lesson 2: adhocism Some burlap cloth, a macramé ring, a reel of cotton, an ice auger, a kayak bilge pump, a telescopic swimming pool pole, some nylon cord, a snow shovel, and a backpack crop- sprayer. This inauspicious collection of everyday items could be an inventory of objects dragged from the dark recesses of a garage blinking into the light of a yard sale. It is, in fact, an exhaustive list of items used in the construction of Orko; a testament to adhocism where ‘everything can always be something else’. Improvising with what is at hand rather than things devised for a particular purpose is to construct as a bricoleur rather than as architect or engineer. Levi-Strauss observes that ‘the ‘bricoleur’ also, and indeed principally, derives his poetry from the fact that he does not confine himself to accomplishment and execution: he ‘speaks’ not only with things … but also through the medium of things: giving an account of his personality and life by the choices he makes between the limited possibilities. The ‘bricoleur’ may not ever complete his purpose’. In this spirit Orko is a beginning rather than an end. As temperatures rose above freezing, the structure failed as it melted. Doubling down, the construction principles, structural strategy and materials were reclaimed and re-deployed to create a new structure, assuming its own distinct form in a new location. Oculus, a small shelter for two people, is a bricolage of bricolage. To the bricoleur, temporary architecture is not an immutable object but a materials bank. Through architectural and structural strategies with multiple potential outcomes, and assuring the integrity of materials and components are preserved, shapeshifting reinvention is possible. Looseness and imprecision can extend an architecture’s life, albeit in a form that little resembles the original and may not have been fully designed at the outset.
Orko/Oculus, ice/fabric surface structure construction materials
Orko, salvaged materials following structure’s demise
Oculus, ice and burlap cloth structure. Val-des-Monts, Quebec
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on site review 43: architecture and t ime
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