The traditional spatial logic of the mosque is designed to effect a processual shedding of the outside world. As the patron enters the structure, he or she is confronted by a carefully regimented series of spaces that enforce very specific processes of separation and exfoliation: muslims from non-muslims, men from women, formal attire from casual, dirt from body. Intended to purify the faithful before gaining admission to the sacred inner sanctum, this spatial passage reifies the core conceptual binarisms that constitute Islamic religious doctrine. The mosque's architectural logic therefore privileges the crystalline over the organic, repetition over variation, the insular over the open, certainty over ambiguity, difference over affirmation, division over multiplicity.
My proposal Obscura seeks to construct an alternate experience of religious devotion by reconfiguring experientially the entry procession of a traditional mosque. As its name implies, Obscura emphasizes the concealment of what lies therein: the mosque is shrouded in an aura of mystique. Certainty and rationality of the gridded streets of Manhattan, planned design of Central Park, and the Museum of Natural Science give way to uncertainty and faith as patrons permeate the enclosure. Initially encountering spatial disorientation, those unwilling to trust blindly are sifted out, while those who continue undergo a reorientation of spatial sensibilities, thus preparing themselves for a renewed engagement with religion. Tantalizing yet disorienting, each subsequent step empowers the patron contrary to the imposed ritual of a traditional mosque.
Obscura seeks to contaminate sky/earth, interior/exterior, open/enclosed, and floor/ceiling. With expansion and contraction behaviors, perforations in Cell A offer an array of scales ranging from screen to window to portal. In aggregate, its sinuous form creates passageways, walls, and chambers of varying depth and thickness. The horizontality of Cell B lends itself to function on a variety of scales as floor/shelf/ramp/stair/ceiling/platform(dikka)/podium(minbar). Dual levels allow for a flexible yet hierarchical configuration. Through contamination of Cell A + Cell B, the dichotomy breaks down and a multiplicity of conditions arise: multiple circulation paths, ambiguous floor levels, excavation and earthworks.
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for friday, focus on getting away from the composed. revisit and analyze the behavior of your cells and cells systems. produce a catalog/taxonomy of the behavioral possibilities. behavioral norms, behavioral extremes, success and failures. Utilize this catalog to grow an organism of intertwined systems. as the scale and rhythm of one system changes another system has an opportunity to adapt and evolve, or perhaps the diminishing of one system leads to the dead of another, letting a third take control, providing food for the first to grow again and eventually support the seeds of the second. Hope that makes sense, use the narrative to inform where the different behaviors make sense and can produce architecture.
Reevaluate the scale of the cells and the system. allow for more variation. use the cells to grow an affect of awe. grow specific architectonic structures related to your research.
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