Chunjia (Haruka) Liu
Fictional Material in a Non-Fictional World
Fiction, Materiality, Space
In a fictional world such as Fantasy movies and Science-Fiction novels, authors often illustrate their specific worldview through depicting special objects and materials that only exist in their world. A flying carpet, a house made with magical ice, a castle moving with its own will...... In a world of Fantasy, such unrealistic architecture and associated materials are treated as something that actually exists; in a fiction, the reality of material is defined purely by how the author depicts it, it is not affected by the paradigm of the nonfictional world we live.
My interest for the thesis comes from the question: what would happen if we brought these fictional materials to the real life? What impact would the fictional materials bring to the architectural design and the building system in a non-fictional situation if the fictional qualities of the materials came to life?
A hundred years ago, people would not have been able to print a house using 3D printers. A thousand years ago in the Gothic era, people couldn’t have built a giant skyscraper with glass and steel structures. Looking back into history, we can certainly see that the types of materials available for architectural use rapidly increased with the development of science and technology. For architects from medieval era, it must have sounded ridiculous to print a house with a robot; in other words, a 3d printed house was a fiction for people from 12th century.
What seemed fictional could turn into a non-fiction in our near future; with my thesis, I wish to explore further design opportunities by weaving fictional materials into the real environment, thereby responding to the rapid evolution of 21st century technologies.
In approaching my idea, I set my project goal to design an additional piece of architecture for SCI-Arc using combinations of fictional and non-fictional materials. I picked three materials originating from three fiction series, each consisting of different fictional qualities. I chose my school as my site as it is in the most proximity to my ‘non-fictional’ living both physically and mentally.
By also inweaving the use of AI generation in my design process, I aim to further develop the idea of fiction breathing in the non-fictional world, and thereby re-exploring the relationships between material, form, and space design, reimagining the possible future design opportunities.
Midjourney Prompted Images from Fictional Materials
Hand Sketch to AI Image to Finalized Design
Street View
Aerial View
Exterior Image
Interior Image
Life Fiber Close Up
Simplified Program Diagram