‘Tall Stories’
JACK’S MOTHER: “Jack, where have you been?
JACK: “Out, and Up.”
Throughout history, architects have designed buildings that tell the stories of their
time; of gods, monsters, princes, merchants, lovers and heroes. More experimental
projects have also expressed the architects’ or clients’ dreams, eccentricities or
darker fantasies that are often the products of over-stimulated imaginations.
Architects have also attempted to build high, to reach for the skies, to overcome the
limits of structure and material. In modern times, architects have tended to neglect
the narrative dimensions that have enriched the high buildings we consider to be
magical, in favour of functional or commercial concerns.
‘TALL STORIES’ is a design topic which asks you to re-consider architecture as
story-telling and as a way of “re-enchanting” our world. The project asks “what are
our stories, our fairy-tales for our own times?” and how can architects, as worldcreators,
imagine the future?
Working in groups of three, students are invited to respond imaginatively to the
SKYRISE brief to design and build an installation for public exhibition that evokes a
sense of wonder. Scale, materiality and a consideration for the way that the public
views or interacts will be crucial to the success of this project.
Run by Jessica Barter
