May 2023
Not What It Seems
56/05
Not What It Seems
"Not What It Seems" is the edition where we explore hidden truths in the built environment, design industry, society and even nature. In this edition, we explore unheard voices, challenge mainstream perceptions, and reveal the casualties of "otherness." From the perils of virtual transparency to embracing design madness, we encourage you to delve into a world where things are not what they seem to broaden your understanding.
In this issue we introduce the film festival. This is in collaboration with the Community Office. Important to note is that the festival is to be postponed to September. Please keep watch of the website and Instagram and we look forward to having you join us in September.
Editorial team
Tuyen Le, Zuza Sliwinska, Maja Liro, Sem Verwey, Nathan Döding, Nina Lamers
With contributions from
Stefan Gzyl, Romain Touron, Cecile Calis, Joost Hoepman, Hilde Sennema
Cover design by
Editorial Team
Editorial
We’re constantly occupied by daily happenings, simply being too busy. This distraction makes way for fragments of our collective consciousness slip through the cracks. Thus, information is manipulated and history is distorted in favor of the winning side. The title “Not What It Seems” indicates bluntly the topics of our articles in this issue. They address many invisible topics within the built environment and the design industry. Things are not like what they seem on the surface level, and through this issue, we're peeling away the layers to uncover the unheard voices, the unspoken truth, or the under-appreciated figures in design. The casualties of perplexing mainstream things as “otherness” is further depriving the true sense of marginalized “otherness”. Within this article, we write about them, and make room for these fragments.
The opening piece for this issue is by Maja as a critical view of transparency on social networks, begging the question of whether we should expose ourselves that much in the virtual realm (page 4). Next up is a drawing exercise called “Guess the Building”; in the provided space, you can let your imagination run free and try guessing the floorplan with the prompt provided by our pen pal Stefan (page 8). From reading the descriptions of an absurd building’s floorplan, Sem’s article encourages us to embrace the madness in the design process, even when others shun and judge us for this mentality (page 12).
For this issue, besides publishing the written texts, we are collaborating with the Community Office to present a BKino film festival coming this June, happening in the heart of our BK City. Cecile from the Community Office offers a short introduction of the festival and her work (page 15). Please check out the film festival schedule (page 16) and save the date!
Turning a darker route, Nathan, our newest editor, brings up the relativity of war conflicts to our current time, a piece in which peace is not what it seems (page 18). From one precarious outtake to the next, our pen pal Romain opens up the pandora box of the world of scale figures, and the nuisance of flattening the human bodies for the sake of… AutoCAD (page 20). Written by Joost, we include a commentary on the Indesem 2023, a boundary-pushing design seminar (page 24). Blurring the lines between boundaries can also happen in the natural world, in this case, we are talking about invasive species; from a first-person perspective of a Japanese Knotweed, we get an empathetic view on the species of “otherness”. Finally, we have our standing section of “What are you reading?” with a book recommendation by Hilde Sennema, pertaining to the topic of oysters, resiliency, and microhistory (page 30).
Please bring this copy out into the sun and please enjoy your reading. And on another note, look around you as well, because things are not always like what they seem.
Contents
From the editors
pg.
In the world ruled by social networks, the word "transparency" is haunting all spheres of life - not just politics but architecture too. As total communication runs its course, it proves harder than ever to be an outsider; to cut off the stream of information, close the curtains and have a moment of privacy. Transparency makes humans glassy, constituting to the tension between the factors of seeing and being seen. Presence and absence, hiding and being exposed, are presented through a series of short reflections.
Pen Pal
pg.
The following paragraphs are an invitation to engage our architectural imagination through words, to explore spaces by describing them, and to think that things come to be as one of the many options of how they could be.
The physical magazine provide circles with a diameter of around 15 cm. Feel free to do this exercise at home, with your own circles.
From the editors
pg.
Every day, we encounter space. We wake up submerged in it, we travel through it, and we disembark and embark continuously its new dimensions - home, train, faculty, office, and so forth. We find our place in it to settle for a short while or for a long brush, and begin a quest for its reshaping. Because that is what we, designers/operators/creators of the built environment do; architects, urbanists, landscapers, managers all engage with space, intervene with it and (re)create it. But, our encounters with space are not what they seem to be at first glance. Space is not what it seems (to be).
Pen Pal
pg.
Have you ever been to a film festival? Some festivals have a wide range of movies from all over the world. Some of these movies are fantastic, others delightfully horrible or boring. And some movies that will stay with you for weeks or years! Movies that make you change things in your life. And yet, such movies might not be the most important aspect of these festivals. It's the whole atmosphere, the collective break from reality that you take together with strangers and friends. It's the conversations about movies, the questions you can ask directors or actors. It's running from movie to movie. You can discuss persona and scenes, judge movie quality, and join the experience with others. It is the perfect occasion to relax, get inspired and discuss with each other. Let's create such an experience at BK!
From the editors
pg.
Usually I never think of war. It’s something for far away countries in Africa. There’s prosperity and democracy here. Surely the Belgians can be on our skin but we don’t really feel like going to war with them (we also don’t have the money). I remember the elderly at my previous job saying: “War?! That can’t happen here”. The only way it might take place is when a politician loses his mind, but they would never gain enough power to take such action. Until February of 2022, when Putin announced a special military operation in Ukraine. The west heroically combined their strength to mitigate tensions. But to be honest, I feel more aimed at than ever before.
Pen Pal
pg.
Similar to the writing process, in which characters are shaped to simulate human complexity, the making of scale figures catalogs (such as popular ones like dimensions.com) also uses simplifications and clichés as to get closer to an exhaustive composition of a general social ecosystem. The infinity of individuals is shrunk to a finite number of categories, usually following visual performances such as “seated figures” or “dancing male figures”. While understanding the importance of scale figures as the architect’s invitation addressed to the users, rendering people with the limited number of archetypes scale figures catalogs offers seems to slip ineluctably towards misrepresentation and exclusion.
Pen Pal
pg.
Every two years, the faculty of architecture is visited by the bright minds of leading and aspiring architects to discuss the course of architecture. INDESEM (International Design Seminar) is the biennial event for innovation and with a rich history. Established in 1964 by a group of students and revived in 1985 by Herman Hertzberger, INDESEM has cemented its position as an event for architecture and design enthusiasts to share ideas and express visions. Hosted at our faculty, this seminar has consistently provided a platform for exploration, collaboration, and innovation.
From the editors
pg.
When the soil allows it, I can grow through the thick tarmac and asphalt roads, possibly hindering the growth of the fellow crop yields. In the Dutch flora biodiversity, I am an outsider. With no other species that can balance out my roots expansion, I am deemed an invasive species: begrudged and under serious threat of extermination when found. Even after being destroyed, the remnants of my unique rhinzomic root system can linger on in the soil and multiply. When I am chopped down, my roots will be renewed and grow to double their original size. Like many other invasive creatures, I am a product of unsupervized globalization done by forced migration.
What are you reading right now?
pg.