Cedric Price — ‘The Fun Palace’
Cedric Price was among the most visionary architects who challenged the ideas of basic architecture within the late 20th century. The reason to why he was highly regarded was due to his lateral approach to architecture and to time-based interventions. Prices main belief in all his designs were to allow the public to have unprecedented control over their environment, which resulted in his buildings allowing the user to be in charge of their actions and allowing many different activities to all happen under one roof. This research allowed me to connect with my chosen technique being a fun palace full of activities defined by pieces of architecture in conjunction with my inspired image being one of Price’s well-known projects the ‘ Fun Palace ‘. The Fun Palace was designed into a space that allowed individuals to embark on a journey of creativity and personal development in conjunction with designing the palace in terms of process as events in time rather focusing objects in space. Within Cedric Price’s drawings, he was able to highlight the human interactions that were occurring within the building. With the use of this specific technique, Price was able to communicate the idea of how individuals can interact in the city.
Within my individual drawings, my goal was to be inspired by Prices style and apply it to my work without copying it exactly. As the medium Price used was ink and paper I decided to compose my work with the use of pencil and paper. As Price demonstrated within his work I was also able to complete two perspective drawings being one floor plan of each element of the room in conjunction with an elevation drawing identifying the various activities occurring within my redesign of the Queen Victoria building by the use of small features being the use of people undertaking those activities clearly communicating across the interactive nature between the user and my design. Figure 3 is a floor plan redesign of the ‘ Fun Palace’ which I was able to transform the very simple Queen Victoria building into something more exciting and interesting for the user. With being inspired by Prices drawing techniques of vertical and horizontal lines I was able to create a redesign of the Queen Victoria building which I was able to frame a large building that integrated four smaller rooms holding various public recreation activities. I was able to incorporate a moving platform on each side of the building which allows the user to control what the use of the given space will be used for, allowing two rooms to be connected or discounted. Within the space I have designed, it allows the user to gain full control on what they are doing changing their perspective on architecture and allowing the user to appreciate the design.


References
A drawing of the city as a Fun Palace in Price, Cedric The Square Book (Chichester: WileyAcademy, 2003)
BC Chang. 2013. The Fun Palace: Cedric Price’s experiment in architecture and technology, [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.bcchang.com/transfer/articles/2/18346584.pdf, [Accessed 1st August 2017].
Ruairi Glynn, 2005, Fun Palace — Cedric Price, Available at: http://www.interactivearchitecture.org/fun-palace-cedric-price.html, [ Accessed 1st August 2017 ].
University Of Brighton, 2014. Exemplary Project — Cedric Price. Available at:https://folio.brighton.ac.uk/user/km226/exemplary-project-cedric-price, [Accessed 1st August 2017].
