Dip Unit 18 Yr 4: Andy Hau, Juliet Ho, Richard Sharam, Jay Williams, Hannah Woo, Di Zhang. Yr 5: Stephen Clarke, Miki Hirakata, Hiroki Kakizoe, Jessica Lee, Vay Lon Luc, Charlotte Luther, Borja Marcaida, Elizabeth Nall, Maria Saradinou, Irene Siljama. .
Space, emotion and architecture
The film 'Lost in Translation' catches perfectly the mood of alienation and boredom felt by the two main protagonists. The director achieves that effect not only through the performance of the actors, but also by controlling the physical setting, the desolate atmosphere of the generic hotel bar in which man and girl meet, turning their backs to a city that will forever remain remote and incomprehensible to them. While film directors are expected to use all the means at their disposal to manipulate the emotions of spectators, architects, with a few notable exceptions, are generally more reticent to use explicitly the tools of their trade to provoke passionate feelings and reactions from clients and users. Architectural space can also have strong emotional connotations, be it fear or nostalgia, anxiety or excitement, happiness or revulsion, wellbeing or discomfort, etc. Both media use spatial design as their primary tool and while architecture does not usually make full use of the additional impact of narrative, it has other means at its disposal to achieve dramatic effect. In an academic environment where one is free to explore all of one's desires, why not experiment with feelings and explore the proposition that the search for emotion might be, after all, the underlying aspiration of architecture? Tackling this question is not an easy task. This year, the range of emotions has varied and included the sense of freedom, fear of technology, grief, yearning for the past, nervous expectation, isolation, vulnerability etc. Feelings that have each lead, through the choice of individual briefs and sites within the city of Tokyo, to a wide range of architectural projects.
Colin Fournier and David Ardill
Top: Jay Williams, Costume Play Park and Manga Cafe. Middle: Juliet Ho, ‘Charade’ the Restaurant of Uncertainty. Bottom: Hannah Woo, Underground Capsule Hotel, Shibuya.