Ytans materialitet (The Materiality of the Surface)
Project 2006–09. In collaboration with Thomas Laurien, PhD, senior lecturer and designer MFA, HDK-Valand, University of Gothenburg. The project was funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) / Artistic Research and Development (KFoU).
Abstract:
In architecture, surfaces are often treated as means of dividing space. Their materiality constitutes the boundary that defines spatiality. But if space is something variable in our consciousness, the surface is also impermanent. In Japanese cultural tradition, space is conceived as a subjective perception, a physical experience and a changeable process.
The research project, The Materiality of the Surface (Ytans materialitet), sought to examine whether and, if so, how ways of using different materials to form space are connected with different cultures’ conceptions of space. The project, started in 2006, was based at HDK, the Academy of Design and Crafts, at the University of Gothenburg. It was presented in the form of a publication and of an exhibition held from 6 October to 29 November 2009 at the Röhsska Museum in Gothenburg. This multidisciplinary research project combined the skills of an architect and a textile designer specializing in pattern design, which represented a novel approach to the key questions addressed.
Japanese and European spatial traditions differ. In the Japanese tradition, space is conceived as an open, subjective process that changes from one occasion to another. In The Materiality of the Surface, several architects’ ways of relating to the space-forming uses of various building materials were examined and studied, according to different conceptions of space. The study included contemporary Swedish and Japanese architecture. In the first, more theoretical part of the project, the works of two Swedish and two Japanese architectural offices were examined and compared in terms of their use of materials and spatial conceptions. The Japanese architects and their offices were Kengo Kuma (Kengo Kuma and Associates) and Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa (SANAA). Their Swedish counterparts were Gert Wingårdh (Wingårdhs) and Mårten Claesson (Claesson Koivisto Rune).
The second part of The Materiality of the Surface comprised empirical studies and investigations through design and laboratory work. This part of the project focused primarily on glass as a building material. It included aspects of glass design – specifically, how to change the perception of materiality with different techniques, such as lamination and screen printing of building glass. Not enough attention has been paid to the complex of problems surrounding climate, light regulation and undesired visual access in all the glass structures that are built today. These problems were also highlighted in this research project.
The project included design and collaboration with several glass companies: GFAB gemaxglas and Screen Service in Kalmar and Emmaboda Glass, part of the group Saint-Gobain. The glass samples were designed by Kristina Fridh and Thomas Laurien.
The Röhsska Museum exhibition presented some fifty experiments in building glass. These demonstrated and combined techniques and methods of changing glass’ characteristics by means of laminating layers with coloured, black and white patterns (digital and screen prints), with textiles and metals, and by screen printing directly on glass. The exhibition also included a multi-slide presentation of the four architectural offices’ works to show how materials and materiality have been applied and shaped in their architecture.
In the exhibition at the Röhsska Museum, visitors could observe and move along the glass samples in a spatial context, in which the samples continuously changed in relation to space, interacting with each other in layers and with light and being experienced from different viewing points. The exhibition had both an inspiring and an educational assignment, and in the publication Ytans materialitet, the experiments, methods and techniques are described, discussed and reflected on, as well as the more theoretical part of the project.
Göteborg, 2009.