LIVE/WORK
MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO
SEMESTER 1 2012
UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE
LIVE/WORK
EDITED BY ROSS T. SMITH
INTRODUCTION BY JUHANI PALLASMAA
© COPYRIGHT 2012 LIVE/WORK STUDIO Melbourne School of Design, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, 2012. Intellectual Property Copyright of this publication belongs to the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, University of Melbourne and the respective authors of the included content. Disclaimer The University of Melbourne has used its best endeavours to ensure that the material contained in this publication was correct at the time of printing. The University gives no warranty and accepts no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of information and the University reserves the right to make changes without notice at any time in its absolute discretion. EDITOR ROSS T. SMITH PUBLISHER UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE MELBOURNE SCHOOL OF DESIGN FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE BOOK DESIGN PATRICK HEGARTY SAGHAR HENDI BOOK COVER GILAD RITZ INSIDE COVER ALEXIS ANDERSON ISBN 978 0 7340 4787 8
W. H. AUDEN. ‘THE CAVE OF NAKEDNESS’, ABOUT THE HOUSE. 44. 1966
LIVE/WORK
STUDENTS FENINA ACANCE ALEXIS ANDERSON ERICA CHEONG SANDRA DIAS PATRICK HEGART Y SAGHAR HENDI O.J. NAPAS KITIRATTRAGAN ADELINE LENG RENÉE MURATORE PING NGU GILAD RITZ BEN SHIELDS SAHRA STOLZ EURIC THOR
‘OUR
BODIES
CANNOT
LOVE:
BUT,
WITHOUT
ONE,
STUDIO LEADERS ROSS T. SMITH BYRON KINNAIRD
WHAT
WORKS
OF
LOVE
COULD
WE
DO?’
THE TEACHERS AND STUDENTS OF THE LIVE/WORK STUDIO WISH TO THANK THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE FOR THEIR SUPPORT DURING THIS DESIGN STUDIO: DR ALEX SELENITSCH FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE, UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE PROF. PHILIP GOAD FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE, UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE ROSANNA VERDE, MICHELE BURDER, PEN BLAMPHIN, AND ANDREW CERCHEZ MSD MARKETING, EVENTS AND EXHIBITIONS TEAM. GAYLE GALL DOOKIE CAMPUS COORDINATOR. BRENT HARRIS ARTIST. FOR THE LECTURE HE GAVE ABOUT HIS WORK AT HIS EXHIBITION AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA. JACQUI CHAN, CHRIS COTTRELL, TED CHEN, JUSTINE CLARK, AND TANJA BEER REVIEWERS OF INTERIM AND FINAL PRESENTATIONS JUHANI PALLASMAA SPECIAL THANKS GO TO JUHANI PALLASMAA FOR HIS GENEROSITY IN WRITING THE INTRODUCTION TO THIS BOOK.
THE TEACHERS AND STUDENTS OF THE LIVE/WORK STUDIO ARE VERY APPRECIATIVE OF THE MELBOURNE SCHOOL OF DESIGN AND FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE FOR THE SUPPORT GIVEN TO THIS MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO, THE DOOKIE PROJECT, AND FOR PUBLISHING THE BOOK.
ROSS T. SMITH WWW.ROSSTSMITH.CO.NZ BYRON KINNAIRD WWW.CARGOCOLLECTIVE.COM/DRAWNANDWRITTEN
LIVE/WORK
Juhani Pall asmaa THEORY DRAWING PHOTOGRAPHY MODELLING
MY PHENOMENOLOGY THE QUIVERING FISH OF PHENOMENOLOGY STUDIO PROFILE SCRATCH/SMUDGE/SCRAPE INTERIORIT Y AND THE BODY TEACHING FROM THE RUBBISH BIN THE DOOKIE PROJECT FINAL PROJECTS
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MY PHENOMENOLOGY Juhani Pallasmaa In 1985 I wrote an essay entitled ‘The Geometry of Feeling’ which has been republished later as an example of architectural phenomenology in international anthologies of writings in architectural theory. I must say, however, that only while writing this essay I became aware of phenomenology as a line of philosophical enquiry, and I added a short chapter on this notion in my essay. Yet, even today I do not claim to be a phenomenologist due to my lack of formal philosophical education. I would rather say that my current view of architecture and art is parallel with what I understand the phenomenological stance to be. My ‘phenomenology’ arises from my experiences as an architect, teacher, writer and collaborator with numerous fine artists, as well as my experiences of life in general. The Dutch phenomenologist J.H. van den Berg states, ‘Painters and poets are born phenomenologists’ i, and I believe that I am similarly a ‘born phenomenologist’ through my formative childhood experiences at my farmer grandfather’s humble farm house during the war years, and my later engagement in the artistic world. Also my countless journeys in various parts of the world since the early 1960s have enriched my experiential world decisively. The neurobiologist Semir Zeki makes a parallel argument to the effect that ‘most painters are also neurologists’ ii in the sense of intuitively understanding the neurological principles of brain activities. A couple of scholars have actually pointed out parallels in my writings with those of the neurologist Antonio Damasio, but these parallels are totally intuitive, as I have read Damasio’s important books only after having written the essays referred to in these writings. iii I must say the same about my relationship with philosophy in general. I am an amateur also in this field, although I have read countless books by philosophers out of my personal interest in the enigma of human existence and the essence of knowledge. I have been particularly impressed by the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, whose thinking I have found inspiringly open-ended and optimistic. His philosophy has made me understand the chiasmatic way in which we are in the world, and it also opens up ways of understanding artistic phenomena. I understand phenomenology in accordance with Edmund Husserl’s notion as “a pure looking”, an innocent and unbiased encounter with phenomena, in the same manner that a painter looks at a landscape, a poet seeks a poetic image for a particular human experience, and an architect imagines an existentially meaningful space. My mentor and friend Professor Aulis Blomstedt (1906-1979), who was a profound Finnish architect and scholar of Pythagorean proportional
harmony, often emphasized that the original meaning of the Greek word theorein was to look at, not to speculate. My ‘theorizing’ is an intense looking at things in order to reveal their essences and meanings. I also feel sympathy for Goethe’s notion ‘Zarte Empirie’, delicate Empiricism, that aspires to observe without altering and violating the phenomenon in question through the process of the investigation itself. I do not aim at, or believe in, a prescriptive architectural theory. Architecture is fundamentally existential in its very essence, and it arises from existential experience and wisdom rather than intellectualised and formalized theories. We can only prepare ourselves for our work in architecture by developing a distinct sensitivity and awareness for architectural phenomena. The act of looking at architecture implies, in fact, encountering or living architecture, and a mere visual observation has to be accompanied by an imaginative and full embodied experience. And even multi-sensory experiencing is not sufficient, a projection of one’s self on the architectural setting has to take place, and the spaces need to be internalized as part of the viewer’s sense of self. All profound artistic experiences are exchanges. For me, phenomenology is the subtle art of encountering the world. Merleau-Ponty has a beautiful line, ‘How could a painter or poet express anything other than his encounter with the world’ iv, and, in my view, an architect is bound to explore and express this very same encounter. I believe that I am an architect primarily for the reason that this craft offers particularly essential and meaningful possibilities of touching the boundaries of one’s own self and the world, and experiencing how they mingle and fuse into each other. Architecture is a logistically complex and philosophically controversial subject. As it is simultaneously an end and a means, it cannot be prescribed, and it is bound to emerge through a creative process of compromise and synthesis. The phenomenon of architecture contains several fundamental contradictions: it is utility and expression, technique and poetry, materiality and spirituality, durability and sensuality, aesthetics and metaphysics, ethics and compassion, all at the same time. Due to its increasing conceptual complexity, especially in our technological age, building is increasingly approached rationally as a task engaging knowledge, expertise, and problem solving, and as a consequence, the metaphysical, mental and emotive realities of architecture are by necessity suppressed. The task of architectural philosophy is to reveal this bias and distortion in the prevailing view and practice of architecture. The phenomenological approach, which encounters architecture in its lived and real material and mental dimensions, is an important counterforce to today’s formalistic, intellectualized and logocentric views that prevail in both practice and theory. Even architectural phenomenology is bound to communicate ideas through words but it
acknowledges and identifies the lived imageries hidden in architectural encounters and it illuminates their experiential and mental essences. A phenomenologist encounters and senses architecture instead of analysing it, and he/she reveals the lived mental reality of this art form. No approach or method in itself can be a guarantee for a meaningful result; phenomenology can degenerate into empty verbalism or groundless intellectual fabrication. As David Seamon, a phenomenological geographer, who has written some of the most clear-minded descriptions of the use of the method, wisely observes: ‘The phenomenological enterprise is a highly personal, interpretive venture. In trying to see the phenomenon it is very easy to see too much or too little’ v. I was initially attracted to Gaston Bachelard’s poetic writings because of their combined precision and sense of authority; the writer’s long background as philosopher of science gives a special credibility to his poetic observations that sometimes seem to approach paradox or absurdity. Sincerity and precision are irreplaceable criteria and virtues in phenomenological thought. I want to re-emphasize that I write about art, architecture and the life world as a practicing architect and designer who is also engaged in the realm of the arts. I write in the same manner, and with the same intentions, as I sketch and draw, open-mindedly and without preconceptions or pre-set ideas. The words arise as the lines of a drawing unfold, semi-automatically, revealing an image that has been hiding somewhere in the folds of thoughts, associations and embodied memories. Both the drawing and the sentence seek to give a shape to an emergent feeling, a shapeless complex of uncertainty and intuitive assurance that acquires intentionality and meaning at the moment of its very emergence. As a consequence of my way of working, a design and an essay are the same thing for me, yet they seem to be causally unrelated and exist in different realities, as two parallel but independent products or observations of the mind. Helsinki, 19 July, 2012
Sahra Stolz
MY PHENOMENOLOGY (i)
J. H. van den Bergh, The Phenomenological Approach in Psychology. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1955, p. 61.
(ii)
Semir Zeki, Inner vision: An Exploration of Art and the Brain. New York: Oxford University Pres, Inc., 1999, p. 2.
i-ii
(iii) See Åsa Dahlin, “Architecture and Sense Experience”, On Architecture, Aesthetic Experience and the Embodied Mind. Stockholm: School of Architecture, Royal Institute of Technology, 2002, and; Harry Francis Mall grave, The Architect’s Brain – Neuroscience, Creativity, and Architecture, Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2002. (iv)
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Signs. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1982, p. 56.
(v)
David Seamon, “A Way of Seeing People and Place: Phenomenology in Environment – Behaviour Research”, in : S. Wapner, J. Demick, T. Yama moto and H. Minami, editors, Theoretical Perspectives in Environment – Behaviour Research. New York: Plenum Publishers, 1999, p. 172.
THE QUIVERING FISH OF PHENOMENOLOGY Ross T. Smith This Studio promotes a phenomenology of the receptive body and the perceptive mind and uses it as a lens through which to view, assess, and develop a framework for teaching design in architecture. Architectural design can be approached conceptually, imaginatively and physically, therefore this method for teaching design is grounded in phenomenological theory and integrated with the poetics of art thinking and craft making. Focusing on the body as subject and its relation to itself, the senses, other bodies, and to the objective world is an approach to designing architecture that is somatic and experiential. If I could do it, I’d do no writing at all here. It would be photographs; the rest would be fragments of cloth, bits of cotton, lumps of earth, records of speech, pieces of wood and iron, phials of odors, plates of food and of excrement. … A piece of the body torn out by the roots might be more to the point. i From another creative perspective these words from author James Agee sum up the complexity of teaching the discipline of architecture. Phenomenology, as a philosophical method for teaching design in architecture, is one that requires more intuitive, real-time communication with the self and the world than it does intellectual and historical mastication. Specific concepts in phenomenology such as the body and mind, the senses, the toucher and the touched, the visible and invisible, hidden and revealed, adumbrations, intersubjectivity, intentionality, as well as more metaphysical concepts such as time, space, silence, mortality, death, and existence were explored in this Studio. Contemplating how we respond phenomenologically to our being-of-the-world brings us to a greater ontological understanding of our existence and how we as human beings fit into, or are intimately connected to, the fleshly world. The concept of flesh is the vital formation of French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s thought, his focus being on the body as subject and its relation to itself, other bodies, and to the objective world. Merleau-Ponty speaks of the flesh as an ‘element’ – like the fundamental life components fire, earth, air, and water, and in expressing an ontology of the flesh he tries to combine the subjective and objective as one. Our body fleshliness is activated through the thingliness of that which surrounds us. We, as pulpy, fleshy things exist, as do all other things, as material objects amongst other material objects; standing apart from each other, bumping into bits of the other, or integrating as one material with another; this is the intersubjectivity of our substantial world. Merleau-Ponty adds: ‘The world is not what I think, but what I live. I am open to the world,
I communicate indubitably with it, but I do not possess it; it is inexhaustible.’ ii The difference between us and a blunt object is that we, as sentient beings, have a neurological system that brings us into sensory contact with the world through our body: skin that touches and is touched; eyes that receive forms, colours and light; a nose that smells the physical matter of the world; a mouth shrouding a tongue that penetrates and tastes; ears that capture the invisible resonances of sound which vibrate about us; and a mind that interprets phenomena in order to give meaning to our existence, and to contain this mass of information as memory. Although this may seem simplistic, our body is a sophisticated device which is highly attuned to the physical world, and our brain, likewise, has acutely interpretive functions we may not even be aware of. Embedded within our mind is the non-specific part of our existence which deals with the imagination, the ephemeral, memory, the vague connections between things, intellectualisation, and most importantly the interpretation of phenomena and the myriad sensations with which we are constantly bombarded. Carnal phenomenology, specifically, is a philosophy of the body and the perceptual apprehensions of our human being. This physical thing, held together by mysterious threads, is the carnal being of our mortality. Merleau-Ponty asks of himself, and us, what is flesh; what is this shadow packed with organs in which we find our self? This is not only a question of the physical object-thing our mind drags around; not only the flesh, bones, and guts contained by its tactile integument of the skin; but of the fragile cellular separation which is the interaction we have with the world. Our body, as the receptor of touch, is the site of sensuality and eroticism and is therefore our immediate and most present contact with the phenomenal world, both physically and ephemerally. Alberto Pérez-Gómez, architectural philosopher, says the making of architecture ‘originates in the erotic impulse.’ iii If we contemplate architecture of the future as having a potential for poetic response, then phenomenology leads us to a self-recognition through personal experience of the body as the locus of meaning, to which art and architecture are announced in the erotic sphere of carnality. Erotic knowledge is never experienced by the mind alone, it always occurs in the world; it is of the flesh. iv Carnality takes into account all matter which composes the material world; all that grows, blooms, rots, and dies. We live in a carnal world, a world of pressing materiality in which we are enfolded, contained, and delimited. Carnality encompasses all material things, not just human beings. In architecture two striking conditions come into contact; the body and the material world. Philosopher Michel Serres describes haptic multiplicity: ‘The skin sees … It shivers, speaks, breathes, listens, sees, loves and is loved, receives, refuses, retreats, bristles in horror, is covered in cracks, blotches, wounds of the soul …’. v In this way the cohesion of things happens through the ability of our body and mind to
THE QUIVERING FISH OF PHENOMENOLOGY
Fenina Acance
iii - iv
perceive and comprehend sensual information whilst magically integrating each piece into a constructed and fathomable reality. Finnish architect and theorist Juhani Pallasmaa suggests that: ‘Architecture arises not from utility and reason, practicality and technique but from the desire to sensualize and poeticise the human condition. Instead of focusing attention on itself, profound architecture re-directs our awareness back to the world and to our own life sitution.’ vi Phenomenology is poiesis; the bringing into existence something that was not already there, whereas in relation to architecture it can be considered a ‘techné-poiesis’ which, from an Heideggerian perspective, brings forth things-in-the-world; that of technicality wrapped in poetics. vii
out our ability for surprise. Surprise is the beginning of a true vision of the world,’ xiii urges Uruguayan engineer and architect Eladio Dieste. By offering a direct understanding of phenomenology, particularly the poetic and understated, phenomenology can be a practise for being more acutely aware of the environment, with particular reference to the body and the architecturalised interior. For the most part we exist and interact within the interiors of buildings more than we do exteriors. We place our material possessions protectively inside and at hand, perform our daily rituals, raise children, wash, play music, sleep, dream, and make love inside our domestic interiors. By inserting our body in these places we learn to dwell, and in this dwelling Man becomes deeply connected with himself as an interior being.
Phenomenology can be influential in architecture as a philosophy to stimulate thinking that is conceptual yet personal, and can be promoted in the teaching of architecture and continued as a means of interpretation in practice. Phenomenology, as a mode of thinking and making, is not widely utilised as a pedagogical method for instigating architectural design and sits almost in juxtaposition to the long-standing influence of Modernism in architecture, which maintains a strongly exteriorist and formalist perspective in the design strategies of architecture. As academic and Sufi master Indries Shah suggests: ‘The mechanism of rationalization is one which effectively bars the deepening of perception.’ viii In contrast, phenomenology when applied to architecture is experiential, poetic and sensuous, and encourages a creative mind of imagination, as opposed to the overwhelmingly pragmatic, rational, and digitised approach currently promulgated, not only in architecture, but in many aspects of our rapid technological age. German philosopher Martin Heidegger reinforces the notion that science and technology are still inadequate to assist people to make sense of their worldly experiences, and said: ‘In all areas of his existence, man will be encircled even more tightly by the forces of technology.’ ix Technology of mass communication, particularly the visual of television and film, mean that you can watch flowers bloom out of season in a distant part of the world, or have the sites of ancient cultures seem as if they ‘stood this very moment amidst today’s street traffic.’ x He adds: ‘The fact that despite all conquest of distances the nearness of things remains absent.’ xi
Our own interior is a well-loved and well-touched place; we know intimately the nooks and crannies, creaks and groans, the materiality, and the light and shadow of our own place. We establish a sense of belonging inside whereas we mostly pass by or view from a distance the outward presentations of buildings. A richer contribution to detailed and personalised design can be developed in teaching and learning architecture if oriented toward a heightened mindfulness that is pleasing physically and stimulating psychologically. In this way subtle awareness can then be extrapolated into greater concerns and resolutions in architecture in order to create richer, more deeply humanistic qualities in our built environment. Gaston Bachelard, a French philosopher famous for his poetic interpretation of architectural space as a phenomenological experience of mind and imagination, offers a refreshing poetics to phenomenology and architecture in an approach that is particularly interiorist. Bachelard says: ‘Understanding psychological nuance makes one a phenomenologist.’ xiv He continues at length by describing the being of a phenomenologist:
To be present, that is, in the moment and aware of your Self and surroundings at all times is to be aware phenomenologically at an intuitive level. Japanese philosopher D.T. Suzuki stated: ‘Let the intellect alone, it has its usefulness in its proper sphere, but let it not interfere with the flowing of the life-stream. If you are tempted to look into it, do so while letting it flow.’ xii To be alert-to-the-world is to be aware that anything is possible and has the potential to be presented to us, unexpectedly and at times, inexplicably. ‘Surprise. As all art, architecture helps us contemplate. Life wears
They are immediately conscious of being of and in the world. But the problem becomes more complicated for a phenomenologist of the imagination constantly confronted with the strangeness of the world. And what is more, the imagination, by virtue of its freshness and its own peculiar activity, can make what is familiar into what is strange. With a single poetic detail, the imagination confronts us with a new world. From then on, the detail takes precedence over the panorama, and a simple image, if it is new, will open up an entire world. If looked at through the thousand windows of fancy, the world is in a state of constant change. It therefore gives fresh stimulus to the problem of phenomenology. By solving small problems, we teach ourselves to solve large ones. xv
Phenomena can present as spectacular, highly sensational events or much more often be revealed to us as subtle, restrained, almost faint outlines, vague traces, peripheral
glimpses, wafts of breeze, shimmers of light, nuance of colour, overlapping soundscapes, or delicate whiffs of scent. Being attuned to the delicacy of the world makes one a phenomenologist and thereby offers a way to approach design in architecture that is personal and responsible. Merleau-Ponty, in referring to the essences of phenomenology, elaborates: ‘They must bring with them all the living relationships of experience, as the fisherman’s net draws up from the depths of the ocean quivering fish and seaweed.’ xvi Approaching architecture as a descriptive journey is one of vividness, accuracy, richness, and elegance. Juhani Pallasmaa presents a phenomenologicallyoriented approach to architecture that is compelling and of practical use for architecture today, both in teaching and practice. He expresses an engagement in architecture as ‘a balancing act between uncertainty and certainty’ in which phenomenology not only offers a truth of experience yet maintains on openness to other possibilities of experience and perception. xvii Pallasmaa offers a direct, accessible, and humane interpretation of phenomenology as a valuable and relevant method of enquiry in architecture. A fitting final word is offered by Pallasmaa: The main objective of artistic education may not directly reside in the principles of artistic making, but in the emancipation and opening up of the personality of the student and his/her self-awareness and self-image in relation to the immensely rich traditions of art, and the lived world at large. It is evident that an educational change concerning the significance of the sensory realm is urgently needed in order to enable us to rediscover ourselves as complete physical and mental beings, to fully utilise our capacities, and to make us less vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation. xviii
THE QUIVERING FISH OF PHENOMENOLOGY
v - vi
(i) Agee, James. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. 13. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1960 [1936]. (ii) Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Merleau-Ponty Reader. 64. Eds. Toadvine and Lawlor. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2 007. (iii) Pérez-Gómez, Alberto. Polyphilo, or, the Dark Forest Revisited: an erotic epiphany of architecture. xv. Cambridge, Mass: M.I.T. Press, 1992. (iv) Pérez-Gómez. Polyphilo. xxvi. (v) Serres, Michel. Cited in Pierre von Meiss, Elements of Architecture: from form to place. 19. London: Spon, 1990. (vi) Pallasmaa, Juhani. ‘Eroticism of Space.’ OZ Journal. Kansas State University, USA. Notes from private manuscript. Helsinki. (vii) Dodds, George, and Robert Tavernor, eds. Charles-Etienne Briseaux: ‘The Musical Body and the Limits of Instrumentality in Architecture.’ Body and Building: Essays on the Changing Relation of Body and Architecture. 189. (viii) Shah, Indries. The Sufis. 70. New York: Anchor books, 1990 [1964]. (ix) Heidegger, Martin. ‘Memorial Address.’ Discourse on Thinking. 51. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. (x) Heidegger. ‘The Thing.’ Poetry, Language, Thought. 164. New York: Perennial, 2001 [1971]. (xi) Heidegger. ‘The Thing.’ Poetry, Language, Thought. 163. (xii) D.T. Suzuki. Zen Buddhism. 10. USA: Anchor Books, 1956. (xiii) Dieste, Eladio. Innovation in Structural Art. 11. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004. (xiv) Bachelard. Gaston. The Poetics of Space. 21. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994 [1958]. (xv) Bachelard. The Poetics of Space. 134. (xvi) Merleau-Ponty. The Merleau-Ponty Reader. 62. (xvii) Pallasmaa, Juhani. Encounters. 7. Ed. Peter MacKeith. Helsinki: Rakennustieto Oy, 2005. (xviii) Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Thinking Hand: Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture. 20. Chichester, UK: Wiley, 2009.
The architect has to be in the world, his body and mind have to be engaged with that world, and he needs to be present to his world. This life is one of looking outwardness yet feeling inwardness, and not that of remote computational or virtual experience. One lives and experiences sensible qualities: the wet of the ocean; the sweet of cake; the red of a balloon. This Studio, therefore, defends a phenomenological integration of the embodied human condition as the primary focus of architecture.
Sam Dowleysmith
STUDIO PROFILE The Live/Work Studio is based in the theory of phenomenology as a method for teaching design in architecture. The sensuality of our erotic body and the mind of imagination are the sites of apprehension and perception of the physical and metaphysical phenomena of our Lifeworld. We build architecture in order to define and inhabit space so that we can make meaning of our existential condition. The interior of architecture is the emphasis of this Studio so that intimate and specific design decisions can be made based on the conceptual process of the individual student’s project. As French philosopher Gaston Bachelard said: ‘By solving small problems, we teach ourselves to solve large ones.’ The project brief was to design a place to live that is also a place of work. Each project is developed upon a conceptual and phenomenological framework and has an inhabitant who is of the student’s creation. By designing for an actual person, no matter how imaginary or unusual, allows for a referral back to a consistent conceptual process for decision making in design, thereby reinforcing cohesion and clarity of form and function, thought and project, mystery and the ephemeral. The students were strongly encouraged to design from the imagination, yet keeping the purposefulness of architecture in sight through an expression of the qualities of inhabitation. The site for this project, which was common to all students, was a small, elongated urban location bounded by high walls on three sides and situated down an alleyway behind a commercial building. This pre-determined an interior focus for the proposed building and made it impossible to design a dislocated exterior form. The old, red brick boundary walls had stood for many years and were covered with the dirt and decay of time, deciduous vines, and an invasion of a few scraggly trees. The invasive nature of the site inspired students to look at aspects of place such as weathering, seasonality, materiality, enclosure, limited access, light and shadow. This Studio encouraged experimentation and risk taking in process, design, and presentation through the multi-layered expression of hand drawing, physical modelling, photography, filmic techniques, CAD, and Photoshop. Final presentations were developed as a unique response to each student’s work and conceptual approach. Cutlery was designed to express intimate design decisions as it relates directly to the body whilst also translating the overall design concept to utilitarian objects. The drawings show a basic skill and simplicity in hand drawing that is a pleasure to experience in architectural representation. RTS Ross T. Smith | Byron Kinnaird
STUDIO PROFILE
Carlton, Melbourne
001-002
SCRATCH/SMUDGE/SCRAPE We use our body to make marks. Drawing is the transference of one material substance to another as a haptic act of thinking and making. The formulation of an idea travels to our hand as an energetic force, arriving at the end of a pencil, a piece of charcoal, or a sharp stick to become a mark on another material. The idea takes form, has presence, and becomes the reality of a mental process whereby traces of the body are left as scratches, smudges, and scrapes. In his book The Thinking Hand Juhani Pallasmaa says: ‘… the hand is not only a faithful, passive executor of the intentions of the brain; rather, the hand has its own intentionality, knowledge and skills. The study of the significance of the hand is expanded more generally to the significance of embodiment in human existence and creative work.’ i Mark making is a primary and evolutionary act of mankind in which his reality is recorded for the memory and imagination of those in the future. Even on a daily basis the marks others make are delivered to us at a visceral level, we respond to the act of another as being a language of existence, one who is leaving a trail of recognition. We feel in these marks his humanity and his interaction with the material world. Drawing is an age-old method for ‘getting things down’ and for expressing an idea quickly and succinctly, suggesting connections, or showing a form. It is an investigation of an idea; a doodle which allows the mind to wander, expand, and possibly resolve a thought which is incomplete and constantly mutating. Architect Peter Cook suggests: ‘All the time we must be ready to interrogate the architecture of the unlikely in order to push further the architecture of the predictable. Drawings and ‘near-drawings’ have a special role in all this.’ ii However, the very nature of drawing is an act of abstraction either as a representation of seen objects, or as expressions of the surrealist imagination. All forms of physical making are open to the ‘happy accident’ which can reveal previously unconsidered potential and lead us in a new direction. Drawing can be a solely individual process, projecting a strong sense that this act has come from within and been exteriorised, or it can invite others to participate and interact with the medium. Drawing is the body engaged, which adds to the uniqueness and single-handedness of a drawing by proffering it an air of rarity. RTS
(i)
Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Thinking Hand: Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture. 21. Chichester, UK: Wiley, 2009.
(ii)
Cook, Peter. Drawing: The Motive Forces of Architecture. 172. Chichester, UK: John Wiley and Sons, 2008.
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Renée Muratore, mixed media
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Gilad Ritz, digital photographs and collage
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Sahra Stolz, pen on paper
(4) Adeline Leng, digital drawing (5)
Gilad Ritz, digital photograph and collage
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O.J. Napas Kitirattragan, charcoal rubbings on trace
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Patrick Hegarty, greylead on paper
(8) Fenina Acance, charcoal on paper (9)
Sandra Dias, pen on paper
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Patrick Hegarty, mixed media
(11) Fenina Acance, charcoal on paper (12)
Sandra Dias, pen on paper
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Erica Cheong, mixed media
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Renée Muratore, mixed media
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Ping Ngu, charcoal on paper
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Erica Cheong, marker on paper
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Euric Thor, acrylic on paper
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Saghar Hendi, mixed media
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Patrick Hegarty, charcoal and greylead on paper
(21) Alex Anderson, greylead on paper (22)
Ping Ngu, charcoal and photocopy
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O.J. Napas Kitirattragan, charcoal on trace
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Sam Dowleysmith, collage
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Erica Cheong, ink and charcoal on paper
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Brent Harris exhibition, National Gallery of Victoria. Lecture to Live/Work students about his process of drawing and printmaking.
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SCRATCH/SMUDGE/SCRAPE
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019-020
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SCRATCH/SMUDGE/SCRAPE
021-022
INTERIORITY AND THE BODY
Photographs capture the world of the eye. They can be images of truth but can also be a deception of the mind. Interiority and the Body is an exercise exploring the human body as a concept of the interior either as physical or psychological representation. Photography is a medium of time, of short or long exposures, as a filmic document of evolution, the revelation of mysteries, or as stages of one’s life; a photograph brings the distant near. Photographs are a mnemonic – an aid to memory – which are purely visual, yet trigger our memory of the sensory and emotional experiences of a time, yet we hold onto these fragments strongly; often sentimentally. They are light drawings of our world which we view as something separate from ourselves, yet have the ability to express very personal moments or affect us in convincingly emotional ways. We photograph to remember moments that pass and once a thing has been photographed the exact instant can never be repeated. Most photographs are snapshots and are recorded as a fraction of a second, which in effect makes still a minute part of our existence; the blink of an eye. Time can be captured as moments frozen in space, or as blurs of ephemeral materiality. Still photography is a means of communicating an unhurried world, a space to draw breath, and to apprehend the effect of silence on place. What we ‘see’ with the camera is different to what we see with our eyes; the camera is immediately an editor of reality, whereas our seeing eyes never edit; everything is always in the range of our focus, is continuous, and apprehended. The eye touches all that it sees yet, ultimately, every photograph we take is a portrait of our self. Photographs reaffirm to us that we exist. Interiority is the most profound form of spacemaking. An interior defines limits and guards against man and beast, the unknown, and the unbounded. Formulating interior space is how we exert control and create limits in the world, both physical and psychological. As occupants we fill architectural space with the quality of our own inhabitation. Juhani Pallasmaa says: ‘Architecture is our primary instrument in relating us with space and time, and giving these dimensions a human measure. It domesticates limitless space and endless time to be tolerated, inhabited and understood by humankind.’ i Interiority implies within and therefore provides a dialectic of without. The interior not only denotes a physical interior such as a room in which we place ourselves, but also the psychological interior of the mind, of mystery, and of secrets.
Architecture, like photography, has the potential to remain still. Some photographs can instil in us profound anguish, or joy, or calm. Likewise architecture reveals itself in these same ways as both reveal our connection with history and the continuum of time. Photographs and architecture halt time and reinforce the experience of silence. However in phenomenology and architecture we must return to experienced or lived time, time that presents itself to us in the forms of light, materiality, and sensation. RTS
(i) Pallasmaa. Juhani. The Eyes of the Skin. 17. Chichester, UK: Wiley Academy, 2005. [1996]
(1)
Euric Thor, digital photograph
(2) Alexis Anderson, digital photographs (3) Ben Shields, digital prints on acetate (4)
Euric Thor, slow motion video
(5)
Saghar Hendi, digital photograph
(6)
Gilad Ritz, digital photograph
(7)
Patrick Hegarty, 35mm photograph
(8)
Gilad Ritz, digital photographs
(9)
Euric Thor, digital photograph
(10)
Sandra Dias, digital photograph
(11) Ben Shields, digital photographs and photoshop (12)
Sahra Stolz, model photographs and photoshop
(13)
Euric Thor, digital photographs
(14)
Saghar Hendi, digital photgraph
(15) Fenina Acance, digital photographs (16)
Renée Muratore, digital photograph
(17)
Saghar Hendi, digital photographs
(18) Alexis Anderson, digital photograph (19)
Erica Cheong, digital photograph
(20)
Sam Dowleysmith, digital photograph and photoshop
(21)
Sahra Stolz, digital photographs and photoshop
(22)
Saghar Hendi, digital photograph
(23) Ben Shields, digital prints on acetate
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INTERIORIT Y AND THE BODY
023-024
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INTERIORIT Y AND THE BODY
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INTERIORIT Y AND THE BODY
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INTERIORIT Y AND THE BODY
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INTERIORIT Y AND THE BODY
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INTERIORIT Y AND THE BODY
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INTERIORIT Y AND THE BODY
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INTERIORIT Y AND THE BODY
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INTERIORIT Y AND THE BODY
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INTERIORIT Y AND THE BODY
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041-042
TEACHING FROM THE RUBBISH BIN Next time you pass a rubbish bin or a recycling dumpster take a look inside and see what materials are being disposed of. You might just find something to use for a ‘Fast and Dirty’ modelling experiment or perhaps something to inspire a direction for your next project model; and all the materials are free. As the saying goes: ‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.’ Things discarded in the rubbish are considered by one person to be at the end of their usefulness, whereas objets trouvés can take on a whole new life of purposeful creativity for the eager and often impoverished student. Sociologist Richard Sennett says: ‘…being able so easily to dispose of things desensitizes us to the actual objects we hold in hand.’ i It is about perception; how do we see this object and interpret its thingliness. Things do not exist with predetermined singular functions or outcomes; they are mutable and have the ability to be constantly transformable; one only needs to be inventive, look beyond, and imagine the material differently to what is presented. Materials discarded in a bin often have traces of a previous life or an anonymous patina of wear and tear in which an unexpected quality can be a starting point for investigating a concept, a new form, or expressing a sensory experience. Touch puts us in contact with our self, others, and material objects. We do not live in a perfect material world; things we come in contact with are always in a state of change as they take on the torment of time and are affected by human contact. Materials tell stories which are ever-changing and this imperfection tells us we are alive and present. RTS
(i)
Sennett, Richard. The Craftsman. 110. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008
(1)
Euric Thor
(2)
Sahra Stolz
(3)
O.J. Napas Kitirattragan
(4)
Sandra Dias
(5) Ben Shields (6)
Ping Ngu
(7) Adeline Leng (8) Fenina Acance (9) Alexis Anderson
TEACHING FROM THE RUBBISH BIN
‘When techniques and practices are borrowed from art, they may be labelled as art and treated accordingly – as political or social statements rather than serious design research.’ Ilpo Koskinen, et al. Design Research Through Practice. 97. 2011.
043-044
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TEACHING FROM THE RUBBISH BIN
045-046
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TEACHING FROM THE RUBBISH BIN
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TEACHING FROM THE RUBBISH BIN
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TEACHING FROM THE RUBBISH BIN
051-052
THE DOOKIE PROJECT The Dookie Project was inaugurated as a three day intensive workshop as a complimentary teaching component to the Live/Work Studio and was held in a remote rural location in the state of Victoria. The purpose of the workshop was to initiate the students’ architectural projects by bringing together conceptual ideas, theory of phenomenology, and experimental practical investigations which had been taught and developed during the first six weeks of the semester. The remote location enhanced a concentrated focus on design, without constant distraction, on thinking and making as talking, drawing, and modelling through examination and imagination. Remoteness was a contributing factor in the success of The Dookie Project as it offered freedom of space from intense urban containment, expansiveness to wander alone, and a silence in which your thoughts could develop and become illuminated. Tactus ventus, (touch the wind), became the catch-cry of the Studio. Phenomenologically speaking we touch objects and in turn they touch us back, but the twist of tactus ventus is that you can’t actually touch the wind, but the wind can touch you. In this way you become touched by the environment if you try not to control it. Another significant aspect of this Studio experience was the melding of trust and cohesion of the students as a supportive and dynamic cohort. The alliance of the students became obvious as the semester progressed and the pressure mounted by the way they pulled together as a group to help, encourage and support each other, rather than working individually and competitively. This resulted in the group achieving a high level of production and excellence throughout the semester, particularly in their final projects. RTS
(1) Fenina Acance, Euric Thor (2)
Patrick Hegarty, Gilad Ritz
(3)
Sam Dowleysmith, Sandra Dias, Saghar Hendi
(4) Ben Shields, Renée Muratore (5) Alexis Anderson, Sahra Stolz (6)
O.J. Napas Kitirattragan, Adeline Leng, Ping Ngu, Erica Cheong
THE DOOKIE PROJECT
053-054
BODY AND BOX On arrival at Dookie Campus we were confronted with a room piled up with used cardboard boxes. I had requested that if there were any spare boxes we would really appreciate it if they were kept for us. It was like arriving at a post disaster refuge where boxes of donations had been delivered. Body and Box was an exercise in which students paired up to design and make a structure that responded to the body in some way. The purpose of this exercise was to get outside for the afternoon, away from the intense focus of the Studio, and into the country air to laugh and play, create and build. The students had access to cardboard boxes, a ball of string, masking tape, and a cutting knife – and of course their vibrant imaginations! They were asked to find a place or environment around the Dookie Campus to interact with. In two hours of making we ended up with projects that represented water gushing from a fire hydrant, an earphone for a slightly aging building, a two person hideaway tied to trees, a string game of entanglement, a touchy-feely interactive sensory mechanism, and something that looked alarmingly like a long-drop toilet. Finally we all wandered from one project to the next enjoying the hilarity and ingeniousness of the constructions, and as daylight melted into night vague traces of a sunset appeared in the sky. Flocks of cockatoos wheeled around overhead, screeching and flapping, registering their displeasure at our presence as they squabbled from one tree to another. The wide open spaces had taken our bodies out of the box. RTS
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(2)
(3)
THE DOOKIE PROJECT
055-056
‘To open ourselves to perception, we must transcend the mundane urgency of ‘things to do’. We must try to access that inner life which reveals the luminous intensity of the world. Only through solitude can we begin to penetrate the secret around us. An awareness of one’s unique existence in space is essential in developing a consciousness of perception.’ Juhani Pallasmaa. Questions of Perception: phenomenology of architecture. 40. 1994.
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THE DOOKIE PROJECT
057-058
THE DOOKIE PROJECT
‘The place for an architect to study construction first of all, before he gets into the theory of the various formulas that exit in connection with steel beams, girders, and reinforced concrete, is the study of nature…. An architect … knows the secrets of nature and studies them, is informed by them, and comes out strong with knowledge.’ Frank Lloyd Wright. Frank Lloyd Wright: His Living Voice. 173. 1987.
059-060
F I NA L P R OJ E CTS
CUT L E R Y
The Live/Work Studio put emphasis on the way in which students would develop and express their final presentations. Throughout the semester a gradual build-up of techniques were tried and tested through hand-drawing, collage, photography, rough model-making, textural examinations, film making, CAD processes, and Photoshop reconfigurations. Final images were printed on a variety of papers; from textured watercolour to glossy photographic to architectural film. Hand drawing appeared as exquisite and refined technique, and CAD was used as a background for compound layers of collaged Photoshop applications. All presentation drawings were produced using a multiple overlaying of media to develop intensely rich and fascinating drawings. Architect Peter Cook comments: ‘One welcomes a moment when the adherents of both hand drawing and computer rendering start to join forces on the same sheet of paper. It is starting to happen and surely mirrors the reality of architecture itself as the inevitable product of both the world of ‘hands-off’ production and rough, tough and dirty site work.’
At the beginning of the semester, during the proposal of the Studio brief to all Master of Architecture students, I said, as a throwaway line: ‘And we’ll be getting right down to designing the cutlery.’ This was merely to accentuate the level of close focus we would be achieving after presenting a Studio that would be about interiority, intimacy, and detailing in design. In the second week of Studio one student said to me that he chose the Live/Work Studio because he really liked the idea that we were going to design cutlery. Someone had taken my quip seriously! As the semester progressed, and it was obvious that the students were deeply engaged in the detail of their projects, I proposed that we really did design cutlery that expressed the design concept, as function or fetish, for the inhabitant of their project. Cutlery places the object directly into the hand of a person, it becomes an extension of their body, and a tool of domestication. So the idea was delivered to the students: hand drawn, in pencil, on an A2 sheet of white paper. Many students had barely hand drawn anything during their overtly digitised architectural education and were now faced with making refined hand drawings. The drawings that were produced in the last two weeks of the semester were an unexpected surprise. These delicate drawings were a refreshing counterpoint to the intense and mostly large-scale presentation drawings of the architectural project. The bar was raised and it was amazing the level of detail and quality the students produced in an environment of encouragement and inspiration.
The Final Reviews were held in a similar manner to the Interim Reviews which offered a generous review timetable allowing students, teachers, and reviewers to enjoy and appreciate each student’s effort and excellence. Two days, four reviewers, thirty minutes each. The class of fourteen students was divided in two and the Reviews were held over two half days. Each student was given a lengthy thirty minutes for their review which offered a leisurely time to express their ideas and present their work. Working through only seven reviews per day meant there was not an exhausting haul of getting everyone ‘done’ in one compressed block. A strong Studio dynamic had developed during the semester, which became evident over the two days in which all students participated in the reviews, showing support and respect for each other and their work. The reviewers were given gifts by the class in appreciation for their expertise and time throughout the semester. The Studio culminated in a public exhibition with an opening party after the Final Reviews. Celebrating the incredible work and effort students and teachers put into the Studio is a valuable part of mutual and public acknowledgement of all who were involved. An exhibition displays everyone’s work as a complete presentation to each other for the first time and also to the teachers who have only seen projects in fragmented pieces on computer screens, or as sketches, and not as final exhibition quality prints and drawings. A public exhibition gives other architecture students and faculty an opportunity to swap ideas, examine techniques, and become part of an open debate about theories and methods for teaching Design Studio. The exhibition and party confirm the hard work is over, the body and mind can let go, and finally relax. RTS (i)
Cook, Peter. Drawing: The Motive Forces of Architecture. 184. Chichester, UK: John Wiley and Sons, 2008.
THE DOOKIE PROJECT
061-062
FENINA ACANCE Mapping Fractured Earth
This dwelling is for a cartographer concerned with mapping the drastic and discreet changes of the land caused by earthquakes, landslides and the erosion of time. He is fascinated with the map being a constructed image, never completely true, nor accurate. As with maps, the space unfolds in a way that feels both intuitive and constructed. The walls that envelop the space are made from rammed earth that exude warmth; seemingly encasing history. Fluid interiors are created from paper in its many forms: layered, hard, crisp, flowing, soft. The architecture of the building is dictated by cartographic elements such as the orientation, the central, guiding compass, and contours. The main functions of the space are the map making area, archive area, and an underground living area that consists of a bed carved out of paper, a bathroom and kitchen. This living space is safely embedded in the ground and is a respite from his mapping of the erratic landscape.
(1)
Plan (Ground Floor - Working)
(2)
Plan (Sub-Level - Living)
(3)
Section A-A
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Section B-B
(5)
Perspective (Living)
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Perspective (Archiving Area)
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Perspective (Cartographer’s Mapping Area)
FINAL PROJECTS (1)
(2)
063-064
(3)
‘… a building has to be conceived from inside outwards, that is, the small units and details with which a person is engaged form a kind of a framework, a system of cells, which eventually turns into the entity of the building. At the same time as the architect develops a synthesis from the smallest cells onwards, the opposite process exists and the architect keeps the entity in his mind.’ Alvar Aalto. Cited in Pallasmaa. ‘Hapticity and Time.’ Encounters. 327. 2005.
FINAL PROJECTS
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065-066
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FINAL PROJECTS
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067-068
ALEXIS ANDERSON House For A Widow: Or, How I Learnt To Sew And Make Peace With My Ghosts... (1)
Plans (First Floor, Ground Floor)
(2)
Section (Stairs)
(3)
Section (Courtyard)
(4)
Section (Stair Detail)
(5)
Section (Living)
(6) Final Presentation, Model Ashes
This project is an investigation of the phenomenology of memory and loss. Loosely based on the character of Miss Havisham in Dickens’ Great Expectations, the inhabitant is an elderly woman whose husband has recently died. They lived happily in the existing red-brick house for many years. The brief required a way for her to live removed from her physical ghosts without losing connection to the past. The new design has living quarters and physically enshrines the old house, envisioned as a newly-adapted working space. It is composed primarily of concrete and fabric, representing the tension between solid/fluid, permanent/ transient and physical/metaphysical; their tactility is also utilised to enable contact and interaction between the user and building. The woman’s pivotal activities (living, dining, cooking, sleeping, bathing, dressing) are designed as sensual and significant moments of her daily routine and are arrayed around a central and imposing chimney that pierces through both levels of the house. As such, the house and fire become her new companion. ‘There are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us forever, like a touchstone.’ Haruki Murakami. Kafka on the Shore.
(7)
Title Tapestry
(8)
Sewing Table
(9)
Pull Handle
(10)
Presentation Frames
FINAL PROJECTS
(1)
069-070
(2)
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FINAL PROJECTS
071-072
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FINAL PROJECTS (7)
‘Sophisticated containers exist as much for those who don’t have memories to fill them as for those who do. A sophisticated container juxtaposes past and present. In them, nostalgia and creativity reverberate. Sophisticated containers create new memories, even as they invoke old ones.’ Ann Cline. A Hut of One’s Own: Life Outside the Circle of Architecture. 128. 1997.
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(10)
(9)
073-074
ERICA CHEONG Making Marks (1)
Plans (Ground Floor, Sub-Level)
(2) Section
Patina describes all traces left behind on an object by its passage through time. The body continually collects patina from the moment of birth right through to the moment of death. This bodily phenomenon is both hidden (memories, experiences, phobia) and revealed (wounds, moles, stretch marks). The inhabitant is a glass cleaner who is haunted by his personal patina. He works in a transparent glass workshop where he is physically revealed but remains hidden, vulnerable. He lives in an enclosed timber space where he remains hidden but is revealed, liberated. The transition between living and working is a series of cleansing chambers where he goes through the ritual of purification, renewal. These spaces collect patina alongside the inhabitant to reveal a beauty that develops with age.
(3)
Sectional Perspective (Rainwall)
(4)
Perspective (Living)
(5)
Sectional Perspective (Steamroom)
(6)
Perspective (Workshop)
FINAL PROJECTS
(1)
The body itself was but a hut in the wilderness, a flimsy shelter made by tying the grasses that grew around, - when these ceased to be bound together they again became resolved into the original waste.’ Kakuzo Okakura. The Book of Tea. 65. 2006 [1906].
075-076
(2)
FINAL PROJECTS
077-078
(3)
(4)
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(6)
FINAL PROJECTS
079-080
SANDRA DIAS The Narcissist
This project is a live/work space for a plastic surgeon with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The nature of his condition, especially his need for utter dominance and control over his environment, has led to each space being manipulated to achieve what he desires others to feel. This is evoked through light and darkness, and the shadow in between. His megalomaniac fantasies have led him to believe that he is a godlike figure with the ability to alter the lives of others. Ultimately his workspace has become a ‘church’ dedicated to external worship, whereas his live space, or oratory, has been reserved for self veneration. The materials that have predominantly been utilised are glass, for its religious connotations, and leather as the skin of the body and of fetish.
(1)
Plan (First Floor)
(2)
Plan (Ground Floor)
(3)
Perspective (Surgery-Baptistry)
(4)
Section (Fat Storage Facility)
(5) Section (6)
Perspective (Office)
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Perspective (Patient Recovery Unit)
FINAL PROJECTS (1)
(2)
081-082
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(5)
FINAL PROJECTS
(6)
‘In the cellar, darkness prevails both day and night, and even when we are carrying a lighted candle, we see shadows dancing on the dark walls.’ Gaston Bachelard. The Poetics of Space. 18. 1994 [1958]
083-084
(7)
FINAL PROJECTS
085-086
PATRICK HEGARTY Moonfall
Moonfall marks an attempt by a physicist to mesh concepts of science (observation) and spirituality (wondering). This anthropocosmic mediation is exercised in order for him to gain an amplified apprehension of life. Moonfall is a pseudo temple to the cosmos, microcosmos, the atomic, and the spatial roughness in-between our terrestrial being and the universal. The sphere, the most prominent and powerful form in the universe, is poised within heavy concrete arcs to capture and magnify within it the luminosity of moonlight. A pool of water at the bottom of the sphere offers a reflection of the moon as ‘other’ in its own circular vessel in cosmic opposition to the physicist’s mortality. Above the reflecting pool, in the remaining void of the sphere, moths trace a dusty path through the light as they flutter in response to the lunatic pull of the moon. The physicist ponders whether their seemingly chaotic pathways are not an indication of a higher order. From the centre point of the void this spherical structure radiates outward in arcs of concrete and glass which adhere strictly to a singular geometry, so at no point is the ultimate goal of centrality forgotten within the walls of the building; nor of Man’s subjectivity.
(1)
Sectional Perspective (process)
(2)
Plan (First Floor)
(3)
Sectional Perspective
FINAL PROJECTS
(1)
‘Architecture strengthens the experience of the vertical dimension of the world. At the same time as making us aware of the depth of the earth, it makes us dream of levitation and flight.’ Juhani Pallasmaa. The Eyes of the Skin. 67. 2005 [1996]
087-088
(2)
FINAL PROJECTS
089-090
(3)
FINAL PROJECTS
091-092
SAGHAR HENDI The Veil (1)
Plan (Roof)
(2)
Plan (Ground Floor)
(3)
Plan (Sub- Level)
(4) Section
The veil, a symbolic black cover for a woman’s body known in Persian as chador, both invites and rejects by concealing the body of the woman. Ephemerally, by wearing a veil, the person establishes a filter between the privacy of the human body and its surroundings, and at the same time, the material unconsciously establishes a unique experience of the space. This project looks at the phenomenology of the veil, while investigates the material quality and properties of physical and psychological veils as a way to explore and generate a single living and working space for a woman who dyes wool strands and weaves rugs. In terms of qualities and physicality, the two primary materials used in this design are concrete and copper, which are to be regarded as feminine and masculine materials, respectively.
(5)
Perspective (Bathroom)
(6)
Perspective (Bedroom)
FINAL PROJECTS
(1)
(2)
(3)
(2)
093-094
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FINAL PROJECTS
095-096
‘Nest, chrysalis and garment only constitute one moment of a dwelling place. The more concentrated the repose, the more hermetic the chrysalis, the more the being emerged from it is a being from elsewhere, the greater is his expansion.’ Gaston Bachelard. The Poetics of Space. 66. 1994 [1958].
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FINAL PROJECTS
(6)
097-098
O.J. NAPAS KITIRATTRAGAN Ashes, Falling (1) Wall
The site is abandoned, dominated by deciduous vines which show the cycle of life. This seasonal change reflects the inhabitants who are four old men who have been abandoned by their family and are living towards their death, yet are cared for by their wider Buddhist community. The project aims to counter the unhappy transition toward death through physical presence and meditation; gardening as a form of meditation helps to understand the concept of death which is just part of a greater cycle, through constant reflection on the plants’ blossoming and wilting throughout the seasons. Timber becomes beautified with time provoking the concept of wabi-sabi; where aging is regarded as natural and beautiful. When a man dies his body will be cremated on the roof and his ashes are left to fall down one wall to the public funeral space to the underground level, giving importance to traces of body over body itself, provoking detachment from the physical as a preparation for death.
(2)
Perspectives (Sense Studies)
(3)
Plans (Sub-Level, Ground Floor, First Floor)
(4)
Sectional Perspective
(5)
Exploded Axonometric
(6)
Interior Elevations
FINAL PROJECTS
(1)
‘Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow.’ T.S. Eliot. Collected Poems 1909-1935. 1957.
099-100
(2)
(3)
FINAL PROJECTS
101-102
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(5)
FINAL PROJECTS
(6)
103-104
ADELINE LENG The Professor’s Other (1)
Connections 1
(2)
Connections 2
(3) Axonometric (4)
Sections (Working)
(5) Symbiosis (6)
The project explores the relationship between the organic body and the electronic/digital ‘other’ through the medium of architecture. The Professor’s Other is an architectural narrative depicting the character of Professor O’Brian from David Cronenberg’s 1983 film Videodrome. The project draws from the character’s slow descent into death and his desperation to live on within the virtual world. This narrative serves as an engine to expand upon the pivotal ideas in the architectural phenomenology of physical space as part of the design research by examining architecture as a prosthetic body that allows one to dwell within the virtual realm. With architecture as an appliance and apparatus of the virtual realm, a condition where ‘there is the possibility of the environment looking back at the subject,’ i may be achieved. (i)
Eisenman, Peter. ‘Visions.’ Unfolding: Architecture in the Age of Electronic Media. Domus, no. 734 (1992): 20-24.
The End
(1)
FINAL PROJECTS
105-106
(2)
FINAL PROJECTS
(3)
107-108
(4)
‘There are good biological reasons for accepting the fact that man is so constituted that he possesses an inner world of the imagination which is different from, though connected to, the world of external reality. It is the discrepancy between the two worlds which motivates creative imagination. People who realize their creative potential are constantly bridging the gap between inner and outer. They invest the external world with meaning because they disown neither the world’s objectivity or their own subjectivity.’ Anthony Storr. Solitude: A Return to the Self. 69. 1988.
(5)
(6)
FINAL PROJECTS
109-110
RenÉe Muratore A Hidden Beauty
The hidden and the revealed drive the architecture as one of discovery by finding beauty within the mundane and then revealing it. She is a jeweller, creating pieces to adorn the body; her art is developed from found objects, the overlooked, and the everyday. Spaces and moments are discovered through the journey which the jeweller develops through the architecture. The division between living and working is expressed as the jeweller passes between spaces. She contrasts the intensity of working with fine metals and precious gems with the ritual of bathing to remove the ingrained adornment of the day. There is a juxtaposition of materials and forms through the architecture; organic movement opposed to orthogonal lines, and metallics against warm timber. This project is one of comfortable intermingling of the body and architecture.
(1)
Plans (Ground Floor, Sub-Level)
(2) Section (3)
Perspective (Bathroom)
(4)
Perspective (Gallery)
(5)
Perspective (Entry)
(6)
Perspective (Living)
FINAL PROJECTS (1)
‘Enjoyment is freedom; in the enjoyment of the radiance of the spring day and the warmth of the ground, we forget our cares, our cravings, and our objectives; we forget our losses and our compensations and we let go of what holds us.’ Alphonso Lingis. The Imperative. 22. 1998.
111-112
(2)
FINAL PROJECTS
113-114
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
FINAL PROJECTS
115-116
PING NGU Slow Filtration (1) Plans
The design is based on the concept of perception. Different people will have varying perceptions of spaces and objects and will perceive them in their own manner. Using time and movement (water, people, trees), and the play of light and shadow the spaces will constantly change, and thus, affect people’s perception of the space. A claustrophobic novelist, who is afraid of small and enclosed spaces, works best in such a space of fear. The light filters through the various layers as it reaches the work place of the novelist, in the same way as the novelist filters the vast amount of information before him when writing his stories. The work place bing the centre of his creative world becomes the main separation between the public and the private.
(2)
Section 1
(3)
Section 2
(4)
Perspective (Library)
(5)
Perspective (Study)
(1)
FINAL PROJECTS
117-118
(1)
‘The mystery of the world is in the visible, not the invisible.’ Oscar Wilde. Cited in Ralph Eugene Meatyard. An American Visionary. 26. 1991.
FINAL PROJECTS
(1)
119-120
(1)
FINAL PROJECTS
(1)
121-122
GILAD RITZ The Act Of Ma
This project explores ideas of loss, eroticism, and the Japanese concept of Ma (the space between) which address the needs of a surgeon who specializes in the removal of skin moles and cancers. The vocation of the surgeon translates into models of mole mapping at one scale, and ideas regarding humankind’s relationship with the cosmos at another. Moles as marks enriched by the sun establish a relationship between the primary and a secondary entity, analogous to the way skin cancer may metastasize from a primary point to a secondary system within the human body. Movement through the architecture reflects this relationship as movement stems vertically through a central body and then spreads outwards across the horizontal plane. Arata Isozaki says that the beauty in architecture is the tension held between two points. The architecture evokes an erotic relationship between patient and doctor. The patient recovers from their anaesthesia in a space beneath the doctor’s bedroom and bathroom – the place where he washes, sleeps and fucks. Ultimately this work is about loss.
(1)
Plan (First Floor)
(2)
Plan (Ground Floor)
(3)
Plan (Sub-Level)
(4) Sections (5)
Perspective (Living)
(6)
Perspectives (Living/Working)
(7)
Perspective (Surgical Recovery)
FINAL PROJECTS (1)
(2)
(3)
123-124
(4)
‘Imperfection is in some way essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a process and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be, rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent …. And in all things that live there are certain inequalities and deficiencies, which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty.’ John Ruskin. Cited in Pallasmaa. ‘The Human Factor: the evolution of Alvar Aalto’s philosophy and design.’ Alvar Aalto Through the Eyes of Shigeru Ban. 56. 2007.
(5)
FINAL PROJECTS
125-126
(6)
(7)
FINAL PROJECTS
127-128
BEN SHIELDS Remnant Archive
The Remnant Archive is a structural growth comprised of collected, processed and archived city fragments, a physical manifestation of the evolving tactile city. It is built and cared for by the Collector who resides within the site. As the collector works to archive the city he also archives himself and views the structure as we would view our own internal archives. Our phenomenological experience is underpinned by memory, with memory acting as an extension of the senses able to extend both forwards and backwards in time. The Remnant Archive explores notions of self, lived experience and memory through the vehicle of the collected object.
(1)
Plans (First Floor, Ground Floor)
(2)
Sectional Perspective
(3)
Sectional Perspective (Living)
(4)
Perspective (Entrance Archive)
(5)
Perspective (Process Space)
(6)
Perspective (Archive)
(7)
Perspective (Archive, Living)
FINAL PROJECTS
(1)
129-130
‘Buildings are not abstract, meaningless constructions, or aesthetic compositions, they are extensions and shelters of our bodies, memories, identities and minds. Consequently, architecture arises from existentially true confrontations, experiences, recollections and aspirations.’ Juhani Pallasmaa. The Thinking Hand. 117. 2009.
(2)
(3)
FINAL PROJECTS
131-132
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
FINAL PROJECTS
133-134
SAHRA STOLZ After the Fall
This project comprises a living and working environment for a bespoke tailor who is recovering from a traumatic event. The form of the building echoes that of a man on hands and knees, but is deliberately vague as to whether this position is intended to confer an impression of vulnerability or one of a man engaged in processes central to his trade; of measuring and cutting cloth. The notion of architecture as a corporeal entity is interrogated by subjecting it to a most literal interpretation; the building serves as a representation of the body. Scrutiny, measurement, exposure and quasi-intimate interaction between strangers serves as subtexts which inform and expand upon the central theme.
(1)
Plans (Ground Floor, Sub-Level)
(2) Flick book drawing animation (3)
Model and drawings
(4) Section (5)
Pin joint detail
(6)
Interior perspective
(7)
Interior perspective
FINAL PROJECTS
(1)
135-136
(2)
(3)
FINAL PROJECTS
(4)
137-138
(5)
(6)
‘Contemporary art and architecture are again recognizing the sensuality and eroticism of matter. … (and) after the utopian journey towards autonomy, immateriality, weightlessness, and abstraction, art and architecture are returning towards archaic female images of interiority, intimacy and belonging.’ He continues by saying: ‘This transition signals a departure from the predominantly visual and masculine air of Modern architecture towards a tactile and feminine sensibility.’ Juhani Pallasmaa. ‘Hapticity and Time.’ Encounters. 325, 326. 2005.
(7)
FINAL PROJECTS
139-140
EURIC THOR The Maddening of Euric
“But we know that behind every image revealed, there is another image more faithful to reality, and in the back of that image there is another, and yet another behind the last one, and so on, up to the true image of the absolute mysterious reality that no-one will ever see.” Script excerpt from Michelangelo Antonioni’s Par-Delà les Nuage (1994). The Maddening of Euric is an exploration into the existential, “absolute mysterious” image of the project, examined by uncovering the extensions of the mind and the perceived surroundings. A study into prolific French director Henri Georges Clouzot, and in particular, the neurotic obsession of his unfinished masterpiece, L’enfer (Inferno) became a departure point to explore this relationship of mental condition, time, movement and space. ‘If I’m feeling naughty, then I will wear something RED and LOUD. Something, you know…BOOMS! Something that shouts me… It’s about ME. Yarr… everything’s about HOW I SEE MYSELF.’ Ris Low, Miss Singapore World 2009, Interview.
(1) Plan (2)
Perspective (Details inset)
(3)
Model (Exterior)
(4)
Model (Interior)
FINAL PROJECTS (1)
‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked. ‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat. ‘We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’ ‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice. ‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’ Lewis Carroll. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. 1865.
141-142
(2)
FINAL PROJECTS
143-144
(3)
(4)
FINAL PROJECTS
145-146
FINAL EXHIBITION
‘The Japanese toilet truly is a place of spiritual repose. It always stands apart from the main building, at the end of a corridor, in a grove fragrant with leaves and moss. No words can describe that sensation as one sits in the dim light, basking in the faint glow reflected from the shoji, lost in meditation or gazing out at the garden. … I love to listen from such a toilet to the sound of softly falling rain, especially if it is a toilet of the Kantō region, with its long, narrow windows at floor level; there one can listen with such a sense of intimacy to the raindrops falling from the eaves and the trees, seeping into the earth as they wash over the base of a stone lantern and freshen the moss about the stepping stones. And the toilet is the perfect place to listen to the chirping of insects or the song of the birds, to view the moon, or to enjoy any of those poignant moments that mark the change of the seasons.’ Junichiro Tanizaki. In Praise of Shadows. 3. 1977 [1933].