BEAUTY MEMORY ENTROPY

EDUCATION AND PRACTICE

 

Experimenting with Outmost Verticality and Extreme Horizontality

Pari Riahi, Ph.D., AIA, University of Massachusetts Amherst

 

ABSTRACT

The paper looks into possible modes of inhabiting large-scale land/cityscapes through projects conducted in two design studios, which used narrative as their core modus operandi. One studio investigated the unfolding of the Charles River, as the horizontal datum and the edge to the city of Cambridge and mused on grappling with the river in a series of episodic and ever magnifying scales.  The other studio looked into the site of Silo No. 5 complex in Montreal, as a predominantly vertical structure and researched different strategies of occupying parts of the silos with temporal and permanent scenarios. While utterly different, the two projects shared having a prominent face stretched over (the river) and above (the Silos) the horizon of the cities they are located in, dominating the landscape. Furthermore, contrary to their iconic presences, they both share a complex past, each containing layers of transformation and change. While that of the river is well concealed, the silos manifest theirs in plain view. The studios shared critical questions: How does one inhabit landscapes that are vast, deeply transformed over time, and complex without becoming overly prescriptive? How does one grapple with disciplinary boundaries and beyond them to find avenues to design such projects? Ultimately, how does one address the complex notion of time, seizing both its temporal and permanent potentialities? To answer these questions, the pedagogical framework of the studios offered a series of episodic projects based on narratives. By identifying drawing as both the exacting and the liberating tool, the students were asked to continuously probe the possibilities of thinking through the projects by developing narratives of their own and suggesting their imagined modes of action. Mapping, observational notations, analytical drawings and imaginative musings all came together and made the case for the students’ projects. Relying on multi-layered drawings that were made through individual narratives, the studios embedded a way of working that aimed for reconciling formal and material imaginations. The paper assesses that work, while reflecting on ways to engage both the audience and the authors (in this case the students who worked on hypothetical projects), and draws from those narrative-based experimentations as a way forward to grapple with such large-scale projects.

 

BIO

Pari Riahi is an Assistant Professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst in the Department of Architecture. Prior to joining UMass, she taught in multiple capacities at RISD, MIT and SUNY Buffalo. Pari teaches design studios and gives theory courses and seminars centered on architectural drawings and representation and the contemporary city. Pari completed her PhD at McGill University in 2010. Her first book, Ars et Ingenium: The Embodiment of Imagination in Francesco di Giorgio Martini’s Drawings (Routledge, 2015) concerns the systematic inclusion of drawing as a component of architectural design and investigates the treatises of Francesco as one of its strong advocates. Her upcoming book, Disjointed Continuity: Architectural Drawing in the Post-Digital Era tracks the propagation of digital media and its effect on architectural theory and practice. Having investigated the Renaissance as a clear moment of identifying drawing as a primary vehicle for architectural thought and action, the work looks into the complexities, potentials and promises of the digital tools and techniques in redefining drawing. Questions related to contemporary cities in crisis and possible intervention and reuse strategies form a secondary track in Pari’s research. She has been actively engaged with this research track through teaching elective studios and doing hypothetical projects, which have been published in peer-reviewed journals.  Pari is a registered architect and pursues projects that are at the confluence of landscape, urban, and architectural design. Prior to starting her practice in 2011, Pari worked for the offices of Machado and Silvetti and Martha Schwartz Inc. Her office focuses on small-scale built projects as well as large-scale hypothetical interventions within the confines of cities.