PROJECTS
Sayyoung Chang - Open Cinema : Theater as a place of mutual consideration and an institution
Danah Owaida - MovieMart a.k.a. The Th(eat)er
ODEON
While the movie theater might be an obsolete typology, the enduring lure of imagining a space for collective event based cinematic experiences is difficult to give up. It’s hard not to think of Greece, when designing a cinema, in part because of the word, kinematographos = kinema (movement) and graphos (writing), but also because interestingly the first outdoor cinema, built in 1900, was also in Greece. Today Greek cinemas are renowned for being places to experience film al fresco, perhaps not with the same views of the Hellenic amphitheaters, but non the less a place to experience the cool summer breeze and city lights. In this studio we will design an indoor and outdoor theater for the Ann Arbor Film Festival called Odeon (small-roofed theater in Greek) on a wedge site of Ann Arbor’s Kerrytown.
This studio focused on designing context. Context in Athens is generated by the numerous factors that influence architecture; topography, regional building materials, cultural expression and a long political history. In globalized regions like the US, context no longer comes naturally. It has to be created, designed. In this studio we will use “translation” as an operative design tool, where students analyze a cinema from another country and through numerous material studies translate it into a cinema for Kerry Town. Material fabrication methods and iterative processes will allow students to develop a “material practice” and get design feedback. This studio will focus on plaster relief casting to develop a contextual material pallet. The studio visited Eliel Saarinen’s Cranbrook Educational Campus as a precedent for context creation, the transformation of an orchard into a village.