The Tuneful House - Joel Sanders
About this Video
Joel Sanders spoke at Postopolis!, an event organised by BLDDBLOG, City of Sound, Inhabitat, Subtopia and the Storefront for Art and Architecture. A list of available videos from the event can be found here.
Throughout the years, architecture has had somewhat of a complicated relationship with sound. First obsession, then sudden disenchantment, and now, a coy attempt at compensating for time lost.
In his Postopolis! presentation, Joel Sanders, a professor of architecture at Yale, explains his project’s aim to address the ailing relationship creatively.
“Except for exceptional building types like concert halls or opera houses,” says Sanders, “we tend to be pretty indifferent to acoustics, unless, basically, something’s wrong.”
It wasn’t always this way. Citing the Greek Amphitheater and medieval and Gothic cathedrals as examples, Sanders explains that architecture first saw the sonic sound of space as an important criterion in their design. This changed with the advent of printing, by which attention shifted from acoustic details to visual ones.
And although his latest project, the Mix House, is all about visibility and visuality, he thinks that, usually, “architecture’s all about being quiet.”
If all goes as planned, however, the Mix House will be anything but.
The project, explains Sanders, developed through an effort to “rethink the picture window.” Ten years ago, he was commissioned to design a house for a bachelor who wanted his house to be protected from adverse weather and prying neighbors, but who also wanted a private spa. What resulted, the “Access House”, was a reconciliation of both impulses.
His latest project, a collaboration with Karen Van Lengen (KVL), and Ben Rubin (Ear Studio) has “sonic windows” built with both a microphone and a video camera. The former records the sounds that are later transmitted through speakers located around the house. The latter records the visual that goes with the sound and transmits said image to a screen located in the “command center” of the house — the kitchen.
Called the “center kitchen island,” the command station is located on a kitchen countertop. Waterproof, of course. In your bedroom, you can check out the starry night, while listening to audio of what’s going on outside your home.
And further: the skylight captures signals transmitted through TV and Internet connections.
It sounds far-reaching in its vigilance to the point of being eerily intrusive, but this fact is acknowledged. Sanders calls the House a sort of “benevolent Big Brother”.
In the video above, Sanders talks about the relationship between sound and architecture, the “divorce of place, space, and sound” and how the Mix House can help people become stay-at-home dj’s.
Karla Cornejo is the newest member of ScribeMedia.Org and will be interning with us throughout the summer. Her favorite flavor is chocolate, her favorite food is brownies, and her favorite drink? Chocolate milk.
Michael Cervieri is Executive Producer of ScribeMedia.Org and an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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