Dwelling/Reverberation/Poetics : Physical Grammar/Passages

On The Experiential Level of Life

Investigating/Expanding 'The Spatial/Sculptural'
Space over Time/Operative Design

Tony Cragg

IN AND OUT OF MATERIAL

Demonstration

Tony Cragg : I basically mean the effectiveness of the object, of the material. But because the metaphysical and physical association are already occupied, I'm interested in somehow establishing some relationship with the materials and the things around me without using any preconceived notions of an already occupied language. It is a bit like taking away a Christian name and depersonalising something. What I mean is that it's an attempt on my side to restart the relationship with the material, which I think sculptors have to do anyway.

Jon Wood : Thinking of the increased awareness that this side of your work tries to capture and harness in the viewer, can you say a bit about the kind of sensitivities that you would like to be heightened? What would you see your work as demonstrations of and for? Your sculptures are triggers for what kind of thinking?

Tony Cragg : Well there is an attitude to looking at things and to looking at objects and materials which is based on a meditative tradition of contemplation : the universe in a grain of sand idea, or maybe even religious ideas where you actually get in contact on some level with the material world, on a deeper level than the one you obviously are capable of reaching in an everyday situation, so on an extraordinary level, outside of your own experiences.

I am not saying that that's not interesting or important. But I also think that this leaves the battleground for the everyday life to be governed by non-contemplative thought and non-meditative thought. And this may sound like a mixture of terms, but I think that there is a job to be done even on an everyday, “second for second” level of life—on the experiential level of life. I think there is a job to be done here improving the quality of contemplation about an awareness of the material world—the material world seen as an immediate extension of the communal social effort, the cultural effort that you are part of.

Jon Wood : How does it move from being an individual contemplative experience to being one that has a communal relevance?

Tony Cragg : In the main part it only has communal relevance. All you can do for yourself is formulate your sentences, cook yourself a meal that suits you, get dressed in a fashion that suits you, and everything else you have to put up with as having been made by other people for you. But obviously, even if they didn't ask your permission, there's something consensual about that, isn't there? Even though you don't like it, it doesn't look like you're making an effort to change it. And maybe there's some active thing there. My idea is that even if I don't like it, I wouldn't be able to change a great deal of it, but I could sow the seed for some change in the direction that I would feel would be important. It's a measure of how much responsibility one takes for the change. Looking for more in the visual world around me and looking for more language, in a sense, is one way of heightening sensibilities and expanding a vocabulary and then expanding the responses to a vocabulary is a way of heightening sensibilities. I'm not a politician, but I think we still live in a world that is greatly dominated by mesmerism and mystical models, which are very distracting because they actually stop us from really trying to face reality.

Objects/Subjects in Space : Passages in Sculpture

OPERATIVE DESIGN : SPATIAL VERBS

To serve as a fundamental tool for spatial and architectural interpretation

Spatial operations, illustrated beginnings to activate architectural inquiry.

This catalogue thus introduces the possibility of understanding spatial formation as a process that can be derived from fundamental actions, here grouped into volumetric addition, subtraction, or displacement, which define a lexicon of starting points for the creation of space and also imply the relationship between oneself and the space created.

OPERATIONS

to | Expand | Extrude | Inflate | Branch | Merge | Nest | Offset | Bend | Skew | Split | Twist | Interlock | Intersect | Lift | Lodge | Overlap | Rotate | Shift | Carve | Compress | Fracture | Grade | Notch | Pinch | Shear | Taper | Embed | Extract | Inscribe | Puncture |

MAKE SPACE

Space matters. We read our physical environment like we read a human face.

The Eyes Of The Skin

Architecture and the Senses

Juhani Pallasmaam Steven Holl

2005

How to set the stage for creative collaboration

Scott Doorley, Scott Witthoft, David Kelley

2012

Surface + Volume

Generative Process

Combinations and Aggregations

Implementations

Writing and Seeing Architectue

Christian de Portzamparc, Philippe Sollers

2008

In and Out of material : Passages in Sculpture

COMBINATIONS

to | Inscribe + Inscribe | Intersect + Intersect | Split + Split | Embed + Embed | Taper + Taper | Bend + Bend | Branch + Branch | Shift + Shift | Notch + Notch | Inscribe + Intersect | Intersect + Split | Split + Embed | Embed + Taper | Taper + Bend | Bend + Branch | Branch + Expand | Expand + Shift | Shift + Notch | Notch + Twist |  

Languages,dialogues,conflicts that can evoke form,experience and interaction.

Research, inquiry and practice as a systematic approach through operative terms.

Investigating the 'Spatial' its formal/experiential essence/action and character for spatial opportunities.

The Feeling Of What Happens

Body,emotion and the making of consciousness

Antonio Damasio

1999

The Architecture Of The Jumping Universe

A Polemic

How Complexity Science is Changing Architecture and Culture

Charles Jencks

1995

RESPONSIVE ENVIRONMENTS

ARCHITECTURE, ART AND DESIGN

V&A Contemporary, Lucy Bullivant

2006

to fold

to modulate

of tension

of entropy

Richard Serra, "Verb List Compilation: Actions to Relate to Oneself" [1967-1968]

to roll to crease to fold to store to bend to shorten to twist to dapple to crumple to shave to tear to chip to split to cut to sever to drop to remove to simplify to differ to disarrange to open to mix to splash to knot to spill to droop to flow to curve to lift to inlay to impress to fire to flood to smear to rotate to swirl to support to hook to suspend to spread to hang to collect of tension of gravity of entropy of nature of grouping of layering of felting to grasp to tighten to bundle to heap to gather to scatter to arrange to repair to discard to pair to distribute to surfeit to compliment to enclose to surround to encircle to hole to cover to wrap to dig to tie to bind to weave to join to match to laminate to bond to hinge to mark to expand to dilute to light to modulate to distill of waves of electromagnetic of inertia of ionization of polarization of refraction of tides of reflection of equilibrium of symmetry of friction to stretch to bounce to erase to spray to systematize to refer to force of mapping of location of context of time of cabonization to continue

AGGREGATIONS

to | Reflect | Expand

Reflect + Pack | Skew

Pack | Inflate

Pack + Stack | Branch

Stack | Bend

Array + Stack | Rotate

Array | Taper

Join + Array | Pinch

Join | Split

Poetics and Place

The Architectures Of Sign, Subjects and Site

Kristen Kreider

2014

A Hut of One's Own

Ann Cline

Open Office/Making Space : Passages in Sculpture

Texts,Annotations, Foundations, Pathways, Corridors, Bookmarks, Walking, Thinking, Ramble, Cross Country, Disciplines, 

SPATIALITY

Writer as mapmaker, literature of the city and urban space, concepts of literary geography, cartographics and geocriticism.

Robert T. Tally Jr

2013

OPERATIVE DESIGN

A Catalogue of Spatial Verbs

2012/18

IMPLEMENTATIONS

to | Carve + Offset

Poli House : Pezo von Ellrichshausen

Offset program | Perimeter Services | Thickened Openings

to | Embed + Branch

Villa 1 : Powerhouse Company

Branched Programs | Volume Wrapper | Embedded Entry

to | Embed + Overlap

Casa para un Carpintero : RCR Arquitectes

Overlapping Program | Circulation Core | Embedded Entry

to | Expand + Nest

House N : Sou Fujimoto Architects

Expanded Outer Volume | Nested Private Program | Nested Living + Dining




Collage/Drawing Frame : Passages in Sculpture
to | Overlap + Expand

House in Minamimachi 2 : Suppose Design Office

Overlapping Light Wells | Stacked Program | Expanded Volumes

to | Bend + Shift

Nursing Home : Aires Mateus

Shifted Volumes | Bent Massing | Embedded Massing

to | Embed + Taper

Leimondo Nursery School : Archivision Hirotani Studio

Tapered Volumes | Thickened Roof | Embedded Program

to | Lift + Carve

Gouveia Law Courts : Barbosa and Guimaraes

Carved Massing | Lifted Program | Carved Plinth

to | Lift + Extrude

Carabanchel Housing : Dosmasuno Arquitectos

Extruded Living Spaces | Lifted Massing | Carved Plinth

to | Overlap + Rotate

Ironbank : RTA Studio

Rotated Volumes | Stacked Utility and Circulation Cores | Plinth and Street Facade

Anthony Di Mari

Nore Yoo

Volumetric Spatial Operations/Agents/Variations/Combinations

Additions

Subtractions

Displacements


Colour/Making Space : Passages in Sculpture/Architectural Glass

Mesh Topologies : Pattern and Chaos

Speculative Narratives 12

DSC_0018 Spatial/Visual Apparatus

Spatiality : Space over Time
DSC_0476 Spatial/Architectural Drawing

Reading Collage : Spatial Drawings/Documents/Analogue Photography

Speculative Narratives 8
Flickr