Major Project Review Sheets

Final Major project review, some sheets which will be presented on Thursday 12th of May, before the Thesis review on May 31st. The scheme builds upon the narative of pilgrimage and watercourse as two processions that meet on the Atlas slopes in a vernacular based 'Grenier'. The retreat utilises water by both pragmatic and poetic methods to sustain life.

Prototyping

Making bricks, ramming walls and figuring it out as we go ...

Latest Drawings

Some post-studio sketches about the processional idea of pilgrimage and the Heideggarian 'verbs' referred to in my written work ...

Project Process - Feb 27th

Kahn's Salk Institute - monolithic concrete forms with timber openings which are set
in parallel to the watercourse of the courtyard rill. This is a university building with a
vista to the Pacific Ocean just outside San Diego.

Atlas Mountain Retreat

Tectonic precedent: bridges, terraces and 'Agadir's' - the latter being a secret store of valuables and sustenance during times of uncertainty or attack. Also looking into waterwheel technology as a form of power for lifting material and energy consumption.

Atlas Mountain Retreat

Some images from the project development - ideas of self-sufficiency, water technologies, terrace reclaim, thermal mass and references to the Agadirs of the granaries in Kasbahs. Images of sketches below include the mildest enactment of bridging which involve buildings having visual connections and stepping stones.

Moroccan Transgression

Lars the techno-junkie struggles with a lack of internet connection while Roger looks out upon the openess of the road and plains as we venture south towards the Atlas ranges. Upon arriving at the end of the road in the Ourika Valley one finds an ephemeral river that divides the valley while providing a life source for the Berber people.

We surveyed the site and took note of the elevations of terracing, while local kids admired their football heros on the rear of a delivery truck. As the Berber people try to hold onto their identity it is clear that the modern world is disrupting their existence - new trade and tourism from Westerners like our cohort give them choice never available before. The final image of the satelite dish laden donkey seems to sum up the countries current cultural position.

Moroccan Transgression

The distinction between light and dark is the sharpest definer of the spaces, whether cast by rooftops into Riad squares, or reflected in the Arabic decoration and detailing.

Moroccan Transgression

The main square in the Medina (old city) of Marrakesh, where satelite dishes adorn the rooftops of the Souks. It's clear that this place is on the edge of the old world, peering into the 'choice' of the new. Despite that craftsman still line the compressed streets and alleyways - often working and selling their wares from tiny rooms.

Moroccan Transgression

Just back after a week in Morocco, visiting Marrakesh, Casablanca, the Atlas mountains and Rabat. What a sensory overload - absolutely knackering! A wealth of colour and flavour from many cultures exist in the countries capital; where we set up camp in the 'Annex'. Based just one block from the Medina walls and a further half mile from the Souks, we often ventured deep into the corridors and alleyways of the old city.

We took advantage of the Rabat's schools bus and driver, visiting Casablanca and Rabat in one day, then off to the Ourika Valley in the southern Atlas ranges to find our site (and to 'find what we had previously forgotten'). See below for some of the many photos. First moves on the final project in the Emergent studio will follow shortly ... once I've recovered!

Showcase Artefect

'Kandinsky's Drawers'

Each drawer in this chest represents a collection; of parts, compositions and experiences. My thesis supports the 'Gestalt' view of experience, where the whole is more than the sum of the parts, and this showcase installation asks questions of composition (perhaps being the stage between part and whole).

Kandinsky painted his 'Compositions' over 30 years, cataloging his artistic ideals into 10 paintings over a period of filtration and distillation. If his paintings can be read as musical compositions then there maybe parallels between all artistic endevours, where composition leads to a state of completeness. From painting, to symphonies, to architecture: can the composition of a space be the revealing quality that connects the parts into a 'whole'? Or is the idea of 'Gestalt' a meta-physical ideal that cannot be explained in terms of physical tectonics.

Symposium and Showcase

The Emergent Symposium was a great success, and the Showcase will also allow the Thesis propositions to be debated in the public realm. In the future a video of the Symposium on the Emergent website.

Soon we go to Morocco for our North African Transgression, and then onto the final project where all of the work done so far compounds into a final piece of architecture, which will then be delivered in the end of year exhibition.