EMPTY FORMS

What is empty form? By empty, it means no specific function to that particular form. Therefore is an object of many functions, thus encourages translation of uses. It is an architecture of multiple functions, however not pre-determined. But we have learnt is that meaning is contingent, unstable, never the same for any two persons because the way we perceive things are different. Though architecture is a bit different, usually conveying a 'function', empty form is the contingency of architecture.

Empty forms could be created intentionally or otherwise, because I think every object is fundamentally an empty form. The functions that we associate with each specific form, shape or volume are merely our perception and conventional thoughts. For example, when you see a chair, you immediately think of the act of sitting down as a function that fits to that form, but if you never knew what a chair and its associated function is you might use it to perform a different function like putting things on it or using it to elevate yourself to change a light bulb. Likewise, there are probably many other objects that you have sat on that is not considered a chair. Though the designer have pre-determined it to be a chair - a sign of sitting - so the dimensions of the object are created in coherence to our body scale.

The "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe" by Peter Eisenman is empty form. Its minimal, cubicle, rectangular form suggest no specific function, so it is used for fashion shoots, picnic, seats, etc.

I think a shophouse is another clear example of empty form, as there various utilization of a shophouse. Especially, after last semester that we have thoroughly study this form of architecture, and how the third year members were able to turn the same initial structural format of shophouse into over 70 different designs of different functional space of their own.

BORAT

The movie Borat is a demonstration of Simulation and Hyperreality, where the boundary between reality and fiction is fairly vague. Most of the time the two are blended together and it's hard to distinguish which is which. The only fictional characters in the movie are roles of Borat, Azamat Luenell and Pamela Anderson. Even though those invented personalities were very fictional, once put in a real or true context it suddenly becomes part of reality. As most scenes were unscripted, everything was spontaneous and intuitive, turning the movie into a real experiment of human reactions. Therefore, the movie is both real and unreal. The actor, Sacha Baron Cohen, was able to portray his fictional character very well that people believed he was real, that they were his true behaviours. This is where the stimulation or representation created the real. Then how do we distinguish the truth and what's not, and who's to say that what has been created is real? Moreover, the use of a Kazakh persona that is quite obscure and is not widely known made it more believable to the audience because they have no knowledge or expectancies of what a real Kazakh should be like. What made Borat funny was the questionable thought throughout the movie thinking is it real or unreal. The character of Borat still had a very old-fashioned set of mind, being surprised by gay traditions and women rights. The way the movie was filmed was also convincing because it seemed like a reality TV show, a real documentary and real interviews being conducted.

DE/SIGN

Everything is a "sign".

There is a parallel connection to what we see or heard and what we "think of", but they are usually two different things. This is because everything we perceive is a sign, representation, or reference of something: a pre-perception. Even the words that come out of our mouths are signs, a clear example being onomatopoeias like 'BANG!' or 'POW!' that give an automatic feedback of a gun or a punch being fired. One other good example from the lecture was were given this picture and were asked "what is it?"

A lot of people mentioned a house. But it is not actually a house, in front of our eyes is a "pentagon" and "is" nothing else. But because it has become an iconic association of a house, therefore we "think of" a house when we see this polygon. Artist, Rene Magritte has shown this understanding through "Ceci n'est pas une pipe (this is not a pipe)", where he denote that it is not a pipe but a painting of a pipe. This painting is "sign".

In a profession like designer we are "DE-signing". We are trying to generate a new sign, to be different to the pre-perception, to surprise clients (as said in my response to the Lethal Theory below). Though in architecture it's a little different because not everything necessarily communicate "meaning", they are made to "function". If you look at this stair design, it doesn't visualize the usual 'pre-perception' of a stair, it has been DEsigned so that it's still able to function as a stair, allowing one to ascend/descend with movements of stepping left and right like normal stairs does.

Staircase in Samitivej

This particular stair i found in Samitivej Hospital. With an additional design decoration, this stair has become a "sign" of fitness.

Phenomenology in Design

My design studio project is to make a proposal of a pavilion, to house a selection of sculptures from the Bangkok Sculpture Centre. I chose a sculpture called "Meditation" as my centre piece and my concept, the direction of my design process is developed from the essence and the meaning of the sculpture, which then leads me to designing an "experience" of "Meditation" that I want to convey to visitors of the pavilion. Because the sculpture is a study of a sequential progression of the body and mind during an act of meditation, the pavilion design will create space that will allow visitors to see the sculptures in a continuous sequence and has a form that tends to compel visitors to walk or progress forward.

The site for this project is at Parc Paragon but I specifically chose where there are steps to emphasize progression, not only making the visitors experience conceptually but physically as well, because "Meditation" is not achieved easily. In Buddhism, meditation is the train to nothingness, which is the ultimate achievement, where there is no suffering, therefore later on the pavilion will offer a phenomenon of nothingness. The emptiness is created the threshold and boundary of the form of the pavilion. The project offers this phenomenon of an experience to convey to visitors of Buddhism and that it is not something impossible and anyone can achieve, you just need the effort.

Walking through walls

The reading of "Walking through Walls" by Eyal Weizman has lead me to question the existing conventional features around me. A door is a door, a window is a window, a door is no window, and the same goes for a window otherwise. These are the rules of architecture that we were taught since we were young. However, these rules are merely rules created by our perception. In reality there are no such rules. Who is to say you "cannot" exit through a window, it is just we are taught that we "should not", after all they are both just holes created in the walls. For ghosts, these conventional boundaries mean nothing. They move through walls, floors, or doors if they "want" to, because they have a different perception of space.

The soldiers that lead the attack of the city of Nablus in April 2002 used this same idea and took advantage of it. The literally "walked through walls", knocking and breaking their way through palestinian homes, "smoothing out" space to carve out their pathways. It was unexpected of anyone because it was against the existing tradition. Nobody knows on which wall or at which moment will the soldiers pop out, and anyone on the streets (conventional grounds) were shot dead. This methodology is called "inverse geometry", meaning an reorganization of the urban syntax (the way things are ordered). Likewise, there are also applicants of this method of inverse geometry, such as parkour which uses walls, stairs and railings quite differently from normal pedestrians. There's also a resemblance in the architecture field. You can replace the word in the text clients for enemies, and it can still be well-understood. The book stated, "the enemy interprets space in a traditional, classical manner, and I do not want to obey this interpretation and fall intro his traps. Not only do I not want to fall intro his traps, I want to surprise him!" Similarly architects want to exceed the clients' expectations and their interpretation of what space looks like. Therefore we seek for a wider perception. The meaning of space is contingent, individual, never the same, and always changing - the client, or anyone or anything in the world is seeing the world differently.

Actually if you observe and take a look around again you will see that a lot of things follow this concept of inverse geometry and defying the basic rules of perception. As you can see through movies, a media a representation of human perception, burglars or boyfriends entering/exiting in/out of windows is a common sight. In the series, Prison Break, about a man and his friends in jail trying to break out of prison, also use the same idea knocking through grounds and walls. Nowadays, everyone wants to be new, innovative, do things nobody has every done or seen before.

We are in an era of "no walls". Shift the convention, think outside the walls.

BILDUNG BLOG

on Contemporary Theory

19th CENTURY

Along with the alteration of social structure, the replacement of royal patrons by public authorities, new typologies of buildings such as government offices, banks, hospitals, museums have emerged. Though it was a revolutionary period, not all was new. 19^th century is the century of eclecticism and revival. Therefore, many of the architecture in the previous historic scene would reappear, beyond their original borders or otherwise brought together.

While there’s a positive progression in the advancement of machinery and new energy, continuing from the Industrial Revolution of the 18^th century, I would say that there’s a negative progression in architectural innovation. Instead of simulating new architecture it revives the old, existing structures. However it wasn’t a direct imitation, it was an application of the new into the old. I view it almost like a trial run, for them to test their qualities, so they start from the ancient, the very basic, aiming to challenge and overcome what were architectural achievements and successes of the preceding periods. Consequently, the architecture of the century was an experiment used to explore the integration of newly invented materials of steel and glass, firstly into the existing architecture of the past. Therefore, it is a period of time that eventually becomes a mark of the transition of architecture into the modern world, before the big leap in the face of architecture.