“In the paradox of architecture, the contradiction between architectural concept and sensual experience of space resolves itself at one point of tangency: the rotten point, the very point that taboos and culture have always rejected. This metaphorical rot is where architecture lies. Rot bridges sensory pleasure and reason.”
This point that Bernard Tschumi skillfully identifies will serve as the basis for this project. Rooted in post-structuralist thinking, the idea is to hijack and destabilize the conventional “truths” assumed by the Cartesian cogito. To achieve this, the project will focus on surfaces of bodies, effects, intensities, impulses, flows and eroticism.
This approach will give rise to issues of identity, politics, urban development and our constantly evolving relationship with the concept of nature. For example, if different ideological agendas collide on a site, they will have a physical influence on the built space over time. In this context, what role can architecture play as a mediator to facilitate the dialogue between distinct “natures,” agents and bodies?
As a starting point, the project assumes a pre-existing condition of ambivalence regarding the site, representing a blank slate for experimentation. This experimentation will take the form of self-exploration, while investigating the relationship between other bodies and the environment these bodies inhabit. Following an interdisciplinary approach, this project will investigate how the needs of human-nonhuman assemblages can give rise to a new kind of transgressive architecture, for a temporary period of time.
