Architectural Invitations to Everyday Imagination

Abstract

Architectural Invitations to Everyday Imagination is a speculative proposition that utilises hidden narratives embedded within perceptions of the existing to uncover new spatial experiences. Delving into practices of urban walking and everyday imagination allows us to understand how the ordinary provokes wonder and intrigue. Central to this thesis is the experience of the wandering pedestrian and the fundamental need for play within everyday routines to generate creativity and diversity. Walking in the city encounters innumerous moments that hold the potential to be reimagined and transformed to compose more engaging urban journeys. Explorations instigate a drift from the known, expected and conventional systems reflected in the urban built environment and articulating our everyday lives. The work proposes a system, Playception, which superimposes playful scenarios within the city. It questions: how could an architectural system intervene with the urban environment to invite new experiences and exhibit playful desires? Situated in the heart of Auckland city, Playception offers a whimsical disposition to the urban fabric. It refers to experimental psychogeographic studies, and is developed through a process of collage and diagrammatic drawings. The outcome is a system which operates like an indeterminate game, dispensing prompts to motivate a journey to interact with the interventions. The system extracts and reportrays possibilities hidden in ordinary urban spaces as pedestrian-scale interventions. It exhibits a fragmented narrative of the city, which lingers between reality and fiction, awaiting reconstruction by each ambulating participant. Playception positions the changing city as an open stage for discovery and play. Through inviting playful behaviour to reappropriate urban spaces and stimulate social encounters, it demonstrates the interaction between the city, its inhabitants and their imagination.