Constructed Vs. Natural.

Can the tension and violence between the constructed and the natural forms of a landscape collide to develop a ‘moment’ of design?

“An age old struggle. Man and nature.” A conflict between a syntax of reason and
pure, natural emotion. The brutal tension acquired from the juxtaposition between geometric value and natural organic forms. A neglected void capable of entailing a 'moment' of design.

Within Doctor Emmitt Browns time machine, the 1.21 jigawatts powering the fluxcapicator once introduced to a contrasting natural source such as a lightning bolt creates a point of departure. Ordered human elements superseded by the natural. Desvigne and Dalnoky test the prospect of the void created by the collision of the two forms by rejecting ‘’mere aesthetic and ideology in favour of a new methodology." Pursuing a ‘moment’ revealed by the collision between the constructed and the natural forms within a landscapes’ pattern.

The patterns of the mid-west. “An impetus for design. The convergence between the geometrically aligned agriculture and the surrounding geomorphical structures of the river valleys.” The patterns act as upon as a whole, a relationship of elements. Each element is somewhat a rule, entrenched within the patterns to inform and direct how they could be arranged in respect to other patterns within the landscape.

The break between the two forms of constructed and natural, when unchained of all subjective, skewed or cultural connotations seem to return to a priormodial state . “An outcome which brings order out of nothing but ourselves, it cannot be attained, but will happen of its own accord, if we only let it.” Like the evolution of an embryo, not a process of “addition to create a whole from preformed parts.” But a process of unfolding the layers fabricated by the violence between the two forms, uncovering the ‘moment’ of a design resolve with ‘more substance.’

Key terms – juxtaposition, collision, priormodial, moment.

Key References:

t I here : journal of landscape + architecture, University Of Minnesota, 2005.

Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way Of Building, 1979.

Desvigne M, Dalnoky C, Desvigne & Dalnoky : The Return Of The Landscape, Whitney Library, 1997.

Desvigne M, Intermediate Natures, The Landscape of Michel Desvigne, Basel ; Boston : Birkhäuser, 2009.