Architecture Portfolio

a portfolio d i s

c

l

o

s

e

d

In alter(n)ation, a theatre Octomber - Present

Acting as an alternative theatrical form both artistically and architecturally, the intervention questions the relationship between the actor and the spectator, the old and the new, the (in)tangibility of the boundaries between the internalised and the externalised performative.

Located in a remote Irish border town, the alter(n)ative theatre is spatial reinterpreation of the dramatic, thus dissolving the custom traits of a theatre by introducing an alternative form that allows the spectator, the actor, the writer and the site itself to perform together .

Clones 1:10000

3. the house

3. the abbey relic

2. the night club

1. the hotel

1

3

2 4

1. the host

2. the club

3. the children

3. the hermit

In alter(n)ation a play

a play

cast

an arrangement of the absurd

in

alter(n)ation

i/da

an absurd of the arrangement

H1 C1

of arrangement an the absurd

words by

Theodora Stefan

H2

the arrangement of an absurd

C2.1 C2.2

the absurd of an arrangement in four acts added to a void

ACT 0

(i1)

Scene 1

Stage directions

`General stage directions

the ‘Open Walls’

A2

A3

A4

A4(fs)

da cast

The room is quite empty, but for the i’s bed, a shelf, quite tall, on the right side of the room, a table and a chair, both by the hearth.

If the i stands on the tip of its toes, it might reach out the second to last shelf.(i1)

lit/in shadow

when the i turns into the da, the actor will move through the characteristicframe for each building (the dialogue is actually a monologue between the actor and a recording).

b1 b2

hearth

A1

A low ceiling is facing the i’s sight, patterned, irregular, with sudden curvatures and ivory pinches against a charred mass. On the right hand, a comparatively high sash window with white stiles unboxes the outside in a theatrical frame - a word and a picture, the unknown and unexperienced. The i leaves the bed, in an almost staged hurry, lifts the sheets up, up, arranges them tightly, almost trying to trap the time inside their foldings.

A the reminiscent light of the passed sunset lingers in the room still.

i

b1 and b2 represent the two bowls, that are not fully seen by the audience until the moment of symmetrical disclosure(i4)

A

= audience

the i looks once at the audience, when it turns in the centre towards the shelf

AA

chair

The room is small, yet enough for the i’s mind to draw it into a place of imagination and enclosure. The i walks, barefoot on a cold floor, shivering funnily with each step taken.

1, 2 3 4 the i reaches the middle of the room, and then

1

(i2)

broods, scrutinising its view. Turning towards the shelf, the i starts counting the steps more slowly, 1, 2, 3, 4, [pause] These are small steps, child-like one could say. They seem to bring back past times. Turn the clock. Stops it for a second. One. The second has just passed.

The i giggles almost ironically while facing the six-levelled shelf.

Tall, each and every shelf is irregularly filled. Books and boxes, papers and writings, and two bowls, right on the top of it, sit on the right edge of the last shelf.

One and two, two and one. Slightly distinct, one ochre brown, with a slender blue margin, the other ochre red with a darker, thicker line, a bit lower on the side. The i stretches itself high enough so it can clasp their roundness in one go. The ceramic is cold, harsh at points, one accidental bump each and there, a stain, easily visible. The i trembles for fear it would drop or crack one of them.

Boundaries are fragile.(i2) Once taken, the first bowl is carefully laid on the floor, close to the shelf. The i raises itself up again, glances at the bowl from above, and stretches again after the second bowl. Seemingly a bit further away from the edge, the i’s fingers are tensed in a game of grasping and holding.The second bowl feels rounder and slightly bigger, smoother, harder to hold and not break. There are no stains, but a small crack, slender and aesthetically perilous.

Put on the floor next to its kin, both bowls begin to take on a new existence, distinctly

3

alternative to their own contained reality, matter based, matter-related.Once again, the i notices that the fourth shelf has one unwritten stub, with two blue lines at both its ends. Just like the bowls, almost.

Different geometries, Different matters. Yet similar, maybe compatible?

Stage directions

i

undisclosed bowls disclosed bowls,void & crack versus whole and filled; the i looks at the audience when the bowl breaks, with a calm expression;

AA

chair

The i stretches one last time, takes grasp of the hardened canvas of the stub, draws it out, confidently, yet with a fine grip. Though meant as a tender gesture, the removal of the book is superseded by a rhythmical fall of several others, one of which accidentally lands on the first bowl and breaks it in two almost equal halves. Releasing itself from roundness, the bowl is now anything but a bowl. It seems to have terminated its existence and entered a sort of alternative pace, where there is a half and another half an alteration and breakage of the existence a change of direction, from throughout to within.

By the hearth, there is a round table and a leather chair, black and rather low. The i takes the two halves in one hand and with punctuated steps, walks it way to the table, lays them on top of it. The i goes back, 1, 2, 3, 4 5, 6, 7, 8; Carefully containing the second bowl within the grasp of its hands, the i takes another 8 steps, 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6 7 and reaches the round table, laying the bowl next to its other halves. A peculiar still nature emerges against a backdrop of everydayness, two steps back, and the i can rest on the edge of the bedding sheets. In this absurdly distorted perspective, there is existence and (in)existence, standing against each other in an exercise of existential

5

9/30 pages

The play takes inspiration from the absurd arrangement present within the central area of Clones, an Irish border town, now deserted, derilict, an island of lost memories and a tragic dramatic vibrance. Giving life to the buildings through an externalised monologue, the personification of each found-building allows for a deeper understanding of how the absurd arrangement can become architecturally, socially and artistically coherent. Structured in 4 acts, the play engages with the social dimension of the site, and through the diagramatic scenic directions, leads to further geometric resolutions(i.e. using the hearth walls as opening elements - tectonic curtains)

stage 1

s

Identifying the found interventions, understanding the volumes

1

the new added volumes are int is attained by the enhanc

2 3 5 4

Open/curtain hearth wall

vernacular dwelling

added street theatre volume

moving theatre tunnel

front fo

stage 2

stage 3 an exposed model showing the tunnel (mvoing theatre ) structure and the open walls

tegrated and the linking volumetry ced of a new open courtyard

oyer

6 7

9

8

main theatre space underground rehearsal

kept facade (internalised)

abbey reintegrated (externalised)

back foyer with a tunnel entrance

DA/C1: This is your angle of opening, on this point the unfolding is happen.

The curtain

The chair

the curtain

The motif of the chair is

vertical

to

transated into a stepped seating

horizont with the addition of a

- enhancing the movement and

retractable scene.

the perpetual acting of the

The motif inverted,

of

from

spaces.

The stage

The motif of the stage is reinterpreted being turned into a street-scape typology that takes advantage of the found building’s form.

Actor/Spectator

The

newly

introduced

architecture looks at equalising the boundary between the performatives - the writer, the actor and the spectator.

new

old

colums

tickets

1 2

3

4 5 7

6 8

9

Plan 1:250 on an A3, work in progress 1

foyer

2 street theatre

3 theatre of singularity

4 rehearsal room entry point

5

6

7

8

9

theatre of multiplicity

back foyer/cafe

writer’s hut

street theatre

monastic seclusion

level 0

1

2

3 stage 1

lev el 0

level 0

5

stage 2.1

6 B A

stage 2.2

4

7

stage 2.3

8

le ve l 0

Plan 1:200 added basement with reahearsing and facility rooms 1

public bathrooms

2 entry cloak rooms

3 theatre of singularity

4

5

theatre of multiplicity

kitchen

6 rehearsal room

7

sound room light/curtain room office

8 prop room

Spatial immateriality, sculptural and tea assembly February-May 2019

Taking inspiration from Brancusi tectonic immediacy, the tea house intervention challenges the sculptural equity of the forested site while playing with the idea of perceived and lived time as an embedded volumetry within the threshold elements. The idea of a domestic tea ceremony is reinterpreted under a ethos of human proportions, steps, circular paths, pools and a journey of self discovery.

a

allotments

h

pedestrian path

d

canal

Taff river

c

e,f

b

existent buildings

The hand-drawn liner map is a perceptional expression of the site, that investigates the principles of tactility, sound and movement under distinct graphical methods

trees

adults

artists

children

elderly

homeless

scientists

the collage aims at exploring diffrent typologies of people that can enter the intervention by depicting thier immediate visual interaction

7 6 5 4 3 1

2

Plan 1:200 sculptural garden and tea house 1 entrance gate

2 picnic place / sculptural table

3 sculptural path, leading towards the second entrance

4 sitting alley by the ponds

5 library

6 tea workshop/restaurant

7 Japanese kitchen

human

nat

a stripe of red, a symbol that marks the gate as the entrance to a place of beauty and rest; with a restangular minimalism that plays with texture and angularity, the entrance represents nothing else but an instant of colour, warms and change

the notion of time and its su off-centred red beam that dislocated position is a sym and how its quality can be ate perc

Encapsulate time through sculpture

Release it through materiality, motion and thought

ture

time

uspension is suggested by the divides the gate halfway;its mbol for the passing of time altered though our immediceptions.

the concept of a smooth, almost unnoticeable step brings into focus the imperceptible moment of transition, from a linear existence to a circular one. Do we choose when to step ahead or is time the step we take each and every second.

Embrace it through corporeal and interior movement

Reconnection with reality through functionality

Entry gate and open picnic area Hand-drawn axonometry 1:50 on an A1

the entrance its feels like a spell, bound on the traveller, whose eyes never rest, never settle, never see

Tea House, library and restaurant Hand-drawn axonometry 1:50 on an A1 the glisten of the water is pouring leaves in the wind, waves of time unwinding colums pervade the steps, a stripe of blue, signals of beauty, the world outside. a cup of tea rests on the bench, awaiting a sip, sipping itself away.

30x80mm roof joists

30x80mm rafters

roof attahments A

50x100mm top plate

50x100 wall frame components

100x100x3000mm column

70x100 floor joists

35x100 lateral floor plate 100x220 floor beams

concrete pad froundation with steel brace, 600mm deep

B

roof hangers, view A

roof hangers, view B

Construction detail scale 1:20 on an A1

Final Intervention

With a more elongated shape, the final intervention proposes an experiential garden and scuptural path - culminating iwth the restaurant, cafe and tea house as fuctional iten within the ocmplex

Interim S

The Interim stage interv enclosed courtyard spa dug-up land and the er however proved to be q such a motion enahnce model explores the form the interior with

Stage

vention focused more ace generated by a rection of stairs. This quite typical and not er as expected. The m and connection of h the exterior.

Third week stage

The thrid week stage implied the awknowledgement of shadows, slender and thicker columns, as well as the investigation of a path’s morphology. Thus the model focuses more on the outside space and its connection with the walker

Fred&Ginger, light sensitive perspex cube November 2018-February 2019 The present cube proposes the dichotomy of the resulting maze in two distinctive realities - one exposed light and the other in UV. While in ordinary light conditions Fred is enhanced and explored in a volumetric sense and Ginger dissipated within the structure itself, the UV condition explores a parallel reality that dilutes any volumetric presence while enhancing Ginger to its utmost.To this matter, leaving the corners empty emphasise the idea of a deconstructed labyrinth that requires a perceptive journey rather than a spatial one. The segmented thread challenged the human logic to created the maze first and then find the escape route.

Cube in UV light

Cube in natural light -black background-

Concept rationale

Ultimately identified as Fred, the A26.0010 1011.1011 0011 iteration of the Hilbert Curve proved to be not only an intricate and unique interpretation of the maze but also a challenge in terms of structural stability, equilibrium and transparency.

Once Fred was cut and assembled we noticed that due to the variation of the perspex thickness, laser cutter lack of precision as well as the self avoiding nature of the volume, the slotting system will fail in keeping the pieces together. As a consequence, Ginger took shape within Fred. The white thread makes use of levelled triangulation and and a 360 degree rotation so as to fully tense the pieces together and increase the structural strength of Fred. Acting primarily as a binding element, Ginger is simultaneously a synthesised interpretation of the Hilbert Curve that has an identity of its own which is brought to surface once the cube is exposed in UV light.