ΔESTHETICS OF ∇ARIATIONS : DESIRE TEMPLE

SACRED TEMPTATION Interior view ("Adam Eve temptation")

This project takes place in Soho. Going there by night, London can not deny its night life reputation and gives you a strange feeling of freedom. Really, you have this strong idea that you can do, think and dress whatever you like. Therefore, we tried to understand, qualify and master the behaviour of this feeling in order to inform the design process. We tried to figure out how Soho plays with our desires. In Soho you can be surprised, even shocked sometimes by some sexshop windows, and at the same time be excited by it. You can feel excited because you can do something you are not used to or not allowed to, you might experiment new horizons and feel the danger of unknown situations. Suddenly you can break the rules. Suddenly, your desires become more important than a good ethic. You enter in the libertine world in a philosophic meaning.

From this observation, we identified this very strong subculture which is based on desire. People that see their carnal pleasure with a freedom that bypasses, or surpasses and sometimes transcends the boundaries of moral bourgeois conventions, thus substracting to human moral the strict religious/social authority.The project is an ironic proposition giving a religious identity to our sexual activities, to sacralize pleasure while condamning it, thus creating both an uncertainty and an increased pleasure in transgressing it. Basicaly, the project is a new generation of swingers club: a "Desire Temple", reacting and evolving through our desire. Thus, Adam and Eve temptation illustriate perfectly what the Desire Temple behaviour is about. They are the first humans on earth, of course, but also and especially, the first libertins in the meaning that they sucombed to their pleasure: the apple.This project highlights this unparalleled moment of pleasure. The time right before you take the apple, just before you cross the limit.

From these observations starts a design. An evolving structure densifies to the contact of our desires in a permanent reshaping process. But this interactivity is also in the other side : built spaces can arouse desire and then set off a new cycle as a feedback loop. This permanent evolution/involution is made possible by the use of a maleable material. The wax gives the ability to dematerialize a space and to materialize another one through a process of communicating vessels. The wax also gives the feeling of merging with naked bodies through a game of colors and textures. The wax brings another dimension to this idea of Desire with the notion of seen and unseen thanks to its light porosity. This process is materialized by a wax printer creature which is the result of physical tests as well as previous researches about interactive machines.The desire temple becomes a physical experience in 4D oscilating between intimate and intimidating spaces through a specific spatial organization. Side "Alcoves" are very intimate and instinctives spaces, close to the body, as your mother’s womb. Then you move and reach another world: Large spaces gives the strange and solemn feeling of being naked in a gothic cathedral.These spaces are evolving according to human activity and the activation of desires. The Desire Temple densifies and deconstructs gradually with the affluence.

Design team: Jonas Braoudé, Tom Bénard

Tutor: Ricardo de Ostos