As well as with the design itself, architects, cityplanners and building contractors deal with selling expectations.
To legitimate new plans and future projects, architects, cityplanners and building contractors create images that appear in leaflets & booklets, as models, on websites and on contractor billboards. To capitalize initial investments and to seduce future inhabitants, these kind of images always appeal on feel-good attitudes and paradise-like environments.
What does the representation of architecture and of private and public space, mean in proportion to the perception of life, social interaction, raising up children, the design of neighbourhoods, the perception of happiness, love, leisure et cetera...? In other words: by using another grammar, another ‘image-building’ the traditional perception of life by citizens and future inhabitants can be triggered. By creating alternative messages, virtual architecture is one of the instruments to manipulate standard perceptions of life.
I will ask students to design an alternative virtual ‘billboard’, an image, a (3D)message to outline new ways of social interaction using Unreal Tournament. These messages are based on emotional input radically leading to fresh dreams, fresh desires and fresh needs. At the same time students will - in doing so - develop a critical statement on architectural ‘standards’.
QS Serafijn, March 2003