SQUAMATE

 

 

 

 

 

Squamate is a project located inside the metro station Bibliothèque François Mitterrand in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. The location was chosen because of its under construction context, who has had an evolution programmed by the government since almost 20 years. The buildings are considered, for now, out of scale and the proportions of people using this neighbourhood is very low compared to how many they are expected to be.



Inside the huge space of the station I decided to propose a new form of feeling the space in a social perspective. By studying the flows of people I managed to extract some main streams and directions. I can’t really notice different social groups as they are merged in the mass of people moving inside the station, that becomes a space of transfer. Through different experiences I made Irealised that people don’t take time to stop in their track, they keep moving according to their habits/ time/ rhythm.



By their movement people create a virtual 3D evolving space. It has speed and intensity. The flow is virtual but people make it real. It is something that needs the presence of people. By using the virtual I manage to create a three dimensional information composed of points/ lines/ volumes. Using the transformation from analysis to virtual data I can create an interface between people and space. The idea is to transform the data in a potential of use thanks to augmented reality. Like the Situationnistes I manage to be half in reality and half in virtuality and to allow people to settle in reality but in relation to other environments and functions. How does it work: the augmented reality is a field that creates a layer above reality. It can be achieved by using a small bionic contact lens that contains a microchip sending a virtual image on top of the real environment.



What I create through these environments is potential architectural places and public spaces for people. According to the dimensions of the site and its out of scale proportions we manage to question it with virtuality. I can create new perspectives, new directions of people through several scenarios. People can also decide to buy new updates of the software to download new environments and several people can be connected to the same scenario and then talk to each other about what only them saw. It is a sort of socialisation of exclusivity. Moreover, with all this different settings I can expect people to change directions,and be added to the actual flows by their experiments of the spaces. People are finally moving in a space of data, and also exchanging with architecture. People can read the space differently thanks to augmented reality. Being interconnected, citizens wearing the lens will create a sort of social group that will evolve in a new form of socialization in a place that was not meant to be friendly. Squamate is a new form of interaction and communication.