Space, time and Emotion

ANSH VAKIL ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO I CCSF SPRING 2012 MAY 24, 2012

EVOCATION OF MEMORIES, PLACE MAKING AND TRANSFORMATION OF TIME 1

INTRODUCTION Placemaking is a mulF-­‐faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. Placemaking capitalizes on a local community’s asset, inspiraFon and potenFal, ulFmately creaFng good public spaces that promote people’s health, happiness and well being. Placemaking is a term that began to be used by architects and planners to describe the process of creaFng squares, plazas, parks, streets and waterfronts that will aVract people because they are pleasurable or interesFng. Architecture and memory exist analogically in an essenFal, yet largely provisional, relaFonship which is given meaning by a producFve pracFce of making, doing, living, and being, and is undertaken by both designer and user as they engage their individual memories and experiences. And memory, as an element component in our connecFon to the world, will always be important to the ways in which we find meaning in the buildings and spaces we interact with.

To make meaning in architecture is to begin a creaFve pracFce which organizes past experiences, present acFons, and future desires into significance at any given moment.

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NOUN The unlimited or incalculably great three-­‐dimensional realm or expanse in which all material objects are located and all events occur.

SPACE

NOUN To form as or into a whole consisFng of interdependent or coordinated parts, especially for united acFon.

ORGANIZATION

NOUN The mental capacity or faculty of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions, etc., or of recalling or recognizing previous experiences.

MEMORY

NOUN A parFcular instance of personally encountering, observing or undergoing something.

EXPERIENCE

NOUN A narrow walk or way beaten, formed, or trodden.

PATH NOUN A centering point of component parts.

NODE

ITERATION ELEVEN

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ITERATION

ELEVEN

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INTENTION: FOR ITERATION ELEVEN, I CONTINUED ON THE SAME PATH OF EXPLORING THE CONTRASTING AND CONTRARY SPATIAL EXPERIENCES, ABSTRACT FORMS AND GENERAL RELATION OF MAN AND MATERIAL. THE MAIN IDEA OF THE MODEL WAS TO BRING IN THE FEELING OF MOTION, ANNIHILATION AND AMPLIFICATION. CURRENTLY EXPERIENCING THE PATH OF LEARNING AND EXPLORING, I INCORPORATED AN INTENDED AVENUE. BEGINNING WITH THE FULL FORM, WHICH SLOWLY DISINTEGRATES AS WE MOVE HIGHER UP AND AS OUR VISION MOVES TO THE LEFT THE FORM IS REJUVENATED. THE PATH WE FOLLOW AS WE GO ABOUT LIVING LIFE IS CONGRUENT TO THIS METAMORPHOSIS.

SUCCESS AND FAILURE: DESIGN INTENTION WAS WELL PERCEIVED AND CRAFTSMANSHIP WAS ACKNOWLEDGED. HOWEVER, THE TRANSFORMATION LACKED CLASSIFICATION. THE MODEL APPEARS TO UNDERGO AN ABRUPT DISINTEGRATION AND THEREAFTER A REJUVINATION OF THE STRUCTURE. THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN IMPLIED PATH FORMED A GOOD BASE FOR THE POTENTIAL FINAL PROJECT. LESSON LEARNT: THE REGULAR MIND MAY FALL PREY TO THE ALLUSIONS CREATED BY THE YOUNG MIND BUT ARCHITECTURE CALLS FOR EXCERCISING OF THE ABSTRUSE SENSE OF ONES KNOWLEDGE IN THE PERCEIVING OF IDEAS AND INTENTS.

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ITERATION

TWELVE 11

ITERATION TWELVE

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INTENTION: COMPLIMENTARY TO MY PREVIOUS MODEL, I DESGINED THIS ITERATION TO SHOW AN OBVIOUS PATH OR WAY. IT IS SIMPLE IN ITS FORM YET DENSE IN IT’S INTENTION. THE MODEL BARES COMPLEXITY AS WELL AS SIMPLICITY. THERE IS ONLY ONE DIRECTION OR SENSE OF FLOW BUT THERE IS A VARIANCE IN SIZE AS WELL AS ALLIGNMENT. THE MODEL FEATURES A SMOOTH, FLUID AND UNIFORM TRANSFORMATION. THE ITERATION RESEMBLES OUR THOUGHT PROCESS. STARTING OFF FROM A CLOUD OF THOUGHT THAT IS LARGE IN SCALE, WE NARROW DOWN AND FILTER OUR THOUGHTS TO THE ONES THAT MATTER THE MOST. ALONG THE WAY WE DISCARD THE ONES THAT LACK MEANING OR VALUE AND CONCENTRATE ON THE ONES THAT ARE SIGNIFICANT. IN THE END, WE ARRIVE AT A SINGULAR SENSE OF DOING WHICH IS SMALLEST IN SIZE; SINCE IT HAS A LIMITED SCOPE OF DEVIATION.

SUCCESS AND FAILURE: THE VISUAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MODEL WON APPROVAL OF THE UNSHAKBLE CRITIQUES. IT HELPED IN CHANNALIZING MY INTENTION IN ONE DIRECTION WITH ONE IDEA, YET LEAVING ROOM FOR ALTERATIONS, ADJUSTMENTS AND MODIFICATIONS. HOWEVER, THE IDEA REQUIRED FURTHER DEVELOPMENT IN THE MEANING AND RELATION OF A PATH.

LESSON LEARNT: SPATIAL EXPERIENCES AND THOUGHTS ARE INFLUENCED BY FRAMED VIEWS, EMOTIONS AND THE SURROUNDING ENVIRONMENT. I SHOULD TRY TO ADOPT THE FREEDOM TO EXPLORE DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF LIFE THAT INFLUENCE THE WAY WE LIVE OUR LIVES.

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FINAL PROJECT 14

Architecture happened to me. It conFnues to happen to me, and I remember it.

There was a Fme when architecture happened to me and I was not conscious of its happening. That architecture was an architecture of the everyday, and I could not see it. The walls around me and the roofs over my head were meaningless. In fact, what I experienced and perceived was life spilling over the edges of architecture: inside to sleep and eat, outside to play and travel; me in my bedroom, my brother in the living room, my father standing in the doorway, my mother walking down the hall. The world contracts or expands depending on our relaFonship to very specific spaces; our percepFon of the world is never complete depending on the edges of architecture.

Later, there was a Fme when architecture happened to me and I became conscious of its happening. I remembered it. I first became conscious of architecture happening to me as it happened to me in my memory. Memory – autobiographical and collecFve, each integral to the other – exists as the foundaFon upon which meaning is built. Memory affords our connecFon to the world. Every aspect of experience becomes enveloped in the process of memory. It forms our idenFty as individuals, and it coheres individuals together to form the idenFty of social groups. Memory is also the thread which links the lived-­‐in now with the past and the future: what I remember of my past contributes to who I am now and in many ways affects what I will do in the future. Without memory, building cannot happen.

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The final project is an exemplary of the process of building meaning as we engage memory in our everyday experiences, thinking analogically and understanding the world by doing and making. Whether stated explicitly or not, people in the past must have sensed the necessity to temper early theory of design with a commitment to an architecture conscious of its autobiographical significance. For me, the process of memory analogically suggests the evoluFon and morphology of the physical form of the structure; and a formal language based on a typology of architecture; and, as a maVer of necessity, the repeFFve, obsessive, and dynamic nature of my own creaFve pracFce. The final iteraFon resembles that of a tree. An aVempt to integrate a minute element of the countryside site into the courtyard resulted in my final project. It stands up 8 feet above the ground, tall and demanding in the center of our site. The base is in the form of a pentagon with two fixtures on each of the four wooden planks; leaving one side open to contribute the individual’s sight of the landscape ahead. The structure adopts the curvilinear element as well as the structural integrity of a tree.

Standing up high on five planks of 2’ by 4’s; the enFre structure has been made with the help of aluminum bars, PVC connectors, metal bolts and 8th inch screws. Each bend on the project is done by hand, rather than the common concepFon of a bar bender. Each PVC connector is spray painted and drilled into place to compliment its structural purity. By screwing in the metal bolt from underneath the base, I contrived the addiFonal steadiness my design required to withstand the natural force of wind.

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While working on the Final Project a dialogue was created between two elements, an arFst and architect. This collaboraFon lead to the development of merging ideas. The common concern was based on spaFal experiences of the immediate context we live in, as a criFcal view the site and its physical basic translaFon. ‘The Tree’ stands as a documentary, arFficial construcFon of urban realiFes, and situaFons. It’s a dialogue between the viewer and the space he stands in, in an extension, exaggeraFon of something exisFng, someFmes deforming the reality. The gap between the planning and the reality created a dissonance, a zone of tension as a working material for me. The dialogue between a small scale model and a real construcFon leads to the fact that we can only plan, to reveal the truth of space.

Physical experience is a funcFon of space, Fme, knowledge and memory. Playing with these elements creates an arFficial situaFon, forcing the viewer to be a voyeur of a virtual reality detached from its natural context to reveal the perversion of a familiar known environment. Everything happens in this momentum of tension between a very familiar place and a totally new spaFal experience. It obliges the visitor to look at realty and its actual estheFcs, bringing to light its basic experiences of wonder, excitement, awe and companionship.

The central character of my final construcFon is its shy openness to form. Space is both the most prominent and the most reserved dimension of the structure. Its public quality is shown by the way it appears before our very eyes. Its hidden and private character is revealed by the fact that we can touch and feel it. In fact if we do, we know that what we have felt is not space but rather that which is taking up space. Space slips through our hands even as we try to grasp it. At the same Fme, it is quite misleading to think of space as empty. Space does give room but empFness is not its primary characterisFc.

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When a spaFal order displays a fundamental vagueness, its component features exhibit simplicity as a guiding trait. Within vague paVerns of spaFal order an overall uniformity rise up to assert itself. Thus, one can vaguely speak of a natural environment as being arid or ferFle or boggy and all the while make room for opposite condiFons within its domain.

A narrow spaFal paVern is characterized by an extreme simplicity such that liVle or no distracFons are allowed within its domain. The narrowness in the structure marks out a parFcular channel for space to follow and what cannot fit in gets very short shril. Its lack of generosity has been noted and when narrowness characterizes a spaFal domain, it most olen is accompanied by a feeling of incompleteness. This comes about because narrowness contradicts an essenFal trait of space, its generosity or openness.

In its own special way the project also expresses the fundamental theme of the one and the many. The paVerns formed by the structure are one because they integrate their components so as to always express a harmony of unique determinateness that grasps within its spaFal spread all the essenFal and condiFonal features of its spaFal posiFon. These same harmonies are also many because each expresses its own unique perspecFve of importance that spreads itself throughout the environment in quesFon. The tree twists in response to the wall that falls in it’s background and project outward towards the landscape ahead. The rough, dented and craggy surface duplicates a sense of provocaFon, sFmulaFon and inFmidaFon. The intenFonality of not including a surface to the structure revealed its bare surface that complimented its monumentally oneness.

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Like any other structural project; it is not a 100 percent mastered to perfecFon. The design of the project lacked the portraying of an end. Like a script of a movie that goes on to infinity with no terminaFon was not well received by the tough criFques.

Although simple in its design the base did not respond to the earth that was supporFng it.

It seemed like the five sided geometrical figure just sat a few inches above the ground. It lacked the establishment of the characterisFc of the tree roots that holds the main body from moving elsewhere. The unique openness that was intenFonally created responded to the sky above. The vicious opening at the head of the structure duplicates the opening of heaven and its acFvity of grasping the living souls of the dead; but only this Fme it pulls them back to earth, back to the mortals of our living society. To form a transiFon from the contemplaFve acFon taking place on top of the model, the boVom segment lacked the creaFon of a subtle feeling.

The immediacy with which the construcFon was carried out – making do with whatever material, whatever images that were at hand; would consume a major part of ones observaFons, memories and imaginaFons. The PVC connectors, the aluminum cross members, the aluminum bars, the metal bolts and the evoking wooden base appear throughout the body of work. As a process, the special quality of the structure is that the branches are never brought to a point of compleFon but are always provisional, always capable of being conFnued. So, in fact, with the help of a number of iteraFons made over and over again a different instanFaFon of form and memories are created, a parFcular arrangement, composiFon or quality of light, and different scale or set of relaFonships. The overall characterisFcs of my structure has been imbued with a unique specificity that embodies the acFve processes of both remembering and invenFng.

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