Narrative Spaces Lecture 04: Architecture of life

Notes from lecture: In reference to the design/build and exhibition by Diller Scofidio.

BAM/PFA - new extension onto this educational building functioning as an art museum and film archive [Growing and diverse collection]. The new extension is top heavy and best described as an expressive "tin foil" wrap in which the facade wraps around the existing building, still keeping exposed parts of the original build. There is a street facing screen that allows the public and the external audience situated in the park [from across the street] to have an interactive connection with the building. 

The new cladding system maps and coats the existing but there is a romantic narrative formed between the two structures, a connection as if the new extension is protecting, hugging or moving across the existing "as if you was pulling/dragging a silk scarf over an object". 

Inside the architecture continues this connection and dialogue between old and new where white walls and concrete exposed components are mirrored throughout the many layers ["Strata" meaning layers]. A series of voids cut through the internal spaces creating multiple perspectives and view points that guides you through the building. The internal cladding within the interior spaces [exhibition rooms, auditorium, cafe] again mimics through line a resemblance of the external cladding "reminding you that you are within this building. There is a very discrete and smart use of lineage and creation of line through the entire interior that develops an architectural tension between the inside and outside and is vocalized through materiality. Although the word tension may sound strong in many ways it is rather playful and becomes an almost focal point where spaces intervene and meet with one another. 

The interior space as a whole becomes very organic and fluid, where lower levels borrow natural light from the slices and levels above, and where colour [Orange] is used in conjunction again with the exterior to enable this constant narrative of inside/outside. Much of the architectures interior is viewed upon as geometric folded forms that direct viewpoints and brings your eyes into connection where two edges, planes or materials meet. 

Upon the opening of the new BAM/PFA extension Diller Scofidio were asked to host and curate and exhibition that they to featured within "Architecture of Life". The exhibition pulled together artists, designers and architects around the globe whose work [realised or not] communicated notions of how we live/could live in space]

Open Lecture Series 04: Projects Office

Projects Office are a London based multi-disciplinary studio

Community Consequences [Oxo Tower]

Idea of practice relates to "Fantastic Pragmatic" being as creative and as out there as possible but ensuring that ideas can become a reality. Heart of the practice involves community questioning  and collaborating with the public and those involved in being the user of the project. 

Each projects has an architectural story - the use of material and colour is selected upon these principles and involves the process of illustrating design problems and solutions, creating juxtaposed or layered narratives and model making to "think through making" and to understand the concept and structure away from the computer. There was a real Alsop feel to their approach through model making and the running theme within many of projects being "fun". projects that involve the community and end user become critical with focus groups becoming part of the deign process, allowing to obtain and collect knowledge and ideas from a range of users that helps inform the final design.  

[It made me question how critical people could be of the final result being it was partially designed by the people, for the people]

Community dialogue: having a discussion with the community so that the building or interior relays this conversation.

Project 1: "Everyone loves a cuppa tea" 

Beach Hut competition that explore the architectural narrative of what a beach hut is used for. The use of diagrammatic questioning led to the answer of any given scenario equating to the end user needing to make a cup of tea. A smart detail within the project was the use of wind turbine that generated enough power to boil a kettle - the rougher the weather - the more power generated - the more cups of tea you could make "fantastic pragmatic".

Project 2: "Mad Love"

Collaborative project with an artist who worked with the studio to redesign the interior of a mental health ward. A series of spatial explanations and spaces were created that again evolved out of a community "user" based discussion. These thoughts and ideas were illustrated and constructed as a kit of parts that supported elements of mental health. The final interior was the completed with this "kit of parts" being accumulated and spatially organised within the existing space. 

[This project has extended with the studio being given more spaces to redesign].

Project 3: "Bedlam" [Welcome Collection]

What does good mental health look like? the design and hypothetical construction of a mental health landscape. [An extension of the "Madlove" project]

Project 4: "Flying Colours" RIBA shop window competition

[Project with UNICO] in collaboration with Jack Burk

 

The space between art

My first body of work is starting to take shape "starting" what it has allowed me to do is the ironic thing "Produce artwork that could be displayed in a gallery" work that is in fact about a gallery space in which it presents itself in the gallery space . . . There is something rather fitting about that "A site specific body of work" . . . imagine looking at a photograph of a light fitting or a door that is physically 2 meters away? maybe Ive been reading Grayson Perry's "Playing in the gallery" too late at night and have some how started to think up ideas about mocking contemporary art . . any how after visiting a series of gallery spaces I am currently in the process of making a series of physical  "Directional, Navigational Diagrammatic models" communicating my movement within the gallery spaces and the proximity of "me" in relation to the space

Not only have I started to become obsessed with step counting and mapping routes through spaces but approaching a gallery this way has made me start to question and especially spend more time studying the space in all its glory. I have had some strange stares, had to ask some very awkward questions such as "Do you mind if I take a photograph of the white wall and not the Ed Rucha painting please?" and have also had some pleasant conversations with those who were brave enough to ask to the mad man "me" photographing the white wall "what is it you are doing?"

If people are happy to go and have a conversation and look at Robert Rauschenbergs "white painting" work then they should be able to look at a white wall. The question for me now is where is this going? I have maps, photographs illustrations of blank space but what is my spatial concern? Below are both the 2Dimensional and 3Dimensional digital drawings taken from one of my gallery visits. It is these that will be now worked into physical models.

Words

Gallery: Noun
noun (pl) -leries

1. A room or building for exhibiting works of art

2. A covered passageway open on one side or on both sides

3. A balcony running along or around the inside wall of a church, hall, etc 

4. A raised area, often having a stepped or sloping floor, in a theater, church, or other public building to accommodate spectators, exhibits, etc.

5. The general public, especially when regarded as having popular or uncultivated tastes.

6. A room, series of rooms, or building devoted to the exhibition and often the sale of works of art.

Synonyms for Gallery:

 

Arcade / Museum / Depository / Grotto / Cloister

Museum: Noun

1. A building or place where works of art, scientific specimens, or other objects of permanent value are kept and displayed.

Grotto: Noun 

Grottoes, grottos: Plural

1. A cave or cavern.

2. An artificial cavern like recess or structure. 

 

Below source taken from VERB Natures: Architecture boogazine 

What is a Grotto? from classic grotto to Contemporary Grotto. 

Classic: The grotto found its heyday in eighteenth century English gardens, providing a dark and erotic narrative to the landscape gardener's palette.

Contemporary: The playboy mansion Grotto, a foil for promiscuity, demonstrates essential elements of the grotto: there is something to discover within

Gallery list

To extend my initial body of spatial sequencing work I am considering visiting a chain of galleries all committed to the focus on exhibiting contemporary art work. This will allow my research to consist of a multitude of spaces and how different organizations/architects have approached to design of the contemporary gallery space [There are also some really beneficial exhibitions on at the moment within these spaces offering me some wider contexts].

1. White Cube Gallery [Bermondsey] SE13TQ - Casper Nueller Kneer Architects

2. White Cube Gallery [Masons Yard] SW1Y 6BU - Rundell Associates

3. Victoria Miro [Wharf] N1 7RW - Claudio Silvestrin Architects  / Michael Drain Architects 

4. Victoria Miro [Mayfair] W1S 1FE - Claudio Silvestrin Architects / Michael Drain Architects 

5. Gargosian Gallery [Britannia St] WC1X 9JD - Caruso St John Architects

6. Gargosian Gallery [Davies St] W1K 3DE - Caruso St John Architects

7. Gargosian Gallery [Grosvenor Hill] W1K 3QD - Caruso St John Architects

Search for online journals in library for project reviews and details about design

Study Plan Guide

Notes from workshop:

Unit 1 study plan submission - 11th Jan
The research study plan is a model/plan to identify what your project is about.

[Arts & Humanities research council] Largest funding organization for arts based commissions [section in documents outlines what a research plan/proposal is: The concern is about process not output

Research question/issue/problem - The objective is to enhance knowledge

Outline the contexts - research folders outline where the research exists in the real world. Why is context important? because context give your work/project a basis for discussion/comparison and argument

Research methods - The things/activities you are going to do to address your issue/question/concern [Are these appropriate?]

The documents consists of 8 sections:
1. Project Question/proposition [The idea of an idea]
2. Research context [Field of study "with examples"]
3. Method [Processes/Media/Activities]
4. Anticipated outcomes
5. Resources
6. Timetable [Use handbook template/copy]
7. Risk Assessment [In-line with university H&S guidance]
8. Ethical issues [In-Line with university research guidelines]

Examples of: The aim of this project is . . . . what will this achieve?

Thinking about my spatial concern

It has now been a week since my visit to the White Cube and I have had time to think about what is it that this "spatial concern" could arise to and be? I feel like the theory and written element has lots of angles, sources and brings a rich dialogue about gallery spaces and their future but what is the practice about [considering that both should fully integrate] reading "Inside the white cube" made me consider challenging the notion of the white cube itself and with recent research in identifying gallery spaces required [White cubes, Black boxes, Grey bays] could the spatial intervention be a conceptional led project that goes out to design and make a space that can become somewhat transformable? 

A word the came up the other day was morphology noun the study of the forms of things. An interchangeable gallery space that allows for the contemporary artists to exhibit wall or floor mounted work, multimedia/projection or a space for performance based works? One single space that morphs? now to place this back into some form of context the space would be a cub.

Above: Sol Le Witts exploration and experimentation into the variables of the incomplete cube

Is there however the potential for two proposals? one generically looking into this morphological gallery space and another that considers the placement of this new gallery space within the white gallery? A cube inside a cube? this is when being considered the original idea of Jay Joplings' 1993 first white cube gallery in Duke Street.