Explore Endemic Architecture’s recent Oakland, California exhibition, Mind Your Mannerisms, at the Jai & Jai Gallery in Los Angeles the existential importance behind San Francisco’s variant the Victorian Tower, which the company calls one of the many “architectural favorites” that populate our world.

For the company, “favorites” consist of fundamentally architectural symbols that convey universal meaning in their built form, such as the Pillar, gable or chimney. These “favorites” are the elements that are widely understood as words by laypeople used in the formal language of architecture and at the same time employed (or subverted) by Architects themselves say: “That is (still) architecture”.

In Mind Your Mannerisms the selected “darling” – turret – is pricked, pinched and warped in order not only to give its bizarre forms a sense of intellectual severity, but also to generate a new level of new meaning and understanding that results from the manipulation of its symbolic, anachronistic geometries.

(Courtesy Endemic Architecture)

The company uses collections contextual photography show the diverse manifestations the tower typology in San Francisco’s built environment as a starting point to generate generalized drawings of certain observed tendencies. The favorite is redefined from a custom-made object of discreet architecture Components of a collection of quasi-digital surfaces in which a series of formal maneuvers were applied to two different objects: the tower itself and the so-called “Victorian” building to which it is attached.

The company uses these guiding considerations to generate interventions that are conducted on a handful of existing and observed tower types, with an emphasis on these aspects of each individual type and the conditions that are found to be reinforced or deformed. These interventions are first through a series of beguiling, shaded line drawings, side by side comparisons of found and manipulated views in gold-colored frames. The turrets take on the formal ambiguities of MC Escher drawings, since cornices touch and sweep around rounded corners, conical roof forms loft to meet simply sloping and wall sections are deleted or extruded up and down in the shape. Shingles and siding are also included; they are scaled, alternated and shifted accordingly.

(Courtesy Endemic Architecture)

The drawings are then brought into three dimensions via three large, ambiguously scaled maquettes. Two of these objects are installed directly on the gallery walls, painted with the black silhouettes of generic Victorian designs. A third form is free-standing, its bulbous and crumpled masses hang together in an exaggerated belly in the style of Pablo Escobar. The towers are given scale-less distortion through the use of repurposed, true-to-scale tower windows salvaged from recently demolished structures in the models. The relic windows, one with punched panes, the other with a series of secondary, beveled interior surfaces located just inside the window frame, again obscure the true nature of these sculptural ones Objects. Is everyone really a turret-shaped building? Are they One-to-one models of diminutive Towers? It’s hard to say, but that’s partly the point. this Transformation of orthography Drawing on objects-in-the-round gives every tower contradicting, multiple meanings since the physical Properties of their material Components collide with each other. A wall-mounted tower is clad in wood veneer panels that are cut out and designed so that their ends roll up. The free-standing tower is topped with a faux fur tiara.

And if we can stop by the Seuss-ian Take shapes and look at the towers for what they are – geometric abstractions – something locks into place: Thenhaus and his team use the Tower of San Francisco as a learning tool. By imposing an order and then manipulating it and working on generating new shapes that still fit the agreed definition of a tower, the designers add some clarity that is otherwise shrouded in mystery. The question is: are the new creations still Victorian turrets?

(Courtesy Endemic Architecture)

It’s hard to tell because Victorian architectural forms juggle many Considerations at the same time: They are typically proportioned for light and air, are aggressively decorated, and excellently break down massive buildings into pleasant collections of cute things like cornicesWindows, porches and yes, turrets. Victorian architecture makes from the perspective of the rationalist, diagram-driven methodology of the contemporary Practice applied here to their formal existence.

By subsuming the The researchers show the peculiarities of the Victorian style ecosystem on the sparse lexical memory of their profession and the way in which building components, formerly discrete, measurable and observable objects, have been replaced by digital modeling processes in contemporary discourse and “if, then” reactions where collections of points, lines, and planes are swept, lofted, tweened, and booleanized to create a shape. In both cases, meaning arises from the processes of form formation and not, as in Victorian architecture, from the symbolic and physical properties of the forms themselves.

Viewed through this lens, the works presented in the exhibition can not only be seen as generative, architectural by-products that have arisen from an architecture-focused observation, but as an independent part of this conversation. That means, Endemics turrets with their enigmatic proportions, the gimmicky of the material and the lateral view of the playful formalism are at Endemics attempt
define the tower typology as the observed towers themselves.

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While planning to return for face-to-face meetings, South San Francisco school officials agreed that the district should continue to broadcast meetings online in hopes of maintaining the community’s increased engagement during the pandemic.

The Board of Trustees of the South San Francisco Unified School District unanimously agreed to keep broadcasts of online meetings on Thursday, May 27th, as they prepare to do so, Thursday, June 24th, for the first time in more than one Year to begin face-to-face meetings.

But while the Trustees shared the belief that online broadcasts should continue even after members of the school community were invited back to meetings, questions remained as to whether remote public comments would be allowed.

Trustee John Baker advocated remote attendance, claiming that this lowers the barrier to entry for those interested in giving their opinion on matters to the board but not having the flexibility to attend meetings.

“It has produced a lot more democracy, it has produced a lot more participation from members of the community,” he said.

However, he measured this perspective by noting that although he preferred to keep public comments from a distance, the more critical issue was the board continuing to broadcast meetings online for community members to watch from home can.

Trustee Pat Murray claimed otherwise, suggesting that public comment should only be allowed when a person is attending a meeting – as soon as public health conditions permit.

Claiming that context is lost when a person comments remotely, Murray said she believed it was preferable for a person to speak to the board so that officials could better grasp their position.

“I think it’s really important that we have these nuances when trying to understand our community,” she said. “That they are there and talk to us.”

Board chairwoman Daina Lujan said she felt the same, but for different reasons.

After months of conducting online meetings, Lujan found that it can be difficult to moderate meetings, especially those with large groups of people who want to talk about key issues.

Personally, she said that time management for meetings is easier as the moderator is better able to read the room and to the best of his ability to ensure that the meetings are not late at night.

But online, Lujan said, it is harder to tell how many people will be interested in speaking, and this reduces their ability to conduct meetings efficiently.

She also added that she felt that personal comments had a greater resonance than virtual ones.

“It’s something to be said that you are actually able to make eye contact and hear sound,” she said.

The problem is one that school districts and local governments are grappling with as public health conditions improve, gatherings are allowed again, and meetings in boardrooms and town halls forced online by the pandemic resume.

Proponents of online meetings and public commentary generally advocate relying on technology to expand access, and point to an increase in participation over the past year from community members who take advantage of the flexibility of remote agreements.

However, critics often note that the increase in participation has lengthened the length of meetings, leading to many meetings lasting late into the night and raising concerns about the wisdom of sometimes making political decisions after midnight.

Currently, those wishing to attend meetings of the South San Francisco School Committee are encouraged to email their comments to the board in advance of the meeting or attend live via a remote public comment. Looking ahead, officials expressed an interest in continuing to accept the statements sent via email, but remote public comments could be eliminated once members of the community can again attend meetings.

No final decision has been made on this issue and further decisions will be made at a later meeting. But Baker said if officials attempt to ban public commenting remotely, they should consider broadcasting the sessions on YouTube and moving away from Zoom to save on administrative costs.

With a view to the meeting on June 24th, the board members can hold personal meetings in the district office and finally return to the boardroom of the Baden High School as soon as the parishioners can attend.

Lujan noted, however, that the board’s decision could ultimately be overshadowed by any orders from Governor Gavin Newsom, who is expected to provide clearer guidance on such issues once the state moves away from its tiered color system in a few weeks’ time.

On similar matters, the board agreed to read a statement at the beginning of each board meeting that the meeting was taking place on land originally inhabited by indigenous peoples.

Baker suggested the recognition to signal the board’s commitment to social justice.

“It’s a way to formally acknowledge and reflect on what was essentially an extermination of the indigenous people and the trauma they suffered under colonialism,” he said.

Baker said he had noticed similar recognition is being made at other public gatherings across the state, and he felt that adoption in South San Francisco would be in line with a variety of similar initiatives by his school board.

To that end, the board is considering changing the name of Junipero Serra Elementary School based on the missionary’s treatment of Native Americans, and recently changed the South San Francisco High School mascot to abandon the Native American imagery.

The rest of his colleagues supported the proposal, and Superintendent Shawnterra Moore said officials will return using the proposed language at the next board meeting so that the board can review the official adoption.

Baker said the recognition was the least the board could do to honor the history of the region.

“It’s better than what we’re doing now,” he said.

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