MONSTERS WITHIN ARCHITECTURE

GESTURES OF A PUFFERFISH

(de)Monstrative architecture was a theme that connects architecture with a certain exotic animal’s special mechanism. A wearable body amour/tool was designed to create an abstract drawing which portrayed the animal’s special abilities. My animal was the pufferfish, and I explored the expansion of its body and how a primary system affects a secondary system. I created a machine that imitates thepufferfish’s expansion. The user wore the machine on his/her arm and pulled a handle which triggers a series of “scales” to expand, and that expansion then pushed the spikes attached onto the “scales”. The charcoals attached on the spikes then creates a drawing (left) that showed the expansion and contraction of the pufferfish.

The sequence following the body amour and the charcoal drawing was to design a dwelling for a person who was obssessed with the pufferfish. The dwelling must reflect the uniqueness of the animal and its movements. A site was designed to accomodate the dwelling. I approached the design of this dwelling by creating two separate systems. The two systems were derived from the charcoal drawing on the previous page. The first system was a series of uniform and regulated strokes, and the second system was  a series of chaotic and random ones. The two systems must merge into each other to create volumes and voids. The wood in the model was a representation of the uniform system while the aluminum plates was a representation of the chaotic system. The metal cut into the wood and seemlessly created excavations and spaces which accomodated the various programs required for the dwelling.