2024

Liminality: Between Movement and Pause

Wuyang(Sarah) Zhao

[email protected]
+64212976666

Section — The sensory information was established before the measured

This inquiry reflects a deep curiosity about how some techniques used in the practice of art, and in particular Monet's (1840-1926) brushstrokes to achieve dissolution of form can translate into architectural design processes. it asks, "how do iterative drawing methods, influenced by the paintings of Claude Monet, assist in the architectural exploration of enigmatic themes, such as liminal?."

Architectural methodology has involved a combination of reading theories and personal repeated experience of the site. The abstract processes of drawing and making model recordings enabled the extraction of spatial analogies, interpreted from literacy readings such as Carols Burns "On Site: Architectural Preoccupations”(1991). It also looks at prioritising qualitative architectural aims within any brief, and whether the methods developed from art practices can be applied to design processes that engage with abstract, often ambiguous concepts.

Specifically, this project uses ‘liminality’ as a test case for the processes developed during the experimental phases of the research. Liminality can be understood to embody transitions, thresholds, and states of in-betweenness, and offers a complex challenge for architectural representation and design.

Considering the field is heavily oriented around drawing processes and the impact of Monet to architecture, especially in his technique such as loose brushstrokes, layering of transparency and 'in plein air' painting. While the concept of liminality is briefly touched upon, academic texts such as Liminal Landscapes : Travel, Experience and Spaces in-Between written by Hazel Andrews and Robert Les is used in my research, it remains significant in this thesis, representing transitional spaces that are both physical and imaginary. I believe that these spaces reflect Monet's painting techniques, particularly his absence of defined lines, using strokes of colour to suggest boundaries and transitions rather than explicitly delineating them.

The project has emerged from several overlapping journeys within the selected landscape, with the brief for the test design project established from the desire to paint ‘en plein air’ and to share the small wetland with others.

The methodology and approach to this research has been through four main themes:

1. Atmosphere and light

2. Monet’s dissolved forms

3. Iterative processes in design

4. Approach to Landscape: ‘Framing the View’ and ‘Embedded in the Site’

These stages inform the development of various site-recording drawing methods, including charcoal rubbings, plaster moulds, and 'plein air 'painting technique. These initial recordings are later transformed through different media, culminating in a collage of translated drawings that shift from the rational to the irrational. Providing opportunities to see differently and delay premature or preconceived conclusions.

The architectural expression of the design process and exploration into ideas of the 'liminal' is through three pavilions, located beside a small body of water in Papakura. The site was chosen as a case study to test methodologies in this thesis. Each pavilion responds to the act of painting in landscape, as individuals or in groups, and considers stationary or transient motion.

1. Atmosphere and light

Process1 — Monet's work is renowned for his mastery of light through the use of individualised brushstrokes and its impact on the representation of atmosphere. This is especially seen for example in his Haystac series 1890-91, a series of 25 paintings of the same subject matter in different light conditions. The focus in this project has been to experiment with several natural light conditions, between objects and across surfaces.

IMG 9271 copy — Final Pin Up Process Board

IMG 9268 copy — Final Pin Up Process Board

2. Monet’s dissolved forms

Process2 — Re-intepretation of paintings.

Process 3 — By separating colour into individual brushstrokes rather than blending and making the strokes invisible to the eye, Monet managed to blur the edges of forms, as if the light was breaking up its surface and making them seem to dissolve into one another. In this project, several experiments focussed on surface modulation and texture.

3. Iterative processes in design

4. Approach to Landscape: ‘Framing the View’ and ‘Embedded in the Site’

Screenshot 2024 10 24 at 8 51 42 PM — Painting 1 of the site in Monet's style of painting.

Painting 2 of the site in Monet's style of painting. In Western Art History landscape painting, there has been a changing relationship between the viewer and the landscape. The Picturesque movement (in the late 18th Century and centred mainly on England) framed the view, and this travelled to New Zealand in the colonial era. A Modernist position has the viewer embedded into the landscape.

The site is in Awakeri Wetland, located in Papakura, a river which is part of the bigger Manukau Harbour and near to where I live. It was chosen because it has been visited by me many times, with experiences and memories overlapping. Repeated yet different journeys and perceptions contribute to the liminal quality I am seeking in this project.

Site research has been mainly influenced by an article titled ‘On Site: Architectural Preoccupations’ by architect and educator Carol Burns, and involved observation and documentation via several making techniques, including site pressings and painting.

The design brief emerged from the site analysis, with three locations within the wetland identified for their characteristics and spatial relationship to each other, and a pavilion designed for each.

This process, from discovery to design, is shown in the final project drawings:

- Pause / breathe / move -

Detail Artist space — Move/ Artist Space Detail

Perspective artist space — Move/ Artist Space Perspective

Section artist space Section — Move/ Artist Space Section

Detail1 Converted — Breathe/ Communal Space Detail

Perspective communal — Breathe/ Communal Space Perspective

Communal space — Breathe/ Communal Space Section

Pause/Liminal Bridge Section

This platform intends to create the notion of pause, which plays a central role in the design. The transition in materials—from concrete to timber—further reinforces this sense of change, and reinforces the idea of pause. A single column placed nearby in the water is used to also reinforce pause, where it marks the platform and its significance in relation to the ground.

It is the liminal threshold between the pavilions of activity, and it subtly re-orientates the pathway and replaces one of the existing bridges.

It is spatially neither here nor there.