Course Description

Body, Movement and Place
The Design for a Contemporary Dance Center

Instructor: Paul Lukez
TA: David Sledge

Course: 4.126
Architectural Design: Level I Credits: (0-12-9)
Time: TRF (2-6)

Premise: The digital revolution is but the latest step in the evolution of complexly layered societal structures. Functioning and operating within these structures relies less on our corporeal being than our ability to manipulate symbols and information. Where primitive man relied on heightened senses to survive the forces of nature, digital man increasingly processes sensory information through secondary mediators. Similarly, relationships between individuals and groups are based less on body language, facial expressions, scents, and physical actions than through the abstracted flow of binary information.

Dance serves to remind us of our bodies and reasserts the significant role that they play in processing sensory information about our environment. Dance heightens our sense of our bodies in stasis and movement, not only in relationship to the space they occupy, but to other bodies that also move through shared spaces.

Project: As architects operating in an urban setting, we will consider the role that the urban environment plays in choreographing movement through our cities, their streets, plazas and public buildings. We do so with the intent to understand the relationship that space plays in shaping movement and reciprocally the role movement can have in shaping space.

To that end we will use a "Contemporary Dance Center" as our vehicle for exploring the above noted issues. Our site, located adjacent to the Boston Center of the Arts and The Boston Ballet will further anchor the arts in the South End. A modestly scaled program consisting of recital halls, exhibition spaces, offices, classrooms, a small theater, and courtyard(s) will provide ample opportunity for tectonic investigations into skin and structure.

Process: Beyond utilizing conventional methods for analyzing urban sites (figure ground, Nolli plans, layered analysis etc.) we will investigate deploying notational devices used by choreographers in observing movement. A wide array of graphic tools and media (charcoal, pastels, watercolors) will be used to not only decipher the order of the site, but also to heighten student's skills in drawing and modeling space. We will analyze precedents associated with similar programs, typologies, and tectonic characteristics in order to build a body of shared references and to fuel our imaginations. Early design investigations will use free associative thinking by using collages / found objects, as well as more rigorous diagramming and programming exercises. Spaces will be molded by the competing and sometimes conflicting forces required in creating free flowing spaces associated with the dance program and the more constrained and bounded forms found in the South End. The semester schedule will include field trips, in-class design charrettes, visits by outside guests, and an evening attending a dance performance.

At semester's end, the student's cumulative design efforts will be compiled in compelling representations of spaces and forms that support the production and performance of Dance in an urban setting.