Desire-Land, Simulation of Hyper-Reality Reflection

The Project is originated to examine the world in the reflected image as a virtual output built on human’s desire according to the Mirror Stage theory of Lacan (1953). The mirror image serves [...]]]> Desire-Land  | MArch GAD | 2011

Desire-Land, Simulation of Hyper-Reality Reflection

The Project is originated to examine the world in the reflected image as a virtual output built on human’s desire according to the Mirror Stage theory of Lacan (1953). The mirror image serves as a bridge between the mind and the reality world. Thus, the scene in the mirror could be seen as a representation of human’s psychological aspect.

In the notion to discuss the representation of human desire, the research of different culture throughout the history and social phenomena nowadays are merged into the design process. The seven deadly sins, the eighteen levels of hell and the Inferno (hell) in Divine Comedy (14^th-century) by Dante Alighieri are pointing out that the moral standard and illustrated the punishment as a cruel afterlife world.

As the technology development and industrialization, the mass production and change of social status subvert the original value of objects where people project their desire onto the consuming and consumption. The advertisement provides an illusion of pleasant life composed by the product promoted, hence the system of objects could be seen as a simulated image, ‘The Hyper-Reality’, in the theory of Jean Baudrilliard (‘The System of Objects’, 1968). In this sense, the project is to discuss the consumerism in the shopping mall where contains many departments of products.

The main idea is to use common objects in the shopping mall and recreate scenes in 3D models based on the sense and atmosphere of departments. However, with reflected material and specific view point, the rendering image could form a hell-alike picture with uncanny reflection. The pieces and distorted shades in the reflection could be zoomed in to examine the composition of objects and reveal the phenomena of consumerism in modern times.

Memory of Shadow: Hysterical Parametricism

When I was growing up in a rural area of Japan, when a visitor came to my house and walked along the path next to the living room to reach the entrance a shadow was cast on the shoji. [...]]]> Memory of Shadow | Tokyo| MArch GAD | 2011

Memory of Shadow: Hysterical Parametricism

When I was growing up in a rural area of Japan, when a visitor came to my house and walked along the path next to the living room to reach the entrance a shadow was cast on the shoji. A projection of the visitor’s shape and movement on the other side of the shoji was experienced.  Then I tried to guess who the visitor was and who might be the best person to open the door.  At that moment the thin skin of the house shoji created wonder until the doorbell rang.  After high school I moved to the United States for my undergraduate study and afterwards went back to Tokyo to work.  During my stay in Tokyo from 2008 to 2011 I never experienced such a shadow in my studio.  This sensation was common in the past and is now rare in the modern urban town.  This project is about such a fading custom and how architecture can modify it in its transition into the future.

Responding to the growing concern about aging society in developed countries, a traditional house from a marginal village is relocated to Tokyo.  The house begins to deform in order to accommodate changes in human size, environment and society.  The deformation codes in grasshopper (scripting), a widely used software in the construction industry are set based on earlier researches into light and shadow using photograms and features of a traditional Japanese house.

Digital Reconsecration of the Levelled Churchyard

Driven by the desire to comment on the ubiquitous use of  new technologies and research on a number  of notions and ideas such as the human body in motion and its relation to technology, the short life [...]]]> Digital Reconsecration | London | MArch GAD | 2011

Digital Reconsecration of the Levelled Churchyard

Driven by the desire to comment on the ubiquitous use of  new technologies and research on a number  of notions and ideas such as the human body in motion and its relation to technology, the short life expectancy of the new technologies that creates a dialogue with the organic mortality of the human body, the traces-material and immaterial, the notion of the ghost as well as the circle of life and death under the qualities of a shadowy, dark architecture that Antony Vidler has defined as the “Architectural Uncanny”, I undertook the first steps to the project.

Through the misuse of a 3d scanner that I set as my “desiring tool” and inspired by an anecdotal story of the st.pancras ex-churchyard referring to an unceremonious dislocation of dismantling human remains and tombstones due to the construction of the Midland Railway in 1860′s, a ritual performed on the site leads to the creation of a point cloud of my scanned moving hands as a proposal of a digital reconsecration of the site. The point cloud operates as a vehicle to navigate into the site while it transforms the current view of the site itself and is visualized in a diagrammatic way; for it reacts in three different ways by Knitting,Extruding and Cutting its body. The idea of this triptych is based on the myth of the three Greek goddesses called Moirai(Fates) that were believed to be responsible of the human lives-as if they held death into their hands.

A CRUDE ISLAND

Historically, intensified energy flows have simultaneously been the reason behind massive cultural transformations and entropic damage to the planet. Now, the capitalist and political forces that control energy distribution networks have exchanged natural destruction for short-term profits while the [...]]]> A Crude Island | Los Angeles | MArch GAD | 2011

A CRUDE ISLAND

Historically, intensified energy flows have simultaneously been the reason behind massive cultural transformations and entropic damage to the planet. Now, the capitalist and political forces that control energy distribution networks have exchanged natural destruction for short-term profits while the public at large continues to consume at increasing rates. This paradox of progressive development at the expense of the environment reveals the instability of the current energy distribution methods. These stratified energy systems must be critiqued and re-evaluated, particularly the petroleum industry.

This project is titled “A Crude Island” as a reference to the site under investigation- the Inglewood Oil Fields in Los Angeles, California. These 950 acres act as an open framework to implement the ideas discussed in the thesis through a long-term programmatic narrative.

After unplugging the oilfield from the surrounding energy grid and corporate control, a massive disassembly of the existing infrastructure created a kit of parts to construct a new structural framework for sustainable algae biofuel production and landscape cultivation. The oil extracted from the algae bioreactors is used in conjunction with the remaining drops of crude oil to propagate the barren landscape with a precision cultivation system. “Landscape printers” guided by virtual parameters accurately plot native seeds in defined parcels and are designed to expire within the printed forests after the oil supply is slowly depleted. This long-term landscape transformation results in the formation of a Los Angeles Central Park containing the corpses of the oil-based technologies responsible for its creation.

The Reincarnation of Atlantis

Initially the legend of Atlantis is used as a tactic to explore the birth and death of city. The process of Atlantis’s life is similar to the decline of old China and rebirth of new China. In this situation, China [...]]]> Mechanical City | Beijing | MArch GAD | 2011

The Reincarnation of Atlantis

Initially the legend of Atlantis is used as a tactic to explore the birth and death of city. The process of Atlantis’s life is similar to the decline of old China and rebirth of new China. In this situation, China and Atlantis break the wall of time and space and lay over together. This is also a process of reincarnation.

When we focus on the society layer to read a city, we can find many narrative elements, such as history, culture and symbol. These researches help to find another way to describe a city. Firstly to explore the city’s different elements as well as the relationship between them, and then extract them. These elements include government, industry, media, education, city construction and so on. This is the process of deconstruction of the city. Following on from which a narrative method is employed to represent the changing processes of the city, using mechanical language to materialise the social system and to express the connection between different elements. This is the process of the reconstruction of the city. Through these two processes, the city can be re-systemized by another design language and a “new” city can emerge. The project is a process of collapse and reformation.

The novel, ‘Istanbul – Memories and the City’ is a memoir to the home city of Orhan Pamuk. As he guides us through the back streets and waterways of Istanbul, he unveils the story of his boyhood.

The project began by attempting to analyse the [...]]]> PORTMANTEAU: THE SOUVENIR_COLLECTION | Istanbul | Unit 21 | 2011

The novel, ‘Istanbul – Memories and the City’ is a memoir to the home city of Orhan Pamuk. As he guides us through the back streets and waterways of Istanbul, he unveils the story of his boyhood.

The project began by attempting to analyse the city using Pamuk’s memories of his childhood as the only source and create a physical response; an exploration in ‘objects of memory’. A photo album, a scrapbook, a shoebox, can be transformed into objects of memory and nostalgia by the contents they hold; seemingly unremarkable from the outside, but containing treasure-troves of personal histories. The Souvenir came into being due to the ‘fear of forgetting’. Believing that memories can be transferred from the mind to the material object through association, we aim to preserve the memory beyond its mental existence. In meaning the souvenir is usually supplemented with a narrative, (Chapter .4 – A Sad Tour of the Streets). The souvenir has little or no value in its materiality; instead the value is placed within the narrative of the possessor, not the object – of the origins that it alludes to. By replacing the memory of the body with the memory of the object we create a memory ‘standing outside the self’ and thus although an object may be saturated with meaning to its Owner, these are unlikely to be revealed to the Finder as it lies outside of his or her own experience. The physical object or image can also often overpower the fragile mental recollection of experience and cause it to decay, leaving only the object itself. Images become exaggerated and fragmented. Colours, smells and sounds fade.

The final model is a vessel that analyses this concept of Owner/Finder. A collection of miniature representations is brought together, held by a vessel that references their geographical origins. The Finder may peek inside, play with the pieces and enjoy the toy-like qualities of the box. However only the Owner understands the retracing of the old tramlines, the shift over time, the fading of colours and smells of childhood.

Cuba is in a transitional phase. Assuming that it is transforming into a free market economy, it is inevitable that there will be increased foreign investment and construction. With little development over the last 50 years much of the urban fabric is in a dilapidated [...]]]> EL MALECON REANIMACIÓN | Havana | Unit 21 | 2011

Cuba is in a transitional phase. Assuming that it is transforming into a free market economy, it is inevitable that there will be increased foreign investment and construction. With little development over the last 50 years much of the urban fabric is in a dilapidated state.

Proposed is a Regeneration project for the Malecon, the sea front boulevard of Central Havana. On 9 sites left void from collapsed or demolished buildings community based projects celebrate Cuban culture, and create a transitional architecture that prevents the Malecon becoming a characterless strip of hotels. They aim to reanimate the ‘Cities Living Room’ and provide new facilities to stimulate community regeneration.

A proposal to redevelop a strip of high street in north-west London. A tripartite building programme refers to characteristics developed from three of the main protagonists in the novel White Teeth by Zadie Smith which is set in the locality.

A Fog Harvesting Waterscape is designed to recreate the ambitious civic & public works that early Turkish Republic undertook over century ago. The designs of these parks, beaches, pools – places of enjoyment, recreation, and relaxation – gave Istanbul [...]]]> Istanbul University Annex & The Urban Beach | Istanbul | Unit 21 | 2011

A Fog Harvesting Waterscape is designed to recreate the ambitious civic & public works that early Turkish Republic undertook over century ago. The designs of these parks, beaches, pools – places of enjoyment, recreation, and relaxation – gave Istanbul a new contemporary Western image; an goal still relevant, today, with Turkey’s accession bid to the European Union in the next few years.

Istanbul’s historic relationship with its bodies of water was a starting point , with special focus on Istanbul’s manipulation of its landscape & topography to form the waterways, reservoirs, & nymphaeums – Roman public spectacles of waters – that dotted the Old City.

Fatih Park, situated in the heart of the Old City, is a derelict, isolated urban island; result from an urban dissection of major roadworks in the 1920′s, was chosen as the site for this year’s design project. Evidence of Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman architectural manipulations of water is found in the Valens Aqueduct, & the Cisterns of neighboring mosques. Not to mention, the seat of Istanbul Municipal Authority directly across the Park.

Taking the Roman Nymphaeum, that dotted the Turkish Coast, as a precedant, as well as its evolution through the Renaissance, Baroque and Contemporary times. Its evolution is evident in architectural examples such as Villa Julia’s sunken grottoes, Villa D’Este’s Gardens, Potsdamer Platz & Disney Water Parks. Using this archetype & using the vernacular Islamic garden design, I experimented in designing a landscape of undulating forms, sunken courtyards, gardens, lightwells, a public spectacle of water – a waterscape. A Fog Harvesting Waterscape is intended to provide additional facilties of education & recreation for nearby Istanbul University – a notoriously secular university; as well as, an Urban Beach, similar to the project from the 1920′s, for the greater public as an oeuvre of the Municipality. The waterscape will intend to recreate a sense of happiness, adventure & joy – forgetting the hardships of life – that I personally experienced in both Villa D’Este in Tivoli & the Generalife in Granada; in hopes that it will be a bridge and communal meeting point for the cultural divided populations of the Old City.

Situated in Istanbul, Museum of Identity, in an architectural intervention that proposes to be built along the parameters of the defined Portals that investigate the spatial considerations of identity production . Therefore the Museum will seek to construct an interpretive framework from which to [...]]]> MUSEUM OF IDENTITY | Istanbul | Unit 21 | 2011

Situated in Istanbul, Museum of Identity, in an architectural intervention that proposes to be built along the parameters of the defined Portals that investigate the spatial considerations of identity production . Therefore the Museum will seek to construct an interpretive framework from which to monitor a multiplicity of perspectives, places and identities. Here, the city of Istanbul becomes a site for the exploration of a philosophical inquiry into place which questions the very way in which we locate ourselves within it. Once we recognise that space and social relations are made through each other, we can ascertain that the production of identity becomes central to spatial discourse.

The role of the image, or the movement image to be specific has become a crucial part of this new spatial discussion. Therefore, I initiated this investigation by making as series of montages that began to articulate or consider the interrelationships between images, subjects and the city. Using, the ␣lm Turkish ␣lm Uzak by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, as a case study, I investigate the role of ␣lm as medium from which to explore these moving images further. Here, I refer to these unique constructs that lie at these spatial intersections as ‘Portals’. These being constructed spaces that act as allegorical representation of the city (window), psychic dwellings (bed), positional references (library) and technological spacing (television). By articulating on these four lived spaces as ‘sites of di_erence’ I generated an interesting reading of the city of Istanbul and formed the basis for a proposed design intention based on a montage of these elements.

Awarded Merit for Thesis

Tutors: Abigail Ashton, Andrew Porter

Fusing a technical construct with a theatrical narrative, introduced through the story of Karagöz and Havicat, two characters in a traditional Turkish Shadow play. The existing garden becomes an active public sculpture park and theatrical landscape of strange objects and peculiar artefacts. At night, the park [...]]]> SHADOW PARK | Istanbul | Unit 21 | 2011

Fusing a technical construct with a theatrical narrative, introduced through the story of Karagöz and Havicat, two characters in a traditional Turkish Shadow play. The existing garden becomes an active public sculpture park and theatrical landscape of strange objects and peculiar artefacts. At night, the park takes of on a new identity of light, volume and shadow. The two characters meander the site and the city on a combination of new and existing track, luring in audiences and creating theatrical happenstance.

‘The Museum of Democracy’ is a proposal to remember and embody the defining acts of Turkish Democracy. The museum’s architecture is concerned with the acts of seeing and symbolising the narratives which have defined the process of Democracy in Turkey.

The museum is sited upon [...]]]> MUSEUM OF DEMOCRACY | Istanbul | Unit 21 | 2011

‘The Museum of Democracy’ is a proposal to remember and embody the defining acts of Turkish Democracy. The museum’s architecture is concerned with the acts of seeing and symbolising the narratives which have defined the process of Democracy in Turkey.

The museum is sited upon a political artefact Yassiada Island, located 8km off the eastern shore of Istanbul. The islands history as an instrument of politics and power is documented and continued through the acts of the museum. The museum is home to seven monuments to Democracy, these monuments, former buildings of political narrative, become the museum’s exhibits. The island becomes the plinth from which we view the monument, and the architecture of the museum becomes the method by which we now read each monument. Each monument represents a particular democratic narrative; the themes of these narratives are the source for the architectural constructions. Internal and external spatial experiences embody these themes and document the history of Turkish Democracy.

The drawing and models displayed represent the investigative works throughout the project, from symbolic explorations of history to models of visual experience. Each method attempts to explore the role of architecture within the museum setting as objectified, curatorial and symbolic of history.

The Istanbul Museum of Panoramic Cartography investigates how individual and public ways of viewing Istanbul can be catalogued and exhibited to allow the user to visually comprehend the city’s development and contemporary urban fabric.

The museum is perceived externally as a mark in [...]]]> MUSEUM OF PANORAMIC CARTOGRAPHY | Istanbul | Unit 21 | 2011

The Istanbul Museum of Panoramic Cartography investigates how individual and public ways of viewing Istanbul can be catalogued and exhibited to allow the user to visually comprehend the city’s development and contemporary urban fabric.

The museum is perceived externally as a mark in current views across the Golden Horn Peninsula and by ‘zoomscape’ views from the local infrastructural network. Internally, it has a direct relation to its position in the panoramic scope of cartography documenting the Golden Horn Peninsula. Hand drawn, empirical and photographic constructions of panoramic cartography made by artists and photographers are exhibited in perspectival and chronological views inside the museum which also bear a direct relationship to the musuem’s open viewing deck dissecting the opposite views of the peninsula. This passage through parallel historic and contemporary views of Istanbul is punctuated by glimpses of Byzantine ruins that quietly lie beneath these intricate relationships; yet they are ever present in the cartographic views in which they were documented centuries before.

The museum reveals the urban complexities of Istanbul and itself in incremental gestures, giving the public a progressive understanding of the city which is always subject to temporality and its relentlessly evolving fabric.

Located on the old site of the great Byzantium Cemetery in Istanbul. A series of models exploring the physical and non physical create a time-based landscape, that is part natural, part technological. The landscape comprises of theatrical machines that are split into three time-based [...]]]> THEATRICAL PLEASURE GROUND ISTANBUL | Istanbul | Unit 21 | 2011

Located on the old site of the great Byzantium Cemetery in Istanbul. A series of models exploring the physical and non physical create a time-based landscape, that is part natural, part technological. The landscape comprises of theatrical machines that are split into three time-based categories: Automatic, Reactive and Interactive. Each of the categories relates back to one of the three 18th Century travel writers that instigated the years work: Gerard de Nerval, Mark Twain and Edmondo de Amicis.

The whole story comes from Orhan Pamuk’s book ‘Istanbul: Memories of a City’, in which ‘hüzün’, a Turkish expression of ‘melancholy’, is defined as a form of collective emotion shared by millions of people in Istanbul. In this book, people’s life and the landscape [...]]]> MUSEUM OF MELANCHOLY | Istanbul | Unit 21 | 2011

The whole story comes from Orhan Pamuk’s book ‘Istanbul: Memories of a City’, in which ‘hüzün’, a Turkish expression of ‘melancholy’, is defined as a form of collective emotion shared by millions of people in Istanbul. In this book, people’s life and the landscape in Istanbul, become the best illustration of ‘Melancholy’. Based on Pamuk’s book, this Museum of Melancholy is established as a particular museum to provide an architectural journey for visitors to experience the melancholy moments of Istanbul. Eleven of the descriptions of melancholy scenes in the city are selected from the book and become the theme of each exhibition room. With the illustration and inspiration from the photographs of the famous Istanbul photojournalist Ara Güler, and some other artists, the special features of melancholy in each description is defined and developed into different architectural experience in each room. Roaming through the museum, you will experience different melancholy moments of the city at one time, from dawn to dusk, from winter to summer… Elements of the traditional Turkish wooden house are used as a language of design, to tell different stories of melancholy.

‘On the last night of the nine-day boat journey, he makes a thorough mystical preparation when he hears thecaptain announce, “Gentlemen! Tomorrow at dawn, we will see the first minarets of Istanbul.” Passenger De Amicissleeps little, goes to the deck as soon as [...]]]> MUSEUM OF OPTICS | London | Unit 21 | 2011

‘On the last night of the nine-day boat journey, he makes a thorough mystical preparation when he hears thecaptain announce, “Gentlemen! Tomorrow at dawn, we will see the first minarets of Istanbul.” Passenger De Amicissleeps little, goes to the deck as soon as he sees the faint light heralding dawn and curses in disillusionment,for there is fog. But the captain comforts him. The fog will enhance the beauty of entering Istanbul.’- Istanbul as Unity and Trinity, Umberto Eco

According to this paragraph quoted from Istanbul as Unity and Trinity, fog is able to enhance the beauty of Istanbul. I interpret fog as an agent that dissolve and reveal what we see. The first part of the project is adocumentation of how does the idea of dissolve and reveal affect the city of Istanbul by photographsas well as make use of the mechanism of a camera to create different exposure effect and pursue the effect of a dissolved image. A series of paper model is made to experiment the transformation and relationship of the dissolving effect from 2 dimensional images to 3 dimensional perception. A pixelated skin model is developed to express the idea of transfromation from a solid block, and pixelated into hollow cubes and eventually into wireframes, and this skin sets up a parameter of the project.

Since the exercises and investigation are about how do we see things, therefore a Museum of Optics is proposedto investigate the idea of dissolve and reveal. The museum acts as a viewing machine to question the way we see by incorporating installations that relate to light, reflection, refraction, movement, as well as hosting a collection of optical instruments, telescope, microscope, magnifying lens and different styles of spectacles etc.

The building is expressed from a solid block to pixelated rotated cubes to wireframe structure and eventually merges to the ground to achieve the idea of dissolving effect. An underground space is created so that no any light comes from the side. People can only experience the kind of dissolving effect by looking up through different layers of dissolving skins inside this condition of a worm’s view.

The whole building acts as a viewing machine by itself that creates different layers of dissolving effect that people can enjoy, at the same time it hosts different optical phenomena and artifacts for people to understand the science and history of optics.

This work is interested in creating an architectural Portmanteau of Order and Disorder by using anamorphic techniques. Each anamorphic construct conceals its organising geometry from all positions appearing abstract and disordered except from a unique invisible coordinate where the ‘eccentric observer’ is [...]]]> ANAMORPHIC CITY HALL | Istanbul | Unit 21 | 2011

This work is interested in creating an architectural Portmanteau of Order and Disorder by using anamorphic techniques. Each anamorphic construct conceals its organising geometry from all positions appearing abstract and disordered except from a unique invisible coordinate where the ‘eccentric observer’ is able to discover the hidden order/system.

Awarded Distinction for Design

The project was concerned with ideas of the ornamental and decorative in architecture. This interest came about as the result of research that was carried out about Polish vernacular building techniques and traditional Polish crafts. Preliminary experimental models developed a formal language [...]]]> SPA RESORT | Sopot, Poland | Unit 21 | 2009

The project was concerned with ideas of the ornamental and decorative in architecture. This interest came about as the result of research that was carried out about Polish vernacular building techniques and traditional Polish crafts. Preliminary experimental models developed a formal language that was inspired by the re-interpretation of one particular Polish craft called ‘Wycinanki’ or ‘cut papers’. This process of layering, offsetting, rotating and transforming resulted in a series of developmental models using digital pattern cutting techniques and 3D printing.

The thesis sets out to create a theoretical framework for the design of an architecture that is formally ornamental, as well as environmentally performative. The research method is derived from an investigation into the realm of parametrics and parametric modelling techniques. The subject of parametrics is examined both as a potential new methodology, for understanding and informing the design process, as well as through the application of parametric modelling techniques as a practicable design tool. The proposal was for a spa in Sopot, a small seaside town located on Poland’s Baltic coast. A series of seasonal, ornamental architectural interventions, containing therapeutic spaces and treatment rooms are scattered across the windswept beach-site.

Design Tutors: Abigail Ashton, Christine Hawley, Andrew Porter

Istanbul, an ‘archipelago of neighbourhoods’ is a city within which the East and West straddle amongst each other, ‘like memories plucked from dreams’. I propose a building in the water, where the density of the city disappears, within the marriage of the civilizations inhabiting the [...]]]> FLOATING LIBRARY ISTANBUL | Istanbul | Unit 21 |  2011

Istanbul, an ‘archipelago of neighbourhoods’ is a city within which the East and West straddle amongst each other, ‘like memories plucked from dreams’. I propose a building in the water, where the density of the city disappears, within the marriage of the civilizations inhabiting the two banks of the strait. Concentrating on the Islamic tradi- tion and culture, I designed a floating library for women and children, enabling all neighborhoods to participate in the cultural event. In modern Istanbul the Library celebrates the need of women for social encounter outside of the household. This proposal investigates daylight screening as an intelligent dialogue between historic and contemporary architectures, and technologies. The journey though the Library, exploring the different shadows unifying or isolating spaces, hinges on the national cultural setting of Istanbul.

Tutors: Abigail Ashton, Andrew Porter

THE ISTIKLAL CADDESI MONUMENT AND THE BUYUKADA MUSEUM | Istanbul | Unit 21 | 2011

This year’s work has been an architectural investigation to a particular event in Istanbul’s history – the Istanbul Pogrom, a large scale riot directed against the minorities of the city that took place on [...]]]>

THE ISTIKLAL CADDESI MONUMENT AND THE BUYUKADA MUSEUM | Istanbul | Unit 21 | 2011

Author: Costa Elia / Demetrios Kaloumenos, Date: 05.11.2010 / 07.09.1955, Location: "Istiklal Teras" rooftop cafe (fifth floor), opposite St. Antuan Church on Istiklal Caddesi

This year’s work has been an architectural investigation to a particular event in Istanbul’s history – the Istanbul Pogrom, a large scale riot directed against the minorities of the city that took place on the 6th September 1955. This event forever changed the demographics of the city, transforming it in the proceeding 50 years from the traditionally multicultural site it was, to the relatively monocultural city it is now.

Very little evidence remains of the pogrom but for the 216 photographs of one photographer; Demetrios Kaloumenos, and these form the basis of the architectural projects carried out. Following preliminary research into the languages of protest and photography, I took these photographs back to the city with the aim of locating the original photographer’s focal points on the pogrom. In doing so, I wanted to make explicit that whilst the photographs are endlessly reproducible, editable and debatable representations of a space and time; they nonetheless have their basis in a measurable, specific spatial relationships, those between Kaloumenos and the city.

Author: Costa Elia / Demetrios Kaloumenos, Date: 05.11.2010 / 07.09.1955, Location: Intersection of Nur-I Ziya Sokagi and Istiklal Caddesi

Author: Costa Elia / Demetrios Kaloumenos, Date: 05.11.2010 / 07.09.1955, Location: Intersection of Postacilar Sokagi and Istiklal Caddesi

Finding, inhabiting and then modelling these spatial relationships informed the design of a monument to be built to the event and the lost people, a monument that reverses the language of photography, projecting the images of the riot back out from their focal points and ‘developing’ them as anamorphic physical material embedded as shrapnel in the public face of the city. This ‘architectual protest’ allows the photographs, and traces of the event, to be read back in the actual locations it took place.

Mapping these projections on to the street produced a territorial map of the avenue, colour coded to indicate the presence of different signifiers (political symbols, the army, riot damage etc.) and where they lie on the street in Kaloumenos’ rendition of 1955. Doing so provided the inspiration for the design proposal of the monument; projecting elements of riot damage depicted in the images from the focal point of the photograph back to where they were once originally sited in the street; then continuing this projection so it cuts through the present day urban fabric, and taking the intersection between the image projection and physical construction as the form of the monument. The two images below illustrate the projection of one part of the monument, a timber staff that once leant against the column of St. Antuan’s Church (now a bakery “Borek Center”). As this projection meets the bakery, its form is taken through the masonry, glazing, serving counter and internal finishes, and these intersections are expressed as a solid metal slice through the solid material of the shop.

Along with the other projections chosen this gave the elevation of the monument show below (colour coded to indicate the different items of riot damage projected). These pieces of metal “shrapnel” sit within the fabric of the buildings, appearing from the street as abstract scars in the face of Istanbul’s famous Istiklal Caddesi (Independence Avenue). When viewed from Kaloumenos’ focal points however, the anamorphic nature of the monument is revealed, and its forms line up to retrace out elements of the photographs exactly where they once appeared in the avenue.

The final and major proposal is for a museum dedicated to the event based on the island of Buyukada off the coast of the city centre. This island was the former religious centre of the lost Greek population of the city, and the site that the museum is based on is the first piece of confiscated land returned to the Greek Church since the event. The project begins with the design of five exhibits, 3D forensic reconstructions of particular spaces of the pogrom as shown in the photographs. The museum is then designed around the exhibits to allow visitors to assume the photographer’s position and view these exhibits framed exactly as they appear in the images. Furthermore, visitors are guided around the exhibits in particular ways to allow them to gain new perspectives on the reconstructions that aren’t shown in the photographs.

The intention is to replicate the notion of the superimposition established in the first project, conflating the supposed ‘objective’ view of the image with the subjective experience of finding it, and seeing people of the present day inhabiting it as its new subjects, questioning the relation of the viewing subject both to the image and the event. I hope that this method will give the event a new sense of relevance in its audience, who finding themselves ‘framed’ in relation to reconstructions of the event, and also by creating their own new photographs of it, will be prompted to start a public dialogue not just about the objective nature of what these images prove of the pogrom, but also their subjective evaluations of how they fit into its story.

Awarded Distinction for Design & Merit for Thesis
RIBA Silver Medal Nomination in Thesis

Snow; “it made the city look new, not only covering up the mud, the filth and the neglect, but by producing in every street and every view an element of surprise…”

Situated amongst the long-lost memories of [...]]]>
PICTURE HOUSE FOR THE TURKISH MOTION IMAGE | Istanbul | Unit 21 | 2011

Snow; “it made the city look new, not only covering up the mud, the filth and the neglect, but by producing in every street and every view an element of surprise…”

Situated amongst the long-lost memories of the celebrated past of the city, the Picture House reflects how the novelist Orhan Pamuk remembers his black-and-white childhood just like the old Turkish films. The building draws the visitors into a place where it portrays both sides of Istanbul’s beauty; the side that merges into the depth of its darkness and the purified side that is masked by the whiteness of snow.

The Picture House will support the Turkish film industry which had been in decline since its peak in the 50s and 60s when film crews were seen in the city everywhere. The recent revival of the industry has provoked the Ministry of Culture to invest in it to celebrate and support the future works that could compete in the international scene. The Picture House also provides an opportunity to engage more people with films and other recorded media, and to inspire the younger generation to be involved with the production itself; encouraging new talents for the country. Like a film set, the visitors experience the play of light, materials and illusions, seeing the frontage and the “back stage” of all these. From the interactive projection zone to the media research+study room, the underground picture bar and the main screen room, the Picture House merges the play and the interest of films.

The site is found in a quiet residential area, tucked away from the bustling tourist favourites; the area has somehow been left behind the redevelopment. As part of the proposed Istanbulli Masterplan, the Picture House aims to engage with the local culture and to bring people back into the area; thus bringing film crews back into the black-and-white city of the new era.

“In another moment Alice was through the looking glass, and had Jumped lightly down into the looking glass room.” Lewis Carrol

A new home for Shunt, a London based modern theatre company, who blur [...]]]> SHUNT  THEATRE | London | Unit 21 | 2009

“In another moment Alice was through the looking glass, and had Jumped lightly down into the looking glass room.” Lewis Carrol

A new home for Shunt, a London based modern theatre company, who blur the lines between art and performance. The scheme is has a dual program, it consists of two theatre spaces, that exploit ideas to do with the psychological, historical and theatrical aspects of Illusion and perspective. One which I call the ‘Mechanical Theatre’ and the second, the ‘Street Theatre’. The Street Theatre can be accessed for free by all, and should almost be reminiscent of a public park or thoroughfare. Whereas, the Mechanical Theatre is constrained to a more traditional ticketed theatre system. The site, a bomb damaged section of an East End terrace, is dispersed with illusion and distorted perspective to enhance the theatrical poignance of escapism. The scheme heavily engages with some renaissance architectural concepts, yet it is bound by the constraints of a domestic site. The comfortable surroundings of domesticity become something out of the ordinary, which allowed me to exploit even further the social stance of performance and illusion.

Awarded Distinction for Design & the Fitzroy Robinson Prize for Drawing

Design tutors: Abigail Ashton, Christine Hawley, Andrew Porter
Dissertation Tutor: Stephen Gage