Skin(s) + Bones

Bodies+ spaces studio week 7

The human body’s largest organ is the sack of dead and living cells that acts as our environmental envelop, protecting against the elements, against injury, against infection and (importantly) against every other organ escaping from the field we call ‘The Body’.

Peter Wood, “Sticks and stones: Skins and Bones”. AD vol 73, no. 2, 2003. Pg66


Make an investigation of either skins or bones
Widely research your chosen topic (skins or bones) to understand the way it operates,
its physiology (its structure, how it grows, its material properties etc) and its cultural associations/applications/manipulations/meanings

Using any processes explore your chosen topic and MAKE some skins or bones.
Some processes you might use include:
digital modelling
moving image
drawing, instrumental/freehand, collage/montage
modelling, using a variety of processes and materials eg casting, carving, laminating, piercing, . . .
prototyping, eg 1:1 scale modelling


Use the computer labs, the libraries (university wide), the workshops. Keep in mind the wide variety of materials that you investigated in the haptic material brief.

If you don’t know where to start you might choose something (an object, a part of a building) and make skins or bones for it. This is the beginning of a project that will unfold over the next six weeks so make this work interesting . . . it has to sustain you!



Skin(s) + Bones Reading: read two of these texts

Hodge, B. (2006) Skin + bone : parallel practices in fashion and architecture. Los Angeles, New York & London, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and Thames & Hudson. (SL)
Call Number: 72.036.6 H688

Lupton, E. (2002) Skin: surface, substance, and design. New York, Princeton Architectural Press; Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution. (SL)

Wood, Peter. Sticks and Stones: Skins and Bones. AD, vol 73, no 2 2003. Pg 65-68 (ECM)

Precedent project:
find one architectural project that in your reading of it operates to engage with ideas of either skins or bones, or both. Research this project and present your research material at the pin up.

Pin up: Tuesday 29 May 9.00

Images:
Top: Source: German Wikipedia, Image contributor(s): XenonR, creative commons attribution, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Human_skin_structure.jpg
above: Bone scans of varying resolution, from the public domain, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Bone_scan_different_resolutions.jpg