Clash

Monash Art, Design & Architecture | Undergraduate 2014

A clash takes place when two opposing or mismatched forces meet, interact and come into conflict. A clash is typically thought of as being negative, at its most mundane it is jarring or irritating, at its most extreme it is violent and destructive. Clashes can occur as part of a design process. Different places, spaces, clients and designers have conflicting demands and agendas. This can lead to clashes of colour, materials, styles, tastes, functions, scales, environments, technologies, economics, techniques, disciplines, speeds. These clashes are normally viewed as negative occurrences and avoided at all costs.

This studio examines the proposition that clashes can be positive, creative, constructive forces. We ask if the energy of a clash can be used to propel work forward, breaking through conventions and boundaries and allowing us to explore the unexpected by sparking new ideas, forms and functions. To test our theory we will create a number of architectural clash experiments. From the debris of theses clashes we hope something new and surprising will emerge. We will record how opposing forces interact with each other during the clash, look for connections, opportunities and possibilities between seemingly unconnected and unrelated inputs and search for complex results from apparently simple ingredients. The lessons learnt from these experiments will lead us to develop new, ambitious architectural proposals that, although derived from seemingly mismatched inputs, will be a harmony of form, function and site.