Intermediate 7 develops conceptual models and diagrammatic frameworks that mediate between urban systems, architectural precedents and design approaches. We focused on visionary social machines in the context of Moscow’s nightlife in order to explore the ‘condenser club’ – the ultimate mixer and catalyst. Emphasising pragmatic research, infrastructural logic and relaxed methods, the projects delineated three areas of enquiry. 

First, we examined the boundaries between the city and the ‘anti-city’. Dissident zones and decadent ‘infernos’ tantalised us with illusions of escape or entrapment. Acting as blenders and separators, nested megastructures collapsed numerous fragments and constructed trajectories along interwoven transcripts. These dystopian-realist scenarios remained aptly in-between fantastic provocations and pragmatic solutions to the city’s ills. Second, we synthesised infrastructures of flow and organisation to generate hybrid typologies. 

We engineered social systems: networks and circuits loaded with programme. Conveyors of food chains, spines of art-factories and corridors of metro-labyrinths played on reversals of service and spectacle. 

These decorated diagrams linked functionalist structures with intricate shapes and surfaces. Finally, we explored audience/performer relation-ships in adaptable sets. We injected dormant landmarks with dynamic mixtures of elements to facilitate mergers and crossovers. From flying-zoos and banya-bars to mood-tunnels, theatrical devices choreographed movements, framed images and staged atmospheres. As kaleidoscopic centrifuges, extravagant infrastructures and social transformers, our condensers dealt with extremes of functional intensity, material density and visual excess. Spectacular machines affected the operational appearance of the city, as captured in our diagrammatic matrices, hybrid drawings and visual scenarios.

 

Staff

Maria Fedorchenko 

Tatiana von Preussen

 

Thanks to our workshop guests 

João Bravo da Costa

Dirk Lellau

Jessica Reynolds

Gergely Kovacs

Ingrid Shroeder

Antoine Vaxelaire

 

Thanks to

Joseph Bedford

Brendon Carlin

Mark Campbell

Barbara-Ann Campbell-Lange

Monia De Marchi

Kenneth Fraser

Maria Mileeva

Kostas Grigoriadis

Eugene Han

Francesca Hughes

Sam Jacoby

Rosalie Kim

Fabrizio Matelana

Kathy O’Donnell

Damian Rogan

Nathalie Rozencwajg

Eva Sopeoglou

Brett Steele

Takero Shimazaki

Naiara Vegara

Thomas Weaver

and all other critics and guests