Alone amongst others (november 2004)
What happens when you rethink architecture and a visitor's experience in the wonderous city of Venice? Well you get a lot of post-its and a lot of ideas in 2 weeks time.
My proposal was to look at Venice in terms of people. How do you link a quiet and sacred convent to a busy Disney-like city? Well I developped the idea of linking a lonely visitor to another and then to a crowd to take away the feeling that he is alone among others because the architecture acts as a passage through space.
My first proposal was to use the 2 wells which are present in the middle of 2 piazza's in this convent as detectors and attractors of presence. A person entering the piazza would hear whispering from the well and would be attracted by it. Speaking into the well (which is a natural affordance) would prove to have a light-ripple effect of light going into the tunnel. The whispering that answers back would have the effect of light climbing up the well toward the visitor. These are actually 2 people at opposite sides of the convent connected through space by a conversation of words and light. The intensity of the light-ripple varying with the intensity of the voice.
The second part of the proposal involves the natural architecture of the archways around the piazzas. As the visitor's walks around in the silent piazza he sees above him a translucent material on which is projected the image of crowds of people in Venice, seen from above. This gives the feeling of watching without being watched and gives the visual pulse of the city to a visitor anxious for a quiet moment of solitude.Different places are filmed from all around the city giving this realtime feedback of where things are going on.
A booklet was put together to document the project (layout by Richard The), graphics, illustrations and content by me.
Links
+ Project Booklet extract (860 K pdf)
