“The attainment of weightlessness is the highest aim of technology... in the spiritual realm man is weightless”
- Kazmir Malevich
the question
This project began with a search for constancies in human life.
It has been postulated that perception, from a physiological to a philosophical level is predicated upon by a search for constancies. Constancies of appearance, constancies of emotion, constancies of abstraction. These constancies (the similarity of a cloud to a familiar face, of a rock to a horses head, of a feeling to a sound or smell) become the accumulated precepts by which life is absorbed and interpreted by the conscious and unconscious (dreaming) mind and body. The constant flux of modern life and culture continually challenges and reconstitutes these precepts. The statutes upon which an individual’s understanding of the world is based shift from day to day, year to year. Some fundamental constancies common to all, persist in this continuous shower of modulation, irrespective of culture, geography and history:
The cycles of the earth – diurnal and seasonal patterns
Life and Death – the absolutes demanded of all living things
The body – that “unparalleled phenomenon of which we are in perpetual, undivided, possession”
The family – the emotional nursery, playground and school of the next generation
Project Credits:
Architect:
Ralph Parker
Diploma in Architecture Thesis 2000
Thanks:
Sara Talai
Awards:
Oasys Design Awards Student First Prize 2000
A proposal
The ground is contaminated...
...but the sky is clear
let nature reclaim the ground and purify the soil
we live in the sky - but in time, amongst the trees
not leaving the earth
neither launchpad nor viewing platform
but anchor
anchor to the earth.
anchor to the body.
anchor to the child.
extract: A POST HISTORY OF ATTERCLIFFE
The garden, which had receded with the coming of the children,
blossomed again now that they had flown the nest, with strawberries (on the architect’s suggestion) growing on the utmost roof. They didn’t grow very well on account of being so exposed but neither he nor she had the heart to tell the architect.
“Crazy? he’s not the one who’s lived up a pole most his life.” She replied smiling
“No, he just designed it.” Good counter.
