Fairy Tales
Blanc Space
Architectural Storytelling Competition
DATA.
Iryna Tsioma, Maryna Lukasheva
Blanc Space Competitions
competition
with
for
type
Context:
Fairy Tales is an open, international, ideas competition that challenges creatives from all professional realms to develop visionary, narrative-based design proposals. The competition is an extension of Blank Space’s mission to uncover the true power of architecture by creating new opportunities for design to engage the public.
from the brief
ACTE 01 CITY
Once upon a time in 5000 BC there was a city. This city was in the middle of nowhere, in the place where it was no “Up” and “Down”. None of the residents knew whether the city had bottom, and if it had any limits. There was a legend that the city was buttoned up, but how exactly and where it was attached nobody knew. The Sun was rising from the top, at the noon it was shining from the bottom and in the evening it was setting up again. At the midday, the city acquired endlessness. All shadows fell up and it seemed that the city was infinitely stretching up. Although it was difficult to say anything definite, because no one knew how the city was arranged, everything depended on how you looked at it. A day had 25 hours, 24 hours of which people were thinking and one hour intended for work. But things were humming anyway.
ACTE 02 CHAOS
here everything was moving without a break. Thousands and thousands of threads tied up and pierced through the buildings. All the food, books, kitchen utensils, furniture and carefully packed in the bags thoughts were moving by them. Frankly speaking, everything was moving, everything except people. People never went outside of their homes. And where they could leave? There were no doors in their homes. Occasionally you could only find some windows, but even those were also represented as relics of some other era… but maybe it was only nostalgia... In any case, people did not hardly carried about a small number of windows, because no one was interested in what was happening outside. Everything was directed “inwards”, and “outside” was developing spontaneously, in wild and chaotic manner. Oceans were always flowing between the houses, leaving pools in which giant whales more like ships swam; jellyfishes hovering in the air like comets twined their tentacles around the trees; birds nested in the boats; greenery was growing into the houses by lianas and often broke the connection in the city. All “this” created difficulties for existed navigation, because thoughts often came to wrong address. But yet life had tardy flight of time, until one day, when one idea came to the mayor’s head to build a temple in the center of the city.
ACTE 03 TEMPLERAISING
None of the residents knew where the center of the city was, they did not even have any idea where they were in this city, everybody only supposed and guessed. But once they decided to send each other thoughts in all possible directions, in the same day, at the same hour, in the same moment, and where they would knock together creating traffic jam of thoughts there would be the center of the city.
The rainy season was chosen as the best time for construction. The water was the best conductor not only of electricity, but also served for the transmission of thoughts, which greatly facilitated the coordination of “templeraising”.
ACTE 04 JUST STAIRS IT'S ENOUGH
Finally they got out from their houses. The temple probably had no meaning, but it was the real necessity in it. The temple became the place of attraction; it became the center of everything. It presented an everlasting space; it was made as endless stairs. Stairs had no width, no height, and even had no direction. We cannot say that people began to climb or descend. It would not be correct to say that. After all, wherever you went you did not know whether you went “upstairs” or “downstairs”. So, two people going in the same direction could go up and down at the same time. Some of them chose to rise, as they were optimistic and believed in the best, but there were many of those who chose to go down in the belief that it was easier and faster and nothing could be said against that. Some of them went for a long journey, and passed years, and perhaps even centuries outside, while others went just for a walk for an hour with their dog or just to stare into the distance, examining the starry night. You know, it was the perfect place to get out. You could just wander for hours and did not know whether you went far away or approached to something. Certainly there were those who did not want to return home, and fell asleep in sleeping bags on the stairs growing a long beard and exhaling a peculiar smell, but there were also those who regularly went for a run in the mornings to breathe sunny air. Yes, meetings were definitely inevitable. It’s even necessary to mention that this “temple” was the only meeting place, the only and the endless.
ACTE 05 TEMPLE
You could try to give some meanings to these stairs. You could imagine them like the way from somewhere to nowhere, like the axis of the Universe. It could be represented as a way in the other dimension, as a connection between different worlds. It could have a ritual sense, like steps of Egyptian pyramids. It could be a symbol of any religion. It could be everything you want. But honestly… it was really not bad public space!