At its most basic and fundamental, architecture is experienced through the human body – not only as a metaphor but also through the physical experience of the body in space. The skin is not only the body’s container but also its largest organ. Fabrics [textiles, building, and city fabrics] become second, third, and fourth skins. Clothed in architecture, then, the body is infinitely extended. (Cover drawing: Maria Malloch, Spring 2021)
“There is an immediate relationship between the body and space…. Before producing effects in the material realm (tools and objects), before producing itself by drawing nourishment from that realm, and before reproducing itself by generating other bodies, each living body is space and has its space: it produces itself in space and also produces that space.” – Henri Lefebvre (1974)
STUDIO PROVOCATION:
- Architecture is an envelope and backdrop for experiences by the individual and the collective.
- The work of this studio questions the nature of the line, of the edge, of thresholds, of portals, and of the in-between.
- We considered performance and phenomenology as conceptual drivers for shaping space.
- We reinforced the relationship between critical thinking, representation, making, and presentation.
- We were interested in crafting experiences through materiality, movement, light/shadow.
- We tested the spatial and material tensions between existing and proposed
- We considered the broader ideas of time, light, wind, water, and gravity in our design proposals.
The work shared here was developed by students of Georgia Institute of Technology during the Spring 2021 Sophomore Architecture Design Studio led by Julie Ju-Youn Kim, Associate Professor and Associate Chair, School of Architecture. To the students whose body of work follows here - Sam Amick, Thomas Bordeaux, Sarah Davis, Alejandro Desrochers, Jordan Hanna, Walden Jones, Ash King, Karen Kodera, Joseph L'Heureux, Maria Malloch, Maya Takai, Anna Wiles, Alex Zheng : Thank you all for your unflagging enthusiasm and commitment. You all made the semester fun and rewarding! I am excited to share the creative work of our studio at the Spring 2021 End of Year Show!
We started this studio with a series of short exercises asking students to consider conditions of liminal landscapes. Privileging the study of sections, students created a series of architectural landscapes at the scale of the body. We built models and made drawings...
“Architecture has its own realm. It has a special physical relationship with life. I do not think of it primarily as either a message or a symbol, but as an envelope and background for life which goes on in and around it, a sensitive container for the rhythm of footsteps on the floor, for the concentration of work, for the silence of sleep.” - Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture
Final Student Projects _ Still/Life: Wellness Retreat at the Manchester Mills Ruins, Sweetwater Creek State Park.
Click on the student's name or the "view project" button to see the final presentation boards. [Back command to return to this main page works best in Safari.]
