Bodies of Desire

Abstract

Bodies of Desire is an architectural exploration of desire that contemplates an ethics of desire through a programme of ocean swimming pools situated at Achilles Point, Auckland. The programme, through its connection to water and ocean, interacts with theories of desire, specifically bodies, fluidity, and entanglements, and situates the architectural apparatus to a physical site.Beginning with an examination of desire's linguistic origins in Ancient Greek lyric poetry, the project tracks desire's slippery discourse through theories of lack, bodies, matter, and performance.Through studies of what might comprise an architectural language of desire, to how such a language interacts with material and exceptional forces, the project proceeds via a reparative reading of texts and a conjunctive approach of utilising different mediums - photography, video, model-making, and writing - as a way to locate desire between modes of making.In exploring desire through relationalities, this thesis proposes a connection to and empathy for bodies (animate and inanimate, human and non-human, and so forth), and gestures towards our ethical relations to one another through architecture and beyond.