Studio 13

Time, Societies, and The Pavilion

James Bowman Fletcher

Studio Description

This studio provides a framework to explore the social, material, and environmental dimensions of ‘time’, through the design of a pavilion, across multiple locations and various stages of this pavilion’s life. ‘The Pavilion’ will be considered as both including and more than what makes ‘contemporary’ pavilions what they are. Such as roll-out turf, institutions, land, disassembly, patrons, Surefoot footings, expositions, sunlight, brands, nations, bolts, transplanted trees, microphones, CAPI mineral water, reinstatement, and stackable stools. We will aim to re-propose a pavilion that is other to these conditions, starting its life within the proximity of the Victorian Trades Hall.

Early in the semester, seminars will introduce the sociological argument of Cornelius Castoriadis, making ‘time’ less thinkable as universal, quantifiable, objective, and linear, and more thinkable as material, more than rational, and particular to each society and their history.

Underlying this studio’s framework is that architectural works are not static, as neither are society and history; instead, they are ever forming and in the making. That is, as living/non-living and human/non-human beings and bodies, in relation to the material things, make their society what it is, and what it could be. In particular respects and instances, a pavilion can address these notions within the scope of a Design Thesis semester.

Studio Outcome

We will research existing pavilions, their material, and more than material aspects—beyond Western, contemporary and architect-designed examples. Students will then design their own pavilions, incorporating their own research. These pavilions will be materially resolved, addressing alteration, assembly, disassembly, reassembly, and reuse. Throughout the semester, there will be an emphasis on:

• Material exploration and resolution;
• The social as material and the material as social, drawing upon knowledge from the social sciences;
• Architecture’s relationship to institutions;
• A range of representational media (diagrams of ownership models, calendars of events, and so on) to address an expanded definition of a pavilion that is suitable at a Design Thesis level.

The studio will run online and in an optional mixed mode, contingent on restrictions.

Readings & References

• Appadurai, A. (1996) ‘Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization’. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
• Buchli, V. (2013) ‘An Anthropology of Architecture’. London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Castoriadis, C. (1984) ‘Crossroads in the Labyrinth’. Sussex, United Kingdom: Harvester Press.
• Castoriadis, C. (1987) ‘The Imaginary Institution of Society’. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity Press.
• Castoriadis, C. and Curtis, D. A. (1997) ‘World in Fragments: Writings on Politics, Society, Psychoanalysis, and the Imagination’. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
• Castoriadis, C. (2010) ‘A Society Adrift Interviews and Debates, 1974-1997’. New York, New York: Fordham University Press.
• Yaneva, A. (2011) ‘Mapping Controversies in Architecture’. Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing.
• Yaneva, A. (2017) ‘Five Ways to Make Architecture Political: An Introduction to the Politics of Design Practice’. London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Schedule 15:15-18:15 Mondays and Thursdays

Contact Handbook Key Dates