Higher Affect
High-rises in the era of sensation
“Sensation is what determines instinct at a particular moment, just as instinct is the passage from one sensation to another, the search for the “best” sensation (not the most agreeable, but the one that fills the flesh at a particular moment of its descent, contraction, or dilation)."
Gilles Deleuze “The Logic of Sensation”
We live a time of experimentation, of thinking of ways architecture affect us now and in the future. How does architecture should feel? The idea behind the studio was about letting the students using their instincts and create arguments through the reinvention of a modern typology, the high rise and use as a vehicle for discussion.
The revision of the architectural argument as a way to negotiate the projects was fundamental for the projects. The question was; can we find in architecture itself answers and ideas to project into the future propelling our own precedents with a technological new culture?
The studio used maya as the software of choice, where the students first affected form and structure, the notion that materials are not just about construction choices but also a means of creating diverse sensations in a space, focusing on the effects produced by the materials’ textures and surfaces. Through playful manipulation of such elements, form, aesthetics, ornament, and pattern can we find a way to create a discourse about contemporary design? The choice for the use of affect still deals with its technological components, it is not simply performatively, but it operates at different levels, it offers the same emphasis on plasticity, continuity and dramatic effects evident in the work of the Baroque, these surfaces suffused with theatricality, producing a radical aesthetic environment here the dramatic use of light, opulent ornamentation produced an undeniable effect.
This is the kind of studio experimented before, however this particular studio was the most ambitious one, the projects should address cultural factors, program, urban factors and slowly move into the territory of developing a technical expertise into structural criteria, systems and materiality.
Critic: Gabriel Esquivel
Texas A&M University Fall 2009
