An installation designed for the Bayard Ewing Building Gallery at the Rhode Island School of Design’s School of Architecture, Unmeasurability is composed of twelve mirrored constructions that use one-way reflective surfaces to create spaces where repetitive forms resist conventional measurement. Each cube is elevated on a pedestal at viewing height, inviting visitors to look inside. The objects are lit only by ambient gallery light, yet the gallery itself remains unseen. Within each cube is a distinct encased model, visible through one of several windows, or, curated vantage points. They can be viewed directly or through a digital camera, challenging our digital perception of the built environment. The gallery text that accompanied the exhibit is below.
Often, choreographing the perception of space in the service of engineering experience can be more essential than the constitution of the material reality itself. You might call this “redirection,” but one can also see this as a way to extend resources; to expand the reach of the tools at hand. Working with perception allows not only for a constructed reality that is engaging or interesting; it can suggest that the object of design itself may be immaterial, wherein factors such as light, movement, the framed view, or the passage of time not only enhance—but create—the intended space, surface, or object.
Techniques such as repetition or reflection, use of color, the control of light and shadow, or the use of materials in new ways can contribute to systems that can be seen or experienced as something other than the sum of the constructed parts. It is critical that these elements are not perceived plainly, devoid of effect: the object should be the shifting pattern, movement, ghosting or casting, properties of inversion, or evocation of mood these techniques bring to life.
Architecture that is engineered for experience, rather than rooted in performance, holds this potential: it can shift from one moment to another, it can project different meaning for individual subjects, and it can create realities that are unmeasurable.
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