ARCH-4980.6 | Chris Perry, Assistant Professor

ARCH[IPELOGIC] TYPE

Redefining the ‘Kit of Parts’

KATHERINE TALLIA

This investigation begins with the analyzation of the designs of Charles and Ray Eames, particularly the notion of 20th century interface design and the part to whole relationship. The Eameses were inherently interdisciplinary, explicitly interested in “design”; design being a catch-all of differing scales ranging from architecture and furniture to toys and film.  The aesthetic of collage quickly became a part of the Eameses’ signature. The idea that the user would be presented with a limited “kit of parts” with an unlimited amount of possibilities was a constant theme in their work. They promised good design with maximum flexibility, to assure accessibility to the largest amount of people; with the “kit of parts” idea the buyer was actively engaged in the process of assembling, arranging, and disassembling…customizing the products for his own use.

However, this “Kit of Parts-interface design” was conceived under a distinctive mechanical paradigm characteristic of the 1960’s; the part to whole distinction was specific to a post-war modernism and governing metaphor for architecture and design at the time: “the age of the machine”.

A 21st century approach to the Kit of Parts is one where the distinctions between the part to whole become more ambiguous. Over the past fifty years, design has gone through a generational shift, from a mechanical paradigm to a much more organic paradigm. This 21st century approach is developed and exhibited in a new Archipelagic Archetpye designed to restore tourism in the Hudson River Valley. Beckoning the interdisciplinary approach of the Eameses, an island-like artifact is created calling upon the realms of architecture (proper), landscape architecture and industrial design; an interface between sectional inhabitable structure and landscape is played with, while mechanics of ship construction assist the technical workings of each island.  Clusters of these topological, artificial landscapes occupy and move up the Hudson river, providing new vacationing spaces throughout the Hudson River Valley. The islands are able to come together and pull apart forming multiple arrays of archipelagic formations, however, through the use of topography and sectional shifts, the distinction between the different masses becomes ambiguous, exhibiting this contemporary and organic approach to the part to whole relationship.