Abstract
In an attempt to bridge the gap between architectural/interior design practice and education, ‘atmosphere’ as a prolific contemporary architectural debate in practice and theory is covered by the experiment of ‘Staging Poe’ carried out as a first year Design Studio through the study of Edgar Allen Poe’s selected poems. Poe’s 1846 text of ‘The Philosophy of Composition’, unfolding his analytical method of writing and emphasis on “effect” in poetry, provides a ground for experimenting with facets of materiality and structuring the studio. Aiming to cultivate intuitive design experiments of students into informed processes in hybridizing conceptual/textual and material/sensual aspects, studio is structured in two phases. In the first phase, “materialization”, idiosyncratic interpretations of students from words to materials with a focus on tectonic experiments and haptic experiences are sought in between materializing and dematerializing processes. In the second phase, the “atmospheric”, emphasis on dematerialization of the perception of materials through tools, such as light, color and sound is exercised to transform the object into a performance stage. Outcomes of the studio on aspects pertaining to material and materialities in creation of the immaterial that is the atmosphere is followed and evaluated through responses of students’ weekly reports.
Highlights
The concept of the atmosphere is very much on the agenda of contemporary architectural debates revolving around materiality and immateriality through projective theory [1, 2]
One can mention the literal inclusion of infrastructures making the immaterial air an atmospheric design element as in the case of Blur Building by Diller Scofidio + Renfro [2] and projects of Philippe Rahm [3] that can be traced back to the campfire phenomenon of Reyner Banham [4]
Departing from the necessity of bridging the gap between architectural design practice, where atmospheric thinking is already influential, and design education, this paper covers the presentation of the process and outcomes of a project-based experimental study carried out in a first year Design Studio aimed at materializing/immaterializing the atmosphere of Edgar Allen Poe’s selected poems
Summary
The concept of the atmosphere is very much on the agenda of contemporary architectural debates revolving around materiality and immateriality through projective theory [1, 2]. Two main questions will be debated in relation to the outcomes of this first-year studio experiment: First, how to think on the relationship between the conceptual/textual and the material/sensual through the concept of atmosphere and second, how to allow possible tools and opportunities to hybridize those seemingly opposing tenets while structuring the studio. A paradigm shift to reinstate the authority of making (praxis) in design and to find alternative ways to heal the split between thinking and making like integration of architecture/design with visual arts and performing arts is creating an transdisciplinary platform that can be observed in a multitude of current debates on the concept of atmosphere and its various understandings in relation to aesthetics [8, 9], embodied spatial experience [10], politics [11] and philosophy [12]
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