Plasticity in Arcadia by Mauricio Espinosa

Mauricio Espinosa |

Plasticity in Arcadia A Responsive Emplacement for the Park of Moray Firth

Tutor: Phil Watson 26 March, 2009 [Term Two] First Draft Blog: [http://mespinosa.tumblr.com] Master of Architecture [Architectural Design] â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Candidate 2010 [AVATAR] Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research Bartlett School of Architecture | University College London

Plasticity in Arcadia | A

Responsive Emplacement for the Park of Moray Firth

CONTENTS:

OVERVIEW

METHODOLOGY

SITE ABSTRACT & HISTORICAL ANALYSIS

THEMATIC LANDSCAPE

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

List of Principal Characters Project Aims and Objectives Terminology

6 7 7

Geomorphology of Moray Firth Culbin Mythology & the Kinnaird Barony

8-9 10-13

Sir Philip Sidney’s The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia Shifting Geometries Responsive Landscape A Plastic Architecture Degradation, Reassembly, Viability

14 15 16-17 18-23 24-26

Summation, Thoughts

28-29

OVERVIEW Contemporary use of terms ‘sustainability’ and ‘ecologies’ have led to a increased acceptance of homogenous measures which mitigate large, complex, and definitively absurd topics between the involvement of ‘man and nature.’ According to The Brundtland Commission (1987), a proper management of social, economic, and ecologies are necessary for the continued viability of human involvements within varying cyclical systems. While an increased awareness can be viewed as a positive step towards one’s coexistence within their environment, its narrowness and acceptance might be better viewed within the light of a wellintentioned, false prophet. Terms are given meaning by people, meanings can be (mis)understood, and complex systems can be constructed as a method for “solving” one’s view of the world in relative axioms and terms. It may beg the question that equally-viable (and potentially greater) opportunities may be missed within one’s quest to understand meaning, environment, absurdity, and the environmental.

List of Principal Characters

Butte dune, showing blown (top), black, and (below) indurated sand (Steers 1937)

ALEXANDER KINNAIRD, Scottish landowner who loses his barony between 1694-1695 due to mis-management of land ANNEALING TACKLE, technological silt-melting device ARCADIA, Sir Philip Sidney’s imaginary landscape narrative, discusses six themes of man & nature BASILIUS LIGHTHOUSE, beacon lighthouse for the king of Arcadia BURNING LENS, reference to Archimedes lens which “burns” surrounding soil to anneal glass structures CLODDYMOSS LENS, viewing platform to Arcadia through a Nicodian Lens, triangulated with Drumbeg and Moy Fishing Lenses CROWN GRANGE HALL, place of recording for the amorous courting of two lovers CULBIN FOREST, diverse geomorphic site located on the Moray Firth, North Scotland DORUS SHEEP SHEARS, glass shears constructed in the landscape with wind and seawater, reference to Signey’s pastoral exercises DRAGONFLY POND, cathode linked through culvers to propogate lighthouse battery DRUMBEG LENS, viewing platform to Arcadia through a Nicodian Lens, triangulated with Cloddymoss and Moy Fishing Lenses DUNE CROWN, primary sand dune converted to a Fresnel Lens through Annealing Tackles FRESNEL LENS, originally a lighthouse lens which is inverted to capture the sun’s rays as harness energy KINNAIRD BARONY, lost Barony excavated for wrought-iron in the construction of a lighthouse battery MORAY FIRTH, seaward stretch between Forres and Nairn harboring the Culbin Forest Preserve MOY FISHING LENS, viewing platform to Arcadia through a Nicodian Lens, triangulated with Cloddymoss and Drumbeg Lenses NICODIAN LENS, logical view demonstrating geometry as a platform to discuss spatio-temporal inclusionary data NIGHT VESSELS, ships returning to the Basilius lighthouse, reference to Sidney’s theme of valorous fighting SALT MARSH, anode linked to Kinnaird Barony through culvers to propogate a lighthouse battery TIMOTHY PONT, draws map of Culbin in 1590, imprecise map is referenced in research data

METHODOLOGY

Aims and Objectives The project is an attempt to blur boundaries between empirical data sets and social issues in order to propagate an evolved catalyst in the architectural production of space and time. The project utilizes Jarry’s (1896) ‘science of exceptions’ to interrogate an empirical understanding in the fabrication and construction of architecture. Artistically, data gaps are translated into a realworld context through the use of narrative in order to reassess traditional goals in evolving cyclical and social ecologies. Moray Firth’s Culbin Forest— located in Northern Scotland—is a rich, geotechnical environment which is used as a device to translate between a real-world landscape, and the imaginary thematic landscape set forth in Sir Philip Sidney’s The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (1593). Its primary tactic for assimilation between elements is the utilization of Nicod’s (1930) geometric exercise in logic which discusses spatio-temporal inclusions as a normative measure of bridging between narrative and site.

Terminology Architecture (n.): architecture is a future edifice (art/science) which aims to influence and shape current building practices; this edifice exists within political and philosophical belief systems. [Oxford English Dictionary] Catalyst (n.): an agent that provokes or speeds significant change or action. [MerriamWebster Dictionary] Cyclical (a.): belonging to a definite chronological cycle. [Oxford English Dictionary] Ecologies (n.): the study of the relationships between people, social groups, and their environment; (also) the system of such relationships in an area of human settlement. [Oxford English Dictionary] Empirical (a.): relying on or derived from observation or experiment; (also) verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment. [The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language] Science of Exceptions Alfred Jarry’s definition of ‘pataphysics in his book, Exploits and Opinions of (n.): Dr Faustroll, Pataphysician which describes: “. . .(the science that added to metaphysics as). . .the science of imaginary solutions that symbolically attributes to their lineaments the properties of objects described by their virtuality.”

SITE ABSTRACT AND HISTORICAL ANALYSIS

Geomorphology of Moray Firth Culbin Forest is Britain’s largest dune system, with approximately 50 million tons of dune sand below its heavily thatched surface (May & Hansome 2003). The area is intensively researched due to its ‘active’ geomorphic features and traces, most notably its shifting gravel ridges from the post-Holocene period as well as its active sand dunes (Comber 1995) (Gauld 1981). The primary dune-deposit is an accumulation of silt which was deposited down the mouth of the River Findhorn in pre-Holocene from the top of the mountain. During the 1920s, the Scottish Forestry Commission undertook a large effort to stabilize a dramatic shifting landscape by planting plots of marram grass and Scottish Corsican Pine trees in an effort to stabilize the soil (Ovington 1950). Previous site research data on gravel ridge movements is based on partial evidence from Timothy Pont (Abandoned Communities 2010). Pont’s 1590 map of Culbin (or “Coulbinn” as described in his drawing) shows location mapping which several geologists have used to study the “Bar,” “Gut,” and the Findhorn Bay located East of Culbin Forest (Steers 1937). However, non-empirical data sets such as Pont’s map leave gaps in data; this data has been used in speculating sedimentary

Geomorphology of Culbin Forest (post-Holocene to Present)

deposits, shifts, as well as outside forces from Late Devensian glacial, glacifuvial, to Early Holocene foreshore deposits noted by Comber (1995).

Force Diagram: Geomorphic Sand Dune - Gravel Ridge Translation

Lerwick Wind Path (Met Office 2010)

Shifting River Rock, Post-Holocene to Present

Culbin Mythology and the Kinnaird Barony According to Willis, Culbin has always been a fascinating area for researchers, artists and writers as its rich mix of colorful tales and dramatic earth shifts has often made it difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction (Gunson, Willis, Jones, Chapman, Fyf, Dawson, Ilbery, Proudfoot, & Small 1993). Tales of a buried barony lost after the Scottish landowner, Alexander Kinnaird, removed the stabilizing marram grass from atop the dune surface caused him to eventually lose his entire estate in a great storm between 1694 and 1695 (Forestry Commission Scotland 2010). Presumably, area locals are said to have heard screams through the clay chimneys tops of the underground barony, yet research into the exact location of the buried structures is still underdeveloped as splays in the structures and—according to Steers (1937)—a difficulty in scanning gravel ridges below the soil makes it a challenging endeavor in determining precise locations of sediment, and ‘like’ materials. A geomorphic force path diagram is drawn to illustrate the difference between “like” and “nonlike” materials in order to find the trajectory of the lost Kinnaird Barony. The analysis of prevailing gravel ridge shifts move approximately 11.3cm/day based on gathered evidence from post-Holocene

to 1990. Its material density is likely comparable to the stone church in the Kinnaird Barony and would therefore begin to combine its trajectory pattern as it approached a lower depth in the soil. To reach this depth, a timeline is established to compare vertical distance, leaving approximately 140 years before the gravel ridge and church stone might begin to join. Meanwhile, wrought-iron, wood, and light-weight textile materials would follow a more generalized direction of the propagation of the parabolic sand dunes (average movement at 54cm/day) toward the Northeast (prevailing wind direction per Met Office 2010). This analysis allows one to understand the “current” location range of the barony splays within the present year.

Timothy Pont Map showing 1590 Culbin & Findhorn Bay(Steers 1937)

Left: Abandoned Kinnaird Barony Church Plan showing landscape shifts over 200 year timeline Right: Culbin Geomorphic site sections

THEMATIC LANDSCAPE

The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia

Top: Nicolas Poussin’s Les Bergers d’Arcadie Botton: Guercino’s Et in Arcadia Ego Medieval literary reference to J. Sannazaro’s Arcadia (Walter & Lanham 1965)

Sidney’s pastoral masterpiece sets six literary themes which the project uses as a point of departure from technical research data in Culbin Forest. According to Davis & Lanham (1965), Sidney’s five books discusses the evolution of several characters who propagate varying, yet seemingly-disparate events tied together by a clear and orderly-literary structure: amorous courting, pastoral exercises, valorous fighting, and sage counseling. Character names also change as their lives parallel other themes within the books. Its general thematic shift is from a classical regiment of Virgil’s imaginary landscape and Jacopo Sannazzaro’s medieval version to a renaissance version filled with rich coloration and the simultaneous discussion of both utopian and everyday contexts (Davis & Lanham 1965). These two canvases allow interventions between the Culbin data sets and the imaginary landscape of the romantic, pastoral utopia in Arcadia. Themes are demonstrable as responsive, plastic architectures in space and time whose existence is subject to both empirical pressures and idealized dialogues of life, death, and landscape.

Shifting Geometries As a means of bridging dissimilar elements, exceptions within the data set are translated through a working narrative-platform using geometry and fluctuation as a means of bridging metaphysical, narrative, and scientific data sets. Jean Nicod’s Foundations of Geometry and Induction is used to describe a moving site through an inclusionary lens. Through such a lens, Nicod demonstrates the idea of geometry as an exercise in perceiving the logical world as a bridge between metaphysical concepts and mathematical analysis (Nicod 1930). For Nicod, an inclusionary view demonstrates two key concepts in relation to understanding the relationship of a system: spatio-inclusion (space within view) and temporal-inclusion (time within view). Through this lens, one is able to define terms of static and dynamic as a product of movement in space (or lack thereof) within the duration of time. The lens of Culbin is translated into three metaphorical lenses in the project: Cloddymoss Lens, Moy Fishing Lens, and Drumbeg Lens. These are triangulated geometries located on a “static” portion of the site atop a large Holocene ridge towards the South; for Nicod, this means that no perceived change in space is experienced between longer, temporal periods. More aggressive changes

within the responsive landscape are then seen as “non-static” elements, as spatial changes are experienced at a faster rate when compared with their temporal period of study. Metaphorically, one can use these lenses as viewing tackles from the Holocene cliffs into the land of Arcadia.

Left: Glass gravel ridges produced from dune lenses Right: Vector path-point geometries of Kinnaird Barony

Responsive Landscapes Sand dune crowns are identified by height and melted using a series of tackles to create a lighthouse for Basilius, Ruler of Arcadia. The lighthouse is fabricated with the dune crown, a primary dune in Culbin vis-Ă -vis melting tackles located both above and below the sand. The construction element uses a Fresnel lens, whose prismatic shaping was once used to refract light wavelengths in lighthouses to propagate the light from a candle over large distances. To verify its strength, annual UV radiation averages are utilized as a data set to amass approximate values in available energy (Varatsos 1998). Mean parabolic dune geometries of crown, step, head, and toe are averaged as viable lens geometries (Steers 1937). Fresnel Lens geometries are inverted from the construction of a single, interior candle source to an exterior source of the sun using Yehâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (2008) method of cataloguing geometries of ultraviolet wavelengths as a product of refractive indexes. One might think of this as a giant microscope in the sun which cooks small bugs and gum-wrappers when held at the proper angle; this then becomes a Burning Lens. To optimize heat loss in the system, a diffractive plate is fabricated using Yehâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (2008) geometries to focus varying red, green, and blue wavelengths onto nearly-identical surfaces. As the product of

the amount of maximum heat over a peak day at peak time (approximately 4600BTU), its energy is not sufficient to create a phase-change of silt to turn from a solid-to metal-to solid in the quantity needed to create a glass lighthouse. However, this will suffice in creating dune lenses within the surrounding dunes, allowing the first lens to create a second lens, and so on. These lenses fabricate glass rocks which shift in the landscape as they conglomerate with the Culbin gravel ridges.

Top: Total Ozone + UV Radiation, Dundee (Varatsos 1998) Botton: Parabolic dune profile at Culbin (Steers 1937) Opposite: Fresnel Lens geometries (Yeh 2008)

A Plastic Architecture Basilius’ lighthouse will serve as a beacon for night vessels to return home after a series of valorous fighting battles which occur outside the land of Arcadia. Its placement near the Dune Crown Grange Hall is translated through spatio-temporal shifts in the landscape (its overall distance at approximately 2.5 kilometers) which “roll” the lighthouse across the sand. The first element in the lighthouse is produced underground by small annealing tackles which mitigate the sub-soil sand temperature with the assistance of the lenses to create an underground kiln or Lehr. The production pieces are six lightbulbs. Through landscape shifts, the bulbs move into the fabricated lighthouse which utilizes the Lehr to reduce mechanical stresses within the glass, further allowing a large, glass lighthouse to be blown out of the landscape (McLelland & Shand 1984). With the assistance of a large tub, sea water enters through a series of glass tubes which create a positive pressure in the tub, blowing up from the earth like a large soap bubble. The project is modeled using soap bubbles as a computing element—their surface area-to-volume ratios are high and therefore efficient, serving as conservative measures in the silt.

As the lighthouse passes seaward in the landscape, large culvers are annealed to create pathways within the Salt Marsh and the Dragonfly Pond. With small digging tackles, one designs a system which uses underground wrought iron from the Kinnard Barony and exposes this with the salt water to create oxidation and a battery for the lightbulbs in the lighthouse. As oxidation occurs between the salt water and iron, this produces an anode while the Dragonfly Pond (fresh water) a cathode. Due to large increases in soil magnesium from the large afforestation effort of Scottish Corsican Pine and marram grass in Culbin, magnesium deposits exist in large quantities between 0-48” below the dune surface (Wright 1955). These deposits assist the necessary chemical process in iron oxidation. As the lighthouse passes through the culvers, negative wind pressure is utilized to extract battery anodes and cathodes within the central element of the lighthouse. The temporal-inclusion is approximately 305 years for the lighthouse to translate from the Crown Grange Hall to its proper position near the sea.

Above: Crown Grange Hall Opposite: Enlarged Dune Crown with adjacent lenses

Top: Enlarged tub and annealing tackle Botton: Blown lighthouse geometries Opposite: Shifting lighthouse, battery in landscape

Dorus Sheep Shears

The Dune Crown is also used to shape sheep-shears for Dorusâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the pastoral figure of Arcadia. Here, prevailing Northeast winds allow vector and path manipulation with the annealing tackles to define edges through their shaping of adjacent dune crowns. Their temporal inclusion is difficult to define, as storm winds and seasonal irregularities are needed to shape the opposing sides of the shears (Sand Dunes, A Look at Sand Dunes: Formation and Distribution of Dune Systems 2010).

Valorous fighting night vessels return to Arcadia

Degradation, Viability, Reassembly The Crown Grange Hall is a space for the amorous courting of two lovers. Like Guercino’s painting Et in Arcadia Ego, the lovers are intertwined in shadow and outline as their body movements are traced throughout the prismatic geometries of the Grange Hall. The development of the hall as a 4-dimensional scanning tool might better recall the event of the two lovers as they move throughout the space. Their memories are impregnated within the glass of the serrated lens. Here, Sidney specifies three key symbolic attributes to the courting lovers: “1) Like the garden of paradise in its eternal fertility and its order of conflicting parts, this place draws the mind to that place of which it is the visible symbol…; 2) Classical tradition does not stress the similarity of any Garden of Eden, but merely presents it as a fit place for comtemplation…; 3) Prison cell dialogue where the princes, awaiting their trial for the crime of regicide, contemplate death…” (Davis & Lanham 1965)

As parabolic dunes advance within the world of Arcadia, the Crown Grange Hall is destroyed and buried—like the Kinnaird Barony—below the surface of the sand. One can remember the event of the lovers and piece together their memories within the prismatic glass shards which might give clues in solving a future archeological expedition.

Above: ‘Swing Time’-amorous courting of two lovers Opposite: Burning Lens, annual power

CONCLUSION The assimilation of gaps within data is seen as an opportunity to design within differing information sets. Empirical evidence in cyclical ecologies is challenged through Sidney’s narrative within a real world context. Data sets and imaginary settings are translated as Nicodian geometries which discuss like concepts of spatio-temporal inclusions in data sets as a means of understanding logic. Here, the lines between characters and geotechnical analysis are blurred as one may begin questioning the inclusion of imaginary, non-data within given sets, as well as an understanding or “lens” by which one may view their world.

Above: Degradaded Crown Grange Hall Opposite: Recording shards of amorous lovers

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