A project from my first digital studio in grad school. I was interested in using social phenomena in the design of a megaplex in such a way that it fundamentally altered the experience of going to see a movie. A brief explanation below: Movie tickets, purchased at the periphery of the site, direct the patron to the spot in the building where the movie is going to play using coordinate point values within a Euclidian grid. When more than one person purchases the same movie in succession, they are assigned the same coordinates, and then those coordinates are given a weighted importance within the system. This weighting based on group size causes any previously purchased tickets to be reassigned and relocated to the coordinates of the larger group. Thus, different levels of density coalesce, move, and coalesce again within the building. Once the movie’s start time is reached the film begins wherever the greatest density of people has occurred, over time rendering the location of the screen infinitely mutable. To resolve the spatial implications of a mobile density, the building is composed primarily of screen. (Screen that acts also as wall, skin, and ceiling.) Small LCD screens (2” x 2”) are strung vertically on steel cable aggregating into long strands that are hung from the structural frame. The megaplex proposed in this project changes the relationship between viewer and image. A field of spectacles and spaces capable of blending into one another through layering and movement create ephemeral geometries. People move through the building weaving between long strands of pixels, literally parting the image, to watch film. Both the image and the population breathe within the structure, moving back and forth between states of rest, dispersal, activity, and concentration. To achieve this end the building employs a unique structural system and a user-determined system of operation that assigns and relocates patrons based on user density.
