AGENTSPACES
Lower Pool Design Studio | Studio Director: Gregory More



SIAL Team:
    Gregory More


UPDATE:
AGENTSpaces work to exhibited at the Lab.3000 Digital Design Biennale!
[more info]
A selection of work from the Lost Theatre Project will be exhibited as part of the 'Victorian Design On Show – Practitioners and Students'. This exhibition will run from November 2004 - February 2005 at the Australia Gallery, Melbourne Museum, Melbourne. As 'Imagining the Future' is the theme for the Biennale, AGENTSpaces and the futuristic visions of Docklands suited the brief extremely well.


End of Semester Presentations | Agent Spaces - The Lost Theatre
Friday 11th June, SIAL, at 1PM


Folio hand in Tuesday 16 June 3.00pm 8.12.01. A3 Colour Format.

Exhibition to be assembled by 5.00pm Monday 21 June



End of Semester Outline

In the second phase of the ‘Agent Spaces’ studio participants have been working in groups (2-3 people) to advance their propositions for a ‘Lost Theatre’, located in the future-scapes of Melbourne’s Docklands in the year 2030 and beyond. In the first phase of the studio participants worked as individuals designing ‘urban agents’ that would perceive and react with the urban environment. In the second phase this reactive-ness is portrayed in the manner in which each design group has had to deal with the evolution of an architectural proposition within a future context-less site, developing scenarios to which the architecture would react to. The brief is outline is more detail below.

The presentations this Friday will elucidate the participants view of the world’s future focussing on Melbourne’s Docklands, and the future of a space for live performance and mutual experience, known today as a theatre or cinema. Groups will present their architectural propositions through imagery, models, and dialogue.

Panel Reviewers:
Craig Douglas, Hélène Frichot, Christopher Kaltenbach, Diago Ramirez.



Each group will have 10-15 Minutes presentation, followed by discussion 10-20 minutes. Presentation times are as follows.

1:00 Luke, Ben, Myles

1:45 Nicholas, Richard Le

Break (Critics Discussion)

2:30 Emad, Afiq, Phat

3:15 Kun, Richard Wong, John

4:00 Adi, Farzin, Salvador



PHASE 2 Brief- The Lost Theatre

The Lost Theatre project considers the existence of a Theatre/Cinema space within the future scapes of 2030 and beyond. How will public Theatre and Cinema be transformed? or will what we consider these institutions now become lost cultural entities within our urban environments? if so how is this loss represented? How do you design a small scaled invention(s) into a future, unknown, large scaled landscape environment? Can landscapes aid the ideas of a future theatre as a distributed architectural concept rather than centralised concept of theatre? How will technologies transform theatre, and the performer/audience dialogue? How does the nature of broadcast change the nature of performance?

Brief:
The architectural programme is to design a ‘Lost Theatre’ combining a cinematic and theatre space, which is flexible and transformable to accommodate the differing needs of both art forms. This project is to explore a ‘24seven’ approach to functionality and could incorporate spaces for annual city events: eg the Film, Fringe, or Fashion festivals. Ideas pertaining to interior/exterior performances, public and private spaces, commercial and non-commercial enterprises are to be developed.

Lifespan:
The architecture is designed to have a 3-5 year lifespan, creating another sense of temporality and issues of its sustainability/relocation. This short building life span will require a critical approach to the materiality of the project and architectural engagement of the site(s).

Programme Requirements if implicated in your design strategy:
CINEMA/THEATRE 100 person cinema/theatre seating capacity, foyer space(s), circulation, ticketing and kiosk facilities, public toilets/private toilets, cinema/theatre office, carparking on site, disability access/fire egress.
ADMINISTRATION Activity rooms / office spaces (eg for MIFF/Fringe), kitchen space, storage space.
BACK OF HOUSE: Stage size and rear of stage areas, projection room, green room, actor's dressing rooms / bathrooms etc wardrobe room, storage areas [props/lighting], loading deck.



Developing 2030+ Scenario

Population?
Infrastructure?
Public/Private Space ratio?
World Wide Web?
Economics?
Terrorism?
Global Warming?
Ecosystems?
Soundscapes?
Migration/Immigration
Telecommunications?
Wireless?
Nanotech?
Transportation?
Homelessness?
Unemployment?
Gender?
Republic?
Superpowers?
Energy?
Fashion?
Human Evolution?
Religion?
Drugs?
Education?
Disease?
Design?
Weather?
Language?
Pollution?
Robots/Automation?
Landscape?
Virtual Environments?
Identity?
Capitalism?
Consumerism?
Government?
Entertainment?
Recreation?

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Mid Semester Presentations | Urban Agents
Thursday 15th April
at 2PM

Phase 1 Outline:
The first phase of the Agent Spaces Studio examines the development of an ‘urban agent’, which perceives, reacts, and transforms the spaces of Melbourne’s CBD. The main exercise for participants in phase 1 is to undertake a series of journeys through the city between Flinders Street, Lonsdale Street, Elizabeth Street, and Exhibition Street. These ‘drifts’ through the city, informed by a reading of Debord’s ‘Theory of the Dérive’, provide behaviours of movement, and begin to map the city to various senses and at various scales. They provide the initial step towards defining a spatial-temporal agent within an urban context. The aims of this first phase are for participants to articulate potential agents that emerge from these journeys, and the manner in which these agents can manipulate the nature of the city environment, through diagrams, montages, and installations. These agents in turn transform the less tangible into formal attributes, and promote design an understanding of decision making processes within urban space.

The participants in the studio should be able to clearly define their understanding of the following questions:

What is an Agent?

What constitutes an Urban Agent?

What is the behaviour of your agent?
Ie are there unexpected traits that could develop from its actions and can they be (re)presented: habits, accidents, etc.


Articulating your Agent:
The Urban Agent should be clearly articulated and have the following definition fulfilled:

Urban Agent Name: ‘A meaningful and poetic name assisting the understanding of the agent’

Classify the type of Urban Agent: ‘should be term that describes the type of agent, experiental, urban alternator, …

Nature of perception and movement: ‘What does it perceive, what type of movement does undertake.’

Emergent Behaviours: ‘give names to the actions of the agent: humans have very wide range of behaviours, can they be varied for your agent.


The Digital Presentation should include:

Agent Name etc

Relevant Quotes from research, that define your agent, attributes etc.

Present at least one example of a journey, its representation, and its spatial mappings.

Context: Sense of city spaces engaged, visualising the presence of the agent, or agent actions, within an urban context.

Agent Diagram: Articulating the links between inputs, outputs, and processes of your agent ‘brain’.

Digital presentation: 5 Minutes of imagery, animation, for the presentation of concepts, which expands the experience of the installation.

Media: Ideally use Flash or Director, or a suitable presentation format.

Podia Installation:
The installation embodies an architectonic expression of the agent within a SIAL podium. The installations can relate to any aspect of the agent’s activites/definitions, and should provide an experience that the digital presentation can’t represent. Each installation should incorporate at least one sound emitter, and one light source. These should be considered as streaming entities. The installation could also articulate the Agent's perceptive fields: inputs, outputs, and mappings devices.

The digital presentation and installation should work as a synthetic condition, each feeding one another.

Participates should provide the reviewers with a photocopied 100 word statement explaining the concepts of the urban agent. This will help you articulate your ideas for the presentation.

Each presenter will get 5 mintues to present followed by discussion time.

______________________________________________________________________

Monday 23rd: Studio Introduction, administration.

For Thursday 26th:

What is an Agent? Research definitions, wide scoping, Google, and begin to synthesis results.

Design an Urban Agent

Through a illustrated storyboard (minimum 5 images), conceive an urban agent, with articulated inputs/outputs and decision processes. Scan sketches, concepts, ideas, into digital format images (HQ and screen resolution).

Integrating Urban Context

From initial concepts, begin to let your agents react within a city context.

Reading: Guy Debord, Theory of the Derive (Class Handout)

Take a minimum of 5 journeys through Melbourne’s CBD in the style of an electronic Derive: beginning within the range of Flinders Street, Lonsdale Street, Elizabeth Street, Exhibition Street. Each of the journeys should capture differing aspects of the urban environment: various speeds of travel, sound, imagery. Map each journey in spatial and temporal manners. The maps should be qualitive and describe aspects of the experience: for example sounds, smells, advertising, , formal qualities, population. Sensing, and following senses within the city. These will begin to inform your agent, and its behaviour and perceptual fields.


Week 2 : Emergent FORMal Schemas

Start address the podia as the working space for the project. Obtain an understanding of the dimensions and scales of the podia. Working with various media (Photoshop - AfterEffects, AVID - Maya, 3DSMAX) begin to engage design propositions for your urban agents and the representation within the podia.

Principles of Animation Software Introduced.

Week 3 : Forms in Fields
Examine the mappings of the journeys through the city. Begin to generate formal characteristics from the mapping exercises. How can the attributes of your agent be represented through formal attributes? materiality, density, surface, lighting, sound. Podia, first sketches/ideas for engaging the installation aspect of the submission.

Week 4 : Articulating Agents

Presentations on Thursday, 3 weeks prior to week 7 presentations.
First chance to present your ideas and representations of Urban Agents.

5 min presentation, 2-3 Discussion.

First Attempt at Podia installation.

Map Spatially your journeys.

Articulating your Agent:
Agent Definitions:
Agent Name:
Classify the type of Agent:
Emergent Behaviours:
Technologies involved:
Nature of perception and movement:

Week 6 : Diagram your Agents

Give sense of how your agent is articulated in a diagramming sense. Articulate inputs, outputs, and processes through diagrams.

Week 7 : Formalise Installations

Utilise the laser cutter for output elements for the installations. Test lighting, sound, and digital projection senarios.


Podia Installation:


Podia Rhino File
Podia AI File

Digital presentation: 5-7 Minutes of imagery, animation, for the presentation of concepts, which expands the experience of the installation.

100 Word statement: As a designer how are articulating you agent.