Subject, Site and Sight: Freud and Tschumi on the Acropolis

In 1904, diverted by circumstance to Athens rather than Corfu, the brothers Freud found themselves unhappy by the change in destination. Standing on the Acropolis, an uncanny thought had entered Freud's mind: `So does this all really exist like we have learned it at school?' The experience seemed one of unreality, and Freud categorized it as `A Disturbance of Memory' during which he observed himself as separating into himself and another whose perception of the situation was an entirely different one. Spectators in the theatre of Dionysos, or any other theatre, anywhere and at any time, are willing participants in the conspiracy of this double act of looking that produces the exact double consciousness, or: autoscopic experience, that Freud describes so persuasively. In architectural discourse, the consideration of autoscopy in conjunction with processes of reverse projection, argued here to be a performative practice that engages with site in a critical discursive manner, poses a counterpart to phenomenological positions that speak of the identity of body and self

The 1:1 Architectural Model as Performance and Double

The Model as Performance Generally, the architectural model is thought of as an expression of material exploration and experimentation, utopian ideas and speculative construction. Together with drawing, the model is the designer’s main communication tool, and typically, the scaled-down model invites the viewer to look but forbids entry. The space that the scaled-down model suggests through abstraction and representation cannot be ‘felt’ (Merleau-Ponty), the full scale inhabitable model on the other hand elicits affective responses. And while the ‘space physicality’ (Husserl) of the 1:1 model remains a simulation, its potential for inhabitation makes it a temporary ‘home’ and the model space a strategically staged interior. The 1:1 model asks from the viewer to become a co-actor in the making of the model space, in the process completing a site-specific performative environment where exteriority and visuality are no longer privileged over interiority and haptic sense. This paper interrogates the 1:1 model as a performance of inhabitation and looks at the role of the full scale model in architecture exhibitions, ranging from Mies van der Rohe’s 1927 and 1931 exhibitions, The Dwelling and The Dwelling of Our Time respectively to contemporary examples. Key Words: architectural model, architectural doppelganger, exhibition, interio

Designing the Threshold: A Close Reading of Olafur Eliasson’s Approach to ‘Inside’ and ‘Outside’

This article discusses Icelandic installation artist Olafur Eliasson’s approach of the threshold as a productive liminal space rather than as a static boundary between the inside and the outside. Often defined as the physical division between the interior and the exterior in architecture, the authors argue that by looking at Eliasson’s works in detail, the threshold’s inherent capacity of comprising a dynamic dialogue between inside and outside where one is determined by the other, unfolds. This paper proposes that designing the relationships between inside and outside involves subtle renegotiations and redefinitions of conventionalised notions of their boundaries and a resultant emergence of new design strategies. Eliasson designs thresholds in diverse ways that he analyses and provokes the spatial associations between inside and outside, interior and exterior. While in Eliasson`s work the categories of inside and outside remain mutually exclusive, they physically co-exist at the same time; deliberately refracted, juxtapositioned, connected or confounded in an experimental yet rigorous approach that employs different scales and common characteristics. Seventeen of his works are analysed and grouped into four different threshold design strategies that result in an object, an association, an event and an immersive space

The IKEA x UTS Future Living Lab as a Learning Laboratory

This article introduces the IKEA x UTS Future Living Lab, a design research collaboration between IKEA Australia and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), founded in 2018. Authored by the Lab's two directors, the article traces the pedagogical and methodological approach of the IKEA x UTS Future Living Lab. Situated within the Educational Design Research (EDR) discourse, this article demonstrates the development of a productive dialogue between two contrary operating principles: that of infinite creativity afforded to design students, and that of rigorous design development towards mass manufacturing and market distribution by a major global player in the design industry. This article outlines how co-creation principles as practised by IKEA and peer-critique as a long-established pedagogical design school tool accelerate students' understanding of the complex processes involved in contemporary design and provide “real world” experiences in the production of design concepts and outcomes.</jats:p

Genomics reveals historic and contemporary transmission dynamics of a bacterial disease among wildlife and livestock

Whole-genome sequencing has provided fundamental insights into infectious disease epidemiology, but has rarely been used for examining transmission dynamics of a bacterial pathogen in wildlife. In the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), outbreaks of brucellosis have increased in cattle along with rising seroprevalence in elk. Here we use a genomic approach to examine Brucella abortus evolution, cross-species transmission and spatial spread in the GYE. We find that brucellosis was introduced into wildlife in this region at least five times. The diffusion rate varies among Brucella lineages (∼3 to 8 km per year) and over time. We also estimate 12 host transitions from bison to elk, and 5 from elk to bison. Our results support the notion that free-ranging elk are currently a self-sustaining brucellosis reservoir and the source of livestock infections, and that control measures in bison are unlikely to affect the dynamics of unrelated strains circulating in nearby elk populations