The Sheltermaking Theatre

 

 

Everything is shifting under my feet. Not in a bad way but nonetheless challenging. The EconoSpace Project clearly has a mind of its own. Despite our best efforts, the objective of getting it out of the ground is elusive. This has gotten me thinking, why is it so difficult?

There is no clear answer to this question. I can think of many reasons, including the ‘local wetting’ I wrote about previously. There is also the fact that Thomas has returned to Belfast to resume his amateur boxer training and contemplate his future. Liz has also gone on to do her own thing.

However, no matter which way I look at this all answers fail to satisfy. I’m beginning to consider that it is me that is holding things up, that somewhere in myself I’m putting a block on things. Another possibility is that I’m actually meant to be doing something else. I have been trundling from Design to Construction like an old dog on the hard road, not really thinking if this was the proper route to my objective – wherever that is! So, I decided to lay down by the roadside and reconsider everything. This was blissful – taking time to relax and dream. This led to an interesting place.

I’m calling the process ‘backtracking’. It’s not really about retracing my steps or about where I am going but seems to be more concerned with consciousness! This is familiar territory and brings to mind the comment of a student of an early Be Your Own Architect Course who said ‘I was teaching philosophy not architecture’. I am still catching up with that throwaway line.

Anyway, as fate or destiny would have it, as soon as I begin to dream everything appeared differently. I quickly put together a presentation which neatly fitted into an old idea – The Sheltermaking Theatre. This is a device to enable us to see the invisible – things like time, gravity, space and feelings. These are inexorably linked to architecture and to our selves as human beings. It is from this invisible matrix that we emerge.

Phew! This is not what teaching architecture is meant to be about! Yet, on some level, it is exactly what it is about. It is what living architecture actually means – that we can use buildings to connect to a a deeper reality, discovering in the process who we are. This I have known intuitively for quite some time but I could never explain it in a way that made sense in the context of how architecture is normally spoken of – in terms of passive solar energy, sheepwool insulation, hemplime, heat pumps, double glazing or whatever.

In many ways things that we know inside ourselves but which are repressed or remain unconscious are more shocking when we accept them than new information. That is how I feel at the moment. A mixture of impatience, excitement and trepidation. Add to that the fact that a film crew from TG4, the Irish language TV station, is coming to film the EconoSpace Project next week! I have appraised them of developments but I’m not certain they properly understood. Anyway I’ll adhere to my new mantra ‘it’s all theatre’ and things are bound to be all right on the day. Then there is the HeadSpace to get ready for display at The Dock, the local arts centre. This is pure theatre!

So there it is folks. My soul bared. My face presented to a new horizon. The wheels in motion. Destiny at play.