In 1963, architect Cedric Price, theatre producer Joan Littlewood, and cybernetician Gordon Pask proposed a new kind of leisure centre called the Fun Palace. Though never built, the project continues to influence architecture and is the inspiration for this thesis. Known also as the “Laboratory of Fun,” the Fun Palace developed a compelling yet problematic narrative: people would have the freedom to design their own spatial experiences, but their behaviours would be monitored and probed. Innovations from the cybernetic committee had propelled the Fun Palace beyond mundane reality and into the virtual. In fact, the Fun Palace was more than a building; it was an information interface where architecture and humans were connected by cybernetic feedback. Of particular importance to this thesis is the way the Fun Palace antici- pated how digital technology would transform the world, and how it can be understood as an early prototype of the digital city. The model of space that the Fun Palace proposed shifted our understanding of architecture from autonomous and static to complex and dynamic; from an architecture of walls to an architecture of fields. This thesis is organized along three lines of inquiry. Firstly, that architecture is participatory. Secondly, that architecture is multidimensional. Thirdly, that architecture is generated by real-time transactions. The thesis concludes with a speculation called In The Fields: a mobile laboratory for co-creation in the digital city.

The aim of the thesis is to re-read the design process of Cedric Price&rsquo / s Fun Palace via &ldquo / patterns of utopia&rdquo / in order to understand and discuss how social imagination guides practice of architecture. Social imagination, as conceptualized in this thesis, denotes the intellectual activity of critically observing the social context and utilizing available resources in favor of new social possibilities. It can be argued that architectural practice is continuously subjected to political, cultural, and financial changes, the accumulation of which may easily bring forth changes in programmatic and physical aspects of space. The thesis claims that in order to keep in pace with the extents of change and variation in social experience, architectural production requires the integration of social imagination into the design process. Keeping this in mind, patterns of utopia are conceptualized as guidelines that help the integration of social imagination into the design process. In turn, Price&rsquo / s Fun Palace is re-read from the scope of patterns, in order to understand the relations between social dimension of the project and how this dimension is reflected onto the design of a flexible set of programs.

In 1963, architect Cedric Price, theatre producer Joan Littlewood, and cybernetician Gordon Pask proposed a new kind of leisure centre called the Fun Palace. Though never built, the project continues to influence architecture and is the inspiration for this thesis. Known also as the “Laboratory of Fun,” the Fun Palace developed a compelling yet problematic narrative: people would have the freedom to design their own spatial experiences, but their behaviours would be monitored and probed. Innovations from the cybernetic committee had propelled the Fun Palace beyond mundane reality and into the virtual. In fact, the Fun Palace was more than a building; it was an information interface where architecture and humans were connected by cybernetic feedback. Of particular importance to this thesis is the way the Fun Palace antici- pated how digital technology would transform the world, and how it can be understood as an early prototype of the digital city. The model of space that the Fun Palace proposed shifted our understanding of architecture from autonomous and static to complex and dynamic; from an architecture of walls to an architecture of fields. This thesis is organized along three lines of inquiry. Firstly, that architecture is participatory. Secondly, that architecture is multidimensional. Thirdly, that architecture is generated by real-time transactions. The thesis concludes with a speculation called In The Fields: a mobile laboratory for co-creation in the digital city.

An markanten historischen Einschnitten wiederholen sich diskursive Modellierungen und experimentelle Entwürfe zu Aufführungs-Architekturen, die einer Diversität von Spielweisen und Präsentationsformaten zwischen Kunst, Wissen und Entertainment Rechnung tragen wollen. Sie verbinden Zeigen, Handeln und Schauen diverser Akteure mit Entwürfen zu variablen Räumen und temporär genutzten Orten, die sich den Bedürfnissen der Nutzer*innen anpassen, von ihnen angeeignet werden können. Die historischen Markierungen reihen sich nicht zu einer chronologischen Kette, sondern mäandern in wiederkehrenden Referenzen auf- und zueinander, geprägt von je zeitgenössischen Diskursen zum Stadtraum, zu Auffassungen von Spiel und Wissensgenerierung, zur Vielfalt künstlerischer Aufführungsformate, zum baulich Improvisierten und Zwischengenutzten.