02  transitive gestures







In both parks, the spatial constellations are organized around sports fields of various kinds. Hence the interventions concern how the architecture regulates the fields as well as how the fields regulate the movement of human bodies.











Fields, courts, pitches, and ranges are in themselves
architecture in the language of marks, measures, distances, and boundaries. They are physical manifestations of invisible rules that designate specific actions implemented by the human body. 

The act of marking, therefore, can be understood as the realization of a set of spatial relations.



Sol Lewitt, Wall Drawing, Boston Museum
















 The thesis proposes to see parks as venues for play that are both regulated and regulating the act of play. The word “play” not only pertains to the movement of bodies in a space playing sports, but also points to the theatricality produced between the seeing and the seen. As a result, a syntax consisting of transitive structures is derived from looking at the relation between an action and a built object enabling such action.






                                                                 

       




   
    
Carpenter Center, Larry Speck








Sketch of Carpenter Center, Le Corbusier







An example of a device for action is the ramp at Carpenter Center, which brings pedestrians in close proximity to the interior by facilitating the act of walking and bypassing.











Likewise, activities such as walking, sitting, talking, and watching are regulated by seemingly mundane elements such as benches and fences. In both of
these cases, a physical form is understood as the mechanism through which an action happens. An idea leading to the rediscovery of the sites as transitive gestures.

















The seemingly redundant tautology points to the reciprocity between action and form. 

These spatial devices form a catalog of kit-of-part that constitutes the intervention. Instead of being understood as literal tectonics, they are thought of and integrated as regulatory techniques that bring forth new relations between activities and space.