"Body & Lanscape as way of seeing" talk review

Body and landscape as way of seeing, an inspirational talk by Eric Chen

, a visiting professor from Taiwan that had given us a different definition to justify an architecture, to rethink that the reason that why people need architecture and how architecture or a form that would serve the community with the collaboration of landscaping and body instead of just a formal building to accommodate body.

He is the founder of Archiblur Lab which he emphasizes on the exploration relationship between architects and “empathy” of body and landscape, rough the repetitive intervention and formation another way of seeing and putting a body via another interface, the conversion of material, the errors in connective points, and the location of the body. In such a way, these factors can be embodied “empathy” of forming material texture, forming forces and common movements.

He is now involving in the “Urban Archipelago projects”

, those structure where made as drifting platforms that can fill up urban spaces. He is trying to develop a new architectural scale that is able to drift and change between the body, the city, and the lanscape, transforms different areas into theatres, school zones and stages. Built with a combination of tectonic elements and formal conditions, the designs investigate the capacity of people to engage with evolving urban

morphologies and different methods of making art.

One of the function of the moving architecture

that I really interested is that he used the theme of exhibit photographs that showcase in three kind of sequences of ideas to present the action of traditional Taiwan dance that pray to the gods for blessing. It is then presented firstly on the portrait of the character to accentuate the process of making up their faces in different outlook, aims to reveal the body approaching experience to let the images able to hace a sense of movement in the created space.

Futhermore, the image that put outsdie one is to create a consistent movement

, to correspond the relationship of landscape, on the other hand it also used to interact with the interior image which it is unconsciuosly directing human to move into the space like a journey.

Lastly, the group photo image that is hang up on the top is giving a great impact

feeling to the observers which observers will be attracted to look up as a way of giving a respect on the traditional culture that has been diluted through the generation's memory and to let people to pay attention again on the traditional culture value. In the talk, he also mentioned that when he already designed those kind of moving structure, preparing a lot of documents to support his intention and wanted to get approval from government to place on the site that they had already plan to do so, however it was seen as a car from the perspective of the government and it must pay parking ticket which they were looking it as a function of a transport stuff. In this case, showing that the architecture had been define as a building, a shelter where Eric Chen is hardly trying to redefine again this perspective towards meaning of architecture and therefore he had strive his first goal in creating these moving architecture as to forging the relationship between body and landscape.

Other than this function, he also had created a platform for student to has interaction with the nature and the architecture, where he constructed a moving architecture that serves for harvesting the plants by using a eco-friendly system to regenerate the water system to be applied to the demands of plantation. He also had designed several moving architecture which serves the community as well with no doubt that I personally think that he always thinking out of the box by not just creating a architecture as a form but using the knowledge to apply into today's architecture. His kind of innovation is really respected by me and I think also for others and I hope to have a collaboration with him one day when I had alredy pursue his kind of skill and level.