Aesthetic Gesture

A ritual is something that is commonly done by one on a day to day basis. It can be something that is subconscious or conscious, but is usually an action of behaviour that is often used to neutralise or prevent anxiety. It is a repetitive thing and could be related to obsessive-compulsive disorder. A ritual is anything that can consist of time - a ritual of watching the rugby with your family, eating a specific meal every Sunday night or even the specific way of washing your face at night or in the middle of the day - this is why a ritual is a personal thing. Each person has something different. It is a procedure of actions forming regular behaviours by a single person. It can be a personal ritual or a ritual that is performed by a group like family or church members etc.

My ritual of having my moose in the corner of my bed/room is a ritual because of how he has to be there and the way it makes me feel. By having moose sitting there it reminds me of home. He is something safe, familiar to me and is my personal thing that I have to know is there. My lack of actions towards him means that this is more of a emotional ritual. He is a ritual of comfort for me. He sits in the corner of my bed and therefore he is the last thing I see before I go to sleep. This is a comforting thing for me.

He is a ritual to me because of the actions that I take around him, or lack of, but he has always been the last thing I see at night acting as a comforting and relaxing ritual that gives me peace of mind on a daily basis.

By having Moose always there it makes me feel comfortable, relaxed, makes me think of home, my childhood and my family. He has never been a played with toy for long but I subconsciously know that I have had him my whole life which is calming and creates a feeling of being connected to home even if I am not.


These photos are to do with my ritual literally or more within an emotional way of how it makes me feel.

The peace of mind that moose gives to me connects me to home where I am surrounded by water, which is the reason for this photo

The warm feeling of home is presented in this image as its of a blanket that is from home

This is a photo from my home or near of which I relate to as peaceful and the beauty of home

To create another aesthetic gesture in relation to the emotions and feeling of my ritual instead of a physical and spatial document I have created a collage of these images together to form my aesthetic gesture.

Document a Ritual

Select a homely ritual - my brainstorm in response to this was as follows.

- make bed

- light switches must all be off

- how I wash my face, order and process

- jewellery positioning as I take it off

- shut wardrobe door

- clean teeth

- how I tie up my hair

- having moose in corner of bed

- wearing my dressing gown at most times at home

- eczema cream application

After thinking about my personal rituals I decided to narrow them down to more of a personal one. As I am living away from home there aren't too many rituals that make me feel homely as I do things differently at home then here. The one that stood out to me most was my moose sitting in the corner of my bed. Moose was the first toy I received when I was born so has always been something special to me - apart from the fact that I have never wanted to play or snuggle him as a kid. He is purely a moose that sits there without being held like most toys do. He is a connection to home and is something that brings peace of mind to me just by knowing that he's there. 

I thought about the way I interact with him, or lack off, within my bedroom and thought about the movements I do day to day. I used this as my idea to form my documentation of a drawing. 

This drawing shows him in the corner of my room as the dot, and the constant flowing line revolving around him is my actions as I carry on with my day to day routines, but still knowing he is there.

Site Analysis

SITE: 20 Wallace Street, Mount Cook, Wellington.

This site is currently a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house facing north west. As the sun rises into the front of the house the bedrooms get the first sun rays, shining into the back of the house in the afternoon.

- 2 bedroom
- 1 bathroom
- land area: 183 sqm
- building area: 80 sqm
- built in 1910

Quick sketches from inside the house, looking at the layout and also measurements

From behind the house on the land at the back

Features within the house

Aim, Context and Project

Aim

The aim of this project is to engage in a shared exploration of the rituals that define ‘home’ you will participate in a client/designer relationship, as a dynamic source for the design of a personalised intervention to a room within a ‘standardised’ house.

This intuitive and experimental work will  provide cues as to the ways in which an abstract concept might be activated through the manipulation of objects, materials, space and experience. You will be introduced to conventions of representing your design process, to aid in the understanding of your project through drawing and modelling.

Context

This project responds to aspects of puna. It examines the way that ideas are generated and developed, the negotiation of authorship and ownership and the relationships between creative practitioners, clients and communities.

Puna (wellspring or source) is understood in this context as the wellspring of ideas and knowledge. Ideas don’t just come from nowhere, but have their own whakapapa (lineage or genealogy) – from clients, from communities, from other designers and artists. In using and developing those ideas, we need to be aware of where they have come from, so we can contextualise and articulate through design and make in a conscious way.

Project

You will be introduced to ideation processes of; drawing, modeling, looking, and thinking. These processes will enable you to design for someone else, a spatial intervention within a room informed by a selected ritual. You will learn how to read your design process and develop representation skills to express the narrative of transformation. You will develop a spatial concept by which to structure, understand, and give meaning to your design. To investigate spatial concepts to develop design ideas that explore space planning and inhabitation of domestic living.

How do we design for routines and rituals in relation to the body in the home? What effects do light and material have on space and how can you design using these? The project will be sited within a room located at no. 20 Wallace Street, Mt Cook Wellington.

Te Puna

Te Puna can be translated as well spring or source. It is a watery term, suggesting things that, while powerful (like a river carves the landscape) is also flexible. We see -puna appearing in words like Tipuna ~ ancestors and Mokopuna ~ grandchildren. Te Puna is the past and leads to the future.

Thinking of the ‘well spring’ of Spatial Design encourages us to consider how we actually know and experience space, at an intimate 1:1 scale. In other words, how everyday existence ‘produces space’ It also asks us to interrogate the ‘origin’ of the design: is it with the designer who plans (produces representations of) the space, the construction team who build the space, or the client who raised the ‘problem’ of the space in the first place.