The Urban Playground was designed to challenge the typical understanding of the playground’s role in an urban context and redefine it as a space where ‘play’ can encompass all urban dwellers, not simply children.
Inspired by the children’s book Harold and the Purple crayon, the [...]]]> URBAN PLAYGROUND | Berlin | Unit 21 | 2012

The Urban Playground was designed to challenge the typical understanding of the playground’s role in an urban context and redefine it as a space where ‘play’ can encompass all urban dwellers, not simply children.
Inspired by the children’s book Harold and the Purple crayon, the linear approach of the site layout emerged as a strategy to explore the line as a continuous object throughout the playground, transforming its function throughout to create spaces of physical play, spaces of mystery, spaces of thought, spaces of creation, spaces of interaction and spaces of informal performance.
The yellow line’s continuous nature will enhance the desire to explore various these moments throughout the site, though its playful nature will ensure it not be used to provide a prescribed route, but act instead as a point of reference that can be explored as one wishes.

This project has sought to define an architecture of the view. This has been explored via the three characteristic viewing techniques displayed by the protagonists of Richard Wagner’s opera ‘Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg’: empathetic, fragmented and unified viewing.

Each of these is brought to [...]]]> THE THEATRICAL LANDSCAPE | Berlin | Unit 21 | 2012

This project has sought to define an architecture of the view. This has been explored via the three characteristic viewing techniques displayed by the protagonists of Richard Wagner’s opera ‘Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg’: empathetic, fragmented and unified viewing.

Each of these is brought to the fore in turn during the three acts of the performance and is used to inform the immersive experiential qualities of the design. The three viewing techniques are expressed through point views and dynamic routes across a landscape, sited on Auguststrasse, Berlin, which is designed as a setting for both formal and informal theatrical performance.

Awarded the Ambrose Poynter Prize for Distinguished Work in Diploma Thesis

Die Engelbeckengärten, The Engelbeckengärten, a community agricultural gardens was designed to provide the infrastructure that enables a social framework to be developed by the local residents and users, over time.

Within the landscape, we find [...]]]> THE ENGELBECKENGARTEN | Berlin | Unit 21 | 2012

Awarded the Ambrose Poynter Prize for Distinguished Work in Diploma Thesis

Die Engelbeckengärten, The Engelbeckengärten, a community agricultural gardens was designed to provide the infrastructure that enables a social framework to be developed by the local residents and users, over time.

Within the landscape, we find objects of intrigue and invention, that allow for the manual manipulation of processes within the gardens. Users become physically entwined with the site, their constant presence and activities are required to animate and continue to develop the form of the proposal.

At the same time, the individual objects of invention themselves create intimate event experiences with their users. Their language of inherent movement evokes curiosity in those who find them. Once the user has discovered their workings through child-like investigations, the enjoyment of the experience perpetuates their use.

The Ritual Object    

Erwecken _ Experiencing the Moment of Awakening

The Ritual installation is a physical construct or landscape that encourages the user to inadvertently play out the ritual event.

Thus actively seeking out the moment of Erwecken the user becomes part of the experience. Translating the mnemonic metaphor from the language of words to that of ‘memory image’.

THE RITUAL EVENT – Tia Randall (Bartlett MArch Architecture / Diploma – unit 21) from APA on Vimeo.

Social Program vs Social Problem
Synthesis of the Present Context _ Proposal of a Social Program for Kreuzberg

Determining a Target Population
Demographic + Food Expenditure Statistics for the Neighbourhood Management Area

Waste Collection + Recycling Systems
Proposal for Local Composting + Recycling Facilities

Site Capacity + Required Food Production
Food Consumption Statistics for the Target Population + Site Food Production Estimates

Awarded Distinction in Design

‘Intervention in the existing city, in its residual spaces, in its folded interstices can no longer be comfortable or effacious in the manner postulated by the modern movement’s official model of enlightened tradition…[but rather through attention to continuity] of the flows, [...]]]> BERLIN ARTSPARK |Berlin | Unit 21 | 2012 |

Awarded Distinction in Design

‘Intervention in the existing city, in its residual spaces, in its folded interstices can no longer be comfortable or effacious in the manner postulated by the modern movement’s official model of enlightened tradition…[but rather through attention to continuity] of the flows, the energies, the rhythms established by the passing of time and loss of limits’ – Ignasi de Sola Morales

Contemporary Berlin has been commonly identified as a city with a shapeless identity in need of an appropriate architectural intervention. On the contrary, the present state of the city is articulated by a field of intensities which are promulgated in our everyday experience of it. This project seeks to inquire what the civilian’s image of the city is – using the film and photographic image as synonyms of subjective experience – to identify the qualities of repetitive and cyclical daily movement through Berlin, and subsequently how this can act as a strategy to design an alternative architectural proposal for the city.

The introductory project explores an early cinematic portrayal of one of Berlin’s busiest urban nodes, Potsdamerplatz, in Moholy-Nagy’s film ‘Berlin Still Life’. Narrating the city through a hand held camera, Moholy-Nagy stitches unique spatial compositions of Potsdamerplatz. A scene in this film is sampled to explore his experience anachronistically – extracting the inferred reflection of moving crowds across a steel clad roof – to spatialise, temporise and thus (re)narrate his experience as new forms in space.

Subsequently, contemporary Berlin is addressed by its cinematically priviledged overground railway the S-Bahn Linie 5, in which my repetitive photographic documentation of my subjective experience of the city intersects that of another – a cyclical photography of a resident located opposite the observed area. In the intersection of these two subjective experiences, lies the architectural intervention of an Artspark which extracts the geometries of these views structurally and spatially into into a landscape of performance areas, outdoor galleries and public spaces. The architecture of the Artspark infers to both view points of conception and extends our subjective experiences of the city in the experience of its alternative form- ultimately constructing new and authentic civic images for the city of Berlin.

ACT A - Scene 1.d

Observant Spectator
TRANSLATION : FILM TO CHRONOPHOTOGRAPH

‘The Task of the Translator’, by Walter Benjamin
‘Does [the subject’s] nature lend itself to translation and, therefore, in view of the
significance of the mode, call for it?
In these examples, translation between several kinds of media was used to investigate the
hypermobility of one urban space in Berlin – Potsdamer Platz.
The shifting forms captured in a multperspectival film scene of Potsdamer Platz in ‘Berliner Stilleben’ was later translated into physical, kinetic expression in ‘Light-Space Modulator’.
The complexity of form and movement of the modulator was recorded and projected onto film in ‘Lichtspiel Schwarz Weiss Grau’.
Potsdamer Platz was translated several times to distill and explore its characteristics : beginning as a real environment seen by Moholy-Nagy, then re-narrated on film, spatially invoked through sculpture and flattened to fluttering regions of black, white and grey on film.
Potsdamer Platz certainly ‘called’ for several steps involving a variety of translations to express the qualites of its urban condition.
‘SPACING’ IN 3 DIMENSIONS

MOVEMENT IN THE INVISIBLE : OFF SCREEN SPACE

Act A, Scene 1.d. is assumed to be a part of Potsdamerplatz in Berlin, since adjacent scenes depict views of the square which descend from aerial to ground levels. There is no other recognisable urban feature in the scene to explicitly locate this disembodied slice of the urban environment within the city.

There are however, relationships that can be distinguished from the scene through lighting and viewing perspective.

A set of definitive and implicit relationships are ascertained between the props (the view of the roof and the view of people beneath), the spectator and the lighting. However, these relationships have no direct mearurement and space remains untangible and unmeasurable within this boundless spatial sphere.

PHOTOSENSITISED CHRONOTOPOGRAPHY : PIVOTED VIEWING IN PERSPECTIVE

The chronotopography of this scene can be further examined from a multitude of views.

This example investigates the chronotopograph from a pivoted viewing point and through the medium of a 35 mm camera.

The way in which the chronotopography is seen in respect to the chosen view point is what dictates the ‘scale’ of the chronotopograph. Multiple camera views are therefore layered together in a new chronophotographic sequence that captures a scene that can not be viewed at once from the given view point.

The motion of the camera allows one to better comprehend the depth and scale of the chronophotograph, compared to what one sees from a single, fixed view.

Investigations of the Mobile Urban Experience
A journey on Linie 5 demonstrates a strategy of seeing, experiencing, rebuilding the city that counters overly rational paradigms of development in post – reunification Berlin.

Viewing Frames of the S-Bahn
On the S-Bahn, the passenger is inside a contained, framed space – in motion along an urban continuum. The frames of the S-Bahn are shifting and cellular, our view is circumscribed by the S-Bahn window from which we view the cinematically priveledged topography of Berlin.

Mapping S-Bahn Viewing Frames
The acceleration and speed of the S-Bahn in the given station intervals determine how Berlin is seen in distance and time. The railway markers indicate the temporal manner in which certain behavioural characteristics of the city are seen from the train carriage.

Digital communication is an absolute necessity for the fast-moving  society of today. It provokes real events that then feed back into the virtual domain; the communicative data of the physical environment is constantly altered and multiplied.  Project I is an investigation into the eviction of the [...]]]> PLACE-MAKING | Berlin | Unit 21 | 2012

Digital communication is an absolute necessity for the fast-moving  society of today. It provokes real events that then feed back into the virtual domain; the communicative data of the physical environment is constantly altered and multiplied.  Project I is an investigation into the eviction of the collective housing residents in Berlin. The chain reaction of protests, with live uploads of videos and comments online is translated into the unfolded expression of the event. This leads into Project II, a mobile place-making kit for social interactions. It facilitates events that are organised by people who then “make” it a “place”. With locations determined through online voting, individuals and groups can book an area or a feature for their activity or performance. Through the data-human relationship, events can permanently exist as a collective digital archive and as memories of the individuals.

“We have attempted to present interior reality and exterior reality as two elements in process of unification, of finally becoming one” – André Breton
The project was initiated by carrying out a series of analogue photographic experiments to explore the idea [...]]]> THE OPTICAL PARK | Berlin | Unit 21 | 2012

“We have attempted to present interior reality and exterior reality as two elements in process of unification, of finally becoming one” – André Breton
The project was initiated by carrying out a series of analogue photographic experiments to explore the idea of superimposition of spaces, time and scale. This lead to the final proposal of an Optical Park at the Museum Island in Berlin. The park consists of six pavilions intend to act as viewing devices that merge the exterior views with the interior spatial condition. The design aims to create illusory effects that blur the boundary between the exterior and the interior as well as juxtaposes and overlays different realities.

Awarded Distinction in Design

The project tests whether bespoke digital methods can be used in a political and provocative way. It questions levels of chance and control within a design project and uses methods that embrace indeterminate outcomes. A new Federal Constitutional Court of Germany is proposed [...]]]> OPPORTUNISTIC GEOMETRIES | Berlin | Unit 21 | 2012

Awarded Distinction in Design

The project tests whether bespoke digital methods can be used in a political and provocative way. It questions levels of chance and control within a design project and uses methods that embrace indeterminate outcomes. A new Federal Constitutional Court of Germany is proposed in Berlin on a site formerly occupied by the Berlin Wall. A single module of the Berlin Wall was modelled and scanned using a homemade 3d scanner. The homemade scanner contained nuances and inaccuracies, producing areas of slippage in the resulting 3d mesh. These areas of slippage, or ‘opportunistic geometries’ were used to design the key spaces of the new Court. The challenge of the project lay in combining these opportunistic geometries with the functional requirements of the Court.

The home-made scanner

Allowing for chance in materiality

The geometry used to inform all of the spaces of the court and the landscape are from the home-made scanning technique which introduces slippage and distortions to the scanned objects. Using a single, modelled segment of the Berlin Wall, enough geometry is produced in the slippage to design the entire scheme without the need for repetition. Various resolutions can be produced by scaling the one scan rather than using several different scale models.

Awarded Distinction in Design                                                                                     [...]]]> PINA BAUSCH’S DANCE SCHOOL | Berlin | Unit 21 | 2012

Awarded Distinction in Design                                                                                                                                        Click to see Thesis

Dancer’s view in the studio ‘Love in the city’

The year’s work began with looking at a Korean film ’3-iron’ by Ki-duk Kim.  A series of analysis about viewing relationships are set up, focusing on the last scene of the film.

In this series of drawing, around the moment when the husband is facing his wife, his visual area is constructed. The part of the room which is within the husband’s line of sight at this moment is modeled. The part of the furniture at the back is carefully taken out to show what is actually left out of the ephemeral visual area. The mirror and the glass doors of the cabinet reflect part of the space behind the husband which cannot be seen directly. And the light behind the husband casts the shadow of the man into the husband’s peripheral visual area, which could trigger the husband’s detection if the man moves.

Examining the husband’s changing viewpoint throughout the “kissing” section, a kind of rhythm is found. He changes his viewpoint rapidly when he just enters the living room because he is looking for his wife. After he finds her, his viewpoint is fixed at her direction. When she said ‘I love you’, he feels surprised (because he always yearns for her love but has never received it). He looks around and finds nothing, then he hugs his wife, enjoys this moment and even closes his eyes. His viewpoint is changing according to his emotion and expectation etc.

Pina Bausch’s Dance School

The design project is a dance school cum theatre for Pina Bausch’s company. The starting point of this project is to construct the viewing experience into architecture. This dance school is equipped with special studios for practicing specific emotions in Pina Bausch’s dance, and provides the audience with different viewing experiences according to the particular emotion. A subjective strategy is applied in the design process, which relies on the designer’s understanding from extracting emotions from Bausch’s dance till transforming them into studio design.

Audience’s area.

Studio ‘Longing’.

Studio ‘Lightness’.

The dancer’s view drawings show what the dancer sees when he/she is doing the homonymous piece in the studio. They try to combine the piece of dance, the emotive aspect of the design and the viewpoints together, which are the key aspects of this project.

Dancer’s view in the studio ‘Longing’ when doing the homonymous piece.

Dancer’s view in the studio ‘Lightness’.

Awarded Distinction in Design                                                                                [...]]]> KARL MARX ALLEE MONUMENT | Berlin | Unit 21 | 2012

Awarded Distinction in Design                                                                                                                                         Click to see Thesis

“Perhaps spectators walking along the existing monument in Karl Marx Allee (KMA) is similar to the way Robert Smithson toured the monuments in New Jersey. However, not many of us can be as sensitive and imaginative as he did to read those monuments allegorically. Perhaps, we don’t even want another Smithson to read the future KMA and say this is “a kind of self-destroying postcard world of failed immortality and oppressive grandeur.” Accommodating more than 2,000 apartments, the present KMA deserves positive regeneration. Interacting with the existing Stalinist architecture built from 50s to 60s, the proposal will be an anti-nostalgic scheme. Rather than being haunted by the unproductive nostalgia, it will mark the end of the GDR power, and transform it into a new park of possibilities by translating the existing motifs along the boulevard. To stop the unproductive and even dangerous nostalgia of the citizen, like the mother in the film Goodbye Lenin, the project made use of architecture as a tool to help people understand the condition of memory and their history. Meanwhile, it will regenerate the area as new urban recreational hub, putting emphasis on the present livelihood.”

Face Experiment 

Summary of Experiment – A fragmented landscape to recall memory

‘Reflective Projection’ is to provide a series of images which suggest that understanding memory is a matter of progressive discovery on one’s own. Actually, the reason of choosing the face to start is based on the assumption that face contains unique human identity, like fingerprint, everyone is different. The above exercise is trying to discover a way of using fragmentation to express the wholeness, incorporating those qualities we have talked about in case study. Similar to making the Fuller map, the exercise manipulated the existing facial details into another projection, without creating new information of the face. Although distorted through digitalization, this can read as the compromise in this exercise that representation is always about how we arrange the fragments. The digitalization is just a process but not the aim. When separated into pieces, each of them contain detailed information about the face, as a partial portrait of the woman. It can be read as the new portrait of the woman. It is a collage of the many different faces recorded in my mind. When all the fragments are combined as a flat surface, although some parts are overlapping one another, it contained all the information of the fragments. Conceptually, this is still the face of the woman, but in a new identity.

Like marking the traces of the authentic site and relocating the material in ‘Making Positive’ in the case study ( refer to Thesis), we get new meanings from manipulating the existing. Besides, when it became a three dimensional mask, it showed spatial quality of solid and void. Looking at the void (back), we can actually imagine how the solid (front) looks like. Here, the void representing the solid, is identical to the idea of ‘Making Negative’. Peeling off the mask as an unfinished objects, is actually reflecting the ephemeral and temporal nature of representation, it is self consciously making itself, one of the process and possibilities out of many. A discontinuous mask is based on the idea of ‘Making Landscape’, that scattering the fragments of the face in order to draw the spectators to actively participate the discovery of the identity and completeness of the woman. Indeed, looking at the synthesis mask, the unfolding mask in process is containing all the above effects that we have discussed, such as altering the original geometry, inverting solid and void, ephemeral temporary effect, fragmented and wholeness, and the viewer participation. Based on our definition of ‘reflective projection’, we may probably say that, this fragmented and synthesis masks is kind of ‘reflective projection’, that allowing me to rediscover the relation of me to the woman, continuously.

Facade Experiment 

Likewise, these techniques of manipulation of the surface will be applied to the faces/facades of historical protected buildings in Karl Marx Allee (KMA), for making architectural interventions to regenerate the area and allow the spectators to rediscover their relation to the KMA from time to time. This experiment is also based on the assumption that KMA’s identity could be reflected in its’ characteristic style of Stalinist architecture and its’ deliberately uses of symbols and fragments from classical architecture.

1. Unfolding the facade as fragments : Similar to how the face is being digitalized and fragmented into 15 pieces

2. Procedure of Remaking A New Representation: studying the solid and void from different sides, front and back

3. A ‘mask’ of the facade was made physically

4. Possible Compositions of fragments using the surface, mask of the facade.

5. A fragmented facade: made to replicate the notion of the fragmented mask in the face experiment, to draw the spectators to actively engaged with the new spaces

New Karl Marx Allee Proposal 

Perhaps spectators walking along the existing monument in Karl Marx Allee (KMA) is similar to the way Robert Smithson toured the monuments in New Jersey. However, not many of us can be as sensitive and imaginative as he did to read those monuments allegorically. Perhaps, we don’t even want another Smithson to read the future KMA and say this is “a kind of self-destroying postcard world of failed immortality and oppressive grandeur.” Accommodating more than 2,000 apartments, the present KMA deserves positive regeneration.

Proposal and Background

The design proposal is a public park which will be built along the historic boulevard. Interacting with the existing Stalinist architecture built from 50s to 60s, the proposal will be an anti-nostalgic scheme. The 2.5 km long boulevard, also known as Worker Palace was the former cultural centre of the East Berlin. Before declaring as a collective historical building group, the KMA was the showpieces and the symbol of the ideal life style of GDR regime. It embedded countless memory of the population over the last five decades. Although the street was now a protected historical site, it is clear that the monumentality of the street is capable to withstand new intervention without losing its perception of mass and monumentality to its viewers. It can be modified and we can imagine future modification. To make the street as propelling element in the urban fabric is to prove its vitality. Thus, the proposed intervention is not about destroying the established historical settings of the past. It will use new design to evoke the intimacy, rather than grandeur. Rather than being haunted by the unproductive nostalgia, it will mark the end of the DDR power, and transform it into a new park of possibilities. To stop the unproductive and even dangerous nostalgia of the citizen, like the mother in the film Goodbye Lenin, the project tried to make use of architecture as a tool to help people understand the condition of memory and their history. Meanwhile, it will regenerate the area as new urban recreational hub, putting emphasis on the present livelihood. It aims to capture the missing moment which is less opulent, and more in a cooperative form of lifestyle. The design will try to reintroduce the domestic and families-base life style, which was served with the common and mundane objects in the past.

Contextualising Design

Similar to the face experiment, the design is based on the assumption that facade could express the architectural identity of the KMA. Its’ geometry and other visual motifs could recall memory effectively. By using the face experiment as the point of departure, the design will first document the existing geometry and digitalising it for further manipulation.The geometry could be unfolded as flat surface and used as pavement. Then, the pavement could be read as a ‘new portrait’ of the KMA on the ground. After further folding and other operations, it will be used as new geometry to produce building envelopes and other architectural components, such as floor, wall and roof, so as to create similar effect to the ‘ mask’ in the face experiment. The ‘mask’ as architectural parts will form various sizes of spaces for different programs and functions, such as cafe, bar, bookshops, gallery and cinema, but not for purely memorial purposes. At the same time, the arrangement of the new design will be adjusted in relation to its original geometry from the buildings, to create a dialogues between the new and old. Similar to the ‘fragmented mask’, although the various new architectures are physically separated, they are visually connected through the relation to existing building. This helps create a landscape for spectators to participate. It provides spatial intervals, like in the landscape architecture, wholeness is completed each time only when we project part of our body and mind into the architecture. The regenerated KMA landscape with full of familiarity and enigmas could be read as a kind of ‘reflective projection’ that providing series of images to allow people to rediscover the present conditions of KMA and its’ dynamic relation to them continuously.

Awarded Distinction in Design

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 [...]]]> Desire-Land  | MArch GAD | 2011

Awarded Distinction in Design

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.

Awarded Distinction in Design

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 [...]]]> Digital Reconsecration | London | MArch GAD | 2011

Awarded Distinction in Design

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.

Awarded Distinction in Design

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. [...]]]> Mechanical City | Beijing | MArch GAD | 2011

Awarded Distinction in Design

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 RITUAL EVENT – Tia Randall (Bartlett MArch Architecture / Diploma – unit 21) from APA on Vimeo.

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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.

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.

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.

Awarded Distinction in Design                                                                                     [...]]]> ANAMORPHIC CITY HALL | Istanbul | Unit 21 | 2011

Awarded Distinction in Design                                                                                                                               Click to see Thesis

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.

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

Awarded Distinction for Design & Merit for Thesis
RIBA Silver Medal Nomination in Thesis                                               [...]]]>  

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

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

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.

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.

Awarded Distinction for Design & the Fitzroy Robinson Prize for Drawing

“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, [...]]]> SHUNT  THEATRE | London | Unit 21 | 2009

Awarded Distinction for Design & the Fitzroy Robinson Prize for Drawing

“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.

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