GDC 2001: Current Architecture and Potential Approaches to Level Design
Experience Music Project,
Seattle - Frank Gehry
Description
The first of the buildings, I wanted to look
at is the Experience Music Project located in Seattle, right next to the
Skydome. This building was commissioned by Paul Allen, the Microsoft
cofounder, in celebration of Jimi Hendrix and his guitars. The building
houses performance halls, exhibits and studio spaces related to recent
music history. The building exterior is comprised of billowing brightly
colored metallic volumes. The monorail stop for the Seattle Skydome
actually passes through a section of the building. Apart from the exhibit
installation, the interior is fairly unfinished, and has exposed structure
and mechanical systems.
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The building exterior is comprised of billowing brightly colored metallic volumes. |
Background
Gehry is a Canadian-born architect working
out of Los Angeles. He has built a long career on creating buildings with
dynamic and exuberant forms, coupled with a radical use of
materials.
One of the earliest projects Gehry became known for was his
own home in Los Angeles. Over a period of years, he created a series of
additions to a relatively small house. The additions were inventive in
their use of 'found' materials like chain-link fence and corrugated sheet
metal. They were also imaginative in the way they intensified and
elaborated the simple spaces of the house. Unfortunately, his neighbors
were not so happy with the design results.
More recently, Gehry has received international acclaim for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. The Guggenheim, clad in a titanium skin, is definitely an elder relative of the Seattle project. This exuberant riverside museum has become a major tourist attraction and has aided in developing a local economy.
Process
Where is the computer in all of this? Gehry's
experimentation with materials extends to process too. He works from a
series of loose sketches and rough models that are scanned in 3-d and then
developed as working drawings. The sketches and models are overlaid on the
basic program requirements and Gehry sculpts the forms from there. The
building is literally designed through the working models.
Gehry uses the aircraft manufacturing software, CATIA, to optimize the design details and expedite communication with contractors. CATIA was originally invented for the design of Mirage jets and is now used by Boeing and Chrysler for their projects.
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The interior is fairly unfinished, and has exposed structure and mechanical systems. |
Potential
Application
We are not at the point where we are prepared to scan
physical models, but if you are working with a license or tying into a
movie production, the sets may already have been digitized or virtual
buildings created for matte paintings that could be used to develop a
level.
Gehry's approach has potential application where a level
requires a non-traditional atmosphere. How can these dynamic forms help
gameplay? Gehry takes a relatively simple functional layout, and develops
a dynamic design around it. In a multiplayer arena, where the focus is on
maintaining constant player movement, and the architecture takes more of a
background role, forms could be developed that reflected this frenetic
activity.
Aronoff
Center for Design and Art, Cincinnati - Peter
Eisenman