Mateus Comparato - Portfolio

2020

landscape tectonics / a crack in the wall / virtual camouflage / the elastic office urban amazon / trypophobia / a post-conceptual position / building parasites zany dioramas / ortho-graphics / queer outposts crossing through windows / informal formless form / out of site

2017

PORTFOLIO

mateus comparato

Mateus Comparato mateuscomparato@gmail.com (323) 509-2351 Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) B.Arch - Third Year

PORTFOLIO

mateus comparato

personal statement

I am interested in architecture that engages visual culture through a flattened perspective.

This collection of work presents drawings, renders, short films, and models which are developed in the systems in which they are produced, not axiomatically through those of a building. The design approach happens by systematizing the overflow of information inherent of contemporary visual culture into a rationalized chaos. Process, practice, and procedure permeate the design, producing layered imagery and data which create finished products within themselves. Their parts are not relative to each other, it is through the process of architectural reasoning that they come together. Reference in representation is removed as the architecture is realized through its systems of production, ultimately emerging as an autonomous object.

6 18 36 48 60 70

3B Design Studio: Landscape Tectonics 3A Design Studio: A Crack in The Wall 2B Design Studio: Virtual Camouflage 2A Design Studio: The Elastic Office 1B Design Studio: Urban Amazon 1A Design Studio: Trypophobia

table of contents

design studio

visual studies 82 86 90 94

seminar classes 100 106 108 110 112 114

Visual Studies IV: A Post-conceptual Position Visual Studies III: Building Parasites Visual Studies II: Zany Dioramas Visual Studies I: Ortho-graphics

Queer Aesthetics: Queer Outposts Film II: Crossing Through Windows Architecture Theory: The Elastic Office History of Architecture + Urbanism III: Urban Amazon Art History II: Informal Formless Form History of Architecture + Urbanism I: Out of Site: Abu Simbel

de

esign studio

landscape tectonics 3B DESIGN STUDIO ARTICULATION + TECTONICS II INSTRUCTOR: PETER TRUMMER PARTNER: MATEO MORALES SPRING 2020 6

This project focuses on the comprehensive design and development of a large scale, cultural building on an urban site. The work asks how the architecture of the museum, as much an accumulation of spaces as of the objects that populate them, can contain a collection of withdrawn interiors no longer connected nor related to the surrounding metropolis. From the vast to the intimate, the project examines an idea about the museum typology that no longer constructs a whitebox neutrality seeking to move architecture to zero, but instead posits distinct environments and worlds that maintain architectural interest beyond their contents. The project starts from the understanding and use of architectural precedents in the design of a cultural or civic building. Viewed through a disciplinary lens, the precedent studies examine the architectural trajectory of like building types and programs, tracing their ability to transform their contents in different formal organizations. Attention is paid to the role of the interior and its ability to both frame and condition the activities within, the different worlds that the building might contain and how these accumulate.

jewish museum

neue staatsgalerie

maxxi museum

zkm

3B Design Studio

volume

breakdown of precedent components, parts used for transformations are highlighted in grey

spaces

structure

circulation

this project started by taking apart four museum precedents and separating them into their exterior volume, interior spaces, structural systems and circulation for further modifications and use 7

Mateus Comparato

transformation of precedent components

cut-axon of combined components after transformation

the chosen components from the precedents were separately transformed to create new discrete pieces: the interior spaces of the maxxi museum became the exterior volume, the circulation of the jewish museum became the interior spaces, the structure of the neue staatsgalerie became the circulation, and the exterior volume of the zkm became the structure

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3B Design Studio

stitched volume model photos

the interior spaces were created by thickening the jewish museum’s circulation and folding it on itself to create spaces that intersected both in plan and in section. a similar operation was used to achieve the new circulation by folding the structure of the neue staatsgalerie to create a figure that could connect the new interior spaces. for the exterior volume, the interior spaces of the maxxi museum were unrolled and cut out as individual pieces using felt, these pieces were then stitched back together randomly to create a solid volume. the already transformed interior spaces were place inside the felt model while being sewn together, and once fully shut, the felt model was scanned using photogrammetry to produce a digital version of the discrete volume. lastly, the new structure was created by separating the facade panels of zkm into pieces that would connect the exterior volume to the interior spaces in order to structurally support it. once combined, these four new components make up the museum project.

program diagram studies 9

Mateus Comparato first floor plan public ground landscape + service/administrative areas

fifth floor plan main gallery spaces

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3B Design Studio

short sections through project 11

long section through project 12

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Mateus Comparato

interior renders

site plan

exploded axon 14

3B Design Studio

click/scan to watch the film 15

third floor plan main gallery spaces 16

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a crack in the wall 3A DESIGN STUDIO ARTICULATION + TECTONICS I INSTRUCTOR: DWAYNE OYLER PARTNER: ZANE MECHEM FALL 2019 18

This housing project explores design problems of cellularity and repetition in an urban setting by examining how architecture can mediate the relationships across three scales: an individual unit, a cluster of units, and a collection of clusters. The project proposes an integrated diagram for a somewhat large housing complex, designing into an existing dense urban condition with an understanding of the dynamic and interdependent forces of economies, access, privacy, and infrastructure that shape these projects and their presence in the city. The approach to the work focuses on strategies of aggregation and subdivision that explore the relationship between the architectural unit and the dwelling unit in the design of a micro-unit housing project in a dense urban setting.

3A Design Studio

formal diagram the project started by looking at how a “generic� housing project might attempt to achieve the densest and most efficient way to pack one hundred micro-housing units onto the site, then this configuration was cracked open and shifted in plan and section in order to create more comfortable spaces, new public areas, and site connections. the project takes on its final form as if frozen in the middle of this shift.

study model photos 19

Mateus Comparato

the operation of cracking open the densely-packed housing project also lent itself to creating both sectional and planametric shifts in the overall massing as well as the interior unit organization. this allows for differentiation between units, all of which have different plans and wall configurations. no unit is exactly the same as another.

series of long sections through project from front to back 20

3A Design Studio

ground floor plan public plaza and ground units

aside from just the programmatic organization, the project took on some of the aesthetics of what one might call a “generic� housing project. some of these characteristics that were kept are the use of brick as a facade material, as well as the use of conventional plaster. here, however, these materials have taken on new formal properties as they are also affected by the shift produced in the massing of the building, creating a cracked and shifted brick envelope.

fourth floor plan micro-housing units 21

site axonometric render 22

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Mateus Comparato

diagram showing the sectional and planametric shifts in the unit configurations

unfolded worm’s eye unit plan composite drawing

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3A Design Studio

interior renders 25

Mateus Comparato

tectonic details of brick facade (drawings produced for tectonics and materiality seminar class) 26

3A Design Studio

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tectonic details of brick facade (drawings produced for tectonics and materiality seminar class) 28

3A Design Studio

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model photos 30

3A Design Studio

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model photos

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3A Design Studio

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oblique section through project 34

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virtual camouflage 2B DESIGN STUDIO GROUND + APERTURES II INSTRUCTOR: JENNIFER CHEN PARTNER: MATEO MORALES SPRING 2019 36

This project focuses on the relationship between a building’s interior program and complex contextual constraints. The building is designed around the mediating spaces and interfaces between urban exterior, public and private programmatic spaces. The work engages excessively detailed surveys of the urban site, and define methods of operation for interface between designer and data. The contemporary architect has access to massive and rich quantities of data through LIDAR scans and crowd-sourced content through the internet. This project questions the ability of the designer to intelligently leverage this data as information. The program is an E-Sports arena located within Downtown Los Angeles.

The resulting work focuses on detailed explorations of the occupation of the project and the project’s relationship to the context by looking at it through both the experience of it for a human being, as well as the experience of the machines which increasingly inhabit the urban landscape along with us.

2B Design Studio

8

5'-

4" 1

"2-'6 "5 - '01

15'-3 1" 2

8'-8"

"11-'01 8'-5"

this studio began by performing a site analysis of the proposed site for the e-sports arena in downtown los angeles . we gathered three-dimensional point-cloud information of the site through photogrammetry. concurrently, we performed precedent studies of several public gathering spaces with high turnarounds of people such as theaters and markets. a focus was placed on the spatial thresholds and connections between different programs. both of these steps were then combined to create a composite plan of threshold conditions in the point-cloud site.

"21 7-'4

"01-'5

"9-'4

" 43 3-'9

"11-'3

"0-'4

-' 1 1 " 21

21

-'7 3 1 " 41

"9-'81

1

"14 1-'6

" 29

1 -'2

"0-'6

"2-'9

"12 0-'21

plan analysis studies of threshold conditions in precedents 37

Mateus Comparato

38

2B Design Studio developed ground level plan

studies of photogrammetry failures testing different massing types, material finishes and surface treatments

(opposite) composite plan combining the threshold studies into a single building in the downtown los angeles site

moving into the design of the building, we became interested in how the photogrammetry scanning – machine vision – glitched or failed in certain surfaces or materials. with this we tested several types of treatments that could be applied to the building in order to tap into that malfunction, producing a building not only with the human experience in mind, but also that of a machine.

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Mateus Comparato

second level floor plan with access to arena seating 40

2B Design Studio

in developing the human experience of the building, we were interested in producing a more intimate feeling within the large arena typology. this came as a translation of the discrepancy between the traditional domestic setting in which people watch these e-sport events through the gamer’s live streams. this effect was achieved by subdividing the arena into three separate zones which only connect at the ground level in the market. these zones have their own separate entrances and facilities, and are also further subdivided into sections to create small groups where people can congregate with their designated communities. this produces a more individualized experience of the e-sports arena, similar to how one can customize their experience of a game itself.

ground level floor plan with entrances to all three arena groups and car drop-off 41

Mateus Comparato

human vision and machine vision stills from short film 42

2B Design Studio

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Mateus Comparato

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2B Design Studio

the project became about embedding digital data into the design process to inform both the human and machine experience of the building. the result is two alternate layers of the same space where privacy and surveillance are at play.

human vision and machine vision stills from short film

click/scan to watch the film 45

mid-glitch elevation between human and machine view 46

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the elastic office 2A DESIGN STUDIO

GROUND + APERTURES I INSTRUCTOR: ALEXIS ROCHAS FALL 2018 48

This project focuses on the adaptive reuse and transformation of an industrial warehouse building in Culver City, California, into a workplace. The project is located in the Hayden Tract of Culver City, an area of Los Angeles that has transformed in the last twenty years from a light industrial zone to one that is primarily populated with creative office spaces.

Research on the history of the workplace is important to challenge established design methods for office spaces – from the pretechnological, autonomous cubicle layout, to the hyper technological, interactive, open office environment, to the current emergence of the collaborative, shared office space, that offer hotel-like domesticity. The project embraces and challenges normative office design by making a case for architecture in the realm of interiority.

2A Design Studio

catalogue of clips, rubber bands and staples positions

this project started by gathering a collection of things typically found in an office. my interest was centered on office supplies and consumables. i selected staples, rubber bands and paper clips because of their common attribute of being used to hold paper together. from this, i produced a catalogue of different positions these objects could take from their usage, and then produced combinations from this catalogue to create a system of spatial relationships.

catalogue of combinations of the three office items

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Mateus Comparato

one of the object combinations was selected for its threedimensionality and spatial sensibility. this combination then was covered in a stack of papers to create enclosure. further detail was then added to the composition by adding slits to the papers based on a projection of the curves of the rubber bands; and details were added to the ground plane through an interaction of the objects with the ground and a projection of their outlines onto it.

model photos and photogrammetry section 24

2A Design Studio

interior photos of model

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Mateus Comparato

26 28

2A Design Studio

moving the project forward onto the scale of an office space, the spatial compositions created previously were amplified and multiplied to fit into the inside of an existing 10,000 square-foot warehouse. by creating a field condition of rubber bands, the interior of the office becomes divided into separate smaller zones while still remaining a single large space that fosters collaboration and communication that gets broken up by the placement of oversized paper clips and staples. through the expansion of the rubber bands onto this field condition, the rubber bands push out one of the side walls of the warehouse and push the ceiling up, making use of the building as an object with discrete parts that can be played around the site just like the office objects used to create the space, this toppling of the wall pushed the interior space of the office onto the exterior of the site, stretching the boundaries between interior and exterior, and public and private.

(read more about this project in the essay on page 108)

plan of office interior and exterior park area 27

Mateus Comparato

section

28

2A Design Studio

interiors

29

Mateus Comparato

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2A Design Studio

photos of final model 31

final model detail 32

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urban amazon 1B DESIGN STUDIO

MASS + INTERIORITY II INSTRUCTOR: BETTY KASSIS SPRING 2018 60

Contemporary patterns of consumption have created a new post-fordist economy of retail behemoths like Amazon, Walmart, Fedex, and Costco. With them a new architectural typology, the fulfillment center, has been developed to efficiently facilitate the flow of objects from producer to consumer.

Increasingly populated by robots these buildings are more virtual than physical, where time as currency upends conventional forms of organization. While the demand for efficiency in contemporary logistics has privileged the ground as the primary organizational structure of the warehouse, constrained urban sites demand new approaches. This project explores more dense forms of order for the fulfillment center – packed, stacked, and piled. The work is comprised of a series of exercises that work from the scale of an object in a box, moving to the organization of boxes on shelves then culminates with the mass and spatial structure of an urban fulfillment center.

1B Design Studio

dimensioning of objects with projected grid through photos and drawings, drawing comparisons between dimensions, scales and proportions

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Mateus Comparato abstraction and scaling of the projected grids from photo + drawing layout gets transformed onto unfolded elevations of a shelving system; four folds are added to the sides and depth is assigned where the negative spaces of the grid recede into the three-dimensional object. the result is a shelve model with different scales and depths for different sizes and proportions of products.

(opposite) physical models of scalar gridded shelving system

composited unfolded elevations of grid with original images projected onto the model faces 62

1B Design Studio

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Mateus Comparato

(transformation of the original grid drawing through studies ordering system of the fulfillment center

study diagrams of the thickening of the folder paper over the grid using copy, extrude + offset operations to generate mass

COPY

EXTRUSION + COPY

OFFSET + COPY

COPY + EXTRUSION

EXTRUSION

OFFSET + EXTRUSION

COPY + OFFSET

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EXTRUSION + OFFSET

OFFSET

1B Design Studio

study models of threedimensional folding of the new two-dimensional grid system

physical model of thickening of the three-dimensional grid through massing operations

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Mateus Comparato B

A

L3

L3 (9.8M)

L2

L2 (5.4M)

L1

L1 (1M)

A

B

L3

BB

B

A

L3

L3 (9.8M)

L2

L2 (5.4M)

L1

L1 (1M)

A

B

L2

AA

B

front and side section

(read more about this project in the essay on page 110) A

A

B

plans of the three levels

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L1

with the transformation of the two-dimensional grid into an inhabitable volume, the fulfillment center’s function as a logistical hub starts to take form through its matrix structure where the delivery robot roam. the structure, while used to organize the space, also becomes a part of the form and visual language of the building – exposing the underlying fiction of the urban fulfillment center.

1B Design Studio

ZONING

CIRCULATION

HUMAN ZONES

HUMANS

ROBOT ZONES

ROBOTS / GOODS

study diagram introducing human and robot circulation into the three-dimensional grid system

plan oblique

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Mateus Comparato

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1B Design Studio

final model photos with nested interior

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trypophobia 1A DESIGN STUDIO

MASS + INTERIORITY I INSTRUCTOR: DAVID ROSS FALL 2017 70

This project establishes a foundational knowledge of formal and conceptual ideas that are current and relevant to the contemporary discipline of architecture. A series of three interrelated projects guide the work toward a robust ability to analyze, design, and discuss two and three-dimensional visual material. In a contemporary context of media oversaturation, the project responds with an architectural curriculum that plunges into the expansive territory of material and image production. The work explores a variety of linear and nonlinear workflows in order to challenge conventional ideas and hierarchies about architectural thinking and the tools of production.

1A Design Studio

the collection of objects started with the imagery and visual language that underlies a phobia to the sight of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes or bumps – called trypophobia. the collection aimed to organized and categorize these patterns in terms of their structure, as well as their severity to a subject with trypophobic tendencies.

collection of items found at santee alley, edited and modified two and three-dimensionally to create a composition detailing the visual language of trypophobia

selected postcards from collection

these objects were altered in some cases to enhance or augment their effect – holes were added or exaggerated to emphasize the aesthetics tied to trypophobia. additionally, the effect of these patterns seemingly is worsened when applied to human skin, therefore, this aspect was explored through the coloration and textures of these objects as well.

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Mateus Comparato

139.7º

103.8º

55.7º

35.6º

91.9º

36.3º

129.8º

orthographic drawings and model based on object from collection using platonic solids 72

1A Design Studio

94º

5.4º

6.6º

94º

5.4º

73º 107º

6.6º

94º

5.4º

73º 107º

6.6º

73º 107º

studies of developed geometry from simplified solids from collection of objects red lines represent cuts made to original simplified solids to bring it closer to the geometry of the original object using a single move 73

Mateus Comparato

paper models based on developed drawings + foam study models used to further develop the digitally created geometry through physical construction 74

1A Design Studio

translations: object to paper model to foam model 75

Mateus Comparato

the outside of the model maintains the form and aesthetic language of the previously developed paper and foam models, whereas on the interior there are three voids which start to take on textural and chromatic characteristics of the visual language of trypophobia, relating the model back to the initial collection of objects formally, through the exterior mass, and visually, through the interior materiality.

elevations of final model exterior 76

1A Design Studio

interiors of final model 77

interior of final model 78

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vis

sual studies

a postconceptual position VISUAL STUDIES IV INSTRUCTOR: ANNA NEIMARK PARTNERS: VINCENT YUNG ZOE MALECKI + WENDY GUERRERO FALL 2019 82

To define what is “a post-conceptual position in architecture,” one must first return to the Design Quarterly issue #78/79 put together

by John Margolies. In this issue, Peter Eisenman published his redacted essay titled “Notes on Conceptual Architecture: Towards a Definition.”At first glance, this act of publishing may not seem out of the ordinary in 1970. By that time, everyone was familiar with Robert Rauschenberg’s Erased De Kooning Drawing from 1953, and other pieces of postconceptual work. What is possibly strange is that this conceptual act did not really generate any heightened form of self-awareness, or indepth discussions on medium specificity in architecture. With only a few exceptions, one might even say that there hasn’t really been a full-blown conceptual moment for architecture.

Eisenman’s erasure took the specific information out of the format of the page and rendered it nearly blank – the annotated empty page was as close as architecture ever got to pure concept. In this project, a new attempt is made through a series of exercises that bring attention to the particularities of architecture through language, craft, and material specificities.

Visual Studies IV

redacted construction documents

manually redacted email documentation used to obtain the construction documents this assignment explored the highly detailed annotation traditionally present in architectural construction documents. through the physical erasure of the documented architecture, allowing only for the annotations to remain present, is it possible for the drawing to still contain enough information for the building to be constructed even without the visual layer of the architecture?

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Mateus Comparato 3 16

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off white paint

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french blue paint

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bent nail

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unfinished vertical grain douglas fir

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steel doorknob and lock

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brass doorknob and lock

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brass hinges

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other layers: pale yellow, light green and peach paint

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steel hinges

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Visual Studies IV Nude door.

Stripped of paint, the door is slimmer.

Twenty-four inches from hanging style to meeting style.

Seventy-eight and three-quarters inches from top rail to bottom rail.

One and five-eighths of an inch thick solid wood at the top; one and a half inch thick solid wood at the bottom.

Dimensions of the top rail, cross rail, cross rail, lock rail, cross rail, and bottom rail are the same.

Hanging style: now four inches wide.

Meeting style: still four inches at the widest point.

Beneath the paint lay vertical grain douglas fir.

The wood has been cut perpendicular to the tree’s growth rings so they run vertically up and down each face.

The horizontal orientation of the rails has the wood grain running perpendicular to the styles.

Six horizontal rails are sandwiched in-between the vertical hanging style and meeting style, framing five panels.

The rails and styles are fastened with tongue and groove joinery.

The rails and styles form a rectangular molding around each panel, decorated with an ovolo sticking profile, which is mitered at the corners.

Blue side.

Twenty-four and one-sixteenths inches from hanging style to meeting style.

Seventy-eight and thirteen-sixteenths inches from top rail to bottom rail.

One and nine-sixteenths of an inch thick solid wood at the top; one and a half inch thick solid wood at the bottom.

Cross rail, cross rail, lock rail, cross rail: all four inches wide.

Bottom rail: eight and one-sixteenths inches wide.

Hanging style: four and one-sixteenths inches wide.

Meeting style: four inches at the widest point.

Five panels framed with molding, all inset four and one-sixteenths inches from the left jamb.

Inset varying measurements from the right jamb: four inches, three and fifteen-sixteenths inches, three and seven-eighths inches, three and seven-eighths inches, three and thirteensixteenths inches.

Including the molding, each panel measures sixteen inches by ten and a quarter inches.

Excluding the molding, each panel measures twelve and a half inches by six and three-quarters inches.

A crack runs along the grain halfway down the second panel from the top.

The crack is visible from both sides.

The door is blemished with small holes, which appear to be patched with a white filler.

There is a notch in the bottom of the door, which slopes upward from the bottom left for seventeen inches.

At the apex, it slopes back down to the bottom right for six inches.

There is a notch in the bottom of the door, which slopes upward from the bottom left for seventeen and three-quarter inches.

At the apex, it slopes back down to the bottom right.

Steel hinges.

Corroded.

One: three and five-eighths inches long, six and a half inches from the top.

Two: length and distance from the bottom are the same.

Distance between hinges: fifty-seven and one-eighths inches.

A five knuckle barrel, where each barrel measures three-quarters of an inch long.

Decorative ball finial tips on both ends of the pins.

The dimensions of each leaf is the same.

The number of holes and their diameter on each leaf is the same.

From the edge of the leaf, the distance of the holes are the same.

Brass hinges.

One: three and nine-sixteenths inches long, six and a half inches from the top.

Two: three and a half inches long, eight and one-sixteenth inches from the bottom.

Distance between hinges: fifty-seven and three-sixteenths inches.

A five knuckle barrel, where each barrel measures eleven-sixteenths of an inch long.

Decorative ball and Bishop’s hat finial tips on the top and bottom ends of the pins, respectively.

Two leaves, each one and a half inches wide by three and a half inches long.

Steel door knob.

Metal plate: dimensions are the same.

Knob diameter: one and three-quarters of an inch.

Rose diameter: is the same.

Keyhole: a quarter of an inch by a half of an inch.

Four holes: one-eighth of an inch diameter, located three-sixteenths of an inch from the left and right edges, a quarter of an inch from the top and bottom edges.

Brass door knob.

Metal plate: two and one-sixteenth inches by five inches.

Knob diameter: one and thirteen-sixteenths of an inch.

Rose diameter: three-quarters of an inch at the center of the knob.

Keyhole: a quarter of an inch by nine-sixteenths of an inch.

Four holes: one-eighth of an inch diameter, located three-sixteenths of an inch from the left and right edges, a quarter of an inch from the top and bottom edges.

No paint.

Stripped bare.

Just natural wood.

detailed drawings, photos, renders and text description of “bedroom one closet door”

Five layers of paint.

Five-one hundred and twenty-eighths of an inch thick.

French blue, beige, off white, green and pink.

this assignment explores different types of architectural notation and documentation of a found door both before and after it was stripped, cleaned and restored. the door is documented through photographs, detailed dimensional and annotated drawings, digital renders and an extensive text description. the extreme detail through which the door is documented brings to the attention the qualities of the door in its found state , and after it was cleaned up to reveal different details that were not visible or misunderstood in its previous state. the different levels of description are related to different levels of attention to architectural details that are easily overlooked.

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building parasites VISUAL STUDIES III INSTRUCTORS: CASEY REHM + JACKILIN BLOOM PARTNER: HEFF JIN SPRING 2019 86

The contemporary architect is presented with ever changing methods of production and representation. New tools for the production of interactive applications allows the designer to rethink the “sketch�, and easy access to three-dimensional scanning and augmented reality application tools allows for the designer to rapidly explore their design ideas in the physical context. This work focuses on modeling, scripting, and interaction in design skills. The resulting augmented reality applications transform the urban context through digitally generated three dimensional structures. These applications are created by modeling and designing tectonic elements from insects, producing detailed scans of an urban environment, writing interactive agent based growth algorithms, and developing touch based app interfaces. This project attempts to reconsider the city as a design ground to rethink the way one views the digital and physical dialogue.

Visual Studies III

modeled bug components with applied context textures

components shown in the chosen building facade in downtown LA

this project began by choosing three bugs to be modeled. these then became components to be used in a tileable assembly. a building facade in downtown was chosen, and the textures from it were extracted and applied to the bug components. these textures were animated to be moving across the surface of the bug component, adding a dynamic layer to the facade.

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Mateus Comparato

the facade components were built into an AR app where users can stack, tile and compose the bugs with animated facade pieces back onto the building itself in real time by tapping the screen. a user interface was created in order to allow the user to choose which component is being used at any given time. the intention of this app was to add an interactive layer to the experience of the city.

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Visual Studies III

screenshots from AR app working on the building facade 89

zany dioramas VISUAL STUDIES II

INSTRUCTORS: DAMJAN JOVANOVIC + RAMIRO DIAZ-GRANADOS FALL 2018 90

Using the aesthetic category of the Zany and its attendant qualities in relation to affective labor, this project explores and produces a catalog of digital models that engage various levels of resolution, precision, and detail. The first half of the project uses photogrammetry to produce digital fictitious landscapes where zany activities will later be inserted. The second half activates the landscape models in a digital interactive diorama, a sort of stage for the modeled objects to function as agents of a zany environment. The diorama format is explored as a possible extension of traditional architectural mediums of representation, and the diorama is in this way understood as an interactive drawing, where the screenshot becomes a legitimate aesthetic expression of the zany. The ultimate goal of this format is the creation of a fully fledged, self contained, interactive micro world that reveals some of the conditions of its production and (dis)function.

Visual Studies II

this project started by taking three-dimensional scans of the urban landscape. my interest revolved around trash that was found laying around in the streets of the arts district. the three landscapes were then cut and a section texture was produced based on the inside of trees, producing a fictional geological cut of an abstracted landscape, these landscapes were the combined into a vertical section, producing interior and exterior spaces as the base for a diorama.

composited photogrammetry landscape models 91

Mateus Comparato

axon shots of interactive diorama

to populate the vertical landscapes that were previously created, a collection of trash was compiled, keeping with the trash theme. the final idea of the diorama was to crate a playground for trash, evoking ideas of trash processing and recycling through the continuous looping of the objects around the landscape going up in elevators and down in slides, blurring the lines between work and play: the zany.

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Visual Studies II

close-up shots of interactive diorama in motion 77

orthographics VISUAL STUDIES I

INSTRUCTORS: DWAYNE OYLER + DAVID FREELAND SPRING 2018 94

This project explores the conventions of three-dimensional modeling and architectural projection for the description of form and space.

The exercises build on the understanding of the logic inherent to deployed techniques, physical modeling and manually constructed geometry.

This includes the fundamentals of Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry, the construction of plan/section/elevation and axonometric and perspective drawing. The objects utilized to begin with are fittings from a prefabricated pipe rail system, which in the latter part of the work are explored as models abstracted from their original form through the production of two-dimensional technical drawings that become a three-dimensional physical model through procedural transformations.

Visual Studies I

starting with a pipe fitting, the first steps of this project were to model the metal part from platonic solids. once detail was achieved, drawings were produced to better understand its geometry.

orthographic process drawings of pipe fitting 95

Mateus Comparato

axonometric drawings of pipe fitting

hatch drawings detailing curved surfaces 96

Visual Studies I

final eggcrate model

eggcrate model of cube unroll + relief drawings underlaid

the geometry and curves of these pipe fittings was abstracted with the use of surface contours. from the abstracted contour lines of the original pipe fitting, the lines were projected onto the inside of a cube, where through extrusion, the contours created three-dimensional surfaces as a translation of the original object. these surfaces were represented though an eggcrate model which lays on the unrolled surface of the projected contour cube.

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eminar classes

queer outposts QUEER AESTHETICS INSTRUCTOR: DAVID ESKENAZI PARTNERS: DUTRA BROWN + TAMARA BIRGHOFFER SPRING 2020 100

Queer’s a verb, noun, and adjective. Queer acts transgress, queer ideas uncover, and queer people confront. Queer’s hard enough to pin down that once you think you know it, it transforms to a new amorphous identity. This isn’t to say that we don’t know what queer politics feels like; we do. In fact, queer politics clearly show up in literature, film, performance, photography, sculpture, dance, fashion and the like. Conceivably, this is because these art forms are manifested through human depiction and narrative to explore queer bodies, imagery, and fictions. In architecture, however, queer aesthetics are vague. We have form, material, structure; not humans and personal history.

Our outputs don’t speak, so how are we to conceive of queer aesthetics in a mute form?

The work produced here suggests techniques for queering the discipline of architecture by constructing queer forms, proposing new aesthetic possibilities, and authoring new personas. The project looks at descriptors of queer artifacts such as camp, drag and decadence, applying them to models of generic American homes through queered model making and model photography techniques.

Queer Aesthetics

“CAMP FIRE” a film response to the theme of camp. this short film uses footage from the operation cue nuclear test, stitched together with new footage of a model of the houses originally used in the nuclear test town.

scan to watch the film

stills from “camp fire” film

click/scan to watch the film 101

Mateus Comparato

stills from “peep show� image sequence

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Queer Aesthetics

“PEEP SHOW� a series of still images in response to the theme of drag. this uses the model of one of the houses from the operation cue nuclear test broken down into parts. parts of the house are put onto the nails and the model becomes a part of the performative nature of drag through its themes.

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Mateus Comparato

Q

ueer Outposts is a response to modes of practice and production within architectural education such as physical model production, model photography, and the use of a persona of the architect in these photos through the holding or showing of the model with their hands. Another important aspect of the project was to undermine the serious and stodgy tone that typically goes along with these things. In order to do this, Queer Outposts had a very specific base structure which we followed throughout the four separate iterations of the project. The intention from the start was to always have the same four elements each week, the physical model of a house from the Operation Cue footage as a “precedent”, the hands of the architect, a “fake” paper backdrop, and a real background scene behind the entire composition. Through this framework we were able to produce a variation of the project specific to the theme of each week. The way in which we produced the idiosyncrasies of each iteration was mostly through a build-up of reference work from that week’s topic as well as reference to the specific medium which the final product of that week would take. The four iterations worked through the topics of camp, drag, decadence, and disgust through a narrative film, a series of photographs, a short gif-like clip, and a single image, respectively. As such, it’s important to think of the overall work that came out of the Queer Outposts project not only in terms of the final images and videos it produced, but also through the process and framework that produced all of the work.

In Working Queer Jaffer Kolb writes about queerness as a mode of working and the mechanics of how we produce queer things, whether it be art, architecture or culture. The aim of queer work has always been to transgress established sociocultural structures of cisgendered heteronormativity, but as these structures change, queer work must adapt in order to identify and respond to these systems. Kolb says that “If queerness constantly adapts, then we might understand it more as a how than a what”. This is very much in line with the way we have been producing and talking about our work as well. Each week, through the operational framework established in our project we reacted to the immediate themes and discussions of each week, treating queerness as relational. The act of queering, as discussed by Kolb, is not just about the thing it produces, but also about how it is produced and about understanding the contextual structures it is reacting to. However, positing queerness not as a thing but as a process, it becomes harder to determine an aesthetics of queerness. This becomes evident in the resulting work of Queer Outposts as well. Even though 104

we had established a general method to how we would be producing the responses for every week, we took a different approach for each of the themes in terms of aesthetics, tone, format and medium in order to generate different outcomes. The fact that the work can be these multiple things at the same time is also what makes it queer. Andrew Holder writes about the act of queering in a similar way in his essay Five Points Toward a Queer Architecture; Or, Notes on Mario Banana No. 1, arriving at a promise of queerness which is “entirely familiar, strangely new, continuous with the world as we know if, free of history, communally legible, and full of possibility”. The opposing statements avoid definition, arriving at a vague and relational version of queerness which seems to be in line with Kolb’s. To add to this point, I wouldn’t specifically point to any of the iterations of Queer Outposts as inherently queer as an isolated thing, but rather queer in the way it was produced, the things it was responding to, and the things and people it was referencing.

The work is nothing without that structure to support it. Kolb also frames queer work in this way, where there is a “shift [in] the application of queerness in architecture away from a drive to make queer things and instead to making things queerly. In other words, to treat queerness as a method or a process”. As such, the outcome of Queer Outposts seems to be not only the four images that came out of each of the weeks, or a framework and method to produce the work in a queer way, but rather an understanding of the importance of producing things queerly in a way that is framed by queer theory and the tradition of architecture as a structure to be build upon.

Queer Aesthetics

“SMOKE BREAK” a short film response to the theme of decadence. the film is decadent in nature as it has no purpose and nothing really happens aside from a confusing and unrelated series of events set in a thematical decadence.

stills from “smoke break” film

click/scan to watch the film 105

crossing through windows FILM II

INSTRUCTOR: MICHAEL STOCK SPRING 2020 106

T

he act of moving through a spatial threshold is said to have a rupturing effect on the mind. When one moves through a threshold — be it a window, a door, a screen, etc — it creates a virtual compartmentalization of thought, as if entering a new room opens a new space in the mind and memory. As the camera moves through the main character’s window in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, the viewer is made aware of the movement of the camera through the spatial threshold of the window itself, drawing both attention to the uninterrupted physical barrier presented by the open window, as well as the theatricality of the movement of the independent camera. Alternatively, the lack of movement of the camera in Yasujirô Ozu’s Record of a Tenement Gentleman presents a more layered effect as it looks through the unfolding screens of the traditional Japanese house, with its stillness drawing away attention from the camera itself and onto the deep backgrounds and the actions happening in them through the thresholds of the screened house. Rear Window and Record of a Tenement Gentleman make use of the camera’s interaction with spatial thresholds as both a narrative and visual device that adds an additional layer of information to the stories at hand, at times presenting itself as an active character, and at others as a silent observer.

In Rear Window, the camera behaves like an active character in the story, at times moving independently from the main character Jefferies, or any of the other protagonists. The first shot of the film pans through the apartments seen from Jefferies’s rear window, focusing closely on the interiors of his neighbor’s homes. It is a warm early morning during a heat wave, so everyone’s windows are open as they are waking up and as the camera moves through scenes of Miss Torso dancing in her kitchen, Miss Lonelyhearts alone in her bedroom, the composer shaving, and so forth.

After panning through all of the windows of the nearby apartments, the camera moves backwards through Jefferies’s window and into his apartment, showing him asleep on his wheelchair in his living room. Similar moving shots occur two other times throughout the film, but only when Jefferies is asleep. It is as if the camera is left to wander around outside of his window only when he is asleep and no longer watching his neighbours, guiding the gaze of the viewer to his own. When he is awake, however, the camera follows a strict structure of always looking out from the interior of his apartment, as if it were his own eyes. The camera is always looking into the neighbor’s apartments from the angle it would be seen from Jefferies’s rear window. The blocking of the scenes is carefully laid out by Hitchcock in order to

Film II

create a spatial relation between Jefferies’s gaze as the camera focuses on him, and where he is looking at as it shows the scenes outside his window. This structure is emphasized when Jefferies decides to use a binocular, and in later scenes his photography camera, to spy on his neighbors as the camera is directly following what and where he is looking at. The camera seems to also follow Lisa’s and Stella’s viewing, but it nevertheless always remains inside Jefferies’s window, having the same perspective and privileged view of the courtyard outside.

The camera movement in Rear Window behaves as an active character in the story, as one is drawn to acknowledge its presence through the movement it partakes in. The camera is generally a silent observer for most of the film, serving as both a way to see Jefferies’s actions and alternatively what he is seeing. It is as if Jefferies is in control of the camera, as whenever it is looking out through the threshold of the window, it is always pointed exactly at what he is looking at. The only moments the camera becomes an active participant and moves through the window, or entirely outside of it, is when Jefferies is either asleep or has been caught by surprise and as such is not in full control of himself, such as when the dog is found dead or when he is being attacked by Thorwald. As such, the viewer is made aware of the movement of the camera through the spatial threshold of the window itself, whether if being just a passive extension of Jefferies gaze through it, or as an active participant in the narrative.

Alternatively, in Record of a Tenement Gentleman, the camera tells a very different story as it participates in the narrative of the film. In most scenes, the camera and the viewer are positioned in the domestic interior of Tane’s or Tamekichi’s traditional Japanese Minka houses.

These houses typically consist of two separate layers in the interior which are divided by screen walls. There is a private interior space that functions as a bedroom, and a semi-public space around it which nests the interior space. This outer space serves as a buffer between the exterior public space of the street and the interior private space of the bedroom. This is also the space in which most social interactions and activities happen, such as cooking and dining, as well as being the space where one would interact with outside visitors. In the film, the camera is oftentimes positioned in the interior layer of the home and is looking out through the open screens of the house onto the outermost layer, where most of the film’s action happens as it is the social center of the house. Interestingly, however, because of the way the screen walls work and due to the fact that Tane’s and Tamekichi’s houses are directly across the narrow street from each other, oftentimes the camera is looking through one house and into the other. For example,

there are several scenes where the camera is positioned inside Tamekichi’s house to capture his interactions with Tashiro, but the viewer is able to see through the open layers of screens of the house, onto the outside and through the open screens of Tane’s house into her interior. These scenes often depict small actions and interactions between Tane and the Kohei in the background. Alternately, the same happens when the camera is positioned in Tane’s house and it is possible to look through to Tamekichi’s interior. In both instances, the interior shots are layered to create a narrative which blends the thresholds between the street and the house, and within the house itself as well, questioning strategies and traditions of privacy similarly to in Rear Window

Record of Tenement Gentleman makes use of the camera as a passive viewer to the narrative, as it captures both foreground actions and deep background scenes layered into a single frame, collapsing several thresholds but never moving through them, differently from Rear Window where the camera physically moves through the thresholds at times. Furthermore, also differently from Rear Window, the camera in Record of a Tenement Gentleman not only does not move through the thresholds of the house but also never moves at all.

The camera always remains still and in a lower framing when it is placed in the domestic interiors of these Japanese homes. The lack of movement of the camera presents a more layered effect as it interacts with the thresholds not by physically moving through them, like in Rear Window, but rather by remaining still and allowing for the deep backgrounds and layerings of the scene to unfold as the camera remains a silent observer.

All things considered, both films employ cinematography and the use of thresholds in similar but different ways. In Rear Window the viewer is made aware of the movement of the camera as it interacts with the spatial threshold of the open window, both through its passive extension of Jefferies gaze through it, or as an active piece of the narrative. Alternatively, the lack of movement of the camera in Record of a Tenement Gentleman presents a more layered effect as passively looks through the unfolding screens of the traditional Japanese house, with its stillness permeating through the thresholds onto the deep backgrounds. Overall, both Rear Window and Record of a Tenement Gentleman make use of thresholds, how they capture these thresholds, and how the camera interacts with them as an important narrative tool and visual device in the films, at times presenting itself as a silent observer that simply serves as a tool to capture the unfolding events, and at others as an active participant crossing through windows and moving through walls independently of the narrative or characters.

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the elastic office

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ARCHITECTURE THEORY

INSTRUCTOR: ERIC GHENOIU FALL 2019 108

The use of enlarged objects in the project produces a semiotic relationship between the forms that constitute and shape the space, and the things which they refer to – rubber bands, paper clips and staples – as a way to symbolically manifest notions of bureaucracy and paperwork typically related to office spaces. The orange curved surfaces, as well as the silver bent structures are used within the interior of this adaptive reuse project to create a non-hierarchical separation of the space to produce different work areas. However, one can notice that these silver and orange forms are scaledup versions of paper clips, rubber bands and staples.

Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown argue, in their book Learning from Las Vegas, for the use of semiology in architecture as a way to produce signs which refer to a deeper cultural and sociological layer embedded in the architecture. Much like how was theorized by them, the objects used in this project become signs which signify a series of common items used when handling paper and processing files within the context of the program and function of the space as an office. One of the main ideas tied to office spaces and the labor which they incur is that of bureaucracy and paperwork; the signs at hand therefore make reference to this activity. The office supplies that create the interior architecture of the space are in essence a reference to the tasks performed there; this is achieved through the scaling of these specific signs to produce not only the spatial layer which defines the project, but also an additional, conceptual stratum which makes reference to the cultural and economic systems which are at the base of the activity being performed in the space. As Venturi and Scott-Brown argue about semiotics through “duck architecture”, the project takes on a visual and exterior expression of its function through its form. The architecture becomes the symbolic form which it represents.

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This adaptive reuse project reduces the architecture of the existing building to an object itself, allowing for the dissection of its elements into selfreferent parts which are devoid of symbolic implication or semiological reference altogether. Anthony Vidler speaks to this in his essay The Third Typology, in which he argues for a form of architecture whose purpose is to understand its typical forms as autonomous pieces which, however dislocated, still carry their original meaning. As such, in this project the traditional elements that constitute the building are physically separated from their original place and purpose, resulting in a conceptual detachment of the form of these architectural elements from their typical symbolic implication and

Architecture Theory

semantic reference. The outer wall and windows are removed from the facade and tumbled onto the ground beside it; the wall no longer serves as enclosure. The roof is torn from the building, flipped upside down and suspended above the walls. This exposes the butterfly trusses which are supposed to be underneath the metal roof, not above it, and detaches the form from its structural hierarchy. The columns which once supported the roof remain in the same place, but they no longer touch the roof or perform their structural function. All of these architectural elements are now separated from their typical performative role within the tectonics of the building, they now only serve as objective signs. The pieces, removed from their context, are now simply objects to be freely manipulated within the architecture, just as the rubber bands, staples and paper clips in the office’s interior — they all simply become pieces in the game of spatial dynamics of the architecture. However, these objects don’t refer to anything outside of themselves. The wall on the ground still refers to a wall as a sign, the columns which no longer support anything are still signified as columns. Much like in Vidler’s “third typology”, the architecture reduces its own elements to pure signs, using them to create its own structure of self-referent relationships. Therefore, this operation of dissecting the building and manipulating its parts produces a project of formal autonomy.

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The architecture no longer positions itself as a control structure or system within the setting of the office, its aim is not to control or enact the symbolic relationships of power which take place in these spaces.

Rather, the forms of the interior are used specifically to flatten these exchanges. This layout does not create the private offices found in traditional corporate office models; there is no distinction between leadership, management and staff. In Michel Foucault’s Space, Knowledge and Power, he posits that architecture inherently enacts relationships of power and surveillance through its physical medium. This project attempts to do the opposite of that, wherein the architectural interiors make use of the forms of the scaled-up objects to create a non-hierarchical separation and organization of the space which does not play into power structures present in the traditional design of offices. The existing building, now with some of its architectural elements rearranged, provides the enclosure as a single, large, open room which serves as the basis for the interior project. On the inside, the enlarged rubber bands, paper clips and staple are arranged in a field condition to serve as dividers within the workplace — this condition creates irregular spaces, none of which are the same or entirely different. These curved and bent forms weave through

the interior at different angles. These configurations do not produce the same effect as walls or traditional dividers since they do not carry the same visual weight or have the same symbolic narrative of segregation as a solid wall — the interior is still entirely a single room. The forms also do not prioritize the relationship between these spaces, there is no special ‘corner office’ or ‘window office’, all workspaces are the same insofar as they are different from each other. Through this leveling of the organization of the workplace, the stratified structures of the office, which are traditionally embedded into their architecture, are dissolved.

Through this, the architecture of the office is no longer about the power systems of labor, but about the spatial relationships which it creates through its form.

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The design operation of scaling these recognizable objects reduces them merely to forms that have no reference outside of just themselves. The curved orange surfaces and silver bent rods do not have to produce any symbolism to achieve their architectural effect; the signification and reference of them as being office objects only comes into the picture as a separate and additional layer which suggests cultural and economic implications that relate to the activity that takes place in the architecture. The enlarged office objects that create the interiority and spatial relationships in this project, although derived from specific signs related to the activity taking place there, when reduced to their form within the architecture, can become separated from their signifiers and become pure signs which only serve as non-objective forms. The operation of enlarging and scaling the rubber bands, paper clips and staples to use them to create and divide interior spaces ultimately produces a detached perception of its forms.

Because of the large scale of these objects, the forms are no longer recognizable as their original signs when one is within the architecture. It is only when looking at the building from afar that the forms materialize into the recognizable forms of these signs, creating a play between highly familiar or obscured forms. The rubber band shapes could just as easily be derived from, for instance, noodles, while still having the same form and ultimately producing the same spatial effect and interior relationship within the building. In other words, the semiotic connotations of the project are only relevant insofar as they are an additional stratum to the physical and material experience of these non-objective forms.

This conceptual layer or signified meaning, although present and relevant, ultimately doesn’t alter the human experience of the architecture. The sign of the architecture gets reduced to its signifier; form is the only thing present in the direct experience of the building.

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urban amazon

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HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE + URBANISM III

INSTRUCTOR: ERIC GHENOIU SPRING 2019 110

n the time of ‘less is more’ and ‘form follows function’, the Modernist project became traditionally tied to the notion of aesthetic and formal purity. While some critics and theorists posited Modernism in terms of its emphasis on crisp white buildings with a lack of ornamentation, and tight external compositions derived from an interior organization, Sigfried Giedion approaches the Modernist project at a more abstract level, regarding its aim more as a representation of a particular ‘life’ behind the superficial structure. Kenzo Tange’s Fuji TV Headquarters and my own project from 1B at SCI-Arc, The Urban Fulfillment Center, both share a similar aspiration of directly engaging the often-hidden layer of the infrastructure of urban life, exposing and embracing Giedion’s idea of the “general life process”1 of the context of the city and infusing that ‘life’ into the architecture itself.

To Sigfried Giedion, who wrote about it in his essay Building in France, Building in Iron, Building in Ferroconcrete, the Modernist project is less about an aesthetic tradition tied to the function of architecture, and more about being able to insert architecture into the ‘general life process’ in the context of the city. To him, “there is no style, no proper building style” attached to Modernism, rather he claims that “like industry, construction [should be] an inner expression of the life process”, where “architecture [can be] drawn into the current from the isolated position it shared with painting and sculpture”.

My 1B project at SCI-Arc, The Urban Fulfillment Center, engages with Giedion’s idea of the ‘expression of the life process’ by reconsidering the scale and mode of operation of the traditional fulfillment center used by large distribution and retail companies such as Amazon and Walmart. In the post-Fordist reality of these retail giants, fulfillment centers usually occupy a vast amount of surface area, which results in having to locate them far from urban centers in industrial zones, where one can accommodate these large warehouse spaces. The Urban Fulfillment Center aims to reorganize and rethink this layout, by bringing it into the midst of the urban setting where order processing and deliveries can happen in much shorter time-spans.

While the demand for efficiency in contemporary logistics has favored the ground as the primary organizational structure of the warehouse, constrained urban sites demand new approaches. The project does so by piling, packing and stacking the spread-out surface area of the warehouse into a condensed vertical structure, with a single level of inhabitable space on the ground level where customers can pick up their orders.

Much like a skyscraper, The Urban Fulfillment Center

Hist. of Arch. + Urbanism III

attempts to make the most of the land it is located in, multiplying its small footprint vertically to create a larger surface area for its use.

This new warehouse type, because of its compressed vertical arrangement relies heavily on the use of robots to handle and process the products in the upper floors, where time as currency upends conventional forms of organization. The robots and the machinery are what connect the conventional human use of the architecture to its infrastructural use as a warehouse, both becoming a single whole. This happens in a similar way to how in Giedion’s Modernism “rails lines and trains, together with the railroad station, form a single whole”. The use of auxiliary robots also allows the building to be even more condensed both vertically and horizontally, since it no longer requires ample space for human occupancy and circulation. This use of robots is something which is emblematic of our time, its zeitgeist.

While Giedion refers to the use of iron and ferroconcrete as the new thing of his time which had an effect on the architecture, these robots in our time represent a similar new technological advancement which can be used to affect architecture and thrust it into a new realm. Moreover, the robots require a systematic grid structure to facilitate their location-tracking mechanisms and product processing, one which becomes the grid structure of the building itself. However, as Giedion states, the “structure is not to be taken as a machine”.

The machine in my project can be identified as both the robots and the structure that houses them, which ultimately becomes a part of the machine itself. Thus, The Urban Fulfillment Center posits a visual expression of the machine through its architecture, in an “interplay with the city [that is] neither spatial nor plastic”.

Similarly to my own project, The Fuji TV Headquarters, by Kenzo Tange, shares an aspiration to engage its structural elements in order to expose a traditionally latent layer of the infrastructure of urban life.

The Fuji TV Headquarters emerges as an amalgamation of the typically-architectural space of an office — where human labor materializes with the administrative functions of a TV station —, with a more infrastructural aspect that is the broadcasting center, where antennas and machines dominate the space. Tange connects these two aspects of the building with what he calls ‘sky corridors’. These corridors are aesthetically similar to the grid structure I used in The Urban Fulfillment Center; however, whereby in my own project these structural connections were occupied by robots to connect humans to products in the vertical warehouse, Tange’s structures serve as human circulation and connection between the broadcasting center and office tower.

This move attempts to merge and blur the boundaries between the two discrete parts; just as Giedion writes

about a Modernism where “the antenna has coalesced with the structure, just as the limbs of a towering steel frame enter into a relationship with city and harbor”. In a similar way, both projects are utilizing exposed structural elements to create connections between architecture and infrastructure, bringing the traditional architectural space closer to the ‘general life processes’ of the urban context through their relation to infrastructure, rather than through an autonomous, elevated formal project which is canonically Modern. Both projects in this sense share Giedion’s view where architecture “engenders floating relations and interpenetrations; the boundaries are blurred”.

Although Tange’s Fuji TV Headquarters and my own project, The Urban Fulfillment Center, share a similar exterior aesthetic — one that attempts to understand the visual language of these new emerging machines rather than its underlying function or logic — the relationship between both projects goes beyond that of the surface.

This happens in parallel to how the aesthetic traditionally linked to Modernism is overlooked by Giedion in his written work. Both Tange’s and my project attempt to dissect the boundary between a traditional pure form of architecture and the infrastructure of the populated urban environment, blurring the two and bringing architecture from its isolated position into the current of everyday life where fields overlap. These previously isolated elements now become part of the building.

The two projects do so through exposing their structural elements and their contingent use of machinery as a generator of architectural ideas and form, thereby disclosing and interplaying Giedion’s ’general life process’ of the context of the city into the architecture itself.

Giedion, Sigfried. “Building in France, Building in Iron, Building in Ferroconcrete”. Getty Center for the History of Art, 1995. 90-92.

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informal formless form ART HISTORY II

INSTRUCTOR: KAVIOR MOON FALL 2018 112

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s it possible to have art without form? — Form refers to the overall physical nature taken on by a piece of art, or in some cases, it can even refer to its shape; but it is impossible to imagine an object that has no shape, or even something that does not acquire a physical materiality. The curved three-dimensional lines and heavy, folding strips of fabric in Robert Morris’s Untitled sculpture challenge this notion, as they react to the pull of gravity and adopt new shapes beyond the control of the artist.

Morris’s Untitled sculpture from 1967 is made of three separate layers of dark grey industrial felt. The first and third of these layers have five horizontal incisions on them, whereas the second layer has five vertical incisions — all of these cut all the way through the fabric. These three layers are hung from the wall at either side of the topmost cuts using only two small hooks. The distance between the two hooks is smaller than the length of the horizontal incisions on the felt, which results in the layers of fabric curving and drooping down, as well as forward from the wall. This emerged curvature produces a transformation to the form of the flat layers of felt: it opens up the incisions on the surface of the fabric, which in turn reveal its multiple layers. As such, these horizontal and vertical cuts on the layers give the piece staggered depth, and the folding of the fabric gives it a three-dimensional form. It is interesting to note that the three-dimensionality of the sculpture originates from the cut lines on the fabric; however, these cuts on the fabric are generated by cutting a two-dimensional line onto the flat plane of the felt. Only when these layers of fabric are suspended, and because of the way that they are hung, does the flatness turn into the sculpture’s voluminous and three-dimensional form. Furthermore, the soft nature of the material used, and the fact that the only method of control over the material are the two hooks on the wall, results in the piece taking on a different form each time it is rehung or transferred to another exhibition space; the artist has agreed to accept whatever shape the sculpture takes in the process.

Rather than attempt to completely control or order the form of the work, Morris leaves the final configuration to the conditions of gravity and the physical properties of the material.

Morris’s untitled sculpture exemplifies his notion of anti-form, a concept which he outlined in an essay titled Anti-Form on the Artforum of April 1968.

To Morris, anti-form essentially meant relinquishing the artist’s control over the form of their work. This involves a rethinking of how artists engage with materials in order to generate art. In his case, this involved moving from making or shaping his work, to letting the work make

Art History II

itself. The emphasis on materiality and gravity as a tool alone results in forms which are no longer under the control of the artist. Through operations such as piling, stacking and hanging, one can produce casual, imprecise and passive forms through a material. As such, Morris envisioned the anti-form as a disengagement with preconceived forms and orders, avoiding the control or aestheticization of form by taking it as a prescribed end derived from material itself.

As the material is a critical concept in generating the form and meaning of Morris’s anti-form sculpture, the decision to utilize a thick dark grey industrial felt is one not to be overlooked. The physical qualities of the thick felt pertain to fabric, but also, in some ways, to those of a rigid object. The material used is indeed a type of textile, but unlike most in its category, the thick felt does not drape or droop to form small folds and bends.

One could imagine a towel hanging on a hook: Morris’s sculpture does not look like that. Instead, the industrial felt maintains its structure; its edges and outline are still identifiable even as it generates large, smooth curves when hung. This particular stiffness of the fabric at hand makes it react unusually to the pull of gravity, as its form is transformed and affected by it, but it also holds its shape and structure in certain parts. Such material specificity and Morris’s attentiveness of its behavior and qualities in relation to the generative ambitions of the sculpture are characteristic of the anti-form. When it comes to material, anti-form in Morris’s vision requires that form be derived from the inherent qualities of a material — not imposed extraneously by an artist, but generated by the material itself. This differed from the approach of earlier Minimalist artists who forced order onto their materials and confined themselves to fixed geometrical shapes and structures.

The fact that Morris used felt that was specifically industrial and not another type for this sculpture also has ties back to his essay on the anti-form. As the Minimalist artists produced geometric and predominantly rectangular forms as object-type art, the formal limitation extended to the materials used as well. As materials are bound to those which methodically generate the desired object form, the subsequent rectangular geometry mandated the use of rigid industrial materials which go together at right angles with ease. In his untitled sculpture, Morris’s use of industrial felt subverts this use of rigid industrial materials in sculpture production. He is using an industrial material, but is instead exploiting the felt’s lack of rigidity to generate the conceptual framework for his sculpture. Because the sculpture is not bound to a prescribed or desired objectual form, Morris can use a soft and inexact material rather than having to adhere to the right angles of the rigid industrial form, though the anti-form can also be applied to that.

In his other piece, Untitled (Mirrored Cubes) from 1965 Morris explores this same concept of the anti-form, though in a different way. Untitled (Mirrored Cubes) consists of four simple geometric cubes with mirrored surfaces. The four pieces were scaled at around the height of a person and were arranged into situations where the viewer is both aware of the piece itself and their own body through the mirrored surfaces. As the viewer walked around the cubes and through the space, their mirrored surfaces produce complex reflections and interactions among one another, the viewer and the exhibition space. It is possible to apply Morris’s concept of the anti-form to this piece as well. Here, though he uses rectangular geometric shapes and industrial rightangled materials — a combination which according to him could only traditionally generate prescribed forms —, the use of a mirrored surface on these simple geometric shapes, in a way, generates a lack of form.

The cubes, subsequently have no prescribed form since the constantly changing reflections on its surfaces are what give them their form as perceived from the point of view of a spectator. As such, Morris is making use of the physical qualities of the material itself to generate the piece’s form. Because its form depends on the exhibition space itself and the viewers present, the form is continuously changing — preconceived fixed forms are not imposed upon the piece’s matter, but rather originates naturally from it as Morris negates control over the sculptures final form once it is exhibited.

Robert Morris’s untitled felt sculpture and untitled mirrored cubes both exemplify his notion of the anti-form. Morris was interested in exploring how form is achieved and how it can change as a result of the properties of the materials used for each of these two sculptures. Anti-form has no form in the sense that it does not have a final form, its form is always changing depending on the way in which the material of the sculptures react to their environment: the untitled felt piece changes every time it is rehung, and the mirrored cubes change with every person who enters the room. However, anti-form is not a denial of form; both sculptures do have a form. At a specific place and time, both sculptures have forms derived from the conditions of their environment at that specific moment. In both works, there is an emphasis on materiality as a generative tool, one which has properties which react differently to things such as gravity or light. As such, Morris gives up the aesthetic control or order of his work and rather than enacting form on a material as a form of representation like other Minimalist sculptors, he lets the properties of each material give his work its changing form and final configuration, one which is no longer under the control of the artist. Here, preconceived forms are not imposed upon matter, but rather originate naturally from it.

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out of site: abu simbel HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE + URBANISM I

INSTRUCTOR: JIA GU SPRING 2018 114

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n the 1960’s, the rising waters of the Lake Nasser reservoir created by the construction of the Aswan High Damn threatened the flooding and impending destruction of twenty-four ancient Egyptian temples in the region of Nubia placed along the margins of the Nile river, one of which was the Abu Simbel Temple complex. To protect this culturally-rich and historicallyimportant site, a twenty-year international effort was made to salvage these monuments from their initial sites and relocate them to higher ground and out of the reach of the rising waters while still maintaining accuracy to the original conditions of the temple1. The challenging project established by the Egyptian government was led by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) with the collaboration of over fifty countries who aided financially with forty million dollars as well as providing over 150 teams of expert archaeologists, scientists, engineers, architects and other professionals to work on the relocation alongside the Egyptian specialists2. UNESCO’s involvement in the project came after international concerns about salvaging these monuments which were important to the history of humanity, regardless of geographic or political separations. The project, framed as “The International Campaign to Salvage the Temples of Nubia” constitutes a feat in archaeological preservation techniques, architecture and engineering, as nothing like it in terms of scale and type had ever been done before. The issue with Abu Simbel specifically was not only to relocate the temples from their original location to another, but to recreate the environment in which they were originally situated in order to give the modern visitor an experience which would be authentic to the original site. This proved to be an immense conceptual and technical challenge since because the temples were originally encased in a rock mountain, a new mountain and site had to be created in which to place the relocated structures. As such, the relocation of the Abu Simbel Temple complex ultimately did not remain fully accurate to the original temple’s conditions, suggesting an adaptive repositioning encased within a new architecture, rather than an exactly authentic and integral result as had been initially intended and promised by the campaign.

The Abu Simbel complex consists of two temples — The Great Temple and The Small Temple —, both of which were created by King Ramesses II during the 13th century BCE and were carved directly into the sandstone rock surface of a cliff on the banks of the Nile below the desert plateau in Lower Nubia3. The Great Temple, dedicated to King Ramesses II himself, consists of an outer facade with four twenty-meter statues of

Hist. of Arch + Urbanism I

Ramessess II and fourteen rooms inside the temple reaching as far as sixty meters into the cliff from the outer facade. The small temple, on the other hand, is dedicated to Queen Nefertari and consists of an outer facade with six ten-meter statues, two of Nefertari and four of Ramesses, and five interior rooms reaching sixteen meters into the cliff surface4. Overall, both temples together added up to astonishing dimensions and mass, considering the fact that they were made out of solid sandstone rock.

Aside from the sheer size and weight of the construction, the reason that the Abu Simbel relocation was challenging is because it required an operation unlike anything ever done before for the preservation of architecture. Never had a building been entirely cut into pieces, dismantled and relocated to a new site. Other threatened Nubian temples such as the ones in Philae were compiled from several separate blocks of stone that were originally placed together in the initial construction of the temples in ancient times. As such, for these to be relocated to higher ground, the operation only required for the pieces of the temples to be dismantled and transported to the new location, with the only few cuts being made to break up some of the larger pieces into more manageable blocks5. Alternatively, the Abu Simbel Temples were entirely made up of one solid piece, as they were carved directly into the cliff; thus, both the large and small temple had to be entirely cut into pieces and extracted from within the face of the mountain in order for the temples to be transported to their new location6. The cutting of the temples into several pieces was of high concern to UNESCO, mostly because it had never been done before to any building, but also because they placed great emphasis on maintaining the original conditions of the temples. UNESCO valued the temples both in the carved structures, and their context, due to their importance as historical artifacts.

Their idea of authenticity for the Abu Simbel Temples after the relocation had mostly to do regarding what one would see and experience while visiting the site after its relocation. They wanted the modern visitor to experience the Temples in the same way one would experience them before they were relocated, which reveals an interest in not only the historical relevance of the architecture itself, but also the experience of it.

Therefore it was not only important to save the carved temple, but also the site surrounding it, maintaining in the relocated form some of the qualities of the original site such as how one would be arrive to the temple, the angle and distance in which one would see it, and the overall circulation of the site in regards to its original state. However, the cutting of the temples was ultimately recognized as the only feasible method to perform the relocation despite its seemingly violent nature towards

the architecture, and it was approved by UNESCO.

The process of cutting the temple for relocation occurred by first entirely removing all the rock that was above the temple facade. Once the front facade was reached from above, a series of cuts were made both horizontally and vertically along the height and depth of the temple in order to cut it into manageable blocks for transportation. These cuts were made entirely without the use of machinery, using only long steel saws and manual labor to ensure smoother and more organic cutting lines. The placement of the cuts was carefully studied by specialists in order to have the least visual impact on the temple facades. In order to do this, a grid was first superimposed onto the facade of the temples, based on the dimensions which would allow for an easy transportation of the pieces, which accounted f or their weight as well. Then, based on where the initial grid lines landed, some of the cutting lines were moved to better accommodate the geometry of the carvings on through the more detailed parts such as the faces of the statues, which ultimately comprised a single piece in the cutting process as to not alter their intricate detailing. The result of the calculated cuts was one which had the least possible impact on the architecture of the temple, guaranteeing the perpetuation of its visual characteristics after the relocation, and thus lessening the impact of the cuts in the first place. This three-dimensional grid system of the cuts allowed for a perfect and integral recombination of the pieces once in the new site, preserving the temples themselves in their original state.

Other than the process of dismantling the temple from its old site, however, there was another challenging stage to the relocation, which was constructing a site — a new cliff — in which to place the relocated pieces after they were removed from their original sites. This step proved to be just as long of a process and as big of a challenge as the dismantling and relocation itself, since the integrity of the initial surrounding environment had to be maintained in this instance as well. UNESCO’s emphasis on the integrity of the temples after the fact of the relocation extended to the surrounding site of the temples as well, since they also related to the experience of the architecture which they intended to maintain. Several proposals were submitted by architecture and engineering offices from the various counties participating in the relocation process. Some of these proposals were included transporting the entire cliff to a new location or even designing a new modern monument to encase the relocated pieces. Ultimately, the job was placed in the hands of the Swedish engineering and architecture firm Vattenbyggnadsbyrån (VBB) after requests by the Egyptian government, due to the firm’s proposals being the least expensive ones.

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In-house architects Sune Lindström and Alf Bydén initially developed proposals which took several design liberties in relation to the original site, creating new silhouettes and adding new formal characteristics when reconstructing the site in which the temple pieces would be placed. The design was intended to add a modern silhouette and aesthetic to encase the ancient temples, creating an interesting juxtaposition of the old and the new which would supposedly attract more people to the location as a unique experience unlike the one at other temples. However, there his proposal did not go well with UNESCO, who demanded that no new designs be added to the visible parts of the temple. As a reaction to this, VBB came up with the proposal to rebuild the original brute rock facade that surrounded the carved temple, placing it in the new site along with the other temple pieces7. The proposal also included the construction of a dome which would be placed over the interior pieces of the temple shrine in order to support the facade in the front and a new man-made hill in the back of the temple, the shape of which would loosely resemble the shape of the original sandstone cliff8. This proposal aimed to retain as much of the original temple’s facade as possible, including the rock surface surrounding the carved sculptures, and keeping the original shape of the cliffs which, the temples were nested in. This would allow for the new relocated temple to be very similar to the original in its context through a form of invisible design which would not make apparent the intervention of modern architecture and technology in the ancient temples. Ultimately, because of the proposal’s accuracy to the original site, the dome plan was approved and pushed forward by UNESCO and the Egyptian government.

Despite initial intentions to maintain the original visual form and experience of the temples regarding its site, the resultant temple complex does not offer such a clear reading as was initially intended in the plans for the project. In its final form, the Abu Simbel Temples are separated by a narrow opening between the cliffs, rather than being comprised within a single rock wall as in its original state. This alters the circulation around the site from how it used to be before the relocation, changing the experience and the ways in which one can view the temples. Aside from this, the overall form of the cliffs also does not closely follow the silhouette or height of the original cliff wall in its front side, neither does it create a realistic reading of the back side, where the artificiality of the man-made rock hill becomes apparent.

Thus, the new structure comprised of the facade system and the inner spaces of the temple itself and the dome diverges from its intended accuracy in relation to the original conditions, resulting in a different experience of the temple complex than one would have originally.

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Despite continuous emphasis placed on the integrity and accuracy of the relocated Abu Simbel Temples in relation to their original site and state, the outcome of the relocations was only able to attain to this demand to a certain extent. Even though the parts of the interior and the facade of the temples accurately kept their authentic semblance due to the careful processes employed in their dismantling and relocation, the exterior shell and site in which these pieces were consecutively placed did not achieve such a level of integrity and adherence to the initial form. UNESCO’s intention in the relocation of the temples was always to maintain the likeness to experience and visual form of the original location. Such emphasis shows UNESCO’s understanding that not only the built structure of the architecture is important to one’s experience of it, but also the surrounding site in relationship to the built environment. The resultant temple complex after the relocation excels at maintaining the original form of the temples, as their architecture was carefully relocated piece by piece and recreated perfectly in the new location. However, this success did not apply to recreating of the site or container of the temples as well. In its final version, the surrounding cliffs of the temple and the overall site in which they are located differ from the original, resulting in a different experience for the visitors. Thus, a new architecture emerged from this process, which although not explicitly sculptural and altered like the initial proposals by VBB, still differs from the original through the creation of this new building structure with a new silhouette and shape, even if subtle and with natural appearance. Although the new architecture applied to the new location of the temples to encase the original architecture is invisible, the environment of the relocated temples does not reflect the one at the original site. As a result, this new architecture effectively has an impact in the relocated version of the Abu Simbel Temples, resulting it to be tangibly severed from its original state, a disconnect which ultimately puts at stake the modern visitor’s experience of the historical and cultural values embedded in the architecture of the Abu Simbel Temples.

Koffler, Sandy, ed. “Abu Simbel - Now or Never.” The UNESCO Courier (October 1961): 4-6.

2,5 Allais, Lucia. “The Design of the Nubian Desert.”

Governing by Design (2012): 179-215.

3,7 Allais, Lucia. “Integrities: The Salvage of Abu Simbel.”

Grey Room 50 (2013): 6-45.

4,8 Berg, Lennart. “The Salvage of the Abu Simbel Temples.” ICOMOS: Monumentum 17 (1978): 25-54.

6 Terence, Spencer. “The Race to Save Abu Simbel is Won.” LIFE (December 2, 1966): 33-39.

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