Embodying The Sublime: Xtreme Mapping and Enactive Practice
Emerald Wise
Architecture Studio Project
School of Architecture and Built Environment
The Univeristy of Newcastle, NSW
2021
Emerald Wise
Architecture Studio Project
School of Architecture and Built Environment
The Univeristy of Newcastle, NSW
2021
Embodying the Sublime was an Architecture studio project coordinated by
Emerald Wise. The studio was conducted as a 10-day travelling elective through
the University of Newcastle. The unit was a physical and philosophical quest,
that explored Perisher Ski resort in the Australian Alpine region of NSW -
mirroring the expeditions of the Grand Tour that journeyed across the European
Alps.
Prior to embarking on the journey students designed and built a kitchen, bath, and shelter for camping about the snowline – and during a break in Covid Lockdowns we fled to mountains. While we are all too accustomed to consuming places and landscape via satellite image, the mountain resist – in its undulating topology, it demands to be experienced.
The students played with, and mapped the mountains while they learnt to ski, and developed design interventions for a new hut, and run. Lectures were recorded as audio meditations and listened to while traversing the wonderous Mount Kosciuszko. Daily drawing activities drew out design propositions from the landscape itself. Design crits were held by the fire at night in a bell tent by the Snowy River or on mountaintops with Alpine planning.
The unit was centred on offering a Sublime Experience, a moment of wonder in nature, a moment of relief from the longest isolation periods in NSW. Many students had never attended a physical class or met any other student, many had never seen snow, many had never contemplated what a sublime experience might be - Island Bend campsite offered all these things and more.
The unit was used in the development of pedagogical approach centered on the 4E theory of cognition. All exercises and activities aimed to link proprioceptive, mechanoreceptive, and visual experience and imagination, to create a tacit shift in environmental awareness and experiential knowledge.
Prior to embarking on the journey students designed and built a kitchen, bath, and shelter for camping about the snowline – and during a break in Covid Lockdowns we fled to mountains. While we are all too accustomed to consuming places and landscape via satellite image, the mountain resist – in its undulating topology, it demands to be experienced.
The students played with, and mapped the mountains while they learnt to ski, and developed design interventions for a new hut, and run. Lectures were recorded as audio meditations and listened to while traversing the wonderous Mount Kosciuszko. Daily drawing activities drew out design propositions from the landscape itself. Design crits were held by the fire at night in a bell tent by the Snowy River or on mountaintops with Alpine planning.
The unit was centred on offering a Sublime Experience, a moment of wonder in nature, a moment of relief from the longest isolation periods in NSW. Many students had never attended a physical class or met any other student, many had never seen snow, many had never contemplated what a sublime experience might be - Island Bend campsite offered all these things and more.
The unit was used in the development of pedagogical approach centered on the 4E theory of cognition. All exercises and activities aimed to link proprioceptive, mechanoreceptive, and visual experience and imagination, to create a tacit shift in environmental awareness and experiential knowledge.