Niranchana G: CEPT PORTFOLIO- M22 | ID4030-The BIG Rethink | POIESIS OF MIMESIS

0. About Studio

1. Design Boot Camp

1.1 Architecture as Architecture Orthogonal Drawings 1.2 Interior Design Sensibility Isometric Drawing 1.3 Interior Design Specialisation Exploded Isometric Drawing Module 01 2. Developing the Hypothesis

5 6-13 14-24

The BIG Re-think Tectonic Materiality of Interior Elements

Master Tutor: Prof. Kireet Patel

Studio Tutors: Rishav Jain, Aparajita Basu

Assistants: Jay Odharia, Jhanavi Parikh

Brief Outline:

The Big Rethink is a series of postgraduate interior design studios focused on developing a multitude of notions, approaches, positions and arguments within the interior design field.

This semester, the fourth one in the series, the studio challenges the concept of Tectonic Materiality of interior elements. It offers an opportunity to develop a design position in different contexts by questioning preconceived notions of interior design. It emphasizes the relationship between Interior elements and tectonic materiality through experience, organization and construction.The studio focuses on representing experiential and ephemeral qualities, planning and organising strategies, detailing and construction techniques, exploring the relationship of interior elements and tectonic materiality.

Learning Outcomes:

After completing this studio unit, the student will be able to:

Ability to develop a systematic argument/position/approach on the interdependence between interior techniques and practice.

Ability to translate/represent the design argument/position/ approach through 3- dimensional and material based outcomes.

Ability to organize and evaluate the programmatic and pragmatic potential of derived design position.

Ability to build a design vocabulary and test it through the selected context (site/program).

Caption for the Image

Week 01-04 | Design Boot-Camp

Ex. 01 | Specialisation of sensibilities

Knowing Architecture and Interior Sensibilities & Interior Specialisation

Project Information

PROJECT: GC PROSTHO MUSEUM

LOCATION : KASUGAI-SHI, JAPAN

DESIGNER: KENGO KUMA

Process:

The projects are to be explored in various lenses such as architecture as architecture with the help of orthogonal drawings, Interior sensibility with the help of isometric drawings and Interior specialisation through an exploration of exploded isometric drawing. The aim is to acheive a transition phase from architectural background to understand the Interior Specialisation stage by stage with the aids of manual drafting, digital drafting and physical models. As the Architectural shell fades away, Interior specialisation comes more into light and a better understanding of tectonics of materiality in the processV

GC Prostho Museum Research Centre

Location : Kasugai - shi, Japan

Designer : Kengo Kuma

Description :

Client : GC Corporation

Total usable area : 626.50 Sq.m

Plot size : 421.55 Sq.m

Project start date : 2008

Completion of work : 2010

“The Sharply defining shadows, mes merising in their complexity transverse over the concrete floor alongwith the daylight. Gazingupintothelatticevaulttheeyes getlostintheplethoraofpatternspres ent at the different levels.”

-Brown (SomethingtoSinkYourTeethinto.)

Structural Design : Jun Sato ARCHITECTURE AS ARCHITECTRE- ORTHOGONAL DRAWINGS

INTERIOR DESIGN SENSIBILITIES- ISOMETRIC DRAWING

The Big Rethink: Tectonic Materiality | Master Tutor: Prof.Kireet Patel | Unit Tutors : Rishav Jain, Aparajita Basu | Unit Assistants:

Isometry view

A toy, an object meant to be picked up and held, becomes a graphic module which is infinitely repeated, blown up and made into a structural element, concluding its metamorphosis into architecture. This is why visitors inside and outside Kuma’s building feel a little disconcerted, as the design of the building marginalises the presence of the architectural volume: in a context such as the Japanese city, where there is very little space between one building and the next, the dissolution of the outline of Kuma?s volumes due to their three-dimensional graphics reduces the sensation of unease created by a building that has neither weight nor size. Weaving of lattice and structure: stair, entry, light well juxtaposed by the very irregular volume of space it forms: an eroded cavity in the over- all structure. This quality is enhanced by the gridded wall growing “thicker as it extends upwards, lending a cave-like ambience to the space.” The visible end of every wooden rod is painted white, reminiscent of a hatch pattern indicating a cut element in a drawing set. This treatment highlights the fictional process of the carving alluded to within this inner space; what remains is the structure necessary to define the volume and, with respect to Bötticher’s theories of spatial tectonics, what is necessary to support the roof above.

Abstract model made with teak wood, and acrylic sheets.

Ex. 02 | Design Optimization

Familiarising - “Know it more through - Optimization”

ABSTRACTION AS APPROACH

As we start abstracting the necessary elememts of interior we clearly distinguish the shell from the interiors or how an element can consume an entire interior space with the architecture taken out of context.

The optimization of the project explores on the tectonic rather on stereotomic exhibiting the design specialisation and the process of conceptualization of the abstract model refines the analysis to the essence of space with interior sensibilities.

THE

PHYSICAL MODEL : ABSTRACTION expressing the essence of space

PHYSICAL MODEL: SHOWING HEARTH

CHIDORI JOINT STICKS

The transformable lattice

The chidori module

The white endings of lattice highlighting the growth and

The highlighted stairway

The identity of the dental museum in landscape

Ex. 01 | Tectonics & Materiality

Part 01 | Exploring concepts of Tectonic Materiality

Project Information

Identifying and analysing projects that exhibit tectonic materialty. Forming synthesis matrices.

Process:

The Projects are to be chosen from various typologies based on 3 contexts, namely Historical era, current modern practises and individual identities: studied to generate questions of what , why and how of materiality is applied onto the projects. The analysis is to be extensively done for 9 projects with 6 parameters on the matrix and a synthesis is to be dervied and consolidated to one statement. condensing the 9 statements, various iterations of hypotheses are made and further progressed as the final hypothesis is derived.

Statements based on the analysis of the syntheses of 9 projects

Formed iterations of hypothesis

Arriving at the final

HYPOTHESIS

How does mimetic modulation of a planar surface enhance tactility of an interior space?

What happens, then, when the fusion between the organic and the inorganic takes form? Mimesis?

A mimesis that has a multiple interpretation. Mimesis is a psychoanalytic term - taken from Freud - that refers to a creative engagement with an object. Mimesis is a term, as Freud himself predicted, of great potential significance for aesthetics. Mimesis offers a way of finding meaning in the world, through the discovery of similarities. These similarities become absorbed and then rearticulated in language, no less than in dance or other art forms

Time problem model

Time problem model - details

Slender brass frames with dandelions

Week 07-08

Project Information

Reviving a space of historical and giving it a new purpose by displaying an exhibit for Davinci’s dream machines. Site: Samode Palace, Jaipur

Module 02 | Role 01 Historical practices through a project representing an ‘era’ Process:

The concept of restoration, although intended for minimum intervention from interior designers, presents challenge for re-creating, re-purposing and reviving spaces from its time of creation. Here in Samode Palace, the existing fabric of highly ornamented features could not be disturbed while the provision new elements to the display of Davinci objects. Assuming this as a challenge to the intervention and mimesis incorporated into the process and the design is broughout as a photomontage technique.

Role 01 | Historical practices through a project representing an ‘era’

Slender brass frames connected to dandellion (either natural seeds incase of temporary exhibit or silicon fibre incase of permanent exhibit) to fibre obtic cables giving the soft gradtion of light inside the space.

sporodic structure making the system light and almost transparent to the eye with a warm texture and slender stalks.

sporodic structure modifying the light into soft nature and giving a different character to the space. Sfumato, (from Italian sfumare, “to tone down” or “to evaporate like smoke”), in painting or drawing, the fine shading that produces soft, imperceptible transitions between colours and tones. It is used most often in connection with the work of Leonardo da Vinci and his followers, who made subtle gradations, without lines or borders, from light to dark areas; the technique was used for a highly illusionistic rendering of facial features and for atmospheric effects.

Analogous to this is the concept of Role 1 exhibit design following the nuances of the fragile geometry shaping a modulation of the floor plane directing the spectators to enjoy the balance between the new and the old.

The Largely voluminous space. Stone columns beautifully carved to support arches. Highlighted Niches in repetition. Natural lighting through openings Walls articulated with motifs and mirror mosaics. Paintings and mirrors incorporated within geometries of a plane. Geometries in patterns compartmentalising a plane. Carpetted flat surface flooring.

Largely voluminous space on one side and envelope on the other side.

Stone columns beautifully carved to support arches. Highlighted Niches in repetition.

Natural lighting through openings on either side with archade corridor.

Ceilings articulated with motifs and mirror mosaics. Paintings and mirrors incorporated within geometries of a plane.

Movement in repetition.

Stone columns beautifully carved to support arches.

NARROW PATHWAY WITH ARCHADE

Natural lighting through openings on either side.

Walls articulated with motifs and mirror mosaics.

Paintings and mirrors incorporated within geometries of a plane.

Photomontage | Display of wall mounted smaller displays in the corridors

Photmontage | Larger displays in the central space pf samode palace

Photomontage | display of objects on levitating platforms.

Photomontage | display of objects on levitating platforms.

Materiality (Chain mail mesh) play in the expression of past era and machinery, its tectonics works wexcellent for the voronoi network formation.

Week 09-11

Module 02 | Role 02 | Organizing ‘Materiality’

Current modern practices through a project representing a ‘Standardization’

THE POESIS OF DREAM MACHINES VISIONS IN VORONOI

Project Information

Figuring inside-out relationship in the standardised layouts of a building and a coherence of spatial planning and experiential quality through the orthogonal drawings.

Process:

It ispossible to create forms through methods analogous to the evolution of intelligent life: emergent behavior and self-organizing systems. It pursues various methods through which the role of the designer can shift from “space programming” to “programming space”. What the new poiesis can achieve is conceptual broad gestures at the beginning, and precision later Given the specific surface or volume, they achieve an interconnectedness of elements for bracing and strength, like continuous materials. Structurally, both tension and compression are in a new set of relationship; more a network of structural matrix. Weaves are based on parameters for surface topology description, density, and number of strands or threads.

Caption for the Image

Current experimental work focuses on issues of organizational complexity (inter penetration of elements), on the production of diversity (iteration vs. repetition), on the spatial recognition of fuzzy social logics (smooth vs. striated space), on ways of coping with uncertainty (virtuality vs. actuality), and on engagement with new pro duction technologies.

Moving beyond the design of an envelope alone,only spatial relationships may in corporate another layer, that of interiority, by “weaving” in one (enclosure) into the other (interior). There are two levels of complexity: that of weaving of the skin and that of the volume.

Elements around staircase

SECOND FLOOR

FFL: +7.60 LVL

FIRST FLOOR

FFL: +4.25 LVL

GROUND FLOORFLOOR

FFL: +0.90 LVL

DRIVEWAY LVL FFL: 0.00 LVL SECTION C-C’

The introduction of a heterogeneous structure, as layers of form generated by different materials put across one another. Complex behavior comes from the interaction of simple parts and form the language of the interior as a whole.

Here the chain links form interesting patterns and with appropriate light render ings :a flow of shadows will come into play. The significance of shadows, As Juhani pallasma says, in his book ‘The eyes of the skin’;

” The eye is the organ of distance and separation, whereas touch is the sense of nearness, intimacy and affection. The eye surveys, controls and investigates, whereas touch approaches and caresses. During overpower- ing emotional ex periences, we tend to close off the distancing sense of vision; we close the eyes when dreaming, listening to music, or caressing our beloved ones. Deep shad ows and darkness are essential, because they dim the sharpness of vision, make depth and distance ambiguous, and invite unconscious peripheral vision and tactile fantasy.”

‘The Brick wants to become an arch’ says Louis I Kahn and this metamorphosis takes place through the mimetic capacity of the body. We have an innate capacity for remembering and imagining places. Perception, memory and imagination are in constant interaction; the domain of presence fus es into images of memory and fantasy. We keep constructing an immense city of evocation and remembrance, and all the materiality in the space with tectonics, serve as the basis of this fantastic imagery.

Joinery- fixing of element to ceiling

Joinery- fixing of Mirror & display

PLAN

SECTION VIEW

Junction model - Chain mail mesh detail

EXPLORATIONS THROUGH PHYSICAL MODELS

Snips of the movie “THE HIDDEN FORTRESS” by Akira kurosawa.

Week 12-16

Module 02 | Role 03 | Materialising the Interior Specialisation

Collaborative practices through a project representing an ‘identity’

PROCESS THE MOVIE INSPIRATION

Project Information

Inspirations from varied fields and medium explored through the process.

Process:

The approach to designing the exhibit space is derived from various fields and mediums - movies for lightings in set, charcoal sketches for volumes and depth of field, Digital model and rendering for the spatial elements and experiential quality. Achieving a sense of these qualities, and with the play of modulated morphed planes & the entire space for da Vinci dream machines are designed.

Caption for the Image

Charcoal Sketch

Initial conceptual drafting explaining the quality of space, modulated floor plane as ripples which extends itself into ripples formed of lights emerging from the glass pane above the display.

Initial renders | view to the enterance of central display where one can sit and experience the space

Experimenting with singular materiality and light effects.

Rendered image | smaller diplay units with suspended elements

Rendered image | entrance to the central seating space

Part Model of the space | exhbiting smaller displays with the suspended element creating focus onto the display object

Part Model of the space | exhbiting larger displays below the central seating space. negative form of the ripple providing more focus to the ceiling plane.

Caption for the Image

Part Model of the space | exhbiting smaller displays with the developing self-regulatory patterns of move ments and a stop phase to not touch the display objects.

Foreward:

As Jacques Herzog said: “ ...there is a paradox in this affirmation of the material aspect of architecture, because ultimately it is the moment when materiality transcends into immateriality that we are after. “

Engaging in techniques of modulation has allowed the designer to access the concepts of efficiency, formation and self optimization through the hypothesis. The integration of such discrete elements using geometric modulation to encompass them and to bring them into a single system is achieved in the exhibit designs for the Davinci objects. With integration, modulation is seen in the massing and shaping of the overall interior, not only parts of it. Modulation, here, is not the result of expressive desire or the mimicry of natural modulated elements, but the result of an attempt to bring different systems together in a totalizing, fluid synthesis. It is an attempt to merge the totality of the form and material with the concept. The wall curvature in the role 3 exhibit space is fabricated in an analogous method to the walls of Notre-Dame-du-Haut: prefabricated light-gauge steel framing is covered with lath and plaster; the smooth result unifies the discrete members used to structure the wall. The deployment of this method, with the finishing of the wall leaves a single component: the orthogonal boxes are brought, with the use of the connecting curvature, into a single, continuous form. Modulation is both material technique and architectural concept.

Concealing a system of distinct structural elements is both, the language and the perceived result – a taut unified surface – achieving the final seamless effect. It is through conceptual modulation, applied to or with material, that simple materiality or construction is transcended and an experiential interior act occurs. The concept is explored through a material instantiation that is not itself design but tectonics.

THOMAS SCHROEPFER