by Ian Martin
Tonight I attract some interest. Edward is there to follow through and talk me up. Even I with my non-existent Mandarin can tell he’s taking liberties. ‘Executive designer’ becomes ‘he has overseen several executions already this year, each more ruthless than the last’. There are approving nods.
The evening ends with half a dozen potential clients exchanging details with Edward Who is Steadfast as a Rock, and some drunken architectural karaoke. One guy does a belting version of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum before falling off the table.
THURSDAY A sophisticated Blingnang middle class is these days looking beyond traditional Chinese architecture. Already the city is fringed with an anthology of pastiche executive housing ‘capitals’ – a miniature Paris here, a dinky Berlin there. Now the jaded bourgoisie seeks something new, beyond the comforting exotica of Classical Europe’s palette.
So I’ve come up with Blingnang Inner Citiburbia, a low-density upmarket gated community modelled on the sort of high-density, downmarket shithole that would theoretically exist in counterpoint to what’s actually there.
The site visit’s inconclusive. Everything looks a bit depressing but I can’t tell which direction it’s going in. That’s a thumbs-up from Edward.
FRIDAY Get some brilliantly atmospheric shots of my Pea Souper Dickens apartment block (shaped like Big Ben) by waiting until the smog’s really thick.
SATURDAY To the opening of my brand pavilion. The client’s very pleased. It’s full of tubular challenges and triangular fragments, and things ‘punching through’ other things.
SUNDAY. Reclining slightly in the plane home. Irritated. Can’t for the life of me remember who the brand pavilion was for.
March 7, 2013
The K’buum el-K’buum Residuals Farm
MONDAY I’ve been whacking out some ‘bonkers envisionments’ for my bumbling homie Loaf, mayor of London.
He wants to create a Bi-Line across London, a segregated cycleway free from the hazards of hat-wearing motorists and the unions. My ideas so far:
• Elevated ‘moral high ground’ section over Labour boroughs.
• Business class lane offering premier access via executive gateways, uniformed bicycle minders and filtered air, oxygenated with notes of damask and chlorophyll.
• Ignorable red traffic lights at regular intervals.
• Every square inch of PFI tarmac slathered with smug bicycle-themed corporate bullshit glorifying the worst bastards on Earth.
• Hold a design competition for a 21st-century linear cycling environment. Then after a while announce a diverse shortlist with schemes featuring reclaimed Elizabethan brickwork, abstract fencing and assorted bollocks on stilts. Then after a while announce a controversial winner. Then faff about long enough for it to become someone else’s problem and just make do with existing de-pedestrianised surfaces. Then eventually see Loaf on the news, reluctantly standing for party leader.
TUESDAY Phone call from Loaf. He loves my Bi-Line conceptuals. As usual, he drifts into Latin.
I’m pretty rusty these days. Something about him being Achilles and David Cameron being Hector? And Hector’s been slain and his body’s being dragged behind a Boris Bike round and round Westminster Square? Is that right?
Loaf cackles in Latin. And they say it’s a dead language.
WEDNESDAY I’m designing a luxury graffiti and urban skills pavilion in Brighton.
It will allow middle-class children to get involved in a ‘street scene’ that’s vibrant, aspirational and doesn’t smell of piss. My client, an entrepreneur specialising in youth leisure, reckons parents will pay a fortune to park their teenagers in an urban environment secured with adequate levels of insurance.
Only improving, experimental hip-hop will occur in the supervised stencil masterclasses. Beatboxing workshops will teach youngsters how to make a real difference with socially responsible saliva. In line with local council requirements there will be ample jamming provision and a counselling service.
THURSDAY To a desert far, far away with my old friend Dusty Penhaligon the conservactionist. He’s helping with the restoration of a classic science fiction building – the K’buum el-K’buum Residuals Farm from Star Clash Episode Four: The Beginning Again.
I’m tagging along as his plus one, making notes and sketching enigmatic little asides in my special Unlined Overseas Moleskine.
In the fictional universe, the K’buum el-K’buum Residuals Farm exists on the planet Apostro V. It’s where the character of Mark Staremaster (who becomes the leader of the Rebel Coalition that defeats the Royal Clone Army and saves the galaxy from voice-synthesised fascism and then does it again in the sequel) was born.
In reality, the badly deteriorating building is in a remote area of Tunisia where the climate is harsh and it’s almost impossible to get planning permission.
Dusty’s an expert witness for Omniversal Pictures, who want to make a pre-sequel prequel to the last sequel called Return of the CGI. A grizzled Mark Staremaster will return to his home planet to squint mournfully at K’buum el-K’buum Residuals Farm and wonder where the last thirty years went.
It needs to be redone from scratch. Omniversal’s problem is that Tunisia (Desert) Planning Authority have declared the site a historic ruin. Now nobody can touch it. Dusty’s job is to convince them that a reconstructed residuals farm will generate more tourism revenue AND be ‘more historic’.
But they stand firm. How can something rebuilt now be older than something built 30 years ago? Dusty’s logic is impeccable. If he rebuilds this year and the movie is a pre-sequel prequel to the last sequel, it would have to be 58,377 years old to align narratively with the Star Clash story, whereas the one built 30 years ago is only 58,336 years old according to the official fan site.
The Tunisian planners all get headaches at the same time and give in.
FRIDAY In the morning, design a ‘post-riot Hackney fashion hub’. In the afternoon, design a ‘pre-revolution Whitechapel media vortex’.
Exciting times. That’s one thing we DO have plenty of in this age of austerity. Nouns.
SATURDAY Five-a-zeitgeist theoretical football. Elongated Voidism 3, Compressed Absence 1. Compressed Absence wins on aggregate as it’s worth more per square metre.
SUNDAY Me-space downtime in the recliner. Reflect on the starry blackness of infinity, then nod off.
March 14, 2013
If Only Time Will Tell, Should
Architecture Really be a Narrative?
MONDAY Knocking out a luxury floating village for the Royal Docks. It’s a difficult community to gate, so I’m trying to persuade a celebrity architect to design some stylish floating mines embedded with crystals.
TUESDAY Tweak masterplan for the Midlands, replacing Wolverhampton with a freestyle urban mix underpinned by fat basslines and a massive grid.
WEDNESDAY Oh shit. I agreed months ago to speak at a conference. It’s today at the Institute of Plasmic Arts. I’ve turned up without a thought in my head.
The theme is ‘Randomised Creativity: Turn Unwanted Luck into Cash!’ I promised, apparently, to present something after lunch on The Question as Generator of Epic Space. With images. I’ve got to fill half an hour.
Luckily I have a hat, bought in a panic on the way over. It doesn’t quite fit properly, so it’s perfect. I’ve brought my laptop, so I can plug that in and ‘surf the net’ like it’s 1999. Good, yeah, think retro. I put my hat on backwards. Half an hour, say five minutes per question, open it up to the audience, sorted.
I quickly devise six meaningless questions guaranteed to pediment an audience of architects, artists, auteurs and we’re not even on to the Bs yet. The first question I pose to my audience of serious-minded liberals: Is Texture the New Fragrance?
I repeat the question thoughtfully, the way vicars do. I throw the question out to the audience and they’re on it like gulls on a discarded kebab. They think texture is definitely the new fragrance. Visitors to show homes are these days bra
ced for the smell of baking bread or vanilla, and laugh at the estate agent for thinking punters are that suggestible. So estate agents now like to have textured stone and rough artisan brickwork for the visitors to caress. It works just as well. I show some pictures of sand, and rubble.
My next question: How Fat is your Faceprint? This is popular with bearded men and women with luminous grey hair. The audience tosses the question around playfully, as if passing a large beach ball one to another. Faceprint, we decide, is a great way to combine the notions of façade and footprint in a loose and non-prescriptive way, impressing clients who really like wind and straw. I show some pictures of bales, and lambs.
True or Magnetic North? That’s my third question, and the audience dutifully goes all solemn about the disparity of wealth between where they live and anywhere north of Berkhamsted. It’s a scandal, and almost certainly explains the question, which might have something to do with perception and prejudice, who gives a shit. I show some pictures of Halifax, and Carlisle.
Do Houses Dream of Electric Anxiety? I explain that this question is merely the point of departure for a journey of reflection. How useful is it, we wonder, to imagine that a building might be sentient? We agree it’s quite an exciting thought but also possibly pointless, which makes it all somehow much more interesting. I don’t show any pictures for this one, which makes everyone smile a bit and nod, wisely.
Is Modern Modernism Just Post-Modernism but with a Neo-Modernistic Coat on? This time, instead of throwing it out there, I keep it very much up here. It’s just a passing thought. I don’t know how THAT got in there! Everyone laughs. This is brilliant. I show some pictures of the South Bank, and a Shard pepper grinder.
If Only Time Will Tell, Should Architecture Really be a Narrative? Running out of time myself now, so have to hurry this one along. I ask for a show of hands. Roughly two-thirds of the audience think architecture should be a narrative, which is good enough for me. I show some pictures of books, and beach huts.
Standing ovation! This is money for old … oh, I see. They’re doing it ironically.
THURSDAY Sketch out an idea for an affordable home. The client’s parents have a house in Arundel, so I just stick a photo of that on a sheet of A4 and scribble ‘They won’t live for ever’ above it.
FRIDAY Produce abstract painting in lieu of work.
SATURDAY Five-a-zeitgeist theoretical football. Working Classical 0, Brutalism as Plinth 3.
SUNDAY Question self in recliner. Get answers more or less correct.
March 21, 2013
Back to the Futurniture
Still a bit blurry after my annual tour of the Milan Furniture Fair’s ultra-smart periphery. I never want to see another amuse-bouche in my life, even if it IS a latticed quail microtorte designed by eminent artist-engineer Santiago Calatrava.
Oh, and spare me the chippy jealousy. Like YOU wouldn’t hang out behind the scenes with the world’s top ‘furnauteurs’ looking at really good beta stuff that’s not even on the internet yet.
Few people can afford a £4,000 chair. But some people can. That’s why international salons are so tiresome and vulgar and why I prefer to stay far from the sodding crowd. Sitting, lolling, perching and collapsing with the industry’s most mercurial furniture creators on their most mercurial furniture. Highlights included …
The Peepeldokker Not so much a ‘sofa for living in’ as an entirely new way of ‘living in a sofa’. Crafted from a wood and textile melange devised by New Sofist wunderkind Shep Witters for high-end sofa wranglers DFS Lenin, the Peepeldokker pushes at the boundaries of extendable sedentary environments with notions such as ‘proximal TV’ and ‘informally planal dining interventions’.
Where does sofa end and life begin? Perhaps it’s easier to ask ‘where does sofa begin?’ It begins here. At either end.
Whimcloud Created by radical collective The Chaise Longuepigs for furnifacturer Bangi, this ‘post-urban sitting opportunity’ will be the talk of next season. The version I saw, though not entirely safe to sit on, was a marvel of theory, material and process. Moulded from ultralight opaque monosodium carbonate, it resembles a giant prawn cracker.
Most importantly – in contrast to traditional furniture – the Whimcloud encourages the user to question their surroundings. ‘There doesn’t seem to be much happening here, apart from this giant prawn cracker. Where am I? How is it even floating in the air? How do I get on it? Will it collapse?’ And so on. Exquisite.
SitUation COMedy The thinking behind this reimagining of the chair, by legendary ‘digital hermit’ Klaus 72 for Hairy Father Spatials, is deceptively simple. Turn an ordinary chair upside down. Much more interesting, suddenly.
Now find a way of plausibly seating someone on it. Put the upside down chair on another chair the right way up and add a cushion. ‘Yes, a solution, but a solipsistic one …’ Klaus insists. ‘One chair alone is a social abomination. Several upside-down chairs together, however, may form a nodular cluster, all facing in different directions …
‘Twenty years ago people all stared into the corner of the room at the TV screen. Ha ha ha, idiots. These days everyone’s doing something different, though admittedly probably all looking at a tiny screen in their hand, so with SitUation COMedy you could maybe have the chairs above and below one another to bring people more into one another’s eyeline, or maybe a miniature ferris wheel, any of that cocaine left?’
Collabyrinth This is more of a project than a product, which makes it hugely desirable in the context of a furniture showcase.
If indeed the pure energy of furniture may theoretically be contained by ANY case, however accomplished the theoretical joinery. Collabyrinth brings together thirty of the industry’s hottest young designers, each contributing a thought to the notional furnituristic narrative and then passing it on.
Thus a simple beanbag-with-a-twist mutates, evolving into a complex ‘resting matrix’. As one of the very few non-furniturians to have been vouchsafed a glimpse of what animateur Bib Funnel is calling ‘dialectic consequences in serial, stuffed form’ I urge you to secure your own glimpse as soon as possible. Assuming you have, like me, VIP access to this kind of thing. Otherwise, I think there’s a documentary on one of the Living channels later this year.
Rising Stair By MC Shroomblagger for upscale furniturologists Stannah & Sisters. Wow. This is so far beyond furniture, it’s as if furniture has travelled through some kind of furniture wormhole, to emerge into another galaxy of possibilities. Welcome to a world of brutal taxonomy and meta-furnitural backspin. Imagine an environment where you’re permanently going upstairs, yet stationary. Exactly. Wow.
Die Nachtrekleine Perhaps my favourite future furniture, caught in that inspirational gleam between thought and word. Although still very much at the pre-conceptual stage, I’m confident that someone somewhere will be about to think of an industrial form, digitally milled, with a soft overlay and organic colours. Here’s to the futurniture!
April 18, 2013
Right Enough to be True,
True Enough to be Trite
MONDAY Cash in on multiple cultural trends by patenting my new ‘self-bake’ affordable home protoype.
TUESDAY I just don’t understand it. Over the last few days I’ve submitted four proposals and they’ve all been greeted with blank indifference.
A boutique urban picnic area. The conversion of an office block to a ‘city hive’ buzzing with inferred Mad Men chic and stylish space constraints. An artistic intervention in the roofspace of a Victorian railway station. A re-imagined Carlisle where, in my renderings at least, inhabitants enjoy sunshine and wi-fi and eye contact.
Why have these proposals not been welcomed by local politicians and planners with appropriate levels of enthusiasm? Why have I not, as is customary, been praised for my insight into the human condition and for my selfless generosity in showing how this could be ameliorated by the healing balm of epic space?
Not even a ‘thank you’!
WEDNESD
AY Wait. My fault. I don’t know how it happened, but I sent out all four proposals without any references to a ‘cloud’ in the design. No wonder I’ve been getting the cold shoulder.
Everyone knows that – this quarter at least – ‘it’s the cloud, stupid’. For without ‘the cloud’ there can be no aspiration, no higher plane. THERE CAN BE NO NEBULISED FUTURE.
I ask the various recipients to destroy the proposals as they stand. To be honest I feel a bit guilty about blaming an unpaid intern for the cock-up but if you can’t do that once in a while I’m struggling to see what the point of an unpaid intern is.
THURSDAY My revised urban picnic area now presents the swirl of humanity as a cloud of hopeful possibility. The residential tower block ‘puts other lifeclouds in the shade’. My installation piece is now simply called RailCloud 2020. New Carlisle is reformulated along ‘cloudsourcing principles of social stakeholding’.
Within an hour, everyone’s sent me an email telling me how brilliant my proposals are, how these days the cloud is more crucial than ever. Of course, they’re all idiots. Nevertheless we all need to be reading from the same weather chart when the cumulo-nimbies coalesce into their own inevitable clouds of poisonous gas.
FRIDAY In the morning, design a pop-up church. Sort of ‘ecumenical rationalism’. I wouldn’t want to offend any atheists, they’re really touchy. Plus, it’s made of laminated cardboard so you can’t be having too many fiddly bits.
In the afternoon, struggle with the internal layout. A ‘worship space’ is obviously essential, but it’s a non-specific church. I’m not entirely sure what or who will be glorified, or how. Likewise, toilets. Impossible to know how long people are going to be mumbling and bumbling about inside with the remembrance of sin pressing on their bladders.
In the evening, solve most of the architectural problems by creating a pop-up religion. Inclusive, welcoming, a range of deities to suit all members of the congregation and available in pill form for those who require their god within them.