Carl Lostritto, Instructor
School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation
EFaughnan
Transform
Construction of forms for pedestrians and traffic, giving importance and creating a desire to travel the space
Map of Polls in Swing States
This map displays the changing polls within the swing states for the democratic and republican candidates for the 2008 election. The map begins in January and runs through November demonstrated on the x axis. The y axis graphs the polled percentage within the state. The z-axis displays how many electoral votes that state has and the location of the state. Florida, the widest, is the south most state with 27 electoral votes while Montana and North Dakota are the thinest and north most states, only having 3 electoral votes each. The wire frame nodes demonstrate when each candidate had an event in that state. The dotted vs solid line wire frame demonstrates the outcome of the 2004 election. Additionally the once solid ribbon becomes wire frame to demonstrate the known vs. what can be estimated.
These images attempt to capture the pattern created in a chain link fence, scale the design up and represent the voids between the links as solids. These images show the fence as a way to navigate through as they wind in and out of one another.For the ant, a chain link fence becomes something of a pathway. It is a route that the ant will take to move upwards to uncharted territory. As the chain links wind in and out of one another, interchanges between the links are created allowing the ant to change from link to link. Eventually, the links connect to one long horizontal bar, the sort of interstate connecting the whole fence. The ant knows that he can not walk in the voids within the fence, they, in the eyes of the small creature, are solids. He can see flying insects make it through them, but knows he is not able. This in turn is an allegory to the city, where pedestrians and cars inhabit the streets and mysterious people are within solid buildings. These streets “cut” through the urban fabric just as the fence cuts up the ground below. Nevertheless “clusters” of shadows and trees are noticeable below. Different layers of roads “stack” to build a network of pathways, just as links layer each other to create a complete fence.
To create a city from the chain link fence, a scale change must be employed and everything must become larger. Shadows must become clouds, small weed patches will become forests, and the fence will become motorways. As the fence becomes larger, the round nature of the links will flatten out. Voids in the fence will need to be rendered as solids, to account for the places one can not necessarily be. These voids, when drawn in perspective should “diminish[ing] in size and recede[ing] to the horizon” (Frascari 17) but I would like to challenge that. I argue that when on the outskirts of the city, one can often see the buildings soaring into the sky farther away.
For a successful project, this will be more than just the modeling of a matrix of links, but also a diagram demonstrating “interruptions and inconsistencies” that create a sense of “time, void or chance encounters” so I can indeed cure my “dread of space” (Boyarsky 51). I believe I can do this by inherently changing the principles ordering the fence to create a more interesting and random form.
Frascari, Marco. From Models to Drawings. “Critiques: Critical Studies in Architectural
Humanities.” Routledge: London.
Boyarsky, Nicholas and Murphy, Nicola. Action Research. “Architecture and Urbanism 1”.
