This project explores the notion of
sequence and framing, not only their role in architectural experience, but also
their role in architectural design process, as well as in the understanding of
the relationship between architectural form and narrative.
Walk Through / Walk Pass
Throughout architectural history, when
enfilade slowly split and separate into rooms and corridors, the architectural
experience has fundamentally changed. It
is no longer manifested through the act of "moving through", but through the
glimpses of spaces during the act of "walking pass". While the subdivision of space into
individualized rooms results in a more fragmented space, thresholds such as
doorframes that always reveal part of the whole room make the notion of framing
and sequence play a more central role in articulating spatial experience.
The flattening of Architectural Experience
As written by Robin Evans: "As the room
closed in, so the aesthetic of space unfolded, as if the extensive liberty of
the eye were a consolation for the closer confinement of body and soul." When the rooms with many doors (enfilade)
gave way to the rooms with one door, a form of compensatory illusory freedom of
the eye is developed. The glimpsing of
spaces of rooms beyond doorframes from the corridor becomes comparable to
looking at a picture on the wall. Both the glimpsing of space; and the
subdivision of space into rooms suggest the tendency of flattening of
architectural experience from spatial to visual; from three-dimensional to two-dimensional.
In the contemporary digital age, in many cases, the very act of "moving pass" moves from physical corridors towards the virtual world within screens. The most notable example is the Street View function of the Google Map. Not only the movement in space is dematerialized, one can also observe the further flattening of architectural experience - the Google Street View as a means to navigate across series of two-dimensional street images, all distorted in forced perspective to give the viewer a feeling of three dimensionality within the frame of the computer screen.
The Non-linearity and Three dimensionality
of Architectural Experience
Through a narrative of the Great Escape from a
prison, the project challenges the linearity and the flattening of
architectural experience by restructuring and creating spaces with non-linear
sequence. During the planning of the escape,
the prisoner collects fragmented moments of the prison from the limited
experience that he was let out of the cell (to meet a visitor, to the
cafeteria, and through the climbing into the service system when the guard is
distracted, etc.) Fragments of 3d
physical models are made accordingly, which the prisoner figures his way out by
rotating and connecting the models differently.
Throughout architectural history, when
enfilade slowly split and separate into rooms and corridors, the architectural
experience has fundamentally changed. It
is no longer manifested through the act of "moving through", but through the
glimpses of spaces during the act of "walking pass". While the subdivision of space into
individualized rooms results in a more fragmented space, thresholds such as
doorframes that always reveal part of the whole room make the notion of framing
and sequence play a more central role in articulating spatial experience.
When the rooms with many doors (enfilade)
gave way to the rooms with one door, a form of compensatory illusory freedom of
the eye is developed, as written by Robin Evans: "As the room closed in, so the
aesthetic of space unfolded, as if the extensive liberty of the eye were a
consolation for the closer confinement of body and soul." The glimpsing of spaces of rooms beyond
doorframes from the corridor becomes comparable to looking at a picture on the
wall. Both the glimpsing of space and the subdivision of space into rooms
suggest the tendency of flattening of architectural experience from spatial to
visual; from three-dimensional to two-dimensional.
This project explores the notion of sequence
and framing, not only their role in architectural experience, but also their
role in architectural design process, as well as in the understanding of the
relationship between architectural form and narrative, through the narrative of
the Great Escape.
The Great Escape
We are always isolated in the room. We retreat only to try to leave the retreat
again...
This project inhabits in the world where
different spaces and rooms are linked to each other through various thresholds
such as doors, windows, monitor screens etc.
Such collapsing of geographical distance condenses architecture into
multiple "snapshots" of spaces and moments.
One mediates within this world through constant entering and exiting of
rooms and moments. It is clear for the
inhabitants of this world that the interior and exterior can never be defined
by façades, and it does not take long for them to realize this can neither be
defined through entry and exit. Anxiety
grows as they further discover each of them is in fact encapsulated within
their own room. A Great Escape has to be
planned.
- Again presentation skill is yet to be
improved. Things have to be more
seamless. For instance, the Kyoyo view
in the Re-con has to replaced with the HK view so it links more clearly.
- The super narrative should be the idea of
comic, the idea/ relationship between the isolation of the frame and its role
within the sequence, where the AA Box is embedded in it. Thus, the Box should be presented after the
comic.
- The idea of prison is interesting: architect of prison, then the architect is in
the prison; individual frame and reading all operate in a kind of ever, further
embedding of a story within a story.
However, even though the four characters (the prisoner, the warden, the
guard and the visitor) are useful in exploring different aspects of the story,
the idea of prison is too strong as a device, which it dominates everything and
is too literal. Maybe talk about the
story of isolation and containment without mentioning "the prison".
- Suggestion: procession, monastery;
hikikomori (prison of your own making, self imprisonment, extreme degrees of
isolation and confinement)
- Hikikomori: shift from a room to
hyper-internalised process, such as obsessive gaming, etc. This can then construct the narrative around
the particular obsession, which can be deeply personal (focus shift from object
to person).
- Hikikomori: warden is the parents, this can
then translate into a sub-narrative into the warden.
- Also consider the imprisonment of an idea,
obsession of an idea; different cultures, social barrier as a form of
imprisonment/ isolation.
- Hikikomori: the guard is the room itself as
it already has everything needed, it is no longer necessary to leave the
room. The guard becomes a kind of
architectural mechanism.
I am currently trying to rearrange the
comic so they should look less scattered; and re-doing the room where it is now
the room of a hikikomori teenager (the prison becomes one of the
sub-narratives), and constructing a better linkage between the new room, the
school, and the prison. Hopefully, I can
have a new version of my argument to go with the re-arranged comic. Argument
will post here later. Here's is a wip
view of the room (which is still quite empty...) and also the comic cubes that I
showed on last Friday.
From Boite en Vaise to the AA Box
The notion of collecting in a box from
Duchamp's Boite en Valise is re-appropriated into the AA Box, where different
elements and spaces of the school are fragmented, removed form their original
context and sequence; then re-packed.
Within the box, the spaces are re-sequenced in order to curate a spatial
experience defined by predictability and surprise. For example, there are enfilade of doors that
lead to nowhere; abrupt shifting in scale inside the library bookshelf; space
slippage from stairs in 39 Bedford Sq to terrace door in 36, and then to stairs
in 33; window in the unit space suddenly has a view looking at Kyoto, etc. The elements and spaces are like different
episodes within a sequence. They
juxtapose each other and thus create new readings, which are completely
different from their original meaning within their original context.
From the AA Box to the comic strips
The AA Box is about sequence. A comic strip (which itself is a form of
sequential representation) is thus used as a tool to extract items from the
box, and more importantly, to extract or distill the very idea of sequence. The comic strip becomes a testing ground to
construct a context from sequence; to explore the role sequence plays in the
design and to understand its relationship with architectural form as well as
the narrative. Operating similarly in
the Box, the doors and windows become points of entry/ exit in the comic strip,
which allow the branching out of narrative from the main sequence, and form
many other "sub-stories". The network of
comic strips can then allow the collection of different elements into the
project, and at the same time create relationships (predictable or as a kind of
surprise) between each of them.
The comic strips and the prison: the Great
Escape
The comic strip is then developed into a
kind of prison narrative. The prison and
the comic strip operate in the same way in certain sense: each individual frame/
panel in the comic strip is a form of isolation from the other frames, while
still remaining as a part of the larger story sequence; the notion of
imprisonment can be seen as a kind of absolute cut/ isolation from the
trajectory of one's life. At the same
time, the cells for prisoners can also be seen as individual frames, but are
also at the same time part of a larger sequence, which is the prison. Within the prison narrative, there are 4
threads of sequences: the prisoner (who are also the architect of the prison,
and are planning to escape from the prison), the guard, the warden and the
visitor. The 4 sequences all have
different forms of surprises as they begin to talk about entry and exit. At some point, the sequences may overlap, and
may operate in a foreground/ background relationship. Similar to the AA Box, doors and windows in
the prison become points of entry/ exit that allow the escape from the prison
narrative towards a larger message/ argument.
