1998 UK Award Part 1
Geoscience Museum

‘Tension: the buildup of tension between tectonic plates,’ is my theme for the year’s work. This was expressed as an installation in the first project, which made use of soap film physics as a metaphorical representation. In the installation, quick bursts of energy as the colors cancelled were a visual expression of tension. This helped me decide upon a leisure activity, Quasar, for my second project. In the second project, a leisure space in the city, ‘tension’ was again expressed metaphorically. This was through viewing and the element of surprise from the site and the game spaces.

The third project is a geoscience museum sited in Santa Monica, LA. The site is a vast flat plane, which drops to the Santa Monica highway. It also borders Main Street with the controlled civic blocks as well as First Court and activity on Ocean Avenue.

Geoscience explores many topics dealing with the Earth, which lead to the fact that the Earth is alive. Plate tectonic is a basic although large factor of the ground being alive. The edges of these plates could be viewed as engravings in a skin and where the edges meet; there is always a state of tension.

My first gesture was to cut into the site to illustrate fragments of the Earth’s geography and to emphasize the flatness of LA and of the site. The cuts created a landscape of copper planes and gravel canyons. Tire marks in the gravel indicate movement into the canyon where the museum and parking area are located. The museum has been separated into two main program routes. One is on general information whilst the other is a research route. The copper planes, an extension of the kerbs and an expression of horizontal weight are large tanks of water. The canyons, which inhabit the museum, are an expression of vertical pressure. The Californian sun makes the cuts dynamic. It creates patterns of shadow in the landscape and the contrast of light and shadow emphasizes the edge quality of the planes.