TRANSGRESSING THE BUILDING SHELL

A shell is an hollowed entity, nearly impenetrable, but when it opens life begins. Building as a shell comes into being when its normative boundaries are transgressed. The acute sense of enclosure of the building shell is diluted by stretching it to an insubstantial mass or puncturing to a latticed lightness. The shell is also moulded to add to its exterior spread, and scooped out to add to the interior spatiality. The urge to transgress the shell is so overpowering that defiance of the gravity and challenge to the stability become its subservient tools. 

The shell is acutely evident as a threshold. It is an enigmatic threshold for transgression from inside or outside. As a physical entity the threshold has an extended occupation, both in time and space. But as a metaphorical seam, it is ethereal, a non limiting definition. The physical threshold is a challenge to transit over, and as a result always prone to breaching. Whereas the metaphorical threshold presents a dilemma, whether one is outside or inside. 

Building shell has been great stimulus for violation. The primeval shell was opaque, neither compact in extent nor very effective as a cover but in evolved or lived in buildings, the exterior and interior are not distinct domains of physical presence, but rather acknowledgements depending on the exigency of the situation.