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Interior
Architecture Week 1 Intensive Studio – Dollhouse
To start off the 2005 study year and to familiarise themselves to the
new Kaurna Building, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th year Interior Architecture
students undertook an intensive 1-week studio entitled “Dollhouse”.
Students worked in groups of 4 or 5 that were comprised of a combination
of 2nd, 3rd and 4th year students. The “Dollhouse” brief was as follows:
‘Dollhouse’ Interior Architecture Intensive Studio, Week 1, 2005
‘The dollhouse is a materialised secret; what we look for is the
dollhouse within the dollhouse and its promise of an infinitely profound
interiority’ [Susan Stewart]
Aims
- To develop collaborative communication skills and expand peer
learning strategies
- To expand design, construction, detail, composition, and
materiality knowledge
Brief
In interdisciplinary teams of 4 or 5 you are to create a ‘doll’ and a
house for it in which it can dwell, sleep, cook and eat and ablute. This
project is not graded but will be judged for a prize at the concluding
exhibition.
The
doll
- Mounted on card the same size and format of your dollhouse you are
required to design a doll (any scale). We do not want replications of
commercial dolls such as barbie, bratz, legoman, gi joe or my
favourite pony, but rather as a group you create a unique and
distinctive doll/s which will act as an imaginative device for spatial
fantasies. It must be humanlike, can be cartoonesque, but not
necessarily replicated after anyone real. If you wish you may also
want to design its friends/family/partner - Refer weblink
http://www.whitewall.com.au/toys.html
- As a group you are to create the doll's physiological appearance:
What does it look like? Is it male, female, androgenous? You can do
this either as a hand drawing, computer modelled image or physical
model.
- Together you are also required to establish its physcographic
profile: What does it do? What does it like? What does it think? What
does it eat? What does it wear? Where does it come from? Is it single
or does it have a partner, a family? Does it have friends? What star
sign is it? What are its idiosyncratic qualities? What are its
politics? You must describe this in carefully selected text and or
images. The doll (or dolls) can be designed digitally or hand made and
presented on the board as such with its personal profile at any size.
This board is to be a graphic exercise in its own right which embodies
the same qualities and characteristics of the doll and its house.
- You are also required to fabricate (hand make) a doll (or dolls)
to be positioned in the dollhouse at its relative scale 1:50.
The
house
- It is intended that the dollhouse not advocate the standard
conventions of dollhouses, as Susan Stewart claims in her text but
will embody ‘the extraordinary importance of the small details of
life’ in exquisite miniature.
- The volume of the space is no larger than a standard shoebox and
can have small or large footprint (9x5 or 14x5)
- Height/length 9m/14m Length/height 14m/9m: Depth max 5m
- You are required to build a 1:50 scale model to be constructed in
section and can be fabricated from any material but must reveal its
constructional elements (eg rafters and floor joists in section,
window details and floor/wall/ceiling connections). Of particular
importance are the details such as the design of the balustrade/s and
original built in joinery units (if any). Once again it must reveal
the idiosyncratic qualities of the doll(s).
- You are also required to provide accompanying hand drawings (in
ink pen or pencil, not digitally) indicating spatial configurations,
furniture layout, collections and objects, colour, pattern,
materiality and shading (light). These are to be presented on board/s
the same size and orientation as your model, doll drawings and
profile. They can be plans sections and 3d drawings and can be in
(controlled) sketch form but must once again reflect the distinctive
and particular qualities of the doll.
Exhibition
At
the end of the studio, the students’ work was publicly exhibited and
judged by the Head of School, Professor Mads Gaardboe. The winning
projects received vouchers from Eckersleys Art Supplies.
Runners up: “ Wolgum” by Emily Aukett, Sharon Smith, Carly Gowers
and Joanna Williams
Winning group: “Horde” by Daniel Stanning, Peter King, Jaquie Hagan,
Madeleine Potter, Kate Flavell and Meaghan Williams”
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