Ambient Climatic Field
A transect (transverse section) is a mapping technique. It requires an observer to move along a path to document a sequence of occurrences. Rather than begin with the map of a real place, this investigation asks you to work in reverse: to project what its like to walk through your imagination of different climatic conditions.
Instructions:
Construct five long climatic sequences. Imagine they tell the story of a moving body encountering a sequence of climatic conditions within an environment.
These sequence may be graphical compositions produced by hand, or via software, and annotated with descriptive text.
Think about the qualities and changes in temperature, humidity, pressure, light level. Think about climate across seasons and in changing weather conditions. Do these sequenes pass through both exterior and interior environments? Are the changes in the sequence abrubt, a gradient; smooth or striated?
Establish a simple geometric boundary to represent the limits of a park. Imagine that the five climatic sequences start somewhere beyond this boundary, pass through it, and then depart. Fold the sequences through the boundary so they enter, meet somewhere inside, and then diverge. Now imagine these lines are transects through a space. They can represent several bodies encountering the space, meeting then diverging. Using the transects as a starting point, extrapolate/interpolate the features of the entire boundary.
What happens if you render both landscape and architecture as architecture, rendering every climatic zone to produce a field of containers?
Instructions:
Construct five long climatic sequences. Imagine they tell the story of a moving body encountering a sequence of climatic conditions within an environment.These sequence may be graphical compositions produced by hand, or via software, and annotated with descriptive text.
Think about the qualities and changes in temperature, humidity, pressure, light level. Think about climate across seasons and in changing weather conditions. Do these sequenes pass through both exterior and interior environments? Are the changes in the sequence abrubt, a gradient; smooth or striated?
Establish a simple geometric boundary to represent the limits of a park. Imagine that the five climatic sequences start somewhere beyond this boundary, pass through it, and then depart. Fold the sequences through the boundary so they enter, meet somewhere inside, and then diverge. Now imagine these lines are transects through a space. They can represent several bodies encountering the space, meeting then diverging. Using the transects as a starting point, extrapolate/interpolate the features of the entire boundary.
What happens if you render both landscape and architecture as architecture, rendering every climatic zone to produce a field of containers?
Possible Tools:
Drawing on paper.Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
Nodebox
Relevant Texts:
Heschong, Lisa, Delight, Thermal Delight in Architecture, Massachussetts Institute of Technology, 1979. (link)Allen Stan, From Object to Field. (link)
Allen Stan, Mapping the Unmappable: On Notation (link)
Other Inspiration:
Philipe Rahm (link)
ChicagoParks to Reference:
This investigation begins in the imagination.It can also begin as a map of an existing space.
2025 Spring — Second Nature