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2007_ participation at the DNAD-COMPETITION
DESIGN/INSTALLATION FOR THE ARCHITECTURE FOUNDATION IN LONDON


Enchantment is a useless thing, but as indispensable as bread. (GIO PONTI)
THE BRIEF_ Propose an installation for the Architecture Foundation’s new building that communicates this statement in relationship to architecture and the city.

Since the new building has highly reflective surfaces on all but one fassades it finds its place in the landscape by reflecting such. That is one issue architecture has to deal with, but it also has to set a sign for it self and for what it aims to be. The former causes that the building not only reflects the environment it rather disappeares through such a choice of material. The latter brings us closer to the idea that the building itself has to show some kind of presence. That is only possible through the only glass fassade it has. That glass facade is now transformed to a »living«, enacted medium that lets information in and vice versa. Therefore the building can send a sign to the outside, make people on the outer side aware of something that is going on inside.
Enchantment is a feeling that helps us shift our selfs into a floating position – where one looses and is made to give up control over feelings. Things which may not go along with critic attitude but are simply there and refer to something else, which can not be told with words, are enchanting. That stadium of enchantment is similar to what we feel as children, just being... playing, playing with some kind of order but open for all possibilities – floating whilst playing might be a reformulation for »enchantment«.

dancing shadows | outside_ facade

The actors are hence figures from common fairytales, that bring us right back to a place as former called position, where we are much more open for floating while playing. The figures can be moved by the visitors through winding a crank which allows soforth that the figures start to interact with each other and of course the visitor herself. In that way the facade becomes alive whilst communicating with the inside (because the visitor creates new storys when moving the figures) and the outside (because the figures can be seen from there; they throw shadows on the place and reflect the sun light as well).
That installation is an attempt to bring the grounds of enchantment into architecture. It is also an attempt to reveal (playing with characters, playing with light) the basis of architecture: Communication.

the inside_ view: top-down

dancing shadows | outside_ detail

projection_ experiment

lighting experiment