Memory Place Essay and Collage

Plunging into the lukewarm depths, the volume of the water absorbs my body. Swimming downward towards the forest floor as ripples of sunlight dance between the trees, the water flows over my skin in a cool wisp. I take a breath; extraordinary, as my lungs fill with life. the water.... is light; airy, but smells of pine. 

The underbrush sways back and forth in harmony as my body hovers along the lake's bottom. The trees reach upward toward the glowing, oscillating surface above. The sun peaking through the limbs offers no warmth, as the water shelters my body in a numbing, thick embrace. My limbs are slow and heavy, but free and hanging in anti-gravity.

A large, decaying tree gradually lays down before me. Though falling in grace, the muffled thud carries the weight of 10 tons. The tree's corpse is still, but the debris is pungent and curling. Compost hits my face as the smell of decomposing bark fills my nostrils; a damp, warm sensation. The texture is gritty. I can feel the flecks sticking to my tongue. The taste is of the inside of an old barrel, left to rot; I struggle to rid my mouth of the dirt, but the taste lingers.

I pick a strange fruit from a nearby branch. The speckled-shape rests comfortably in my grasp. As I press the fruit against my tongue, the fuzzy-texture tickles my lip. Sweet flesh floods my mouth and overflows from my teeth. The taste is temporary; fading, and I quickly gorge the sweet fruit, leaving only the chewy stem to remain.

I compress my legs and push off the spongy, forest's bottom. I dart upward toward the water's surface, the liquid rushing through my hair and limbs. The weight of the water is gradually relieves pressure from my head as I ascend from the dim depths.

As I break the surface, the bright light of the sun-soaked world blinds my sight and I clench my eyes. My blood plummeting to my feet, as I soar higher and higher. My breathing becomes short and fast as I clutch desperately at thin weightless air. My body is heavy and gravity overwhelms my mind. My trajectory turns downward to the landscape 1000 feet below. My gut is in my throat and a crescendo of violins resonates in my heart. I'm falling, falling, Falling, FALLING!


                                  The silence bares a slight ringing in my ears. The darkness is thick and ambiguous. The amorphous cushion caresses my head in warmth and comfort. My consciousness struggles to reorient itself in space and time. My feet press against the cold, splintering floor and the glow overwhelms my vision as my fingers flick the bathroom light-switch.

Attic / Cellar Collage

The cellar is first and foremost the dark entity of the house, the one that partakes of subterranean forces.  Attics are good places to think, dream, play, and write poetry.  Perhaps we need houses in which doors can be slammed shut and things shoved out of the way, into some cellar, attic or closet, to be forgotten for many years, only to be rediscovered much later, perhaps only by children or grandchildren.

- Karsten Harries, Learning from Two Invisible Houses

A collage-response to the readings of Bachelard, Heidegger, and Harries; involving memory, attic, cellar, and the oneiric house.

Probe-10_Spatial_Joint

Probe-09_Adaption

Probe-08_CANstruction

Probe-07_Modrawel_Diagrams

Critique: "Report on Integrated Practice - 5"

A critical caveat must be noted: for architects to exploit the potential of BIM as an iterative design tool, they must be retrained to perceive fluidity in what looks fixed (or at least to resist this perceptual bias).  The turn of the century poet Paul Valery tells us that "seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees", in BIM, it is exceedingly difficult to forget anything.

- Renee Cheng, Report on Integrated Practice, 5

The specificity and data capabilities which make BIM so powerful, are ultimately the devices which hinders the ability to utilize the software as an effective conceptual design tool.  Cheng speaks about the differences between problem-solving and design-thinking; the first which simply seeks answers, while the later explores and questions the possibilities.  Locking-in specifics early in the design process can often limit the potential for forms, voids, elements to be perceived in different capacities.

However, the argument isn't that BIM simply incapable of conceptual design-thinking, but requires the designer to imagine and perceive the model with infinite potential and range beyond the specific parameters the software is documenting.  Collaboration between media is still critical to successful, efficient, and productive thinking, but BIM software can be utilized as so much more than a means for documenting construction.  For BIM to be fully realized for its potential to act as an early design-tool, the architect must adapt to "seeing" again in this new media, recognizing the specifics when they become appropriate.