pigeons & shears

A series of digital objects that explore a range of carving techniques that range from the imitation of conventional excavation techniques such as radial boring, to less familiar and intrinsically digital methods of production. The proposal fluctuates between realism and abstraction while exploring a multitude of surface treatments, spatial affinities, and volumetric relationships that speculate on architecture’s long-withstanding subject-object potentialities.

Carving techniques have historically been a facet of producing unnatural surface treatments while provoking sectional spatial relationships within thick amounts of poche. Emphasizing the shear as a primary carving technique, our proposal interrogates how the oblique can be deployed to reveal unlikely material and programmatic affinities and to suggest architectural space within the Pigeon Valley of the Cappadocia region in Turkey. This deployment of a new aesthetic language combines the habitation of pigeons and humans into a self-sustaining model, where the collection of pigeon guano is interrogated for its agrarian role in the fertilization process. Expanding on the rich histories of egg whites, murals of a rich blue Iznik color are covered in a high-gloss finish and span across programmatic spaces deep within the mountain.

Throughout the region, the mural has long been understood as a cultural device that communicates what is often a ritualistic space to its inhabitants. By reshaping conventional thoughts on what a mural is, we begin to reassess the role of ritual in architecture as something that is less involved in religious order and instead highlights the confounding of unlike mediums to produce sensational volumetric vignettes throughout the project.