Bodies of Desire
'Bodies of Desire' is an architectural exploration that contemplates the ethics of desire through a programme of ocean swimming pools at Achilles Point, Auckland. The programme, through its connection to water and ocean, interacts with theories of desire; specifically bodies, fluidity, and entanglements, and situates the architectural apparatus to a physical site.
Beginning with an examination of desire’s linguistic origins in Ancient Greek lyric poetry, the project tracks desire’s slippery discourse via theories of lack, bodies, matter, and performance. Through studies of what might comprise an architectural language of desire, to how such a language interacts with material and exceptional forces, the project proceeds via a reparative reading of texts and a conjunctive approach of utilising different mediums: photography, video, model-making and writing, as a means of locating desire between modes of making.
In exploring desire through relationalities, this thesis proposes a connection to, and empathy for, bodies (animate and inanimate, human and non-human, and so forth). It gestures towards our ethical relations to one another through architecture and beyond.
