unit-code
Narratives and stories surround us. We are embedded within and enriched through the stories of our lives, the memories we make and the places we inhabit and engage with. However, we are not always aware of the subtexts that influence our experience of the environment – the ideas and elements that make up the diverse nuances and implications of how we perceive, belong, live and work in this landscape of stories.
UG11 is interested in the notion of ghosts, understood as elements that are suggested and implied. These ghosts exist in the shadows as hidden background elements which were explored by the unit this year. Our exploration started with the lost and forgotten aspects of London’s Docklands, later expanding to encompass sites in and around the city.
With a focus on a continuing narrative, the aim was to reveal and propose moments, suggestions and ideas folded into the veneer of site and city. Exploring London through the lenses of the hidden and suggested stories of ritual and myth, students interpreted both implied and physical elements and ideas that occupy and weave stories. Through drawing, photography and modelmaking, students looked at the city and the waterfront, investigating how the hidden informs and relates to spaces and situations. The unit initially configured these explorations into layered and enfolded translations, then went on to develop exploratory proposals at various scales. Producing spatial artefacts, interventions in the dockland sites acted as interpretations of these stories.
Developing project narratives further, students explored ideas from the physical to the imaginary. They examined how we internalise and create our understanding of spaces and functions, and considered how the real and imaginary could inform functions and embed these stories into design ideas. This produced projects which in some cases are precariously balanced on the thresholds of reality. Students created their own stories, and in some instances languages. Their final projects ranged from observatories to futuristic body and mind hives to macabre memorials, and included many other deviations from our initial understandings of place and story.