, and how can the architects of the world today help not only rebuild destroyed communities, but possibly keep disasters from happening. The four items that we have to relate are a film ("Sideways"), a book (The BLDG BLOG Book), an innovation in science/ technology (Micro-Oxygenation), and a food item (a grape).
A grape is a non-climacteric fruit from the berry family. They can grow in many sizes and colors on woody vines. They can be eaten raw or used to make many things, such as wine. In the smart comedy "Sideways" staring Paul Giamatti, two old college roommates go on an adventure to California's Central Coast to attend several wine-tasting events for one of the roommate's bachelor party. During a serious part of the movie, Giamatti's character begins to explain how the climate can affect the growth and eventually the taste of a grape. He tells how the wind, temperature, amount of sunlight, and rain can all have an effect on the grapes. However, with recent developments in technology, wineries no longer have to account for these weather changes. Now wineries around the world are using what they refer to as micro-oxygenation, which can control the amount of oxygen a grape can receive and even enhance "better oak integration, and faster barrel aging" (www.practicalwinery.com/NovDec07/page1.htm). They have basically eliminated mother nature and are able to create the "perfect" bottle of wine. In Geoff Manaugh's The BLDG BLOG Book, he begins to play with the idea of architects designing machines and what not to create perfect climates for any region in the world. He begins to discuss the idea of scattering seeds of different plant species in regions that wouldn't normally be suitable for them to grow, and with these machines, creating the climate that it needs for the plant to grow. In a sense, this is what micro-oxygenation has begun to do, growing certain types of grapes in different regions all over that normally wouldn't be suitable for them.
What Manaugh is trying to get at is if we can create these machines like the one for micro-oxygenation, can we create machines that would ultimately protect our communities from natural disasters? I think that the technology is there, however I am not sure how that would begin to affect the rest of the planet and the atmosphere. Say we could protect one city from getting destroyed, however the storm causes even more destruction in another city than what it would in the one we saved. I believe that architects need to design with the fact in mind that natural disasters happen, for instance Morphosis's project the FLOAT House which is supposed to survive in case of a hurricane by being able to float on the water in case of flooding. If we begin to design like this we can begin to save communities from being wiped out and not affect mother nature or our planet at the same time.

'Six Degrees of Separation'

In this blog I will be connecting the dots between Philip Glass (composer), Batman/Gotham City (superhero), Watchmen (movie), and Union Terminal (place) and showing how they are all related and how they each relate to architecture.
An architect thinks in terms of the experience of spaces and building structure. Philip Glass, a composer, thinks in terms of rhythm and musical structure. However, I believe that he is an architect, an architect of music. He created the the theme music for the movie "Watchmen", which is based off the comic book series written by DC Comics. DC Comics also produced the comic series "Batman". Batman's creators, Bob Kane and Bill Finger, I feel are also architects. They take an idea and construct a character through drawing, then they construct a storyboard through writing. They create a character and stick him in a certain environment just like an architect creates a building and places it within its context of where it would best be suited. Now DC Comics also created another series based on some of their most popular superheros, including Batman, called "The Justice League". Their headquarters was modeled after Union Terminal in Cincinnati, Ohio, which was designed by Alfred T. Fellheimer, a New York architect. Now obviously, Fellheimer is an architect and needs no explanation. However, he and his consultants hired an artist by the name of Winold Reiss to paint fourteen murals depicting the most important industries to come out of Cincinnati. I would make the same argument for Reiss being an architect as I did for Bob Kane And Bill Finger. To tie this mess together, the first mural that he painted was of the Baldwin Piano Company based out of Cincinnati. Philip Glass, mentioned earlier, started the Philip Glass Ensemble in which he is the piano player. As a side note that I found entertaining, Philip Glass, Winold Reiss, and Alfred T. Fellheimer all studied and lived in New York City, which also happened to be the site for "Watchmen" and what Gotham City was based off of.
I fully believe that everything is architecture because no matter if its a building, song, painting, comic book, etc., they have an affect on your senses and how you perceive things in your everyday life. As for David Pye in his "The nature of design", he says that architecture is different from the other aspects of design because an architect is not given nor designs with an intended result in mind, but "decides what the principal objects in the result shall be." I don't fully agree with this because if an architect is given a certain program or their client has specific needs, then isn't there an intended result in mind?