(IN)TANGIBLE HERITAGE(S)

Abstract

The subject of virtuality is not new for architecture, since architects always operate through representations to design buildings. The remote essence of the practice -distance between drawing and building- is often described as an issue. Digital tools which have been utilized for architectural practice target directly at reducing this distance. The virtual realm provided by the 3D modeling tools, mitigates through the screen with constant zooming ins and outs (with no scale), or allows one to be immersed in via VR goggles that simulate the experience of inhabitation (in the true scale). Such digital artefacts then blur the difference between object and experience. While the advancement of technology in this field is fascinating, its application for architectural creativity, critical thinking, and contextual realm often remains dull. VR tools perfectly simulate the most complex, intriguing, exciting spatial formations in any soul-destroying building setting. Fully disconnected from any physical boundary, the question of how virtuality can be more critically incorporated into built environment remains a valid question. Such isolated experiences should be approached with more cynicism than celebration. DS + R very often raises this critical question in their architectural practice, and the Mediatheque room in their ICA building serves as a great example to discuss the relation of virtual and real embodied in the built environment. “What we intended to do is to take advantage of the fact that the water if out there” Elizabeth Diller says when explains the concept. The room is suspended below the large cantilever, designed as a stepped space with fixed computer screens on each level. The directionality of the room is amplified with an “edited” view of the ocean while a clip of the movement of the ocean is running on every computer screen… The room displays the power of framing as the means for creating virtuality.