Natalie Pirarak
Design for Performance and Interaction, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London
Viewing architecture as a suggestion on ways of living, I, as a current architectural design student, aim to explore the realm of architectural design through experiential, sensitive and performative approaches. During my study, I’ve heavily practiced multidisciplinary skills in solidifying conceptual ideas into various forms of media where I’ve found my interests in the experiential aspect involving cognitive neuroscience, anthropology and performance. Combining architectural knowledge with my experiences in performance art including dance, music and acting, I’m well aware of their potentials where I aim to develop my understandings and abilities in order to contribute to the new perspective and methodologies in working with humans, architecture and their performative interactions.
Natalie Pirarak
www.sensorries.com natalie.pirarak@gmail.com +66 (0)91 458 8847 Natalie Pirarak
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The Controlled Future Architectural Design Studio, Year 2, Semester 1
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Close(r)2 To You Architectural Design Studio, Year 3, Semester 2
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The Last Sound Architectural Design Studio, Year 4, Semester 1
Index Crystal Clear
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Architectural Design Studio, Year 4, Semester 1
The Requiem of Architecture Architectural Design Studio, Year 4, Semester 1
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The Controlled Future
2019 Architectural Design Studio Instructor: Déborah López Lobato
The Controlled Future investigates the impact of global warming in the aspect of air pollution and its consequent lack of sunlight where it proposes the pavilion design aiding the extreme wellness condition of the people of Rjukan Village, Norway, as well as performing as an observatory, collecting the lacking data of female bodies.
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Architectural Design Project
House of The Future > Personal Energy The project is derived from the study of the “House of the Future” (1956) by Alison and Peter Smithson in which the contextual, architectural, and experiantial aspects were studied and the subject of politics in gender in relation with thermal control was extracted.
Following the experimentation with the “device” of women’s personal comfort in human scale, the ideology and argument were then taken into consideration in the environmental scale. “Global warming” is something we all know about, at least the basics. But looking in a different dimensions,
the air pollution has other effects than on our respiratory system. The increasing air pollution across the world is acting like a barrier, catching the natural sunlight arriving on the earth’s surface, and also on our skin, causing a gradual decrease of adequate sunlight our bodies require.
The Controlled Future
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Architectural Design Project
The Controlled Future
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Ideologies > Rjukan In relation with the ideologies of the architects and theorists, the project looked at “Rjukan”, the small and remote industrial village in Norway, with the lens not to “solve the problems” but rather to “compromise and suggest the other ways of living”.
Due to geographical condition, Rjukans live without sunlight for half a year during winter. Together with Rjukan Falls which has been serving as an important electrical power source, this place provides a perfect conditions for the prototype of an architecture we might need in the foreseeable future.
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Architectural Design Project
The Cloud “The Clouds” is serving the user as a winter destination, a pilgrimage for mental and physiological health therapy. And for the observer, it is the observatory for foreseeable future’s essential data collection. According to the site’s conditions, a cliff aside the Rjukanfossen
(Rjukan Falls), tensegrity system has engaged as a roof-like structure. Consisted of 620 modules, the tensegrity roof filters exterior climate condition before it enters the interior, creating a performative architecture where each phase of architecture leads
to distinctive thermal experiences, individual and collective, created by the controllable radiant heating system. In the end, this might not be the solution to the problem, but rather the catalyst which puts overlooked ‘questions’ on the board.
The Controlled Future
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CLOSE(R) TO YOU 2
2021 Architectural Design Studio Instructor: Tijn van de Wijdeven
Close(r)2 To You aims to degeneralized the understanding of vulnerable conditions of emotional labors in the specific context of Thailand, and create awareness over this stigmatized labor sector ‘in realistic actions’, through the design practices of ‘brief’ curation and collaborative workshop organizations.
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Bangkok as the World’s No. 1 Tourist Destination The project explores the neglected industry of Bangkok: sex industry. The study in three scales of body, space, and urban fabric are overlaid with layers of voyeurism and politics were made and are constantly updated base on the intention of understanding the ‘civil rights’ the sex
workers lack which might differs from basic interpretation. Sex workers or ‘emotional labors’ as the edge of the industry has their void in civicness lying on the emotional transaction which never gets neutralized. The question is not ‘how to fulfill what they lack’ but rather ‘how to suggest
alternatives to the way in which they’re experiencing or living with them.’
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Social Experiment Documentation Video
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Social Experiment + Site Analysis A social experiment on relationship / intimacy / expression was conducted aiming to understand people’s reactions when it comes to the topic of intimacy under different personal and architectural conditions.
The studies have suggested the very precise, unspoken transitional moments: the thresholds, timely, emotionally, and physically. These important moments are usually overlooked for them being only a brief moment in
a day, but they by themselves have captured the vulnerability where one is not assigned to any certain role but transforming oneself both physically and mentally, therefore is not located in the working nor living realm.
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Map of Association
Emotional Legislations
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Brief-Writing By narrowing down the approach to anthropo-architecture, the relationship between human and architecture in this specific subject of study became clearer. In order to respond to the civicness of the emotional labors as well as being the essence of the project, ‘workshops’ with contributors from
various fields were set up where the designer’s role is to ‘design the briefs’ and in the end having the collective virtual space and the device as solid outcomes of the collaboration. As a result, the contribution to the acknowledgement and understandings of the emotional labors were expanded.
In many years onwards, the success of the project might be rendered through the improvement of emotional labor’s visibility as well a their living conditions either politically or socially along with the inevitable change of urban landscape, which is seen as the premise of civicness in the first place.
THE LAST SOUND
2021 Architectural Design Studio Instructor: Takanao Todo
The Last Sound explores the last moment in life through the acoustic lens. The speculation on the last sound during the moment of death was made according to the scientific report on electrophysiology of ‘actively dying’ patients together with studies in psychoacoustic phenomenon and NDE report.
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Sound as the Last Sensation in Death As humans are aging, or dying, our senses constantly decay. However, the sense of hearing is the last and the only sense that lingers at the very end of life. Base on a scientific report on electrophysiology of ‘actively dying’ patients which the experimentation result shows signs of neural responses when patients
are exposed to sequences of simple auditory stimuli, together with the NDEs report, the study of psychoacoustic phenomenon, and an experimentation, the approach towards the topic of ‘death’ was crafted and balanced through 2 aspects: the objective or the scientific, and the subjective such as cognitive psychology.
Where in essence, while scientific approach views sense of hearing as the connection to the surrounding for survival, cognitive psychology also implies that the sense of hearing is the connection to our past experiences in life. Through this approach, the speculative composition of “The Last Sound” was made.
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The Last Sound
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CRYSTAL CLEAR
2021 Architectural Design Studio Instructor: Takanao Todo
Crystal Clear explores the death of architecture through acoustic lens in order to understand sonic and material aspects of architecture as one interconnected, spatial event.
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Experimentation + Precedent Study Sound / Space / Volume “The Machine of Crystal Sound”, designed with geometry, materials, and systems enhancing acoustics, was used in testing and recording acoustic performance of places around Bangkok with different stages of decay. Sites’ volume and materiality were considered
as important factors. In results, the acoustic performance differs in close relation with spatial and material properties.
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Church of the Holy Family, Italy Built with authentic modern, or more specifically international style’s materials of painted concrete, glass, and polished marble finishings, the Church was reported with too high reverberation time which is against modern lifestyle which prefers a quite, focused sound,
contrasting to its choices of material. Therefore, the material properties were studied in order to understand their relations with the changing soundscape through space-time.
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Narrative: Crystal Clear
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THE REQUIEM OF ARCHITECTURE
2021 Architectural Design Studio Instructor: Takanao Todo
The Requiem of Architecture is an architectural design project where the narrative through the lens of the architecture itself and the last generation of the occupants leads to the phenomenal design intervention aiming to inform architecture’s emerging disappearance and shorten its lifetime through acoustic and material aspects.
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Site Analysis: Vi-Hok “Vi-Hok” is a failed ferry pier complex which is currently occupied by a family who looks after the bird nest farm at the complex. However, the architecture would eventually outlive generations of its occupant and be completely abandoned, and forgotten.
Due to the site’s unique story and distinctive soundscape, “The Requim” aims to inform architecture’s emerging disappearance through the composed and amplified soundscape and shorten its lifetime through the acceleration of decay for that it meets
the lifetime of its last resident. Through the functional concept derived from the coastal climate, three curated phases of design intervention are done by the three generations of residents. The Requiem is then amplified, multiplied, and orchestrated.
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Site Analysis: Soundscape
Storyboard / Narrative The narrative and the design intervention were formed around site observation. They are separated into three phases and be done by the three generations of the family who lives there, who has seen their beloved ones went beyond the ocean — and also knows that the place will eventually be let die alone.
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Design Strategy + Experimentation Design Development The design intervention is to curate and exaggerate the effect of the strong coastal wind in order to draw sound intensity along with humidity which brings erosion to the building.
Experimentation A mock-up device was developed to experiment the concept on-site along with sound particle simuation. While the experimentation on wind and humidity’s ability in accelerating material’s deterioration was also conducted.
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Design Strategy According to the sound sources and wind direction, the design is primarily based on building no. 1, the one closest to the ocean, where the three phases; Amplifier, Multiplier, and Orchestrator, are demonstrated.
Short Movie: The Requiem