SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS @ URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

ARCHITECTURE 373 ADVANCED ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN & EXPLORATION

Fall Semester 2003

PROJECT #2: The Utah Film School

“In the same way that architecture articulates space,

it also manipulates time.

Juhani Pallasmaa

“Architecture exists like cinema, in the dimension of time and movement.

One conceives and reads a building in terms of sequences.”

Jean Nouvel

“Time in its various abstractions links architecture and cinema.”

Steven Holl

“Space is temporal because we move through it.”

Bernard Tschumi

Project Objectives

Time and movement are important aspects of both architecture and film. Buildings and their spaces are dynamic, for we move around and through them. Sequencing is essential in film as it is in architecture, for in film we visually move from scene to scene, passing through them into others in different rhythms and time frames.

But in architecture time has another impact, as buildings are vulnerable to the changes of the season and the processes of time. While we often design buildings in our minds as if they will never change, architecture is not static. Attention in the design process is often focused upon how the building appears as an object frozen in time. Nature, and her processes, are shut out or ignored. Buildings not only change with the seasons, but they express the passage of time and the processes of aging. Architecture is more that a piece of matter sitting in idle space, for time cannot be ignored.

Time, sequence, movement, and the process of nature – first in a human made environment with historic, cultural and architectural significance. Now in the natural landscape.

In keeping with the theme of this studio for the semester, Architecture in Complex Landscapes, we will now engage in the design of a programmatically complex building type in a powerful and exotic natural landscape. A central objective in this process is for you, the designer, to establish an explicit position about the relationship between site and building, and todevelopment the design of the complex and the site to express that position.

Salt Lake City, over the past dozen years, has become very active in the film and TV industry at

a variety of levels. From the annual Sundance Film Festival and their summer workshops to the

Film Studies department at the University of Utah; from being the site of several TV series and main line movies; from having several major venues for showing independent films to being the home of a director actively engaged in producing a series of movies particular to local culture; to having an public television station that actively develops and produces documentaries on the region and its history, among other things, Salt Lake provides a setting where film and its making has become, and is an important activity. The second project will be a film institute located on Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake, outside of Salt Lake City, Utah.

Site

Antelope Island is a combination of both cosmic and romantic landscapes, in a region of geological delights. It is the largest island in the Great Salt Lake, and offers numerous recreational activities, as well as being home to a number of animal and bird species. An excellent brochure provided by the Division of Parks and Recreation, entitled Antelope Island State Park, outlines the history (inhabited beginning more than 6,000 years ago by pre-historic people), the wildlife (free-roaming herds – including about 700 bison; the island hosts 250 bird species a year), and the geography (rocks among the oldest found anywhere on earth), of the island as well as providing additional information on the Great Salt Lake. Facilities include the visitor center, Fielding Garr Ranch, hiking/biking/riding trails, a marina, camp grounds, and other day use activities. Moreover, the island can take on an almost surreal quality given its unique setting of land, salt water, clouds, mountains, and reflections. If you use an internet search engine, and enter “Antelope Island, Utah”, you will find that a wealth of information exists, including a number of sites with photographic material.

The Utah Division of Parks and Recreation, as part of a new program to increase sympathetic uses within its parks and management areas, feels that there are both educational and economic advantages for such a development as the filmto occur on Antelope Island. This will be a pilot program in its development, and it is anticipated it will fit well with current uses. Not only will film school students, faculty, staff and visitors have access to the greater Salt Lake City area,on the island there are direct recreational activities like theequestrian facilities at the Fielding Garr Ranch, the information and educational opportunities at the visitor’s center, boating at the marina, and so forth. Being on the island has the advantage of solitude for contemplation, but quick access to the urban amenities of Salt Lake City, and skiing and hiking the near by mountains. The exact location on the island for the film school is still under consideration, but will be selected by the time you visit on the field trip.

Reading

The following readings are suggested to you as background and stimulus for this project:

Bachmann, W. and W. Kil, “Cinema Multidsala UFA, Dresda,” Domus, September 1998, vol.

807, pp. 8-16

Holl, Stephen and Juhani Pallasmaa. Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of

Architecture. Tokyo: E Ando Yu, 1994.

Moore, C., W. Mitchell, and W. Turnbull. The Poetics of Gardens. Cambridge, MA: The MIT

Press, 1988.

Norberg-Schulz, Christian. Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture. New

York: Rizzoli, 1979.

Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Architecture of Image: Existential Space in Cinema. Helsinki:

Rakennuustieto, 2001.

Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Eyes and the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. London: Academy

Editions, 1996.

World Architecture, vol. 69, September 1998.

There are several projects related to the architecture of the cinema that you might want to review. These include the Palazzo del Cinema (1990) by Steven Holl, the Dresden Cinema by Coop Himmelblau (1998), the work of Bernard Tschumi (the le Fresnoy Nationaal Studio for Contemporary Arts), and the work of Herzog and de Meuron.

Project Sequencing

The Utah Film School project will take the remainder of the semester to complete. It will be a phased process that allows your understanding of the project, as well as its architectural and landscape/site issues, to grow and mature. The project is divided into three distinct phases, as follows:

  • Precedent Studies and Site and Context Information Gathering: To better understand the building type you will be designing, in teams of 4, you will do two precedent studies. The first is an analysis of a building or complex of similar typology. The second is an assessment of a similar institute or institution. These will be presented, in power point or similar format, on Friday, October 5th, at the College of Architecture + Planning, University of Utah.

The specific buildings or complexes that precedent studies will be done of, coupled with the institute or institution assessed, are as follows:

Team One

European Film College, Ebeltoft, Denmark [Heikkinen-Komonen]

European Film College [ ]

Team Two

Experimental Film Center, New York City [Hariri and Hariri]

New York Film Academy [ ]

Team Three

International Center for Film & TV, Bucharest, Romania [Westfourth Architecture]

Canadian Film Centre [ ]

Team Four

Theater, Film & TV Building (Perry-Williams Building), University of Wales,

Aberystwyth [Patel Taylor Architects]

Department of Theater, Film and Television Studies, University of Wales

[ ]

During the field trip you will assess and analyze the site through recording your impressions experientially – sketches, photographs, writings, etc. – thus allowing you a

variety of means to recall the qualities and characteristics of the site and locale. The material gathered should be included in your presentations over the semester in a variety of ways. So do make sure you bring sketch books, and regular or digital cameras, etc.

  • Conceptual Studies and Designs: While in Salt Lake City, you will be provided with a moredetailed program for the project. In the period immediately following the field trip you will develop three conceptual designs for the project that synthesizes your understanding of the program and response to the potentials offered by the site. The position you take regarding the building/landscape (site) relationship should be articulated in the concepts. These will be presented in the pin-up scheduled for October 15th. One of the concepts will be selected and developed for the formal interim jury scheduled for November 10th. Requirements for these presentations will be handed out with the program statement.
  • Design Development: Following the interim jury, you will focus on the development and refinementof your building complex. Detailed presentation requirements will be provided.

Project #2 Schedule

The dates noted in bold designate days when the instructor is in Champaign-Urbana.

MondayWednesdayFriday .

24 – Project #2 intro. 26 –

OctoberUI students in Salt Lake City

Week 630 – 1 – site visit5 – precedent pres.

& program handout

Week 76 – 8 – 10 –

Week 813 –15 – pin-ups(3 schemes)17 – desk crits

Week 920 – desk crits22 –24 –

Week 1027 –29 –31 –

November

Week 113 –5 – desk crits 6 – desk crits

Week 1210 – interim jury12 –14 –

(formal)

Week 13 17 –19 – pin ups21 – desk crits

Week 1424-28 Thanksgiving Vacation

Week 151 – 3 –5 –

Week 168 –10 –Final Reviews12 – Final Reviews

Finals

Site

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