The possibilities of the surface: Towards a practice of creative entanglement
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Other Title
Authors
Cibilich, Scarlett
Author ORCID Profiles (clickable)
Degree
Master of Architecture (Professional)
Grantor
Unitec, Te Pūkenga – New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology
Date
2025
Supervisors
Kerry, Francis
Wagner, Cesar
Wagner, Cesar
Type
Masters Thesis
Ngā Upoko Tukutuku (Māori subject headings)
Keyword
Auckland CBD (N.Z.)
Auckland (N.Z.)
New Zealand
architecture and surface
architectural drawing
architectural philosophy
Auckland (N.Z.)
New Zealand
architecture and surface
architectural drawing
architectural philosophy
ANZSRC Field of Research Code (2020)
Citation
Cibilich, S. (2025) The possibilities of the surface: Towards a practice of creative entanglement (Unpublished document submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture (Professional)). Unitec, Te Pūkenga - New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology
https://hdl.handle.net/10652/7211
Abstract
RESEARCH QUESTION
How can articulated surfaces inform architectonic expression and affect spatial conditions in an urban environment?
ABSTRACT
Surface is expansive and significantly informs architectural design. While it is often a trajectory of architectural research to pursue an object-based architectural solution to a real-world problem, the notion of a ‘surface,’ in its most expanded definition to include drawing, buildings, a body, or otherwise, offers a repositioning of what is normatively understood as a ‘site’ of practice to a place of speculation and contingency on temporal events and environmental phenomena. Increasingly, the urban surface and the surfaces of the architectural drawing are looked to for their capacity as research informants and as theoretical inquiry in their own right. These inquiries are increasingly embedded in relational practices of making.
This research began using drawing to record a walk through a real world site in central Auckland. ‘Surface’ as an informant is initially looked at through a modernist lens using the theoretical positions of Robert Slutzky, Colin Rowe and Bernhard Hoesli and their work around literal and phenomenal transparency. Additional theoretical pathways including Hélène Frichot’s Dirty Theory are introduced to expand methods that engage a close inquiry with the broader idea of ‘surface.’ The potential of the surface is pushed intuitively to interact with and re-position the efficacy of architectural theory as the informant. This tension between intuitive inquiry and theoretical informants further expanded the research possibilities.
It was found that the interaction with the methods pushed the inquiry to the point where the architectonic outcomes were partial. More importantly, the surface as a site of practice became a space to think about how the act of drawing and inquiry into the surface informed potentials, not resolved built object outcomes. Several of these potentials were subsequently explored in the context of the originally drawn real-world site.
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