Final Object-Des Cooper

Final Object-In Progress-Des Cooper

04.08.09 - Final Object(s)

Brief For Final Construct 04.08.09

Workshop #3 Manifesto:

We believe that constructs should acknowledge their interstitial position between ground and sky
We believe that constructs should be containers for the movement of water between ground and sky
We believe that water is the carrier of life, and that rain is a sacred, fertilizing process
We believe that through holding and channelling water, that constructs themselves become alive
We do not know why we believe this, we just do . . . .


Brief for Final Task:

- Each construct is to communicate the beliefs of the above manifesto.
- Constructs to be built by pairs of workshoppers (please organise yourselves into pairs)
One construct per workshopper
Each pair to relate to each-other, yet also be an autonomous unit in itself.
- Each construct is to be built primarily from timber and concrete (workshoppers are free to incorporate metalwork if they see fit).
- Each constructs overall form is to be within the constraints as shown in Fig.A
- Each construct should treat cuts into timber in the manner described in Fig.B
- Each construct should have one side/ elevation which is given primary importance (to allow future orientation)
- Each construct should be portable (by two people)

N.B. the primary means of communication and expression should be at the level of the detail (i.e. how elements join and are put together) with ideas of form taking a secondary role.

Cian + Alice TAKA

FIG A: Overall Form Constraints

FIG B: Painting Exposed Cross-Grain

The Seven Deadly Columns

Communicative Columns

31.07.09 - Task 02 (Results)

Below are some images of the results of Task 2 - communicating the seven deadly sins.

24.07.09 - Task 02

Task 02 - The Seven Deadly Sins

Image: Hieronymus Bosch - "The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things"

The task is to design and construct a joint (or junction), that expresses (or communicates) one of the 7 deadly sins (your choice of sin!), in a material assigned to you (either 1. Wood, 2. concrete/stone, 3. brick, 4. Metal)


Sins are:
1.pride
2.greed
3.envy
4.wrath
5.lust
6.gluttony
7.sloth


Please feel free to be experimental with your approach and not worry about the 'beauty' of the final product. this is still exploration stage.

17.07.09 - Primer + Task 01

The workshop began with a primer on aspects of meaning in architecture and construction.

TASK 01 - for next week was set for workshoppers to view the built environment with an eye to finding a piece of construction that embodies or communicates to them.

Workshop Structure:

Please note times can be flexible to accommodate participants’ schedules. Cian will be available on Tuesday afternoons to meet with workshoppers. We hope to establish a space within the studios for the use of Workshop #3.

WORKSHOP STRUCTURE
2pm-4pm Friday 17th July
- Meet at crit/presentation space outside canteen (O’Briens sandwich bar) in UCD Architecture Dept
- Short introduction and primer to workshop by TAKA
- Introduction of workshoppers
Task for week ending 24th July
- Find examples of communicative construction.
- Analysis of findings.

2pm-4pm Friday 24th July
- Short informal presentation/discussion of week’s findings by workshoppers
- Formation of groups (depending on numbers)
Task for week ending 31st July
- Investigation of construction processes
- Experimentation within processes

2pm-4pm Friday 31st July
- Short informal presentation/discussion of week’s findings by groups
- Discussion on strategy for built object(s) and establishing of belief system(s)

Friday 31st July onwards
- Length of time and process for development of built object(s) to be decided by consensus between workshop group. TAKA will continue to be available on Tuesdays/Fridays until 21st August.

WORKSHOP #3 Communicative Constructs

Workshop Description:An exploration of the capacity of construction to embody or communicate meaning.The Workshop #3 will seek to liberate construction from its subservient role to form-making so thatit may itself become the primary communicative/expressive tool of an architectural object.An analysis will be made of how and, more importantly, why certain materials or techniques areused in architecture.Following this, an exploration will be made towards new potentialities, latent in the samematerials and processes.The output of Workshop #3 might be a constructed object, with its foundation in a fictional valuesystem, however noble or irreverent.The academic aim of Workshop #3 will be to expand the participants’ conception of the value ofconstruction within Architecture. So that it may be seen as more than a facilitation of a preconceived formal result, but rather a rich cultural act in itself.Workshop will run for 2no. 2 hour sessions per week for six weeks.

nowwhatconstructs (at) gmail.com

About the Organisers:Cian Deegan & Alice Casey founded TAKA in 2006. They studied Architecture at DIT and Professional Practice at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. In London, Cian worked with Niall McLaughlin Architects, Alice with Curtis Wood Architects. They have travelled through Asia, Australia, South and North America, studying examples of vernacular architecture and culture. From 2007, in Dublin, Alice has worked with dePaor architects, Cian with O’Donnell + Tuomey Architects. In 2008 TAKA became the youngest representatives of Ireland at the Venice Architectural Biennale as part of The Lives of Spaces exhibition, and have recently completed their first projects. TAKA is a practice concerned with the communicative potential of architecture, with tectonic expression and with meaning and is based in Dublin, Ireland.