RODRIGO TISI

Universidad Catolica de Chile

Collaborative studio projects tested as full-scale models allow students of architecture to learn

about performance and its concrete relation to spatial situations. This article articulates a

pedagogy that utilizes six critical points to approach architectural performativity in the design

process.

B 1 S 1 P 1 T 1 PL 1 M

Six Ways to Approach Architecturethrough the Lens of Performance

Since 2000, I have been teaching architecture

studios in different schools throughout Chile: Uni-

versidad Tecnica Federico Santa Marıa (UTFSM),

Universidad Nacional Andres Bello (UNAB), Uni-

versidad Catolica (UC), and recently Universidad

Diego Portales (UDP). In all of them, I have pro-

posed an open pedagogy where performative

aspects of architectural production can be explored

in context and as full-scale prototypes. The goal of

these studios was to promote an active collabora-

tion process in order to analyze particular issues

and propose new territorial interventions.

As architects designing permanent or imper-

manent structures, we require useful mechanisms

to analyze our proposals. There are many repre-

sentational tools, including digital simulations,

scaled models, and full-scale prototypes, capable of

explaining what the project could be. As a presen-

tational device, performance provides a guiding

paradigm for testing and evaluating the architec-

tural object from conception to production. This

happens within a set of cultural parameters that

surround the project at the time. Through the lens

of time, performance influences the presence and

behavior of the body within specific spaces and

challenges the ‘‘materialized project’’ through the

feedback of people interacting with it. In this sense,

performance—as an interplay of active forces—

becomes a new analytical tool for evaluating the

effects generated. Performance is not concerned

with what a project is but what it does.

A performance-centered approach interferes

with typical modes of architectural representation

by including the performative (and therefore active)

potential of the body within spatial reception and

evaluation.1 The body is not simplified as a stand-in

for all bodies (as in most architectural representa-

tions) but is considered one that individually and

expressively occupies and observes space. This

suggests a new way of examining experience where

architectural performance is understood as a series

of unique and unrepeatable acts.2 It also challenges

the repeatable mechanisms of representation that

architects normally use to construct reality. At

another level of complexity, performance exists only

in agreement with cultural context: ‘‘performance

does not depend on an event in itself but on how

that event is received and placed.’’3 In this way,

1. Students at the School of Architecture, Universidad Nacional Andres Bello in Santiago, Chile. Image credits of Studio: Spaces of/for Performance IV, 2007.

69 TISI Journal of Architectural Education,

pp. 69–75 ª 2008 ACSA

spatial performance cannot be evaluated without

considering the manifold modes of its ‘‘cultural’’

reception.

In order to assist students in considering the

performative dimensions of architecture, I asked

them to reflect on six points in their approach to the

design process: body, surface, program, time,

place, and materials (Figure 2). These parameters

constitute the equation for a Comprehensive Pro-

ject: B 1 S 1 P 1 T 1 Pl 1 M ¼ C.P.4 Instead of

a fixed result, the goal was to open the student’s

work to the many different issues related to various

criteria of performance (as action, operation/

interaction, and evaluation) and to demonstrate

that all these criteria should be considered in order

to have a complete project.Through spatiotemporal

enactments, students test architectural parameters

by dealing with real constraints that allow them to

build on actual observation during the process.

How to Evaluate Performance underArchitectural Parameters?BodyThe body is understood as a cultural construct

responding to specific scenarios and customs. In

this sense, it can also be understood as a dynamic

object that is capable of inverting, subverting,

and producing spatial conditions. The architectural

body is therefore double, incorporating the human

body and that of the proposed artifact.

SurfaceArchitectural experience is predicated on an

understanding of the spatial conditions negotiated

by material boundaries that locate place and action.

In addition, surface constitutes an interface be-

tween user and building, providing many different

possibilities of spatial communication through limits.

ProgramProgram is not only established through objective

data but also further shaped by experience and

certain cultural practices. Rather than a static set of

prescribed actions, program fluctuates; question-

ing, inverting, and reshaping given emplaced

activities, especially in a contemporary culture

where things are in constant flux.

TimeTime, as a relative phenomenon, is perhaps the

most challenging element for this ‘‘equation.’’ The

building process slowly materializes architecture,

which, as a generally fixed object, tends to perform

even more gradually. Architects have to be aware of

how space is activated through movement and

experienced across varying temporalities specific to

culture, location, and circumstance.

PlacePlace is explored within a specific constraint of time

and location. Studios of architecture normally

understand place as a fixed location. By under-

standing it as the evidence and result of time,

students confront a more interesting set of

variables rather than the obvious parameters of

‘‘contextuality.’’

MaterialsMaterials not only shape concrete forms but

also produce effects. They therefore construct

experience. The adoption of new and uncon-

ventional materials can create new possibilities

of spatial interaction.

ProjectsTransportable SurfacesThis exercise explored the possibilities of

integrating body, surface, and place by producing

a first layer of artificial skin in the form of clothing.

The challenge of how to transport three spheres of

10 cm diameter from point A to point B engaged

the students with the tectonics of the body

through new surface constructions that can

2. Comprehensive project (projecto eficiente).

B 1 S 1 P 1 T 1 PL 1 M: Six Ways to Approach Architecture

through the Lens of Performance

70

negotiate its movements (Figure 3). The body was

now understood as a location and medium for

action.

Reactive SurfacesThis project considered the design of a surface that

engages multiple bodies over time. It involved

water as a fluid material to index and display

embodied ‘‘presence’’ within a reactive surface

(platform). The resultant structure—built of wood,

plastic pipes, colored water, and fabric cushions—

moved and changed its shape when people walked

on it (Figures 4 and 5).

Multitask SurfacesIn this project, students explored the

possibilities of forming a single material surface in

relation to three body postures: standing, sitting,

and lying down. The students tested different

materials and selected polystyrene for its flexi-

bility, lightness of weight, and cost efficiency. The

entire studio worked on a single proposal that

involved spatial and embodied negotiation

through collaboration (Figures 6 and 7).

Collective SurfacesThis project explored notions of time, program, and

place. It required a ‘‘flexible’’ structure capable of

being operated by the body. The proposed articu-

lated surface—connecting wooden components by

using plastic ropes in a low-tech fashion—can be

shaped as required to form anything from a ‘‘carpet’’

to a piece of ‘‘furniture.’’ Through construction,

3. Image credits of Studio: ‘‘Spaces of/for Performance II’’at Universidad Nacional Andres Bello, Santiago, Chile, 2005.

4 and 5. Image credits of Studio: ‘‘Spaces of/for Performance I’’ at UTFSM, 2005, Chile.

71 TISI

students were encouraged to test the material

possibilities of medium density fiberboard (MDF),

incorporating the structural constraints of both

objects and bodies. The considerable weight of the

resulting structure helped stabilize it when moved

into new positions (Figures 1, 8, 9, and 10).

Integrated SurfacesThe Plastic Forest (Figures 11–14) is a project

designed and constructed by students of UTFSM for

MUTEK 2005. It consisted of an interactive instal-

lation that lasted for only one night and created

a unique temporary place on a pier in the Chilean city

of Valparaiso, which afforded an extraordinary view

of the Pacific Ocean.The installation had to perform

during both the day and the night and allow for

multiple modes of occupation.Traditional architec-

tural representations proved inadequate for testing

the behavior and experience of the body within the

proposal. This led to working with prototypes at

a scale of 1:1, which informed the process and pro-

vided a collaborative means ofdeveloping the design.

In addition, the Plastic Forest included a variety of

embedded technological devices (such as sensors,

moving LEDs, and digital projections) to enhance its

performance.This required students to work closely

with electrical engineers (sound and lighting) and as

manufacturers to give form to the final project.

The main purpose of the Forest was to present

participants at MUTEK with new modes of spatial

interaction while listening to sound performances.

The installation was conceived to work with lighting

and acoustics. People were encouraged to walk

through the responsive environment, which inter-

acted with them through sensors and microphones.

As the night progressed, the participants who

‘‘played’’ on and in the Forest actively altered the

performative structure, which was eventually

destroyed by the crowd at the end of the event.

This creative destruction was the inevitable result

of open interaction with the installation’s fragile,

light, and ephemeral construction.

6 and 7. Image credits of Studio: ‘‘Spaces of/for Performance 0’’ at UTFSM, Valparaiso, Chile, 2005.

B 1 S 1 P 1 T 1 PL 1 M: Six Ways to Approach Architecture

through the Lens of Performance

72

8, 9 and 10. Image credits of Studio: ‘‘Spaces of/for Performance IV’’ at

Universidad Nacional Andres Bello, Santiago, Chile, 2005.

11 and 12. Image credits of Studio: ‘‘Spaces of/for Performance I’’ at

UTFSM, Valparaiso, Chile, 2005.

8

10

11

12

9

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13. Image credits of Studio: ‘‘Spaces of/for Performance I’’at UTFSM, Valparaiso, Chile, 2005.

B 1 S 1 P 1 T 1 PL 1 M: Six Ways to Approach Architecture

through the Lens of Performance

74

The above projects provided a practical way to

approach the ‘‘intangible’’ aspects of an architec-

tural project through the parameters of body,

surface, program, time, place, and material in

order to achieve a comprehensive project. As

architects who manipulate space through form

and matter, we struggle to construct the imma-

terial by means of the concrete. A performative

approach to these six elements suggests methods

of exploring architecture through dynamic inter-

vention, emphasizing performance as a constant

transmission and communication between the

performer (dynamic object) and the recipient

(user of that object). The experience then is the

result of the performative condition generated by

the project. The task of a comprehensive project is

to secure performative auras as the effect of the

intervention. Performance Studies expands the

‘‘preoccupations’’ of architects from the specula-

tive (designed) and finished (constructed) artifact

to the effects generated (performed) after

different modes of occupation. This posits an

open, fluctuating, and continuous paradigm in

which a conjunction between material and

immaterial performances makes a space for the

live as the final ‘‘other’’ important element

active in architecture.

Notes

1. Bernard Tschumi incorporated in The Manhattan Transcripts new ways

to approach conventions of architectural representation. The Manhattan

Transcripts intersects issues of movement and time in the architectural

thinking process. Refer to Bernard Tschumi, The Manhattan Transcripts

(New York: Architectural Design, 1981).

2. See ‘‘The Ontology of Performance: Representation without Repro-

duction,’’ in Peggy Phelan, Unmarked: The Politics of Performance

(New York: Routledge, 1993), pp. 146–166.

3. See ‘‘IS performance,’’ in Richard Schechner, Performance Studies:

An Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 30–32.

4. The comprehensive project translates into Spanish as proyecto

eficiente . In spanish: cuerpo 1 superficie 1 programa 1 tiempo 1

material 1 lugar ¼ proyecto eficiente. This equation constitutes part of

the dissertation research done at the program of Performance Studies at

New York University since 2004.

14. Destruction of the Plastic Forest. Image credits of Studio: ‘‘Spaces of/for Performance I’’ at UTFSM, Valparaiso, Chile, 2005.

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