Conclusive Thoughts and Revelations

Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed this project. It allowed me to design and work with, what is considered to be the metaphysical. I was able to bend the boundaries of architecture and push the limits of design. From this I had gathered many valuable lessons about how to "think outside the square" to accomplish future design problems and create architecture that is significantly more dramatic and even interactive.

Lighting Effects on Model

Final Model

Drawings

I used copper wire to represent the disintegration of architecture, and to suggest the possibility of other spaces which are not clearly defined and distinguished by the ordinary man. Longer pieces of the wire which were supposed to be straight I actually bent. This alludes to the scientific theory that at large distances straight lines bend due to the curvature of space. This again suggests that there is no limit to my design concept.

Model Outside

Building the Model

Building the Model...

Since this was a purely conceptional model, this is exactly how i responded to the task at hand. I made the site to be the human mind, which would mean that there are no physical restrictions (e.g. cliffs, water, ground) to limit how I could design. I wanted to explore all the aspects of the mathematical, x,y,z 3-dimensional plane. The only restrictions would be obtained through the misunderstanding of the genius mind by the ordinary man. Thus, I aimed to create the central space to be relatively simple, with the complexity of the architecture increasing at the extremities to an extent that it literally disintegrates before the ordinary man.

I began by extruding a "+" shape up along the y-axis, and manipulated it by adding linear elements and creating voids. I chose to spiral the 3 rooms upward, according to the golden ratio, 1:161803399. I created a staircase which follows the spiral upwards, and is laid down according to the Fibonacci sequence (1,1,2,3,5...). Thus, already, it can be observed that there is a high emphasis on mathematical order, seen through the use of ratios and symmetry. This continues throughout the entire design process of the model. I also employed symmetry to represent impossibility. I created two impossible staircases which mirror their "possible" counterparts, ultimately alluding to the notion, which is that the ordinary man cannot fully understand the complexity of the genius mind.

Impossible Shapes

Escher Drawings

To gain inspiration for my design, rather than looking at architecture, I looked at other Escher drawings to examine complex architectural spaces. I looked at impossible shapes, like the penrose cube and triangle, the blivet and the mobius strip, which all challenge the concept of reality. Thus, through these I could design through the realm of imagination.

Initial Concepts for Model

The main theme that I was playing with, was to construct my design as the direct projection of the complexity of the "genius" mind. If the mind of the genius was to be physically constructed - in particular, as architecture - how would that look, but more importantly would be the perspective of an ordinary man.

I felt that such architecture would be portrayed as "ordered chaos". Superficially it would appear out of place and almost random, but designed on the basis of mathematical and scientific theories.

The Painting

From M.C. Escher's painting "Hand with a reflecting sphere", I had obtained several interesting concepts...

A hand is holding up a reflective sphere, with Escher's image on it. The way i interpreted this is that the hand holding the sphere could be anyone, and through this sphere they are able to be projected into the mind of Escher and see the world through his eyes. I accentuated this concept by creating a narrative which makes they person holding up the sphere unintelligent, while the reflection in the sphere is a genius.

Hence, already there is a lack of connection between the two entities, as the mind of the ordinary man wouldn't necessarily understand all the elements of genius mind. This is metaphorically represented in the curvature of the sphere which generates a distortion and bending of the surrounding environment.

Thus my narrative is...

"An ordinary man trapped in the mind of a genius"

Task 2 - Room & Narrative