Documenting a Primitive

Studio project at The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), instructor Betty Kassis, 2012

For example, a truncated tetrahedron can be seen as a triangular prism whose sides have been chopped by an unseen force. But, in another perspective, the form begins to compose itself, completely outside our intervention, from triangles, circles and their resultant forms. We begin to see a new paradigm emerging within the laws which so diligently govern the overall form. Relationships become apparent which otherwise would have hidden beneath the cloak of surfaces, edges and geometries. In these regards, anything in our formal world may be redefined a new in principle parts.

The project also explored a small branch of methods which can be employed for physically creating the forms. Stick models and surface conceptualizations were employed as means to transverse the digital-physical void in order to gather a more comprehensive understanding of the regulating geometries’ cumulation into the primitive. Beyond this, more technical realms were decomposed for meaning. Model photos and drawings were crafted in place of renderings to formulate a multi-dimensional perspective of how the truncate tetrahedron unfolds itself between the second and third dimensions.

Larger portions of the envelope are colored in abstractions of Hudson Valley School paintings, while lower level areas around the base have an applied floral texture with a slight degree of abstraction.