T4T Lab Spring 2020
Invited Professor : Gonzalo Vaillo from Morphtopia.
.Students: Hate Gesing and John Scott
Our project examines the Ennis house by Frank Llyod Wright,
through the mutual irritation of volume, surface and line in excess. Existing
at the scale of a single family house, each of these explorations have been
unfolded, reconfigured, and then refolded within this particular monadic manifestation
of the house. Possible manifestations of the project are infinite. We began to
look at Leibniz’s idea of the monad as a vehicle for incorporating external
references and issues of precedent. He argues that the monad is “pregnant” with
the future and “laden” with the past. This means that it must contain within
itself all “virtualites”, “potentialities” and traces of properties it did exhibit
in the past. By dissecting and reapplying the aspects of the house that we
know, we attempt to uncover elements of the unknown “real” in addition to the
“sensual”.
Our mereology contains pieces of the original house which are
recognizable, pieces that are not recognizable, and seperate pieces which have
been tied in due to the interaction of their characteristics. Furthermore,
components of the precedent exist in a state of ruination, while other elements
of the house have been reconfigured, defamiliarized and deformed. While there
are three genres of space within our mereology, there are numerous recurrent
logics which have been applied throughout . Many of these logics stem from
early explorations of aesthetics.
To break down the different aspects of this assemblage, it
is important to understand how the pieces were originally dissected. Located in
the southern foothills of Griffith Park in Los Angeles, the Ennis house has
strong connections to Mayan revivalism and the textile block. The scalar
resolution of the house changes depending on your viewpoint. For example, the
silhouette of the structure is seemingly a skyline in itself, resembling a
temple complex. However, a phenomenological experience of the house reveals a
complex interaction between the pattern of tiling, and the manifestation of spatial
arrangement. These “fractal-esque” tiled blocks become columns, space, and then
an overarching formal arrangement for the house. The aspect of a multi-scalar
resolution will be maintained throughout our current interpretation. These
ideas, in addition to elements from the initial experiments have been
foundational in the project.
By looking at the floor plans of the house, we were able to
determine regulating line-work and view it as a means of framing and binding
the volumes together. Furthermore, line-work was extracted from the site
conditions at various scales. Lineaments formed from highways, and figuration
from winding neighborhood roads are drawn on from a place of immanence. This
line-work exists in its own right as three-dimensionalized components of the
house, as a basis for a textural pattern that distorts the surface, and as a
method of binding volumes together.
As tools of understanding, the monad and metaphor of the
rhizome are not mutually exclusive. Our project uses them as immanent processes
that overturn the transcendental model of understanding. Within this metaphor
one can begin to understand that there is no distinction between the individual
and the collective. This applies not only to the physical manifestation of the
project, but to the theoretical framework as well. There are connections which
can be traced to the precedent, but also various associations which are not
immediately visible. In essence, our project was not produced through either a
top down, or bottom up understanding of the assemblage.
Distortion and defamiliarization of the surface is a
recurring theme, as we explored the extent to which surface treatment and
texturing can produce a visual gluttony that eventually becomes semi-indigestible.
Kant states that “ aesthetic occurs as an excess that goes beyond strict instrumentality
and generates a function that opens up a new space…” For example, a terrace gateway
formed from linework of the city, becomes a further divider of space with the
application of “melted” drips. Thus, this specific application creates a
terrace space that operates in the sensual liminal space. While this project is
at the scale of people, it is spatially non-anthropocentric. Not all the spaces
are able to be inhabited by people. Components of the Ennis house such as a
collonade or plinth become propelling ruins when textures derived from original
column blocks are reapplied, disfiguring the surfaces. Self referential moments
draw from both textural and deformative processes. In other instances, these
textures have been extruded and transformed into novel configurations to the
point of the precedent being unrecognizable.
Incorporating these objects allows us to look for the point
where the aesthetic unit begins to interact with and become part of the “real”.
Otherwise defined as the previously unknown qualities of the project that are
not sensually understood. As the process ripens, irreversible bonds form within
the project. The interweaving of scalar relationships fuse together to create a
multiplicity of treatments that produce different phenomenological conditions.
Volumes formed through binding line-work and irritation of the surface are seen
in multiple scales. This results in a resolution of exuberance that can be seen
at the level of the whole, individual rooms, and within smaller components such
as the fireplace. This application is similar to the incorporation of the tile
patterning within the original house codified in a multiplicity scales. While
exhibiting a gluttonous amount of ornamentation, it doesn’t operate in the same
manner as a Baroque space. These spaces are not only encrusted but revealed and
transformed by the qualities of the surface. In other words, these surface
treatments directly alter and disfigure the volume instead of creating a
continuity of figure.
In section, one can see how surface texturing has directly
affected the poche in addition to the deformations from “binding”. Moreso,
these bondages create autonomous spatial conditions in themselves. Within the
plan there is an ambiguity of scale in which one may question if this is a
single family house or a complex woven together of smaller spaces. This is
another example of the scalar games between the differentiated spaces due to
the resolution of excess. Within the project, excess and surface treatment are
not simply blanketed over a disfigured form, but rather, used to ensure that all
components are rhizomatically connected. More than a still life, our mereology
is a project of both being and becoming. All components cultivate relations and
irritations at different points of contention scattered throughout.
Our assemblage deliberately explores ideas of excess in an
attempt to reach the space of abundance and draw out aspects of the unknown.
The multiplicity of interaction between the volumes, surfaces and lines creates
a gluttonous amount of visual information that can’t be entirely digested. In addition
to referential and recurrent use of precedent in the shifts back and forth
between 2D and 3D linework, the gluttony and relationality between line and
form delivers a surplus of information that one is not able to read all at
once. Thus, returning much of the project back to the realm of the unknown. By
looking into the scales of excess between line, volume and texture the project
achieves formal exuberance. Thus achieving both the “sensual” and the “real”
within the domain of cognition through an abundance not of space, but of
information from visual stimuli.
in the same
manner as a Baroque space. These spaces are not only encrusted but revealed and
transformed by the qualities of the surface. In other words, these surface
treatments directly alter and disfigure the volume instead of creating a
continuity of figure.
In section, one can see how surface texturing has directly
affected the poche in addition to the deformations from “binding”. Moreso,
these bondages create autonomous spatial conditions in themselves. Within the
plan there is an ambiguity of scale in which one may question if this is a
single family house or a complex woven together of smaller spaces. This is
another example of the scalar games between the differentiated spaces due to
the resolution of excess. Within the project, excess and surface treatment are
not simply blanketed over a disfigured form, but rather, used to ensure that all
components are rhizomatically connected. More than a still life, our mereology
is a project of both being and becoming. All components cultivate relations and
irritations at different points of contention scattered throughout.
