Despite its name, the spacematrix is a concept that doesn’t have anything to do with sci-fi, but relates to architecture.
The Venice Architecture Biennale opens at the end of the month, so an architecture and fashion post is definitely due today.
A recently released book entitled Spacematrix. Space, Density and Urban Form written by Meta Berghauser Pont and Per Haupt and released by NAi Publishers tackles issues relating to the spacematrix in a very interesting way.
The book explores the potential of urban density as a tool for urban planning and design.
The authors analyse in the volume the logic between density, urban form and performance to understand and predict the effects of specific designs and planning proposals.
The relationship between types of urban environment and data such as amount, size, physical properties and economic values, is also explored together with the possibility of redefining concepts of urbanity through density.
The book has already been hailed as a vital read for architects and urban planners, but also economists, engineers and politicians. Now, if you stop and ponder for a while on some of the issues explored in the volume, you will definitely find a connection with fashion.
Urban density, urban form and the performance of the urban, physical constraints and qualitative preferences are recurrent themes in Spacematrix, but, interestingly enough, we could apply them to fashion as well.
Density and qualitative preferences may relate to fabrics (the concept of space matrix can definitely be applied to fabrics, and mainly relates to the density of a fabric, but also to its porosity, to the voids within the fabrics that hold and retain water…) and embellishments; urban form and performance are concepts usually linked to the environment and the spaces surrounding us and to the impact they have on what we wear, while physical constraints may hint at shapes and silhouettes that constrict, free or transform the body.
If we consider these elements as variables and start playing at increasing their variability degree, we will easily create a series of designs that, though based on the same elements, are intrinsically different.
Tao Kurihara’s Autumn-Winter 2010 collection is a perfect example of where playing with variables and density can take you: using drawstringed pieces, deconstructed garments and fabrics with different densities (at times also patchworked ones in paisley prints), Kurihara integrated variable elements into the designs included in this collection.
There is one very intriguing project that will be unveiled at the Venice Architecture Biennale conceived as an exploration of densities and real/imaginary urban spaces.
The project is entitled "Blueprint" and it's a collaboration between Korean artist Do Ho Suh and Seoul-based practice Suh Architects (Eulho Suh and Kyungen Kim).
The project is based on the results produced by mixing different spaces together, analysing their variability and density and exploring how they react inside an imaginary yet complex urban matrix.
The "Blueprint" installation looks at the notions of home and boundaries and features scaled reproductions of Do Ho Suh's house in Korea, of the New York townhouse where the artist lives and the façade of a Venetian villa.
The project is made out of hand-stitched translucent blue nylon fabric (to evoke the concept of the "Blueprint") and laminate panels.
Different images and elements from the past and present are mixed and juxtaposed in this project, while real and imaginary densities create illusions by combining together various decorative and architectural elements.
So fashion students out there following this blog, is anybody interested in taking the spacematrix challenge and develop an entire collection on variable densities and urban spaces?
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