ATMOSPHERE AND ATTRITION



SIAL Team:
    Mark Burry
    Barnaby Bennett

“By recognizing the inherent uncertainty and inevitability of weathering and by viewing the concept of weathering as a continuation of the building process rather than as a force antagonistic to it, [it] offers alternative readings of historical constructions and potential beginnings for new architectural projects."

Mohsen Mostafavi, David Leatherbarrow,

On Weathering: The Life of Buildings in Time

”The magical figure of the architect only survives in the apparent play between atmosphere and building, ephemeral climate and material object. Architects work hard to create the impression of such a relationship. In the end, the main effect of their discourse is the fragile illusion that architecture is more than an effect, the illusion that atmosphere can be controlled.”

Mark Wigley

The Architecture of Atmosphere

Daidalos June 1998

Atmosphere and Attrition will run in parallel at both RMIT as a SIAL upper pool architecture/industrial design/landscape architecture studio and VUW (Victoria University of Wellington) through the Arch 412 course.  Simon Twose and Jan Smitheram will teach the course at VUW. This studio provides a platform for an exchange of ideas between students  in both countries which will be managed through teleconferences, visiting lectures and web site exchanges. There will be an emphasis placed on digital inquiry in the studio but never at the expense of other forms of investigation.

This course situates itself within the lineage of inquiry that focuses on time-based approaches to design.   This discourse asks the designer to be aware of how initial design moves are affected through time by both human and natural changes.   This specific studio focuses attention on a critical but often overlooked aspect of materiality, it’s attrition.

Put simply, this studio asks ‘how do materials and the groupings of materials, (form and buildings) change as they are exposed to both consistent and changing environments, and how can an awareness of these changes feed into a broader design discourse that enriches our ability to respond to the dynamic world around us.”