Studio Space Popular
is focussed on Transmedia Architecture through design and theory. Transmedia Architecture defines the experience of space
through multiple means: physical and virtual. We develop architecture that considers physical bodies and virtual beings equally.
Studio Space Popular works at the intersection of the built and the virtual environments. We imagine alternatives
towards responsibility and solidarity in the ways we design, build and inhabit our buildings, cities, towns and villages,
enabled by media.
Studio Space Popular is concerned with the civic implications of media in the built environment.
Our social lives occur across media – in transmedia spaces whose design and regulation nobody takes responsibility for. Meanwhile
our community ties online are becoming as valuable and consequential as those offline. In the same way that we fight for the
safeguarding of social housing, public space, civic infrastructures, and overall public services, we must take care of the
civic dimension of our virtual environments.
The studio briefs are organised under four key themes: virtual craft,
spatial data libraries, transmedia gatherings, and virtual civic infrastructure. These topics involve architectural design
of both physical and virtual spaces, introducing a variety of tools and methods that bridge the digital and analog in architecture.
The theoretical framework of the studio involves an array of topics currently organised in the following sections:
PERCEPTION &
EXPERIENCE
Affordances
Semiotics | BODIES & CROWDS
Haptics & Interaction
Representation
of Self | SPACE & GEOMETRY
Non-euclidean Spaces
Navigation Systems |
CRAFT & FABRICATION
Digital/Analog loops
Effort heuristics | VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES
Social VR/Virtual Gatherings
Hybrid Gatherings
(Venn Rooms & Global Homes) | VIRTUAL URBANISM
Virtual & Augmented Cities
Civic Infrastructure design & policy |
REUSE & ADAPTATION
Media-driven lifestyle transformations
Implications on geopolitical entities | ENERGY & RESOURCES
Internet Infrastructure
Internet Politics | HISTORY
& CONTEXT
Media & Architecture
Aesthetic Ideologies in Architecture |
During
the three year MArch programme students will have the opportunity of exploring these four key topics during semesters 1 to
4, leaving semesters 5 and 6 for pre-thesis and thesis work. Each semester starts with three to four weeks of collective work
in the form of workshops and seminars that contribute to an ongoing research archive. Students are encouraged to shape their
thesis around individual interests and draw from the collective research archive.
The studio alternates yearly
between two types of design and research: practical and speculative. Semesters dedicated to practical work involve: experimental
research, local community engagement, and prototyping design projects; while semesters that are dedicated to speculative work
involve: historical and descriptive research, disciplinary community engagement, and speculative design projects.
Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg lead the practice Space Popular; an architecture studio that explores the relationships
between media and the built environment through research, design and artworks. The studio has realised buildings, exhibitions,
public artworks, furniture collections, and interiors in Asia and Europe, as well as virtual architecture for the immersive
web. Lesmes and Hellberg have previously held academic positions at UCLA AUD in Los Angeles, the Architectural Association
in London, the University of Toronto, and INDA Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. Clients, collaborators and commissioners
include national institutions such as MAK—Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, Austria, MAXXI—National Museum of 21st Century Art,
Rome, Italy, the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design ArkDes, Stockholm, Sweden, the Royal Institute of British Architects,
London, UK, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea, as well as independent galleries such
as MAGAZIN, Vienna, Austria, and Sto Werkstatt, London, UK.
