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Mappings on the Contiguous

Part 2 Project 2000
Gareth Pugh
 University of Edinburgh Edinburgh | UK
As part of a group of four my final year project was spent experimenting. With no preconception of the result our moves were defined by a rigorous process that evolved from our initial perceptions of the site. Using the intimate scale of a sequence of urban walks, we re-mapped the city of Lisbon as an overlay of individual moments, optical and aural instants. A resultant archaeological assemblage of fragments was created within which issues of temporality, scale, sequence and situation were addressed by placing it within the fabric of Lisbon.

During the year the dialogue between group members became a driving factor in generating the processes and the emerging architecture. As each group member concentrated individually on portions of the assemblage and its connecting grain it was possible to transcribe our memories of Lisbon and narratives of the walks into the composition, and juxtapose it with the surrounding cityscape to yield a multitude of unique programmes and strategies for inhabitation. The themes explored during the year culminated in the production of Metis; full scale detailed moments along the contiguous walk.

GSP


Throughout the academic year a small group of highly committed students maintained an architectural conversation concerning a re-mapping of the city of Lisbon which was to privilege the experience of a 'particular time' over a 'generalised space' in the representation of an experiential city as an archaeology in reverse. Gareth Pugh was an extremely intelligent and distinctive voice within this group.
During the collective project Gareth's role was critical as a facilitator and initiator, using model-making in particular as a means by which to further the architectural dialogue. This recourse to making, which is also a constant in his individual investigations, resulted in a number of exquisitely crafted models which were to prove fundamental in the development of the architectural process.
Working independently, on the 'Archive' and the 'Marketplace', Gareth's commitment to the rigours of the process, the demands and limitations set by adherence to an unfolding understanding of the programme, was exemplary. Utilising that which was given by the process, he invoked the history and topography of the immediate site in order to play the lived city against the revealed archaeology. The resulting work is representative of an architect with a highly developed material sensibility and a considerable critical intelligence.

VCB

2000
Digest Photogram 1 of 10 - To further the use of the new geography of the canvases, photograms were used to focus the superposition of all of the temporal canvases onto the physical urban fabric of Lisbon.
Initial Modelling 1 of 10- A series of ten models began to suggest built form which embodied all the information collected and when subsequently analysed and added to, a wall which would reinterpret the relationships found within the hill.
Combined Model - By placing the individual models together, the many relationships between them became concentrated, a contiguous assemblage was created
Assemblage in Context - Various locations for the assemblage were tested. By falling the strip within Lisbon a new context was added; another layer of archive to the material was added.
Section in Context: The collision of separate sites within the contiguous, and the expression of the varying scales were investigated in survey sections of the grain models.
Marketplace Perspective - The journey across the incised surface is viewed as a series of liminal events
Metis Isometric - Exploration of archive mechanism
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