Semester 2 2017 Thesis 1
D'Or: spatial, material and programmatic thresholds
Janet McGaw & Tanja Beer
Studio Description:
In 1992 Jennifer Bloomer wrote a paper entitled “D’or” that considered what was ‘othered’ – the either/or – in architecture.1 From her perspective ‘the other’ included the second term in the binary pairs visual/experiential, structure/ornament, and form/matter amongst others. Her essay was situated within a critical discourse informed by post-structuralism which was in turn shaped by the exigencies of its time and place. She opened the essay with a quote from artist Robert Smithson:
‘words and rocks contain a language that follows a syntax of splits and ruptures. Look at any word long enough and you will see it open into a series of faults, into a terrain of particles each containing its own void.’
… and proceeded to mine the word ‘d’or’ for its possible meanings:
d’or: of gold, or of the now (French)
ore: a lacy network of (g)litter embedded in rock
or: the other, an inferior category
door: a way out
Twenty-five years later we conceive of the world through conceptual multiplicities rather than binaries, and yet we still have exclusionary zones, both spatial and material. Materials flow freely across spatial borders, capitalising on weak labour laws and low currency values in newly industrialised countries. Yet we are fearful of allowing people the same freedoms. Border patrols are becoming more stringent and digital surveillance is ever increasing. Global manufacturing grows apace powered by burning fossil fuels despite concerns about climate change. Architects enjoy the availability of many of these materials for the structural and decorative freedoms they afford at low monetary costs with little awareness of the hidden social and environmental implications. Nationalism, terrorism, materialism, global warming, are the catch-cries across the media. The either/or’s have become increasingly apocalyptic.
This studio asks you to reconsider ‘d’or’ to find possible spatial and material ways out of global dilemmas. What are the inferior categories? Where are the fault lines in our urban terrains? What unexpected materials might become precious to us?
We will explore programmes for excluded citizens (refugee processing, resource centre, and venue for events around cultural exchange) on threshold sites (borderlands or indeterminate spaces that are currently unoccupied by architecture but latent with other emergent phenomena) using ‘vibrant’ matter (‘bio-actant’ materials that might be enlisted as co-creators of architectural form). These are both challenges and opportunities; seams of gold that we will mine for their architectural opportunities. As Bloomer says, doors may be exits but also entries into new ways of thinking and practicing.
1 Jennifer Bloomer, “D’or” in Beatrice Colomina, (ed.), Sexuality and Space New York:
Princeton Architectural Press, 1992, pp. 163-184.
Studio Leader:
JANET MCGAW is currently Architecture Pathway coordinator in the Bachelor of Environments and subject coordinator of Design Research in the MSD. She has taught masters and thesis studios in the past, co-coordinating Thesis from 2008-2010. Janet is also an award winning architect.
TANJA BEER is a scenographer and performance maker with a PhD in ecological design. She brings to the studio an interest in the politics and ecologies of waste, the material turn in the social sciences and new material practices in design. She has more than 15 years professional experience, has received numerous grants and awards, and teaches the Design Research elective with Janet.
ST1/01 Friday 10:00am - 1:00pm, MSD Room 215
ST2/01 Friday 1:00pm - 4:00pm, MSD Room 215