Sunday, February 10, 2008

the fold in built form

UN Studio

One of the most difficult propositions of the “fold” is transition from abstraction to tangible. It is easy enough to read and understand Deleuze, Grosz, Lynn, and Vidler but overwhelmingly difficult to translate their concepts to built form. (Keep in mind that this is all relative, meaning, understanding them is not easy and hence translating from abstraction to tangible seems nearly impossible.)


The work of Ben van Berkle and Caroline Bos of UN Studio cleverly and clear actualizes these abstract ideas. Most directly they have taken the mobius strip and it’s 3-dimensional equivalent, the klien bottle, objects that literally have no inside or outside, and lack orientation or direction, and translated them into built form. They have used the mobius strip as the basis for their Mobius House to sponsor overlap and interaction between all aspects of living and working cycles.

UN Studio use the klein bottle as the conceptual frame work for their Living Tomorrow pavilion.

Finally the fold is most clearly illustrated by the Villa NM. Split-level programmatic functions of a house are mediated, separated, and connected by a fold.

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