The following article was written by Tim Peppin:
For a month last summer I worked under a carpenter on a large housing project. There were four floors in the house I was working on, each at a different stage of development. The lowest floor had hardly been touched at all; it was a confusing gauntlet of wood jacks, studs, pillars and crossbeams. The second floor was another network of wood, but the plywood floors were now covered in two-inch-thick sheets of concrete; the third was filled with immense piles of paints, primers, and grouts, stacks of drywall 50 sheets thick, fibreglass tubs and fibreglass insulation. The fourth floor was almost finished. Hundreds of sheets of chemically treated drywall had been hung, hundreds of litres of toxic and impermeable paint had been applied, and dense pillows of glass had been inserted into all of the wood-framed walls.

The building's exterior was made of a thick skin of plywood, covered over with plastics and fabricated stone panels. Tarred and chemically treated shingles covered its roof and littered the ground. Two dumpsters 20 feet long and eight feet high were filled with waste in mere days, emptied, and then refilled. The contractors were irritable and obsessed with speed. Waste and inefficiency abounded. I was appalled.

Still more appalling was the realization that all of our buildings are made in this manner, including our own homes. We satisfy the need for long-lasting materials and a comfortable environment not through good design and intelligent configuration, but by treating products with toxic preservatives and sealants, by burning large amounts of fossil fuels to regulate the interiors of our buildings, and by using prefabricated materials that encourage waste. In our search for strong and uniform building materials, we have taken to cutting down vast expanses of old-growth forest and using products which are extremely energy intensive to create and which will not naturally decompose for thousands of years.

Article © Tim Peppin. Picture ©Ted Owens.

In honor of my trip to Barcelona, I wanted to showcase on of the architects who influenced my life and my designs. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is considered on the founders of modern architecture. He was commissioned to create an exhibition space for the King and Queen of Spain for the 1929 World Exposition at Barcelona. This building only stood for one year, but was reconstructed in 1959 in Barcelona. One of the most famous features of this structure was the chairs he designed. The Barcelona Chair is one of the most recognized chair designs.

"The Barcelona pavilion...was without practical purpose. No functional programme determined or even influenced its appearance. No part of its interior was taken up by exhibits: the building itself was the object on view and the 'exhibition' was an architectural space such as had never been seen." - Martin Pawley, introduction and notes, Yukio Futagawa, photographs. Mies van der Rohe. p15.

Article & Picture © Lisa Van Veen

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