624 - The "Word's Spelling" (15 credits)
Instructor:
Angeliki Sioli
Schedule:
Wednesday morning from 10 am to noon in room 207.
Introduction:
This studio project concludes the work begun during the winter term in the ARCH 623 Project Preparation Course, The World-Collector. It is a test case in the experimentation of alternative design strategies emerging as a response to the understanding of language as a means of architectural representation.
Project Description:
to spell:
• (of letters) make up or form (a word): the letters spell the word “how.”
• be recognizable as a sign or characteristic of: she had the chic, efficient look that spells Milan.
• lead to: the plans would spell disaster for the economy.
(www. oxfordictionaries.com)
For this part of the project the students are asked to focus on one element of their already word-designed spaces and spell it out; describing it in detail and eventually fabricating it in a 1:1 scale. As letters “make up or form”(spell) a word, all their writings (their collected words and the accompanying texts, as well as the writings on the collector’s space) should guide them to the formation on an element that spells the character and main concepts of their architecture.
This element could be an object, (a furniture, an article of clothing, a piece of equipment) a detail (a part of a wall, an opening), an atmosphere (an installation on how specific aspects of the space will be experienced), etc. They are asked to pick an element of the space that brings together the issues of spatiality you have already explored in their writings and bears important significance for the space and the collection.
Initially the students are required to work on a word-design of their chosen element and explore it in many different ways, understanding its multiple aspects, possible uses, textures, etc. They are asked to write accounts of how the object is used (through the eyes of a visitor or the collector), accounts of how the collector looks at it, thinks about it, understands it, accounts of how the object itself looks at the world. Exploring different approaches allows them to grasp the characteristics and special features of the element they have to construct.
After the first word-designs, they are asked to work on multiple translations of their writings through sketches, collages, photomontages, orthographical drawings, renderings and models trying to bring all the qualities discovered through language in a three-dimensional reality. The chosen spatial element has to be built in an 1:1 scale, taking into consideration issues of materiality, dimensionality, etc.