los angeles CALIFORNIA
suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.
erin LANI: This thesis is an exploration of graffiti techniques as they may be applied to architecture and the architectural design process. Qualities specific to the graffiti composition such as the action of layering, outlining, and coloring, as well as the arc of the wrist, elbow and arm have been engaged to create dynamic and woven compositions of three or more alphabetic characters (usually the pseudonym of the artist). More recent and complex graffiti is the inspiration, exemplified in the work of RIME (Los Angeles) and DAIM (Germany).
Expression through color has a long tradition in architecture. Park de la Villette by Bernard Tschumi (1986-91) uses color to create visual continuity across a landscape. But Corbusier’s Ronchamp illustrates the use of color in space best. Both depth and highlight are derived from a single experience in Ronchamp, an architecture exemplifying the graphic method of implying levity within mass – the inhabited condition rather than the objectification of color. Another key technique is poché. Francesco Borromini’s S. Carlino Alle Quattro Fontane is an example of stunning complexity derived from the manipulation of poché or what might be equated to an outline used to define various geometric spaces.
In Gritty Delight, the outline not only defines different characters or program, it also becomes the interstitial condition, or Street, for internal exhibition of student collaborations. Art, Science, Technology, and Outreach play colorful characters, or programs, that formally mingle within and about the whole; a Progressive High School for Art, Science, and Technology. The role of the five characters—outline included—assembled becomes an expression of culture.
sP: What or who influenced this project?
eL: Bart Prince, DAIM, Ma’CLAIM Crew, FPMod, Juhani Pallasmaa, Eric Kahn—Idea Office, Labdora, F. Myles Sciotto, MAT @UCSB, Louis Kahn, Karla Menten, Escher.
sP: What were you reading/listening to/watching while developing this project?
eL: Los Angeles Graffiti—A great source for information and local artists’ work to dissect.
Conscience of the Eye—Richard Sennett
‘Art in the Streets’ @ MOCA, 2010
Hayao Miyazaki films
sP: Whose work is currently on your radar?
eL: Dalai Lama, Alice Pasquini, Peter Gentenaar, Bart Prince, Milly Design, Renku Poets, Hayao Miyazaki, Gaudi, Douglas Noble of USC, Amateur Architects, Grad work around the world.
Additional credits and links:
Andrew Hammer, F. Myles Sciotto, Tristan Brasseur, Pilsun Ham, Nidal Hamida, Coleman Butts.