Constructed Order

Material Study, Reuse of Shuttering, Ray Wolfe

School of Architecture UBC

Tectonics studio, seminar and exhibition

1999
Shotton / Taylor


We do not ask to be eternal beings. We only ask that things do not lose all their meaning.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

 







It is also refreshing to be reminded that architecture can be evaluated by an entirely different set of criteria, involving the appreciation of craft and an expressive emphasis on what Frampton terms its tectonic and tactile dimension. How do we follow Frampton and Giorgio Grassi in stressing this arts tectonic basis [and consequently de-emphasizing the supposed nihilism of its technology] without at the same time undermining architecture's capacity for representational values? How do we articulate a buildings corporal presence without diminishing the allusive poetics of its form?
Mallgrave

Intentions
These questions posed by Mallgrave in the introduction to Frampton’s Studies in Tectonic Culture begin to address the very real ambiguity surrounding the term tectonics and what its embodiment in the design process could mean to the architect. Is tectonics exclusively about expressing structure in an obvious fashion, or in articulating joints to the point of ornamentation? Or are there a subtler range of strategies which find their root in a profound understanding of the limits and potential of materials used and their constructional relationships? As Frampton states “architecture must of necessity be embodied in structural and constructional form”. Structure, materials and construction methods are an intrinsic part of the language we use as architects. But much built work finds its inspiration and resulting form elsewhere, outside of these natural forums, and overlooks the poetic potential of the constructed nature of the artifact.

Our principal desire in this studio is to enlighten our discussions, and subsequent design studies, with an appreciation for and active engagement with the materiality and constructed nature of building in an effort to link architectures formal and spatial composition with the processes and products of its fabrication and discover the meaning of tectonic presence.

Framework
seminars
Our discussions and design exercises will be informed through readings and seminars on the subject of tectonics throughout the term in an effort to define its meaning and relevance to the design process.
 

Precedent study model, exhibition photographs

precedents
As a starting point we will be studying precedents, analyzing their constructed order and detail resolution, with a view to clarifying the role structure and material can play in giving form and meaning to a building. The set of examples selected are by no means conventionally ‘tectonic’ in their expression and are in some cases what could be described as ‘atectonic’, offering a range of attitudes towards the handling of materials which will enlighten our discussions. Large scale conceptual details will be generated from these studies.

 

design
Following from the precedent study will be a detailed material study using as its vehicle the industrial waterfront, and its subsequent debris, found on the southeast edge of False Creek. The program for this exercise will be somewhat fluid and will demand an engagement from each student in discerning the appropriate level of intervention. This first exercise will address the nature of materials and their potential for informing a design strategy.

A brief charette, still focused on the issue of materials, but with an emphasis on making full scale objects will preceed the principal design project which will be of 6 weeks duration. This final project will reside on the same site as the initial investigation and using the material strategies developed in the first exercise and extending these principles into larger built form bringing in issues of spatial organization relative to structural and material logic to create constructed order.