Output details

Communicating Vessels 2008-2013

The “Communicating Vessels” portfolio project is a self-instigated drawn and written theoretical, architectural design research project. The work that is shown and discussed here is part of a larger whole (2008-13) – the project was initiated in 1998 and continues onward. The bulk of the project is positioned on an island in Britain’s smallest town, Fordwich, just outside Canterbury in Kent. This is not a traditional architectural site it is more a psychogeographical site that holds for the author memories of childhood.

The work seeks to explore and illustrate the far-reaching effects on architecture of biotechnology, virtuality and nanotechnology, and particularly the old dichotomy between architecture and landscape. Technology is allowing architects to mix and augment real objects with virtual ones, to question the inertness of materials and, vicariously, architecture, to link and network electronically all manner of spaces and scales of phenomena together, create reflexive spatial relationships between them and blend the organic and the inorganic. Simultaneously, the aged doctrines of Modernism are being questioned: decoration and Baroque distortion are respectable again. The “everyday” has proved a fecund breeding ground for new ideas. Narrative is also finding its way into much architectural work. Above all architecture’s relationship with biotechnology is evolving fast.

The project relooks at traditional paradigms and elements of garden design such as the gazebo, the garden shed, the walled garden, the bird bath, entrance gates, riverside seats, love seats, vistas, sculptures, fountains, topiary and outside grown rooms amongst many other objects and spaces. It redesigns them, electronically connects them, explores their virtual and actual materiality, their cultural and mnemonic importance and reassesses them in the wake of the impact of advanced technology on the protocols of contemporary architectural design in the twenty-first century.

“Communicating Vessels” is research project investigating how the old dichotomy between landscape and architecture might change due to the impact of advanced technologies such as virtuality and biotechnology. It utilises narrative and surrealist spatial protocols as its key research methods. The project is sustained, long-term, complex, and frequently and variously disseminated internationally. It is, by its nature, diverse in its research agendas and outputs which include exhibitions, journal articles, writings, lectures and drawings. It constitutes much of the author’s research activity since January 2008 and is his primary research agenda.