Luis Gómez Barquín

Department: Social Design
Website: lanne-lenne.tumblr.com

Unless you remove

Objects that ask for an action

Architecture has its origins in the primitive
efforts of mankind to provide protection
against inclement weather, wild beasts
and human enemies. Since the first thing
men look for as a refuge is an enclosed
space where they can make themselves
comfortable, it seems natural that most of
the early architecture are excavated. Given
a solid block of matter, man instinctively
tends to carve it to feel protected inside.
But nowadays, dangers are more complex,
subtle and mental. The sort of removal
action of earlier days to hide from the
outside world is no longer suitable.

Whenever man’s needs for protection
change, the response to these needs
evolves too, but throughout history, the
responses have had one thing in common:
the innate protective action of taking away
matter, in soil, in garments or in one’s busy
mind, has an interesting healing effect.
To remove ‘matter’ is never an easy task to
do. It is a process that has to be intensive
and done constantly, creating an emotional
link between person and result by means of
a personal dedication of time, energy and
commitment.

Therefore, I do not propose a design of a
single object but a process that is applied
to them, a process that provides time to
self-reflect and think, performing an action
that is necessary to slowly find out the
hidden function of the piece and make
use of it. Hence, one finds a virtual mental
protection for our fragile well-being by
means of using this removal action rather
than the final obtained result.