DESA1002 'Continuous City' Sarah-Jane Thomson

Abstract

Originating in Manchester in the 1980’s, rave culture began in abandoned warehouses: dilapidated urban buildings with a renewed function. In designing a purpose built night club I have sought to capture the essence of the muffled grittiness associated with these grunge locations through construction with recycled materials in the organic cave-like interior. A night club encloses a distorted spatiality existing on boundaries; boundaries between art and architecture, public and private, time and timelessness, fantasy and reality. I sought to find the place where these opposing forces transcend discord; to find harmony in the place where opposites meet. It exists not on either side, but on the line that divides; and that line took on a dimensionality in the rift which subtly intrudes on the essentially unsullied facade, extracting a suppressed sense of place and shape. It became the code that defined the building.In considering function I was careful the building did not adopt a shape too soon. What I did not anticipate was that the building would remain essentially shapeless. Its form conceals its function.The amorphous perimeter walls defiantly exclude the aridity of the encircling urban morass of the Rockefeller District, New York. Its envelope has been dematerialised to an essentially pure surface creating an interface between reality and the fantasy land that exists within. Apertures eroded into the rectilinear facade allow minimal light and sound to escape, hinting at what lies in¬side, yet, maintaining the mystery concealed within. A centralised pipe organ electronically modified enhances the sense of unity established by voids in the floorplates, designed to integrate the disparate functional elements of the building.The notion of rave culture is inextricably woven into the concept of ‘experience’. The visitors are an integral part of the design; it needs direct interaction, for the visitor to participate and become a part of the work. So much depends on the tactile sensations, and, without the element of time, the experience is not easily reduced to a set of images.