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>> Kembali ke Volume 4 No. 2 (2010)

Farid Rakun

Design world, especially architecture discipline seems to have inherited problem in accepting simplicity. It seems to be made for a complicated world, to understand it one must learn to accept complexity throughout the years of schooling and practice, making complexity its major practical virtue. Architects’ purpose seems to be positioned in their ability to understand world complexities, and delivering it to you as discernible objects; it is supposedly to be their job to translate your dream into reality. Taking the position of visionaries into account, it is their ability to set the path of your journey into the future.

In spite of their operation in complexities and inability to accept simplicity, current fashion may possibly state otherwise. Observing minimalism that strives for pure geometrical shapes, its devotion to white, and the reduction of elements leaving only the essentials intact; explorations towards simplicity seems to be one of the most important priorities in their agenda. On the surface, this opinion rings some truth. How else could we explain a globalized world that some dubbed was united under one commercially and, design wise, critically acclaimed flag - ‘the coolest company anywhere’, a globalized world known as ‘Apple Nation’ ? In essence, taking post-war modernism and its consequent Universal Style as its ancestors, it should be presumed that minimalism should have tackled the question on how the simplicity concept has taken its place in the realm of architecture. The matter seems to be well set in its course. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride this so-called-simplified world endlessly offers you. You just need to follow by doing the thing you are best at: consume.

The comfortable seat would not be shaken until you learn that there are alternative ways, ones that seek further about the true meaning of simplicity. Looking at other spaces, produced by the other end of the spectrum from mere architects and designers. For those who produce living space, as well as transactional spaces for themselves, it is questionable, whether or not simplicity is still a condition they value. Edward de Bono (1998) said it best when he stated the tenth of his 10 rules of simplicity: ‘know for whose sake the simplicity is being designed’. It is always assumed for the end-user, which simplicity is generated for. But is it simpler for the maker as well? Is something that looks and operates in simplicity, actually is simple? Is an iPod a simple enough product? Is a minimalist house embodied the concept of simplicity more than simplistic cigarette stalls located on various spots on the very same street with your house? What if, not unlike those cigarette sellers, you want to create your own space? Being not only an imaginary producer, but also the user of your own space, would you strive for a product that looks simple or actually simple through and through?

To help you through, some guides are given here. The texts given are provided by Edward de Bono (1998) and John Maeda (2006), two of the foremost thinkers who has taken simplicity as the core of their past campaigns. In the sake of simplicity, both texts could be summarised into seven ultimatums of simplicity:
1. Less is desirable.
2. Simplicity does not only make you understand the matter very well, but you also have to understand it very well in order to achieve simplicity.
3. By putting a distance between us with the matter at hand, we might understand it better by conceptualisation.
4. Organization creates an order by which we understand matters simply easier.
5. Appreciate the thought that has gone to products.
6. What is simplicity without complexity? What is beauty without ugliness?
7. Simplicity could only work when it is put in its intended surroundings, with some flexibility both in its formulation as well as application methods.

Figure 1. Numen/For Use Odeon project making process, in a former stock exchange building in Vienna. Taken from http://bit.ly/bt5nMu

The first exhibit shown in this alternative path is the series of works created by the winner of DMY International Design Festival Berlin 2010 Award Numen/For Use [Fig. 1]. They use a very simplistic product such as transparent adhesive tape to create their life-size installations, which resulted in ‘complex, amorphous surface through the process reminiscent of growing of organic forms’. This process serves as a reaction against various given contexts such as old attics, columns of a historical building, an industrial concrete structures, or a custom scaffolding construction. They represent the space possibilities created using a D-I-Y ethos, anywhere and anytime, and essentially by anyone. The project embodies the seven ultimacy of simplicity, mentioned above, in an optimum way:
1. The notion of less is achieved by materiality. Being consistent with the material at hand, which could be acquired anywhere as a consequence being a mass-produced product. Could not it be a template, a blue print taken to various other forms using the same template?
2. The in-your-face process showed us deep spatial understanding [Fig. 2]. In their understanding, space is not a fixed, stable, given entity. It is constantly in flux, flexible, and most importantly, subject for interruption.
3. Because of the simplicity imbued in the projects, it puts some resistance for us to imitate them as they are. By successfully rendering the projects as template, the artist has touched the realm of concepts - and in a way forcing us to go into the same level.
4. In order to come up with the result, each project must be understood firstly by its existing order first. Structurally speaking, this order comes in the form of both physical construction and habitation. How users move in a certain built realities define their interventions.
5. You might think it is a very banal series of projects, therefore not deserving any attention. However,seeing it from the understanding of simplicity forces us to appreciate it more. The appreciation could be taken further by looking through daily produced spaces in our everyday environment. I would dub this as seeing originality in banality.
6. Complexity is grasped as the other side of the coin of simplicity. Instead of hiding complexities behind pure geometrical patterns as minimalism does, simple concepts and production processes were translated into an arguably complex form in appearance in the final products.
7. Do I have to do more explanation on this point with words?

Figure 2. Numen/For Use installation procedures for DMY Berlin 2010. Taken from http://bit.ly/duNyw7

Figure 3. Exterior of the finished product. Courtesy of Ensamble Studio

Using our understanding of the first exhibit as a precedent, we might want to proceed to the second exhibit, which is the Truffle project by Ensamble Studio/Antón García-Abril [Fig. 3]. The process of its space production is as they explained:

‘We made a hole in the ground, piling up on its perimeter the topsoil removed, and we obtained a retaining dike without mechanical consistency. Then, we materialized the air building a volume with hay bales and flooded the space between the earth and the built air to solidify it. The poured mass concrete wrapped the air and protected itself with the ground. Time passed and we removed the earth discovering an amorphous mass.
The earth and the concrete exchanged their properties. The land provided the concrete with its texture and color, its form and its essence, and concrete gave the earth its strength and internal structure. But what we had created was not yet architecture, we had fabricated a stone.
We made a few cuts using quarry machinery to explore its core and discovered its mass inside built with hay, now compressed by the hydrostatic pressure exerted by concrete on the flimsy vegetable structure. To empty the interior, the calf Paulina arrived, and enjoyed the 50m3 of the nicest food, from which she nourished for a year until she left her habitat, already as an adult and weighing 300 kilos. She had eaten the interior volume, and space appeared for the first time, restoring the architectural condition of the truffle after having been a shelter for the animal and the vegetable mass for a long time.’

Figure 4. Photo records and diagram showing the process. Photos and diagrams courtesy of Ensamble Studio.

This unconventional project makes us question the basic spatial production and manufacturing process. Instead of the usual path of creating a periphery and boundaries of an architectural project, they carved out a space out of a solid mass, feeding a calf that grew into a full-grown cow during the process. Despite its stated concentration of poetic exploration through the means of tectonic expressions by the architects, I chose to see it as simply an exercise of simplicity in full architectural scale. Breaking it down into the seven ultimacy of simplicity once again, we might conclude that:

1. Total reduction is fully achieved in this project by creating a space that is multi-functioned and could be multi-interpreted. What is a cave for essentially? Didn’t it form our basic understanding of architecture, as human beings, in the first place?
2. The architects’ understanding of materiality, structure, construction, and the tectonic dimension of a project were put into a test by creating such a project. These aspects are best shown in schematic model made to construct the imagined space in the architects’ head [Fig. 5]. The subsequent question remains unanswered for now: how does the user perceive the space offered here in relation to its function?
3. The distance we need to establish in order to come up with this kind of projects is the distance between us and the commonly accepted ways of architectural practice. What is simpler than the carving process in spatial creation? Why can’t most of us let nature have its way in providing us with habitual spaces? Why do most of us have so little time to wait and reflect upon our live pattern in the contemporary society? In simplicity, this project offers us the deeper question of our own life.
4. What is more beautiful than letting go some of our controlling tendencies as human beings? By letting the earth to intrinsically be earth, the hays be essentially hays, the calf be naturally calf, as well as the cement be whatever it wanted to be, the creators’ could achieve pleasantly surprising result in its interior physicality, which is impossible to plan and perceived upon beforehand [Fig. 6]. This ability to impose certain orders modestly is admirable.
5. Have you been able to appreciate your surroundings and see potentials within it, by the help of this project already?
6. Do you still think that minimalism is the style that embodied the spirit of simplicity in its creation the most? Or are you seeing the term of simplicity in a different light right now? Isn’t it a given thing that simplicity is best experienced in the richness of the result? Isn’t looking for simplicity merely in looks could be considered a deceitful act?
7. By putting and manufacturing the architecture in situ, they have rendered the project inimitable. Back to conceptualisation, mentioned in point number three, we should be able to create our own space by the help of natural forces as something that provides us with additional benefits, as opposed to as something we constantly fight against, anywhere and anytime. If these architects and artists can do it, so can you. Who says that we need them to lead and show us the way anyway?

Figure 5. Schematic diagram and model. Courtesy of Ensamble Studio

Figure 6. Interior shots. Courtesy of Ensamble Studio

After passing through both exhibits, it is my hope to prove the righteousness of one of de Bono’s statements, ‘discovering the underlying simplicity of a process is more likely to be useful than imaginative and complex description of phenomena.’ In our way, I hope you see how simplicity is best applied in conceptual and practical terms as opposed to physical and aesthetical ones, in order to offer both the producer and the consumer of space new experience in the built environment. To dispute with de Bono and Maeda’s different reading of the concept, the most important aspect of simplicity for me is that it also opens the possibilities for anyone to create their own spaces.

It has been my pleasure to be your guide during this short trip through the alternative path of simplicity, whose exhibits is popular knowledge, but which reading are left unknown for the most of us. I had a great time, but unfortunately we must be parted in our ways for now. You must get back to your comfortable boulevard, while I must continue looking for other alternative routes. Mind your step in, as well as after, your way out. Thank you.

References

Edward de Bono (1998). Simplicity. London: Penguin.

Farhad Manjoo (2010). Invincible Apple: 10 Lessons From the Coolest Company Anywhere. Fast Company, July 1 2010 Edition, (Online), (http://bit.ly/cD7xay, accessed June 25 2010)

John Maeda (2006). The Laws of Simplicity. Boston, MIT Press: 2006.

Additional information about For Use/Numen can be found on their website (http://www.foruse.info), while the DMY 2010 Award news was reported by designboom (http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/10593/dmy-2010-award-winner-forusenumen.html).