Perspective Views

Cinema down below

After a long absence from blogging my stuff, without further ado, I present you the underground cinema (with cinematic exhibition space, film restoration and archive, offices etc as a genuine architecture school project where you can't have just one thing). More information will follow over the next few days as the review is coming closer.

I would love to get feedback on the presentation technique which I'm looking always to improve.

Conceptualizing Film, War and Architecture

While trying to understand the expressionism in films such as "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and the paranoia in films such as "Metropolis", "Rosemary's Baby", "Rear Window" and "Hiroshima, mon amour" I realised the importance of recognising the protagonist in each case. The protagonist in our brief is the visitor to the film centre in Sheffield. In this context, studying Sheffield's History and watching short films and "Threads" about the Sheffield Blitz helped me connect everything and decided to make my building about understanding the Paranoia of the War (Sheffield Blitz) through an expressionistic style building that would reveal gradually layers of information to the protagonist-visitor. This is what is the conceptual model about: firstly seeing texts, newspapers and reading information about the war and moving towards the core of the building going through photographs and getting finally shocked watching the film footage in a cinema room that will complete the experience. The building is not meant to be a comfortable journey; it will be uncomfortable in a similar way that the protagonists in "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" were forced to follow. Following this logic and recognising the historical context of the site (a bombed dropped just metres away from the site and a near-by building was an air-raid underground shelter) it only makes sense for the building to be in the form of a shelter, having everything underground and using the ground floor for an outdoor event space. In order to accomodate everything the building might go as deep as 4 floors underground giving a more dramatic feel for the protagonists-visitors of the building.

Video: Sheffield on the move

A video we created tracing the route from Park Hill through the Sheffield Rail Station to CRQ area focused on framing various views of interest and people's daily life routine. The tinted effect is to make the viewer focus in the movement and points of interest instead of the colours.

Film and Architecture

Next project is investigating Film and Architecture resulting in a Film Centre in Sheffield as a collaboration of British Film Institute and Sheffield City Council.

The excerpt above shows how spaces are associated to objects and social behaviours. Watch to see another point of view on this.

I watched the Metropolis (1927) last night. Despite it's over two hours length seemed to be quite interesting and kept me wanting to see the end. Plot with twists and turns, political and social messages going across many times during the film and it's worth remembering the context and location it was projected (Germany, post-WW1). Also architectural paradoxes were apparent giving different layers of meanings associating space and social class. A movie well worth watching.

Waterloo International Terminal - a model comes to life

3d Model Detailing

A lot was gained by replicating details of the structure on CAD and on actual model form. We now realise as a group that understanding the project wouldn't be possible without the modelmaking.