Competition London | Room In The Air 

Año: 2011
Localización: Londres
Arquitectos: Rubens Cortés Cano, Ilan Wolf, Raúl Rodríguez 

ILLUSION

A volume floating in the air, a dark room with views.
The proposed scheme aims to blur the boundaries between architecture, art, urban design and engineering. The project presents a challenge about the cube ability to defy gravity force and logic that arouses curiosity and establishes a link between the object and the viewers. It is this relationship that turns the whole environment into an urban theater. Inside the room, guests will have the chance to be involved in an art installation, a place to discover new kinds of perception of reality and play on it.

REALITY

The visual angle between the room and the viewers creates an optical illusion. In fact, the project consists of two cubes of 4.4m each. One cube represents mass and the other represents vacuum. One is visible and the other is not. From the street, the viewer will perceive only the half of the room that is in the air. This illusion is created by cladding one of the two cubes in mirrors.

In the centre of the sides of the cube a small hole allows the entry of the light into the room. During the daytime the urban environment that surrounds the cube penetrates into the room through the hole, projecting the exterior image inverted on to the interior walls. The image sharpness will vary depending on the intensity of the natural light. This phenomenon will be the only connecting thread with the exterior

Inside the room a world of possibilities opens to the visitor. In addition to spending a day inside the Camera Obscura, occupiers can record their experience with a video camera, develop their own photos, or produce their own creative work (photo, text, video, sculpture, etc.). The visitor has the opportunity to express their experience through a variety of media.

The interior of the Camera Obscura is white in order to allow the projection of images during the daytime. At night it is illuminated with a portable red light. It has a mattress that occupies almost the whole floor, with a tapered hole in the center that allows projecting images on the ceiling.

The other box has the same dimensions. Its interior is black and there are some facilities inside (bathroom, WC, desk and kitchen). Its nature is opposed to the darkroom, having black walls and a glass ceiling that allow natural light penetrate into the room.