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Dreamscape: Cinema/film studio, Padua

Part 2 Project 2006
Robert Wheaton Rebecca Heath
University of Portsmouth | UK
A phenomenological link between cinema and architecture exists. The experience of film involves a complex interlocking of narrative, time, light, material and detail. Similar to the haptic experience of architecture. However, whilst film only illustrates human experience, architecture can provide the setting for human emotion. The disembodied experience of cinema can be set against the embodied sensual experience of architecture. The film studio is key in this objective, providing a means to reveal the physical effort that still very much is a part of the film making process. The movements and elaborations of the actors, the tracking, panning and zooming of the camera, the crafting of sets - a process that will be revealed to the visitor as a counterbalance to the black box from which they have emerged. A heightened awareness of human experience is offered as a parallel to filmic time.


The strength of Robert and Rebecca’s Scheme lies in their detailed and intelligent understanding and interpretation of the area chosen for our diploma site, Padua. Their proposal maintained the continuity of the uniqueness of Padua, but at the same time re-addressed certain issues that have remained unchallenged for some time. Their scheme had a strong theoretical base, and also showed a great sensitivity to both scale and detail of the new environment they were creating. This was backed up with a strong argument for the changes they proposed to innovate that included reshaping part of Padua within the canon of the existing morphology of the town where appropriate, and extending these ideas to create a new landscape for the major part of their scheme.

2006
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