June 12, 2025 • 52 mins
Ever wondered what architects mean when they talk about "programme"? In our latest deep dive, we crack open this fundamental concept that shapes everything from the tiniest apartments to sprawling civic buildings.
This episode begins with a seemingly simple question: what exactly is program in architecture? We explore how program operates simultaneously at multiple scales—a house within a street, a road within a city—creating nested relationships that influence design decisions. Through examples like OMA's Seattle Library with its stacked functional boxes unified by a faceted glass facade, we see perhaps the most literal translation of program to architectural form.
The conversation weaves through bubble diagrams (an early design tool), form following function (or is it the other way around?), and experimental approaches that challenge conventional spatial definitions. Gerard shares several fascinating concepts including his "advent calendar house" where floor hatches reveal different functional spaces beneath. We discuss how regulatory constraints and client expectations often limit such experimentation, particularly in residential contexts, while highlighting how program innovation frequently emerges most powerfully in constrained circumstances like tiny houses.
What makes this exploration particularly valuable is recognizing that program isn't just a technical exercise but a powerful design driver. By thinking creatively about how spaces function, relate, and transform, architects can create more compelling environments without relying solely on expensive materials or dramatic forms. Whether you're designing your own space or simply curious about how buildings work, understanding program reveals architecture's deeper purpose: creating meaningful human experiences through thoughtful spatial relationships.
Listen now and you'll never look at a building the same way again. Have you encountered spaces with particularly brilliant programming? We'd love to hear about your experiences in the comments!
Chapters:
- 0:00 - Introduction to Understanding Program
- 9:42 - Defining Program: Bubble Diagrams & Form
- 19:46 - Program as Architecture: Notable Examples
- 29:55 - Form Follows Function: Design Approaches
- 39:54 - Reinventing Walls: Alternative Spatial Definitions
- 48:05 - Program Innovation: Experimental Dwellings
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week's episode is brought to you by Parrot Dog,
limited release 28.
A hazy DIPA programmed withcrush, strata and citra hops.
Prominent tropical and stonefruit hop characters give way to
a super soft mouthfeel and lowbitterness Juicy, bubbly and
nice.
This week we've cracked intothe vault and pulled up an
(00:22):
episode that we've recorded atthe end of last year.
Thought we'd lost this one, butseems like we've managed to
retrieve it and bring it to youguys this week, super excited
about this one.
We discuss program form andfunction and all things in
between.
So sit down, get your bubblediagrams ready and let's crack
it welcome back.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Hello, this is gerard .
Here was a design principlespodcast and today we're
endeavoring to talk aboutprogram.
What is program?
It's very architectural term.
We like to throw around weirdterms that nobody else
understands and that we're stilltrying to understand ourselves.
So here we go.
I sort of think program is uh,it's not some.
(01:22):
Uh, it's kind of like yourbubble diagram, I guess, if
you're in the design process,your rooms and stuff.
But then as you change scale, Ithink that relationship moves
as well.
So a house is a program to astreet, within the street.
It's part of the program of astreet.
Road is a part of the programof a city.
What do you guys reckon?
Speaker 1 (01:44):
I sort of pegged it down to well.
Well, firstly, how do you spellit?
M-e or no M-E at the end?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I'll be honest, I don't know when to use either of
those.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
American version is M-E in the end in English.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Isn't it the other way around?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
No, I don't think so.
I think the American isP-R-O-G-R-A-M-M.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
This is a debate we're having.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
I've Googled it before.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I'm all about program-y, Program-y are you?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Yeah, I weirdly, when I'm writing a program sort of
like a Gantt chart type program,I weirdly use
P-R-O-T-R-A-M-E-M-E but Idefinitely prefer the short
version.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Anyway, sorry, I digress, I just always.
It's always bothered me becauseI don't think there's a right
answer.
Gerard, you pretty much I thinkyou pretty much nailed what it
is in a nutshell.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I mean, I've sort of got All right done Podcast over.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah, exactly I thought about six points here of
what like program includes andwhat program looks to address.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Six steps to programming.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, and that's like purpose and functionality,
spatial requirements, the user'sexperience, technical
requirements, aestheticpreference and then regulatory
constraints.
And so it's how all of thosethings impact each other and how
really the functionalrequirement is probably the the
(03:13):
biggest driver and turn affectsall the the other things around
it yeah, um, I think some goodexamples of how I kind of see
the program is OMA's SeattleLibrary.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Do you guys remember that one?
It's kind of like boxes stackedon top of each other and then
just like a big glass facadethat blends them all together.
But I just started off withthese real basic masses.
The top box is headquarters,then the next one's books, then
assembly, then's books, thenassembly, then staff, then
parking and then the facade justlike wiggles between them.
(03:51):
All right, I think that to meis like a, a wow, a real strong
form driver from program, sosplitting the building up.
But then I guess that one'sinteresting because it's got all
these in-between spaces betweenthe boxes, which is probably
the public space.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
It's quite a literal transformation of program to
form really, though, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah super literal which I guess might happen lots
in architecture school, or youknow, you might think it would
happen lots in architectureschool but probably doesn't
actually happen very often inlife, which probably makes it a
pretty interesting building toencounter.
Which kind of comes back to thepoint of why I wanted to talk
about program, because I thinkit's such a useful tool and, as
(04:40):
a design driver, kind of trickyou into using different forms,
definitely in that OMA scenario,without that diagram you'd
never come up with that shape ofbuilding.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Do you guys on that diagram idea, when you guys are
designing in the very earlystages, do you still bubble
diagram?
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I did it the other day, actually after our initial
programming discussion, I waslike, yes, this is something I
need to experiment with a littlebit more, but you still haven't
made any models.
Pulled out the bubble diagramsand the models are coming soon.
Models are coming soon.
They're coming soon, but Ifound the bubble diagramming
(05:23):
very useful, though it was justlike an easy way to start to
organize some spaces.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
I really enjoy it because it's so fast.
And to your point, gerard, oninfluencing form, you might
start with a bunch of separatedbubbles with each programmatic
or each functional requirementthat's given to you by the
client.
So let's say that might bekitchen, living, public, private
(05:49):
, open, closed, whatever theymay be, or it may be as simple
as individual rooms.
It might be three bedrooms.
You have three bubbles forbedrooms or bathrooms, whatever
however your arrangement is.
But you start with those allseparated and then you start to
mesh them together and stackthem on top of each other and
how you envision them intolinking.
(06:11):
I find it really helpful towork through that process of
moving the bubbles around andthen connecting them with arrows
.
How you see that into of thetransitional spaces, yeah, is
that something that you guys do?
Speaker 3 (06:25):
yeah, definitely, and the same with the inside versus
the outside and yeah, as gerardwas saying before, like to a
different scale, so the houseversus the street, or yeah, I
think that's all very, veryuseful.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So, pro, pro bubble diagram interestingly, I haven't
really thought about bringingin the like wider context
program into like the bubblediagram.
So it's definitely somethinglike a tool to a technique or a
tool to to look to implement,because I quite often as well,
in terms of scale, I'llinitially start with my let's,
(07:04):
let's say, 10 fingers, 10bubbles, but then and they're
all the same size, but as yousort of start to nut out the
priority of each one of thosefunctional requirements, the
bubbles will increase ordecrease in size.
You know, you might have athree or four little bubbles
which are are utility bathroomsmaybe, and then you might have
(07:25):
one massive bubble which is likea key space, be that a bedroom
or be that the kitchen, living,dining or be that whatever.
And I find that quite usefulfor then starting to arrange a
plan and space and understandthe scale of spaces beside each
other as well.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Well, I just went ahead and scaled the bubbles to
roughly how many square metersthat space needs to be.
But going back to your largerscale stuff, because we do like
more development type, so whenyou're using it for like in a
development, it's reallyimportant to know, like, how
(08:07):
each building is going to beinteracting with each other, as
well as what's happening withinthat building itself.
Yeah, so that's probably why we, you know and incorporate, like
the streetscape and that sortof thing a little bit more.
Yeah, controversial.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I don't tend to use the bubble diagram.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Really the program man?
Yeah, I thought you'd be a hugeproponent for the bubble
diagram.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I'm doing the closest thing to the bubble diagram on
a project at the moment wherewe're dealing with stricter size
requirements.
But usually I'm very loose.
Make it up.
Yeah, it's hard topost-rationalize my design
process.
I'm kind of always balancingliteral program with
(08:51):
architectural intent andsometimes, like I said I
mentioned before, design asprogram.
Maybe I am down that angle abit more.
So previous job I was kind ofstruggling to get it to work
until I found a sort of aconceptual driver which was like
birds in the bush, because it'sa bush site and it's a very
(09:15):
complex little lot of program.
So I didn't want to like end upcreating something quite
monolithic or too regular in abush setting.
So I wanted something sort ofscattered through, keep trying
to maintain like the beauty ofbeing in the bush.
So I kind of landed on turningthe buildings into birds and
(09:36):
then then they're not allowed tolike birds don't really stand
in line unless they're on apower line.
I guess that kind of likestarted to drive my would-be
double diagram.
So I guess I was kind ofdesigning outside in in that
scenario.
But I think I change mytechnique every time so we don't
really have a consistenttechnique to the design.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
It's chaos so would you say you follow like a more
of a, to use, you know, theLouis Sullivan maxim more of a
form follows function approach?
Or would you say you're theopposite?
Or would you say it's projectspecific, because for me, I
think I'm probably more of aform follows function direction
(10:23):
is the way that my designevolves.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I try to achieve both ideally.
So I don't think I, I don'tknow.
I kind of refuse to believe youcan't have form and function.
Surely Maybe that's just me?
No, I'm not saying that.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
But it's more like what comes first in your
approach, like is it the chickenor is it the egg?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
you know, yeah, I don't know.
It's definitely different eachtime.
I think the thing that isconsistent is that I try to find
a unique take on each project.
This is like architecture solong and you spend so long.
It's like a really long-termrelationship.
An architecture project it'spretty committing.
(11:08):
I want to spend that sort ofengaging in an interesting idea
or a theme every project.
I try to have something kind ofunique in there, whether it's
making birds as buildings likemum's place is a big courtyard
but then you have to go outsideto get from living to the
(11:29):
bedroom, based on a quote Ifound, I think, from some old
Olsen-Kundig yarn about how it'sgood for you to go outside.
So sometimes it might just be atheme like that is probably
where the design is, but thenit's always like meshed in with
trying to make shit affordable,what your budget is, and then
(11:53):
that might simplify yourbuilding down to a box, and then
so simply just conclating formsjust diving a little bit deeper
on that building.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
My buildings are birds concept.
How do you create the program?
Because obviously it soundslike you're creating the forms
which are, you know, based onvarious bird types, but then how
do you actually create the, theprogram of the building?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
so those ones have quite specific program.
So the well.
I guess from the bush aspectthe program is a bird From the
external aspect, but as theinternal program, one of them is
a med center, one of them islike social services.
There's various other relatablespaces, but how are you
designing the program?
So with the med center, it'swith the medical clinic, so they
(12:44):
have quite a strict program.
So, yeah, it's very back andforth between what they want and
what they have.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
So we our last meeting I had archicad I've been
with them which actually workedout amazingly through this
process, are you coming up witha form and then a conceptual
form or a conceptual directionand then making program fit, or
are you creating the program inan outline of how you may want
(13:15):
to create the form and then sortof draping the form over it for
want of a better term ormolding the form to it?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yeah, it's a mixture of those two.
Okay, because it's such astrict program, it needs to work
properly, but then I need it towork properly from my
architectural direction as well.
So, playing with thearchitecture, I see it as right
in the middle of like formfollows function and function
(13:43):
follows form.
So it's really don't see thecompromise there.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Because it's interesting.
You know that project that youtalked about, there's a Seattle
library.
You know that's very much aprogram generated form, where
you've got your program and, forwant of a Seattle library, you
know that's very much a programgenerated form, where you've got
your program and, for want of abetter term, you've stacked all
of these bubbles, all theseblocks, and you've basically
like draped a cloth over the topof them and that has created
your building, whereas somethinglike Leibschkin's Jewish Museum
(14:10):
to me that's very much formallydriven and then program has
been made to fit within it andthat's sort of forced.
This like strong tension andjuxtaposition of space, isn't?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
that Holocaust Museum very linear layout, so like
that does work really well forthe exhibition because it is a
progression of spaces.
From my understanding, havingnever been there, it is.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
It is like that, but when you're in it it doesn't
feel like that, and I don't knowif the intention was to create
a chaotic sense.
But there's order to the chaos,but it seems driven by chaos.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
First, if you know what I mean.
Yeah, well, I think, becausehe's got like purposely put
beams across spaces and stuff,like to create that feeling of
chaos, because he's telling apretty strong area.
I think both those examplescould be argued the other way as
well.
The Seattle Library is such aunique form that maybe that's
(15:22):
using the argument of program tovalidate form as architecture.
Yeah, I think.
Just some of those old schoolquotes.
A bit black and white, a bitblack and white.
Yeah, both of those examples, Ithink, are pretty good examples
of awesome form and awesomeprogram, like meshing in a
(15:45):
really cohesive, successful way,whereas if we listen to too
many of the old boys who like toboil life down into one
sentence, let's make new quotesyeah, form one sentence, let's
make new quotes yeah, form andfunction, let's go for it.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Do you know the classic and this is a slight
digression, but a classicprogram?
Program influences form.
I don't know how much you guysknow about city planning of
Wellington.
The city was first designed inthe UK but for the hut, and they
arrived here and the land wastoo boggy, it was too swampy,
and they're like, oh, we can'tbuild a city here, so we'll put
(16:23):
it on the harder, better surfacematerial on the other side of
the harbour and it was bettersheltered from the weather and
things like that.
Well, they thought it was, butthey didn't really change the
city design.
They sort of just dropped itover the wellington landscape.
So you went from flat site toan incredibly hilly site and
(16:44):
which is why we have so manyweird twisted streets because
they had to take this veryregular city plan and make it
fit an incredibly irregular site, which I find like just so
hilarious yeah, it's also workedout fairly well in the grand
scheme of things.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
I'll always get places like Hamilton, which is
like a grid for as far as theeye can see it.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
I mean it's created a very dynamic city.
Some people would sayfrustrating.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, learning the roads around Mount Vicar took me
a little bit back in the day, Ithink, to push the program
thing a little bit further.
Like I think, like there'sinteresting way to define space
through the use of program, likeI think we're.
Something I think aboutsometimes is how in love with
(17:28):
the wall we are, for obviousreasons, a wall, solid, easy,
nice, predictable object.
But like there's, you can kindof use program in a way to
define space without walls orlike I think the sana project,
the rolex learning center, is abig kind of almost loose
(17:50):
topography.
It's like a blanket of abuilding but she's used like a
rolling hill to like define thespace.
So I think you go over the hilland then so it's a massive
building, so it's like you walkover the hill and that defines
one space from the other.
I think relationships of like,yeah, how we define spaces,
(18:12):
stuff that I find superinteresting, love to experiment
with in the future.
Yeah, another one's likeholtrop and holtrop's got a um
apartment concept which is justlike a like if you drop the
paint on the ground it's like abig wiggly, splatter sort of
shape and there's no doors.
(18:32):
I think you just walk downthese long hallways and then
around the corner, then you gainthe privacy for a bedroom or
something.
So it's like these weirder waysof defining your space, but
lead to an interesting space.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
You can definitely tell when you're in a space that
has absolutely nailed theprogram.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Do you know, what's quite interesting is all of
these examples that we'retalking about here are larger
civic buildings or commercialbuildings or education
facilities or whatever, likelibraries, museums, all this
sort of stuff.
Less so so far, that we'vediscussed anyway things like
(19:17):
housing or maybe retail orhospitality or anything like.
Do you think that there's thesame I mean, I, I totally think
that there's the sameopportunity to be able to
approach program andspecifically what we're talking
about here at the moment, sortof the removal of the wall in
these areas.
But do you think that's aharder battle, given, you know,
(19:39):
the slightly more definedprogrammatic spaces that you're
required to interlink?
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Talking, about privacy.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Talking about privacy , taking a shit, bedrooms, you
know, whatever, be that to yourown housemates, family,
neighbours, whatever, equally.
Take hospitality, for example,the front of house to back of
house relationship, and whetherthat's an open relationship or
not, things like that.
(20:08):
Equally retail changingfacilities and all that sort of
thing.
It'd be really interesting tosee, or if any listeners or if
you guys have any examples thatsort of fit, that same mold of
of removing the wall or orchallenging the conventions of
program, I guess, and in thosesort of buildings that have a
far more standard, I guess, orregimented programmatic scheme I
(20:33):
did a cafe in newtown frank'sfrank's in newtown which we kind
of like opened the back ofhouse.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
So the concept was that kind of exposed back of
house a little bit, and then,with the idea that it makes
people feel welcome and part ofthe space, and then we put seats
sort of on the end, each end ofthe bench.
Some of these things have kindof been taken over and there's
there's no longer any seats onthe end of the bench.
(21:03):
It was a little bit too small.
But the yeah, I'm not sure howsuccessful it was because, like
the, you got the sterilizer andkitchen kind of exposed to some
of the back tables and you gotto walk past it.
But the design like relied on avery clean, yeah, cafe, yeah,
(21:27):
and we antsed over like all thestorage space and like we're
like all right, we've got, we'vedone this to death, we've got
storage for everything.
Everything has its place.
But if you go into frank's newtown now it's kind of like
chaotic and there's bags ofbeans and shit piled up against
the wall, like another fridge upagainst the wall.
(21:47):
So it's like if, if it's notmaintained at like a how it was
intended, it wasn't going towork.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
And I kind of feel like I totally know exactly what
you mean and I sort of thinkthe same from a residential
point of view.
I love the idea of thewall-less house but say, for
instance, you've got somebody inthe home, that's an intense
snorer Kind of want to be ableto lock that person away or
other noisy activities which youknow.
(22:18):
Use your imagination.
But you know there's the,there's the design concept.
You know that we have and andsort of that I that maybe
idealistic view on how a spacemay be used or designed to be
used or whatever.
But in reality you know, is itor or can it be successful?
And I, like gerard the honest,your honesty, and that you know
(22:41):
you've tried, you tried thisthing and really you know,
ultimately it wasn't successful,maybe not necessarily wasn't
successful as a, as a space Imean, frank's is still a cool
cafe but you know, like you'renot true to your original design
intent and yeah, I thinksometimes we can.
We can often get lost in ourconcepts and then reality
strikes and it can quite oftenbring a project down.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yeah, that cafe actually was the last time I was
very thorough about a bubblediagram.
Right, me and Luke Melhopdesigned that together and we
drew a bubble diagram and we'relike colored in the bubble
diagram.
We're like, hey, this is kindof cool, let's just build this.
So if you go to Frank'severything's circular, so it's
like A literal bubble diagram.
(23:27):
It's like so it's literally.
Very literal, an extrusion of abubble diagram Love it.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
That kind of reminds me of, you know, when you
basically you put a new lawndown and you need to put some
sort of pathway in, but you justlet people use the lawn, walk
over the lawn naturally untiltracks occur, and then you're
like, okay, cool, that's themost efficient place to put the
pathway.
How much of the program shouldactually you, you know, happen
(23:58):
organically or naturally?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, that's an interesting point and this kind
of comes back to ourconversation last week on
material.
You know, how far can you pushthe extreme of a concept and I
like that idea, ben of.
Could you almost have abuilding that's completely naked
and over the time but it has anintended use, whatever that may
be, and, over time, the waythat people interact and use it.
(24:24):
Say, you have a test period of18 months or something and then
that will drive the finaloutcome.
That could be quite.
It'd be a really cool idea.
Test that test.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Is that the Kanegawa Institute?
Oh, ishigami's building oftrees.
Beside his big swoopy outsidebuilding he's got a I think it's
a workshop, part of a workshop,but it's just a giant open room
made with like a thousandcolumns basically all tiny
(24:58):
little miniature columns andthere's no, no program in there.
It's just like full open spaceand people kind of inhabit it
how they will.
So, like his renders versuslike what it's like now.
When you see videos like kevinfrom Kevin from Archie Marathon,
how his video of that spacecame out a few days after our
(25:21):
talk Cool, yeah, you should havea look at that video.
People have just put tables andbenches everywhere.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
But the columns were still.
The columns, I guess, havestill influenced the space to a
degree.
It would be interesting if theywere.
You know, this is pie in thesky concepts, but if they were
movable and as people use thespace it shifted and moved to
more, you know, like it'sshifting sand dune almost yeah,
those columns were based on aforest so they're all very
(25:53):
irregular.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
So there's a forest.
It's a very conceptual forestultimately.
But yeah, how much can youdirect people?
Kere Barn did a house.
I think it was called PictureFrame House.
It's like a big empty shedbasically, and then the bedrooms
are little boxes on wheels andthen you can kind of push your
boxes around.
That would be a realinteresting project to do like a
(26:17):
post-occupancy review, so likehas it been used as intended or
have the boxes been pushed intoone location and that's where
they will remain?
Yeah, that was an interestingproject that came out when I was
tutoring with girl Megan Storm.
(26:37):
We did a topography house.
It's based on the idea of alandscape inside a building.
I guess an extreme version ofthe Sarno project roll at centre
, you go over hills and that isyour differentiation of space.
I think the bathroom was likein the ground.
(27:00):
So you try to tackle theseissues.
I just think there's there'sspace in the world for like the
super exciting conceptualprojects, but maybe on like a
like a tree hotel sort of aspecta tree hotel where they build
weird wacky buildings but thenultimately they're on Airbnb or
(27:22):
something.
It'd be kind of a cool thingfor people to explore.
We build outrageous buildingsand then people can come and
experience them, because itwould be hard to live with a
family in a room in a house.
That's just a skate parkessentially.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Exactly right, and I think you've hit the nail on the
head, is that it takes aspecial type of client or a
special type of function or useto be able to explore this sort
of thing.
Like you said, having a familyhome with this kind of crazy
concept is, in reality, notgoing to probably get across the
(27:58):
line you might present it tothe clients.
Odds on, it's going to be ahard sell.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Yeah architecture is often a hard sell.
Response is still like yourclient's attitude to risk how
adventurous they are.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah, it'd be nice.
I mean, this is a discussionthat we want to have at another
time.
But you know, I think this sortof extreme not even extreme, but
just more conceptual push ofthe idea of program is
definitely like, applicable tothe realm of competition as well
, and I think there's not enough, because there's no fear like
(28:39):
in competition.
There's no fear like not fear,but there's like no, there's no
risk or there's no sort ofnegative out, potential negative
outcome other than not winningthe competition, but it's not a
loss because you still learn somuch in the process.
But you know, I think there'snot enough competition in
architecture, in all aspectscommercial, civic, you know,
even residential um, and thenobviously the purely conceptual.
(29:02):
But I think, you know,competition is definitely
somewhere where you could startto come, come up with these
brilliant ideas.
And the thing is people aren'tgoing to know what they like
until they've presented it.
And you might surprise yourself, but I'd say and personally,
like so often, you know, nervoustoo or fearful to kind of
really push a crazy,particularly programmatic
(29:22):
concept um, because you don'twant to do a shitload of work
and it'll be rejected and youhave to redo it yeah, that
that's.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
I think the competition thing could be a
antidote to New Zealand's sortof benign built environment,
uninspiring public architecturejust uninspiring everything,
yeah asking Kevin about whathouses in New Zealand he would
come and visit.
It's not really onlyresidential, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (29:52):
like that's the only but that's the crazy thing.
I mean, we do housing.
We do do housing really well.
It's beautiful, you know, butwe do bespoke housing very well.
I'd say the vast majority ofour housing is pretty damn
average.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
We don't have any Seattle libraries.
I think that's competitions.
I think you're far more likelyto receive some interesting
proposals via competition.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
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So, other than the wool, gerard, I mean we sort of talked about
reinventing the concept of thewall.
I mean, have you looked at anyother aspects of a?
(31:02):
Or there's more standardaspects of a building that you
could look?
Speaker 2 (31:07):
to reinvent.
I think there's a lot more tothe wall as well.
There's a varying degree there,like whether you like lots of
you said curtains being used abit architecturally, like maybe
more internationally, like todefine like a lounge, nook or
something.
Maybe that's the retractable.
(31:27):
Maybe if you had a big ceilinggrid, giant grid, foot by foot
or something, and then you havethis multi configurable curtain
space, you can reconfigure yourhouse as you wish.
I just think how we define thespaces I think are what I find
(31:48):
really interesting.
Even down to some people do moreof the camping style where you
have a series of buildings and acanopy and then you kind of
remember.
I can't remember the house, butI think Kirsten showed that in
one of her lectures back in theday.
She did it at architectureschool.
That's kind of based on tenting, so I think that one had
(32:10):
external access to differentspaces.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Sort of each individual program's its own
building and they're envelopedin this canopy or enveloped in a
roof form.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, which you could really push.
You could push that really hard.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
I've thought about that concept quite a few times
and I love the idea, and thenevery actually for my own house.
But then every time I come backto it I'm like shit, that's a
lot of external cladding work,which means a lot of this, but
it's also when it's your ownmoney that matters a lot yeah,
part out, but also probablyallow you to stage a project
(32:46):
quite totally and potentially.
You know.
You know, even with the, youknow with the changes, you know,
if that 60 square meter grannyflat type rule comes in you know
what are you looking at thereyou could you build an entire
house sans consent.
Almost that's something youknow.
At some point you tie it alltogether.
But that'd be a reallyinteresting sort of approach as
(33:07):
well and that kind of comes backto that original, those sort of
six points of program that Italked about.
That's almost a way.
There's almost a program initself.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
You know the way that you approach a build like that
everything is program everythingis program and some of those
like tight apartment complexeswhere you know you've got like
multi-functional spaces.
Your apartment's like threemeters wide by I don't know like
say six or eight meters, butyou've got to squeeze in, you
(33:38):
know, a kitchen, a bed, a livingspace, and so it's configured
in such a way that you can kindof like shift things around,
move walls and reconfigure it.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
I think tiny houses are a great you know, well
understood, well, relativelywell understood example of that.
You know, everything in a tinyhouse has a multiple function.
You can't afford when you'reworking with such a tight
program.
You can't afford for somethingto have single use Every floor
is a bed and every wall is acupboard or you know, whatever
(34:14):
that may be and I quite likethat multi-use aspect.
You know, I sit here justlooking around and in the studio
down here and, like you know,there's four walls with winsome
windows.
You know, but, like the walls,the function of the walls is
purely a wall.
They're not doing and you canhang arvin or whatever on them,
(34:35):
but that's it.
It's doing nothing else and Ilike that idea of it having a
having a higher purpose thosesmall space projects like what's
?
Speaker 2 (34:46):
what's the old saying , the lack of maximum parameters
kind of breed interestingoutcomes, totally the
transformer spaces.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
You kind of always end up with some interesting
quirky or takes on things Iwonder if that's just because
you've got you know it's asmaller thing to sort of
comprehend and so you've gotspace to be more creative and
more you know it's.
It's a more of a craftsmanapproach than say you know
you're not gonna well, unlessyou've got an insane budget.
You know your level ofcraftsmanship on like a 700
(35:17):
square metre home is not goingto be anywhere near the level of
craftsmanship that you as adesigner is able to put in, or
the builder even is able to putinto a 60 square metre home
Dependent on budget.
Yeah, I mean.
Anything can be done withunlimited funds and time.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yeah, those Queenstown builds take three
years for a reason.
Yeah, I designed this containerhouse idea back in the day,
which was the idea was that youflip a container on its end, so
it's like sticking up like atower and then you suspend all
the program from the ceiling.
Rather than going to thebedroom, you bring the bedroom
(36:00):
to you, so you're interchangingyour program into the same space
, push it back up and then youpull down the kitchen bench and
then do your kitchen and thenyou push it back up.
The bathroom, however, was onthe side of the of the tower you
wouldn't want to be pushingthat back up.
(36:20):
But yeah, it's not that keen ona bucket, you know.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
I mean, gerard, you've sort of talked to us.
Maybe you don't want to giveaway any of your trade secrets,
but you've sort of I mean,that's such an awesome way of
reinventing program.
You've sort of talked aboutother ones, like the advent
calendar type idea as well.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Yeah, so that that was um came out the back of the
uni project as well, the at uni.
The idea was that I was farmingdesign ideas for my next 10
years.
Recommend everyone to go tutoruniversity students for a
semester.
I think Get some inspiration.
(37:02):
You get a lot out of it.
Like just the freedom ofthinking at uni is you try to
comprehend it.
You're like, oh yeah, I cancome up, I can think of crazy
ideas.
But when you're just in a roomof people that are actively,
because you set the parameters,as I did in that scenario, so
you can you can kind of directthe focus on what you're
(37:23):
thinking about.
So that whole course for me wasin program.
So we were actively trying tocome up with new program ideas
without relying strictly on thewalls.
So it's like when you go downthe old Sunkundag route of
moving things around withpulleys and cables, or like the
(37:43):
Sana route of moving over hills.
This other one was sort of likean advent calendar.
So I just like the idea of likea very crisp conceptual space,
big empty room, and then there'sjust a series of hatches in the
floor.
So you lift up a hatch andthere's all your bedroom, your
(38:05):
bed and maybe a rack of clotheson the side, another one,
there's a bathtub or there's akitchen in the other one.
So then you're like steppingdown 900 mil or whatever as an
experiential space.
I think it's pretty amazing tobe able to pack your house away
and then you have this big hallfor parties.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
I was going to argue.
You know that comes back tothat classic you come up with
the idea, but the userexperience is quite different.
I could see someone being like,oh, this is so fucking annoying
and just leaving it open allthe time.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah, like if you're, that's the prerogative of the
user, I guess.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
That's your December 20.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah, that would be chaos.
Or you just like push, or youjust sweep all the shit into,
like into one of the empty.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Do you just have a?
Do you have like a rubbish pitroom?
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Yeah, yeah, what else you got hidden in those
dungeons?
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Underneath it pit room.
Yeah, yeah, what else you gothidden in those?
Speaker 1 (39:04):
dungeons.
Yeah, underneath it's a giantfunnel and it goes to a big rail
strip.
That that is a good, good idea.
Those like underground rubbishremoval facilities.
I think they've got them on oneof the islands I can't remember
what island and it is in newyork but like, yeah, you put all
your rubbish into like arubbish hatch, it goes down into
like a collection chamber andshoots it off island.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
One of the islands in the Hudson.
It's pretty cool One of thosefor people.
Yeah, I've got to go to work orget my work towel.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
That's the Jetsons, isn't it?
Yeah, the Jetsons.
Yeah, that's a good point, ben.
How much do you thinkprogramming has evolved, or has
it really?
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Well, how much do you think regulatory constraints
affect program?
Is that why it's easy to havelike a obvious change in program
and more commercial commercialrealms?
Speaker 1 (39:57):
but I also think it comes back and we've said this a
few times it comes back to theclient's appetite for something
different.
And I'd say that so many peopleare black and white that they
don't.
You know, they don't really see.
You know they come to you andthey go okay, we want a
three-bedroom house, and intheir head it looks like every
other three-bedroom house.
You know, in terms of theprogram, every space is
(40:20):
individual.
You know you're going to take aspecial kind of client to come
to you being like I'm totallyopen to anything.
Build me a, you know, build mea an advent calendar home.
So I think it's probably morenot that we can't don't have
these ideas, but I think it'smore the ability to implement
them than being a regulatoryconstraint.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
I don't think you can sit back and wait for somebody
to come to you and ask for thattype of architecture.
You have to push that uponpeople, or the concept client
engagement phase You've got to.
You know, see what theyactually want.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
I feel like a true architect is.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
You will accept this idea.
I don't care what you like.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
Architect slash Jedi.
You will like.
This is what you want, this iswhy I.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
This is why I.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
This is good architecture yeah yeah, I mean,
what do you think, ben?
Do you think that theregulatory framework does
restrict our program?
Because I don't.
I mean, it's not like thebuilding code or you know
anything like that's out theresaying that you have to have
separated bedroom spaces and youhave to have walls.
(41:39):
You know, other than obviouslystructural requirement or
whatever, but to a degree,obviously, but you know what I
mean.
Like it's not, it's not sayingit's not saying like these are
the programmatic requirementsyou have to meet.
So I think, I think we we'vecaught ourselves in thinking
that it does, but it doesn'treally.
(41:59):
I think we've caught ourselvesin thinking that it does, but it
doesn't really.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Yeah, I think that's what we perceive as comfortable
spaces these days.
You know, as much as I love theidea of the advent calendar,
house and that sort of thing dayto day, I'm not sure if it's
going to be the most practicalway of living.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
How do you like getting up in the middle of the
night, super dusty, and you haveto like open a hatch to find
your toilet and you open thewrong hatch and then you're like
, fuck this house you hope youfall into the couch, not the
kitchen.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
What about the dishes in there, though?
You gotta clean the kitchenproperly.
I'm way too lazy for that, waytoo lazy, although, yeah, if it
had that whole recycling rubbish, uh situation going on, then
make life a bit easier.
I think, like for me it's morebasic, it's around what's
(42:56):
happening on the site, you know,whether orientation, garden
landscaping, all of that sort ofthing, as opposed to having,
like, a big open space and moreof a dynamic built environment.
Yeah, I'm not sure.
I'm still.
I'm still working through it,still working through it.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
I'm still learning we're pushing the uh boat all
the way there.
You boat all the way to the end.
At this point, For context, theadvent calendar at the moment
is drawn as an A-frame in itscurrent iteration for a bit of
land on my own land.
So you've got to test theseideas on yourself.
(43:40):
But that's sort ofcross-programmed with the idea
of a sort of chapel, like awedding venue, A frame that's
sort of falling down a hill.
So it's got to introduceanother element.
It's got a sloped floor, Ridges, you know level, Got a small
triangle at the top and then bigtriangle at the bottom and a
(44:03):
truncated apron.
So on the slope you then havethe hatches as well.
So then down at the bottomthere's a little kick out and
then a little waterfall into akitchen.
The current iteration has sortof two layers of hatches, so the
top layer is like the chapel.
So then that turns into stairs.
(44:26):
So it turns into a normalterraced space.
But then when those are downyou lift up a bigger hatch and
that's like your bedroom or desk.
But this is like the part theyou know.
The base use is like a.
It's a ski house, ski hut, booka batch, so it's not like a
full-on house.
(44:48):
But this one does have abathroom off to the side.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
Bathroom, toilet and a hatch.
You can choose to squat atfloor level or walk down into a
toilet.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
This one's got a whole room off the side with a
mega window and a big view outto the bush.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
When can we expect that to be finished?
Construction A million years.
Who knows.
What are some other uniqueprograms that you've come up
with.
I'm feeling inspired.
Maybe I need to get morecreative.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
There's this other hotel in Norway I think it was
part of the Ex Machina, somerobot, ai, robot movie.
There's a series of houses inthe bush, but they're kind of
like just regular versions ofHoltrop's kind of finger idea.
So they're kind of like wigglyrooms, that like offshoot, so
(46:04):
you have, rather than doors, youhave kind of like a bend in the
room.
But again, these are likesingle unit things, where you go
around the corner and thenthere's the bed down the end and
it's got like a big window andtree.
So like, yeah, it planned,you've got some more regular
wiggles and then it sort ofmoves around these trees and
stuff as well.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
Don't have to chop anything down we've talked a lot
about, like the maybe notextreme but you know very
intensive take on reinventingprogram, but being kind of it'd
be interesting to get your take,particularly in the realm that
you work in, you know a bit moreof that medium density
development stuff and how youcan influence sort of the
(46:47):
generic program in that and aproject that kind of springs to
mind is Block Party bySpacecraft.
If you think about a standardhomes program and then they've
just pulled out aspects of thatthat can be very public and then
made that shared, that's howthat's influenced the spaces and
it's meant that you can.
They've been able to bundle alot of program and a lot of
(47:12):
usable space into a small site,because not every home needs to
have their own outdoor patio whycan't all six homes share it?
And not every home needs alaundry why can't they all share
it?
Speaker 2 (47:24):
co-housing is probably pretty tricky.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
As a product, though, definitely a realm, for you
know.
For a more interesting use ofprogram though, yeah it
definitely is.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
The problem is then you've got the resource consent
program.
Basically is a program, soyou've got it basically defines,
you know, outlooks, it definesoutdoor spaces and then like
traffic and a whole bunch ofother things that come into play
, and you've got to kind of pullit all together in a way that
(47:57):
makes sense for each building aswell as so they're working
together as well as working asindividual spaces.
So that's why the diagrammaticapproach works quite well,
because you can actually get alot of those outlooks in there
and in the garden spaces yourminimum requirement and then
(48:18):
kind of work around that.
But that's what I was talkingabout before.
Like that's kind of like amediocre way of designing in
comparison to what gerard'stalking about, which I would
absolutely like love to be ableto incorporate more of.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
But I guess that's what the you know the argument
and the success of a projectlike Block Party is is that it's
a simple shift in program thatyou know probably still easily
meets regulatory constraints.
But all it took was that likeone step.
You know we don't have to take10 steps to make a difference
(49:02):
and make a more interestingspace.
I guess what I'm coming at islike that one step can be enough
to create something that'squite unique.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
That worked well because that was a group of
people slash friends that cametogether to build a single
product, I guess in a way.
So that works really well.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
But if you're looking to like, if you're looking to
say, better implement, a betterunderstand program in your own
work.
I guess what I'm getting at isyou don't necessarily have to
run straight away, you know, youdon't have to take this huge
conceptual jump or or shift inyour work.
I mean, it can be somethingquite simple that can have quite
(49:43):
a big impact.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
I just want to shout out to the those block party
guys I like the older I get thisis a little bit of a segue, but
the older I get, the more I'mlike how epic would it be to
just like live with all yourmates on one street?
I don't know, everything justseems like it would be so much
more interesting.
Maybe that's what societyshould actually like band
(50:06):
together people in places asopposed to working around jobs
and that sort of thing.
So it's like okay, cool, thosehundred people get along with
each other and those hundredpeople get along with each other
, and as I basically likesetting out like a wedding or
something like that.
So all of a sudden, you'resurrounded by people that you
(50:26):
really like and, at the veryworst, people that are like
pretty cool, you know, in theouter rims a little bit more,
you know.
So everyone's happy, right,everyone's happy.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
That could be a pretty divisive society, though.
Set up some factions, jesus,yeah, you're getting pretty.
Maybe have a culling everycouple of years.
Yeah, it's getting questionablehere, ben.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Sounds like a hunger crisis.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
That's what I'm talking about.
That's much more interesting.
Speaker 2 (50:56):
But the underlying thought of thinking about
program at a city scale, I thinkis important though I've never
heard somebody, I guess, explainco-housing in that sort of way,
which is a lot more compelling.
And, yeah, we're gonna do allour recycling and save the
planet, whereas get to live withmy mates and, you know, hang
(51:16):
out, that's good time.
Yeah, I think we're.
We're projecting here with alot of these ideas of outrageous
pushing the boundary on things,but I think it's just good to
design in a way that you'rethinking about how your program
is operating.
It's just another good tool tohave in your tool belt.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
If you're looking to create impact in a space, rather
than putting a real flashmaterial on, do you just shift
up how the space functions likesometimes they can be more
impactful than spending lots ofmoney on marvel or something
totally, and I think that that'sthe bottom line really and you
know, I guess that's our, that'swhat we're looking to appeal to
(52:01):
listeners and other designersout there and you know some
people are amazing at it, butyou know there's equally a huge
amount that aren't.
Just consider program a bitmore.
Probably I'm out.
This week's episode is brought to you by Parrot Dog,
limited release 28.
A hazy DIPA programmed withcrush, strata and citra hops.
Prominent tropical and stonefruit hop characters give way to
a super soft mouthfeel and lowbitterness Juicy, bubbly and
nice.
This week we've cracked intothe vault and pulled up an
(00:22):
episode that we've recorded atthe end of last year.
Thought we'd lost this one, butseems like we've managed to
retrieve it and bring it to youguys this week, super excited
about this one.
We discuss program form andfunction and all things in
between.
So sit down, get your bubblediagrams ready and let's crack
it welcome back.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Hello, this is gerard .
Here was a design principlespodcast and today we're
endeavoring to talk aboutprogram.
What is program?
It's very architectural term.
We like to throw around weirdterms that nobody else
understands and that we're stilltrying to understand ourselves.
So here we go.
I sort of think program is uh,it's not some.
(01:22):
Uh, it's kind of like yourbubble diagram, I guess, if
you're in the design process,your rooms and stuff.
But then as you change scale, Ithink that relationship moves
as well.
So a house is a program to astreet, within the street.
It's part of the program of astreet.
Road is a part of the programof a city.
What do you guys reckon?
Speaker 1 (01:44):
I sort of pegged it down to well.
Well, firstly, how do you spellit?
M-e or no M-E at the end?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I'll be honest, I don't know when to use either of
those.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
American version is M-E in the end in English.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Isn't it the other way around?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
No, I don't think so.
I think the American isP-R-O-G-R-A-M-M.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
This is a debate we're having.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
I've Googled it before.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I'm all about program-y, Program-y are you?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Yeah, I weirdly, when I'm writing a program sort of
like a Gantt chart type program,I weirdly use
P-R-O-T-R-A-M-E-M-E but Idefinitely prefer the short
version.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Anyway, sorry, I digress, I just always.
It's always bothered me becauseI don't think there's a right
answer.
Gerard, you pretty much I thinkyou pretty much nailed what it
is in a nutshell.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I mean, I've sort of got All right done Podcast over.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah, exactly I thought about six points here of
what like program includes andwhat program looks to address.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Six steps to programming.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, and that's like purpose and functionality,
spatial requirements, the user'sexperience, technical
requirements, aestheticpreference and then regulatory
constraints.
And so it's how all of thosethings impact each other and how
really the functionalrequirement is probably the the
(03:13):
biggest driver and turn affectsall the the other things around
it yeah, um, I think some goodexamples of how I kind of see
the program is OMA's SeattleLibrary.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Do you guys remember that one?
It's kind of like boxes stackedon top of each other and then
just like a big glass facadethat blends them all together.
But I just started off withthese real basic masses.
The top box is headquarters,then the next one's books, then
assembly, then's books, thenassembly, then staff, then
parking and then the facade justlike wiggles between them.
(03:51):
All right, I think that to meis like a, a wow, a real strong
form driver from program, sosplitting the building up.
But then I guess that one'sinteresting because it's got all
these in-between spaces betweenthe boxes, which is probably
the public space.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
It's quite a literal transformation of program to
form really, though, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah super literal which I guess might happen lots
in architecture school, or youknow, you might think it would
happen lots in architectureschool but probably doesn't
actually happen very often inlife, which probably makes it a
pretty interesting building toencounter.
Which kind of comes back to thepoint of why I wanted to talk
about program, because I thinkit's such a useful tool and, as
(04:40):
a design driver, kind of trickyou into using different forms,
definitely in that OMA scenario,without that diagram you'd
never come up with that shape ofbuilding.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Do you guys on that diagram idea, when you guys are
designing in the very earlystages, do you still bubble
diagram?
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I did it the other day, actually after our initial
programming discussion, I waslike, yes, this is something I
need to experiment with a littlebit more, but you still haven't
made any models.
Pulled out the bubble diagramsand the models are coming soon.
Models are coming soon.
They're coming soon, but Ifound the bubble diagramming
(05:23):
very useful, though it was justlike an easy way to start to
organize some spaces.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
I really enjoy it because it's so fast.
And to your point, gerard, oninfluencing form, you might
start with a bunch of separatedbubbles with each programmatic
or each functional requirementthat's given to you by the
client.
So let's say that might bekitchen, living, public, private
(05:49):
, open, closed, whatever theymay be, or it may be as simple
as individual rooms.
It might be three bedrooms.
You have three bubbles forbedrooms or bathrooms, whatever
however your arrangement is.
But you start with those allseparated and then you start to
mesh them together and stackthem on top of each other and
how you envision them intolinking.
(06:11):
I find it really helpful towork through that process of
moving the bubbles around andthen connecting them with arrows
.
How you see that into of thetransitional spaces, yeah, is
that something that you guys do?
Speaker 3 (06:25):
yeah, definitely, and the same with the inside versus
the outside and yeah, as gerardwas saying before, like to a
different scale, so the houseversus the street, or yeah, I
think that's all very, veryuseful.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So, pro, pro bubble diagram interestingly, I haven't
really thought about bringingin the like wider context
program into like the bubblediagram.
So it's definitely somethinglike a tool to a technique or a
tool to to look to implement,because I quite often as well,
in terms of scale, I'llinitially start with my let's,
(07:04):
let's say, 10 fingers, 10bubbles, but then and they're
all the same size, but as yousort of start to nut out the
priority of each one of thosefunctional requirements, the
bubbles will increase ordecrease in size.
You know, you might have athree or four little bubbles
which are are utility bathroomsmaybe, and then you might have
(07:25):
one massive bubble which is likea key space, be that a bedroom
or be that the kitchen, living,dining or be that whatever.
And I find that quite usefulfor then starting to arrange a
plan and space and understandthe scale of spaces beside each
other as well.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Well, I just went ahead and scaled the bubbles to
roughly how many square metersthat space needs to be.
But going back to your largerscale stuff, because we do like
more development type, so whenyou're using it for like in a
development, it's reallyimportant to know, like, how
(08:07):
each building is going to beinteracting with each other, as
well as what's happening withinthat building itself.
Yeah, so that's probably why we, you know and incorporate, like
the streetscape and that sortof thing a little bit more.
Yeah, controversial.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I don't tend to use the bubble diagram.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Really the program man?
Yeah, I thought you'd be a hugeproponent for the bubble
diagram.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I'm doing the closest thing to the bubble diagram on
a project at the moment wherewe're dealing with stricter size
requirements.
But usually I'm very loose.
Make it up.
Yeah, it's hard topost-rationalize my design
process.
I'm kind of always balancingliteral program with
(08:51):
architectural intent andsometimes, like I said I
mentioned before, design asprogram.
Maybe I am down that angle abit more.
So previous job I was kind ofstruggling to get it to work
until I found a sort of aconceptual driver which was like
birds in the bush, because it'sa bush site and it's a very
(09:15):
complex little lot of program.
So I didn't want to like end upcreating something quite
monolithic or too regular in abush setting.
So I wanted something sort ofscattered through, keep trying
to maintain like the beauty ofbeing in the bush.
So I kind of landed on turningthe buildings into birds and
(09:36):
then then they're not allowed tolike birds don't really stand
in line unless they're on apower line.
I guess that kind of likestarted to drive my would-be
double diagram.
So I guess I was kind ofdesigning outside in in that
scenario.
But I think I change mytechnique every time so we don't
really have a consistenttechnique to the design.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
It's chaos so would you say you follow like a more
of a, to use, you know, theLouis Sullivan maxim more of a
form follows function approach?
Or would you say you're theopposite?
Or would you say it's projectspecific, because for me, I
think I'm probably more of aform follows function direction
(10:23):
is the way that my designevolves.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I try to achieve both ideally.
So I don't think I, I don'tknow.
I kind of refuse to believe youcan't have form and function.
Surely Maybe that's just me?
No, I'm not saying that.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
But it's more like what comes first in your
approach, like is it the chickenor is it the egg?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
you know, yeah, I don't know.
It's definitely different eachtime.
I think the thing that isconsistent is that I try to find
a unique take on each project.
This is like architecture solong and you spend so long.
It's like a really long-termrelationship.
An architecture project it'spretty committing.
(11:08):
I want to spend that sort ofengaging in an interesting idea
or a theme every project.
I try to have something kind ofunique in there, whether it's
making birds as buildings likemum's place is a big courtyard
but then you have to go outsideto get from living to the
(11:29):
bedroom, based on a quote Ifound, I think, from some old
Olsen-Kundig yarn about how it'sgood for you to go outside.
So sometimes it might just be atheme like that is probably
where the design is, but thenit's always like meshed in with
trying to make shit affordable,what your budget is, and then
(11:53):
that might simplify yourbuilding down to a box, and then
so simply just conclating formsjust diving a little bit deeper
on that building.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
My buildings are birds concept.
How do you create the program?
Because obviously it soundslike you're creating the forms
which are, you know, based onvarious bird types, but then how
do you actually create the, theprogram of the building?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
so those ones have quite specific program.
So the well.
I guess from the bush aspectthe program is a bird From the
external aspect, but as theinternal program, one of them is
a med center, one of them islike social services.
There's various other relatablespaces, but how are you
designing the program?
So with the med center, it'swith the medical clinic, so they
(12:44):
have quite a strict program.
So, yeah, it's very back andforth between what they want and
what they have.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
So we our last meeting I had archicad I've been
with them which actually workedout amazingly through this
process, are you coming up witha form and then a conceptual
form or a conceptual directionand then making program fit, or
are you creating the program inan outline of how you may want
(13:15):
to create the form and then sortof draping the form over it for
want of a better term ormolding the form to it?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yeah, it's a mixture of those two.
Okay, because it's such astrict program, it needs to work
properly, but then I need it towork properly from my
architectural direction as well.
So, playing with thearchitecture, I see it as right
in the middle of like formfollows function and function
(13:43):
follows form.
So it's really don't see thecompromise there.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Because it's interesting.
You know that project that youtalked about, there's a Seattle
library.
You know that's very much aprogram generated form, where
you've got your program and, forwant of a Seattle library, you
know that's very much a programgenerated form, where you've got
your program and, for want of abetter term, you've stacked all
of these bubbles, all theseblocks, and you've basically
like draped a cloth over the topof them and that has created
your building, whereas somethinglike Leibschkin's Jewish Museum
(14:10):
to me that's very much formallydriven and then program has
been made to fit within it andthat's sort of forced.
This like strong tension andjuxtaposition of space, isn't?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
that Holocaust Museum very linear layout, so like
that does work really well forthe exhibition because it is a
progression of spaces.
From my understanding, havingnever been there, it is.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
It is like that, but when you're in it it doesn't
feel like that, and I don't knowif the intention was to create
a chaotic sense.
But there's order to the chaos,but it seems driven by chaos.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
First, if you know what I mean.
Yeah, well, I think, becausehe's got like purposely put
beams across spaces and stuff,like to create that feeling of
chaos, because he's telling apretty strong area.
I think both those examplescould be argued the other way as
well.
The Seattle Library is such aunique form that maybe that's
(15:22):
using the argument of program tovalidate form as architecture.
Yeah, I think.
Just some of those old schoolquotes.
A bit black and white, a bitblack and white.
Yeah, both of those examples, Ithink, are pretty good examples
of awesome form and awesomeprogram, like meshing in a
(15:45):
really cohesive, successful way,whereas if we listen to too
many of the old boys who like toboil life down into one
sentence, let's make new quotesyeah, form one sentence, let's
make new quotes yeah, form andfunction, let's go for it.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Do you know the classic and this is a slight
digression, but a classicprogram?
Program influences form.
I don't know how much you guysknow about city planning of
Wellington.
The city was first designed inthe UK but for the hut, and they
arrived here and the land wastoo boggy, it was too swampy,
and they're like, oh, we can'tbuild a city here, so we'll put
(16:23):
it on the harder, better surfacematerial on the other side of
the harbour and it was bettersheltered from the weather and
things like that.
Well, they thought it was, butthey didn't really change the
city design.
They sort of just dropped itover the wellington landscape.
So you went from flat site toan incredibly hilly site and
(16:44):
which is why we have so manyweird twisted streets because
they had to take this veryregular city plan and make it
fit an incredibly irregular site, which I find like just so
hilarious yeah, it's also workedout fairly well in the grand
scheme of things.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
I'll always get places like Hamilton, which is
like a grid for as far as theeye can see it.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
I mean it's created a very dynamic city.
Some people would sayfrustrating.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, learning the roads around Mount Vicar took me
a little bit back in the day, Ithink, to push the program
thing a little bit further.
Like I think, like there'sinteresting way to define space
through the use of program, likeI think we're.
Something I think aboutsometimes is how in love with
(17:28):
the wall we are, for obviousreasons, a wall, solid, easy,
nice, predictable object.
But like there's, you can kindof use program in a way to
define space without walls orlike I think the sana project,
the rolex learning center, is abig kind of almost loose
(17:50):
topography.
It's like a blanket of abuilding but she's used like a
rolling hill to like define thespace.
So I think you go over the hilland then so it's a massive
building, so it's like you walkover the hill and that defines
one space from the other.
I think relationships of like,yeah, how we define spaces,
(18:12):
stuff that I find superinteresting, love to experiment
with in the future.
Yeah, another one's likeholtrop and holtrop's got a um
apartment concept which is justlike a like if you drop the
paint on the ground it's like abig wiggly, splatter sort of
shape and there's no doors.
(18:32):
I think you just walk downthese long hallways and then
around the corner, then you gainthe privacy for a bedroom or
something.
So it's like these weirder waysof defining your space, but
lead to an interesting space.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
You can definitely tell when you're in a space that
has absolutely nailed theprogram.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Do you know, what's quite interesting is all of
these examples that we'retalking about here are larger
civic buildings or commercialbuildings or education
facilities or whatever, likelibraries, museums, all this
sort of stuff.
Less so so far, that we'vediscussed anyway things like
(19:17):
housing or maybe retail orhospitality or anything like.
Do you think that there's thesame I mean, I, I totally think
that there's the sameopportunity to be able to
approach program andspecifically what we're talking
about here at the moment, sortof the removal of the wall in
these areas.
But do you think that's aharder battle, given, you know,
(19:39):
the slightly more definedprogrammatic spaces that you're
required to interlink?
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Talking, about privacy.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Talking about privacy , taking a shit, bedrooms, you
know, whatever, be that to yourown housemates, family,
neighbours, whatever, equally.
Take hospitality, for example,the front of house to back of
house relationship, and whetherthat's an open relationship or
not, things like that.
(20:08):
Equally retail changingfacilities and all that sort of
thing.
It'd be really interesting tosee, or if any listeners or if
you guys have any examples thatsort of fit, that same mold of
of removing the wall or orchallenging the conventions of
program, I guess, and in thosesort of buildings that have a
far more standard, I guess, orregimented programmatic scheme I
(20:33):
did a cafe in newtown frank'sfrank's in newtown which we kind
of like opened the back ofhouse.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
So the concept was that kind of exposed back of
house a little bit, and then,with the idea that it makes
people feel welcome and part ofthe space, and then we put seats
sort of on the end, each end ofthe bench.
Some of these things have kindof been taken over and there's
there's no longer any seats onthe end of the bench.
(21:03):
It was a little bit too small.
But the yeah, I'm not sure howsuccessful it was because, like
the, you got the sterilizer andkitchen kind of exposed to some
of the back tables and you gotto walk past it.
But the design like relied on avery clean, yeah, cafe, yeah,
(21:27):
and we antsed over like all thestorage space and like we're
like all right, we've got, we'vedone this to death, we've got
storage for everything.
Everything has its place.
But if you go into frank's newtown now it's kind of like
chaotic and there's bags ofbeans and shit piled up against
the wall, like another fridge upagainst the wall.
(21:47):
So it's like if, if it's notmaintained at like a how it was
intended, it wasn't going towork.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
And I kind of feel like I totally know exactly what
you mean and I sort of thinkthe same from a residential
point of view.
I love the idea of thewall-less house but say, for
instance, you've got somebody inthe home, that's an intense
snorer Kind of want to be ableto lock that person away or
other noisy activities which youknow.
(22:18):
Use your imagination.
But you know there's the,there's the design concept.
You know that we have and andsort of that I that maybe
idealistic view on how a spacemay be used or designed to be
used or whatever.
But in reality you know, is itor or can it be successful?
And I, like gerard the honest,your honesty, and that you know
(22:41):
you've tried, you tried thisthing and really you know,
ultimately it wasn't successful,maybe not necessarily wasn't
successful as a, as a space Imean, frank's is still a cool
cafe but you know, like you'renot true to your original design
intent and yeah, I thinksometimes we can.
We can often get lost in ourconcepts and then reality
strikes and it can quite oftenbring a project down.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yeah, that cafe actually was the last time I was
very thorough about a bubblediagram.
Right, me and Luke Melhopdesigned that together and we
drew a bubble diagram and we'relike colored in the bubble
diagram.
We're like, hey, this is kindof cool, let's just build this.
So if you go to Frank'severything's circular, so it's
like A literal bubble diagram.
(23:27):
It's like so it's literally.
Very literal, an extrusion of abubble diagram Love it.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
That kind of reminds me of, you know, when you
basically you put a new lawndown and you need to put some
sort of pathway in, but you justlet people use the lawn, walk
over the lawn naturally untiltracks occur, and then you're
like, okay, cool, that's themost efficient place to put the
pathway.
How much of the program shouldactually you, you know, happen
(23:58):
organically or naturally?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, that's an interesting point and this kind
of comes back to ourconversation last week on
material.
You know, how far can you pushthe extreme of a concept and I
like that idea, ben of.
Could you almost have abuilding that's completely naked
and over the time but it has anintended use, whatever that may
be, and, over time, the waythat people interact and use it.
(24:24):
Say, you have a test period of18 months or something and then
that will drive the finaloutcome.
That could be quite.
It'd be a really cool idea.
Test that test.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Is that the Kanegawa Institute?
Oh, ishigami's building oftrees.
Beside his big swoopy outsidebuilding he's got a I think it's
a workshop, part of a workshop,but it's just a giant open room
made with like a thousandcolumns basically all tiny
(24:58):
little miniature columns andthere's no, no program in there.
It's just like full open spaceand people kind of inhabit it
how they will.
So, like his renders versuslike what it's like now.
When you see videos like kevinfrom Kevin from Archie Marathon,
how his video of that spacecame out a few days after our
(25:21):
talk Cool, yeah, you should havea look at that video.
People have just put tables andbenches everywhere.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
But the columns were still.
The columns, I guess, havestill influenced the space to a
degree.
It would be interesting if theywere.
You know, this is pie in thesky concepts, but if they were
movable and as people use thespace it shifted and moved to
more, you know, like it'sshifting sand dune almost yeah,
those columns were based on aforest so they're all very
(25:53):
irregular.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
So there's a forest.
It's a very conceptual forestultimately.
But yeah, how much can youdirect people?
Kere Barn did a house.
I think it was called PictureFrame House.
It's like a big empty shedbasically, and then the bedrooms
are little boxes on wheels andthen you can kind of push your
boxes around.
That would be a realinteresting project to do like a
(26:17):
post-occupancy review, so likehas it been used as intended or
have the boxes been pushed intoone location and that's where
they will remain?
Yeah, that was an interestingproject that came out when I was
tutoring with girl Megan Storm.
(26:37):
We did a topography house.
It's based on the idea of alandscape inside a building.
I guess an extreme version ofthe Sarno project roll at centre
, you go over hills and that isyour differentiation of space.
I think the bathroom was likein the ground.
(27:00):
So you try to tackle theseissues.
I just think there's there'sspace in the world for like the
super exciting conceptualprojects, but maybe on like a
like a tree hotel sort of aspecta tree hotel where they build
weird wacky buildings but thenultimately they're on Airbnb or
(27:22):
something.
It'd be kind of a cool thingfor people to explore.
We build outrageous buildingsand then people can come and
experience them, because itwould be hard to live with a
family in a room in a house.
That's just a skate parkessentially.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Exactly right, and I think you've hit the nail on the
head, is that it takes aspecial type of client or a
special type of function or useto be able to explore this sort
of thing.
Like you said, having a familyhome with this kind of crazy
concept is, in reality, notgoing to probably get across the
(27:58):
line you might present it tothe clients.
Odds on, it's going to be ahard sell.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Yeah architecture is often a hard sell.
Response is still like yourclient's attitude to risk how
adventurous they are.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah, it'd be nice.
I mean, this is a discussionthat we want to have at another
time.
But you know, I think this sortof extreme not even extreme, but
just more conceptual push ofthe idea of program is
definitely like, applicable tothe realm of competition as well
, and I think there's not enough, because there's no fear like
(28:39):
in competition.
There's no fear like not fear,but there's like no, there's no
risk or there's no sort ofnegative out, potential negative
outcome other than not winningthe competition, but it's not a
loss because you still learn somuch in the process.
But you know, I think there'snot enough competition in
architecture, in all aspectscommercial, civic, you know,
even residential um, and thenobviously the purely conceptual.
(29:02):
But I think, you know,competition is definitely
somewhere where you could startto come, come up with these
brilliant ideas.
And the thing is people aren'tgoing to know what they like
until they've presented it.
And you might surprise yourself, but I'd say and personally,
like so often, you know, nervoustoo or fearful to kind of
really push a crazy,particularly programmatic
(29:22):
concept um, because you don'twant to do a shitload of work
and it'll be rejected and youhave to redo it yeah, that
that's.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
I think the competition thing could be a
antidote to New Zealand's sortof benign built environment,
uninspiring public architecturejust uninspiring everything,
yeah asking Kevin about whathouses in New Zealand he would
come and visit.
It's not really onlyresidential, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (29:52):
like that's the only but that's the crazy thing.
I mean, we do housing.
We do do housing really well.
It's beautiful, you know, butwe do bespoke housing very well.
I'd say the vast majority ofour housing is pretty damn
average.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
We don't have any Seattle libraries.
I think that's competitions.
I think you're far more likelyto receive some interesting
proposals via competition.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
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So, other than the wool, gerard, I mean we sort of talked about
reinventing the concept of thewall.
I mean, have you looked at anyother aspects of a?
(31:02):
Or there's more standardaspects of a building that you
could look?
Speaker 2 (31:07):
to reinvent.
I think there's a lot more tothe wall as well.
There's a varying degree there,like whether you like lots of
you said curtains being used abit architecturally, like maybe
more internationally, like todefine like a lounge, nook or
something.
Maybe that's the retractable.
(31:27):
Maybe if you had a big ceilinggrid, giant grid, foot by foot
or something, and then you havethis multi configurable curtain
space, you can reconfigure yourhouse as you wish.
I just think how we define thespaces I think are what I find
(31:48):
really interesting.
Even down to some people do moreof the camping style where you
have a series of buildings and acanopy and then you kind of
remember.
I can't remember the house, butI think Kirsten showed that in
one of her lectures back in theday.
She did it at architectureschool.
That's kind of based on tenting, so I think that one had
(32:10):
external access to differentspaces.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Sort of each individual program's its own
building and they're envelopedin this canopy or enveloped in a
roof form.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, which you could really push.
You could push that really hard.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
I've thought about that concept quite a few times
and I love the idea, and thenevery actually for my own house.
But then every time I come backto it I'm like shit, that's a
lot of external cladding work,which means a lot of this, but
it's also when it's your ownmoney that matters a lot yeah,
part out, but also probablyallow you to stage a project
(32:46):
quite totally and potentially.
You know.
You know, even with the, youknow with the changes, you know,
if that 60 square meter grannyflat type rule comes in you know
what are you looking at thereyou could you build an entire
house sans consent.
Almost that's something youknow.
At some point you tie it alltogether.
But that'd be a reallyinteresting sort of approach as
(33:07):
well and that kind of comes backto that original, those sort of
six points of program that Italked about.
That's almost a way.
There's almost a program initself.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
You know the way that you approach a build like that
everything is program everythingis program and some of those
like tight apartment complexeswhere you know you've got like
multi-functional spaces.
Your apartment's like threemeters wide by I don't know like
say six or eight meters, butyou've got to squeeze in, you
(33:38):
know, a kitchen, a bed, a livingspace, and so it's configured
in such a way that you can kindof like shift things around,
move walls and reconfigure it.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
I think tiny houses are a great you know, well
understood, well, relativelywell understood example of that.
You know, everything in a tinyhouse has a multiple function.
You can't afford when you'reworking with such a tight
program.
You can't afford for somethingto have single use Every floor
is a bed and every wall is acupboard or you know, whatever
(34:14):
that may be and I quite likethat multi-use aspect.
You know, I sit here justlooking around and in the studio
down here and, like you know,there's four walls with winsome
windows.
You know, but, like the walls,the function of the walls is
purely a wall.
They're not doing and you canhang arvin or whatever on them,
(34:35):
but that's it.
It's doing nothing else and Ilike that idea of it having a
having a higher purpose thosesmall space projects like what's
?
Speaker 2 (34:46):
what's the old saying , the lack of maximum parameters
kind of breed interestingoutcomes, totally the
transformer spaces.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
You kind of always end up with some interesting
quirky or takes on things Iwonder if that's just because
you've got you know it's asmaller thing to sort of
comprehend and so you've gotspace to be more creative and
more you know it's.
It's a more of a craftsmanapproach than say you know
you're not gonna well, unlessyou've got an insane budget.
You know your level ofcraftsmanship on like a 700
(35:17):
square metre home is not goingto be anywhere near the level of
craftsmanship that you as adesigner is able to put in, or
the builder even is able to putinto a 60 square metre home
Dependent on budget.
Yeah, I mean.
Anything can be done withunlimited funds and time.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yeah, those Queenstown builds take three
years for a reason.
Yeah, I designed this containerhouse idea back in the day,
which was the idea was that youflip a container on its end, so
it's like sticking up like atower and then you suspend all
the program from the ceiling.
Rather than going to thebedroom, you bring the bedroom
(36:00):
to you, so you're interchangingyour program into the same space
, push it back up and then youpull down the kitchen bench and
then do your kitchen and thenyou push it back up.
The bathroom, however, was onthe side of the of the tower you
wouldn't want to be pushingthat back up.
(36:20):
But yeah, it's not that keen ona bucket, you know.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
I mean, gerard, you've sort of talked to us.
Maybe you don't want to giveaway any of your trade secrets,
but you've sort of I mean,that's such an awesome way of
reinventing program.
You've sort of talked aboutother ones, like the advent
calendar type idea as well.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Yeah, so that that was um came out the back of the
uni project as well, the at uni.
The idea was that I was farmingdesign ideas for my next 10
years.
Recommend everyone to go tutoruniversity students for a
semester.
I think Get some inspiration.
(37:02):
You get a lot out of it.
Like just the freedom ofthinking at uni is you try to
comprehend it.
You're like, oh yeah, I cancome up, I can think of crazy
ideas.
But when you're just in a roomof people that are actively,
because you set the parameters,as I did in that scenario, so
you can you can kind of directthe focus on what you're
(37:23):
thinking about.
So that whole course for me wasin program.
So we were actively trying tocome up with new program ideas
without relying strictly on thewalls.
So it's like when you go downthe old Sunkundag route of
moving things around withpulleys and cables, or like the
(37:43):
Sana route of moving over hills.
This other one was sort of likean advent calendar.
So I just like the idea of likea very crisp conceptual space,
big empty room, and then there'sjust a series of hatches in the
floor.
So you lift up a hatch andthere's all your bedroom, your
(38:05):
bed and maybe a rack of clotheson the side, another one,
there's a bathtub or there's akitchen in the other one.
So then you're like steppingdown 900 mil or whatever as an
experiential space.
I think it's pretty amazing tobe able to pack your house away
and then you have this big hallfor parties.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
I was going to argue.
You know that comes back tothat classic you come up with
the idea, but the userexperience is quite different.
I could see someone being like,oh, this is so fucking annoying
and just leaving it open allthe time.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah, like if you're, that's the prerogative of the
user, I guess.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
That's your December 20.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah, that would be chaos.
Or you just like push, or youjust sweep all the shit into,
like into one of the empty.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Do you just have a?
Do you have like a rubbish pitroom?
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Yeah, yeah, what else you got hidden in those
dungeons?
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Underneath it pit room.
Yeah, yeah, what else you gothidden in those?
Speaker 1 (39:04):
dungeons.
Yeah, underneath it's a giantfunnel and it goes to a big rail
strip.
That that is a good, good idea.
Those like underground rubbishremoval facilities.
I think they've got them on oneof the islands I can't remember
what island and it is in newyork but like, yeah, you put all
your rubbish into like arubbish hatch, it goes down into
like a collection chamber andshoots it off island.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
One of the islands in the Hudson.
It's pretty cool One of thosefor people.
Yeah, I've got to go to work orget my work towel.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
That's the Jetsons, isn't it?
Yeah, the Jetsons.
Yeah, that's a good point, ben.
How much do you thinkprogramming has evolved, or has
it really?
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Well, how much do you think regulatory constraints
affect program?
Is that why it's easy to havelike a obvious change in program
and more commercial commercialrealms?
Speaker 1 (39:57):
but I also think it comes back and we've said this a
few times it comes back to theclient's appetite for something
different.
And I'd say that so many peopleare black and white that they
don't.
You know, they don't really see.
You know they come to you andthey go okay, we want a
three-bedroom house, and intheir head it looks like every
other three-bedroom house.
You know, in terms of theprogram, every space is
(40:20):
individual.
You know you're going to take aspecial kind of client to come
to you being like I'm totallyopen to anything.
Build me a, you know, build mea an advent calendar home.
So I think it's probably morenot that we can't don't have
these ideas, but I think it'smore the ability to implement
them than being a regulatoryconstraint.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
I don't think you can sit back and wait for somebody
to come to you and ask for thattype of architecture.
You have to push that uponpeople, or the concept client
engagement phase You've got to.
You know, see what theyactually want.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
I feel like a true architect is.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
You will accept this idea.
I don't care what you like.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
Architect slash Jedi.
You will like.
This is what you want, this iswhy I.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
This is why I.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
This is good architecture yeah yeah, I mean,
what do you think, ben?
Do you think that theregulatory framework does
restrict our program?
Because I don't.
I mean, it's not like thebuilding code or you know
anything like that's out theresaying that you have to have
separated bedroom spaces and youhave to have walls.
(41:39):
You know, other than obviouslystructural requirement or
whatever, but to a degree,obviously, but you know what I
mean.
Like it's not, it's not sayingit's not saying like these are
the programmatic requirementsyou have to meet.
So I think, I think we we'vecaught ourselves in thinking
that it does, but it doesn'treally.
(41:59):
I think we've caught ourselvesin thinking that it does, but it
doesn't really.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Yeah, I think that's what we perceive as comfortable
spaces these days.
You know, as much as I love theidea of the advent calendar,
house and that sort of thing dayto day, I'm not sure if it's
going to be the most practicalway of living.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
How do you like getting up in the middle of the
night, super dusty, and you haveto like open a hatch to find
your toilet and you open thewrong hatch and then you're like
, fuck this house you hope youfall into the couch, not the
kitchen.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
What about the dishes in there, though?
You gotta clean the kitchenproperly.
I'm way too lazy for that, waytoo lazy, although, yeah, if it
had that whole recycling rubbish, uh situation going on, then
make life a bit easier.
I think, like for me it's morebasic, it's around what's
(42:56):
happening on the site, you know,whether orientation, garden
landscaping, all of that sort ofthing, as opposed to having,
like, a big open space and moreof a dynamic built environment.
Yeah, I'm not sure.
I'm still.
I'm still working through it,still working through it.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
I'm still learning we're pushing the uh boat all
the way there.
You boat all the way to the end.
At this point, For context, theadvent calendar at the moment
is drawn as an A-frame in itscurrent iteration for a bit of
land on my own land.
So you've got to test theseideas on yourself.
(43:40):
But that's sort ofcross-programmed with the idea
of a sort of chapel, like awedding venue, A frame that's
sort of falling down a hill.
So it's got to introduceanother element.
It's got a sloped floor, Ridges, you know level, Got a small
triangle at the top and then bigtriangle at the bottom and a
(44:03):
truncated apron.
So on the slope you then havethe hatches as well.
So then down at the bottomthere's a little kick out and
then a little waterfall into akitchen.
The current iteration has sortof two layers of hatches, so the
top layer is like the chapel.
So then that turns into stairs.
(44:26):
So it turns into a normalterraced space.
But then when those are downyou lift up a bigger hatch and
that's like your bedroom or desk.
But this is like the part theyou know.
The base use is like a.
It's a ski house, ski hut, booka batch, so it's not like a
full-on house.
(44:48):
But this one does have abathroom off to the side.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
Bathroom, toilet and a hatch.
You can choose to squat atfloor level or walk down into a
toilet.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
This one's got a whole room off the side with a
mega window and a big view outto the bush.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
When can we expect that to be finished?
Construction A million years.
Who knows.
What are some other uniqueprograms that you've come up
with.
I'm feeling inspired.
Maybe I need to get morecreative.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
There's this other hotel in Norway I think it was
part of the Ex Machina, somerobot, ai, robot movie.
There's a series of houses inthe bush, but they're kind of
like just regular versions ofHoltrop's kind of finger idea.
So they're kind of like wigglyrooms, that like offshoot, so
(46:04):
you have, rather than doors, youhave kind of like a bend in the
room.
But again, these are likesingle unit things, where you go
around the corner and thenthere's the bed down the end and
it's got like a big window andtree.
So like, yeah, it planned,you've got some more regular
wiggles and then it sort ofmoves around these trees and
stuff as well.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
Don't have to chop anything down we've talked a lot
about, like the maybe notextreme but you know very
intensive take on reinventingprogram, but being kind of it'd
be interesting to get your take,particularly in the realm that
you work in, you know a bit moreof that medium density
development stuff and how youcan influence sort of the
(46:47):
generic program in that and aproject that kind of springs to
mind is Block Party bySpacecraft.
If you think about a standardhomes program and then they've
just pulled out aspects of thatthat can be very public and then
made that shared, that's howthat's influenced the spaces and
it's meant that you can.
They've been able to bundle alot of program and a lot of
(47:12):
usable space into a small site,because not every home needs to
have their own outdoor patio whycan't all six homes share it?
And not every home needs alaundry why can't they all share
it?
Speaker 2 (47:24):
co-housing is probably pretty tricky.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
As a product, though, definitely a realm, for you
know.
For a more interesting use ofprogram though, yeah it
definitely is.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
The problem is then you've got the resource consent
program.
Basically is a program, soyou've got it basically defines,
you know, outlooks, it definesoutdoor spaces and then like
traffic and a whole bunch ofother things that come into play
, and you've got to kind of pullit all together in a way that
(47:57):
makes sense for each building aswell as so they're working
together as well as working asindividual spaces.
So that's why the diagrammaticapproach works quite well,
because you can actually get alot of those outlooks in there
and in the garden spaces yourminimum requirement and then
(48:18):
kind of work around that.
But that's what I was talkingabout before.
Like that's kind of like amediocre way of designing in
comparison to what gerard'stalking about, which I would
absolutely like love to be ableto incorporate more of.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
But I guess that's what the you know the argument
and the success of a projectlike Block Party is is that it's
a simple shift in program thatyou know probably still easily
meets regulatory constraints.
But all it took was that likeone step.
You know we don't have to take10 steps to make a difference
(49:02):
and make a more interestingspace.
I guess what I'm coming at islike that one step can be enough
to create something that'squite unique.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
That worked well because that was a group of
people slash friends that cametogether to build a single
product, I guess in a way.
So that works really well.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
But if you're looking to like, if you're looking to
say, better implement, a betterunderstand program in your own
work.
I guess what I'm getting at isyou don't necessarily have to
run straight away, you know, youdon't have to take this huge
conceptual jump or or shift inyour work.
I mean, it can be somethingquite simple that can have quite
(49:43):
a big impact.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
I just want to shout out to the those block party
guys I like the older I get thisis a little bit of a segue, but
the older I get, the more I'mlike how epic would it be to
just like live with all yourmates on one street?
I don't know, everything justseems like it would be so much
more interesting.
Maybe that's what societyshould actually like band
(50:06):
together people in places asopposed to working around jobs
and that sort of thing.
So it's like okay, cool, thosehundred people get along with
each other and those hundredpeople get along with each other
, and as I basically likesetting out like a wedding or
something like that.
So all of a sudden, you'resurrounded by people that you
(50:26):
really like and, at the veryworst, people that are like
pretty cool, you know, in theouter rims a little bit more,
you know.
So everyone's happy, right,everyone's happy.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
That could be a pretty divisive society, though.
Set up some factions, jesus,yeah, you're getting pretty.
Maybe have a culling everycouple of years.
Yeah, it's getting questionablehere, ben.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Sounds like a hunger crisis.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
That's what I'm talking about.
That's much more interesting.
Speaker 2 (50:56):
But the underlying thought of thinking about
program at a city scale, I thinkis important though I've never
heard somebody, I guess, explainco-housing in that sort of way,
which is a lot more compelling.
And, yeah, we're gonna do allour recycling and save the
planet, whereas get to live withmy mates and, you know, hang
(51:16):
out, that's good time.
Yeah, I think we're.
We're projecting here with alot of these ideas of outrageous
pushing the boundary on things,but I think it's just good to
design in a way that you'rethinking about how your program
is operating.
It's just another good tool tohave in your tool belt.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
If you're looking to create impact in a space, rather
than putting a real flashmaterial on, do you just shift
up how the space functions likesometimes they can be more
impactful than spending lots ofmoney on marvel or something
totally, and I think that that'sthe bottom line really and you
know, I guess that's our, that'swhat we're looking to appeal to
(52:01):
listeners and other designersout there and you know some
people are amazing at it, butyou know there's equally a huge
amount that aren't.
Just consider program a bitmore.
Probably I'm out.
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