Sheer SilhouettesUnit3: Provocation of the SensesArchitectural Design Portfolio_FarihinJaafar

Revolt of the object (part 1)1-2

Pecha Kucha3-5

Revolt of the object (part 2)6

Perception7-8

Revolt of the object (part 3)9-46

Contents

Revolt of the object (part 1)

The unit begins with students collecting objects that are made of different materials that, if put together, could potentially produce an interesting dialogue between the different objects as one piece of sculpture.

Here I have initially chosen 4 different objects that is the ce-ramic jug, gold-painted-wood napkin holder, plastic keys of the keyboard and a metal mesh. Reasons for choosing these objects are that the jug, although simple has an effortless beautiful design with a glazed-cracked effect. As for the keyboard keys it repre-sents education, progression, technology that surrounds us today, and also plastic as a material that is exhaustive and finite, but very valuable to us today. The napkin holder, a gold-painted wood carved in a shape that defies the nature of the material itself and it looks solid from afar but in fact really it is light.

Having to make a sculpture out of these objects proves to be chal-lenging, and so the idea of fragility, and function came about into creating this sculpture. Alterations to the solid objects were made to “challenge” the materials, where the mesh sculpted into the form of the jug; the jug was deliberately smashed and pieced together but leaving out a few pieces; leaving the key-board keys as it is and cutting and burning the napkin holder to reveal its true “nature”. The mesh that was sculpted into the form of the jug represents the idea of the jug’s function, where it certainly looks like a jug but it does not function as so. It also acts as a support in holding together the broken pieces of the jug that were left and glued together, and its contents (key-board keys and wood napkin holder).

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Pecha Kucha(20x20 presentation)

The pecha kucha is a rather intriguing concept of sharing and pre-senting ideas to an audience. The time constraints of 20 seconds for each of the 20 slides or photos are very valuable and in some cases might be too long. To present, a lot of thought has to be put into it with careful organisation and the speech that goes along with it needs to be clear, concise and on point. It’s different in the case of putting together a pecha kucha presentation that consists of 3 people in a group. Challenges include, dividing tasks, input, and coherence throughout the presentation.

In our group we found 7 similar themes across our sculptures. These similarities are time, process, broken/whole, function, contain-ment, particles, mass/weight, fragility and transparency (can be seen next page).

Along with these similarities, we also looked into other artists and architects that cover a similar concept that we were looking for. I looked into architect Arturo Franco (pg. 5) mainly because of him using ceramic roof tiles in building the interiors of a for-mer slaughterhouse, not only because it is environmentally friendly but also it is unconventional. The spaces created with these walls of ceramic are eerie, resulting in a sort of dull and gloomy mood. Another architect firm I explored for this Pecha Kucha is the Stu-diogreenblue (pg. 5) based in Japan with their ‘Distance of fog’ House. It is literally inspired by the idea of fog, into a series of varying size of perforated metal walls, arranged at a particular distance to create the illusion of “solid wall”. These “solid wall” are the only barriers between private and public space within the household, and so the walls need careful thought, and proves to be quite successful. This precedent was what triggered my subsequent design.

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Pecha Kucha[Slide Photos]

[Farihin Jaafar]

[Carlos Baker]

[Duncan Robertson]

[Similarities]

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Studiogreenblue‘Distance of fog’ house

[Precedent]

Arturo FrancoWarehouse 8B - Slaughterhouse

[Precedent]

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Revolt of the object (part 2)

We were asked to produce 10 A5 photos looking at our sculpture in a different perspective by placing the sculpture in different context, taking photos in varying angles and distance. This way, one can hope to truly uncover the hid-den truth of the sculpture. For this part of the project, I have put my sculpture in different situations and composition to further explore my idea of function, fragility and transpar-ency.

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Perception[Inspiration Photos]

Of the 10 photos 3 were selected to be the most interesting and best resembles my sculpture in a not so obvious way. In groups of 9, we had to look at the three photos each and derive a possible architectural expression, and material building/landscape. From that discussion I decided to explore the shadows and transparency in my drawings. I also considered the materials to be concrete, metal mesh, and perforated metal walls. I imagined my building to be simple with elements of translucency incorporated into it. The mesh as a layer that screens the light coming into the building creating an intriguing room setting with interesting shadows, and also the mesh as a sort of identifier peeling away around the building to reveal rooms of public and private.

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{delaminating layers}

{logical and illogical path}

{organic mesh and translucency}

{Shadow and material play}

Perception[Inspiration Drawings]

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Shadow Puppet Theatre[Project Introduction]

Revolt of the object (part 3)

Wayang Kulit as it is called in Indonesian is a simple tradi-tional shadow puppet theatre widely known in Asia. The basic theatre needs only light, a screen and the puppet. According to tradition the puppets are usually made of buffalo hide and mounted on bamboo sticks. Characters and storylines are based on romantic tales and fantasies, but adaptation to the audi-ences’ preference has changed the identity of shadow puppetry.

In the modern world where we are consumed by the power of vi-sion and technology, this tradition seize to be extinct as the appreciation of tradition and culture heads to oblivion. And so bringing in this culture to the city of Edinburgh attempts to revive and promote the lesser-known tradition of Wayang Kulit.

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Seeing today ‘s advancement in technology, we can afford to elaborate a simple tradition in a grander scale. The building will specifically adhere to the shadow puppetry and meet the basic requirement, i.e. screen, light and puppet. Surely the centre acts as an ambassador to the culture therefore a workshop where the public can come and learn about the culture and hands on experience in how to make the puppets traditionally are also included in this brief. Since it is a perfor-mance theatre the storage room is essential to store all the props and equipments needed. The building has two performance area; formal and informal. This is to enable rehearsals and formal shows to be held as needed or even simultaneously. Both these performance areas are not limited for shadow puppetry; it could also accommodate seminars, public presentation and such.

Building requirements to consider (minimum area - may be altered as appropriate):

Primary performance area 150m2 Secondary performance area 100m2 Workshop/Craftsroom 100m2 Storage room 50m2 Changing rooms (male & female) 50m2 Toilets (includes accessible) 10m2 Reception/Office 60m2 Lounge 25m2 Circulation 20m2 Total 565m2/6100 sq ft.

Introducing “Wayang Kulit” to Edinburgh

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Granny’s Green, Grassmarket[Location]

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[Site Plan]

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Elevation1:200

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Plan [Grnd floor]1:200

1 - Reception/Lounge/Cafe2 - Kitchen3 - Toilets4 - Buffer zone

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Plan [-1st floor]1:200

1 - Formal/Primary Performance area2 - Backstage3 - Prepearation Room/Backstage4 - Toilets

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Plan [-2nd floor]1:200

1 - Workshop space2 - Office3 - Storage Room4 - Toilets

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Plan [-3rd floor]1:200

1 - Informal/Secondary Performance area2 - Backstage3 - Prepearation Room/Backstage4 - Toilets

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Section A-A1:200

A

A

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Section B-B1:200

B

B

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Section C-C1:200

C

C

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{a spectacle at night}

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{enjoying the performance}

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{performance theatre}

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{leaving the performance theatre}

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{approaching the performance theatre}

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{focusing into}{approaching the performance theatre}

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{towards the building}

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{meeting in place}

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{informal performance area}

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{informal performance area}

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Shadow Puppet Theatre[model]

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Architectural Design Portfolio 2010/11

Unit 3: Provocation of the sensesCourse instructor: Mark Walker and Sarah Webb

Student Name:Farihin JaafarStudent No.: s0951274