‘Billy’

(2022)

 

‘Billy’ is the concept for an architectural model based on movement. There is a particular scene in the film Billy Elliot directed by Stephen Daldry where the protagonist, Billy, is filmed dancing in a walled, brick courtyard located in County Durham, North East England. The camera captures Billy moving in such a way that each wall in the courtyard that he interacts with becomes just as important in understanding the scene as each if his footsteps and the way he twists and turns his body. 

To capture this feeling in an architectural model, I noted down a language of dots and lines, corrosponding to each of Billy’s footsteps and leg movement. The dots represented a foot fall and the lines represented the movement of his leg. This gradually became a notational basemap that I was then able to use as the starting point for an architectural basemap. 

Imagine each of Billy’s footsteps rising from the ground and becoming a column. Imagine each line rising to become a wall, or partition. Following this system, eventually a new way of dividing space will grow.