Bodies in Space A Portfolio of Creative Works
Kevin Van Meter
Outdoor Classroom(s): Lighthouse Montessori 2012 — Initial Layout
Lighthouse Montessori Preschool opened in January, 2012. From that
point on I have managed development of the backyard. We are transforming this grassy patch into a rich environment for children’s play, work, and engagement with natural process.
2014 — Current Layout
Design Process
Observe for problems and possibilities. Generate and Collect ideas from the community. Discuss. Plan. Build with everyone’s help. Observe...
Plan for Future Development
8
3 2 7
4 1
6
Circulation
5
The central channel invites rapid movement and many bodies. Tangential pathways eddy into spaces distinguished by their particular visual and ambulatory access:
(1) offers a brief respite from movement and visual access to the inside classroom; (2) is an internally oriented space for small groups; (3) is a playful work space; (4) is an enclosing respite from open space; the seat at (5) is a hidden retreat; (6) is a more sedentary work space; down the hill (7) is seclusion and the tactile stimulation of sand; the climbing platform at (8) offers seclusion and visual access.
Visual Access Multiple levels, semi-transparent plant screens, and occasional roofs differentiate spaces along gradients of visual accessibility. Access to the sky, the horizontal, and the indoor classroom define private and public space.
Section Elevation of Future Development —West
Sketches
Observations on space
The invisible: life—inside these
windows, down the street, a season ahead. People walk out of sight, walk indoors, leaves bud and unfurl. Buildings come and go. In twenty years the trees will have grown. Buildings age and are born. Time, in the static of a picture frame, in the grandeur of a landscape... Two hundred years?
The leaf reaches toward you. It’s not
trying to impress. The strong, sensual ribs curl like fingers at leisure. A few careless stains do not interfere. Its skin is ancient, textured and radiant in the light. Nearly translucent; its veins pop. It beckons you to its inner self. You seek the intimacy of darkness and confinement.
These openings are mere tricks of light
and shadow. They pull you in hard and fast then they run aground. But their circumferences are interesting. I forget the dead-end and am lost in the intricacy of unraveling them. Following this line out into the light‌
What is it? My eyes cannot rest. Ice
spikes on a gridded abstraction. The tidy lines of brick and the comfortable billow of a tree-in-the-distance are not enough to soothe me. This disorientation is appalling and fascinating. I cannot rest here.
Music
Listen to me play St. James Infirmary here
Photograph by Jean Fong
Dance
Watch me dance in a Shook Twins music video
Photograph by Lori Shook
Dear Body 1 My body is unaccustomed to stillness. It is sustained by movement and discourages my attempts to sit still like Siddhartha. I think of Odysseus who favored ropes over discipline when securing his body against the beauty and the terror of his sirens. I think of Jesus who preached the narrow path of paradise that courses through our lives, a path the mind walks through time and I wonder if your weight, dear body, tips the scales on that balancing act.
Bodies in Space: A Portfolio of Creative Works Kevin Van Meter, 2014 For admission to MLA 1, Fall 2015 UW College of Built Environments
2 One time we ran a path through woods consciousness dissipated and left our breath, the sensation of you coursing over the land, our vision of the path ahead. motionless pressing clay on a spinning wheel; dancing and forgetting. We live leaning into our death inseparable.