A different perspective

Alright, since my background isn't really of an architectural way of thinking (in my opinion) I don't know too much common famous/infamous/interesting work and I probably appreciate things differently (digital presentation, 3d animation, 3d modelling, gaming background) from most of the group. But hopefully we can find our common ground.


For my first suggestion: Escher's High and Low.
It's probably not the easiest and may not be even possible, although I like the challenge it suggests: to create something in total conflict with itself. Escher provide a space that is intriguing and it would allow us to use our imagination rather than documents. Taking this approach would hopefully move us away from the mundane replication of a building (ie. falling water house), which I think would be the first path most people think of when they read the brief, and move on to a more conceptual experience.

Although, it would be hard to choose this as an option if there wasn't something in the unreal3 editor (which I haven't looked at yet) to pull off something to make this experience. Some ideas I've been thinking are changing the axis of the player (not very likely) or creating another model which roamed the inverse level mirroring what the player does (probably not likely either). But hey it's all food for though.

Secondly I'd like to suggest something more feasible: the hammer and sickle building by Yakov Chernikhov (1933) . It is a building that caught my eye, through my googling. The curves and straight lines (sickle and hammer) , created from industrial style construction, stood out to me and the symbolic nature is interesting. Although after searching for some time I couldn't find much more than an image and a few words.

On the other hand; if we could chose a building we could visit, we'd be able to capture the mood easier and probably more faithfully. Physically being in a space give you a feeling, mood, maybe sounds from the actual environment could be used (doors that squeaked when opened, the sounds of a draft escaping from under the door, a busy street outside).

And I'll keep going, returning to the falling water example. The map doesn't give you any real direction to discover the building. The maps says: "Here's a building look around". I go: "ok, well actually it's quite big and I'm pretty lazy" so I then hand over the control to someone else and maybe miss a key aspect of the building (in my case the actual falling water, maybe because I'm not to familiar with the architecture and it didn't interest me). So I propose some kind of narrative, sequence of letting people view the building. I say this in a really loose way, I don't want people to have to stick to one line through the building, that would just be a fly-through, but it could be done by enticing people into a space, or directed to a space due to lack of options. ie. If I walked into a room, heard music coming from behind a closed door, I would probably want to investigate. Or say I heard a scream from the other end of a corridor, either you would run the other way (my choice) or you'd get an adrenaline boost then go see what's happening (goodluck with that).

Ok this has become quite long and my beer is finished so I'll stop here.