A Condensation of Systems
The design of a satellite campus for The Faculty of Environmental Design carries with it an inherent sensitivity to surrounding environments. There is the suggestion of the presence of a network of existing systems that are implicated in the design beyond the point of mere interaction: the systems contribute and aid in the fashioning of space.
Fashioning implies the mercurial character of these spaces, as they may evolve to changes in the surrounding systems while maintaining a degree of open-endedness and spontaneity in their use. It is through the presence of surrounding systems within an environment that one becomes aware of the specific character of a space. The ways in which localized systems of pedestrian movement become simultaneous and sometimes interconnected with international, macroscopic networks such as rail transit and electronic media furnish examples of this process. Space becomes an association with a connectivity of cognitive networks as well as physical ones.
The presence of these networks in combination contribute to a space which has a paradoxically undefined quality; it creates an environment that does not restrict the pulsings and mutations of interacting systems in flux. In occupying one space, there is a connection to a larger order of spaces. One can sense the reverberations of other networks in a single space, the patterns of interference become activated through movement.
The materiality of construction expresses this mutability as well: from certain perspectives, the steel frame netting of the roof and the mesh steel platform decks are read as discrete, finite surfaces with a tangible opacity. Upon closer inspection, these surfaces melt away, exposing the textures of layers beyond that are distinct yet co-existent.
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Stewart Morgan is an MArch student at the University of Calgary.