Inceptogram

One... Two... Three... Action!

2017
Workshop
CAAI School of Architecture
Tutor: Pouyan Bizeh

How architecture is related to cinema? Is there any way to change the narrative of a film by modification of its architectural elements? How the analysis of architectural spaces in a movie will let the architectural imagination grow? By watching a film, from an architectural standing point, what can be learned?

These main initial questions raised to set a three-phase guideline including:

Watching Inception (directed by Christopher Nolan) and listing of all architectural spaces which affect the narrative of the movie.
Reading the shooting script and mapping the possible alternative narrations through changing the architectural elements used in the movie such as gravity, the dimension of spaces, forms of spaces, etc.
Preparing drawings–considering the film as the only reference–in two phases: existing architectural spaces (with the aim of presenting the spaces by means of architectural drawings and tools) and alternative architectural spaces (with the aim of presenting a new narration for Inception by means of architectural drawings and tools)

[Hotel Corridor – Existing Architectural Space]

Based on the shooting script, there is a scene of chase and fight in a corridor of a hotel as the gravity changes to zero. After assuming proportionate dimensions for the corridor, the challenge was to present this rotating feature and describe all architectural details through drawings

[Hospital Complex – Existing Architectural Space]

A hospital complex, located in on a snowy hillside, is one of the important locations of Inception where a massive chasing and shooting scene is set.

“As Saito and Fischer run around the base of the building. They find a large EXHAUST PORT. Lay a charge on the GRILL. They blow the charge. Climb into the open vent.”

The challenges of presenting the hospital complex were to generally respect the sequence of movements and the reasonable connection of different spaces of the hospital on the one hand and to consider the topography of the mountain on the other in a general sense.

[Vacuum Chamber – Alternative Architectural Space]

According to the shooting script, in the Casino where Fischer is playing poker, a fight is going to happen, and a lift is set as the escaping option for Fischer and Cobb. Instead of the lift, a vacuum chamber proposed as an escaping alternative which has its own architectural characteristic (similar to the lift but more inclined to the fictional sleeping world of Inception)