Towards bonding-practices: Problematizing verticals in architecture through theory and design research

Abstract

In my thesis, I look into possibilities of 'bonding' as a spatial practice through drawing, to explore the notion of 'an architecture without verticals'. I approach the notion of an architecture without verticals as a critical agenda to re-think subject-place relations through verticals in architecture. I discuss the notion's impossible narrative to be critical to step out of the duality of vertical and horizontal dimensions in architecture, and to invite in the 'non-neutral', subjective, relations with a place. I claim bonding as a spatial practice I search for to re-think verticals in architecture. Based on the lived experiences of two bondings, with a roof beam in an attic during a temporary research residency in Brussels, and with a stray dog at the archaeological site Aşağıpınar Höyük, I discuss bonding to be a corporeal and material process that discovers other possible spatialities within a place. I argue that, bonding's spatilities transgress dissociative boundaries, and guide to a re-discovery of existent relationalities between subjects and places. I align the notion of bonding and the notion of an architecture without verticals to push the limits of architectural practice to find, and perform, personal engagements with surroundings. In pursuit of a knowledge of this alignment, this thesis navigates into a practice-led research that simultaneously explores, and experiments with, personal and associative narratives of bonding through methodological explorations of drawing and writing, introducing the term 'bonding-practices'. I propose 'bonding-practices' as a question of discovery, and creation, of the ways in which bonding, by way of drawing, may inform design process as a performance taking place within practice. Venturing into a peculiar practice of an architecture without verticals, bonding-practices reconfigures embodied rituals of drawing as a practice. It, thus, differs from a representation of the created spaces of bonding, and navigates towards a production of spatiality, through inclusion of methods, materials and tools. This thesis investigates bonding-practices as a methodology, by reconfiguring ritualistic engagement with tools, materials and acts of drawing, enabling space for drafter's participation in the knowledge, and production, of space. This research is written in five main parts: 'INTRODUCTION', 'NAVIGATIONS', 'EXPLORATIONS', 'ALIGNMENTS' and 'CONCLUSION'. In the 'INTRODUCTION', I present the research proposal introducing a theoretical and practical relating between the notions an architecture without verticals and bonding, problematizing narratives of verticality in consideration of one's engagement with place in architectural design theory and practice. I attempt to re-situate the notion of an architecture without verticals by problematizing dualist assemblies of verticals and horizontals framed by Cartesian thinking. I offer a comprehension of the notion of bonding as a spatial practice that enables a field of subversive spatial configurations that re-situate our relationship to verticality. I distinguish 'bonding' and 'bonding-practices' from each other, proposing 'bonding-practices' as a critical spatial practice referring to critical mediations of bonding processes into drawing practices. In 'NAVIGATIONS', I investigate the notions of 'an architecture without verticals'and 'bonding' theoretically. Situating them in a problematization of dualist assemblies of body/mind, theoretical investigation of this chapter proposes navigational motions, for bonding to happen from 'becoming one' to 'cooperative others' and, for an architecture without verticals to happen from 'eliminating verticals' to 'subverting verticals'. Through theoretical investigations in this chapter, I find commonalities in both notions in their engagement with critiques that propose to break from the separative duality of vertical body and horizontal ground relationship, and to discover existent relationalites between subjects and places through matter. In 'EXPLORATIONS', I present and discuss practical explorations that seek bonding as a performance taking place within drawing. Three areas of explorations of bonding-practices are proposed: 'Bonding Experiences', 'Bonding Preparations' and 'Bonding Narrations'. 'Bonding Experiences' presents textual explorations through which I device a lexicographical method to mould subjective textualities of bonding. 'Bonding Preparations' presents material explorations, mainly in form of three-dimensional studies that seek physical modalities of bonding. Material explorations open the interplay between emotive and physical processes of bonding to discussion. 'Bonding Narrations' presents strategies to engage with multiple spatio-temporalities of bonding through drawing. Bringing together transformative processes of bonding and transitive processes of drawing, this chapter explains and discusses the authentic knowledge produced through three areas of explorations of bonding-practices. I claim that by mediating bonding into drawing, the researcher-drafter accesses methodological possibilities of looking into, and producing, space by personal engagements with place within drawing practice. In 'ALIGNMENTS', I present a calibrated alignment between the notions of an architecture without verticals and bonding through a curated relating between three areas of exploration, textual, material and spatio-temporal explorations of bonding-practices. In this chapter, I discuss that, three areas of exploration of bonding-practices collaborate with each other presenting space in transitions. This chapter discusses on the subversion of narratives of verticality in bonding-practices, in the sense that, verticality in architecture departs from being a 'given', and navigates to be understood as subjectively and culturally produced, re-figured, and transformed through sought methods of the subject (researcher/ architect). The 'CONCLUSION' shares concluding notes on how this particular research process and practice could be helpful for others. This thesis aims to develop a process of learning, in which as a design researcher (I) pursue my interest in subjective accounts of places and the acts of making, to enable space for my own participation in knowledge and production of space. Drawing by bonding describes a research practice, that transgresses its representational utilization in architectural design practice, allowing subjective positions into discourse of architectural design theory and practice.