My theme last week was hierarchy and I began thinking on how I could begin to develop a form or connection with the concept. Essentially hierarchy is an arrangement of items in which they are represented as being above or below one another. In everyday life people make references to height and hierarchy, we commonly say the phrase 'to look up to people' and the top bunk is always first to be taken when choosing a bunk bed. I also think there is a close link to Classical architecture which uses a hierarchy to define the detail of the decoration and fenestration on the facade. The windows get smaller as they get higher up the building to demonstrate the social activities which happen in the space, large grand reception rooms on the ground right up to the servants quarters in the attic.
I began thinking of items in general life which have an hierarchy and thought of playing cards. I then thought of integrating the idea of social hierarchy with playing cards and created my own suit images across the cards. I then began to piece together the cards to create forms in hierarchal order. The forms created spaces in between the cards, perhaps the cards created wall structures and features as in the images below. [Click on the images to make them larger].
Card Hierarchy Concept Model
Above are the overlay sketches begining to show the spaces which are being created in-between the cards.
This is the work which I presented in the inter-crit this morning. We have had the brief for 3 weeks now and most of the work is conceptual and very much still developing. However I felt the inter-crit went fairly well, it was expressed that they enjoyed the idea of comparing playings cards with a social hierarchy and wanted me to look into the history of the playing cards and the idea of House of Cards by Charles and Ray Eames. Also what type of cards were around in the Elizabethan period and did they relate to the roles in society at that time. How was hierarchy used historical in spacial terms, being at the top was not necessarily the best place to be it is very rare to have your front door of your house on the ground floor street level in the city of London. Where do the Huguenots fit in modern day context and Elizabethan? They encouraged me to be more playful with the card concept maybe to include a 'joker' as a mediator between the court and the general public. Maybe the Joker challenged the order of the hierarchy.
Before I move on anywhere I am going to look into researching the history of playing cards and their relationships with hierarchy, social impacts and general information facts which may help to conclude the context of the concept. I will also investigate the architecture of a game of cards, the players or the pack.
Below are the review sheets from todays inter-crit. The panel were Michael Richards [Head of MArch], Tim Carlyle [Tutor], Edward Holloway [Architect & tutor guest].
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