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An analysis of the site suggested that, if any boundary could be drawn, it would have to have a close structural relationship with the original frame of the school. The process was now being developed to utilise a direct form of referencing into a unitised panel system and this in turn formed the enclosure. Any direct association with function would compromise the concept; at this point it was still seen as a simple process of translation. The pursuit of the idea continued: (a) first as a systematic recording of surface onto each panel of the screen where each panel recorded script, commercial typography and materiality; (b) second by ingraining the images with material found on-site. It was important that there was some form of material evidence that could be clearly read. There were, of course, issues of scale and these were adapted wherever possible. Sand, burnt wood, metal, newsprint and discarded objects were incorporated in the mode of Dadaist assemblages. [fig. 11–15] The school no longer exists and the area has been somewhat gentrified. Residual traces exist in hidden corners but the overwhelming nature of surfaces covered with opportunistic graphics has been replaced with a more orderly and restrained display. Groups that need
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Urban Collage
‘guerrilla tactics’ to communicate choose their locations carefully but their messages are still there if you look for them carefully. Contemporary architectural drawings have often been referred to as displaying a ‘crisis of reduction’ where the tyranny of the line is used as a ubiquitous form of communication. Instead, this project deliberately uses objects and techniques that are able to develop rich layers of information and suggestion. Site-specific research was conducted in order to: — establish the validity of the fundamental concepts and examine whether time would demand an adjustment of intellectual position; — determine how the process of time impacted on the site, materials and the evidence of occupation and human activity; — ask how historic and contemporary site evidence can be re-interpreted; — translate what was illustrated on-site into a visual metaphor and spatial proposition; — translate the evidence of the social context and examine how expressions of values had adjusted accordingly. [fig. 16–23]
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