Precis (Abstract)

There lies a battle between two extremes; black v. white. Two visual elements that relies deeply on each other, yet exists as separate entities. White is a color, but it is defined as the “absence of color” and therefore it has no form because one cannot see its boundary. Something with no boundary is known to be infinite. Black is the extreme opposite. It is the “blend of all colors” and because the human eye can absorb its form visually, there lies a boundary. In Architecture, something represented in white is termed as “negative space” where there is no information on its own to convey, and black is considered a “positive space” where the information is deciphered through its boundary and form. However both have something in common, and that is absence.

White is the absence of color, and black is the absence of light. Two extreme opposites, both interlinked yet wants to exist independently. There is a tension between these two elements, a battle between its own hierarchies, or is there such a hierarchy?

In a piano for example, one cannot hear a combination of effervescence without hitting the black and the white keys combined. It is a flat melody if alone played with white, and if alone played with black. In this instrument, both can harmonize in balance. In a Nolli plan, where the white represents circulation and black represents only the form of the buildings around its surrounding site, again white is just as dominant as the black but it cannot exist on Its own, it needs that solid outline to relate the space to. My project is a series of investigations through tectonics to discover this tension between the two extremes, for it is within this space that unlocks and releases a new form. It is this emptiness that contains the key to unlock the tension within its depth of field.

Perhaps the key to life is to release this tension within. It was tension that provoked certain events. It was tension that gave it form. It made a relationship as well as break it. The harmony of opposites attracting and finding the link between its extremes. Tension causes the birth of man, and it was also tension that provokes them to destroy. It is this struggle to link the two extremes together that hinders its progression. It paralyzes the mind to progress whether it needs to go backwards or forward. We accumulate components, layers and layers of multiplicity to spaces we find empty to the point where the mind becomes stuck in a realm that no longer wants to function. Trapped in a congested haven no longer desiring anything new.

By extracting the space that links the two extremes (The old void), we not only redefine what has been released, but we have now given life to a new form. This new kind of Tension becomes a solid form (a positive space) a new definition, a new freedom. The next “tabula rasa” to build upon in life and in Architecture. This is the new type of Void.