FIRST SEMESTER - SUMMER 2018

MASTER OF SCIENCE IN ARCHITECTURE (MSARCH)

PRATT INSTITUTE
INSTRUCTOR: Arch. Erich Schoenenberger

An active form born by Subtraction

“Architects and urbanists are connoisseurs of object forms expressed with shape, outline and geometry, and the design of the object form usually results in an addition. Subtraction can offer a redoubled territory for design (...) Architects may have to learn how to apply their building knowledge into reverse”. (Easterling, Keller. Subtraction)

Every act of building should be considered as both, an addition and a subtraction.
A subtraction can be read as an active form that interacts, evolves and unfolds a dialogue with the environment around them, as it can also be treated as a proper object form, with its own shape and spatial conditions.

The sequence of these study models, read from the top to the bottom, shows the process through the development of active forms born by subtractions, treated in some way as an infinite fractal process. An initial shape carves through another one, leaving traces that lead to new complementary additions born from those traces. Those additions work as a cast for new, interesting carved spaces. These new object forms revealed by several subtraction studies begin to develop their own architectural conditions, responding to a given program that their own forms evocate, and can dialogue with a certain environment that complements and vinculates with them.

The final result of these studies displays a utopic building located on a remote desert that can be even confused with an alien land, where the building performs as an active, living entity, serving as a refugee for its habitants and with an intrinsic connection with the ground and the environment itself.