Pattern is all around us. Whether embedded within every speck of the cosmos, or simply a derivative of our subconscious desire to understand the chaos of experience, suffice it to say that a system of order(s) binds all things together. From the immediate relationships of locality emerges the tapestry of a tightly coupled existence…. To begin the current project the students were all given a standard “pattern map” that consisted of a square inscribed with a complex system of orthogonal lines, angles and radial arcs derived from the natural internal geometries of the square. Using black and white paint, they were then asked to derive a series of three tiles from the described geometries using the various devices of axial symmetry, radial symmetry, and asymmetry. Using these initial tiles as a point of departure, they were then asked to develop and refine the tiles so that they may be assembled into three different “tapestries” each mindful of one of the following constraints:

1. The first tapestry is to have a clear organizational strategy and utilize a regular repeat that is infinite.
2. The second tapestry is to have a clear organizational strategy that can be utilized infinitely but have no repeat.
3. The third tapestry is to have a clear organizational strategy but be hermetic within its own boundaries.

Each of the tapestries is to be constructed using xerographic technology Each tile was to be exactly 8” square. The overall composition of each tapestry is  80” tall by 48” wide with no border. In addition to each tapestry the students also included one original hand painted representative tile on a 20” x 30” piece of illustration board. From beginning to end the students had a total of about two and-a-half weeks from the time we gave the initial pattern map. This was about four days longer than we expected, but with only a couple of days to go in the original schedule, we found that many of the explorations could use one more pass, and felt that the final assembly of the tapestries was going to take a much more significant length of time than the students were scheduling. From the looks of the final results, I think both assumptions were proven true. A double handful of the tapestries seem well developed and assembled.

Beyond the continued development of patience, persistence, and work-done-daily, the larger architectural goals of this assignment are pretty straight forward. As we continue to methodically explore systems of structure and enclosure, it is important for the students to first begin to develop strategies for component modularization, modification, and variation. By exploring these ideas graphically in two dimensions, we hope that at least a few of the students will be able to successfully extrapolate these same notions into three dimensions. I suppose we will see soon enough. Layering in the complexities of structural systems that we first investigated last semester will only add to the challenge as we continue.

It was her stern necessity: all things
Are of one pattern made; bird, beast, and flower,
Deceive us, seeming to be many things,
And are but one. Beheld far off, they differ
As God and devil; bring them to the mind,
They dull its edge with their monotony.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Xenophanes

All life is pattern… but we cannot always see the pattern when we are a part of it.
Belva Plain, Crescent City