Atmosphere 2014—ACTION

PDFS:DWELLING ACTS    ENVIRONMENTAL ACTS    SOCIO-POLITICAL ACTS    BUILDING ACTS   REPRESENTATIONAL ACTS    RESEARCH IN ACTION

Push, Pull, Bend, Bind: Enacting Architecture Through Behaviour and Consequence
LANCELOT COAR, University of Manitoba
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Informality in Bogotá: Housing, Rapid Urbanization, and Public Space
JORGE COLÓN, University of New Mexico
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Poetic Action for Autism: An Intersubjective Approach
ALLISON DVORAK, MSH Architects
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Black Contemporary: Act of Construction
PETER P. GOCHÉ, Iowa State University
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Experiencing the Three-Legged Stool: Social, Economic and Environmental Education
Through the Mariposa Redevelopment

MARIANNE BELLINO HOLBERT, University of Colorado-Boulder

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Clouds of Action: Rethinking Urban Contexts as Differential and Participatory Fields 
HANNAH HOPEWELL, Auckland University of Technology

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Inhabiting Difference: Integrating Rule Based Design and Cultural Ritual
JASON S. JOHNSON, University of Calgary
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Exposing Experiences: Research Based Placemaking
JENNY KEMPSON, Framework Cultural Placemaking (Seattle)
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Turbulence and the Creation of Home
GRAHAM LIVESEY, University of Calgary

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Heaven on Earth: Transient Dwelling and Adaptation in Downtown Houston
GREGORY MARINIC, University of Houston
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Digital Surrogacy in Ephemeral Sites
URSULA EMERY MCCLURE, Louisiana State University
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Returning Anew: Sequential Experience in the Jewett Art Center
KEVIN MOORE, Auburn University
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Patterning Temporary Atmospheres: Installations for the Experience of Sound and Light
CLAY ODOM, University of Texas
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Photography as a Phenomenological Tool in Architectural Representation
ERIKA PETRIC, Technical University of Graz
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Apocalyptic Architecture: Designing Within Resilient Detroit
ZIAD QURESHI, Iowa State University
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Free Zoning: Designing a Framework for Typological Evolution and Continual Building Acts
GEORG RAFAILIDIS, State University of New York at Buffalo
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Blind Spot: The User Usurps the Dwelling Act and the Designer’s Attention
NATALIJA SUBOTINCIC, University of Manitoba
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Toward Anonymity in Architecture: An Augmentation of the Historical Project of Autonomy
JOSHUA M. TARON, University of Calgary
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Call Before You Cut! The Importance of Tree Protection
ANNA THURMAYR, University of Manitoba

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The Lightest Material

AARON J. WEINERT, Wentworth Institute of Technology

 

To upend default thinking in architecture, colleagues and I began teaching a sophomore studio with investigations into light as generator of form and space. A three‐dimensional approach resulted in perceptual and phenomenal discoveries grounded in the actions of researching through making, transforming and imagining. “Action” is therefore interpreted in terms of agency: being invested in actively making discoveries rather than approaching design problems through mundane issues such as code or program.

 

As Juhani Pallasmaa has noted in his book Eyes of the Skin, “[i]n our time, light has turned into a mere quantitative matter…” This exercise offers one way to consider light in all of its qualitative potential. As mentioned, pedestrian quantitative issues were given secondary status. Qualitative investigation requires action—forming, molding, shaping, distorting—rather than a passive, arms‐length analysis of the quantitative. The action of making unites thinking with discovery.

 

Employing a subtractive process, students carved plaster or foam models and lit them in several ways to study the effects. (A subtractive rather than additive method targeted space‐making, not object‐making). Expectations of light and material interactions were challenged; resulting implications, both tangible (tectonic) and intangible (atmospheric), could be drawn upon in future studio projects. Models were then turned into images, with human figures representing scale and inhabitation.

 

As a final action, students translated observations into words, with poetic results. Often students begin with a “concept statement” (words); move to drawing, usually plan (two dimensions); and then make a model (three‐ dimensions). Our converse sequence of actions demonstrates that engaging space in light first can strengthen architectural investigation. The act of making provides for broad experiential exploration, resulting in a concept rather than starting with one.

 

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The Architectural Lessons of Anselm Kiefer’s La Ribaute: The Material of History and the Space of Dramatic Representation
STEPHEN A. WISCHER, North Dakota State University

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Reclaiming Space

PAOLA ZELLNER, Virginia Tech

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The 2014 Atmosphere Committee consists of: Lisa Landrum, Chair (Architecture), Rae Bridgman (City Planning), Alyssa Schwann (Environmental Design), Lynn Chalmers (Interior Design), Marcella Eaton (Landscape Architecture); with web design and graphics support from Thalia Andreoglou (Masters of Architecture student), and administrative support from Brandy O’Reilly (Faculty of Architecture, Partners Program).

 

Questions? Please contact Lisa.Landrum@umanitoba.ca

 

Atmosphere is generously supported by the Faculty of Architecture Endowment Fund and the following professional associations: the Manitoba Association of Architects (MAA); the Manitoba Association of Landscape Architects (MALA); and the Professional Interior Designers Institute of Manitoba (PIDIM).                  

Aspects of Atmosphere 2014 ACTION are being presented in collaboration with StoreFront Manitoba and aceartinc.