Space has the political tendency to close itself and architecture is the practice of organizing space. The employment of architectural knowledge is thus ideological and territorial, formed by a specific understanding of boundaries. On an urban scale, cities are the result of micro and macro conflicts played out daily in the political, economical and social realm. The space of conflicts has its own particular characteristics: topology, morphology, organisation, rhythm and geometry. Space is a medium of social relations, articulated as physical and symbolic distance, proximity, position, opposition and simultaneity. The Production and control of space is thus crucial to any execution of power, representing its potency, reproducing its social order. Territorial conflicts are intensified through the systematic instrumentalisation of architecture and urban planning for the purpose of controlling space. Spatial design or the design of borders as we know them out of tradition has expired and needs a new condition, a new form. Architecture has to redefine itself and its political functions. What are innovative methods of spatial enclosement?

Fashion and Architecture as a Social Surface: The permeability of the membrane between art, architecture and fashion, the overcoming of mapped border – these things should not make us forget that architecture and fashion are two different societal systems that need to be differentiated. Nevertheless these systems refer to each other, yet acknowledge that they are historically different and are presently associated with different purposes, as well as following their own criteria and rules. Architecture and fashion design are means of communication capable of speaking many different languages. Fashion is and has ever been a highly political and social issue, especially in connection to the female body. Fashion can adorn the body, lend it significance and power, help to achieve social status and make appear desirable and beautiful. It is a versatile medium, complex phenomenon with numerous functions, societal and symbolic planes of meaning. Fashion, but also architecture acts as “second skin”, enabling protection as well as codifying public and private life.

Choreographed Geometry investigates and stages these characteristics by using geometrical organisation and textile materiality, mapping social relations of and in space, proximity, position and opposition and simultaneity. The garment consist of modules (material: felt) that each relate to the human body, varying in size and geometry. Modules knit together form a whole geometric field (garment). The size of this artificial skin will allow 2-3 persons to interact with it in chosen social contexts (e.g. socially deprived areas) to allow for mediation and new spatial and social conditions by their own body movement. Constraints for movement and usage within the system of the garment (joining, scale, geometry of different parts that are related to body extremities) will be able to rule the behaviour.

The modulation of the body, once wrapping up, it discloses by emphasizing its stimulus potential regardless of underlying anatomical conditions. The (female) body is being brutally deformed or grotesquely reshaped by the means of spatial fashion devices. It becomes a provocative appearance within a certain social setting and new body constructs are moulded by the movement and interaction of participants within the garment. The garment itself becomes an interface between its users and their (built) surrounding – the body is being disembodied and space is being de-bordered. Geometrical entities will refer to the human body, but at the same time de-materializing it. Controlling space becomes an important active instrument for the participants and actors. Colours will be used as codifying instruments for the artificial skin. > “Raumplastisches Kostüm” – ductile spatial system

Experimental design strategies and their spatial articulation of boundaries break open antiquated views and establish a three- and four-dimensional space, furthermore enables through critical interaction, discourse and its context where it is being produced, the visualisation of social-political aspects of space. Multiple complexities in architecture can not be condensed into a single formal criterion, but inter-relational set of criteria is needed to develop architecture through emerging methods. Within experimental design processes forms are temporal constantly changing due to ongoing negotiations with their surrounding. “Choreographed Geometry” as a systematic developed, spatial model is exposed to a number of manipulative processes that negotiate between different environments. Boundaries are understood in an ambivalent and critical state and create blurring transitions rather than rigid definitions, furthermore create atmospheres rather then areas. There is a redirection and chance of geometry into variations and options to choose. Aesthetic practice is a process that appears in design, appropriation and the formation of space. The garment in this project belongs to spatial models that are anti-hegemonic because they do not exclude different interpretations and allow for speculations. During experimental design processes conditions need to be re-evaluated, value structures and systems need constant critical analysis and engagement.