Jeffrey Sipprell
« December 2005 | Main Page | February 2006 »
January 18, 2006
UCLA Winter Schedule
Winter Schedule is now finalized, though I'm only enjoying it with one hand. Here's what it's shaping up to be:
Advanced Topics Studio - Roger Sherman: An If-Then design studio that examines the Sacramento River Delta as a highly charged political, economic and environmental area. The goal of the studio is to create an architecture, embodied in a house(s), that will situate itself within a multitude of futures - meaning how does a design respond to the variety of social and environmental forces acting on it today as well as those that will possibly happen in the future. It seeks not to illicit change, but rather engage it actively. This studio will also be paired with a GIS seminar that will attempt to exploit the potentials of geographic databases in the intent of mapping and forecasting change.
Research Studio - Greg Lynn: a continuation into the study of contemporary baroque - more on this soon
Synesthesia: Sound and Vision - Jason Payne and Heather Roberge: the design and construction of an acoustic ceiling\wall treatment for the auditorium space within the UCLA AUD known as the DeCafe. Initial design teams are to explore felt, curtains, and surface patterning as a way to work within the parameters set forth by the school - $20k budget, Noncombustible materials and above improved acoustics within the space.
Anxious Aesthetics: Surveillance as Cultural Form - Thomas Levin: a seminar in media theory that will explore teh paranoid logic of surveillance across a series of architectural, theoretical, photographic, cinematic, and televisual manifestations in order to unpack and track the vicissitudes of a category that is at once a political tactic, a narrative strategy, a theory of the subject, an architectural model, a mode of spectatorship and, quite possibly, the key logic of the cinematic medium.
Posted by jsipprell at 11:47 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2006
Dark Places - First Review
LA Weekly was one of the first periodicals to review SERVO's upcoming Dark Places exhibit (opening this friday, Jan 20) which I helped out on back in the first week of January. Check out the article here.
Posted by jsipprell at 12:17 AM | Comments (0)
January 16, 2006
Out of Commission
On Tuesday January 10 I was t-boned by a car travelling about 10-15 mph. This student, in my opinion, did not stop for the stop sign that was posted there and struck me in the middle of the street. She caught me dead on and was i landed on top of her hood and went up and over the corner of the car as she braked landing on my right hand, left elbow and left foot. Immediately I got up and surveyed myself and realized nothing was broken, but my right hand was severely cut and scraped with tendon hanging out the ring finger. A passerby saw the crash and helped me with the bike while the motorist was very apologetic and frantic about the situation.
She raced me to the ER on campus where I had to wait for admittance while bleeding profusely in the waiting room. Finally they got me in but I would wait an hour before being seen by the attending doctor. He was concerned about the ring finger so he sent me for x-rays and alerted the hand specialist. X-rays were negative and the hand specialist arrived, after another hour. He tested my mobility and strength and everything appeared to be normal. Confident that I would not need the shredded tendon, he snipped it off and started to stitch me up (after shooting me with novacaine to the point where you could see the liquid bulging parts of my hand and fingers.
I received 1 stitch in my index finger and 3 in my ring. I watched the whole thing though I became light headed and nauseous at the end, probably from the blood loss and trauma. They gauzed me up with a giant mitten and sent me on my way with painkillers and antibiotics. Stitches are to come out on Tuesday Jan 17. Hopefully I'll have most of my mobility back. School has been on hold for a bit. I attend class and that's about it. Getting hit by a car is no easy thing let me tell you - had it been an SUV I probably would be in intensive card. In the driver's defense I didn't come to a full stop at my stop sign either, though I did arrive first. I didn't have a light as this happened at approx. 8:45 pm local time. But she's been super nice so far and has paid for everything I've asked so hopefully it won't go to litigation.
Here's some pics, not for the squeamish:
Posted by jsipprell at 6:34 PM | Comments (5)
January 3, 2006
Presenting a Manifold
Here are a couple of images from the final presentation in november. The object turned out really nice, but we're going to make 3 new ones for the exhibition that opens on January 23 at the school. So stay tuned for some more pics on that front.
Posted by jsipprell at 5:48 PM | Comments (1)
January 2, 2006
Material Innovations
The November issue of Architectural Record included their annual "Innovation" supplement which contained some pretty interesting articles on digital fabrication and materials research. It's definitely worth checking out the full text if you get a chance, but if you can't - here's a quick rundown on some of the pretty cool stuff that was shown in the materials article.
Everyone's probably familiar with the research that OMA does, but if not here's an upclose look at the material they call "FOAM" which was developed exclusively for PRADA and is showcased here in Los Angeles. The sponge-like polyurethane material can be used to build furniture and partitions as well as entire spaces. Hundreds of prototypes of the material were made to achieve the right balance of openness, translucency, depth, and color. As someone who has seen it up close and personal, I can honestly say I wish the shit wasn't propietary.
BL Special was developed by Steven Holl Architects for the assembly of complex interior fabrications. BL Special laminated panels were designed to be easily cut and modified using computer-driven processes, such as water jet, laser cutting, and CNC punching. The lightweight panels are made of three core materials - ultrathin wood veneer, paper, and fabric - that are laminated together to allow them to remain rigid enough to produce partitions or enclosures.
Flexicomb flexible polypropylene honeycomb panels have been developed by Los-Angeles based padLAb. Flexicomb can be bent, sprung, or compressed to form sculptural installations, lamps, desktop accessories, and furniture prototypes. Right now only limited edition sculptural Flexicomb lights are for sale at $400-450.
Industrial designer/architect Giovanni Pagnotta's line of lightweight carbon fiber furnishings includes high and low tables, seating, and a rechargeable light. His prototype line of carbon fiber furniture demonstrates what can happen when a material is taken to extreme limits of its strengh-to-weight ratio. His Z5 chair, for example, is constructed entirely of carbon fiber, layered in plies to created an extremely thin profile. The Z5 weighs only 14 pounds, with a maximum thickness of half an inch, yet can carry 3,000 pounds with no indication of impending structural failure. You can purchase a Z5 for a cool $3,800, though it may drop to $1,200 if they go into more sustained production.
Living Surfaces, developed by B.Lab from Gallarate, Italy, are tabletops and floor tiles comprised of layers of plastic sheets encapsulating nontoxic liquids. The liquids move and bubble in various ways depending on touch, depicting constantly changing patterns. The bichromatic floor tiles generate colorful shapes in continuous transformation, and walking on them leaves a trail of footprints. They are made of two shock-resistant plastic layers, with the top layer treated with a non-slip surface. Floor tiles are $65-85/sf, tabletops are $400-800 per unit, Living glass panels are $100-180/sf.
SensiTile Technology allows various materials to react to changes in light intensity and color. Using the same principle that makes fiber optics possible, the embedded light conducting matrix in a SensiTile material either reconfigures the shadows that fall on it or redirects and scatters any oncoming light. SensiTile Scintilla tiles are $140-190/sf, SensiTile terrazzo tiles are $60-90/sf.
Posted by jsipprell at 10:42 PM | Comments (0)
