Reading Response: Abstracting Craft - Malcom McCullough

A creation will carry certain characteristics of its media. The form and texture of an object will be determined by how the object is made. As put by McCullough,

“Hands also discover. They have a life of their own that leads them into explorations. For example, a sculptor’s feel for a material will suggest actions to try, and places to cut. Learning through the hands shapes creativity itself. ‘The hand is not the mind’s docile slave. It searches and experiments for its master’s benefit; it has all sorts of adventures; it tries its chance.’”
In this example intuition, as developed through experience or otherwise, guide the creation. But indeed, this intuition is informed by the material itself. The media has informed the artist. The material and the intuitive hand dance with the artist’s vision. The result is a creative synergy that produces something no one expected. This is what is interesting to me about hand made- The way a material can inform its artistic transformation.
In architecture this cannot be avoided. The pencil will inform the perspective, the 3D modeling program will inform the form finding (especially for beginners like me) and the collection of materials and their interaction will inform the model. Taking this raw product, refining it, letting the different products inform one another, making it more consistent and reliable across media, communicating it to the engineers, developers, clients, contractors, sub-con, and builders, this is the beauty of the challenge of architecture.
What then is the true manifestation of a vernacular architecture? Is it to design in the various media, retaining the rawness of the different modalities, and then building with the real material, accepting its wishes, letting it inform its own creation? This is intriguing to me. A truly ‘hand made’ building. Sounds fun to give a go.