Thesis Writing Assignment: Week 10

This week I worked on determining what is beneath the site. A few things are going on. First, there is what is called a "borehole" where a well was drilled to determine if the third water tunnel of New York could be built here. The well is now used to get data on water. Through this exploration I created a series of maps. Secondly, there is a soil profile without an O horizon. Through this exploration, I also became interested in identification systems of the site (images below). 

I'm also in the process of formulating the middle ground "design" of the site, where eating is the focus of the design. Because I am using the activity of eating to convey how person and environment are continuous, I created the following graphic: 

Thesis Writing Assignment: Week 9

This week I delved deeper into the ideas of space as a continuum and place as a process at a moment in time. I did this in two ways. 

The first was to research the idea of eating outside in the form of a picnic. The word picnic is defined as a meal take outdoors. Before 1830 in America, paintings that described themselves as picnics were rare. Most of the American landscape paintings were romantic responses to industrialization. This is best demonstrated by the paintings of Thomas Cole. In 1836, he painted "The Oxbow," which depicts nature without human presence. In 1846, he painted, A Pic-Nic Party where nature becomes a backdrop for a picnic. Angela L. Miller describes the painting , "In short, the human conforms to the natural, the natural to the human…” 

These paintings are significant and related to my thesis because they are demonstrative of the beginnings of the separation and construction of the idea of wilderness.  Angela Miller describes this: 

The preference for wilderness subjects that helped to define America's peculiar cultural identity gave way in landscape practice during the 1850s to a pronounced taste for a middle landscape that tamed nature's feral energies, pastoralized rugged wilderness contours, bridged threatening chasms, and banished indistinct voids by substituting in their place fluid tial transitions…. The picnic theme offered an imaginary flight into an idyllic realm removed from the economic instability and social fluidity that had become an overpowering feature of urban middle-class experience by the 1840s. Treatments of the picnic theme range from the somewhat matter-of-fact to the dreamlike and wistful, the latter recalling the older fete galante.

Nature's Transformations: The Meaning of the Picnic Theme in Nineteenth-Century American Art”, Angela L

The "middle landscape" is where the picnic scenes took place. The idea of a middle landscape, gets at the idea of spaces on a spectrum because it rejects the dichotomy of landscape and city. It begins to get at the idea of space on a spectrum. What is also notable is that a picnic is described as a break from the constant. 

The second way I delved deeper into the ideas of space as a continuum and place was to look at the continuum of the site through the temporal framework of history. The site has had a number of lives. At a moment in time a three family homes, a concert hall, a dance hall, a place for watching movies, a school, a garage, an abandoned building, and now the site of a water resource. 

Thesis Writing Assignment: Week 7/8

This week was midterms. I pulled a few key points from my presentation. The first, is the analysis of space on a spectrum and the idea of eating as a connecting link. I proposed an alternate definition for space, nature, inside/and outside:

Space is not a place, but a process at a moment in time; person and environment are continuous.

Place as a continuum. The next step is to explore how this site can be designed for the continuum - person to substance, substance to earth.

I ended with this short poem that describes the site/design: 

Place as a continuum
I’m no landscape
Connected to sunlight, wind, snow, and rain
Sometimes I’m cold, sometimes I’m hot
You can sit, climb, go above, on or beneath  
Sometimes you’ll notice my changes daily, but mostly it will be gradual
Feed me with garbage and I’ll cease to exist, feed me and I will grow before you
At a moment, inside, at a moment outside, you’ll find me here

Thesis Writing Assignment Week 6

This week I worked on a precedent analysis where I situate my work amongst other writers and designers. My thesis is situated in between two types of works. The first being work written and produced around the breakdown of the concept of nature, wilderness and landscape. Many artists and writers have produced work in this realm, but for the scope of my thesis, I will focus on William Cronon’s, text “The Trouble with Wilderness,” and Arnold Berlant’s text “The Aesthetics of Environment.”  The second being work that poses questions and considerations of space. For this, I will focus on George Perec’s text, “Species of Spaces and other Pieces,” Cornelius A. Van Peursen’s text, “The Horizon,” Robert Irwin's work and Fred Sandback’s installations. I created visuals that describe the relationship to my work below. 

Thesis Writing Assignment Week 4-5

This week I've been working on updating my abstract. Here it is so far: 

My thesis is a study of one site, 34 East 4th street and it’s potential translations on the spectrum of spaces. I plan to use pre-existing tools/frameworks to translate the site into different locations on the spectrum. Using the concept of space on a spectrum, pre-existing tools (organization/juxtapositions, scale, light, color/materiality, and entropy) of orientation and the proposed activity of eating to reconstruct concepts of interiority and exteriority.

What is a spectrum of space?

When space is thought of, it is mostly binary, black and white, inside and outside, but it is more complex than that. Space is a continuum of typologies with interior on one end of the spectrum and exterior on the other end of the spectrum. For example, an office meeting room is on one end of the spectrum, and an open field is on the other side of the spectrum. These two different space typologies evoke different emotions, thoughts, and feelings about where one is and what lies ahead. The spectrum is somewhat subjective.

Spaces, like colors are on a spectrum. Spectrum of spaces are a continuum of different space typologies with different visual and non-visual identifiers and characteristics. Each of these spaces on the spectrum evoke different senses, emotions and levels of awareness. The spectrum is subject to the same laws of nature, just as color.

How do we know where we are on the spectrum?

We know where we within the spectrum based on the conscious and/or unconscious use of the laws of nature which we used to orient ourselves. Orientation works through a series of pre-existing frameworks.

Orientation, is defined as the conscious or unconscious understanding of one’s location in relation to space and time. We know where we are based on systems of science and laws of perception. I think the dictionary analogy breaks down how this works in a digestible way. We are able to approach the information of words through the dictionary because it is systematically organized (page numbers, bolding, alphabetized, systems of science) and it has certain sensibilities (touch, smell, colors, systems of phenomenon) that are associated with the dictionary. These two systems create identifiers that give us information about where we are and how to make meaning of it.

Identifiers are cues that affirm orientation (time and place). For example, I am at work in this conference room. There are learned different visual identifiers that help define and affirm where we are on the spectrum.

So now what, how does this relate to design?

Knowing how the spectrum of spaces and orientation work allows the designer to change where the space is on the spectrum. The physical location doesn't change, but the experience and perception of where the space is on the spectrum does change. For example, one blue can look different depending on where it is, space can appear different depending on its context. There are many different tools that can be used to change the typology of space, but for the scope of my thesis I will only focus on a few.

What tools will you use?

I will use the pre-existing tools of science and perception. More specifically, organization/juxtapositions, scale, light, color/materials, entropy and the activity of eating to reframe concepts of interiority and exteriority.

Thesis Writing Assignment: Week 3 February 14, 2018

This week, I watched the Robert Irwin movie and read his article, “Notes Toward a Model.” I inparticular like these quotes:

“As social beings, we organize and structure ourselves and our environment into an “objective” order; we organize our perceptions of things into various pre-established abstract structures. Our minds direct our senses every bit as much as our senses inform our minds. Our reality in time is confined to our ideas about reality.”

“Just how is it that our useful conceptual structures become those same hidden orthodoxies? The answer lies in part, in the nature of their development as from, an evolution which has transpired in such discrete stages and over such extender period of time that most often we come to their existence as form generations removed from their source. Since they are given to us whole, as independent sets of facts, even truths, it is no wonder we fail at times to recognize them for what they really are: terrestrially conceived, culturally compounded abstractions.”

This week I’ve also been focusing on narrowing down a site and a program. The site is 35 east 4th street, New York, NY - an empty lot.

I find the location exciting because it is the interior of the exterior, meaning it is the inside created by three buildings and a fence. The material qualities of this space are also intriguing. The next step is to focus on an activity. I have two ideas right now:

a place to experience eating outside and/or

a place to experience entropy (equilibrium tendencies)/time

Thesis Writing Assignment: Week 2 Feb 7, 2018

This week I read, “The Horizon” by Cornelius A Van Peursen.” It had too many significant quotes. I did my best to only pull a few:

“And so it is that the horizon is man’s translation into the world. Surrounded by the horizon, the world is reflect by man; reflected on by him. Through the horizon, the world becomes linked to man: it is his world, the human world, the inhabited world. It is not the division of scientific concepts that man becomes aware of his participation in the image of the world but in the unit of lived experience. Man lives in the horizon, Man lives in the horizon, the horizon is himself, the horizon is the world, the horizon reflects back to him the human world, namely, the world as visible in the beam of human reflection”

“The horizon has something intangible, something inviolable about it. Man cannot remove it, not even in thought, nor can he reach it. Every fence can be removed, every limit can be reaching, every frontier can be crossed. The horizon nonetheless, is given as an absolute limit, an impassable boundary. Here again the horizon is shown as not entirely outside. What is outside in the world is accessible.”

“It is nonetheless impossible for man to reach the reflection of his own body. The body cannot overtake its own space. An accessible horizon would destroy bodily space. Man drives the horizon before him.”

“The horizon is beyond reach, and it is precisely for that reason that it ensures the scope of human space. The horizon denotes the zone of human actions. Undoubtedly, the horizon signifies the limit which man cannot reach, but equally it designates the region to which man reaches by means of his sight, his desires, his framed picture of the world. Man allows himself to be invited and intrigued by this horizon which he knows is mysteriously linked to himself.”

“Human beings lay out the path of their life; they discern a direction, they strain toward it, they project themselves. All this is possible only because of the scope of their actions, of their being; because of this scope of which the horizon is the sign. It is likewise in the figurative sense that man knows the horizon and that this horizon opens up to him the sphere of his mind and of his activities. Thee double aspect of the horizon - inaccessible border and space for advancing - is the presupposition of the relation of man: it is the initial condition which exists prior to every human act. The horizon invites and repels at the same time”

“The horizon is neither purely outside nor purely within.”

“But the everyday world, where every mode of thought finds its point of departure, is the grounds of the horizon, the reflected world. The separation between physical and psychical disappears here. It is a case of the human world, material and spiritual at once.”

“The description of the horizon cuts across the dualisms of physical and physical, interior and exterior, literal and figurative, human world and objective world.”

I could go on. But I will stop there. My key realizations were around how the horizon functions, and the significance of the horizon in our presence. This lead me to think of a new framework to analyze spaces -- how connected is the self to the concept, the idea of a horizon. Space can either encourage or sever the connection. I came up with this framework.

Interior = within

Exterior = outer

Boundary = limit, or locator

Infinite, mind self [interior] → body [exterior] space → horizon interior / exterior [mental space]

Also part of the assignment this week was include a brief commentary on 1) how you define interior design and, 2) how your project relates to this definition. 

Interior Design is the evaluation, consideration, and editing of space. The interior is space related to “within,” meaning of the bodily scale, or rather space we inhabit. The interior can be inclusive of landscapes, parks, sidewalks, mainly any space related to our inhabitation. Interior Design is the process of evaluating, analyzing, and creating modifications of a space to make it better for everyone.

My project is analyzing how space itself can be edited to encourage people to be present - to notice and to perceive space. My project will utilize components of horizon/mind space to inform and expand the way we think of interior space.  

Thesis Writing Assignment: Week 1

If you create the interior, than the anthesis exists. They are intrinsically related. The existence of the interior frames how we experience and perceive the exterior quite literally, and figuratively. Ultimately, how we see and perceive the exterior, how we relate to the exterior, how we feel we are connected or disconnected to the exterior is partially tied to the construction, the organization, the identification, of the interior, thus the term, “Spectrum of Perceptions of the [in/ex] terior.”

Today, I think that will be the title.  "Spectrum of Perceptions of the [in/ex] terior" We will see about tomorrow.