LINEAR ENERGIES AND TEAMWORK

In a process that refers to the Bauhaus’ Vorkurs and the teaching principles of Iakov Chernikov in the 1920s, recent approaches to PBL, Problem-Based Learning, have been incorporated in this student introduction to space construction.

“In beginning this semester length project I was extremely apprehensive. The scale and objective for each exercise made my mind swirl in confusion. With the passing of each exercise, the reality of transferring my feelings or character into this occupation of space became the focus of the experience on my path." François Barbeau

This first year studio set out to impart methods of design thinking and an abstract approach to working with architectonic space within a free process that necessitated communication and teamwork.
The Studio started with two-dimensional pattern exercises in black and white, which were reviewed communally. One pattern was then ‘wrapped’ onto a card cube and elements were cut out, the result being arranged on a plane. During further studio discussion, these constructions were assembled into an informal group structure.
In the next stage, each student assembled three wire frame cubes and arranged lines of differing thickness and length within them. Suspended with fishing line, each cube was discussed as a composition of elements. Drawings were made of this work, using the faces of the cubes to map plans and elevations and forming the basis for exercises in technical drawing and research into conventions of isometric drawing.
A break in the work on the cubes involved making isometric drawings of interpenetrating forms and their junctions. Parallel with these steps, students were asked to bring images of the kinds of elements that were being used, whether from art, fashion or architecture. These formed the basis of studio discussions which were often short crits when students were asked to explain their images and justify their choice.
Three cubes per student provided over seventy space assemblies, which were linked into one structure in the studio, now taking account of the interaction of their contents with lines in other cubes. Three different, adjacent cubes were re-allocated to each student and the studio became the working space.
Planes of different materials were added in response to the lines. In order to get to know their new material, students drew the contents of their cubes, working in isometric and gridding elevations to reduce them in scale for presentation.
Now a scale was allocated to the spaces, making each cube 9 metres high, and a path was negotiated which passed through the ‘landholding’ of each student. Stairs and ramps then researched, designed and put in place to construct the path and extensions of it as if it formed an exhibition. This stage took three or more weeks and was subject to constant criticism, elimination and discussion, from other students as well as staff. The recognition that all were responsible for the look of the whole structure led to the formation of “cube police” to make sure that the editing, assembly and tidying up that was deemed necessary actually occurred.
Working in self-chosen groups, students drew the whole assembly in plan, elevation and section. Constant recording of studio activity, some in the form of digital video, culminated in filming sessions when the assembly was recorded, combined with other images prepared by the students and edited.

“Another thing that I’ve learnt from this exercise is that it is based on a group of individuals which has to work together. These individuals possess their own quite strong personalities and ideas. Nevertheless they have to work as a team, their common intent is to focus their collective ability on a problem rather than display individual heroism. The elements placed in one’s cube must take into consideration the elements hovering around the adjacent cubes and I think this can be applied to everything.”Muhammad Hafiz bin Muhammad Fazillah

DIDACTIC OBJECTIVES
The whole process contributed to the teaching objectives through repeated researching, creation, manipulation and review. Students saw this in retrospect though some questioned the early exercises.They were asked to talk about the images they found that related to the tasks at hand, and their work was reviewed both for its internal consistency and its relation to context. Individual communication at a practical level was needed and evolved from the structure of the tasks being undertaken.

Without a formal brief and allowing at first almost total freedom for individual preference, the exercises gradually established their own constraints which the student came to understand through working with the actual material of the design. The initial abstraction allowed manipulation of pure space and form which could be characterised and contrasted with the solid patterns that were generated at first.
Some emphasis was placed on the quality of the work; on clean cuts and precise tech pen work, but the use of temporary elements was encouraged. For tutors as well as students each element was a design ‘problem’ that required a re-evaluation of the criteria for choice as well as the immediate alternatives. The appearance of permissiveness to individual preference gave way to the demands of “my cubes” and themes and criteria were rapidly agreed through discussion and explanation. Dark themes developed and a short written exercise allowed some personal fantasies to be expressed.

A snaky path and it’s going up to a cube. Who knows where the hell it will take me. What’s above the wall/floor; I can’t see right now. Am I even sure that I wanna go this way. Ahh but it ain’t too bad since there is a lot of light coming in............taking a step to the side realise too late the narrowness of the path and plummet past an astonished onlooker on a lower platform, down, bounce and black. Taku Mbudzi

PRACTICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
Students absorbed profound lessons and developed skills in the process of doing exercises that appeared to be about other issues. They addressed balance and proportion

The whole methodology is based upon the development of 'combinations' and 'assemblages' of lines, planes and volumes, independent of what the given elements may represent. Just as an appropriate assembly of sounds gives us musical products, so too we construct and assemble a representation in which lines, planes and volumes can be musically tuned. Thus we create a skilled composer of new forms. Iakov Chernikov 1924