Architecture 101
Booklet & Illustrations by: Dora chater February 2015 dora.chater@gmail.com
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Instructor Stefano Mirti Anne-Sophie Gauvin Petronela Nita
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Architecture 1o1 Offered by Abadir Accademy of Design and Fine Arts and Iversity
In short: Part 1: From Nothingness to Place Part 2: From Place to Space Part 3: From Space to Architecture
Architecture 101 is an introduction to space and architecture through 101 exercises. A six-month journey divided into 3 courses “online” on iversity (part 1, part 2 and part 3), one final exhibition / graduation party. If you are still alive after all of this daunting process, there will be a one-week workshop “offline”, where we will go one step beyond.
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Part 1: From Nothingness to Place Learning
Objectives
To see places like architects do. To understand the principles upon which we convert a place into a state of mind. We will explore nothingness, void and negative space. We will learn to name things, we will learn how to invent place (as we wrote before, when things have no name, they cannot exist). We will learn to stare, observe and see. We will learn a significative amount of extremely interesting (and totally useless) things. All of the above refers to the conceptual part of our course. Then, since we love having our students making practical things, you will also learn lots of technical things using a number of interesting applications.
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 1
Taking Pictures
2/1o1
#5000 YEARS AGO
What will I do today? You will spend 9 minutes watching the Powers of Ten, explore The scale of the Universe and take a picture of your eye.
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 1
Taking Pictures
3/1o1
#5000 YEARS AGO
50000 years ago, in the Universe. There were lots of funny creatures. Then, finally, a little man came to Earth. But things didn’t have names. Yet.
What will I do today? Today you will take a picture of something with no name. In fact, you will take a picture of crumpled paper.
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 1
Taking Pictures
4/1o1
#ThingsWithNoName
Don’t think, look! Ludwig Wittgenstein
What will I do today? As yesterday, you will take a picture of something with no name. But this time, you will have to pour a liquid on the asphalt. Then, you will take a picture of this asphalt with poured liquid on it.
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 1
5/1o1
Taking Pictures #TVWithoutSignal
What will I do today? Watch 3 minutes of a TV without signal. Look at it. Get lost. Think about it. Can you see it? Take a picture of it, render it, share it on Instagram with a written caption describing your feelings and experience.
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 1 6/1o1
Taking Pictures #MusicWithoutSound
What will I do today? What will I do today? Today, you will proceed into pure and complete abstraction. Start by watching this 4’33” performance by John Cage. Ponder over Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square. Now, take a picture of silence.
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
A piece of music without sound... A world in which things have no name... A television without signal... An empty page...
Week 2 7/1o1
Learning to sketch
#QuestionWithoutAnswer
The mind is everything. What you think you become. (Buddha)
What will I do today? Find a picture of a face (of a person) in a newspaper or magazine. Reproduce it by sketching it. Now, repeat the exercise, but flip your original image upside down. Reproduce the picture by looking at it upside-down.
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 2 8/1o1
Learning to sketch #DoorsOfPerception
What will I do today? Look at a vase and sketch the space around it. Do not sketch the vase. Again, the point today is to get your rational part of the brain asleep. Be Like Water.
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception. (Aldous Huxley)
Week 2 9/1o1
Learning to sketch
#SomePeopleTheyKnowThings
In Japan, they know a lot of things... What will I do today? Japanese gardens, for instance, What will I do today? the overall concept. Today, you will sketch leaves. plum tree, dwinFind some leaves and sketch them without The dling, contains less of the looking at what you are sketching. But the garYou are only allowed to look at the leaves. spring; is wider, and holds You are not allowed to look to your drawing den more of the moon. (while you draw it). (a koan by R. H. Blyth)
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 2
Learning to sketch
10/1o1 #DayTimeNightTime The invent.
poet doesn’t He listens. (Jean Cocteau)
What will I do today? Look at a vase and sketch the space around it. Do not sketch the vase. Again, the point today is to get your rational part of the brain asleep. Be Like Water.
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 2
Learning to sketch
11/1o1 #PlayItByTrust
What will I do today? You will sketch your hand. But you will do so wearing a blindfold. Cover your eyes. Now, look at your hand. See without using your eyes. See only by feeling.
Chess set for playing as long as you can remember where all your pieces are. Yoko Ono
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 3
Making Collages
12/1o1 #RomanceInManyDimensions House DORA, For Zakari we care... My son is 15 months, but i still feel him in my body , and wherever he is i khnow if he’s hapy or not... with me So that’s my abstract vision of myself. The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.
What will I do today? A (digital) collage representing yourself. The way you are. Work on abstract figures and surfaces and forms. Do not make or include people or any other “recognizable” things. Your collage must be an abstract one.
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 3
Making Collages
13/1o1 #InsideNoOutside
The world was in his mind, What will I do today? not outside. (digital) collage representing the way you “feel”. Work on abstract figures and surfaces and forms. Do not make or include people or any other “recognizable” things. Your collage must be an abstract one.
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 3
Making Collages
14/1o1 #WhatMakesTheDesert
Algiers the etymology of the of Algiers is « islands« in Reference to the islands located on the harbor of Algiers that’s how i see my place an island that’s floats in the sky
What will I do today? A (digital) collage representing the place you are at. Do not include yourself in this place. Represent only the place. Work on abstract figures and surfaces and forms. Do not make or include people or any other “recognizable” things. Your collage must be an abstract one.
What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well (says Antoine de StExupéry’s Little Prince)
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 3
Making Collages
15/1o1 #StealingThingsIs
I am what I see , and i am also the place where I live , that is why my esyes represent myself I am what I see , and i am also the place where I live , that is why my esyes represent myself
What will I do today? A (digital) collage representing yourself in the place you are at. Your collage must be abstract one. Work on abstract figures and surfaces and forms. Do not make or include people or any other “recognizable� things.
Stealing things is a glorious occupation, particularly in the art world. an (Malcolm McLaren)
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 3
Making Collages
16/1o1 #BrianEnoSays Toi, ma belle, en qui dort un parfum sacrilège Tu vas me dire enfin le secret de tes rires. Je sais ce que la nuit t’a prêté de noirceur, Mais je ne t’ai pas vu le regard des étoiles. Ouvre ta bouche où chante un monstre nouveau-né Et parle-moi du jour où mon cœur s’est tué Tu vas me ricaner Ta soif de me connaître Avant de tordre un pleur a beautiful poem of the poet and writer Kateb Yacine , what is more beautiful to illustrate my tender Algeria
What will I do today? A (digital) collage. The collage has to represent yourself in the place you are at. This time, you may go beyond abstraction. Yesterday you had to represent: “yourself in the place”, using abstraction. Today, you may go beyond (beside, before, below, bewhatever) abstraction.
It’s not the destination that matters. It’s the change of scene. (Brian Eno)
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 4
Observing the weather
17/1o1 #ExcuseMeWhile
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome. Isaac Asimov
What will I do today? You will look at the sky through a kaleidoscope and show us what you see.
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 4
Observing the weather
18/1o1 #MySunMachine
That’s what my sun tells.....
In Persan: Come here and look at me, The one who was supposed to make my dreams come true, came to my life but instead steal my sleep, Me so naively(innocently) was thinking(believing him/her) like a baby sun, Even I had forgot that the sun was never a baby.
What will I do today? Today, you will render the the sun. Find something that looks like the sun (something that looks like the sun in outer space).
Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love. William Shakespeare
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 4
Observing the weather
19/1o1 #SomePeopleWalk
Some people walk in the rain, What will I do today? others just get wet. Today, you will render the rain. (Roger Miller) You will do so by using a weather effect app. Or in Bob Marley’s words: Some people feel the rain others just get wet.
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 4
Observing the weather
20/1o1 #MyBusinessIs ?
?
What will I do today? Today, you will make a time-lapse video of clouds. Moving clouds. ?
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 4
Observing the weather
21/1o1 #VoyageDansLaLune
my moon is sad as Pierrot ( Omedia dell’arte) who’s pining for love of Columbine, who usually breaks his heart and leaves him for Harlequin
What will I do today? Today, you will render the Moon. You will generate the Moon using a digital application (the one you like the most). Do not take a picture of it! Start from scratch.
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth. Buddha
Week 5
Shaping diagrams
22/1o1 #YourMindWill
What will I do today? Today, you will get your head together and make a diagram of your mind. You will make (and share with us) a diagram of your mind.
Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. William S. Burroughs
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 5
Shaping diagrams
23/1o1 #YouGottaHave
my body is like a bottle soiled by the hands of people who have used it...
What will I do today? A diagram of your body. Ideally, start with one of those apps we listed yesterday. Then, fiddle with one of those collage apps we used in one of the previous weeks. Mix things up (not too much though‌).
Today, the famous Jayne Mansfield reminds us that: You gotta have a body. :o
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 5
Shaping diagrams
24/1o1 #OnesDestination ?
?
What will I do today? Today, you will make a diagram of your place. By now, places should start popping up into your mind... If you were to think about it, what would be this place of yours?
One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things. Henry Miller
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet Chater /My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora/Dora Chater
Week 5
Shaping diagrams
25/1o1 #IfYouStartToThink
What will I do today? Today, you will make a diagram of your mind and body. You will merge both elements into one.
If you start to think of your physical and moral condition, you usually find that you are sick. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 5
Shaping diagrams
26/1o1 #BeSureYou
What will I do today? A diagram of your mind, body and place.
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm. Abraham Lincoln
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 6
Drawing maps
27/1o1 #ALineIsADot
What will I do today? You will map your place as a line (if you are ambitious, as a spiral). Define what your place is. Then, represent it by drawing a line. Remember: a line is a line. It is not a line with captions, a line with text, a line with something else. A line is a line is a line.
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
A dot is a line that went for a walk. Paul Klee
Week 6
Drawing maps
28/1o1 #YouCantCriticize
What will I do today? You will map your place as a geometrical system. Yesterday was about one element (a line). Today it about a system. You can use many lines. You can draw an hexagon or a square... You can mix things up.
You can’t criticize geometry. It’s never wrong. Paul Rand
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Week 6
Drawing maps
29/1o1 #HumanBehaviourFlows
What will I do today? You will map your place as if it were a sea (or an ocean if you prefer). Once again, define this place of yours. Then, map it as if it were a sea.
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Plato said: Human behaviour flows from three main
Week 6
Drawing maps
30/1o1 #NoManIs ?
?
What will I do today? Very simple: you will have to map your place as an island. Imagine your little (or big) place as an island. Now, make a map out of it. Here, the gateway to a fascinating world of imaginary islands.
No man John
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
is
an
island. Donne
Week 6
Drawing maps
31/1o1 #ThisWorldIs
?
What will I do today? Like yesterday, very simple: you will map your place as if it were a starry sky. You mapped of your place as if it were an island. Now, on this last day of class, you This world is but a canvas to are finally ready to map it as if it were a our imagination. sky! Henry David Thoreau A night sky filled with stars and galaxies, planets and all kind of other things...
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Booklet & Illustrations by: Dora chater February 2015 dora.chater@gmail.com
/My Architecture 1o1 Booklet /Dora Chater
Instructor Stefano Mirti Anne-Sophie Gauvin Petronela Nita