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Commendation

Afterimage - Projected Morphology: A Cyclotel Created From Perspectives

Part 1 Project 2012
Richard Breen
Newcastle University | UK

The project is based around the recently demolished and iconic Gateshead 'Get Carter' car park. The dramatic 1960's Brutalist architecture dominated the Gateshead skyline and fractured the city centre.

The task of the project was to explore the physical, emotional and psychological void left by its demolition, working to develop a new architecture that acted as an AfterImage or ghost of the old structure. Through exploration of the car park's morphology and its previous and now fractured connection to Gateshead the new project draws influence from the past to inform the sites future.

The architecture now only exists in the subjective memories of people and more tangibly within film and photography. Through selection, framing, composition, lighting and focus, photography too frequently presents subjective and fallacious perspectives. Individual perspectives therefore have become crucial in shaping and informing the car parks continuing existence.

The photography of Sally Ann Norman presented a locally uncharacteristic appreciation and admiration of the architecture. Capturing beautiful the atmospheres of the car park and its dramatic, lines, forms verticality and shadows. By focusing on these particular elements I selected four images to digitally manipulate under a set of arbitrary rules, to test and distil the qualities of the car park, in an attempt to forge a personal perspective.

Each manipulation was then produced as an acetate layer, allowing, with the use of an OHP, the physical creation and manipulation of new imagery on a large and dynamic scale. Through assigning architectural qualities to each layer, a potential formal, spatial and architectural language began to emerge when projected back onto site.

The brief for a Cyclotel (a hotel for cyclists), became the architectural and contextual vehicle to explore and embody the architectural language I was developing through projection, transparency and layering. Under the guidance of my self imposed rules, my imagery and trace drawings were interpreted and explored 3-dimensionally to establish an impact on site.

The project developed with constant reference to my projections and the car park's past, resulting in a dramatic architecture embedded within a fractured earthscape.

Richard Breen

Tutor(s)


2012
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