Architectural Design V-IX: Pleasure - Dwelling on Patterns (A.Fonteyne)

Abstract

There is no doubt that we as architects, although building for a diverse group of people we often don't even know, respond to a set of preconceived patterns. Mostly invisible, patterns are always present in determining how we live, linger, settle and ultimately dwell in space. Designing in a changing world requires a critical awareness of architecture's complicity in reproducing those patterns.

Objective

Understand, test and apply patterns when studying and designing neighbourhoods, buildings and dwellings; Reflect and take position on the notions of Community, Dwelling and Home; Study a given and visited dwelling reference in detail, develop an appropriate representation of it and critically situate its embedded patterns; Design dwellings on a given site for a given number of living beings; Challenge the ubiquitous practice of replacing existing buildings. How can keeping them contribute to a more diverse urban landscape, other patterns of dwelling in community and more diverse comfort conditions? Define a personal position about the agencies of the architect and architecture; Gain confidence in the design process with an ability to be critical and conscious, bringing all the aspects of the semester together in a personal and critical discourse; Learn how to work together in a group of 2, leaving room to explore individual interests.

Content

There is no doubt that we as architects, although building for a diverse group of people we often don't even know, respond to a set of preconceived patterns. Mostly invisible, patterns are always present in determining how we live, linger, settle and ultimately dwell in space. Designing in a changing world requires a critical awareness of architecture's complicity in reproducing those patterns. Dwelling. What does it mean to dwell in space? Do we dwell only where we live? Do we feel at home where we dwell? Can we dwell in movement? To think about dwelling, we will continue using a methodology familiar to our Chair, one of inhabitation, one of spending time in the spaces we are curious about. We will continue to visit, build, and draw some of Zurich’s protagonists of dwelling culture. Through visiting them together, we become users, conceiving of the spaces through the eyes of an inhabitant. We acquire an attitude close to that of any other person, experiencing the house, the domestic order and the life it contains. Patterns. We will also continue to work in the company of a book. Books make us notice things that often pass unseen. They bring consolation. They offer support. This semester we will turn to A Pattern Language, an iconic 1977 book by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein. In it, they define architecture and communities as language, composed of patterns. Their method, boiled down, was participatory, emotional and adaptive, ending up somewhere between science and religion. We recognise that patterns change according to times, conditions, behaviours. We will critically study many of the 253 patterns the book defines, projecting and testing them to ultimately re-write them and through designing come to terms with their usefulness in our times and context. Pleasure. Defined as a feeling of happy satisfaction or enjoyment, our interest lies in consciously approaching study as something that can produce this feeling. Pleasure is often regarded as suspicious in an academic context. Together with you, we want to explore its potential as an active posture, we want to create a studio as a repository of pleasure. With you, we want to define our own Pleasure Principles, building on the work of others exploring the field, like adrienne maree brown in her book Pleasure Activism. She writes: What we pay attention to grows. We become what we practice. The deepest pleasure comes from riding the line between commitment and detachment. Moderation is key. Together with you, we want to develop Pleasure as a Practice.

Resources