Observing people within the built environment and specifically the vast BMA building I noticed people when needing to pause to contemplate, to engage in casual conversation with someone passing by, to look at their phone, to wait for another, do not favour an upright and unsupported position. As people we tend to seek out an architectural element in which we can lean and support ourselves, some of these conventional, others not. By not seeking out a chair and instead choosing to stand and lean we allude to a sense of temporality, a moment in time, an unplanned or spontaneous pause rather than acknowledging we may be situated there for a long duration. It can also be a conscious or unconscious act of territorial claim or ownership as the object becomes an extension of the body itself. Examples I observed included doorways/archways, stair railings, banisters, fireplaces, dado rails, windowsills/ledges, door handles, counter tops/tables, columns, gates, bollards, walls, lamp posts, tree trunks, bicycle handles, car bonnets/roofs and the shoulder of another or themselves. I decided to re-think the typical definition of a typical ‘armrest’ as a ‘support on which to rest one's arm’ and to explore the architectural and urban props which I have observed people leaning upon within the BMA building and beyond. Utilising these architectural forms at different scales I combined them to create a surrealist model and bricolage which then itself has a spatial quality/identity – ‘The Waiting Room’.
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50 Shades of Orange - Material Literacy Experiments
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