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People, Pandemics & the Place of Performance

Course: Performance place Design
Level: Advance
Duration: 16 Weeks

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People, Pandemics & the Place of Performance

OVERVIEW

Designing a place for performance locates us at the intersection of all that the pandemic has had a severely adverse impact on. The necessity for integrating theater & performance spaces with communities is amalgamated in this studio with the present day need for an inherently eclectic & sustainable adaptive reuse design approach.

Through the interface of the built environment, against the backdrop of the pandemic, the studio unit negotiates the individual and the community’s aspirations for congregation and narratives.

The studio processes will seek to address the following three questions:
• How has the pandemic impacted us?
• What now are the connotations of individual & solitude, community & congregation and embodiment & narratives?
• How can spatial design – ranging from furniture, to spaces, to the built environment – mediate and mitigate the impact of pandemics?

Problem Statement

This studio unit will focus on the adaptive reuse of a hypothetical site for theater, performance & performing arts to inquire into the prospects and restrictions brought about by the pandemic on the individual & community and theater & spatial design.

METHOD & MEDIUMS

In response to their unique abstract sites, students will choose their own project type from the three categories of the street, the pavilion, the courtyard, and a mobile unit, or a combination of these, to develop the program and spatial design for a place for performance.

Students will learn to develop a program in consultation with performing artists/ entrepreneurs, translate it into a spatial organization and integrate spatial design with its natural & built environments.

To explore and affect processual diversity, collage, writing, conversations, visual concept maps, reflective blogs and theater will be widely used in the design method, in addition to visual & spatial representation.

Structure

The studio unit is comprised of the three modules, each dedicated o the understanding and development of Context, Program & Design sequentially.

MODULE-1; 4 WEEKS:CONTEXT
Understanding Context
Introduction to the larger cultural and historical context through Dr. Rustom Bharucha’s 9 episode speech act
Delineating and Studying the Site
Identifying the interstices for intervention between an indifferent domino and ornate historical edifices

  • tadao ando’s bourse de commerce, paris
  • palladio’s Villa Rotunda
  • tadao ando’s punta della dogana, venice
potential of a contemporary insert within a historical context

MODULE-2; 4 WEEKS: PROGRAM
Case Study Analyses
Historical & Contemporary and Global & Local examples of Places of Performance
Program Development
Consultations with practicing performing artists and entrepreneurs

  • The Open-Air Amphitheater
  • The Semi-Open Koothambalam
  • Development of the place of Performance from Open Structures to Enclosed Buildings

MODULE-3; 8 WEEKS: DESIGN
Beginning
Conceptual Schematic & Volumetric Explorations
Identity
Primary Theme & Elements
Articulation
Design Development & Detailing

  • diagrams
  • conceptual sketches of forms & spaces
  • finding the generative element(s)
  • siting, massing & articulation
  • constructional details
stages of design development

Supplemented by inputs from guest tutors, external resources and/ or workshops, the modules are comprised of briefs which set out tasks with clear instructions, parameters, schedule, deliverables and assessment criteria. There will be a peer review and a unit (tutor) review every alternate week, and each will be as important as the other.

Theatrical workshops will explore embodied narratives and relationship to spaces. The Studio ends in the 16th week with presentations & reflective conversations with guest reviewers.

REFERENCE LIST

  1. Theatre and the Coronavirus
    Dr. Rustom Bharucha
  2. Conversations @ The Vessel; Vol. 1, 2 & 3
    Siddharth Singh ed.
  3. Beyond Proscenium
    Anmol Vellani ed.
  4. Space for Engagement: The Indian Artplace
    Himanshu Burte
  5. Atmospheres
    Peter Zumthor
  6. Poetics of Space
    Gaston Bachelard
  7. Body Memory and Architecture
    Kent C Bloomer & Charles W. Moore
  8. A Pattern Language
    Christopher Alexander
  9. In Praise of Shadows
    Junichiro Tanizaki

mail@designpendulum.com

terms of use

site design : compoundeye compoundeye

site development : malkum malkum

© 2020. Design Pendulum.