006_designing ARRAY_2025-06-12
Architecture as Choreography: Designing ARRAY
Architecture typically negotiates between program and context, but what happens when the program is movement itself—ephemeral, dimensional, alive? Working as supporting architect and computational designer on ARRAY at VIVO Media Arts Centre revealed how design methodology can mirror the very content it serves to support.
ARRAY explores dimensionality through laser projections generated from motion capture data of three dancers, their movements translated into evolving geometric patterns across 96 suspended screens. Each screen represents a specific body joint, positioned in space according to precise 3D coordinates captured during choreographic sequences. The installation becomes a volume that holds dance in architectural form—not representing movement, but structurally embodying it.
The Grid as Invisible Architecture
The foundation of ARRAY lies in what becomes imperceptible: a grid of 192 suspension points governing 96 screens, each calibrated to body joint coordinates. Four modular grids consolidate into a single field condition—the invisible architecture that holds choreographic data in space. This grid operates as both structural logic and spatial score, creating what I call an "armature for laser light memory."
The design process revealed itself as choreographic from the outset. Motion capture extracted data from 16 body joints across three dancers, mirrored along the XY axis to generate the 96-screen array. Each computational decision—parametric controls, volumetric translations, coordinate calibrations—followed the rhythm of the original dance. The architecture doesn't house the performance; it is the performance, frozen in spatial syntax.
Construction as Score
Developing construction documents became unexpectedly meditative. The repetitive yet varied logic of installation—each screen positioned according to the same systematic method but responding to unique coordinate data—created a procedural dance of its own. Infrastructure as score. Structure as movement. The documentation process taught precision through repetition, much like dancers learning choreography through repeated gesture until movement becomes unconscious.
During installation, this computational choreography took on new life. The artist discovered serendipitous adjustments as the physical assembly revealed spatial relationships invisible on screen. Construction became improvisation within systematic constraints—the grid providing structure while allowing for responsive adaptation. The builder's movements echoed the dancers' original gestures, translated through steel cable and suspended screens.
Translating the Ephemeral
The most compelling design challenge was translating movement—inherently temporal—into static architectural installation. The solution lay not in representing dance but in creating conditions for its continued existence. Select screens coated with phosphorescent paint capture ephemeral traces that slowly fade, creating a temporal layer where past movements haunt present space.
The laser projections become the active layer, real-time translations of archived gesture into evolving light patterns. The screens hold these projections like architectural memory, each panel corresponding to a specific joint, a particular moment in choreographic time. The installation creates what might be called "dimensional architecture"—space that exists simultaneously in multiple temporal states.
The Grid Disappears
In the completed installation, the computational framework vanishes. Visitors encounter floating screens arranged in seemingly organic configurations, not recognizing the systematic grid that governs every placement. The dance remains, embedded in architectural DNA, while the infrastructure that enables it becomes transparent.
This dissolution reveals architecture's capacity to operate as translation device—converting one form of spatial intelligence (choreographic) into another (constructive). The designer's role becomes less about imposing form than about creating systems responsive enough to capture and re-present another medium's logic.
ARRAY suggests that computational design, when aligned with its content rather than imposed upon it, can produce architecture that thinks like its program. The building begins to move, even when standing still. The grid disappears. The dance remains.