The Boundless Workshop:The Representational Framework Of Topographical Instrumentality

The boundless workshop traces a topographical instrumentality across unique working conditions in Chinese Agrarian society.Unlike the division between labor and the place of residence in the American and European context,domestic workshops rooted in farming society contain a bottom-up and social implication in the construction of space.In modern architecture theory,this kind of social operational space is understood as an instrumental concept.The research is founded on the realization that instrumentality was inseparable from its environment and is aimed at revealing how“representational framework” employed in construction systems contribute to collective understanding of place.In the case of carpentry,the Lu Ban Jing clearly delineates a course for the representational framework of environments to be brought into building practice.Carpentry practice is examined as a true,full-scale formalized art,which through integrating its own local representational system marked a point in technics where observation and structure were situated in a quasi-linguistic context mediated by instruments.Given the framework of notation,carpentry's structural components took on a direct relation to tools.While this changed the nature of drawing,it established a role of certain instruments to establish full-scale constructive regions on the building site,and engender an elastic way of building.More precisely,carpentry practice integrated its own practical experience through specifying a modality of representation by way of tools and structural components in a linguistic framework,and in doing so also put forth a reproducible world model.This paper will focus on the ceremonial representational aspects of Lu Ban Jing and explore the site of construction through both written and photographic records as well as personal field investigations,attempting to reveal a special "operating memory." Compared to the hierarchical system of image of Yingzao Fashi,Lu Ban Jing opens a possibility of discussing "tectonic" from a distinct and critical point of view from the Western concept.This notion of tectonic takes into account social rituals,physical labor,and bodily relationships significant to its original conception,advancing the concept beyond the shear symbolic meaning of a system which encompasses both aesthetics and pratical knowledge.As a kind of ontological tool,"operation memory",refers not only to the work proper to the structural frame itself,but also to a judgement relating the building to the surrounding environment.Under such a special construction system,woodworking tools not only directly process materials,but also can be regarded as a representational system,similar to drawing.In this sense,I understand the specific operations and notation of this system as a kind of language structure.Further,tools can be seen as concrete objects that embody regional and cosmological concepts.It also means,that discussion arising from carpentry tools is not confined within the category of building or construction,but also may be extended to the broad cultural category of the collective memory of the tectonic process – and more precisely a discussion of what I call “tectonic typology.” In the context of Western architectural theory,many modern architects and theorists have tried to explore the problem of “notational system”through renewing discussion of Renaissance architectural theory,to then reinterpret the problem of continuity of cultural tradition.Through the concept of “tectonic typology”the thesis attempts to explore the symbolic character of tools and their specific operational activities,as well as the possibility of the construction method brought by such a representational system.