Essay about my project agenda

Introduction

How can thought be contained in artifice? How can the concrete effect inspiration? By what process can idea made solidified be stimulated, recorded or processed in constructions? By what strategy in building can the perception of the act of creating be heightened? Practically, how can the intangible of cerebral energy be represented by a medium of objectification, that is - architecture?

These are the inherent questions raised by my concept for GD (the Gnostic Dynamo) [Illustration 1]. Based in Soho, London; GD seeks to be a mediation of illumination. ‘Illumination,’ defined as - ‘intellectual or spiritual enlightenment: the special communication of knowledge or inspiration to the mind; a condition of clarification that interprets obstacles translating awareness to understanding’.

This brief for GD developed as a direct reaction for the need to protect the [new knowledge] Artisan in Soho. The building programme attempts to respond to the posited need for artisans and philosophers for the development of culture and the sustaining of economy. A stance that is a direct reaction to The Development Framework Plan proposed by the City Council, that ultimately destroys the essence and soul of Soho [Illustration 2]. GD, as an Arts Emporium seeks to reinstate this bohemian vibrancy. The theoretical discourse of this project also seeks to bring transparency to the way of sympathetically sustaining an artistic district and urban village such as Soho, in contrast to the opacity with which the project is currently being undertaken by the Council.

To reflect the established bohemian character of the area – a building programme, form and typology which is also innovative is therefore sought to merge seamlessly with the context of its environs. Bohemian being taken to mean the unconventional, or the maverick, as well as the breaking of rules. Thus, the test to realise the theoretical stance that GD is a journey of enlightenment through interstitial barriers of varying opacities and transparencies, seeks an unorthodox understanding of the term Scale.

Scale, in architectural terms, is instantly perceived to mean massing; or the sense of matter and height of one building in relation to other buildings or its surrounding environment.
However, the dissolving of the boundaries of planes, walls and roof, serve to reflect the ideological a parti that GD would be the medium that connects user and environment (Soho); translating skewed visions of art, culture and what is the essence of Soho to truth. The break down of barriers, or alternately reductions in Scale, is the orchestration that truly serves to root man firmly to his environment through architecture. So that GD realises its programme of firmly integrating itself in the culture, pulse and space of its neighbourhood. Just as Kengo Kuma’s buildings unite the ‘subject with architecture and the world.

If there is no barrier – there is void. Where there is void – there is no shadow. Where there is no shadow, there must be light, as light is the absence of shadow. Yet, for architecture to be successful it must intervene between occupant and environment to provide shelter, safety and warmth to be habitable.

Of what benefit then, is there in the pursuit in light?

Light – is that [substance] which contains thought. ‘Light’ is known as the manifestation symbolic of thought.Therefore, it is the appropriate tangible medium by which to symbolise or reflect this phantasma of mnemonic energy. Thought is the basis of intellectual activity that manifests creative output. It is known light increases awareness and supports vision. But it is also recorded that luminance affects imagery and thereby the perception of art and reality [Illustrations 3&4].

Moreover, how does one sculpt … or ‘build’ with light? How does one manipulate a phenomenon to achieve the sense of progression, scale and sensory qualities synonymous always with the best architecture?

The answer clearly must lie with the processes of ‘particlisation’ and ‘filtration’ as advanced by Master Architect – Kengo Kuma. Kuma, also being absorbed with providing expressions to ambiguous entities such as light, wind, rain and fog - proclaims his singular interest in what he chooses to call ‘conditions’. And so a reduction or abstraction of Scale in terms of matter and massing as practised by the master builder could be a primary strategy forward to achieving the desired aspiration for GD. Since, surely to build with all glass or to simply bury a building below ground does not negate objectification. Rather, to truly sculpt with the chosen building palette – light, one must justly manipulate it.

To achieve this, it is necessary to rethink one’s approach to the question of Scale. If one chooses to consider ‘Scale’ as ‘the succession or progression of steps or degrees; a graduated series’, then a practical way forward can be found. Especially as an investigation of the exaggerated reductions in Scale, Mass and Matter in Kuma’s works serve to heighten perception, awareness and creativity of the individual.

This essay will therefore study the philosophy and precedents of amplified distortions in Scale in Kuma’s completed projects, which he calls ‘emanations,’ to find a way forward for the design of GD.

We will chart the architect’s manipulation of ‘the detail’ and study how he connects building components to achieve a product of minimisation (building). Consequently, an understanding of the sum of the whole
(macro-scale) in contrast to the sum of the part (micro-scale) is arrived upon. Two case studies are considered in detail. These are The Tea House of the Museum of Applied Arts in Frankfurt and the Lotus House in Kamakura.

Such that GD too would ‘expand and become infinite and identical to the world’.

Anti-Object

Kengo Kuma is known for creating auras and atmospheres, rather than explicitly enclosing space.

He deals with the subject of Scale in terms of subtraction, but he also questions architectural scale in terms of the [macro] Scale of Architecture with a global character versus a local sense of place [micro-scale]. The Shinto Philosophy which imbues each project determines the sensitivity with which he pursues a material structure to create ambiguous, ephemeral conditions. Studying his technique of solidifying a particular phenomenological desire to create experience and mood can determine a way forward for the design of GD.

The processes of ‘filtration’ and ‘particilisation’ exemplified by the Tea house in Frankfurt and the Lotus House in Kamakura respectively are particularly interesting because they demonstrate how he uses opaque and robust materials to achieve transience and transparency. Kuma challenges one’s spatial perceptions and experience of Scale by achieving de-materiality with even the most robust of materials; thereby transforming the ‘ordinary’ space into the sublime. These two projects show how he creates airy, open spaces filled with sunlight and integrates construction details to produce immateriality which is the agenda for this Arts Emporium. The Arts Emporium by nature of its function, requiring the use of robust and durable materials.

His belief that a building should be light and gentle (most prominent in the Tea house) means that he seeks a plan, structure, ventilation system and way that light filters through the building resulting in a design that blends into and becomes intimately connected with its environs. The exteriors of his buildings filter views of the possibilities and activities of the interior to abstractions [illustration 5]. It is intended to adopt the ethos in Kuma’s works whereby it is only once progressed through any one of his buildings in its entirety that full revelation is come upon.

In his projects he relies on structural studies to create dynamic systems of material, technology, structure, information and human beings. Each element is placed in what he calls ‘free conditions’ which effectively means he seeks to create the paradox of relieving connection from structure to create sensations of light and impermanence. The physicality of material and its attributes are always exploited in his designs to manipulate and articulate space. So that optimally, objective reality as perceived by the five senses, oscillates between clarity and distortion.

To express the notion of ‘opacities and transparencies’ as a reference to the underpinning concept of illumination for the proposed Arts Emporium (GD) at WC2H 0EL, Soho London; first we will consider the precedent of The Tea House of the Museum of Applied Arts in Frankfurt.

Kengo’s Tea house is diaphanous. It dissolves into landscape because of its size (scale) in relation to the surrounding trees. It is both ethereal and transparent as it evokes a sense of floating. Kengo insists that the material and construction of the Tea house perpetuates a feeling of weightlessness and a keen awareness of the position of the sun and changing light intensities (illustration 6 & 7). The Tea house is in fact a type of actuated tensegrity structure where its double membranes are connected via strap links which are stretched when structure is inflated, rendering the straps in tension (illustration 8 & 9).

The choice of the Tea house as case-study is appropriate because this house is intended as the place where creativity and imagination can flourish. It exists as a symbol of cultural exchange between Japan and Germany. This is accomplished by engaging the mind in the way that tea is made, so providing an opportunity to understand the culture of Japan through the technology of Germany. Synonymously, it is intended that by the way the general public participate and learn various creative skills in GD, they would understand the history and nature of Soho and the meaning of ‘to create’ and so preserve this tradition.

The Lotus House, on the other hand, relies on the treatment of the stone façade through ‘particlisation’ to demarcate space definition. This building strategy and the construction details to implement it, is the integral factor with this project (illustration 10 & 11).

The solidity of the stone reinforces the effect of weightlessness when in a porous arrangement such as this. Close attention is paid to the size, scale and distance of the individual ‘particle’ relative to the others so that the effect of transparency and lightness is achieved when the individual stones are grouped together en-masse. Therefore material construction and detail are in keeping with his theme of reduction (illustration 12).

Ultimately, these two projects tangibly demonstrate what is left of a building when one ‘erases’ architecture.

The Appropriateness of Idea

To achieve a luminous halo of mnemonic energy, Kengo Kuma’s preoccupations of ‘filtration’ and ‘particlisation’ will be adopted.

My scheme advances the question of containing thought in edifice and Kengo’s theory of ‘non-object’ is appropriate because thought is diverse and of unlimited possibilities; therefore difficult to represent in any singular expression.

As a journey of enlightenment through interstitial barriers of varying opacities and transparencies; in a mediating construct that illumines the veil of skewed visions. This project is the crafted object that fabricates from the dark, heavy fog of intangible ideas of the [new age] Artisan - the woven revelation of elements, whether tangible or intangible, in delicate streams of real product to be apprehended by all. Ultimately, GD transmutes function to become the catalyst for continuous output of the acquisition of understanding and knowledge generation.

It is creative cerebral activity that focuses artistic expression and manifests creative innovation. It is this activity that Soho is known for. This creative novelty has been intrinsically responsible for shaping the cultural landscape of Europe and internationally. Therefore, a primary strategy of sustaining this palpable imprinting on global social and cultural values of morals, art and conduct, would be to focus spaces to accommodate thought. Consequently, creating atmospheres and auras for people to think, to innovate and design is the essence to sustaining the Soul of Soho.

As such, inside and outside will reciprocally condition each other, permeating into the landscape through zones which include and reflect the surrounding environment. The discontinuously continuous discrete presence and virtual absence of material will be used to articulate space defined by the material physicality [illustration 13].

As in Kengo Kuma’s designs, by using transparent, translucent and opaque borders, a continuous trajectory of habitable space will be created. Extremely relative in nature, the building(s) would vary in transparency and weightlessness depending on the way the light hits the surface of the skin of façade [illustration 14]. Not possessing a clear overall image, it appears to blur. Space is indefinite and only when one moves close to the structure, is it made part of the whole through the positioning of barriers and volumes in relation to the sun, movement of the observer, and intended changes in light which filters inwards. The principle of the Tea house as an actuated tensegrity structure will be capitalized to find a dynamic structural system to express the design aspirations of the proposed Arts Emporium for Soho [illustration 15].

The above techniques will be used to bring about a heightened perception of the spaces of the building and of one’s consciousness to induce creativity. The building, like sunlight, will have hidden codes and signals to the human psyche to promote curiosity and learning [illustration 16 & 17].

Towards a Conclusion

To achieve a separation between nature and architecture which is as ambiguous as possible; the philosophy of the master builder of thinking of architecture at the level of the ‘particle’ and then from the point of view of light and shadow will be adopted.

Therefore, Light is the medium on which the processes of ‘particlisation’ and ‘filtration’ operate to create atmospheric permeations in plan and section. To create atmospheres which shape and direct thought [illustration 18,19 & 20].

These two processes employed to represent the flow of thought within the building as a matter of ‘crossings’ (filtration facilitated by particlisation).These processes facilitating the crossing of the Artisan into the realisation of potential and manufactured artefact. Translucent, transparent and opaque borders are hence positioned in relation to the movement of the sun and observer such that the inwardly filtered changes in light stimulate creativity. The means by which I achieve the stated processes would be structure, building programme and spatial organisation. These strategies will act as the interstitial barriers used to create spaces for the [new age] Artisan to invade, occupy and learn.

Kengo Kuma believes that to connect the subject to world by means of ‘filtration’ and ‘particlising’, time and space must be connected by means of the plan. Time, in this instance, is measured in movement and transformations in mind state.

Just as the setting of the progression to the tea house from the outside serves as a philosophical preparation for the transformation that happens inside via the plan. The site of GD in Soho, will be subjected to the interpenetration of matter to create an architecture of progression, on which the design of the plan connecting space and time is integrated [illustration 21 & 22].

The envelope of GD will act as an intermediate sensitive filter, whereby the art of mnemonic energy can be developed in its enclosure [illustration 23].

‘Particlisation’ will be achieved by the manipulating of the medium of light into colour, since colours are known to be the genesis of the spectrum of light; light and colour known stimulants of the mind. In particular, permutations of the colours black, yellow, red, orange and green will be used because of their respective properties of confidence, mental clarity, energy, stimulation and balance of mind, emotion and body. Therefore in light and dark, various moods are created - weaving, layering and interconnecting peoples, ideas and building spaces.

This filtration expressed as continuous layers of the planes of the building which interpenetrate one another as if by osmosis to metaphysically mimic the flow of thought through neurons in the brain. This idea of osmosis can also be represented by a feeling of permeation within the building by using fabric or other materials to similar effect as the Tenara 3T40 membrane of the Tea house [illustration 24 & 25].

To fully realise this condition of discontinuously continuous material substance – a structure of actuated tensegrity will be investigated [illustration 15]. Thus by plan, section and structural strategy, the theme of the unveiling of elements is realised as the revealing of passages within the building as legibility but also as directed learning [illustration 26].

The hidden sources of light created as a result of plan and sectional treatment is intended to cause progression through building and induce curiosity; stimulating the mind to question and prepare for innovation as the Tea house achieves impermanence with its hidden source of light of LEDs in the ground floor slab [illustration 27 & 28].

By allowing light, colour and the passage of wind to interact with the designed environment, the nature of sensory qualities including feeling the sun’s warmth and hearing the passage of wind are propagated. A bio-climatic construction which relaxes, stimulates and prepares the body for creativity is achieved.

To have passage ways naturally lit to serve as unassisted way markers, independent of appended signage, would attune occupants with nature by allowing the passing of time to be registered in the Art Emporium’s lighted modes, routes and zones.

Scale will be appropriated by the idea or thought of the Artisan; in conjunction with the passage of the temporal and the fluxes of daylight intensity regulating the building.

Consummately, GD will seem to issue forth from the site.