Superficial Spaces

At a time when architectural discourse and practice are brimming with references to new geometries, this offering investigates the architectural potential of abstract three-dimensional surfaces. In tandem with the practical ambitions of the option studios, it is intended to help us devise formal prototypes for architectural consumption, while broadening our understanding of the rigours of abstraction and formal analysisWith equal emphasis on theoretical reading, graphic analysis and diagramming, elementary mathematics, numerically controlled fabrication techniques, and theoretical writing, the seminar will circle, in increasingly tight loops, the surface as object of knowledge.
Semi-monthly hands-on sessions on modulation and fabrication will supplement a cycle of theoretical readings and discussions, leading to the conception, analysis, calculation, drawing, and making of an intricate superficial structure.
The seminar will incorporate a reading sequence of 4 classic texts. There will be one assigned group reading per session, followed by a short presentation and group precept.
 
Precept Reading List
Roland Barthes Cy Twombly: Works on Paper in The Responsibility of Forms, pp.157-176, University of California Press Berkeley, 1991.
Peter Eisenman Iconicity and Instrumentality*, Cahiers de L’IRCAM, Instruments, Paris 1995.
Greg Lynn New Variations on the Rowe Complex, in Folds Bodies and Blobs, La lettre vole, Brussels 1998.
George L. Legendre Shin & I, essay on the ontology of the surface, in AA Files 52, AA Publications, London 2005.
 
Reading List (Optional)
George L. Legendre, Pasta By Design, (Thames & Hudson, London 2011).
George L. Legendre, IJP: The Book of Surfaces, (Architectural Association, London 2003).
George L. Legendre, JP’s Way, in Mathematical Form: John Pickering and the Architecture of the Inversion Principle (Architectural Association, London 2006).