Transition of state. Flip-Flop.

Barbican Centre, -1,5 floor staircase

When i found a staircase with mirrors, i instantly thought of movie Inception.

Idea of flipping the whole city in half and above your head.

Now if i make this city out of examples of Barbican Centre walking spaces, it will have a futuristic look - with very high but very thin buildings.

If i flip the city upside down, but still keep the usual arrangement inside the rooms, than people will be walking on ceilings and had trouble with entering rooms without ladders.

Here is the link between futuristic inventions and M.C. Escher.

Another option - instead of flipping it overhead, i can just make another level - but so high that it will make a new sky of concrete.

What if...

What if i created a whole new city out of Barbican Centre?

Just taking floor plans as base model.

Above us all.

Empty spaces on plans

The empty spaces on plans are, the more i think, the most visited spaces. That depends on what is happening on each floor, like art galleries or cinemas or theatre, or library.

Depending on range of activities, people spend different amount of time in those rooms.

So, if i focused on passages only, what kind of shape they will create?

But how exactly i can use geometry in this? And what kind of geometry?

Experiment

Volume up

New City

Floor 1

Floor 2

Floor 3

Floor 4

Here i took the floor plans to make them into volume.

Each floor looks like the city complex of its own.

But this is the occupied space.

What if i take the walking paths?

Like labyrinth effect.

Plan Space

Occupied spaces on plans.
Suppose that the rooms suddenly become solid, without entrance, and the only space you can walk is the small passages between them.

Or how it would change the whole centre, if we reversed the purpose of plan components.
Or if we shifted the sizes of them.
Will that make people pay more attention to surrounding?

Plan Components

Only occupied spaces, such as Library, Art Galleries, places of interest, etc.

Mostly walking spaces, such as halls and big passages, waiting/sitting rooms.

Small Research on Barbican facts