Provisional: existing for the present
but open to the future
and aware of the past
Provisional construction can be designing with an awareness of temporality and the possibility of change in use, appearance and strategy. A design for a construction is not something that becomes fixed in time. Like a map is like a snapshot, in reality an ‘as built’ drawing as actually a provisional drawing. When does construction actually finish? At hand-over? Ten years down the line? After a building is extended? Partially demolished? Completely demolished? In that sense, all construction is provisional.
Provisional construction can also be a framework or a pattern that allows for change daily, monthly or yearly.
Provisional construction is exploration and experimentation and a way of testing uses of a site.
The human body can be seen as a provisional construction. The body is a temporal thing; it exists now but is not infallible.
Likewise a tree is a provisional construction. It germinates, grows and matures. It lives for a time through the changing seasons, sheltering, supporting, binding the earth. Bough by bough or in one blow, the tree is felled. It becomes other things; a book, a cricket bat, fuel, a table, or a coffin.
