"Have you ever dreamed about a school scene in the future?"
Brief
The spaces in which we live, work, and play is palimpsests; they are layered with the traces of the decisions we make, the relationships we value, and the ideologies we hold. These spaces are also marked by the broader world in which we live, including the tools and technologies available to us, the cultural agendas around us, the fashions and products we subscribe to, and the infrastructures we depend upon. While architects view rooms as devices for shaping and guiding human behavior, writers, production designers, and art directors think of rooms as places shaped by the long histories of the characters, substances, and objects that have passed through them. In this project, we created rooms as the 'After Images' of the events that have occurred within and around them.
Using Unreal Engine 5 and Cinema4D, we, as digital product designers, created highly detailed and specific virtual interiors, focusing on digital set dressing, lighting, composition, and rendering. Rather than designing and building our rooms from scratch as full digital environments, we approached lighting, dressing, and texturing through the eyes of a photographer or journalist, aiming to capture events in progress. We considered how seemingly innocuous objects such as a half-eaten meal left out on a kitchen bench, an agenda projected on the wall of a town hall meeting room, or a case of medicines in a bathroom cabinet might act as clues to the social, economic, and environmental situations that created them. Our task was to reimagine the consequences of near-future events on an interior space at the scale of hours, months, and years.
Narrative
Have you ever envisioned what a classroom in the future might look like? Let me take you to the year 2050, where the scene is set in a classroom during sunset. The wall paint and floor still look just as dingy as they used to. Large concrete beams stretch across the ceiling, casting dim light, while broken fans hang down from above. On the left side of the classroom, a river is near the campus, and the sun is setting.
However, this classroom is filled with high-tech equipment. In the center, there is a hologram, and VR classes are suspended in the air. A shelf of supplies is hidden behind the main screen. Above the board, the classic slogan "Study hard and make progress every day" is written. The student's desks are arranged in unique ways, reflecting their personalities. The chemistry nerd has all of their equipment laid out, the reader has piles of books stacked up, and the sports enthusiast has left behind their water bottle and baseball set. The musician has placed their guitar and keyboard on the desk, and a "SOUND ONLY" screen belongs to a student who never appears in person. Someone has knocked down a desk set and rushed out too fast. In the background, the students' laughter can be heard from the sports yard while someone runs across the corridor. As the bell rings, it serves as a reminder that the school day has come to a close.
