PLASTICITY
affective environments and the edges of life
SIAL Team:
Pia Ednie-Brown
Time: Wednesdays, 9.30am - 1.30pm SIAL presentation space + 11.C.12
Zwiki: http://zwiki.sial.rmit.edu.au/student/HiveMind/PlasticitY
“Plasticity, then, in the wide sense of the word, means the possession of a structure weak enough to yield to an influence, but strong enough not to yield all at once. Each relatively stable phase of equilibrium in such a structure is marked by what we may call a new set of habits ... the phenomena of habit in living beings are due to the plasticity of the organic materials
of which their bodies are composed.”
William James
This studio will explore plasticity as an aspect of both design process and design outcome, while attempting to expand certain plastic tendencies in contemporary architecture beyond formal attentions into the more social, political and ethically loaded questions regarding the nature of life itself.
Roland Snooks 'Cellular Tiling' - 2006
Initial exploration will deal with the nature of fields and plasticity, in the production of “thick, plastic field” models, that will be understood as “creatures” with behavioural tendencies. This will be moved into designing and building small environments that will sustain the life of a nominated living thing (plant, insect or animal) while generating some kind of effect through the negotiation of the living creature and the architectural creature.
The main project of the studio will involve a much larger architectural problem of redeveloping an extensive, suburban coastal site into a public domain that contains a mix of programs: child care, aged care, open public grounds and facilities for ethically sensitive research (based around a “SymbioticA Institute” - see: www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au). The emphasis here is on the edges of life: the newly born, the soon to die and the manipulations and reappraisals of the living. There will also be an attention given to strategies for sustainable design such that the development minimises energy use and maximises its own energy production. Working initially as a team, an overall site plan strategy will be developed and these programs researched in detail.
Each student will then individually, or in pairs, design building(s) for some part of this overall redevelopment. As such, the studio will develop the overall project both together and individually.
Classes will occur in building 11 (the old jail) and in the SIAL presentation space.
FOR MORE DETAILS (including weekly outline):
http://zwiki.sial.rmit.edu.au/student/HiveMind/PlasticitY
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