Skip to main content

Fred Scharmen

Morgan State University, Architecture, Associate Professor

Followers

227

Following

118

Mentions

118

Public Views

Address: Baltimore, Maryland, United States

less

InterestsView All (32)

Uploads

Papers by Fred Scharmen

Routledge eBooks, Jun 19, 2023

Unforbidden Planets: Form, Theory, Vacancy, and Robots

Volume!, 2013

in the terrain vague of the streets of baltimore, fred scharmen and michael stanton got together ... more in the terrain vague of the streets of baltimore, fred scharmen and michael stanton got together to discuss their take on several theoretical dilemmas that challenge criticism today. representative of two different generations of american theoretical debate, they find common ground in a few key areas: the immediacy of form, the value of speculation, and the mobile agency of theory.

Highest and Best Use: Subjectivity and Climates Off and After Earth

Journal of Architectural Education, Jul 3, 2017

22. Skywalk: The Life and Death of Multilevel Urbanism in Downtown Baltimore

Rutgers University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2019

A Brief Pre-History of Houses Who Tweet

22. Skywalk: The Life and Death of Multilevel Urbanism in Downtown Baltimore

Baltimore Revisited

A Brief Pre-History of Houses Who Tweet

Brooklyn Says, "Move to Detroit"

There are currently only a few houses who use social media. But with the increasing availability ... more There are currently only a few houses who use social media. But with the increasing availability of inexpensive hardware, and prolific networked software, the number of houses who actively communicate online in one way or another is sure to grow. An examination of some tweeting house types from within the context of architecture history and theory reveals some models for how this social architecture might develop.This paper shows that tweeting houses raise concerns that are solidly within the set of questions traditionally addressed by architecture. The tweeting house’s existence depends on acts of translation between different media, some managed by a designer, some automated. The tweeting house actively presents social and tectonic affordances that offer opportunities for engagement, functional and otherwise. And finally, tweeting houses raise issues about the public, external representation of a set of private, internal conditions, some of them personal to the house’s occupants, ...

The Shape of Space

Places Journal, 2018

What Is a Big Dumb Object?

Journal of Architectural Education, 2015

To understand applications of Rem Koolhaas's concept of “Bigness,” I place it alongside conce... more To understand applications of Rem Koolhaas's concept of “Bigness,” I place it alongside concepts from science fiction criticism and Gestalt perception theory. There are multiple connections between methods used by OMA and means employed in science fiction: collection of diverse programs within ambiguous figures, overwhelming of critical faculties with wonder and scale, extrapolation of complications from first order technological change, and the proliferation of new forms of independent existences in the world. The history of the use, in architecture of the figure-ground drawing, first popularized by Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin, and Danish architect Steen Eiler Rasmussen, provides a backstory for the political effects of both “Bigness” and the science fictional Big Dumb Object. I show that there is an isomorphism between the way OMA's work is presented, in S,M,L,XL and subsequent books, and in the presentation and reception of the book itself.

Unforbidden Planets: Form, Theory, Vacancy, and Robots

Baltimore Revisited

The Shape of Space

Places Journal

Field Notes on Pandemic Teaching: 2

Places Journal

Highest and Best Use: Subjectivity and Climates Off and After Earth

Journal of Architectural Education

Using the concept of the umwelt from biology, post-colonial interpretations of climate change, an... more Using the concept of the umwelt from biology, post-colonial interpretations of climate change, and Judith Butler&#39;s gender and ability theory, this article argues that the creation of new environments is always the creation of a subject, maybe even a corporate, nonhuman one. Examples are drawn from the 20th century history of the design and occupation of human habitats in space, from Earthbound corporate architecture, and speculative urban design.

Unforbidden Planets: Form, Theory, Vacancy, and Robots

Volume, 2013

Adaptive reuse: things, containers, and streets in the architecture of the social web

Interactions, 2010

Highest and Best Use: Subjectivity and Climates Off and After Earth

Using the concept of the umwelt from biology, post-colonial interpretations of climate change, an... more Using the concept of the umwelt from biology, post-colonial interpretations of climate change, and Judith Butler's gender and ability theory, this article argues that the creation of new environments is always the creation of a subject, maybe even a corporate, nonhuman one. Examples are drawn from the 20th century history of the design and occupation of human habitats in space, from Earthbound corporate architecture, and speculative urban design.

Home Tweet Home

This paper is a case study of two houses who have been given semi-automated twitter accounts by t... more

What is a Big Dumb Object?

To understand applications of Rem Koolhaas’ concept of “Bigness”, I place it alongside concepts f... more To understand applications of Rem Koolhaas’ concept of “Bigness”, I place it alongside concepts from science fiction criticism and Gestalt perception theory. There are multiple connections between methods used by OMA and means employed in science fiction: collection of diverse programs within ambiguous figures, overwhelming of critical faculties with wonder and scale, extrapolation of complications from first order technological change, and the proliferation of new forms of independent existences in the world. The history of the use, in architecture of the figure-ground drawing, first popularized by Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin, and Danish architect Steen Eiler Rasmussen, provides a backstory for the political effects of both “Bigness” and the science fictional Big Dumb Object. I show that there is an isomorphism between the way OMA’s work is presented, in S,M,L,XL and subsequent books, and in the presentation and reception of the book itself.

A jpeg is worth 1000kb - ZORK, Colossal Cave Adventure, and the landscape of the text-based adventure game

A Brief Survey of Video Game Landscapes, Jan 1, 2010

Routledge eBooks, Jun 19, 2023

Unforbidden Planets: Form, Theory, Vacancy, and Robots

Volume!, 2013

in the terrain vague of the streets of baltimore, fred scharmen and michael stanton got together ... more in the terrain vague of the streets of baltimore, fred scharmen and michael stanton got together to discuss their take on several theoretical dilemmas that challenge criticism today. representative of two different generations of american theoretical debate, they find common ground in a few key areas: the immediacy of form, the value of speculation, and the mobile agency of theory.

Highest and Best Use: Subjectivity and Climates Off and After Earth

Journal of Architectural Education, Jul 3, 2017

22. Skywalk: The Life and Death of Multilevel Urbanism in Downtown Baltimore

Rutgers University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2019

A Brief Pre-History of Houses Who Tweet

22. Skywalk: The Life and Death of Multilevel Urbanism in Downtown Baltimore

Baltimore Revisited

A Brief Pre-History of Houses Who Tweet

Brooklyn Says, "Move to Detroit"

There are currently only a few houses who use social media. But with the increasing availability ... more There are currently only a few houses who use social media. But with the increasing availability of inexpensive hardware, and prolific networked software, the number of houses who actively communicate online in one way or another is sure to grow. An examination of some tweeting house types from within the context of architecture history and theory reveals some models for how this social architecture might develop.This paper shows that tweeting houses raise concerns that are solidly within the set of questions traditionally addressed by architecture. The tweeting house’s existence depends on acts of translation between different media, some managed by a designer, some automated. The tweeting house actively presents social and tectonic affordances that offer opportunities for engagement, functional and otherwise. And finally, tweeting houses raise issues about the public, external representation of a set of private, internal conditions, some of them personal to the house’s occupants, ...

The Shape of Space

Places Journal, 2018

What Is a Big Dumb Object?

Journal of Architectural Education, 2015

To understand applications of Rem Koolhaas's concept of “Bigness,” I place it alongside conce... more To understand applications of Rem Koolhaas's concept of “Bigness,” I place it alongside concepts from science fiction criticism and Gestalt perception theory. There are multiple connections between methods used by OMA and means employed in science fiction: collection of diverse programs within ambiguous figures, overwhelming of critical faculties with wonder and scale, extrapolation of complications from first order technological change, and the proliferation of new forms of independent existences in the world. The history of the use, in architecture of the figure-ground drawing, first popularized by Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin, and Danish architect Steen Eiler Rasmussen, provides a backstory for the political effects of both “Bigness” and the science fictional Big Dumb Object. I show that there is an isomorphism between the way OMA's work is presented, in S,M,L,XL and subsequent books, and in the presentation and reception of the book itself.

Unforbidden Planets: Form, Theory, Vacancy, and Robots

Baltimore Revisited

The Shape of Space

Places Journal

Field Notes on Pandemic Teaching: 2

Places Journal

Highest and Best Use: Subjectivity and Climates Off and After Earth

Journal of Architectural Education

Using the concept of the umwelt from biology, post-colonial interpretations of climate change, an... more Using the concept of the umwelt from biology, post-colonial interpretations of climate change, and Judith Butler&#39;s gender and ability theory, this article argues that the creation of new environments is always the creation of a subject, maybe even a corporate, nonhuman one. Examples are drawn from the 20th century history of the design and occupation of human habitats in space, from Earthbound corporate architecture, and speculative urban design.

Unforbidden Planets: Form, Theory, Vacancy, and Robots

Volume, 2013

Adaptive reuse: things, containers, and streets in the architecture of the social web

Interactions, 2010

Highest and Best Use: Subjectivity and Climates Off and After Earth

Using the concept of the umwelt from biology, post-colonial interpretations of climate change, an... more Using the concept of the umwelt from biology, post-colonial interpretations of climate change, and Judith Butler's gender and ability theory, this article argues that the creation of new environments is always the creation of a subject, maybe even a corporate, nonhuman one. Examples are drawn from the 20th century history of the design and occupation of human habitats in space, from Earthbound corporate architecture, and speculative urban design.

Home Tweet Home

This paper is a case study of two houses who have been given semi-automated twitter accounts by t... more

What is a Big Dumb Object?

To understand applications of Rem Koolhaas’ concept of “Bigness”, I place it alongside concepts f... more To understand applications of Rem Koolhaas’ concept of “Bigness”, I place it alongside concepts from science fiction criticism and Gestalt perception theory. There are multiple connections between methods used by OMA and means employed in science fiction: collection of diverse programs within ambiguous figures, overwhelming of critical faculties with wonder and scale, extrapolation of complications from first order technological change, and the proliferation of new forms of independent existences in the world. The history of the use, in architecture of the figure-ground drawing, first popularized by Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin, and Danish architect Steen Eiler Rasmussen, provides a backstory for the political effects of both “Bigness” and the science fictional Big Dumb Object. I show that there is an isomorphism between the way OMA’s work is presented, in S,M,L,XL and subsequent books, and in the presentation and reception of the book itself.

A jpeg is worth 1000kb - ZORK, Colossal Cave Adventure, and the landscape of the text-based adventure game

A Brief Survey of Video Game Landscapes, Jan 1, 2010

Application House

Project Proceedings: ACSA 105: Brooklyn Says Move to Detroit, 2017

THE HOUSE OF THE FUTURE LOGISTICS INTERFACE Application House uses a new spatial diagram to rew... more THE HOUSE OF THE FUTURE
LOGISTICS INTERFACE
Application House uses a new spatial diagram to rewrite domestic quasi-urban architecture into a full stack, potentially bridging a techno-capitalist mode with fully automated luxury communism. Application House is consciously part of the lineage of the House of the Future, a familiar trope in popular visual culture since the post WWII era. The project addresses that type's characteristic attributes: its legions of vehicles and media gadgets, its strange relationship to ground and public space, its adaptable, prefabricated components, its nonstandard geometry, and its production of certain normative social subjects.

The High Frontier, the Megastructure, and the Big Dumb Object

Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, 101st Annual Meeting Proceedings, Mar 19, 2013

Soft Sites: Four Case Studies on the Middle Branch

Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, 99th Annual Meeting Proceedings, Mar 20, 2011

The space in which we live, which draws us out of ourselves, in which the erosion of our lives, o... more The space in which we live, which draws us out of ourselves, in which the erosion of our lives, our time, and our history occurs, the space that claws and gnaws at us, is also, in itself, a heterogeneous space. In other words, we do not live in a kind of void, inside of which we could place individuals and things. We do not live inside a void that could be colored with diverse shades of light, we live inside a set of relations that delineates sites which are irreducible to one another and absolutely not superimposable on one another.

The Nonhuman Autonomous Space Agency

ACSA 103: The Expanding Periphery and the Migrating Center, Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Conference of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, ACSA, Toronto, OT, 2015, 2015

This paper looks at a specific territory, outer space, and begins with a body of research into th... more This paper looks at a specific territory, outer space, and begins with a body of research into the ways in which the agencies that practice space exploration have attempted to make this edgeless territory legible and figurable. The project of space exploration has been advanced through the deployment of networks of active subjects. This research looks at the robots, spacecraft, and animals used in orbital experiments, with attention to the voices and identities offered to these subjects within the context of contemporary social media and online culture, the internet, and the forthcoming ‘internet of things’. A case study project speculates on the possible future use of the combination of social media and active, speaking agents in space exploration. Finally, a set of conclusions is presented, in parallel with a discussion of the broader usefulness of the methods and frameworks from the case study scenario.