Clio Capeille imagines architecture that can only be used at night
Istanbul Design Biennial 2014: nighttime has become "an endangered species" says architecture graduate Clio Capeille, who has designed architectural structures especially for use after dark (+ slideshow).
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Clio Capeille's Nighttime Depends On Us project imagines a new kind of built landscape suited entirely to darkness, designed as a reaction against the 24-hour city culture that keeps many urban spaces brightly illuminated after hours.
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"Stressed under tension between economical intensification and progressive erosion, nighttime has become an endangered species," said the designer, who graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2013.
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"These tendencies are shaping a future 24-hour non-stop city, drawing no difference between night and day," she said.
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Working with a site on the fringe of London's Olympic Park, Capeille proposes a series of conceptual buildings designed to encourage people to adjust their routines, using hours they would usually spend asleep exploring one of the darkest parts of the city.
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The first is a "pre-reverie observatory" that visitors could climb up to survey the nighttime landscape.
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There's also a horizontal chamber to facilitate the transition from light to dark, a "nycto-therapy" centre to treat the human biological tolerance of real darkness, and a cinema where natural blackness is used to trigger viewers' imaginations.
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"Using darkness as a material, the night-imagined buildings stimulate and amplify the human psychological and physiological estates of the twilight condition, the interim period between waking and sleeping," said Capeille.
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These structures would be accompanied by night-blooming flowers such as Ipomoea alba (moonflower) and Datura inoxia (thorn-apple), which would define the borders of the nighttime territory.
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Capeille has also designed a kit of tools to help people experience the darkness, including a glove for unscrewing light bulbs, a set of headphones that isolate night sounds, a pair light-extracting goggles and a notebook with black carbon pages for "blind sketching".
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The project is on show at the Galata Greek Primary School for the Istanbul Design Biennial 2014, which continues until 14 December. It is presented in a dark room, so visitors need to use torches to find their way around.