1. D E V O N T E L B E R G 12044946
Oxford Brookes University
Masters of Architecture
Advanced Architectural Design
Andrew Holmes
Re-submitted July 12th, 2013
2. All our spirits reside in New Arcadia,
Every individual is their own royalty and servant.
The walls our egos built shall crumble.
What is left is a sea of
photo by Noraishah Mokhtar
4. V
The elite have resigned them-
selves for ages in stone castles
high on hills. Who was it that
built these walls, walls whom
assumed violence had to hap-
pen, what is there to protect
against. These walls were built
by people whom announced
they were elite. They rein-
forced the walls with etiquette,
a reciprocal expectation that
anyone who passed these
doorways were permitted
access to a circle of confi-
dantes. The few laid back in
their wealth of resources and
police of invocation, courts of
application, and agencies of
appraisals. A social structure
that maintains the expectation
of violence with other castles
outside their walls, a social
contract peaceful accep-
tance of internal decisions by
the many. The best defense
lies in the precaution against
surprise. So high they built, the
better to surveil. So fortified
they reinforced, except when
counter attacks must perforate
the defense. So invisible they
hid, the better to camoflouge.
Anyone who had a reason to
search for them would travel
far into unknown territory, set-
ting off triggers in nature that
only locals knew in their hearts.
The elite withdrew horizontally,
from one parlour to the next
manor, then only allow others
through by invitation. Walls of
buildings didn’t just erect, so
did the walls of the streets, are
they not the same wall? Soon
enough, cities were planned
to vistas, so that everyone was
reminded of who made the
decisions, boulevards were for
parades. It instilled a happy
sense of community among
the many, that what they lived
without was at least lived to-
gether.
“Separate but equal” they
told the many. How soon did
their walls crumble into con-
crete and glass. It scrapes the
sky, they said. Quite violent to
the sky, don’t you think? Roy-
als passed the responsibility of
patronage to courtiers, and
courtiers to contractors, artists,
masons.
There are those of us that
know a different way.
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5. When the crumbled cas-
tles started to fall, they
called it democracy. Old
monarchs looked on as
the castles turned into
mansions. But the man-
sions were no match with
what the history of hu-
manity had in store. The
mansions of democracy
crumbled too as they
imitated the elite. Those
who thought it was worth
something tried to keep it
together. The many slowly
descended into poverty,
at the same time, they en-
veloped themselves into
tiny screens that nulled
the flow. Sitting around.
Their words, dreams, ideas
infinitely falling into deep
space of the many tiny
screens. Looking away
from their own kind. Ignor-
ing us. Pretending. Like we
don’t matter. But we’re
here. We’re always here.
6. We see you building your walls. You build and build.
Only egos defend themselves. Egos crumble. When
a tornado comes, or earthwuake hits; take shelter.
But mountains don’t fall. Trees strengthen, and bloom
again next year. Your walls crumble. They kill. How
many die from an earthquake? Not much. You die
when the walls your egos built fall. Keep building if it
makes you feel better. What is architecture without
walls?
7. Walls that define us. Tell
us what we are supposed
to do in the face of them.
Dine here. Work there. Re-
lax here. Cook there. Walls
that design to separate us.
Places are not defined as
enclosures like egos need
them to be. Walls create
a false sense of place.
Walls do not exist because
nothing can actually be
blocked out or contained
in. Nothing creates a more
vivid illusion of space than
the constant repetition of
dimension seen in different
depths of the perspective.
A row of columns is only
impressive as a means
to juxtapose the natural
with it’s rigidly, unnaturally
straight lines of perspec-
tive. A reduction of relying
solely on the human eye.
Why do you rely on the
illusory strength of a straight
line when everyone knows
that eyes can play tricks on
you?
8. After so long, the walls are still around us.
They imitate the past, but it’s been so long
since they were deemed such a novel
idea. Time has frozen in the dining room,
the maid is about to bring dinner from the
kitchen. Walls built recently still dictate to
us. Portals permit by invitation by a knower
of a lesser. Drag your feet, and you’ll think
you’re a lesser too. But you can choose.
9. The walls that contain us reduced to symbols. Ar-
chitecture is indivisible. Plans, sections, elevations
slice it up but it is not produced by these elements.
Conventional symbols do not breathe in the space.
The swirls of our essence follow us, they haunt us.
Cavities are created by removing materials, solids
are created by adding. A wall is not solid, no mat-
ter how much humans try to make it appear to be.
The walls they erect do not dictate the paths they
take in space, only limit them. When spaces return
to open up, they traverse in ways comfortable.
Placed in the bedroom, they can decide to want
food. But the path is the longest possible because
they decided these functions have to be separate
based on rigid social structures.
10.
11. Director’s Commentary
The walls we build are not our own anymore.
The glossy rooms are not meant for people to
inhabit if we have to keep wiping off all the
fingerprints after we leave. Our glossy rooms
carry essences of our jounreys but they are not
meant to carry our life stories. They are built to
be as objective as possible, without any refer-
ence to personality except for the architect’s
and laborer’s who put it together with their
own hands.
The spaces we actually use are so busy with
fragmented purpose we don’t see out spir-
its encapsulating the space either. The hall-
ways we run through, the stairs we climb, the
walls our egos built have no deference for the
handiwork craft that exudes our personalities.
People try to ignore it, but we carry our essen-
tial spirits everywhere we go. We build walls
without them, the delusion to contain them.
However the feelings multiply, the spirit returns
stronger as we deny it.
The spirit goes to its natural habitat of drifting,
directionless except for where it wants to go.
Physical manifestations of our heart’s desires
crawl to an architecture without walls. They tra-
verse to lead their own paths, they make their
own structures individually but collectively they
form an interwoven playground of experienc-
ing inhabitable space with their entire bodily
forms. Without discriminating all else except
the eyes. A comfortable space that supports. A
shelter that doesn’t need to barricade against
anything. An open space that provides pri-
vacy within it’s enclaves. Humans can only
relate to a space like this as if it’s underwater,
diving in to an environment as close to weight-
lessness as we can know on Earth. As close to
the submerged one-ness of all creatures, the
percieved intuitive communications, a world
without air with which enables manifestations
of ideas. In water, we use our whole bodies
to travel, communicate, inhabit the space of
underwater. Over the eras of history, people
have deciphered the kinds of walls we build,
and until recently we have begun to tear them
down. To swim like aimless fishes that leave a
ribbon of the traveled path that we continue
to live on, play on, work on. The elegant multi-
tude of coves we created upon looking back
that we use to rest on.
Going forward, I explore what it means to rely
on a space that you don’t just stand and look
at, but something to experience with the entire
body of experience.
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12. An entrance of woven light twists into the
enclaves of the horizon.
13. As I wander into its allurement, the land-
scape coils into intself, pulling the corners of
the earth into the tenseful curvature as our
eyes gaze upon it.
14. Life after life, we turn from delicacies to sen-
sibilities, from royalties to practicalities, bur-
ied in the synonymous lives that surround us.
15. An intimate light shines from inside that cat-
apults us through the weaves of eras. As an
individual, I observe it as an exterior light.
16. But from the collective, we identify it as the
interiors of one spirit. Us that manifests the
tension of between. Between delicacy and
durability, between royalty and practicality.
Both fragility and sensibility, both divided
and unanimous.
17. The love and light weaves, the elegance
lofts through its essences - glued into place
by the mundane.
18. The indulations waver at the center of the
moments with increasing intensity... how it
embodies both simultaneously.
19. Through the gaps, peaks the light to remind
me there is a galaxy beyond my world, it’s
isolated but intrusive.
20. Sequence after sequence, step after step,
day after day. I don’t see the journey, only
the trail behind me.
21. How high the hill has become, indeed it’s
taller. I have become where all I know is
moving and stillness, forward in time.
52. Using Rhino, I recreated a network
of ribbons and a separate section of
twisted ribbons below.
I created surfaces between the differ-
ent curves.
53. I applied the section of ribbons to flow
along those surfaces.
I removed the network of ribbons to
explore the enclaves and intersec-
tions.
54. In my pursuit to truly know what it is like to experience space with my entire
body, I took an aerial silk class. I observed a classmate’s inability to learn
a specific trick because it meant she had to trust her body on a point of
balance on her hip, instead of from her feet. It seemed like she was afraid
to be upside down, and restricted herself from embracing the position. I
also observed how incredibly weak my arms are, and realised how heavily
I rely on my legs to climb up the silk. This observation reflects the reliance on
interpretting the world from an upright, standing/sitting perspective, and
intrigued how my body has adapted accordingly.
I also got to know what it feels like to be emerged in an environment with-
out walls; the sea. I went scuba diving for the first time. Due to the different
treatment of gravity, below the surface it’s difficult to know which way is
up or down. There was only forward or backward due to the kind of mobil-
isation under water. I discovered everything under the sea is truly fluid with
each other, and my experience inspired my re-interpretation of my project
to be under the sea- but only as a means to humanly interpret the kind of
experience I wanted to create in my concept.
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55. “Lost In Motion” directed by Ben Shirinian, cho-
reographed and danced by Guillame Cote,
song by Album Leaf
Click here for full video on Youtube.com
56. Inspired by artwork from clockwise:
Richard Sweeney
Toni Davey
Paul Jackson
Bridget Riley
57. Books:
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world. New York: Vintage Books.
Jackson, P. 2011. Folding techniques for designers. London: Laurence King Pub..
Juniper, A. 2010. Wabi sabi : the Japanese art of impermanence. Tokyo [etc.]: Tuttle Publishing.
Lasswell, H. and Fox, M. 1979. The signature of power: buildings, communication, & policy. New
Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, inc..
Pallasmaa, J. 2010. The thinking hand. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley.
Pallasmaa, J. 2007. The eyes of the skin. London: Academy.
Rasmussen, S. 1993. Experiencing architecture. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Shiqiao, L. 2007. Power and virtue : architecture and intellectual change in England 1660-1730.
London: Routledge.
Spuybroek, L. 2009. The architecture of variation. London: Thames & Hudson.
Tanizaki, J. 2008. In praise of shadows. Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle Publ..
Thompson, N. 2012. Living as form: socially engaged art from 1991-2011. New York, N.Y.: Cre-
ative Time.
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