wip prisoner's fragmented map of the prison

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.