Photomontage

Revisit the concept, anyone?

After perusing Ms. Nestvogel's most recent blog post, I've done some thinking about my own group's concept, transmetamorph[an evolving transition]. Originally, our concepts from the beginning housed the idea of bridging/connecting various items: Community <-> Campus, UNCG <-> Other Colleges/Universities, Greensboro <-> Other cities, Everyone <-> Views. Within the past few weeks, we've gone through the "perfect storm" (perhaps we're still in it) with the overall building design. I feel the concept has not evolved with the changes we have made and it needs to be addressed ASAP. Reading through some of the words on Debbie's post, it occurred to me that the ideas they are trying to convey are not unlike our own.

"Showing constantly changing moments" is not so different from the "evolving transitions" we've alluded to in our designs. At any rate, it made me think of 35 mm film and 8mm film (35mm being the film used by photographers and 8mm being the video reel film).

With the 35mm, the photographer can choose to take different pictures. There doesn't have to be a visual connection from one negative to the next. He is in complete control of light, shadow, framing, mood, and content of each picture taken. With the 8mm video film, the camera man is recording a series of images that are connected, one negative being the past tense of the next. It is what it is because of the relationship of each negative to the next. Of course the camera man has control of light, shadow, framing, mood, and content as well but instead of just singular moments being captured, the moments can be viewed in such a way that conveys a narrative. Photography can do this too but not to the smooth and streamlined extent that video recording does.

Below are some images of 8mm film and the change from negative to negative that occurs.

Vision Quest

Usually I'm mucking around in the swamp lands of low level inspiration and/or motivation in the latter part of the semester, stuck on a project. Then, granted I get enough sleep for a few days straight, I have vision quest(copyright Matt Jones). Dreams (subconscious) have a way of working problems out for you when you get enough sleep to actually have them, but usually you have to experience stress beforehand in order for it to actually work.

So far, I've been thinking of how I can design an auditorium/theater building with either multiple types of stages (varying uses, sizes) or a volume that could serve multiple uses.

Among other things, the melded images of the coliseum and Calatrava's Milwaukee art museum stood out in my dreams. The coliseum had an underground labyrinth with trap doors to the surface "stage" area. This is not uncommon to a smaller extent in some theater's and auditoriums today. The art museum's wing like "brise soleil" (ugh, I hate that phrase) moves and controls sun light and temperature. These are two completely different buildings but the mixture created an emotional feeling of tremendous movement and transition in my mind, the original form of the building seamlessly changing into another (without having any catastrophic affect on its occupants).




While a building that implies movement goes along with our ideas with the train passing through our building, I don't think implication is strong enough. It needs to actually happen. Sketches and models to follow soon.

Concept Poster?

Wordle conceptualization machine

There are several key words important to our project: education, community, culture, transition, and rapid transit. After compiling 500-2000 words of definitions and meanings for each key word, I submitted each "mass" to the Wordle machine as a pathway for "finding the key words within the key words."

Rapid Transit

Culture
Transition
Education
Community