First Year Design Selected Films Showreel 2022

Описание: In ARPL1000A Architectural Design and Theory 1, our practical themes and indicative content include architectural design processes and methodologies including film, storytelling, myth,
animation, models and sketches. We focus on contemporary ideas in architecture particularly pertaining to decolonisation, culture and society as well as the social, cultural, and physical context in South Africa. The following selected film projects showcase the filmic narratives created by selected students in their design projects.

In the Kgoro Ya Kuruman project, the main focus is context, specifically the Wonderwerk Caves site in the context of Kuruman. The site is connected to various contemporary issues that are at the cutting edge of South African cultural discourse. It is a contested site, meaning there are a number of things that have occurred at this site that may have significance and conflicts for a number of different people today. Decolonisation is one of the current discourses permeating scholarly thought across the world. Colonialism is argued to have influenced the way contemporary society is shaped and how people engage each other, the economy and the landscape we live in. Within this context, this project probes what the role of architecture is in these postcolonial discourses. Mythology and narrative are equally important to the context of this project, specifically the real story of a frightening mythical snake that resides in the caves and rivers. We introduced techniques from the discipline of film, a summarised synopsis, script and storyboard, as a starting point in the design process to develop a narrative from which the design is conceptualised into architecture. The narrative is written from the point of view of an initiate as they meet mythical creatures along their initiation journey in the landscape. The architecture is a translation of the beginning, middle and end of the story. Each phase of the story reflects the inner emotional experience that the character encounters along their journey. The inner world of the character translates as an outer world spatial experience. Each student creates an animation showing an emotional filmic representation from the experience of the initiates as they face the mythical creatures along the journey towards initiation in the landscape intervention.

Inside Out House explores part of the history of our country, specifically land dispossession through the colonial project. The start of the project is to acknowledge the land and tell its story. The project questions what the history of the land was, and how it became the land that it is today. The students are required to study the neighbourhood of their home, examining both the physical and social context, as well as understanding the history of the land. The students are required to generate a land acknowledgement in the form of a narrative which follows a past, present and future storyline. The main character of the narrative is the land on which the house is built and the surrounding neighbourhood. Through research of the past, analysis of the present, and a future imaginative speculation, a story is created of what the land used to be, what it is now, and what it could be in the future. The land is the living central character and it can be in any form, either as a person, animal, or any type of being. The land needs to speak for itself, have its own agency, and be fully integrated into the narrative.

In the Abantutopia project, the aim is to generate new and alternative narratives and the consequent counter places that result from these narratives. Students are required to collectively invent a new story to generate a new mythology, based on values and principles they establish to generate counter places that steer a sense of being into different trajectories. Students are required not only to design an individual double storey building, but also design the broader context in which that building is situated, an Abantutopia. In groups, students are required to create base maps with contours after they have studied and understood the site, which is the Library Lawns on West Campus at the University of the Witwatersrand. A storyboard of the group’s narrative is created as the start of the group’s village vision. Students are required to make a short documentary film from their storyboard. All students are required to design on the same site, however, the documentary is made from unique group narratives which result in short films that show the qualities of the same site from multiple points of view. From this documentary, screenshots are captured which create a contextual canvas or 3D view in which the students imagine their village. These screenshots aid the design process, as well as offer visualisations for final presentations of the student’s final village vision designs.