October 2015  Claebon Sandell

 

 

 

 

ABSTRACT

 

Architecture performs by controlling and contriving ones experience of a building. Of which the form drives the experience contrasting with the modernist philosophy, ‘form follows function’. Performative architecture controls our perception: distorting view and creating illusions, using technology to challenge the built environment.

Architects use misrepresentation and illusions to create a unique bodily experience, manufacturing a phenomena. The Blur Building (2002) by Diller + Scofidio is a prime example of performative architecture, creating an experience that changes your perception, distorting all senses. Anything from a breeze or the change of atmospherical pressure can alter the form. This essay aims to understand the Blur Building as phenomenology through the use of performance in it’s architecture, specifically focusing on surface, form and technology. This paper looks at the between the views of Arts of Wonder and Blurred Architecture: duration and performance in the work of Diller + Scofidio. Discussing how performance architecture relates to the theory of phenomenology, how the blur performs in terms of surface, form and technology, and the effect on the bodily experience. Further looking into the technology that forms the cloud appearance; the smart weather system which regulates the cloud and the braincoats which create social implications. New technologies allow architects to radicalise there thinking, pushing the built environment beyond expectations to distort the sense and create new human experiences. Performance architecture uses digital technology that challenges the built environment, allowing for more complex forms and systems. The cloud is constructed of suspended water particles, pumped through high pressure nozzles to create the fog resemblance. The pumps of the blur are controlled by a computerised climate system. Performance architecture is used as a tool to provide evidence that  the Blur Building corresponds to this critical framework of phenomenology.

 

 

 

Architecture performs by controlling and changing our experience. Form drives the experience contrasting with the modernist philosophy, ‘form follows function’.[1] Performative architecture controls our perception: distorting view and creating  illusions, using technology to challenge the built environment. Architects use misrepresentation and illusions to create a unique bodily experience, manufacturing a phenomena. Performance architecture is designed under the theory of phenomenology either intentionally or accidental. The Blur Building (2002) by Diller + Scofidio is a   prime example of performative architecture, creating an experience that changes your perception, distorting senses and a falsification of reality.(fig.1) There are no two experiences of the blur that are the same, the building warps as one moved through it due to climate and people. This essay aims to understand the Blur Building as phenomenology through the use of performance in its architecture, specifically focusing on surface, form and technology. Discussing how performance architecture relates to the theory of phenomenology, how the blur performs in terms of surface, form and technology, and the effect on the bodily experience. Further looking into the technology that forms the cloud appearance; the smart weather system which regulated the cloud and the brain coats, which created social implications. This paper sits between the views of Arts of Wonder and Blurred Architecture: duration and performance in the work of Diller + Scofidio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: (Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofido)

Figure 1: The Blur Building’s cloud form, floating around a steel platform above Lake Neuchatel

 

The study of a phenomena know as phenomenology is an innovative way to observe a person’s environmental relationships and human experiences. Phenomenology looks at the importance and symbolising of place to people and the environmental and architectural design effects on place making.[2] Exploring and describing the building and experience in relation to all senses; hear, smell, touch, taste, feel, intuit, understanding and the known.[3] Phenomenology provides a conceptual language for architectural theory to develop an understanding of the human experience of a building and an ‘architectural manifesto of space, structure and order,’[4] the Blur Building disrupts these three; space, structure and order. This disruption occurs by combining an unlikely material choice and computational architecture, resulted in a solid form that can beentered. This resulted in a new bodily experience unlike any other in the human world, creating a divine encounter that allowed visitors to experience walking through a cloud. The critical framework of phenomenology can be applied to the Blur Building.Performance architecture is used as a tool to provide evidence that the Blur Building corresponds to this critical framework of phenomenology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2: The Blur Buildings form is altered completely form a gust of wind, changing continually.

 

The Blur Building sits between the worlds of architecture, art and computation.[5] The Blur Building has no substance or surface, it just appears to be a cloud floating above Lake Neuchatel, Switzerland, built for the Swizz expo in 2002.[6] The structure is made up of a suspended mist cloud, sitting around a steel frame platform, viewed in figure 1. The cloud appears to be floating just above the lake. The blur couldn’t be considered architecture in the traditional sense as it can create a new way of contemplating. The blur is without skin, only a solid form that can be entered. The cloud is constructed of suspended water particles pumped through high pressure nozzles to create the fog resemblance.[7] The fluidity means any breeze or change in atmosphere can completely alter the building’s form, as explain in figure 2.[8]  The building is hence continually changing however the blur has no physical surfaces to touch yet one can enter and be engulfed by the form experiencing an entirely new definition to a space or room. This paper discusses the performance of surfaceless and high-technological architecture through the Blur Building. Due to the buildings continued changing form, it cannot be defined.[9] A gust of wind or the change in atmosphere can completely alter the form and experience of this performing cloud changing as one journeys through. (fig. 2) Views are contrived from within, seeing nothing but white in one moment. People within become part of the experience and performance, lighting up in the ponchos been seen or hidden within the mist, demonstrated in figure 4. The visitors describe the experience of the blur as enchanting. The blur symbolised ‘a fleeting monument to the integration of architecture and the event, structure and information, within our twenty-first century environment.’[10]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: (picture by Kate Gollings)

Figure 3: The Dazzle Shed distorts our perception of space, using illusion recycled from the world wars.

 

Architecture performs by controlling and contriving ones experience of a building. Creating a phenomena by producing an unexpected experience of one or more senses. Typically altering our visual perception and understanding of a space like the Dazzle Shed (1996) by Elenberg Fraser, seen in figure three.[11] The building is based on camouflage techniques used on the ships in the world wars. This technique was used to alter the perception of space due to the binocular vision, ships appeared faster in the foreground and slower in the background. Speed, direction and size became an unknown, making it difficult for enemy teams to aim correctly to hit the ships. The Dazzle Shed has the same effect, from one angle it looks like a flat art work on the wall, this view is seen in figure three, the painting techniques make it impossible the gage its size, from another it consumes the entire backyard. The camouflage techniques do not only disguises its size and what the object actually is, it performs by using optical illusions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4: The experience of the blur changes as one moves through it, were no two experiences are the same.

 

Blur is an example of performative architecture. Explicitly, Blur offered a distinctly different spatial program and posed new questions as to how we interact with and dwell within architecture.[12] The Blur building alters the visual and aural perception and what is known. As you enter the cloud, perception is blurred as demonstrated in figure 4. The artificial cloud is lower to enable human engagement, expectation of the known is distorted, of both architecture and clouds. The visual and aural senses are both blurred as one enters taking away our reliance of them, there is no way to evaluate the size of  the space or direction of movement once inside.[13] ‘The blur building engages in a wider exploration of phenomenology of the senses.’[14] Diller and Scofidio use the mist-cloud to control the experience by limiting sight and overwhelming the ears. Both the Blur Building and the Dazzle Shed perform by creating illusions, altering the senses and perception of spaces, buildings and experiences.[15] Performance architecture effects the human experience and senses, therefore the critical framework of phenomenology is relevant to performance architecture.

 

 

The Blur Building surface and substance is continually changing. Anything from a breeze, to the change of atmospheric pressure to the occupants can alter the form, as demonstrated in figure 2, where a gust of wind disperses the form. ‘As an individual’s journey through the structure actively shifts their experience of the surrounding landscape.’[16] The form is surfaceless, one can be submerged into the building but no edge can be physically touched. ‘Bodies carve through all sorts of new and unexpected spaces, through fluid or erratic motions.’[17] There is no door to open or windows to see through or any possible way of assessing what’s inside the building or the function of the building. During the journey the visitor questions the functionality and what is to befound as one steps beyond their vision, into the blur.[18] With no surface, the Blur Building defines touch in a different way.[19] One cannot grasp a surface but the form can be felt around the whole body, like water when diving into a pool. The building appears to dance with the wind. Getting blown away and dissipating into the lake, while growing back to size again, forever moving with no consistency. (fig. 2) The form cannot be defined to size or boundaries, it interacted with weather, wondering of into the distance or becoming small and shy to conditions.

 

 

Diller and Scofidio engage an audience unlike any other firms, due to their multi- disciplinary studio.[20] Their work straddles the fields of art, sculpture, architecture and high-tech systems. The multi-discipline approach is indisputable in the blur, due to the smart weather system, loused form and the strong structure of platforms and ramps. This multi-disciplinary approach is also evident in their later, larger scheme work, such as the New York, High Line (2011) and the Museum of Image and Sound (2011) Rio de Janeiro. The High Line is an old elevated railway turned into Public Park. The High Line aims to take people out of there busy life while still connecting with the suburbs below, using sculpture and artwork, denial and reward. The Museum of Image and Sound uses the natural landscape to their advantage, where view of the surrounding beach scape are frame within windows of the building, creating art in everyday items.

 

 

The Blur Building situation has been strategically placed. The building sits behind a hill so it’s not visible from the main parade, rather the sounds of the pumps draws people towards the building to investigate.[21] People’s attention is captivated to this cloud, fog or mist that appears to be floating above a lake.

‘Visitors were drawn into the cloud along a four hundred foot ramp, which methodically directed them towards and into the incredible vision of the blur.’[22]

As the visitors drew near to the cloud, aural and visual senses began diminishing, in the literal sense blurred, figure 4 begins to explain this experience. Taking away the visual and overwhelming the aural until it is identifies as white noise.[23] The senses gradually withdraw until the world behind disappears. The building creates and optical whiteout; all that is heard is the white noise of the pumps, and all that can be seen is the white of the fog. Visitors yearned for their vision and sound back on their return. The blur building is unlike entering any building, instead it is compatible to a habitable medium.[24] The blur dematerialises architecture, taking architecture back to the simplest of forms with an unlikely material, creating experiences that are out of this world. The interpretive blank surface ‘challenges the dialectics of architecture and permanence and, in turn questions the distinction between architecture and performance.’[25] The white out effect creates a room that is spaceless and timeless. One cannot clock time or estimate the area due to the limitation of sense. The study of this phenomenon is compelling as the experience of the blur as it cannot resonate with any other.

 

 

New technologies are taking leaps in architecture. Rapidly accelerating the process and development of buildings and allows for more complex forms and systems. Performance architecture uses digital technology to challenge the built environment. Progressing away from optical illusions just being paint on walls. The advancements in technology impels performance architecture, enabling the performative elements to be integrated within the skin and form. Now seemingly simple example of the technology advancements, applied photographs to the skin of architecture engaging meanings in a literal application as did the Eberswalde Technical School Library (1994-9) in Germany. M3 architecture firm use the advancements of technology to conceptualise a new surface typology at the Brisbane Girls Grammar School (2006). It performed by flickering as one passes by, appearing to move, challenging the perception of architecture. The Brisbane Domestic Terminal Short-Term Carpark (2011) by Urban Art Project and Ned Kahn pushes the boundaries of technology to create kinetic façade. Performing as it ripples in the wind and light. These new technologies allow architects to radicalise there thinking, pushing the built world beyond expectations to distort the sense and create new human experiences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 5: The Blur Buildings form from the lake dissipates back into it, creating a sustain system from indigenes materials.

 

 

The Diller and Scofidio exhausted innovative and new technologies to create the floating, dancing form of the Blur Building. The mist appears to gravitate around the steel platform but is made up of a complex system hidden within the steel frame. (fig. 1) The water from Lake Neuchatel was; 

‘pumped through high-pressure mist nozzles to create a cloud formation, the result was a temporary structure that shifted and altered its structure in response to its immediate surroundings: from bodies to weather.’[26]

The form grows from the lake using the indigenous material of water,[27] pumped through nozzles to form the fog which dissipates back into the river, establishing a continuous cycle. The cycles is demonstrated in figure 5, showing the water rising from the lake   then returning to it. The high-technology system gave the building life and created a performance, a form that continually alters due to its surroundings and fluidity. The technology creates an occurrence which blurs the occupant’s senses, constructing the new phenomena.

 

 

The pumps of the blur are controlled by a computerized climate system, the smart weather system.[28] The system regulates the water pressure in relations to humidity, temperature, wind direction and speed. The system resultantly controls the density of the mist. Like the Blur Building, the smart weather system is continually making alterations due to the climate keeping the cloud within a three hundred metre radius where possible. This technology exhibits the advancements in environmental sustainable design.[29]  The high-technology weather system allows for the building to adapt to the environment by altering its system. This keep the building performance animated rather than disappearing into the wind. Without the advancement in technology the Blur Building would just be a glorified jetty, with a blank typology due to the lack of form. Technology has brought stories of buildings alive, altering our senses. The Blur Buildings high-tech, mist cloud deteriorates sound, site and adds a new sensation and meaning to the sensation of touch.

 

 

‘The fog or cloud offered an experience of a vaporized, massless or light world, it provided the perfect setting, Scofidio claims, for the experience of “another all pervading, yet massless medium” of light and flickering messages: the internet.’[30]

On arrival to the Blur Building, a short preference questionnaire is filled and fed into a database. The cloud not only a cloud in the physical sense but also in the virtual sense of the data stored from the questionnaire, symbolic of the wireless systems that are everywhere in today’s society.[31] This data is then fed into braincoats, waterproof, high- tech, wireless raincoats which admit sound and light. The braincoats add another layer to the high-tech performance of the Blur Building.

‘Through both sound and colour, affinity or antipathy to other visitors on the basis of a preference questionnaire filled out upon entry to the cloud.’[32]

Entering the blur triggers the braincoats activation. Lighting up in either red or green as others neared, reliant on the questionnaires compatibility. This created social engagement and moral implications within the building as so many architects strive to do. This is an especially difficult task within the blur as vision is limited. The lit up braincoats begin to add depth to the space, taken away due to the monotone form, diagrammatically shown in figure 4. Aurally the braincoats make a sonar pulsing. The pulse is continuous however timing between pulses change, indicating the distance from other visitors of the blur. This reverses our reliance on our sense, depending on sound more heavily than sight to tell us our proximity to others. Using the aural sense to either approach or retreat from other visitors. The Blur Building allows the observation of the phenomenology of people in the computational environment of a cloud.

 

 

Technology and form has taken over the functions of the building contradicting with ‘form follows function’.[33] Functionality of the blur seems unnecessary to the visitors that flock to see the floating cloud. The technology of the Blur Building is leading edge, taking three and a half years of planning to resolve.

‘The computer-driven fog-making technology yielded a formless “building”, or rather a building whose form would transform with every gust of wind’.[34]

The new technology allows for the complete dematerialisation of architecture, letting the form dance, entice and create a unique experience. ‘The project utilizes these technologies to produce a provocative new social and spatial experience for the  public’.[35] The new technologies drive the forward thinking ideas of performance architecture, bringing public awareness to the advancements in technology. This creates a new excitement and interest within the built environment.

 

 

Without technology the concept of a form without a surface could not have been constructed. The two perfectly complement each other to create the performance of the blur. This performance of the blur creates a human experience unlike any other, altering the sense and dependency on them. It introduces us to new ways to feel and move around a space creating a phenomena. The fluidity of the surfaceless building’s allow the form to be manipulated within the breeze and climate conditions. Along with the smart weather system, this allows for the form to be ever changing without completely disappearing. The blur dematerialises architecture, challenging what is known and understood about the construction of architecture, space, structure and order. With the impaired vision experience within the blur, social engagement seems like a lost cause but the braincoats give visitors social obligations. The sound and lights on the braincoats become a navigation tool in the blur of small water droplets, viewed in figure four the lights enable people to see one another. The sound lets the visitors know there proximity to others, while the coloured lights indicate whether one should engage. The technology takes this performative architecture to a new levels of innovations, creating new bodily experiences. Pushing current boundaries and bringing magic, really illusion to the front of the architectural design.

 

 

Diller and Scofidio have perfectly planned a building that cannot be immobilised, designed to move and perform, never taking shape of a form it has before. The sound draws people to investigate, while the vision draws people into the massless blur. The Blur Building is a prime example of performance architecture following the critical architectural theory of phenomenology. The building plays with illusions, deceiving reality. The blur takes away prime senses of sight and sound, filled with white noise and blurred vision. The visitors understanding of touch and surface is toyed with, as they walk right through what would be considered wall and are submerged into the form.

The form of the blur has no solid boundary, and the constant movement means it cannot be defined. Diller and Scofidio have created a bodily experience that cannot be   compared to any other building, defining no limits to what architecture and technology can achieve. The Blur Building displayed the ameliorations in sustainable environmental architecture, embodying its effectiveness and integration into the built environment.

The Blur Building redefines architecture pushing the conversation with material, form and technology to create a performance unlike any other. The performance of the Blur Building can be defined and understood under the architectural theory of phenomenology.

 

 

1 Hann, Rachel. “Blurred Architecture: duration and performance in the work of Diller Scofidio + Renfro” Performance Research: A Jorunal of the Performing arts, 17, no. 5 (2012):10.

2 Seamon, David. "Phenomenology, Place, Environment, and architecture: a review of the literature." Phenomenology Online 36 (2000).

3 Ibid.

4 Pallasmaa, Juhani. "Identity, Intimacy and Domicile. Notes on the Phenomenology of Home." In Finnish Architectural Review. (1994).

5 Kazi, Olympia. “Architecture as a Dissident Practice: An Interview with Diller Scofidio +

Renfro.” Architectural Design, 79, no.1, (2009) 56.

6 Kosky, Jeffrey L. Arts of Wonder. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013: 65.

7 Hann, “Blurred Architecture,”9.

8 Diller, Elizabeth, and Ricardo Scofidio. Blur: The making of nothing. Harry N Abrams Inc, 2002:325

9 Kosky, Arts of Wonder, 66.

10 Hann, “Blurred Architecture,”9.

11 Brisbin, Christopher. “Optical Effect: Elenberg Fraser’s Dazzle Shed and M3 Architecture’s Brisbane Girls Grammar School.” Sweat: Art, Design, Architecture, edited by Andrew McNamra. Brisbane: IMA Press, 2011: 148.

12 Hann, “Blurred Architecture,”18.

13 Wolfe, Cary. “Lose the Building: Systems Theory, Architecture and Diller + Scofidio’s Blur.”

Post Modern Culture, 16, no.3 (2006).

14 Ekman, Ulrik. "Irreducible Vagueness: Mixed Worlding in Diller & Scofidio's Blur Building."

Postmodern Culture 19, no. 2 (2009).

15 Kazi, “Architecture as a Dissident Practice,”57.

16 Hann, “Blurred Architecture,”17.

17 Tschumi, Bernard. Architecture and Disjunction. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996: 132

18 Kosky, Arts of Wonder,65

19 Ekman, “Irreducible Vagueness.”

20 Kazi, “Architecture as a Dissident Practice,”57.

21 Ibid. 16

22 Kosky, Arts of Wonder, 66.

23 Kosky, Arts of Wonder,66.

24 Incerti, Guido, Daria Ricchi, and Deane Simpson. Diller+ Scofidio (+ Renfro), the Ciliary Function: Works and Projects, 1979-2007. Milan: Skira, 2007:144

25 Hann, “Blurred Architecture,”9.

26 Hann, “Blurred Architecture,”9.

27 Ibid.

28 Ekman, “Irreducible Vagueness.”

29 Ekman, “Irreducible Vagueness.”

30 Kosky, Arts of Wonder,73.

31 Ekman, “Irreducible Vagueness.”

32 Wolfe, Cary. 2012:80

33 Hann, “Blurred Architecture,”10.

34Kosky, Arts of Wonder,66.

35 Diller and Ricardo, Blur,249.

 

 

BIBLIOGRPAHY

 

Brisbin, Christopher. “Optical Effect: Elenberg Fraser’s Dazzle Shed and M3 Architecture’s Brisbane Girls Grammar School.” Sweat: Art, Design, Architecture, edited by Andrew McNamra. Brisbane: IMA Press, 2011.

 

Diller, Elizabeth, and Scofidio, Ricardo. Blur: The making of nothing. Harry N Abrams Inc, 2002.

 

 

Ekman, Ulrik. "Irreducible Vagueness: Mixed Worlding in Diller & Scofidio's Blur Building." Postmodern Culture 19, no. 2 (2009).

 

Hann, Rachel. “Blurred Architecture: duration and performance in the work of Diller Scofidio + Renfro” Performance Research: A Jorunal of the Performing arts, 17, no. 5 (2012):9-18.

 

Incerti, Guido, Ricchi, Daria, and Simpson, Deane. Diller+ Scofidio (+ Renfro), the Ciliary Function: Works and Projects, 1979-2007. Milan: Skira, 2007.

 

Kosky, Jeffrey L. Arts of Wonder. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013: 59-89. Pallasmaa, Juhani. "Identity, Intimacy and Domicile. Notes on the Phenomenology of Home." In Finnish Architectural Review. (1994).

 

Kazi, Olympia. “Architecture as a Dissident Practice: An Interview with Diller Scofidio + Renfro.” Architectural Design, 79, no.1, (2009) 56-59.

 

Seamon, David. "Phenomenology, Place, Environment, and architecture: a review of the

literature." Phenomenology Online 36 (2000).

 

Tschumi, Bernard. Architecture and Disjunction. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996.

 

Wolfe, Cary. “Lose the Building: Systems Theory, Architecture and Diller + Scofidio’s Blur.” Post Modern Culture, 16, no.3 (2006)