The space is imagined as a re-incarnation of itself, the JR Watkins Apothecary.
The behavior of the elevators reveal the buildings occupation and use by transforming into the actuators for a unique composition of light, sound and space. The architectural interventions and programming, which re-shape the building, take point of departure from the abnormal behavior of the elevator cabs and from the historical use of the building. The grotto-esque features: the gaping maw, the descent into the unknown, the technological secrecy, and the elusive niche—is embedded in the design of each intervention.
The elevator emerges as a unique character in fiction and film. It is made increasingly inviting because of its ubiquitous necessity beyond the screen in daily life. The elevator has made possible the vertical architecture so familiar in our cityscapes. The system of the elevator is controlled and regulated by computer programming language and logic that appears as an incomprehensible jumble to most of us. I am interested in the story of the elevator, in the elevator’s persona, which is embedded in each slice of computer-executable code. Manipulating that code changes the behavior of the system and it becomes “open” to interpretation, intervention and imagination.
Two elevators were constructed as characters for my design development. These elevators utilized the stepper motors programmed using an Arduino micro controller and Wiring language to perform the familiar functions of typical elevators.
They were also programmed with 8 aberrant behaviors, 3 of which were used to inform the architectural interventions on site. The 3 chosen programming functions (referred to from now on as behaviors) are:
A. elevator_love_letters Brief: The notion of being mythically fated for one another. The ups and downs of love merge with the to and fro of traffic in the big city. The hero and heroine fear to loose sight of one another. The chase with the taxi no longer exits, only up and down from floor to floor.
B. coordinates_of_social_space Brief: The skyscraper is a social microcosm revealing the deformations of its residents. The floors become rigidly separate levels of a social hierarchy, connected by the elevator alone. The elevator maps coordinates in social space. The system is made up of lower floors with oppressive ceilings and spacious upper floors of the executive class.
C. pages_from_a_diary Brief: The experienced urbanist views the journey upward without danger, getting stuck is a harmless, erotic moment.
Each behavior references a particular elevator cultural construct revealed in contemporary fiction and film. The selected behaviors were then interwoven into the historical tapestry of an existing site and building in North Point Douglas.
Photo: JR Watkins Building (1913) view from freight elevator
Photo: JR Watkins Building (1913) elevator lift mechanism
Photo: JR Watkins Building (1913) view from freight elevator
Photo: JR Watkins Building (1913) Gearless Traction Elevator mechansim
Joseph Ray Watkins founded Watkins Incorporated in 1868 from the kitchen of his home in Plainview, Minn. He began selling red liniment from a horse-drawn wagon, bringing home remedies to rural areas where few doctors practiced. Watkins traveled the world gathering ingredients and spices for use in his natural concoctions.
JR Watkins Drug Factory and Medical Co. warehouse was built at the corner of Anabella Street and Higgins Avenue in 1913. The CN Trans Canada rail line passes directly behind the building, which allowed for shipments of white cream liniment, camphor oil, turpentine spirits, cinnamon, cleaning solvents, pepper and vanilla to be shipped with ease. Two massive parallel elevators, one for freight and another for passengers, transported JR Watkins products, ingredients and supplies throughout the unique eight-story warehouse.
From 1909 to 1913, Annabella Street (then Rachel) and McFarlane Street made up Winnipegs’ semi official “Red Light” district and the Watkins head offices and distribution centre was right in the thick of it. “Mrs. Watkins frowned on this behavior and ordered the removal of several brothels between the Watkins building and Higgins and replaced them with the current garden. In this act of moral enforcement, Mrs. Watkins effectively quarantined a slice of Point Douglas for her and the Watkins employees. The overgrown trees, bushes and perimeter fence define two worlds: inside the garden and out”.
The JR Watkins Apothecary is a result of the stories about elevators and people, events and characters that make up my particular impression of the Watkins brand, the building, and its site. I imagine the Watkins family to be eccentric pioneers, a bit like the famous Willy Wonka from Raold Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – fiercely independent, innovative, and prone to lunacy from overexposure to potent ingredients.
The elevator code trials made use of several online tutorials and expertise from forum members in the Arudino Online forum, the Ladyada Forum and the Maker forum. The above PDF demonstrates over 3 months worth of continuous research and revision- testing code, inserting code libraries, learning and tweaking. It's still not perfect. The elevator motion began with a hunch-- that is, I could move the elevator using stepper motors controlled by push button switches on a shift register. The idea of the shift register came from the SHIFTIN tutorial written by Carlyn Maw and Tom Igoe.
The last pages of the .pdf contain the final code used to run the elevators.
UPDATE:
The elevators preform based on these evolved behaviors which have been programmed into the elevator code and into the elevator's interface. The following pseudo-code depicts the behaviors most interesting to me and most relevant to the site.
A. elevator_love_letters Baudelaireʼs poem “ A une Passante” illustrates the essence of modern love, one which is no longer dependent on the notion of being mythically fated for one another, but rather, on a chance encounter within the bustle of the big city. The ups and downs of love merge with the to and fro of traffic. The hero and heroine fear to loose sight of one another. The chase with the taxi no longer exits, only up and down from floor to floor. Charles Baudelaire: Les Fleurs de Mal et autre poemes, Paris, 1964. P 114
Elevator Function: if switchvar2== n do move both freight and passenger elevator in a game of tag. Move passenger to floor 2 then freight, then pass to 3 then freight to 3 and the 4 and so on until they both stop at the 6 floor , delay 500ms, and return to the first floor check the shift register for next call
B. bureaucratic_prostition In the pre-lift age the blue collar worker occupied the poorly furnished attic room. High society, on the other hand, resided in the lower storeys of the building. That gravity could be comfortably overcome by lift led to a re-evaluation of these physical constructs. The person who was “on top” could live at “the top”. The vertical polarizations of social hierarchy and of the real world became synchronous resulting in a new topsy-turvy world.
C. Co-ordinates_of_social_space. The skyscraper is a social microcosm revealing the deformations of its residents. The floors become rigidly separate levels of a social hierarchy, connected by the elevator alone. The elevator maps coordinates in social space. The system is made up of lower floors with oppressive ceilings and spacious upper floors of the executive class.
Elevator Function: if switchvar== passenger elevator go to floor 3, delay, go to floor 3.5, delay, go to floor 4, delay, go to floor 2, delay. Continue cycle 3 times and then return to ground floor. check the shift register for next call
D. make_nice Elevators have become ubiquitous. Not only are they a functional necessity, but they pervade our social and cultural life as well. We have developed extensive social conventions as a way of dealing with them, from where to stand in a crowded elevator to where to stand when only a stranger is present. Elevator Function: If swichvar2= Passenger_motor go to floor eight and stay there and loop forward one step and back one step (like a hover) for 300 loops check the shift register for next call
E. the_fear "I hate to say this, but this place is getting to me. I think I'm getting the fear" The tendency towards free-fall as a catastrophic occurrence.
Elevator Function: passenger_motor increase rpmʼs move fast to top floor, delay, move fast to bottom floor and reset rpm's to normal check the shift register for next call
F. gateway_to_the_soul Juxtaposition of the banal and the metaphysical trans-dimensional portal. "Welcome to the New Jersey turnpike".
Elevator Function: if switchvar = passenger_motor floorcount 7.5 check the shift register for next call freight elevator== go to missing floor 4
G. We_have_a_situation_here The breakdown of lift systems offers the opportunity to occupy areas of the building meant for machines. Building penetration and invasion occurs through the labyrinths of shafts that offer protection by their darkness. The urban jungle as an interior space.
Elevator Function: If switchvar = Send passenger_motor to basement, send motor_freight to floor 8, then reverse it so that passenger_motor goes to 8 and motor_freight goes to B.
I. The_end_of _the_world Nowhere is the dependency on the function of everyday mechanics as invisible as it is in the elevator building. Technology runs amok.
Elevator Function: If switchvar = Motor_passenger and motor_freight Go to basement then up a bit, then to basement, delay, then up a bit, then back to basement—keep going for 3 minutes—keep looping for 3 minutes
J. Pages_from_a_diary The experienced urbanist views the journey upward without danger, getting stuck is a harmless, erotic moment. Disturbances and confusions in the vertical can delay the course of love but never ruin it
Elevator Function: If switchVar2= Motor_Passenger and Motor_Freight travel to floor 5 and hover and pulse up and down a few steps 5 minutes. Delay [long time?] Check Shift Register for next call.
The stepper motors are required to lift the elevator cab to the correct floor. The stepper motor's precision makes it an ideal device for achieving accurate precision. A few trial and error tests were required to determine the number of "steps" between floors. A stepper motor does not spin freely on it’s own when connected to a current. It is a motor controlled by a series of electromagnetic coils. The center shaft has a series of magnets mounted on it, and the coils surrounding the shaft are alternately given current or not, creating magnetic fields which repulse or attract the magnets on the shaft, causing the motor to rotate. The current is regulated by the Arduino micro controller which is programmed in Arduino programming language (based on Wiring). Like other motors, stepper motors require more power than a microcontroller can give them, so a separate DC power supply is required. Typical voltages for a stepper might be 5V, 9V, 12V, 24V.
Preliminary Shift Register Test utilizing push button switches.
More digital input than the 13 pins of Arduino board can readily handle were required for the elevator interface. Using a parallel to serial shift register allows information to be gathered from 8 or more switches while only using 3 of the pins on your Arduino. The shift registers can be daisy chained together to create an "unlimited" number of switches.
Elevator Interface Prototype utlizing three Shift Registers
The database has been an on going experiment. Over the past couple of months I have been culling media sources for the presence of elevators. So far I've amassed a rather robust collection of images, quotes, passages and film clips which demonstrate how elevators pervade social and cultural life both on screen and off. Resources such as Vertical Transportation and Up, Down and Across have been helpful in the pursuit of mechanical knowledge and books such as Vertical reveal that others have been intrigued by the space, place and motions of elevator systems in film and fiction.
I have been loosely grouping my discoveries into genres > thriller, mystery, sci-fi/fantasy, romance and so on. What I've found most intriguing is how elevators (the cab, the shaft and the mechanisms) are utilized in film-- as a vantage point, as a theatre, as a portal, as a brothel etc.
In action movies the elevator is practically cliche. It is the break down of lift systems that offer the opportunity to occupy areas of the building formerly meant for machines. Building penetrations and invasions occur through the labyrinths of shafts that offer protection by their darkness. These films share narrative and cinematic traits with horror/thriller films. The elevator in free fall, plunging wildly to the dismay of its occupants, is a scene familiar in both genres. However, in the action film, the hero/ine eludes death by clinging haphazardly to the frayed remains of the rope some twenty stories up. The horror film reveals an elevator possessed. A manevolant force plunges the elevator occupants to a bloody hell. The invisible technologies that control the elevator run amok, reinforcing the dooms-day prophecy that humans will pay dearly for an ever increasing reliance on machines.
The love and comedy genres tend to portray the awkward social conventions we display when stuck with strangers in a confined space. The journey upward becomes curious and getting stuck a harmless, erotic moment. The elevator experience transcends the mundane to become an act of fate, uniting disparate individuals on a path to love.
I love the trailer I have for this one short film called eleVATE where "An insecure loner develops an unhealthy obsession with a voice activated elevator which leads to a disturbing connection". What appears to happen (since I haven't seen the actual short yet) is that the elevator becomes infatuated with the hero, and ends up jealously executing his human love interest.
For me, the most intriguing works in the database are the science fiction/fantasy books and films. As a group they create a varied continuum that reveals the elevator primarily as a portal of sorts. There is something about the encapsulated vertical motion of elevators, that we enter in one space and exit in another, that lends itself to the otherworldly, or in the case of films such as Being John Malkovich, lead us to the soul. Perhaps it is in these films more explicitly that the elevator reveals the same power of metamorphosis as the grotto. Like the grotto the elevator becomes a harbor for the fantastical; a passage way to a new reality.
Grottoes were (and perhaps still are) invitations to expect the unexpected. I am beginning to suspect elevators offer a similar invitation. I am interested in how the myth of the elevator, cultivated through cultural representations of the mechanism in film and fiction, might impact the behavior of the machine. How might architecture and elevator technology reveal these cultural narrative myths within the confines of a building that possesses it's own unique histories. Might elevator function embed its own narrative into the existing building story in a way that reveals the potency of the elevator space.
Just as the epic of Odysseus lends myth and magic to the grotto of the Emperor Tiberius at Sperlonga, the elevators in the JR Watkins building will inscribed a similar narrative which will inform the architecture of the evolving spaces. The metamorphic tradition of the grotto will infuse the elevator, the resulting built spaces and the occupants of the existing building.
[ On a side note, the original database was built in Appleworks 6.2. I liked the Appleworks platform because of its simple, customizable, straightforward templates -- i didn't want the glossy templates of Bento or FileMaker. Unfortunately though, the database had to be ported to FileMaker in the end because Appleworks kept crashing in OS X. ]
To view a .pdf of the existing Elevator Catalog database see below.
The statues in the Sacro Boscro are guideposts along a path of discovery. Each statue, each carefully carved Latin phrase, each gotto-esque cave demarcates the story of loss, of pain and perpetual misery of the garden's creator. The careful reading of the symbols chosen for the garden is an attempt to have a conversation with it's creator. Understanding, however, remains elusive to those who are unfamiliar with the ancient stories and myths whose lessons and tragedies are manifested in the meandering garden. Without this shared knowledge the poetics of the space are only partially revealed.
I am interested in this poetic interpretation. The idea that conveying ideas and meaning to others who partake of a space might be possible, convincing, and beautiful. The grotto is the architectural participant in this landscape. It is a space that captures the enchantment of the garden within walls, ceilings and floors. Through shared understandings of myths, legends, histories and tales we suggest potent meanings of space and place to visitors. We create specific rather than generic spaces, spaces full of enchantment?
The doors open-- what happens? The void of the mouth appears before the expectant individual. Entering is just the first step. We assume we will get off somewhere. But what if the destination is within. Is the space of here the same as that of there. I expect not. Does it take you closer to the light?
Evans, Richard. "Glossary." Up Down Across: Elevators, Escalators, and Moving Sidewalks. Ed. Alisa Goetz. London: Merrell Ltd., 2003. 203-208.
A play on a theatre stage is structured as a fixed sequence of acts played out in a series of scenes. The acts are a rigid sequence that propagates the story; it is within each scene, however, where the opportunity for improvisation and adaptation takes place. The dramatic effect of the play is intimately linked to the interplay between story and stage.
Like the grotto, the stage is an object of enchantment that suggests something inherently transformative. Lighting, motion, and sound create spectacle and reveal the unpredictable. In these moments we are spurred to new associations and new meaning, we are engaged in the moment more completely than we are in the everyday.
The site is the stage for my evolving substrate. The site will offer it's own conditions for architectural presence--dictating relationships (or the lack thereof) between environmental, social, economic, historical and cultural players. I'm currently researching a few buildings in the downtown, and another in Point Douglas as potential sites for this project.
1. Scotia Bank Building_209 Portage Street. 2. JR Watkins Warehouse Building_90 Annabelle Street. 3. Evergreen Towers_11 Evergreen Place
Figure 1: Typical wiring for a unipolar stepper motor.
Stepper motors will be used to control vertical motion within the substrate, raising and lowering components to the desired levels via a pulley system. Stepper motors provide more torque at lower speeds than DC motors. They are capable of moving a precise distance or a specific number of rotations. They also have very high torque when stopped (the motor acts like a break). This will allow parts of the substrate to be suspended without slipping. There is a rule of thumb that can be used to determine the lifting capacity of the stepper motor: holding torque X 0.65 = dynamic torque (g-cm). This means that if your motor has a pulley with a radius of 1cm then the motor can lift a weight of x grams hanging on the string.
To control the stepper, you apply voltage to each of the coils in a specific sequence. The issue is understanding the orientation of the wires--ie. which wire goes to which coil. The schematics below details how to wire the stepper to a Darlington transistor array. The array controls the direction of the motor. An Arduino micro controller will be used to drive the motor. There is rudimentary programming code here.
/* Stepper Motor Controller language: Wiring/Arduino
This program drives a unipolar or bipolar stepper motor. The motor is attached to digital pins 8 and 9 of the Arduino.
The motor moves 100 steps in one direction, then 100 in the other.
Created 11 Mar. 2007 Modified 7 Apr. 2007 by Tom Igoe
O'Sullivan, Dan, and Tom Igoe. Physical Computing: Sensing and Contolling Physical World with Computers. Boston: Thomson Course Technology, 2004. 260-265.
This is the bipolar stepper motor I rescued from an Epson printer. The first and third and second and fourth wires are connect (8.5 ohms). I've ordered SN754410 dual H-bridge(s), which will be used to reverse the polarity in the coils--and the direction of the motor.
The substrate is a simple investigation into a static system. The purpose of this investigation is to learn about an existing phenomenon so that it might be re-tooled, re-examined, exposed, and re-interpreted. Some questions regarding the structural condition of the substrate came out of a discussion with architect/engineer Lancelot Coar.
1. Believing in the unknown: There is an ubiquitous phenomenon that is being discussed, which is the motion of moving up and down. This phenomenon happens within living systems. How do things flow up? Grow up? What forces are acting on this motion?
2. How does the substrate/skin respond to itself: How is the structure effected by what is happening within it? Is it deformed, strained, uneffected. What are the variables at play? How does the interior condition effect the exterior condition? What is the position of the interior in relation to the exterior--does this remain constant?
3. What is the experience?: What is our spatial awareness of this system? Architecture is in the activation, in the revealing of the space between.
Haruki Murakami ------> Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1987)
"The elevator continued its impossible slow ascent. Or at least I imagined it was ascent. There was no telling for sure: it was too slow that all sense of direction simply vanished. It could have been going down for all I knew, or maybe it wasn't moving at all. But let's just assume it was going up. Merely a guess. Maybe I'd gone up twelve stories, then down three? Maybe I'd circled the globe. How would I know?
Learning to activate and control systems with Arduino programming language. From right to left the images depict my success with simple procedures including how to command "on" an LED, how to pulse three LED's at different times, and how to make a simple switch command. The next steps will be to control a stepper motor and light sensors.
[...Machinic analogues are quite prevalent in architectural history. Books 9 and 10 did refer explicitly to the making of machines a part of the making of architecture. Le Corbusier, was most renown for referring to architecture as a "machine for living". Even Shin Takamatsu took the almost nihilistic approach to developing architectural work as a machine aesthetic. Devoid of human interaction and finished using the same precise techniques and obsessive precision of a mechanical engineer.
Rather than a metaphorical transition or an analogue for a representation. . . meaning, program and ultimately use . . . [will be derived] from the embedded conditions [present in the monster]. --- Studio Brief: Patrick Harrop. 2008.
The above images are laser cutting templates. When assembled these pieces will form a preliminary substrate that will discuss the mechanics necessary to provide a controlled ascent and a controlled descent within a structure. The next steps will be to determine how the structure will evolve to take into consideration the phenomenon derived from the Homunculus project:
1. EXPECTING THE UNEXPECTED The puppet’s suggestive power is linked to its paradoxical status: while it is an inanimate object, its appeal depends on its seeming ability to “live.” -------->micro-contoller programmed to control: sensory input, reducers, increment counters , stepper motors, pulleys, hoisting mechanisms. -------->theatrical strategies, anamorphosis and illusion.
2. EXPECTING THE UNEXPECTED IN CERTAIN PREDICTABLE WAYS What is most interesting about the puppet, from an architectural standpoint, is the interplay between its elements and gravity. The inter-relationship between the strings in tension and the load of the puppet creates a parametric situation where when one part moves, the rest follow suit in a predictable manner. --------> tensile systems, Frei Otto( Institute for Lightweight structures), parametric relationships, iterative components.
An aura of expectation surrounds the grotto. It is a relatively immutable element in the ephemeral world of the garden-- a place of repose and reunion, or of solitude, seclusion, and shade; a site of technological assemblages; a theatrical museum; a sanctuary of muses, a locus of enlightenment and poetic inspiration; a harbor for the fantastical; a passage way to a new reality. Grottoes were (and perhaps still are) invitations to expect the unexpected.
Architectural remains and a wealth of literary sources demonstrate the prevalence of grottoes throughout antiquity and the revival and transformation of the architectural motif within the Renaissance. Over time, 17th century grottoes, with their elaborate grotesque features and technologically fantastic gestures, were supplanted by an eighteenth-century enthusiasm for the grotto as a part of a deeper romanticism-- a nostalgia for antiquity and a desire to bring forth the innate or natural "genius of the place". In 1876-7 King Ludwig II constructed a grotto folly at Neuschwanstein castle. Composed of cast-iron stalactites and coated with cement, the artificial grotto was a private realm replete with winding stalactite path, crystal clear lake, and royal platform designed in the form of a shell.
How then, does the enchantment of the grotto resolve itself within a twenty first century perspective. If we dismiss the form of the cave, the waterworks, the mirrors and shells of antiquity--do we dismiss the aura as well? Or, can the aura be achieved through other means, other forms, other interactions. Can technology be a mode of working that re-introduces the metamorphic tradition of the grotto grotesque?
Image credit: from the film Being John Malkovich (1999). Craig Schwartz (John Cusak) stepping out of the elevator on the seven-and-a-halfth floor.
A puppeteer discovers a portal that leads literally into the head of the movie star, John Malkovich.
"The recurring journey within the narrative--from elevator, to tunnel in the wall, to Malkovich's mind, to a stretch of grass beside the Jersey Turnpike-- affirms that technology can serve as a non-standard but still effective gateway to the soul". 1. Miller, Naomi. Heavenly Caves. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1982. 7, 115. 2. Garfinkel, Susan. "Elevator Stories: Vertical Imagination and the Spaces of Possibility." Up Down Across: Elevators, Escalators, and Moving Sidewalks. Ed. Alisa Goetz. London: Merrell Ltd., 2003. 175.
Over the last century, Western scholarly writing and thought trended towards reinterpreting all phenomena of the universe within a secularized psychological framework. This seduction of Western scientific materialism influenced writers to aestheticize the transcendental, summarizing the grotesque as a mere system of images, Roman ornament or architectural conceit. If the "grotto-esque" is to be condescended, then so too must the brilliant and influential individuals who embraced its stylistic and metamorphic traditions—Ovid, Kafka, Shakespeare, Graham Greene, Descartes, E.M Forester, Alexander Pope and the list continues including royalty (Louis XIV), nobility and clergy across Europe. From this position my thesis seeks to ask not: How did the grotto descend from “residence of the genius” into scorn; but rather, Where have all the grottos gone?
The grotesque is a mode that is, first and foremost, about crossing into a different and transformative order of reality—an enchanted space. My thesis proposes an examination of the grotto as the framework for an enchanted space, a space beyond a simple spatial void, drawn by boundaries of walls, floors and ceilings. A space made real through interaction and inhabitation. The intentions of this thesis are to reintroduce the grotto to contemporary architecture as a poetic work—as a space that is at once both mundane and extraordinary, a space that blends technology and myth into an enchanted space. Like the proscenium of the theatre, the grotto is a metaphorical portal, a place of passage— “to enter is to acknowledge the distance between outside and inside, between reality and illusion” .
Homunculus inhabits the realm of the "grotto-esque". The puppet's suggestive power is linked to its paradoxical status: while it is an inanimate object, its appeal depends on its seeming ability to "live." What is most interesting about the puppet, from an architectural standpoint, is the interplay between its elements and gravity. The inter-relationship between the strings in tension and the load of the puppet creates a parametric situation where when one part moves, the rest follow suit in a predictable manner. This dynamic system reveals how responsive architectonic scaled elements might become gesture. Such architecture becomes something that both changes over time and responds to changes in time.
NEXT STEPS 1. Readings: Richard Sennett's The Fall of Public Man. 2. Researching the contemporary grotto: elevators.
"In Goethe's phantasmagoric Faust II, the good doctor's assistant Wagner has created "Homunculus" a miniature alchemical golem, in a glass beaker. This "dainty little man" possess the trait of complete memory of the world's history." The Secret Lives of Puppets. 2001 To speak of a puppet with most men and women is to cause them to giggle. They think at once of the wires; they think of the stiff hands and the jerky movements; they tell me it is a "funny little doll". But . . . these puppets. . . are the descendants of a great and noble family of Images, images which were indeed made "in the likeness of God". E. Gordon Craig quoted in The Secret Lives of Puppets. 2001
Elevator in Film and Fiction Blog
A collection of clips, passages, and images which reflect the role of the elevator in film and fiction. Check here
The space is imagined as a re-incarnation of itself, the JR Watkins Apothecary.
