Week 15: Mid term summary

- Digital Applications of ancient Armenian stone carving for rural housing in Shikahogh -

On one hand, we have a long established stone masonry tradition in Armenia, on the other hand we have the Shikahogh village in Syunik province in Armenia that is in need of improvement and the challenge is to utilize the ancient carving techniques on the platform of the modern digital applications whilst addressing the real needs of the villagers.

The initial strategy that I have adopted for reaching this objective looks like this. Here I have identified the three areas – the target which is the rural development, the context, which is the resource for the theoretical framework as well as a data source, and the practice, is where the transition and transfer between the theoretical and the practical implementations occur. Now practice employs two vehicles for its realization, and those are the workshop, where initial prototypes and tests will materialize and the fieldwork which is the link between the concept and the site and it is the experimental ground for sampling and built.

 

On this slide, I have illustrated the potential timeline for the next 3 years, in accordance with the key milestones outlined by DRDP. Here you can see the elements from the project strategy, and additionally I have the on-going writing up component shaping here as well. With the help of this chart, I can keep the whole process under control and do performance valuation by comparing the expected and the actual progress, which I think is very useful.

Armenia is a landlocked country, bordering Turkey to the West, Iran to the South, Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh Republic to the East and Georgia to the North. This is Syunik province, which is where Shikahogh is located and it has a strategic importance for the country’s economy. Because since 1991 the borders between Turkey and Azerbaijan have been concealed, thus making communication with Iran of vital importance for Armenia, which relies heavily on its imports of energy, in particular natural gas and other commodities. I will come back to this subject in the later slides.

Armenia is a land of predominantly volcanic origin, igneous rocks, and it is also notoriously earthquake prone. There are 7 volcanos on the current territory of Armenia, the youngest of which is Arteni with the latest eruption in 1340.

And this is a beautiful Holocene volcano Aragats, where it is believed one can still find the Gregory illuminators lantern, according to the myth. In fact there are numerous myths surrounding all the mountains of the land and people identify themselves with these mounts. And they do so not only because of the myths, but because Armenians were archaic mountain cave dwellers.

These are the man-made caves around the canyons and valleys of the medieval city Ani, which is where the Armenian masons established the stone masonry techniques by carving into the fabric of the mountains and creating these comfortable apartments with sleeping and storage areas and this is where the tradition was perfected.  (Details)Unfortunately I will not be able to visit this site during my fieldwork because it is on a territory of modern Turkey. Instead I will explore the same masonry technique on the Geghard monastery cave, now this is in Armenia and here the same craftsmanship methods were employed and developed.

The only difference is in the functionality of this cave, which is bearing religious rather than secular residential connotation like the caves in Ani. There are 2 opportunities in Geghard of studying the stone masonry technique and the geometric patterns- one is on the big scale of the cave and second is on a small scale of Khachkar. Khachkar means a stone bearing a cross and throughout history it played a variety of roles of a book, of a temple, it appeared as a symbol for the preservation of the Armenian identity and the tradition of erecting these stones is very much intact in modern day Armenia. The ancestors of the Khachkars are the petroglyphs, these are the first carved stones from around 900 BC, which gave birth to the Armenian hieroglyphs that later become the Armenian written alphabet as we know it today and this is what I mean by the identity embedded in stone and time permitting it will be curious to investigate just how much of the written alphabet is influenced by the texture and the geometry of these stones used to carve on, did the patterns of the stone participate in the formation of the letters.

Thousands of these petroglyphs are found on the landmark of the Karahunj (the whispering stones) which in itself represents perhaps the earliest attempts of the masons to work with the stone. This site consists of 223 standing stones, possibly dating back to around 5000BC and it is assumed by archaeologist to be an observatory, because there are the circular holes on the upper part of the stones that point to various constellations and planets. The “whispering stones” is near our village Shikahogh in Syunik province as well, which is convenient.

Apart from the anthropogenic geometries and patterns, I have initiated some studies into the inherent or natural geometric formations, such as this site called “the symphony of stones” in Garni Gorge. These massive volcanic basalt columns are shaped into the most efficient of the hexagonal forms. The clustering on this particular shape is dependent on the lava cooling process and the collision of the forces of gravity, heat, pressure, density etc. Without going into too much technicalities, it is worth mentioning that on the crystalline level of these rocks we see that these efficient geometries replicate themselves, creating fractal structure. Or perhaps it’s the other way round where the macro scale replicates the micro.

And to briefly mention the digital applications aspect, here we have the 3 scenarios- 1^st of the natural mathematics- the one created by the nature then we have the analogue man made carving (this particular example is from Geghard monastery that I’ve showed you earlier) and lastly the algorithmic 3 axis digital fabrication representations. In the previous slide I have mentioned about the natural conditions of the forces, gravity, heat, density etc. all of which take place during natural formations, and in this sequence as we go from the natural to the machine made, that data, the real time data of natural conditions is lost, in digital world we don’t have applications of gravity and material infrastructure, and hence I will be attempting to script this data into the platform of the digital software that we use.

There are studies of the acoustics and lighting used with some architectural design software packages, which is an example of the natural conditions simulations, and there is no reason why this can’t be taken eve further with integration of something like seismology for example.

And whilst I am not suggesting that we should go back to cave dwelling, but there is an enormous heritage, an expertise of the tactile dialogue between the creator and the object, a more controlled tangible relationship that could be utilized, to prevent the computational design and digital fabrication from drifting into the abstract. On this example we have direct manipulations of the material and then we have the interface between the human and the design, so for example with the mouse we have less control, and with the emergence of new technologies such as the haptic 3d brush, we have more of that sense of craftsmanship, but still on rudimentary technologies.

But going to back to our site and to the more practical issues, currently only 36% of the Armenian population is based in their homeland, which is about 3 million people as a result of two major migration processes first of which took place in 1915 during the Armenian genocide and the 2nd after the USSR collapse in1990. Moreover, of those located in Armenia around 35% reside in the Capital city Yerevan, which constitutes only fractional 0.8% of the territory of Armenia, thus creating an enormously disproportionate population distribution in rural areas. And here we have the plan of the Yerevan city which was first embedded in stone.

 So Shikahogh, as mentioned earlier, and the province in general has a significant strategic meaning for the country, however there is a constant deterioration of numbers observed every year as the villagers abandon their land because of lack of employment opportunities and the low living standards. After the USSR collapse, the centralised system of the economy (housing, agriculture) was made obsolete and the land with the properties was privatized, but like in many other Armenian villages and small town this economy has failed to recover since then.

Currently, there are several projects taking place around Shikahogh, the Shikahogh national preserve and the surrounding villages. Which are seen as controversial as there seems to be a disagreement between the environmentalist, the government and foreign investors. So these ventures are for example an explorative mining project initiated by a German corporation, which started last year, but some environmentalist oppose it arguing that there is a bigger potential for eco-tourism in the area. Also there is the huge railroad project in the pipeline which will be passing through the Shikahogh and linking 3 countries- Georgia, Armenia and Iran, which is interesting because only 3 years ago there was already a highway built connecting Iran with Armenia. But what we are interested here is how the villagers can benefit from any of these activities, to address the irrigation and housing issues for example.

It appears that the villagers don’t get much say in these affairs and they are uncertain about what will these changes mean for their lives, their land and their mountains. And these are the questions I will hopefully address during my fieldwork,which I will be undertaking in collaboration with DAP (Develop Armenia Project) within the bigger governmental undertaking of Luys (Armenian translation “to Illuminate”), the aim of which is to provide young scholars and entrepreneurs with an incentive and a platform to acquire specific education and skills and to later implement the knowledge and expertise in the advancement of the country. So I will be looking for collaborative opportunities with other researchers working in fields of archaeology, architecture, engineering etc. My focus at this stage is perhaps a bit more on the housing at this stage, despite the earlier mentioned tendency of people to abandon their rural dwellings, even in Shikahogh there is a housing shortage, and this is a widespread phenomenon, due to the 1988 earthquake that left half a million about 18% of the population homeless, plus again there was no government initiated housing projects delivered after the USSR collapse, and big portion of those building from soviet times, are not suitable for habitation anymore because of seismic regulations.