Unit 26
Hyper-Architectures of Play Simon Kennedy, Gabby Shawcross
Year 4 Juan Escudero Pablos, Ezer Han, Ivan Hung, Clara Lee, Yiran Ma, Miten Mistry, Henrik Pihlveus, Hannah Sargeant, Carina Tran, Songyang Zhou Year 5 Cui (Bob) Chang, Qidan Chen, Grace Quah, Dionysis Toumazis
The Bartlett School of Architecture 2017
Thank you to our collaborators Jason Bruges and Adam Heslop of Jason Bruges Studio, film composer Kevin Pollard, screenwriter Andrew Gow of Raindog Films, designer and filmmaker Keiichi Matsuda, Kevin Haley of Aberrant Architecture Thank you to Tim Sloan of Levitate Architects for Design Realisation support, and to Aran Chadwick of Atelier One for structural engineering consultations. Thank you to: Pau Bajet, Jason Bruges (Jason Bruges Studio), Aran Chadwick (Atelier One), Hal Currey (HAL Architects), William Firebrace, Professor Stephen Gage, Alexis Germanos (3X Architects), Andrew Gow (Raindog Films), Kevin Haley (Aberrant Architects), Stephen Harty (Harty and Harty), Adam Heslop (Jason Bruges Studio), Ifigeneia Liangi, J-J Lorraine (Morrow Lorraine Architects), Keiichi Matsuda, Ana Monrabal-Cook (Roz Barr Architects), Kevin Pollard, Tim Sloan (Levitate Architects), Graeme Williamson (NORD)
Play This year the unit investigated play: the interplay between architecture and occupant, play in architecture and architecture in play. We looked to play and games as culturally significant activities – spatial, relational human practices that can inform the design and production of architecture. We probed logic, interface, interaction, tactics and strategies to discover architectural potential in the ambiguity, modality, atmosphere and delight of games and play. Light and sound, colour, texture and temperature were brought into play. Dynamic structures reconfigured while digital surfaces observed and responded to our every move. The unit played their designs and designed ludic structures for their players. Hyper-Architectures We proposed ‘Hyper-Architectures’: those that were intensified, and those that responded to and created a reality above and beyond the present. Hybrid, combining the real and projected, they were time-based, energising the transitory, ephemeral and the emergent, actuating the dynamic, volatile and the variable. Interactive virtual technologies represent an as-yet ill-defined new cultural layer, which architects must use to their advantage. Intensification could occur in both physical and virtual planes, separately and/or simultaneously. Synthetic spaces are the present! (and the future!). New Forms of Practice Unit 26 is a film unit. Our aim is to explore the potential of the moving image to develop new forms of architectural practice. We create filmic architectures and architectural films that explore animated and augmented relationships between people and place. Predicated on the belief that architecture is experiential and time-based, we use cinematic techniques to investigate, simulate and speculate. Our techniques include storyboards, stop-motion, hand-drawing, four-dimensional drawing, hyper-lapse, motion-matching, models and interactive mock-ups. Workshops, Talks and Visits Unit 26 benefits from a broad network of associated professionals, whose contributions serve as a counterpoint to the conceptual and theoretical discourse within the unit, as well as providing inspiration and practical guidance. This year, workshops introduced students to filmmaking principles and innovative techniques. Studio visits connected students to inspiring practitioners in the worlds of interactive art, architecture, film and gaming.
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