Architectural Design

1st ProofTitle: BA: Architectural Design

Job No: PD0710-67/3184

Chapter 3 final (3.2)_.qxd:layouts to chapter one 7/24/10 7:42 AM Page 90

The design project

Site, context and place

Project: Taichung

Location: Taiwan Strait

Architect: CHORA

Date: 2008

Mini-scenarios. CHORA asks

participants to go out into the field to

make observations and identify

examples of four processes

happening on site: Erasure,

Origination, Transformation and

Migration. These processes form

a narrative called a ‘mini-scenario’.

These scenarios can be generated

and used to describe the dynamic

quality of any site.

Are architects well placed to be the people thinking

about this?

Sometimes we think that we’re not, sometimes we feel

powerless. We think we cannot influence the large decisions;

we’re powerless against the decisions of a city planner, the

politicians. But I believe we are not because architects are

dreamers and at the same time we bring together utilitarian

components and make them work. Look at [Andrea] Palladio:

he looked at musical systems that created harmony in the

universe and he tried to apply that harmony to the

proportions of his buildings.

Would it be correct to say that when you visit a site you

record close-up, on-the-ground findings, but when you’re

away from the site you are more focused on large-scale

data, maps and statistical information?

On the site sometimes you pick a very detailed thing that you

couldn’t even imagine if you were away from the site. Over

the years we developed a method, which was actually the

start of our overall methodological approach that we have

now. We start with a small exercise, which consists of a set

of four processes that we try to observe. The four processes

are like a filter and they are set in such a sequence that once

the observations are made they form small narratives.

We call them ‘mini-scenarios’. It is something we use to

mediate the subjective approach to the site into a more

structured formulation, so that the experiences can be

compared with each other. That’s why it gets really exciting:

if you go with a group of 20 or 200 people to a territory and

each of them uses this device several times over, you get an

almost instant weaving of narratives related to this territory.

Could you explain the four processes?

They are Erasure, Origination, Transformation, Migration.

I developed them while having a walk with Alain Chiaradia.

He was teaching with me at the AA [Architectural

Association]. It’s based on a metaphor to do with planting

seeds in a garden. First you have the empty ground and you

plant the seed, then the plant grows and reaches maturity,

then the seeds float away in the wind. That’s the metaphor

but at the same time the processes themselves are a basic

taxonomy, set up in such a way you could describe any kind

of existing dynamic environment through [them].

Text

1st ProofTitle: BA: Architectural Design

Job No: PD0710-67/3184

Chapter 3 final (3.2)_.qxd:layouts to chapter one 7/24/10 7:42 AM Page 90