Contemplation

"In making this temple, it is evident that the trees are set as boundaries, and that within them the regions are set where the eyes are to view... from which was said templum and contemplare to "contemplate",.... Contempla 'do thou contemplate' and conspicare 'do thou view' are the same, it is obvious, and therefore the augur, when he makes a temple, says conspicione 'for viewing', with regard to where he is to delimit the conspectus 'view' of the eyes."

-Varro, from De Lingua Latina

Thoughts on design. Where to start?

So I'm thinking about this place I'm creating.

This experience...

I've brainstormed and written and brainstormed and written, and then a couple of days ago I decided to draw. I began drawing images that had come to me in my sleep, in my writing, and my daydreaming. I decided to begin my exploration through a detail.

If you detail it, it will come.

Thesis Reasearch Meeting Notes

Thesis Meeting 12.06.2007

Trying to understand the essence of what makes an experience.
The poetry within the everyday.

Slow time. Make a place for contemplation.

The difference between aggressive observation and relaxed observation
Joseph Piper “Ideas of contemplation”
The idea that a relaxed observation looks to your intuition.; relates to memory and past experiences.
Allow you to see it for what it is.

"Vita Contemplativa”
related to the concept of leisure

Not leisure like a vacation

Joseph Piper “Leisure + the making of culture”
Retreat > reflection > rejuvenation
Relates to the Sacred.

Getting in touch with your sapient knowledge: a kind of knowledge understood as being from experience. Similar to our concept of wisdom.

A place to put one in touch with their sapient knowledge. i.e. to reflect on their lives and their experiences.

Becoming in touch with your senses.

A therapeutic architecture.

I want to critique the visual culture by bringing out feelings we’re not in touch with because I believe it’s important for the health of the individual.

“For the art of living well” “the art of thinking well”
- M. Frascari

Martin Heidegger “Building, Dwelling, thinking”
To have a good life there needs to be a time for thinking.

That is what I am building.

description of precedent (work in progress)

Therme Vals, Peter Zumthor

You open the glass door and step through it. Immediately the moist air fills your lungs and you’re aware of the wetness of this place.

You scan your token and enter the long hallway, water streams down the right wall. Stains recalling the path it gravity has forced it to take. Reminding you that this building in which everything is at a perfect 90 degree angle is in fact part of nature, subject to its wear, time, and its power.

You enter the changing room, the quality of the wood beckons you to touch it, but the high gloss lacquer removes any sort of tactile quality the wood once had.

You spread open the heavy leather curtains and are immediately hit with the sound of the people.

People inhabiting the space, splashing, enjoying, relaxing? The noise forces you to question the sanctity of the space.

You walk down the steps, the smoothness of the stone on the floor is like nothing you’re foot has touched in a while, maybe ever.

Water pools on the floor, the cracks in the floor are so precise. They mimic the cracks in the roof, which with the same precision are letting light into the main chamber.

You drape your towel on a simple brass rod, nothing about the rod is telling you what its for but yet there’s no question you’re plush, soft towel needs to grace the gentle rounded shape of the cold, hard metal.

You step into the main pool, your feet feeling the stone beginning to give after years of people walking up and down these steps. The water is warm, light is bouncing up and down around and around the room.

It’s 2 o clock. The soft glow of the light spilling into the space through the cracks gives way to a opening. The glass barely visible, detailed to the point of invisibility. You don’t understand the view, but it’s beautiful nonetheless.

There are dark rooms, you don’t go in them.

To the right there is a room with people running out of it, screaming. You gather it’s the cold room.

You avoid that one.

To the left you glance into a red chamber. The red on the walls invited you into its 38 degree waters. You sit and gather your thoughts. The white fine pebbles that line pool give the water a whiting glow, contrasting with the redish orange walls. Creating the dynamism of a fire.

You are in the fire. It’s beyond relaxing.

Minutes go by. Your body is tired from the heat. You slowly wade through the water, out of the chamber your body is compressed by the smallish, narrow opening you must go through to exit.

preliminary description of program. work in progress.

click to enlarge

Thesis Reasearch Meeting Notes

Thesis Meeting 11.27.07

2 weeks to go...time to wrap things up.

Ideas and important issues in research will surface as a result of...

Precedent Studies and Analysis. More specifically in my case, Sinaesthetic analysis of the Therme Vals.

Site Documentation and preliminary analysis. Sinaesthetic description of site... photomontage

Program and program analysis. Phenomenological description of program/uses

Read George Perec's "Species of Spaces and other places"

Site

Praia do Pulso, Ubatuba
Brasil

references

Juhani Pallasma

“The Eyes of the skin”
“Hapticity and time”
"Questions of Perception"

Steven Holl
“Parallax”

Merleau Ponty
“The Phenomenology of perception”

Peter Zumthor
“Thinking Architecture”
“Atmospheres”

*Italicized works have yet to be read