Marie Davidová
The collection of gigamaps for exhibition is setting my case study research on responsive wood in the Czech Republic into context, glueing together systems oriented design with performance-oriented architecture. The series should serve as a detailed illustration of the paper Socio‐Environmental Relations of Non‐Discrete Spaces and Architectures: Systemic Approach to Performative Wood, presented at the conference (Davidová, 2016). The first section consists of teamwork gigamaps as a generator for the design and public discussion of the LOOP pavilion prototype (Davidová & Prokop, 2016; Slavíčková, 2014) that were previously published in my paper for RSD3 (Davidová, 2014).
The third gigamap serves as analysing tool of traditional architecture, and its use in relation to the environment and social or human activities and the last one is setting the overall project Wood as a Primary Medium to Architectural Performance through Systems Oriented Design Approach into the context of different interrelated interactive spaces’ boundary conditions, which are covered in the RSD5 paper. The collection relates transdisciplinary team design and fabrication processes and different personas and organisations involved in such, human, social and biotic behaviour with climatic and geographical data, addressing interactions in performance of architectures and their parasites in urban design.
The first map served as a design and communication tool, where printed images and threads were involved in mapping, and the constellation was several times reorganised in relation to the design needs. The second was created as a reflection and as a tool for communication of the complexity to the public. It was exhibited next to the built pavilion prototype at the EnviroCity festival (Davidová & Kernová, 2016; Kernová, 2014). Though being aware of the discussion that gigamaps should not serve as a presentation tool, this case, especially in relation to the performing object, did a good job.
These maps were referred to by Sevaldson as “action maps” due to their active role (Sevaldson, 2016a). The other two I would call analysing maps that serve as a reflection and, therefore, a ground and an argument for further design. They are focused on opportunistic activities; the use or habitation of spaces and objects meets its performance through environment-material and/or design interactions.
Inspired by the Library of Systemic Relations for gigamapping introduced by Sevaldson (Sevaldson, 2016b), relating such in gigamaps required its own coding or an update and/or combination of the existing proposed library. The maps show different ranges and intensities of behaviour or performance in relation to placement or design, represented by an informational layer of images. Thus generating a matrix of interlinked information in which zooming, sequencing, or feedback looping appears. These thematic gigamaps are, in fact, developed ZIP‐analyses (Sevaldson, 2016c) of each other, zooming in on a problem with the topic under study.
