THE MINIMUM NUMBER OF LINES.
THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF THINGS.
As is entirely appropriate for a post -FAT age, Sean Griffiths and Sam Jacob, formerly of the British architecture studio, FAT, are going thin this semester.
Our project will focus on the characteristics of lines—a primary element of architectural creation,—and on the nature of things,—the stuff of life that inhabits architecture.
As in previous FAT studios, we will explore the role of drawing and representation in the formulation of critical architectural thinking, and the making of models and objects as both representations of architecture and as manifestations of architectural reality.
This investigation will develop at the beginning of the semester through a series of challenging drawing and making exercises that aim to equip each student with the materials, in both drawing technique and in three dimensional expression, that will form the basis of his or her individual design approach.
The studio will have a distinct minimalist flavor and will ask: what is the MINIMUM NUMBER OF LINES you need to make an architecture?
We will be undertaking a trip to London where, amongst other cultural delights, we will study the Capital’s latest cultural hot spot, Peckham.
Peckham is the opposite of minimalist. It’s full of stuff. It’s chaotic. It’s messy. It’s vibrant and its rough edges are in danger of being smoothed out by the forces of “regeneration.” Its economic engines are the often marginal commercial activities of locals and immigrants who, together with a thriving artistic community, have generated unique patterns of use and a scattergun streetscape.
Peckham contains the MAXIMUM NUMBER OF THINGS.
Your project will be an investigation of how to accommodate the maximum number of things amongst the minimum number of lines. In doing so you will explore exactness in a terrain vague, the freedom of rules, the liberty of the grid, the richness of the void. It’s Richard Hamilton’s White Album to Peter Blake’s Sgt Pepper. Our motto will be Factory Record’s producer Martin Hannet’s infamous instruction to “play faster but slower.”
The projects programme will be a place of exchange—perhaps a market place, perhaps an educational institution, perhaps a business hub, perhaps a mash up of these things. It will be sited in London or in New Haven.
So…..
Prepare to be challenged and confused.
Prepare to work very hard.
Prepare to be sometimes happy and sometimes sad.
You will learn a lot and it will be fun.
Sean Griffiths & Sam Jacob.
