Intimate Enclosures / Unbounded Territories: Crossing the Threshold of Interior and Exterior through an Investigation of Motility, Orientation and Perception

Abstract

This thesis explores the dichotomous relationship between landscape and the built. An exchange of conflict and correspondence between the two entities is particularly apparent in the current cultural context of New Zealand. Here, there is a widely accepted presupposition that the denizens maintain a deep connection to the land. In architecture, however, this is often not evident but more notably manifest as a recurring subject matter in the country’s visual arts, both historical and contemporary. Landscape is engaged through purely visual means. In architecture, buildings are not often perceived as a vehicle for which one can engage the picturesque merits of the local landscape. In fact, during a time in which populations are becoming increasingly conscious and critical of their impact on the earth, architecture itself experiences similar scrutiny because of its own potential to disfigure the scenery of a landscape, particularly one which is situated in the remote.

Considering the physical distance of remoteness concurrent with a predominantly urban population, the connection between people and landscape can be seen as somewhat detached. This leads towards a position in this research, where the relationship between people and the land can be considered as realised, romanticised and nurtured. Looking towards recent critiques by authors such as Jeff Malpas and Edward S. Casey, this study questions landscape’s history as a subject merely engaged through imagery; a representation. On the other hand, the concept of the architectural enclosure has long had a history of confining space and controlling the user. This thesis aims to demonstrate architectural design strategies through a design-led methodology. The design research investigates the way in which architecture is externally viewed in the landscape and how the external environment is engaged from the interior.

Historically, rural examples are practically and economically successful in providing inhabitants with architecture’s most fundamental purpose; shelter. The proposition within this research does not dismiss past examples. Instead, the research questions to what extent relationships between users and the environment can be acquired and how this might push the role of design. Grounded in discourse concerning situation and perception by David Leatherbarrow and Guiliana Bruno, a theoretical investigation is undertaken into what can be seen as two opposing (although argued as interwoven) strands; exterior and interior. These terminologies are further specified as, vastness in landscape and intimate human-scale of interior space. This dialogue provides a foundation for the interrogation of architecture’s boundaries through the development of design strategies to address architecture from the outside-in and inside-out. The design investigation explores these strategies through two in-depth case studies, the Dominus Winery and the Benesse House Art Museum. These buildings inform the design process for a winery in the Wairarapa landscape. Advocating a more interactive apprehension of landscape, this thesis engages architecture as a means for people to become actively immersed with the environments wider settings.