Notes from the Exterior

Ben Waters

Architecture cannot be dissociated from event and the
movement of the bodies that inhabit it.

‘Notes from the Exterior’ is a research unit focused on the presence, function and significance of notation across creative disciplines. Via marks, signs and codes, notation has historically been a critical device for the production and communication of the performance and experience of space. This studio investigates this  complex and productive design tool within the programmatic context of Melbourne’s cultural festivals.

The semester will be structured in 2 phases. First phase studies include investigations into the broad historical role of notation across cultures. Students will develop an expanded knowledge of notational systems and their relationships to technology.

The second phase of the course will be focused on the development of new forms of built environments, using notation as a way of inventing and recording spatial compositions through advanced modes of digital representation. These spatial compositions will develop into propositions for temporary festival environments, providing spaces for public performance events.

The contextual environment of the festival gives this unit opportunities to investigate trans-disciplinary approaches (sound, dance, film) to the productive triangulation between event, space and movement. In consequence the studio criteria will demand new modes of notation to construct an architectural language capable of generating and embodying the interactions within this triangulation.

Studio Outline:

The studio seeks to develop critical, rigorous organisational schemas, using advanced modelling systems as notational devices. The studio aims to develop alternative, inventive procedures within the digital turn of architecture. Students who take part in this studio are required to have sound knowledge of Rhino.

Studio Leaders

BEN WATERS is founder and principal at OSK Architects. He graduated with a Master of Architecture from RMIT University, and studied at Parsons School of Design, New York. In 2014, Ben was awarded a residency position at Berlin’s Centre for Art and Urbanistics (ZKU). He has taught masters design studios at MSD since 2015.

Learning Outcomes:

Students will develop a design for a series of spaces within existing cultural festival frameworks. These spatial compositions will develop into propositions for temporary environments, providing spaces for public performance events. Final presentation requirements will be an amalgamation of historical, cross-disciplinary, tooling and propositional phases of the semester. Students will present large scale drawings communicating notational systems developed, fabricated models and text based representations.

Reading and Reference:

Readings:

• To Note: Notation Across Disciplines [Hannah Mathews]
• Architecture: Concept & Notation [Bernard Tschumi]
• The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction - [Walter Benjamin]

Filmography:

• Sergei Eisenstein, Strike 1925
• Anri Sala, 1395 Days Without Red 2011

Performance:

• Pina, Wim Wenders 2011
• Bernard Tschumi Architects, Fireworks at Parc de la Villette 1992
• John Cage, Fontana Mix 1958
• Iannis Xenakis, Metastaseis 1955

ST1/19 Monday 6:15pm - 9:15pm, MSD Room 228
ST2/19 Thursday 9am - 12pm, MSD Room 139