The Beauty of Darkness

Development task / technical detail development

Task 6 / Essence and Awareness

Task 6 / Essence and Awareness 

In both architecture and photography, there is a requirement for darkness, however the emphasis on darkness means not to ignore or devalue the importance of light, but to highlight that both are needed. They influence each other, pull and push away, hide and expose each other. The heavy shadows against light shadows, the fade and haze of an opaque screen, the refraction and diffusing of soft light, against the designed tectonics of corners, edges and ridges creating a heavy darkness or a light shadow. Dark and light move fluidly, whether we recognise it in a space or an image, or completely forget about it at together, the beauty of darkness pronounces a vivid role in how we experience and appreciate those spaces.

In the design of a bathhouse, in a cultural and ritual sense, the element of projection and reflection are present within its walls, this idea of moving through to a very public state to a very private space. In darkness I see privacy, in darkness I see internal reflection and this state of disconnection from the outside world. This transition is something I explore in my design. How can I move this internal state of thinking from projection to reflection, how can I move light to dark. It oscillates and moves, it is never in a fixed position. Darkness moves with the sun as much as light does, and the idea was to manipulate and control the way darkness was in my design.

In designing and developing the bathhouse I rotated back to these “rules” I created.

A Journey from public to private.

A Journey from light (public) to darkness (private).

Inciting a journey from projection (light) to reflection (darkness).

Task Five. Mid Semester task. Interior Views.

Task Five. Mid Semester task. Aperture Detail.

Task Five. Mid Semester task. Section Two.

Section BB (refer to plan)

Task Five. Mid Semester task. Section one.

Section AA (refer to plan) 

Task Five. Mid Semester task. Final Plan 

Fig. 1.

Task Five. Mid Semester task. Development of plan part 2.

Fig. 1-4. / A recognition of division and threshold.

Task Five. Mid Semester task. Development of the plan part 1.

Task Five. Mid Semester Task. Paper Models Part One 

Task Five. Mid Semester Task. Site plan and research

The site is western park, my individual site being the sloped stream area of the park. The stream is mainly dried up during the course of the year but floods a little bit during the rainy season. 

In pre-colonial history, the times where Auckland was inhabited by Maori Pas and land, the area now know as western park was a part of an important space for Maori. Maori had their food production organised into gardening and fishing circuits. These were dictated by soils, fish stocks and the native calendar (maramataka). These fishing stations supported byv gardens throughout the Auckland Istmus, including Te Waiatarau (meaning reflecting waters) or freemans bay area.

Western park falls away from the ridge line thus the valley like typography of the park. The ridge line was called Te Rimu Tahi or ‘the lone rimu tree’

Statellite fishing stations supported the main camps that by the 15th century included the volcanic Pa throughout Tamaki.