TheHyperloop_FarrajT_2020

Abstract

Architectural navigation often oscillates between linear, orthogonal and freeform, either guiding the visitors down a specific path or offering clear paths for them to go from point A to point B, or offering an open space for them to appropriate. With the rise of the effectiveness of navigation and favoring destination over the journey, architecture has strayed away from adventure-like wandering that would make the explorer discover the project as they walk through it. If this architecture had a story, it would be predictable at best: a navigational cliché, clear from start to finish, focusing on getting the reader to the desired ending.

Hypertext, on the other hand, escapes this cliché by completely breaking the sequence. Hypertext fiction gives the reader seemingly disconnected parts and paragraphs and lets them sew their own story: click after click, like needle and thread sewing a quilt, the reader chooses their own path and navigates the story on the edge of their seat, not knowing what the next part holds.

This exploration aims to break architecture’s linearity by creating a non-linear, multi-narrative navigational system using hypertext as a design tool.

In the first part, the thorough exploration of hypertext in all its definitions leads to a better understanding of what makes its identity, which would be the main elements that transfer onto architecture. Through that, I was able to identify how the network was formed, but also how the readers are never confused while reading the path of seemingly randomly selected paragraphs that they chose. This introduces Navigation by Association as a guiding system, where the visitors, following their fascinations, sew together their own space from independent areas.

As for hypertext being a self-contained network, the architectural product would be a self-contained story within itself made from three important elements: independent parts forming one whole, strategic porosity of the structure, and greenery blurring the line between inside and outside. The story is never to be seen as a whole, but rather experienced in parts; moments strung together by the choice of the visitor.

The second part builds on these conclusions and starts by experimenting with space, exploring aspects of hypertext: from spatial qualities to program and site. Sewing all the parts together, the final product is a hyperconnected network following the story of the design process: a triple helix interconnecting Design, Production, and Exploration while still giving each their individuality. There, the explorer, producer, and designer learn from each other and create collaboration by the simple act of walking through the hyper-space.