Thick Air
Emerald Wise
Architecture Studio Project
School of Architecture and Built Environment
The Univeristy of Newcastle, NSW
2020
Emerald Wise
Architecture Studio Project
School of Architecture and Built Environment
The Univeristy of Newcastle, NSW
2020
In alarming proportions, beauty, silence,
astonishment, inspiration, magic, sorcery, enchantment, and also serenity have disappeared
from architecture entirely; however, all of these have found a familiar place in
my soul.
Thick Air was an Architecture studio project coordinated by Emerald Wise. The studio was conducted as a 10-day intensive elective, situated in the recently abandoned Art Department of the University of Newcastle. The studio acted as a laboratory and site for alteration, as the students meditated on color and light.
The structure of the unit was designed around the pedagogical approach of Josef Albers – who taught visual art at both the Bauhaus and Black Mountain. In this unit his model was reinterpreted for an architecture specific program that explored color instability, action, deception, and prejudice – within spatial and illumination design.
“What counts here—first and last—is not so-called knowledge of so-called facts, but vision —seeing. And here seeing is coupled with fantasy and imagination.”1
This unit was run as a laboratory experiment in seeing – it was focused on developing an eye for colour and light through a process of trial and error that culminated in the design of 6 colour spaces inside a singular structure. As the students developed their sensitivity, they, themselves became the project.
As architects we do not design in white space. Our work sits within a coloured context. This situatedness creates relationships and interactions, whether semiotic or physical. As such, the quality of a work relies on our sensitive and cognitive apprehension or awareness, and our ability to manipulate these relativities.
1.
- LUIS BARRAGÁN
Thick Air was an Architecture studio project coordinated by Emerald Wise. The studio was conducted as a 10-day intensive elective, situated in the recently abandoned Art Department of the University of Newcastle. The studio acted as a laboratory and site for alteration, as the students meditated on color and light.
The structure of the unit was designed around the pedagogical approach of Josef Albers – who taught visual art at both the Bauhaus and Black Mountain. In this unit his model was reinterpreted for an architecture specific program that explored color instability, action, deception, and prejudice – within spatial and illumination design.
“What counts here—first and last—is not so-called knowledge of so-called facts, but vision —seeing. And here seeing is coupled with fantasy and imagination.”1
This unit was run as a laboratory experiment in seeing – it was focused on developing an eye for colour and light through a process of trial and error that culminated in the design of 6 colour spaces inside a singular structure. As the students developed their sensitivity, they, themselves became the project.
As architects we do not design in white space. Our work sits within a coloured context. This situatedness creates relationships and interactions, whether semiotic or physical. As such, the quality of a work relies on our sensitive and cognitive apprehension or awareness, and our ability to manipulate these relativities.
1.