science

Ruin Academy

Ruin Academy is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Ruin Academy rather than just read about it. In short: Ruin Academy (established 2010) is an independent cross-over architectural research center in the Urban Core area of Taipei City, Taiwan. It is 'set to re-think the industrial city and the modern man in the box' through research and a series of workshops.

Key takeaways

Ruin Academy belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Ruin Academy to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Ruin Academy from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Ruin Academy (established 2010) is an independent cross-over architectural research center in the Urban Core area of Taipei City, Taiwan. It is 'set to re-think the industrial city and the modern man in the box' through research and a series of workshops. The Ruin Academy occupies an abandoned 5-story apartment building in central Taipei. All the interior walls of the building and all the windows are removed in order to grow bamboo and vegetables inside the house. The plants are situated so that their vegetation grows in front of the glassless window spaces, giving privacy to those inside. The professors and students are sleeping and working in mahogany made ad hoc dormitories and have a public sauna on the 5th floor. All the building is penetrated with 6-inch holes in order to let “rain inside”. The architectural control is in a process of giving up in order to let nature to step in. So far it is not giving up – it is too lazy. Architectural control will be given up. Modernism is lost and the industrial machine will become organic. This happens in Taipei and this is what we study. Ruin Academy is an organic machine. Ruin is viewed as a tipping point when a man-made object becomes part of nature.

Research topics The research and design workshops engage with architecture, urban design and environmental art. Anarchic Grandmothers, Academic Squatting, Urban Acupuncture-these are some of the ideas behind the Ruin Academy. The Academy workshops include: Organic Acupuncture (spontaneous and often illegal urban farms and community gardens balancing the industrial Taipei and tuning the city towards the organic); "River Urbanism (landscape urbanism); "Illegal Architecture" (Architecture that uses the city energy source, like a parasite. Casagrande adds, “many spontaneous and often illegal communities are growing that are more complex and fruitful than official development and official architecture – often blindly directed by economy and centralised politics. Anarchist grandmothers are cultivating illegal community gardens and urban farms everywhere around Taipei. They are breaking the city.” The Academy is focused on the research of the ruining processes of Taipei that keep the city alive. The International Society of Biourbanism published in 2013 Marco Casagrande's book Biourban Acupuncture - From Treasure Hill of Taipei to Artena, which explains the operations, methodology and aims of the Ruin Academy in detail. For the industrial cities, biourban acupuncture offers a path to achieve the Third Generation City. Cities, to be the fall of the machine, where “the ruin” is the reality produced by nature, that reclaims the artefact. Biourbanism happens, when nature force takes the initiative, affects the design of industrial society, and becomes co- architect. The Ruin Academy received the World Architecture Community Award in 2011. The Academy is operated by the Taiwanese JUT Foundation for Arts & Architecture, in cooperation with Finland-based Casagrande Laboratory.

Anarchist Gardener

The Ruin Academy publishes an independent free newspaper, the Anarchist Gardener, edited by Nikita Wu. The newspaper is an open form collage of the Academy's thinking on the future of the built human environment. A special issue of the newspaper has been produced for the Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism 2012 . and for the Austrian Museum of Contemporary art MAK exhibition Eastern Promises, 2013.

References

External links

Urban Ruins: Abandoned Building Houses Architecture Academy Archived 2011-04-08 at the Wayback Machine Web Ecoist Ruin Academy Designklub Ruin Academy Archello Ruin Academy Urbipedia Farming in a Ruin Jeroen Beekmans, The Pop-Up City Anarchist Gardener II – Hong Kong special Nikita Wu, Ruin Academy

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ruin Academy

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ruin Academy claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Ruin Academy before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Ruin Academy ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Ruin Academy

In research: Ruin Academy appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Ruin Academy in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Ruin Academy is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2010 establishments in Taiwan, Architecture schools, Biophilia hypothesis, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ruin Academy outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Ruin Academy in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ruin Academy means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Ruin Academy out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ruin Academy in simple terms?

Why does Ruin Academy matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Ruin Academy?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Ruin Academy.