A Passing and a Pause
The concept of “It’s Like Butter” challenged us to explore an everyday food product beyond a literal interpretation of butter, discovering forgotten or overlooked aspects of butter as they relate to sociability, behaviour, physicality. Butter is something we define as blocks wrapped in foil, but unwrapped it becomes scaleless and fluid.
We often switch off while waiting for the elevator, on a sort of autopilot. Until the doors open and you are confronted with a group of strangers, some one you were trying to avoid, and so on. The elevator as a space presents opportunities for exploring a highly standardized, everyday space as it relates to sociability and physical presence of bodies in a small space.
Through discussion and model exploration, we discovered that both butter and the elevator share a similar characteristic of awkwardness, derived from psychological and physiological consequences of engaging with either. Our concept was to enhance this through the transformation of the space.
Vertical III
University of British Columbia
Instructor—Thena Tak
Partner—Lukas Vajda
W2019
Colleagues experiencing the modified elevator.
Rough measurements of the back face of the Lasserre elevator. The paper on the floor captured marks and traces of movement within the space.
Representation of the challenge of moving the four parts of construction into the elevator.
Composite drawing of disorientation and scalelessness of constructed space. This unfamiliarity entices participants to engage from a common starting point.