Site as Thesis - Air

24' x 24' on regular printing media

Wind Field l Site as Thesis l 10/6/2010

Field / Pattern / Effect

Air is considered to be relatively unfamiliar site to architects and often considered as the domain of which they have less control. Paradoxically, more than half or even most of the main body of architecture is exposed in the air. Considering this apparent condition, it is not wrong at all to say that the physical territory where we situate architecture is air more than ground.

Air is three-dimensional space where its condition keeps changing and remains never static. Unpredictable variables such as light, wind, temperature and moisture continue to threaten the status of architecture as a static art form.

The two drawings are the horizontal section of three-dimensional space above (96’x96’) the ground (I literally cut the air), as if we lay a sheet of thin testing paper up above to capture one moment of changing conditions; you may have traces of its activities as the agent (dust, moisture or light) soaks into the paper (or you can imagine light coming into a lens and leaving its marks on a camera film.)

The notational system has been brought in to visualize the imaginary section and the ever-changing, transient effect of the atmosphere. I used the wind vector notation consisting of direction and velocity as a way to materialize it.

The captured activity reveals as a 2d pattern (density gradation + movement) as you may see in the first panel. Of course, this pattern is not going to be the same at any moment you attempt to do this work.

I believe the spatial, material and sensorial experience in that condition is not going to be the same as a designer expect. Changing patterns create various atmospheric effects and architecture as a thin enclosure will become a medium between you and the air.