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Counterpoint

Part 2 Project 2013
William Sinclair
Cardiff University | UK
Counterpoint
Montage, Education and A-Bond

Counterpoint is a project that uses the filmic process of montage as a method for creating an engaging architecture for education; a method of re-imagining learning as a product of divergent thinking that avoids the restrictions of standardisation. Using a process derived from cinema, this project generates an architecture that is composed through experience rather than the abstract notion of the 'concept'. Film, like Architecture, is the realisation of experience and so, A-Bond, a derelict tobacco warehouse, becomes the cinematic base for developing an architectural language of montage.

To comprehend a structure for montage, a thorough written investigation was undertaken, analysing ‘La Jetée’ (1963), a Chris Marker film against Parc de la Villette designed by Bernard Tschumi. The findings where compiled into the ‘manifesto’, an illustrative conclusion that outlines the three components of montage; space (the frame), time (the sequence) and experience (space-time) as a platform for composing architecture.

The education facility is not conceived pragmatically but in 'counterpoint'. Two structured design processes, film and architecture, are composed in parallel where the final composition is rendered through their interval. Abstract notions of montage in the form of frames and sequences (space and time) become the basis for the architectural procedures while the filmic process is realized through photographic investigations, imagined narratives, storyboards and the composition of cinematic scenes.

These processes are composed with fictional plots that move throughout the vacant warehouse, generating points of 'conflict' to render 'cinematic frames'. The warehouse is deconstructed to facilitate these moments of non-programmatic encounter which are realised through the experiential aspects of memory, sensuality and event. Embodiment of these aspects is achieved by the ineffable effects rendered by materials, through the atmospheric qualities produced by lighting, and by the existing cinematic aspects of the warehouse. The project aims to be a framework for both film and architecture. Through generating 'empty' 'cinematic frames' A-Bond lies in wait for a programmatic narrative to render a filmic composition; meanwhile the 'abstract' architectural drawings generate a form that can only truly be interpreted through the aid of scenic 'cinematic frames'.

William Sinclair

Tutor(s)
Dr Wayne Forster
2013
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