The space we experience is three-dimensional. Yet, by and large, it is with two-dimensional media that we design space and communicate about space. Especially in architectural or urban design, we have little choice but to start from two-dimensional diagrams. The modern building plan in particular comes with a table of areas and set functions that has caused our thinking to become rather limited and unoriginal. Can we handle three-dimensional space three-dimensionally? This was the inspiration behind the ongoing development of the Space Block design system, started in 1994 by the Kojima Laboratory at the Tokyo University of Science. The aim was to capture and extract space, preserving everything inside, from the activity going on therein to the condition of the air. Picture if you will a fishbowl - goldfish, seaweed and all - instantly frozen, then shed of its glass, so that what remains is a block of ice that you can hold in your hands. This was the image we had in mind as we set about amassing a database of two-dimensional Drawing Exchange Format (DXF) and QuickTime Virtual Reality (QTVR) files, a collection of real, unique pieces of space familiar to many, such as the courtyard in front of the Centre Pompidou or the cylindrical space of the Stockholm Public Library.
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