LUKE CUSCHIERI
MODULE 9 TASK 1 EXHIBITION SPACES | PROJECTION MAPPING | ALTERNATIVE PROJECT
1 | ARCH / SHAPES
EXHIBITION LAYOUT 1 | ENTRANCE 2 | EXHIBITION ROOM 3 | THE ANGLE AND FLAT BOARD ELEMENTS 4 | STAIRS
EXHIBITION DETAILS
LOCATION
YEAR
DESIGNER
AREA SCALE
Swiss Architecture Museum / Today Art Museum Beijing
2007
HHF architects ZMIK designers Tatin
125 m2
EXHIBITION BRIEF ARCH/SCAPES was designed as official Swiss contribution to the 7th International Architecture Biennial São Paulo. The exhibition focuses upon new Swiss architecture and its negotiation between the public and the private in an aspect of architectural production. The exhibition design is a dynamic abstraction of a thematic journey through the Swiss cultural landscape, from urban areas to the central lowlands and peripheries, and finally to the pine regions.The featured projects are offset throughout the exhibition by large-scale photographs of Joël Tettamanti which contrast the extreme pine landscapes with the scattered urbanisation. This framing of the featured architecture with these images of fragmented topographies is meant to underline a contemporary Swiss reality.
Within this reality the careful negotiation between private and public primarily to maintain norms and traditions is increasingly compromised. The gradual erosion of the Swiss landscape by urbanisation means that new architecture will in future need to devise entirely new typologies that take account of wholly uncharacteristic forms of public terrain. For a deepened insight on the specific conditions of each project video modules present interviews with the architects. Arch/Scapes focuses upon 15 new architecture within the heterogeneous cultural landscape of Switzerland, the urban and peri-urban areas, the village typologies of the lpine landscapes and the burgeoning agglomeration. Switzerland’s landscapes – in particular the rural and lpine typologies – are considered public terrain, and a precious asset.
New architecture that is to be developed within this landscape is the result of complex democratic processes in which not only the communities or states, but also numerous public bodies protecting the Swiss traditions, have a decisive voice. By changing some of the angle -and flat board-elements different layouts are generated. In 2008 ARCH/SCAPES was shown at the Swiss Architecture Museum. In 2009 the Today Art Museum Beijing/China and the Shenzhen/Hong Kong Architecture Biennial host the exhibition.
ANALYSIS The Arch /Shapes exhibition focuses on the Swiss architecture and landscape topologies. The exhibition is a collection of pictures mounted on flat board elements which are set to an angle in order to create an irregular yet original , installation. The images that are mounted have a relationship with the installation its self. The tall vertical parts of the flat board element have pictures of mountains and hills mounted to symbolize the high grounds of the country. While the bottom parts of the flat board element symbolize buildings or other areas which are found on the low grounds. Although the images are just a mounted print their flexibility throughout the installation is quite impressive, just by walking from one side of the room to the other side one can experience a sort of journey throughout the landscapes. By incorporating this type of installation the designers managed to deliver the message they intended to portray and also provide the audience with a journey .” The exhibition design is a dynamic abstraction of a thematic journey through the Swiss cultural landscape “. This exhibition in my opinion stands out than any other exhibitions. The shape used for the installation is very unique and original. Not only is the shape unique but it delivers the message through the installation as mentioned above. Although it looks hard to construct I would love to see something like this for our final exhibition. One particular element that I liked is that the installation flows from one room to another. This can be taken into consideration when we construct our very own exhibition space. Last but not least the overall design is extremely “clean” and minimal giving more viewing space to the audience which at the end of the day is essential due to the number of visitors the exhibition generates.
2 | CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
EXHIBITION LAYOUT 1 | INTRODUCTION 2 | HOME AREA 3 | CONFLICTING OPINIONS 4 | SHOWCASE
EXHIBITION DETAILS
LOCATION
YEAR
DESIGNER
AREA SCALE
Chelsea, England
2009
MET Studio
450 m2
EXHIBITION BRIEF MET Studio has designed a challenging, graphics-led exhibition called Conflicts of Interest for Britain’s National Army Museum on Royal Hospital Road in Chelsea. The brief for the project was to examine the last 40 years of major conflicts involving the British Army across the globe and the impact of those conflicts on forces personnel, both within and beyond the confines of military life. “The idea behind ‘Conflicts of Interest’, explained MET Studio’s Design Director Lloyd Hicks, was to examine the differing aspects of conflict and pressure in army life, from enemy action to the stresses and pressures of army life on the home life of a modern-day soldier.
This examination was expressed through the real, first person voices of soldiers who have served and lived through each conflict. These are not the voices of the British Government, or of the Museum, or indeed of senior British Army spokespeople but of the front-line troops, who have lived and fought in the featured conflict zones.” The entrance area’s real work of art, however, faces the visitor at the far wall of the corridor: a hugescale image of a modern female British soldier, made up of hundreds of tiny images, each one a real image from the life of a contemporary soldier.
The right-hand wall of the corridor alludes to the military/real-life overlap of soldiers’ lives in the form of a series of domestic-scale framed images of soldiers at home, getting married and so on, whilst a soundscape introduces the important role of sound in the exhibition, with a stream of words from politicians, wives and children mixed in with the sound of marching boots on the parade ground. The 450-square-metre space that houses the main body of the exhibition creates an initially dramatic, stark and highly graphic impression thanks to the overall blacked-out floors, ceiling and walls and through the geometric arrangement of ceiling-hung panels.
ANALYSIS Conflicts of war was designed by MET Studio , the theme for this exhibition was about the conflicts the British army had around the world through a soldiers point of view. One particular reason why this exhibition stood out in my opinion is because of the use of space, lighting and most importantly the journey /experience. The area consists of 450 square meters which is quite a large area. MET Studio used every bit of this area and displayed information all along the layout. This obviously enough is the total opposite of the minimal design that the previous exhibition consisted of. However regarding the theme of the exhibition, I find this to be totally acceptable and even more fitting in this scenario. The lighting plays a crucial part for the exhibitions theme. Unfortunately the war effected many people in various negative ways especially the generation that had to go through it. As one would expect the theme is a bit sad / dramatic. The lighting goes perfectly with this theme since the overall exhibition is quite dark. The only sources of light are the spot lights which shed light on the various installations. As for the experience MET studio managed to deliver the military experience to the audience by displaying various quotes from actual soldiers, photos, machinery etc. The journey throughout this exhibition will definitely leave you thinking for a while and understand what the soldiers had to go through. As one can see from the photos of the exhibition, the layout is a bit clustered however the content is still presented neatly. This could serve as an inspiration since our very own exhibition tends to have a clustered result since every single student has to present his or her work. Therefore it is important to present the work in such a way to avoid this problem. Though the main inspiration for this exhibition is the lighting, from this exhibition we can learn how much lighting can make a difference, and unfortunately this factor sometimes is overlooked.
3 | THE MANCHESTER UNITED EXPERIENCE
EXHIBITION LAYOUT 1 | RETAIL STORE ROOM 2 | TRAINING 3 | THE CLUB 4 | COMMS ROOM 5 | THE MATCH 6 | THE TUNNEL
LOCATION
YEAR
DESIGNER
AREA SCALE
Macau, China
2008
MET Studio
1000 m2
EXHIBITION BRIEF The Manchester United Experience is a new, immersive exhibition and experience, centering on the world’s most famous football club, Manchester United. The £1.5m, 1,000-square-metre indoor attraction is located within the Venetian Macao-ResortHotel in Macau and is the first ever visitor attraction featuring the club to be opened outside of Manchester United’s Old Trafford heartland (and Asia’s only interactive football experience). It has been created to appeal to both fans and a lay audience alike, with aim of creating the most exciting and world class experience outside of actually watching the beautiful game live. Visitors are taken through the highly interactive experience on a route, which covers everything from the earliest beginnings of the club, to a real sense of what it means to support, play for and manage the world class club of today. From huge-scale media walls to exhibits which allow fans to pit their own foot balling skills against today’s team, to be directly addressed by Sir Alex Ferguson in a behind-the-scenes look at the Old Trafford Changing Room and join the players in the tunnel before a game, the experience completes in a wraparound and highly stylized 4-minute presentation of a classic Manchester United game, atmospherically captured and represented by award winning film director Daryl Goodrich. MET Studio’s client on the project was The Venetian Macao-Resort-Hotel, owned, as is its sister hotel in Las Vegas, by the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. The Venetian hotel in Macau is part of a new-build, mixed use retail and leisure complex on the Cotai Strip, bordered by canals, including a 600-square-metre Manchester United Megastore, which serves as an entry point to the Manchester United Experience.
ANALYSIS Although I am not a Manchester United fan I must admit that The Manchester united experience is by far one of the most visually enticing and technological exhibitions to be ever built. This is no surprise since the budget for this exhibition was around 1.5 million British pounds. This is no small exhibition since it comes with a size of 1,000 square meters which is no joke. Everything about this exhibition is beautiful however it the best element of this exhibition is the experience hence the name. The Manchester United experience starts from the history of the football club, giving the audience all the information that there is needed about the club itself in order to progress their journey. The journey progresses on with the training pods. These pods are designed with the latest technology in order to the test the users reflex’s in various challenges such as passing, shooting and goalkeeping. This gives the audience an idea what it takes to become a professional footballer and play with an elite football club. There are various other rooms which provide this experience such as the dressing room. This room is where the players change in order to get ready for the match and also prepare themselves mentally. The next room is the tunnel where the players line up before actually making an entrance to the stadium. The final room is the match room, in this room the audience can sit down and watch various clips which are projected on all of the walls. This exhibition is truly one of a kind giving the audience a full on experience on what it is like to be a true loyal fan and also what it takes to become a professional footballer. Through this journey one can learn a lot about football and Manchester United and I am sure that everyone would enjoy this experience including non football fans. This exhibition should serve as an inspiration because of its interactivity. It would be a fun idea to incorporate something interactive that goes according to our theme, it can serve as an educational purpose or just used for the aesthetic visuals.  
DEADMAU5 LIGHTS UP LONDON PROJECTION MAPPING
ANALYSIS This is one of my favorite projection mapping for two reasons the first is that Deadmau5 took part in this collaboration and the second is that this has to be one of the biggest projection mappings when it comes to budget and actually setting everything up. The building itself is quite tall although it was very narrow, however it was a nice canvas to project on. The projection itself starts out with different symbolism related to music such as the equalizer, portrayed in an 8 bit video game style which goes accordingly with Deadmau5’s style. The animation transitions very smoothly from one scene to another and the overall animation is quite abstract. I really enjoyed the scene were the butterflies’ come out of the tower and drop the sheets of metal, this really added a sense of depth to the whole animation. As for narrative I don’t think this particular projection mapping was intended to use a storyline to deliver a message. I think it was mostly made to display the visuals while Deadmau5 was playing his mini set. Since the building that was used had a similar form factor to our building, I think we should use it as an inspiration and maybe inspire ourselves with some elements such as the colours , effects , transitions , grid layout etc .
THE V MOTION PROJECT VIABLE ALTERNATIVE
ANALYSIS
V ENERGY drink contacted a local musician with an idea in mind, the idea was to create a music piece only using body movements. A team of individual talents was formed in order to complete this project in two months. The first people to join the team were the programmers themselves. The programmers first started to look to into different applications in order to complete this task. The final idea was to use the Microsoft kinect which is a sensor based machine together with a music application called Ableton. The way this worked was that the kinect picked up movements and for each movement picked the kinect sent the data to Ableton were the sound effects were being applied . The team managed to create some initial test pieces to confirm that the project was actually feasible, however they soon realized that none of them had a set of chorographical skills so they contacted a local dancer to work with the team. The final team consisted of one musician a set of programmers and one dancer, together with some management production individuals.
The job of the dancer was to create a choreography for the whole project to make the whole routine more visually pleasing. Every dance move was being recorded so that the programmers can have some visual reference were to implement the UI design for the interaction. The next step of the project was to record the actual sounds that where going to be implemented. The sounds were recorded at the musician’s personal studio. The sound recording session had a lot of different sound elements from vocalist to drummers , guitarists etc . The project was almost completed however they needed the last final element which was the visual design since the current visuals were lacking in aesthetics, so the team made a collaboration with a local motion graphic studio thus enhancing the visuals to make the overall project more visually pleasing. All that was need was to actually perform this project live, everything went according to plan and eventually the team managed to pull it off and the project was a big success with an innovative outcome.
Although this project might seem to complex it is not that impossible to achieve something similar. Last year for our final end of year exhibition we managed to create a game which works on the kinect system. A class mate of mine Redeemer Caruana was responsible for all of the programming and he did an excellent job since it was his fist time coding using the Kinect. Therefore I think that we could manage to pull off something similar since we have some experience with the Kinect. Obviously it does not have to be music related , the choice is up to us.
THE END