the why factory

on friday i had my first legit encounter with the why factory. we all met on the mountain for a lively introduction from winy maas (the M of MVRDV). i sat in the front row. he talked in excited tone about the projects that this research group has completed and the upcoming studios. he seems like a lively and intelligent guy, curious as some architects are with crazy projects and overturning urban normalities. he said he'll be around every week. so as i found out, the studio i wanted to take (the green cities calculator) is not being offered as there is too much commercial interest to leave it to masters students. they are developing it elsewhere in the why factory. but, i am in the automated cities Msc2 studio. the brief description seems a trendy, contemporary topic but i am excited to flex some BLDGBLOG muscles on this stuff. the first month of the studio is research where we gather precedents, study what previous T?F studios have done, and formulate a written opinion about our ideas on automation and city form. automation as a generic idea covering anything from automated food production to trash removal to transit and manufacturing. then we pick some specific technical intervention and design how that affects urban form and landscape. they stress that the two components of studio are the production of the text (theory) and the image (applied theory). i think they expect to see some decent things from me because i am from MIT (so i must be in love with robots) and because i am the only native english speaker in the studio out of the 9 or so students enrolled and the two tutors.

our first assignment is to gather precedents across a variety of media (film, literature, architecture, inventions, philosophy) that deal with automation. it is generic but i feel like i have things to say on this topic. i am excited to see what happens here. i also found out that a course i thought only met in the second half of the semester meets the entire term and i had just missed the first class this morning. it is a large lecture class led by patrick healy on "philosophy of the image in architecture." oh well.

also, here is the mountain where the why factory exists:

the current picture on the why factory website is from winy's talk on friday. my head is obscured by the "we make future cities" block, but here my features are visible.