Texas A&M University. Department of Architecture. T4T LAB Spring 2015.
ALIEN, MESSY, DISCRETE
Invited Professor: Gilles Retsin
With Gabriel Esquivel
Team: Jeff Lemley, Austen Kernodle, Aaron Rosas, Chris Thackery
The word baroque
refers to a “rough or imperfect pearl.”Baroque as a condition of ancestrality,
not simply as a term to describe a period of architecture. We are not only
arguing the surface affective characteristics of baroque pertaining to
ornamentation, but a deeper meaning from where baroque derives its infinity:
the process of FOLDING, which has always been present in nature. We can discuss
the Baroque as a machine, the folds and pleats of matter we are arguing have always
naturally occurred, for example in rock formations.
The fold is the
process by which our project, which we called “BaRock”, generates its folds and
its high fidelity. Our BaRock machine is folded with a porous crust that retains
the identity and chemistry of the object within any scale, this is relative to
the discussion of its monadic structure. This is to say, as we look at the
images of the chunk, we notice that they are mereological parts of the whole,
and as you dive deeper into the folds we would notice the same organization
every time. That is because no matter how deep one goes in an attempt to communicate
with the objects, the monads do not change.
BaRock is only bound
by its form, but always folding into space. This is defined by the outlines of
the original base mass on the flow diagram. Within this space BaRock has 2
infinities: our coils of piping and the folds themselves. BaRock folds are
always open ended and in exhaustive, where there is always space to grow
despite its parameters. The object is in a constant state of action, beyond
what we can denote as movement. While some coils move and fold at lighting
speed, others act as a fluid solid, the way older panes of glass “melt” within
their frame. The coils and the fold are excessive
and unlimited. Every layer of piping is creative, generative, and an ongoing
process, which allows for alternative actualizations of the piping. These
actualizations act to enhance the depth and fluidity of the folds. What brings
out the fold is the flux between exteriority and interiority. In the interior, the
folds produce an atmosphere where our desire for inhabitation connotes stairs
and floor plates, this is not a particular operation of the object machine. According
to Deleuze affect is not dependent upon the perception of man and can change at
any moment as the object continues its folding, producing new affects.
Because BaRock
grows as it folds we can understand the object as we see it. Although we do not
need a section to gain more understanding of the object, through section we see
the active porous poche as it is enfolding. We see the fluidity of waves as the
smaller poche pushes out and compress in. As it meets its
surface it forms a porous crust that further helps blend exterior and interior.
This crust also helps create the boundaries we associate as a surface,
furthering our understanding as exterior and interior. What we see before us is
an ancestral baroque peristaltic machine.
