WEEK 3: PEOPLE+DESIGN

R E F L E C T I O N

Post-lecture upon learning of Drama, rituals and sets, and then with a followup tutorial on People Design, it enforces the importance of finding deeper meaning even in the everyday mundane life or regular place settings. I feel it would be beneficial to be reminded of regular ‘rituals’ and draw inspiration for future projects from this. It can help with recalling new ways to ideate and I could incite this by even quickly doodling anything that comes to mind that occurs on a daily basis. I forgot that we could look to everyday circumstances, so this week serves as a reminder that ritual/set sketching would be useful to toher projects as it is a lot more physically productive and enabling instead of looking at a blank canvas and drawing on that for inspiration.

The study for this week also reminded me of comic panel compositions, to which is an idea to pursue in my workflow as I remember it has helped me before. A concept could be more easily displayed to and understood by the client via storyboarding and cinematics or set sequencing. I will be applying this idea to my current studio as a confirmation in the coming weeks, as to whether I will keep it in the process of decision-making or scrap the notion.

In relation to Missingham’s writings on “Architecture and Everyday Life”, I found it interesting that a sense of privacy could vary throughout intervals of the day and that also affected our choice in working environments and iterations. I felt slight uncertainty about this notion though, as my emotion tends to be relatively linear on a graphic scale and I usually only have ‘slight’ feelings (hence possible overuse of that word in this journal). I never had personal desire to choose my working places but have only ever worked in such places out of need/convenience and not wants.

That being said, a change in sequences (all) work environments I venture to may be needed for trial. As working constantly in cold built environments indoors for this long period of time, may have contributed to my general lack of emotion and auto-piloting in the architectural design process.

R E F L E C T I O N

R E F L E C T I O N

Week 3 tutorial exercise was surprisingly fun and very satisfying to experience. I enjoyed firming out the process of developing different iterations for the same scenario, and noticing differences between the effects of different working environments had on work.

_Comfortable environment: Personally I felt more complacent in a comfortable working environment, where I was lazy and kept recycling ideas (although surprisingly this has to do with brain chemistry and adpatations).

_Uncomfortable environment: Did not fare so well in a pitch-black room, mainly because I couldn’t see much so the iterations had to be ‘clean’ and simple. I was slightly annoyed drawing in the dark in a wide lecture theatre; the massive space made wind noises very loud and that was also annoying. I realize I prefer dark environments to be completely silent with no trace of sound like back home. This could mean I’m generally alright with a variety of environments for sight but noise in particular would affect my capabilities.

_Environment related to the theme ‘forest’: I did get more adequate iterations in an environment related to ‘forest’ ie grassy lawn with trees but honestly this was also uncomfortable. Ultimately the related environment provided more unique iteration quality but less in quantity in the given time. In Herbert’s excerpt regarding psychology, there is a “thermometer of satisfaction” (p.29) and being in an inconsistent environment constantly seems to make one strive for more unique ‘thoughts’ or choices. For future projects it would be beneficial and much more efficient to process ideas if I create conditions to replicate a similar environment. This could probably be done through music and lighting especially if simulating the related environmental conditions indoors. In Preparation for Week 4, done late week 3. I was vaguely interested in what Option 1 of the tasks had to offer but had to do option 2 instead, due to the current Covid-19 circumstances. It is too unsafe to venture out to public areas at this time. Fortunately this exercise has exposed me to a rather unique precedent I would like to expand further research into and hopefully incorporate to the studies of the main studio. Daniel Libeskind’s extracts and works ‘Chamber Works’ had a clean rationale to it despite being seemingly abstract at first glance. A lot of it was inspired by the scores of music as discovered, and the distortion of parts of the drawings could make for unique plans and sectional spatial experiences. Frankly, I am in awe. This is a direct translation of something not related to architecture, suddenly intergrated into it, as though they were a family from the start. As I read through his excerpts, I hope to expand on some of the techniques and decisions he made and integrate this into my own workflow as it seems more efficient and productive to sketch ideas and develop them with a more liberative element (in this case, music being translated to technical drawings). This could help create atmosphere more easily, something which I am currently struggling in due to being in auto-pilot/ emotionally detached from my projects for too long.

*Upon compiling this week1-3 journal entries, I realized perhaps I do not have enough diagrams and I am irked by the lack of balance, so I will be trying to incorporate more sketches or diagrams in future entries and reflections for the coming weeks. **30/03 The Sound tasks and studies are later visited in Week 6 program instead so this will be recovered.

Dehghan, Yasamin. 2018. “A VISUAL ANALYSIS OF LIBESKINDS ARCHITECTURE: DESCRIPTION OF SELECTED BUILT WORKS A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF NATURAL AND APPLIED SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY.” http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12622813/index. pdf.

Edensor, Tim. 2015. “Light Art, Perception, and Sensation.” The Senses and Society 10 (2): 138–57. https:// doi.org/10.1080/17458927.2015.1042228.

Lawson, Bryan. 2001. The Language of Space. Internet Archive. Oxford: Architectural Press/Elsevier. https://archive.org/stream/The_Language_of_Space/The_Language_of_Space_djvu.txt.

Missingham, Greg. 2019. Designing Your Designing Evidence + Opinions. 1st ed. Vol. 1. University of Melbourne.

Missingham, Greg. 2019. Architecture and Everyday Life. Missingham, Greg. 2019. Dramaturgical Analogies. Missingham, Greg. 2019. On Cueing.

_Other books & Journals

Simon, Herbert A. 1992. The Sciences of the Artificial. Cambridge: The M I T Press.

ONLINE TUTORIAL W.4

_Why the option was chosen: Because some of us are in quarantine/self-isolation due to the covid-19, soundwalk was not the most viable option. Hence option 2, which required reading and hearing extracts.

_What left the most lasting impression: Looking at the artworks and analysing the relationship between sound and spaces, especially classical music extracts to which had many variable elements in tone, volume, timbre etc that would influence the frequency or spaces between lines and dots.

_Did anything interest you (peer discussion)? Sound has a relationship to different volumes and spaces, that may influence a friend’s walk.

Direct transition between two spaces that affects the frequency and vibration of the same sound. Same sound but different space causes different effects and atmospheres, and some sounds cannot move around corners. Similar to light waves, it travels in a linear line and bounces off surfaces.

_3 things learned that day

• brain chemistry may be what’s causing ‘complacency’ in comfort • inconsistent work place is more effective for ideation • working on tactic’ virtual experiencing to increase the feeling of a space or spatial drawing etc

_3 things not discovered that i might have liked to

• more examples of unconscious thinking being made aware of • are choices wholly due to brain chemistry/adaptation of needs or are some decisions due to emotions or both? is it a balance. • is actually thinking of scenarios as ‘cutscenes’ too static? alternatives to be dynamic in thinking.

_3 things to try out at another time

• challenging the differences of environments-how far can i push my working space conditions and how much can i change the variables • changing conditions of my current work environment • further study on Daniel Libeskind’s works and style