Brief:

The affect/condition taken from the imagined landscape is captivity vs. escape. Here the two are investigated through the main character of the widow. Discussion will be undertaken over the contrast that the widow experiences between the two worlds and how this affects ones life. This is taken and turned into models that will be then used to influence the final hut design.

The design of the hut was extracted from the imagined landscape along with the iterations of the models. The hut was designed for the existing site of Ghuznee Street bridge and caters to the users of that site.

Conclusion:

The process of this assignment was quite interesting in the sense that it was a continuation of the previous assignment where it required that we had to have a story where we would extract our hut design from. This assignment was a further investigation of that, and was interesting because we had to captivate that same story but in an interior environment and in a way that it would play with people’s emotions while in or even around the building. It was fairly clear from the start what I had wanted to be achieved from this assignment and that was due to understanding my imagined story. I wanted to create an interior that was cold and hard and that had no warmth or welcome to it. This was derived straight from the story, where the widow’s tower was a place of pain and suffering and I wanted to take that and incorporate that into the reflection space. By doing this I feel that users of this space will get a full experience of the space as they reflect on their lives and take time out to understand where they are at, at that particular phase of their lives. By making the space an uncomfortable one, users will not be able to take a liking to it, and therefore be able to concentrate more on the matters at hand.

This environment was well developed thanks to the help of the story as well as the architecture that acted as a template for the interior of this structure I feel the space has been designed well and really helps to magnify the fact that this place is a space where people come to reflect on life. The circular bench in the middle of the structure acts as a focal point of the building and also resembles the tower itself. This then ripples off into the rest of the concrete floor, where the marble of the ripples create a strong statement. By using marble, I was able to create a strong hierarchy in the materials and create a sense of hardness yet a feeling of freedom. The marble being a lighter material stands in contrast with the darker concrete, and the ripple effect shows there is a sense of a pursuit of freedom, where the ripples are trying to break away from the bench, just as the widow initially try to do from the stone tower.

These design features have allowed for a successful design and the process has helped in getting to a point where the fantasy story and interior architecture align with the real world, and blend in smoothly to create a superficial hut and also a design that has a much deeper understanding behind it - where people can go to have a break and reflect on their lives.

Work conducted at VUW (Personal portfolio).