Buoyancy is defined as “the ability or tendency to float in water or air or some other fluid”. Situated along the Space Coast of Florida, this project is dedicated to understanding and celebrating the importance of buoyancy to this region while remaining reactive to the fragility and instability of ground along the Intracoastal Waterway. The Space Coast is an inherently buoyant site with many ships coming in and out of the port, as well rockets being launched out of Cape Canaveral, establishing a significant relationship between the instability of the ocean's surface, the horizon, and the sublimity of exiting Earth's atmosphere.
This set of generative mappings explores the overlap of the new and old Cocoa Village and the spatial joints that exist between the two. In an effort to dissect the relationship between the portico of the historic Porcher House, the tectonic abnormalities of local nautical hardware store, S.F. Travis, and the fluctuating sea level of the Intracoastal Waterway, peculiarities were uncovered, such as the use of a sunken barge as foundation for the expansion of S.F. Travis.
My fascination with the sunken barge, used as a makeshift “anchor” to stabilize the intracoastal sand deposits from dredging, led to the mapping above which pinpoints the location of shipwrecks on a global scale. The diagram below features a contour study of the famous shipwreck, La Trinité, located off the coast of Cape Canaveral. This study ignited my interest in the perpendicular relationship between the irregular ocean floor and the horizon (a horizontal datum), and the rising and sinking movement of buoyant structures, such as boats, planes, and oceanographic research devices (a vertical datum).
A local mapping of the Space Coast to further explore the relationship between the ocean floor and surface, and the quality of space that exists between the two.
A device to capture a single astronomical event. Plaster and basswood model.
Mapping the human horizon. Tape, sticky back, graphite, ink, mylar, and other digital tools.
The diagram above maps the various horizons that humanity has achieved, starting with the position of buoyant structures on Earth such as a boat hull at sea level, an airplane wing, and progressing upward into space where the horizon is viewed from the ISS, a GPS satellite, and the moon, until this view of the curve becomes figural (this point at which the view of Earth changes from a curve to a circle).
From this composite drawing of the measured human horizons I extracted the form of my building: one large curve and two circles of varying diameter. The building overall is this assembly of different human horizons that organize the three primary spatial components which are the public space (holding artifacts of shipwrecks), the atelier (a neutral buoyancy pool where synthetic aperture sonars will be built and then used to scan objects on the ocean floor like shipwrecks), and the archive (where different maps of shipwreck locations are kept).
Transposing perspective. Sketch series.
Employee versus visitor access. Sticky back, graphite, mylar and other digital tools.
Elevation and section model. Basswood, plaster, foamboard, and polycarbonate.
With the organization of the spaces I sought to frame views that are not normally experienced in their correct context such as having to look down and placing this view of space equipment underwater and vice versa in the main gallery where visitors have to look up at the shipwreck that is placed against the view of the open sky.
WIP
