Viewpoints explores movement using the elements of space and time in order to discover ourselves and our surroundings in the moment. For architects and students of architecture, these workshops can be an invaluable way to experience space, flow and time offering new perspectives about their work and themselves.
We propose beginning the workshops in an open, seemingly empty space. This will allow for a brief explanation of the 9 Viewpoints (architecture, topography, spatial relationships, gesture, shape, tempo, duration, repetition and kinesthetic response) and will facilitate moving through space freely and openly.
We then propose the workshop moves to other spaces of various architectural designs where we can further explore space using the Viewpoints methodology. We will discover how the architecture and layout define movements and experience. This knew relationship to space will allow us to transcend our beliefs about space and each other: to experience each as they are, without expectation or preconceived ideas.
We will be able to explore how and why certain spaces encourage human interaction and how interaction can be constricted or focused. We will explore how topography defines a space and how different elements of architecture effect flow and stasis. By abstracting and experiencing space physically, new insights can arise about the effect architecture has on our physicality and interactions with architectural elements.
VIEWPOINTS EXPLAINED
The core of Viewpoints is that human interactions happen in both space and time. In fact, all of the Viewpoints are part of everything we do everyday (where we stand in a room, how we walk through a door, whether we feel inert or energized in a space). Viewpoints are inescapable and they come directly from human behaviour.
While one Viewpoint cannot be expressed without the others, in the training, one may be explored with emphasis over the others.
Space
- Architecture – the elements of a room that creates the nature of the space. Space is created by architecture. Elements of architecture include colour, texture, height, weight, ornamentation, etc. and these elements effect the way we move (usually unconsciously).
- Topography – the patterns we make moving through the space. It affects the flow and movement through space. How a space is arranged effects movement.
- Spatial Relationships – the relationship created between objects and actors.
- Gesture – movement of the body that often conveys meaning – Gesture can express time period, culture, society, class, health, state-of-being, etc. – and is often the result of an internal impulse.
Behavioural Gesture: gestures made in every day life – these are often culturally understood gestures, like waving good-bye.
Expressive Gesture: gestures that reveal an inner state of being, psychological or emotional states.
- Shape – the shape of a body or bodies in relationship to other bodies, bodies in relationship to objects and architecture, this can also include the shape of a gesture.
Time
- Tempo – how fast or slow events/movements occur.
- Duration – how long an event lasts.
- Repetition – anything that is repeated. Repetition can happen across space and time, individually and between actors.
- Kinesthetic response – an instantaneous response to outside stimuli.
Voice
- Pitch – how high or low the voice sounds
- Dynamic – how loud or soft the voice sounds
- Timbre – how full or thin the voice sounds
RESULTS
As the Viewpoints are explored, we will engage in being in the moment. Since many of us modify our behavior in professional surroundings, which can be very confining, Viewpoints will allow us to find a new freedom in ourselves and in the spaces we occupy. As architects, we will learn to ‘dance’ with the space, like a partner, to discover as much about ourselves and how the space defines us as we define the space.
At work, we tend to follow unspoken rules of decorum and we limit our experience and responses to each other, our circumstances, and our environment, which reduces our inclination to explore. Our nervous system and muscles have responses that we cannot think of and which are far more curious, far more interested and engaged and which can be tapped into by releasing the social conventions of movement which bind us and keep us from fully experiencing and exploring our surroundings.
Viewpoints allow us to explore environmental factors we usually take for granted (like colour, shape, texture, temperature, light, etc) but which can offer untapped regions of insight, critical thinking, creativity, and joy.
Each participant will be able to take this experience with them and apply it in their everyday lives. Many of my students have told me they never see the world the same after experiencing and playing with Viewpoints.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Email: educate@gaietyschool.com
Tel: (01) 6799277, extension: 14