Situate sculpture Competition at forest place, perth, australia
status: competition entry,2009
The process of urbanization is not dissociated to fragmentation, alienation, disorientation and multiplicity that tends toward a presumably pluralistic phenomena.
The artwork is considered to be a contextual formation , an optical monument through which superimposition of image & movement would create a distortion of the visual field as tectonics overlap to create a multiplexed experience reminiscent to the pluralistic urbanity.
The sculpture –artwork is meant to be a product of the site, surroundings & its users.
It is intended to participate with the interplay of light & event of forest place.
The composition is like a snapshot of shifting movement & vista. The angular axis of the station and the central axis of forest place give several regulating lines for design development. Through strategic geometric manipulation of these guidelines & reference lines – forms, walkways, water bodies, amphitheatres etc. are generated. During night time lighting illuminations not only express the shifting axis & reference guidelines but also makes the place dynamic & inviting.
These guidelines create lines of sight & compositional operations similar to optics. Based on such geometry, prism like glass towers filled with water make the sculpture-plaza a device to interplay within the surrounding built forms & events. People walking through the space would experience a multiplicity of overlapping images as light passes through these optical monuments. These giant prisms placed in vantage points would create a curious & continuously changing experience not
De-familiar to urbanization & its complexity.
The implementation of the two large scale prisms to get a kaleidoscope vision- is an opportunistic approach that has generated from geometric operations taken through the process of designing
Also In this process a framework for future addition & extension of design elements can be incorporated as it works as a design guideline or rather an artificial site for future designs.
The people & the surroundings blend into a perpetual image machine of remembrance & surprise of continuous multiplicity through time & position.
This approach makes an artwork part of the urban fabric through a more holistic approach in design.
Fragmentation & clutter is the condition of urbanity which we want to fight against but ironically it’s the inevitability of a designed intervention in increasing entropy of a system which can not be avoided.
The plaza is redesigned altogether to give the impression of fragmentation where chances increase and the possibility of unexpected events take place.
Societies & cultures have become ever more complex since their beginning & in course of time this complexity has penetrated deep into our cities & societies. Every natural system is gaining entropy in course of time. The clutter & jitter which we want to get rid of ironically coagulates through our organizations -is the very outcome of our progress.
Through the geometrical composition we can observe the abstract, nihilistic vision of human expression.The paradigm of geometry is ultimately a synthetic dissemination of both explanation & expression of order.
Some of the key objectives of the master plan are enhanced within the program.
I.e. Repositioning of the info box towards central axis.
Visibility of Key buildings around the plaza made more obvious as the prisms specially reflect & refract images to the viewer.
The station up to south end of forest place is bonded well together as a continuous whole & Pedestrian traffic along Wellington street is maintained.
The plaza would enhance night time activity.
The experience of the artwork would in this way enhance a sense of place to the people.
It would be a new landmark reflecting the aspirations of a modern urban center.
The design would create pleasure of the unexpected, visual tension and complexity bonded to the site & the people of Perth and thus infinitely reinventing and re-orienting it to the ever-changing metropolis.