Output details

KAUST Installation

Questions

How to reconcile the theoretical discourse and common design methodologies of artists and architects toward the creation of a meaningful artefact?

How to read and conceptually interpret the positive attributes and relative shortcomings of a modern campus architecture and urban development in a desert environment?

How to express institutional values in a designed and constructed object?

Methods

‘Constructed Concepts ’ is a collaborative interdisciplinary work with internationally acclaimed artists Dalziel+Scullion which extends Hutton’s design research narrative framework - ‘Place, Programme & Presence’ (ref. Outputs 1 & 2 & 4)- to establish an original artefact – a pavilion - at King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia.

Hutton’s research methodology constitutes a form of ‘model practice’ which, by way of buildings, designs and texts, clearly articulates new ideas about how design may transcribe critical place observations to inform contemporary architecture. Projects are intensively 'thought through' using a critical approach to place and programme as an intellectual framework to stimulate and constrain thought, and promote dialogue with collaborators. The primary working methods of Dalziel+Scullion paralleled that of Hutton where the aim is to consider the pavilion in all its dimensions simultaneously, and loosely determine its primary characteristics, it's formal and material expression, and, importantly, its 'presence' as a container for the programme. Intense dialogue centred around governing theoretical principles, attitudes to tradition and concerns for the environment. Collage and montage were used as methods to juxtapose initial ideas; giant salt cubes, linear tents and translucent ‘blobs’ among them, all helped work out a process of thought and action which lay between arts and architectural design practices.

KAUST Specific Dissemination

Publication

• ‘Wallpaper’ Journal

Exhibition

• Royal Scottish Academy

Invited Speaker

• Royal Geographic Society

• RIAS

• Royal Scottish Academy Salon

• University of Edinburgh

• RTPI