Exhibit! 2010 Architecture & Built Enviornment: Reflecting Multidisciplinarity

University of Nottingham: End of Year Exhibition bay 3.6 x 2.4m

Department of Architecture and Built Environment

Faculty of Engineering

University Park Campus

Nottingham

NG7 2RD

UK

http://www.exhibitnottingham.com/

The Invisible Theatre

This project is intended to raise the underachieving consciousness in everyday life. The consciousness of a person to their surroundings heightens dramatically when there is the existence of an audience. Through experiencing a place just as the performer, the audience discovers details of this place that were not revealed before; even if he/she is passing by every day. Performers’ stories are not so far away from our own stories and emotions, and are not so far away from our own experiences. Set in the Lace Market in Nottingham, the study envisages tunnels of peeps that perform multiple functions:

1. The invisible theatre is a continuation from the Nottingham Contemporary, acting as an important promenade that embraces the passers-by into the experience of performance. Through the language of thresholds originating from door transformations, the tight fit of anticipated threshold, shifting threshold, and delayed threshold together with the notion of peeping create the catalyst for contemporary performance. Framed openings in the building come into play when people walk up to them and “perform”.

2. The invisible theatre inhabits a dance school with two studios, a laboratory of movement and the secret theatre. The transformation begins as dance studios undergo the shift in function; the theatre unfolds itself into the landscape and expands its boundaries from hidden places to the streets. Performances question the ideas of what and where is the stage. The experience starts from concealing and its opposite and all the in-betweens.

3. The open access penetrating the theatre also serves as a circuit in a city with a strong acoustic experience of leaving the outside world behind and entering a building. The involvement pushes the act of observation and questioning. Everyday gestures have high value in movements. The tunnel of peep is layered with dense overlapping. Flexibility in structure allows spaces to flow into and out of each other. The inside and outside are directly spoken to.

The theory of the audience as performers is tested in the context of Nottingham.

Poetic Tectonics Axonometric

Studio Block One Construction Section Environmental Design and Structural Strategy

The design consists of four main structures. The studio one block, studio two block, the corridor structure and the laboratory of movement. Strong thresholds are created as people enter and leave the previous world behind. Acoustically, the room within a room structure with built in ventilation tunnel creates a sound tight environment while having natural ventilation as a possible option. Light flood in and out subtly through the translucent concrete framed windows creates a theatrical atmosphere. Structurally, the dance studio and outside corridor is connected with isolation joints. The latter connects with the existing tram track, magnifying the difference in experience within the building.

Long Section

The drawing explores the inside outside space arrangement which transforms passersby to audience and then to performers. Points in space push the act of observation and questioning with the change in levels.

The Invisible Theatre Model

1/F Plan

The drawing explores the narrative of peeping in the context of site. The geometry articulates the space like expansion and contraction in dance with the contemporary life as the backdrop.

G/F plan

The drawing explores the narrative of peeping in the context of site. The tight fit of inside and outside space execute the idea of concealing and its opposite and all the in-betweens. The promenade celebrates performances as everyday events.