Towards Demystifying The “Black Box” : Body As Site
The architectural critic Reyner Banham (1922-1988) famously equated architectural education to a mysterious ‘black box’, a notion compounded by most beginner students being novices to the architectural disciplines and the studio. Initiating meaningful design processes in the studio is therefore one of the challenges facing staff. This article reflects on one approach where the student’s own body is appropriated as ‘site’. Students are invited to challenge a textual brief by designing and making an item of temporary adornment for themselves using recycled materials. They are encouraged to generate conceptual scenarios, to clarify intent and to investigate materials, production and presentation. Upon completion the maker parades the product and presents a verbal statement. Students eagerly engage with the project, despite the apparent frivolity that belies a pedagogic agenda: while facilitating the emergence of creative intentions, the project introduces the notions of concepts and generative processes, making as activated thinking, references to materiality and tentative normative positions. Before the curriculum escalates to unfamiliar and complex environments, the designer’s inner and outer self is explored and expressed in terms of the familiar context of the designer’s own body. As such it serves as a calculated primer from which to demystify Banham’s ‘black box’.