The Freedom of Fantasy

I have always loved fantasy, in any form. There is something about being able to control everything about a place in time and space and everything that gets built there that is undeniably alluring. But what is it exactly? In this week’s edition I question what draws so many people towards fantasy and whether engaging in it more would benefit young architects.

I was very active as a child and like most children I would invest lots of time and energy into my interests. I loved sport, reading, drawing, playing video games, costume dress, documentaries and playing with toys; all at different stages in my childhood. I would generally fixate on something for a period of time until I decided I wanted to try something new. However, one consistent trait of all of these pastimes was that I was able to dictate a lot of information about the rules and scenarios I was creating. I infamously spent the first four years of my life wearing a batman costume.

As I got older, I realise now that I explored avenues of design from an early age, and that the toys and games I was playing had a massive impact of what I was designing. I wanted to immerse myself fully in whatever it was I was doing and designing buildings and towns was a huge part of how I did that.

My first introduction to fantasy came in the form of the fictional novels. I read the Harry Potter series from age 5 and began my first attempt at the Lord of the Rings at age 10. At the time, I had seen the adapted film versions of the Harry Potter series but had not seen any of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. This made a massive impact on how much I was able to visualize the world that was being described to me through literature alone and I found myself putting Lord of the Rings on hold for a while, unable to fully explore the complexities Tolkien had devoted most of his life to creating. Once I had seen the films, I began to understand the world I had read about a lot more and immediately started to imagine myself off on some big adventure across a vast and dangerous land. It is without question that Tolkien’s creation is likely the greatest achievement of imaginative fiction ever written and has inspired countless others to explore the medieval fantasy genre.

Source: indiedb.com: The Throne Hall of Erebor

As well as these aforementioned worlds, I also used to play a number of Game Boy games, and these also played a massive part in translating my early explorations of fictional media into the beginnings of an architectural understanding. I was drawn to the altered conditions in these games, where the characters acted within a world of different environments, clothing, historical records and architectural language. Often the buildings in these games were unlike anything I had ever seen before and I captivated by how they would reflect the nature and mood of the various stages in the game.

I had always drawn things as a way of exploring or reinforcing my knowledge about something, usually an object, place or person and featured strongly defined shapes and colours. I would often draw things I had seen that I was interested in, such as a location in a game or an image of a landscape. I found that as soon as I had started to draw I assumed control of what I was drawing and I could change whatever I wanted about the original.

I obsessively played Pokémon from a young age and was at first bewildered by the 2-D graphics of the screen. The game involved running around a world capturing monsters to train and ultimately aim to become the champion trainer of the region, visiting different locations and landscapes as you travel across the map. The towns and buildings in these games were of completely unrealistic and unfamiliar scales (4 houses to a town etc) and combined with their graphical representation, I found this a bit disorientating. I therefore embarked on a project of redesigning every town from the games I had played thus far and creating a series of maps and illustrations to demonstrate how I imagined they should look in my mind.

Source: Amino

Now anybody who has played a video game will know that there are certain clichés about video game architecture that reference the characteristics of the space they occupy. These often appear in film and cartoons too and they form part of a wider group of media representation. They utilize the same set of rules and visuals techniques that our brains then recognize as a particular emotion or characteristic.

Lava for example, often represents danger and death and is associated with villains and vast, expensive evil lairs. This works because we associate lava as a source of extreme heat found in a few remote locations on earth that the vast majority of people would flee from. It is an intimidating substance, because of the ease with which the extreme heat can burn and kill and has no remorse or feelings. Choosing to build in the presence of lava signifies someone who wants to intimidate or be protected, who has the finance and resources to do so and perhaps someone with a slightly fiery personality. This is called pathetic fallacy, where human attributes, feelings and responses are associated with inanimate objects, places or conditions. Collectively they create the character and emotive mood of a fictional location.

Source: Pixar Planet

The Creative Community

Using these established templates people have been able to create fantasy worlds of their own. An internet search will prove the infinite amounts of published fantasy content in many different styles and medium. Establishing genres has created distinctions between various styles and associated rules. For example, Steampunk is generally set in a technologically alternate world, where steam and engine power are commonplace instead of electrical advancement. Star Wars is a classic example of Space Opera (Operations) where technology is greatly advanced, space travel is customary and hundreds if not thousands of alien races are all known to each other. Each of these genres has been developed to the stage where details such as fashion, weaponry, travel, historical information, communication, infrastructure, civil alliances and enemies have all been established within a set of ‘lore’ specific to each created universe. It allows creators to essentially do whatever they like – free from the restrictions of living in the present.

The digitalisation and publication of the more established of these worlds on the internet allows people to immerse themselves in whatever they are personally drawn to. Anyone is then able to take what others have done and use it to create their own world, basing it on work they have seen and then tweaked to suit their own preferences for what they feel their world should contain. It is essentially allowing people to play god and control absolutely everything about a fictional universe.

Source: Medium: sci fantasy: the literary genre you’re using and you didn’t know it

Drawing and fictional writing are the most common media used to communicate imagery associated with fantasy. They are the most easily accessible and the most recognised forms of communication. Fantasy novels alone exist in a number of genres and can be illustrated to further connect the reader to the book. Anybody who can read or see can access that material and begin exploring their own interpretations of that created world, just as anybody with a pen and a sketchbook can begin drafting creating their own content or writing their own novel. It is healthy for people to explore the depths of their imagination and to take an interest in developing their creativity. They don’t have to even design any buildings if they don’t want to!

Looking at the success of fantasy novels it is not difficult to understand why Hollywood has converted many of them into films. Films provide more digestible way of interacting with a fantasy storyline and bringing novels to the big screen allows a wider audience to explore the world. When James Cameron’s Avatar came out, the most staggering thing about it was the amount of detail that had gone in to inventing Pandora. Films are inevitably going to draw the masses towards fantasy and that is how they achieve commercial success. However they are not the only method in gaining popularity for a fictional universe. Companies such as Nintendo have been successful due to their ability to attract a mainstream fanbase around the world. Based on characters with humorous characteristics and adorable charm, the Nintendo Universe has been expanding its range of games across platforms for over 40 years.

Source: tvovermind

Other game developers such as Bethesda have had a huge commercial success developing more advanced games that incorporate huge amounts of lore and history into their releases, immersing the player into a fully considered and fleshed out storyline.

Content creators have often taken the work of the studios and developed their own add-ons to the game. Modding have become an important part of the gaming community and allows players more freedom to customize the game to how they would like to play. They are able to share the results of their work online for others to download and use themselves, allowing those without the technical knowledge to modify their own games too.

Gaming has also played a huge part in allowing people to create their own scenarios, largely from a very basic starting point. For me personally, I felt extremely proud when I had completely filled an entire map on ‘The Sims 2’ when I was about 12. Despite there being very little built of any architectural merit, it was a fantastic way for me to be in control of my explorations into design and spatial arrangement. Given the state of technology back then, the game offered a passable comparison to designing in the real world. It utilized many familiar forms, materials and elements of real world living that made designing much easier for a young person. I wasn’t forced to think particularly creatively or to develop any grand theories on design, as I largely knew the conditions of the in game world as they were very close to that of the real world. Today there are some unbelievable creations on the Sims (4!!) and I highly recommend taking some time to check out others hard work. It may not be purist in its architectural origins but it certainly does provide some thoughts on other people views on residential architecture.

Source: Designboom

Other building games have incorporated more creative freedom into their set-up, which has proved even more popular. These games allow the player to choose, alter or manipulate the conditions of the in game world and more accurately reflect recognised genres of established fantasy.

The addition of creative mode into the sandbox world of Minecraft allowed players to build without the restrictions of having to collect the materials from the game world. Not long players began to showcase their efforts online and many examples of incredible dedication and skill have been subsequently seen.

The game works using an X, Y, Z co-ordinate system, based on a randomly generated interpretation of a natural landscape on earth. There are many recognisable features such as mountains, oceans and trees and the game generates ‘biomes’ to simulate different climates. The player is free to place a wide range of block with different aesthetic and properties based on their materials within the blockwork grid wherever they like and can largely create whatever resulting form they please.

Many players choose to create towns and cities, often with a fantasy theme. They often draw inspiration from a specific fantasy genre and given Minecraft content often has a strong medieval theme as the base game has armour, swords and bows and arrows as standard, however players have also been able to manipulate the game enough to represent other genres as well. There are examples online of some extremely impressive builds and the game has proved to be an incredibly popular platform for players to create a world of their design.

Source: Minecraft.net

Gaming therefore represents one form of media in which a person is able to construct a visual representation of a fictional idea, but there are many others. Modelmaking is another successful method, physically creating form and materiality but often subject to the same issues that buildings on earth are subject to (e.g. Gravity!)

2-D images are by far the most common way people record their ideas and designs for a fantasy universe. An image search on google will review the millions of hits for fantasy drawings and renderings published online. In many ways they are not unlike the render’s architects create to showcase and advertise their buildings to a client, both often using similar artistic style choices and dramatic perspectives. Architects often present their designs as a slightly warped utopian version of itself, presenting its best characteristics in an ideal world/ scenario as a way of highlighting the positive impact of the design.

What can Architects Learn?

But are there elements of the fictional creation process that architects are already acknowledging? Do we need to do more or less of certain things to create more successful buildings? Are we doing it already?

Architects have also fulfilled their need to push creativity by designing things they knew would not or could not be built. Examining drawings from movements such as Russian Constructivism highlight idealistic conditions under which structures of their design could become feasible. Archigram did the same thing in the 1960’s and 70’s, producing drawings of a neo-futuristic and consumerist society set in an alternate avant-garde reality.

Source: walkingthecityupolis.blogspot

Whilst these ideas certainly challenge critical thinking, they try to distort the conditions of our world in order to place themselves within it. These are just two of the most well-known examples where architects have proposed scenarios in which the architectural thinking requires large scale changes to established society. Most student projects in one form or another base their foundations upon existing conditions and twist requirements to suit the purpose of the exercise. They are almost never built and therefore the architect(s) don’t need to fully adhere to the governing laws of science that the physical world has to.

In fact, some of best student projects set themselves within an alternate timeline or dystopian world as a way of questioning conventional thinking. They propose situations that would be unlikely if not improbable in real world scenarios in the pursuit of developing narrative behind the project. It often produces stunning imagery where mundane urban scenery is transformed through the introduction of one heavily specialised and circumstantial development. They retain attachment to the real world by incorporating common materials and construction methods, set within a landscape that is recognisable as modern day earth.

Source: Pinterest: Curbed.com

Where these projects differentiate themselves from true fantasy is that they have a real world grounding, on earth, usually somewhere close to the present timeline in the same dimension. The beauty of fantasy, in any form, is that a creator can change as much as they like about every existing conditions before deciding to design any sort of structure. Fantasists have the luxury of complete freedom when choosing their starting point that architects simply do not have. They are able to choose whether they want to start from a post-apocalyptic era, or outer space, or formed inside the eye of a giant.

The commonality between the two processes is that both have to define a definitive set of rules before starting. For architects this normally comes in the form of evidential research looking for an opening in which to generate an artistic outcome. As I have already explained, Fantasy is governed by ‘lore’, which to a large extent is pre-determined by previous content to make finding a starting point simpler for a creator. Architects have a predetermined set of conditions within which they can only do so much with, no matter how creative they may be. Perhaps if architects could loosen their starting point within their exploratory work, they may begin to work towards a more fantasy based way of thinking.

However even if this was achieved it does not explain how and why these starting points generate the form of their designed structures? Would architects suddenly start producing ideas suggesting floating buildings or a city built under a mountain? As much as I wish this to happen, I think it is unlikely.

However what I do think it possible is humans to keep pushing the boundaries of what is achieved. 100 years ago, would a Zaha have even been in the minds of the most visionary constructivist? Probably not. But it is here today and it is real.

Source: White Line Hotels

What this suggests is that humans are closing the gap between fantasy architecture and what you might see on your local high street. By having better access to created content, by seeing what other people have envisioned, humans as a collective are creating places that would have once been considered impossible. It is important that we keep aspiring to create what was once considered fantasy, to push the boundaries of the process and to balance living in the real world with a fantasy one. Now I am not saying that Hadid’s work is fantasy, because it is not, it is architectural from the start of the process to the end. It differentiates itself from fantasy because of its grounding in relativity.

Whilst there are cross overs in terms of recognisable form, we won’t be able to create and build whatever we like just yet, but in the future, who knows if we will be roaming the surface of other planets? For now though, I personally think it is best that we keep striving to achieve more with our own projects in architecture, but see no reason why we shouldn’t use fantasy as inspiration.

Everything we see in the world of fantasy has been created or designed by a human, as any piece of architecture is. Every piece of film set, game location, anime series, fictional novel, futuristic model, and artistic realisation has been designed and created by us as a collective. We have built the World of Warcraft just as much as we have Manhattan. However the freedom of fantasy allows the creator to just detach itself enough from the place that we occupy to differentiate itself as a separate art form.

This is achieved because we know that fantasy is fictional, whereas architecture is not. Fantasy allows us to create whatever we want, whereas architecture does not. Fantasy allows us to escape to whatever world or place we want to be, whereas architecture cannot escape the world we are in.

Until next time,

RK