Waterloo Architecture undergraduate student Simon McKenzie is a winner of the American Society of Architectural Illustrators Juror Student Award for his atmospheric renderings. The project, entitled Proteus Moves, was completed in Professor Dereck Revington’s 3B Option Studio in the fall of 2012. Simon’s work will be exhibited alongside that of graduate student Chanel Dehond at the twenty-ninth annual Architecture in Perspective exhibition beginning October 15 in Dallas, Texas.
Design statement from Simon McKenzie
This studio explores the art of architecture imagined through space, time, and motion. Focusing in particular on philosophical concepts, technologies, and practices within the spatial and temporal arts.
The studio begins with selecting a video of a moment of extreme weather. This project examines the crushing force of water, as it battles with the explosive buoyancy of a shattered iceberg.
A series of models were made as an experimentation of the selected material and its shape-shifting qualities. This developed an understanding of the movement and imagination of matter. With each successive model study, a greater sense of interiority was established. A cultural site was developed to house program that was investigated throughout the term.
Durational Section – This was the term used to define an image that compresses various spaces, both interior and exterior into a single moment of time. The space shown in this drawing is a Palaestra; a building that originally existed in Greek culture as a facility for sport and meditation. In this Heterotopia, athletes would train while philosophers engaged in intellectual pursuits. This building embodies the sublime mutability of proteus. It is a facility for movement: a space to train, perform, and express the inner workings of the human condition.
