Introduction / reflection

Morphosis was founded in 1972 by architects Thom Mayne, James Stafford and Michael Bricker. The firms philosophy arises from an interest in producing designs which absorb the culture and context which it was made for and creating architecture with challenges and abstracts traditional forms and uses unconventional shapes, proposing the concepts; fragmented and amorphous.

Fragmented; state of being broken, fractured, or ruptured.
Amorphous; no definite form or distinct shape.

The Cooper Union avoids the use of a standard linear form, instead having a fractured and folded facade which resembles the free-flowing nature of air and water. The building's semi-transparent skin creates a play of light and shadow, dynamically revealing and concealing the interior, reorientating the ambiguous and amorphous nature of the design. The interior consists of a jungle of overlapping surfaces and lattice, which although stems from a geometric form, appears fluid and random.

I translated the design seen in the Cooper Union and other works by Morphosis by creating a conceptual model of amorphous fragmentation. My 3D model is an organic and undulating hexagonal mesh and an obscure tangled mass. Materials were added in bright blocks of colour to reflect the Morphosis' representational diagram style. The models were rendered using a 3DS Max plugin called "Illustrate!" which allowed for a cartoon style image. I used different render effects to explore ideas of ambiguity and undefined form. For some of my renders, a spherical lens filter was applied giving them a warped, distorted and deformed appearance. Other renders had a wire frame filter applied.


My posters were designed to be laid landscape side-by side forming one long spread. My composition is titled "Cryptic Visionary". Cryptic being; having a meaning that is mysterious or obscure and visionary being the imaginary. On my poster images were placed mainly across the centre of the spread. I superimposed the images and altered opacity settings to give them a distorted and offset appearance.