A Pixelized Idea Of Space

Everything started on the day of choosing our first design project of our postgraduates topic, assigned to students. Therefore we were searching for a competition that not only to experience team work but having good results and get growth in our architectural designing. And also getting success on an international scale could demonstrate our merit and creativity in architecture. The social stop competition seemed very challenging and attractive at the same time. With understanding the requested tasks of the competition we wanted to propose a project which not only fulfills the demands of a lively social space but raises a question. Can a project involve the users in the design process (with having architects responsible for the project) as an effective element in a site which changes frequently again and again with having a social interaction in a way that users want?

This ability gives us a new form of social interaction in general open space. Now everyone can express themselves in a safe and easy way and create interaction with individuals and observe their reaction to a specific kind of interaction. Like times that people get interacted in games but this time architectural space is the mediator.

Materializing this goal is a big challenge which is not unprecedented but has been done on a small scale. Designing in such a space, needs creativity, being familiar with the Russian community and individuals environmental preferences and more.

Construction sets are an old school and common category of the games industry which has many physical and digital kinds. Minecraft, which is the best-selling game of all time, shows that people really like the idea of construction in a simple and fun way. Is proposing a civic interactional space on this basis will be attractive and popular in the same way?

Cubic modules are implemented for the sake of easy construction and the most important easy designing. These pixels have the ability to move vertically; this allows users to exert their ideas in the easiest and satisfying way.

City organizations, communities and even individual users can take the control of the place to make the certain interaction that they desire, like art students street theater, local music group concert, a short film from a filmmaker, streaming a national sport game, medical instructions by the medsi center which is nearby or even “friend ship festival of the Russian and Arab nations” held by the nearby embassy of Saudi Arabia. We named this kind of activities “Large scaled interactions”.

In this part some questions came up: is all of the interaction in our civic space will be “Large scaled interactions” type?

How much of the social life in this site can be allocated to this kind of interaction?

How many people have the capability to get involved directly in this kind of large-scale activity?

Are we forced to face an abandoned and non-functional space in times when no one has a plan for a “Large scaled interaction”?

Therefore we decided to add another capacity to the project for the sake of always having a lively place, which we named the “small scaled interactions”. Importance of the so-called “small scaled interactions” is that keep the site alive and introduce the new and special aspect of the project to the users, the “Large-scaled interaction”. Therefore the main function of the site became divided in two parts in a way to maintain integrity of the project.

In the “small- scaled interaction” some of pixels has given the ability to move vertically with a digital screen for inviting 2 or more volunteered users to play an entertaining game. This design idea can implemented like a moving telephone kiosk and can be displaced easily.

Now we have a site which is always full of people, liveliness, games and fun, recreation and peace. But there is still one problem left: pixels up keeping cost, these pixels will move a lot during a day and that will definitely cause some repair and change costs. Since our project is an active one, with a proper plan the project can undertake a remarkable part of the costs itself, for example with getting a fair amount of money for some of the “Large-scaled interactions” or using digital screens as an advertisement board occasionally. In this way the site can have enough money for upkeep itself, in other words the site can be relatively sustainable in terms of economy.

The lot that allocated for the project has a considerable slope, we used that in 2 ways:

1) Creating motions and giving visual attraction to the project with the same overall slope, using the same pixels while maintaining and emphasizing on interaction ideas.

2) Creating layered structure, covered spaces and a variety of open spaces.

The two issued topics made diverse space qualities to the site making the user come again and visit the site.

Colors and lighting

Colors and lighting have an inevitable role in introducing the cubic modules and their different functions. In spite of that it helps visual attraction, improving site’s qualities, legibility and advertisement. Composing cyan and purple colors is assigned for the project, alongside having flowing modular pixels users can experience attractive views because of the change in the area of the colors which causes a site that any corner is different with one another without losing integrity.

In semi-open space under the pixels, the edges of pixels are made of light so preserve the modular network even in the night. And pixels around trees are made of light too, showing the importance of trees in our lives alongside the visual attraction.

We even estimated some details of the moving pixels that shows how they move, how they are attached to the ground and how they take place with each other. The purpose of details was to know how they might look in reality.