continuous ecology: Articulated Soffit

In Kenneth Frampton's essay 'Vilanova Artigas and the School of São Paulo' which is the introduction to the issue of 2G journal he aludes to the Brazilian architect's

'reservations about the received syntax of the International Style, which tended to treat the concrete roof as though it were little more than an abstract plane, devoid of the structural integrity of a traditional roof....while he seems to have been attracted to the liberative spatiality of the Corbusian free plan, he was not sanguine about the atectonic character of the flat roof.'

The drawing convention which could be used to develop the articulated soffit is the reflected ceiling plan (RCP). While often used for laying out suspended ceiling tiles and light fittings - the RCP could be something much more evocative - describing changes in light, material and articulation of the soffit. An RCP of an urban sequence would describe the movement between streets, alleys, halls, courtyards and awnings.

The following are a selection of and variatons on reflected ceiling plans.