Critique & Response

CRITIQUE AND RESPONSE


A final studio review was held on November 17, 2004 at 2:00 pm. The critics assigned to review our 3-person group were visiting architects Krysta Sykes and James Reittinger, and UNCC instructor Mark Morris. I was first to present and was allotted a 15 minute presentation and 30 minute discussion.

In general, the premise of an interpretive architecture, theoretical justification of phenomenology, and development of an interpretive center in the Landsford Canal State Park was well received. They jury stated that the research was well focused and documented, and the drawings; photographs and image vignettes were compelling.

I presented phenomenology as a series of personal experiences developed at the site. My own personal discovery of the park, the research, and my observation of others was the basis of the experience. I chose to represent the qualitative nature of those moments by creating composite images of a place, a particular scene or event. I then utilized that image to create an architectural construct capable of sustaining that perception. At the very least, I sought to provide an opportunity for the viewer to experience that place in a similar manner.

Much discussion centered around three main points. Firstly, Mark Morris led a discussion on the use of the Crawford House precedent. In my presentation I acknowledged that the precedent became influential in the design only after the initial conceptual design drawing was made. The landscape arc, found in the precedent, was used as a “gathering” element in the composition of my project. The schematic design was refined using the arc as an organizing and metaphorical element.

Mark compared the initial conceptual design with the refined schematic that used the precedent. The discussion included:

• Formal organization and the notion that fragmentation can still be formal.

• Questions regarding the necessity to link the various parts of the construct and were they all equally important? (i.e. parking)

• Has the design moved too close to the precedent – why is it a circle and not an oval or a square. There is a beginning and an end represented in the movement. The circle implies a center, but there in nothing really there. It’s not a circle, it’s a loop. However, the arc is effective, as it links the many experiences.

The second point of discussion was opined by James Reittinger. He suggested that the construct did not fully engage the canal and extend to incorporate more of the site. One comment was a suggestion to distribute the interpretive center along the canal trail. James asked what one would try to interpret, such that everything was placed on the island? Somehow, by designing on the island, you ignore the rest on the landscape and loose the opportunity to experience as suggested by the images.

The last point was initiated by Krysta Sykes. She asked if the basis of the phenomenology was the personal experiences represented in the images, and if so, how do you create an architecture from personal points of view that speaks to everyone - is this a contradiction?

In response to the first point, I believe strongly in the unifying quality of the arc (circle) element. In its defense, I will claim it is directly linking the island construct and its presence on the river, with the canal and trail in the landscape. The element holds and binds the river to the canal, thus this is the essence of the canal construct and the meaning behind its existence and that of the larger park. Moreover, if we take the precedent of the Crawford House to be an influential work, worthy of understanding, then I will claim that the use of the arc (circle) as a unifying element is more compelling in this project as it genuinely links objects in a field. In my opinion, the Morphosis precedent is weak beyond the form; it does not link anything of significance, but is rather an element in and of itself. In support of Mark’s point about the circle implying a center – I have moved the amphitheater to the west side of the canal and at the center of the arc.

Part of the second point is satisfied by moving the amphitheater. The section of the canal contained by the arc is better incorporated into the new construct, and the canal is activated by that relationship. Early studies and discussions ruled out distributing elements along the canal trail. First, it is too long, (1.25 miles), contains many grade transitions, and poses accessibility hardships. Second, it should be left in as natural a condition as possible – part of its beauty is its authenticity. Third, it is more compelling to relocate and inhabit the site at the ancient river crossing and the major lock ruin. This provides a necessary anchor at the southern end of the canal trail where nothing exists now. The interpretive center will provide additional amenities in the park and be the kind of catalyst to generate activity along the canal trail and across the site.

The third point about providing a universal experience is possible. What was overt to me as I walk around the site is probably perceivable by most. The images that were developed are concepts that are easily readable, but recreating those images or views as part of an architecture may not be perceived exactly the same by everyone. This is good, as this is the unquantifiable nature of perception, meaning, and as such, phenomenology.

I like to think of the work as creating opportunities for the viewer to experience. The architecture seeks to provide the viewer with opportunities to discover things in different ways over the course of one visit or many visits. No two experiences will be the same and no two visits will provide the same perceptions for everyone. Understanding and perceiving the site will continue to change, person to person and day to day.

The latest site drawing, Fig. 23, depicts one other element critical to the project. It depicts how carving the vegetation (trees) can influence the relationships between the various elements of the construct. The trees seem to “fill” the container developed by the arc, and the open fields and paths through the trees provide another layer of connectivity between the elements. Carving the landscape and defining groves of trees also represents the notion of how one might move through the site. Movement is controlled in places and uncontrolled in others. Universal views are offered along the controlled paths, such as what one might observe while walking along the Riverwalk Gallery. In places of uncontrolled movement, such as engaging a grove of trees offers the viewer a multitude of opportunities for individual discovery.

The study of form, parti, landscape movement and interpretation will continue into the second semester of this project. The site and building design will continue to be defined and refined.

Study Models

 

Schematic Design

The schematic design for the interpretive center presented in this thesis is based on four main ideas.

First, the design provides for the re-occupation of the canal site at the ancient river crossing at Land’s Ford. The nexus between the canal, the major lifting lock ruin, the ford and the river, provides a compelling intersection of physical landform, natural landscape, flora and fauna, historic artifacts and metaphysical being promoting the opportunity for an interpretive center that evokes vivid perceptions of place.

Second, the axial armature of the main island structure extends a line of influence along the Catawba River. The viewer is focused upriver towards the main Spider Lily pods and downriver looking south over the Catawba. In addition, open cross-axial vistas provide a dialogue between the structure, the river and the land.

Third, the site and building encourage the viewer to move through it. On site, a discovery path is maintained open, unobstructed and free to the public – same as the canal trail is open to the public today. The entrance element is an extension of the ancient crossing. A ramped bridge will take the viewer from the lifting lock, across the inner waterway and onto a plaza which sits up on a plinth above the ground surface. The bridge engages the main axis of the island structure and continues across the plaza to cross the outer waterway onto an adjoining island. The bridge is terminated high above the Catawba as an open observation platform – it evokes the perception of “crossing” and terminates in the sky. The continuum of this openness, like the prow of a ship, is a metaphor for “timeless passage.” The platform is served by an open lattice monumental stair and elevator. Once back on the ground, the viewer can follow a path back across the outer waterway that leads onto the Riverwalk Gallery. This arching gallery contains exhibits and artifacts, and is an open platform which offers proximity and interaction with the islands edge and the river that meets it. The gallery terminates in a wooded landscape and provides uncontrolled movement through the grove of trees and onto a return path to the lifting lock and interpretive center entrance. Placed along the return path is a natural amphitheater cut into the topography of the landform and three outdoor pavilions for lecture and presentation. These too are open for public use and are functional separate from the interpretive center main structure. Within the building, controlled movement along a path establishes the axial parti of the plan. The entrance procession is through an open structure that begins the dialogue between indoor and outdoor space. Once through reception the viewer emerges within the main two-story gallery space, and is focused on a ramp ahead which ascends to the upper gallery at the other end of the building. The ramp and upper gallery are open to the exterior and are essentially unenclosed spaces. The path continues from the upper gallery, across an open walkway, back to the upper main gallery where a stair or elevator will take the viewer back to the first floor and main gallery. Adjacent the main gallery is an open courtyard that engages the site, provides access to the Riverwalk Gallery and allows access to the rest of the island beyond the interpretive center.

Lastly, landscape walls are employed as an element to knit the whole composition together and bind the canal and river with the island. The circular form of the walls and their massive presence engage the landscape and hold together the composition; the walls celebrate their intersection with the canal and bind it to the river.

Simple abstract forms, like canvas backdrops to a living painting, are used to set the architecture against the natural world. Like many things in the park, the building is a object which must be discovered by the viewer. Material is selected for its massiveness, permanence, and in its ability to show its age. Curved pre-cast concrete panels are erected to form the mass walls and provide texture against the earth. The panels are clad in copper sheeting and allowed to patina to the natural conditions. The patina copper affords the viewer a sign of age and signifies time in vivid color and pattern. Smooth cast-in-place floor, wall and roof panels make up the gallery volumes, ramps and bridges. Glass and metal is used in various locations to accent the mass concrete and enclose spaces behind a delicate screen.

Initial Studies

Conceptualization

Landsford Canal State Park, Chester Cty., SC - Aerial

Landsford Canal - Map

Site Study and Analysis

SITE STUDY AND ANALYSIS

Landsford Canal is the best preserved example of numerous 19th-century South Carolina river canals built in the state. Today, remnants of all its major structural features exist. The canal is the uppermost of four canals constructed along the fall-line on the Catawba-Wateree river system during the period 1820 to 1835. The fall-line is the geological feature that separates the piedmont from the coastal plain and gives the Catawba River its elevation change, producing the shoals (rapids) in the river. At one time, the canal was the most important trade route between the foothills and the coastal plain. River boats and commercial shippers used the canals to bypass the rocky rapids while carrying goods to and from ports. The 460-acre Landsford Canal State Park includes the ruins and scars of canal-culverts, stone bridges, locks, historic mill site, and a lockkeeper’s house which contains interpretive exhibits about the canal system in South Carolina.

In addition to its rich cultural history, the canal site is abundant with natural beauty. The rocky shoals on the Catawba River are home to one of the world’s largest populations of Rocky Shoals Spider Lilies. The spider lily is best seen in full bloom from mid-May to mid-June. There is also a 1.25-mile trail that extends the length of the Canal, a nature walk and an American eagle viewing trail. The shoals provide good fishing for striped bass and bream; and there is river access for canoeing and kayaking. The park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

A historic marker at the lifting lock reads as follows, “Crossing the river at Land’s Ford was the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road (Great Indian Warrior Trading Path). It was the most heavily traveled road in colonial America. The road linked areas from the Great Lakes to Augusta, Georgia. The road was laid on ancient animal and Native American trading/warrior paths. Treaties among Governors of New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the 19 Chiefs of the Iroquois League of Five Nations in 1685 & 1722 opened the colonial backcountry for peaceful settlement and colonization. In South Carolina, the path forked – going west through Rock Hill, Chester and Newberry and east through Camden on old animal salt trails.”

Qualitative Understanding - cont'd

Qualitative Understanding

2.0 Imaging, Compositing and Mapping – qualitative understanding

Interpreting the landscape is the essence of this thesis proposal. My own investigation of the site over the past several months is the primary component of my design premise. Through my own investigation of the physical and metaphysical conditions present at the site, I have discovered a means for making an architecture of place - one that seeks a presence and is capable of conveying meaning in its expression.

I have made an extensive photographic survey of the canal interpretive trail (See Fig. 6, Page 21), from the diversion dam and guard lock to the lifting lock at the river ford. The photo-survey was a way for me to become familiar with the site as an explorer, and make the discoveries necessary to raise my awareness of the phenomenological dimension of the site. I realized that one becomes aware of certain objects, vista’s, sounds, and other visual stimulus while walking along the canal trail and examining the artifacts. The presence of the river, the lock artifacts, canal depression, lily pods and ford all affect the experience of the viewer. Thus, I have become aware of opportunities to construct architecture to convey meaning. The photographs document perceptions of the reality of my experience and the relevance of that place.

Plate 1
The river crossing as a distant view where the viewer can understand the position of the architecture as an object in the field and survey the broad scope of elements that make up the site. The fore-shore is a gateway to the object in a distant field.

The resulting photographs were used to begin a process of documenting perceptions in a qualitative manner by establishing a set of “image moments.” A series of photo-realistic vignettes were created using imaging software and the digital manipulation of multiple images. The resulting composition was made from multiple photographs overlaid to form a new image of a perceived experience. The new image was a re-creation or representation of the site that conveys the qualitative parameters of an experience, and the notion of a potential architecture. The vignettes in Plate 1 and 2 are composites that depict the river crossing. Plate 1 depicts a distant view of the island with a building rising gracefully above the tree line. Plate 2 depicts the same crossing at the threshold of the island. Plate 3 is a composite of a panoramic “river walk” gallery that would stretch along the shoreline of the Catawba River adjacent to an axial ordered main gallery space and bind the river with the canal. Plate 4 is suggestive of a pavilion space that is terminated as an aperture focusing the viewer on an object or vista in the distance. These images were refined to reflect a specific perception and phenomenological aspect of the site. The images and qualitative spatial information they convey were overlaid on the site and mapped into a specific geometry on the site.

Methodology - cont'd

Donald Judd

In the early 1960’s, Donald Judd quit painting. He recognized that “actual space
is intrinsically more powerful and specific than paint on a flat surface.”
His move to three-dimensions was an acknowledgement that the physical environment was an integral aspect of an artwork. Minimalist sculpture broke with the conventions of illusion and translated compositional concerns into three-dimensions. The work became a product of the exchange between the object, the viewer, and the environment.

Judd championed the work of a diverse range of contemporary artists. He endorsed the, “thing as a whole,” rather than “a composition of parts.” This stemmed from what he saw as the strength and clarity asserted by singular forms. Singular forms had the unity of character of which resulted from the combination of color, image, shape, and surface.

Judd’s oeuvres of rectilinear shapes in rows and in serial progression are legible systems that incorporate space as one of its materials – creating a play between positive and negative that coheres as a totality. Progression is often expressed in a Fibonacci system (i.e. sequence in which each number is the sum of the two previous two: 0,1,1,2,3,5,…)

Spatial concerns were foremost of Judd, but color and materials always remained central to his conception of art. He sustained a rigorous investigation of space and form. His work is tempered by a rich palette of industrial materials.[i]

Judd’s work has informed this project in terms of building form. I am compelled
by the abstract and contrasting quality of his simple rectangular objects placed
within a landscape, and the overall form of his fabricated sculpture. How multiple
parts are assembled into a whole. The interpretive center program spaces are distributed
along an axial ramped gallery. The spaces are a series of rectilinear formed concretewalls and slabs that enclose spaces bound together by a ramping gallery.

Methodology - cont'd

Morphosis






The Crawford House in Montecito, California by Morphosis is used extensively as a reference in this thesis. It was not chosen as a precedent prior to my initial conceptual work, but as my first drawings were developed, the association with the project became clear.
The Crawford House is described as organic sculpture - an interruption in the landscape. The house employs a hierarchal ordering system using the circle - delineated as massive arching walls that engage the landform - as the controlling element. This thesis project seeks a similar vocabulary and means of tectonic assembly and materiality.

The Crawford House is an architecture driven by conviction - driven by a dialogue between architect and client based on a theory that building is influenced by the contingencies of site. The house is reconfigured by programmatic experimentation in response to the conflicts of site associated with topography and design ideology.

The house is located on a stretch of U.S. 1 between Los Angeles and Santa Monica. The highway runs the edge between the horizontal expanse of the Pacific and the steep vertical of the hills that rise to the east. The visual and sequential approaches to the Crawford House site use the physical landscape to mediate the architecture between what is obvious and what is implied to the viewer.

The driveway is a great arch that sweeps along the side of the hill. The base of the hill provides a panoramic view of the rear façade. A score of contrasting materials and tectonic systems comprise the façade. The uninterrupted axial geometry, that usually draws the eyes in a single direction, is discontinuous and eccentric in the Crawford House. The arch that inscribes the site suggests expansiveness and access to the home. Paradoxically, the public, “official” entrance is secretive and repressed. The visual composition of elements suggests that the house has multiple identities. Thick concrete walls emerge from the driveway. Overlapping planes and volumes anchor the building to the rugged site.

The interiors are revealed through a process of investigation. Circulation through the spaces is orchestrated. Window openings are framed apertures to capture specific views. A lap pool extends towards the ocean, is perpendicular to the structural spine of the house, and is the symbolic fulcrum of the design.

The Crawford House is a series of cartographic strategies (mapped geometry) that define abstract and figurative ideas relative to specific site concerns. A north-south axis was established as part of the site analysis and is the main ordering element. Perpendicular to the main axis is the second organizing element – a series of megalithic pylons that hold the site tightly. In plan they look like vertebrae and evoke solidity and energy. Another element is a fragmented, semicircular wall that follows the curved driveway. The wall acknowledges public and private spatial divides. The wall, in its fragmented parts, functions as an idea more than as a tangible, architectonic form.

The Crawford House is a powerful investigation into architectural improvisation. The house begins to address architecture less as an object and more as performance, whereby the script is revised continually by investigations and perceptions. The house represents the interface of ideas and occupancy, where transitional conditions of habitation and provocative spaces, enable art to occur, recur – and endure.[i]

The Crawford House is relevant to this project for its linear organization along an axis of influence and aperture openings that define and frame views. My project is also similar in compositional nature of the design and use of a great as an organizing and gathering device to bind elements on the site.
[i] Phillips, Patricia C. Morphosis: The Crawford House. New York: Rizzoli International, 1998. (Para-phrased)
20 Website: http://d-sites.net/english/judd.htm.
21 Website: www.gsaa.com/recreation/landsfordcanal.html.

Methodology - cont'd

Steven Holl








In his book, Intertwining, Holl presents architecture as a symbolic or metaphorical hermeneutical concept that comes from poeticizing phenomena rooted in human experience. Everyday perception and the pleasure of living are what constitute our metaphorical experience of the world. In practice, Holl employs the natural phenomenon of light as one medium for conveying or inducing metaphorical experience into his work.

Holl uses the term “enmeshing” as a merging of object and field, where the resultant is an architectural experience. This experience is an interaction that is part of a shifting foreground, middle ground and background – part of a shifting context and necessary to continue experience and discovery. Space is defined in terms of perspectival or parallax – that the shifting movement between objects makes for a visually tectonic landscape.

Holl’s phenomenological architecture calls for overt mass and the perception of its gravity as a tectonic. The weight of low, thick walls conveys power. Expression of mass and material, within their tectonic properties, is dynamic in contrast to what is lightweight. Parti, form and geometry are not fixed by meaning. Individual constructs are as much a part of themselves, as they are in relation to the whole. As an abstract, no geometry is inferior or superior to another, the idea that drives the architecture is inherent in the whole expression.

But, architecture transcends geometry; it is a link between concept and form. For Holl, meaning is a fusion of site, its phenomena and idea. Architecture can be an expressive gesture, but also carries with it, responsibility for ontological mapping. Concepts define a field of inquiry and that investigation helps form meaning. “…the idea is the force that drives the design. The field of inquiry sets the focus and the limit and the rigor of the work.”[i]

Holl’s closing statement is one of optimism;

“Architecture must remain experimental and open to new ideas and aspirations. In the face of tremendous conservative forces that constantly push it towards the already proven, already built, and already thought, architecture must explore the not-yet felt. Only in an aspiring mode can the visions of our lives be concretized and the joy shared with future generations.”

Holl’s writings support the notion that meaning is a fusion of site and idea, and that object and field are in shifting dialogue with each other. Architecture is composed as a canvas or frame over which the landscape can be imprinted for view. Movement is associated with a changing context, and thus changing experience.



[i] Holl, Steven. Intertwinning. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996. pg. 15.

Methodology in Architecture

…beginning of a process

METHODOLOGY IN ARCHITECTURE


“…you need proper attitudes, proper intentions. A concept can easily become merely a mode of defensive intellectualization, or a visual sales argument, an enticing image. Of course, every decent building needs an idea. It has to be based on clear thinking.” – Juhani Pallasmaa[i]

My initial investigations have relied on two main modes of “preparatory” understanding for an interpretive architecture. The first mode encompasses discourse and precedent studies from architects working within the realm of phenomenology. I call this mode, “qualitative meaning.” The second mode was to subject myself to a personal discovery of the site. I made numerous site explorations and surveys over several months and a change of season to photo-document the physical site and artifacts. I describe this mode as “qualitative understanding.” Using the data developed from these two modes, a conceptual understanding of the project emerged and preliminary design studies for the proposed interpretive center were made.


1.0 Architectural Discourse – qualitative meaning
Precedent study and theoretical discourse from selected architects influence conceptual ideas.



Juhani Pallasmaa

My initial research led me to a 1999 interview between Juhani Pallasmaa and an architecture student, in which Pallasmaa was asked about the “essence of architecture.” He describes the current state of architecture as one of duality. One view is an architecture of commodity conceived as visual image. The other, is an architecture that is the recollection of an image or experience that is multi-sensory and changes over time. Pallasmaa favors an architecture derived through cultural and human phenomena, rather than, a visual and formalist architecture.[ii]

To quote Pallasmaa, “…architecture is an art form, but it is a special art form because it is very silent and its ethical task is to remain silent most of the time, its power comes from its continuous presence.”[iii] I think this is a beautiful statement about the permanence of architecture as human artifact. Pallasmaa also states that today’s technological evolution tends to strengthen the hegemony of the eyes over the other senses. But, he concedes there is a possibility that the overexposure to images can eventually liberate the traditional focus on images.

Sketch – Juhani Pallasmaa
Internet searchPallasmaa speaks about the tectonic reality of construction in architecture today. He describes how hard it is to find an honestly constructed building. The elements convey solidity (as implied by gypsum wallboard and simulated concrete), but is constructed “hollow to the touch.” He faults the contractor-driven economics of building construction and a subordinate architect who specifies form, but not the tectonic conditions of execution. Pallasmaa uses the example of a Japanese landscape garden and how it represents an attitude about architecture. The garden is not a singular shape or singular concept in its reading, but presents the viewer with a multiplicity of readings - a narrative with no particular overall shape. The narrative implied in the design can be experienced and read in any number of ways. An architecture that is separate, episodic, and multi-faceted. I think this last statement about how architecture conveys meaning and can offer multiple points of view is most compelling to bring forth in this thesis project.[iv]


[i]Interview with Juhani Pallasmaa (www.stud.ntnu.no/groups/a/mar99/juhani.html).
[ii] Interview with Juhani Pallasmaa (www.stud.ntnu.no/groups/a/mar99/juhani.html).
[iii] Interview with Juhani Pallasmaa (www.stud.ntnu.no/groups/a/mar99/juhani.html).
[iv]Interview with Juhani Pallasmaa (www.stud.ntnu.no/groups/a/mar99/juhani.html). (Summarized and Para-phrased)

Historical Analysis

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS

in-ter-pre-ta-tion (in tur’pre ta’shen) n.[i]
1. the act or result of interpreting; explanation, meaning, translation, exposition, etc.
2. the expression of a person’s conception of a work of art, subject, etc. through acting, playing, writing, criticizing, etc.

Precedent examples of interpretive architecture (an architecture that functions to direct or contain an experience, it also may convey knowledge or awareness of something) are few and far between. I have been able to find some examples of contemporary interpretive centers or studies for experience-based, hands-on learning centers. But, the majority of the historical paradigms I was able to find in my research are based on the typology of a nature center. The ideas for phenomenological interpretation in this thesis project is less a product of static exhibits, but rather to provide a canvas or container in which the viewer can observe or experience the natural landscape directly. It is the landscape which becomes the exhibit and the architecture that brings it into focus.

In my research of interpretive architecture, and more specifically, the design and planning of an interpretive center, I have found several guidelines published by the National Park Service that set forth a protocol for comprehensive interpretive planning. The guidelines are rather rigid and written in a form commensurate with the bureaucratic nature of a governmental agency. While the guidelines lack the qualitative description of what interpretive architecture means in this project, they do describe the goals that are important to interpretive architecture, and that provide a pragmatic framework with which to develop the project.

The following statements are excerpts from the “Comprehensive Interpretive Planning Guide,” published by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior, Fall 2000: www.nps.gov/hfc/pdf/ip/cip-guidlines.pdf

Interpretive planning is a strategic process which achieves objectives for interpretation and education by facilitating meaningful connections between visitors and park resources.

Interpretation is about choices; interpretive planning is a goal-driven process that determines the appropriate means to achieve desired visitor experiences. The planning strategy provides opportunities for audiences to form their own intellectual and emotional connections with meanings inherent in the park’s resources.[ii]

Visitor experience is everything that visitors do, sense and learn; it includes knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and values; it is affected by experience prior to the visit and affects behavior after the visit. Interpretive planning determines appropriate interpretive services, facilities, programs, and media to communicate in the most effective way the park’s purpose, significance, compelling stories, themes and values, while protecting and preserving park resources.[iii]

Interpretive planning defines desirable and diverse experiences, recommends ways to facilitate those experiences, and assures they are accessible. The outcome is effectiveness in communicating the park’s story in a larger context, ideas, meanings and in values associated with the resources themselves, and achieving the balance between resource protection and visitor use and enjoyment.[iv]

Interpretive planning seeks to answer many questions:
Why is this area set aside and made accessible to the public?
What are the likely and desired visitor experiences?
What will visitors want to do, learn, experience, discover, etc.?
What are the current conditions affecting visitor experience and interpretation – what are the essential stories and experiences to make available to visitors? What are the significant relationships between resources and visitors?[v]
Images from website: www.aldrichpears.com/planstud6.html
[i] Webster’s New World College Dictionary. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1997.
[ii]Comprehensive Interpretive Planning Guide. National Park Service. Dept. of the Interior, Fall 2000. pg. 3
[iii]Comprehensive Interpretive Planning Guide. National Park Service. Dept. of the Interior, Fall 2000. pg. 6
[iv]Comprehensive Interpretive Planning Guide. National Park Service. Dept. of the Interior, Fall 2000. pg. 6
[v]Planning For Interpretation and Visitor Experience. Div. of Interpretive Planning, Harpers Ferry Center. Harpers Ferry: 1998

ABSTRACT - History

ABSTRACT - history

Typical scene on the canal trail – the actual canal is a culvert that runs parallel along the left side of the trail in the above photo.…how should architecture be expressed as an interpretive construct in the landscape? Is it an objective construct, universal, searching for meaning in the stimulus and conditions inherent at its origin? Is it expressed subjectively beyond the constraints of place - seeking multiple meaning in arbitrary associations and self-serving permutations? Perhaps, to one extent or another, both conditions exist simultaneously and are necessary to fully create places that support wholeness, mutual regard and understanding, but at the same time, allow for differing viewpoints, variable experiences and multiple meaning.

Most of my work in 3rd and 4th year studios has been in the realm of urban theory and design. These projects include large-scale urban planning of mixed-use, transit-oriented developments, as well as, urban high-rise and mid-rise, mixed-use commercial and residential buildings. The set of “rules” and the theoretical basis for those projects was developed in earlier urban theory coursework, and these projects offered me a proving ground to put those theories into practice.

In considering a topic for my Comprehensive Architectural Project, and recalling my experience with the residence in Vermont, I decided I would propose a project in the landscape. The primary reason for this type of project was to discover a new set of rules for making architecture. I wanted to explore the notion of phenomenology (viewer experience), meaning, and interpretation as a means to evoke an architectural response, one that would promote self-discovery within my own process for design and making architecture.

Part of this search would be an exploration to discover meaning in place and re-establish that meaning into an architectural form that is perceivable by others. Part of making architecture would be to uncover a process for self-discovery of the site, based on phenomenological experience and individual interpretation. I asked the questions: “How do I interpret the landscape and reproduce my perceptions of place into forms and spaces capable of evoking meaning? How does an architecture that responds to the artifacts of place, capture the presence of those artifacts without becoming an object in and of itself? Another reason for selecting a project utilizing phenomenology and interpretive discovery (perceptions and experience) to produce architecture was to challenge and invigorate my existing design process. In the past, I have approached design as a linear process. The process began with the physical study of site, typological paradigms and the establishment of a realistic program. Conceptual schemes were then developed that solved programmatic functions and relationships. Parti and form were crafted to suite a particular architectural theme or style consistent with a typological precedent. In this project, hermeneutical phenomenology drives a process of exploration and discovery. The process is circular, whereby initial perceptions and conceptual ideas are investigated, interpreted, questioned and reinvented multiple times.

Part of this process involves contemplation. It is rooted in the exploration and discovery of site. Multiple site visits were performed over several months and change of seasons. The physical landscape and natural site phenomena were extensively recorded. The artifacts of the canal system; lock walls, canal channels, remnants of bridge abutments, old river crossings, and historic structures where all surveyed and recorded with attention given to their “presence.” The term presence is used to describe of how the object or artifact is related to the landscape and perceived or observed by the viewer. The interpretation of these artifacts is not necessarily to provide a tectonic or material inspired design, but rather, to understand how these artifacts evoke meaning, stimulate the imagination, and establish powerful and vivid imagery in our memory.

Part of this process involves making. The graphical (2-dimensional and 3-dimensional) composite images are summations of those interpretations made from exploring the site. The making process utilizes a series of vignettes, made from compositing images, that gives clues about an architectural response. The images set forth, through overlapping and collage, the qualitative rather than quantitative parameters of the architecture. The vignettes describe how a space might feel, where one might focus their eyes, what we might hear when we occupy the space, how sunlight filters through the space and what form is appropriate, etc.

In both cases, the process continually renews itself as new encounters in one area inform another. The multiple readings of the site and a process of conceptualization, focused on qualitative metrics, are part of a design process essential to an interpretive architecture. In its final form, the architecture will evoke from its users a multiplicity of meanings and interpretations that will resonate with the original conception of the work.

ABSTRACT - Justification

ABSTRACT - justification

Considerable discourse and criticism surrounds the philosophical and architectural notion of phenomenology. In part, discussions concerning a phenomenological architecture rose out of a lack of confidence in “modern” architecture towards the end of the twentieth-century. Contemporary architecture and the theory that shaped it was said to lack the necessary “tools” (theory) of self-criticism. Architectural theory was criticized as operating at a superficial level largely autonomous and within itself ignoring conditions outside its domain or refusing to test itself against a broader cultural debate. In contrast, by engaging in theoretical debates outside its domain, architecture would acquire better means for its own self-criticism and a depth of models that explore the way the built environment is perceived.[i]

As such, architecture must be seen as a result of deeper concerns and a way of thinking where solutions are brought forth from the root of the problem with a focus on the thinking and associations that form the construction. Phenomenology, and more specifically, hermeneutical phenomenology, offers a model to examine problems below their surface, and inquire about the fundamental basics of relationships, interactions, experiences and perceptions of the human condition.[ii]

Phenomenology can be studied broadly across differing philosophic viewpoints. The work in this project incorporates the ideas for a phenomenological architecture based on discourse found in Saussure’s linguistic studies (structuralism) and Derrida’s arguments for redefining language and meaning (post-structuralism). In addition, the design is conceived in ideas of phenomenology as expressed by architects working within similar philosophic methods. These ideas will be presented in later sections of this manuscript under Methodology.

In terms of phenomenology, I have concentrated on the discourse of Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer. The two are considered the foremost representatives of the movement of hermeneutical phenomenology.[iii] They developed the necessary discourse capable of assuming deeper, interpretive dimensions into the realm of human awareness and sensory perception. As such, there was new potential for a revelation in the understanding of truth and reality. They proposed that art should represent some form of symbolic truth. The aim of a hermeneutical phenomenological architecture is to uncover the ontological dimension of the built environment. An architecture that seeks to evoke a “presence” of place, rather than, a simplistic occupation of place as a construct void of phenomenological associations, and seeks to uncover a richer understanding of the world.

Also studied were writings within the discipline of structuralism, most notably Saussure and his analysis of linguistic systems. Saussure was concerned with the underlying systems of language and their relationship to individual utterances. He recognized that language did not refer only to literary systems, but that all cultural forms could be analyzed as an analogy with language, and as such, could be read. Saussure described words as “signs”, and that “signs” were made up of a “signifier” and the “signified.” The former refers to the form of the object; the latter identifies the content or meaning. The relationship between the two is arbitrary, as the word used is different across many languages. In addition, the “signified” is defined by what it is not. For example, a bird is a bird, because it is not a fish. Opposition is fundamental to structuralism, and the physical world can be seen as structured as a system of paired opposites; in/out; wet/dry; male/female; hot/cold; etc. This has an implication for architecture as the notion of “signs” (science of semiology) can be used as a tool to read or decode the landscape as part of an analysis or used as a phenomenological element in the architecture to convey meaning.[iv] In this project the building form is a collection of abstract objects organized to convey their meaning.

In reading the post-structuralist writings of Jacques Derrida I am most interested in the effort to examine the universalizing tendencies of structuralism by introducing “specificity” into the argument. The notion of specificity considered in terms of time and difference, where meaning is not fixed, but subject to interpretation by other influences and change over time.

Derrida has explained post-structural deconstruction as a kind of pioneering, using the metaphor of “clearing a path.” The path is symbolic in architecture as a precondition to habitation, as the building by locating on a path, makes arrival and departure possible from the outside, while corridors, staircases and doors make passage on the inside possible. For Derrida, being “on the path” and proposing new language and references indicates an infinity of thinking.[v] Deconstruction also questions the structural notion of conceptual pairs. Rather than accepting these concepts as self-evident and natural. Their meanings are challenged through non-restricted thinking. In this project the viewer is put on a path to discover the language and references associated with the canal site.

[i] Mugerauer, Robert. Interpretations on Behalf of Place. New York: SUNY Press, 1994.
[ii] Leach, Neil. Rethinking Architecture. New York: Routledge, 1997. pg. 14-15.
[iii] Website: Hermeneutical phenomenology: http://phenomenologyonline.com/inquiry/5.html.
[iv] Leach, Neil. Rethinking Architecture. New York: Routledge, 1997. pg. 163.
[v] Leach, Neil. Rethinking Architecture. New York: Routledge, 1997. pg. 320.

Abstract

ABSTRACT
JOSEPH THOMAS MONICO
Interpreting the Landscape: An Architecture of Place
Under the direction of Assistant Professor José L.S. Gámez, Ph.D.


Interpretation of a place...architecture as a physical and interpretive construct of place — a dialogue between cultural artifacts and the living landscape.

This Comprehensive Architectural Project will present an architecture that is conceived from, and rooted in, the landscape. It will be a study in an interpretive architecture tied to a specific cultural site, where spatial, formal and programmatic concepts are resolved as a response to the hermeneutical phenomenology and ontological significance of place. The basic themes of hermeneutical phenomenology are interpretation, textual meaning, dialogue, culture, and tradition.[i] For example, the study of how things appear is phenomenology and how things and their appearances are functions of human culture is hermeneutical phenomenology. Phenomenology requires one to be receptive to the potentials associated with understanding human experience as a powerful reality. Hermeneutics imparts a deep interpretive quality to the notion of phenomenological experience. The fusion of this philosophy into architecture has ontological significance as it involves a willingness to pursue sensory experience for the potential revelation of truth, thus, a perception of reality in space and time.[ii]

In addition to phenomenology, the relationship between site and its cultural history compels architecture to be an interdependent construct of place. Various elements in and of the design are essential to the whole composition. The architecture is not simply an assembly of separate elements or influences, but rather a cohesive, interwoven assembly conveying meaning much greater than the sum of its parts. As a work of architecture, the construction becomes an integral part of the site, local culture and meaning, and individual interpretation, at the same time, the natural and metaphysical phenomenon of site is an influence over the architecture. The resulting construct exists as part of this interdependent relationship and cannot exist separate from it.

This notion of site, proposed by Carol Burns in the essay “On Site,” presents the concept of the constructed site. She defines the constructed site as a synergy between natural site form, natural phenomenon of the earth, existing cultural artifacts, perceptions from our surroundings and the emotions they evoke, and the constructed form of the building. Nature, cultural history and the individual and collective perception of it, impart an order upon the site and the architecture is guided and shaped by these forces.[iii] An example might be a community center designed to maximize shared activity that evokes notions of tribal community organization - as sharing and mutual caring dynamics displayed in these cultures are reinforced in the design of their villages.

The natural, visible and invisible phenomena of site, along with cultural artifacts and traditions, are the basis for the interpretations used to generate the conceptions that become a literal basis for construction. This construct is an architecture that yields to natural interruptions and evokes a deliberate perception of place. It seeks to harmonize or define itself with nature and the artifacts within, as well as, the interpretations and meanings associated with human habitation.

The project I am proposing will be an Interpretive Center located in the historic Landsford Canal State Park, in Chester County, South Carolina, along a section of the Catawba River that is protected and identified as a river restoration site. This state park is notable for its historic canal ruins, flora and fauna, and the southern end of the park is traversed by the “Great Wagon Road,” a colonial trading and migration route that ran from northeast Pennsylvania through the Carolina Piedmont, and crossed the Catawba at Land’s Ford. The ford is an ancient crossing, used first by animals and Native Americans. It is located along the geographic fall line.

I have chosen this site for its rich history and the cultural artifacts it contains. I believe the site has all the elements for an intensive study of place and invention of an interpretive architectural construct. The park contains a cultural history and historic artifacts worthy of preservation, exploration and discovery by present and future generations. I believe the proposed project is an appropriate venue for this purpose.



END NOTES


[i] Phenomenology Online, http://phenomenologyonline.com/inquiry/5.html
[ii] Leach, Neil. Rethinking Architecture. New York: Routledge, 1997. pg. 83.
[iii] Burns, Carol. “On Site,” Drawing/Building/Text. New York: Princeton Press, 1991. pg 147-155.

Prologue

As I began the introduction of my Comprehensive Architectural Project (CAP) in a presentation to my studio colleagues, I spoke of an opportunity I had in 1991 to design a second home for a New York City businessman in the southern mountains of Vermont. The site was in the little town of West Dover, located midway between Bennington and Brattleboro on Route 100. Not much happens in West Dover until the snow falls, but when the days grow short and the winds turn cold, skiers from all over the northeast crowd the little town to test their skills on Mt. Snow.

The site my client had chosen was a 19 acre lot located due north of Mt. Snow and it commanded the southern ridge of a lower mount. I remember my first visit to the property as clearly and vividly today as it was revealed to me that day. I was there with the Owner to do a site survey and determine where their new residence might be placed and if there were any other remarkable features on site that could be used in the design. I was carrying in my pocket a small knife to cut staking twine and a Silva Polaris compass; over my shoulder I slung a field transit. This image of me is what I hold in my memory - that of the Architect, the tekton – climbing that mountain, possessed with the will and the tools necessary to read the terrain, I would define a specific geographic location for the homesite and record the natural phenomena that controlled that microcosm. In this encounter, I would record the metaphysical, what my mind and body experienced. The influence of sensory experience and what the mind conveys through perception would give me clues about what it might be like to live in this place.

Using the transit, I carefully established an east-west axis along the most advantageous ridge on the lot. It was quickly realized that a building placed with its long axis running east-west would provide spectacular panoramic southern views and a full appreciation for one of Vermont’s most notable slopes. We surveyed the types of vegetation and the nature of the soils. The site afforded excellent solar orientation and natural rock outcrops. One outcropping in particular was suitable to be blast-formed during site preparation to form a deep crater in its base for the design of a natural rock pool.

Beyond the physical was the metaphysical, and as such, the phenomenological. This is what we perceive through our senses. Through discovery, imagination, knowledge, history, culture and time- all contribute to our interpretation of place. How it would smell after a snow or rain. The way the wind sounded as it blew through the pine trees. Fresh snow and the warmth from lighting a fire of hickory and oak; the mountain air and the change of seasons, all affected how form and space is developed in the design of the residence. Architecture is informed as a captured experience and contributes to the whole of everyday life in the home.

View of Mt. Snow looking south from the Eigen House site.The final design of the residence is not relevant to this introduction, other than to mention that care was taken to integrate and overlap spatial elements between indoor and outdoor. Opportunities to place individuals on the boundary between inside and out, completely outdoors or indoors, was done to inform one about that very place – being - to be on the mountain, and to live with it through every season of every year.

Martin Eigen, my client, and his wife Joan enjoyed their home. I sent him an email in 2001, right after Memorial Day. I received a reply from his daughter that both he and Joan, along with Marty’s mother had died in a plane crash. He had crashed his plane on an attempted landing on that Memorial Day weekend at the Mt. Snow airport. His daughter told me of her disappointment of having to put the house up for sale as part of closing out her parent’s estate. I don’t know what has become of Eigen House. One day I hope to visit West Dover again and see the place where I have left a part of my soul. The project I tell you about took place in the landscape, and that landscape was entered, uncovered and human settlement occurred. The house and site, by coming into being, are made part of the landscape now, and will carry forward making its own history as it is viewed, experienced, and inhabited by others. Architecture was rooted in the experienced I had in Mt. Snow, and that experience is vivid in my memory. To capture the phenomenology of the mountain is what I realize I was always trying to do.

My Thesis - Phenomenology - Interpretating The Landscape: An Architecture of Place

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