Pearce, Thomas;
(2022)
An Architecture of Parallax: Design research between speculative historiography and experimental fabrication.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
This thesis develops, through an architectural design practice between speculative historiography and experimental fabrication, a design research method revolving around shifting notions of parallax. Parallax, the effect whereby the position or direction of an object appears to differ when viewed from different positions, is fundamental to the geometrical reconstruction of three-dimensional spatial positions from two-dimensional information and lies at the basis of technologies like photogrammetry. Moving beyond this metrological meaning, the work proposes an expanded, generative notion of parallax that accommodates and generates multiplicity, thereby challenging the imperatives of homogenous categorisation in current (digital) architectural design practice. The method is developed through a series of projects oscillating between historical enquiry and experimental technological design practice. Through the description of these projects, ranging from the speculative reconstruction of a long-destroyed unphotographable tailor shop to the fabrication of a prototype for an inhabitable mobile amphibious sculpture, the parallactic method unfolds simultaneously as a mode of observation and creative invention: following parallactic shifts between the heterogeneous points of view of historical interlocutors, technological agents (the projects use digital fabrication, scripting, 3D scanning and robotics) and further ‘others’, heterogeneous architectural artefacts are created that hold the capacity for an ongoing multiplicity of interpretation and open-ended re-invention. It is through the parallactic method’s embrace of difference, its combination of heterogeneous frames of reference, allowing non-belonging elements to cross, contaminate and co-enact, that it is able to create thick and indeterminate architectural design assemblages that continue to generate difference. The thesis formulates a theoretical framework for this entanglement of parallactic knowing and making by referring to poststructuralist philosophy (in particular Karen Barad’s writings on quantum theory) and questioning the very separability of historiography and design practice, capture and fabrication, instead describing design research as a mutually implicated onto-epistemological practice.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | An Architecture of Parallax: Design research between speculative historiography and experimental fabrication |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2022. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > The Bartlett School of Architecture UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10143224 |
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