PARADISIACAL SAMPLINGS is an installation of volumetric structures, presented as a set of makings of natural origin, befit to meet inner expressions of beauty. Far from the spectrum of the ‘picturesque’, they aim to explore tactility beyond formative intentions. Different layers stack on top of or next to each other, bring together variant properties within processes of blending, merging, melting, coating, moulding, assembling or taking apart. 

This process of making is a recurring theme for architectural design studio, in a landscape architecture curriculum. There are structures produced to experiment on materialistic rather than figurative formations. Materials used to sample paradisiacal formations are plaster, wax, gravel, plastic mesh, paper, soap, colour, seeds, leaves, pine cones, pine leaves, grass, soil, natural sponge, cotton, stone, plastic, metal, charcoal, and oil. Inner natural images and remote environmental tactility blend visual and spatial features of inhabited and uninhabited lands. Distant volcanic configurations blend with fluid or spongy masses. Wax coatings on dark soil concentrations and fruit parts dip into plaster to envision unexpected synthetic terrains.

Extruded qualities

Upon a number of trials, one comes up with a set of optimized makings. What stands eminent in the making and why? There is a mental version of making and a physical one. This installation for the TAB Satellite Program brings forward the notion of beauty in between. Nine beauties chosen to trample between processes and qualities of hand-making, machine-making and their visual and spatial attributes; exploring qualities of hand-thinking and manufactured beauties. Certain research workflows allow for qualities to extrude and qualities to be silenced. 

PARADISIACAL SAMPLINGS credits

Author:

Dr Despoina Zavraka

Supported by:  

Landscape Inventions (LI)

Counselor:

Dr. Anastasios Tellios

Manufacturing, visual and spatial processing:

Giorgos Grigoriadis, V4Design research project

Eftihis Efthymiou, FabLab

Collaborators team:

K. Mprougatzi, Y. Maria, J. Soumayiannis, K. Stavroulaki, P. Loupus, T. Dimitratos, A. Sidiropoulou