Project Assignment Outline
October 8th - Complete
General Research on Mayan culture, art and architecture (keep a bibliography), to compile a list of concepts and vocabulary. Choose an artifact.
October 11th -
Perform Site Research on Uxmal: find maps, plans, drawings and pictures. Acquire these resources (make a folder on your computer and store them there). Come up with minimum of four theories as to why I have chosen Uxmal. Selectively combine your acquired resources, together with sketches and notes to create pages that support your theories. Print and hang these on the wall in the studio and post them to the studio blog.
October 13th - Artfully
diagram your theories using ink wash. Post to the blog, we will use the blog with the conference room projector to present in class.
October 18th - On 24 x 36 inch strathmore (or similar) use ink wash and ink line to
map Uxmal incorporating your theories in layered/juxtaposed or otherwise intelligently arranged fashion using the base map I have proivided to you. You may work digitally, with pencil, ink and wash to produce amazing maps. Continue.
October 27th -This assignment is about the construction of a diagrammatic site through the formation of an understanding of a ruin based in finding and forming, delineating, developing, edges and linking them with the systems, or measures, or regulations that structure the experience of the ruin at different scales.
Model the site twice: once using linear systems (measure, grid, frame, registration, regulation, repetition, infrastructure, armature, weave, intertwine, etc.), and once using surfaces/thin planes (fold, bend, cut, weave, layering, wrapping, penetrate, punch, repetition, envelope, membrane, etc.). These models should be at the same scale as your map. This is to be an idea model, a diagram, carrying forward the ideas (theories) you have been developing in the map. Even though they are to be diagrams, do not disregard the angular, curvilinear, topographical qualities of the site by making everything in to right angles. I want you to be inventive. Please make some evocative models (to reify your evocative theories).
November 5th - Become more concerned with the articulation of edges, corners, thresholds, etc, as they are situated in (overlayed, linked to, interwoven with, between, etc) the ruin. These are "culturally loaded" edge conditions. Choose and
model one edge out of a portion of the site. It must have the following components, integrated into one fine model:
- system(s) that define the regulation of the edge at the scale of the overall ruin. These systems must be somewhat regular and repeating.
- system(s) that define the regulation of the edge at the "local" scale. These systems must be somewhat regular and repeating.
- system(s) that define the surfaces at the scale of the overall ruin. These systems will define space at the scale of the total construction.
- system(s) that define the surfaces at the "local" scale. These systems will define space at the scale of the occupant.
- moment(s) that define transitions between systems. These will take the form of stairs, thresholds, compartments (small spaces), niches (smaller spaces), notches (even smaller spaces) or windows. These are all about an occupant of our ruin.
November 10th - Refocus on the artifact you chose during the research phase of the project. Blog about your artifact. Be descriptive, conceptual, poetic, nerdy, inventive...most of all insightful. Incorporate ideas you are learning in other classes, such as Theory.
November 12th - Write a narrative inspired by our artifact...this will become the basis for your program. When I say narrative, I do not mean "a story", I mean a piece of descriptive writing that gives quality to the experience of a set of spaces. Archaeologists are famous for being able to conjure a complex understanding of the ways of an ancient culture using a handful of broken pottery. Likewise, you will
create the world that surrounds your artifact. You already have many clues at your finger tips from the writings you did about the artifact. You are creating an architecture of action in a dead city; the decayed remains of something once grand.
What can architecture do? It can provide for needs and solve problems.
Programming (what we are doing now) is sometimes called "problem seeking". This is an evocative idea; looking for problems. We must be able to discover and describe the needs and problems of a client (
who is your client?) in order to design an amazing solution. Your client is the person(s) who owns/uses your artifact. You must begin to understand this person or group of people. Begin with a "setting" (adapt your theories to describe Uxmal, start with overall, move into some detail). Next, a description of your artifact (adapt what you wrote for your post). Based on your knowledge of Mayan culture at Uxmal, state a hypothesis concerning the type of action/activity that your artifact might create or be a part of. Describe the situation (social station, job, associates, etc.) of your client, the owner of the artifact. Attempt to name the function of the construction
. Please post your program. Finally,
create/design a "scalie" in relationship with the artifact. Post it with this text.
November 17th -
Programming Part 2...
Name your client.
List the "situations" your artifact has caused you to imagine. You must
arrange these into three scales of spaces; public presentational, group and solitary. List and
number the people who would be present in each situation (name their "station"; i.e. king, elite, priest, warrior, royal family, prince, farmer, villager, merchant, etc). Study the Bonampak paintings to get ideas about these situations. While these paintings are "flat" they imply spatial relationships between people, show the use of some artifacts and give lots of room for your conjecture. For
Programming Part 3, describe the relationships and adjacencies between these spaces. This can start out as simply as saying which must be next to what. Then get into as much detail as what types of connections (door, window, stair, etc) are necessary. This is what your model will describe. Use your processes (drawing, sketching, bug modeling to begin to work this out). Your assignment is to
model program adjacencies. The model will be 1/8" scale and will be as long as 100' (+/- 12") long. Other dimensional constraints are left up to you.
November 19th - Construct a model that utilizes bland material (white board) and uncomplicated constructional methods (no concerned with the "object") to sculpt spatial conditions and relationships using a combination of light, view and passage. Use the overall configuration of the spatial conditions (adjacencies in plan and section, relative size of areas and connections of areas) to experiment with "what it takes to make space". I know that the light box and plenum projects you did in D2 will help. November 22nd - Construct a model that is a mash-up of the two previous models. It is to be at 1/4" scale. The goal is to
create experiential space (light, view, passage) with
structure (systems, measures, regulations) at different
scales.
- At the scale of the individual - address the body of the occupant (things to hold onto, places to work at, think at, etc). This can occur in relatively small or large spaces.
- At the scale of the group - define ways of gathering, define the focus of gathering (directionality, orientation, view, access)
- At the scale of the many - this is predominantly a facade with some ground/overhead extensions. This facade can be placed into relationship with other "context constructions", such as an edge of a platform or building. You are all adjacent to some type of construction like this. Use it to help you make rich space.
- Finally, at the scale of the artifact - articulate the "siting" of the artifact. If the artifact moves, then articulate its multiple placements. In many cases the artifact must be considered in relationship to its owner/user/maker (otherwise known as your client!) This is all information to help you spatially situate your artifact.
Use the phrase "
hide and reveal" to guide your work. As you piece together the systematic component assemblies of this model ask yourself, "what do I hide and what do I reveal?" The goal is to make perfectly minimal, sublime models of your space.
November 29th - In addition to finishing your models over Thanksgiving, create a presentation board for the final presentation/gallery show (it is to be 36" wide x 62" high). We will refine these throughout the week leading up to the review. The content is grouped as follows:
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Map photoshop composite drawing and map process, with map analysis text
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Edge and and "edge sited" photo-collages with text
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Artifact and client (scalie) with artifact text
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Intervention photo-collages; "money shot" and two others, with program text
December 3rd - Final Presentations. You are now done with the semester...congratulations!
