REFLECTING OVER MODULE 1
In the realm of my research, it's been a rough week. I've been absorbing and pondering the comments from my blog, and the discussions with my peers and my professors. I feel as though the narrower my research gets on the specific topic, the less interested I am in researching it. I think that my original interest in theoretical physics and theology has strayed too far, into an entirely different topic of geometry in religious buildings. Sure, that's an interesting history too, but it's not what I want to research. Unfortunately, I believe I'm back to square one on picking a research topic. Better now than six months from now, but still not ideal.
I've gone back to the drawing board on my interests and goals. I've been sifting through a lot of architectural research papers, news in architectural innovation, and all the design literature I own. I'm pulled back to some of my interests I discussed early on in my get-to-know-me presentation: public art, and nature. Those are the two topics I'm currently researching. Tomorrow evening, I have a meeting with Brian to talk about switching topics and get feedback on where to go from there. I'll post another update with more research and discussion tomorrow. I feel like I'm playing catch up a little now, but I would rather do that than research something I don't enjoy as much.
I read a lot over many different topics, and I've settled on the following rough two questions. I tried to think about what the main topics are within each of these. The first one relates primarily to art, architecture, and social context. The second one relates primarily to nature, architecture, technology, and people.
What can architecture learn from nature on how to adapt kinetically to serve more functions?
Rao, S. (2020, May 21). Building interactivity into public art. AMT Lab @ CMU. Retrieved February 21, 2022, from https://amt-lab.org/blog/2020/5/building-interactivity-into-public-art
This article relates new technology for interactive map making and digital storytelling with developing more interactive public art in order to increase community engagement.Interactive Architecture: Adaptive World. (2016). United States: Princeton Architectural Press. Retrieved February 21, 2022, from https://www.google.com/books/edition/Interactive_Architecture/zzsEDAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
This book discusses how new technological advances make it so architecture has more opportunities and abilities to interact with humans in a more active way.P. Ferschin, M. Di Angelo and G. Brunner, "Rapid prototyping for kinetic architecture," 2015 IEEE 7th International Conference on Cybernetics and Intelligent Systems (CIS) and IEEE Conference on Robotics, Automation and Mechatronics (RAM), 2015, pp. 118-123, doi: 10.1109/ICCIS.2015.7274607.
This discusses the need to stray away from static buildings and create more kinetic buildings, and how to rapidly prototype ideas to do so.Bujar Q. Bajçinovci, Vlora Aliu, Bard Bajçinovci, Uliks Bajçinovc. "Interactive Kinetic Architecture: Progressive Design Principles," Journal of Science, Humanities and Arts (JOSHA), 2019.
This is a discussion of how architecture has the ability to be interactive and kinetic, and how that relates to the arts, specifically performative art.Seyed Morteza Hosseini, Masi Mohammadi, Torsten Schröder, Olivia Guerra-Santin, Bio-inspired interactive kinetic façade: Using dynamic transitory-sensitive area to improve multiple occupants’ visual comfort, Frontiers of Architectural Research, Volume 10, Issue 4, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2021.07.004.
This talks about a facade that was designed as a form of biomimicry to adapt to let varying amounts of light in at different times for maximum comfort and pleasure of the building's occupants.Weijie Zhong, Torsten Schröder, Juliette Bekkering, Biophilic design in architecture and its contributions to health, well-being, and sustainability: A critical review, Frontiers of Architectural Research, Volume 11, Issue 1, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2021.07.006.
This discusses how important designing architecture with respect to nature and what it does is, and reviews factual information of why.
Virginia, firstly, I wanted to say that your site's design and use of graphics is outstanding, really well done. As far as your progress through module 1, I completely empathize with how difficult the research can be, particularly as it can tend to pull you away from your questions, rather than re-propel you further into them. I think that the question about what architecture could learn from public art is particularly interesting, though it seems like it would be particularly hard to research, accordingly. Such is the tradeoff! This would seem to be a topic that would have more to do with statistics and surveys, so be prepared for that. Both questions do have a clear exigence, however, and this can be the most important thing to get off the ground. Good luck as you continue!
ReplyDelete-Myles
Virginia,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your transparency in this process and admitting that this process is not as simple as it may seem. I feel like this class is meant for this discovery and your right, it is better to change your topic now, rather than six months in. I like the ideas behind your new topics of interests. The question you asked, "what can architecture learn from public art on how to interact more with its community?" caught my interest and it made me wonder how you would research or study something like this?!
Hayden Wyrick
Virginia,
ReplyDeleteIt's been really interesting seeing your inquiry evolve over the semester, and I'm excited to see where you take the topics you've decided to move forward with. I am particularly excited for your question regarding biomimicry, as it's such a wonderful process that can teach us so much about the natural world and ourselves! I like the use of the word "kinetic" to ground the question more in personal, material experience that a person has with a building (at least that's how I interpret it). I could see this topic going hand in hand with your earlier inquiry regarding religious architecture, as there's a deep history of embracing the natural in religious iconography and structure (e.g. the Axis Mundi model) and am curious as to how you might take what you've learned so far into account through this lens of biophilic design.
-Matt King
Virginia,
ReplyDeleteI can understand the feeling of needing to catch up when it seems like a brick wall just smacks one in the face. While I am somewhat sad to see you switch gears from exploring geometry and religious connections, I agree with you that it would be best to ensure that what it is you will be researching from here on out is something that you will enjoy looking into. And the topics you are looking into now, I am just as interested to see how you will develop these further. After seeing the music case study where something typically non physically tangible can become solid form, I am interested to see if you will be able to make similar connections with public art and even with nature. To see if there are meanings behind certain colors and shapes found in both art and nature that can be translated to solid form, would be interesting to utilize as beginning design studies.
~Alex White