POLYCHROMY (GRADUATE THESIS)

POLYCHROMY

The architecture itself holds multi-faceted attributes of art and technology, structure and adornment, ideal and actual. Among these, the dichotomy or opposition of structure and adornment is ascribed to its innate nature of co-existing two-dimensional and three-dimensional qualities consisting architecture. Thus, color as an element in architecture entailed both in structure and adornment has been a chronic and ongoing conversation within the discipline for centuries. Historically, the discussion of polychromy of antiquity raised the debate of architecture as an art of three-dimensional surface–the form, as well as two-dimensional adornment.

DEBATE OF POLYCHROMY
AND SURFACE | SPACE

This research starts from the argument of Gottfried Semper, an architectural theorist, and an archaeologist, on the color in architecture. To Gottfried Semper, “color clarifies the form because color provides the artist with a new way to throw the surface into relief.” While Semper’s notion of color is more closely implicated to the coherence with the form by the accord between two, in this research, color is regarded as a separate layer of element driving design processes.

Unit and Process

1 Ortho Rations of Units

Coloration of space is a crucial layer of visual information in perceiving and understanding the space. Apart from actual three-dimensional space, coloration of the surface can generate annotation of different read of the surface. To begin with, the coloration delaminated from the surface starts to operate on its own via orthogonal rotation.

2 Coloration Sequence

Seven phases of the orthogonal rotation are determined and rooms are laid out in sequence. Basic rules of the layout are

1. no more than two rooms connected to a room thus creating single navigating circulation,

2. being able to navigate through openings.

Sequence Typologies

3 Sequence Aggregation

The sequencing units are aggregated based upon the same rule sets of coloration sequencing. For this specific project, the number of sequencing is limited to two sets per floor with no unit being repeated up to the fifth floor.

Aggregations

4 Re-Define Units

The sequencing aggregation is examined from its planar view, and the territory, or the boundary of a unit, is newly defined based upon its coloration property. The new organization of units is adjusted considering the feasibility of circulation or utilization. There is the total of 14 units in this specific project.

5 Re-Define Units (colorations)

The project is bridging over two-dimensional property, the coloration, and three-dimensional property, space. Both have the potential of impacting on another outside of their classification, coloration can generate new spatial quality as well as space can possess two-dimensional painterly quality.