The Phantom Projective
The techniques of linear perspective, anamorphosis, and other forms of projective distortion have been utilized by architects for centuries. Strategic deployment of these projective techniques provided architecture with the dexterity to be dishonest, to disorient, and ultimately, to negotiate undesirable material and urban constraints.
The Phantom Projective is an investigation into the production of form—both real and illusory. Using variations of the Mathematical Principle of Inversion (a cartographic technique of stereographic projection developed originally to map spherical Riemannian space onto flat Cartesian Space), a “phantom” object is geometrically transformed to create a perceived reality that is, in fact, fictional. The resulting spatial constructs appear contradictory—inverted in their surface topologies and architectural types, where the radial appears rectilinear, the spherical appears planar, the convex appears concave, and the nearby appears distant.
The theater serves as a vehicle to showcase the political power of the privileged point of view of the static subject. By contrast, the peripatetic view of the moving subject offers sequential and momentary apparitions that dynamically inform one’s mapping and navigation of the building. By cultivating a cognitive disconnect between the objective reality and its perceived identity, an architectural alter ego emerges in a city designed to be the ghosted framework of expected normalcy. It challenges our axiomatic understanding of formal relationships typically established through cognitive recognition of the familiar, and in so doing, sets out to harmonize apparent spatial dissonance.
2015-16
Thesis and Irving Innovation Fellowship Research