The brief of my work

In order to understand the latent needs in the architectural system, a narrative about a situation in the future is employed. In the future, due to global warming, much of the land could be covered with water. It is widely accepted that global warming will increase the sea level over the coming century and beyond. The current sea level rise has increased at the rate of 1.8 mm per year for the past century. It could trigger a tragedy for coastal land in the next centuries: for example, many major cities such as London and New Orleans already need storm-surge defences, and would need more if the sea level rose, plus large tracks of coastal land would disappear. (Meehl G. A., 2005, p. 1769) Through ‘The Drowned World’, London, which is covered under water, can be imagined in detail. The world submerged under water is illustrated like a tropical rain forest.

What?

The main idea of this project is how the image of landscape can be recorded and archived through pinholes. I am designing a hovering platform to record and archive the image of a landscape. It is not simply a recording of certain objects in detail but archiving objects and the context of landscape through time. Moreover, it can be a vision machine in London to support a system of future landscape as a propositional event space.

Why?

The main purpose of the platform is to help landscape reconstruction due to preserving the flow of sight through time in order to prepare for natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods.

That is to say, the platform will archive the everyday landscape before London is covered under water. When natural disaster occurs, the image in the platform could support the reconstruction of the landscape. Moreover, the preserved time-based image might be used in a museum as a London landscape history.

How?

In order to design the platform, this project has been examined through 5 different techniques. Each technique explores how the platform can archive and record the image visually with physical holes, and how the information will be interpreted in the future.

“All the way down the creek, perched in the windows of the office blocks and department stores, the iguanas watched them go past, their hard frozen heads jerking stiffly… Without the reptiles, the lagoons and the creeks of office blocks half-submerged in the immense heat would have had a strange dream-like beauty, but the iguanas and basilisks brought the fantasy down to earth. As their seats in the one-time board-rooms indicated, the reptiles had taken over the city. Once again they were the dominant form of life.” (Ballard 1962 p. 18)

Narrative

The narrative of this project comes from ‘The Drowned World’ of JG ballard. In the book, London has been ‘drowned’ by water which is illustrated with ‘dream-like beauty’ or ‘Eden’. However, it is different from reality. Human beings can accept the situation similarly to the way the environment does in the water covered city after the occurrence of a natural disaster.

It is possible that this environment is not a disastrous landscape. Human beings can adapt to the situation. One day, the archived image which includes the flow of London's time will be released from the platform. They will be in the confusion of current values due to realising the reality. There are two possibilities; the restoration to the past or the adherence to the present. Obviously, there is a common perception which is represented in the period. The common perception of the present can be differentiated with it from the past, due to the fact that common perception can be dissimilar according to each period. For instance, people usually see the object through their perception, which does not ‘see seeing’ but perceives something from ‘previous experience’.

Schopenhauer commented that viewing beautiful things was not only a question of all people seeing the same but was also dependent on the kind and quality of the brain which is perceiving them. (Crary 1990, p. 84)

Moreover, the interpretation of the recorded image is distinct to each individual. The image is visionary and abstract like the output which is made by the ‘Vision machine’ of Kiesler. The interpreter might try not to make the same as the landscape of the past but instead try to make the ideal city fit to the current situation. If they deny the current situation and return to the past, then they try to drain the water as in the plot of ‘The Drowned World,’ and then they will reconstruct their city according to the revealed reality. It is the middle between the past and present owing to the fact that they reside within different ideology and environment.

The system of the platform

The platform consists of the recording part and observing part. In the recording part, there will be a rolling object to which a light sensitive chemical is applied like a rolling curtain, and a supporting device.

In the recording system, due to the weather, many parts in the archived image might be absent so that it will be dependent on the interpretation of the perceiver. The dynamic change of weather and the strength of daylight have an influence on various images: clear, blur and smear. Even the speed and direction of wind can be examined.

This platform could hover in the sky as the ‘strandbeest’ of Theo Jansen. ‘Strandbeest’ is a active machine which uses wind power system.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this project has explored how the platform could archive the image visually with a pinhole, and how the information will be interpreted in the future in order to design the platform with experiments and drawings. The image from the platform might not be the image from perception, which is accumulated in memory, but the visionary image from the observer. This platform archives everyday landscape through the pinhole.

The purpose of this project is to design a hovering platform as a vision machine to record and archive the image of landscape, for the reason that it could help landscape reconstruction if or when London is submerged under water.

For the next stage, the system of the platform will be constructed through time-based drawings. In detail, the system inside the platform will be constructed visually.

Additionally, the shape of platform and more specific narrative will be attempted.

The shape of the platform

Through the curvature of St Paul, London bus and Spitfire, I can get several type of the platform shape. I draw the curvature on papers, and then transformed the cuvature on the paper.

The studied perfection of the curvature

7. ST PAUL'S AND THE SPITFIRE

certain persistent originating images emerge over and over. St paul's (not St Peter's), the Spitfire (not the Hurricane), the London Bus (the old Routemaster, not its boxy successor). To be sure, these are objects united in their Englishness, but that's not so central. More crucial is the studied perfection of their compound curvature. Webb recalls a very early fascination with Wren's resolution of the intersection of vaults, the way in which the almost weird reconciling shapes deform attempts at penetration. Webb's incision in the Henley temple dome is a related act, a simple auguring which sets an incredible sequence of events in motion, which opens up transformations of matter, space, and light. Those fascinating British machines address paradigms of perfection as well as the idea of motion and the delights of a cowled mechanism. But clearly it's the curves which attract. Webb restores to architecture a difficulty of surface, producing an ineffability of light.

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Writing on buildings
Michael Sorkin
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