Gordon Pask Quote

It is clear that an aesthetically potent environment should have the following attributes:

1. It must have sufficient variety to provide the potentially controllable novelty required by a man (however, it not swamp him with variety - if it did, the environment would merely be unintelligible).
2. It must contain forms that a man can interpret or learn to interpret at various levels of abstraction.
3. It must provide cues or tacitly stated instructions to guide the learning and abstractive process.
4. It may, in addition, respond to a man, engage him in conversation and adapt its characteristics to the prevailing mode of discourse.

Smout Allen - Read the project description!

Retreating Village, Happisburgh

The cliff-top village of Happisburgh in Norfolk is falling into the sea. a retreating village is deployed in the disintegrating territory between the sea and the land. It adopts an architectural language of impermanence, of permeable screens, loose-fit structures that complement and contribute to the nature of the restless landscape.

Here.

This is how we should run our installation!

Here.
Here.

Buster Keaton

This is quite good showing folding mechanisms etc.

Brian's sketches

Le corbusier Portable luggage

Claude Glass

This is a description of a device used by artists in Soane's time to make images look more picturesque. Pretty cool.

Also here.

Really similar to one part of the Privacy Device.

Look here for more optical devices from that period. Nice aesthetic (if a bit cliched).

Rarekiek - peepshow.

This website has quite a few interesting old viewing devices.

Susan Macwilliam

Wall mounted Headbox housing stereoscope and speakers.
Headbox, 2004, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin 2004

Stereoscopes, 2001, Cornerhouse, Manchester. Photos from Susan Macwilliams website.
Using her research into mediums, hysteria and psychology, Susan MacWilliam uses video and photography to explore the paranormal and society’s response to it. Inspiration comes from perceptual phenomena, paranormal activity, with references to methods used in psychology, physiology, photography and a further interest in optical viewing devices as seen in her “Headbox” work.

Speed Models. Themes: Various thresholds, Crossing the boundary, Illusions, Reflections, Shadows

Privacy Device

Privacy Achieved

Design so far...

Hi,


These are the design process of the privacy device.

Your head and arms go inside the device, so that your actions are not visible to others. Then you fiddle with a curtain-like screen so you can spy on others without being watched. Then someone comes (next guest) and opens the screen from the outside, intruding into your privacy and ruining your "moment".

Relationship between Soane Museum and Pitzhanger

Going from Museum to Pitzhanger Manor.

Going from Pitzhanger Manor to Museum.

A small idea for what installation could do.

drawers open to frame a view

which slides to reveal a memory

which flips to reveal a reflection

which swings to reveal a relationship

which folds to reveal a narrative

which lifts to reveal your own position

John Huston Quote

John Huston American Director 1906-1987.

"You walk through a series of arches, so to speak, and then, presently, at the end of a corridor, a door opens and you see backward through time, and you feel the flow of time, and realize you are only part of a great nameless procession."
John Huston

"Privacy Sweater"

Dioramma

The diorama was a sensation in the early 1800s.
The Diorama was a theatrical experience viewed by an audience in a highly specialized theatre.
As many as 350 patrons would file in to view a landscape painting that would change its appearance both subtly and dramatically. Most would stand, though limited seating was provided. The show lasted 10 to 15 minutes, after which time the entire audience (on a massive turntable) would rotate to view a second painting. Later models of the Diorama theater even held a third painting.

It comes from this site about enlightenment which is pretty interesting: http://cabinet-of-wonders.blogspot.com/2010/03/diorama-extravaganza.html

Neil Spiller

Couldn't really find any proper hard information about these drawings. Will have a look for a couple of his books tomorrow. Drawing is shit-hot though.

1st floor plan!

found from the book A NEW DESCRIPTION OF SIR JOHN SOANE'S MUSEUM

Teatro Olimpico

Theatre in Vicenza designed by Palladio. Gives optical illusion of streets stretching far away in the distance when they are only in fact a couple of metres back. If you look at the section you can see how the streets are on an incline on the horizontal. The distance is a lot more impressive in real life than from what can be seen in these pictures, and the actors can actually enter and act from the houses along the street.

Thought it could be relevant to us, in terms of perception of space, optical illusion. Stages have threshold between audience and actors, reality and fiction.

Mies van der Rohe- Barcelona Pavilion

A well documented way of blurring thresholds, a lack of boundaries between inside and out...

Ground Floor Plan

I just found a ground floor plan here. It even has a scale!

Bicuadro Architects

Design for Italian pavilion.

Use of colour interesting - Also the strata effect (inspired by rock formations) emphasises idea of boundaries.

How Soane's museum has influenced architect WILL ALSOP

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jQEuAl8VYU&NR=1

- expanding space
- the unexpected/ intrigue

- individuality/peculiarity

This is the guy who designed Peckham library by the way - his buildings are usually distinguished by their use of bright colour and unusual forms.

:)

Inverted Spaces by Jens Reinert showcased at ‘Realstadt’ exhibition in Berlin

Hi

This is also on the Year One Blog.

http://www.dailytonic.com/inverted-spaces-by-jens-reinert-on-show-at-realstadt-exhibition-in-berlin/

(boundaries)

George Dance's Royal College of Surgeons

George Dance's Royal College of Surgeons



Originally:



As it stands today:
(own photo)

Esther Stocker - Artist

Relates to ambiguity - how does one space seperate itself from another. Soane's fragmented use of space - questions boundaries

On the idea of space, Stocker:

“It is really hard to describe, but I never really know where one thing is at… like myself for instance… Imagine I am on a chair. The chair is two metres from a wall. The wall is on the second floor of a house in Vienna and so on. But what relates to what? Even the solar system is dependant on being described by some unclear idea of a universe being described by a confused human observer.”

Artist: JAMES TURRELL

JAMES TURRELL

Kielder Skyspace


'Skyspaces are created by a careful balance between interior and exterior light. At Kielder, what appears to be a simple, clean circle of sky is an intricate and precise design of interior and exterior space.' (Read more here)

Connecting the exterior and interior through light?

Artist: SEBASTIAN MARISCAL

SEBASTIAN MARISCAL

Caja de Vestiges
(Vestiges Cupboard)




Idea behind not so important, but I like this photo - at which point do you cross the boundary between one room and the next? Are you ever aware of which room you are part of when in this tunnel?

Took this today, you can't draw inside on a Saturday so a bit pissed.

Brunelleschi's Experiment

Brunelleschi's Experiment.

Thought this might have something to do with perspective, illusion, light, reflection.

Might make a model of it. (but for the Loggia)

Also to do with discovery and the Enlightenment.