i. Recalibration
It is a twenty minute walk along the Lake Michigan shoreline from GLERL to the site of the proposed Great Lakes model and exhibition space. Two lines, the line where the water meets the sand - and the horizon line, provide the western boundary of ones local geography and perceptual limits, respectively. The response of the architecture to this primary site condition is to take the shoreline - a line in constant flux, an imprecise and inconsistant line and fix it by transforming it into a constructed, architectural line - and to undermine the static nature of the horizon line by constantly repositioning the body so that the perceived “zero” of the landscape is continually shifting. I will call the sensation of this constant shift “recalibration” and propose that an architecture that brings this to the fore will ultimately deepen one’s awareness of the true absolute zero - the horizon.

ii. Semaphore
This design of the model was not a direct response to the problem of representing
a specific set of scientific information, but instead a response to the absolute lack of an emergent community based around ecological awareness. The design of the facade as well as the interactive interior, become an analogy of the real-time data collected by GLERL, instead registering in real time people’s response to the attempt to educate. This model must work in a double way, simultaneously providing a communication system and a beautiful, ambient space of affect - providing the opportunity to enjoy, rather than engage, but hopefully only temporarily. A generative metaphor for this aspect of the project was the semaphore - a coded communication system intially based on the possible configurations of the body. In the early nineteenth century this communication system was adapted to large scale architectural devices for the relay of messages across large distances. The great lakes model acts as a contemporary interpretation of these devices in that it provides a node from which to relay information down the shoreline - initaiting a chain of communication that could eventually stretch all the way to Chicago.

 

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