PORTFOLIO
FAIZAAN KHAN Selected Works 2017-2020
Bodies in Filmed Space The following are figures and excerpts from a research paper exploring the relationship between architecture and film. Walter Benjamin’s hypothesis that distraction is the primary mode of reception of both architecture and film prompts the question of how architecture is perceived by an audience when represented through film. By comparing Jacques Tati’s films Les Vacances de M. Hulot, and Playtime, the differences in their spatial configurations and camera techniques reveal the rhizomatic power dynamic between architecture, film, and the body. 2020| 1 Semester | Academic | ARC451 | James Macgillivray | Advanced Topics in History & Theory
I turned the negative space of the camera’s field of view into stereotomic objects: “pyramids of space.” By spatializing vision, it becomes clear how bodies occupy filmed space, and how architecture coerces modes of occupation.
Les Vacances de M. Hulot Seaside Hotel 1953
Playtime Office 1967
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Les Vacances de M. Hulot The interior of the rural hotel is defined by openness and irregularity. Thus, the characters, the bodies inhabiting the space, have agency to roam as they please. With no structure from the architecture, the camera clings to the body, diligently following. The architecture becomes ancillary, its materialization through the medium of film becomes contingent upon the will of the body. 5
Playtime The Modernist office in Playtime, through its rigidity and uniformity, dominates the body and provides a scaffolding to which the camera can bind. Because of its subjugation through architecture, the body becomes untethered from the camera. Now, the camera sits still, undeterred by the movement of the character. If the character exits the view of the camera, they cease to exist. 7
Planar Hammour A plane is 2-dimensional, yet in architecture, the plane is taught as a fundamental organizer of 3-dimensional space. Form and order are beholden to the planar elements of the floor slab and the wall. In painting, the canvas and the paper are also taught as planes, yet are also 3-dimensional. I chose to explore this often obscured 3-dimensionality of paper and canvas through a set of printmaking and painting exercises.
2020 | 1 Month | Personal
4 AM
Double-Sided Print As sunlight intensifies through the day, the colors of this print are revealed. Viewers are confronted by both sides of the paper at once. The illusion of a planar surface is broken.
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7 AM
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Sculpted Canvas Without scaffolding, the canvas loses its planarity, revealing its inherent materiality and 3-dimensionality.
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Moments of Movement Originally published as a web-based interactive map, “Moments of Movement� examines urban interfaces, data, and sensing through the lens of mobility. Framed as a graphical narrative following 3 personas travelling through Toronto for a variety of reasons, this project proposes the use of pressure sensors and lights to signal crowding on public transportation. This affords inhabitants greater agency in how they engage their local transit infrastructures, encourages urban exploration, and ameliorates comfort. 2020 | 2 Months | Academic | ARC382 | Simon Rabyniuk | Drawing Out Urban Interfaces
Partners: Rick Schutte, Tandica Williams Role: Creating map and all line drawings, writing and rendering the Pink journey,
Methodology Grids of pressure sensors on public transit vehicles, measure levels of crowding and send signals to lights in upcoming stations. The brighter a section of lights, the less crowded that area will be upon the arrival of the next train. 13
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by R ick Sch utt e
by Ta nd ica W
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illiam s
Experimental Gridshell This project re-imagines the traditional gridshell structure, by imbuing it with localised moments of tension through a system of eyelets, affording the overall form greater structural integrity and a more nuanced formal articulation. Through physical testing, digital prototyping, and simulation, this bending-active gridshell structure is an exploration in the lineage of gridshell formfinding. It mediates the relationship between digital fabrication techniques and the specificity of physical craft with regards to material properties. 2020 | 1 Semester | Academic | ARC381 | Tomasz Reslinski | Experimental Assemblies
Partners: Angus Cheung Role: Digital Simulation, Fabrication & Modelling, Physical Testing, Design, Representation
Testing & Deployment The trussed grid is treated as a quilted fabric; formed and locked in place by a system of steel cables which also serve as a scaffolding for supplemental shading/ambient elements.
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Kinetic Canopies Aiming to push beyond the conventional application of kinetics in architecture to shading systems, this project responds to the need for flexible spatial configuration in Yonge-Dundas Square due to the regular festivals held on the site. These canopies replace temporary tent structures reducing labour and setup time, while simultaneously shielding occupants from the overbearing electronic billboards above, creating a more pleasant atmosphere in an otherwise visually overwhelming urban node.
2019 | 1 Semester | Academic | ARC380 | Nicholas Hoban | Kinetic Architecture
Partners: Lauren Ngo, Jacob Tersigni Role: Design, Simulation, Prototyping, Representation
Drawing by Lauren Ngo
Drawing by Lauren Ngo
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Folding Arm
Rotational Arm
Actuated by a tensile cable strung through the arm, this arm allows the canopy to fold into itself.
Guided by indents in the pole, as the mechanism rises, this arm rotates in order to flatten the canopy as it closes.
Crowded Concert
Drawing in collaboration with Lauren Ngo
Cafe Seating
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Food Stall
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Render in collaboration with Jacob Tersigni
Whale Song Using a microcontroller with a light sensor and joystick I created an instrument to make music on a digital music interface, with full control over pitch, length, and volume. I then linked the raw data of my composition, a deconstructed whale song, to a Rhino 3D interface to create spatial representation of the music. Each note, depending on its combination of pitch, length, and volume, is represented by a unique cloud of cubes. As notes aggregate to become a composition, a whole greater than the sum of its parts, the individual point clouds are aggregated into a sculptural object. 2020 | 2 Weeks | Academic | ARC480 | Maria Yablonina | Designing [with] Inherited Data
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Heritage Hero The aim of this project was to draw attention to the underlying cultural biases that govern which architectural forms are deemed significant enough to be conserved, i.e. written into the official canon of architectural history. By comparing the physical and spatial archetypes of heritage and popular crowdsourced buildings, and framing them in a sardonic parody infomercial, the project calls out how heritage conservancy in Toronto continues to concretize colonialism, whiteness, and eurocentrism in spite of the shifting architectural values of the public. 2020 | 1 Month | Academic | ARC480 | Maria Yablonina | Designing [with] Inherited Data
Partners: Randa Omar, Renee Powell-Hines (Writing and Research) Role: Coding, Parsing & Geocoding Data, Filming & Editing, Digital Modelling
Public Web Map
Film Stills
Frankenstein Models A parodical ‘ideal’ version of a Heritage or Publicly Loved building, implying that by incorporating prominent features present in each category, one can guarantee heritage designation or public appeal. Frankenstein Buildings
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Interiors of Isolation Being confined to a suburb, one would argue, is a favourable position to be in. There are copious amounts of space. However, when you are queer and closeted in a homophobic household the way you must navigate that space, the self-imposed restrictions on movement to avoid the inevitable toxicity of interactions with family, renders that space suffocating.
2020 | 2 Weeks | Personal | Published in ‘Interiors of Isolation’
A 2500sqft, Detached, Single-Family, Closet Presented with an abundance of space, the notion of positive and negatve space becomes highly consequential, and so in this 2500sqft detached single-family ‘home,’ one finds themselves drowning in the negative space. Beyond the bedroom; the bathroom, the kitchen, and the hallway have always existed as transitory spaces preisolation. They were spaces of physical necessity, never spaces of true existence. One finds only a closeted and angry simulacrum of a person. Now the only spaces left to exist, in candid authenticity, are the virtual realms of Instagram DMs, Facebook chats, and maybe even a Zoom call if you whisper.
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