Week 14 – Documentation Films

The assessment was to find a topic related to inhabitation and explore it in terms of our own individual brief. From this create a 2x 2x 2 metre installation, document the install and create visualisations to present the final work.

Week 9 – Studio

Posted on November 9, 2011 by inhabitations

Presented our group publications.

In groups of five we created an interior magazine, focusing on the idea of inhabitation. We used all work to date, to outline and explore this idea in magazine form.

Week 7 – A01C Submission

Posted on October 4, 2011 by inhabitations

Tuesday:

we were given the studio time to conduct an interview in a classmates bedroom, on their idea of inhabitation.

Friday:

Submitted our Interviews.
Feedback = our questioning and answering needs to be more critical and analytical.

Week 6 – Studio

Posted on October 4, 2011 by inhabitations

Tuesday:

The studio group re-submitted their visual essays.
Scribbled a summary of progress so far this semester.

Summary on Butcher’s Paper

Friday:

Worked on our position to the question “What is the role of the designer”.
Briefed on Assessment A01C – ‘Inhabitation Conversation’

Week 5 – Studio Notes

Posted on September 3, 2011 by inhabitations

LECTURE #1: Gaston Bachelard [1884 – 1962]

Gaston Bachelard was a French philosopher, author of Poetics of Space which looks at the ontology of the home. He saw the ‘house’ as a machine for living.
Phenomenology = that which appears – the conscious experience. Essence of how we experience the world. Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties.
Bracketing = legitimate experience even if not real/ physical or tangible.
System of time (perception and measure of time differs). Subjectivity of space – the measurable home.
Home = the physical and psychological (thought/memory) home. Which has three layers of experience; 1. cultural/social – (memory/thought/imagination) 2. personal/ psychological (daydream: attraction if images) 3. primal – sense of experience – (intimacy/shelter).
Topoanalysis = ‘the systematic psychological study of the sites of our intimate lives’. Bachelard starts with the basic idea that the psyche is a place, and the house is an extension of that place. Both the house and consciousness house memories. The role of the researcher is to map these places, to show how they are developed in time etc. Topoanalysis then is the means of understanding the topography of the self. Such an analysis will always lead to an understanding of place (topos) in general because the topography of the self is projected onto our physical an environment.
“I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.” Bachelard – Poetics of Space Quotes.

LECTURE #2: Visual Essays

an image in itself says something
varied descriptions/ angles/ progress/ action
multiple images juxtaposed
relationships of idealisation and physical meanings.
gives a suggestion that you can read into them
can be communicated through a series of mediums
sensory engagement
not a story board
to dwelled upon
suggests ideas that link to separate images
requires time to decipher
collection of discreet visual material
colour/ drawing style/ medium can manipulate the images message
implied connection between subjects – category of events or ideas; giving rise to a message
contextual meaning through consistency.
Reference: A bout de Souffle Trailer (Godard)

Visual Essay Assignment based on ‘What happens to space when photographed and Reproduced?’

Feedback on class submissions:

Work on layout – in needs to be a system of thinking
include image captions – title
ensure same colour/tone aesthetics – make images look like a set
connect ideas with a theme
consistency is needed
consider paper stock
too much content – work needs to be edited before submission with a finalised concept and layout.

Week 4 – Studio Discussions

Posted on August 25, 2011 by inhabitations

23.8.11

“What happens to space when it’s photographed and reproduced?”

Group 1:

1. Space when it is photographed
– transforms from 3D to 2D medium
– it is constructed, so there is deliberate choice in what to omit
– it becomes ‘silent, still’ and loses other sensory qualities e.g. olfactory, tactile, aural, which are integral to the experience of a space (it loses its atmospheric quality)
– it only provides one perspective
– it freezes a moment in time
– it is seen through an artificial eye – it never capture the same image as a human eye
– physical experience is lost, in favour of a projected experience (it reframes the view)

2. Space when it is reproduced
– meaning becomes ambiguous and can be transformed according to context
– provides a false perspective of scale
– it opens itself up to more criticisms, not just as spatial design but also as a photograph (this deviates attention away from its original purpose)
– makes the image more accessible and boosts popularity
– image comes to you (the “pilgrimage” is gone), loses the sensation of anticipation; the ‘threshold’ experience is lost

Group 2:

Looses context and atmosphere
Becomes 2 dimensional, flat and static
Looses scale and depth
A space is about inhabiting and it becomes questionable if one is able to inhabit a space through a photo – e.g. not being immersed within the space when viewing a photo
A space in a photo becomes available to masses and can be widely distributed – spaces in reality are not mobile
As a result of photos the space may become more popular and sought after
The reproduction can either encourage (excited by the image) or discourage (satisfied with viewing the image alone or disappointed when seeing an image of the space) a pilgrimage to the space
The introduction of virtual tours (3D imagery) are replacing a need to the space
Being selective and constructing an image of a space such as superficial inhabitation of the space
In an image people are more likely to focus on the aesthetic values of the space and how it appears in the image rather than the functional use of the space.
Spaces and interiors are private domains – an image exposes these spaces – by reproducing an image you are inviting people into your homes and lives.

26.8.11

World of Interiors visited McElbone Place, Surry Hills

A lane that consists of facing terraces, with no front yards, however every entrance to every terrace is jungled with oleanders, bougainvillea, gardenias, roses, frangipani, camellias and magnolia. These plants formed the periphery of this thoroughfare. This lane challenges the traditional view and idea of front yards and gardens. The idea that the interior and exterior are combined simultaneously was evident in that most terraces had their front doors slightly ajar.

This was an amazing experience in relation to the idea of inhabitation, designed with the use of nature.

Week 3 – Studio Discussions

Posted on August 23, 2011 by inhabitations

What is Inhabitation?

‘Possibilities for Inhabitation’

Reading: Sexuality and Space – Beatriz Colomina

In the early 1990s the addition of “sexuality” seemed to take the vibrant debate on space into new territory. The title Sexuality and Space reflects this. Beatriz Colomina’s reading insists on “sexuality” as a component of space, inserting feminist concerns into a masculine discourse. We are invited to treat architecture as a system of representation. Gender is designed in space and space is never designed in a gender-neutral way. The reading is rich and detailed. Beatriz Colomina contributes an analysis of representations of house designs, architecture and interiors, by Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier. She explores the way in which these houses are photographed, and some of the ideas informing them, drawing out the way in which these utopian, perfect rooms are paradoxically theatrical sets for dramas of domestic life. There is an implied contradiction between the architect’s dream of perfect space and the actually existing mess of daily life; but either way the woman is always positioned as hidden and within the interior, an object of the male gaze.

OVERALL THEMES:

▪The window; framing/viewing/exterior/interior

▪Traces of the occupants

▪“To live is to leave traces” (Walter Benjamin)

▪The interior becomes a spatial psychological device of control

▪Gender, sexual divides (masculine/ feminine)

▪Narrative

▪Exterior/ Interior

▪The interior as a theater box. It frames the view and the viewer.

▪Architecture is a viewing mechanism that produces the subject/ viewpoint.

Adolf Loos Interiors/Architecture:

▪Theatrical, constructed by many forms of representation

▪The inhabitant is a spectator of theatrical architecture

▪The house is the stage for the theater of everyday domestic life.

▪Interior and exterior are constructed simultaneously, yet there are thresholds and boundaries

▪The space covers the occupant like clothes. The inhabitant is both covered by space and detached from it.

▪The interior is not resonated in the exterior – “the house does not have to tell anything to the exterior, instead, all its richness must be manifest in the interior”

▪The construction of building/ spaces control how we inhabit them

Le Corbusier Interiors/Architecture:

▪There is always a trace of an inhabitant (hat, glasses, package, lighter – always male items)

▪The interior is exposed through the exterior

▪Portrays females inside and males outside (females never occupy the same space as men)

▪Everything is in the visual

▪The window as a lens, the house is a camera pointed at nature, it is just a series of views.

▪Inhabitants are movie actors within a film (interior)

▪To inhabit means to see, the eye is a door to architecture – the first form of a window. The eye is a tool of recording.

Week 2 – Inhabitation Readings

Posted on August 23, 2011 by inhabitations

Re-Thinking Histories of the Interior: Charles Rice

Rice examines between the domestic interior and the domestic environment. The domestic interior is in relation to the media, that is, the furnishings, decoration and ornate objects. Whereas, the domestic environment is the setting; the shell, the blank canvas, white walls – prior to the domestic interior. Is the domestic interior separate from architecture? This question arises while reading this study. It exposes the problem between the spatial and imagistic sense of the interior.

The interior has double conditions – material and immaterial: material being the fabric and textiles, immaterial being the irrelevance of these objects in the space; for example the Twofold Room. It could be irrelevant having all these objects in the space but it is evidence of inhabitation. “A room that resembles a reverie, a truly spiritual room, in which the motionless atmosphere is lightly tinted with pink and blue” – there is nothing utopian about this room without the use of decoration. So its image sense is transparent to its spatial sense according to Charles Baudelaire.
Walter Benjamin in his 1939 expose of the bourgeois domestic interior, outlines the importance placed on the domestic material (commodity) (objects such as curtains and furniture) as opposed to the importance of the home (necessity). The interior becomes a place of refuge from the life outside of the home, however the ‘collector’ still inhabits a space that is just as busy as it is outside – the home is full of the unnecessary commodities from the city. The mind thinks that the interior is a space of relaxation sealed off from the everyday world, but it is the consumption of commodities that fill interiors contradicting it as a place of refuge.
Benjamin and Baudelaire’s immaterial experience occurs in the relation to a space for and of the psyche.
According to Mario Praz, the house and the interior are a continuum that both need furnishing – the structure will also be there (the architecture/exterior) however there needs to be the life breathed into the space (the interior) to fill the empty voids that have been constructed from the exterior. The interior reflects the character or personality of the occupant; this comes from the basic nature of humans – those who care about their house and those who do not at all.
Charlotte Gere outlines that interior decoration was directly linked with the emergence of interior as a genre. Interior being a visual representation. So it can be said that Architecture is the foundation for the interior, while the interior looks at the enclosure provided be architecture and then articulated through materiality.

In Praise of Shadows: Junichiro Tanizaki

The Apartment: Georges Perec

Chaos, Territory, Art. Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth: Elizabeth Grosz

The Dialectics of Outside and Inside: Gaston Bachelard