Reflection – Corbin Stowers

Resilience is the ability of something to return to its original shape after it has been pulled, stretched, pressed, bent, etc. (or burnt). The ephemeral modality of something is something lasting a very short time; short-lived; transitory. A facade is the front or side of a building or a superficial appearance or illusion of something. When thinking about architecture, resilience as an ephemeral modality is usually not the first thing that comes to mind. We usually don’t think of time and its effects on structures that we study or enjoy. When we do think about the ephemerality of structures, we almost never associate it with a positive thought. A ruin due to a long-forgotten battle, walls of a stone structure that hardly hint at a building’s former shape or simply an old rickety house may come to mind.

I didn’t know what to expect at the beginning of the week. We first explored disappearance, and I was still unsure of why that was an important concept. I knew that disappearance related to ephemerality, but I didn’t yet get why. The following day we worked on appearance. I could see that this topic was related to ephemerality, but still didn’t know how this could be an important concept in the class. During our week exploration of disappearance, appearance and reappearance, I began to understand that the ephemerality of things is not something negative and started realizing that during the reappearance part of the week. I came away with the sense that the ephemerality of things reminds us that we need to celebrate the present.

Everything in our world changes, however changes that occur to a building are usually slow and occur over many years and these changes keep going unnoticed. When a change is registered, it is often times not the result of a positive encounter for the building. Since buildings do not exist out of time and they are active members of the ever changing landscape, this change and ephemerality should be celebrated instead of reproached.

For our final project, we explored the celebration of the ephemeral. All components of the structure were meant to go through a metamorphosis. This celebration of metamorphosis was also accompanied by a show for the senses. The crackling sounds and smoldering smells of the moss included flashes of light within. The heat from the fire lit the day and warmed those nearby. And there were even a few surprises with the popping of the bamboo.

The destruction of the fire burns the moss, which causes the hanging paint cups to fall on to the paper canvas below. This destruction in turn creates something new and unexpected. I believe this unexpected discovery in the ephemeral is also an important aspect of it. As more of the moss burns, more paint is spilled onto the canvas. The moss burns away revealing the creation for just a moment before the fire moves behind and begins to consume the creation. The charred bamboo, morphed into a new form, is all that is left. I believe this creation through destruction installation captures the spirit of the ephemeral facade and ephemerality.

Reflection

In my mind, impressionism and the ephemeral are inextricably linked. Monet observes and records slight differences in light and time leading to his series of haystacks, London, and Rouen. Intent on capturing and preserving the ephemeral, the painter challenges the viewer to study their surroundings with the same, astute eye. Celebrating these moments, it seems that the next step is to work toward creating them—where the ephemeral moment itself is the product, the art, the architecture.

While it may be easy to appreciate certain ephemeral effects on a building’s surface, facilitating and encouraging these events through design is something that I have been chasing in design studios. Just preceding Catalyst Week, my studio focusing on Steel and Glass culminated in the design of a hermitage—a small, one occupant dwelling with a focus on meditation and spiritual reflection. The resulting two hundred square foot glass box acted as a simple mirror in some settings and a kaleidoscope in others, remaining nearly transparent from still more vantage points. The modeled effects were exciting to play with, but with Catalyst’s experimentation, I have begun to think more about what can be achieved through more actively seeking and creating these fleeting moments.

Starting with a flash paper demonstration—waiting for a square to dry, then watching it rush into smoke in a moment—the performative and time-intentional possibilities began to circulate in my mind. I appreciated the amount of time spent with no other devotion except to play, especially with such exciting (and new-to-me) elements like electricity, heat, and fire. Through manipulating something so familiar, like candy, in a way that almost seemed like taboo, my mind started to drift to other everyday products that would yield dramatic results.

The idea of The Event permeated through the entire week as we repeatedly huddled around (and stepped away from) tables in Rapson Courtyard. A key discovery, made by many groups always on accident, was the importance of a set-up time. In order for something to be truly exciting, that excitement needs time to build. Kate and I made such a discovery during our Day 3 critique while we made the class wait for water to start a fire. While poetic in itself, the reaction and execution were both off—leading to another important discovery/reminder, that of proportional pay off.

Through the entire week, I struggled with the concepts of scaling—how to test something on a small scale, and then how to bring that to full scale or in combination with other elements. Rube Goldberg machines are difficult to master, and inspired by The Way Things Go, we learned this fact the hard way. Part of me wants to say that several of the projects I worked on for this week were failures, but in aggregate, these trip-ups returned as a new way of thinking on troubleshooting and planning for the inevitable Murphy’s Law moments. Yet another part of me insists that just being part of an event is enough to qualify as something of weight. Who says when a performance ends, when it begins, or if it does what is intended or not?

Being a new student, I had no idea what to expect through Catalyst Week, but in registration, I was drawn in by the weighty word Ephemeral, and held by the promise of electronics, something I knew very little about. I’ve learned several new skills through this course—simple programming, Arduino setup, basic circuit knowledge, and how to test the limits of a smoke detector. Beyond those more obvious examples, I have also started to develop new ways of problem solving and design thinking. I look forward to continued investigations, and can’t wait for the opportunity for “real-world” applications of circuits, elements, and façade.

Reflection on Resiliency – Kate Zimmerman

When I think of resilience, I generally think of something that can withstand change. Something that is permanent and solid. But to look at resiliency through the lens of the ephemeral is to play one against the other and find the resilient within change and the ephemeral within the permanent. Each becomes clearer through the juxtaposition.

Our final project, the wall of flame, had several stages based around, and even within, its transformation. First, the initial structure: wood posts and wire hung with pieces of paper and steel wool. It’s delicate, pieces fluttering in the wind, paper clips sliding out of place at the slightest touch. Then the electrical circuit is completed and a breath is held until that first match lights and starts the chain reaction. As the fire moves it’s caught and held in the steel wool, little sparks running along with wire. Or a spark lands on the flash paper and suddenly there is a burst of yellow flame and a black curl as the trace paper tries to catch up. The contrast of resiliency and ephemeral plays out in each instance, as paper burns fast or slow, or a coating is consumed and blackened patches of steel wool remain. Through these comparisons, distinctions between components become more refined. Fire, the chemical transformation of combustion and consumption, treats each substance differently and in the process makes each one significant.

Change is a reminder of the world around us. A facade made of miniature metal flags waving in the wind brings attention to the movement of air and the sound that it makes rushing through. It’s important to have something that responds to the world, that demonstrates and explores connections and sensations that we start to take for granted in our everyday lives. Wind can be an obstacle, something that pushes and blows hair in your eyes. But creating something made to respond and take advantage of that chaos will turn it into beauty.

We rely on resilience to sustain our way of life. Permanent structures are built to shield us from the elements. But we can become resistant to change. Ephemeral facades remind of us the possibilities hidden within destruction. Both the chance to start something new, but also the beauty inherent within transformation. Whether through the glory of fire or the chance to highlight something through revelation, change catches the attention, and because it inherently demonstrates relationships, it allows us to tell a story. Something as simple as melting wax that hides an image can imbue that image with significance or imply a rebirth or reappearance.

Looking at resilience through the lens of the ephemeral, or vice versa, means paying particular attention to these relationships and the stories that they tell. In design, it means being intentional with change, permanence and transformation.

Reflection | Mezger

Describe your conception of resilience as an ephemeral modality and facades as elements that transform, leaving only traces of their existence.

     The idea of something that is temporary or nonpermanent is not commonly associated with architecture. As a student, I have been taught the concepts of monolithic architecture and studied work by architects seeking fame from their tall, rigid, concrete structures. Taking a minute to step back from this notion and intrigued by the concept of ephemerality, a question arose; why do we see less value in something that is not permanent? Temporariness is taken for granted or pushed aside in our modern society. Fortunately, we were able to spend a week exploring how the nonpermanent can have wondrous effects.

We live in a world of temporary components from time to cell phones to building materials; our consumerist society has taught us that lack of permanence depreciates value and yet the nonpermanent objects are the things we must attain. Whatever negative idea we have of temporary objects there is also a side to it that is very powerful and special. It is a moment in time that cannot be relived and concludes as a single memory. The concept of resilience was also introduced as a function that appears/ disappears/ reappears.

Re-sil-ience: noun 1. The ability of a substance or object to spring back to shape; elasticity 2. The capability to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

This definition does not begin to account for the conditions we explored and the large impact they left after their disappearance over Catalyst week. Exploring the bubble, its ability to come out of a liquid and leave its mark in a moment of time and then retreat into nothingness engulfs the pattern of ephemerally we studied throughout the week. An architectural façade is considered a critical piece of the building, used as protection from elements and sunlight it is a permanent piece of architecture. An exciting moment experienced throughout the week was being able to draw people in but only for a specific amount of time. It arises questions of what just happened? And will it ever happen again? Keeping the one who experienced guessing as to what they are seeing engulfed our idea of ephemerality. A bubble does its job of protecting its interior similarly to how a façade protects its user. Experimenting with an ephemeral façade allowed us to engage the user more in depth than a generic façade. Its impact on the world around it may have been temporary but it leaves a very small and harmless footprint unlike most facades. Its ability to react gently to its surrounding environment is something that has become more interwoven in my classes this semester and a concept that I would like to further in the future.

Ultimately, the study linking facades to ephemerality led to a deeper questioning of how we interact with the world around us. What does it really mean to be permanent versus temporary and what impact does this make within our existence.

Reflection

We most often think of architecture as timeless, objects that stand the test of time. My Catalyst experience, led by Diane Willow and Leah Buechley, was an exploration in the opposite direction, that of the ephemeral and the concept of resilience. The week included various investigations into different mediums, materials, and methods that would transform and change over time, seconds or sometimes hours. The week was divided into studies of making objects appear, disappear, and reappear. The most challenging aspect for myself was when I attempted to take a step back and look at our production and try to see the architectural implications.

We explored integrating technology and coding to better execute our time sensitive explorations. Learning the many capabilities of the Arduino was eye opening. Further instruction and suggestions by Leah led to many successful attempts at making something appear, disappear, and finally reappear with more precise timing and order. Having the use of code introduced during this week has led to many more ideas of opportunities for its use and application in further investigations. I find any chance to learn new subjects and how they can be integrated into design to be worthwhile and often a springboard to more study.

Sketches!

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Palzer Reflection

The process of investigation for Catalyst was one that opened many doors to me, for new ways of thinking about how architecture can also include the temporary.  Webster’s dictionary describes resilience as “the ability of something to return to its original shape after it has been pulled, stretched, pressed, bent, etc.”  However, resiliency is more than that.  The ability to stand the test of time, almost eternal, is a quality inherent of something being permanent.  This was the most fascinating realm of exploration during the week.  Initially my thoughts about how to make something long-lasting were based on a notion of time as duration.  This began to change though when one considered the other charge of the week, that of the ephemeral.  Since ephemeral is something that lasts just a short amount of time, the quest to determine a way to reconcile the two conflicting qualities seemed an impossible or at the very least extremely difficult task.  Combine this with the need to use these qualities as a façade, something we also think about in terms of permanence, added complexity to the problem.

At first, my exploration of a match leaving a burnt residue on a surface was one that allowed for this temporary action to have a lasting imprint.  Later, combined with string, paper and wood, a greater effect was able to be had when the string left a burn mark in the wood of its path of fire.  This however was still too tangible to my knowledge of the ephemeral.  My group wanted to develop a way in which we could add some “magic” into the everyday.  This idea of ephemeral and magic as counterparts is an interesting condition of phenomenon.  Magic has innate temporary qualities in that it engages a viewer for a short amount of time to witness something that appears to defy belief and reality.  While brainstorming ideas in regards to this, we considered how as children a bubble is something that starts to defy a central belief, gravity.  With this in mind, we began to explore the ways in which we could exploit the inherent ephemeral qualities bubbles offer.  Likewise, our material choice was one that could be influenced and acted upon.  At first, we applied the same principals as fire making to the bubble, leaving a lasting effect.  While this answered our notions about ephemerality and permanence, the question about facade was one we wanted to delve deeper into.

This exploration led to two scales, a small scale “wall” and a large scale “wall”.  The results of the exploration speak to the ways in which people discussed the project afterwards.  Through the large scale installation we were able to achieve the “magical” ephemeral qualities a facade can offer.  What’s interesting was that we could “create” the wall at will, by activating the system.  We could also turn the wall off as well. The ability to manipulate a façade and add some magic to the everyday was an important lesson that we as architects should continually strive to bring to the world.

Day 5: Final_Kate Zimmerman & Patrick Moe

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Day 4: Reappear_Kate Zimmerman & Patrick Moe

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Day 3: Appear_Kate Zimmerman & Patrick Moe

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