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Bartlett Alumni Shortlisted for the Architectural Film Festival
6 May 2021
Three projects by Bartlett alumni have been shortlisted for the international film festival, now in its third iteration.
The festival showcases the cross-pollination of architecture and filmmaking, exploring the developing scope of each discipline.
An open call for submissions to the festival’s International Film Competition attracted over 270 entries from 40 countries worldwide. Eighteen films have been shortlisted for the competition as it enters its third year.
Among them are entries by three architecture alumni, two of whom are currently teaching at the school.
Shortlisted films
The Tower of a Forgotten India
Uday Berry
Exploring the politics behind architectural heritage, conservation and the state’s role as a custodian of culture, ‘The Tower of a Forgotten India’ follows the story of The Architect, a man desperately trying to save the nation’s past. A narrative of passion and madness unfolds within the Tower, a megastructure that reinvigorates forgotten buildings and fragments, reintegrating them into the city’s urban fabric. In India today threats to the country’s heritage come from every direction, including religious fundamentalism, thoughtless modernisation, the culture of collectability and political corruption—themes that this film closely examines. ‘The Tower of a Forgotten India’ is a modern parable spanning decades, suggesting that control of a city’s past is ultimately a fool’s paradise.
Uday Berry graduated from Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2) in 2019. He was part of PG24, taught by Penelope Haralambidou and Michael Tite.
The Third Space : Inhabitable Interfaces
Krina Christopoulou
This film investigates how the domestic realm will be affected by the evolution from 2D computer interfaces to inhabitable 3D digital environments. In light of Covid-19, the project investigates the role of architecture in learning, working, meeting up and living communally online, eliminating spatial distance through technology. The result is a proposal for the home of the future, in which domesticity is simply the programmatic starting point of a dwelling.
Krina Christoupolou graduated from Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2) in 2020 and was part of PG24 taught by Penelope Haralambidou and Michael Tite. She is now teaching Research Cluster 12, Urban Design MArch.
Dialogic Machines
Thomas Parker
‘Dialogic Machines’ is an ongoing research project in which an Artificial Intelligence? system (GAN) is trained as an analytical tool to understand on an objective level the nuanced ways in which we construct, draw, and represent architectural design. The pair of AI models, left and right, are in a state of continuous conversation, allowing them to both propose and respond to what they believe an architectural drawing might be—having been trained on a dataset of over 8000 unique orthographic architectural drawings. Through this generative conversation and response to each other’s interpretations, the machines begin to find differences and commonalities that they believe objectively are worthy of representation and discussion.
Thomas Parker graduated from Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2) in 2017 and was part of PG25, taught by Nat Chard and Emma-Kate Matthews. He now teaches unit PG17 Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2).
The winning entries will be announced on 25 June.
More information
Image: 'Political Rally' by Uday Berry