Building Narratives
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Inspired by the essay of Bernard Tschumi, in which he argues that a narrative-driven design process, different from a form-driven or programmatic-driven design process, focus more on the narrative creation to suggest human activities and events, or evoking some emotional or experiential attachment. The research paper discusses the potential of using narrative in architecture as a means of conceptualization, and more importantly, a vehicle of design exploration. As a design approach, the creation of spaces may not necessarily start from the relation with function, but could also from narrative related to events, memories, or reflection. As an ‘Narrative Hybrid’, architecture moves from showing stories to telling stories. This paper will illustrate some of the student projects, to present several aspects responding to the incorporation of narrative as a design element and instrument. Firstly, the construction of spatial relationship could be narrative based, from stories, culture, experience, memories or even personal anecdote. No matter if they are positive or negative, those experience or subjective statements sometimes are very natural, which have potential to transform into a very specific architectural language. Secondly, the design and arrangement of conventional objects like column, furniture, and window, could be essential media for architecture to frame their narrative, in some ways beyond their original or typical functions or characteristic. Thirdly, we could consider people’s interaction or behavior to be part of the narrative design, like creating for framing a stage for performance, but opening for individual intervention. Through exploring those aspects in, we could understand the possibilities of using narrative for place-making, aiming to result in memorable and narrative evoking spatial experience.