The Ringön Embankment

During this studio, I explored the Ringön area, an industrial space beside a river. The objective was to propose a speculative transformation which would contain both existing and new elements in its program. Photogrammetry was a key tool allowing for an expansion of how we engage with and record the environment. I took thousands of photographs and constructed highly accurate models, each of which became a strange artifact, a digitisation of a real-world element, an
occupiable entity.

Considerations of conventions such as colour, texture line weight and drawing styles are reanalysed as result of the potential offered by new technical ways of recording and exploring information. These themes led me to undertake many
experiments within the representation of form and its embedded qualities. I swung from the ridiculous to the practical in images I made which drove my own understanding of the project's narrative.

The design is for an urban farm which grows and produces algae for human consumption. This brings together existing industrial precedents in the area with a new emergent industry of alternative food production. Through my experiments in the creation of viscous imagery I realised that partial visibility and uncertain usage are factors inherit too the character of Ringön which I enjoyed.

Understanding the effect of obscured structures seen in A passing glance and the curiosity they generate drove my design. Returning me to concepts of obfuscation within representation and how this might be manifested within a project in a manner which would allow for the creation of a microcosm of the conditions found on site.

Representing this interplay of comprehension and confusion was the apex of this project for me. Generating images which act like out-of-date maps whose information can lead users astray causing them to wander in their surroundings unsure what they will discover. All the work presented here is my own.

The concept of hybrid drawings and the potential they offered to nurture dialog and
understanding surpassing that of conventional representations was fascinating. I attempted to generate as chimerical a work as possible in my output while actively expanding my visual
vocabulary.

All the work shown here is created through a hybrid process of smashing information from
diverse sources together. Digital models, models made through photogrammetry, photographs taken on site, hand drawings and sketches all form part of each image you can see before you. The resulting creatures are polyglots whose character reflects the nature of Ringön a landscape made of overlayed elements sitting on top one another to form a whole that is never quite at harmony. It is a laying on of hands filled with the tension of performance and ritual.

The viscosity and fluidity of the space suggests certain design considerations that are reflected in the visual and temporal elements of this project. The idea of aiming for permeance in this design seemed ludicrous. Flexibility and adaptivity contained inside of a contextual understanding and rationalization of potential futures and conditions suggested that any project would need to be a static augmentation filled with an understanding of its own temporary nature. This encouraged me to follow a current of modularity and flexibility throughout the course of rationalizing my design.