Negotiated Voids:
A Room for A City
The proposal is for an urban room in Elephant and Castle. A new form of urban space where conventional hierarchies are usurped; urban space is not just a way of getting from A to B, it is not confined to the restrictions of interior vs exterior, public vs private.
The project developed through an interpretation of the 'Void' as the porosity in dense environments. Void is the space 'between', through which we pass and through which we experience space. Void is fundamentally a space of flow and passage.
This understanding of void was applied on various scales, from a 2d painting, onto a 3d space, and finally onto an urban scale. Yet through all the scales the void preserves its fundamental character as a space of flow.
In the context of Elephant and Castle, the proposal becomes a constant dialectic between integration and separation. Reacting to the dead, segregated space of Elephant and Castle, the room becomes a space of difference which sets it apart from the city surrounding it. A series of 5 rules are implemented to propose an alternative urban scenario where programmes and occupations merge in a space which treads the fine line between absolute freedom and total control.
The proposal advocates an 'absolute' space; one which limited by the extent of its container, yet exists as a single homogeneous body within it, regardless of spatial hierarchies.
