Dialogues Between Inside and the Outside

Architecture can be seen as a strange amalgam of enduring principles and continual change or flux. Yet, while walls, stairs, windows and other architectural elements are the physical manifestation of this language, it is form’s immaterial other—space, light, movement, and other ephemeral phenomena—or more specifically, the relations between them—that constitutes what might be called Architecture’s intrinsic nature. Consequently, in this studio equivalent attention is given to the introduction of fundamentals, defining (and solving) architecture problems, and the acquisition of skills and disciplinary knowledge as it is to questions of space, program and representation.

The final project of the semester focused on the architecture of domestic space, the formation of spatial concepts, and the relationship or dialogue between interior and exterior space. Beginning with a re-reading of Venturi’s seminal text on form, Complexity and Complexity in Architecture, the studio analyzed selected passages from “Chapter 9: The Inside and the Outside.” Students were asked to do a close reading and critically extend and translate the underlying principle into an architectural proposition for a micro-dwelling, a guest house for a visiting evening lecturer. The site was the existing “Chapel” structure adjacent to Watt Hall, at the corner of Watt Way and Bloom Walk.