Role Play, a vertical design studio developed during the Fall 2022, looked at how digital technologies and global capital have altered notions of labor, comfort, and personal property today. The studio’s prompt asked for a reconsideration of “the interior” and its design as a determining factor in the formation of collective identities, with the ambition to design urban interiors able to combine the material with the immaterial of our contemporary working habits. In this interview, SCI-Arc students talk about the active questioning of their personal identities, what it means to design with artificial intelligence, and how their designs for the reuse and transformation of the Magazzini Raccordati within the context of the Dropcity project can turn 10,000 sqm. of abandoned vaults into a new and vibrant co-working space for young architects.

This interview was developed as part of the media partnership with Dropcity Convention 2023, winner of the public call Festival Architettura - 2nd edition, promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture.

KOOZ Using artificial intelligence programs, the first part of the semester was centered around explorations on self-identity and representation. You then approached and designed your vision for Dropcity with the ambition of developing a digital alter-ego. How did this exercise inform your understanding of yourself as a designer? What kind of spaces and architectures did you find yourself most driven to investigate?

ANNA CHAKHAL-SALAKHOVA The exploration into the algorithms of AI made me question the traditional forms of representation and the relation between flat images and volumes. Dropcity takes the approach and workflow from this beginning exercise. Instead of using geometry, the project starts with words to generate scenarios that shape the identity of the space. Patterns are projected on the architectural vaults and shape the 28 tunnels, creating neighborhoods within a building with a specific character. The image outlines create unique footprints that organize different programmatic zones and furniture layouts. There is a cross reference between what kind of space the image describes and the three-dimensional physical space that this drawing generates.

KOOZ Throughout the first weeks of the semester, you were exposed to the works of artists dealing with self-identity—Tomoko Sawada, Cindy Sherman, Takashi Murakami, amongst others. How did an analysis of these self-portraits inform your approach to the crafting of your self portrait? What role did AI software play in the definition of your avatar compared to if you were to approach the drafting of this through more conventional tools?

DIBA GHAZIA I was influenced by the photography of Cindy Sherman, a journalist that—at a point in her career—decided to take pictures of herself in different environments, with different identities. As identity is a delicate and complex topic, the artist believes that your identity is not only how you perceive yourself but also how others perceive you. AI produces images from a completely different perspective than our personal sense of self. Using the words we use to describe ourselves, AI shows us a different image through its vast resources.

KOOZ In juxtaposition to your description of yourself and stemming from the seminal work Runways by Glenn Ligon, the second week of the semester was centered around an exploration of your own identity as narrated by another individual. How did the results yielded by this exercise challenge questions of stereotypes and explore specific attributes around aesthetics, self-image, gender, and heritage?

MORGAN KNOWLES SOBOTKA People seemed most reluctant to point out asymmetries. As humans, we are drawn to symmetry and often equate it to beauty. The AI, undoubtedly from its cache of millions of available images, has developed the same bias. My drooping left eyelid, the red birthmark in my right iris, one cheek dimple higher than the other, my arched left eyebrow—the AI struggled to understand or capture any of these.

My eyes were always far too big and too symmetrical to be me. Not an eyebrow arch to be found, nor a cheek dimple. Everything had to be in a matching pair or else the AI seemed to ignore or skim over that detail in the prompt. I attempted to push against this by compiling all the written descriptions and isolating each feature—hair, eyes, face shape—to see which descriptors would yield the non-asymmetrical features I was seeking.

KOOZ Beyond identity and your own alter-ego; how is your proposal for Dropcity shaped by your investigations into one of Milan’s most significant infrastructure hubs situated at the center of the city? How does the program develop, stem from and respond to a set of real/tangible observed conditions and situations?

HANNA PARK | JENNY COOK Milan is an international cultural hub for fashion and architecture. The unused and neglected tunnels are located in proximity to the Central Station, visited by tens of thousands of people every day. Originality and creativity are essential to the identity of the Milan train station, and this infrastructure cannot be seen solely as a hub for transportation. Milan is a contemporary city where various arts coexist. The project is a catalyst for all those creative disciplines that are pivotal to its economic, cultural and urban identity.

KOOZ In what ways and through what means do you envision your proposal for the tunnels to serve both the immediate community of people traveling to and from the station as well as the larger city? What is for you the potential of the project at both neighborhood and the city scales?

TIFFANY YU The proposal celebrates the specific train routes and history of the train station. While creating multiple bridges connecting the two sides of the city, significant public space, as well as a new entertainment area, are added underneath the rails. The units vary in size, accommodating a wide range of program requirements, with new restaurants, bars and cafes. With entrances at both edges of the site and scattered along Via Aporti and Via Sammartini, the roof will become a new permeable and distinctive public space, contributing to the wider transformation of the tunnels’ identity as a vibrant place to work, relax, and study.

KOOZ How does the proposal for the space above the rails complement the programme developed for the tunnels below? What is the added value of developing an infrastructure above the existing and active railway structure?

TEKUEI HUANG The volumes of tunnels below the railway present a concave geometry, created by the act of digging into a pre-existing elevated ground. In these volumes, the programs are divided into similar rectangular areas. The space beneath the railway is secluded and explorative; here a nightlife club and museums could benefit from the lack of light. The volumes above the rails are a convex geometry, opposite to the program beneath the railways. They provide an open environment in the prosperous city center where people engage in daily activities.

The long-span sky bridges connecting the towers and the roof gardens over the railway provide an alternative connection to the city districts separated by the train station. The infrastructure spanning across the railway creates a three-dimensional urban recreation space above the linear horizontal movement on the train platforms. The space above the railways will no longer be limited to transportation. It will become a creative space where people promenade under the sunlight and city skyline and enjoy the elevated perspective over the moving trains.

KOOZ What is for you the potential of the project at both the scale of the neighborhood and the city? How do you envision the project developing over time?

JINGBO HUANG The transformation of the unused tunnels into programs dedicated to designers and people who enjoy nightlife could diversify the activities and typologies of commerce to make people stay and have fun. Visitors from other cities and countries could immediately emerge into the vigorous and artsy atmosphere offered by the station. The station eventually will become the prior attraction and a vital first impression of Milan to the world. As time passes, the added programs, spaces, and infrastructures would be woven into the urban fabric and involved in people’s life and memories.

KOOZ The consumption of endless resources and land cannot define our contemporary approach to the making of architecture. Our practice should, on the other hand, be concerned with the re-use, repair, and regeneration of our built environment. As one of the greatest projects of re-use of the city’s existing built environment, how does your project explore the role and potential of re-use and a more sustainable approach to making architecture?

KHANH NGUYEN | SHUO CHIEH HO We believe that restoring an existing infrastructure should not be about replacing it, but about retrofitting a new life into an existing shell. By doing so, we would help decrease the number of wasted material and land. We believe that in response to the urgency of sustainability, our contribution will add onto the existing structure. Our aim is not to erase its historic identity, but modernise it to respond to the current needs of the city, together with reintroducing the project to future generations.

KOOZ The metaverse features and exacerbates many of the problems we face in the real world around notions of rights, identity, and inclusiveness today. How does your project approach these problems and attempt to envision Dropcity as an inclusive space?

SAMSON LEVI While Dropcity is geared towards the designer, my approach took to the interests of the designer and community in tandem. Offering spaces that are not exclusive to designers, the project makes all the programs accessible to the general public and encourages a dialogue between designers and who they design for. Select tunnels have been removed and opened to the sky to allow for external circulation and to encourage visual public interaction. By reclaiming an unused space and bringing life back to it, the unused train tracks have been converted into a recreation center made up of a park, sculpture garden, and skate park.

Looking beyond Dropcity and conceiving all of the tunnels and train tracks above the Magazzini Recordati as the project site allow the community to become its main user. The whole program is dedicated to community housing and support services for all.

Bio

"Role Play" is a studio about how we conceive collective working spaces today. After 2 years of pandemic, we have learned how to work remotely and collectively at the same time. The studio is asking if it would be possible to work from home at work. And if this is the case, how that looks like. The ambition of the adaptive reuse of Magazzini Raccordati is to design an urban interior able to combine the material with the immaterial of our contemporary working habits. The studio does not call for the development of iconic forms -which have become the new generic- nor advocates for the return to Frampton’s vernacular -which is also a distant myth in our globally connected contemporary life. The studio looks at how ubiquitous digital technologies and global capital have altered certain notions of labor, comfort, and personal property today. After a global transition of our sense of self into the digital realm and the rush towards an emerging metaverse, architects are asked to redefine the working environment in real and virtual terms. Students have questioned how we work today, how we collaborate, and the possibility of the office to be reimagined.

Federica Zambeletti is the founder and managing director of KoozArch. She is an architect, researcher and digital curator whose interests lie at the intersection between art, architecture and regenerative practices. In 2015 Federica founded KoozArch with the ambition of creating a space where to research, explore and discuss architecture beyond the limits of its built form. Parallel to her work at KoozArch, Federica is Architect at the architecture studio UNA and researcher at the non-profit agency for change UNLESS where she is project manager of the research "Antarctic Resolution". Federica is an Architectural Association School of Architecture in London alumni.