Reinterpretations is a new series of investigative articles that identifies a single construction component and trace it across the body of work from an architecture practice. Each article identifies the component and elaborates on its development, noting a consistency or modes of reinterpretation in the reuse of normative construction components.
While each of the articles shows a concise use of a component, the analysis opens up the potentialities of each component to be analyzed outside of its derivative to draw out new modes. A method of practice should be formed. It is not a philosophical query nor an entirely practical account. It is the convergence of both towards ‘practical theory’. This remains a work in progress until the components identified are redeployed in new projects.
If we take as given the contemporary profession lacks a holistic position – be it ideological, stylistic, aesthetic or rational – and that no theoretical construct is projected in response, then it may well be seen as contradictory to propose a design theory that is seemingly doing just that. But this series and method of practice (Reinterpretations) is not intended in this way; instead, at its outset, it is the identification of a problem – a lack of disciplinary criticality.
A particularly broad stroke identification of course, but our specific solution is to consider architectural design at a fundamental level: to look at a component and let it devise new forms of design, typologies, innovations in program, etc. We are not stating an universal approach to be taken on by all but rather that our way of working may help to clarify and highlight that the possibilities are endless without dogmatically assigning style, theory or manifesto.
We do not advocate for a new movement or style, instead we suggest that Reinterpretations is entirely dependent on unfettered explorations. For practitioners to undertake their own individual vision in response. Reinterpretations refuses to conform to established conventions or narrative descriptions and instead seeks to mobilise the profession and entice each to develop their own personal idiom in a similar convention.
To reinterpret what makes architecture and what architecture makes.
Check out the first article in series, here: Diller Scofidio + Renfro: The Suspension of Disbelief
Top image:“Vertical Boulevard,” extension of beach promenade along façade, The Museum of Image and Sound; courtesy of DS+R