IKA S2022
10
Water, a necessity of sustenance … Water gives life … Water for ablution of body and of soul … Water for reflection, both visual and intellectual … Light and sound are palpable materials of architectural containment and are simultaneously the principal forms of its occupation. Traditional spatial composition has relied on surfaces of resistance and reflection; space can be understood as the dissolving and blurring of the visual and the aural at the limits of perception and tactility. Discussions in the academy and in experimental practice are focused on responsive architectures and interactive interfaces; this work posits the concept of generative architectures in terms of materials, hybrid systems, and controls through improvised and scripted tenancies as acts of invention and innovation. There are many thresholds of concern: interior to exterior, architecture to landscape, forest to garden, public to private … Movement through liquid Water serves as a lens to manipulate and to understand both light and sound. In glass, we find ourselves moving ever so slowly, almost at a standstill, yet still we sense depth and thickness of surface, and return to the idea of matter and materiality. Mater or mother, material, materiality, matter The performative qualities of materiality take precedence over the physical or nominally substantive qualities of firmness, of softness, of weight and impermeability, impenetrable in their resistance to emotive qualities and the ability to transform. The project for this term is an urban natatorium. Be it a bourgeois indulgence, an amenity for the advantaged citizens of the city, the natatorium is a broadly based descriptor for a variety of water-based facilities in the constructed landscape of the contemporary city, embracing a range of possibilities: – a public fountain or well, – a public bathhouse, – a swimming pool(s), – a spa as a traditional place of healing and health, – a water treatment or sewage plant, – hydroponic gardens or fish farming, productive agricultures.
