TRACES

Creating a museum without artifacts is an opportunity for researching new design strategies for immersive projection environments. In \’TRACES\’ we investigate the relationship between projected content, physical form, materials, and space. This timely topic has been previously explored on the scale of installations, but remains poorly understood when expanded to an entire museum. The studio is based on the premise that design strategies must simultaneously consider (and design) both the projected content and the physical nature of the spatial environment. The physical and virtual prototyping of projection environments will be integral part of the studio\’s experimentation. Fabrication studies will investigate the interplay between material surfaces and projections of still and moving images.\’TRACES\’ challenges students to implement their design strategies in proposals for a museum environment dedicated to the Armenian Genocide in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. The mass-killing of Armenian\’s by Ottoman Turks towards the end of the Ottoman Empire has since been a highly sensitive political subject. The possibility of realizing a new museum is currently being discussed in Armenia – hence providing a realistic context for the studio. Students will collaborate with the existing Genocide Museum and Institute in Yerevan, and explore an intervention that merges architecture and landscape in the area of Dzidzernakapert. A field trip to Armenia to allow for in-depth on-site research and exploration is tentatively planned. The studio field trip will have students meet prominent cultural and political figures. While the specificity of the program is crucial, the studio is interested in replicable design strategies for dealing with the emerging typology of immersive and responsive environments.The studio is funded by Armenia\’s Luys Foundation with the participation of Tufenkian Heritage Hotels.