Reaching Through the Threshold
Located in the small mining town of Svappavaara, Northern Sweden, this semester-long exchange project explores the space between inside and out. With Ralph Erskine‘s New Town as a backdrop, this exploration engaged with Erskine‘s heavily protective Northern Wall housing block, Ormen Långe, and specifically his proposed unbuilt cooler boxes which were to hang on the Northern face as supplementary passive fridges and cold storage. These charming, mundane, inventions along with Erskine‘s treatment of thresholds and the surrounding environment prompted a further exploration into breaking through the Northern wall and bringing the occupants of Ormen Långe back into direct engagement with the North. The resultant product was an experiencial kinetic box which encouraged active participation in reaching through the threshold and suspending oneself within it.
Reaching Through the Threshold
Using two 1:5 detail models as protagonist and backdrop, this short 1 minute stop-motion animation explores the experiential qualities of reaching through a threshold, and breaking through the "Northern Wall' of Ralph Erskine's Ormen Långe, Svappavaara, Sweden. The first 13 second section shows an interaction with Erskine's oringinal and unbuilt proposal of an external cooler box hung on the northern facade of the housing block, Ormen Långe. The following two scenes explore the possibilities of taking this concept of reaching through the threshold and kinetically 'opening up' to the North. Modelmaking, filming, and editing by Carolina Arteaga García & Arin Chance Beaver
