The gentle hand + the greedy eye: an everyday baroque practice in architecture

This research responds to discourse on the everyday in architecture [and cross-disciplinary areas of interior architecture, and art] concerning the multi-sensorial and embodied aspects of architectural perception, thinking and production.<br><br>A major premise is that there are instinctive, complex and significant patterns and typologies in the way we use space in ordinary, intimate settings, and that these can give insights to larger, more public spaces traditionally handled by the architectural profession. The argument is that by virtue of their subtlety and familiarity, some of these fundamental patterns – both physical and occupational – have been overlooked by the shapers of our built environment in favour of conventional agenda, such as formal, functional, theoretical or political schema. Alternatively, they may be present but invisible or unrecognised, their profundity dismissed as trivial. The PhD addresses these observations as relevant spatial and material content for an architectural approach redefined by theories of the everyday.<br><br>A further argument is that everyday architecture, because of its evolved, interstitial, diverse nature, is inherently multi-sensory and contingent in the way it operates, as opposed to a tendency toward the rational, ocularcentric and definitive in orthodox architectural practice. The PhD addresses these ideas as relevant to the process of an architectural approach influenced by the everyday.<br><br>Through a hybrid practice of creative works, curation, critical writing and education, the PhD investigates specific everyday settings, notably the table, to deepen the understanding of potential spatial and operational analogies for architecture. Three publicly-exhibited major suites form the spine of the research. Each has multiple components, uses different media, scales and forms of collaborative practice, and is supported by a raft of secondary creative endeavours and explorations. In this way the PhD demonstrates ways to use the everyday as a productive source for architectural analysis, response, and ultimately as an agent for an expanded model of practice.