Architects use objects as surrogates, as stand-ins for designs that
will be realized at some later point. We employ models to represent
designs that have already been finalized, although not yet realized.
This understanding ignores any inherent qualities that material
might contain at object scale. Model-building materials tend to be
monochromatic and homogenous, most valued for their lack of
material qualities.
Moreover, architects often think of craft as an act of execution-
follow-through on a given proposal. However, I believe that craft
can also indicate a negotiation with material and process. With this
sensibility, material becomes a generator of form rather than a way
simply to manifest or to render predetermined ideas of form. Craft
becomes synonymous with discovery as much as mastery. I hope
that exploring this latter definition of craft and coupling it with
projective thinking will yield an architecture that grows out of the
specificity of the world while moving beyond its constraints.
Three years ago, in the basement of a community' college, I dis-
covered the material tradition I had been searching for: ceramics.
The material immediacy of the ceramic process has allowed me to
explore this alternate understanding of craft as discovery. Its inher-
ent limitations of scale forced an immediate focus on object scale.
The time-intensive nature of the process guaranteed that these ob-
jects could not simply be models for future designs. The time, care
and precision involved demand that they be viewed as projects unto
themselves, independent of some future potential. Governed by
the inflexible parameters of the material and the drying and firing
processes codified over the centuries, the ceramic medium seems
to allow little room for innovation. However, technology can oper-
ate as a wedge to reformulate these given equations, radicalizing
the existing deep intelligence of traditional processes of making.
After two years of skill-building through various forays into
slip-casting technique that resulted in my
In Foam Falls Function
series, I journeyed to the Netherlands for a residency at the Euro-
pean Ceramic Workcentre (.ekwc). The .ekwc is a mecca for artists
and architects who wish to experiment with the ceramic process
but lack forma] training in this field. The Workcentre is staffed with
expert technicians who help strategize and negotiate the peculiari-
ties of this material. They view the center as a giant laboratory for
experimentation, so it was the perfect place for me to test my inter-
ests in new technologies and issues of scale. It was there that I com-
pleted my
Up-Scaling
and
Tectonic Horizons
series.
In these three series of ceramic investigations I consider how
craft can inform architecture (and vice versa) while attempting
to maintain a foothold in the realms of both the immediate and
the projective.
In Foam Falls Function
started as a way for me to examine found
objects and test the possibilities of recasting these objects in new
materiality. These forms, foam and polystyrene packaging inserts,
reference the precise void created by the discrepancy between
products and their containers. They are ubiquitous yet intensely
complex objects whose beauty' is often overlooked because of their
non-precious substance.
Through material translation, I explore how the negative space
within these forms holds potential as habitable space at the scale
of the object as well as that of architecture. Since I initially view these
casts as objects, not models, the material and fabrication processes
are free to inject their own language of form into the pieces without
concern for future architectural implications. I interpret “imperfec-
tions” such as drip marks and casting seams as registrations of so-
phisticated material process rather than problematic blemishes.
I then later use documentation and presentation to read potential
into these new layers of texture, form and space.
Tectonic Horizons
extends my investigation into the potential for
digital fabrication to affect methods of production and inform larger
scales of architectural space and landscape. Rather than using a
physical model or pattern to cast plaster molds, I generated these
forms solely as virtual models whose negative form is then directly
milled into plaster blanks, eliminating the analog process of mold-
making. The absence of a “real” physical form means there is literally
no model of perfection to work toward, no obligation for fabrica-
tion to live up to the original. Instead, processes like that of the
Computer Numerically Controlled (
c n c )
router can have a stronger
voice in the form of the final object. This interlocking system of
slip-cast ceramic modules takes advantage of the texture created by
the CNC machining process to channel exterior surface toward
intricate interior spaces. >
048 american craft feb/m ario
www.journal-plaza.net & www.freedowns.net
Left photo Stacie J. Meyer / Right photos Tom Queally.
