[Re]actions

The first time we had illumination as an opus word I focused on illuminated everyday artifacts and shedding light on things, figuratively speaking.  With our current Third Skin project the prompt word mean something more literal to me now.  Through this semester I have learned how important light is in design.  “Perhaps the most powerful element in our perception of architecture is light.  Louis I. Kahn insisted that there was no true architecture without the natural light.  Our principal receptors for sensing the environment are our eyes, and the light illuminating that environment is crucial for the information we receive.” (Roth 85) 

photos i took depicting the illumination of natural light

In our Third Skin project we were to create a design that expressed a personal narrative and a piece of inspiration from nature that focused on its perception of light.   We were to only use MDF, a linear material, tools and natural light.  I tried many iterations of this project and made copious revisions due to limited shop time and unforeseen problems with actually constructing my design.

During the process stages of my project I applied various textures to my MDF hoping the surface treatment would catch light in an interesting way.  I hoped the interesting way that light hit the textured surface would draw my audience’s attention on another level other than the shadows it cast.  We studied the tactile surfaces found in Baroque architecture in history class.  “Baroque architects were especially cognizant of the phenomenon, and in their churches, they created hidden sources of daylight, focusing the light on specific areas to direct attention.  Painter of the Baroque period, such as Ruben and Rembrandt, did much the same, similarly creating areas of strong illumination to direct creating areas of strong illumination to direct out attention.”(Roth 86)

final product

In Massey, Blakemore and Roth we read about the search for a new style and learned about many movements and revolutions that impacted the path of design. A revolution is a movement that flips the world upside down and changes everything.  Revolutions perpetuate movements within design that reflect the changes in culture.

We have been learning a lot about revival in history. From the Gothic Revival to the Arts and Crafts Revival all of these revivals had a strong impact on design.  We also have been studying the movement of certain designs spreading worldwide.  These designs originate in a foreign land and are either exported or emulated in another country.  The design reflects that of the source of this artifact; like a Japanese motif portraying traditions from Japanese culture, but is revived in a new surrounding.

In Design Graphics and Perception and Communication I thought of movement in a more literal sense. Movement dictates the level of energy in a space and allows it to come alive.  We have been designing and rendering spaces and while making my plan for the space I thought about the space needed to comfortable move around and how it would actually feel to interact with the space. This is crucial because as I read in Roth on page fifty-five, “ Buildings that work well are those whose plans and spatial arrangements can be easily grasped and held by users in their mind’s eye and through which they can move about easily with a kind of inevitability such building can be said to have clear conceptual space.”

left side::colored pencil   right side::prismacolor

I learned to pay carful attention to both texture and light source::highlights,shading and shadows.

I learned to pay attention to details, for example ceiling details; i.e.::color, molding

In studio we worked with solid materials, tactile texture, illusions, and light to design dynamic pieces that reflected interesting shadows, creating visual texture.

Something that I didn’t think would play as big of a part in the final product as it did was rotation.  During critique I noticed that with each project either Stoel or the designer would take it under one of the light sources and rotate it to see the variety of shadows it could cast.  Ching explains how “turning an idea over in our mind enables us to see and study it from different points of view.  In a similar fashion, if we can imagine how an object rotates in space, or how it might appear as we move around it, we can explore its many facets from all sides.” (Ching 283)

 In History we studied the Palace of Versailles in which water, glass, light and mirrors are used to create an illusion of space and grandeur.  The hall of mirrors is a prime example of how reflection can successfully be used within a space.  “Reflections occur on…the mirrored surfaces of glass…the reflecting surface presents an inverted or mirror copy of the object being reflected.” (Ching 257) Ching literates the importance of something’s reflection by explaining that “While tonal values can imply depth on a flat drawing surface, we turn to light to more vividly describe the three –dimensional qualities of forms and spaces in our environment.  Light is the radiant energy that emulates our world and enables us to see three-dimensional forms in space.  We do not actually see light, but rather the effects of light.  The way light falls on and is reflected from a surface created areas of light, shade, and shadow, giving us perceptual clues about its three-dimensional qualities” (Ching 50)

Reflection, in a more symbolic sense, Massey explains how design reflects previous designs, inspiration pieces or cultural and governmental directions such as in the Arts and Crafts Movement when “a conservative style, inspired by French Classical architecture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and in interior decoration was marked by lavish use of carving, gilding, rich marble, and extravagant lighting, well suited to provide an atmosphere of grandeur for large hotels, department stores, opera houses, and the ostentatious houses of the wealthy.” (Massey 31) Many designs in some ways reflect their source of inspiration.  In our studio project many of our product reflected an aspect from nature.  The style of the Arts and Crafts Movement reflected that of Beaux-Arts.  “The Grander type of interior the prevalent style was the Beaux-Arts, so called because of its source was in the teaching of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.” (Massey 31)

 

S   u   m   m   a   r   y

This weeks words played into each of our classes in different ways.  They all had dynamic meanings and made me further explore their meanings.  In studio reflection and rotation were key to how our light source illuminated on our project.  We reflected our source o inspiration in a more abstracted way.  In Design Drafting and Perception and Communication we learned the art of rendering and studied how details like small reflections, shading and shadows can illuminate our interiors to show both depth and our light source and make our space come alive.  While drafting these spaces we put to use the movement that a slight off-center rotation can give to our spaces and how it pulls you in more than a plan or elevation view.  In history we studied how designs reflect inspiration sources, sources of origination, revolutions, and movements through out history.  We learned about a variety of materials and how they were used to illuminate a space.  We made connections between places worldwide and learned about how those design moved or were reflected worldwide in new design and new places. In conclusion I believe this weeks words had strong ties both literally and figuratively speaking.