Abstract:
In a realm conceived of volumes and speeds, it is surprising how architectural infrastructure is oft en overlooked, being considered instead as benign conduits that serve passively alongside their building counterparts. Perhaps due to this apathy in terms of design, an authoritarian order, made up of road signs and road hierarchies, is left to dominate current infrastructural systems. Th is rigid order tends to produce reductive repercussions that are monotonous and utilitarian, potentially creating a society of automatons obediently following instructions set on aluminium spears lodged into the ground. Th is thesis, seeking an antidote to the authoritarian, researches into a new means of infrastructure, a ludic order which complements the complex layered nature of innate human behaviour, favouring the freedom of uncertain playful movement where control of the stick shift lies with the player. Critically questioning the way in which architectural infrastructure can challenge current authoritarian movement in a step towards a ludic movement. Th e thesis investigates an architecture that celebrates an aggregation of speeds and play typologies which could perhaps bring to light the playfulness that already exists within. Th e architecture transforms into an amalgamation of real and imaginary spaces where freedom of playful movement is pursued, limits of road rules are tested and infrastructure is reintroduced as signifi cant conditions of architecture. Th e research unfolds with a discussion of speed and play theory, informed by the writings of Paul Virilio and Johan Huizinga respectively. Th e methodology applied for conceptual development of the design research draws on the work of Iain Borden. Photography and fi lm become the tools of exploration, whilst wire and line drawings become the apparatus for physical making. Th e conceptual material is elaborated into focused case studies related to the concepts of speed and play, explored in various architectural realizations. Th ese theoretical and conceptual fi ndings lead into an analysis of the town of Rotorua, a tourist city with an existing unconventional collection of speed play activities and an interesting geothermal infrastructural system. Infl uenced by Learning from Las Vegas,1 the colloquial nickname Rotovegas becomes an escape from the authoritarian traffi c of urban cities and provides a suitable space for the experimentation of the ludic movement hypothesis. Rotovegas: Playground of Flux is a design proposition towards an architecture of play and speed, a celebration of ludic movement.