Scoring the City takes inspiration from the graphic score, a type of notation that has flourished in experimental music traditions since the 1960s. This project was developed by Gascia Ouzounian in collaboration with Theatrum Mundi, an independent research and creative practice that works to expand the crafts of citymaking, and its director John Bingham-Hall; together they seek to explore the possibilities of using the graphic score as a model for architectural and urban design.
‘While architects and planners regularly work with two-dimensional design forms like blueprints and plans,’ says Gascia, ‘they typically imagine their designs as fixed forms that can only lead to one outcome. By contrast the graphic score in experimental music is treated as an open and dynamic form: a notation that invites numerous interpretations, improvisation and interaction. By facilitating knowledge exchange between music/sound art and architecture/design communities through the medium of the graphic score, the project aims to expand the tools that architects and urbanists can use to shape the lives of cities.’
She continues, ‘To date we have hosted four workshops with architects and sound artists, in London, Paris, Belfast and Beirut. Each workshop tackled a specific design problem. In London, we asked participants to create a design for the Elephant and Castle site, which is currently scheduled for demolition; these ‘architectural scores’ took into account the history of the site in re-imagining its future. In Belfast, participants created a design for Sailortown – a rapidly gentrifying area that was home to an urban village until the 1960s, now razed.
The architectural scores for Sailortown reflected on issues of memory and community in urban space.’ Architectural scores are now being collected for a book and website. An exhibition is also planned in Darmstadt, Germany, including a week-long ‘Scoring the City’ workshop for sound artists, composers and architects from around the world.
Though working in similar ways, Theatrum Mundi and Gascia’s research group Recomposing the City had very distinct networks; joining these up was of great value to both platforms in expanding the range of practices and ideas they could incorporate. John Bingham-Hall adds, ‘The workshops themselves were also extremely effective in achieving what we had in mind – an experiment to test the possibility of working at the intersection of urban design and graphic notation. They showed that practitioners coming from both starting points can be stimulated to create in new ways through this collaboration.’
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