Nero's Palace: The Domus Aurea

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building as representation of status
intricate decoration: mosaic,murals, paintings
moving rooms
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"The Domus Aurea (Golden House), Rome (A.D. 64-68 and possibly later), was built or begun by Nero after the great fire in A.D. 64. It was less a palace than a series of pavilions and a long wing comprising living and reception rooms, all set in a vast landscaped park with an artificial lake in its centre where the Colosseum now stands. Most of it has largely disappeared. The main architectural interest lies in the wing just referred to, known as the Esquiline wing, which stood a little to the north of the lake and was subsequently built over to form part of the enclosure of the Baths of Trajan. It most resembled the country and seaside portico villas of Campagna, and was open to the views of and beyond the lake. The more westerly part, which was certainly of Nero's time, also had a peristyle behind the faade. In the centre, the faade was set back, following three sides and two half-sides of an octagon. To the right of this was the less conventionally planned eastern part, which contained the feature of greatest importance and originality. This was an octagonal hall roofed by a concrete dome, 14.7 m (50 ft) across the corners, and open on all sides to the garden or to surrounding smaller rooms—as far as is known the first appearance in a building of this kind of a new concept of interior space which was to come increasingly to the fore over the next half-century." - Sir Banister Fletcher A History of Architecture, p.246


Octagonal room, plan and axonometric drawing:

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The most interesting part of Domus Aurea for me is its social programme - architecture as a status representation, demonstration of cultural aspirations and power.
Extravagant decoration spoke fir itself: stuccoed ceilings were applied with semi-precious stones and veneers of ivory while the walls were frescoed, coordinating the decoration into different themes in each major group of rooms. Rooms sheathed in dazzling polished white marble were given richly varied floor plans, shaped with niches and exedras that concentrated or dispersed the daylight. There were pools in the floors and fountains splashing in the corridors.
The culmination of the house was a revolving octagonal dining room. Its mechanism, when operated by slaves, made the ceiling appear to move (although the room itself was actually rotating). Furthermore, the perfume was sprayed and the flower petals were showered on the guests.


Of course, Nero was a Roman emperor, so such inventions do not surprise, just fascinate. However, it makes me think - our homes are the same - a demonstration of our financial capability, of our taste, of our priorities in life. But where is the line when they become not a reclusion, but an open house of display?


 On the other hand, isn't our design work a status representation as well? It speaks of our creativity, craftsmanship, even financial investment in the project; and, after assessed and given a mark, puts us in a certain hierarchy together with our peers.

1956-1973
Carlo Scarpa: Intervening with History


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Foundation Querini Stampalia
Castelvecchio
Brion Vega Tomb
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craftsmanship
materiality
investigation through drawing
working on every component
symmetry
articulated geometrical relationships
intervening with existing historical fabric
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Throughout his work, Carlo Scarpa has been meticulous with every detail and the smallest of design elements, their finishes, material choices and joining points. He used drawing to work and rework his designs over and over again until the final idea has filtrated through.

His drawings are informative of the long process he had to go through, and it does reverberate with my method of working - pencil on paper is the medium I am most comfortable in. Many ideas are born from and develop through scribbles in my sketchbook. However, my platform is all about material experiments, thats how projects got kickstarted at the beginning of the year. Only through making you come across certain material qualities or project possibilities that you wouldn't have imagined otherwise. But I sometimes feel that my imagination runs faster than my hands can craft it into at least a sketch model, so thats when the drawing gets my preference.


I find Scarpa's material choices very interesting, especially in Brion Vega tomb, where fascinating wood patterns meet metal against concrete, lined with water and vegetation:

The plasticity and serenity into which Scarpa works the concrete, remind me of Tadao Ando's architecture:

Brion Vega

Tadao Ando's Church of Light

Nonetheless, I find Ando's work much more refined, elegant and spatially rewarding. In Brion Vega I sometimes feel that spaces are cluttered with detail and decoration, almost a sort of Baroque of Modernism.

I have to admit though, most of the details are beautiful and carefully designed, and the openings are thoughtfully placed to orchestrate an architectural journey, but somehow they do not work together.  Each element craves for attention and tries to overwhelm the other.

It's almost as if Carlo Scarpa wanted to show off numerous design exercises that he very cleverly managed to solve. 
However, it reminds me more of ornamented Art Nouveau than of purist Modernism.

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In design, I believe hierarchy is very important - hierarchy of spaces, hierarchy of decoration elements, hierarchy of images versus text, hierarchy of colours, hierarchy of fuctions, hierarchy of potential users, etc. It may be direct, chronological, sequential, it can be a narrative, a process, etc. or completely the opposite. I think in Brion Vega, especially its interiors, it is sometimes lost.

Eames House 1948-49


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ideology
american dream
light&airy living
industrial quality
mass production
plywood
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obese Eames chair by Mark Wentzel

Every design has an agenda and a certain ideology behind it. 
In Eames case, they proposed a new way of American living - light, airy, low cost and easily built. Their architecture was targeted towards happy, healthy families, themselves being an iconic example. But then what about the singles, gay couples, etc.? Eames social programme tended to exclude the margins of society, marketing the idealistic couple example.


Is our design work symptomatic of our values and morals at all? It  certainly has a personal signature in intricacy of details or in volumes or in spatial arrangements or in use of materials, etc. 
Interestingly, I have received a comment in one of the crits that my designed object does not reflect the sensitivity of my drawings. Does it mean my work should have a consistent preprogrammed quality throughout?
And one more question - where do our tutors' opinion start to uniform our work instead of merely pointing it towards in the right direction?

1919-1930 Constructivism


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El Lissitzky
Rodchenko
Melnikov
Malevich
Tatlin
Vesnin brothers
Leonidov
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socialist programme
emphasis on graphic and typographic design
dynamism
structural gymnastics
industrial aesthetics
fantastical architectural propositions
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In constructivists' approach to architecture I greatly admire their attempts to design and advocate innovative, and sometimes hardly feasible ways of living. The propositions often had a fantastical futuristic quality them, I find that courage of thought which led constructivists in the early 20th century. Let's look at Konstantin Melnikov's "Sonata of Sleep" - colosseum of slumber.

Following the implementation of Stalin's Five-Year Plan – and in the wake of food rationing and extended work hours – "the shock-troops of Communism were edging perilously close to physical and mental exhaustion: what they needed was rest." Soviet government thus "announced a competition to design a garden suburb outside Moscow, where workers could be sent to recuperate from the strains of factory labor."

K. Melnikov proposed a sort of  'sleep academy' - building that consisted of two large dormitories either side of a central block, and the dormitories each had sloping floors, which was supposed to obviate the need for pillows. At either end of the long buildings were to be situated control booths, where technicians would command instruments to regulate the temperature, humidity, and air pressure, as well as to waft scents and "rarefied condensed air" through the halls.. Specialists working "according to scientific facts" would transmit from the control centre a range of sounds gauged to intensify the process of slumber. The rustle of leaves, the cooing of nightingales, or the soft murmur of waves would instantly relax the most overwrought veteran of the metropolis. Should these fail, the mechanized beds would then begin gently to rock until consciousness was lost.

Brasilia: architecture&national identity

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international style

critical regionalism

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Brasilia by Oscar Niemeyer

Critical Regionalism: 
a strategy for achieving a more humane architecture in the face of universally held abstractions and international clichés. 
Coined by Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre in 1981, the term was seized upon by Kenneth Frampton, who argued that architects should seek regional variations in their buildings instead of continuing to design in a style of global uniformity using ‘consumerist iconography masquerading as culture’, and should ‘mediate the impact’ of universal civilization with themes drawn indirectly from the individual ‘peculiarities of a particular place’. 
While appreciating the dangers of industrialization and technology, he did not advocate revivals of either the great historical styles or vernacular type of building. In essence, he sought the deconstruction of global Modernism, criticized post-Modernism for reducing architecture to a mere ‘communicative or instrumental sign’, and proposed the introduction of alien paradigms to the indigenous genius loci. 
He cited the work of Aalto and Utzon as offering examples of Critical Regionalism in which the local and the general were synthesized.


Critical analysis of K.Frampton's "Towards a Critical Regionalism" by Scott Paterson here.


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One of my favourite 'critical regionists' and propagators of modernism is Luis Barragan.
Barragán transformed International Style into a vibrant, sensuous Mexican aesthetic by adding vivid colours and textural contrasts and accentuating his buildings' natural surroundings. He once said that light and water were his favourite themes, and soon became skilled at manipulating them both in buildings like the 1966 Folke Egerstrom House and Stables built around a brightly coloured, sculptural sequence of horse pools (Barragán loved horse riding):

 and the 1975-77 Francisco Gilardi House framing an indoor pool:

The key principle to Barragan's buildings was serenity:

"Any work of architecture which does not express serenity is a mistake."

Luis Barragan's architecture is poetic. His work is personal and introverted, constructed from experiences, dreams, and memories (especially of his childhood in hazienda in Mazamitla).

His houses are monastic in spirit and provide a refuge from contemporary life. The closely integrated interior and exterior spaces, surrounded by walls create a private and serene environment. Window sizes are limited except when facing a private courtyard, with its pool and fountain.

As Barragan explained: 
"Architecture, besides being spatial, is also musical. That music is played with water. The importance of walls is that they isolate one from the street’s exterior space. The street is aggressive, even hostile: walls create silence. From that silence you can play with water as music. Afterwards, that music surrounds us." 

The wall is the most Mexican of building elements, and with Barragan it receives a new expression, becoming a sculpture: plastic and monumental. Doors, windows, and other interruptions of the wall surface are placed with the utmost deliberation: the interior is systematically unveiled as the visitor progresses from space to space, creating a sort of "architectural striptease."

Barragan was a master of light: by careful placement of windows and spatial openings, he controlled the amount, direction and colour of light, softening harsh bright daylight and opening up to filtered warm green from the garden:

Through his carreer, Luis Barragan has discovered his country. His architecture can be seen as a distillation of the proportions and details of old Mexican colonial convents, monasteries, and haciendas.Barragan's palette was made of  the vibrant hues of Mexican traditional clothing and festivals: yellows, pinks, reds, and purples. His most characteristic decorative motifs were also drawn from life: groupings of giant pulque fermenting pots on patios

 and colored, mirrored balls which had originally hung inside nineteenth-century pulquerías (liquor stores). They appeared in symbolic clusters on Barragán’s coffee tables.

Maison de Verre 

Muller House


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Maison du Verre by Bernard Bijvoet and Pierre Chareau, Paris 1928-32

Muller House by Adolf Loos, Prague 1930

"The spatial interaction and spatial austerity that thus far I have best been able to realise in Dr Müller's house." - A.Loos

1929-1930 Mies van der Rohe


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god is in the details
refinement
drawing plans
raumsraepresentation
materiality
horizontality
linearity
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"Each material has its specific characteristics which we must understand if we want to use it... This is no less true of steel and concrete [than of wood, brick, and stone]. We must remember that everything depends on how we use a material, not on the material itself... New Materials are not necessarily superior. Each material is only what we make of it... We must be as familiar with the functions of our buildings as with our materials. We must learn twhat a building can be, what it should be, and also what it must not be... And just as we acquaint ourselves with materials, just as we must understand functions, so we must become familiar with the psychological and spiritual factors of our day. No cultural activity is possible otherwise; for we are dependent on the spirit of our time."


The most amazing thing about Mies van der Rohe for me is his precision, diligence, patience reworking and controlling every detail, attention to every single aspect that might affect how his architecture is perceived. Let's take Barcelona Pavilion, for example. All things are carefully thought through: colour, translucency and opacity of glass, stone patterns, layers of panels and walls, reflection of materials, luminosity inside/outside the building, material language, fixtures, joints, finishes, etc. And light appears to be the core element in this building, crucial for Mies' construction of space. That is why I believe the installation that SANAA architects created for the pavilion in 2008 is a very clever yet subtle comment about it.

The project consisted of acrylic curtains arranged in a spiral within the pavilion, reflecting and distorting views through the structure. As Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa explain, they didn’t want the installation to interfere in any way with the existing space of the Barcelona Pavilion.

“The acrylic curtains rest lightly on the floor and adopt the form of a sinuous spiral. The curtain adapts smoothly to the Pavilion’s inner space to create a new atmosphere. The view through the acrylic material is rather different from the original one, in that it generates gentle reflections that slightly distort the Pavilion.”


Video footage of the installation here: http://vimeo.com/7986712

1916-1926
Modernist theories & dogma
Le Corbusier


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golden section
domino system
french purism
l'esprit nouveu
four types of buildings
"vers une architecture"
five points of architecture
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Le Corbusier, modernist, purist and prolific architect, painter and writer, wouldn't had been where he was in his career if not for the 'tour' around Europe  in his early years. They lasted from 1907 to 1912, when Charles Edouard Jeannerct (his original name) was 20-25 years old. Corbusier's travels took him to Italy, Vienna, Munich (where he worked in Peter Behrens office), and Paris (where he took up an apprenticeship to Auguste Perret, a father of reinforced concrete construction). They concluded with a Voyage d'Orient: to Eastern Europe, Balkans, Turkey and culminated in a visit to Acropolis. 
As an architect, Le Corbusier was largely auto-didact, and in this journey he taught himself a lot what was later the foundation for his practice. Through research of architecture, drawing of buildings and making scrumptious notes he gathered a base of knowledge which shaped his critical thinking. These notebooks were published in 1965; the story starts with the central character defined as having something missing whether he, recognizes it or not. Thus the hero sets off in quest for what is missing, and it is this quest that propels the narrative forward. Defined as a rite of passage, the journey becomes a testing ground full of tension and struggles in which the hero is transformed and finally achieves a new status. (Short analysis of Le Corbusier's book by M. Christine Boyer here http://www.design.upenn.edu/arch/news/Human_Settlements/primitive.html).


Great influence on Corbusier's work had studies of Parthenon and the Golden Ratio.

Also called divine proportion, is when the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is = the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one:

Golden ratio (φ) is a mathematical constant and equals:



Golden proportion is believed to be the most aesthetically pleasing and harmonious, so many artists and architects apply it their work in a principle of a golden rectangle, spiral or triangle:

Golden proportion is closely related to Fibonacci's numbers, where every number is a sum of two previous number in the sequence:

The ratio of what each number is to the next one, is approximately φ (13/8, 34/21, etc).

They appear everywhere in Nature, from the leaf arrangement in plants, to the pattern of the florets of a flower, the bracts of a pinecone, or the scales of a pineapple; from the geometry of the DNA molecule (and the human body) to the physiology of animals.

Le Corbusier in his "Vers une Architecture" (1923) discusses the Golden Section as natural rhythm, inborn to every human organism . However, he does not yet recommend concrete proportions, but only to use tracés regulateurs, measure-rulers, to control the geometrical organisation of design, always façades in his examples.

Later, Le Corbusier developed a scale of proportions which he called Le Modulor, based on a human body whose height is divided in golden section commencing at the navel. From Golden Section of the total height (considered to be 1829mm) and height of the navel results a sequence of measures from 27 cm to 226 cm (and then much more) in steps of 27 and 16.

Explanation of Le Corbusier's Modulor here: http://archididac.com/

Le Corbusier's use of the Golden Section begins by 1927 at the Villa Stein in Garches, whose rectangular proportion in ground plan and elevation, as also the inner structure of the ground plan, approximately show the Golden Section. 

Le Corbusier himself called his Unité d'Habitation in Marseille (1945-52) a demonstration of his Modulor system.

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1916-1924
Modernist factions


de stijl [nl]
bauhaus [de]
purism [fr]
constructivism [ru]
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Rodchenko

Out of all artistic movements in the first decades of 20th century, I find the processes in Russia  the most exciting. 
After WW1 and 1917 October revolution, Russia's political and social structure changes drastically. In this turmoil of events Constructivism sprouts out of Futurist roots, rejecting the idea of "art just for arts sake" in favour of art with social purposes. As well as other parallel avant-garde movements - Rationalism and Suprematism - Constructivism centers around Vkhutemas (Russian state art and technical school founded in 1920 in Moscow), where such artists as Alexander Rodchenko, Kazimir Malevich, El Lissitzky, Liubov Popova and Varvara Stepanova teach. The school has a basic program compulsory to all students (not unlike Bauhaus), consisting of teachings about:

• the maximal influence of color
• form through color 
• color in space
• color on the plane
• construction
• simultaneity of form and color
• volume in space
• history of the Western arts
• tutelage.

 In 1920 the First Working Group of Constructivists arrive at a definition of Constructivism as
"the combination of faktura: the particular material properties of the object, and tektonika, its spatial presence". 
They work on three dimensional designs, as well as on graphic design. 

A.Rodchenko, Construction 2

Naum Gabo, Column

Sternberg Brothers, Apparatus 

V.Tatlin, Monument to 3rd Inernational

Inspired by Vladimir Mayakovsky's words "the streets our brushes, the squares our palettes", constructivists participate in public life throughout; they also work closely with Bolshevik government on propaganda posters, street festivals and decorations. 

El Lissitzky, Beat the Whites with Red Wedge,1919

All art in Soviet Union is to serve the socialist idea - paintings, posters, performances, buildings - all has to be brought to the masses. The Revolution makes new demands on processes of building and presses for new mass housing, new official buildings, new towns an development of the old. At 1919 Congress of the Communist Party Lenin initiates a new policy for better living conditions, educational facilities, including easy access to artistic treasures. Alexander Vesnin, one of Constructivists leaders, calls architects to 'enter into actual life, work in order to organise life, remember that the architect is the shaper of life; he is the appointed builder of socialism'. However, in 1932 Joseph Stalin promulgates the decree "On the Reconstruction of Literary and Art Organizations", making Socialist Realism a state policy. It rejects the non-representative forms of art, because they 'are not understood by the proletariat' (therefore couldn't be used by the state for propaganda). Form and content are often limited, with erotic, religious, abstract, surrealist and expressionist art being forbidden. Form, including internal dialogue, stream of consciousness, nonsense, free-form association and cut-up are also disallowed. Social Realism pushes out these "decadent" art styles, such as Impressionism, Cubism (which existed before revoliuton, so were accounted as 'bourgeois") and Constructivism.The latter is alive for two more year, but then also succumbs.

Example of socialist realism

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This idea of creating a completely new society with new values, where everybody works for a common benefit, a new mechanised life of progress was utopian, but after the October revolution, majority of the people sincerely believed it. And I find it amazing how so many people, especially artists, collectively worked towards this better world, and so strongly held on to this ideal, and were so clear on their agenda what they wanted to create. I admire such passion and effort to change the world. Compared to the creative process I go through, it must  differ quite a lot. Especially in my current project, I design not to express my ideals, morals and values,  but to create a temporary physical and emotional experience, hardly planning that it will change somebody's life.
Or should I, as a designer, take a responsibility of making a world a better place?

1908-1916
Werkbund
Futurism


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industrialisation
deutscher werkbund
dutch expressionism (wendigen)
german expressionism
futurism+constructivism
DADA
WW1
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Werkbund
1907 Hermann Muthesius, Peter Behrens and other sympathetic designers and manufactures form Deutscher Werkbund("German products association"). Their motto: "From sofa cushions to city-building".


In the same year AEG hires P.Behrens to design their corporate identity (he was responsible for all aspects of design, from letterhead and electric light fixtures, to production facilities); he is now considered the first industrial designer.
P.Behrens, poster for AEG

Peter Behrens was a teacher and employer of such great to be architects as Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer.


In part as an oppositionary reaction to Werkbund, German Expressionism movement appeared: anti-rationalistic, emotional, concerned both with form and utopianism. Central to it was Paul Sheerbart's writing and his vision of glass/crystaline architecture. In 1914 Werkbund exhibition in Cologne, Bruno Taut's pavillion was presented, embodying Sheerbart's thoughts. Erich Mendelsohn offered another approach to expressionist architecture in his Einstein Tower:

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1909 Filippo Marinetti publishes Futurist manifesto.


I find futurists' passion for speed, machinery, violence, youth, technology rather fascinating; especially the aesthetics of a machine, they so heartly advocated: precision, function, movement, productivity. As I admire Arthur Ganson's machines, their sole purpose of existence being to be a machine and perform the function:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/arthur_ganson_makes_moving_sculpture.html
The fascination of machines comes when they start displaying human features, e.g. Edward Ihnatowicz's SAM sculpture (video here: http://cyberdesign.ning.com/video/2052966:Video:49)
I want to create this effect as well, so I am putting artificial lungs into my installation - a hoover motor, to make my creature breathe.
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I also find Futurism's effect on music to be very interesting.
In 1913 Luigi Russolo (painter and self-taught musician) writes The Art of Noises. It classified "noise-sound" into six groups:

• Roars, Thunderings, Explosions, Hissing roars, Bangs, Booms
• Whistling, Hissing, Puffing
• Whispers, Murmurs, Mumbling, Muttering, Gurgling
• Screeching, Creaking, Rustling, Humming, Crackling, Rubbing
• Noises obtained by beating on metals, woods, skins, stones, pottery, etc.
• Voices of animals and people, Shouts, Screams, Shrieks, Wails, Hoots, Howls, Death rattles, Sobs

L.Russolo and his brother Antonio used instruments they called "intonarumori", which were acoustic noise generators that permitted the performer to create and control the dynamics and pitch of several different types of noises. 

Intonarumori

Almost like primitive indigenous tribal music of simple rhythms and noises, worshipping spirits of the nature, gods of earth, sun and water, futurist music celebrates the Machine, its coveyer belts, cogwheels, screws and engines.
Some of Luigi Russolo music here: http://www.ubu.com/sound/russolo_l.html

1905-1908
Adolf Loos
Frank Lloyd Wright




ornament&crime
raumplan
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usonian
prairie style
organic architecture
hemicycle designs
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Adolf Loos (1870-1933) criticised Viennese Secession for its overabundant ornamentation, advocating simplicity as a sign of spiritual strength, maturity and advanced culture. From his Ornament&Crime, 1908:


"... the evolution of culture marches with the elimination of ornament from useful objects."


Loos buildings' facades do not give out what is going inside. Neither his 'woman with no eyebrows', Goldman and Salatsch building announced that it was a tailoring shop back in 1912, nor (never built) Josephine Baker's house reveals intimacy of actresses private life.
Josephine Baker's house, 1927

The interior spaces of his buildings were composed according to Raumplan - architectural thought, embodying Loos' understanding of economy and functionality. It rests on the stepped heights of the individual rooms according to their function and symbolic importance. As Loos explains it himself:

"My architecture is not conceived in plans, but in spaces (cubes). I do not design floor plans, facades, sections. I design spaces. For me, there is no ground floor, first floor etc.... For me, there are only contiguous, continual spaces, rooms, anterooms, terraces etc. Storeys merge and spaces relate to each other. Every space requires a different height: the dining room is surely higher than the pantry, thus the ceilings are set at different levels. To join these spaces in such a way that the rise and fall are not only unobservable but also practical."

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Adolf Loos was greatly influenced by American architect Louis Sullivan. Sullivan in his essay Ornament in Architecture (1892) was talking about very similar ideas to what Loos later did:

"I shall say that it would be greatly for our esthetic good if we should refrain entirely from the use of ornament for a period of years, in order that our thought might concentrate acutely upon the production of buildings well formed and comely in the nude."

Sullivan's National Farmers' Bank, 1908 

Brief as it was, Louis Sullivan's career profoundly influenced another great architect - Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959).

"It is the pervading law of all things organic, and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things super-human, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law."

This Sullivan's thought also widely reflects in Wrights practice.
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Characteristics of F.L.Wright's architecture:


> Prairie style - houses with low horizontal lines and open interior spaces, low-pitched roof, overhanging eaves, central chimney and clerestory windows.

The Frederic C. Robie House in Chicago, 1909

> Usonian style - (abbrev. for United States of North America) grew out of prairie style. Democratic, distinctly American style that was affordable for the "common people". Houses had no attics, no basements, and little ornamentation; usually were small, one-story structures set on concrete slabs with piping for radiant heat beneath.

Zimmerman House, 1950s

> Organic architecture - every building should grow naturally from its environment, and spaces be integrated into a unified whole. From An Organic Architecture, 1939, by Frank Lloyd Wright:

"So here I stand before you preaching organic architecture: declaring organic architecture to be the modern ideal and the teaching so much needed if we are to see the whole of life, and to now serve the whole of life, holding no 'traditions' essential to the great TRADITION. Nor cherishing any preconceived form fixing upon us either past, present or future, but - instead - exalting the simple laws of common sense - or of super-sense if you prefer - determining form by way of the nature of materials..."

Taliesan West school, Arizona, 1937

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I find my current project to reverberate Wright's thoughts about organic building - architecture fit into its environment, using materials that are characteristic to the site. My installation will be made out of black liquid latex, blending into car park full of car wheels dressed in black vulcanized rubber tyres. The skin of the object will grow on plastic bags and bin liners, that are so often thrown away and lie about in the car park as well Hyde park above.