architecture and the body

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Spring 2010

Published byThe American Institute of Architects

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ARCHITECTURE &

THE BODY


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FORWARDChristina A. Noble, AIA, LEED AP - DirectorSarah Sobel, AIA - Assistant Director

NATIONAL ASSOCIATES COMMITTEE MISSIONThe National Associates Committee is dedicated to representing andadvocating for Associates, both mainstream and alternative, in the national,regional, state, and local components of the AIA.

FORWARD MISSIONTo be the architectural journal of young, aspiring architects and designers ofthe built environment specifically targeting design issues.

Spring 2010. Volume 10, No. 1. Published biannually by the AIA.

THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS1735 New York Ave., NWWashington, DC 20006-5292

P: 800-AIA-3837 or 202-626-7300F: 202-626-7547www.aia.org/nac

NATIONAL ASSOCIATES COMMITTEE (NAC) OFFICERSJonathan Matthew Taylor, AIA, LEED AP - National Associate DirectorWilliam Turner, Assoc. AIA - ChairSeth Wentz, Assoc. AIA - Advocacy DirectorDerek Roberts, Assoc. AIA - Community & Communications DirectorAshley Clark, Assoc. AIA - Knowledge Director

NAC COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEEChristina A. Noble, AIA, LEED AP - Forward DirectorSarah Sobel, AIA - Forward Assistant DirectorChris Grossnicklaus, Assoc. AIA -AssociateNewsEditor-in-Chief

Joanna Beres, Assoc. AIA -AssociateNewsNews EditorAmanda Gorning, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP -AssociateNewsAssistant Editor

ISSN 2153-7526Copyright and Reprinting: (C) 2009 AIA. All Rights Reserved.

SUBMISSIONSForwardwelcomes the submission of essays, projects and responses to ar-ticles. Submitted materials are subject to editorial review. All Forward issuesare themed, so articles and projects are selected relative to the issues spe-cific subject.

Please contact the ForwardDirector, Christina Noble, [email protected] if you are interested in contributing.

FALL FORWARD 210Landscape


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TOPICS 3by Christina A. Noble

MAKING SENSE OF PLACE 6by Cynthia Pachikara

FLOCKING MOSQUE 14by Azra Akamija

TEMPORAL DOMAINS OF THE BODY 19

by Melanie Shelor

SPACE TAKES TIME: THE WORK OF OLAFUR ELIASSON 26by Sarah Sobel

BODY CARTOGRAPHY 36by Olive Bieringa

BODIES IN MOTION 44by Marlene Imirzian

HAVANAS NATIONAL ARTS SCHOOLS 50by Hansel Hernandez-Navarro

PHYSICAL AND SENSUAL COMMUNICATION 63by Shin Azumi

INTER-ACTIVE BODIES 69by Nimish Biloria

BIOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE 77by Rachel Armstrong


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The object seduces the shopper into a purchase as he identifies with itthrough physical touch. The cup becomes an extension of his hand at thesame time it becomes an extension of his identity through everyday use. Atits best, the materialist design approach creates objects that interact withpeople on an intimate level, making the fulfillment of their needs satisfyingor fun for example Azumis Air Switch AZ which dims and brightens as thehand moves closer to or further away from the light, creating a dynamic playbetween the user and the object. However, this approach can also expandbeyond playful interaction into a designers desire for control. For example,Azumi describes his Upright Salt Shaker:

The dispensing holes are not located on the top of the shaker.Instead they are positioned to the side, to invite the gentle gesture ofshaking salt, while also providing better control. When you slightlytilt the shaker, the salt smoothly comes out. You do not have to turnthe shaker upside down and shake aggressively. The way in which the

product has been designed and subsequently used brings eleganceand grace to the users behaviour at the table.

The designer intends to influence the users movement and create a morerefined atmosphere not just by designing the table setting itself, but also by

designing everyones movements and behavior around the table.

While a desire for a more graceful dinner setting is fairly benign, the powerof space and objects to control people and their actions can becomepolitically and culturally charged when institutionalized and used torepresent an entire culture. Projects such as Azra Aksamijas FlockingMosque seek to question larger religious and cultural institutions and howthey utilize space to control their communitys members and the broaderglobal perception of their people. Flocking Mosque is a prayer rug thatthat can be carried and laid anywhere to invite one or twelve worshippersto assemble. In addition, an unlimited number of rugs can tile and pattern

to create an unending mass of worshippers unhindered by physical space.This simple object invites both the participating community as well asthe world beyond to question the territoriality and formal rigidity of themosque, which can reflect both the rigidity of religious interpretations andcultural inflexibility and understand Islam not as a monolithic structure,but rather as a dynamic process of transformation and change that isspatially shaped by heterogeneous Muslim communities. The physicalpresence of space, as represented here by a mosque, as fixed in the past


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Christina A. Noble, AIA, LEED AP Forward Director has worked as an architectural professional for ten yearsand owns her own firm, Contour Architecture, in Phoenix,

Arizona. She has worked on numerous high profile andlarge-scale projects in her career, including collegiate, mixed-use, govern-

ment and private development high-rise buildings. Christina graduated fromRice University with her Bachelor of Architecture.

can lead to symbolisms and perceptions that also remain bound by thepast. As a result, the community they serve is perceived by the world as amonolithic entity that cannot and does not change. This denies the Islamiccommunity the flexibility to look toward the future and hides from theworld a dynamic community with a multiplicity of beliefs and opinions.However, as Aksamija illustrates, individuals or communities need no longerbe limited and controlled by their physical surroundings. Instead, they canre-appropriate spaces and generate new perceptions and new ideas throughtheir actions outside the bounds of their institutions.

In other examples, performance artists such as Body Cartography question

the rigidity of how spaces can be used through guerrilla-style tactics thatre-appropriate public plazas and city streets. Their Goproject takes overpublic streets for dance and theater. Freerunning, a dance movement whereperformers adapt to and incorporate landscape elements and buildings intotheir performances, has inspired Marlene Imirzians study of dance andarchitecture as a means of creating adaptive and improvisational communityspace.

This issue of Forwardasks many questions regarding the relationshipbetween ourselves and our environment. What is the role of architecture in

our everyday lives? What should it be? What if our spaces adapt to us ratherthan the other way around? Through a combination of the two approaches one inspired by the materialists sensitivity to time and place combinedwith the more critical approach that challenges the meanings of ourexisting spaces and what they represent we can begin to consider morethoughtfully and express in material terms of building how we perceiveourselves and others today and what we aspire others to understand aboutus tomorrow.

NOTES1 Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, Multiculturalism, Postcoloniality, and Transnational Media


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Making complex spatial conditions sensible is a key objective ofmy conceptual practice and it has two important roots immigrationand architecture. As the daughter of immigrants, my identity, my senseof place, and my sense of belonging are continually complicated bymy extended familys historic departure from South India in the early60s and the occasional returns to this place that is still referred to ashome. As I suspect is the case for many children of immigrants,making sense of the world for me has required two very differenttypes of intentionality. On one hand, my American born self has hadthe privilege of being rooted in real sites - hometowns, living rooms,classrooms, etc. In contrast, my American born Indian self has been veryinfluenced by a cultural landscape that was carried to this country from

by Cynthia PachikaraMAKING SENSE OF PLACE

Vertical Horizontaphotography by Cynthia Pachikara


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an abandoned land on the other side of theworld. At an early age, I began to understandthat this part of me doesnt belong to a placeas much as it belongs to a reference to thisplace. Practically speaking, this home has nomass. Contending with it presupposes sometranslation as well as an occasional senseof disorientation. And, most notably, theauthority it wields on me is virtually invisibleto my non-immigrant friends. It requires akind of empty intentionality.

Equally important to my practice is that Iwas educated in architecture in the early90s at the University of Illinois in UrbanaChampaign, when the National Center forSupercomputing Applications introduced theworld to the MOSAIC web browser. Being

educated at the time when terms such asHome Pages, Windows, Thresholds, andNavigation Tools were being co-opted fromarchitecture and geography to illustrate howwe might move through virtual space, itwould be safe to say that I was prompted topuzzle over the codependence of physicaland digital domains, to question and imagineanalogies between the two environments, andto consider how one might build for, occupy,and bridge these radically different sites.

Through my studio work, I attempt toactualize and share the spatial riddles thatthese experiences have presented to me.Using installation art as a format, galleriesand outdoor venues as settings, and projectedlight as building material, I attempt to suggestadjacencies between physical and virtualworlds, create connections between thereal and the referential, and invite sentient,

circulating bodies to locate themselves in themargin.

My works abide by a simple trick of light.Multiple projectors are situated in space,casting video and photographic projectionsto a fixed area on a wall. One of thesebeams is much brighter than the others, thus

Vertical Horizontalphotography by Cynthia Pachikara


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untitledphotography by Cynthia Pachikara


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Pacing Yourselfphotography by Cynthia Pachikara


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dominating to the point of rendering the otherallied layers invisible to the approachingvisitor. As she steps into the gallery, theoccupant unwittingly trips into the primarylight and casts a shadow. With this move, hershadow body becomes a figurative aperturethat reveals the underlying projections.Surprisingly, she encounters light and imagewhere none should be only inside the spaceof her own, familiar and engaged shadow.As she develops a level of comfort in herrole as both seer and subject, as interferenceand editor, she engages in generative play,creating idiosyncratic permutations of theprojected imagery. Imagining the observersbody as such a gate, my work addresses notonly the social contingency of her gazing in aspace, but visualizes the notion of the body-

as-screen. By depending on this circulation,I forfeit a certain degree of control in mywork, setting up a transformative space that isdescribed by motion, light, and image.

To be constructed vividly, the spatial analogyI seek to create requires a sense of realtime, and to this end, it relies heavily on thecirculation of the occupant. The shadows arefilled with photographic stills and videotapedloops that reference moments of differing

length and historical time. Meanwhile, theviewers serendipitous movement in theinstallation space continually regeneratesthese projected moments in terms of thepresent. Not unlike an encounter at abeach, where waves make way for wadingbodies, the light projections envelop theoccupant. The beams continually reshapethemselves according to the spectatorsproximity to key points in the room and

amidst a system of projectors by which theexperience is perceptually constructed. Theenvironment continually reinvents itself asnew visitors reposition themselves relativeto others already gathered there. As bodiestravel through and out of the beam spaces,the displaced layers of light seem to sealthemselves up and the room returns to the

Conceptual Diagramby Cynthia Pachikara

Untitled Video Installationphotography byCynthia Pachikara


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The installations are designed as immanentspatial riddles, fusing real and referentialsites and addressing, in a dematerializedway, the psychological dimensions spawnedby a desired connection to an abandoned

place. Light-based and lens-based projectionsimply the then and there and a physical sitereinforces the here and now. In these works,I intend to make the viewer feel that she isstanding not only within layers of light, andamidst conventional architectural planesseparating immediate interior and exterior,but also in a thin space between distantgeographies.

As the child of immigrants, this is what Iexperience. I recreate it to share it. WhileI move through a very real and immediateworld, another distant landscape resides inme. It is as close as my body and yet alsointerminably distant. Over twenty years sincethe launch of the MOSAIC web browser, thesense of reach enabled by digital technologies

initially perceived, blank state. In fact, alllayers are still entirely present and active.

Using the viewers body as a bridge, Iconstruct illusionistic continuity between

the gallery space and a phantom destination.The projectors not only throw imagery to thewall, they illuminate it, obviating the physicalreality of this immediate spatial boundary.While the shadow comingles with theprojections, it also remains an unmistakableattribute of the spectator standing in thespace. At the same time, I carefully locatevanishing points in the filler images so that from the viewers perspective - vistas revealedinside her shadow appear to recede beyondthe existing exhibition space. Enlarged to abody scale, they start to become impossiblynear, like a dreamscape. However, asone moves toward the wall, the shadowshrinks and the visual gate closes, ultimatelyrendering the landscapes unreachable.

Untitled Video Installationphotograph by Cynthia Pachikara


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Cynthia Pachikarais fine artist and AssociateProfessor at the Universityof Michigans School of Art& Design. She holds a jointappointment in the TaubmanCollege of Architecture

and Urban Planning. She has exhibitedinternationally in venues that include theMackintosh Museum of Glasgow, Scotland,the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax,the Forum for Contemporary Art in St. Louis,Consolidated Works in Seattle, the FassbenderGallery in Chicago, SPACES in Cleveland, andat the Ann Arbor International Film Festival.She received her B.S. in Architectural Studies,her M.Arch and her M.F.A. (Sculpture) at theUniversity of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

has prompted a familiar reality: a sense ofcloseness that is not bound by physical space.For immigrant families with these tools, thelonging for a relationship to a past place issomewhat assuaged. Without these tools wemay likely be lost.


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by Azra AkamijaFLOCKING MOSQUE

Diagram by Azra Akamija


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conforms to Islamic liturgical regulations:the starting point is the Hadith, an oraltransmission by the Prophet Mohammed inthe 7th century. According to Mohammedevery location in the world has the potentialto become a mosque through the enactmentof the ritual prayer of a worshipper. While theword mosque itself comes from the Arabicword masjid and means literally a placeto prostrate in front of God (Arabic Allah),prayer can be performed anywhere, at home

or in a dedicated space everywhere exceptfor spiritually impure places.

Over the course of history, the mosquedeveloped highly diverse architectural formsand typologies. This formal diversity hasevolved out of the open-ended nature ofIslamic spatial regulations, and also due tothe geographical spread of Islam and theassimilation of different cultural influencesand local architectural languages. Whileparticular elements and form of the mosqueare neither specified in the Quran nor in theHadith, a range of functional and symbolicelements have been gradually established.Domes or minarets, for example, have takenon a representative and identifying role forMuslim communities, particularly for those

Flocking Mosque is a modular systemof minimal prayer rugs that can be usedfor Islamic ritual prayer. Inspired by thedecoration from various religious monumentsin Muslim societies, the project FlockingMosque juxtaposes geometric patternswith the patterns of worshipper behavior.Questioning the conceptual foundationsof the mosque, the project opens newpossibilities for future design of Islamicreligious spaces. The project aims tocontribute to an architectural interpretationof Islam, understanding it not as a monolithicstructure, but rather as a dynamic processof transformation and change that isspatially shaped by heterogeneous Muslimcommunities.

While the art of Islamic geometry linksthe material and the spiritual world, itsimultaneously expresses the logic andorder inherent in the Islamic vision of theuniverse the infinitely repeating patternscan represent the Islamic doctrine of unityof all things, al-Tawhid. The design ofthe Flocking Mosque reinterprets Islamicgeometry as wearable and mobile religiousarchitecture, made of small, interconnectedtextile elements. The individual elements of

a chosen pattern are assembled into flower-like circles. Each flower-circle consists ofthirty-seven mini-rugs which provide cleansurfaces for body parts that touch the groundduring the prayer ritual: there are twelve pairsof slippers, twelve pairs of hand-rugs, twelvehead-pillows, and a central circular bag,which contains twelve prayer beads. In thisfashion, one flower-circle of the FlockingMosque can accommodate prayer of twelveworshippers. The capacity and size of sucha mosque can be infinitely expanded andadapted to any space though multiplicationof the flower-circles, or through removal ofindividual components.

Although it represents a novel form ofa religious space, the Flocking Mosque

Diagram by Azra Akamija


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in diaspora. While construction of domesand minarets provide basis for the ongoingcontroversies over cultural and religiouspluralism in the West, the very insistenceand rejection of these architectural symbolsvery much goes against the fluid architecturalconcept of the mosque and its multifacetedformal possibilities. In this context, the project

Images this pageFlocking Mosque

photography by Azra Akamija

Flocking Mosque questions the territorialityand formal rigidity of the mosque, whichcan reflect both the rigidity of religiousinterpretations and cultural inflexibility.

Studying the history of Islamic religiousarchitecture, while anticipating the stylisticand programmatic transformations of

the mosque as a quality to be tested indifferent cultural and geographical contexts,I have created a set of five GenerativeDesign Principles or spatial parametersthat theoretically describe the notion ofthe mosque. These principles provide aconceptual framework for the formal mutationof mosque types, sub-types, and theirelements. They encompass:

1. Directionality refers to the requirementthat the prayer space be oriented spatiallytoward Mecca.

2. Prayer Enactment indicates that prayercan be performed anywhere, and that it is thevery body performing the ritual prayer thattransforms any space into a mosque.

3. Volume of Prayer concerns the minimalspace of the mosque, which, at its smallest, is

defined by the space a persons body occupieswhen performing a prayer toward Mecca.

4. Spatial Cleanliness refers to the necessityof maintaining a spiritual and physical purityof the prayer area.

5. Programmatic Variability a mosquesfunction can switch between hosting religiousand secular activities and vice-versa; thisapplies to historical mosques as well as, for

example, contemporary major sports facilitiesthat are used to accommodate Friday prayer orother larger religious gatherings.

Flocking Mosque picks up on thisprogrammatic versatility in order to evokea new interpretation of the mosque as aritual space that takes place through


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Flocking Mosquephotography by Azra Akamij


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the very congregation of its worshippers,as well as though the spiritual interaction

of their bodies and minds with theirenvironments. The pattern of mini-prayer-rugs, which is collectively represent themosque, is continuously recreated thoughits worshippers: when used for prayer, thecircular formation of the individual rugs hasto be reassembled and re-directed towardsMecca, the prayer direction. In this way, theindividual elements allow any secular spaceto become a mosque. The absence of formaldefinition of the mosque, as in the Flocking

Mosque, renders visible alternative mosqueforms and concepts. Such architecturaldevelopments can only be possible if botharchitects and Muslim communities acceptthe foundational ideological elasticity ofIslam that allows for the mosques formaltransformation and cultural adaptability.

Image this pageFlocking Mosque

photography by Azra Akamija

Azra Akamijais a Sarajevo born Austrian art-

ist, architect, and architecturalhistorian. Her interdisciplinarypractice explores representa-tion of Islamic identities inthe West, spatial mediation of

identity politics, Orientalism, and cultural in-teraction through architecture. She graduatedfrom the Faculty of Architecture at the Techni-cal University Graz, Austria in 2001, and re-ceived her M.Arch. from Princeton University,in 2004. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate atthe Department of Architecture, MassachusettsInstitute of Technology. Besides her academicresearch, Azra has been working as a concep-tual artist. Her interdisciplinary projects havebeen published and exhibited in various inter-national venues such as, most recently, at theSecession Vienna (2007), Manifesta 7 (2008),and The Stroom, The Hague (2009).


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photography by Melanie Shelor

competing temporal and spatial demands, liketalking on the phone while driving, lead to aform of psychic vertigo for the individual8 it is evident how the environment comesto be viewed as a chaotic haze of ambientstimulation.

Examples of this condition can be foundalmost everywhere, perhaps most notablyin the emergence of the contemporary cityas the preferred setting for the hipster, thedigerati,9and even Baby Boomer retirees. Thebuzz of perpetual motion created by humanbodies, traffic and infrastructure blends withthe personal soundtrack of the iPod10to createa trance-like state in which the individualeffectively becomesthe surroundings.11

At the Lux Coffeebar, located in an areacharacterized as the revitalizing central spineof Phoenix, the diffusion of the body intospace gestures toward an abstract conceptionof the recent past. Atmosphere is emitted asa blur of bass and background, furnishedwith an eclectic mix of semi-derelict designer

artifacts from the last century. A DJ playsambient music just loud enough to blend withthe volume of natural conversation, providingaccompaniment to video projections ofmostly indistinct images digitized from reelsof damaged celluloid. As diffusion is achievedon a perceptual level, the atmosphere suggestswarmth and continuity within a process ofslow decay; the patron or inhabitant loses cogency into gently stimulating space.Comforted by cool, yet familiar objects suchas a George Nelson lamp or a Philippe Starckchair, the individual can be relieved of thepsychasthenic burden of otherness as he orshe slips into the dreamy imagery of a longed-for 20th century modernism.

Veneration of the Aesthetic

If diffusion describes a condition in which thedistinction between the body and space blursinto a state of perceptual delirium, venerationtakes the notion of a being within a perpetualpresent along a horizontal trajectory into aninvented temporality, facilitated by the willing


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Kitchen countertop 2009photography by Melanie Shelor


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Lux Coffee Bar: Furnishings 2010photography by Melanie Shelor

subjugation of the body for the sake of theaesthetic. In January of this year The New YorkTimes profiled an emerging lifestyle trend inwhich persons of various backgrounds optedto live in houses in cold climates that havefew or no sources of heat. Janet Smith, Theowner of three such structures in Ridgeway,Colorado, described her rationale:

My stone buildings are so beautiful, I loveliving in them. Theres a whole aestheticof living close to natural materials.12

One of these buildings - a 19th century stonerubble house in which she lives has no

insulation and stays only a few degreesabove an outside temperature that plungeswell below freezing for much of the year inthe Rockies. In this instance, the woman iswilling to subject her body to extraordinarydiscomfort for the experience of living in anantique. Her behavior is symptomatic of afundamental detachment from place as the

definer of historical and relational identity.13The antiquated building is valued merelybecause it has survived and thus becomethe sign of an earlier life.14As such, itsinhabitant, who is devoid of a personal historythat can be shared with others, projectsherself into the building which serves as arelic. Her thermal discomfort becomes a formof devotion to the dilapidated space as sheseeks to move beyond the present of her ownbody into the narrative of a bygone era. Muchlike the diffusion into a derelict Modernismexperienced at the coffee bar, the practice ofveneration asserts itself in the form of mythicaideas about place and identity. The desirefor a contextually defined sense of beinghas nowhere else to go but into an alternatetemporality of an imagined past.

Appropriation

If diffusion and veneration both confer anindividuals submission to space, the practiceof appropriation suggests acknowledgementof being within a temporal present. Notablein this context is Swedish designer PiaAleborgs jewelry, which incorporatesoverlooked materials found in ordinaryenvironments, such as the office or thesuburban neighborhood. By includingincidental forms and disused objects such aselectrical cords, balloon rubber, old makeuppads, and lingerie remnants into her jewelry,Aleborg calls forth an aesthetic of detritus thatis appropriate to a wearer for whom jewelrystraditional signification of wealth and statusis inverted a form of satire that exposes thesumptuousness of consumerism and wastedspace in contemporary life. The jewelry allows

its wearer to remain as an individual (thevery act of wearing jewelry on the body isdistinctly individual) while providing her withlatitude to claim, self-consciously, the tediousand deteriorating landscapes that rightfullybelong to her. This is a cynical recognitionby the wearer that, in reality, the body in itspresent of being is the thing that matters even


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8 (Gergen 2000)

9 (Digerati 2010)

10 (Jameson 2003, 696-697)

11 (Varnelis, varnelis.net n.d.)

12 (Green, Chilled By Choice 2010)

13 (Aug 1995, 77)

14 (Baudrillard 1996, 88)

15 (Castells 1996, 441)

Middle Left: FlooImage from APARTFROM. 2005

Lower Left: Woman with cord necklaceImage from APARTFROM. 2005

Melanie ShelorAfter graduating witha Master of Archi-tecture in 2003 fromthe University ofNew Mexico, Mela-nie worked in profes-sional practice offic-es in Albuquerque,

including AntoinePredock Architect and Devendra NarayanContractor Architect. In the spring of 2006 shetaught architecture studio at the SiddagangaInstitute of Technology near Bangalore. Afterthe financial meltdown in September 2008she took her career in a research-orienteddirection and expanded this trajectory the fol-lowing summer by becoming an independentscholar with Kazys Varnelis Network Archi-tecture Lab at Columbias GSAPP. Melanie is

currently living in Phoenix where she is con-tinuing research in network culture and raisingher one year-old daughter.

Upper Left: Jerse City bar. 2009photograph by Melanie Shelo


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by Sarah Sobel

SPACE TAKES TIME:THE WORK OF OLAFUR ELIASSON

The Weather ProjectInstallation in Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, LondonOlafur Eliasson

photograph by Jenz Ziehe, courtesy Studio Eliasson


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Olafur Eliasson uses light, space, and colorto create environments and objects thatrelate to the human body through movement,reflection and refraction. His oevres approachto human physicality has developed throughsituations and devices that urge and demandinteraction. By requiring viewer participation

and making use of audience-memberssubjective experience, senses, and perception,installations such as The Weather Project(2003) and the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion(2007) propose new cultural programs.Through direct, experimental engagement,Eliassons viewers often spontaneously createthe works resolution, which remains fluid andresponsive.

Eliasson reaches out to his audience fromthe first moment of perception. In a directstatement of intention, many titles use thepossessive pronoun your, for example,Your Sun Machine(1997), Your NaturalDenudation Inverted(1999), and Your BlindMovement(2005). Calling for more thanactive engagement, Eliassons spectators

take ownership of his works and becomeprotagonists in its aesthetic production.1The Weather Project at the Tate Modern inLondon - a moment when Eliassons workbecame more broadly known - compelledvisitors to lie on the floor and experience theirbodies in kaleidoscopic formations reflected

on the ceiling, as if they were catching rayson an industrial beachhead. 2 Museumvisitors bodies could be understood as thisinstallations essential material, acting as thebits that reshuffle each time the kaleidoscopecylinder rotates.

The visitors made the place - it wasa beach and people picnicked; itwas a place of bodily experiment,and often collectively so, with peopleyou had never met before; it was asite for a brief demonstration throughforming slogans in the mirror above. Itwas engaged with. 3

By arranging the structural and ephemeralmaterials of space, material and light,

The Weather ProjectInstallation in Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London

Olafur Eliassonphotograph by Jenz Ziehe, courtesy Studio Eliasson


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The Weather ProjecInstallation in Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London

Olafur Eliassonphotograph by Jenz Ziehe, courtesy Studio Eliasson


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Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2007 - Olafur Eliasson in collaboration with Kjetil ThorsenInstallation view at Serpentine Gallery London, United Kingdom 2007

photography by Luke Hayes, courtesy of Studio Eliasson


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By the 1980s, the notion of immersionhad gained widespread currency withthe rise of virtual reality, computer

games, and the attendant cyberculturalliterature: the experience of walking onthe moon, trawling the depths of theocean, or voyaging the cosmos was, to

follow many contemporary accounts,elaborated as a virtual theater of thesensorium. By no means was this a

passive theater, however. Immersionsnot-so-subtle paradox is that theillusionistic worlds into which the user

plungesweightless, disembodiedworlds where time, light, and space

through their engagement of the sensesand attitude about time. They challengethe traditional separations between thedisciplinary categories of art and architectureand the positions of space and time in our

collective consciousness. Eliasson combinespractices that might alternately be calledart, or architecture, into the overlappingterm spatial experiments. These can beunderstood also as social conjectures, where[s]pace is the dimension of the social that presents us with the existence of others.6While Frederic Jamesons Postmodernism,or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism(1991), states that our culture is dominated

by a paradigm of space rather than time,Eliasson asserts rather that space and timeare inseparable7 With the slow, windingslope of his Serpentine Gallery Pavilion(2007),completed with Kjetil Thorsen, Eliassonrefutes the persistent, contemporary will forcontinual, instantaneous resolution. With thisramp, the experience of space takes time.

Light and Space

Situating Eliasson historically requiresa look at the 1960s and 70s Light and

Space movement and its co-extensivenessto the technophiliac tendencies of that erasscientific disciplines.

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2007 - Olafur Eliasson in collaboration with Kjetil ThorsenInstallation view at Serpentine Gallery London, United Kingdom 2007

photography by Luke Hayes, courtesy of Studio Eliasson


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Beauty, 1993Olafur Eliasson

photograph by Poul Pederson 2004 courtesy of Studio Eliasson


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Light and Space Influences

The Light and Space artists were directly

infl

uenced by collaborations with Dr. EdwardWortz and his perceptual experimentsand technologies such as the Ganzfeld aperceptual field in which no object can begrasped with the eye, but for 360 degrees,white light appears to have substance. Theseinfluences presented a highly mediated andthoroughly technical approach to problemsof human perception specific to [their]eras technological desideratum. Theseartists employed minimal gestures and used

materials such as light, shadow, water, andfog. Whether through steady manipulationsof the optical field or the scantestinterventions into the mundane surfaces ofarchitecture, these artists, critics repeatedlyclaimed, were mining the ever-rich terrain ofthe sensorium.9The Light and Space artistsconsidered environment, but often dealt with

photographically constructed versions of itsqualities. Eliasson translates this continuumof work by not only acknowledgingtechnological mediation, but openlyaddressing the operations of his works,making their mechanical underpinningsdeliberate and revealing displays of technique.

Beauty, originally produced in 1993, usesa hose, water, an electrical outletnozzles,a pump, and a spotlight. Its means of

production clearly exposed, Beauty isabsolutely dependent on and unique toeach viewers position: certain colors in therainbow are emphasized, or the arc maydisappear altogether, depending on the anglebetween observer, light source, and raindrop,such that the piece cannot be seen identicallyeven by two people standing side by side.10

are effectively suspended as so muchtechno-artificeare de facto conjoined tothe awkward mechanisms that producetheir perceptual effects, whether VRhelmets, gloves, motion simulators, or

joysticks. Any phenomenology of thismedia would have to reject the euphoricclaims made about the seamless anddematerialized interface betweenhard and soft worldsto consider themovement between eye and bodythecrux of the Merleau-Pontys chiasmicintertwiningas mediated by the terms ofvery contemporary technical protocols. 8

Eliassons notion of the body in spacehas everything to do with the bodyinteracting with its surroundings. Not

providing subtle backdrops or detached,rarified art experiences, these are pleasfor engagement and participation.Eliassons installations push the viewerinto awareness of his or her complicitiesin the acts of perception and awarenessof the bodys materiality.

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, 2007.Olafur Eliasson in collaboration with Kjetil Thorsen

Installation at Serpentine Gallery, London, United Kingdomphotograph courtesy of Studio Eliasson


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Subjective perception is an embodiedexperience, as it depends on the vehicles ofour senses. How does my bodys trajectoryshape the course of vision itself? In what waysdoes representation become reality?11 In TheLight Setup(2005), Eliasson illuminated thewhite walls of Malm Konsthall in Sweden agallery with different hues of light, forcing theviewer to perceive lights influence and thatthere is no pure, normative experience of thecolor white. By embodying the experience oflight, Eliasson grounds these projects in theLight and Space work, but liberates them fromits dependence on photographic visual modes.The color white is one vehicle through whichEliassons work has taken on the changingspace and role of the museum as a venue inwhich one participates in the orchestration

of ones own experience. Eliasson and themuseum envision perception as an action:purposeful, voluntary, and expressive of anindividuals autonomy... an art of incrementalresistances that seeks not to change the worldbut to sharpen our perception of it. 11

This attention to perception distinguishesEliassons work by creating situations inwhich light and the exposed apparatusesof its projection restructure the social and

psychological interactions between humansand the material world. Collagic associationswith familiar experiences recombine inthe unexpected environments he creates,carrying their related corporeal experiences.The body in public becomes an instrument ofengagement, refuting relinquishment to thestatus of disengaged observation. This status ofinvolvement forces the participant otherwiseconsidered merely audience to become

aware of his or her role in creating perceivedexperience. The work also gently raisescognizance of the socially constructed natureof the various references it combines. WhileLight and Space artists engaged a particularinterpretation of specific landscapes,work such as The Weather Project and theSerpentine Gallery Pavilioncreate conditionsfor simultaneous action and reflection. By

generating spaces that take time, these worksencourage both play and thoughtfulnessregarding the body and its complicity inhuman acts of perception.

NOTES

1. Grynsteijn, Madeleine, (Y)our Entanglements: Olafur Eliasson, The Museum,

and Consumer Culture, in Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson, Thames and

Hudson, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, 2007. 14

2. Lee, Pamela M., Your Light and Space, in Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson,

Thames and Hudson, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco,

2007. 36

3. Massey, Doreen, The Mutuality of Movement, Serpentine Gallery Pavilio

2007: Olafur Eliasson and Kjetil Thorsen. Edited by Caroline Eggel, Anna

Engbor-Pedersen / Studio Olafur Eliasson; Ben Fergusson, Rebecca Morrill/

Serpentine Gallery. London: Serpentine Fallery; Baden: Lars Muller Publishers,

2007.

4. Lee 44-455. Ursprung, Philip, Architecture and Temporality Interviews with Olafur

Eliasson in Studio Olafur Eliasson: An Encyclopedia. Cologne: Tashchen, 2008.

6. Massey

7. Ursprung

8. Lee 46

9. Lee 41,44

10. Grynsteijn 28

11. Lee 34

12. Grynsteijn 22

Sarah Sobelcompleted herarchitectural degreeat the University ofMichigan focused onspatial design inquiriesat the intersections of

scale and perception. Her masters researchqueried perceptual histories, westernlenses, influences on identity and theAmerican relationships with land. She has

lived in Europe multiple times and traveledextensively. Born in Manhattan, mostly raisedin Silicon Valley, she now lives in Pasadena,where she continues to engage problems ofgeographies, climates, and human networks.Through systems and design thinking, tools,and material tactics, she sustains interests inlight, pattern and atmosphere.


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by Olive BieringaBODY CARTOGRAPHY

1/2 Life by Body Cartographyphotography by Sean Smuda


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and relationships in a cultural context whereart, play, and creative process are underval-ued. Audiences can walk away wheneverthey want. They are invited to value multiplemeanings from their experience be it absurd,ugly, challenging, or hilarious. Audiences thusgenerate their own urban mythology: Herewe stand on this empty street corner, all kindsof people, together for this moment, watch-

ing this person dance inside a cardboard boxto the rhythm of the passing traffic as the sundrops below the cityscape behind.

Creating work in public spaces generates vis-ibility through temporality It remains in thepublic imaginations of its witnesses potentiallylonger than a fixed public artwork.4

GO by Body Cartographyphotography by Otto Ramstad

it easy to engage with pedestrians. The workasks: How can two strangers from differ-ent cultures/classes share this moment intime and space? How do I engage you in aphysical dialogue? Do we have time to find abreath together, a glance, a physical call andresponse? Can I read the space between usfast enough? Should I give you more spaceso as not to frighten you away or do I need to

come closer? Should I offer a physical chal-lenge, ask you the time, invite you to join mefor a dance, convince you to take my gift ofan empty box or a large block of cement, askyou to play me a tune or together negotiate adangerous street?

GOprovides space for time, embodiment


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will transform in response to the audience andperformers movement and sound. For exam-ple as the performer and audience get closerthe room gets darker or lighter, louder or qui-eter. We aim to create a living space whichempowers audience and performer to createchange. Presence, proximity and causal ac-tion transform the conditions into a physicallogic for engaging the audience in construct-ing their own experience and meaning.

NOTES

1 Jobs Body, Juhan Deane, Station Hill Press, 1987

2 This score was developed by Otto Ramstad and Olive Bieringa in 2005

originally performed as a duet and later as group work titled [ ]. As physical

brackets the space between and around the performers expands, contracts,

bends and transforms physically and perceptually for audience and performers

alike revealing and accentuating the angles and volumes of the location in

which it is performed.

3 GO performer Bryce Beverlyn II, email correspondence, August 30th, 2006

4 Olive Bieringa, Between Landscape, Self and Other inSite Dance:

Choreographers and the Lure of Alternative Spaces,ed. Melanie Kloetzel and

Carolyn Pavlik (University of Florida Press, 2009), 132-141. The GO text is

reprinted with permission of the University of Florida Press with additions

provided by the author.

Olive Bieringa is founder and co-director ofthe BodyCartography Projectwith partner Otto Ramstad.They were named Artist of theYear 2007 by the Minneapoliss

City Pages and are St Paul Public ArtEnvironmentally Sustainable Art Fellows for2008. Their work has toured across the USA,Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Europe, Russiaand South America. They have just completeda new work titled Life that culminatedfrom five years of research into the cultural,scientific, geographical and historical metasiteof the nuclear Pacific and a commission forthe Lyon Opera Ballet. In addition Olive is

pursuing art and science initiatives with SEEDSFestival and Public Art St Paul.


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by Marlene ImirzianBODIES IN MOTION

At Schouwburglein in Rotterdam, a sloped concrete roof allows rolling over itLandscape Architecture by West 8

image courtesy of West 8

Bodies in motion are the unexpected inspiration to redefine publicspace. Through design for dance architects can re-imagine communityspaces that provide new social potential by connecting people with eachother, with information, and redefining art through surfaces intended tobe modified or used in interactive, spontaneous ways.

Public spaces are typically focused on gathering areas for a specificuse to listen to a concert, a speech, or enjoy landscape and water.Plazas are primarily known for their neutral void framed by buildings,with the surrounding buildings design as their most important element,a picturesque frame for the plaza within, like a set in a theatricalproduction. Both are passive backdrops. Similarly, spaces for thevisual and performing arts are housed in arts centers, or centersfor the arts or theaters, employing designs that encourage passivewatching of performances and convey a sense of specialness, needingto belong, needing a high education, or needing to afford the high


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Amici: Wolfgang Stangphotograph courtesy of Simon Dove

cost of admission. Such spaces are usuallyfocused on curated events or shows, all highlyplanned and choreographed. They oftenprovide a fixed location for viewers to see afixed performance. Performing arts spacesare highly engineered to allow acousticand visual control, utilize elaborate stagingsequences and constructions, and, due tohigh performance requirements, demand highcosts to build and maintain. Access is highlycontrolled, limited, and costly.

In contrast, dance is part of human life.Cultural communities have a long history ofdancing as an integral component of publicengagement and celebration. Everyonedances - communities, professionals, youth/school groups, diversely-disabled people, and

multiple generations. People dance on thestreet, on-line, and on-screen. By consideringall public spaces as opportunities for dance

and movement, dance terms and techniquescan inspire architects to design public spacesthat incorporate ease of access, movement,physical expression, and engagement.

For example, new thoughts about danceincludeparkour, a term coined by HubertKound and derived from the Frenchparcoursdu combatant, the classic obstacle coursemethod of military training proposed byGeorges Hbert. Parkour is the art of moving,the physical discipline of training to overcomeany obstacle within ones path by adaptingones movements to the environment. Itis a non-competitive, physical discipline ofFrench origin in which participants run alonga route, attempting to negotiate obstacles inthe most efficient way possible by jumping

and climbing. The object is to get from oneplace to another using only the human bodyand the objects of the environment. It is


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roles of who is dancer and who is audience.Bothparkourand freerunningsemphasis on

improvisational movement and incorporationof built landscape and building as an elementof complete physical engagement can removefinancial and educational barriers to developa cultural economy that uses participation,planned and unplanned, scheduled and adhoc, as a linking nexus for community activity.

often practiced in urban areas because ofthe many public structures such as buildings,

benches, and walls. The term freerunningis sometimes used interchangeably with

parkour. Freerunningplaces more emphasison the aesthetics of movement and creativeways to overcome obstacles.

These two terms can inspire the design ofpublic space. Public spaces can incorporateart, buildings, and landscape that arenot purpose-built, but can be co-opted,transformed, and made mutable to createtransformableandpermeableconnectionsbetween interior and exterior spaces. Thesespaces need no longer be service-based,focused on a single, defined action, butcan allow for flexibility between an entirecommunity of performers, observers, andartists as they explore the varied and changing

Furniture is part of movement in space, folding out of a surface that is molded and shaped in a directional and fluid expression for the entire park.High Line Park in New York City

architects Diller Scofidio + Renfrolandscape architecture Field Operations

photography by Cyberenviro.org

At Schouwburglein in Rotterdam, anyone can move the enormous plaza lights up and down.Landscape Architecture by West 8

photography by Rob Kints


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The National Arts Schools in Havana, Cuba,speak of the power of architecture to beinspired by political and social change and ofthe power of architecture to instill trepidationin those who seek to set limits upon suchchange.1

In 1960 the revolutionary governmentin Havana decided to build what hasbeen described as the most spectacularand polemical architecture of the CubanRevolution. The Cuban Revolution usheredin a new generation of architects inspired bya call made by Team 10 for a new humanismin architecture, one that would address thecomplexities of a new and pluralistic society.Their architecture would respond to thetropical environment with expressive local

elements, recovered from colonial traditionand executed with materials and forms ofhigh sophistication. A search for lo cubano,what is Cuban, became the symbol and newidentity the new Revolution would strive toachieve. Through their designs, the architectsof the National Art Schools sought to create anew architectural language responsive to theCaribbean environment, one that expressedthe trans-culturalization Cuba has alwaysenjoyed, as well as the euphoria, passions,

and romanticism of the new revolution.

Shortly after the Revolution and after a dayof golfing at the Havana Country Club golfcourse in the affluent suburb of CountryClub Park, Fidel Castro and Che Gueverraquestioned the use of a spectacular landscapefor a leisurely activity often associated withthe privileged. Instead, they sought to inspiretheir country with the ideals of the revolution

through the development of a school forthe arts. With the schools, the new leaderssought to adhere to their revolutionary agendaof increasing literacy through a campaignto build primary and secondary schoolsthroughout the country. The governmentenlisted the design expertise of Cubanarchitect Ricardo Porro, and the Italians

Vittorio Garatti and Roberto Gottardi to designthe new school complex.

The three architects sought to design the ArtSchools using traditional building materialswith modern technology within an organicdesign language. They agreed on a set ofcommon principles which would unify theirwork: the schools would be responsive to andintegrated with the landscape; the principalmaterials would be brick and tile and theancient art of the Catalan vault would bethe primary structural system. The designersalso elected to combine reinforced concreteelements in compression and tension withload bearing brick walls and piers, utilizingtraditional building materials for theireconomics, practicality, and aesthetics.

The U. S. trade embargo was imposed onCuba beginning in October of 1960 and atthat time there was some Portland cementproduced in Cuba, but with little steel,wood, and other finishing materials, concretebecame the most economical structuralbuilding material to be used in Cubanconstruction. In addition, Porro insisted onthe use of fired clay in the form of bricks andtile because of their special, sensual texture

and appearance, and because the fired claypermits the aging of the building to resemblea living organism that changes over time. Thefired clay was employed in the construction ofthe Catalan vaults, which became the primarystructural system to cover wide spaces with aminimum of structural support. Although thiswas a practical solution to a structural andeconomic problem, there was also a fortuitouscoincidence when the architects came upon

an old mason in Havana whose father hadworked with Antoni Gaud and had learned

The School of Modern Dance by Ricardo Porro-built between 1961-1963The buildings angularity, fragmentation and shifting geometries area reflection of the euphoria and fear felt in the early years of the Revolution. Euphoria came from new found freedoms and idealism andthe idea of a new utopia; fear came from the unknown, incertitudeabout the future, and also from the Bay of Pigs incident of April 1961.In plan the building is like a mirror shattered into hundreds of pieces.


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National Arts School of Modern DanceArchitecture by Ricardo Porro

Photography by Jim Larson


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National Arts School of BalleArchitecture by Vittorio Garatt



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National Arts School of BalletArchitecture by Vittorio Garatti



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National Arts School of BalleArchitecture by Vittorio Garatt



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a village more than a single building. Porroharkens back to vernacular forms utilizingarcades in the architectural promenade andmain centralplaza orpatio. With the design ofthis school, Porro sought to create a synthesissymbolizing Cubas ethnic heritage: the whiteand the black races. On the one hand, thecupolas and entrance portal with three entryvaults allude to the Spanish Baroque cultureof the white colonizers. On the other, thecurvilinear and round forms of the undulatingplan evoke an African village belongingto groups such as Malis Dogon people, aswell as Afro-Cuban rhythms. Porro wantedto celebrate African culture and its eminentcontribution to the culture of the island and itsmusic. This population had found expressionin the popular arts of Cuba, but never in

architecture.

The two Italians designs, Garattis School ofBallet and School of Music and GottardisSchool of Theater, reflect more of theirEuropean origins. The School of Theatre is amedieval town or a Venice of the Caribbean.Garattis School of Ballet features Baroquepavilions with domes, but make reference toone element in Cuban vernacular architecture:the medio puntoor fanlight, which is the

principal motif in the rehearsal studios.

These two projects also reflect the Italianarchitects malaise for, and repudiation ofstrict rationalism of the post-war years inItaly. On the one hand, Garatti, who studiedunder Ernesto Rogers in Milan, took cues fromhistory and authentic traditions to design theSchool of Ballet and the School of Music.Gottardi, on the other hand, had studied

under Carlo Scarpa and Bruno Zevi in Venice,and advocated an organic language withattention to detail and craftsmanship for theSchool of Theatre.

Unfortunately, this moment of newexpression in Cuban architecture didnt lastlong. The Arts Schools were erected as the

government was shifting towards favoringpre-fabricated construction systems, a narrow

and excluding focus which eradicated anyother possible alternative that would pointtowards industrialization. At the same time,the symbolism of the school complex wasassociated with individualistic tendencies,incompatible with the collective character ofpeoples revolution. Thus, the Arts Schoolswent from being a virtuous symbol of thecreative capacities of the new government tobeing cursed, unwanted, and hidden.Several factors made it difficult to complete

National Arts School of Plastic ArtsArchitecture by Ricardo Porro


The School of Plastic Arts Ricardo Porrobuilt between 1961-1963The building embodies the White Spanish Baroque and the Black

African culture of Cuba. The winding and curbing architectural prom-enade is like a Cuban conga. Its curvilinear, round forms also reflectthe heightened sensuality of the tropics; a representation of eros inthe form of the Cuban goddess Oshun, an open expression of sexual-ity. The art studios are breasts and the promenade leads to the centerwhere one finds the female sex in the form of a fountain shaped likethe female sex. And all around her are limp phallic-like drains atopbrick piers paying homage.


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National Arts School of Plastic ArtsArchitecture by Ricardo Porro



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the project: the program lost relevance asthe government placed more emphasis onbuilding more schools and housing in theislands interior; the area lacked skilled laborbecause of the need to send workers to the

provinces, many migrated from the island, andessential building materials grew scare due tothe economic embargo.

By 1965 $13 million had been spent on theArts Schools and only Porros two buildingswere finished. Construction of the remainingthree schools halted that year leaving some inruins. For forty-five years the site suffered lackof maintenance, lack of security, destruction

from the encroaching vegetation, floodingfrom a nearby river, ill-conceived additions,devastating human vandalism, and illegalhabitation in the spaces.

To some critics the project moved away fromthe needs and agenda of the Communistgovernment at that moment, and reflected anelitist exclusivity alien to Cubas economicand social panorama. Since the Revolution,the Cuban state adheres to socialist principlesin organizing its largely state-controlledplanned economy. Most of the means ofproduction were and are owned and run bythe government and most of the labor forceis employed by the state. During the firstfive year plan, the revolutionary governmentmade it its mission to primarily build much

needed new schools and large-scale housingin provinces away from the capital, Havana.The centralized government began to removepersonnel, which had originally numbered inthe thousands, from the Arts Schools projectand send it to the eastern provinces. Theproject saw the supply of materials reducedto a bare minimum. Construction of the artschools lost its relevance.In addition, the symbolism of the schoolcomplex was associated with the architects

individualistic and elitist tendencies,incompatible with the collective characterthat a revolutionary architecture shouldhave. As a result, the architects were severelycriticized and their designs attacked as beingmegalomaniacal and monumental, whichplaced them in the dangerous position ofincorrectness, even in political terms.

Since the Art Schools abandonment, it

has become increasingly evident that theArt Schools isolation and termination wasa setback in Latin Americas avant-gardearchitectural movement. Governmentalleaders yielded to a program of rigid pre-fabrication throughout the country that cameto be seen as inexpressive, quantitative, andmonotonous. This not only limited creativity

National Arts School of MusicArchitecture by Vittorio Garatti


The School of Music by Vittorio Garattibuilt between 1962-1965The building is called the ribbon or the worm and spans over1,000 feet in length. Having an intimate relationship with the land-scape, the terrain dictates the layout. The long sequence of rooms

gives the appearance of a linear unitary development, but actually it isbroken into two levels covered by undulating Catalan vaults emergingorganically from the landscape pressing against the ground plane.Longitudinally, the building rises and falls with the terrain.Construction was halted in 1965, one third of the building is in use,the rest is in ruin. It has suffered from the encroaching vegetation andoccasional flooding from a nearby river, vandalism, and illegal humanhabitation. A concert hall and opera house were never realized.


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National Arts School of MusicArchitecture by Vittorio Garatt



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in Cuban design, but also contributed toobliterating the traditional building arts. Porrowent into exile in Paris in 1966, followedby Garatti who returned to Milan in 1974.Gottardi remained in Cuba teaching anddesigning a limited number of projects.

Despite almost fifty years of neglect,these remarkable buildings have enduredand taken their rightful place within thehistoriography of 20th-century architecture.In 1997 Cubas National Commission onMonuments declared the site a protectedzone. Porro and Garatti were invited backto Cuba to conduct charrettes and seminarsfor architecture students. In 1999 historian

John Loomis published Revolution of Forms:Cubas Forgotten Arts Schools, distributed

worldwide. In 2000 the site was included onthe World Monuments Watch List of 100 MostEndangered Sites.

From 2007 to 2009 the Cuban Ministry ofCulture restored and rehabilitated PorrosSchools of Plastic Arts and School of ModernDance. Approved by Porro, the Ministrysarchitects in charge of the restorationcollaborated with the Italian firm MAPEI.Work has been limited to cleaning and

refurbishment, not yet restoration, for thethree remaining schools. However, it isprojected that they will also be restored, andto a certain extent, have their unfinishedportions completed. Gottardi is in charge ofthe restoration and completion of his Schoolof Theatre. In addition, Garatti is doing thesame thing for his School of Ballet and Schoolof Music.

Cubas current economic reality makes itdifficult to funnel funds for the restoration andrehabilitation of this large and architecturallyimportant school complex. Despite theoriginal architects involvement in findingthe best solutions with minimum resources,locating and training specialized workersto reproduce lost construction techniques

presents a daily challenge.

The five buildings comprising the NationalArts Schools constitute a significantrichness of expression in modern Cubanarchitecture, one that sought to define aunique, regional building language. In theNational Arts Schools one finds buildingtraditions, architectural creativity, anexcellent arrangement of forms, outstandingworkmanship, and the Cuban conceptof trans-culturalization. The buildingscommunicate aspirations for a new society,echoing Cubas political, social, andeconomic transition of the 1960s. Work onthe National Arts Schools constitutes a steptowards integrating Cubas rich history into itscontinuing cultural transition.

REFERENCES

1. John Loomis, Las Escuelas Nacionales de Arte and the End of the

International Style (speech, The New Inside the New: Latin American

Architecture and Urbanism, and the Crisis of the International Style, 1937-

1954, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA, April

19-20, 1996).

Hnsel Hernndez-Navarro is an architectural conservatorspecializing in the preserva-

tion and rehabilitation ofhistoric buildings and monu-

ments, and cultural resourcemanagement. He lives in New

York City and has worked for the New YorkCity Landmarks Preservation Commission, theGetty Conservation Institute, the National ParkService, The American Academy in Rome, andis currently doing research for the curatorial

staff at the Museum of the City of New York.He received his Masters in historic preserva-tion from Columbia Universitys GraduateSchool of Architecture, Planning and Preser-vation. In 2000 he successfully nominatedCubas National Arts Schools to the WorldMonuments Funds List of 100 Most End-agered Sites.


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by Shin AzumiPHYSICAL AND SENSUAL COMMUNICATION

Airswitch AZ by Shin Azumi. Photography by Mathmos

I design tools for life.

I always ask myself the question, What is the advantage of productdesign as a media to communicate with people? I believe one answeris the duration of the physical/direct contact between the product andthe person using it. For example, if you find a cup you like in a shop,you will buy it, and take it into your home. As youbegin to use it, youwill hold it with your fingers, touch it with your palms, and place yourlips against it. The way to enjoy the object is unlimited. If you are satis-fied, you may keep and use it until it is broken. It becomes a part of yourlife and you may even feel that it becomes a part of your body. In somecases the object has the potential to be passed on to the next generation.Through the act of passing an object on we can create a long-term dia-logue between the user and the object, across a much longer period of


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Upright Salt Shaker

Upright Salt Shaker is a hand-blown, glass salt shaker. The base of the shaker is funnel-shapedto allow for ease of refilling. The dispensing holes are not located on the top of the shaker. In-stead they are positioned to the side, to invite the gentle gesture of shaking salt, while also pro-viding better control. When you slightly tilt the shaker, the salt smoothly comes out. You do nothave to turn the shaker upside down and shake aggressively. The way in which the product hasbeen designed and subsequently used brings elegance and grace to the users behaviour at thetable.

Upright Salt Shaker by Shin Azumi. Photography by Julian Hawkins


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Interactive Zoetrope by Shin Azumi. Photography by Shin Azumi.


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AZUMI was born in Kobe, Japan in1965. After finishing his MA inIndustrial Design at the RoyalCollege of Art in 1994, hestarted working as AZUMI

and in 2005 he established his own office astudio in London. Shin Azumis work hasreceived numerous design awards in Europeand Japan, including the Jerwood Applied

Arts Prize in 2004, the Blueprint 100%Design Award in 2003 and Product of theYear, 2000 FX International Design Award(for the LEM stool). His works were acquiredas permanent collection by Victoria & AlbertMuseum (UK), Stedelijk Museum (Holland),Crafts Council (UK), Die Neue Sammlung(Germany), and the Museum fr Angewandte

Kunst Frankfurt (Germany). Azumi is avisiting professor of Osaka Univ. of Arts anda lecturer of Vitra Design Museum Workshop.He also took part in the jury of numerousdesign awards such as, IF Design Award (DE),DT Design Award (JPN), Design Report Award(DE / IT), FX International Design Award(UK), and Kokuyo Design Award (JPN).

From this interpretation there is always thepossibility for the work to go beyond the im-agination of the director. No matter how tech-nologies develop, these forms of live mediawill always remain and maintain a strong styleof expression and communication. I extracta vast amount of inspiration and stimulationfrom this type of live media, a lot of whichcan be converted into my own creations.

The physical and intellectual / visual quali-ties of an object do not oppose one another,but in fact complement each other. When wecan find the point at which these factors arein harmony, it is then that we may be able toprovide a deeper satisfaction for the peoplewho experience it.


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by Nimish BiloriaINTER-ACTIVE BODIES

The InteractiveWall at the Hannover Messe 2009 displaying real time behavior by swinging its body back and forth, displayingpatterns of light on its skin, and projecting localized sound. Photography by Hyperbody

The design-research experiments developed by Hyperbody, TU Delft,Faculty of Architecture, focus on the emerging field of Interactive Archi-tecture as an inter-disciplinary, bottom-up attempt focusing on develop-

ing real-time information exchanging architectural bodies. These interac-tive bodies demonstrate a fusion between the material, electronic anddigital domains through harnessing a synergistic merger between thefields of ambient sensing, control systems, ubiquitous computing, archi-tectural design, pneumatic systems and computation (simulation tech-niques). Interactive bodies are visualized as complex adaptive systems,continually engaged in activities of data-exchange resulting in physicaland ambient adaptations of their constituting components in response


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The three spatial elements constituting the 3d loop of the Muscle Reconfigured; Floor units construction and usability scenarios, Ceiling units(displaying controlled opening behavior), Wall units bending to create projection surfaces. Photography by Hyperbody.


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trial technology. The Emotive InteractiveWallwas a collaboration between Festo, BurkhardtLeitner constructiv, and Hyperbody, as part ofthe Festo Bionic Learning Network.

Emotive InteractiveWall

The Emotive InteractiveWall is composedof 7 separate wall pieces (herein referred toas nodes) that display real time behavior byswinging back and forth, displaying patternsof light on its skin, and projecting localizedsound. The primary synchronous behavior ofthe InteractiveWall is movement. The nodes ofthe InteractiveWall will bend independently ofneighboring nodes in response to the presenceof a user. Although responsively independent,each InteractiveWall node synchronizes by

constantly readjusting its position in orderto align itself with the position of its nearestneighbors.

Augmented modality of the InteractiveWallsbehavior is light. The skin of each Interactive-Wall is covered by a unique, irregular distri-bution of dynamically controlled LEDs thatform a highly reactive interface. The LED skinsrespond directly to user presence by glowingbrighter when users are near, and dimmer as

they move away. In addition to dimming, theLED skins pulse rapidly and slowly in relationto node position, having a tendency to flashtogether when the nodes are in sync.

The third modality of the InteractiveWall islocalized sound. Moments of synchronic-ity are represented by calmer sounds, whileasynchronous behavior results in more intensesound. The propagation of the sound fromhigh to low intensity is varied throughout theInteractiveWall, thus each node is a memberof a choir that sings a complex pattern of os-cillating chords. Although similar, the physicalmovements of InteractiveWall, and the lightand sound patterns change independently,reacting at varying rates. The synchronousbehavior between the InteractiveWall nodes

predominantly deals with sets of sensors andactuators, and the internal (corresponding airvalves and their array sequence in the graphi-cal script) deals with computation and dataprocessing elements. A rule-based controlalgorithm developed in Virtools binds thetwo node typologies together to produce thedesired data exchange and output scenarios(amount of air pressure to be released to thefluidic muscle). The Muscle re-configuredproject works by means of cumulative cou-pling of the basic unit mentioned above. Thiscomponential interactivity is utilized for de-veloping specific behaviors (in terms of kineticmovements), giving rise to three distinctlybehaving elements: responsive floor, ceilingand walls joined together in a closed three-dimensional loop.

These elements are linked in space in a highlyinterdependent manner, constantly exchang-ing information (such as occupancy of theseating units, proximity of people, local topol-ogy variation of the three elements, etc). Yet,they behave as a collective whole to attainspecific spatial configurations. Seating occu-pancy triggers a topology modulation in theceiling and wall units to provide a feeling ofbeing engulfed by the curvature of the ceiling

and creates a comfortable viewing angle forprojections cast on the wall units.

Following the MuscleReconfigured project,Hyperbody as an Information, communicationand technology driven research and designgroup has focused on exploring a variety ofreal-time interactive bodies, each providinga different avenue for understanding the roleof interaction in binding architectural spacesand socio-cultural trends into one seamless,inter-activating whole. The latest in the seriesof our interactive bodies is the Emotive Inter-activeWall. The project was commissioned byFesto, a leading worldwide supplier of pneu-matic and electrical automation technology,for their presentation at the Hannover Messe2009, the worlds leading showcase for indus-


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The skin of each InteractiveWall covered by a unique, irregular distribution of dynamically controlled LEDs that form a highly reactive interfacePhotography by Hyperbody


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contrasts with the behavior produced by userpresence, resulting in a series of complexwave patterns that propagate through the In-teractiveWall structure as a whole.

Starting from a clear interactive design con-cept, we developed a one-to-many interactivesystem that exhibited emergent behavior and

performed like a living system. The result isan independent system built on synchronousbehavior that is interrupted by the game-likeresponse of multi-participant interaction. Thislayered system encourages the intended cycleof observation, exploration, modification, andreciprocal change in the participant, reinforc-ing believability in the system, and providinga sense of agency to the user.

ConclusionThe aforementioned techniques of develop-ing interdependent nodal networks, whichdouble up as actuated details of interactivebodies, stress upon scripting localized rela-tions between constituent details, thus actual-izing the performance of the built form as anemergent, communicative exchange betweenthe network of components. Information flowbecomes a continual process in such real-time

interactive prototypes, converting them intoexecutable processing and reacting systemicentities. Such architectural constructs even-tually acquire the characteristics of livingentities, sending and receiving information,processing this information locally, and pro-ducing optimal global output. The intrinsicdesign decision of enriching the nature ofarchitectural detailing and establishing aninter-disciplinary work process has significantimpact on the nature of architectural spaceand its structuring principles. Such design-informatics-based hybrid typologies can beseen as highly logical systems, which pave thepath for performative responses to contempo-rary contextual complexities. These researchexperiments initiate an intuitive interaction,inclined towards seamless information ex-

change, transforming everyday utilitarianspace into an inter-activating responsiveorganism.

REFERENCES

1. Mc Luhan. Understanding Media: Routledge Classics, London and New

York. 2002.

2. Lupton E. Skin, Surface Substance + Design: Laurence King Publishing.Ltd.,

London, 2002.

3. Derrick de Kerckhove. The architecture of intelligence, Basel, Birkhauser,

2001.Srinivasan, A.V..Michael McFarland, D. Smart structures analysis and

design, Cambridge UK: Cambridge university press, 2001.

4. Reynolds C.W, Flocks herds and schools: A distributed behavioral model,

Computer graphics, 21, SIGGRAPH87, conference proceedings.

Scott, W.R., Cliffs, E. Organizations; rational, natural, and open systems:

Prentice hall, 1992.

5. Thompson, P., Warhurst, C. Workplaces of the future: MacMillan, London,

1998.

Dr. Nimish Biloria is an Architect and AssistantProfessor at Hyperbody,Faculty of Architecture, TUDelft, The Netherlands. Afterbeing involved with

investigating the inter-relation of Mediaand Architecture throughout his formative

educational years at CEPT, Ahmadabad,India, he furthered his interests in the inter-disciplinary realm at the Architectural

Association, London, UK, where hespecialized in the field of EmergentTechnologies and Design. He further attaineda Doctorate at the TU Delft, Netherlands,with a focus on developing real time adaptiveenvironments. He continues experimentingwith the idea of formulating intelligence aidedrelational networks for the generation of

performative morphologies.


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by Rachel ArmstrongBIOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE

Rendering by Rachel Armstrong

Architecture is a technology whose primary role is creating a syn-thetic skin around its human creators and inhabitants, to optimize theimmediate environment and exclude the hostile elements. Historical-ly, the best materials have been inert and belligerent to the environ-ment. This choice of materials from prehistory has set the standard formaterials that we use in building practice today and has caused thetechnological functions of our buildings to be very inwards looking,

since we are most comfortable within a very narrow range of physi-ological parameters.

However, the technology of architecture also has an outward fac-ing surface. It is this part of technology that is most underdevelopeddespite building exteriors providing a unique interface and opportu-nity to connect with the natural world. Biology has often been usedas fabric for architectural practice, as in the case of the living bridges


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of Cherrapungi, which are created from thetrained roots of trees that stretch to over thirtymetres, can support the weight of fifty people,and take fifteen years to grow. In an industrialage though, biology has too many limitationsto use in construction. In order to create morelife-like buildings, architects have looked formaterials that can incorporate some of thedrivers of biology. Whilst R. BuckminsterFuller supposed that these drivers were math-ematical and looked to digital computingto explore generative forces, Antonio Gaudiexplored the physical and chemical impera-tives of materials that underpinned biologicalsystems through his unique architectural style.To conduct his experiments Gaudi created aset of unique and individually crafted elemen-tal forms by suspending clay in hanging cloths

during the construction of La Sagrada Familiaand let the physical forces of gravity shape thematerial. These material self-organizing imper-atives were then used to generate his uniquestyle of organic design. Unlike most archi-tecture, which normally follows a top-downblueprint, Gaudi controversially assembledthe architectural components using a bottom-up approach. He allowed the rules of gravityto generate the cathedrals design rather thanimpose his own personal inclinations. This

technique created a completely different lookand feel to his architecture, which designersfrom all disciplines are still trying to repro-duce today.

In a more contemporary setting, artist RogerHiorns has used the intrinsic growth impera-tive of crystals over a course of two weeksto create a beautiful, vivid blue interior in aderelict building using copper sulphate solu-tion. Hiorns employs the same bottom-up ap-proach as Gaudi, but at a much smaller scaleof assembly by harnessing the self-organizingmolecular driving forces that underpin crys-tal formation by introducing a system thatis capable of generating structures that arecontingent on the environment during thecrystallization process. The final appearance

of Hiorns unique architectural interior is notgenerated by the instructions specified by ablueprint; yet a repeatable outcome is pos-sible owing to the artists understanding of thematerial system. Hiorns choice of contextand selection of material system underpins thepredictable yet simultaneously surprising andtantalizing architectural scale environment.Strikingly, large crystals appear on the surfacesof glass and enamel in the derelict buildingthat are chemically responding to the smoothsurfaces of these materials that facilitatecrystal growth yet poetically suggests that theagents are able to identify man-made objectsin the landscape.

Contemporary architects have imagined howthey could use the unique qualities of biology

to create new kinds of architectural experienc-es. NY architecture firm Hollwich Kushner(HWKN) developed an urban utopia for thetwenty-first century on a grand scale. Theirproject, MEtreePOLIS is set in Atlanta in theyear 2106, where owing to advances in bio-technology and green facades, the designersenvisage plants being able to produce elec-tricity for the entire city. The global designand consultancy firm Atkins has created con-cept designs for four new buildings in Kuwait

including a slim-line high rise office buildingthat seems to sway in the breeze. And, theOffice for Robotic Architectural Media & TheBureau for Responsive Architecture architectTristan dEstree Sterk is designing shape-changing building envelopes that can, forexample, shake the snow from their roofs.

But is it possible to create truly biologicalarchitectures? Or are these kinds of projectsdestined to remain representations of biolog-ically-derived processes using traditional ma-terials to copy the shape and forms of nature.In the practice called Biomimicry, architecturehas limited engagement in embodying theunique properties of biological systems. Archi-tecture currently lacks an appropriate technol-ogy or materials that may be able to bridge


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water interface and undergo complex physi-cal changes including the shedding of skinsor precipitation of crystal complexes to formthe building blocks of new materials. Thus,the experiments create prototype systems thatinhabit a twilight zone of biology. These ma-terials are born from entirely artificial genera-tive forces and may be thought of as a form ofbottom-up synthetic biology where life-likeproperties spontaneously appear in simplechemical systems independently from any ma-terials that are derived from existing biologicalsystems. This component-based assemblage ofmolecules constitutes wet artificial life anddoes not aspire to replicate biological process-es but to generate new complexes and proc-esses, yet they share the same basic drivers ofbiology but produce different outcomes.

When these new materials interface with bio-logical systems, they share a common chemi-cal and physical language based on connec-tivity, energy transformation, and flow througha process called metabolism where one groupof substances produces another through theabsorption or release of energy

The particular system that I am working onis called the protocell. These are chemically

programmable agents that are based on thechemistry of oil and water. Protocells are ableto move around, sense and modify their en-vironment and even communicate with eachother in a way that can only be described asliving. Protocells can also undergo complexreactions, some of which are architectural.

Protocells use chemical energy that naturallyexists at the oil-water interface and possessan internal chemical program, which they

compare with chemical cues from the envi-ronment. All of this is done without any DNA,which is the information processing systemused by biology. Yet, the process by whichprotocells create skins and solid materials isincredibly biological, being remarkably remi-niscent of the way that corals or tubewormssecrete their shells.

Images by Rachel Armstrong


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turn look out for us in a very architectural way- for example, by removing carbon dioxide orother pollutants from the environment. Thesenew technologies may indeed be our futureguardians against some of the unpredictableconsequences of climate change and may alsohelp us adapt to and survive an unpredictablefuture.

REFERENCES

1 Bedau, M., (2009) Living Technology Today and Tomorrow, Special Issue:

Living Buildings: Plectic Systems Architecture, Technoetic Arts A Journal of

Speculative Research, Volume 7, Number 2, Intellect Books, pp.199-206

2 Future Venice (online) website, available at: www.futurevenice.org (accessed

February 2010)

Dr. Rachel Armstrong is an interdisciplinary practitioner with a background in medicine who hascollaborated extensively with

artists, scientists and architectsto create a new experimental space to explorescientific concepts and re-engage with thefundamental creativity of science. She regardsthe discipline of architecture as holding aunique place in the cultural imagination beingsimultaneously iconic and personal, andwhich offers an ideal forum to engage withand reimagine our experience of the worldso that we can reinvent our role within it.She is a Senior TED Fellow, Visiting Research

Assistant at the Center for Fundamental LivingTechnology, Department of Physics and

Chemistry, Southern University of Denmark.


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