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Boredom (In) Architecture Inherent in human nature there lays a fundamental need to understand our surroundings where a void phobia, the fear of the unknown, of nothingness, compels us to categorise, compartmentalise and filter the world around us. Then what happens when that goal is achieved? What do we do with it? If the argument can be made that the ultimate goal one of total understanding, this tragic process sub-textually implies a loss of interest or relevance of a subject matter until new findings are made or we are presented with a confrontation of beliefs. Complexity speaks of “both” and of “at-once” in the duality of its nature, able to generate interests an overcompensation can have the inverse effect: boredom. Within its roots, to “Bore” denotes an act of excavating, of removing layers in a search for some-thing. Lusting for complexity, actively seeking it in the daily rituals of life to extract meaning, our eye, as one of the most heavily relied upon of the senses facilitates this didactic trapeze – pushing forward in search for new understanding until it reaches a point of supercomplexity. Supercomplexity describes an object or field condition which transcends our individual capability for understanding and extends to the realm of that which we can no longer make logical sense of; somewhat apathetic, there is no chance to understand it and thus no attempt it made, prematurely closing the compartment and remaining in a state of incompletion and frustration. Boredom (in) Architecture describes a powerful, almost hallucinogenic state of absent mindednes. Its definition, not easily understood and often very slippery, through the lens of discursive architectural narrative has been categorised into five kinds of boredom: Indifferent – Apathetic - Reactive - Calibrating – Searching In an attempt to decipher boredom (in) architecture and extract it as a failure, this series takes the form of a complimentary comparative study of two contemporary buildings: Heydar Aliyev Center Baku, Azerbaijan | 2012 | Zaha Hadid Architects Dominion Office Building Moskva, Russia | 2015 | Zaha Hadid Architects Eliminating as many possible external factors of time and architectural style, this comparative study represents “having what is severely lacking in each other’s” case studies – Scale, Repetition of elements, Way finding and Materiality. This series of curated drawings attempts to operate in a grey-zone, an area sitting between complexity and understanding. Invoking Surrealism as a method of representation attempts at relasing the creative potential of the unconcious mind to evoke emotional responses of discomfort, perplexity, anger and understanding.
Heydar Aliyev Center Baku, Azerbaijan | 2012 | Zaha Hadid Architects
Dominion Office Building Moskva, Russia | 2015 | Zaha Hadid Architects
A relaxed state of acceptance, comfortable in the situation, this type of boredom is external to the real world. Here, easily understood, visually stimulating aspects of the Heydar Aliyev Center are representative of finding comfort in fluid form; understanding the complex geometries creates clustered sets of recognisable micro forms which can be collaged to understand its macro. Gaps are purposely found presenting the nature of this unconcerned boredom, of needing every possible angle to decipher a true understanding of its form. Juxtaposing the entire ensemble, Dominion Office Building’s form is easily inhaled - categorised into “a cube�, interest looses its battle to its own exterior simplicity and exhales boredom.
Indifference
An overwhelming sense of hopelessness, with no hope to aversion, this type of boredom is piercing to personal experience. Here, the primary focus is on both the Dominion Office Building’s & Heydar Aliyev Center’s severe lack of material stimulus. The polished white porcelain tiles are replaced with a mind’s projection of frantic material plastering with immaterial qualities. Diamond, stone, marble, gold, and concrete are all collaged to mock the understanding of “pure white cube architecture”. In parallel, the array of buildings contrasts the individual, attempting to highlight the proximity of null materials to the individual creating a sense of isolation in the sea of white nothingness.
Apathetic
Often met with a need to escape from the situation and that which is causing the anxiety – boredom here provokes an emotional response, mixing fear with anger. Focusing primarily on the relationship scale of the individual in field, to that of the object, the tension lays in contrast of Dominion Office Building’s vs. the Heydar Aliyev Center’s which lays on a border of supercomplexity. As a kind of horror vacui, the Heydar Aliyev Center suffers from void phobia, constantly seeking to fill up the entire sky. Diagrammatic of its scale the individual is reduced to a particle, this feeling of disorientation breathes boredom of wanting to move away. In the same vein as that of apathy in its lack of materiality, the individuals hallucinogenic projections play into the role of anxiety at scale.
Reactive
Associated with an attempt to reduce boredom by trying the same repetitive task in multiple different ways; boredom here can be understood to be the urge to wonder. As both a critique and appraisal of the Dominion Office Building, what becomes apparent in the study of its interior staircase is the ability to transform a mundane task of circulating via staircases and transforming it into a maze of possible choices. Though not strictly a failure, the nature of presenting multiple ways of achieving a repetitive task simply temporarily masks the boredom until a choice is made. This image also touches on the topic of digital iconography in its understanding of representing an entire building with only its staircases. As the vast majority of available images are of its interior, as a type of interior clickbait, the same staircase is showcased in multiple angles‌ In a simple image to understand, visually stimulating at first glance, return glances offer no more insight to the understanding of the Dominion Office Building.
Calibrating
As the lust for finding interest in the boring, this type of boredom is in inward facing one, confronting it with optimism in the hope to find some interest. When studying the façade of a building, our eye often glances over, but is never caught by the repetition of elements: the window, the columns, the frame‌ Always searching for complexity, we categorise easily processable information quickly and thus is of little interest to us. In a critique of the Dominion Office Building, the building envelope, in its entirety can be understood from processing one singular frontage and thus over simplicty or the lack of complexity induces a search for something else...
Searching
As the lust for finding interest in the boring, this type of boredom is in inward facing one, confronting it with optimism in the hope to find some interest. In the case of the Heydar Aliyev Center, the building envelope demands a near 360-degree view of it before it can be easily understood. Fluid forms react to our eye’s ability to process complex geometric, whilst battling with light & shadow’s ability to warp our understanding of its reading. Offering a critique to the Dominion Office Building, the counter-critique would be Heydar Aliyev Center falling into the trap of supercomplexity. Upon reaching this point, the challenges faced in its understanding are ubiquitous enough to be called off.
Searching
Appendicies_Boredom
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Boredom (In) Architecture It is understood that in this exploration of the concept of Boredom (in) Architecture the value placed on understanding the aesthetic qualities of a design over their sceintific or implied deep structure design is evident. As a concept, Boredom affects each individual differently, simulating and lacking in areas of personal interest or lack there of. Having attempted at reconciling the understanding of boredom through the lense of discursive practice, one of the first undertaken tasks what that of labeling, categorising and understanding the facets of boredom. The appendix should be read as a precursor to the preceeding critique of the
Heydar Aliyev Center and the Dominion Office Building, pertaining to its full understanding. Boredom Here, boredom is represented as a series of intertwigned circles. As an expression of “the spread”, reaching in all directions at once, boredom can quickly envelop in its entirety; growing in all directions, the circle offers a snapshot of each particular type of boredom at its conception. Indifferent – Apathetic - Reactive - Calibrating – Searching Indifferent: Pieces of monotone information struggling to attach to one another; indifference here is interpreted as the inhability to maintain attention spans long enough to create a coherent, linear whole. Represented in shades of grey and black, indifference makes little attempt at distinguishing differences. Apathetic: Swarms of violent clusters, strayated and inconsistent; apathy here is the outbreak of information that is so violently overlapping, interconnected and related to itself that it struggles to maintain any kind of ordering of the flows of information in a losing battle with little hope. Reactive: Fluries of emotions, both good, bad and neutral; the reaction here is the unlocking of emotional responses that were not predicted to be triggered. Evocative of an erruption, emotions of anger, confusion, love, awe and excitement all collapse into one another creating a singluar dense emotion. Calibrating: An orderly control of the variables taking place; calibration here takes the form of a reppetitive task. Generally unsure of what the results entail of its changing parameters, there is a constant intorudction, reduction and change until a task is completed, often, in a state of absent mindedness. Searching: The attempt to discover the interesting in the mundane; calibration here is the linking of seemingly disparate information in an attempt to reconsile a result. Wires are intercrossed and infinately calculating for something yet to be releave, a fusion of what is known with that which is unknown.
Indifferent
Apathetic
Reactive
Calibrating
Searching