Spatial Design
instructor: Jean-Marc Gauthier email Homesite updated 5/11/2007
Spatial Design is a class about invention and critique where
students create tangible and virtual products that focus on how to reveal the
gaps between people and objects. Students use traditional media (drawing,
sculpting, model making), construction of small installations and digital
media to expand the way they think about their work and therefore the way
they envision how we live next to man-made objects. Students discover and
document their own design process finding new relationships between people,
space, light and materials in indoor spaces, in gardens and in Manhattan's
public spaces. Topics covered include a wide range of multidimensional media
and various forms of spatial design that have a strong influence on
ergonomics, animation, forms created by nature and inventions accepted
through time behind a collective memory. Class assignments cover the design
of objects, installations, architectural design and kinetic design. The final
project is an invitation for students to create their own product with a
minimum of means to achieve several obligations inspired by the poetry of the
everyday life. |
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Class 1 - 09/04: Painting with space Lecture Roadmap for the class: from industrial design to experimental installations Variations of perception inside of a room with variable lights and colors Tutorial How to make a sketch model projecting shadows with foam board. We will work with sheets of foam board, paper, translucent plastics and mirrors. Assignment 1- Create a create a shoe box size model of a white room, built from a 2D collage drawing using white paper, cutter, glue and cardboard.I suggest to check examples of light studies at http://itp.nyu.edu/spatialdesign/light.pdf (2 MB) 2- Control the light sources with small mirrors in order to modulate the light color and intensity inside the box. 3- Record on videotape 2 minutes maximum with sound track or/and with voice Please write about your visit to the Noguchi Museum . Directions can be found at http://www.noguchi.org/ The Museum is open Wednesday to Sunday Enter your assignment in the blog for the class |
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Class 2 - 09/11: Development of a three dimensional form Lecture Examples from Mies Van der Rohe, Ettore Sottsass and Magdalenian people. Tutorial How to make a model with opacities, windows, and translucent panels. We will work with sheets of metallic mesh, foamboard, transparent acrylic and mirrors. Assignment Place yourself - as the viewer - inside an existing space, for example your home. The viewer can seat on a chair, lie down in bed, stand against a wall or wait in other positions. The viewer does not move except for eyeballs and head rotations. Record the experience using the media of your choice - cardboard model(s), drawings, photographs or videotape - (2 minutes maximum). Build a small model in order to explain what can be seen from the point of view of the viewer. Define a specific place which is the origin of your design, the same way Hitchcock defined a specific place for James Steward in "Rear Window".
Read the online text about Panopticon by Michel Foucaul, Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison (NY: Vintage Books 1995) pp. 195-228
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Class 3 - 09/18: Motion in space : the dancer and the architect: Lecture Recording motion in space: examples including Marey, Hedgerton Tutorial Making a conceptual model with foamboard and a wire-cutter. Assignment Create a motion analysis of sequences of movements. You can choose to sketch or capture digital images of movements executed by human beings or animals. Deconstruct every movements into about 24 frames plotted and drawn on plastic. Make a small 3D model of the sequence of movements using strings, fishing wires and metallic tubes. |
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Class
4- 09/25: Dynamic spaces : equilibrium and oscillations From
suspended structures to collapsible meshes: expressions of dynamics
of motion in space Tutorial Making a structural model from a dynamic structure. We will work with strings, aviation cables, fishing wires, metallic tubes and wires . Assignment Create a vertical or suspended structure made of several tubes and cables. The 3D structure of the surface of your motion study is self standing on a base, hanging from the ceilling, or playing with the surface of a wall.
Please read
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Class 5 - 10/01: Networked structures Lecture Buckminster Fuller Part one the bicycle wheel Tutorial Assignment Prepare - 5 minutes - descriptions-presentations of spatial networks or the intersections of two networks. Networks can include for example family, flux, transportations, social, work or leisure relationships, global or local sets of relationships. Please choose carefully the networks that you plan to work on since you will be later study representations and building a 3D structure in this specific network. Please read . |
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Class 6 - 10/02: Global structures and ergonomics Lecture Tutorial Making geodesic and modular structures Assignment. |
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Class 7 - 10/16: Labyrinths Lecture Mapping the labyrinth. Example of labyrinths in films "Touch of Evil" by Orson Welles, "Paths of Glory" by Stanley Kubrick Assignment Create a 3D sketch o fa labyrinth inspired by the text from Borges.
Build a small model of your interpretation of Borges.
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Class 8 - 10/23: Designing a labyrinth: designing by segments, difference and repetition Lecture Ways to navigate inside the labyrinth Example of labyrinths in films "The Lady from Shangai" by Orson Welles, "Electronic Labyrinth" by George Lucas Assignment Create a physical labyrinth, use colors, textures ans references to your senses sounds, visual, tactile, smell. Marvin Minsky's |
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Class 9 - 10/30: Mid Term Wrap-up Lecture Materials and design techniques for temporary installations. Paper / bamboo architecture by Shigeru Ban. Walk through the floor. Assignment Create perspectives of your work inserted inside the space of the ITP floor. Please include a reference to the human body for scale. You can use mixed media collages including photographs and hand drawn drawings. Textures, materials, lighting and reflections are very important elements of the perspectives. Download the perspectives tutorial. + Elevator pitch: 20 lines maxi Please post on the blog answers to the following questions What are the keywords to describe your project? What is the general scope of ideas? What parts of the general scope are specifically covered by your project?
How
to introduce your project? |
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Class 10 - 11/06: Final project rendering and planning Lecture 3D rendering techniques in Maya, HDR, DDS and Global Illumination Assignment Please follow the design and construction schedule discussed in class and confirmed by email |
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Class 11 - 11/13: screen projections and sounds: viewer space and performance space Lecture From dioramas to interactive installations, defining intersections between space, audience and content, examples from Cinerama, Shaw, Svoboda and other multi-screens systems Tutorial The three views drawing Assignment Prepare a presentation
of your final project or your team project in front of a pannel of
guest critics |
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Class 12 - 11/20: Final project 60% Workshop Critique with guests Projects 60%
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Class 13 - 11/27 - class 14 - 12/04: Final project 100% Workshops Critique Projects 100% Jean-Marc Gauthier email Homesite
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