FEATURE SPACE
Between the work of art and the world around it exists the frame. A crafted object that mediates the two. The material object of the frame holds together the abstract world of the artwork. It’s filigreed borders made not by the artist, but by an artisan, a craftsman. The physicality of the frame, it’s thickness, it’s material, the shadows of it’s profile, creates a tangible border to the work of art. In architecture that border is created by the facade. Like the frame it is often articulated and its materiality creates the boundary between the inside and outside.
In today’s digital world, our frames and facades are our phones and screens. These digital devices are blurring the boundary between the frame and the world. A new framework is introduced through code. Not physical frame, but not abstract either; code, and it’s result (programs, interfaces, software), are a new form of digital craftsmanship. Like the physical frame, it meets the same definition of "a structure which serves as an underlying support or skeleton, or of which the parts form an outline or skeleton not filled in.” Through our frames, and facades, and code we are able to move between real and abstract, inside and out, physical and virtual.
Feature Scape/Future Space generates more blurring. First between frame, facade, and code. It proposes the frame as facade controlled by code. The form blurs inside from outside reaching into the space at the east end and projecting out as a canopy at the west. The frames create a landscape of edges through undulating movement. The form is digitally made in the computer to be built by hand. The pattern going across the frames is a digital interpretation of natural landforms, a topography spread across multiple frames. It jumps off the frames and becomes a series of metal meshworks, transforming from abstract pattern to physical manifestation and continuing the movement from outside to inside, engaging the doors and windows. Feature Scape/Future Space creates a new feature on the street that draws you to see what is inside. It becomes the frame/facade/code for what happens inside; framing without defining, engaging without overpowering.