Unlike Newton and Schopenhauer, your ancestor did not believe in a uniform and absolute time; he believed in an infinite series of times, a growing, dizzying web of divergent, convergent, and parallel times. That fabric of times that approach one another, fork, are snipped off, or are simply unknown for centuries, contains all possibilities. In most of those times, we do not exist; in some, you exist but I do not; in others, I do and you do not; in other still, we both do.
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Jorge Luis Borges
The Garden of Forking Paths; 1941
Jorge Luis Borges’ short story,
The Garden of Forking Paths proposes a model for the world that is composed of multiple splitting strands. In the story, strands are temporal rather than spatial – “a growing, dizzying web of
divergent, convergent, and parallel times.” The notion of convergent, parallel, and divergent strands will serve as an abstract (and sometimes real) model informing all spatial and temporal investigations in this studio. Work will begin in an abstract material practice geared toward the production of a braided field – a type of landscape. The latter phases of the studio will segue abstract work into increasingly concrete architectural proposals situated within the braided field.
string bog –
patterning in the landscape
The Fifth One, Tianqi Zhang –
an abstract material practice
Operating in material and abstract realms simultaneously, an abstract material practice develops the formal and conceptual languages required to address real architectural problems while generating novel solutions. Note the following definitions as they apply to this studio:
Abstract – expressing a quality or characteristic apart from a specific object, not assigned to a particular size or orientation
Material – formation of tangible matter, pertaining to the physical
Practice – repeated performance or systematic exercise for the purpose of acquiring skill or proficiency, the action or process of doing something
A material practice may employ any number of materials and techniques. In this studio, the material will primarily be found wood molding profiles and the technique will be based on braiding. The material practice will be driven internally by part-to-part attachment logics in a component-based assembly system, and it will be conditioned externally by organizational qualities found in mappings of braided river systems.
BRAIDED RIVER MAPPING
Using Google Earth or NASA’s Visible Earth website, locate a high-resolution (at least 3000px in the long direction) image of a braided river. See the ‘braided river’ post on the studio blog for examples and further instructions. This image will become an underlay for a mapping of organization, variation, and potential transformation in the river system. You must develop a unique notational system (see the ‘notations’ post on the studio blog) to convey this information. Consider the following issues:
- the morphology of strands, their sinuousness and intersections
- the width of strands
- the fluvial style of strands (straight, meandering, anastomosing)
- direction and speed of water flow
- the morphology of interior islands
- the morphology of river banks
- potential organizational transformations of the river
Research the principles of how braided rivers form and transform to better understand why these issues are significant. Produce the map in Illustrator leveraging tools native to the software.
Print the braided river image on a 9” x 18” horizontally oriented sheet. Print the braided river mapping on an 18” x 36” horizontally oriented sheet. These may be tiled from 11”x 17” printouts.
MOLDING PROFILES
Obtain enough wood molding material to fill an 8”x24”x24” volume. Profiles must be from straight baseboards, crown moldings, door moldings, window moldings, picture frames, chair rails, furniture, etc. See examples below:
examples of wood molding profiles
All the material you collect must have similar, but not necessarily identical, profiles. First look for salvaged material, then if necessary, add to your collection by purchasing new profiles from a lumberyard.
Recommended sources for salvaged material, call ahead to check availability:
Build it Green, salvaged and recycled building materials.
3-17 26th Ave. Astoria, Queens 718-777-0132
http://www.bignyc.org/
Eddie's Salvage, salvage store that attracts brownstone renovators.
224 Greene Ave, Brooklyn
http://national.citysearch.com/profile/44684828/brooklyn_ny/eddie_s_salvage.html#profile
Demolition Depot, salvaged building materials
216 East 125th Street, NYC 212-860-1138
http://www.demolitiondepot.com/vo/demo/default.aspx
In Rhino, draft the profile of each unique molding you have obtained. These drawings must be constructed from circles and straight lines only, no splines allowed! Construction lines, circles used to construct radii, and any other lines or marks not describing the profile of the molding, must remain in the drawings.
Each molding profile is a sequence of curvatures. These curvatures can be concave or convex, flat or steep. Transitions between curvatures can be smooth or abrupt. How do drawings with construction lines help describe these conditions? Construction lines must be distinguished from lines of geometry with line-weight and line-type.
Print these drawings at 1 : 1 scale on 9” x 9” sheets. Arrange multiple drawings on each sheet.
UNIT DEVELOPMENT
Develop a ‘unit’ from the wood molding profiles by cutting the straight wood molding into parts, and then re-attaching the parts. Start by writing a procedure or set of instructions for cutting and re-attaching. The procedure must identify specific curvature conditions in the profile and respond with a sequence of
incrementally changing oblique cuts and rotated re-attachments.
Units must contain one part that is the width of the original molding and one part that is at least 3x the width of the original molding. Once the procedure is written, build five units each one using incrementally changing angles for oblique cuts and rotated re-attachments.
WARNING: Carefully inspect all salvaged wood for nails and screws before cutting!
READING
Readings will be assigned at three points in the semester. They will be discussed in class and your participation in these discussions will be part of your grade. Readings will present challenging material, but they will be relatively short and foundational to the studio. The first set of readings will be discussed in class Mon. Jan. 31; they are available for download from the blog.
Colin C. Adams.
“Introduction” and
“Braids”.
The Knot Book.
Gilles Deleuze.
“The Fold – Leibniz and the Baroque”.
AD Architecture and Science.
Manuel Delanda.
“Sandstone and Granite”.
A Thousand Year of Nonlinear History.
Optional - Jorge Luis Borges.
“The Garden of Forking Paths.” Collected Fictions.
GROUP WORK / CRITIQUE PARTNER
The first phase of the semester will contain group work. As an individual you are expected to participate in, and facilitate all aspects of group work.
Following the group work phase you will be paired with a critique partner – a classmate who will sit in your desk critiques and present with you in pin-ups and reviews. There may be some instances where you work together, but you will always have individual projects. It is your responsibility to be well versed in your critique partner’s project and to be available for in-studio discussions.
