Armaan Bansal (OS 2017)
Experimental Programme RIBA Part 1,
Architectural Association School 2017–2020
Today architecture needs a focused, sharpened formal
consciousness. It is the most powerful political, cultural and
social tool. Architecture is interactive at many extremities
of scale, whether a chair or housing for 20,000 people. The
gravity of the construction and ideas changes with scale,
and the notion of scale controls whether it’s a reinvention,
reaction or recycle. My work is experimental, observing and
predicting reactions, and communicating through drawings,
models and rendering images close to reality.
My fi rst project focused on a large-scale project of
university housing for 20,000 students. Reducing the
scale, as part of collaborative student work, I constructed
a structure in a village in Japan, with the villagers,
without speaking their language. The structure linked the
community together and, for me, provided a view into
real-life construction.
Reducing the scale even further, I constructed a chair, using
performance as a way to connect a mattress with a radio,
with the chair providing a new interpretation and experience
of the two. The notion of contact was maintained through
the concept as the moment of performance (sound output)
occurs once the speaker wires connect to form a complete
circuit. The user sits on the mattress in order to activate
the mechanism which triggers the connection, therefore
inherently linking mattress to radio but also user to object –
the chair adopts a new role in this instance.