Form(s) of Instability
Demonstrations in the Architectural Potential of Weakness
PhD project by Karianne Halse
In an age in which architecture has become increasingly image-based, the ideal state of a building is often conceived as immediately after being built and still appears as it was drawn. The representation of the work in photographs has become just as important as, if not more important than, the building itself. Considerable resources are used to counteract wear and tear – working against external forces and processes (entropy) – to maintain the building as this ideal static image.
The project seeks to expand and destabilise the architectural notion of form – which has become limited to the geometrical and outward look of the building.
Opposing the idea of architecture as a strong and rigid entity, the PhD project investigates how weakness can act as a response to environmental influences – working with the forces and processes. Weakness, a term which usually comes with negative connotations, is explored as a field of potential.
George Bataille’s notion of the formless (“L’informe”) acts as a framework of disturbing formal hierarchies and norms and evoke alternative possibilities. His Critical Dictionary served as a critique of dictionaries attempt to define and freeze all the significant words in a language into stable meanings, with an aim to release their irruptive energies. In this research project, the Critical Dictionary and the notion of formless are operative for their destabilising capacities which shake up preconceived ideas and notions.
The research is conducted as research by design, were theory and practice acts as relays. Existing examples with an embedded weakness is the starting point for a set of Demonstrations (research by design driven experiments), which act as a vehicle to move from abstract theoretical concepts to material realities.
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