How to host a festival

RMIT University, School of Architecture and Design, [Melbourne]

Project idea

Come and enjoy this corner of Spotswood and celebrate life in the shadow of the Westgate bridge.

Our hotel are throwing open their doors for you to stay, and treat yourself to some drink at the bar before you head to the stage to enjoy some live music, As an annual calendar event, come and meet your neighbours, our artists, sharing your photos as we unify to celebrate the inaugural Spotswood Festival.

Just bring yourself—we’ll handle the rest.

The project interrogating the architecture of the city, community,
and individual through the cinematic lens of the TV Sitcom.The aim is to investigate the spatial qualities, scenes and compositional elements from these shows. We see the strong relationships between our favourite characters inside a room as a driver to develope an architectural language.

The design process starts with a series of sitcom analyses and film methodology breakdowns, then utilizes these techniques to capture the site through a camera lens. By doing this, the existing characteristics of the site can be translated into the new project in the vignettes.

Project description

The project interrogating the architecture of the city, community,
and individual through the cinematic lens of the TV Sitcom.The aim is to investigate the spatial qualities, scenes and compositional elements from these shows. We see the strong relationships between our favourite characters inside a room as a driver to develope an architectural language.

The design process starts with a series of sitcom analyses and film methodology breakdowns, then utilizes these techniques to capture the site through a camera lens. By doing this, the existing characteristics of the site can be translated into the new project in the vignettes.

The studio’s design process starts with a series of sitcom analyses and film methodology breakdowns, then utilizes these techniques to capture the site through a camera lens. By doing this, the existing characteristics
of the site can be translated into the new project in the vignettes.

The first half of the project focuses on the larger urban scale. Through the early site analysis, the idea of using a ‘Festival’ to embrace the dynamic and chaos comes to mind. The design’s overall scheme is based on the site’s study and the application of sitcom cinematography techniques in vignettes. Therefore, the project explores the three housing typologies: the hotel, the retail with temporal building, and the co-living apartments. The design of each space is customized for the characters. Also, the character’s personality allows the development
of the project’s dramaturgy and storyline. Then, all of the information is translated into vignettes instead of the architectural drawing, which gives a clue about the realistic experience in architectural space feels like. Using these vignettes to tell the story requires careful treatment of every detail and the overall composition.

In the project, the design statement evolved, which tempts to be a sitcom introduction instead of architectural speaking, using short sentences
and keywords to express the core idea. Then, all design motives should stick to the main idea in the elevator pitch, which provides a guide and standard for me to reflect on the design decisions.

Technical information

The project focus on cinematic methodologies, combining the cinematography techniques with architectural thinking. Through photo montage, adobe set, 3D modelling software, animation and physical modelling, challenging the traditional design process of architecture design.