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Experimenting with people and space

Kat Austen, CultureLab editor


Voussoir Cloud (Image: Iwamoto Scott Architecture, USA)

How does the shape of a space change the way people act in it?

The Concrete Geometries exhibition at the Architectural Association School in London's Bedford Square, tries to answer that question. The exhibition, which marks the end of a research project conducted by the Concrete Geometries research cluster, shows off - in photographs - the 20 projects that most successfully use space to influence behaviour. Marianne Mueller, co-director of the cluster, says:

The architecture school has spent a lot of time on the production of space but never had time to evaluate it. How can we use these complex geometries to change how people live?

The exhibition space is dominated by an installation based on one of these ideas: Fran Cottell's House Installation Project. Cottell first installed a raised walkway in her home - in order to change the dynamic between visitors and those who lived there. For Concrete Geometries, a similar raised platform fills the exhibition space, effectively creating a raised floor for the gallery. At the centre of the platform, descending steps create a discussion space. The design, which echoes the ceiling pattern in the Georgian-style exhibition room, makes for a non-intimidating, open area where people can feel comfortable musing upon the displayed photographs.

There are a whole host of thought-provoking projects on show, such as artist Christine Rusche's Room Drawing Installation (below), where she uses geometric paintings and colour to open up space, and Elmo Vermijs Studios simple but powerful Connecting Corridor, which narrows to a width where two people cannot comfortably pass each other.


Room Drawing Installation (Image: Christine Rusche)

Undoubtedly the most exciting for me, though, was Dymaxion Sleep (below) by Canadian architects/artists Jane Hutton and Adrian Blackwell. The pair set out to change the way that people interact with outdoor space. They suspended a giant netting hammock in the shape of a Dymaxion map - a design by Buckminster Fuller which projects the globe onto a polyhedron so that it can be flattened out to in various ways to highlight the preferred characteristics - above a garden of fragrant plants.


Dymaxion Sleep (Image: Jane Hutton and Adrian Blackwell)

Rather than walking through a garden and admiring its vibrant colours, visitors to the International Garden Festival in Quebec - where Dymaxion Sleep was first displayed in 2009 - were given the opportunity to lie above it and view the flowers and greenery from a different angle. In the same way that a Dymaxion map can be unfolded in different orientations, visitors lying in different directions on the netting could experience different fragrances from the plants underneath. It's one of those ideas that, once you've seen it, seems simple, but to come up with it in the first place takes great inspiration. Sadly, I can only imagine what a fun, immersive experience it is to play about on the installation - somehow the photographs can't possibly do it justice.

Exhibition Information
Concrete Geometries
Architectural Association, 36 Bedford Square, London
Until 28 May 2011
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