current research

walking
could be
architecture

walking as a creative + architectural act

 

Our culture is literally inscribed into the landscape by footprints, stonewalls, graffiti …

I am interested in how landscape (urban and rural) acts as a medium for communication and the transmission of culture. Therefore, I am currently exploring practices which engage with landscape.

My interests focus on the relationship between occupant and landscape and our construction of meaning within the landscape.  I am currently using practice-led research techniques focused around ‘walking the landscape’ to explore the boundary between creating walks and creating architecture.

The current study builds on my Masters of Architecture into potential museologies of the landscape. It aims to develop a practice-based approach to landscape research.

keywords

Landscape; Mapping; Walking; Place; Identity; Architecture; Urbanism; Ruralism

context

Phenomenology, Bioregionalism and Landscape Urbanism frame the shift in Architecture towards an emphasis on place and landscape. The rapid increase in the knowledge of the surface of the earth through digital mapping techniques, including Google Earth and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), has been accompanied by increasing alienation from the natural world. Furthermore the contemporary increase in migration and existential homelessness^{(Pallassma, J. 2007)} , and the rising awareness of the environmental crisis add urgency to developing a greater understanding of our relationship to landscape.

Acts of creative walking by artists such as Hamish Fulton, Richard Long, Guy Debord or social fiction suggest a treatment of the act of walking as a creative product. My work aims to extend the approach of these artists such into areas of architectural design.  Francesco Careri provides the start of a framework for considering the walk in architectural terms.