The escape from the parasites

After various design proposals and discussions with our tutors, my group and I have finally decided on our story. We were given the responsibility of managing the 'walls and boundaries' for the film project. And as this task was given out, we immediately went around Chelsea College looking for the most interesting walls. For us, interesting turned out to be the walls which had many cracks running through them. They gave off a feeling of mystery, as if flow of the cracks were leading to a space.

These cracks are valued in our story, as they act as an indication to which walls we can run into, thus our environment suddenly becomes interactive. Our story is such, that all of our group members are running away from the parasites; these monstrous, brooding creatures which are taking over Chelsea. The walls thus possess a specific route through the university which contains our hiding spots, or in better terms, our sanctuary.

Our hiding spots possess various resting spaces. For us, the parasites provoke negative emotions, and thus we need this sanctuary to escape the hectic environment outside. Our resting spots, inspired by Zaha Hadid, look like cocoons which emerge from the walls. The fluidity of the structure can be looked at in a deeper meaning. It is intact with the purpose of these spaces - fluidity signifies freedom, which is the emotion that we gain from this escape. It can also be looked at from a much lighter view. Concepts such as freedom and escape reveal strong emotions, however, our whole story is in fact very comical - a bunch of students running away from parasites at university creates a bizarre as well as a humorous storyboard.

It was definitely enjoyable looking at different body positions and researching to come up with our finalized shape, which reflects our design interests. Initially we experimented with wood, which was hard to cut out, and then vacuum formed it to create the space. Further experimentation with clay would be good to define the curve of our hiding space.

In addition, the acoustics of the structure can also be taken into consideration. Because it literally encompasses the subject, it could act as a way of blocking out the noises from people walking in the corridor, creating a peaceful atmosphere.

Material research and experimentation was a very interesting side to the project. The thought of playing around with the translucency of the wall is a beautiful concept. Fluidity is prominent with our design ideas - it exists in our hidden world, as well as what is presented to us from the outside - rather than shining light onto a wall, it can now pass through and create elegant shadows in our space. Thus we tested with materials such as sugar and PVA, but came to a greater liking for wax - its easier to work with and has prominent translucent properties. This further developed into researching construction details - what materials would be used in real life building of these walls, which further deepened our knowledge.

Working with my group members has, so far, been such a great experience. I would say, the fact that we all get along is extremely satisfying. We've been dividing the tasks amongst each other to work towards building our final model and presenting in the end. Fingers crossed that our everything will go as planned!