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Thomas Carpentier’s graduation project at ESA questions the normatization of the human body proportions introduced by early Modernist Architectural manuals such as Neufert‘s, or the “Architectural Graphic Standards” or by the anthropometric scale of proportion devised by Le Corbusier with the name of Modulor.

The ambition of identifing an idealized human proportion was the alleged basis upon which building a new rational and sanitized architecture, but the mere concept of finding a norm out of an ideal body is in fact paradoxical and even discriminatory. Despite that, the Neufert’s manual easily encountered a widespread success, and the standardization today involves not only the human anatomy but also men’s behaviour.

Without futher addition to what has been already and more exhaustively written by Léopold Lambert twice in his blog (“The Modernist Ideology of a Normative Body” and “A Subversive Approach to the Ideal Normatized Body“), we leave you with the work of Thomas Carpentier.

As a parody to the normatization of the body, Thomas focuses his attention to out-of-standard but iconic character’s bodies, such as the one of a culturist, Jabba the Hutt’s, Oscar Pistorius’, Borg Queen’s or David Toole’s. Around their real or fictitious proportions he then re-imagines or create architectural spaces whose main purpose is to accomodate their other standards.

Related:

Frederick Kiesler. Architecture, “Biotechnique”, and a Peek into the Future of the Computer, 1940. Thanks to Ethel Baraona for signaling!

Led by Matthew Shaw and William Trosell, the London-based ScanLAB Projects specializes in large size 3d scanning for objects, buildings and landscapes, with millimeter precision and in full colour.

Their captures, from detailed components to vast cityscapes, are made in collaboration with architects and artists. Check this capture of Zaha Hadid’s latest Evelyin’s Grace Academy, and Regent Park.

Apart from exploring pioneering uses of advanced surveying techniques in design, making and visualization, the guys at ScanLAB Projects are prone to experimentation and speculation.
(Read: Scanning the Mist, and Subverting the LiDAR Landscape, )

The following is their work for their entire Bartlett show. Here’s an excerpt from the descriptive text:

The Bartlett School of Architecture Summer Show is the annual exhibition of all student work produced that academic year. It comprises a collection of over a thousand models, installations, prototypes, drawings, photographs, films, sketches and designs presented across four large exhibition spaces in the Slade School of Art, UCL each summer. The show lasts for just seven days but represents the output of over 450 Bartlett students, thousands of hours of labour and thousands of pounds in materials.

A series of high resolution plans, sections and elevations have been extracted from the 3D scanned data set and will be exhibited soon. In these drawings, a three dimensional, sensual and temporary experience, is abstracted into a series of precisely detailed snap shots in time. The work becomes a collage of hours of delicately created lines and forms set within a feature prefect representation of the exhibition space. Sometimes a model or image stands out as identifiable, more often a sketch merges into a model and an exhibition stand creating a blurred hybrid of designs and authors. These drawings represent the closest record to an ‘as built’ drawing set for the entire exhibition and an ‘as was’ representation of the Bartlett’s year.

Related:
Radiohead’s House of cards and making of, already blogged on Socks

An interesting comparison between people’s job in 1972 and 2012.

Primary labor (manufacturing) is the obvious major change, as technological evolution and outsourcing have reduced today’s percentage. A major increase is in service works like education and hospitality. Government and wholesale account for a solid percentage both in 1972 and in 2012. The total number of jobs and the percentage of workforce have both risen. While farming has not been taken into account (it totalizes less than 1% of all jobs, btw), some jobs have been recategorized and other new or non existing in 1972 have been added.

What America Does For A Living
Breakdown of all U.S. jobs, as of 2012*

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Credit: Lam Thuy Vo / NPR



What America Used To Do For A Living
Breakdown of all U.S. jobs, as of 1972*

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Credit: Lam Thuy Vo / NPR

Via: npr

“The State of the World Atlas”, Michael Kidron and Ronald Segal. A Pluto Press Project. Heinemann, London, 1981.

Hardcover, 250 x 180mm, full colour, 66 maps.

Frontispiece description:

“The State of the World Atlas is revolutionary both in content and form, using creative cartography and innovatory graphics to portray the many forces that will shape world history in the eighties.

The State of the World Atlas provides a startling perspective on the cost of pursuing state interests, not least in the destruction of the environment and the erosion of human rights. It illustrates some of the challenges to the prevailing world system, hopefully emphasising in its closing pages the more positive of human values.”

Related: Paul Beige’s Cartography Collection on Flickr

Through Facebook photographic reportages, OMA is providing an insight into its far and less known past. Here’s a project for a sport center in Noorddijk, Groningen, Netherlands