Requeim for a Building

Alright so I've got an idea about how to approach the project towards the end.

History of Green point:

• There is a history of conflict within Green point, between the first dutch settlers and the native Indians. Burning farms and murdering children.


• The majority of transport was by boat and most of the settlement was involved with the water.


• In the 19Th century the area became industries and specialised in shipbuilding


• Towards the end of the 20Th century, residential area were starting to be created from the old industrial buildings


• Creative arts was becoming recognised in the area around the same time


• This increased the rent to make in one of Brooklyn's highest rental areas


• Recent years have brought about a building proposition to introduce ~16,700 new residents with cheaper market rate housing

Our Possible Scenario:

The year is 2000, with the increase of rent throughout Green point, most people are leaving for cheaper areas, or are trying to survive out on the street. A new development was promised by the council to produce a new area at the waterfront to accommodation some of the homeless with cheaper market rate rents. The problem is that the development was rush and has stalled in progress halfway through construction. The people from the street have seen the new development as built for them and ,despite the council and police's attempts to keep them away, they have settled in the half built market rate apartments.
A majority of the homeless were involved with the growing arts scene in the area until the price rises and had stuck around because they thought the area had promise.
As an industrial area with a shipping history, it was still being used as a port, although a lot smaller than neighbouring ones, this made it a prime target from drug importers and the arts community wasn't objecting.

Our Story:

Follows a squatter who wakes up in his apartment (maybe introduce a cut scene) then explores the building from inside out, something a little different from what would be expected from the project outcome.

Narrative:

Set on a rainy night. Our persona (technically the player, creating a linked experience of the building model) is woken up by a knock at the door, hearing his mate asking if he's awake. He rolls off the damp mattress lying in the middle of the room, crooked, flicks on the lamp next to him. A empty room, fridge a one end, couch at the other, is revealed by the flickers light. He heads for the door, but opens it so see no one there, he looks around puzzled and continues out the door, leaving it open behind him.



The persona is then allowed to walk around from his apartment, being lead by noises of people, laughing, smashing windows.
From inside to outside the extend of completion of the building is reveled.

Related links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenpoint,_Brooklyn

Project: Mayhem

After last nights meeting, and Jack mentioning storyboarding, I thought of having a narrative. Something to guide us in the way we present and gives our map an extra dimension, rather than just being a building. I started to think about our theme word conflict, and came up with the idea of a war torn building and news journalist report style.



Continuing on this tangent, I thought maybe a war scenario probably doesn't relate to New York, where our building is located, so I thought of a hostage style scenario. And why stop with the conflict just as an idea for the map, we could create conflict in our collaboration.
After completing a normal representation of the building, we could split our group into 2 smaller teams, say the hostage takers and the authorities. The team then could create/destroy modify parts of the map to advantage themselves in the scenario. The hostage takes could destroy the entry points, ransack the place, etc. The authorities could bring in extra support cars, cranes, make alternate entry routes, etc.



We could "report" of this activity when we present our work every couple of weeks, kind of like a TV series.
I think it'd probably work best with 2 teams of 2 and an unrelated 1 who helps with modelling, mapping and texturing of either team.
This could start to create an interesting map which no one could really expect. I think it also displays a different perspective of collaboration, we are working to create a final project but using conflicting positions to do so.

I would like to hear what people think about this, otherwise we could just create a map, and talk about stuff.

Decisions decisions

After deciding that we need to make a decision on which Project we should start I suggest Min's second suggestion: Student Design Competition (Dennis Nikolaev, Virginia Tech)



I think this would make a nice map, from the simple look, exoskelatol structure, and ,although I'm not sure it I interpreted it right, but there seems to be spaces that create themselves or expand/contract. An interesting dynamic for a building.

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.