Invisible Space

The Homestead Unit is just a room; a unit of space, divided space, closed off space, private space. That’s what it does. It creates a boundary between things. But boundaries can sometimes be invisible to the eye. Invisible boundaries although unseen, are still boundaries, limitations nonetheless. The personal space or personal bubble some call is an invisible boundary. It is the space around a person he or she needs to feel comfortable.  This volume of space cannot be seen or even touched. Its boundaries can grow or shrink yet whatever changes to it is still hidden to us. The personal space or personal bubble is a boundary; an invisible one conjured by the mind.

In the case of The Homestead Unit, there are walls, a door, and a ceiling. All of it is tangible yet there is still a sense of openness. The occupant is enclosed but what’s the difference?

Wall may be walls, but what happens when they are transparent? The majority of the front and left façade of The Homestead Unit is made up of glass walls. Looking back at De Certeau’s “Spatial Stories”, place is seen as the partition of space. That is what gives it structure. Only when there is something to refer back to is place possible. The openness one might feel from being in The Homestead Unite is created from most of the so-called walls being mostly transparent. Or rather is it the sense of place not being created from the boundaries set by The Homestead Unit? Glass is transparent aside from the glare it might give off from reflecting light. But something that cannot be easily spotted could just be counted as invisible. It’s different from being camouflaged though. The sense that the walls of The Homestead Unit may not be there is different from them blending into the background. Something invisible can also be seen as nonexistent. After all you have to see it to believe it right?

                          A tour is a description and a map is the details. A space is like that of a tour. Space is vast and invisible but only observable through the correlation of other objects within the space. Imagine you were walking through a blizzard up on Mt. Everest. The intensity of the storm obscures your vision and in turn changes your perception of space. Your depth perception could even be affected. The point is, even space can vary from person to person because perception is not a constant. These units of enclosure she creates changes the perception of space by giving the observer a set place to reference the surrounding to. This task of creating reference points for space is much easier with architecture rather than some of her other projects like clothing and carpentry; architecture is generally on a bigger scale. Although we live on a rather small planet, space is still vast and is immeasurable just with the vision of your eyes. But people have a hard time understanding the concept of how small they really are.  Just take a stroll in the Great Plains, a large stretch of flat land where the ground and sky meet undisturbed by man-made. From that you can sort of grasp the immense amount of space there is.

             The Homestead Unit also has the ability to be placed almost anywhere; it was probably designed that way. As you can see from the pictures, in one it is placed in the comfort of the indoors and in the other it is placed in the harsh environment of the dry land. It can be counted as the reference point of space. In the gigantic openness of such outdoor regions, The Homestead Unit makes judgment of space just a little bit more true to reality.

A-Z HOMESTEAD UNITS

The Homestead Unit is just a room; a unit of space, divided space, closed off space, private space. That’s what it does. It creates a boundary between things. What is different about it is its openness. Although there are four walls, a ceiling and a door, most of the walls and door consist of large windows. Although it’s closed off, there is still a sense of openness.  Relating back to Foucault’s Spatial Stories, space is a practice of place, the Homestead Unit creates a space in a place by setting defined boundaries. Like he says, “A space exists when one takes into consideration vectors of direction, velocities, and time variables.” Only when there have been set boundaries, can there be a space in a place. However that depends on your definition of space and place. Is it not the other way around where place is a space that has been given an identity?

Here you can see that The Homestead Unit is designed to be a portable space, which can be setup in any place. It’s made with a metal-ridged ceiling, which could be seen as a being created with the mindset of durability; being able to withstand harsh weather like this.

Docile Bodies

 My studio space could be said to be more than just work space. Generally the students at Pratt spend the majority of their days in the studio. But space is surrounded by three walls leaving entrance from only one side. Already you can tell it has been grounded by many barriers. But these limiting factors are what makes it so special. With a wall in front of my desk, a wall behind, a window to the right, and a 45degree angled ceiling it's a pretty comfortable place. These walls a normal studio space doesn't have creates a very unique place. Theres a special feeling of intimacy.

 Being all the way in the back section 9's space, not many other students come here during the day. It's after class hours when others start to swarm near the comfy little corner. Intimacy often creates other feelings, which lead to a disconnect from reality. Time, a way of judging reality. How things change over time, a period of space for an observer to view. There are many ways to regulate time and there are many ways to regulate a space through discipline. Foucault believes discipline affects a person not through the calculation of time, but through the experience the individual has. This corner of the studio creates a form intimacy which thus effects the individuals view of time through such experience of occupying this studio space.

Docile Bodies

1) How has the "air of a soldier" changed after there became a systemized way of training people?

2) The body became a tool for control and power. But how has "discipline", which has become a controlling factor become an accepted norm?

Journal entry #1

Design class so far has always been held in a very abstract learning process. First we start out with a few guid lines. Then we draw a few lines. Then some more. And more after that. Eventually we create some rules, fix up the lines we drew, change them up a bit to add some flavor, add more lines to create density. The end product, a pattern that can be reproduced over and over with just some rules. This time around, I decided to ditch the traditional orthogonal lines. This time around, I picked up the french curve. And it all started out fine using an orthogonal grid to create consistent curves of different proportions, until I put everything on its edge. I changed it up turned the grid diagonal, which created still four sided shapes as a reference for creating later curves. BUT they were all the same lengths and angles anymore. This is were i got stuck and how i ended up with this:

a blank diagonal grid for the pin up. This is when my professor Robert Bracket pushed me over that damn annoying architect's block. Who cares if each shape wasn't the same. Just count them and start from there. Instead of measuring, just count those shapes.

Spatial Readings and Tintern Abby

It’s surprising how much space you need. It would surprise you how even the most absurd things would need some space. The easiest example of this is in your own head. Everyone thinks, no matter how unintelligent or how intelligent even, you think. These thoughts need space to occur. Incomprehensible right? No matter who you are, you need room for your thoughts, your ideas and your opinions. All this takes place in your brain; your brain is the place. However, you can only find all this in your mind.  Your mind is different form your brain just like how space and place are not the same, but still relate and sometimes are even within each other. As Michel de Certeau says in his writing, “Spatial Stories”, “Space is a practice of place.” But is it really?

            “To go to work or come home, one takes a “metaphor”- a bus or train. Stories could also take this noble name: every day, they traverse and organize places; they select and link them together; they make sentences and itineraries out of them. They are spatial trajectories.” As Michel de Certeau described in the text, transportation was the way of linking one place to another like work or home. Your everyday life turned into a story, and “every story is a travel story- a spatial practice. Such metaphor gave daily events structure, a step by step or 1-2-3 of your events because you took into consideration of space.

            Now this all makes sense, but is space really a practice of place? A place could be within a space, or rather it is. I believe in a different definition of these terms, space and place. Space is more of a general term for every volume out there. On the other hand, place is more unique more special. Place is a space given an identity, given form. Places are special.

            Places are more, well thought out and given the privilege of occupying a certain space. In the long title of “Tintern Abbey”, the Hermit sits alone. The poem opens up with the lines “FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length of five long winters!” A time frame was given from just the words five years. Time is intangible and can only be seen through its power on its surroundings, exactly like space. As we progress further down the stanza, we find out how much the hermit loves this place he has not been to in FIVE long years. This place, the bank of the Wye is of the physical world. He finds love and comfort in this place. But these feelings take place in the space of these banks.  The feelings and love for this place are the intangible sensations created by his mind. The mind is the space that translates all these “things” into place. From this, how can space be a practice of place when place is transformed space? In conclusion, place is the physical the limited; it’s space being forced into reality.  And space, it’s the intangible and unrestricted.

            The author of “Spatial Stories”, believes space only exists when one takes into consideration vectors of direction, velocities, and time variables. But is this not a better definition of place; something that has been grounded by these guidelines.  that’s not what space is. Space is indefinite. But even so, does anything really exist? Or does it all just take space in your mind?

Key Words for Fred Sandback Installation

-controlling

-limits

-biased

-divided

-rules

-cut

- wastage

Key Words for Playing with Strings

        Experience

-controlled

-detached

-centered

-curved

-boomerang

-limited working space

-conservative

-tension

-low to high

-point

      Occupying

-bridge

-middle

-ceiling

-thin

-invisible

-vine

-transparent

-cave

-entrance

-sky

The world

Two Fingers

Processed                                      Established

Connection

    Fred Sandback showed how easily space can be altered. Even with the slightest addition of an acrylic string the space can have a different feel. Such subtleties demonstrate the fragility of space. Through the process of creating space, designing space, everything changes the outcome. Just like Fred Sanback showed even strings can create a wall.