OLI-Villa

Studio: Testa Vertical Studio
Partner: Deedee Chung
Instructor: Peter Testa
Year: 2020 Fall

INTRODUCTION

The project began with exploiting new ways of seeing and re-seeing architecture using a custom animation
platform and graphical user interface for volumetric compositing provided by the studio- the TWEEN platform.

The initial exploration began in the exercise
ALONE, the TWEEN platform is deployed to exploit possible ways of re-seeing hidden morphologies of an asset appropriated from Le Corbusier’s unbuilt Olivetti Calculation Center at Rho-Milan, as it tweens between viewports. In ALONE TOGETHER, overlapping
linework unfold new spatial relations among multiple objects as whole entities whilst maintaining legibility. Assets are being repurposed and combined from other Le Corbusier projects, where orders of formation are developed through a series of deconstructing/ reconstructing movements. Through the act of undercutting, offsetting, and pixelating, shapes collapse into a spatial visual slippage in which the rigidity of the structure disintegrates.

The in-betweenness in these animated drawings generated allows for a syntax to form new types of identity. These quasi-autonomy connections orchestrate open scenarios of how abstraction and symbolism emerge within the realm of perceptual space.

Working with various line qualities offers ways of encompassing and re-interpreting dimensional relationships between the inside and outside.

The Olivetti machines’ casings echo as a skin, jacketing internal components shown similarly in our graphic operations. Upcycling assets from Le Corbusier reinforces the concept of circular design within a self-manufacturing production to the extent that an afterlife is co-created both in physical and
digital realms.

These qualities are translated into formal strategy from line to volume, interpreting strokes as architectonic forms. The mechanism of movement in the flat drawings is re-imagined as plans and elevations. Line weight characteristics within are portrayed to carry certain physical properties and
functions, such that dotted lines are treated as a perforated surface, wiggly strokes as paneling divisions, and so on. We bridged together with the divide between the virtual and real in this animation which enables continual contact from the flat to breathe into its surroundings.