The Quadrangle Club, as the eating club with the largest backyard, hosts the largest events open to the University; from open parties to the end of the year lawn parties, and from club-members’ recreational and eating programs in the backyard, the lawn proves to be an important part of the Quad Eating Club. Specifically, the barriers and access points are of focus, following an incident with the neighboring Cannon Dial Elm Club over a shared fence. Because of the pinch points that are created during high traffic times, desire paths are created in which the human users do not follow the intention of the architecture, but instead create their own path (ex: diagonal grass path instead of walking around the fence, as was the observed case between the Cannon and Quad shared fence incident in 2017).

Various population studies seek to mirror the indoor function with the outside, essentially unpacking an indoor function onto the backyard lawn. This stages two events that would never happen together, and compares manmade barriers in the architecture of the Club building itself, with the natural barriers created from trees and shrubs in the outside. Dynamic population studies using an algorithmic software Mass Motion helps simulate the flow of people and create a condition in which all barriers are dissolved (see attached movies).

Given the population studies from the first half of the semester, an inverse of the barrier - subject relationship was called for. Instead of having the architecture control where the people are going, the people would control the formation of the architecture. The idea of desire paths would be subverted and instead the architecture would succumb to the movement of the people through it. The natural barriers of bushes from the backyard population studies created kinks, especially seen in the Lawn Party plan. These natural barriers encouraged moments of mis- behavior, where people would break the barriers themselves. In order to reduce this and create a flexible, fluid architecture that responds to the movement of people through it, the barriers move and can be arranged in many configurations. Taking hedges and allowing them to rotate to create specific configurations is proposed here to facilitate the creation of many different types of programs, as seen in the population studies. The Mobile Garden was programmed to switch from configuration to configuration using Arduino boards and Servo motors and showed in real-time the potential of this new space.

The acrobat and horologist take advantage of each other’s routines as they occupy the same time and space. The acrobat expands to fill cavernous negative spheres, cradled by boundaries of segmented windows that calculate her pendulum-like swing. One dweller performs, actively taking advantage of movement and volume, while the other contracts to passively observe from the interior. 

A working playground that lends itself to distortion yet structure. The revolution of the sun casts shadows which contour the flexible body of the spinner, who flies without any hindrances through a cavernous open space. Defying gravity, the tussling, weightless flier transcends a continuum. Her performance is a pendulum, swinging perpetually as he ponders. Comforting pulses that in multitudes, produces a continuous arpeggio of ticking that fills the otherwise fluid air. The stark contrast between enclosure and openness requires a rapid adaptation that warps the perception of the moment. Together, the nimble flier and the fastidious master dwell in the midst of forces beyond their comprehension.