Student Work
1∕4
Title
Ecognosis Center
Project Description
Nestled into the landscape of Hawaii’s Nā Pali Coast, this research institute provides an environment to study the nearby oceanic reserve. Building space is independent from the environment, but as the building’s quality. Lab and dormitory space are postured together in different forms of loose interlocking with themselves and the environment. Exterior “rooms” are formed from this clustering of related figures; visitors travel up the cliff by a funicular line that and deposits them into one such exterior “room.” Carving out footprints into the landscape, interior space also spills out into courtyards. Seemingly native, the masses are encrusted in a raw materiality and stretch the cliff-side onto the figures’ surface, allowing the building to flicker unreliably between landscape, building, or something strangely other. These moments break down traditional hierarchies between seemingly disparate objects and open up an intimacy between them, forming an “ecognosis,” an experience of coexistence, between human and environment.