More about Studio 17

William Firebrace, Gabby Shawcross

Film and Architecture/City of London

We are concerned with creating architecture which is dynamic, never quite the same today as tomorrow, fading away, reappearing unexpectedly, altering with the light. Our techniques: animation, stop-motion, sequences of models, restless drawings plotting movement.

We began the year with a short exercise, making a 24 stop motion film, reduced to one minute, into which was then inserted an intervention. We followed this up by constructing physical interventions on specific sites in the City, and recording the effects of this intervention on film. The major project of the year involved the students once again in the City, choosing a site, developing a theme, and making a proposal for a new building, to bring into this rather stagnated urban zone a new and refreshing social function. This project will be shown in London cinema as a series of short films.

In December we visited Lyon, to experience the Festival of Light.

What emerged from these programmes? Talking light-boxes, sound/colour translations, a monument constructed of waste, an urban angling centre, a city vineyard, a virtual tea room, a parasitical scaffolding system and more…new programmes for the credit-crunched city.