Sister Sites

Instructor - David Ruy
Partner - Nupur Shah

The idea of International culture is undergoing a radical transformation today. Rejecting the universality of Modernism, nation states are progressively more inward focused and have been susceptible to nationalism. The pandemic has only accelerated this trend. We are interested in articulating a continuing commitment to international culture, but through a less obvious strategy. Instead of continuing the universal language of Modernism and its various “international styles,” we wanted to investigate symbolism and the esoteric expressions of local cultures by attempting a targeted hybridization.

We used an AI based technique (Style Transfer) to fuse symbols from two different cultures into an ambiguous hybrid. We liked how the results had the allure of both without clear meaning. The strategy was to study the rich graphics of both the cities and exaggerate the cultural fusion on the river banks. Mehendi art is style transferred onto the street art using AI, this method enables familiarity, while abstracting the original pattern. This new pattern is “tattooed” on the two sites. Cantilevered and floating surfaces are designed to extend public access into the river itself, affording a new kind of experience of the riverfront landscape. We intend for this to open up more intimate experiences with the water so that the water is not just something to be looked at.