DARREN SAMPSON
UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG
The Light House
The Light House is an architectural proposition
that uses light and dark to produce what the Swiss
architect Peter Zumthor calls an ‘experience’: an
all-encompassing, sensory mood that relies on the
sophisticated manipulation of light and dark to convey
a number of ideas about site, presence, beauty,
harmony and nature.
The project relies on the treatment of light and
dark as form, material, substance, and mood. It
investigates the relationship between performance
and form and the relationship between architect and
user which is taken from Jonathan Hill’s reading of
Student Awards
the ‘two occupations of architecture: the activities of
the architect and the actions of the user’ which is of
importance in the project since everyone who visits
it constructs it differently.
The project is situated along the edge of a
light ‘territory’ that is created twice every six
seconds by the light emitted from the Farol
De Dona Maria Pia, an existing lighthouse on
the edge of Praia. Two sites, Site #1 - Sea, Land,
Light and Site #2 - Ocean, Sky, Light have been
articulated, but should be read as a single ‘site’
for the entire project.
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