Notes #1: Form Studies

Here's a few form studies. They are variations of a simple hierarchical theme of access based on the way a wheat stalk or a similar plant grows its kernels. At the instance of a fork, one branch becomes a kernel whilst the other leads to a similar fork and the branches are rotated. This kind of hierarchical structure mimimises the distance between the main route and the elements, and reduces the appearance of classes — or, rather, arrays of groups and sub-groups — of elements.

In these studies the journey or narrative between origin and destination is important. The first study identifies the staircase entrance/threshold as a cleft carved between two large rocks leading to the corridor. The slope of the walls surrounding the stairs attempt to heighten the experience of capture and/or release, depending upon your origin and destination. The shape was born out of the clients absence of any biological parents, and a notion of two romanticized figures to take their place. It is a somewhat cruel return to reality, to a benign representation of a romanticized mother.

From the staircase leads the wheat stalk corridor, which is defined by the location of the rooms or elements surrounding it. The location of the elements that Hejduk prescribes as being essential are not yet defined in this study, but it is a concern of mine what the journey will be like through the corridor and what elements first appear and last appear to the client. It is intended that upon entering a progression be made through these elements toward some greater definition of the absent parents.

In the second form study the emphasis on progression has been enhanced. The elements have been broken down into a class structure of 7-4-1. The entrance staircase's fibonacci series of steps (5-8-13) has then been countered with two other staircases seperating the elements. The first staircase has 19 flights and its progression is run off a similar series of fibonacci numbers (1-2-3-5-8). The second staircase has 17 flights and its progression runs off a more mathematical prime number series (2-3-5-7). This emphasis on numbers is again to do with a connection to nature, or rather a parody of it. The use of these sequences to make up a random pair of primary numbers of flights is intended to show the versatility of any series of numbers to form something greater than just the sum of its parts, though Gestaltism hasn't been at all explored in this form study. The use of the number sequences to define complex objects in a more simple form merely only confirms the versatility of those numbers, and not anything greater.

The new staircase's now add dead space between the elements which is a concern of mine, which I'll attempt to rectify in further models