Project 1: Memorial themed ‘Journey of the 5 senses’
Project 1 is an introductory project by which we are required to explore issues of spatial typologies and poetics through simple design exercises. Working in groups of 4-5 students, we are to propose 2 schemes for a Memorial themed ‘journey for the 5 senses’. We are required to design the Memorials in the form of semi-open architecture by using two contrasting spatial types of your choice. There is no specific site for this design work. The story of your Memorial should translate a narrative of the events that happened in the 2000s era and the 2010s era, and it should be informed by precedents studies.
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In groups of 4-5 students, select 2 precedents for analysis. They can be local, national and/or international examples. One precedent must be pre-modern movement, and one precedent must be contemporary. Also, one precedent must be linear typology, while the other is concentric typology.
Linear & Concentric Memorial Concept
Interconnection
Then, communication involves presence. The opportunity to talk, to share and to feel with the presence of a human was so valuable that distance did not matter. At the start of social media, social networking was still pretty insular, where the whole point was to simply consolidate your social contacts into a central hub. The hub was a selling point, drawing all curiosity with the intention of easily connecting with friends and family. A mutual click is all it takes for you to connect with someone beyond your social circle. It was easy, strange and rare to befriend a stranger, who is just another human silhouette to you. Over time social media becomes a breakthrough, bringing different people together to interact and meet along with a direction to the future.
Individualism
Fast forward 10 years, social media draw us into a very powerful world of edited reality, which can work to reinforce our own insecurities. We strive and seek for the idea of perfection that has been implemented by the standards of social media. Instead of being about connectivity, social media became a way of disconnecting ourselves from reality. With likes and shares representing a virtual currency, the sole purpose of the social network has now become a perpetual self-affirmation service. We share and post only for the narcissistic thrill of our acquaintances reasserting our own arrogance. What have we lost? Closeness, voice contact, the intimate communication of actually knowing what a person is feeling, and that can only come from presence.
