Paper short abstract:

Body architecture explorations includes three recent AUB Architecture research-practice projects: an experimental sensing of the moving body; a series of environmental audits, and thirdly an installation questioning the visitor's identity. All travelled via a mythical, ecological and rhythmic line.

Paper long abstract:

An anthropological fan and gate-crasher, brings architecture design, and its associated creativity, to work across and with the social sciences. Three recent research projects by AUB Architecture are reflected upon, to explore the relationship of the body, to a wider social environment. The first, is a research project, with Zaha Hadid Architects, emerging from the a 1980s performance, to the use in 2017 of sensors to record the body, in the AUB Gallery's ZHA exhibition. The resultant data was used to make 'the line', drawn by Ariadne, the choreographer (1993, Indra Kagis McEwan). The second project was working with the RNLI to environmentally audit places of drowning. It follows the endangered body in space, overlapping with a number of social and mental ecologies revealed at the sites. The third questioned the quasi-national, and personal, identity using an installed, designed and pre-fabricated journey line in the British Pavilion, Venice as part of the 2018 Architectural Biennale (Daedalus-the maker architect). A series of methodologies were applied: from the choreographic; such as the use of somatic practice, to the architectural; for example the use of psycho-geographic and physical models. They also referenced Rhythmanalysis (1992, Lefebvre) and The Three Ecologies (1989, Guattari). The approaches move between the choreographic body (Ariadne), and the fabrication of the architectural line (Daedalus). The research approach seeks to incorporate the social. These investigations & methodologies focus around mutability and identity, from where there is an attempt to develop a projection into the circular future of the UN sustainability goals.