Sea, architecture

Abstract

This report takes two steps sideways to move forwards. It looks for sea concepts through literature and then interprets architecture in the light of those; using the process widely employed in other areas of designing architecture to build ideas. There has been very little written on the relationship between sea and architecture, in spite of the sea's large contextual role. This report splashes that gap. The main pieces of architecture are by Arets, Asymptote, Nouvel and Malaparte (an author, not architect). The books are Seven-Tenths, by James Hamilton-Paterson, a treatise on the sea; and four novels: Shipping News by Annie Proulx; Reef by Romesh Gunesekera; Going West by Maurice Gee and The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. Quotations from the books sit next to the text to associate their richness with the architecture. In interpreting architecture via the sea, we can make use of scale range (expansiveness and minute detail within that); a vast array of sea conditions and movements, which indicate a more architecturally accessible expression of mood than is revealed by people; currents and undercurrents (physical and metaphorical); juxtapositions the sea does so well; sensuousness; and the widely held myths we are reluctant to let go.