Disfigured Form

CONDITIONS OF DISFIGUREMENT

Disfigured form is only as provocative as it is perverse- relying almost exclusively on its ability to exploit the dependency between convention and its established presumptions. It is there that it agitates and obscures, dislodging familiarity from the constants to which we have become so accustomed. And in doing so, strips the once common and understood of its categorical relationship to its context. It is an agent of instability and a proponent of unpredictable expression. It is a model for an alternative definition of coherence, one that aggressively addresses a shift in contemporary aesthetics toward more sophisticated, non-formulaic relationships.

This project engages disfigurement through its utility as an effect- severing familiarity from architectural type while resisting a complete collapse of the generic. Structural, spatial, and proximal conventions are present, but disrupted. Its systems of circulation, volume, and enclosure experience radical exceptions to standardization that imbue the system with localized bouts of formal anomaly. The systems remain discrete, but the extent of their modification has yielded a cast of unique, intricate spaces between adjacencies. Clear boundary is dismissed in favor of cross contamination and the conventions of Type are provoked until what remains are complex and layered.

Disfiguration describes a condition of excessive response, where the disruption to form far outweighs the catalyst. This proposal evaluates the potential of such a condition, not only for its procedural value, but as a platform to develop form that stimulates programmatic malleability and loose contextuality.