A Place of Solitude

A Place of Solitude

A place of solitude is a space that accommodates the user’s involuntary questioning of being and place in the world. The utilisation of the in-between and the idea of refuge can achieve this as they are inherent to our feeling of comfort and safety, the requirements for one’s self-reflection. Through various material investigations, a calming space for one’s self-reflection will be created.

“Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise until noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness .... I was reminded of the lapse of time.” - Henry David Thoreau

Jamie North

‘Terraforming’ refers to the deliberate manipulation of an environment to make it capable of sustaining life. Artist Jamie North turned this term into a noun and applied it to his series of sculptures exhibited in Sarah Cottier Gallery in Paddington, Australia. A set of marble and concrete pillars poetically filled with plants

Henrique Oliveira

Henrique Oliveira creates voluminous installations of wood such as in Palais de Tokyo, Paris. The vast structure which appears to grow out from the supportive columns of the room conquers the space. Constructed from a mass of twisting and turning tapumes – wood used to fence construction sites in Brazil – the installation evokes the characteristics of a living organism.

Initial Artefacts

These are the initial artefacts from the material investigation. Resulting from the process of including jute via the use of fibres as an aggregate, formwork, imprinting fibres onto the surface and moulding the mesh into the plaster.

Final artefact

Plywood was chosen to achieve a similar aesthetic as the jute, which can be steam bent and used as the formwork, allowing the concrete to take an organic form, similar to the jute. The use of plywood is a realistic choice for a real scale space and removes the need for additional material for formwork that the jute would require. The final artefact results from the previous process, using steam-bent plywood to create an undulating form with the potential of creating a cavernous space. Pieces of the formwork are removed to reveal the concrete and create a synergy between the two.

Design

The exterior form resembles a rocky outcrop reaching out to the horizon, which is contrasted by the undulating interior formed by steam-bent plywood purposely removed in areas to expose the shaped concrete. The user is invited into the cavernous passage by a crack in the facade before reaching the intended space of reflection where the threshold between the indoors and outdoors is blurred, a space of the in-between. A feeling of refuge is created by the cantilevered overhang and extending platform resulting in a sheltered stillness needed for self-reflection.