Airscapes #1
Houston
2021
Airscapes #1 is a body of air. Enclosed by an ultralight membrane, and shaped by chaotic but invisible airflows, the low-pressure pneumatic structure visualizes our ever-changing atmosphere. Its membrane shifts around a body of encapsulated air, producing mesmerizing forms as regions of low and high pressure circulate within, suggesting an ecology of air.
The installation introduces an internal, moody weather to the core of the postmodern atrium of the University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design. Here, light is reflected throughout the interior environment by the work’s transformations. This body of air becomes dynamic due to the winds, introduced by fans, that lift the fabric surface up, matched with the countermovement of the air mass due to gravity.
Challenging the stability of symmetric, spherical forms favored by gases, Airscapes #1 instead relates more to inflatables. It occupies the threshold between pressurized pneumatics and material deformations under wind currents—it is both stable and unstable.
Prior to its realization, the project’s ideas were developed through two parallel drawing series: Static and Dynamic. In both, elements of inflation, deflation, internal air volume, external airspeed, turbulences, fabric elasticity, flexibility, and permeability were iterated to generate an extensive field of forms. The Static exploration searches for form in response to the atrium, in addition to seeking a desired aesthetic of slick and continuous materiality. In this series, one detects the fascination for the smoothness of a mass without gravity. The Dynamic research begins from pneumatic logic. In this series, one understands the phenomena produced by forces and processes acting within a field of lightness, which were ultimately given a material form, enabled by digital tools.
Drawings from each series, seen on the following pages, are distinct in their natures and thought processes. Comparing them invites questions of form versus formation, composition versus process.