Elemental surfaces Hamilton Hadden
f reefall is an artificial surface designed to control runoff from strip mines. It is also a way to describe how rain descends to the earth’s surface from above it. It is the kinetic energy that a droplet possessed before it became a droplet; the potential existed in a different state. Vaporous water prefers the tumbling air currents to gravity’s singular, downward attraction. Any earthly surface, and in particular a roof, seeks to move the water that falls on it. Despite the static nature of many roof plans, the surface actively shapes the flow of water along, across and over it. In a rainstorm, the roof is not the only surface that manages these patterns; in its deluge water becomes another surface, covering the roof with a liquid coat. These surfaces together constitute the entire architectural surface. An analog to this relationship between roof surface and water surface is the mutually dependent relationship between our rib cage and our
lungs. The pleural wall is not a wall at all, it is rather the sheer, unbroken contact of two surfaces: the interior surface of our rib cage and the exterior surface of our lungs. Muscles expand our ribs and diaphragm outward from the body, and the vacuum that is the pleural wall draws air into the expanding lungs. The integrity of the wall’s sheerness delivers oxygen to our bloodstream. So when we allow for a break in contact between water surface and roof surface we should expect a vulnerability to emerge. As immoveable as an architectural surface may seem it is always in dynamic play with the elements pressed against it. Rain is perhaps the most antagonistic actor in this relationship, but it is by no means the only surface element. Sunlight, wind and earth all have a defining role to play with architectural surface; each of these becomes another surface and in this becoming each one defines the architectural surface with its coat.
Hamilton Hadden studied in Vermont, worked in San Francisco and just finished a masters in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania.
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