Crossing bordersboundaries, barriers and frontiers

Vítor Lagoeiro

Crossing BordersAmeljeada Brahaj, Alina Alimzhanova, Julie Lecour, Tsvetelina Petrova and Vítor Lagoeiro

BA Architecture: Spaces and ObjectsCentral Saint Martins College of Art and DesignTutor: Paolo ZaideJanuary 2012

3

Crossing borders is a collaborative design project developed by Ameljeada Brahaj, Alina Alimzhanova, Julie Lecour, Tsvetelina Petrova and Vítor Lagoeiro.

Designed for an alley in Peckham (South London), this project operates as an outdoors public cinema for the diverse community of Peckham to show films from different nationalities.

The investigation that lead to the design was driven by the spatial qualities of the chosen site - in both material and subjective aspects. The alley is shaped by the borders that separates the public domain from the domestic. At the same time, the project aims to bring people from different nationalities together. In that sense, the design is an attempt to blur boundaries, both by proposing the domestication of public space, as well as claiming a multicultural territory.

the project

4

Peckham

5

Peckham Map, Alina Alimzhanova, 2012

6

The chosen site was identified as a transitory space between two different landscapes: Rye Lane, a busy commercial street in Peckham and the residential area located behind the Peckham Plex Cinema. Therefore the site is mostly use by people in transit, and the project proposes a longer experience of that space.

urban density

7

2

2

1

1Rye Lane

Moncrie� Place

commercial

residential

site: transitional landscapeshorcut between the commercial and residential areas

Railway

Rye Lanemostly commercial use on ground �oor

Rye Lane, commercial area _ dense landscape

Residential area _ sparse landscape

Raul Road, Cicely Road and Moncrie� Street exclusive residential use

*

2

2

1

1Rye Lane

Moncrie� Place

commercial

residential

site: transitional landscapeshorcut between the commercial and residential areas

Railway

Rye Lanemostly commercial use on ground �oor

Rye Lane, commercial area _ dense landscape

Residential area _ sparse landscape

Raul Road, Cicely Road and Moncrie� Street exclusive residential use

*

8

The multicultural diversity of Peckham was mainly identified by the graphic signs along Rye Lane, which translates the complexity of the community and the overlapping of territories and time.

mapping of graphic diversity

9

10

the site

11

12

The latex pieces were shaped on the surfaces of the barriers found in the chosen site. The rigid materiality of the bricks were made into latex, a translucent, soft and expandable material. This action was a first attempt towards the blurring of boundaries.

stealing textures from the city

13

14

15

16

texture extraction, Julie Lecour

texture extraction, Julie Lecour

spatial experiments: latex model

17

18

This model(7) was meant to emphasize the layers(1-6) of barriers that are disposed around the city, specifically the ones found in the site. The idea was to explode these layers and display them in a space with a shape that recalls the alley in Peckham, in order to start the process of deconstruction of the boundaries.

barriers model

19

1 23 45 6

20

7

21

The installation was part of the investigations concerning the materialities and the social meanings of the boundaries found in the site. By using the process of ‘stealing textures’, we extracted with latex the texture of the brick walls that determine the boundaries located between public and private spheres. The latex was then added to a timber structure that could be entered by users. Instead of a rigid and opaque surface that sets frontiers in the city, the wall was translated into a flexible and translucent material, that could be physically transgressed and used as an interface of interaction between the interior and the exterior.

installation

22

23

24

8 10 9 11

Youtube is widely used for sharing videos of intimate moments that take place in the private realm. As a platform, it makes available to the public situations that are usually kept safe from the outsiders eyes, such as backyard barbecues (8), birthday parties (9, 10) and elaborate cooking experiments (11). Once published, these videos dissolve the physical components that make these observations possible. For this reason, a series of clips of domestic life extracted from Youtube was being projected inside the installation, in order to reinforce the process of crossing borders that the installation referred to.

25

Tsvetelina Petrova, 2012

In this stage of the project, the group started to translate the previous experiments into a spatial invervention that could be placed in site as the final proposal for the design project. The main themes approached related to the presence of borders in the city, which was investigated by the group through the making of short films. This sketch model is a first attempt to spatialize the cinematic experience, transforming screens into spatial barriers that can be crossed, creating inhabitable spaces.

the proposal: sketch model

26

The final proposal for the site is an outdoors public cinema located near the existing Peckham Plex Cinema. It may be used for exhibiting films from different nationalities, which are usually not shown on commercial theaters, in order to stimulate the exchange of culture between the different ethnicities that compose the Peckham community. The screens displayed along the site contain mechanisms that allow its users to move and unfold them, creating inhabitable spaces along the alley that can be used for watching films, eating and chatting. The following pages include drawings showing how the mechanisms work. The bigger sheets (plans and overall views) indicates the location of each screen on the site.

the proposal

27

28

mechanism 1-A

29

mechanism 1-B

* detailing can be seen on page 38

30

mechanism 2-A

31

mechanism 2-B

32

mechanism 3-A

33

mechanism 3-B

34

mechanism 4-A

35

mechanism 4-B

* 1:1 testing of this screen can be seen on pages 42 and 43

36

physical model of mechanisms, moment 1

37

physical model of mechanisms, moment 2

38

detailing mechanism 1

* timber structure for screens

39

mechanism 2

40

mechanism 1, day time

41

mechanism 1, night time

42

1:1 physical testings of screens (mechanism 4)wood frame, strings and projection

43

46