Surfing and the architecture of the dream glide: celebrating the surfer life through an architectural interpretation
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Date
2020
Authors
Van Os, Danielle
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of the Free State
Abstract
I grew up in Jeffreys Bay; a small surfing town where I learnt to surf at an early age. Later, as an architecture students, I began thinking about surfing as an embodied experience and how this could be expressed in rituals of surfing, which contribute to ‘surfing life’ as way of being, unlock a particular kind of architectural expression? Moreover, could the craft and embodied wisdom of making surfboards be translated into a characteristic tectonic approach? These interests grew into a specific research question and inspired this dissertation. The aim is to investigate the possibility of designing a building dedicated to surfing, in particular, drawing on the experiential richness of the dream glide, the embodied knowledge of making surfboards and the lived rituals of surfing culture. Functionally, these concerns are expressed in a surfing museum and a surfboard making (or ·shaping·) workshop. The goal being to expose people to the surfer's way of life, encouraging them to be more socially engaged in their lived situation and environment. It must be deeper than parody, yet retain the essential lightheartedness, joy and sprightliness of surfing. This dissertation follows an account of how I tried to accomplish the above mentioned. The document is structured into four parts. It starts with the investigation being set out and give the reader a background regarding the way in which I approached the design. I will also lay out the challenges that related to this investigation and the final part is a display of the final design synthesis as a process that developed from an initial idea. The last part is a personal reflection on the investigation.
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Keywords
Architecture expression -- Surfing, Surfboards, Surfers