Work
DIRECTED RESEARCH
**IN PROGRESS**Reliquia: hearth + ritual
Reliquia: hearth and ritual
[The kitchen] it was, and sometimes still is, the life center of the house. In the distant past it doubled as a kind of chapel – the hearth was both altar and sacrificial stone. Prayer and animal sacrifice were intimately related and the invocation of the gods went well together with a family barbecue […] It may thus, in a roundabout way, revert to the noble status it held in earlier times – a sanctuary and an altar to life-giving force.
[Rudofsky Behind the Picture Window]
Beginning with hearth as a key architectural element, I am exploring how design can not just facilitate, but actually enhance rituals. I intend to recenter the hearth as instrumental a critical in private and public lifesacred space. The hearth elicits intention, intimacy, and social interaction within the home.
At the beginning of this research, I was naturally drawn to the hearth as a literal architectural element, whose form is driven by its capacity to generate heat and light, but also as a conceptual space that hosts the most intimate activities that to me are the rawest example of what it means to live.
The rituals I've chosen to examine are
Prayer, cooking and eating, cleansing, living, and death
with this, i am designing spaces that will host each of these
- Chapel,
- Dining
- Bath
- Quarter
- Ofrenda or tomb
I am working specifically in the context of Mexico City. This is for many reasons.
- Its ties to ritual are many and they are strong. Ritual is evident beginning in their ancient culture and still seen and relevant today.
- I was originally intrigued by huehueteotl – god of fire.
- It is a place where food and religion intersect heavily
- But the relationship this place holds with religion is not strictly a spiritual one… moreso a cultural emphasis. ,,
- Its connection to ceramics and clay ..
When thinking through the arrangements of individual spaces to accommodate each of the rituals I selected to design around, I studied different compositional strategies.
- Whether i wanted to have individual objects in a field, or one object made up of many parts like MOS element house… Or something in between, like the winton guest house by frank gehry
- The objects are understood to be individual but share seams and interact closely with one another … similar to how these different rituals take shape in our daily lives
- ….. Like morandi and his still lifes
I conducted a series of studies through various mediums dissecting Morandi’s work and was ultimately most drawn to this system ->
- I analyzed the groupings (not hierarchy) that he creates
- I assigned a program to each object, making decisions based on scale, position, form, and surface articulation
- I then drew a plan of what these still lifes might look like, taking a more imaginative route but not technically impossible
- I created my own elevations that still have the same footprint as the original Morandi painting
Each of these objects are in the process of developing their own form and surface articulation that serves as a host for the ritual to be enacted, with a hearth inserted within as the facilitator
Each of the spaces are designed in response to the ritual that takes place within
- The chapel is a center for reflection for procession, prayer. Emphasizes the relationship between occupant and something larger than themselves. (its form is reaching, central, plays with light and is texturally muted.
- The cooking and eating is a place for sharing, for service, gathering, for careful attention. Emphasizes the relationship between the giver and the receiver, the host and the guest. Functional and sober, references gonzalo fonseca’s sculpture work with large blocks that house smaller objects
- Wash – designed for care, for cleansing. tile, smallest, private with the small door and minimal regular windows, rather getting light through the opening in the roof
- Quarters – A place for introspection, for peace, for rest, for comfort and coping. Emphasizes the relationship with oneself. references casa malaparte’s combination of window and fireplace … texturally expressive exterior and more serene interior
These shells will continue in the coming weeks to be refined formally and texturally but most urgently,
The next step is to further design the spaces and hearths in greater detail to accommodate, heighten, enhance, or even exaggerate specific aspects of each ritual . Each hearth within will be designed as a compound object that is made physical and articulated with respect to color and texture to facilitate the ritual that it hosts.
If successful, this will ultimately be a complex of several hearths, each of which will augment a ritual through its formal and material articulation.