The initial concept discussions for the Echigo Tsumari competition reignited an idea that we've been
thinking about for a little while: how do you maintain the character of something while changing it into
something obviously new. This thought stems from the largely unchanging character of our city due to
historical preservation of the numerous victorian houses that make up a large part
of our urban composition. These houses are beautiful and add great character to our neighborhoods, but
our minds wander with thoughts like "What what be the process of reducing a victorian house down to its essential parts?
What's left? Is it's essence still recognizable?"
One way we set out to explore this was through a reduction of detail. In this exercise we
modeled Matsumoto Castle, with most of its detail, and dipped it repeatedly in plaster. With each dip
the model lost a degree of detail until all detail disappeared.
Dipping Exercise