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Team NEXT-GENE20

Squint/Opera

Twenty superheroes meet to design experimental houses in North Taiwan.


In this three-minute sequence shot, Squint/Opera suddenly launches the audience into an animated comic book. The static 2D drawings for the NEXT-GENE20 project create the hybrid environment of this 'kung-fu movie' style adventure; while the architects involved in the project pop-up like superheroes, the black-clad heroes of the imaginary comic serial Team NEXT-GENE20.

The generator of the film was the NEXT-GENE20 project: a program that aimed at realizing twenty villas facing the striking landscape of the Northeast Coast National Scenic Area in the island of Taiwan.

Twenty architects (ten international, ten from Taiwan) were invited to take part in an open-air laboratory focused on themes that stand on the edge between a series of antinomies, such as nature/built environment, real estate development and architectural experimentation, western/eastern architecture.

The highly experimental nature of the project conditioned the style chosen by Squint/Opera to present its protagonists, principles and design for the first time on film in 2008 at the 11th International Venice Biennale of Architecture. Squint/Opera show up their ability to put narrative and humour at the service of deeply innovative design and of the communication of contemporary architectural production to a wider audience. They display the mission of the twenty renowned architects with the usual sophisticated irony and, by means of their deep knowledge of advanced design and illustrative techniques, use the video as a way to make more accessible the specific architectural contents of the projects. "Graphic text, CG-realizations of the building and incongruous details – they explain – penetrate 2D planes; impossibly rapid zooms and pans echoing 1960s television serials, manga cartoons and graphic novels are integrated with slick and tongue-in-cheek transitions".

Credits

Consultant for communication: Image
Architects: Yung Ho Chang (FCJZ), Ray Chen, Hsueh-Yi Chien, Jay Wen-Chieh Chiu, JDS Architects, GRAFT, Akihisa Hirata, Irving Hung-Hui Huang, Sheng-Yuan Huang, IaN+, Yu-Tung Liu, Kengo Kuma and Associates, Shu-Chang Kung, Fernando Menis Architect, Toshiko Mori, MVRDV, Hailim Suh (Himma), David Chun-Tei Tseng, Chia-Kai Yang (Arctangent), Kris Yao (Artech)
Mentioned project: Next Gene 20 (2007-2008)
Project location: Taipei, Taiwan

Taiwan 2008
Duration: 3'21''

First selected for VISIONS, the 2009 edition of BEYOND MEDIA Festival organized by Image.