manual03: casting
Urban Casting Manual
Intimate Cities
Alex Raher B(Arch) yr 5 MSA
Rick Dargavel Amy Hanley
studio 2
studio workshop
casting methodology
workshop outputs
back piccadilly
reappropriating the cast
Casting workshops, experiments and investigations were undertaken as an exploratory project at the end of the year to approach the Intimate Cities perspective from an alternative, tactile viewpoint. Casting was taken of edge conditions, sites of intrigue and pleasure, thresholds, textures and affordances. Form was abstracted and extracted and the potential narratives of these extracted elements tested and explored through intimacy of the interstitial spaces. Narrative were highlighted and fabricated and even inverted at times to abstract the physical nature of the cast, but often the process of casting itself was investigated as a tool for spatial manipulation and malleability.
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Studio workshop: 22_03_11
A studio workshop was organised outside the Chatham building along Lower Ormond street, with the objective to explore the possibilities of casting onto an urban landscape and the practicality of re-application onto a less discreet space, say Back Piccadilly. The workshop was very successful and we discovered some interesting manipulations of moulds, techniques for plaster cast application and fascinating outcomes from our results. Site of application
Rachel Whiteread: her work as an artist uses casting as a re-appropriation of spatial configurations to create new forms
Castings were taken of Lower Ormond street, focusing on a sectional path right across the pavement to road junctions as well as vertical elements of either side of the street. The diversity of texture and unpredictable surfacing offered great potential outcomes from the moulds.
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Studio workshop: 22_03_11
The methodology involved using clay as a moulding tool and plaster casts were taken from this. The clay is pressed onto the surface on site and carefully pushed into all the textural grooves and junctions. Then a thin coat of plaster is applied to the rear of the mould so that when the plaster sets, it gives the mould rigidity so it can easily be removed. Hessian string is used in the plaster as a reinforcement, similar to formwork in concrete, it helps to hold the plaster together when it sets. I worked with two other colleagues and our focus was on a thin strip section of the street, spanning across from the park side over the pavement, the road and to the opposite street wall. Our aim was to take casts from each element of the street to build a representation of key textures along the horizontal and vertical surfaces and represent them as a series of studies later. The moulds were taken into the plaster workshop and the plaster cast was applied to them in a similar way to how the reinforcing plaster was used. Once the plaster had fully set and the endothermic reaction was complete, the moulds could be peeled off of the cast to reveal the textures. Many of the casts produced intriguing surface details, particularly in the small details and street dirt, colour and staining that is transferred onto the cast from the mould. The casting outputs could then be reinterpreted and abstracted by taking an alternative perspective on what the cast means and can be.
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mould. mix. pour. set
CASTING METHODOLOGY
After on site collection of pressings/textures/moulds, formwork must be constructed acting as a mould for the plaster to set around. We used wood boards, tightly clamped and sealed along the edges with clay. The plaster cast mix is made (roughly equal water:powder ratio) and hand kneaded until becoming mildly viscous and then is ready to pour.
Carefully ensuring the plaster fills all crevices and texture marks, the liquid plaster is poured into the mould. Left for about half an hour, the endothermic reaction within the plaster releases heat and will eventually set hard. The formwork can then be released and the mould carefully peeled away to reveal the positive (or negative) casting.
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CASTING METHODOLOGY
inverse logic
cigol esrevni
The beauty of the cast is its potential for reinterpretation. The rustic method of gathering moulds on site and the ability to pick up the smallest detailing results in fantastic plaster formations. The key is to loosely follow the guidelines, as model-making should never be a regimented process. This will result in cracks, permutations, spillages, cuts and abrasions - but it is all part of the technique and mystery of the cast and should not be removed. The abstraction of the cast is a new way of seeing: just as the city can be viewed in multiple ways, the small details that exist can be re-formed, re-configured and re-scaled. The micro becomes the macro and the inverse logic can be applied. Figure: ground techniques can be used to reverse the traditional image of the cast and to re-appropriate its use or purpose. The inversion of the normal creates a new realm in the street, an almost unplanned, random narrative: but a richer one for that.
texture
affordance
surface
Abstracting the cast reveals further potential exploration
Opposing textures contrast and compliment each other
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Kit of parts
Section line taken for casting
re application into street scene
WORKSHOP OUTPUTS
The casts were taken along a sectional line on Lower Ormond Street. The junctions moulded were wall: pavement: pavement: curb: road, road: road, wall detail. The sectional method results in a representation of all of the street meaning the cut through can be interpreted and read in different ways.
The kit of parts for the creation of a cast is formed from basic tools. Because the mould is taken from ontop of the texture, a positive cast is formed. This, reapplied onto its moulded setting, creates interesting images and interventions in the street.
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re application into street scene
BACK PICCADILLY
wall
junctions
door
brick
void
drain
sill
downpipe
frame
grate
openings
vent
street
machinery
cobble
mechanical
paving
ground
The workshop was intended to experiment with casting techniques and methods. Myself and my two colleagues decided to take this further, and transfer the ideas onto Back Piccadilly; an area of the city that we have been studying all year. The alleyway runs right from Ducie Street near Piccadilly station up to the Arndale center so it offers great potential for exploration of surface and texture. The intimate cities unit looks at reprogramming of the street to provide pleasure and intrigue in residual space, I have focused my work this year on Back Piccadilly and the opportunities it offers. My work led to film montaging, taking a section of the back alley and re-figuring how spaces could be appropriated and planned, with new exciting programmes installed into the street scene. The casting process has led me to discover alternative ways of looking at street space and the opportunities it has. The casts can be abstracted or taken literally, and even through the act of taking moulds on the street, we found we were animating the faรงades and people took great interest in the process. The interesting observation was that often it is not the physicality or the material intervention that creates urban encounters, it is the activity that instigates the interaction. Perhaps there is further exploration that can be done about how humans and architecture relate: refiguring the concepts of building ground and people as I looked at with the montage, but through alternative activities and affordances such as casting the street.
Eduardo Chillida : spanish sculptor - re-use of casted forms for new function
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BACK PICCADILLY
site work: applying the moulds
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BACK PICCADILLY
“
“One can say that the city itself is the collective memory of its people, and like the memory it is associated with objects and places. The city is the locus of the collective memory. This relationship between the locus and the citizenry then becomes the city’s predominant image, both of architecture and of landscape, and as certain artefacts become part of its memory, new ones emerge...” Maurice Halbwachs: Collective Memory 1950
”
The casting process was developed onto back piccadilly and tested on multiple sites. The results are seen here. The surface, texture and detail along the street is clearly varied and diverse, each cast tells its own story and has individuality. The Halbwachs quote opposite ilustrates the city as a series of memories and by manipulating the urban fabric you therefore create and adjust memory and experiences within it. The re-appropriation of what the cast can mean or signifies can be explored through this notion of collective memory. The installation of programmes into the casted scene creates a new interesting narrative with an infinite range of possibilities.
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BACK PICCADILLY
Casted forms 01
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BACK PICCADILLY
Casted forms 02
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REAPPROPRIATING THE CAST
Stop motion sequence 1: cast as street edge and animated threshold area in front
Stop motion sequence 2: cast duplications as formation of architectural meaning - facade details
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REAPPROPRIATING THE CAST
Stop motion sequence 3: cast as buillding facade with passage of time shown via movement across scene
Stop motion sequence 4: cast re-appropriation as subway tunnel entrance, binman entering subway
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REAPPROPRIATING THE CAST
Sequence of re-appropriation into street scene. Casts re-installed onto street details - creates a new image of the facade and animates the scene. Surfaces and textures from cast are complete opposite to the corporate, ubiquitous office facades - no texture to glazed panels etc. therefore a cast taken from the commercial city would have little or no potential for re-interpreation.
Capturing material memories.
The cast can be inversed, twisted, morphed, moved and drawn on to create new uses and interpretations of the space. This new way of exploring the potential of site spaces can be used as an archietctural function or form generator. Perhaps every initial site visit should incorporate the cast and erappropriate it - as a direct cast from context has greater meaning than can be possibly imagined through traditional site measurements. Rachel Whiteread’s work is described as ‘making the air solid’ and her skill is the about of detail she captures in each cast. The small details, voids, carvings and textures that the cast captures are not only surfaces, but remnants of memory from the the site - a capturing of material memories.
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REAPPROPRIATING THE CAST
Re-appropriating the cast: memory
abstraction scale/use texture narrative affordance
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REAPPROPRIATING THE CAST
The abstraction of the casting can be reinterpreted by changing scale, rotation, colour, focus, intensity and form. The textures and shapes can all be manipulated into new forms and function. Programmes can be installed, similar to the process of montage that I looked at previously, developing the street into a new, reanimated space.
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The whole process of casting allowed an investigation into the spatial manipulative possibilities of a site. The inversions and re-appropriations of narratives at the edge condtion, the sites of pleasure along the back alley allowed for an abstracion of physical form to generate new function. The tactile nature of physically producing the cast results in a very hands on approach to architectural exploration and could be taken further, along with the studies into montaging into an alternative approach to architectural production and the design process. All of the work through the Intimate Cities unit has been exploratory and investigative; testing new methods of working, looking an the city in alternative ways and designing with inverse logics. We have looked at how the building skeleton, the strategic diagram of the building can be produced, how the residual spaces can co-exist and be installed within the corporate and how the intimate can be casted, created and re-appropriated. These strategies all focus on the intimate and prioritise people to people relationships and interactivity. The potential for re-interpretation can be taken to any city scale as a logic or building typology and perhaps by looking at a wider scale, this method of approach and architectural thinking can help re-animate static urban situations elsewhere.
References: inspiration: bibliography Rachel Whiteread CARTOGRAM architecture Eduardo Chillidia Making Art Work: Mike Smith Studio Tania Kovats: sculpture Michael Hebbert - The street as a locus of collective memory http://weburbanist.com/2011/01/19/remembered-spaces-abandoned-buildingstransformed-into-art/ http://www.cineroleum.co.uk/ http://www.kunsthaus-bregenz.at/
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