scapeshift: 100115 - encroaching dunes

Like all geologic formations, sand dunes move. Unlike most geologic formations, they transform fast enough to see in human-scale time frames. This blog post from Through The Sandglass describes dunes that are invading communities, a serious problem particularly in regions of the world experiencing desertification.

ica, peru

Beyond the environmental issues here, what is most important to consider is that landscapes are transformational conditions produced by processes working on their surfaces and in their depths. Any landscape, whether urban, suburban, or geologic is undergoing constant transformation, seeing the transformation is just a question of looking at the correct scale.

Studio Description...............

This studio focused on complexities in the relationship between site and intervention. Working within the pedagogical framework of the second semester design studio, these complexities were explored through a series of abstract exercises. Abstract work revealed to the students that a site is not a fixed condition, it is a flux of material and immaterial processes; and that a site is not a received condition, it is constructed (consciously or unconsciously) through the act of conceiving an intervention.

At the outset, students produced analytical mappings of sand dune fields – dunescapes. In tracking specific types of data (dune height, ridgeline length, angle between ridgelines, etc.) across a dunescape, maps investigated how the material behaviors of sand grains, interacting with the wind and each other, give rise to form, one that is undergoing continual transformation. A further comparative analysis of data in the maps uncovered hidden organizational patterns in the dunescapes. Findings from the maps informed the development of a material derived from wood molding profiles. The behaviors of this material were developed uniquely by each student in response to embedded curvilinear geometries, and then drawn into the process of assembling a landscape – a site on which to conceive an intervention.

The intervention on this site came in the form of an observatory. An observatory was defined generally as a device for gathering data concerning a specific type of process or event – data may be gathered for empirical purposes (radio telescope), or for more experiential purposes (Turrell’s Roden Crater). In this case, the observatory was designed to produce qualitatively different spatial experiences by tracking and filtering sunlight over the course of time.

scapeshift

100115 - encroaching dunes

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