Abstract:
This thesis advocates for a greater appreciation of the subjective,
intangible and atmospheric qualities inherent in the perception and
creation of architectural space. Perception is simultaneously conscious
and unconscious, embodied and imagined, personal and universal,
objective and obscure. Our response to and articulation of architecture
relies on these labyrinthine mental impressions.
Dissolution of the boundary between the tangible and intangible allows
for architecture to occupy a fluid state, as this document interrogates
the affective relationships between self and space, architecture and
landscape. This is an evocation of architecture formed from our
embodied, immaterial and affective understandings; existing not as a
detached object, but layered and dissolved within other landscapes.
In this body of work, an understanding of architecture is examined
through two themes, Landscape and Water. Both are investigated
using a generative drawing and modelling process, which seeks the
development of atmosphere and emotion over that of form or object.
The thesis is split into three parts, approaching architectural design as
an extension of an iterative series of making. Part One contains Series
1-7 and begins with an investigation into the perception of landscape.
Western art history is referenced, with emphasis on the movements of
Romanticism and Surrealism, to understand our poetic depictions of
landscape. In the development of Part One, theorists Tim Ingold and
Karl Benediktsson frame an exploration into the inherent agency and
fluidity of landscape. The nature of our dialogue within this layered
environment is interrogated, with the guidance of theorists such as
Dalibor Vesely, Juhani Pallasmaa, Jane Bennett and Alberto Perez-
Gomez.
Part Two contains Series 8-16. Conceiving of architecture as a poetic
image, the document proceeds into an architectural reading of Gaston
Bachelard’s text Water and Dreams. A series of making emerging from
the reading follows the journey from surface to depth, reflection to
darkness. Water is established as a poetic, material intangibility that
acts as a tool for dissolution; understanding the poetics of water as
architectural material.
In order to move into an architectural conclusion, a brief was written
from understandings reached in Part One and Two. From this, Part
Three critiques the lighthouse as a human-imposed object on landscape.
The lighthouse archetype is re-imagined as a beacon at Te Waha Point;
intended to acknowledge the taniwha Paikea and Kaiwhare, and the
sublime environment. Designed through a process that prioritises the
qualitative, this beacon evokes the learnings of this thesis, highlighting
the intangibilities and affective emotion present within architectural
perception and creation.