Concept “Contrast”

Hi, I’m Dean Moran, bit late to join the challenge, but hopefully I can manage to finish before the deadline. Anyway, my concept…

For me Citylife is Contrast. Having visited a number of large cities the last couple of years I found contrast to be the most apparent element during my stay; architecture, people, culture, neighbourhoods, etc. Having recently visited the States and a couple of large cities (LA/Vegas/San Francisco), and with the current economic downturn, the biggest difference for me was between the have’s and have not’s. The wealthy and the poor. For example seeing a luxurious bakery/patisserie with $7 cupcakes (they were lovely btw…) whilst right outside there is a guy begging for a $1. I want to highlight this contrast and the indifference the metropolis creates*.

Thinking of a setting for the scene it reminded me of a picture I took of two buildings in NY, with a gap between them of about 1,5m to 2m. Another odd contrast, 10+ story buildings in one of the most densely populated cities yet “wasting” precious m2 between them. The question it generated for me is how can we utilise wasted space in cities to give the homeless a slightly better life.

The concept I came to was to create a shanty skyscraper between these two buildings, giving the opportunity to the homeless to build their own place out of discarded scaffolding and panelling. Thereby improving their Citylife, whilst also highlighting the contrast in an architectural way.

*The Metropolis and Mental Life. Georg Simmel.