an arena to perceive time
Last week, after analyzing what role rituals could play in today’s society, we have proposed that building a structure where everyone could build up an individual relation to it could bring similar structure to live, than rituals have done centuries ago. We have also talked about creating a constant within the nursery territory of constant renewal.
This, we will now do by bringing a constantly ongoing process in the center of perception within the arena - the process of decay.
Described by dictionaries as a spontaneous „breaking up of something into parts or fragments, so that the wholeness of the original is destroyed“ it builds the foundation of every change. As Heraclitus described the world as „everything being always in flux“, this evokes another understanding of solidity. Suddenly solids flow just as much as fluids do and space, then, appears as a mosaic of time, with different rhythms and tempos.
Therefore decay is strongly linked to time and its perception.
But what is time? As the variety of answers to this question would show, time is such an abstract thing that defining what it is becomes hard. What can more easily be talked about is how we perceive time passing by. As Kevin Lynch puts it, one way is by reoccurring events (like the sun cycle) or by an alteration process from one thing into another (decay, as seen above).
On this conceptions, our idea of a Teehaus within a structure being allowed to decay emerged. The regularity of drinking tea together with the observation of the spontaneous but linear alteration process brings different levels of time perceptions together, creating an arena to perceive time (cf. image 2). The abstract idea of time will be given substance.
We come partly away from the action orientated arena and will stage a much longer ongoing process. While showing materials, the environment they are standing in and how both react on each other, the arena will provoke reflections on the passing of time.
A primary truss structure built out of wood contains and bears within a secondary structure of wires/ropes and cotton fabrics. Both will sooner or later change their face, position or physical state, forming together an orchestra of alteration, where every component follows its own rhythm. When the cotton fabrics may dissolved after five years, the wooden structure may have only changed its patina and would last another 15 years.
The decay process also interplays with the forming of the ground. Being built within a small sink, the structure will steadily fill it more and more, until in the end another elevation will be formed.
The structure is still situated within the nursery. It acts on one hand in a similar way as the row of trees that separates the shooting range from the nursery, forming together with the natural topography and the stream a more intimate space within. On the other, it is also the subject of contemplation.
On this point, we haven’t decided yet if we enclose another more intimate space behind the separation or if we limit ourselves to the dividing structure (cf. alternative design on server).
Besides substantiating the design, producing models and drawings is what we intend to continue with.
