Castlecourt: Beyond the Theatre of Consumption

Navn
Bulut Tümer Bursali
Uddannelsesgrad
Kandidat
Fagfelt
Arkitektur
Institut
Bygningskunst og Kultur
Program
Political Architecture: Critical Sustainability
År
2023

Beyond the Theatre of Consumption imagines a metaphorical theatre in Castlecourt Shopping Centre in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The project is an exploratory transformation through a series of interventions that challenge and transform the logic of the consumerist space. 

Whereas the current redevelopment of Castlecourt seeks to accommodate experience economy, this project imagines another reality in which Castlecourt is perceived as a theatre where people and spaces can appear differently. While theatres are growing spaces of indefinite relations and narratives, consumerist spaces impose controlled perspectives on the spectator. They only give space to the capitalist strategy of consumption.

This metaphorical theatre of interventions lets a plurality of functions, which are imagined as actors, re-situate Castlecourt as a public and curious space. The reincarnated actors include a parcel shop, marketplace, hotel, cinema, apartments and bus stop. The newcomers include a stage, greenhouse, nightclub, staircase, new arcade and maintenance lounge.

The transformation happens gradually. The actors inhabit vacant shop units from where they fold out, grow, attach and intervene. Together they provoke scenes of unexpected meetings to appear.

Presence of the existing shopping centre
Footprints of intervening actors
View of the apartments
View from a hotel room
Actors carving out shop units, 1:250
Transformation of shopping space and office tower into stage, 1:100
Section / elevation (blue is existing, red is interventions)
Plan
Footprint drawing of actor movements
Castlecourt as public space
Interior of Castlecourt in city fabric
The cinema
The hotel that builds itself
Hotel and apartment sketches
1
/3
Initial collages of the actors
Initial collages of the actors
Initial collages of the actors
1
/3
Gradual interventions i
Gradual interventions ii
Gradual interventions iii
1
/10
Gradual inhabitation
Gradual inhabitation
Gradual inhabitation
Gradual inhabitation
Gradual inhabitation
Gradual inhabitation
Gradual inhabitation
Gradual inhabitation
Gradual inhabitation
Gradual inhabitation
1
/4
From shopping space to public space
From shopping space to public space
From shopping space to public space
From shopping space to public space
1
/11
A theatre of hinged modules
A theatre of hinged modules
A theatre of hinged modules
A theatre of hinged modules
A theatre of hinged modules
A theatre of hinged modules
A theatre of hinged modules
A theatre of hinged modules
A theatre of hinged modules
A theatre of hinged modules
A theatre of hinged modules

Det Kongelige Akademi understøtter FN’s verdensmål

Siden 2017 har Det Kongelige Akademi arbejdet med FN’s verdensmål. Det afspejler sig i forskning, undervisning og afgangsprojekter. Dette projekt har forholdt sig til følgende FN-mål