Express: Design::Tell: Story

::Annotations::

Stories: Stories are events that can be fictional or true, they can be the story of a person's life a tale of fantasy told down for centuries and centuries. Stories can be used for entertainment purposes with tales of magic and dragons or can tell life lessons with morals of courage and wisdom.


Artifacts: Artifacts are relics or items of importance to the past or present, this item can carry a story with it as well and helps as a visual aid to depict the story. The picture of my cat drawn in Design Graphics is an artifact as well because it is something important to me and it defines me to other people. An item such as an artifact can represent someone or something and can be a person, place, or thing. "A bicycle shed is a building, Lincoln cathedral is a piece of architecture." ( Nicholas Peusner's Quote) Between the two 'artifacts' there are two different meanings for their existence that acts as a relic for future generations to look at. While the Bicycle shed is more functional and the cathedral is more symbolic they are both considered artifacts to which people associate meanings and storied with year after they are built.


Multi view: Multi view is a way to understand the information via different views and view points, mostly it is referred to when talking about an item. In the multi view of an item for one to get the full description of it they must look at the top, bottom, front, and sides to understand something fully. Every view is different. In the reading by Roth, "The Vitruvian three-part definition of architecture, incorporating utility, firmness, and beauty begins with the element that, on the surface, would appear most straightforward, but that, since the mid-twentieth century, has proved extremely troublesome." (p. 12 Roth) He describes that the definition, though seemingly straight forward, may have several multiple views in its meaning when interpreted by different people.


Cycle: Is a selection of events that reoccurs over and over again in a pattern like form. When I think of cycle I think never ending, always something happening like the seasons. There is never and interruption and one of the four seasons always happen. Cycles make things a bit more predictable for those who can figure out the pattern in them. " In architecture, as in all operative arts, the end must direct the operation. The end is to build well. Well building hath three conditions: Commodity, Firmness, and Delight." ( Sir Henry Wotton Quote) There is a cycle when creating architecture along with three conditions, the end being the most important part of this design cycle and process because it is what is commonly seen and remarked upon.


Translation: Translation is taking something and interpreting it in one's own words so that understanding can occur, for example, a foreign language spoken to someone who doesn't know that language holds no meaning because one cannot under stand the meaning. If one translates this to something understandable there is a better chance for the message to be passed on. Some translations are harder then others, even abstract ideas can be translated by a person willing to find the meaning. "What was it for [Stonehenge]? The effort of many generations, extended over so many centuries, was undertaken for some compelling purpose." (p.172 Roth) Stonehenge as Roth describes is a prime example of a piece of existing architecture that has many 'translations' by many people, was it a burial ceremony structure or was it used to tell the position of the stars. We may never know but that does not keep people from trying to come up with their own translations of the stone wonder.



::Reflections::

Stories, artifacts, multi view, cycle, and translation can all be inter related. Stories can have many translations just like design in architecture. No two people have the exact same idea about how to translate them because each is different. Artifacts can have a story attached to them that may or may not need to be translated in order to get the moral or entertainment across to others. The constant telling of stories is cycled throughout the generations and in many different translated variations for the same artifact and story though the story may change through each cycle.

"Beauty will result from the form and correspondence of the whole, with the respect to several parts, of the parts with regard to each other..." (Andrea Palladio Quote) This quote in History + Theory of design was interesting to me because it describes how its not just the final product of the design that is important, even though it is important in a cycle to get to the end. It takes all the parts of the architectural piece to make it beautiful.