Week8 - Concept Design

INVISIBLE CITIES - ITALO CALVINO

Summoned to lay down the rules for the foundation of Perinthia, the astronomers established the place and the day according to the position of the stars; they drew the intersecting lines of the decumanus and the cardo, the first oriented to the passage of the sun and the other like the axis on which the heavens turn. They divided the map according to the twelve houses of the zodiac so that each temple and each neighborhood would receive the proper influence of the favouring constellations; they fixed the point in the walls where gates should be cut, foreseeing how each would frame an eclipse of the moon in the next thousand years. Perinthia - they guaranteed - would reflect the harmony of the firmament; natures reason and the gods benevolence would shape the inhabitants destinies. Following the astronomers calculations precisely, Perinthia was constructed; various peoples came to populate it; the first generation born in Perinthia began to grow within its walls; and these citizens reached the age to marry and have children. In Perinthias streets and square today you encounter cripples, dwarfs,hunchbacks,obese men,bearded women. But the worse cannot be seen; guttural howls are heard from cellars and lofts, where families hide children with three heads or with six legs. Perinthias astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong and their figures are unable to describe the heavens, or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city.

FLOOD PROTECTION MEASURES OF THE CITY OF PRAGUE

Prague is the capital of the Czech Republic with about 1.5 million inhabitants. It is located at the river Vltava. The Vltava drainage area covers 28,090 km2 and its total length is 430km. The Vltava has an important influence on the city of Prague in a positive way, that is the urban and aconomical development along the river in history and present, but also in a negative way, because of the danger of flood events along the Vltava. Several flood marks along the river show the water levels of the different events in history and try to keep this danger of flooding in mind of the people.

PERFORMANCE

performance space can be used in different ways, creating the stage as the aerial stage by removing the ground plane. Also the stage can be considered in the water and consist of type of performances in the example above. Flexibility to use the roof as well as the back of house structure is situated and accessed through the roof so that the aerial performance is roped onto the rafters and the equipment is let down onto the stage that way.

AERIAL PERFORMANCE

Aerial dance by Jayne c.Bernasconi, Nancy E.Smith

"On some occasions in history, dance simulated the conquest of the aerial space against gravity, creating the illusion of lightness."

"It involves the spectators perception of a spatial illusion that allows him to transcend his static vision and generate a new point of view. At the same time, it redefines the use of the stage space, discovering sections of the stage rarely used."

"Aerial dance is a process of reformulating choreographic decisions regarding order, nature of movements, and techniques. The technical resource is achieved by suspending dancers through ropes(static and elastic and harnesses."

"Dancers without harnesses and dancers suspended in the air are a dialectical relation between air and floor. This relationship can be researched through various modes of movement, such as light and heavy, slow and fast, suspension and gravity, and centrifugal forces."

"Spectators experience this spatial change with an altered perception, as if they were looking at the dancers from above, transcending their static vision."

" The point of view of the spectator is unusual because the eye sees as if it were under the earth."

"Exploring the movement concepts such as weight shifting, phrasing, transitions, and dynamic energies and finding the effortless flow go movement while doing big swings will help students to discover the essence of aerial dance."

PRECEDENT

BRIDGE BY MICHAEL CROSS

The idea for bridge first sprouted from a simple desire, i wanted to stand in the middle of a lake surrounded only by water. I didn't want a boat to get me there or a pier to link me safely to land and i didn't want to get wet. I wanted to walk across the water to the middle of a lake, so i saw that i would need a new kind of bridge and i decided to make one.