By: Lidija Grozdanic | August - 30 - 2011
London-based design studio Minimaforms (brothers Stephen and Theodore Spyropoulos) questions how architecture can facilitate new forms of communication.Through experimental architecture, they explore these questions in hopes to open up a dialogue about social and material interaction.
Through an invitation from world renowned performance artist Stelarc, Minimaforms was asked to develop a gateway structure for Brunel University. The Gateway proposal conceived a threshold space suspended above an existing reflection pool as an exterior room and sanctuary. This structure is an open-cell system that operates as a perceptual framing device.
Deployed through an open-cell network are a series of operable convex and concave lenses, amplifying and collapsing the experiential relationships between users and their context. Developed through a parametrically controlled cellular deployment system, these lenses are distributed with both optical and structural parameters at play. The underbellies of these lenses extend as part of a three-dimensional fibre-field in which structural fibres and optic hairs are set out. The access plane hovering over the water surface of the reflection pool is constructed as a series of walkable lily pads that enable users to experience a complete sensorial displacement as one moves through this architecture of interface.
