From the syllabus: This course will act as an introduction to a variety of modes of thinking, methods of work, and scapes of operation. The purpose will be to begin to develop a critical practice which considers materiality, vituality, time and space. The studio will be rhizomic; it will form two interlocking groupings in order to expand the intellectual and creative cross connections. In this way, the studio as a whole will develop its own language and share a set of discoveries both conceptual and material.
Learning objectives for the studio include the ability to: use design thinking skills; demonstrate architectural design skills; devise ordering systems; and explore and interrogate representational methods.
With Carrie Furnace as the site for the first half of the semester, I compiled historical and technical research to form the basis of their understanding of this complex industrial history. This living document was constantly evolving and added to as the students discovered more layers on their own. This lecture was used to introduce the resources available and to get the students to start asking: How do we use history?
Read on for examples of student work from this (wild) semester. Click on links to see more detailed assignment sheets.
1.0 Mass+Mess
1.1 Drawing a Time Capture: Two hours to describe the path of a fly.
By Larry Yang.
1.2 Idea of First Reading: Finding ways to diagram meaning behind an architectural reading.
By Melinda Looney.
By Amyas Ryan.
1.3 Carrie Furnace, Rankin, PA: On-site analytical drawings.
By Nick Wong.
By Larry Yang.
1.4 Analytical Transformation: Animation of charcoal drawings.
By Madeline Cotton.
By Lydia Randall.
1.5 Discovering Clay Behavior: Documentation of the forming and re-forming a new material.
By Amal Jafrani, Evelyn Shi, and Jenny Wang.
1.6 Systemic Shift: Physically animating the clay to reflect a series of action words.
By Lydia Randall.
1.7 Being moved: Continued documentation and iteration of movement through clay.
By Sharon King.
1.8 4-D representation: Discovering ways to measure, plot, and draw movement through clay.
By Jason Garwood.
By Lydia Randall.
By Nick Wong.
2.0 Skin+Machine
2.1 Creating a Skin: Shifting to the scale of the body, utilizing clay models as armature to cast a papier mache skin.
By Jenny Wang.
2.2 Projecting a Creature: Finding a creature in the unrolled, flattened skin.
By Sharon King.
By Nick Wong.
2.3 Specify the Species: Describing the creature, its habitat and social behavior, while creating measured drawings of the skin.
By Sean Chen: It has been 30 days into the observation of the new-found species appropriately named “singularity”. This species of creatures is observed to have five main different “races”. The “races” are differentiated by the sense organ that most predominately covers their loose gelatinous forms which include: eyes, noses, mouths, hands, and hearing. An interesting thing is that these creatures don’t operate as individuals, but as small seemingly as a single consensus. Each creature utilizes their individual abilities to guide the group as a whole to navigate their world. The “singularities” don’t reproduce sexually, but instead after a certain amount of time (unobserved) one of each organ within each group lays down a chunk of its body including a single organ of each “race” and a new group is formed. Each group has an indefinite lifespan but is extremely vulnerable to liquids. Because they are composed of an organic goo-like structure, as soon as they come in contact with liquids they begin to dissolve into it but only in its duration of contact with the liquid. The bodily composition of the creatures is fluid, the organs moving freely from one part of the body to the next utilizing the maximum amount of surface area. Despite its loose and gelatinous structure, it is actually remarkable how swiftly this creature is able to move. It moves almost like a worm where it propels part of its body forward then the rest of its body creating a constant rolling motion. The tentacles that extend from outside its body is not necessarily like how we use our hands, but more similar to the use of antennes in which within each group communicates with each other, tuned to a unique frequency (undetermined how) as they move as a whole.
2.4 Move into Cyborgs: Pairs of students to re-combine skins in a new 3D form.
By Madeline Cotton and Larry Yang.
2.5 Translating Senses: Designing mechanical devices to enact a critical attenuation of human powers, a prosthetic device for two simultaneous human bodies.
By Lydia Randall and Nick Wong.
By Sean Chen and Amal Jafrani.
2.6 Mock-up Proposal: Full-scale mock-ups of the participatory prosthetic devices.
By Tony Yang and Evelyn Shi.
2.7 Final Design: Developing devices through collaged drawings.
By Jason Garwood and Melinda Looney.
2.8 Carrie Performance: Performing the participatory prosthetic devices, and documenting the event.
By Jason Garwood and Melinda Looney.
By Lydia Randall and Nick Wong.
3.0 Arcology
3.1 Structure in Sticks: Group charette assembling piles of wood sticks into towering and cantilevering structures.
By various student groups.
3.2 Collective Species Research: Researching new creature client needs.
By Madeline Cotton.
3.3 Measured Nest Drawing: Drawing a plan and section of existing creature client habitats.
By Nick Wong.
3.4 Stick Exercise II: Continued study in joint and assembly of sticks.
By Sean Chen and Tony Yang.
3.5 Refining the Nest Drawing: Looking more closely at how creatures construct their nests, plans and sections.
By Sharon King.
3.6 Geographical Location: Choosing and researching an appropriate site for their creature.
By Nick Wong.
3.7 Re-Model: Iterative model construction of a space for both creature and keeper.
By Sharon King, Evelyn Shi, and Jenny Wang.
3.8 Further Figure: Human-scale wall drawing exploring the spatial interaction between creature and keeper.
By Sharon King and Lydia Randall.
4.0 Colony
4.1 Site Selection and Section
4.4 Plans / Narrative / Design Development
Bat atlas by Jason Garwood et al.
Process models by Jason Garwood.
Final work by Jason Garwood.
