Architectural Statements and Technological Phrases: An inter-disciplinary investigation of performance and technology, and its influence on spatial design and occupancy

Abstract

We perhaps most readily associate notions of architecture engaging the senses with grand architectural statements. The Gothic Cathedral, Renaissance Cupola or industrial envelope of St. Pancras Station are awe-inspiring. More recently the architect Peter Zumthor (2006) has brought the subject of architecture and the senses back to centre stage. However, he exposes architecture to sensory scrutiny at a very personal scale, where the feel of a door handle and the sound of a heavy door closing provoke a personal connection to space and place. Within the built environment, technology’s influence is most obviously conceived at this grand scale. Arguably, recent works by Gehry, Foster and Hadid have been enabled by technology, resulting in grand statements that are no less inspiring than the historic examples of the Cupola or Cathedral. At a more personal scale an RFiD key ring allows or denies us access to authorised rooms and buildings, while WI-FI access influences where we stop for coffee or hold a meeting. These modest technological gestures can be as influential to our sense of place as grand technological statements, yet they are often crudely grafted onto place and marginalised in design discourse in favour of the grand statement. In this paper a dance performance serves as a catalyst to reframe how technology is used within the design process and within the occupancy of place. We review a series of cross-disciplinary projects that put sensual investigation at centre stage of an inquiry into architecture and technology. In collaboration between dance, computer science and architecture, bodily experience and its influence on place and creative process is interrogated from radically different perspectives. During these projects, the intensive design activities require appropriation of open source software and communities to generate modest bodily, technological and architectural phrases. Our observations support Zumthor’s proposition that modest architectural statements can stir the senses and stimulate ‘the deepest architectural experience’ (Zumthor 2006: 8). By appropriating gesture from dance, and using it as a lens, designers are afforded a radically different perspective on the role and expectations of technology. Our findings provide an observational basis for understanding technology as metaphorical gesture. Dance and architecture students work with digital tools to design and build performance and space; they explore the nuances of gesture and it’s pre-movement through remote and proximate devices, and interrogate the flux of gravitational organisation between body, sense and architectural container. Every modification of gesture brings with it a modification in our posture however imperceptible. In working with digital tools, gesture becomes implicated in a set of vectors arising from the postural attitudes solicited by interfaces, shifting the gravitational orientation of the subject/user through corporeal attitudes. Technology, as a constituent of the creative process is indeterminate, improvised and invites interpretation. It adds an additional layer to communication, and we speculate on its implication for design, knowledge transfer and newness. As a constituent to architectural space, technological gestures – like physical ones – operate beyond the functional and engage the senses and emotions. This implicates technology in Goddard’s (2003/4) conceptions of pre-movement and we bring evidence to bear that points to its relevance for spatial quality and experience. Conceiving of technology as gesture resists bringing it to centre stage and advances propositions by Brown and Duguid (2000) and also Heidegger (1977) who recommend looking beyond the functional and attending to personal and social facets of our interaction with technology.