13/02/09
February 22, 2009
We made a list of what the word ‘conversation’ means and involves, and thought how architecture can contribute and influence conversation between people.
These words are linked to conversation: people, communication, seating, standing, voice/verbal communication, eye contact, movement, letter, comfort, context, attraction, topic/pretext, sense of security..
We tried to understand what people need to start talking to each other and how space can be arranged in order to create comfort and a friendly atmosphere.
After our tutorial we decided that our project should include a barbecue and seats, all made by bricks. Obviously our decision has been influenced by the material as brick is used for loadbearing structures and it is fireproof. Also, the idea of a barbecue as a central part of the project involves conversation because people start talking to each other especially while eating. Thus the brick structure welcomes/invites hungry and non hungry people with its seats and its kiln (which is a very unusual element in the middle of a public place). There will be a sense of community and people will seat long enough to start a conversation as eating sausages requires minutes and minutes and minutes!
We also though about a bridge but then realised that it would be a very complex project as the absence of mortar makes the structure less stable. The bridge would require more bricks, with different shapes, and more time for the final construction.
E1: Initial ideas
We first gathered ideas by means of sketching and discussing amongst our group, and considered that a place of conversation should be triggered by a seating arrangement. We considered that the seating would form a right-angle for two people as this would encourage, as proven by body language professionals, another person to enter the conversation – an inviting corner.
As we were transforming Barnsley with our installations and beautifying the surrounding area, we decided that our concept would be a parallel of the town’s transformation, which itself is in process of redevelopment. The concept we concluded with for the design was ‘organization to chaos’ involving the ideas of bonding we had previously seen in our R1 building – St. Peters, Klippan, Sweden – Sigurd Lewerentz.
In order to arrange a seating area, we headed down to Wickes to by thirty or so clay bricks so we could experiment with the designs to seek constraints in the material. We found that the positioning of the bricks was highly important from a health and safety point of view, as not to fall from even a small height, which would still be potentially damaging to the public. Here are a few sketches from the designs.
We then proceeded experimenting with different brick bonds in order to create a link from ‘chaos’ to the main structure using dutch, stretcher and english bonds, and an amalgamation of others to create a unique design.
