Architectural Design V-IX: Voluptas S2E1 - Pathfinder (F.Charbonnet/P.Heiz)

Abstract

Focus on the city of London: Rich history, possibilities. As the framework of our prospective investigation, it shall evoke an array of fantasies and trigger multiple narrative potentials.The careful and critical consideration of architectural paragons, socio-economical dynamics, geopolitical shifts, further endowed with the lure of fiction shall initiate new beginnings to alternate (hi)stories.

Objective

Research & curation of contemporary concepts, articulation of a discursive argument, visual literacy & storytelling, image montage & composition, architectural drafting and projecting. Incentives: Agency & character, movies & scenario, territorial & urban scale, collectivity, situations & artefacts, socio-political dimension, critical position, contemporary conditions. Steps: (1) Analyze an urban territory, research contemporary concepts, identify potentials, articulate a critical position, conduct an objective survey and draft a path; (2) Based on the survey, reduction of the path to its subjective experience, drafting of the resulting collection of architectural features in both plan and section; make use of the cinematic technique and the process of montage in order to suggest a storyline; project an urban scenario on both the artefactual and the territorial scale, focusing on collectiveness and the socio-political aspects of society; (3) Epitomize/Idealize the experience-path in order to express a critical position towards contemporary conditions, negotiate and collaborate in order to mount a common map of intensities; (4) Train rhetoric and argumentation, master drafting skills as well as image montage.

Content

I imagined a labyrinth of labyrinths, a maze of maze, a twisting, turning, ever-widening labyrinth that contained both past and future and somehow implied the stars. Absorbed in those illusory imaginings, I forgot that I was a pursued man; I felt myself, for an indefinite while, the abstract perceiver of the world. The vague, living countryside, the moon, the remains of the day did their work in me; so did the gently downward road, which forestalled all possibility of weariness. The evening was near, yet infinite.' –J.L. Borges, Ficciones (1944) PATHFINDER 1 will focus on the city of London: its rich history, morphology, mythology, possibilities… all canonic spatial perimeters as suggested by Lefebvre: political, sociological, anthropological, economical. As the framework of our prospective investigation, it shall evoke an array of fantasies and trigger multiple narrative potentials. The careful and critical consideration of architectural paragons, socio-economical dynamics, geopolitical shifts, further endowed with the lure of fiction, shall initiate new beginnings to alternate (hi)stories and cityscapes. We shall attempt to describe the manifold experiences of the city. CONTENT Pursuing our rambling exploration on the lookout for urban environments beyond reasonable and more than ever considering humankind as embedded in, acting upon and dependent on its geological era, we shall look upon history’s intertwined layers and sediments as raw potential to be appropriated and composed with – joyfully disrespecting scientific authenticity. The visionary Hístor seeks, finds novelty in the old, rather than an unfounded assertion of the present with the past. This semester aims at both finding and drafting fictional paths within erratic hyper-contexts (generated by hypothetical ruling incentives), and the obsessive recording of their past and present traces of erasures and becomings. We will be collaborating with students of the Faculty of Game Design of the ZHdK in order to expand our discoveries and experience. PROJECT Driven by the choice of an Actor (who?), an Agent (how?) and a Timeframe (when?), Students will first conduct an objective survey focused on the observation and unprecedented reading of London, in order to map out and draft possible paths within the city (where?). Secondly, they will extrapolate multiple lines of fiction in a subjective survey focused on the experience within the city. Thirdly, the experience will be epitomized, idealized and intensified, in order to formulate a critical comment onto the contemporary condition and reveal future potentials. All contributions put together in a map of intensities shall display the striated and differenciated experience of the London metropolitan area. The city thus becomes the recording canvas of intertwined and proliferating storylines. Furthermore, students will construct an argumentative arsenal to support their discourse, based on the selective curation of evocative sources. The complementary drawings, images and discourse crystallize the fictional metropolis’ shared desires and aspirations in an effort to re-write alternate architectural and territorial fictions and reflect critically on contemporary conditions, overthrowing socio-economic status quo.

Resources