Somatic Architecture

Installation, steel, cardboard, hessian fibre, plaster of Paris

Somatic Architecture was a large-scale installation created during my time at the National Art School. The work began with a welded steel armature, suspended from the ceiling with chains and gradually built outward through layers of cardboard, hessian fibre, and plaster of Paris. This composite of industrial and organic materials produced a form that was both skeletal and architectural, strong enough to stand on its own yet visibly handmade and bodily.

The structure’s sprawling legs and vaulted body combined anatomical and architectural references: certain areas resembled muscle fibres or knuckles, while others evoked mechanical joints, crab claws, or the arches and buttresses of cathedrals. The surface, left white from the plaster, unified these hybrid elements into a single living architecture.

Viewers could walk beneath the towering form, entering into its spatial body. In this way, the work became not just an object in space but a presence that redefined the room around it, a being that was part building, part organism. Somatic Architecture explores the reciprocal relationship between the body and the built environment: how our anatomy has historically informed architectural design, and in turn, how architecture shapes our movement, perception, and sense of self.