MPhil/PhD Architectural Design 309
The Bartlett School of Architecture 2015
enmeshed in design vignettes, informing, catalysing, and ‘ornamenting’ processes, images, animations, and models. Narratives from the viewpoint of body agents are similarly intertwined in the historical and analytical text, aiding in the The argument put forth in this thesis is based on pursuit of questions and the formulation of the the observation that design suffers from a thesis’s argument. ‘missing body.’ This absence stems from a The thesis begins with a journal entry from Modernist aversion to the figure that has been the viewpoint of a body agent referred to as absorbed by contemporary design. It contributes Putto_1435 as he ‘comes to’ in Wates House. to an anonymous, author-less, and disembodied This Putto describes his abhorrence of the building, quality in buildings and to a diminished and explains that he is a muse summoned to aid imagination in the design process. in designs. He goes on to describe the traits of his In this thesis, the notion of ‘body agents’ new digital body and, in later entries, reminisces – dynamic, subjective, and non-ideal figures that about his roles in aiding the design of Renaissance, exist in a reciprocal state with designs – is put Baroque, and even Rococo architecture. By way forward to address radically new conditions in of his journal entries, the narrative viewpoint of his architecture, subjectivity, and embodiment. These companion, Torso 2.0, a prosthetically-enhanced figures are also predicated on the importance of version of Pichler’s Torso, is also introduced. continuity with the past. The historical precedents The results of this research were body that are focused on include the proto-Baroque work agents with particular viewpoints and evolving of Michelangelo Buonarroti, the Baroque work of histories that contaminated the design process. Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and the more recent work The body agents’ ‘expressive’ anatomies, of Walter Pichler. In all of these examples, figures comprised of reified digital meshworks, spatially enact emotional and personal themes of their and materially intertwined with their architectural authors as well as broader cultural issues and contexts. The intention is to introduce body agents epistemes that I found resonated with the current into contemporary design to catalyse architectural day. These figures mediate between the architect imagination and expose opportunities to interject and the design, but also between the inhabitant situated and embodied intersubjectivities. and the buildings within which they are embedded. The historical research was part of a triadic Image: Alessandro Ayuso, ‘Kneeling Window Drawing’, mixed media, 2.5m x 3m a full-scale drawing of a ‘Kneeling Window’ methodology that also included design and design generated through the incorporation of the ‘Putto_1435’ body agent fictional writing. The body agent images were Alessandro Ayuso Body Agents: Deploying a New Figure for Design Principal Supervisor: Dr Marcos Cruz Subsidiary Supervisor: Professor Jonathan Hill