(or BIG IS BEAUTIFUL)
Experience Driven Architecture of
New Underground Shopping Malls
1. The Capriccio
2. Experiential Research
3. Experiential Simulator
4. Find and Define Commerce
5. Formalization
To design complex visceral underground buildings means working from the inside. The mass between interior and exterior surfaces in malls are mysterious and unpredictable. Plans and sections might be superior in describing space, but lack information essential for describing the atmosphere of spaces designed for experience.
We will begin our quest to design viscerally by learning from the European Capriccio and Veduta masters of the 17th and 18th century such as Giovanni Paolo Panini, Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Giovanni Antonio Canal (Canaletto). Their highly detailed large scale paintings and prints of fantasy spaces have influenced architects for centuries but seldom been analysed and readapted as design methods. We will dismantle the composition of the Capriccio and the Veduta in small spatial fragments such as,
• complexity
• distance
• possible choices presented to the viewer
• colour
• light
• events
• kinds of people
• culture
• movement of people
• time
All of the above (and more) should be extracted from the image using Photoshop so that the different fragments can be highlighted or even removed. Knowing the intricate details of your capriccio after your analysis you can now accurately determine the capriccios atmosphere, according to yourself. Does the capriccio have one or many atmospheres? One in the foreground and one in the background?
In order to understand what is geometrically needed to build the scene in the capriccio you will produce a digitally 3D model from which you can extract spatial characteristics and change point of view in the fictional space. This process will also give you insight in to the relationship between what you can see in the picture, and what is really there. What can we guess and what is obvious? It is possible that the space in your capriccio is impossible meaning multiple perspectives etc.
The 3D model will then be used for the next step of the analysis where you will begin to alter the view point of the capriccio and produce renderings.
The final step will be to use your study and determined atmosphere for your capriccio and then try and change the atmosphere using your 3D model, Photoshop or any other mean. What if you change the colour of the light? The clothes of the people? the pictures on the walls? Your intention need to be clear and the outcome readable and convincing.
