Posts Tagged ‘Week Ten’
michael trudgeon
THE SIXTH ALL PROGRAM LECTURE
The sixth all program lecture series was hosted by Melbourne architect and RMIT lecturer, Michael Trudgeon. Overall, his lecture was interesting, as he highlighted the changing concepts of both the interior and exterior of buildings throughout the prior centuries and societies. I felt that his lecture linked with the previous lectures, which hence helped reiterate points that were outlined in the “Century of the Self” series and also Phillip’s interview on the TED series.
He opened the lecture addressing the changing concepts and ecology of occupation in both a performative and inhabitable sense. This was furthered as he spoke of the history of occupation- looking right back to the French thirteenth century, and then linking this to twenty first century society. He highlighted that the home was initially all about the façade. The home was built from the inside out, and the exterior face normally highlighted the occupant’s wealth and social standing within their society. This elaborate relational and societal exterior was somewhat lost in the interior of the house. Trudgeon highlighted how the initial home was ultimately one big room with no sections or walls between common spaces, such as bedrooms and living quarters, the interior main focus was to shelter occupants from the harsh elements outside This interior layout of the home remained like this throughout the thirteenth and best part of the fourteenth century. It was only then, that a French architect, Eugene Viollet-le-Duc introduced the notion of figurative space, which sectioned rooms in order to create a sense of both individual and separate space. This formulation of French architecture has thus been embedded in society, and now forms the basis of the common home structure. The concept of having one multi-roomed place highlights the concepts that were outlined in Phillip’s TED talk. He highlighted that the twentieth and twenty first century societies build elaborate homes, with excessive space that they don’t ultimately need. He highlighted the concept of want outweighing the notion of need. As highlighted in the “Century of the Self” this belief was enforced through Bernays and Freud’s sociological and subconscious theories. The concept of the homes interior from the thirteenth century society to now is completely rapid. Conversely, even in today’s society the exterior of the house still reiterates the occupant’s social and economical status, a notion and theory that has been in society since the thirteenth century.
The main concepts of Trudgeon’s lecture was the intricate nature of a building, and how the notion of an individuals home can highlight their social and economical status within society. He also spoke and addressed the notion of the changing concepts of form, and reiterated the point that we, living in the twentieth and twenty first societies have been exposed to a mass shift and expression of form. Trudgeon highlighted that one of the greatest explosions of form is the Sydney Opera House- a landmark that is completely different to anything that is ultimately housed in the context of Sydney City.
His lecture highlighted the change in the manifestation of personal interior accommodation, and therefore allowed a view into the changing concepts of Interior design throughout preceding societies.
precedent projects: BIG architecture “VM House”
I was first exposed to BIG Architecture in my first year of Interior Design, due to their amazing diagrammatic and systematic process. The concepts and ideas for their structures are fuelled off manipulating shapes and using and vitalising these shapes into creating something groundbreaking and new. In Friday’s workshop, I used tracing paper, and started drawing over my original sections in Kensington Street. Much of the work I did housed the triangular shape and form, and then was linked to the types of parasitic structures which are normally embedded within Lebbeus Wood’s work. I came home on Friday afternoon and begun perusing around the BIG architecture site, and I found one work which linked to what I was doing in the Friday workshop. VM house is an apartment block that uses triangular form to create a more atmospheric and interesting exterior. The triangular side of the building becomes an artistic focus point, separating this building from its surrounding context. Ultimately, this example gives me a greater understanding of form, and an inspiration and start point for material and colour choice in the final intervention.
VM House. The triangular form in this building is somewhat the same to the drawings that were made on Friday 13th May
The four images above highlight the intricate nature of the diagrammatic process which is fostered in BIG architecture. These four simple drawings highlight how the architects arrived at their final point for this design.
All images are sourced from the BIG Architecture website. The link is above. Click the link, and then click onto the VM project.
precedent projects: salvador dali
The concept and inspiration of Salvador Dali, came when I was photocopying previous auto-cad sections and a watercolour painting I had completed. By moving the image on the photocopying screen, whilst the copy was being generated allowed a distorted perspective to be made of the image. When I first saw this, I immediately thought of Dali’s work- The Persistence of Memory. This surreal 1931 piece differentiates softness and hardness, and links to the concepts of both time and space. Further to this, the images that were generated by the photocopy machine links to Dali’s 1954 piece The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory.
This fragmented and distorted view of his original work enhances Dali’s original work and symbols that were embedded within this work. The reasons of choosing Dali as one of my precedent projects was of his organic and fluid lines which are represented through the casual hanging of the clock over the tree branch. I feel he has made a normal, everyday image more organic, through manipulating its original form. The lines and structures hence created in these paintings will be integrated into my final work.
The following images are the photocopies which were taken on Friday. The organic lines that are created through this process will be integrated into my final design. I think this concept can be pushed further into spatial and atmospheric experimentation. The lines that are created in these images below can be linked and integrated into a parasitic structure. Previous precedent images such as Lebbeus Wood’s work are very linear and angular. These lines will be integrated into my work, but coupled with these organic lines that are shown below.
precedent projects: arcade fire, live at coachella festival 2011
Yes, ultimately this is not a designer or artist, but infact it is a live music act. There was something special about this entire seven minute sequence. Arcade Fire, playing to tens of thousands of people at Coachella Festival in America in 2011. There final song- “Wake Up”. It started as a normal closing song, until balls dropped down onto the audience, flicking different colours of light. This created a completely different feel and atmosphere to the closing of Arcade Fire’s set.
I watched this video, the day we received our final assessment, and something within this video appealed to me. I don’t know how I would possibly be able to embed such qualities into my intervention into Kensington Street, but I feel like my final site intervention should play with the concepts of light and shadow- either man made or natural. I could look at elements of sun direction, or implement an actual electric source to create a different atmospheric feel to the building.
precedent projects: lebbeus woods
Lebbeus Woods has really got the whole parasitic structure and architecture idea down pat. His structures have a kind of animalistic and machine like quality that integrate and intervene with buildings. His structures are completely out of the ordinary when it comes to architecture, yet they have a kind of place in a building. The structures that he creates ultimately transform the building into something else, a designed artistic yet functional object. A facade and talking point on the exterior. Woods is one of my greatest inspirations when it comes to parasitic structures. His lines and mechanical like objects form a structure on the exterior of the building. I find that some of these structures link to the concepts of scaffolding which is normally only seen on the exterior of the building when it is being constructed. Thus, by creating these structures helps link to how the building was developed and its potential past. By coupling structures and line weights line Wood’s into my final work will give the structure a greater atmospheric and spatial quality.
precedent projects: richard goodwin
RICHARD GOODWIN: POROSITY… WHAT A BUILDING DESIRES
Ever since the All Program Lecture, Richard Goodwin’s work has been somewhat been inspirational. I feel that his work highlights the changing connotations of the city, and how buildings can be changed instead of knocked down and manifested into something that is completely the same to the rest of the city. I feel Goodwin’s work strongly links to the situation in Kensington Street, as we are not planning on taking the space, and manifesting a new building, but instead we are looking into changing the exterior and potentially the interior of the space, in order to create a new sense and facade of the building. Furthermore, his works relate to the parasitic structure in which we are trying to mould and reproduce and create in the Kensington Street urban environment. Throughout the next couple of weeks, I will be looking back into how Goodwin creates his structures, but also uses digital manipulation and technology to further and create stronger visual language and images.
Goodwin’s work: Porosity revises public space and looks at the boundaries of the building. The series of images which will be shown below highlights how Goodwin ultimately explodes aspects of buildings to create new physical dimensions, and ultimately a new physicality of the building.
ARCHITECTURE: PARASITE
Goodwin’s Parasite work acts both as an architectural and artistic piece. This focal point on top of the Union Hotel acts as an artwork, through the changing line structure, and the overall layout and design of the roof line. It acts as a shelter, and a roof for the rooftop restaurant and bar. The structure enforces public space, as it opens the interior out into the exterior. This could be a potential focal point and study point for my final design in Kensington Street, as a structure like this, could potentially be utilised, and built out into the street.
for more click here: goodwin.
precedent projects: jackson pollock
Jackson Pollock promotes freedom and liberty through his mark making in his artworks. By ultimately splashing paint onto the canvas, he creates a deep and layered artwork through the formation and structure of his systematic process. Not only does his work somewhat remind me of the marks made by my initial drawing machines, but his marks create new space and scale. I feel that I could take this concept of Pollock’s work and mould them into my final site intervention and modeled structure in Kensington Street. Initial ideas such as both parasitic and anthropomorphic structures can use the concepts that Pollock embeds into his works. Pollock aims at abolishing subject matter, and links this work to the human subconscious. Through his mark making process, he makes the audience question what is art. This notion could also be pushed into my final site intervention… Could I push and make the audience question what is design?
Blue Poles Number II (1952)
Convergene (1952)
drawing machines to parasitic structures
The work we have done throughout the previous nine weeks has fuelled us for something like this. A chance to intervene and embed a structure into the Kensington Street site which highlights and forms our personal views on the structure and nature of the Kensington Street urban site. Our initial interventions highlighted how the natural elements react through this urban environment, and certain aspects of this will be linked to the final parasitic structure.
Through the initial observations, I have being observing the atmospheric phenomena of wind. Through the development and study of the drawing machine, I have gained an insight into how the wind actually embeds the site, and furthermore how this natural elements actually gives materiality and form to the site. Wind tunnels are formed throughout the Kensington Street block due to the structural nature of the blocks- including old builds, studios and new apartment blocks. Through my drawing machine, I studied the implications that the wind has on the four main corners of the street block. This contrast and body of results that were received allowed a clear reading to be made into how the wind intensity and direction varies throughout the day and the site as an entirety.
The following words have been selected in order to further define the initial site intervention. This list will be the foreground for this project, and hopefully give me some sort of inspiration for an actual structural form.
- Anti-Pendulum: Pendulum a weight hung from a fixed point so that it can swing freely backward and forward.The above definition is for the word “pendulum”. There is something about the context of this word that slightly fuels my exploration of my drawing machine, despite this, the drawing machines that were situated in the Kensington Street block did not have a controlled movement, and there movements were completely driven by the intensity and direction of the wind. Alas, here is my definition for anti-pendulum: A weight or a drawing device that is at a fixed point, that swings freely, not necessarily in a backwards and forwards motion, but in a motion that is completely free and uncontrolled.
This definition reiterates the readings received from my drawing machines. The concept of this word will try and be embedded into the final structure in Kensington Street. - Freedom: the state of being physically unrestricted- to be able to move easily. The power to act, speak or think as one wants without restraint.
The definitions of freedom above are all related to the human condition. The first definition about being physically unrestricted ultimately can relate to my drawing machine, as it was not at all restricted, and the wind moved the drawing implement thus allowing the wind to speak and draw for itself. Despite this, the word will always hold some sort of human connotation about government, social, political or other types of control. - Anthropomorphic: having human conditions.
The concept of this word stemmed from the word “freedom”. The marks that were created through the drawing machine were free, and at a liberty to do as they pleased. The wind moved the bottle, and the ink dropped out over the page, ultimately where it liked. Despite this, these words such as ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ are all to often relate to the human condition. In order to break away from this, an element of the structure and movement could be seen in an animalistic and anthropomorphic sense, hence personifying the movement and the human condition. The metaphorical nature of the human will somewhat be embedded in my final intervention with Kensington Street. I personally see the concept of a parasitic structure to have both humanistic and animalistic qualities- this notion is alas seen in Lebbeus Wood’s work, an inspiration to my final intervention. - Distortion: the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of an object, image, sound, waveform or other form of information or representation. Distortion is usually unwanted, and often many methods are employed to minimize it in practice. In some fields, however, distortion may be desirable.
The reasoning of including the word distortion on my word list was after photocopying my watercolour and Kensington Street plans on Friday. By moving the paper whilst the image was being photocopied enhanced a greater visual and conceptual strength in my initial work. The products of this reminded me somewhat of a Dada-esque work, as seen in Dali’s The Persistence of Memory. The shapes and form that was created through this photocopy will be embedded in my final site intervention and structure.
PRECEEDING WORKS AND EXAMPLES:
- Jackson Pollock- Blue Poles (and other works)
- Salvador Dali- Persistence of Memory (and other works)
- Lebbeus Woods- All work
- Richard Goodwin- Follicli (and all other works)
- Arcade Fire Live at Coachella- Wake Up
- BIG Architecture- VM
- Scaled model (1:50)- The mould that should potentially be made out of plaster, as this material can easily be engraved and embossed into.
- The structure within this model could potentially be made out of wire and a material in order to contrast to the building. Despite this the material needs compliment it’s surroundings
- In a one-to-one model with the street, I was initially thinking of embedding large structure which were made out of butchers paper and brown paper. These two materials would contrast to each other, yet compliment the building chosen
- Metal, Wood, Material, Plaster, Paper
spatial experimentations 
