Invisible Cities
Cities and Eyes 3
"After a seven days' march through woodland, the traveler directed toward baucis cannot see the city and yet he has arrived. The slender stilts that rise from the ground at a great distance from one another and are lost above the clouds support the city. You climb them with ladders. On the ground the inhabitants rarely show themselves: having already everything they need up there, they prefer not to come down. Nothing of the city touches the earth except those long flamingo legs on which it rests and, when the days are sunny, a pierced, angular shadow that falls on the foilage.
There are three hypotheses about the inhabitants of Baucis: that they hate the earth; that they respect it so much they avoid all contact; that they love it as it was before they existed and with spyglasses and telescopes aimed downward they never tire of examining it, leaf by leaf, stone by stone, ant by ant, contemplating with fascination their own absence."
- Italo Calvino
Invisible Cities Project 2.1:
Light Boxes
Starting the project being given a chapter of Italo Calvino' Invisible Cities we had to choose six words or phrases. Having chosen;
Seven Days March
Woodland
Slender Stilts
Flamingo Legs
A Pierced Angular Shadow
Telescopes and Spyglasses
Following that we were tasked with turning them into light boxes, a box with a minimum of two holes, one for the eye and the other for a light source.
The main purpose of this was to try and create an atmosphere relating to the six phrases selected.
Invisible Cities Project 2.1:
Concept Models
From light boxes to concept models we had to refine down to three words.
Creating concepts for more than three allowed me to experiment with different materials and methods. Without taking the words to far in context I created a series of models from the words:
Seven Days March
Woodland
Slender Stilts
Flamingo Legs
Invisible Cities Project 2.1:
Sketch Models
Applying what I had discovered interesting in the concept stage into the sketch models allowed me to start to visualise what kind of spaces I could create within my site.
Using the same site from the previous project I could develop my ideas further into a series of sketch models conveying several different ideas to relate back to my three words / phrases.
At this point "Slender Stilts I" (showed left) takes inspiration from Renzo Piano's Cultural Centre, pushing the idea that what if the windowed arch was more than just a window, could it work as the main entrance into the space that I was creating.
Invisible Cities Project 2.1:
Final Model
The final model included the words:
Seven Days March
Flamingo Legs
Woodland
The ground floor solely contained the phrase 'Seven Days March' which had seven different sized pillars standing in formation across the whole floor. Taking influence from my time spend at the Jewish Memorial in Berlin.
A different style of Seven days march merged with Slender Stilts to create the staircase which was supported by these slender vertical beams move up through the building.
On the first and second floor were interactive curtains of red string which had to be traverse through to proceed further. This played homage to flamingo legs and gave me the opportunity to bring colour into my space.
Finally the woodland aspect of my design started at the entrance to the space having these mirror triangle shaped structures engulfing the existing building and concluding on the final floor.
 |  |
|---|---|
 |  |
 |  |
Invisible Cities Project
2.1:
Photographic Study
Creating a series of images to accompany my model were influenced heavily by 'Peter Zumthor's Atmospheres' a book I was reading profusely at the time.
When photographing my model I try to take what I had learnt from the book and incorporate that into these photographs.
Thinking about what kind of atmospheres these spaces would create and how they portrayed my model were crucial to not only myself but to my project.
Invisible Cities Project 2.2:
Rendered Section
Having the second part (2.2) to the design project weight entirely on one drawing was at first a daunting prospect. However this did not deter me from producing a 1:50 rendered section of my final model. Using a simple pencil rendering technique I paid close attention to where shadows would begin to form.